Abandoned Son

CHAPTER 2 : Part 2

"Why the hell i never know about all this, B?!" 

"You're on a mission Dick, you-"

"Shut up Tim!“

Tim flinched and turned to stare at the floor. There was silence in the bat cave before Dick sighed loudly. "I'm sorry Tim, it's just- i just- i don't know."

"Frustrated."

All heads, by all means; Dick and Tim while Bruce's eyes still glued to the Bat-computer screen, turned toward the medical bay. There, on the bed, was their brother who looked so pale but at the same time, his face red with anger (if that was possible) but they knew; Jason was so damn angry. "We were frustrated, aren't we, Dick?" 

"Yeah-yeah...right. Frustrated." Dick said with voice full of disappointment.

That left Tim feeling so lost. He felt like a criminal who acted like a victim. He knew he didn't make any mistake, none of these was results from his wrong doings but he felt guilty. These unwelcomed feeling intensify with Dick and Jason's reaction towards the truth he just dropped on them. The truth about what happened five years ago. When none of them were available in Gotham when it happened. 

When Damian happened. 

5 years ago. 

Midnight. It was midnight and Tim was in the bat cave. He had been injured the night before, sprained ankle and a few bruised ribs, nothing too serious but he still banned from patrol for the next few days. So here he was, in the bat cave, acting as Oracle to Batman. 

He had been talking to Batman just half an hour ago so to hear the roar of the Bat mobile and watch it parked in the middle of the bat cave, he didn't expect that. 

"Why are you back so early? Did something happened?" Tim asked.  

Bruce only grunted in response. Tim was about to asked another question before he was thrown to the floor. He wasn't prepared and he was in the bat cave so his guard had been lowered so low because, come on, there's no place as safe as the bat cave or the manor in the whole Gotham, so it was totally not his fault that he couldn't avoid the attack. 

He felt a sharp pain on his stomach before feeling hot liquid staining his front shirt. Shit! He's bleeding. He heard sound of metal hitting the ground before voices, shouting at each other. 

Bruce's and...a child. That's all he heard before darkness taking over his vision. 

The scar was still visible, had been five years but then, it's not fading away. Just like Tim's curiosity. 

He never seen Damian with his own eyes, just a shadow shaped like a boy who was fighting Batman. Something like that. Don't blame him, he was on the verge of dying that night. 

He woke up in the morning, with bleeding bandages across his abdomen and lot, lot of questions to ask. But Bruce? 

He was being so damn Bruce!  

For five years, the only answers he got from him was, 'he's Damian'  and '... an enemy'. Well, since the latter was too convincing, never in those five years had Tim tried to find that Damian. 

Tim eyed Jason and Dick from the corner of his eyes. They had been sitting across each other in this suffocating room called kitchen, with silence heavy in the air, for the past hour. He involuntary flinched when Jason opened his mouth, probably to scold him. 

"So, Timbo..." 

Ohh, nickname. Good, he's not gonna scold me, i guess. 

Tim raised an eyebrow, not trusting his voice at the moment. 

"This Damian kid, he's Bruce son and an enemy." 

Okay, that's...not a question. Tim sighed heavily before raising his head and looked at Dick, who sat directly in front of him.

"That's all B ever told me, his name and that enemy thing-y. I never thought that boy was his son, i mean, you know- with Talia? If no one suggest that name, then i would never put her in the list of someone that Bruce would sleep with."

"Nothing else?" Jason asked and Tim just answered with a simple, no. 

After a few moments of silence, Jason spoke with a voice so low, it's barely above whisper. 

"I'm mad, at Bruce."

"Who's not? He hid the fact that he had a son from us; his sons." Dick took a sip from his cup of tea, cold tea. Jason let his head fall into his hands, "no, you don't understand."

Dick sighed, and sighed again at the facts that he did that a lot today. 

"What, little wing. What is it that i don't understand?"  

"Why did you mad at the Big Man down there?"

"Huh? What else, he-"

"He had a child. Ya, ya i know. He had a son, a biological one and he didn't tell us. You and your jealousy."

Dick slammed his cup to the plate resulting it to crack under the pressure. "I'm not fucking jealous Jason!"

"No, you're."

"I'm not. It just-" 

Dick got intercepted by Tim, "Hey, we're not supposed to fight. Ain't the time, guys."

Tim stood up and stare down at his older brothers." I'm mad at Bruce. I... I mean, he had kept this a secret for way too long. I don't cherish the thought that he had a son with a super villian's daughter but... "

"...he's our brother." Dick continued. 

"If it was me back when you came Jason,  then it would be jealousy over the fact that Bruce have a kid of his own. But now, it's more like-"

"Guilty."

Jason turned his face to face his brothers. His right eye still half shut, with the swollen still purple in colour, all from the fight before. He got captured by Talia, shame on his part, he thought. 

Dick kinda knew what Jason means by that, but maybe this time, it's better to let Jason said them himself. 

Jason came back from the death and killed a lot of people before he made his way back to the family. Bruce never gave up on him, except for a few moments which were not worth mentioned here. But whatever it was, even after all the kills and maim, and hurting your own family members; Bruce still accepted him back to the manor, into the family.  

So to know that he cast his own son out of his life, that's not...not something that Jason had ever think of.

An enemy. That's harsh. Way too harsh. 

"He accepted me but he cast away a boy."

"A child." Tim suddenly in his thinking mode, "if it was five years ago, then Damian would be ten. He is a child."

Dick ran his fingers through his black hair, damn, he's tired. "Fifteen, he would be fifteen now. Where do you think he would be right now? "

"He's not with Talia, that means he's been alone all this time. The real question would be, would he still be alive, Dickie."

No one said anything for a very long moments, then out of the blue- Dick stood abruptly. Almost resulting his chair to topple backward.  

"I'm going to find him." 

Dick stood there and looked at his younger brothers in their eyes. 

"Seconded." Tim smirked. 

Jason snorted before smiling, just a small twitch of his lips, upward. 

"Yeah. Let's do that."