Chapter Text
It's a pretty quiet week at Wayne Manor. Well... when you consider that the residents organize superhero nightly activities.
Bruce Wayne has the luxury of being a busy businessman. It's normal that he's not seen outside of certain private events. No one could connect this absence to Batman's daily activities.
Dick works with the police. He spends his day mostly filling out paperwork and is occasionally out in the field. He kept complaining that the broadcasts had deleted all the information about the horrible amount of administrative paperwork. Richard is certainly not linked to Nightwing's patrols in his teammates' heads.
Jason... well it's well known that Bruce Wayne's second son had a more conflicted relationship with his father. The young man had wanted his independence and had moved away. He was occasionally seen at events.
But unfortunately, the other Wayne children have no excuse to be able to hide their secret activity. It would be too suspicious for them to leave the classroom in the middle of a lesson for a case.
Bruce could have homeschooled them, but he insisted on his children living as normal a life as possible.
Damian thinks his father is an idiot. They've been through too much, seen and experienced too much already for his father to insist on making them live a "normal" life.
The living room was quiet. A faint sound of birds at the window. No sign of Alfred. Damian liked the calm silence that surrounded him.
The boy sighed as he saw the papers and homework in front of him. Some of his homework consisted of math exercises that he could do most of the time with his eyes closed. He even made a few small mistakes so as not to arouse the suspicions of his teachers.
Perhaps it was normal that the biological son of Bruce Wayne, a billionaire capable of paying all the specialized teachers he wanted, would be a genius like his father.
But Damian had not survived the first twelve years of his life among the assassins by being anything other than paranoid.
The young superhero had finished his homework some time ago. The sound of the pencil scratching had dominated the silence of the living room for several minutes.
Damian had not really had the opportunity to develop his artistic talents during his time in the League. He doesn't even want to imagine his grandfather's reaction if he had seen his grandson doing something as useless for his education as drawing.
He had been able to appreciate art on rare occasions. The architecture of Nanda Parbat or that of the ancestral base of the League in the heart of the desert, even if little had been preserved. And of course, the occasions when he was entrusted to his caregivers who saw no problem in letting him draw.
One of his nurses had given him an old kohl, for lack of a pencil at the time.
Damian, despite the encouragement of Alfred and the more clumsy ones of his father. Young Wayne is still not comfortable talking about his activity with the other members of his family. Or to practice elsewhere than in private moments.
This has nothing to do with the opinion his idiot siblings might have!
As he sharpens his pencil and continues to draw on the paper, his thoughts wander. He couldn't help it when he was drawing.
The Justice League therapist his father encouraged them to see from time to time had said it was a good thing. To have activities outside of the mission. To have alternative forms of catharsis for his emotions.
He wonders if his mother would have encouraged his little artistic practice...
Maybe. Talia had always liked to confront her own father. Whether it was by encouraging her child to draw or by taking him to see villages lost in the middle of the desert or temples. She wanted him to know as much as possible about his roots before joining his father.
The 13-year-old boy continues to reminisce about his old life when he hears a very irritating voice.
- "Hey, little demon! What are you planning?" Jason said who had just entered the room followed by Alfred.
- "Master Jason, please." Alfred said.
Red Hood simply looked over Damian's shoulder to see the drawing. He was in a cheerful mood, it had been a while since he had been to the manor. Annoyed the demon was always funny.
- "Hey, it looks pretty good."
Damien frowned.
- "If you say so." He would never admit that he liked receiving compliments from him.
He tried to hide the drawing in his notebooks. Jason noticed and took the drawing.
- "Hey, give it back to me!"
- "Come and get it, dwarf."
The older one used his size to push the younger one away. Damn why Todd was so big?!
While the little demon tries to bite Jason (seriously?), he looks at the drawing which is frankly well done.
Until Alfred takes it from his hands (how did he appear behind him?!).
- "Master Jason, Damian please." The butler simply says calmly.
The two brothers sit down. Damian gives Jason a murderous look. The old man looks at the drawing before raising an eyebrow.
- "It's good to see that you express such an artistic fiber, Damian. An old acquaintance of yours?" he says while giving the portrait back to Damian.
Jason looks at Damian curiously. The little demon seems calmer and a little distant.
- "He's... a child from a family of grandfather's servants."
- "Servant? Reassure me, we're talking about a butler like Alfred?"
Damian simply looked at him angrily.
-"The League of Assassins also needs maintenance, you know? It's usually people from the surrounding villages who are hired for this kind of task." Bruce's son explains.
- "It's true that I have a hard time imagining Ra's Al Ghul sweeping in his free time."
Damian shrugs. Jason is also slightly embarrassed. He doesn't know how to ask Damian more. He hadn't thought about the fact that he had origins that weren't American. After all, he didn't have an accent. He supposes Ra's Al Ghul wouldn't allow it and his skin was quite pale.
He didn't even try to broach the subject. Dick was probably better placed for this kind of discussion.
-"Honestly, when I first arrived, I didn't understand how my father could only have one servant," Damian continued simply.
Alfred gives him an unimpressed look. He could probably manage any estate by himself.
-"I spent time with him when I was a child..."
Jason looks at the gray pencil drawing again. The little demon really had talent. He had drawn a young man. With a young and very elegant face. Dark eyes so he can't guess the color because of the gray pencil and a kind of scarf around his neck. The wind moves the scarf and his short hair. A smile on his face.
-"Damian, do you know what happened to him?" Alfred asks.
-"He must probably still be in Nanda Parbat." Damian answers simply.
There is a silence before Damian breaks it.
-"Why are you here Todd?" I haven't heard of any family dinner. "
Jason shrugs. He scratches his face, unconsciously touching the scar the batarang left him.
-"Of course not. B called me on a case."
Of course Batman only bothered to contact him for his mission...
...
Kate Pattinson, a 45-year-old woman, medicine. No enemies or problems according to her husband. Found mysteriously dead in her office without any trace of injury or poisoning.
This woman was the 15th doctor to die mysteriously in Gotham and the surrounding cities. And it was more than a coincidence now.
Batman was in front of various computers and microscopes. He is dressed in his costume but without his mask. He had already done more in-depth analyses than the GCPD. He had found nothing either. No more subtle poisons. But a look under the microscope had given the detective the beginnings of an answer.
The victim's cells showed signs of mutation. The chromosomes had incomprehensible shapes and numbers. Each cell was therefore different from the others.
Normally the body eliminates these types of cells but here the whole body was affected.
Another strange thing was the speed of mutation. Batman had questioned Kate's husband. The last days before her death, she had complained of headaches and had planned to consult.
It was still illogical. Batman returned to the morgue and analyzed the entire body. Such an advanced mutation should have caused much more than a few headaches before death.
He needed more information on the other victims. Most of them had been given funerals without attracting more attention.
But Batman has many enemies more dangerous than mysterious cases of mutation. And that's why he needs help.
Damian, Cassandra and Tim have their own lives and he wouldn't make the mistake of sending them alone against his enemies. Dick had his own city.
On top of that he had discovered a rather suspicious inflow of money into Kate Pattinson's bank account. Bruce hadn't been able to trace it back to a clear source but the woman had gone to check the vaccinations of all the children in Crime Alley. So he had a little idea where the money came from.
The door creaked open. Speaking of the wolf...
-"So B, in what honor was I called here? Does Bruce Wayne need to show that we are a perfect little family to the journalists?"
Jason can't help the bitterness in his voice. He doesn't want Batman to think his rejection still hurts him.
-"Jason..." Bruce starts. Then turns around, giving up on what he wanted to say.
Jason sighs annoyed. Damn Bruce and his inability to communicate emotionally. He walks over to the computer and looks at the pictures of different people. He recognizes some of them as doctors.
-"The victim had some suspicious money coming in. And was seen in Crimes Alley..."
-"Can I know what you're implying Batman?" Jason asks curtly.
-"That the fact that several victims were seen in Crimes Alley is suspicious." Batman answers in the same tone.
Jason grits his teeth and looks at the pictures with a slight look of sadness.
-"Kate Pattinson, Jack Stone, and Edward Norton. They were all Doctors Without Borders in the past. I called them in for Crimes Alley a while back. The money was a thank you from me. They all came out in one piece.”
Jason tries not to let his temper get the best of him. He’s past that now.
“Doctors Without Borders? Their family didn’t mention that…” Batman just says.
He and Red Hood had… The closest thing is a non-aggression pact. Batman gives Jason Crimes Alley and in exchange he avoids dropping off mobster heads in front of the GCPD. But there were still deaths of criminals Batman considers suspicious there. But the people of Crimes Alley are too loyal to Red Hood to turn him in.
A war between Batman and Red Hood would do far too much damage to be worth it. And besides, Bruce doesn’t know if he can really take on the kid he made so many mistakes on. That's his thought as he looks at the scar that was on Jason's throat and lower jaw.
- "I don't know the others. I'm willing to bet that, unlike their presence in Crime Alley, they all forgot to mention that they were in Medicine Without Borders."
Jason turns to leave. He's done here. This has nothing to do with him and he's sick of Batman acting like "I'm better than you" in front of him. They were all screwed in this city.
- "Jason!" Batman calls after him.
But Jason doesn't turn around. He doesn't look back. It'll never do him any good despite what the world may think.