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Part 1 of The Three Terrors Cinematic Universe
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2020-01-20
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2025-07-04
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Jason and the Three Terrors

Chapter 22: Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Text

The kids were much less annoying than anticipated during their trek across town. They took a taxi, mostly because Jason did not feel like walking a zillion miles again. Not so soon after their escape from Afghanistan. Plus, their hotel was near the airport, on the southeast side of town. And their forged documents were hidden in a mailbox, on the north side.

And even though all four of them squished in across the back seat, none of them complained about it for a single second.

Perhaps they were all thankful for the lack of walking, as well.

Once he’d paid the driver and they’d all exited the cab, Jason pulled out the crappy map the hotel supplied them. Now he had to figure out exactly where the mailbox was at. Going strictly off his memory… of an address he’d never seen or heard of before reading it.

In a, quite literally, foreign format he’d never used before…

“Block 32,” he mumbled to himself, while he squinted at the map. As if doing so would make it zoom.

“Let me see,” Damian demanded, from next to Jason, where he’d tried to stand up on his tip toes. He tried to tug on Jason’s arm, to pull the map down lower, to no avail. Because Jason wasn’t giving him the map.

Jason rolled his eyes and snapped the map back tight as he said, “You don’t even know where we’re going.”

“If you told me, I could find it much quicker than this,” Damian huffed.

Finally, Jason saw the block labelled 37, and was able to count over where they needed to go. “Found it,” Jason said, smugly, “Probably half an hour walk from here.” He’d had the cab driver drop them off near one of the landmarks on his map, on the north side of a giant park, knowing it was at least moderately close to where they needed to be.

It’d be weird, probably, had he asked for a ride directly to the obscure address.

Mara groaned, but didn’t say anything further, because Athanasia cut in with, “Wait, but can we see the ruins? They look interesting.”

“No,” Jason said, at the same exact time Damian did.

Scowling, Damian added, “We are not tourists, dallying around will only compromise us further.”

“Hey, idiot,” Jason whispered harshly, “don’t say stuff like that aloud. You don’t know how many people around can understand you.”

He had no idea what the statistics were for people who could speak Arabic in India. Or… how many could understand their specific dialect of it, at least.

All it would take was one, though. Just one member of the league to overhear them and report to Ra’s they’d spotted four kids speaking in their dialect about not being tourists and not drawing attention to themselves and whatever other stupidity Damian spewed.

“Fine,” Damian ground out, “but we cannot waste time by visiting—“

“I know,” Jason cut in, “I was going to say no, so you can quit with this attitude.”

“But they look cool,” Athanasia said, a little crestfallen.

Despite her disappointment, she followed along just fine when Jason started walking north, the other two kids walking on his other side.

New Delhi felt more like a city than even Kabul did, even though Jason saw a lot of similarities between the two. The buildings were different, of course, and a little taller and a little tighter together, but it still had that same city feeling, full of life, with people on every street and stores scattered about.

The kids stayed quiet, on their hike. Each one observing the city around them as they walked. Athanasia grasped onto Jason’s hand, not even two minutes into the walk, and pressed herself into his side every time they passed other people. But since she wasn’t saying anything, Jason was choosing to ignore it.

About fifteen minutes in, they started passing a little stationary store, he thought. It looked like it had cards and paper and pens and all sorts of shit, so Jason abruptly said, “Let’s go in there,” before dragging Attie in by the hand he was holding. If they were going to be taking their documents from a mailbox, they should probably have something to mail. To at least seem a little less suspicious. Maybe.

He heard Damian huff behind him, but when he looked a moment later, both he and Mara were standing in the store, arms crossed, glaring at him.

Because they were brats.

The shopkeeper looked at them, furrowing his brow like he was trying to figure them out, so Jason asked, “Don’t you want to send a postcard to Father?” in his accented English.

Damian blinked, then said, copying Jason’s accent, “I suppose.”

“Then pick one out,” he said, motioning to the display of cards. Athanasia let go of Jason’s hand and jumped over to the cards, and she and Damian started looking through them, quietly bickering over which one to choose.

“You can each pick one,” Jason said, as he started looking around the store more.

He grabbed a pack of pens, for starters. Just because they were cheap and he needed a pen to make his card look deliverable. He wasn’t going to bother figuring out how postage worked, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t scribble out a fake address. He also grabbed a box of paperclips, to open the secret compartment their documents were in, and a small pack of paper, just to round out the purchase.

“Okay, ready?” he asked, once he walked back over to the kids. Damian and Attie had both picked out cards, and Mara was still standing there, her arms crossed as she scowled at them.

“Didn’t want to get one?” he asked her, as he grabbed one at random.

“What’s the point?” she said, glaring at Jason harder.

Which, fair. Since they weren’t actually mailing them to Bruce.

With a shrug, he led the kids over to the shopkeeper and checked out with their stuff.

“Are we really mailing these to Father?” Athanasia asked, speaking back in Arabic again once they were out of the shop and Jason had scribbled out a pointless little message on his card, along with fake addresses on it.

“No,” was all Jason said. It was just for cover, nothing else.

“Grandfather would intercept it, no doubt,” Damian said, as they continued walking north, “and would know exactly where we are going.”

Mara scoffed, loudly, and said, “Grandfather already knows where we are going. It is doubtful he would not be privy to your parentage, and where else would we be going?”

“He does not know where we are currently,” Damian shot back, “so even if he does know where we are going, he would still learn information should the cards be intercepted.”

Jason had to stop himself from snorting.

Because, well.

How could Ra’s know where they were going, when Jason didn’t even know?

“Oh,” Attie whispered, looking down at the card in her hand. She looked almost crestfallen over it, “I wanted to.”

“Why?” Damian scoffed, “It is not like he can reply.”

“Plus,” Jason added, trying not to let his annoyance or guilt over getting Attie’s hopes up on accident shine through his voice, “He does not know about you guys. He’s a very paranoid, skeptical man. He’s not going to believe a postcard. It will take him seeing you in person, and then running DNA or something.”

“Prudent,” Damian said, with a curt nod, “Mother told me Father is very wealthy. It would be foolish to bring in any random urchin who claimed to be his, without further proof. That would squander the inheritance for his actual children.”

“Yeah,” Jason huffed, rolling his eyes dramatically, “Because ‘Father’ cares about his wealth that much.”

If he did, he wouldn’t have adopted a bunch of kids. And written them into his will.

Sure, Jason was probably un-written-in, but at one point he’d been in there. And it had freaked him out, a little. Maybe. To find out he was inheriting half of Bruce’s wealth, upon his death.

Jason had never wanted to think about Bruce’s death. He’d already lost two parents. He didn’t want to lose another.

He wanted Bruce, not Bruce’s money.

Of course, that hadn’t mattered. Jason lost him, anyway. Long before he actually died.

Because Bruce was a liar.

“What do you mean?” Mara asked, but Jason just shook his head.

“It doesn’t matter,” he grumbled, as he turned them down the last road, where the mailbox was supposed to be, “Let’s just get this over with.”

The mailbox looked nothing like what Jason was expecting. He nearly overlooked it, when he quickly scanned the street. Granted, he was used to the huge blue things the USPS had, but a solid red bin flush to the ground was pretty much the exact opposite of what he pictured, when thinking of a mailbox.

It was also called a letter box. Because of course it was.

As they walked half the block down to the box, Jason slipped his hand into his pocket, and quickly unfolded a paperclip he’d stuck in there, then hid the majority of it inside his hand, with just the pointed end sticking out between his fingers.

Once they were standing in front of the letter box, Jason made a show about flipping his backpack around and opening it wide so he could dig through it for the post card.

Once he ‘found’ the card, he ‘accidentally’ let the bag strap slip right off his arm, and his backpack went tumbling to the ground, spilling out almost all the contents all over the sidewalk.

“Whoops,” he said, in English as he knelt down to start cleaning up the mess. He turned to Damian, who was standing nearest to him and just glowering at him, and handed him the made up card, “Here, mail the card. I’ll pick this up.”

“Tt,” Damian huffed, but he took the card and took his sweet time placing it in the box.

In the meantime, Jason started shoving his dropped items back into his bag, and while picking up his flashlight, which had rolled further around to the back, he quickly scanned along the bottom of the mailbox until he saw the pin-sized hole where his paperclip fit inside.

Jason had been expecting some sort of little drawer to pop out, when he jammed the paperclip in, hitting the release button inside. Instead, the whole fucking bottom slid toward him, just enough that he could reach his fingers in and feel the envelope that had been hidden inside. With one hand he pulled out the envelope and shoved the drawer back closed, and with the other he grabbed his water bottle off the ground, then shoved both items into his bag and zipped it up.

“Okay,” he said, as he stood and slipped his backpack on. He let his eyes scan over their surroundings, without moving his head and making it obvious, and didn’t see anyone watching them. Which was great. “Mission accomplished, we mailed the post card. You kids want to find the market now?”

“Yes!” Athanasia said, grinning wide again. Already over her little upset, Jason supposed.

Kids were so freaking weird.

“It is that way,” Damian said, pointing southwest, like he honestly thought Jason had forgotten when they’d passed it by only a block.

“Thank you, oh wise one,” Jason said, rolling his eyes dramatically. He readjusted his bag on his back, then started walking further down the block, so they could walk straight down the street with the majority of the shops.

Mara rushed to get beside Jason as she asked, “What do we need at the market?”

With a shrug, Jason said, “Snacks and books, remember?”

“That’s it?” she asked, furrowing her brow a little. All Jason did was shrug again, so Mara nodded once and started walking a little faster, so she was ahead of Jason, walking beside Damian.

“I still want dried pineapple,” Attie said, skipping to catch up with Jason, and walk by his side where Mara had been before.

“If we find dried pineapple, we’ll buy it.”

The market was only a few blocks away, so walking to it didn’t take much time at all. And the closer they got to it, the more crowded the area became. There were some shops and restaurants, of course, scattered about, but the market itself was nothing but stores and restaurants and food trucks and little stands, set up on the side walks where people could purchase random items, like shoes or clothes or… plastic containers, apparently.

And it being the middle of the day on a Thursday meant that it was pretty busy, but probably not as busy as it could be. Hopefully.

It still didn’t stop the prickling sensation on the back of Jason’s neck, as they fell into the crowd of people, perusing the shops.

He hated crowds.

Hated them.

Supposedly there was safety in numbers, but all Jason could ever think about was how there was danger in numbers, as well.

There were far too many people to keep track of, and while he and the kids really did just blend right in, mostly, he couldn’t help but feel a little antsy about it all.

Thankfully they had their documents now, though. They had what should be their German passports and visas, so as soon as they got back to the hotel he could purchase their plane tickets. And they could be in Germany, by tomorrow night.

Maybe.

They might be able to go all the way to England, but he wasn’t entirely sure. He didn’t know the laws and such off the top of his head for traveling to England on German passports. He thought they didn’t need visas, but he wasn’t entirely sure. And he didn’t want to go researching all that on the hotel’s computer. Even if he knew how to keep the computer from recording his online activities, he’d rather just get online to purchase tickets and that’s it.

Attracting more suspicion to themselves was the last thing he wanted to do.

“I see a bookstore,” Athanasia said, as she grabbed onto Jason’s hand and started pulling him, across the street.

Sure enough, there was a bookstore. But there was also a man staring at them, he noticed, as soon as Jason looked off in that direction.

But the man looked away, as soon as Jason caught his eye, and he didn’t look League. Didn’t look well trained and in excellent shape. Not that he was out of shape, per se, just not in the tip-top physical condition Ra’s demanded of his slaves, or, ‘assassins.’

With a breath, Jason let Athanasia drag him across the street, as he said, “Brats,” to get Mara and Damian’s attention.

Both of them turned toward him, and followed along into the bookstore.

The store wasn’t anything massive, but it was absolutely jam-packed with used books, with all the walls covered in them, and several rows of shelves on the interior of the little shop. There were also several bins of books messily stacked inside. In another life, Jason could have spent hours in the store, digging through the bins and browsing the stacks, finding dozens of books he wanted to read.

“Find something you want,” he told the kids, as he let go of Attie’s hand and moved over to the fiction section. Sitting on a table, in the middle of the store, Jason found all sorts of little odds and ends, like a whole huge stack of playing cards.

When he was a kid, he loved playing cards. His mom had taught him some of the more basic games, like crazy eights or go fish, but Alfred had taught him so many more. Several times a week, it felt like, Alfred would ask Jason if he wanted to play cards after school, and Jason had always loved it. Poker was probably his favorite game, but cribbage and gin rummy had always been fun, too.

Maybe he could teach the kids something, he thought idly as he grabbed two matching decks of the cards. He didn’t know many four person games, since it was usually just him and one other person playing, but he did know a few. Maybe they weren’t too young for poker?

If anything, it’d keep the kids occupied for a while. And maybe let them chill out and actually act like kids for five seconds. In a way that wasn’t bickering over pointless crap.

The books int he store weren’t organized in any real order that Jason could discern. Other than by language, that was. At least all the English books were grouped together, and seemed to be what made up the majority of the store. So Jason spent about ten minutes letting his eyes skim over all the titles, between sticking his head out of whichever aisle he was in every minute or two so he could put eyes on the kids.

Every time he looked, though, he just saw each of them looking at different groups of books, all quietly making their own selections.

Finally, though, Jason found a book his fingers stalled over top of, and he knew he couldn’t just leave sitting on the shelf. Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Probably his favorite book ever, if he had to pick.

Bruce had read it to him, the first time he’d read it. Back when he was twelve, new to Wayne Manor, and unsure of his place in Bruce’s house.

He’d gotten the flu and spent the subsequent week dying. His head had hurt so bad he couldn’t read, but he’d been so bored at the same time. And so antsy, never wanting to be alone in such a weak state.

But Bruce had caught on, even though Jason had never outright said it. Perhaps camping out in the living room, rather than his bedroom, had been the giveaway. But Bruce had gone and pulled the first book in the series and spent hours reading it to him. And then the sequel. And the third and fourth book.

Did… did he only like it because of that? Because of what it had meant, between him and Bruce?

Or… what he’d thought it meant? Clearly all that had been a lie. A pretty little lie told to him to win him over and get him to be Robin. Not a traumatized little street child jumping at every little twitch in Bruce’s face.

Why else had he treated Jason like that? Spent so much time with him? If it wasn’t because Bruce actually cared about him…

No. No.

He liked the books because the story was great. Phenomenal. Funny and fascinating all at once. Something that could always get his mind off things. Every single time he’d reread it, which was at least five times.

He—he loved Marvin, the most. The depressed robot. And just the ridiculousness of the entire series. The whale that appeared in the sky and lived just long enough to realize he was going to die, once he hit the ground.

The planet of people who had never looked up to the sky, and sang about things happening above the ground.

He just… he loved the book. The series.

It had nothing to do with Bruce. Bruce just happened to be the one to introduce it to him.

Pulling the book off the shelf, Jason saw the sequel, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, down on the shelf below, and grabbed it, too.

The books were short, after all. Easy to destroy in just a few hours.

Clutching both books and the playing cards in his hand, Jason walked back to find the kids. This time, all three of them were together, digging through a bin of juvenile books. Both Mara and Damian already picked out their books, though, as far as Jason could tell.

Damian had a copy of Hamlet in his hands, which just made Jason roll his eyes.

Of course the eight-year-old would choose to read fucking Shakespeare. Pretentious piece of shit was what he was.

Mara, on the other hand, had a copy of some book called Pearl Harbor, and it appeared to be an actual history book, of all things. Non-fiction. But if it kept her quiet, Jason was not going to argue with it. He wouldn’t argue with either of them.

“What are you looking for?” he asked, once he’d finished approaching the bin. All three of them were digging through, looking at all the titles in each stack, so clearly they were on the hunt for something.

“Something appropriate for a child,” Damian scoffed, as he dropped all the books in the stack he’d just finished sifting through and starting in on the next one.

All Jason could do was furrow his brow. Because. He honestly couldn’t tell if Damian was being insulting, or genuinely trying to help Attie find a book.

“Well,” Jason said slowly, hoping it was the latter. He pointed to book as he named them and continued, “I see a lot of good ones just on top. Charlotte’s Web was one I liked as a kid. There’s Harry Potter there, which is popular. And Percy Jackson, too. Both are adventure type books. Uhh,” he paused, and pushed a stack as far to the side it would go, so he could scan the titles without picking them up, “Series of Unfortunate Events was entertaining. At least, the first few times. Each book is basically the same, though, got boring after a while. Chronicle of Narnia, Anne of Green Gables. Really, all of these are good. Just pick one.”

“Oooh,” Attie said, when she got to the bottom of her pile, “dragons.”

When she pulled a book titled The Dragon Slippers out, Jason just shrugged. “If that’s what you want.” He’d never even heard of it, but he supposed he couldn’t suggest anything to top dragons.

“It is,” she said brightly, so Jason walked the kids over to the shopkeeper and everyone laid their picks out on the counter.

“You get two books,” Damian asked, incredulous, when he saw what Jason set down, “Why do you get two?”

“Because I’m the one carrying them,” was all Jason said, as he waited for the shopkeeper to tell him what the total was. He was probably going to ditch the Patterson book, at some point. Leave it behind in the airport, or something, he had no idea. But it didn’t really matter. He could carry two or three books. He did not want to hear whining from the kids about how heavy their bags were, if they started carrying around a bunch of books.

Plus, it would just slow them down. Should they need to run at some point.

Damian kept grumbling about who even knew what, since he was doing it under his breath, but neither of the girls really complained, so whatever.

Once Jason had paid and they all left the store, Jason had everyone put their books in their bags before they continued on.

All they had left to do was purchase snacks.

Buy some snacks, then head back to the hotel for dinner. Maybe they could watch another movie, and Damian would shut the hell up about everything.

That would honestly be fantastic.

But more than anything, Jason just wanted to get out of the crowd.

There were just way too many people at the market.