Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Wayne Manor doesn’t feel like home.

Damian’s not sure where he went wrong—whether the tightrope he’s walking is due to circumstances he could have prevented, or factors that were always out of his control.

He had wholly assumed that the point of contention within the family was that his father was lost in time. More specifically: everyone, minus Tim, thought his father was dead and found out he wasn’t, right before Bruce returned to the present.

Bruce’s absence was a sinkhole. It dismantled the structural integrity of the family, stripping it apart from the base. His absence pushed Dick into the role of Batman, allowing Damian to become Robin. It forced Tim to create Red Robin, and it drove Jason further from any desire to associate with the family in the civilian world.

Damian has been in Gotham for a mere few months. His mother barely said goodbye.

In a foreign country, within an unfamiliar household, Damian pushed his existence onto the lives of people who were strangers to him. He bested Tim, despite being half his age. He proved his worth as Dick’s sidekick. He fought Jason for the cowl that was rightfully Dick’s.

Bruce’s return was supposed to reinstate everybody’s original roles. It was supposed to bring everyone back together, like Dick had reassured Damian.

Damian’s idea of this restoration must be inaccurate. He must not have been given enough time to experience what the Wayne household was like before Bruce left the picture. Perhaps this is what normalcy for them is like, and he just has to adapt to it.

He has no other choice.

---

Batman doesn’t look back at Damian as they make their way across rooftops. They’re practicing grappling tonight. Damian has already built a refined understanding on how to fire the grappling gun. He knows how to estimate the angle so that it hooks directly onto the ledge of a building rather than overshooting and needing to drag the hook before it latches on. His skills are, at the very least, on par with his brothers.

The exercise is pointless, but he has a feeling he shouldn’t bring it up. Batman is swinging without hesitation, seamlessly transitioning from one high-rise to the next. Damian has to focus to keep up. If he fell behind now, he’s not sure Batman would even notice, with the way he appears to be moving forward without any regard for Damian.

It’s a quiet night. There are no major crimes that call for their immediate attention—at least none that the police don’t already have under control. There’s always something happening in the alleyways, but Red Hood is already handling that.

Damian can’t hear much except for the incessant hum of car engines on the streets below, and the occasional messages on his comms.

While Batman doesn’t speak to Damian, he does make conversation with the others.

The occasional “any updates?” from Red Robin and “nothing of importance” from Oracle rings through Damian’s earpiece.

“Cleared out some streets: 45th to 61st,” Red Hood informs them.

“Good work, Red Hood,” Batman responds.

Damian tries to not let it get to him: the compliments that Batman seems to hand out freely to everyone, except him, for a job well done.

It doesn’t matter. Damian knows when he’s successful. Each petty crime he stops is a notable accomplishment in and of itself. Moreover, there’s that hitman he single-handedly managed to track down earlier in the month, even before Oracle could pinpoint the exact coordinates.

Damian doesn’t need anybody’s approval. His performance speaks for itself. He reminds himself of this fact with increasing frequency as the summer draws on.

---

Damian stays up to draw. Most nights, after patrol, his stash of art supplies is the first thing he reaches for. Simple doodles are mindless and calming. He’s reminded of how nice it is to have his thoughts occupied just enough for him to forget about his troubles, but not strenuous enough to pose new concerns. Sketches don’t demand perfection the way finished pieces do. They’re hasty and barebones, and that’s the charm of them.

Alfred is likely asleep by now, given the hour. The rest of the manor’s residents are in the kitchen. With nobody to cook them hot food, and without ample time to do so themselves, Damian knows what they’re having: protein bars and refrigerated nutrition shakes—things that Damian doesn’t have the stomach for right now.

He never enjoys eating right before he sleeps, but he feels like he should at least try. Patrol, even without anything notable occurring, is taxing on the body. They move nonstop for hours at a time.

Damian vows to find something to eat when Tim and Bruce are back in their rooms, and when Jason returns to his apartment for the night. Damian knows that he’s not consuming enough on a daily basis. He can feel it in the way his knives seem ever so slightly harder to throw accurately; the way he can no longer complete twenty pull-ups consecutively as per his training regimen.

Almost imperceptibly, he’s losing what little muscle he’s managed to build over the past few months. He’s always been sufficiently lithe and nimble for his work as an assassin, but as Robin, he needs to be more than that. He needs to be capable and resilient.

After his shower, he cracks two eggs into a bowl, impatiently scrambling them as the stovetop heats up. He adds a bit of salt into the mixture, but nothing else. He wants to keep it as bland as possible.

He remembers sharing banana splits and fudge sundaes with Dick at the start of this summer, savoring every cold treat in the sweltering heat. It’s a shame that he can barely keep simple foods down now.

Although he doesn’t have any day-to-day civilian responsibilities besides attending summer school, he frequently finds himself unable to receive a full eight hours of sleep at night, waking up with his heart racing and sweat matting his hair to his forehead.

Everyday, an unshakable uneasiness overcomes him from the time he wakes up all the way until he goes to sleep again. The constant feeling of apprehension suppresses his appetite every hour of the day.

In a fugue-like state, he cooks his scrambled eggs and plates them, setting them down on the dining table.

He selects the first fork he sees in the dishwasher and begins eating, methodically chewing.

It’s repulsive. He struggles to swallow his first few bites.

There’s nothing physically wrong with the eggs themselves, but he’s not even a quarter into his dish and he feels like giving up.

He washes his food down with half a glass of apple juice and discards the rest of his eggs. There’s always tomorrow. What his body doesn’t get tonight, he can assuredly make up for tomorrow.

The quota will just be higher. Further out of reach.

---

Damian remembers. He didn’t give it much thought in the moment it occurred, but now, the memory replays in his mind: the detail his mother divulged.

(Damian stood behind the curtained doorway, as per his mother’s instructions, waiting patiently. He didn’t imagine any average person would take the news well: being made aware of their child’s existence ten years after they were born.

“If I remember correctly, I put a little something in your beverage,” Talia said. Damian could hear a glass bottle being set down.

“Same way I remember it.” Batman’s voice was gruff.

“It made you romantic—” Talia began.

“—it made me do what you wanted,” Batman cut in.

Damian’s jaw was tight. He was not directly associated with the situation, but it was obvious that he was the consequence.

It was dishonorable.

He missed the next few things they exchanged in conversation, but didn’t have much time to dwell on it before Talia brought him into view.

“Your son,” Talia introduced, as if it was something Batman wanted to hear. Then, as if reading his mind: “I assure you he’s yours.”

The cowl obscured the majority of Batman’s features, but his eyes, despite being blue, closely resembled what Damian saw everyday in his own bathroom mirror. It was unmistakable. Talia wasn’t lying.)

In his home country, Damian was familiar with receiving punishments for his actions. He knew what the repercussions were for sloppiness in his hand-to-hand combat, or miscalculations in his arithmetics. He made improvements based on this feedback.

While these consequences were often harsh, they kept him in line. They allowed him to see where he went wrong, and provided him with the opportunity to do better.

He liked knowing exactly what he needed to do.

With Bruce, however, there is nothing to build on. There is retribution without chances for improvement.

It unravels Damian. He can deal with many things, but not this. He can take anger, but this is indifference.

---

“What?” Damian asks, when Tim stares at him oddly over breakfast.

Damian’s sketching a scene on a napkin: the open landscape where the red maple sits behind Wayne Manor.

The majority of the trees on the estate are evergreens—the preferred ones to paint the manor to be picture perfect year-round. Just in case Gotham’s photographers and journalists decide that the many centuries of reporting on the Wayne bloodline isn’t yet enough.

Damian doubts Tim knows about the red maple. Or the elm in the corner, where Damian brings his books with him on sunny afternoons. Or even the clementines that grow in the garden, for that matter.

Perhaps he’s wrong, though. Tim might be more observant than he thinks. But he never sees anyone other than Alfred tending to the plants, whom he helps on the weekends, when he doesn’t need to be up early. Alfred is one of the only people Damian enjoys being around at any given time. The two of them can sit in silence for hours on end and never have it feel tense.

“Are you going to hurry up and finish that?” Tim asks, nodding towards Damian’s waffle, barely picked at. “Bruce wants me to drive you to your summer lessons today.”

“Why?” Damian asks.

He stabs his fork through a sliced strawberry. He’s been dividing the grid of the waffle, square by square, into neat little compartments. The thought of having to finish something so sickly sweet makes his stomach turn.

In the middle of next month, he’ll be taking his English proficiency exam alongside his placement exam. They’re qualification tests that’ll determine whether he’s ready to transition into sixth grade in the United States, the year corresponding with his age. The final year he completed in Nanda Parbat was Grade 4. Talia pulled him out of his studies halfway through Grade 5, the penultimate stage of primary school.

He’s technically missing part of the necessary curriculum, but as long as he can prove he has the knowledge required to enroll in sixth grade, Gotham Academy has stated that they will take him. Bruce is making him attend summer school to prepare for this. The learning center he currently goes to is further than the academy, so Bruce is usually the one who drives him, but—

“Bruce is busy today. Early meeting at Wayne Enterprises,” Tim explains. He seemingly has enough of Damian’s fooling around. “Get up. We’re going.”

Having no desire to finish his plate anyway, Damian does as instructed, grabbing his backpack off the floor. He avoids eye contact with Alfred as the man crosses paths with him to pick up the dish.

It’s an unspoken household rule that nobody refuses Alfred’s cooking. It’s insulting to do so. It’s shameful that Damian is going to be the first.

Damian wills the meager portion of his waffle to settle in his stomach. He needs at least that bit to get him through the day.

---

They have names for this, in Nanda Parbat.

Or, rather, they have derogatory terms for it: demonic possession, bewitchment, a punishment from God.

Ailments of the mind are not treated akin to ailments of the body. There is no medicine that can cure those. Those who come back from the Lazarus Pit are devoid of their injuries, but not their memories, and certainly not issues that lie in their behavior.

Damian watched a couple of his peers go through these … struggles … in the League of Assassins. They dropped out of their training throughout the years. He doesn’t know what happened to them after that.

His own training didn’t end until Talia left him with Bruce. He excelled at every martial art he was taught; he mastered every skill he practiced. There was neither room for failure nor distractions. He was bred for a purpose, and he’d be nothing if he didn’t fulfill it.

He was also significantly more privileged than the other children he trained with. He’s the son of Talia al Ghul—the heir to Ra’s al Ghul. They gave him attention and guidance they didn’t offer to anybody else. He never failed because there were safeguards in place for him. He had advantages due to his heritage and importance to the League.

It’s a far cry from what he has here in Gotham. He’s a Robin that Batman doesn’t want, and hardly even needs. Tim interacts with him minimally, which stings, but it’s a merciful consequence considering what Damian did to deserve it. Jason is hardly ever in the manor. Not that he ever was much before Batman was lost in time, anyway.

Dick has since returned to his mantle of Nightwing. Damian remains Robin, but he’s not Dick’s Robin. It eats at him. Nobody in Gotham even knows the switch happened—nor did they know it was reversed—and nobody in the household cares. Dick never wanted to be Batman. There’s no doubt he’s relieved to have the weight of that identity taken off his shoulders.

Damian is the only one who seems to be bothered by these circumstances, and he feels weathered by it. It clouds his thoughts in the day, and threatens to drown him at night.

Chapter Text

Stephanie begins an indefinite stay at the manor in the remaining weeks of her summer break preceding her Sophomore year of college.

She arrives at night, which Alfred informs Damian of as he’s falling asleep over his journal on his desk. Alfred doesn’t offer any further elaboration, and although Damian is curious, he figures it’s not Alfred’s prerogative to tell.

Anyone who is close enough to Bruce to know that he’s Batman is close enough to him to be allowed at the manor without needing to ask permission. Bruce has always welcomed his protégés and confidants into his home with open arms.

The following morning, Damian is up early, but he thinks it’s a better idea to say hello after he returns home from his planned meetup with Jon, when Stephanie is more likely to be awake.

He’s seen her a few times since he came to Gotham. Most frequently, it was while they were both in disguise, working with the others on a case that had overlapping jurisdiction.

Only once did he encounter her as a civilian, when Tim brought her over to hang out at the manor.

(“So you’re going to be Robin from now on?” she asked him when their paths crossed in the kitchen. She collected ice from the freezer while Damian grabbed a packet of crackers.

The question was rhetorical. He’d already been Robin for a few weeks, and Tim was in the early stages of designing a suit for his new identity: Red Robin.

Damian nodded nevertheless. “That is correct.”

“I was Robin once for three months, y’know,” she informed him, which was news to Damian. “When Tim’s dad found out about his vigilante work and essentially grounded him, I took up the role. Bruce hated it. I had a whole thing about … er, disobeying his orders. He fired me after we failed to dissipate a gang war.”

“That … is rather unfortunate,” Damian replied curtly. It seems that she brought it upon herself, but he thought that the identity of Spoiler suited her much better either way, so perhaps it was a blessing in disguise.

She shrugged. “It’s just the way things go. Being Robin can be rough at times, but I have faith that you’ll do great, Damian.”)

Despite their limited interactions, he regards her highly, so when he catches sight of her on his way out, her presence is a breath of fresh air.

Seeing her isn’t dreadful for Damian the way it is with Tim, or bittersweet the way it is with Dick. Instead, it’s welcoming.

“Good morning, Brown,” Damian greets, leaning against the archway that connects the living room to the main hallway.

Stephanie is curled up on the couch with a novel in her hands, her hair frazzled and unbrushed. She’s still in her pajamas, and she doesn’t look like she’s slept much.

She looks up from her book and smiles when she sees it’s him. “Hi, Damian. Please sit down with me.”

Damian does as instructed, and he can see the dark circles under her eyes as he takes a seat. She looks sick. Not sick in the usual way that Alfred brings hot tea and lozenges for, but unwell in a manner similar to how Damian feels.

Damian hates it. He can barely even place a name to it, and here Stephanie is, struggling with the same thing.

The fact hurts him. He wants to improve her situation.

“Did something happen recently?” Damian inquires. “Do you require assistance?”

Stephanie shakes her head softly. “You don’t need to worry about me, Damian. I’ll be alright. I’ll just be here for a bit because my dad is on parole and he’s been looking for me at my apartment. My lease ends in July, so I should be able to figure out a new place by then and attend my fall classes like normal.”

Damian’s jaw tenses. Arthur Brown was convicted for second-degree grand larceny a year and a half ago. His arrest was unrelated to his undercover identity as Cluemaster; his sentence is tied to his civilian identity. However, Damian didn’t think he’d be out so soon.

Arthur attempting to reach out to the daughter who cut ties with him—with consideration of the fact that Stephanie has not held back from making this clear to him multiple times—is overstepping his boundaries. Damian thinks it’s pathetic.

He says as much. “He is despicable.”

Stephanie’s smile holds a tinge of sadness, but it doesn’t falter. “Everything will be okay, Dames,” she promises, as if Damian’s emotions should even be the priority right now.

It’s Stephanie whose safety is compromised. It’s her who is in a situation that she’s seeking asylum from.

“What does he know so far?” Damian asks, because the last time Stephanie and her father saw each other in person, she was still living at home. It’s possible he doesn’t have enough information to narrow his search down, and continuing to leave him in the dark regarding that matter would set a barrier on any progress he planned on making.

“Well, he knows that all the colleges I applied to were in-state, so he’s aware I couldn’t have left New Jersey. He definitely has no idea that I chose GCC—Gotham Community College—because he was so adamant on having me attend a four-year institution. It’s barely forty minutes away from my hometown, but,” Stephanie smirks, “let’s hope the downtown traffic wards him off.”

Damian doesn’t laugh, but the information makes him feel better. Arthur doesn’t have any real leads, and Stephanie is an adult now. Any legal parental access he may have had to her life, he no longer does.

Damian nods. “That is relieving to hear. I assume you denied his attempts to contact you?”

“Yeah,” Stephanie confirms. “He messaged me through my old email address. I stopped using it as my main ever since I made a professional one because I got a whole bunch of advertising and spam on there. I didn’t even see his email until I happened to check my inbox a few weeks later. It was … weird. He was asking my high school friends if they knew where I lived. I blocked him.”

Her mood seems to drop again. She shrugs and adds, “It doesn’t matter. I’ll be out of here in no time, Damian. Trust the process.”

Damian chooses to believe her. He doesn’t want to be pessimistic.

Stephanie just has to wait it out until her fall semester begins a month from now. It’s not far. It’s doable.

“Okay,” Damian concedes. “But you will inform me if anything comes up.”

He doesn’t want to take any chances. Not just regarding Stephanie and her father, but also Spoiler and Cluemaster. Arthur doesn’t know Stephanie is Spoiler. He’s never known. However, any sign of Cluemaster back on the streets will prompt Spoiler to return accordingly, and Stephanie needs to focus on her education, not vigilante work.

Stephanie winks. “You got it, Dami. You’ll be the first to know, if it comes to that point. But for now,” she says, glancing down at his sneakers he’s wearing despite being indoors, “you seem like you have somewhere to be.”

Right. Coffee with Jon. Damian starts to get up from the couch. “Jonathan Kent expects to see me at the local café this morning,” he tells her.

This causes her to brighten up immediately.

“Oh my god, you’re friends with Supes’ kid!” she exclaims. “Damian, that is so exciting!”

Damian didn’t think it was anything noteworthy. He stands awkwardly. “Yes?”

“I’m sorry, I’m just so happy you’re making connections here,” she says, grinning at him almost like she’s fond of him. “Well, I won’t keep you any longer. Can I get a hug before you go?”

Dick is the only one who offers hugs to Damian, and even then, it’s a hit or miss depending on how Damian’s feeling at the moment.

It’s an odd concept he still needs to get accustomed to, but he doesn’t have any desire to say no to Stephanie. “Sure.”

Stephanie doesn’t hesitate to envelop him in a bone-crushing embrace that half-drags Damian back down to the couch. Hunched over, he timidly returns the hug.

“Oh Damian,” Stephanie says, overly sappy when she lets him go. “I’ve missed you. We’ll try to spend more time this year, okay?”

Damian’s not sure how well that’ll fit in with their schedules when school starts back up, but he appreciates the sentiment nonetheless. He nods. “Okay.”

“Take care!” she tells him as he’s unlocking the front door.

“I will see you later, Brown,” Damian replies.

Outside, it is clear overhead. The sunlight is warm and soothing on Damian’s skin, not too different from a tight embrace.

---

“This is ridiculous, Richard,” Damian comments.

He’s pretty sure he’s walked the entire surface area of Dick’s apartment floor by now. Dick still has his hands over Damian’s eyes, trying to bring him to a surprise he prepared.

“Just a few more steps, Dami,” Dick reassures.

Damian bumps into a table. Dick is not very good at navigation.

Thankfully, he uncovers Damian's eyes at last. “Ta-da!”

Damian blinks, taking in the sight of what’s in front of him. A chocolate cupcake sits atop the table, and two identical candles taking the shape of the number one are stuck into the frosting. They must have been lit before Damian entered the apartment, because wax is starting to drip down the sides of it.

“Oh,” Damian says. He’s heard of this tradition before.

In Nanda Parbat, he received gifts—usually a new set of weapons or clothes—and a hearty home cooked dinner every year on his birthday. He and his mother never had desserts or decorations, as they were lavish and unnecessary, but Damian has heard stories about these things happening in the western world.

He’s honored to know that Dick thinks he is deserving of such a privilege.

“Thank you, Richard,” he tells his brother, but doesn’t quite know where to go from here. Should he wait for the candles to finish burning?

Dick squeezes Damian’s shoulders tightly. “Aw, Damian, you don’t need to thank me. Be sure to make a wish!”

To say that Damian is confused is an understatement, but he makes one in his head anyway, which quickly snowballs into several.

He wishes for Stephanie’s continued safety and for his summer lessons to conclude. He wishes for Jon to be free three weeks from now to accompany him to the bookstore.

He wishes for Dick to always remain as kind to him as he is now, and that Alfred ceases with his worried glances at dinner. He wants Bruce to assign him greater responsibilities on the field, and he hopes he can eventually do some work on the Batcomputer the way Tim is allowed to.

He wishes for a lot of things. But they are just that—wishes. Not plans. Not ambitions. They have an unshakable element of fantasy to them.

Dick scrutinizes him. “Alright, Mr. Pensive over here, It’s time to blow out the candles.”

Damian’s relieved to hear these directions, because he was beginning to grow concerned about having to eat the wax accumulating on the cupcake. He blows both flames out in one go and observes the wisps of smoke that trail behind.

Dick ruffles Damian’s hair playfully. “Happy birthday, Dami. I’m so proud of you, you know that?”

“For turning eleven?” Damian questions, his bangs falling into his eyes. He brushes them aside. Gothamites have unusual concepts of what’s considered an accomplishment.

“No,” Dick chuckles. “Well, yes, but I’m generally just very proud of you and everything you do. I wanted to remind you of that.”

Damian sees it as a nice gesture, even though he doesn’t think there’s much to celebrate. “I appreciate it, Richard.”

Dick smiles at him as he picks the candles out of the cupcake and places them on a napkin. He pushes the cupcake closer to Damian. “Enjoy, Dami.”

Damian picks it up and peels the edge of the wrapper off on one side. Grease sticks to his fingers as he does so. It’s one of the main ingredients characteristic of these baked goods.

Flour, sugar, and oil are the three major components. There’s definitely some eggs, cocoa powder, and a dash of baking powder in there too. Probably salt and vanilla extract as well, if Dick utilized a recipe on the internet.

Nothing about it is nutritious. Damian is glad it’s a cupcake and not a slice of a larger cake. He would not be able to finish it if it was.

He takes his first bite into it. Frosting smears his nose and the edges of his lips. He fights back a grimace.

The cupcake is not as spongy as he would like it to be. Its consistency is denser than he thought. It’s overwhelming.

He forces himself to chew, and to breathe through it.

“How’s my baking?” Dick quizzes him while handing him a napkin. “On a scale of one to ten. I’m not the best at it, but I made some cinnamon rolls with Starfire last month, and I figured I’d have to do something for your birthday as well.”

Damian uses the napkin to wipe the frosting off his nose. His throat feels tight when he swallows.

“Ten. It is good,” he says, because the cupcake tastes like what it’s supposed to be. “There is nothing wrong with it.”

Dick does a fist pump in the air. “Yes! Better than my test batch, then,” he adds cryptically.

Damian takes a second bite, this time holding his breath, trying to mute his sense of taste as much as possible. He doesn’t want Dick to think that he doesn’t like it, because he does. Had this been a few months ago, he would have wolfed it down without hesitation.

Beside him, Dick slides a tray off the stove—the rest of the cupcakes he made—and onto the counter. They must have cooled down by now.

He picks one up for himself and Damian watches as he takes a large bite from the mound of frosting he decorated it with. He doesn’t even get any piece of the cupcake in his mouth, just the frosting.

Damian makes a face. “Interesting,” he mutters, and hopes the petulance he feels doesn’t seep into his voice. It’s an unusual mix of feelings, almost like coveting. Or jealousy. He wants to be able to enjoy this as much as Dick does. He misses sharing desserts like that with his brother.

“This part, the buttercream frosting, took me the longest,” Dick tells him. “I had to keep whisking it until the consistency was right. It was a full arm workout.”

Damian nods without really listening, taking his third bite, effectively halfway done with his cupcake. His teeth feel sticky and gross.

Dick finally tries the chocolate part of the cupcake. He gives Damian a thumbs up as he’s chewing, signalling that he agrees with Damian’s opinion.

Damian peels more of the paper wrapper off and briefly wonders whether he can get away with crumbling a napkin around the rest of his food while Dick isn’t looking.

Dick glances back at his baking tray, and catching Damian off guard, he asks, “Do you want to take some home?”

“No,” Damian blurts out reflexively, a little too sharply, and then coughs to mask it as a mistake before Dick can react. He knows what Dick looks like when he’s hurt, and he doesn’t want to see it. “Sorry. No thank you. I do not know if I can finish all of them.”

Dick falters for a split second, almost imperceptibly, but he smiles anyway. “Okay, Dami. I’m happy you could join me today.”

Damian didn’t have any preexisting plans. He probably would have stayed home all day, had Dick not invited him over. “Thank you for having me.”

“Anytime, Dames. You’re always welcome to come by,” Dick reminds him. He pulls a tupperware container out of one of his cabinets. “You want me to drive you home? The subway’s going to be crowded at this time.”

“Sure,” Damian accepts. It would mean he gets to spend a little more time with Dick before they inevitably say goodbye.

“Gotcha, we can head out when you finish eating.” Dick starts placing the leftover cupcakes into the container.

Damian inhales, exhales, and decides to rip the bandaid off all at once. He shoves the entire remainder of his cupcake into his mouth, resisting the urge to gag. He stares intently at one of the candles, still on the table, as he tries to take his mind off the food he’s struggling to consume.

He crumbles up the empty wrapper and sweeps some crumbs into his napkin. It’s done. It’s over.

He gets up to toss his trash away and he washes his hands in the kitchen sink. He scrubs hard to get the sliminess off. He ignores the signs of protest his body is starting to exhibit: the cramps in his stomach; the nausea that’s gradually building.

---

If the traffic is bad when they hit the streets, Dick doesn’t react to it. He’s a patient driver, possibly the most gentle of the entire family. He’s unable to weave between cars like Jason and Tim can on their motorcycles, but he doesn’t throw curses around like Stephanie, nor does he speed through red lights like Bruce. Alfred is courteous on the road, but even he honks at slow drivers and forces his way into lanes when he has somewhere to be.

Dick is a safe driver. He’s calm and responsible, which would be amazing if Damian wasn’t actively trying to prevent himself from throwing up.

He’s already accepted it’s going to happen. He just doesn’t want it to happen here, in Dick’s Porsche 911.

He’s awfully quiet the entire ride, not trusting himself to say anything beyond one-worded responses at a time. Dick is aware of this. He keeps looking over in concern when he should be keeping his eyes on the road.

“Damian, if you need me to pull over,” he says for the third time now, “let me know.”

Damian vehemently shakes his head. It would be inconvenient. They’ve already gotten off the freeway by this point, and Damian recognizes the local street names. They’re not far from the manor.

Dick runs his hand through his hair in distress. “I honestly think I put too much sugar while I was baking; the batter seemed really thick—I’m so sorry, Damian,” he rambles, and if Damian wasn’t so afraid of speaking right now, he’d tell him to shut the hell up.

It’s not Dick’s fault. Or the recipe’s. Damian wishes he could reassure him of that. He wishes he hadn’t finished the entire cupcake and had just made an excuse about needing to save space Alfred’s cooking when he got home instead.

The haphazard velocity at which Dick pulls into the empty driveway and comes to a sudden stop, tires screeching, makes Damian grateful that the car Bruce drives to and from work isn’t yet parked there for the night.

“Thanks,” is the single syllable Damian manages to mumble through how firmly he’s clenching his jaw. He yanks the passenger door open and gets out.

He fleetingly looks down at the ground before he decides that he is not going to spend his evening scrubbing half-digested cupcake bits off the pavement. He hastily makes his way to the front door.

He speed-walks into the manor, past the living room where Tim doesn’t look up from an article he’s reading on his tablet; past the kitchen where Stephanie calls his name. He heads down the hall, around the corner, and directly into his room, not bothering to take his shoes off.

He enters his en suite bathroom, locks the door behind him, and barely has enough time to get on his knees before he’s heaving into the toilet. His throat and nose burn from the rush of stomach acid, and reflexively, tears form in the corner of his eyes, blurring his vision.

He spends the following few minutes coughing everything up. The force of it wracks his body relentlessly, and he braces onto the toilet seat to steady himself. His nose is runny and his legs are numb from sitting on them.

Throwing up is never a pleasant experience. It’s demoralizing. It’s an unwelcome loss of control over his body.

He wills himself to think about nothing instead of giving himself the chance to linger on how Dick made an effort to bake cupcakes for him in honor of his birthday, only for him to end up in this position.

When he is absolutely certain he’s gotten everything out, indicated by the way his stomach quits mercilessly contracting on him, he has to close his eyes for a minute to stop the sudden wave of vertigo that hits him.

Additionally, he can feel the beginning of a headache forming, pinpricks of pain lighting up his nerves. He's never been more glad that there isn't a patrol scheduled for the night.

He pulls the flush handle and wonders how early he can sleep without Alfred being suspicious.

His ears are ringing slightly, and the bathroom’s exhaust fan is noisy, but Damian can still hear the sound of a knock on the door when it happens.

It’s too faint to be his bathroom door. Whoever it is, they’re outside his bedroom.

The tingling static in Damian’s legs prevents him from being able to get up for a good minute. Afterwards, he washes up as fast as possible, but he doesn’t hear another knock. If it was someone with something urgent to say, he trusts they’ll come back. If not, he’ll figure it out later.

He gazes at his reflection in the mirror. He doesn’t look good. However unwell he thought Stephanie looked two weeks ago, he objectively looks worse than that. He’s in need of a haircut, and his cheeks are hollower than they used to be. There is a split in his lower lip. He splashes tap water on it.

When he finishes scrubbing his face clean, he finds himself still trembling from the adrenaline his body’s been producing on overdrive. His clothes aren’t exactly clean anymore, so he takes the opportunity to shower.

The warmth of the water settles his nerves. He finds himself able to collect his thoughts again, and the wound up tension in his muscles loosens. He washes his hair thoroughly and exits the shower smelling faintly like lavender.

He gets dressed in his favorite matcha-colored hoodie and a pair of sweatpants before he curls up in his bed, pulling his sheets over himself. His curtains are closed, and the darkness of his room is compatible with his headache.

He grows drowsy and is on the verge of falling asleep when a knock on his door occurs a second time today.

“Yes?” he asks, finding his voice scratchy and hoarse. He clears his throat.

“Master Damian,” comes Alfred’s voice. “Before he left, Master Dick requested that I check in on you.”

Damian wishes he had just pretended to be asleep instead of verbally answering the knock. “I am good, Alfred.”

“May I come in?” Alfred asks.

“I am tired,” Damian says, because he doesn’t have the energy to make up lies right now, and lying is what he’ll need to do if Alfred asks him any more questions.

“Understood, Master Damian,” Alfred responds, unendingly polite. “I will leave a few items outside your door. Collect them when you wish.”

And with that, he’s gone again, respecting Damian’s privacy.

Lethargy clings steadfast to Damian’s limbs, and his entire body aches, but he’s unable to fall asleep again with the curiosity that’s poking at him.

He gets up to check what Alfred dropped off, opening the door as little as possible, and wincing when the light coming from the hallway seeps in through the gap.

On the floor is an unopened bottle of water, a packet of antacids, and a bottle of Pepto-Bismol.

Damian’s unsure whether it’s the sleepiness or the physical turmoil he just went through that’s contributing to his lack of emotional regulation, but a rush of ambivalent melancholy overcomes him, and he sniffles in relief at the gesture.

He grabs the three items off the ground and sets them down on his nightstand. His stomach has calmed down by now, so he doesn’t need the medications anymore, but he gratefully drinks the water, which is soothing to his dry mouth and sore throat.

He finishes half the bottle before capping it and lying back down. He rolls onto his side, feeling considerably better. He closes his eyes and, nearly instantaneously, drifts off to a dreamless sleep.

---

Damian relishes the car rides home from his summer school. It’s not Bruce who collects him in the afternoons. Instead, it’s one of Bruce’s employees at the power plant owned by Wayne Enterprises down the street from Damian’s learning center.

The two of them sit in a comfortable silence for half an hour every afternoon. It’s a peaceful reprieve from having to focus all morning. Damian has reason to believe his driver enjoys being paid a bonus for the service too. It’s a win-win situation.

As always, Damian utters a quick “thank you” when he gets out of the car.

Today, he knocks on the front door of Wayne Manor like he has done every weekday at three in the afternoon. The difference is that this is the last day of that routine.

He completed his final summer class. He’s glad to be rid of that program; he didn’t feel like he learned anything new from it, save for a few instances in which American history was taught, but he’s already caught up with most of it on his own time. It was not difficult. After all, the timeline doesn’t begin until 1776.

Alfred, expecting him, opens the door right away. “Welcome home, Master Damian.”

Alfred is the only one who speaks, but he’s not the only one there. Stephanie stands beside him. She smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. Damian’s seen her around the manor nearly every day since her arrival, but not normally at this hour.

“Good afternoon, Alfred,” Damian responds as he steps in. “And the same to you, Stephanie.”

Inside, at the end of the hall, where the foyer connects to the living room, Jason Todd leans against the wall.

Damian stills. He shifts into a state of alertness he doesn’t typically employ unless he’s on the field.

Jason’s presence is not a good sign. He rarely comes here by choice.

And when he does, it is never in the daytime, and never in his civilian clothes. His expression is neutral, and his body language is relaxed, but it doesn’t put Damian at ease.

Damian shoots Stephanie a glance that conveys explain this. Now.

She does. “Bruce called for a meeting in the Batcave. It’s scheduled to start when you get home, so … we have to go now.”

Damian looks back over at Jason, who wordlessly tilts his head in the direction within the living room that attaches to the main hall, indicating for Damian to follow. Then he starts walking, and Stephanie gives Damian an apologetic look as she trails behind.

“Allow me to take this from you,” Alfred says from behind, motioning to Damian’s backpack.

Damian shrugs the straps off. His consternation must show on his face, because Alfred sets a comforting hand on his shoulder.

Alfred sounds as calm as ever. “Do not be concerned, Master Damian. It is nothing urgent. Master Bruce will relay a message he received from Gotham City’s Police Department.”

Alright. Nothing that has to do with him, then.

“Thank you, Alfred,” he says, grateful for the heads-up.

Alfred bows his head. “I will see you at dinner tonight.”

Damian has to sprint to catch up to Jason’s broad strides. The three of them make their way down the stairs to the Batcave, where Bruce is waiting for them at the center of the main platform.

Beside him are Dick, Tim, and Barbara. He’s coordinated with the entire team.

Bruce gives Damian a cursory glance. He pauses for a second on Jason, then his gaze settles on Stephanie, who stands directly in front of him.

She keeps her expression steady, meeting Bruce’s eyes, but she’s tense. Her hands shake where they rest on her jeans.

It’s all the confirmation Damian needs in order to know that this is about Cluemaster.

“Stephanie,” Bruce says, his voice soft, “we’ll work together on this. We’ll produce sufficient evidence to merge the identities of Arthur Brown and Cluemaster. The police will handle the rest.”

The GCPD has documented Cluemaster’s crimes over the years, and it’s an overwhelmingly long list. Cluemaster often worked in a team, rather than alone, making it difficult to pin him down, primarily due to a lack of prioritization. It turns out that being a C-list villain means the police have bigger fish to fry when large-scale cases occur.

Arthur Brown was later incarcerated, leading Cluemaster’s activities to come to a standstill. However, Damian knows that if this time around they manage to catch him in the act, while he’s in gear, it’ll be straightforward for the police to put two and two together. He’ll be formally charged for what he’s done to date and get locked up for good.

Stephanie exhales deeply and nods. “Alright, B. I trust you.”

“You won’t be disappointed.” Bruce affirms, then glances over to his left, at Barbara.

She takes her cue to speak, wheeling forward a few inches. “Commissioner Gordon—my dad—reached out to Batman last night via Bat-Signal. He spoke to me about the same thing this morning. GCPD has received civilian accounts of Cluemaster sightings in the recent few days. It wasn’t until yesterday that surveillance cameras confirmed his presence at a scrapyard. So far, there have been no reports of any legal wrongdoings, but his return is putting the population at unease. Local law enforcement believes it’s only a matter of time before he strikes, and they’re asking us to keep a lookout in hopes that we can prevent it from happening.”

She’s clear and concise. It’s what Damian likes about Barbara. She gets to the point immediately and that’s the reason why she’s as good as she is working behind-the-scenes. Her ability to communicate relevant information is what glues everyone together on missions.

“That is correct,” Bruce acknowledges, taking over once again as Barbara pulls back. “We will not be using force unless it is called for. While on patrol, stick to vantage points. Do not give Cluemaster the opportunity to see you first. If he is spotted anywhere within the city limits, report this through your earpiece immediately. Remain vigilant of his location, but do not engage. If we find anything, we will be handing it to GCPD. Do I make myself clear?”

Dick appears solemn. “Crystal.”

Additionally, Bruce is met with a firm “you got it, Bruce,” from Tim, a jaded “uh-huh,” from Stephanie, and a stern nod from Jason.

“Yes, Father,” is Damian’s contribution.

“Good. Patrol, for the foreseeable future, is scheduled to be nightly. No days off. Each one of you will be assigned to a different section of Gotham each time. Should you miss a day, understand that your absence will cause us to have a blind spot,” Bruce continues. “As a reminder, this is a reconnaissance mission. Do not put yourself in a position to fight.”

He looks directly at Jason as he speaks his final line. Jason, unperturbed, stares back.

Damian runs Bruce’s words over in his mind multiple times, making sure he fully understands them before he allows himself to feel any semblance of hope. With an inhale, he is hit with the realization that this will be the first time he’s allowed to be alone on the field. It will no longer be Batman and Robin as a pair. It’ll just be Robin.

It’ll just be him.

The excitement throws him off-kilter. He bites the inside of his cheek to keep any inadvertent display of emotion off his face.

This is a rite of passage.

On combat missions, Bruce has always had an all hands on deck approach. Should the situation necessitate backup, he reaches out to the Justice League. If the team needs to split, he pairs them up. When dividing an odd number, It is always, always Batman who operates solo.

Patrol, in general, is a little different. Everyone loosely works together as a team, in the sense that they communicate with one another, but they are otherwise left to their own devices. Everyone, except Damian, that is.

If the only way he gets an opportunity to work on his own is through an extenuating circumstance, so be it. He won’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

Bruce seems like he’s gotten to the bulk of what he needed to. “Our first session begins tonight. Arrive at the Batcave in uniform by half past nine. You will receive your location assignment then. Patrol will begin at ten. Any questions?”

Stephanie speaks up. “If I can’t avoid confrontation, can I fight?”

She asks it almost like she plans to do it intentionally.

Bruce gives her a sharp glare, but when he speaks, his words are dulled around the edges. He is gentle because it’s Stephanie. “If you cannot avoid confrontation, you will look for an exit. If you are unable to leave, you will call for backup. You will stall before you defend. Fighting is a last resort.”

“M’kay,” is all she says.

No one else appears as if they want to ask anything. Bruce gives them a solid ten seconds before he speaks again.

“Alright. One last thing: if anybody happens to gather intel outside of their time on the field, you are to notify Barbara with your findings.” He begins to turn in the opposite direction, away from the Batcave’s stairway, and towards the Batcomputer. “You’re all dismissed.”

Jason takes his exit. Tim follows Bruce.

Wordlessly, Dick makes his way over to Stephanie and pulls her into a hug. She slumps into his arms, burying her face in his shoulder.

Damian’s about to leave when Barbara stops him.

“Damian,” she calls out, wheeling her chair ninety degrees. “Come with me. I want to show you something.”

He follows her down one of the Batcave’s many pathways, into an area he usually doesn’t pass by. There are several rooms dedicated to archives, and she leads him into one of them.

File cabinets line the stone walls. The old lightbulb overhead is dim, and the air smells damp and earthy. Given that these storage areas are only accessed when necessary, it’s understandably not very well maintained.

Barbara pulls one of the drawers open and flicks through a few tabs. She does it with the confidence of someone knowing exactly what they’re looking for.

She pulls out a manila folder labeled #89: Arthur Brown - Cluemaster.

“Here,” she tells Damian as she’s handing it over. “Within this, you’ll find several photographs of Cluemaster.”

Damian’s about to protest, but she preemptively adds, “I know you know what he looks like. But you’ve never seen him face-to-face. Sometimes it’s harder to make out details of people’s uniforms when it’s dark outside. Sometimes a person may be taller than you expected, or bulkier. Familiarizing yourself with their profile will increase the probability of you recognizing them.”

She makes an extremely logical point.

Damian doesn’t have anything to argue that with. “Okay. Thank you, Gordon.”

Her demeanor softens and she offers him a small smile before turning towards the door. “C’mon. You can bring that upstairs with you. It’s kind of musty in here.”

Damian huffs a breath of laughter as he follows her out. “I was about to say that.”

He makes his way back to his room, folder in hand, and spends the next hour examining the documents on Cluemaster. He reviews the basic information about Arthur Brown: his full name, age, height, an approximation of his weight, and his hair and eye color. He thumbs through the pages, skimming over some handwritten debriefs of Batman’s encounters with him, scribbled in a mix of cursive and chicken scratch: the words of a man afraid of his memory’s declining accuracy as each second ticks by.

Damian’s fingers catch on a plastic sheet protector in the middle of the file. He slides it out to reveal a collection of printed photographs—the ones Barbara asked him to look at.

He opens the top of the sheet protector and carefully pours its contents onto his desk. On the back of each picture, the time and day of the capture is stamped on. These were taken over the course of several months.

Nearly all the photos were taken from up high. With context clues, Damian can discern the vantage point of some of them: rooftops, windows, balconies. A few snapshots depict Arthur Brown in gear, while others are of him dressed in business suits and polos.

In each of these, Damian knows the person behind the lens.

This is Tim’s work. Damian would be lying to himself if he thought they weren’t impressive.

The camera work is stunning. Not a single photograph is blurry, not even the ones with Arthur in quick motion or the ones taken within an unlit alleyway. Arthur is always the focal point. The ISO, aperture, and shutter speed of the camera are adjusted in harmony to produce the best result possible for every image.

Tim is skilled. Very skilled.

If this is what he can create while on a time crunch, hiding from his subject, and with a mission at hand, Damian cannot even begin to imagine what Tim could capture inside a studio, outside on a sunny field, or under an ambient cityscape.

It isn’t until Stephanie knocks on his door to call him for dinner that Damian stops looking over the pictures. He puts them back into the folder, shutting them out of view, but it does nothing to take his mind off of them.

It’s a shame he’s never seen Tim with a camera. He only knows that Tim used to carry one around because of the stories Dick would tell him about their brothers.

(“That was my first impression of him, y’know,” Dick recalled wistfully. “Bruce had a new picture of Jason dressed as Robin he forgot on top of his desk in the Batcave one day, and it was weird because at that time he was still really deep in his grief. So I asked him where he got it from. He just said ‘the neighbor’s kid’, and I kind of freaked out because it meant that someone knew Batman and Robin’s identities.”

Damian frowned. “So Drake discovered that Father was Batman before he ever spoke to him?”

“Yep,” Dick told him. “He was incredibly observant. And then, a few days later, Bruce called me and asked if I could help train Tim to be the new Robin. So it was fine. We weren’t concerned anymore about him snitching or anything. And I guess the rest is history. The point is, Damian, I was a former acrobat and that’s what made me good as Robin. Jason was all about brute force and being reckless, but he was efficient. Tim, however—he was all brains. He was wicked smart. Talented. Bruce only let him become the third Robin because of how different he was from Jason.”

Upon hearing this, Damian wondered where he fit in the order of things. Did Bruce view each Robin as a superior version of the one before, or did he merely acknowledge their distinctions?

Damian could not claim he was any more agile than Dick was. He was certainly not stronger than Jason. His creativity was on par with Tim’s, and he was nowhere near as personable as Stephanie.

The cold, hard truth was that he had nothing novel to offer.

Nothing at all.)

Chapter Text

“I wish you all the best, Stephanie,” Damian says, and it feels like a bereavement.

He watches as she places another box of her belongings into her car. Dick and Tim will be helping her move into her new apartment later today. Damian would have offered a third pair of hands as well, but he has to take his language and subject placement exams in an hour.

He has one strap of his backpack slung over his shoulder. He needs to get going right now if he intends to make it on time. It’ll be a thirty minute commute on the subway. He spent his entire evening yesterday mapping out the optimal route to Gotham Academy to make sure he’s set for the next year he’s about to spend there.

Stephanie looks back over her shoulder to grin at Damian.

“Hey, Dami!” she calls out before she pauses what she’s doing to run over.

He reaches out instinctively for the oncoming hug. She wraps her arms around him tightly as he does the same. He tilts his head to the side, his cheek pressed against her knitted sweater. He’s going to miss this.

His life is constantly saturated with change. Just because Damian knew her stay was always going to come to an end doesn’t make it any easier to accept now that it’s happening. He knows he should be happy. She’s going to attend college like any regular nineteen-year-old in the daytime, and have a life outside of being Spoiler.

Knowing that Stephanie was in the manor, even if they didn’t get a chance to talk much on some days, made things more endurable for Damian all month long. Having her around lightened the mood in their home.

“It’ll be okay, Damian,” Stephanie says as an offer of comfort without him having to speak his mind. “You’ll still see me. We’ll be split during nightly patrols, but I’ll come by some weekends, yeah? And I could probably stay at the manor over Thanksgiving break. How does that sound?”

Awful, Damian wants to say. It’s not fair. “That sounds good.”

“Awesome,” Stephanie replies. Then she adds, “actually, you know what? If you ever need anything, you can just—wait, do you have a phone?”

Damian pulls apart from the hug, blinking. “Um. Yes.”

Talia had given him one shortly before she disappeared from his life. He didn’t bother using it. It was unfamiliar and unnecessary; he’d already gotten through ten years of life just fine without such a thing.

Jon doesn’t have a phone either; at least not yet. He complained about it frequently. He made sure Damian knew that Clark Kent was the worst and that he had the ugliest hair and let’s not forget that he was out of touch with reality as well, because every other fifth grader already had a phone, Damian, why should I have to wait until sixth grade starts?

Damian has never mentioned anything about his own phone. Jon doesn’t know he keeps it in the drawer of his nightstand, having thrown it in there one day with its charging cord. He hasn’t charged it once since it died the first time.

Dick doesn’t know about this either. They communicate through email and an online chatroom that Damian accesses with his laptop.

Damian figures he should probably charge his phone and set it up tonight. It’s about time, and maybe he’ll even grow to like it, if it means he gets to keep in contact with people who are important to him.

“It is … currently out of battery,” he explains to Stephanie. “I can add you as a contact later.”

“Okay!” Stephanie smiles, reaching into her pockets, but coming up empty. She then nods towards Damian’s backpack. “Hey, if you lend me a pen and a piece of paper, I can write my number down for you. Just text me with your name when you get a chance.”

Damian sets his backpack down on the grass, scrounging for his spiral notebook. He tears a page out of it and procures a pen from his pencil case. He hands these items over to Stephanie.

She takes them, and with the page braced against the flat surface of her palm, she scribbles her phone number down.

“Here you go,” she tells him, handing him his belongings back. “I’ll miss you a lot, Damian. But be good, okay? And best of luck on your exams today. I know you’ll ace them.”

“Thank you.” Damian folds the page and stores it safely in the smallest pocket of his backpack.

He looks over at Stephanie one last time and thinks about how he won’t see her shoes in the foyer tomorrow morning, or any morning after that. He won’t find her hair ties lying around coffee tables anymore, nor will he spot her books forgotten on the couch.

“Goodbye, Stephanie,” he tells her before he can dwell on it any longer. He tightens the straps of his backpack. “Take care of yourself.”

“You too, Dames. Be safe.”

---

messages >> Jonathan Kent

I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU NEVER TOLD ME YOU GOT A PHONE UNTIL THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL TODAY

TRAITOR

 

you’re strange for that damian

but it’s whatever

i’m just happy we don’t need to call using our houses’ landlines anymore

that thing is so ancient i thought it would fall apart in my hands every time i dialed

 

if you say so

you have to come over sometime so i can show you what it looks like, it’s a fossil

anyway congrats on passing your language and subject exams!!!!! i know i’ve already said it like 10000 times today but you did awesome and i’m so happy they didn’t kick you back to 5th grade

i would be sad and lonely in class if they did

 

you’re welcomeeee

sorry for the late reply

my dad said to go to sleep so i had to pretend i was going to go brush my teeth

anyway i guess i should soon

cya tomorrow damian

 

 

messages >> Stephanie Brown

 

hi damian!

i’m so glad to hear from you! and no worries about that

i’m doing really good, i actually started taking some prereqs for nursing

i had two classes today and they were both really fun

i’m gonna be doing a BSN once i go to a 4-year uni so i’m happy to dive into actual healthcare content now

also i think i’m gonna look into volunteering at a hospital soon

yeah i kinda am, i planned on sleeping by midnight, but being a vigilante is a huge time commitment

at least b doesn’t make me go to the batcave before and after every patrol

he sounded super serious about it a week ago but jason obv didn’t give af

and would just go straight to patrol from his safehouses

so b couldn’t enforce it and then he was chill with me starting and finishing patrols at my apartment

he’s even been assigning me locations that are closer to where i live so that’s good

just gotta be careful with not getting spotted in uniform around all these college kids

 

you too dames!

nighty night

---

Damian paints under the largest oak tree on the estate. The weather is nice this afternoon.

Cool and breezy, but just barely. Enough to complement the warmth from the sun that reaches Damian’s skin, but not so strong that it lifts the pages of his sketchbook or knocks his watercolor cup over.

His piece is an abstract depiction of the dandelions blooming across the field. They spread their seeds like wildfire, perpetuating the cycle of growth and rebirth.

He hears footsteps crunching the grass from a distance. He doesn’t look up, nor does he stop painting. He knows who it is.

The individual, tall and looming, takes a seat beside him, their back pressed against the bark.

“Good afternoon, Master Damian.”

“Hello, Alfred,” Damian replies.

He dips his brush into the blue square on the palette he had set down. The sky is always his favorite part of painting a landscape. It’s quick and easy, and it takes up half the page. The base color is simple, and the nuances are gratifying to add.

Alfred is the only one who appreciates art. Damian can share literature with Stephanie and Dick, and classical music with Jon, but it is only Alfred who compliments his visual artwork, tells him about new museum exhibits opening up in the city, and buys him new art supplies when his current ones wear down.

Damian used to feel self-conscious about Alfred seeing his sketchbook, as if it was something as personal or as revealing as a diary, but he is comfortable with it now. He senses Alfred’s eyes on his hands and it motivates him to make each brushstroke deliberate. He has someone to impress, and a result to achieve.

“The shade of the grass is a perfect color match,” Alfred comments, looking over what Damian has worked on so far.

“Thank you,” Damian responds, the edges of his lips quirking upwards.

They sit like that for another ten minutes, Alfred more silent than usual. He seems to have something on his mind. His body language isn’t easily readable, but Damian knows how to decipher people adeptly enough that it kept him alive in the League. He knows when he’s about to be confronted.

The anticipation makes his skin itch. He’d rather the blow come sooner than later. “What is it, Alfred?”

Alfred looks over at him, his brows furrowed. “I was wondering if the idea of going grocery shopping and cooking with me interests you.”

Damian’s heart drops. He’s been anticipating something like this.

He made every excuse he could come up with for the past month. He slept in as much as he could every morning, skipping breakfast, claiming that the extra rest allowed him to perform better in his first year at a new school. He would stay at the local library after dismissal, reading whatever he found interesting and using the ample time to work on his assignments, only returning home when it was well past dinnertime. He would accept a cup of tea before bed from Alfred, but nothing more.

On the weekends, he would be similarly occupied. He’d hang out with Jon, commute on the train for two hours to visit Dick, or sit in the public parks, watching civilians stroll by with their dogs.

He would serve himself small portions of whatever Alfred makes when he does happen to be home, eating as fast as possible while staring at the patterns on the wooden floors. Tim always sat at the opposite end of the table, sometimes with his earbuds in, sometimes scrolling on his phone, and rarely unoccupied. But always silent, always avoiding eye contact with Damian, and leaving almost as quickly as he came in.

It was a torturous cycle. When the hunger pangs became unbearable, Damian would cave in. He would sneak leftovers from the fridge into his room when his stomach woke him up at three in the morning. He would eat cake mix straight out the box. He would make chocolate milk with the entire carton and then drink the chocolate syrup by itself because he’d still feel ravenous afterwards.

He’d eat the fruits and carrot sticks from Jon’s lunch box that Jon thought were gross, and he’d pilfer candy from gas stations. He entered Wayne Enterprises’ facilities several times to take complimentary pastries and coffee from the staff rooms. He even stopped by a soup kitchen in one of the lower income areas of Gotham.

It was shameful. He knew it. But having Alfred ask him something that alluded to his eating habits, as unassuming and gentle as he could have possibly phrased it, still felt like a knife to the chest.

Damian’s eyes burn and his throat feels tight. “No thank you, Alfred.”

He forces himself to take deep, steadying breaths. His hands shake where they rest on his sketchbook.

Alfred redirects. “Understood, Master Damian. Perhaps there is still something you would like me to make for lunch today? Master Tim is currently out of the residence. It will be the two of us only.”

“The usual will suffice,” Damian answers. He doesn’t want to diverge from the rotation of food. He likes knowing what to expect, and he knows it’s the third Saturday of the month. Mediterranean salad.

Alfred hums in acknowledgement, but he doesn’t stand up from his spot.

Damian leaves his paintbrush in the cup of murky water and sets his artwork down to dry. He pulls his knees to his chest, wrapping his arms around them. Clouds have drifted over the sun. The wind, despite not being any more intense than it was earlier, begins to feel sharp and biting. Damian has an oversized hoodie pulled over his T-shirt. It’s only September. Fall doesn’t even begin until next week. There’s no reason for him to feel this cold.

Alfred glances at his wristwatch, but seems to be in no hurry to follow a schedule. “I hope you understand, Master Damian, that my responsibility is to serve the Wayne family. This includes catering to their preferences and wishes, on top of caring for their wellbeing.”

“Yes, sir,” Damian says, his voice barely above a whisper. He feels like a cornered animal.

“I am glad you know. I will be direct with you about this, as I believe it is relevant to my role as a provider: is there something I can do to appeal to your appetite?” Alfred asks.

It’s humiliating. He’s making it Damian’s prerogative. If Damian is unable to stomach his meal this time around, it will be nobody’s fault but his own, and it will be glaringly obvious.

Damian’s diet is narrow enough as it stands. He’s vegetarian. Alfred already accommodates that. Any dish he makes for the household that contains meat, he doesn’t add that component until after he plates the food. Spaghetti is scooped from a pot, and meatballs are taken from a pan. Green beans are stir fried separately from the steak, and only after the frying pan has been washed thoroughly.

“I have made the decision to be vegan,” Damian lies, telling the only excuse he could come up with on the spot. It’s hardly believable, and certainly not worth the guilt that cuts through him once the words are out, but he’s not backtracking now. “I would like a smoothie.”

If this at least gets Alfred’s focus and concern off of him, it would not be all for nothing.

Alfred looks unfazed. “Coming right up, Master Damian. Would you like to walk back to the manor with me?”

Damian nods, happy to have an exit from the cold. In the back of his mind, though, he thinks it’s pathetic that he can hardly handle a little breeze. Nanda Parbat was cold year-round, and the warmest thing he’d wear on a regular basis was his armor. The winters in the mountain ranges were unforgiving, and he’d gotten through every single one without complaint.

He picks up his sketchbook while Alfred helps collect his art supplies.

Their trek back to the house is short but calming. The manor is empty and quiet, but Damian feels soothed knowing that nobody else is home.

He sits at the dining table and traces the edges of his painting with his finger, feeling the texture of the absorbent cotton paper after the paint has dried on it. Behind him, Alfred activates the blender on the countertop, combining berries, bananas, and soy milk into one homogeneous drink.

“Enjoy, Master Damian,” Alfred tells him when he sets a glass of it down on the table along with a straw.

The smoothie is pleasantly sweet accompanied with a hint of tartness from the berries. The fruits are fresh and nutritious, and the soy milk is light and easily digestible. Damian finishes it without struggle.

He cleans up after himself, washing the glass in the sink. Beside him, Alfred scoops pasta into a tupperware container, preparing next week’s meals for Bruce to take to the office.

“Alfred,” Damian says on his way out. “Thank you for the smoothie. I enjoyed it.”

Alfred smiles at him. “It’s my pleasure.”

Before patrol that night, the rest of the day goes by with little fanfare.

However, Damian finds himself more focused when he takes notes on the content from his history textbook, and less lethargic when he completes drills in the Batcave. His baseline performance is higher when he isn’t running on empty.

---

Damian is in the lower west side of Gotham when Red Robin makes an urgent report.

“B, there’s this candy shop on Fairham Avenue—,” Red Robin says through his communicator. Someone in the background is trying to yell something, but it’s muffled. “Shit, hold on. There’s someone in the back. The place is pretty fucked up; I’m talking shattered glass everywhere, jellybeans scattered on the floor. The whole shebang.”

“Store name, Red Robin?” Oracle asks. “Hang tight. I can send the coordinates over to you all.”

“Rocket Fizz. It’s right next to the subway entrance on Fairham.” There’s some shuffling on Red Robin’s end of the line. Damian hears the distinct flick when he opens a utility blade. “Sir. What’s your name?”

There’s some coughing, and then a strained reply of “Oscar”.

This grabs Damian’s attention. When he reaches the top of an apartment building he grappled towards, he pauses, crouching and keeping low, out of view from passersby below. Moving around constantly causes external noise, and he wants to be able to hear his comms clearly.

“Okay, Oscar, do you know if anyone else is here with you?” Red Robin questions, his voice gentle. “Or where they went? Hang on—please hold still.” There’s silence for a few seconds as Tim works on something. He’s cutting through rope—there’s a light snap when it comes apart. “Oracle, I’ve untied the civilian. He’s not visibly harmed, but I’ll call emergency services to check in. The perpetrator is not present, but they may be in the area.”

“Copy. Robin, you are approximately three miles from the scene. You are to assist Red Robin immediately. I’ll send the location to your navigator now,” Oracle says.

“I am heading over,” Damian affirms, and while he pulls his navigator out for good measure, he doesn’t actually need it. He knows this part of the city. His favorite comic book store is on the opposite side of the street from Rocket Fizz. He can picture exactly which subway stop is at the corner of the block; he’s walked in and out of it many times.

He grapples through the city, taking the shortest path he can find to get to Red Robin, breezing through diagonals from one corner of a rooftop to another. He sprints through fire escapes and scales window ledges; he takes back alleys to avoid encountering civilians.

When he reaches the street that Red Robin mentioned, he spots the designated location right away. There’s broken glass spilled outwards onto the pavement and the storm drain, indicative of the window having been smashed from inside. This wasn’t a matter of breaking and entering. Whoever did this, they did it for the purpose of causing a commotion.

Not to mention that the door is completely intact, and it has a much smaller surface area than the window panes, should a burglar want to be discreet. The lit neon “open” sign is still affixed to it, right above the sheet of paper listing the store’s operating hours. The shop closes at eleven: fifteen minutes from now.

Damian steps over jagged shards and slips through the metal framework. Red Robin is by the register in the back, turned away from the entrance to face Oscar, who is sitting with his back pressed to the counter. Red Robin is crouched down to be level with him. His hands brace Oscar’s wrists. He turns them over gingerly to avoid irritating the areas on them where a zip tie previously bound them.

Oscar must be the owner of the store. He’s an older man—he looks to be in his sixties—and he’s the only civilian here. Damian walks all the way through the store to the other side, going behind the counter, past Red Robin and Oscar. Hard candies crunch under his boots and chocolate pieces smear on the ground.

He pushes the back door open, taking an exit that leads into the alleyway where the dumpsters are located. There is nothing to his left or right side. He cranes his neck upwards toward the fire escapes.

No signs of movement there either.

Turning around, he steps back inside. He activates his comms. “Oracle, there is no active threat.”

“Noted, Robin,” Oracle responds instantaneously. “Emergency services are en route. Give them another minute. Check your surroundings for evidence beyond the wreckage—anything that may serve as personal identifying information, especially biometrics.”

“I am on it,” Damian confirms. He looks down at his feet and mentally curses himself.

His own footprints aren’t the only ones on the ground.

Near the corner, a scatter of caramel squares hold the imprints of a different shoe’s sole.

Damian avoids that area and tiptoes his way over to Oscar and Red Robin as to not further smudge anything on the floor.

Sirens are audible now; GCPD and EMS vehicles are within proximity.

Red Robin begins to get up. “Okay, Oscar, are you able to stand? You can grab onto my arms for support.”

Oscar nods, gripping onto Red Robin’s steadying reciprocal hold. As he stands up, there’s something on the floor by his feet.

A key fob. It must’ve fallen out of his pocket.

Damian reaches down to pick it up. He extends his arm to hand it over.

“Oh,” Oscar says, his voice raspy. He’s looking at Damian’s hand. “That isn’t mine. He—the man—he said it was a gift. ‘For the Bats’ were his exact words.”

Realization hits Damian like a freight train. His blood runs cold.

He flicks his gaze over to the other vigilante in the room. Red Robin exchanges a knowing glance with him.

Oscar leans against the register, feeling for something in the pocket of his denim jacket. He pulls out a small collection of laminated index cards. There appears to be five or six of them.

“He put these in my jacket as well,” Oscar explains, setting them down on the counter, “as he was tying me.”

Oscar was utilized as a middleman. He doesn’t appear to be physically injured anywhere beyond where he was bound with rope and zip ties. He wasn’t the target, just a medium to deliver a message.

Damian nods, watching Red Robin reach for the cards. “Thank you, Oscar. We appreciate your help. We will work with GCPD to facilitate the restitution process for you and your business.”

“Thank you, Robin,” Oscar replies. His eyes are tired but his expression is kind. He looks down and up Damian’s physique. “You’re smaller—younger—than I thought.”

I just turned eleven, Damian wants to say, but he knows better than to reveal any details that may allude to his civilian identity.

But it’s true. If Oscar had known of any Robin through the media before Damian’s time, Damian is the youngest yet one to have taken up the mantle. Even Dick surpassed his twelfth birthday before the so-called Boy Wonder came to protect Gotham.

Police officers enter the premises, and Damian steps out of the way to make space for them. A team of paramedics follow closely behind.

Back door, Red Robin mouths to Damian, clutching their newfound clues tightly in his palm.

They exit the shop and Damian shuts the door behind them. Under a dim light fixture, Red Robin shuffles through the cards in a rotation, looking at each one carefully. He flips them over as he does so, but they’re blank on the backside.

Damian looks down at his own hand. There’s a silver Honda logo on the smooth black plastic of the key fob.

They’re car keys.

He glances back over at Red Robin, observing the handwriting on the index cards. There is a single figure jotted down on each, alternating between letters and numbers.

It becomes clear what they represent.

“A license plate,” Damian tells Red Robin. He makes sure his comms are still on. “Cluemaster is leading us to a car.”

Chapter Text

The cold case quickly turned hot after that night.

The first time, Arthur Brown dressing up as Cluemaster and walking around wasn’t inherently illegal, but this time, Arthur Brown dressing up as Cluemaster, walking around, and wrecking commercial property while harming a civilian certainly was.

Bruce has since developed a training plan for everyone accordingly.

(“This is not purely a matter of reconnaissance anymore,” he’d said, down at the Batcave. “You will all need to develop a competitive edge in your physical abilities. Cluemaster is posing himself as a threat to Gotham once again, which means he is a threat to us as well. If he is willing to cause harm to one civilian, he is willing to do it to more. The clues he left us only strengthen that fact.”

Tim already photographed the aforementioned clues, scanned them, and uploaded them to the database for reference. It was late, but they’d all been working on piecing the anagram together for several hours.

Damian, fighting the heaviness of his eyelids as he actively denied himself the sleep his body was so stubbornly craving, watched as Barbara finished the calculations she inputted. She had commuted from her base at the Clocktower all the way to the Batcave just so she could lend them a hand in deciphering the evidence.

She sighed tiredly as she took in the sight of the results on the screen, then wheeled herself over to the main table where papers and file folders have been strewn haphazardly over the course of the night.

She laid the laminated cards into a pattern, grabbing everyone’s attention.

K60 MVT was what it read.

“Alright. To preface, New Jersey’s standard passenger plates consist of a letter followed by two numbers. This sequence is then succeeded by three more letters. Got it?” she asked, pausing for everyone and their sleep-deprived brains to catch up.

She received a few languid nods in return.

“Good,” she said. “With that in mind, what I have arranged here is one possible configuration out of forty-eight permutations. I’ll send this information over to GCPD and have them investigate which sequences are registered, and who they belong to. It might get us somewhere. It might not. There’s no way Cluemaster didn’t steal this car. Regardless of what the answer is, this isn’t something we can solve in one night. Keep in mind that we still need to actually find him, even if we figure out what he’s leading us to. So let’s all catch some rest.”

She then looked at Bruce sharply. “That includes you too.”)

Due to the ramp up in everybody’s training quota, finding a timeslot to practice at the Batcave is nearly impossible. Now that Jason and Dick are constantly coming over to the manor to prepare, combined with Bruce decreasing his hours at work so that he can formulate plans, Damian finds the training room and the gym occupied at all times. Not to mention that he needs to walk by the computer console to get to these areas too, and there’s almost always somewhere sitting there.

A few days ago, he resorted to doing body weight exercises on the floor of his room and running laps outside. The calisthenics are fine—no one is around to observe him—but he’ll admit that the running is rather embarrassing. He goes outside only after dark, when he’s sure that Alfred won’t be tending to the gardens and that nobody else will happen to be using the green space for any reason either. This timing usually aligns with his daily schedule of responsibilities, so it’s a double-win for him.

The only disadvantage is that it’s undeniably beginning to get chilly now, in the middle of October. Damian has to zip himself up with two polyester jackets and wear leggings beneath his sweatpants before he can begin his runs.

Today, after completing patrol, he stayed up to submit some of his virtual assignments briefly before their midnight deadline. Admittedly, it was irresponsible on his part, but he got them done nonetheless.

He hastily changes into his workout attire and exits through the back door of the manor, taking off in a run as soon as he steps out.

Normally, he likes to follow the perimeter of the yard, because he knows exactly how many acres it is, and can calculate the mileage in his head even before he even checks his phone’s fitness tracker app.

Tonight, however, he doesn’t have the time or patience to go that far out. He wants to sleep soon, so he figures he’ll just complete a 5k by doing a few laps around the manor.

He’s shooting for a seven minute mile pace this time around. Over the past year, his cardio has generally improved, but with the ramped-up training these past two weeks, he’s progressing exponentially, and he’s meticulous about it. Every second shaved off his time could be the difference between winning and losing a fight.

He refuses to skip a day of training. Something, no matter how inadequate, is always better than nothing.

He’s barely a quarter into his third loop when he loses his balance. He catches himself swiftly with outstretched arms as he’s vaulting towards the ground.

He’s stunned for a second, horrified that he could have been that clumsy. He was neither distracted nor particularly tired. Physical activity, combined with cold weather, is more than enough to make him feel wide awake.

It isn’t until he feels tension on his left foot that he looks back. Simultaneously, on his right hand side, one of the manor’s first floor windows is pulled open from the inside.

The lighting from indoors illuminates the ground. He can identify what tripped him now: a thin wire that appears to be a piece of fishing line.

It’s tied to the base of a tree on one end, and extends upwards to the windowsill on the other. The wire is lax now. It must have been held in place by pressure when the window was still closed.

Inside the house stands none other than Timothy Drake, who frowns at Damian. Unbelievable.

Damian scoffs, “What was that for?”

He makes a mental note to scrap the data from today’s run—the stopwatch won’t be accurate anymore.

He stands up and brushes dirt off his pants. Indignant, he feels his cheeks heat up.

Tim crosses his arms, looking pensive. “I thought I heard someone snooping around on the estate. It’s just you.”

“I am on a run, Drake,” Damian states, as if it’s common sense.

Behind Tim, Damian spots a bed and a wooden desk. This is Tim’s room. He must’ve heard Damian when he surpassed this same point during his first two laps.

“This late?” Tim asks, taking in the sight of Damian and his bulky layers. “We have a treadmill, you know.”

Damian’s unamused. “I am aware. If I have successfully assuaged your concerns about the presence of a thief, I have a workout I must return to now.”

He turns away from Tim, eager to leave and forget about their encounter, when Tim speaks up.

“Wait,” he says.

There is a lengthy pause as he seems to have an internal debate, and Damian fights the urge to roll his eyes. This is a waste of time for both of them.

Tim’s indecision comes to a wrap. He groans. “Ugh. Damian, can you just, like, go to sleep? And train at a normal time? Where were you today when Bruce had us do a hundred situps?”

Damian looks at Tim oddly. If there were mandatory team drills today, nobody informed him of it. The last predetermined session marked down on the schedule Bruce sent out was two days ago, which Damian participated in.

“Was I meant to be there?” he asks, uneasy at the idea that he’d overlooked something.

“Yes?” Tim says, then backtracks. “Uh. I actually don’t know. Dick, Jason, and I were there doing our own stuff, and Bruce just got off the computer, tired of staring at a screen all day, and started making us do a bunch of exercises, unprompted.”

He shrugs, adding, “It was nothing important. Just a rundown of an average military fitness plan.”

Damian feels a sense of dread run through him at having been left out. The activity is nothing that he couldn’t practice on his own time, but he’d rather he was made aware nonetheless. It seems like everybody is keeping something from him at any given time.

He stuffs his hands into his pockets and exhales deeply, the cold starting to get to him now that he’s stationary.

Tim doesn’t miss this. He sighs in resignation and pushes his window pane upwards, opening the space as wide as it can go.

“Get in,” he tells Damian, stepping out of the way.

To say that Damian is shocked would be an understatement. He stands there, dumbfounded.

“Well?” Tim asks, impatient, as if this is something he would offer Damian on a normal basis, and not something completely out of the blue.

Damian decides not to question it, lest Tim changes his mind and makes this whole ordeal more mortifying than it needs to be. Damian does as he’s instructed. He ducks his head, stepping over the windowsill and onto Tim’s bedroom floor. The soles of his sneakers are wet and unclean. Guilt and regret creeps up on him as he takes them off his feet, but he’s fully stepped inside now, and it’s too late to reverse that.

He looks around at the space, examining its contents. He’s never been in here before. There are a few figurines on the bookcase, which mainly houses a collection of memoirs and academic textbooks. A couple of fiction titles sit on the highest shelf.

There are string lights and Polaroids hung up on an otherwise empty wall, and a singular plushie lies on a neatly made bed.

There is not much else.

It’s peculiarly minimalist, and not quite how Damian imagined Tim to want to decorate his room.

It’s a stark reminder that he doesn’t really know Tim that well.

Tim shuts the window behind them and sits on the corner of his bed. He looks at Damian like he’s not quite sure what to make of him.

Damian shifts uncomfortably, wishing for a way out. “Thank you for letting me in. I can head back to my room from here.”

“No,” Tim says. “Hold on.”

Damian’s not sure he likes this repeated game of waiting around in uncertainty while Tim decides what he wants to say next. Damian has never enjoyed stalling; he says exactly what he wants to convey, or he says nothing at all. No in between.

“Do you think you’ll be ready?” Tim asks. “For when we track down Cluemaster?”

Of course—Tim doesn’t trust him on their inaugural major mission together. It’ll be the first time they tackle something like this on the same side, and not against one another.

“Yes, Drake,” Damian replies assuredly. “I have been conditioning myself physically, and familiarizing myself with the weapons available in our armory. I memorized the list of codes and terminology we use over our communication devices.”

He’s confident that he’ll be an efficient and useful member of the team, and he’s ready to prove it on the field.

Tim nods. “And mentally?”

Damian frowns. What an odd question. Capability and strategy are what determine the outcome of a battle. What he thinks about the matter has never been relevant.

“I am prepared to follow orders from Batman and Oracle,” Damian answers, as he’s beginning to feel a little stuffy.

It’s only been a few minutes, but what he’s wearing isn’t compatible with the temperature indoors. He scans the room once more and spots some details that he originally missed: under the windowsill, a heater is running, and beside the laptop on the desk, a candle is lit.

He unzips his jackets and shucks them both at the same time, revealing the undershirt he has on. Running his fingers through his hair, he inhales deeply, feeling like he can breathe again.

Tim watches him, expression unreadable.

Jackets slung over his arm, Damian thinks about making an excuse of needing to sleep and having to get up for school in a few hours, because he really doesn’t like these long pauses that occur when they’re trying to talk to each other.

He decides not to say anything at all. He takes a step towards the door.

Fingers latch onto his wrist, and it takes everything in him to not emit a full-body flinch.

“Damian,” Tim says.

Damian is beginning to feel short-tempered and snappy, but what he carefully chooses to respond with is, “Yes, Drake?”

“Look at me.”

Damian turns around. Tim appears to be disconcerted, blinking as if he’s trying to compose himself.

Damian feels uneasy. He’s constantly being left out of the loop. “What is wrong?”

Tim mercifully lets go of his wrist to reach for the jackets Damian’s carrying. Damian’s heart rate picks up, but he doesn’t protest, relinquishing them and watching as Tim sets them aside.

“Sit down, please.” Tim gestures vaguely towards the mattress he’s already sitting on himself.

Damian doesn’t. “If there is something you would like to tell me, you should do so.”

Tim bites the edge of his lip and scratches his upper arm. He glances off to the side, avoidant, staring at a hardcover book slotted in his shelf.

“Alfred said you’re vegan now?” he asks.

Damian’s going to have a word with Alfred regarding divulging details from their private conversations. “That is correct.”

“But you’re getting enough? From what you’re eating?” Tim presses, looking back towards Damian now, but still not making eye contact.

Damian tracks Tim’s gaze, following his line of sight all the way to … Damian’s body.

Damian feels breathless as he crosses his arms over himself.

In the daytime, the recent weather has permitted him to wear modest attire more often than not. On the field, Robin’s suit is long-sleeved, armored, and shrouded with a cape. He designed it that way; it was modeled after his daily wear in Nanda Parbat.

He’s seen old photos of his brothers from each of their turns as Robin. He knows for a fact his own uniform is the most intricate and layered of any version that’s been created.

Here, he feels exposed. He considers giving in to the overwhelmingly strong urge to run in the opposite direction. Dignity is not his greatest concern at the moment.

Alfred’s cooking modifications have been working for Damian. He’s been able to stomach more, the plainer and less refined his food is. His meals exclusively consist of bland foods and whole foods.

He’s been objectively eating more this month. He knows he still doesn’t get as much as he needs on a daily basis, but …

He thought things were improving. The look on Tim’s face says otherwise.

“I am fine, Drake,” Damian insists. “It is none of your business,” he adds for good measure. It’s not Tim’s right to pry into his life like this.

Damian has it under control. He eats. Three times a day, and he keeps it down. Tim watches him do it too, on most mornings and evenings.

“You’re fine? With your, what? Measly bowl of oatmeal? Handful of trail mix? The closest thing to actual food I’ve seen you eat are some tofu tacos Alfred made, and they barely had any sauce in them,” Tim says. It’s accusatory. He’s upset.

Damian grows defense, bristling at Tim’s tone. “And what about that is the issue?”

“What about that is—Damian. I’m serious. This is going to get really bad, really fast. Why are you doing this?” Tim interrogates. “Did someone at school encourage you to?”

Damian has to refrain from impulsively yelling at Tim, because no, of course not. He’d dealt with teasing remarks from other children while he was growing up. He could handle their contempt and their jealousy and whatever else they had in store for him spurred on by his status as the heir to the Demon, because in the end, he’d be the one leading the League of Assassins, not them.

He would never do something like this to his own body because of someone else’s words.

“Do you think this is a choice?” Damian asks, incredulous. “That I want this for myself?”

Tim glares at him, but his confusion is evident. “Then what the hell are you doing? I’m not dumb, y’know. I can see what you’ve been putting on your plate. I’m also aware of every time you’re absent from the table.”

“I just—” Damian struggles to get the words out. He’s becoming weirdly emotional again. He’s been like this a lot lately: like his feelings aren’t his own; like they’re slipping out of the careful hold he would normally have on them. “I am trying, Drake.”

It’s not a lie. He’s been pushing himself to eat more since Bruce modified their training regimens. Damian’s been mindful of accommodating that. It’s turning out to be much harder in practice than in theory, but it doesn’t mean he hasn’t been making an effort. He wants Tim to see that.

Tim’s consternation is palpable. He keeps picking at a loose thread at the hem of his shirt like he doesn’t know what to do with his hands.

“Damian,” he begins, uncharacteristically earnest, “tell me what’s wrong, and we can work towards a solution.”

Damian grits his teeth. “Would you get it?” he asks bitterly.

He is not going to blame Tim for this. He can’t attribute his own struggles to another person. Nobody’s physically forcing him to engage in these habits of his. It’s nobody’s fault but his own that he is standing here, ten pounds lighter than what he used to be when he was healthy, having an uncomfortable conversation with someone he only nominally considers to be his brother.

That part he holds himself responsible for, and he even feels a little bad for his tone of voice, but it doesn’t mean he owes anything to Tim. There’s no reason Tim should want to help him, nor does Damian have any reason to accept.

Tim exhales sharply. “I don’t know, Damian. Would I get it? How about you let me know what’s going on and then I can give you an answer to that?”

His words are straightforward but unassuming.

Damian glares at him. He’s not sure how to respond without making it sound pathetic.

I am sure you must be thrilled to see this happen to me, would be a deplorable, self-pitying, and immature retort.

I have been stressed about my usefulness as Robin and my place in the family, would be nothing short of an insult, because at least he gets to be Robin.

I am having physiologic difficulty finishing my meals and keeping them down, would be a rehash of what Tim’s already picked up on, and, perhaps you should screw off and allow me to handle this myself, would permanently dissipate any goodwill Tim may have wanted to offer.

“I often find that calorie-dense foods do not settle well with me,” is what Damian ends up telling him, “and that this limitation inherently requires me to consume a larger volume of the foods I do eat.”

Tim’s brows furrow, and he opens his mouth to speak, but Damian doesn’t give him the chance to.

“This is no cause for concern, however,” he continues, “because I have been working to accommodate this.”

Tim frowns at him, considering. “So you can’t have, like, what? Things like fast food?”

“Yes,” Damian confirms. “Anything that is processed will not do.”

“And what about Alfred’s regular stuff?” Tim asks. “He makes them from scratch. Aren’t those fine?”

“I eat what Alfred makes,” Damian states defensively.

“You eat what he makes now,” Tim corrects, “after you’ve carefully instructed him to put together meals out of an extremely narrow bank of ingredients. So, why? Do you feel sick in any way? You probably haven’t met her, but Bruce has a primary care provider for the family—her name’s Leslie.”

Damian didn’t know that, but what he does know is that he doesn’t need to be seen by a doctor.

“This is what works best for me. I am fine, Drake,” Damian reiterates. And then, a little cheekily, he adds, “this is not your choice to make.”

Tim huffs. “I’m not saying it is, Damian. But this isn’t normal. And it’s … concerning.”

Tim says it like he’s not sure it’s actually the word he’s looking for, but the admission catches Damian off-guard nonetheless.

Damian knows he doesn’t look well. He’s aware of it every time he looks into the mirror. He knows Tim isn’t stupid, either. In fact, he’d even acknowledge that Tim can be more attentive than him in certain situations.

But Tim saying this aloud to him is a decision he’s actively making, and he’s being more upfront about the topic at hand than Alfred ever was. There is no sugarcoating.

Damian is out of his depth.

“I am not here to please you,” he snaps, his heartbeat so rapid and intense that each vibration is almost painful. “This should not concern you.”

Tim's hanging offer of assistance is reluctant at best, and Damian doesn’t want his help. He knows that much for certain. Maintaining an air of hostility between them is in both of their best interests.

Damian refuses to be sorry for this.

Tim seems to be ticked off after Damian’s reaction, but he works his jaw like he’s attempting to choose his next words carefully.

“Should your health impact your performance on the field,” Tim tells him coldly, “it will have to be my concern. In fact, it won’t just be me you’ll have to deal with. So how about you don’t let it get to that point?”

Damian’s cheeks heat up with humiliation, because Tim had no reservations in voicing what Damian’s been worried about the entire time: his ability to fight well as Robin. On nights he feels he’s doing great, Bruce is satisfied with his work at most.

Damian doesn’t want to know what Bruce will think if he can’t maintain this standard.

“Like I mentioned,” Damian replies with an air of finality, “I know what I am doing. Are we done here?”

Tim inhales and exhales deeply before he formulates a response. He completely ignores Damian’s question. “I want to show you something.”

“What is it now?” Damian asks, annoyed. If he were anyone else—any layman with less discipline instilled in them—he would have simply walked out already. But that is, regrettably, not the case.

Tim doesn’t give him an answer. He picks up one of Damian’s jackets and tosses it towards him.

Damian catches it, frowning at him.

Tim doesn’t look his way. He grabs his keys off the corner of his desk and walks over to his bedroom door, opening it. “Come with me.”

His strides are unnecessarily quick. Damian follows him down the hall and past the living room, to the far end of the house. Nobody comes this way unless they’re trying to do their laundry, or—

—they want to enter the garage.

“Are we going outside?” Damian hisses. “Do you know what time it is?”

Tim pushes the connecting door open and presses the button that opens the garage door. “Early enough that you were fine with going on a run.”

He reaches for a spare riding helmet on one of the storage racks pushed up against the wall of the garage, and proceeds to throw it backwards without looking, trusting Damian to catch it.

Damian does. “Drake, where are we going?” he demands.

Tim puts his own helmet on and starts the engine of his Kawasaki. “Not far. Now get on.”

Damian could say no. He could refuse. He could simply turn back, return to the comfort of his own bed, and act like the events of tonight didn’t happen. His usual dynamic with Tim would reach its equilibrium again and restore itself within the next few days.

Damian could facilitate that outcome. It would be the easy way out—the path of least resistance.

But Damian has always prided himself on his ability to learn and improve. He can appreciate a hard-earned accomplishment.

Which means he can recognize a new opportunity, and take on a good challenge, no matter how unexpected and twisted it presents itself.

He’s already followed Tim all the way here, and he’s at least eighty percent sure this isn’t a belated retaliatory assassination attempt via vehicular homicide, considering that Tim’s life is more at risk this way than Damian’s is.

“Alright,” Damian mutters resignedly, pulling his helmet over his face. He climbs onto the motorcycle behind Tim, feeling awkward. He stuffs his hands into his pockets.

“Wrap your arms around me, genius,” Tim instructs, “and hold on tight.”

Damian scoffs, repulsed by the physical contact, but he does so anyway.

They take off.

Tim is taller than him, so he takes the brunt of whatever cold air hits their direction. The streets in front of them are empty at this time of the day, but he drives slowly, likely for Damian’s peace of mind.

The thing about Wayne Manor is that it’s located on the outskirts of Gotham. It’s a hefty piece of land, and it’s isolated from the rest of the city. To even see a hint of civilization that doesn’t include the top 1% of Gotham’s wealthy individuals, you have to drive a few miles out.

Damian listens to the reverberating thrumming of the engine and feels the steady vibrations of the motorcycle’s wheels going over the imperfections of the road. He thinks Tim should invest in some earplugs.

They can’t speak to each other with all the external noise and with their helmets on, so Damian can’t ask any more pressing questions, but Tim was right about not going far. He pulls into the first gas station they encounter.

They stop at a parking spot. He isn’t even here to use a gas pump, it seems. Damian removes his helmet and steps off. He frowns at Tim.

“What are we doing here?” he asks while Tim dismounts.

Tim jabs his thumb at the convenience store. “Come on.”

“If you are buying necessities, I do not see why you needed to bring me,” Damian complains, but walking back home from here isn’t the most convenient course of action for him, so he accompanies Tim anyway.

They head inside. Tim makes a beeline for the beverage machines on the wall adjacent to the cash registers.

Damian watches as he grabs a plastic cup and begins filling it with an abomination of a drink that’s essentially crushed ice, food coloring, and syrup all in one concoction.

“A slushie, Drake?” Damian questions, unimpressed. “You are paying for sugar water.”

“Exactly. Don’t tell me you can’t digest something that’s ninety percent water,” Tim says. “And don’t give me that vegan excuse either—I assure you there’s nothing in this that comes from an animal.”

Damian’s eyes widen. Oh, hell no. “You want me to drink it? Buy it for yourself.”

“I’ll have one,” Tim agrees, “but you try this one.”

Damian scowls at him. “No thank you.”

Tim rolls his eyes. “Oh come on. I used to get these all the time after patrol with Steph a few years back. They hit different after a long day. You don’t have to finish it, but you’ve never had one before, have you?”

No, he hasn’t. Damian dubiously looks down at the offensive item in Tim’s hand.

Blue raspberry. It’s as if Tim was trying to choose the most unnaturally electric shade he could find.

“Which flavor does Stephanie prefer?” Damian asks, because he’d trust Stephanie’s judgment over Tim’s any day.

Tim points at the dispensing machine that’s currently cycling a light peach-colored blend. “Piña colada. You want that one instead?”

Damian doesn’t respond to him. He doesn’t need Tim to serve him like he’s a child.

He picks up the smallest disposable cup available and pulls the lever himself, filling his container a good three-fourths to the top before placing a lid on it. He grabs a straw that’s way too long for the cup and stabs it in with no intention of being gentle.

Tim, already drinking the blue raspberry slushie that Damian rejected, scrutinizes him, awaiting his reaction.

Damian takes a sip of his own slushie and finds the icy saccharine mix to be surprisingly refreshing.

(It does nothing to stave off the post-workout hunger that’s been bothering him the past thirty minutes.)

He takes another, longer sip.

The smirk that Tim gives in response is so subtle that if Damian were any less well-trained, he would’ve missed it.

He then briskly looks away from Tim, because if he doesn’t make the impression he saw it, Tim won’t be able to pull the I told you so card on him.

That would be beyond mortifying.

For a lack of something better to do, Damian stirs his straw around his cup absentmindedly with the dual purpose of passing the time and speeding up the process of the slush melting. His drink was more solid than Tim’s when he got it. He wonders whether they should go pay for these before they loiter too long.

Tim, in the meantime, stares pensively at a ceramic tile on the floor—one of the telltale signs of him being lost in a train of thought, but Damian has only ever seen him concentrate like this when he’s working on a case that’s been giving him trouble.

Whatever the reason, though, it always ends one way: with a conclusion.

Damian waits.

Tim clears his throat.

“I used to do cross country,” he informs Damian, apropos of nothing, “in high school. Before I dropped out.” He pauses to take a sip from his straw. “I wasn’t the fastest, nor the most competitive, but it was fun, and some of our longer runs would be like, what, seven miles? Maybe a little more. And for those sessions, they’d give us these—here, come with me.”

Tim begins striding over to one of the aisles towards the back of the convenience store, where the snacks are sold.

Damian's curiosity supersedes his hesitancy. He walks in tow.

They pause at the corner of the rack where the protein bars are stacked. Tim crouches down to reach for something from the bottommost shelf.

It’s a small sealed plastic pouch akin to those free samples of skincare Damian has seen Stephanie use before.

“This,” Tim says, holding it up for him to read, “is an energy gel.”

Damian glances at it. “What purpose does it serve?”

He’s seen the caffeine shots Tim occasionally leaves empty containers of inside the Batcave’s training room, but they don’t look like these. They’ve always been packaged in bottles.

Tim flips the packet over so Damian can see the ingredients list.

“It’s pure glucose,” Tim explains, “which is pretty much the quickest acting energy source you can get. It's helpful for when you run—especially long distances.”

Before Damian can respond, Tim stoops back down and grabs two more without reading the flavors. He pushes them into Damian’s free hand.

“I promise you they’ll do you some good,” Tim says. “These saved my ass multiple times in competitive races.”

As much as Damian wants to put them back and tell Tim it’s a waste of money, because he won’t use them anyway, something stops him. He frowns, turning them over in his hand, considering.

He supposes that anything that’ll benefit his physical performance is worth a shot. He can always do more research into it when he gets home, just to make sure these actually work and that they aren’t some sort of marketing gimmick.

“Alright.”

Seemingly pleased with Damian’s answer, Tim tilts his head in the direction of the jaded-looking employee working the overnight solo shift. “Let’s go. I’ll pay for our stuff.”

---

It takes Damian one week, and two instances of falling off the treadmill from a sudden bout of lethargy throwing him off pace, before he’s willing to use an energy gel.

He settles for the vanilla flavor. The other two that Tim bought him are lime and peanut butter. Damian decides to stick with the more traditional option; he doesn’t want his first impression of these to discourage him from trying more.

Before he begins his warm-up stretches, he tears the packet open with his teeth and squeezes the contents of it into his mouth. It’s artificially sweet and jelly-like, but it’s not particularly bad. It mimics vanilla pudding. The amount is so miniscule that whatever he could’ve found gross about it wouldn't have mattered either way.

He tosses the plastic wrapper away and gets to work.

He reaches down to touch his toes, feeling the burn in his hamstrings, right as someone walks into the cave’s gym.

He doesn’t look up yet, but he’d prefer if it wasn’t Tim, hopes it’s not Jason, and very much prays it’s not Bruce.

“Hey, Dami,” a familiar voice calls out.

Damian smiles, straightening up. His anxiety dissipates. “Richard.”

Dick grins at him, coming in for a hug. “I haven’t come by in a few days. Been busy with work, but I’m sure you’ve had a lot on your plate too. Anyhow, It’s really good to see you.”

“You too,” Damian tells him, returning the embrace. Something flat and flexible—probably a folder—makes contact with his back.

When they pull apart, he can see what it is that Dick is holding onto: a file. He also takes note of Dick’s navy blue officer uniform. He must’ve come here directly from his job in Blüdhaven. He doesn’t seem like he’s here to work out, only that he’s passing by the gym to drop something off in the cave.

“Are there any new developments?” Damian asks, because he knows that GCPD has been narrowing down the license plate combinations as the month has been progressing. They’ve interviewed a good dozen or so people, and all suspects so far have been cleared.

“Yeah, actually,” Dick updates him, opening the folder. “This was a pain in the ass to obtain, because I don’t work for the city of Gotham, but I had one of my buddies there make copies of the documents. This is the unscrambled license plate sequence.”

Within the content of the first page, a bolded portion of the printed text reads M06 VTK.

Below it, there are some dated photographs of what the corresponding car looks like, with most of the images being some low-quality street view capture. Damian notices that none of the dates listed are recent, with the newest one being nearly two years ago.

“This is what we’re supposedly looking for,” Dick explains. “It’s a black Honda Civic belonging to a civilian named Gabriel Collins. According to him, he had this car stolen from him almost twenty months ago. He didn’t know what happened to it after that, and upon further investigation, GCPD found that it was last known to be at a scrapyard, though they think it didn’t arrive there until extremely recently. Regardless, the car was totaled. It’s not supposed to be in use anymore.”

Something clicks in Damian’s mind. “A scrapyard was where Cluemaster was first spotted in August.”

“Exactly,” Dick says in accordance. “That’s where they think he got it from. However, there’s no way he should’ve been able to operate it, let alone get it from one place to another. They haven’t found a car with this plate number anywhere yet, but they’re keeping an eye out.”

Damian nods. Although they aren’t as close to solving the case as he would have liked, they’ve made good progress. “We will keep looking, then.”

“That’s right, little D,” Dick affirms, giving Damian a firm pat on the back. “I gotta get this file over to Bruce, so I’ll catch you later, yeah? You were about to get a workout in, right?”

“Yes,” Damian tells him. “I need to complete a run. I will see you, Richard.”

“Okay. Good luck, Dami!” Dick says with a salute as he makes for the exit. “Be sure to set a PR!”

After Dick leaves, Damian steps on the treadmill and adjusts the speed and the incline to his preference. He picks a pace he knows he can maintain for at least half an hour, then he begins.

The initial ten minutes are easy. He doesn’t really start breaking a sweat until he’s a couple minutes in. He keeps his breaths steady: in through the nose, out through the mouth. He has one earbud in, playing the latest pop song he found on his music app. He’s been trying to familiarize himself with American music artists lately—the so-called “celebrities”. He still has yet to check on the playlist Stephanie sent him a few days ago.

Time passes by without him really noticing. He’s lost in thought when the treadmill beeps at the milestone of twenty minutes, prompting Damian to look down at the electronic display.

Usually, it’s around this mark that he begins decreasing the speed, or lowering the incline, so that he can cool down and take it easy for the final stretch. He feels the familiar burn in his calves, but it isn’t something that comes to the forefront of his awareness like it normally does. Similarly, the ever-present ache of shin splints are there, but he’s only thinking about them right now out of habit, rather than necessity.

“Huh,” he comments quietly to himself with a touch of fascination. Maybe Tim was onto something.

Not that Damian would ever admit that to his face.

The final third of Damian’s run goes by smoothly. He doesn’t change any of the customization options—he ends with the same settings he started with. When he steps off the treadmill, he finds himself spent, but feeling rather good about it.

As he performs his routine cooldown stretches, he basks in the post-exercise endorphins. He works out nearly daily, but it’s always been from a standpoint of discipline. It’s very rare that it’s because he actually takes a thrill in it, especially if it’s just practice, when he isn’t learning new skills the same way he did when he used to train in martial arts day in and day out.

But this session was objectively good. It was really, really nice for him to have been able to experience it this way.

---

“I see you’ve been enjoying your spot on the grass, Master Damian,” Alfred greets from somewhere behind.

Damian’s been sitting criss-crossed on the manor’s front lawn for the past twenty minutes. His bucket of hard-earned Halloween candy sits by his feet. He fiddles with an empty lollipop wrapper that came from the only piece of candy he consumed this evening.

Twenty minutes ago, Jon left to go back home. In the weeks leading up to today, Damian wasn’t sure if he even wanted to celebrate Halloween; he found the occasion to be rather childish and irreverent towards the dead. Additionally, he knew he couldn’t be out for long before he needed to get ready for patrol, which made the holiday less worth it to attend.

Jon convinced him to dress up for trick-or-treating nevertheless, and insisted that they seek candy from Damian’s surrounding neighborhoods instead of his own because you live right next to other rich people, Damian; this is where we can actually obtain full-sized chocolate bars and reiterated that it would be the most convenient option because I can fly my way back home at Mach 10 and you can’t, so it makes more sense if I came over anyway.

Trick-or-treating was a rather successful endeavor, and a much better one than Damian anticipated. He’d even dare to say that he’s grateful for Jon’s persistence.

The grass behind Damian crunches under light footsteps.

“Good evening, Alfred,” Damian finally responds.

He has to turn his head all the way to the left to actually see Alfred approach because the eyepatch that came with his pirate costume completely blocks out his vision on that side.

Alfred smiles softly at him as he comes to take a seat in front of him. He gestures at Damian's candy bucket. “Mind if I have one?”

“Not at all.” Damian pushes the container closer to the older man. In fact, he’d be happy to have someone lighten the load for him.

Alfred picks out a piece of banana-flavored taffy. “Would you like to share this with me?”

Damian presses his lips into a thin line, considering the offer. It’s a very small piece. Although he likes bananas as a fruit, he knows the artificial flavorings never actually match what they’re mimicking.

Patrol begins very soon, however, and it’d be better for him to have something in his system before going on his shift.

“Sure.”

Alfred unwraps the taffy and breaks it down the center, handing one bendy, malleable half to Damian.

Damian accepts it and grimaces at how it sticks to his teeth when he tries to chew it. He lets it sit on the interior of one of his cheeks so that it can melt in his mouth instead.

Alfred chews his own half of the candy peacefully.

Damian picks at a blade of grass. “I have to head inside in five minutes,” he informs Alfred, although he knows he doesn’t need to say it.

“Yes,” Alfred acknowledges. “I merely wished to see how you were doing.”

“I am good,” Damian tells him, wondering if his choice to sit on the ground while waiting around was an unintentional cause for concern. “I had nothing else to do before nine-thirty.”

Alfred raises an eyebrow in jest. “Bored, Master Damian? How uncharacteristic of you.”

Damian huffs half-heartedly, giving Alfred a small smile. “You do not appear as if you have something better to do either, if your presence here implies anything.”

“Well,” Alfred begins, “if Master Bruce hadn't chosen to keep the estate fenced off, perhaps I would have been attending to the young trick-or-treaters instead.”

Damian supposes he may have joined Alfred in handing out candy, had that been the case. “Is this Father’s typical course of action for Halloween?”

Looking rueful, Alfred shakes his head.

“In the past half decade, yes. Before that, however, he used to accompany Master Jason outside annually. And even earlier, he would do the same for Master Dick. He even hand-designed some of their costumes in certain years. Imagine Master Jason’s surprise when he dressed up in a tailored racing suit at the age of fourteen, only to find that Master Bruce had built a fully-functional kart for him as well,” Alfred recalls, winking at Damian.

Alfred doesn’t need to say it aloud for Damian to surmise why Bruce stopped celebrating Halloween. Grief can be an all-consuming adversary. Oftentimes, the consequences of such an experience are permanent, even as circumstances change and improve in the future.

He wonders whether Tim dressed up in a costume during his teenage years, even though Damian knows that Tim chose to stay home tonight.

“That seems like a large amount of work,” Damian tells Alfred, “but I am sure Richard and Todd appreciated it.”

“They certainly did.” Alfred smiles. “Your father can be very thoughtful when he puts his heart into a task.”

And where is that thoughtfulness now? Damian thinks bitterly, perhaps a little indignantly.

The cellphone in his back pocket vibrates with his daily patrol reminder, signalling that it’s time to put his uniform on.

Damian takes his phone out dutifully and silences the notification. He glances over at Alfred. “I must go. Have a good night, Alfred.”

Alfred gives him a firm nod. “Stay safe, Master Damian.”

---

That night, it becomes morbidly clear why GCPD failed to physically track down Cluemaster’s car in time despite knowing the make and model of it, and having pinpointed the license plate combination.

The monstrosity that pulls into a cramped street of The Narrows at 9:53 PM—seven minutes too early for Batman or any of them to have officially begun patrol yet—is not what a Honda Civic looks like.

The barebones frame of it, sure. But the overall vehicle is a Frankenstinian abomination of a car. It’s a dreadfully ugly thing made with dozens of mismatched components. Each door is a different color. Paint is stripped from half the hood. The grill’s metal is bent and snapped off in several spots. The trunk has no cover.

The only windows that are intact are the ones that shield the driver: Cluemaster.

Batman doesn’t even give them enough time to finish watching the surveillance footage before he’s ushering them out of the Batcave and into the Batmobile. The last thing that Damian sees on screen is the amount of blood that splatters over the windshield of Cluemaster’s car.

“Go!” Batman orders. “We are assisting GCPD and emergency services with the aftermath of a vehicle-ramming attack. I will be driving us to the intersection of Merrick and Union. From there, we will dismount and attend to the victims.”

It was a full house in the cave today, save for Barbara, who always operates from her base at the Clocktower. By some stroke of coincidence, it was today that Dick chose to visit the manor, today that Jason needed to restock on ammo he didn’t feel like paying for with his own money, and today Tim had invited Stephanie over to play the newest release of a co-op video game, so they all prepared for patrol simultaneously when it was time.

Only that it’s now no longer a patrol, but a full-blown mission.

Damian’s still adjusting his domino mask when he gets sandwiched in between Nightwing and Red Hood in the second row of seats. Red Robin claims shotgun while Spoiler is climbing over the headrests to access the third row behind them. Damian narrowly avoids her boot coming towards his face as she does so.

“Take it easy, B!” Spoiler exclaims as the Batmobile’s sudden acceleration sends her tumbling into the seats.

“Put your seatbelt on,” Red Hood demands.

“What do you think I’m trying to do, smartass?” she ripostes. “It would help if we didn’t have a reckless driver behind the wheel.”

Batman ignores her and continues briefing them without taking his eyes off the road. “As per standard mission protocol, I will be dividing our team into pairs. Hood, you will work with Robin. Nightwing with Spoiler. I will stick with Red Robin. All of you are to keep your communication devices on at all times—both the voice input and audio output. You will follow instructions from myself and Oracle—especially Oracle, as she is the one receiving live updates from Gotham’s emergency dispatchers.”

Oracle’s voice chimes in through their earpieces. She’s finally online.

"Hey everyone,” she greets, and Damian has to turn up the volume on his device to actually be able to hear her over the revving of the Batmobile’s engine as they go double the speed limit. "Listen carefully. Dispatchers are estimating that there are about two dozen victims. It’s a holiday in a pedestrian-dense street—there were a bunch of people out tonight. Cluemaster plowed directly into a crowded sidewalk. This is essentially a large-scale hit-and-run. We don’t know how many mortalities there are yet, but the ones with injuries need immediate first-aid. Treat each person with equal importance, dead or alive. They’re working on getting more ambulances at the scene. Just a heads up: it’s not going to be pretty. But now isn’t the time to be squeamish.”

“I’m not worried about that. This is my line of work,” Red Hood comments humorlessly.

Damian sucks in a breath. He’s no stranger to witnessing death. He’d observed it plenty of times in the League, usually in battle, and usually regarding the opposition. Less commonly, it’d be a casualty of one of his comrades.

Very rarely did he witness executions of his own people, but when it happened, it was an apt punishment for treason.

The few times Damian had to kill, he can recall with astonishing clarity. Still, those actions were typical of any child who grew up in the League of Assassins, and it was what was defined as normal for him. It was expected, and more significantly, it was dutiful.

But even with these experiences under his belt, Damian is caught off-guard by what he sees when he steps out of the Batmobile after they arrive at their destination.

There is blood everywhere. It’s on the pavement of the road and the concrete of the sidewalk. It’s smeared in the pattern of tire tracks and frantic footsteps.

It’s a sickening and oddly mismatched sight. Like an urban first-world battleground.

“Holy fuck,” Spoiler hisses from beside him with all the horror of a nineteen-year-old who knows the perpetrator too well to compartmentalize the crime as just another news story. She shoves Nightwing, her assigned partner, into action. “Move! Come on!”

Nightwing, snapping back to his senses, takes off in a run alongside Spoiler, heading for the closest ambulance that’s setting up a stretcher.

Batman does the same with an astounded Red Robin.

“Let’s go,” he growls, ushering his son into motion.

Wordlessly, Damian gets to work as well, following after Red Hood as they make their way to a young boy lying limp on the ground. His arm had been crushed under the force of two tons, but the rest of his body was untouched. The main concern here would be blood loss. Red Hood shoves a few civilians out of the way.

“Quit crowding!” he barks at the circle of bystanders as he leans down to check on the child. The kid’s mother is hovering over him, sobbing and mumbling something incoherent, but she makes space for him too. He presses his fingers to the boy’s neck, confirming a pulse. “Robin. Get a cloth from EMS.”

“Roger.” Damian sprints over to the nearest ambulance and looks for what he needs. There aren’t nearly enough staff on site right now—he can’t ask them to load the child into a vehicle yet. They’ll just have to perform first aid for the time being.

He returns, supplies in hand, to where Red Hood is situated, and applies direct pressure on where the bleeding is coming from, trying his best not to jostle the kid’s arm unnecessarily. It needs to be immobilized after the bleeding stops.

In the distance, Damian can both hear and see the backup coming.

Red Hood picks up on as much, because he mutters a quick “thank fuck” under his breath.

Two paramedics come up to them shortly afterwards to take over. Damian and Red Hood take this as their cue to switch over to the next victim. They move fast, having no time to spare.

The next civilian they approach is an older man. His body is all mangled—the aftermath of having been compressed between a tire and the pavement. There isn’t a lot of blood, but there are burn patterns. Hot rubber against human skin. His clothes are filthy with melted latex.

His face is the worst part.

Red Hood, having stooped down to check on him, glances up at Damian. “No need for EMS. The coroner will take care of this later.”

Dead, then.

Damian feels sick. This isn’t a clean death. It’s vile. It’s the work of someone who did this for show, above all else.

They move on.

The next person they reach is a little further away: a woman, conscious, curled up by a building. There are profound scrapes all over her, and her clothes are torn up from friction at the points where the fabric made contact with the ground.

She must not have been a direct hit, but instead flung from the force of the attack within the crowd.

“Ma’am,” Damian says as he approaches. “Are you able to stand?”

The woman sniffles, shaking her head.

“Alright,” Red Hood says. “We’ll lift you and bring you over to the nearest ambulance. Try not to move. You think you got any broken bones?”

She shakes her head again, but seems too choked up to respond verbally.

“Thanks for letting us know. Bear with us. Robin, get her legs. I’ve got her upper body,” Red Hood instructs as Damian rushes over to support the woman’s knees.

Together, they manage to lift her over to a stretcher that’s just been set up a good few yards away. In the process, the woman is nothing short of cooperative, and Damian is grateful.

When they’re done with that and they begin heading towards their next goal, Damian stretches out his arms, shaking off the feeling of lactic acid building up in them. He wipes the sweat from his palms off on his cape.

Up next is a heavyset man lying on the concrete. There’s blood lining his scalp, but no other significant injuries are visible. Head trauma.

“Same drill,” Red Hood tells Damian.

Damian nods, and they get to work.

Red Hood gives a small grunt as he supports the majority of the man’s weight. Damian takes a deep breath, hinges his hips, and bends his knees. He’s performed a deadlift with a barbell enough times to know how to lift something—or, in this case, someone—hefty while minimizing the strain on his back.

It’s still significantly more weight than he’s used to. He grits his teeth as he focuses on maintaining his tight grip on the man. He takes side steps, careful to keep a steady stride.

Sweat begins beading at his hairline, and even his legs are starting to feel the strain on top of how much his arms are killing him.

When they finally get the victim over to EMS, Damian lets out a lengthy exhale. He runs his fingers through his hair, his heart thumping in his chest. His entire sympathetic nervous system is running at full strength.

“You good?” Red Hood asks, rolling his shoulders, sounding similarly out of breath, but to a lesser degree.

“Yes,” Damian replies briskly. He fidgets with his hands, stretching his fingers and cracking one of his knuckles.

Red Hood nods. “Let’s continue.”

And so they go.

They approach a second woman, also conscious.

She’s clearly in distress, however. She’s young—likely in her early twenties.

She’s cradling her left leg, sobbing and saying something Damian can’t decipher.

“Miss. We’re here to help you get to emergency services, okay?” Red Hood says to her in an attempt to placate.

“No!” she shouts, shoving at Red Hood’s shin. He doesn’t budge.

“I know this is scary,” Red Hood tells her, couching down so he’s at her level. “But we’re here to help you. We want you to get medical attention as soon as possible, and to accomplish that, we need to work together, yeah?”

In the interim, Damian rubs at one of his eyes, feeling oddly lightheaded. He blinks a few times to clear his vision.

The civilian chokes out through tears, “My leg—the bone—I’m—”. Unable to finish her sentence, she continues to cry.

“I understand your leg’s broken. I’ll hold onto your arms, but my teammate here, Robin, will be gentle with your legs. And then the paramedics will wrap your injury and bring you to the hospital. How does that sound?” Red Hood negotiates.

She isn’t able to get any words out, but she does let go of the tight clutch she had on her leg to bury her face in her hands instead, and that’s their cue to carry. Damian looks over at Red Hood and receives his confirmation in the form of a firm nod.

They get into position.

Damian lifts the legs of the woman while Red Hood holds onto her arms. Standard procedure. This is the third time Damian’s doing this, and he adjusts his grip perfectly by rote.

It’s only when he’s halfway to a standing position that he’s hit with a very sudden wave of vertigo. It happens so fast and so intensely that it startles him. His knees hit the ground before he can even process what’s happening, and he has to let go of the victim’s legs to brace himself for the fall.

Fuck. He’s going to get in so much trouble for that.

He blinks several times, trying to dissipate the blurriness in his field of vision as he attempts to focus on the pavement.

As if it couldn’t get any worse, he starts seeing black spots.

Not good.

He squeezes his eyes shut, forcing himself to take deep breaths. This is awful timing. This is really, really bad.

Someone tries to speak to him but it all sounds like white noise. He doesn’t want to think about how undignified this must look from the outside.

He has to really concentrate to not let himself slip any further.

“—obin. Robin.”

Damian opens his eyes a little bit, still squinting. He comes face-to-face with Red Hood, who is crouched down in front of him. The civilian they were working on lifting is no longer here. Someone else must’ve filled in for Damian. Someone else had to take care of his mishap.

Red Hood snaps his fingers in front of Damian’s face. “Talk to me,” he insists. “What happened?”

Damian grimaces. “Nothing.”

He forces himself to stand even though the ground beneath him is still spinning.

That’s when he realizes that Red Hood isn’t the only one privy to his predicament.

Oracle speaks over comms. “Is something going on?"

“No,” Damian unconvincingly replies. He leans forward, bracing his shaky hands on his knees, trying hard to balance himself to avoid pitching forward.

Red Hood, noticing, grabs onto both of his upper arms and proceeds to steer him out of the way of the first responders they are distracting from their work. Together, they stumble into an alleyway opening a few feet away. Red Hood situates Damian so that his back leans against a wall, providing him with support.

“What’s happening?” Spoiler asks redundantly.

At the same time, Batman demands, “Report, Robin.”

“There is nothing to report,” Damian snaps reflexively despite knowing his attitude will land him in hot water after this is all over.

But Batman doesn’t split the team into pairs for no reason, and his next words are a sharp reminder of that.

“Red Hood, report,” he states, turning to the one other person who would actually have an insight into the situation.

Damian pulls at his hair, frustrated. He glares at Red Hood to no avail.

“Robin isn’t feeling great, B,” Red Hood, the traitor, informs the others. He eyes Damian carefully. “The field is a little overwhelming right now. We’re just gonna sit out for a minute, yeah?”

“I do not need to rest,” Damian argues, even though he very much does not want to pass out, and going back there right now would put him in danger of having such a thing happen to him.

Batman seemingly backs him up. “There is no time to waste,” he states coldly, addressing Red Hood. “There are still several civilians who need our assistance. Get them to safety. Now.”

“I don’t know if you heard me the first time,” Red Hood bites out firmly, “but Robin isn’t feeling well. We’re taking a breather.”

“Let him sit out, B,” Nightwing reinforces, his voice slightly panicky despite being unyielding, “but, Hood, would you be able to go back alone?”

Red Hood is silent for a bit as he takes another good look at Damian, as if he’s debating whether leaving Damian here by himself is a good idea.

“I do not need to sit out,” Damian says more obstinately than what’s good for him. “I can help.”

“No, you can’t,” Red Hood retorts. “That’s not the best idea for you right now.”

“And why is that?” Batman questions, a tinge of annoyance in his voice. “Do not forget we have an objective.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Red Hood says sarcastically. “Maybe because lifting people onto stretchers isn’t exactly light work, Batman, and Robin needs a break.”

“B, the police are still trying to figure out where Cluemaster went,” Spoiler offers as an alternative. “Don’t forget they need our help with that too. Can’t we just send Robin over to speak to them? It’ll be easier on him for the time being.”

“Yeah, let him,” Nightwing agrees without hesitation.

In his following reply, Batman sounds livid. “You will not disobey—”

“—Batman.” Red Robin, who had been silent up until now, cuts in sharply. The intensity of his voice startles Damian. “The majority of the victims are significantly heavier and larger than Robin. Some of them are twice, if not triple, his body weight. You will allow him to assist law enforcement instead of medical.”

Red Robin isn’t making a suggestion. His words are those of a command.

Stunned, Damian finds himself speechless, and he doesn’t seem to be the only one. Where there was previously rapid-fire chatter over comms a few seconds ago, only silence fills the space now.

Damian subconsciously holds his breath in anticipation, but Batman is the one who needs to respond, and he is the one who does.

“Very well,” Batman concedes, his tone neutral in a way that’s forced. Guarded. It sends a shiver down Damian’s spine. “Hood, I trust that you can handle it from there.”

Damian looks over at Red Hood, wide-eyed. He’s thankful that his domino mask conceals half his expression.

Red Hood’s helmet reveals nothing of his face, but Damian knows from the angle that Jason is looking dead-center at him.

With a flick of his hand, Red Hood turns his microphone input off. Damian thinks it might be futile anyway because of how close he is to Damian’s own earpiece.

“If you happen to need me, come find me,” he orders. “Understood?”

Damian, still reeling from the nonstop sequence of things happening, nods his head vigorously.

Without saying anything else, Red Hood turns around and returns to the field, not wasting any more time in getting back to assisting the first responders.

“Affirmative. Back to work, everyone,” Red Hood says over comms, having activated them again shortly after he exited Damian's line of sight.

The tension over the line dwindles little by little. Slowly but surely, the Bats’ usual conversations, codes, and instructions are relayed over comms once again as things return back to normal.

Damian exhales shakily and begins his walk over to one end of the sectioned-off portion of the street, where police cars form a barricade. He still feels slightly off-kilter and unbalanced, but the lack of muscular exertion now eases things by a large margin.

He focuses on taking his steps one at a time, and he finds that he feels better with every passing second.

A few cops perk up at his approach.

“Robin!” one of the officers calls out from where he’s situated next to two of his colleagues, one of whom is photographing something in the other’s hands. “We picked something up—a message for the Bats. Take a look. Does this mean anything to you?”

Damian frowns, hastening his pace until he’s close enough to see what they’re holding up.

It’s a fast food meal box—one of those cardboard ones with a kids’ toy inside of it.

Damian hasn’t been to a fast food chain in months, but it doesn’t take a genius to recognize that it’s from a Batburger.

Damian stares at the overwhelming amount of question marks scribbled all over the exterior of the box with a permanent marker.

Another clue.

As if the events today weren't already disturbing enough.

Chapter Text

“It is a mild sprain at most,” Damian insists to the school nurse his teacher had sent him to. “It will heal completely within the next few weeks. I should be able to write again much sooner than that.”

“That’s great and all, Damian,” the nurse—Ms. Soviero—tells him as she’s rapidly scribbling something down on an incident report form, “but you’re going to have to get your wrist evaluated further than what I can do for you here. I’ll have to send you home for today.”

Jon swings his feet back and forth off the side of the examination table that he’s sitting on beside Damian. He’d insisted on tagging along for moral support, despite Damian’s exasperated protests.

Damian can’t believe he got himself into this situation. He wouldn’t have if he’d just thought it through. If he wasn’t so sleep-deprived.

If last night’s mission hadn’t lasted until five in the morning.

(Having given an excuse to go wash his face hastily in the bathroom sink before making his way back to the Batcave, Damian was exhausted. It was a bone-deep tiredness that no amount of pinching his arm, nor splashing water on his face could fix. He needed to sleep, but Bruce had called for a team debrief, and Damian had no say in the matter.

He only managed to get a few steps down before he encountered Jason, who was waiting near the top of the stairwell. Jason turned to face him, his full body blocking Damian’s path.

“Go to sleep,” Jason instructed. “Bruce is being stupid. You don’t have to listen to him. Just go.”

Damian frowned at him. “What do you mean?” he asked, because he wasn’t about to be misled by Jason when in the end, it would be him who had to face the consequences of skipping a debrief. Not Jason. Himself. Damian tried to scoot through an opening to the right. “Please let me through.”

Jason took a step to the side to match him, effectively blocking him again. “No. I’m serious. He’s being melodramatic—he’s always like this. You just haven’t worked with him long enough to know it yet. Whatever he thinks is urgent is never actually that time-sensitive. He’ll rant to us about everything before tomorrow’s patrol. Besides, Babs already logged off a while ago. Dick and Steph aren’t even here.”

On the topic of Dick and Stephanie, Damian could hear some heated shouting from further down. Tim and Bruce were speaking to each other loudly enough that their words reverberated throughout the entire cave.

“—you know why they aren’t here, B? Because they fuckin’ have school, and work, and various other things in their lives that dont involve being out all night and sleeping in all day because they’re not the CEOs of some multi-billion dollar company. So how about you calm the fuck down? We did everything we could. GCPD is still handling the aftermath. Your criticism can wait until tomorrow,” Tim yelled, his voice sounding hoarse from overuse after having been out on the field for hours. “You’re so goddamn difficult to work with sometimes.”

Jason, having tuned into the conversation as well, shrugged at Damian while Bruce began shouting some response to Tim about “civilians dying” and “everyone’s combined lack of discipline”.

“See?” Jason commented. “Like I said, he’s just being stupid. He’s wasting even more time now. So go catch some sleep, and don’t worry about going to school in the morning.”

In that given moment, Damian was worn out enough to listen to Jason. He turned around, and with aching legs, climbed the few steps up to get back into the manor.

He only stopped by the doorway when Jason asked one last question: “You’re sure you’re fine, right?”

His phrasing was nonchalant, but there was an unmistakable tinge of concern within his words.

“Yes,” Damian told him, not for the first time that day. He’d been interrogated the entire car ride back home. As he spoke, Damian didn’t turn around; he continued walking. “I am good.”)

Well, Damian was originally going to listen. In actuality, it wasn’t that he didn’t heed Jason’s advice, but that he only did so up to the part where he was told he should take a day off from school.

Damian didn’t take the day off.

What he did do was sleep for an hour until his scheduled alarm woke him up, and then forced himself to get ready despite feeling like he was ready to faceplant onto the ground at any given second.

Before he left the house, he took a few spoonfuls of instant coffee from a container within a kitchen cabinet that he knew belonged to Tim, and proceeded to mix it all into a mug of hot water that he made himself drink despite how utterly disgusting the bitter mixture was.

All he cared about was that it worked, at least to the extent that he felt like he could function again.

It didn’t, however, prevent him from being tackled by one of his classmates at gym class out on the football field. It didn’t prevent him from having diminished reflexes that were slow enough to allow such a thing to happen in the first place. And it certainly didn’t prevent the way he landed haphazardly at an angle, bringing one arm out to brace himself.

He hadn’t thought much about the sharp pain in his wrist that occurred from the fall until he found himself unable to catch a football for the rest of the game without having his nerves set alight every time he tried. And later on during his afternoon classes, he found himself unable to write with a pencil for the same reason.

All of which brings him here. He’s waiting for Ms. Soviero’s green light so that he can be dismissed for the day.

“I already told you,” Damian relays to an overly-astounded Jon for the third time today, because there’s apparently nothing more interesting to talk about to pass the time. “Cluemaster drove his car into the Finger River. He was not inside of it when it sank. The police division in the Narrows is notorious for being perpetually underfunded and understaffed, and on top of everything else they needed to take care of last night, they were unsuccessful in tracking down where he escaped to. However, we should be hearing about some leads soon.”

He says it in a half-whisper even though they’re the only ones inside of the nurse’s office right now; said nurse had exited to use the landline in the front office of the school, temporarily leaving them alone with the assurance that she’d be back in a few minutes. If Damian is ever to be outed as Robin one day, it certainly wouldn’t be due to his own oversight in being discreet about his vigilante activities when having discussions in public spaces.

Damian had been keeping up with the current events on his phone every chance he got throughout the school day, and whatever he wasn’t already reading up on, some kid in his classroom made sure everyone was informed of. There had been non-stop chatter on the topic of Cluemaster all day long. At this point, it’s no longer city news—it’s national.

“I can’t believe they were so slow, though!” Jon exclaims. “You said he left a trail of debris, right? And tire marks and all that?”

“Yes,” Damian confirms. “The car was essentially useless after what he put it through.”

There had been bits of metal and glass spread across the streets in the few miles leading up to the river. The engine was done for long before it was submerged in water: there were traces of soot and char on what was left of the vehicle that was recovered, suggesting that it’d been on fire shortly before it was dumped.

Melted rubber was left smeared on the asphalt of multiple streets. The tires that were affixed to the car weren’t designed to withstand the heat generated from its speed—they were likely cheap and not road-safe, probably obtained from some manufacturer’s scrapped batch that didn’t pass quality control.

It was evident that Cluemaster hadn’t cared about the longevity of his car, as long as he could accomplish what he set out to do.

“You could’ve gotten help from my dad, you know. Or even me!” Jon tells him, like it could have been that easy. “Why didn’t Batman call the Justice League? Or anyone, for that matter?”

Damian sighs in exasperation. The caffeine from this morning is rapidly approaching its half-life. “Too many questions, Jonathan.”

Too many questions that he doesn’t know the answer to. For someone who frequently works within a team, Bruce has always seemed too independent for his own good, and Damian’s not sure it’s realistic to expect him to change ideals that are already so deeply ingrained within him.

“I’m sorryyy.” Jon draws out the word, looking pouty. “I’m just so interested. I know it was really bad, and that having backup wouldn’t have changed what Cluemaster did, but I just think that Batman could have handled it differently.”

“You and me both,” Damian mumbles, right as Ms. Soviero re-enters the room.

“Okay, Damian,” she announces, “your father will come by to pick you up in ten minutes.”

“What?” Damian asks, his head snapping up to meet her gaze. “Why did you call him?”

He assumed that when she said she was going to make a phone call, that she’d just call Alfred, or someone who actually had the time of the day to spare. Moreover, why would Bruce agree to come get him in the middle of a weekday? Damian knows how to make his way to and from school just fine. The public transportation system more than suffices for him.

The idea of Bruce coming to get him sets Damian on edge. He was not anticipating this.

“He’s your primary emergency contact,” Ms. Soviero replies, raising an eyebrow at him. “According to your school records, at least. There wasn’t another parent listed. I would’ve only moved on to your secondary contracts had your father not picked up on my first try.”

Damian runs his fingers through his hair nervously, trying to take the news in stride. There’s nothing he can do about it now if Bruce is already en route.

He doesn’t want to think about it.

He distracts himself by talking to Jon for the next few minutes while Ms. Soviero leaves yet again—this time to get him an ice pack from the cafeteria, claiming that it’d help with any swelling that might occur.

When he receives the ice pack after she comes back, he holds it against his wrist, focusing all his attention on the way condensation forms against his skin, and how the frigidity grounds him. He very much doesn't count down the minutes in his head that lead up to when the door to the room opens again.

Damian comes face-to-face with Bruce, and he feels like he can’t breathe. Anxiety ramps his heart rate up and makes him feel jittery, almost like a second dose of caffeine.

“Father,” he says, hoping that his voice belies nothing.

Jon stares in awe at the renowned billionaire clad in a tailored suit that Damian often forgets not everyone shares the same suffocating living space with. “Mr. Wayne,” Jon greets.

Bruce glances at Damian, then at Ms. Soviero.

“It was a sprained wrist, you mentioned?” Bruce double-checks with her.

“Yes, sir,” she tells him, looking a little nervous in his presence. She takes a piece of paper off her clipboard and hands it to him. “This is a referral for his primary care provider. Please take him at your earliest convenience.”

“Understood. Thank you,” Bruce tells her, taking the sheet. He then proceeds to reach for Damian’s backpack, which Damian had left on one of the empty chairs by the door. He lifts it by one of its straps and motions for Damian to follow him out, seemingly prepared to leave already. “Have a good rest of your afternoon, ma’am. And to you too, Jonathan.”

“Thank you, sir!” Jon exclaims to Bruce before he waves at Damian. “See ya tomorrow, Damian.”

“Goodbye, Jonathan.” Damian returns the gesture with a small wave of his own as he follows Bruce out the door.

Bruce doesn’t give him as much as a glance while they walk from the front office to the car, weaving through the parking lot. It isn’t until they’re inside the car—Damian situated in the backseat, despite the passenger seat being unoccupied—that Bruce adjusts his rearview mirror so that he can partially see Damian in addition to the rear windshield.

“How did it happen?” Bruce asks, as they’re reversing out of their parking spot. He’s referring to Damian’s sprained wrist.

“Football,” Damian informs him tersely: the atrocity of a sport that Americans invented and appropriated the term from soccer to name. Damian supposes if he were more familiar with the rules of football, it could’ve helped in preventing his predicament today.

He stares out his window, clenching his uninjured hand.

They have enough time to pull out of the parking lot and onto the main street before Bruce gives any acknowledgement that he heard Damian. “I was not aware you chose to attend school today.”

Damian would scoff if he wasn’t so afraid of sounding insolent. “I did not want to miss anything.”

The car’s dashboard’s turning signal ticks rhythmically as Bruce prepares to make a right turn. “Are you tired?”

“Yes,” Damian says, and he thinks that what they have going on right now is even worse than making small talk. Did Bruce expect any other answer?

“Were you tired last night?” Bruce asks as a follow-up.

Not until it started creeping into the early hours of the morning, Damian thinks, but that still made up a large chunk of his shift. “Yes.”

The car slows to a cautious rolling stop when they reach a stop sign before they begin speeding up again. Bruce drives rather civilly when they aren’t on the field.

“You should inform the team when you suspect you are unqualified to fulfill a task,” Bruce tells him, “before we embark on that objective. That way, we can place you in a more suitable role.”

He’s referring to Damian’s screw-up on the field last night.

Damian clenches his jaw. “Yes, Father.”

As offhand as ever, Bruce promptly changes the topic. “Your wrist—you will see Leslie for that shortly when I drop you off at her clinic. Alfred will come collect you when you are done. Afterwards, you will rest. You may not resume your role as Robin until your injury is fully healed.”

A surge of panic rises up within Damian. Bruce may very well be stating the only logical course of action in this situation, but the defiant part of Damian doesn’t want to be deprived of his vigilante work. “That will not be necessary,” Damian counters hastily, “I can still assist with the case.”

“You cannot hold a writing utensil,” Bruce states. “Do you expect that you will be able to hold a weapon?”

“I—” Damian begins, wracking his brain for something he could say to change Bruce’s mind; something that he can offer as an alternative to prove his capabilities. “I can assist Gordon.”

It’s the only thing he could come up with that makes sense. He can help off-field. There are plenty of behind-the-scenes tasks that he could take on. After all, most of Tim’s work has always been out of uniform. Being Red Robin is only the visible side of his duties as a vigilante. If Tim could learn all the technical stuff, so can Damian.

Bruce looks at him sternly through the rearview mirror. “Rest first. You will take a break for one week. Ask me again after that time has elapsed.”

His words hold no inflection and contain no discernable malice, but they don’t calm Damian’s nerves at all.

Damian has his non-dominant hand in a fist tight enough that his nails, as short as they are, begin digging into the skin of his palm. The subtle burn of it grounds him.

“Understood,” Damian acknowledges numbly. Whatever he hears after that, he doesn’t really process. The rest of their stilted conversation goes by in a blur, and so does the remainder of the car ride.

---

“So,” Barbara says from her wheelchair beside Damian. She’d brought in a rolling chair she normally keeps stored away in one of the supply rooms nobody ever touches. Damian spent ten minutes getting the dust out of the mesh cushion before he could take a seat. Barbara, facing the computer’s main screen, clicks on a minimized tab from the taskbar to open it up for Damian to see. “This is the information GCPD has so far.”

On the left side of the split-screen monitor display, there is a photograph of the kids’ meal toy from Cluemaster’s latest hint. It’s a limited-time figurine of Wonder Woman with a string light necklace and a Santa hat for the upcoming holidays.

On the other half of the screen, there is an Excel sheet with the addresses of Gotham’s Batburger franchises and their shipment logs from the day of Halloween. The scroll bar on the right hand side is considerably small. The full list is much longer than what currently fits on the screen.

Since this morning, Damian had been extremely excited in anticipation for this meet-up with Barbara. The past week, he’d spent his evenings angry, then moody, then bored. As busy as his life is, he found that he actually had a lot of free time when patrol wasn’t at the forefront of his mind, which meant that he had to fill his nights with all sorts of trivial things, like the so-called cartoons Alfred had put on the TV for him to observe.

Of course, Damian had been worried about the fact that he’d been sidelined for seven days straight. However, after the initial few days, he’d caught up on sleep, and once he was well-rested, he found that his emotions were more in check. For once, he could actually think clearly, and approach the situation logically. He knew that the week would pass by no matter what, so he waited it out.

Yesterday evening, he’d approached Bruce with the idea of assisting Barbara once again. Bruce had agreed to it with surprisingly little resistance, as if he’d been considering it and came to a conclusion long before Damian actually made the move to ask him.

Although Damian’s wrist had gotten better—he found himself no longer needing to work on his side quest of developing ambidexterity in class—he’s still in no condition to actually return to patrol yet. Perhaps that is why Bruce was so amenable to the idea of having him work behind-the-scenes: it wouldn’t put him in any situation where his lack of physical capability would jeopardize the effectiveness of the team, and in turn, it wouldn’t compromise the safety of civilians.

Whether Bruce will actually let him patrol again once his sprain is fully recovered is a question for another time.

(“There’ll be no need for us to wrap it or immobilize it in any way,” Leslie told Damian as she tidied a few sheets of paper from across the table. “It’ll heal on its own. You just need to take it easy and give it enough time. Can you recite what the acronym RICE stands for?”

“Rest, ice, compression, and elevation,” Damian stated, repeating what she had told him no fewer than ten times throughout the entire visit. “I assure you that I will be responsible in taking care of myself, Dr. Thompkins.”

“Good,” Leslie replied, giving him a smile. “Alfred should be here in a few minutes. I’ll keep your medical records on file, okay? I’ll send them over digitally to your dad as well—I know how important it was to him to keep tabs on your brothers when they were younger. Especially with, you know, your vigilante work and all that. It’s good to have a baseline to keep track of your health.”

“Alright,” Damian said, although he wasn’t particularly fond of the idea of his personal information being accessible to others.

“Perfect,” Leslie told him as she stuffed the few sheets of paperwork back into its file folder. Then, as an afterthought, she took one out again, looking it over. “This isn’t too much of a concern, because you’re still young and growing, but I do want to point something out: you have a BMI of 16.3. It’s healthy for your age—the classification is a little different for children than it is for adults—but it’s on the lower end of a normal range. You’re in the 22nd percentile. Do you eat what Alfred makes?”

“Yes,” Damian replied apprehensively.

It wasn't a lie, and this was his first encounter with Leslie. It was impossible for her to have any sort of reference as to what his measurements should be—what they used to be, a few months ago. As far as she’s concerned, the records from today will serve as his baseline statistics.

“Great. You have nothing to worry about, then. I’m well acquainted with what Alfred cooks for your dad and your brothers.” She winked at him. “Certainly beats the standard American diet. Just be careful with your wrist, yeah?”

Damian nodded, grateful that they were done with that discussion. “I will.”)

Damian’s wrist has been steadily healing with each passing day, and in the meantime, he’s grateful to be able to contribute to the Cluemaster case in this way—by collaborating with Barbara.

He stares at the screen, scanning every little detail of the photograph, but he finds that he’s ultimately grasping at straws.

“I assume there is something unique about the toy figurine from the mealbox,” he begins, drawing an inference to the best of his abilities. He doesn’t want Barbara to think he’s completely lost, even though he hardly knows what to look at first. “Considering that this photograph has it isolated from the rest of the box’s contents.”

He remembers looking through it the night it was discovered as a clue. It held nothing special, just a standard burger and a small packet of fries, both untouched. There was no receipt or any traceable element that could indicate which specific Batburger it was bought from.

“Precisely,” Barbara acknowledges, briefly glancing over at Damian with a smirk. She pushes the frames of her glasses up on her nose as she looks back at the screen. “You’re onto something, kid. You see these shipment logs? GCPD compiled them after reaching out to the wholesale suppliers that service most of the Batburgers in Gotham. This Wonder Woman figurine, in particular, is an end-of-year limited edition design that they’re pushing out from now until the start of January. Typically, we wait until the end of one major holiday to start promoting content for the next one, right?”

“Yes,” Damian responds.

Technically, the next major holiday is Thanksgiving, but there isn’t exactly much that can be designed for that occasion, especially if they’re talking about action figures. Attire-wise, going for something Christmas-themed would be the best bet at this time of the year. Additionally, two months is a standard timeframe for a marketing run, which makes sense that the holiday-themed figurines would be handed out starting now.

“Great,” Oracle says, turning to fully face Damian now. “Cluemaster dropped this clue on Halloween: the final day of October. What does that timing tell you? How can we use this information to narrow down our search?”

“I…” Damian begins, finding himself at a loss. Barbara isn’t asking him because she doesn’t know. She’s testing him to gauge his baseline deductive skills. “I think that … this toy was distributed rather early?”

It’s a stab in the dark, but it’s something. He can only hope that it doesn’t make him seem completely incompetent.

To his relief, Barbara’s response only bolsters his guess. “It absolutely was,” she confirms. She then takes hold of the computer mouse and scrolls down the Excel sheet until she reaches a highlighted row within the chart. She hovers the cursor over it. “As indicated by the highlighted text, this address, along with five additional branches, received a shipment of these action figures on the morning of Halloween. The employees weren’t supposed to start handing them out yet, as the Boo Buckets—the toy at the time—were still being promoted on the last day of their run. But it’s literally Batburger. You can’t really expect a bunch of underpaid teenagers to care, can you?”

Damian cracks a smile at that. “No, I suppose not.”

“Exactly. But that helps us tremendously in our search, because we now have six leads. Which, speaking of…” Barbara pulls up a new tab and navigates to Google maps. “Want to do the honors of pinpointing these six Batburgers on a map for us?”

“Absolutely,” Damian accepts with enthusiasm.

Barbara moves out of the way for him to slide his rolling chair over so that he’s situated in front of the keyboard and mouse. “Go for it, kid.”

---

“This is by far the quickest and easiest Thanksgiving dish to make,” Stephanie tells Damian, winking at him. “Watch and learn.”

A few days prior, Alfred collected a headcount for everyone who was going to attend this year’s Thanksgiving dinner at Wayne Manor. Jason was the only one who had originally declined, but he changed his mind last minute with the compromise that he wasn’t going to fulfill the expectation of cooking something from scratch. True to his word, he’d showed up to the manor this afternoon with a store-bought apple pie.

Everyone else, on the other hand, is currently hard at work, preparing their dish of choice: Alfred and Bruce with the turkey, Dick with the stuffing, Tim with the mashed potatoes, and Barbara with the cranberry sauce. Barbara had promised to stay for an hour or so, because while she wanted to spend some time with the Bats, she’ll ultimately be choosing to dedicate the majority of her evening to her dad back at her own home.

Damian had been intensely Googling common American Thanksgiving recipes last night before he gave up and consulted Stephanie via a phone call, to which she’d declared that they would collaborate to make a green bean casserole, modified to exclude all the dairy ingredients.

“It’s literally like, the simplest thing,” Stephanie continues saying as she drains a can of sliced green beans over the sink. “I would make this every year as my go-to. My parents would spend hours on the turkey and ham while I’d toss two cans of food into one baking tray, add some milk, and call it a day.” She snorts at the memory. “And my relatives would be super proud of me, too. Green bean casserole is the cheat code, I assure you.”

Damian opens the plastic seal on the fresh container of mushrooms they’d picked up at the grocery store earlier. “We have to make the cream of mushroom soup from scratch. It will not be that easy this time.”

“It’ll just be a bit of vegetable stock and flour,” Stephanie says, shrugging. “Easy enough. Besides, you’re the one taking care of that part, so it’s easy for me. My point still stands.”

“Alright. I see how it is.” Damian smiles to himself as steps in front of the sink after Stephanie’s done with it so that he can rinse the mushrooms.

He gets to work with combining the necessary ingredients in the pot: olive oil, chopped onion, garlic, thyme, cashews, mushrooms, vegetable stock, and flour. He brings it to a boil on the stove before turning the heat down and allowing it to simmer.

At some point during the process, Alfred comes over to check on him.

“Is everything coming along well, Master Damian?” he asks, giving Damian a gentle smile.

“Very,” Damian replies with pride.

“Wonderful,” Alfred tells him. “Master Bruce and I will require the oven for a few hours. However, we will wait for you to finish with the casserole before we begin baking the turkey.”

“Okay. Thank you, Alfred.” Damian glances over to the side to see where the turkey has been seasoned and prepared on top of the counter, wrapped in foil.

Out of the corner of his eye, he spots Bruce leaning against the fridge, scrolling through his phone. Damian then looks back at the stove, focusing on his cooking.

He takes turns with Stephanie to stir the soup, and when everything’s done, they combine it with the green beans in a glass baking tray.

Damian preheats the oven while Stephanie rummages through the grocery bag that previously held their store-bought ingredients. There is nothing inside of it now except the receipt, which she takes out to read.

“We forgot to buy the fried onion topping, didn’t we?” Stephanie asks knowingly, looking up at Damian from the receipt.

“Hm,” Damian concedes at the sight of the empty plastic bag. “I suppose so.”

Bruce, who’s still standing by the fridge and not making any effort to conceal the fact that he was listening, finally glances up from his phone. He eyes Stephanie first. Then his gaze lingers on Damian. It lasts no longer than a few seconds, but it’s more than what Damian’s comfortable with. He breaks eye contact first, his heartbeat stuttering as he does so.

“I have to make a trip to the grocery store,” Bruce states matter-of-factly as he pockets his phone. “Tim forgot to purchase gravy. I’ll pick up a container of fried onions while I’m there.”

And then, as communicative as ever, he strides out of the kitchen without awaiting a response.

Stephanie turns her palms upwards in a shrug. “I guess we got that sorted out?” she says in a half-question, just as perplexed as Damian is.

To his own surprise, Damian is the one who makes a noise of laughter first. The sound is a breathy vocalization that’s more of an exhale than anything.

Soon afterwards, Stephanie grins, breaking into laughter too.

---

It’s early December when Bruce walks up behind where Damian is situated on the couch. His footsteps are so quiet that his approach scares the crap out of Damian.

Turning around, Damian reflexively shoots a glare that probably comes off more like a wide-eyed stare than anything. His hands pause on the Rubik’s cube he recently mastered how to solve and has been improving his technique on ever since.

Bruce’s expression doesn’t convey anything. He has one hand out, expectant. “Your wrist, child.”

Oh.

Damian lets go of the Rubik’s cube and holds his right arm out. “It is properly healed by now.”

It has been for a few days. He even practiced a few handstands yesterday just to ensure that the full range of motion is truly there.

He’s been meaning to tell Bruce about it, but he chickened out at every opportunity. As much as he wanted to be back on the field, he still got a piece of the action through his comm line every night from the Clocktower, so he kept putting it off. Talking to Bruce and awaiting his judgment wasn’t something he was particularly inclined to do.

What he did do, however, was pay Leslie a second visit so that she could update his medical records, trusting that she’d relay the information to Bruce. It was indirect and spineless on Damian’s part, but it got the job done.

Bruce gingerly examines Damian’s wrist, turning it over, and then back again. His fingers are warm where they meet Damian’s skin. Damian watches tensely.

“It hasn’t been giving you any trouble?” Bruce asks.

“No,” Damian confirms.

Bruce gently releases his wrist. “Tonight, we will begin new patrol routes. GCPD received an anonymous tip they couldn’t trace; it came from a burner phone that was disposed of in the Newark Bay. We have reason to believe that a Batburger may face an attack within the next few days. You are to return to the field. You will receive your assigned route this evening.”

Damian nods, taking in the information apprehensively. It’s been nearly a month since the last attack, but it still feels too soon for something else to be happening already. The entirety of Gotham has been on edge; they’ll have to be more proactive this time around.

“Understood, Father. I will meet the team at the cave tonight,” Damian affirms.

“Nine-thirty sharp,” Bruce reminds him as a wrap to their conversation. “We’ll convene a few hours from now.”

---

Damian’s first encounter with Cluemaster goes a little like this:

He’s out patrolling the same three cubic miles around the Batburger he’s been assigned to for tonight. It’s his fifth day back on the field.

In total, it’s six Batburgers divided amongst six vigilantes. They’re all working alone, but they keep in close contact with one another through their comm line.

The first thing Damian does when he spots the fire in the distance is make a report.

He squints at the building as he’s rapidly grappling his way closer, until he’s able to read the name of it.

It’s not a random occurrence. It’s the Batburger.

“There is a fire on the premises of #7651,” Damian says over comms, relaying the store identification number he’d memorized before setting out on patrol. “Kitchen fire, from the look of it.”

“Okay,” Oracle tells him. “Be on standby within the vicinity. Don’t enter yet. There are likely 911 calls that have been made already—I’m going to request information from Gotham’s dispatchers. Can you tell me if you see Cluemaster, or anyone who doesn’t appear to be a civilian? As for the rest of you, I’m sending the coordinates over to your navigators now. We have an active mission at hand.”

Damian grapples onto the rooftop of the closest building to the Batburger, crouching low as he keeps watch.

There are civilians scrambling around, filtering out of the building’s exits. The sound of the fire alarm is a harsh, grating blare.

“Spoiler is the closest one to you, Robin,” Oracle tells Damian. “She will reach you first.”

“Understood,” Damian acknowledges as he continues watching people leave the restaurant. This goes on for the better part of a minute, until Damian catches sight of a straggler wearing an employee uniform, and the person that follows him, donning a bright orange suit.

“Cluemaster is here,” Damian verifies. “Back exit.”

He receives an instantaneous response through comms.

“Do not engage.” Batman states sharply. “Do not. You will wait for either law enforcement or Spoiler to arrive—whichever comes first.”

Damian then watches as Cluemaster grabs the employee from behind, holding a knife to his throat. He watches as the man freezes, going still with compliance. He watches as Cluemaster and the civilian, in tandem, stumble backwards with quick steps, back through the doorway that leads to the kitchen.

Cluemaster tilts his head up towards the sky and shoots Damian a quick glance right before he disappears into the building.

It conveys everything it needs to.

“He knows,” Damian says through a rush of adrenaline that makes him feel lightheaded. “He knows I am here. He has a hostage with him. I am going in.”

He ignores the various shouts from the other Bats through his earpiece as he fastens his rebreather over his nose and mouth and scales his way down the building he’s on.

With a few batarangs clenched in his palm, he runs through the parking lot and shoves open the back door of the Batburger, entering the kitchen.

There are flames engulfing the walls and the floor. There are spill patterns on the ground that indicate the areas where the accelerant was poured—likely gasoline or kerosene—and with nimble footsteps, Damian swerves around those spots. He pulls his cape’s hood over his hair; the materials of his uniform are all designed to be fire-retardant.

Cluemaster stands at the center of the kitchen.

“Robin,” he greets. The lower half of his face is covered by a yellow mask. Long blond hair, fastened in a ponytail, falls over one of his shoulders. “We finally meet.”

Damian scoffs. “What a displeasure.”

He keeps his eyes on the civilian who’s struggling against Cluemaster’s hold. Cluemaster has one hand around him and the other on the knife still, the blade very close to digging into the civilian’s throat.

“You’re a new one, aren’t you?” Cluemaster teases. “What happened to the previous Robin? Not that it matters, really—soon enough, you’ll be disposed of just like they were.”

Damian ignores him as he tries to gauge the best course of action. There’s nobody in here besides the three of them, so he doesn't need to focus on evacuating anyone else.

They’re awfully confined in this space. There are two exits: the one they entered from, and the one that leads to the cash registers and the dining area. Damian can feel the heat of the room on his face, and it’s only getting hotter by the second.

“Robin, I’ll be there in a minute. Hang on tight,” Spoiler says through comms, and it’s the only thing Damian pays attention to in between Oracle giving him instructions and Nightwing yelling at him to get out of the restaurant.

Seemingly unhappy with Damian’s lack of feedback, Cluemaster tuts. “This one’s on you, kid.”

Before Damian can say anything else, Cluemaster begins digging his knife into the throat of the hostage. The man shouts as the blade makes contact with his skin. Blood begins beading on his neck, and without hesitation, Damian launches one of his batarangs, aiming for Cluemaster’s face.

In one swift motion, Cluemaster shoves the man to the side, towards the wall, and simultaneously pulls back from the trajectory of the batarang. The spinning blade meets the end of his ponytail. Blond locks fall to the floor.

Then, he’s running towards the front of the store, and the civilian he let go of is screaming in pain. Damian looks over, and well, shit—the man isn’t wearing anything other than his khakis and his polo—his employee uniform. All of which is very, very flammable.

Damian stoops down to grab the man. He pats him down everywhere he can reach, trying to extinguish the flames. The fabric of the civilian’s clothes is rapidly burning apart, feeding the flames.

“Come on!” Damian grits out as he drags him towards the back exit. They stumble out of the doorway and onto the asphalt.

“Robin, where are you exactly?” Spoiler asks. “I’m approaching. I can see that the paramedics are pulling into the premises.”

“Behind the restaurant,” Damian tells her, breathing heavily as helps the man get to the rest of the civilians standing outside. When they arrive at the curb, the man suddenly collapses, sending Damian tumbling down with him.

“Got it,” Spoiler replies, and then after a beat, “I spot you.”

Damian looks up to see her running towards him from a couple hundred feet away. When she reaches him, she helps him with getting the man into a sitting position, and then eventually onto a stretcher that comes their way.

“Are you okay?” she asks, once they’ve taken care of that. She looks up and down Damian’s clothes, searching for any evidence of injuries.

“I am unharmed,” Damian tells her, looking around at his surroundings. “But I … I lost track of …” he trails off. He cannot believe he just let that happen. Where the hell did Cluemaster go?

To really rub it in, Batman proceeds to ask the same thing. “Eyes on the suspect. Where is he?”

“He went the opposite direction when we were in the kitchen,” Damian says. He begins sprinting towards the front of the restaurant, and Spoiler follows him. They run around the perimeter of the building.

“We don’t know, B,” Spoiler adds. “He left through the main entrance, and that door is facing east. That’s all we know.”

Damian stops when they reach the stop sign at the junction where the parking lot merges with the road. He looks around. The asphalt reflects flashes of red and blue from the light of the police cars around them. He doesn’t spot any movement in the surrounding buildings or nearby alleyways. There’s nothing in the vicinity.

“Well, look for him!” Batman shouts at them through comms. “This is why we never apprehend an opponent with one person only—having a second set of eyes is crucial. Having backup is crucial.”

“Okay!” Spoiler placates, preparing her grappling hook. “Calm down; we’re going, B!”

“We are on it,” Damian confirms, as they start to sprint down the sidewalk, looking for the next closest rooftop.

And with that, they’re in the air once again—metal latching onto brick ledges, footsteps against concrete rooftops, and the bleak, unrelenting December winds lancing through the strands of their hair.

---

“I asked you to stand guard,” Bruce states bluntly. “Why didn’t you?”

They’re sitting across from each other in Bruce’s study, separated by a wooden desk. Neither of them have changed out of their uniforms, but they set their weapons aside and took their face coverings off before they left the Batcave.

The team debrief already happened. Damian had been checked over for any burns on his exposed skin and any singeing or damage to his uniform, to which there was nothing.

They’re here now as a result of Bruce pulling him aside for a private conversation.

Bruce’s eyes are cold and piercing; his face is illuminated by the dim desk lamp he has on. He hadn’t bothered to flick the switch for the overhead lights on when they first entered, and Damian doesn't figure that either of them are getting out of their seats anytime soon, so this is the only lighting they’ll have. Bruce looks directly at Damian and Damian knows better than to show any cowardice. He meets Bruce’s gaze levelly.

“I was unwilling to wait at the cost of a casualty,” Damian states, because it’s the truth.

“But you would do so at the cost of a getaway?” Bruce asks.

“Do you believe that Cluemaster’s capture takes precedence over the life of a civilian?” Damian scoffs. He can’t believe what he’s hearing.

“Cluemaster’s escape preludes greater consequences. Because of your actions, there will be more casualties,” Bruce responds, unyielding. “Your responsibility is to follow orders, not formulate your own course of action based on what you believe is best. Compliance is your duty as a Bat, and more pertinently, as Robin. Have you forgotten the nature of your role?”

“No, sir,” Damian grits out through clenched teeth. Robin’s purpose is to serve Batman. Nothing more, nothing less.

But Batman was less of an intransigent jackass when it wasn’t Bruce Wayne under the cowl. Damian wonders how the past four Robins could’ve put up with this, if this was how Bruce had always operated.

Bruce regards Damian deliberately. “It is one thing to make a mistake, or to face extenuating circumstances,” he says, calculated, and Damian knows what he’s referring to: Damian’s screw-up in October that Bruce had ultimately went easy on him for, “but it is something else entirely to defy commands. Consider this your first transgression. You are off the case for the time being.”

A full-body wave of dismay crashes over Damian like a storm surge.

He’s not off the field, he’s off the case.

And it’s not because there’s something physically hindering his performance this time. The reason is plain and clear: Bruce doesn’t want him there.

“Let this serve as a lesson, and as a precursor to doing better,” Bruce continues, like he’s not completely gutting Damian right now. “Our line of work does not allow for do-overs. Reflect on what you’ve done, and decide your next steps. You will have plenty of time to do so.”

Plenty of time because Damian’s benched. It’s a cruel joke.

“Do you really think that what I did was wrong?” Damian asks apathetically, his voice sounding foreign to his own ears. He holds onto his elbows with opposing arms, his entire body tense enough that it suppresses any trembling.

His question is valiant but futile. This is Bruce he’s talking to—Damian words hold no weight. Nothing he says will change Bruce’s mind, but Damian at least wants an answer to this.

Bruce stares at him, expression unreadable. “Your reasoning is irrelevant; your course of action is not the concern. Your noncompliance, however, is. Insubordination that goes unpenalized will only advance and pose a greater threat to the integrity of the team. You are a liability. Are you aware that that’s the aspect we’re addressing?

Damian bites the inside of his mouth, hard. He used to be good at this. He used to follow orders in the League without as much as a second thought. What Bruce is asking of him was once one of his greatest strengths. Why is he faltering now?

Damian tastes copper on his tongue. He stares at the thin layer of dust on top of one of Bruce’s books at the edge of the desk. “Yes, Father,” he recites. They’re empty words.

Bruce isn’t appeased at all. “You are dismissed,” he states flatly.

The next few minutes go by in a blur. Damian doesn’t remember getting up from his chair or exiting Bruce’s study. He doesn’t remember walking down the winding hallways or shouldering past Tim as he makes his way back to his room.

What he does remember is that he slams the door behind him after he’s inside, and that he doesn’t bother to turn the lights on. He stands there, in the dark, staring at his boots absently.

He runs his tongue over the wounded spot in his mouth and he closes his eyes, exhaling deeply.

It is in a moment of weakness and utter loss of control that he chooses to grab the knife strapped onto the inside of his left boot—the only actual concealed weapon he keeps on him; one that’s designed to stay his person even if he is ever captured or held hostage. With quick movements, he pulls the collar of his Robin suit down to expose the bare skin below his neck, and he drags the metal blade, warm with body heat from where it’s been hidden in his shoe, across the surface of his skin in one quick diagonal stroke over his collarbone.

Full-blown realization strikes him instantaneously. He drops the blade like a hot stone and presses his free hand to the wound. He feels the stickiness of the blood that’s rapidly welling up before he even experiences any sort of pain.

He curses to himself quietly and, with his other hand, pulls the collar of his uniform down as far away from the injury as it can go. The fabric goes taut with the force of it. The colors of his suit are primarily red and black, which is important for when he has to deal with blood on the field, regardless of whether it’s his own or someone else’s. Everyone else on the team goes about it in a similar manner—they either utilize darker shades or wear colors that don’t make stains show up as strikingly. It’s akin to how Stephanie’s volunteer role at the hospital requires her to wear color-coded scrubs that tone down the appearance of any discoloration on her clothes.

Still, Damian knows that Alfred is going to have to wash this, and it would undoubtedly be suspicious. He knows better than to leave any sign of an injury that he failed to disclose at the end of the day. This wouldn’t be something he sustained on the field regardless, so he shouldn’t make it seem that way.

He takes a few steps over to his desk and reaches for the tissue box he keeps in the corner to take a few sheets and press them against the base of his neck. The tissues become soaked instantaneously. He has to grab several more to reinforce the crumpled handful he already has.

The cut stings, but he knows it’s superficial. He made the slice lengthy but shallow.

The relief he gets from the pain, in and of itself, is depraved. It’s almost like a physical release of tension—an outlet for all that he feels. The act is equal parts unprincipled and distasteful.

He winces, waiting for the bleeding to staunch. The cut won’t need any bandaging. It shouldn’t even be visible anymore after a week. Damian knows how much force he put into the blade. This is child’s play at most: showy but virtually harmless.

A few minutes go by, and he sighs as he starts to feel better, but he’s simultaneously growing more worn out now that his anxiety isn’t on overdrive. With a clearer mind, he considers his next steps.

Unlike when he sprained his wrist last month and had to wait for it to heal, Bruce hadn’t given him any indication as to how long he’ll be sidelined this time around. He’ll have to ask about that eventually, but even just the thought of having to speak to Bruce again right now makes him feel very, very sick.

He’ll figure it out later. He’ll find a way to make things work. There is no plan B.

A reality where he can’t be Robin is a reality he’s unwilling to accept.

Chapter Text

Damian thinks he hears a noise, but he’s not entirely sure.

His alertness builds gradually as he wakes up groggy. He’s not certain how long he’s been asleep this time around, or even what hour of the day it is. He’s pretty sure it’s Tuesday, though.

Scratch that. He knows it’s Tuesday. Dread strikes him with a sharp clarity. Last Friday was when the showdown with Cluemaster happened and—

He turns over and faceplants into his pillow, forcing his brain to think of something else. He’s replayed this moment in his mind enough times;why can’t it just leave him alone?

He’s granted a few seconds of blank nothingness before he begins to wonder what woke him up, right as the catalyst makes itself known again.

“Damian,” Tim’s voice filters through his bedroom door. “Let me in.”

Of course it’d be him.

Damian groans. His response is muffled by his pillow. “No.”

He’s in no mood or mental state to deal with Tim right now, all things considered. The past two months with him were not bad—Damian would even go as far as to say they were decent—but neither of them consider themselves to be particularly close with the other, and Damian is fine with keeping it that way.

They don’t exactly talk to each other beyond what’s important for the case, but Damian has admittedly taken comfort in the silence between Tim and himself when they find one another in the same room at mealtimes, or when they’re training simultaneously in the home gym. The distance between them is no longer due to avoidance. They can coexist. Damian feels like he can actually breathe when Tim happens to be within vicinity.

That, in itself, is plenty more than he could’ve asked for.

Tim, still standing in the hallway, raises his voice. “I’m not asking, Damian. Open the door.”

Damian stiffens. He lifts his head up from his pillow, blinking around at his surroundings. His window blinds are drawn as tightly closed as they can possibly go, but the gaps of sunlight that spill through the edges signal that it’s daytime.

It’s a reasonable time for just about anybody to be up and about. Damian’s currently on his two weeks of winter break, and he’s benched from being Robin, so he supposes he doesn’t have to maintain a reasonable sleep schedule, but still.

“What do you need?” Damian asks, although he doesn’t really care. The sooner he gets this over with, the sooner he can pull his covers over himself and ignore the rest of the world again.

“You’ve been in there for three fucking days,” Tim states factually, “so open the door. I won’t repeat myself.”

Figures. Winter break has only just started and Damian can’t even get his free time to himself.

He half-wishes they weren’t on speaking terms again.

Damian huffs. “What is it to you?”

“That’s it,”Tim tells him in a tone that leaves no room for argument.

Alarmed, Damian tries to scramble up from his bed, but his feet get caught up in the mess of blankets atop his sheets. He bumps his elbow hard against the headboard and he winces.

His head spins at the burst of physical exertion and he momentarily closes his eyes against the dizziness.

True to his word, Tim successfully opens the door. He’s holding a large metal ring filled with various keys—Alfred’s, for housekeeping.

Damian squints at him, then shields his eyes from the brightness that’s coming from the hallway and contributing to his growing headache.

As irked as Tim sounded, he doesn’t look the part. He appears to be rather on edge.

“Damian,” Tim says, his voice much softer now, as he takes in the sight of Damian tangled in the blankets.

Damian manages to pull up into a sitting position, but it does little to protect any remaining dignity he might’ve had. He’s been wearing the same clothes he changed into after he got back from patrol the night of the fire. He didn’t shower that day, nor the days since. He feels gross.

“Drake,” Damian addresses Tim irritably, “you are not welcome here.”

It’s his room. This is supposed to be the one space that other people can’t barge into whenever they feel like it. If Damian had more energy right now, perhaps he’d actually put some bite to his words.

“I don’t care,” Tim says, and then he’s striding over to Damian. With one knee on the bed, he pushes Damian to face the other direction before he loops his arms under Damian’s armpits from behind him and straight up starts dragging him off the bed. “Come on. You need to get the hell up. Right now.”

Damian tries to fight back, and he really tries. He kicks at the sheets and at the air. He jabs his elbows at Tim’s chest and attempts to jerk his body free from Tim’s hold.

But he’s very, very fatigued. He’s unable to put any real force into his movements, and he doesn’t even have the mental energy to be unnerved at that fact. His entire system is just so off right now, and all he can do is watch it happen.

At least that’s how it goes until Tim sets him on his feet and his knees immediately give out, causing him to fall right back onto Tim's steady frame. This frightens him.

Holy shit, he thinks hysterically, his mind short-circuiting with panic as he scrambles to regain footing, bracing his entire body weight against Tim’s arms, which haven’t let go of him yet.

He succeeds this time, though he’s shaky and off-kilter where he stands. He’s breathing heavily. With exertion or with fear, he doesn’t know.

His legs are somehow sore even though he’s had three entire days off from being Robin so far—he’s had three entire days off from walking anywhere further than the bathroom, for that matter. There is absolutely no reason his body should be so screwed up right now.

As if to make things worse, his blunder had very obviously been observed.

“Okay,” Tim says, sounding alarmed, “okay. This is what we’re going to do. We’re going to head over to the kitchen, and then you’re going to eat something with me. It doesn’t matter what it is; just something, alright? And then you can shower if you feel up to it. After that, we’ll find an activity to do. Start a TV show, maybe.”

Damian hadn’t thought about food over the entire weekend. Not even once. He hadn’t had time to consider it in the midst of everything else on his mind; everything he’d been ruminating over during the meager hours of the day in which he wasn’t sleeping, that is.

But it makes sense. It explains the muscle soreness that’s still lingering—he hasn’t been giving his body what it needs to properly recover and strengthen after a long shift.

However, if he’d lost track of time and neglected his wellbeing to this extent, he must be more out of it than he originally thought, and the implications of that terrifies him.

This terror is exactly what drives Damian to agree with Tim’s suggested course of action without much resistance. “Okay. We can … do that.”

There’s a beat of uncertainty before Tim responds to him, his grip loosening on Damian. “Are you good to walk?”

“Yes,” Damian says with as much confidence as he can muster. He shifts his body weight fully onto his feet, pushing off of Tim’s arms that have been supporting him the entire time.

Tim releases him, but he keeps one palm gently pressed against Damian’s back as they make their way out of the room and down the hall. Damian walks slowly, focusing on putting one foot in front of the other, lest he has a slip-up that embarrasses him even further, if that could even be a possibility at this point.

When they reach the kitchen, Tim pulls the nearest chair out for Damian and makes him sit down. He then opens the fridge and stands in front of it as he considers their options.

“Are you okay with leftovers, or do you want me to make you something?” Tim asks, glancing over his shoulder as he addresses Damian.

“Anything will be fine,” Damian says. He has no reason to be picky. It’s all the same to him; it’s the same old monotonous, dreadful chore of eating.

Tim slides a glass tupperware off one of the fridge’s shelves. “Lentil soup it is.”

Damian watches tiredly as Tim heats the container of soup in the microwave and portions it into two bowls before bringing them over to the table.

He sets a spoon down by Damian’s right hand, looking him in the eye. “Eat.”

Damian frowns at him, but he does as he’s told, starting off with a few spoonfuls of soup. Across the table from him, Tim does the same.

Tim goes at his own pace and does his best to not make it seem like he’s observing Damian for the next half hour, but he can only pretend for so long when Damian’s not even a quarter of the way done with his food by the time Tim finishes his own bowl.

Damian keeps twirling his spoon around the soup that’s gone cold by now. He doesn’t feel particularly hungry, and that’s the worst part. He keeps getting distracted, thinking about how he could’ve done better during his encounter with Cluemaster last week. Things wouldn’t be this way if he had just listened to Bruce.

“Are you going to play around with your food?” Tim asks as the hour draws on. “Or are you going to eat it?”

Damian stops stirring the soup aimlessly.

“I ate enough of it,” he says. Then, in hopes that it prevents an argument, he adds, “I made an effort.”

Tim doesn’t look happy, but he doesn’t dispute the statement either. “I’ll clean up. You can go shower. Meet me in the living room when you’re done. You have half an hour before I come looking for you.”

Damian gets up from his seat compliantly. He has no desire to be dragged out of his room a second time. “Fine.”

---

Tim tries to get Damian to consume something labeled Ensure for dinner that evening.

“I am not drinking that,” Damian states harshly, pushing the plastic bottle away from him. “Drake. Stop with this.”

Tim looks at him pointedly, unimpressed. “You need it. You’re not eating enough.”

“And this is meant to help me?” Damian scoffs. He’s disgusted. “It is not even actual food. Do not be ridiculous. Did you decide to buy this on a whim? Did you bother to do your research?”

Tim glares at him with an intensity that makes Damian do a double-take. “I did not buy this on a whim, Damian. When I had my splenectomy, I had to drink these for a week.” He gestures vaguely at the bottle of Ensure. “Well, not this specifically, but—whatever, you know what I mean. I was on a liquid diet: some shitty blend the League had at hand. And more recently, the last time I was really sick, like bedridden type of sick, Alfred had me on a rotation of this, Soylent, and Boost. I promise you it’s not that bad, and I wouldn’t be giving it to you if I hadn’t tried it myself first.”

Every insult Damian had prepared to hurl at Tim suddenly dissolves. He looks up at Tim, faltering. He then glances down at the bottle, still ambivalent, but to a lesser degree. Tim has never previously opened up about his time in the League—or anything he was involved in while Bruce was in the timestream, for that matter—and Damian doesn’t want to turn down this tentative olive branch.

“This ‘Ensure’...” Damian asks carefully, amenably, “... is an adequate meal replacement?”

Tim turns the bottle around so that Damian can read the full panel of vitamins and nutrients it contains. “Well, no. It doesn’t really work that way. It’s not supposed to be a permanent fix, just a supplement while you need it. But it helps a lot, and I think you could use it. I would cook you dinner as well, but … just try your best to finish this, and you’re off the hook for tonight. I have other flavors if you want.”

“What are they?” Damian asks, because he’d like to consider his options before accepting his fate with the chocolate one.

“Vanilla and strawberry,” Tim informs him. “But between you and I, I’ll have you know that this is actually the best one.”

Damian’s not too sure he trusts Tim’s judgment when it comes to food choices, but he reaches for the bottle nonetheless. He twists the cap open. “Chocolate will do, then.”

The flavor vaguely resembles a melted milkshake, but it has a strange aftertaste. It’s not pleasant in the slightest. Damian drinks it as fast as possible to get it over with. If Tim could put up with a diet consisting of nothing but nutrition shakes for days on end—possibly even weeks, Damian isn’t about to stoop so low as to complain about it himself.

---

“I was a little overzealous with the recipe, wasn’t I?” Tim asks, leaning his back against the wall of the bathtub. They’re in one of the manor’s many guest bathrooms. Tim’s sitting on the cold tiles of the floor.

Today, he cooked a vegetable curry that Damian thought was admittedly quite impressive, but rather rich and heavily seasoned. Damian enjoyed it while he was eating it, but the situation he finds himself in now is starting to cancel out whatever positive experience he’d previously had.

He doesn’t blame Tim for any of it, but it’s hard to be nice when his entire digestive system feels like it’s been stomped on and thrown into the Lazarus Pit.

He shoots Tim a glare that conveys everything he needs it to in lieu of a verbal response, and promptly throws up into the toilet again.

---

“Apple or orange juice?” Tim asks, holding out the choices in front of Damian.

Damian scowls at him. Tim’s been unwaveringly insistent on liquid calories lately. “Can I just have water?”

“You can have water after you finish a glass of one of these,” Tim states, giving him a stern look. “So, what’s the verdict? Apple or orange?”

---

At night is when the thoughts tend to be the worst. When Damian is tired, he finds that he doesn’t have the energy or willpower to keep them at bay, and he lets himself think about everything he wishes he could forget.

The only time he can see the red, angry marks that span his upper arms is right before he showers, when he looks into the mirror without anything concealing them. He’s taken to making relatively shallow slashes spanning his upper body. They’re quick and easy, and they don’t require much waiting before they stop bleeding.

The blade he’s been using is the one Talia had gifted him on his ninth birthday. It’s one of the few things he still owns from his time in Nanda Parbat, as well as one of the only weapons he has that truly belongs to him. It’s not equipment that’s been lent to him by Bruce or passed down from one of his brothers. The blade’s ornate hilt and carved crossguard is all Talia’s handiwork. It’s a beautiful piece that very clearly wasn’t forged for this purpose.

He can’t imagine what Talia would think, if she knew.

He only feels slightly bad about it when he brings the edge of the knife to his left arm again tonight, the same way he’s done every night for the past few days.

The feeling of control and relief he’s rewarded with is worth every ounce of physical pain he endures.

---

“Every former Robin knows how Bruce can get,” Tim tells Damian over a tray of vegan lasagna at the center of the dining table. “Dick, Jason, and I all know. Hell, even Steph knows.”

Damian’s triceps burn. They itch horribly where he'd made fresh cuts on both of his arms last night. He refrains from scratching them through the fabric of his sleeves to avoid drawing any sort of attention towards the matter.

Tim fiddles with his fork mindlessly as he continues to speak. “B’s always too serious about things that don’t matter in the long run. I mean, it’s not that it doesn’t matter, but he always thinks he’s right. You just have to wait until he cools off before trying to reason with him. He can be the most emotionally stunted person when he’s really focused on a case. His ability to get over things is fuckin’ nonexistent half the time. His words don't mean shit, Damian. Okay? You might not realize that right now, but with time and experience, you will. Bruce isn’t the be-all, end-all.”

Damian is hardly listening. Only half the day has elapsed, yet he feels like he’s ready for bed again. He stares blankly at his plate. He’d taken a few bites of his lunch, but he doesn’t have the energy for anything more. Telling Tim about the conversation Bruce had with him that Friday was exhausting. It had taken everything out of Damian to relay what Bruce had said.

Tim, for all that he tries, is talking about the matter clinically, like he’s got it all figured out. Damian thinks it’s way easier to view it that way when Tim is not the one going through it.

Damian regrets even bringing it up. He wants to sleep so badly.

“Are you listening, Damian?” Tim grumbles. His voice sounds distant, as if Damian were underwater. “‘Cause you should. The amount of shit B would give me when I was just starting out as Robin was ridiculous. Any move I made that he perceived as reckless, or too similar to something Jason would do or whatever, he’d give me a whole lecture about it after patrol. He once benched me for a few days after I took a minute to respond to something over comms instead of answering him immediately. I was busy, in the middle of dealing with some bandit he literally sent me to! It was so stupid. B’s stubbornness had no limits whatsoever.”

Damian closes his eyes, just wanting lunch to be over. His head feels fuzzy and he tunes Tim’s voice out completely.

---

He picks a spot on his shoulder and goes deeper this time. The sting is gratifying.

Selfishly, Damian covets. He wants a reaction, a response, a realization. He wants even just an acknowledgement.

If Bruce knew, what would he say? Would he simply look the other way? Would he even want to stop Damian?

Would he just let him continue with this? Would he allow it to escalate until there is nowhere further to culminate? Until Damian—

Momentarily, Damian wonders if he could be the singular exception to Batman’s no-killing rule, even if it’s by passive means.

He snaps out of the thought with a start, inadvertently releasing his knife. It clatters on the ground, flicking blood across the bathroom tiles.

He feels guilty for even thinking about it. He grabs the towel he neatly folded by the sink, next to the first-aid kit he prepared.

---

Damian can tell that Tim is relieved when he finds out that Damian takes a liking to peanut butter. Tim doesn’t make any direct comments about it, but he begins offering snack ideas such as yogurt, toast, and crackers with increasing frequency.

Damian knows that Alfred knows too, when, with the goal of making a PB&J sandwich one afternoon, Damian opens the cupboard to find that the regular 16-ounce jar of peanut butter that they keep in the house has been replaced with a 40-ounce version of it.

Peanut butter is undoubtedly a good way for Damian to get healthy fats, fiber, and protein into his system with relatively compact spoonfuls. It’s a convenient compromise between Tim and himself, and it begins to establish itself as a staple food within their meals.

---

Damian isn’t even aware that it’s the day of Christmas until he finds a wrapped box outside his door in the morning as he’s about to exit his room.

He’s done his research on the history behind Christmas; he knows why it’s such a highly regarded holiday in the United States. It’s not a recognized occasion in Nanda Parbat, and Damian has little intention of celebrating it just because he’s in the states now, but curiosity gets the better of him and he picks the box up.

He backsteps into his room and sets it down on his desk. The wrapping paper is a solid red shade, neatly folded where it intersects on the sides. Although he’ll end up discarding the paper anyway, he doesn’t think that tearing the package open is a particularly elegant way to go about it, so he reaches for the letter opener he keeps in his desk drawer and inserts it into one of the edges of the wrapping paper, slicing through it cleanly.

What he uncovers is a plain black leather box. There is nothing written on it that indicates its contents.

He opens the lid to reveal a fountain pen surrounded by velvet cushioning. The body of it is made of brass, and the nib of it is gold. There are intricate patterns on the metal along where the grip is.

A name is engraved onto the top half of the pen. The cursive script reads Thomas Wayne.

Damian feels a flash of conflicting emotions.

It’s an objectively beautiful gift—an expensive one, with decades of history attached to it. It’s thoughtful.

Damian just doesn’t know why Bruce would choose to give it to him. Wouldn’t Bruce want it for himself? Damian has no connection to his grandfather; as far as he’s concerned, Thomas Wayne doesn’t hold any importance in his life besides the fact that he’s in Damian’s pedigree.

If Bruce didn’t want to keep it, is it truly a gift?

Or is it merely a hand-me-down?

Damian’s grip on the box tightens. A sudden surge of anger overcomes him, and he reacts impulsively, forcefully tossing the box to the side. It bounces lightly off the ground, the momentum causing it to roll under his bedframe and out of his sight. He doesn’t bother to pick it up or move it elsewhere.

He huffs as he stomps out of his room, taking his leave like he’d originally intended to before he got sidetracked.

When he meets Tim in the kitchen, ten minutes late to their daily breakfast time they’d agreed on, he finds that Tim is already mixing pancake batter in a bowl.

Tim glances up, smiling at Damian as Damian approaches.

“So,” he says excitedly, “what’d you get?”

Damian doesn’t make an effort to answer him, but his vexation must be evident on his face.

Tim’s demeanor falters. “Bruce did get you something, right?” he prompts, uncertain, as if he’s horrified at the idea that Bruce could have chosen not to.

Damian glances away, pursing his lips. He doesn’t want to be misleading. “Yes.”

Tim nods, gradually returning to a state of ease. “Okay, good. You don’t have to share if you don’t want to. I guess that’s … alright.”

Damian doesn’t reply. He grabs a pan from the storage cabinet and turns the stovetop heat on.

A while later, Alfred, who has been leaving them alone during mealtimes more often than not, enters the kitchen with a container of green tea powder. Damian thinks it’s perhaps because Alfred recognizes that Tim has been able to get through to Damian much better than he could, that he’s been giving them their one-on-one space.

Tim’s pouring pancake batter onto the pan while Damian stands guard with a spatula. Their roles were originally reversed, but Damian argued his way into switching them around because Tim could not, for the life of him, flip a pancake without breaking it. Damian couldn’t merely stand there and watch as Tim struggled, so he intervened.

“Boys,” Alfred calls out as he approaches the two of them. He sets the tin down on the counter. “Merry Christmas. I hope you are both in the mood for some tea this morning.”

“Merry Christmas, Alfred,” Damian replies as Tim raises an eyebrow at Alfred.

“Matcha is not tea,” Tim challenges, “if we’re talking about the same thing Steph gets all the time at Starbucks. That’s a straight up dessert, and if I were to make the effort to go to a cafe, I wouldn’t get anything that isn’t coffee, anyway … sorry for the tangent, though—Merry Christmas, Alf.”

“You misunderstand, Master Tim. This is not matcha powder,” Alfred corrects. “It is hōjicha. Similar to matcha, it is produced through the process of stone-milling green tea leaves. The difference is that, with hōjicha, the leaves are roasted prior to being ground into powder, which gives it a rich, earthy flavor when it is brewed. I had this imported from Japan. Now, how does whole milk sound for your cup? And for you, Master Damian: soy or almond?”

“Soy milk will do,” Damian says, taking the opportunity to answer first as Tim busies himself with diligently inspecting the container of hōjicha. “Would you like a pancake, Alfred?”

“I would love one,” Alfred tells him with a fond smile. “As for the toppings: surprise me.”

“—Okay, so how come this has even less caffeine than matcha?” Tim complains offhandedly, frowning at the printed text on the tin can.

Alfred lets out a long-suffering sigh at Tim’s shenanigans this early in the morning. “Give that to me, please. You won’t be whining about it once you try it, I assure you.”

Tim hands the container over. “I’ll hold you to it,” he says as he turns his attention back to where Damian’s waiting for him to pour more pancake batter onto the pan. “Thanks, Alfred!”

Meanwhile, Damian grabs a clean plate from the dishwasher so that he can get started on preparing Alfred’s portion. As he reaches for a fork, he glances over at Tim, his gaze tracing Tim’s side profile.

Damian pauses, considering.

“... I received a fountain pen,” he says quietly after a moment of deliberation. Tim promptly turns to look over, surprised. Damian locks eyes with him. “How about you?”

Tim beams. “An astrolabe.”

---

“Why are you helping me?” Damian asks point-blank a few days later, choosing to dredge up the one thing the two of them have been avoiding having a conversation about since the beginning of knowing one another.

He scoops another bit of risotto onto his fork.

Outside the window, snowflakes descend gently, piling up in soft pillowy sheets all over the city.

Tim looks up from the sip of water he’s taking. He lowers his glass.

“Because it’s something I should do,” he answers, startlingly open and honest, like it’s a simple, well-known fact. As if he hadn’t spent forever avoiding Damian before these past three months; as if Damian hadn’t given him more than enough reasons to resent him. “You’re my brother, Damian.”

Damian can’t help the combativeness that escapes him in his next sentence. He can’t tamp down the ever-present need to question all that’s being done for him, because he’s convinced that if he digs deep enough, he’ll uncover the ulterior motive that’ll undermine every effort Tim has ever made. There has to be something more. There has to be.

“You shouldn’t,” Damian says.

“You don’t think so?” Tim asks. “You don’t get to decide that for me.”

Damian presses for more answers, digging his grave further. He wants to understand. “Then why? Why do you choose to?”

“Because it’s the right thing to do,” Tim says, “and I think that if I turn someone away in a time of need, because of who they are, or what they did, then I can’t call myself a hero at all. I’m not talking about people who are actively a threat—there are obviously those that we have to subdue in our line of work—but if I didn’t think that nuances mattered, I’d only be lying to myself.” Tim picks up his fork, almost looking bored as he prepares to take another bite of his dish. “This is the aspect that distinguishes us from the people we go up against, Damian. Does this answer your question?”

He continues to eat his risotto like he didn’t just upturn Damian’s entire view of him.

Damian shoves a particularly large forkful of risotto into his mouth to avoid having to reply. Something poignant stirs up within his core and squeezes at his heart. The two of them eat their dinner quietly. Damian pointedly keeps his eyes on his food.

“Y’know,” Tim entertains after a bout of silence, “if I were any more sensitive to my circumstances, I wouldn’t have gotten as far as I have today. Maybe I would’ve stayed angry about my parents’ deaths instead of carving out a future for myself in spite of it. I could complain about my splenectomy everyday and how I have to take antibiotics like clockwork, but what use is that, Damian? Is that any way to live? If I were any less well-adjusted, I’d probably just end up like Bruce. And I don’t want to be that way.”

Damian doesn’t need to ask him what he means by that. He knows.

Bruce has the ever-lasting tendency to cling onto things—emotions and resentments—beyond what’s necessary. If he weren’t this way, he wouldn’t be Batman.

But unlike Tim, Damian doesn’t think there’s a timeline for everything. Some things don’t have a measure, and Damian can’t fault Bruce for it.

Bruce does not have to love him. He will never have to.

It hurts all the same.

---

Damian fidgets with the new bandage he has on his upper arm, just above his elbow. He feels very, very guilty about what he’s doing to himself, and it’s not because he’s sorry for it. After all, this is his body. He’s not putting anyone else in harm’s way. No one else—civilian or vigilante—is at risk.

But he does think that he’s wasting Tim’s time. Damian is harming himself in a way that Tim has no idea about, all whilst Tim is actively helping him to the best of his abilities. Damian’s actions undermine all the work that’s been put into improving his wellbeing so far.

It’s a terrible thing, but perhaps, if Damian is honest with himself, he’s a terrible person. The fact of the matter is that all of this suits him seamlessly.

This is what he deserves.

---

Damian is unable to finish the second bowl of Cheerios Tim poured for him for breakfast today.

He gets almost halfway through it before he starts feeling full.

He doesn’t feel sick. He doesn’t feel upset.

It’s a simple fact: he’s just had enough to satisfy his hunger.

This, he thinks, is what mealtimes should be like. This is what it was like for him two seasons ago. This is what it’s like for everyone else, three times a day, everyday.

He can’t promise that he’ll be able to repeat this outcome, but the least he can say is that right now, in this moment, he succeeded.

“Done?” Tim asks. He finished his own breakfast a couple of minutes ago.

“Yes,” Damian answers, but it doesn't feel like a victory. Being normal isn’t an accomplishment.

This doesn't feel as good as he imagined it would. It feels like nothing at all.

Nothing will change. Being able to eat isn’t going to put Damian back on the field. It’s not going to let him work on the case again. The upcoming new year isn’t symbolic of anything; it merely serves as a marker of another month Damian’s about to spend with his current status quo. He is no city’s protector. He is no legacy’s heir. He is nobody’s son.

Tim takes his empty bowl in one hand and begins to reach for Damian’s to bring the dishes to the sink.

Damian knows what this means—he knows that their breakfast time will come to a wrap, and that their conversation will come to an end, just like it did yesterday, and the day before that.

There’s never enough time for Damian to say what he wants. There’s never enough time for him to even know what he wants to say.

A flare of irrational anger sparks within Damian so suddenly that he doesn’t even register how tightly he’s gripping onto his spoon, nor does he really even process when he shoots up from his seat—wooden chair legs scraping against the tiles—until he’s bringing his hand down onto his bowl in one sharp blow.

Bits of soggy cereal fly into the air with the force of the plastic bowl being toppled over. Oatmilk splashes over Damian’s hand, spills on the tabletop, and drips onto the floor.

“—He doesn’t care,” Damian blurts out apropos of nothing, and suddenly, his enunciation isn’t so clear anymore. His words come out in a jumble of contractions and syllables that blend together. “He doesn’t want me and he doesn’t like me. I’m just another problem for him to deal with in the grand scheme of life—another misfortune he has no control over. He doesn’t care, Timothy. He doesn’t.”

Damian doesn’t define who the pronoun “he” refers to. He doesn’t give any context to his statement. He doesn’t justify what spurred it on.

Tim doesn’t know the half of it, and Damian can’t explain. It isn’t his information to tell.

His nose burns and his throat is tight. He doesn’t make an effort to stop what’s oncoming—what he knows will follow these symptoms.

“I care, Damian,” Tim stresses, and then he is suddenly up from his seat as well, reaching across the table reactively. He has a white-knuckled grip over Damian’s hand, prying his fingers open. The spoon falls out of Damian’s grasp, clattering on the table. “I do. Isn’t that enough?”

Damian can’t really see anything through the blurriness of his tears. He can only feel Tim's fingers intertwined with his own.

Is it enough?

Tim is offering Damian one-hundred percent of what he is capable of giving. He can’t control what Bruce says or does. He is not Bruce.

He’s just Tim. And he’s on Damian’s side.

Damian finds his throat too constricted to form a response. The only sounds that fill the silence are his stifled sobs.

Tim squeezes his hand tightly. He puts one foot up on his chair to get his other leg up the table, and he uses the leverage to slide his entire body over to Damian’s side. Cereal pieces fall off the table as he does so, sprinkling over the ground in soft clatters. He doesn’t seem to pay any mind to the way the fabric of his jeans soaks up the mess of oatmilk.

Tim doesn’t say anything else, and he doesn't need to. He pulls the closest chair over to be adjacent to Damian’s, and then he sits down, drawing Damian close to his chest in a tight embrace. His hold is firm and safe.

Damian completely gives in to it. He buries his face in Tim’s quarter-zip and allows himself to cry harder than he has in years, his tears soaking the cotton of Tim’s sweatshirt.

Tim’s nose presses into Damian’s hair as he mumbles a soft “it's okay, Damian. It’ll all be okay.”

Damian doesn’t believe him, but he lets himself take comfort in the platitudes Tim whispers to him throughout the remainder of the hour, because if nothing else, Tim’s words are a confirmation that he is wanted.

They confirm that he is loved.

---

That night, Damian crawls all the way to the back corner of the space underneath his bedframe to retrieve what he knows is there. Alfred hasn’t done this week’s round of room cleanings yet, so it couldn’t have been moved.

He re-emerges with the fountain pen in one hand, and the leather box in the other. He hadn’t bothered to close the box properly before he’d tossed the entire thing under his bed, so the pen had fallen out.

He places it back into its hollowed-out mold inside the box, returning it to its rightful place. He opens his desk drawer, preparing to deposit it neatly in there alongside his other various school supplies, when he thinks about it a little more and changes his mind.

He shuts the drawer and places the box down on the surface of his desk, popping the case open.

Grabbing his journal from the wall shelf above his table, he flips it open to the first blank page he encounters. He sits down on his chair and, with the fountain pen in his hand, presses down on the page. The pressure on the tip of the pen enables the ink from the cartridge to flow. By memory, after having spent hundreds upon hundreds of hours practicing his calligraphy throughout his childhood—after having learnt script before he was ever taught print—he puts the pen to the test by writing his name. The lines and curves of each interconnected letter come out smooth and controlled.

Damian leans back as he admires his handiwork, giving the ink some time to dry.

It’s evidently a very good pen. Its quality is high enough that it still functions as if it's new, despite the many decades that it’s gone unused.

With a clearer mind this time around, Damian wonders whether he was wrong about Bruce; whether the fountain pen was a sincere gift he’d wanted to give Damian. Ostensibly, it’s not something that someone would want to give up easily. It was well cared for by Thomas Wayne, and considering that the cartridge seems to be perfectly functional—indicating that it’d perhaps been checked on and replaced recently—it was cared for by Bruce as well.

Damian doesn’t know whether any of it really matters. What’s important is that the pen is his now.

He places the tip of it back atop his journal, bracing the page with the side of his palm, and does what he does best.

He begins to draw.

Chapter Text

Damian begins to go out to patrol by himself.

He makes the decision to do so the second week that school is back in session. He’d thought it over in his head many times, and when he picks up the Robin suit again for the first time since last month, he does so after everyone else already left for their shifts for the night.

He’s already had experience patrolling by himself, and he knows his limits. He’ll be handling the smaller situations.

A few street scuffles would be nothing to him. They’re quick and easy. He’s more than capable of taking care of the petty crimes that no-name delinquents pull on the streets nightly.

The first day he masks up again, it feels liberating.

---

Everything goes without a hitch for nine days straight, in which Damian would cautiously exit the manor, take care of a few muggings, bike thefts, shoplifts—you name it—and then return back home in a timely manner before anyone would notice he was gone in the first place.

Even right now, he would barely consider the skirmish he just went through to be a setback at all, but it’s his first mishap on the field so far.

He’d been too slow to evade a switchblade as it was coming towards him while he was preparing to knee a man in the face. Damian had already been able to get the man down on the ground, and Damian had reacted quickly once he saw that the guy had pulled out a knife, but it hadn’t been enough.

This resulted in a cut right above his knee, where the fabric of his pants had been sliced through. But while the injury stings, it doesn’t otherwise limit his mobility.

He had successfully subdued the thief, which meant he accomplished what was important.

After the fight was over, he grappled up onto the top of an apartment building a few blocks away to take a breather. Here, he stands by the edge and stares out into the city, listening to the cars driving by below. He takes in the sights around him, thinking about how he’s grown to be intimately familiar with all the landmarks of a city he once didn’t know anything about.

He glances down at his navigator to check the time at the corner of the screen and figures that he might give it another thirty minutes before he calls it a night.

That idea, however, dissipates from his mind as soon as he turns around and comes face-to-face with none other than the Red Hood.

Well. That rules out any future prospect of continuing to solo-patrol. He’ll admit that it was a good nine days while it lasted.

Directly in front of him, Red Hood stares at Damian for a solid ten seconds.

Damian stares back at him for just as long.

He knows better than to try to make a run for it or to fabricate an excuse for why he’s out on the field again despite the fact that he’s very clearly not allowed to be here. If Red Hood has the intention to speak to Damian, he will make sure it happens. Damian can’t escape an incoming confrontation from Hood on a good day, much less on a day in which he’s actively bleeding through his leggings.

Red Hood taps on his earpiece to turn it off, which means that it’s just the two of them now.

“Are you out here alone?” he asks Damian.

“Yes,” Damian answers honestly. “I plan to be back home before eleven.”

He’s been making his patrols relatively short, usually between the range of one to two hours. Sometimes a little less, but never more.

He doesn’t leave the cave before he knows that everybody is out on their shift already, and he always returns to the manor well before any of them get back. It’s how he’s gotten away with this for over a week.

“And you plan on taking care of that yourself?” Red Hood asks, nodding towards Damian’s knee, where he’d very visibly been nicked.

“Yes,” Damian says again. It’s not like he can ask Alfred or anyone else to patch it up without revealing the fact that he’s been sneaking out.

“Hm,” Red Hood acknowledges. “Risky game you’re playing there, kid. Take it from someone who has more than enough experience working alone.”

Damian frowns, because he knows it’s not the brightest idea to subject himself to field injuries that he has to conceal from other people, but … it’s not like this is the only thing on his body he’s hiding anyway.

“If you are here to lecture me, it is wasting time for both of us,” Damian tells him. If this is going to be his last day he’ll ever be able to sneak out, he doesn’t really care to keep up appearances. He doesn’t care what Jason thinks of the situation right now.

“I’m not,” Red Hood says, and Damian waits for him to continue. For him to tell Damian to go home, or to forcefully bring him back home—whichever comes first.

Red Hood doesn’t do either of these. The two of them stand there in a limbo.

Damian is the one who speaks up first. “Are you going to tell Batman?” he asks tentatively.

Bruce was the one who benched him in the first place; presumably, Bruce would also want to be the first to know if Damian was choosing to disregard that rule.

Red Hood tilts his head to the side. “No.”

Now this comes to Damian as a surprise. He frowns at Red Hood, unsure of what to do with that answer.

He should be happy about it, realistically. This is the best case scenario.

What he finds instead is that he feels rather indifferent towards the matter.

Red Hood’s eyes flick back down to Damian’s knee, and Damian tenses.

Without warning, Red Hood reactivates his microphone. “Oracle, Batman—I’m calling it a night. Take it easy.” He waits a few seconds to receive a response that Damian isn’t privy to.

And then, just like that, Red Hood takes his earpiece out entirely, powering it off and putting it away in one of his many utility pockets on his tactical pants.

He looks back at Damian. “Come with me.”

Damian hesitates. While he still has leeway to drag this night out longer, he doesn’t know if he should—he needs to head back home soon, lest he wants his absence to be picked up on.

“I cannot,” Damian tells Red Hood.

“I’m not asking you a question,” Red Hood says. “You’re going to follow me.”

Damian huffs. His remaining thirty minutes are ticking down fast, and stalling isn’t going to help the situation.

“Fine,” he tells Red Hood. He’s not particularly concerned about where they end up, so he doesn’t bother to ask. He trusts Jason.

Red Hood begins walking past Damian, dismounting from the rooftop as he begins climbing down the building’s fire escape. Damian follows his lead.

Together, they make their way through the expanse of midtown Gotham, navigating around corners and through passageways. Red Hood’s pace is brisk but consistent, and Damian’s steps fall into a similar steady rhythm as he trails behind his brother.

As they move along, a question begins to gnaw at Damian.

Red Hood has always been the Bat who is the least bound to the team—if there’s one person who receives the tamest reprimand for a lack of cooperation, it’s him. Even then, however, Damian’s a little concerned about the fact that Red Hood ended his patrol with nothing more than an abrupt message over comms.

“Did Oracle approve of you terminating your shift?” Damian asks.

Without turning around or slowing down, Red Hood replies, “Uh-huh.”

That doesn’t give Damian any consolation. “Do you have to provide a debrief later today?” he presses.

“Nah,” Red Hood tells him. “We’ve been making progress on the case at a snail’s pace—if the snail was dead, I mean. We haven’t gotten anywhere at all. This isn’t like the other times Cluemaster attacked—he didn’t leave us any clues at the Batburger, so we’re not able to actively look for anything. B’s just been having us patrol the streets like normal.”

“Oh. Okay,” Damian replies.

He doesn’t know what he thought he was missing out on, but with Hood’s words in his mind, losing his spot on the team feels less like a bereavement, and more like an unfortunate circumstance now.

Red Hood’s explanation makes Damian feel relieved, like a weight has been taken off his chest.

As the two of them continue to walk, they pass by various warehouses and storage compartments until they reach a metal door at a plain, nondescript building. There’s a padlock on the right hand side, and Damian watches as Red Hood types in a ten-digit code.

The light on the pin pad flashes green and there’s a soft click as the door’s locking mechanism disengages. Red Hood tugs on the handle and leans his body weight on the door to push it open.

Damian follows him inside to find himself stepping into the middle of an apartment-esque space no larger than a thousand square feet. Although it isn’t particularly big, it is by no means small, especially for one person. There aren’t any decorations on the walls or on the tables, but there’s an old TV set up in front of a couch.

At the wall directly in front of him are two shut doors, which Damian assumes lead to a bedroom and a bathroom.

To the right, there’s a kitchen set up with a few appliances and a fridge. Despite the abundance of empty space, the place doesn’t look barren at all. It looks rather well-kept, clean, and lived-in.

This safehouse must be one that Jason uses more frequently than others.

As Damian stands and continues to look around, he realizes that Jason’s no longer standing beside him. Instead, the bedroom door is ajar, and a few moments later, Jason’s walking out of the doorway, coming towards Damian with a stack of clothes in his arms.

His helmet is off, and his familiar white streak of hair is tousled with the rest of his waves, unkempt in the way his hair always ends up right after patrols.

“Here,” Jason says as he approaches. He proceeds to hand the whole stack over to Damian.

Within the assortment are some T-shirts, long-sleeves, a hoodie, some sweatpants, leggings, and a pair of shorts with adjustable strings. The clothes are several sizes larger than what would comfortably fit Damian, but none of the garments look nearly big enough to fit Jason either. Damian frowns, wondering if Jason simply kept these around without any apparent purpose.

“Take your pick,” Jason says, “but remember I have to patch up that nasty cut. Meet me in the bedroom after you change. I’m gonna grab some of my medical supplies.”

“Thank you,” Damian replies as he carries the bundle of clothes over to the bathroom. He shuts the door when he’s inside and sets the stack down on the sink counter.

He extracts all the T-shirts from the pile and sets them off to the side. Those are out of the question—even if the shirts are large enough for the sleeves to go down to Damian’s elbows, Damian doesn’t want to risk exposing anything he doesn’t want Jason to see. He’ll have to limit his range of movement with his arms significantly to ensure that. Additionally, the collars of the shirts probably fit him poorly, and he doesn’t want them to slide off either of his shoulders.

This leaves him with limited options, so he settles for the hoodie. It’s a nice shade of maroon.

He takes it out of the stack and unfolds it to reveal the stitched text on the front.

Ma Gunn’s School for Boys.

Damian pauses, staring at the lettering.

He’s only ever heard of this school once, while he was reading about Faye Gunn in a folder from one of the Batcave’s many file cabinets. He knows Jason was the one who took her operation down, seven years ago.

Jason hadn’t been a student at the school for long, just a few months until it eventually closed down and Bruce sent him to a different high school outside of Park Row.

Damian didn’t think Jason had kept any of his old belongings from before his death. Furthermore, Damian didn’t think Bruce had kept many of Jason’s old belongings, although he knew that there was a room in the manor that had remained untouched since Jason was fifteen. Alfred maintains the cleanliness of the space, but nobody has a reason or desire to enter otherwise.

If Jason had been able to retrieve these clothes of his, it had to have been that Bruce had kept them around in the four years that Jason had been gone.

Damian feels weird about it as he pulls the hoodie over himself, but he’s pretty sure there isn’t anything in the stack that isn’t from Jason’s teenage years, and none of Jason’s current clothes would fit Damian anyway.

In the end, these clothes are still Jason’s. And Jason, currently, is very much alive. The situation is only as weird as Damian makes it out to be.

Damian rifles through his choices for pants. He goes back and forth between the sweatpants or the shorts, because those are the only two that can be adjusted at the waist.

In the end, it’s not a hard choice. He settles for the more logical option: the shorts. The sweatpants would be too long on him and Damian would rather not have to spend unnecessary time tripping over it and having to roll up the fabric when Jason needs to treat his knee.

The shorts are large enough that they reach his knees instead of ending mid-thigh. Damian gathers his Robin uniform and the rest of Jason’s clothes into his arms before stepping out of the bathroom and walking over to the bedroom.

Jason, sitting on the chair by the desk, takes one good look at Damian. He glances down at Damian’s exposed legs.

“Jesus,” Jason remarks. “You’re getting rather scrawny huh, kid? Not even I looked that lanky when I was an eleven-year-old living off of scraps in Crime Alley.”

Damian stills. He stands awkwardly in the doorway, glad that the rest of his body is covered up.

He’s regained some weight within the past month, and that progress has been steady. He doesn’t plan on changing that. He’s still been training, but less rigorously, and he takes his solo patrols easier than he would if he were working with the Bats.

At his lack of a response, Jason eyes him carefully. “You fine with whey protein? Or do you want soy, or pea, or whatever?”

“... I am not interested in a protein shake,” Damian responds. He would rather get what he needs through actual food than supplements, even if those supplements have evidently played a role in turning Jason from a scrappy Robin to the rather daunting Red Hood in the past six years. “Do you … have anything else?”

Jason shrugs. “My fridge is eighty percent ground beef right now. I might have some canned beans stashed somewhere, but—” he gestures vaguely in the direction of Damian’s knee, “—we’re gonna take care of that first. Sit down.”

Damian complies, taking a seat atop the edge of the mattress, next to a kit filled with medical supplies. Jason stands up and moves his chair over to situate himself in front of Damian.

Damian’s knee has stopped actively bleeding by now, but there’s a layer of dried blood over the laceration, which needs to be cleaned off.

Jason reaches for the small bottle of isopropyl alcohol and begins pouring some onto a cotton ball.

When he applies it to Damian’s skin, Damian hisses at the sharp sting it causes.

“These heal up fast,” Jason tells him, holding his leg in place, “but the most important thing is that you always have to keep your wounds clean, no matter how big or small they are.”

Damian nods, because he knows that. It’s common sense, and he’s no stranger to having to do that for himself.

“So,” Jason begins. “You’ve been patrolling alone. Why?”

Damian purses his lips. “Gotham needs a Robin,” he answers.

Damian deliberately doesn’t say Batman. He specifies Gotham.

“Hm.” Jason sets the cotton ball aside to be disposed of later. He reaches for a butterfly strip and begins to peel apart the paper wrapping.

A substantial silence falls between them before Jason speaks again.

Jason sighs. “I get what it’s like to not want to work with Bruce. Really. Take it from someone who’s spent the better part of the past six years despising his guts. The day after he benched you, all he told us was that you wouldn’t be joining us anymore. Dick was the one who asked why. B gave his reasoning, and I thought it was stupid. Steph was quiet, though, and you know, Cluemaster is her dad, so … touchy subject. We dropped it at that. Like I said earlier, we don’t have any leads, and neither do the cops. If you were missing out on anything, I’d be updating you about it right now. Going out alone, though—not smart. I can tell you that much.”

Damian watches as Jason applies the butterfly bandage carefully over his skin.

“You worked alone,” Damian says, phrasing it in the past tense, because as distant as Jason is from the rest of the family, he doesn't truly work alone. Not anymore.

“Yeah, I did,” Jason says. “And it’s what got me killed in some shitty warehouse when I was fifteen—” He glances up from the bandage briefly to see Damian’s perturbed expression. “—Sorry. The difference between you and I is that I wasn’t a child when I became the Red Hood. Nobody was responsible for me. I knew what I wanted.”

Damian can hardly say that Bruce is responsible for him, despite being his legal parent. Nonetheless, it isn’t a fair excuse to use when Bruce doesn’t know what he’s been up to, because Damian has been intentionally keeping it from him. Anything that happens to Damian on the field is due to his personal choices. They’re his own consequences and nobody else’s.

Damian presses his lips into a thin line. “Are you asking me to stop patrolling?”

Jason smooths out the second butterfly strip he put on Damian’s knee. He meets Damian’s eyes. “I’m not asking you to do anything. I’m just telling you what I think.”

Damian nods slowly. He’s always liked this aspect about Jason: his independence and, in turn, his willingness to leave other people alone. He’s direct but never hypocritical. He’s gone through enough experiences in his life that nothing truly comes as a surprise to him. His reactions tend to be rational rather than instinctive.

“You’re a smart kid,” Jason tells him, getting up from his chair now that he’s done with the bandaging. “Your choice is your own. So decide what’s best for yourself.”

---

Damian takes the final few bites of his bowl of canned corn, black beans, and chickpeas. The only solace he found in the fact that the only thing Jason could offer him was an abundance of shelf-stable food that people would really only rely on in the case of an apocalypse, was that Jason had a working microwave and a rather expansive selection of seasonings.

“I must return home soon,” Damian tells Jason, who is sitting on the edge of one of the kitchen’s countertops, scrolling through a news article on his phone.

“Tough luck,” Jason replies without looking up. “You’re staying here.”

Damian frowns, because if he does that, everyone in the manor is without a doubt going to know he’s out of the house by the time morning rolls around.

If they don’t already know, that is. It’s quite a few hours past eleven.

“I cannot do that,” Damian says, getting up from his chair to take his empty bowl over to the sink. “Thank you for the food.”

“Tomorrow’s a Saturday,” Jason counters, and this time he does look up. “And it’s two in the morning. What’s the rush?”

Damian huffs as he grabs the sink’s sponge and turns the faucet on.

As stern as Jason sounds, Damian knows his words are mainly a suggestion. Jason has no interest in dictating what anybody does unless it’s absolutely necessary. If Damian tried to leave right now, Jason wouldn’t stop him. Realistically, he’d probably even accompany Damian back.

But the conversation they had earlier lingers in Damian’s mind.

Does Damian want to keep patrolling nightly? And if so, how long does he want to do that for?

At the beginning, Damian did it to prove that he could. The first few days were exhilarating, knowing that he was capable of taking on Gotham’s criminals with nothing but his own mind and skillset. He had succeeded without anyone’s help.

Now though, while his work is still rewarding and meaningful to him, he’s not really doing it to fulfill any goal in mind. He’s patrolling more out of habit than anything else; not that there’s any issue with going about it this way, but the question of how long he wants to keep this up for, still stands.

Will he do it indefinitely? Will he do it until Bruce finds out he’s been going out as Robin and puts an end to it?

Will Damian be okay with it if he simply didn’t go on patrol again tomorrow?

The answer that crosses his mind is a clear, resounding yes.

He’d be fine with it.

He would’ve been fine with it even if Jason had been the one to stop him tonight.

Damian thinks it’s a little odd, how unfazed he is towards it all. He thought he would have cared more, even just a week and a half ago.

Ever since school has been back in session for the spring term, however, he’s been focused on his academics. He’s had much more on his mind than just his failings as a vigilante. He’s even set aside time to stay after school to talk to Jon, and every few days, he’ll find an opportunity to cook a recipe with Alfred or Tim. Things in his civilian life haven’t been perfect by any means, but they’ve been good.

Much better than they were a few weeks ago.

Damian could keep this up. He doesn’t need to be Robin.

Vigilante work is only one small part of the life he’s trying to carve out for himself right now, and as foreign as the thought is to him, he realizes that he doesn’t actually care enough to put all his mental energy into the role at this given moment in time.

It’s a thought that gives him newfound hope.

As he wraps up with washing the dishes, Damian sets the fork and bowl down to dry. Then, he turns to look at Jason.

“Okay,” Damian relents. “I will stay.”

---

Damian doesn’t check his phone until he’s on the train, half an hour after he got out of his ultimate frisbee match with Jon and a few of their classmates who needed something to do to pass the time while waiting for their parents to pick them up.

Damian did well enough for his first try at the sport—he’d been quick and accurate with his throws. His catches were less impressive, as he found at the beginning that he couldn’t jump high enough a few times the frisbee was coming his way, but he’d soon adjusted his technique to simply run further back before he tried intercepting its trajectory.

Jon had claimed that Damian was a natural at it, and Damian took the compliment to heart, because he certainly liked this more than he liked tennis, or flag football, or, God forbid: golf.

Playing golf hits a little too close to the billionaire’s posh and dignified blood son image he’s been trying to avoid portraying to the other students at his school since the beginning of the school year. Besides, playing golf requires more time standing still and making mental calculations than Damian cares to do, especially when it comes to sports, which is meant to be a showcase of physical ability.

There are a couple other sports he has in mind that he’s interested in trying out, but so far, he’s been liking ultimate. He wouldn’t mind if they played it again tomorrow. He has all the time to do so.

When he taps his phone screen to light it up, he finds that he has received a few email notifications and news article popups. He clears those out of the way.

When he’s done, there are only two things remaining on the screen, and they’re both text messages from two different people.

One is an image from Tim, likely one of those posts he refers to as a meme. Damian personally thinks they’re tasteless.

The other notification, however, is the one that Damian chooses to prioritize. He taps on it to open his phone screen to Stephanie’s message history with him.

messages >> Stephanie Brown

hi damian! sorry to bother you. i hope you’ve been well. did you receive the christmas card i sent? i know it was a little silly, mailing it over when we’re in the same city, but i had a pack of holiday stamps i got and i wanted you to have the santa one on your envelope

i’m messaging because i wanted to ask you to help babs and i on something. her dad said that the police department found some blueprints. they’re clues that my dad buried in a box in the dirt, and some construction workers found them because they are excavating rn to rebuild the batburger. long story. i’ll tell you more about it if you’re interested in meeting in person. but what i’m trying to say is that we have a new clue that we didn’t realize was there until now

i heard about bruce benching you. i’m sorry about that. when he fired me from being robin, it sucked. i was in a slump for a while afterwards, but then i realized it wasn’t the end of the world. so yeah, b’s a little rash sometimes, and that’s why i’m texting you privately to ask if you wanna help. b doesn’t have to know. babs said you were really good at helping her out last time you worked with her. we both want you to look over the clues with us. no pressure, though, it’s your choice. lmk what you think!

Damian stares at the text messages, reading through them several times over before he puts his phone down to consider the offer.

When he worked with Barbara at the beginning of November, he found it to be meaningful in ways that being on patrol didn’t serve him. Detective work requires critical thinking and trial-and-error. It’s forgiving in a way that the quick-paced nature of being on the field doesn’t allow for.

Ever since his encounter with Jason, Damian hasn’t tried going out on patrol again. He’d returned home that morning, set his uniform and weapons back where they belonged in the Batcave, and returned to his room as usual.

That night, Alfred had deliberately brought him a cup of tea at ten-thirty—intercepting him at a time in which he’d be outside, had he gone out at all. Damian had accepted the cup without more than a simple “thank you”.

He did the same thing the next night, and the night after that one. He answered his door every time Alfred sought him out.

Damian didn’t care how obvious it was that he’d been patrolling on that particular night, because from that point forward, it would no longer matter. He didn’t plan on going back out, and he held true to that. Alfred could not catch him in the act if there was no act in the first place.

Now, if Damian were to collaborate with Stephanie and Barbara, he wouldn’t need his uniform at all. He wouldn’t be helping out at night, either—the two of them would be occupied with their own roles as Spoiler and Oracle during that time.

Damian wouldn’t need to be Robin. He’d simply be himself. Everything he contributes to the case would be under his own discretion.

He picks his phone back up and unlocks the screen to reveal his text messages with Stephanie again. He begins to type up a response.

Chapter Text

Damian turns the corner into one of the manor’s many hallways, and he’s just short of arriving at his room when an obstacle in the form of Bruce Wayne blocks his path.

Damian stops dead in his tracks. He glances up at Bruce.

“What has been going on with you lately?” Bruce asks, and although his tone remains casual, his words put Damian on edge.

“I do not know what you mean,” Damian states stiffly.

Bruce looks at him pointedly. “These past few months, you have seemed distracted. Off-task. Faltering. I have checked with your school to confirm you have been doing well in your studies. I have not found any issues there. Your teacher says you have been a diligent student semester-round. It is only your work as Robin that has been affected. I spoke with Leslie after your initial check-up, and we have ruled out anything physical. Other than your sprained wrist in November, she had determined you were uninjured. Therefore, I would like to hear your input so that I can better understand why things have been this way.”

As much as this interaction with Bruce came out of nowhere, Damian’s already decided a long time ago what he would do when he got the chance to speak to Bruce again.

Which is that he will stand his ground this time. He will. “Do you consider a few instances to be indicative of something wrong with me?” he asks.

“Do not put words in my mouth,” Bruce warns. “I am merely stating that your behavior has been noticeably erratic, and that I cannot draw a conclusion as to why. I would appreciate it if you could fill in those gaps.”

Bruce is insistent, but unusually polite. His words come out as a statement rather than a snap. His questions are open-ended. He’s awaiting Damian’s answer, rather than giving him a command.

Should Damian tell him a version of the truth, it’ll have to justify why he’s been this way, and Damian doesn’t think that anything he says could effectively accomplish that. He can’t deliver the full truth to anyone without jeopardizing his privacy on things he’d rather keep to himself. But to Bruce, he can’t even express the partial truth without coming off as argumentative.

Because in the end, all of this comes full-circle. It all comes back to Bruce. It’s always going to be Bruce against Talia, and by proxy, Bruce against Damian. That is a fact that Damian cannot change.

“There has been nothing going on with me,” Damian tells Bruce, thinking about the last time they spoke, back when they were in Bruce’s study. Just because Bruce wants Damian to match up to a certain image of Robin doesn’t mean Damian will. He can’t. He doesn’t want to. “A conflict of interest does not imply that I must change in any way to be in alignment with your ideals.”

“And that is the reason you have been working with Barbara and Stephanie instead?” Bruce questions.

A wave of anxiety latches onto Damian and doesn't let go. He stares at Bruce silently. He’s been convening with Barbara and Stephanie at the Clocktower several times a week; he should’ve known he wouldn’t be able to keep this from Bruce forever.

Still, though, Damian doesn’t think it’s wrong. At least not in the way that going on patrol would be, if he were still doing that.

“They have stated that you have been helpful,” Bruce continues, when it becomes obvious that Damian isn’t going to say anything. “They both vouched for you when I brought up my concerns about the arrangement.”

The vice grip that Damian’s uneasiness has on him loosens slightly.

Power in numbers. He’s not the only one in this scenario.

It’s not just him who’s been ignoring Bruce’s restrictions by working on the case; it’s also Barbara and Stephanie who are allowing him to do this, and they’re backing him up.

“We have been making progress,” Damian tells Bruce. “Our work will be beneficial to the team as a whole.”

Bruce watches him carefully before he segues to a non sequitur. “You mentioned your ideals are different from my own. Does this only apply to your work on the field?”

Yes, Damian thinks, because it is only on the field that I work directly under your orders, and you are the only person who seeks to control me.

He leaves out that second part. “Yes.”

Bruce’s expression doesn’t change. “Is that all it is?”

Damian looks at him with a tinge of confusion.

Bruce picks up on this. “Your behavior in question. Is it merely because you do not want to work with me?”

When Bruce puts it like that, it does not sound good. But it’s the truth, isn’t it? Damian has no desire to be Batman’s sidekick, if that’s what he’s limited to. He wants to be Robin, but he doesn’t want what it entails.

He can’t have his cake and eat it too.

“I…” Damian trails off. “I do not wish to work as Robin for the time being.”

“Very well. Is that all it is?” Bruce asks again.

Damian gives him a glare that’s much tamer than it would be if he were speaking to anyone else.

Damian’s not sure what Bruce is trying to get him to reveal. The question is condescending, really. Bruce doesn't want an honest answer. He just wants Damian to say what he wishes to hear: that this is Damian’s choice; that Damian is accountable for everything that happens, and not Bruce. Never Bruce.

“Yes,” Damian insists, feeling his frustration beginning to grow already. He’d rather not drag this conversation on any longer than it needs to be. “Are you here to tell me to stop working on the case?”

“No,” Bruce responds, and it’s not the answer Damian expected. “You are free to continue. Your ability to be in accordance with Barbara and Stephanie demonstrates your compatibility with the team, even if it does not extend your work as a vigilante. The fact of the matter is that you are young. Your brothers were once like this. Being ready takes time.”

“Time will not change what I think,” Damian snaps with such sudden steadfastness that he takes himself by surprise.

This isn’t a matter of him earning back the role of Robin. He’s not working towards that, despite what Bruce thinks.

Bruce doesn't look amused. “I was once eleven. I thought I knew everything,” he says. “I had decades of things I had yet to learn.”

“And you have decades more,” Damian tells him coldly.

He doesn’t wait for a response. He just shoulders past Bruce and takes the remaining few steps down the hallway and into his room, slamming the door behind him when he’s inside. He hopes it sends a clear enough message.

He sits down on his chair and buries his face in his hands.

He doesn’t care what Bruce thinks of him. He doesn’t. He had the upper hand all throughout their conversation; he gave as good as he got.

Bruce hadn’t even been particularly harsh this time around. He said it himself: he’s fine with Damian continuing to work on solving the case. There were no new consequences given to Damian at all.

Bruce’s other words weren’t important. They’re just words.

Damian should not be this upset. He shouldn’t be bothered by this, but as his irritation cools off, he finds himself feeling dismal about the situation.

It’s all wrong. He shouldn’t care. He doesn’t care.

He convinces himself of this even as his nails dig into his skin from how firmly he’s clutching onto one of his arms—even as he has to wipe away light smears of blood from where he’s made scratches on the surface of his skin.

---

“Your mind,” Barbara tells Damian as she completes her tenth rep on the pull-up bar, “should always be your sharpest weapon.”

They’re passing the time while waiting for Stephanie to join them for the day; Barbara has taken the past thirty minutes as an opportunity to show Damian all the equipment she owns.

Damian has seen this gym equipment at the corner of the Clocktower each time he visited, and he’s seen Barbara with short sleeves and tank tops—he knows for a fact that she works out.

Seeing it happen in real-time, however, is something else entirely.

She completes the pull-ups with the weight of her wheelchair in addition to her body weight. A utility belt secures her onto the chair at all times.

Barbara settles back onto the ground after completing her fifteenth pull-up—the final one of her set. She smirks at Damian. “Training your mind, however, should always go in conjunction with training your body. Got that?”

Damian nods. “It is necessary to keep a balance of both.”

He personally thinks he falls short on either, but that’s a story for another time.

“That’s right,” Barbara says. “Your turn.”

Damian steps forward and adjusts the height of the bar, which actually isn’t a pull-up bar, but rather, an empty barbell. Their makeshift setup is a weight rack, and because neither of them need the rig to be particularly tall, it’s been serving its purpose just fine.

Damian’s struggling through his seventh pull-up when his salvation, in the form of Stephanie entering the room, arrives.

“I’m so sorry for being late, you guys. I had to wrap up an assignment due at 5 PM,” she explains. “I have no idea what possessed my professor to choose that time, instead of setting it at 11:59, like a normal person.”

She sets her backpack down on the floor and plops down in one of the rolling chairs in front of the computer monitors. “Ugh. So yeah. How has everyone’s day been?”

“Typical day at the library for me,” Barbara replies. “Performed my usual repertoire of organizing community events, cataloging, finding books for visitors, answering angry phone calls—just about what you’d expect as a librarian.”

“Right. Remind me sometime to visit your branch—I’ll take care of the idiots,” Stephanie says as she spins her chair in circles.

Barbara grins. “No need. I’m used to it.”

Damian joins them, sitting down in the chair he’s been using every time he’s been here. “I received a perfect score on my math exam,” he shares, because there really wasn’t anything else special about school today. He skips sports with his classmates on days that he meets up with Barbara and Stephanie, which tends to be Tuesdays and Thursdays.

“Hell yeah,” Stephanie tells him, holding her palm out. “High five!”

Damian smiles as he returns her high-five to commemorate the occasion.

“Okay,” Stephanie announces as she leans back in her seat. “So. We’re going to take a look at the blueprint again, and we’ll try to brainstorm some ideas as to what it could be, yeah? It’s a new week—let’s look at it with a fresh perspective.”

Throughout the course of the meetings they’ve had so far, they’ve narrowed down their five blueprint clues to one.

Cluemaster provided them with five sheets—each depicting a similar floor plan, but containing minute differences that set them apart.

The four that they’ve ruled out, they did so after considering each component of the diagram carefully to determine why they couldn’t be real blueprints. The reasons varied from a lack of a depicted fire escape, to incorrect scaling and measurements—all errors that would have been caught before such a building was ever brought into reality in the first place.

The one blueprint that they ended up with—the only design that makes sense—Barbara had already cross-referenced with a database of existing buildings in Gotham. There was no match.

This, in the end, could mean many things, but what they’re choosing to go with is Occam’s razor: the blueprint must be one of a building that no longer exists.

Barbara offered to pull up some architectural archives if they can at least come up with some ideas as to what type of establishment the blueprint correlated to, otherwise they’d never reach an end to the possibilities they’d have to field through.

This is what Damian keeps in mind as the three of them look at the page for the next thirty minutes, occasionally throwing some guesses around, and Googling a couple of references every few minutes to compare and contrast.

They started off strong, brainstorming concepts such as government buildings, community centers, and grocery stores, before they started devolving into nonsense guesses—mainly provided by Stephanie, who began listing “carnival” and “national park” and “flea market”, all of which were very clearly not buildings.

Damian, however, keeps at it. He continues to observe every detail of the diagram.

The layout is very peculiar: there are many walls, but not many rooms.

In fact, the way the walls are spread out doesn't make much sense in terms of creating divisions for different rooms. The orientation of them doesn’t allow for any privacy, or even proper doorways. It’d be ineffective.

Which means that making separate enclosed rooms wasn’t the objective of the architect. It had to have been something else.

The more Damian considers it, the more he gets the feeling that he’s seen this before. He’s walked through similar interiors of buildings like this in the past.

The oddest part of the floor plan is how spacious it is. It doesn’t seem to have any areas that are meant for utilities such as a kitchen.

Damian does a mental rundown of the details: this is something that contains a lot of space; something that’s meant to be kept relatively empty; something that probably receives a lot of foot traffic during operating hours—

“—an art gallery,” Damian states abruptly as soon as the idea strikes him, causing Stephanie and Barbara to look over. “The blueprint is for an art gallery.”

Chapter Text

Damian knows he shouldn’t have agreed to this when he has to sit out to drink two bottles of water, and still feels dizzy when he’s done.

He’s sweating through his hoodie and he’s nauseous from exertion despite not having eaten much beforehand—it’s not something he would do right before getting on an aerial rig, anyway.

And that exactly is what he and Dick have been practicing on for the past hour. An entire room of the Batcave is dedicated to Dick’s acrobatic equipment. According to Dick, Bruce had originally set it up when Dick was fourteen as a tribute to his time at Haly’s, and so that he could maintain certain acrobatic skills that he couldn’t otherwise practice on the regular training setups.

Nobody uses this room besides Dick. It’s been out of use for so long before today that when Dick offered to show Damian the equipment, they spent a good chunk of their morning making sure that everything was still sturdy and safe to practice on.

Damian had thought the temperature here felt a little off compared to the rest of the Batcave, but he didn’t dwell on it until he actually started getting on the aerial silks, and then, it was suddenly swelteringly hot.

Dick only recently commented on the A/C being broken in here as he started noticing it too, but of course, he wasn’t the one wearing a hoodie while doing all of this. No, he’s dressed in an actual workout set, while Damian is all layered up.

“Are you okay?” Dick asks as he hands Damian a third plastic bottle of water before taking a seat on the ground beside him. “It’s kind of tough, but you did great for your first time on the silks. The hardest part for people is usually being that high up, but we’re no strangers to grappling up onto rooftops.”

Damian takes a sip of water and wipes at the sweat that keeps getting into his eyes. He then drinks more water in lieu of answering Dick.

“Hey,” Dick says, his eyebrows furrowing. He’s sweaty as well—they’re training, after all—but it’s nowhere near the level of how much Damian is sweating. “Lift your arms. Let’s get that hoodie off of you.”

Damian sets his bottle down so quickly that the force of it sends water splashing onto the ground. “No.”

Dick frowns, reaching for Damian’s hoodie anyway. “Come on, you’re clearly overheating. Why are you wearing that anyway? You do have something underneath, right?”

“Yes, I do,” Damian says, because he’s wearing a tank top, but he backs away from Dick as Dick grabs onto his arms. “Stop.”

Dick hesitates. “Why? What happened?”

Damian draws a blank for a rational excuse to that. He just stares at Dick, his heartbeat quickening.

“Okay, you’re being weird,” Dick decides, and then he makes an actual attempt to tug Damian’s hoodie off.

Dick’s grip is firm on the fabric, and Damian winces at the way the cotton rubs against a few of his scars, some of the skin there still sensitive even though none of the injuries are fresh.

“No, stop,” Damian insists, grabbing at Dick’s arms to prevent him from going any further. “Richard.”

Dick pauses, a mixture of confusion and concern blatant on his face, “Damian … did I do something?”

“No. I am fine,” Damian states firmly, even though it’s very clear that Dick saw the look on his face a moment ago. “Please drop it.”

Dick, of course, doesn’t. “Are you injured?” he presses, narrowing down his question.

“No.”

“Alright,” Dick says, “then you have nothing to hide. Can you take your hoodie off?”

He doesn’t make any attempt to reach for Damian again, trusting Damian to do it himself.

Damian looks over Dick’s shoulder as he tries to gauge how many seconds it would take him to reach the door if he takes off running.

“Damian,” Dick says, shifting to block his view. “We’re not leaving here until you explain to me what’s going on.”

“Nothing is,” Damian snaps, because he hasn’t been able to come up with anything that isn’t a statement of denial throughout this whole conversation. “Leave me alone.”

“That’d be a little irresponsible of me, wouldn’t it?” Dick says dryly. He smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Come on. I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s wrong.”

“I do not need help,” Damian tells him. “Why are you pushing the matter?”

As good as Dick is at concealing it, it’s clear that Damian’s words hurt him. Damian feels the all-too-familiar tug of guilt in his heart.

“Because you seem like you’re injured, and because I want to check up on you if you are,” Dick answers honestly, courteously, despite Damian’s passive-aggressiveness.

Damian sinks as far back into the wall as he can, shoulders slumping. “It is nothing new. I do not require treatment for it,” he says, because at least that much is true.

His recent scratches are healing steadily, and his cuts from over a month ago are fading at various rates. Some are a little reddish and easily irritated, and others are hyperpigmented but otherwise don’t cause him any trouble. He knows that the latter, at the very least, might blend in with the rest of his skin tone if he gives them enough time.

The shallower ones, he trusts, won’t leave any permanent evidence. The deeper ones, well…

This was his choice anyway.

The fact stands that none of what’s on his arms needs any sort of medical attention, and Dick is misguided in thinking that they do.

Injuries, in and of themselves, aren’t the issue. Damian wouldn’t get in trouble for that alone. But what would Dick think, if he knew how Damian got these scars?

He’d be disgusted. No normal person would do this to themself.

Dick chews on his lip. “Okay, well, it’s clearly still affecting you, even if it’s not new. So can I take a look?”

“That would not be necessary,” Damian says, unrelenting.

“Damian,” Dick tries again, taking a new approach. “When I said we’re not leaving here until I find out what’s happening, I mean it. I have the whole day. Don’t make this harder than it needs to be.”

Dick doesn’t raise his voice, but the words are abrasive nonetheless. Against his will, without warning, Damian finds himself having to blink back tears before he gets a chance to reply to Dick.

Dick, who has been looking directly at him the entire conversation, notices this immediately.

“Hey,” he says, his voice softening. “I didn’t mean it like that. I’m sorry. I just … you don’t seem okay, and I’m not comfortable with leaving you alone right now if that’s the case.”

Damian glances down at his shoes where he’s sitting criss-crossed.

He knows that Dick is being sincere when he says that, and it makes Damian feel guilty. Dick has been here for him since the beginning. He was the first one to truly get to know Damian when he first came to Gotham, and if there’s anyone that Damian’s the least averse to opening up to, it’d be Dick.

This, however, is still a caliber far beyond what Dick would take well. Dick would take an injury seriously. He’d address it objectively. But this isn’t what constitutes a regular injury—this is self-inflicted. This isn’t merely a physical affliction, it’s a moral failing.

He doesn’t want to have to deal with Dick’s judgement. He can’t handle that right now.

“You are going to be upset,” Damian says quietly.

“I won’t,” Dick counters.

“You cannot promise that,” Damian tells him, because how someone feels about something isn’t a choice, and Dick certainly isn’t going to be happy about this.

“No, I can’t,” Dick says slowly, agreeably. “But what I can promise is that I won’t react that way, even if I feel that way. Treatment first, discussion later. How does that sound?”

It doesn’t sound good at all, but Damian knows that the truth is bound to come out one way or another today, and if he doesn’t do anything to help the matter, Dick will eventually have to take that agency from him.

Damian doesn’t doubt that Dick will hold true to his word, and if that’s the case, Damian would rather have this happen on his own terms, sooner rather than later.

He nods half-heartedly as he reaches for the hem of his hoodie and flips it inside out as he pulls it over his head. Air hits his bare skin and he knows that Dick can see what his arms look like before he sees it himself.

But he doesn’t need to see his own body to know what it looks like. He’s all too familiar with that part already. He bundles his hoodie up into a ball and hugs it tightly against his chest as he looks at Dick, observing his reaction closely.

Dick goes still, and his expression is unreadable for a while as he surveys what’s on Damian’s arms and shoulders.

“Damian,” he says quietly. Knowingly. “Did you do this to yourself?”

Damian can feel his cheeks heating up at the question. He trains his gaze on a spot in the distance, staring at the empty floor to his left. His lack of an answer is an answer in itself.

Dick closes his eyes as he exhales deeply. “Okay,” he says, “When did these happen?”

“December,” Damian answers.

“December,” Dick repeats. “The end of December?” he asks, drawing a connection, putting together the pieces of the timeline.

Had it been any earlier—had it been before Damian was sidelined from the field—someone, one way or another, would have known.

Still, Dick looks at Damian for some sort of confirmation.

Damian nods.

“And you’ve been keeping them clean?” Dick asks. “Antiseptic? Bandaging?”

Damian nods again, but he knows that they both know the critical period for that is over. Procedures are only a pressing matter when wounds are new.

“Okay. And how about long-term? Moisturizer? Scar creams?” Dick continues.

Damian shrugs, because he’d been too caught up in everything else to really care about the cosmetic part of the healing process, but maybe he should care.

“We’re going to the store after this,” Dick tells him firmly. “But first: why?”

Damian looks at him tiredly. “Why did I do this, you mean?” he asks, because of course Dick would want to know the answer to the one thing Damian can’t justify, at least not in any way that Dick would find acceptable. “Because I had a lapse in judgment within a difficult situation, Richard, and that is something I am taking responsibility for.”

“Damian,” Dick says. “These didn’t all happen on the same day. Some of these—” he flicks his eyes over to the shallower scratches on Damian’s arms. “Some look recent. So tell me what’s wrong. What did Bruce say to you the night he benched you?”

He pinpoints the matter scarily fast, but in the end, it doesn’t take a genius to put two-and-two together, especially now that Damian’s given him a specific timeframe in which he self-harmed.

“Nothing,” Damian snaps. “He did not say anything to cause this. This was my choice.”

In the end, that is the truth. Nobody else forced the blade onto his skin—he did. He can’t deny that. Nonetheless, his answer doesn’t appease his brother.

“I need you to be honest with me,” Dick contends, “so that we can address this together.”

“You do not know what it is like with Father,” Damian says, irritated all of a sudden, because Dick is acting like this is simple when it is anything but. “I am not a project for you to fix.”

“Do you think I don’t know what it’s like?” Dick snaps back. “I was Bruce’s first attempt at raising a kid. I moved out of the manor when I was seventeen. So tell me again that I don’t know what it’s like.”

Damian scowls at him, but there’s no force behind it. He’s breathing hard and his heart feels like it’s about to beat right out of his chest. His body feels hot all over, despite having taken off his hoodie.

Dick promised he wouldn’t be upset. He promised.

“Fuck,” Dick mumbles suddenly as he slides one hand over his face. He’s realized this too, it seems. “Sorry. I’m sorry.”

Damian shakes his head vigorously, because Dick makes a point, and a very good one, at that. It follows the same lines of what Tim’s been telling him all along.

And it’s the same case with Jason. And Steph.

Everyone’s had their own experiences with Bruce, and they all follow the same beat. Damian knows this. He knows.

It doesn’t make it any easier.

Despite how he feels about the matter, though, the fact stands that he’s not the only one. Dick is futilely trying to remind him of that.

However, Damian’s case is different, in one very small detail that changes everything, and it’s just his luck that he can’t ever divulge it to anyone.

Damian tugs at his hair. He’s just as frustrated about this as Dick is, and it isn’t helping the situation.

Dick takes a deep breath before he speaks again. “It’s just—you can’t do this, Damian,” he stresses, his gaze landing once again on Damian’s arms. “Nothing is worth this. Do you understand?”

Damian nods, feeling guilty about it. “I know that.” He doesn’t need Dick to rehash it.

Although there’s been adequate time in between his major bout of self-harm and now, and he has a better perspective on it today than he did a month and a half ago, he still very clearly remembers how he felt when it happened.

He knows why he did it—the emotions are just as potent in his memories now as they were the day of, but he is no longer so absorbed in the pain of it all that it has allowed his worldview to become much wider.

He shouldn’t have to give up pieces of himself to please anyone else. He doesn’t have to fit into the mold that other people have created for him.

That’s something he knows very well, so it sometimes continues to leave him breathless, to be aware of how much these moments bother him still when he thinks back to them.

The way he felt in December—he doesn’t want to feel that way again. But he can’t guarantee that he won’t.

Dick runs his fingers through his hair, very clearly stressed out. He squeezes his eyes shut tightly for a second before opening them again. “I’m literally an officer,” he mutters, speaking to himself as much as he is to Damian. “I’m trained to handle stuff like this. I’m…”

Damian frowns Dick. “It is not your responsibility,” he reassures, disconcerted at how worked up Dick seems to be, and how helpless Damian is to the matter.

“No, Damian,” Dick counters. “You need support. Like, outside support. I’m going to have to speak to Bruce about that after I give him an ass-kicking.”

“Do not tell him,” Damian states firmly, because if there’s any contingency he’s thought out beforehand, it’s this. “I will not speak to you again if you do.”

He means it. Such a thing would be a betrayal of his trust, and should Dick go through with it, Damian won’t forgive him for it.

Dick falters, stammering. “I’m—he needs to know that his actions—he’s your dad, Damian. I need to tell him.”

“Grayson,” Damian states carefully, driving an air of distance between them. “Do not say anything to him.”

He’s dead serious about what he said; Dick wouldn’t be the first person to exit his life, by choice or not. Damian has no qualms about enacting his threat. Whatever regrets he’ll have, he can deal with them later.

Dick twitches at the use of his last name. He stills and inhales deeply, going through a brief internal debate before giving in. “Okay. Okay, Damian. I won’t. I promise.”

Damian nods cautiously, because he’s never known Dick to be dishonest, and he trusts that this won’t be the first time. Relief washes over him. “Okay.”

He leaves it at that, and silence befalls the two of them as Dick buries his face in his hands before fidgeting with his hair once again.

“I have connections. Resources,” Dick says. “You need support, Damian, and that’s non-negotiable.”

Damian huffs. “Like what?” he asks, because the healthcare system in America seems to have all sorts of intricacies and hoops to jump through that he’s pretty sure consists of mainly pseudoscience anyway. “Counselors, you mean?”

His school has one of those, and although he’s never visited her, most of his classmates who have, have done so to discuss academic matters rather than personal ones. He’s not sure a counselor would suit his needs.

“Yes,” Dick answers. “I’m here for you no matter what, Damian, you know that. But getting a second opinion is the responsible thing for me to do. There are people who are trained for this sort of stuff—they can help you.”

Damian frowns at him. “They cannot fix anything,” he argues. He doesn’t need to be fixed.

“They can’t fix your problems for you,” Dick corrects, “but they can offer you a different perspective. They can guide you towards a newer, healthier direction. Like I mentioned: you don’t have a say in this. We’ll figure something out, and you will speak to someone.”

Damian sighs, wondering if agreeing to this is what it will make Dick stop pestering him. This isn’t going to harm him further than wasting his time, and if he’s being realistic, he thinks it’s more of a waste of time for Dick than it is for him.

But beyond just being a waste of time, it’s a waste of resources. These things require money.

Damian thinks about it. “It is going to cost you…” he realizes. “You cannot do that for me.”

“I don’t care about that,” Dick says sharply. “Don’t focus on that. This is something you need, and that alone makes it worth it to me. I’m going to book an appointment for you, and you’re going to go. Understood?”

Damian exhales. He has to consider how to schedule this into everything else he needs to do on a regular basis. This is just another burden to add to his to-do list.

“When?” he asks.

Dick fidgets with his hands, thinking. “As soon as possible, so how about next week? Uh—actually—how about we figure this out together? I have my laptop upstairs. Come with me.”

He then stands up, and Damian reluctantly begins to straighten out his bundled up hoodie as he gets up from where he’s sitting as well, obliging.

This isn’t the worst thing that could happen to him, no. There are plenty of worse ways this could’ve gone, and this isn’t one of them.

He can deal with this.

He can put up with this for as long as it makes Dick happy. Damian owes him that much.

---

Damian’s keenly aware of when someone enters the kitchen behind him as he’s taking his slice of bread out of the toaster.

The individual’s footsteps are sturdy, but barely audible.

He doesn’t need that detail to know who it is, though, because if it were anyone else, they’d have said something by now.

He begins to uncap the jar of peanut butter next to his plate of toast. He can take his breakfast back to his room if he needs to in order to get out of here.

From a few yards away, Bruce finally speaks up.

“Would you like to go fishing?” he asks.

The question takes Damian aback. He hasn’t gone fishing in years, and the times that he has, it’s been in rivers and lakes. He didn’t have easy access to the ocean the same way he does here, in New Jersey.

The act of fishing, too, differed greatly from the recreational kind that people in the states tend to be so fond of. Damian’s fishing has always been out of necessity. He’s always treated it as a means of obtaining food rather than a pastime.

This, perhaps, is just another one of those cultural shifts he has to get used to.

The pressing matter currently is not so much that Bruce is asking Damian to go fishing with him. Rather, it’s the fact that this is the first time Bruce is making an attempt to talk to him about something that doesn’t seem to serve any greater purpose. It’s jarring.

Damian’s having a hard time believing Bruce would want to do this purely for leisure, but at the same time, he doesn't see what kind of ulterior motive there would be to fishing, of all things.

“Right … now?” Damian asks tentatively, glancing over his shoulder.

It’s a Sunday, and he didn’t have anything else planned, but that doesn't automatically mean he wants to spend his day like this, either. He’s already had enough to deal with this weekend, and he’s not particularly interested in talking to anybody right now. He even craves a hiatus from interacting with Dick, after what happened yesterday.

Bruce gives a brief head tilt that’s a silent indication of yes.

Damian focuses his attention on spreading peanut butter on his slice of toast as he considers the offer. If he agrees to this, he’s not going to participate in the actual fishing—he’s sure of that much. He doesn’t eat fish the same way he doesn’t eat meat, and he doesn’t anticipate that he’ll be any happier about catching and releasing. That’s not his idea of a fun hobby.

He can’t expect everyone to hold the same viewpoint, however, and he’s fine with that, if that’s what Bruce wants to do.

He’s more invested in the idea that Bruce wants to bring him, implying that he wants to spend time with Damian. Should Damian turn him down this time, Bruce might not ask again.

Bruce might never ask again, and the thought of that bothers Damian more than he’d like to admit. That alone is enough of a reason for him to say what he says next.

“I am willing to accompany you,” Damian ventures, looking back at Bruce once more, “but I will not be fishing.”

Should worse come to worst, he doesn’t need to agree to an outing with Bruce again in the future. If need be, this could be their first and their last time. But if Damian doesn’t at least give this a chance … well, that’d be on him.

Bruce looks awkward all of a sudden, and Damian can tell he’s trying to come up with an alternative to transition to as smoothly as possible.

“There will be no need for either of us to fish,” Bruce amends. “We can head out on a boat for a few hours. On the coast of Atlantic City.”

“Okay,” Damian replies, but only after he gives himself enough time to take a bite from his toast and finish chewing it. “We can do that.”

---

That “boat” in question turns out to be a yacht.

And not a normal yacht, no. One that’s custom-built to be fast and efficient; Bruce ended up chartering a power cruiser yacht, alongside a captain and a crew.

It’s only when they’re quite a distance out into the Atlantic, standing on the deck, that Damian comes up with something to ask Bruce. By now, his phone has fully lost any cell service it had been clinging onto this far off-shore, which leaves him with nothing better to do than to lean onto the deck’s railing and stare out into the expanse of the ocean. But even that is beginning to get repetitive.

He glances over at Bruce, who seems to be doing the same thing.

“Do you fish often?” Damian asks, unsure of whether it’s a good opener to a conversation, but he figures he might as well begin with something that’s presumably one of Bruce’s interests.

Bruce looks at him. “Not so much in recent years, but in the past, yes.”

Adults sometimes scale time in vague ways, and Damian wonders if Bruce is one of those people. The “past” that Bruce is referring to could mean anything from a few seasons ago all the way back to his teenage years.

“Do you need a saltwater fishing license?” Damian continues, because he knows that Americans are all about rules and regulations, which is extremely different from what he’s used to, coming from a city where literal assassins are housed.

“Not in New Jersey,” Bruce replies. “It’s all digital, through a recreational registry program. I renew my status annually.”

Damian nods. It makes sense that the state’s government is turning to virtual means of record-keeping; it’s much more practical than issuing a physical card to each individual.

Damian looks out towards the ocean again, wondering whether he’s going to have to be the one initiating the topics of their conversation each time. Doesn’t Bruce have anything he wants to say?

Damian stares down at the opaque dark blue shade of the water, unable to see any form of life through it.

“What kinds of fish do you typically catch?” he asks curiously.

“Here, specifically? All sorts,” Bruce tells him. “Bonito, cod, mackerel, striped bass. All good for cooking, too. Are there … any species endemic to the Himalayas?”

The reciprocal question regarding Damian’s home surprises him, but he supposes he might as well answer, if Bruce wants to know.

“Um, there are a lot of trout. Snow trout, brown trout, rainbow…” Damian begins, even though he’s pretty sure none of them are specific to Nanda Parbat and can be found anywhere. “Carp is common, too. The golden mahseer—that one is sought out by sport fishermen.”

He must make some sort of face when he mentions sport fishing, because Bruce picks up on it, despite only barely tilting his head towards Damian’s direction. They’re both leaning on the railing still, facing forward instead of facing each other.

“Did you primarily practice subsistence fishing?” Bruce asks, because while it’s clear that Damian’s not a fan of doing it recreationally, the amount of knowledge he’s shared on fishing so far must be enough to imply that he’s at least done it before.

“Yes,” Damian says. “Many of my—” he cuts himself off before he can say the word mother, settling for a more generic phrasing of his sentence instead. “Many recipes in Nanda Parbat include fish. Samke harra used to be one of my favorites.”

Bruce hums in acknowledgement. “I am sure some of my own recipes pale in comparison,” he comments, “especially the ones from my college years. I could no longer rely on Alfred’s tilapia or his clam chowder at the time.”

Damian huffs a breath of laughter. “I have been able to cook since the day I could walk. I do not think that would be an issue for me in the future, thankfully.”

He doesn’t receive a reply to that, and when he looks over, Bruce has a weird expression on his face, like he’s conflicted about something. Damian wonders whether he shouldn’t have said that, even if it was factual.

He sighs quietly, glancing away and training his gaze absently on the metal railing instead. He shouldn’t be surprised, really. This is a pattern of behavior after all, when it comes to Bruce. When his words aren’t harsh, they’re always lacking. There’s never a proper in-between.

Maybe he doesn’t want to spend a Sunday with Bruce again, then.

A few seconds pass by before Bruce makes an off-topic comment, changing the subject. “Take a look. There are some sea turtles,” he tells Damian.

Damian’s gaze flicks over to Bruce. He traces Bruce’s line of sight off to the right, and he promptly catches sight of the group of turtles floating atop the surface of the water.

And that, he thinks, is the kind of thing he’d wanted to see since they made their way out here in the first place.

Suddenly, this entire trip seems all the more worth it, as he watches the turtles wade around peacefully.

He figures he’ll bring a pair of binoculars with him if he receives another opportunity to come back out to the ocean. Perhaps, he could even ask Tim to lend him one of his cameras.

Under those circumstances, maybe he wouldn’t be opposed to doing this again.

Chapter Text

(“A gym,” Barbara said. “It’s a gym. The blueprints—it all boils down to this. Take a look, Damian.”

Damian turned his chair to face Barbara and see what she was indicating towards on the computer screen.

There, two semi-transparent images were overlaid, one on top of the other. The interior of the gym had been renovated, the layout of it looking completely different from the one on the art gallery archive that had been given to them as a clue.

The exterior, however, was unmistakable. The dimensions of the building were the exact same, and it was as likely of a match as it could be for an archive that existed thirty years ago.

“Where is this?” Damian asked.

“Trenton. This is the floorplan for the LA Fitness by the Delaware river,” Barbara told him. “We have our location pinpointed, which is very good in terms of progress. However…”

“However, we do not know when Cluemaster will target it,” Damian finished for her.

Barbara nodded. “We can give a heads up to the Trenton Police Department, but that’s about it. They don’t work with us the same way GCPD does, and we can’t really do anything either from this far away—at least not unless we know something is going to happen for sure.”

Damian gave a nod in acknowledgement, but he wasn’t feeling confident about the situation.

However, while this was technically out of their jurisdiction, he knew that the Bats would be more than willing to travel the distance from Gotham to Trenton, as long as they were able to prepare for it. As a team, they would all need to find a solution.

They have to.)

“Do you want to come to patrol tonight?” Bruce asks as Damian’s retying a shoelace that came undone right as he was about to step out of the house to find something enjoyable to do with his Saturday.

Damian tightens the knot on his laces and stands up from where he was crouched down. He turns around to face Bruce.

The question is unexpected, but it’s not a hard one to answer. Damian values control over his life more than anything. His two sessions with Dr. Stewart so far weren’t all for nothing, despite it being too early for him to make any real progress yet.

At the very least, this encounter will give Damian a chance to actually have something to talk about during their next session, although he’ll have to come up with a way to rephrase the question of Bruce asking him to go on patrol. He’ll tell Dr. Stewart that his father asked him to accompany him in running errands, or whatever. Damian will have to brainstorm later about what non-vigilante families occupy themselves with in their daily lives.

Damian looks Bruce in the eye. “No thank you,” he says simply.

He doesn’t give a crap even though he knows his help on the field would objectively increase their chances of catching Cluemaster in the upcoming few weeks.

He won’t participate. He refuses to.

He opens the front door and steps outside, not bothering to say goodbye. He’s tired of Bruce walking up to him freely whenever Bruce feels like he actually wants to talk to Damian.

But … it’s objectively better than being ignored. It’s the lesser of two evils, and Damian hates how he prefers this over the alternative.

---

“Hey,” Barbara greets over the phone call, “you’re the first one I’m telling so far. I’m going to let the others know pretty soon, but for this, I ought to speak to you first.”

“What is it?” Damian asks, pressing his phone closer to his ear. He’s in a corner of the subway platform, waiting for his train to arrive. He’d only recently gotten out of school for the day.

“The gym we pinpointed last week—it’s the right one. TPD has some developments on it that they’ve relayed to us, due to our involvement with Cluemaster so far. They wanted our help. This morning, the receptionist at the LA Fitness received a phone call from someone asking if they could set up a gym membership at the front desk rather than online. The receptionist said ‘sure’. The client then mentioned that they would stop by at 8 PM, and when asked for their name, ‘Cluemaster’ was their answer.”

Damian brings his phone away from his ear for a few seconds to check the time on it. “That is in four hours,” he says, feeling a little nervous about the short notice. “We need to act fast if something is going to happen.”

“Yeah,” Barbara says. “I’ll get on it. About what I mentioned at the start, though: I wanted to ask you to join me in running comms tonight. I don’t care what Bruce thinks of it. He’s not going to say no to any sort of extra help, and besides, I’m the one behind the computer screen, not him. So. What do you think?”

Damian doesn’t hesitate with his answer. “Of course. I would love to assist.”

---

“Before you ask,” Tim says as soon as Damian opens his bedroom door in response to a knock, “Bruce didn’t send me. I came here of my own volition.”

Damian looks at him knowingly. “Are you here to ask me to be on the field tonight?”

Tim nods. “Yeah. You don’t have to. Like, at all. I understand. But if you want to whatsoever, we’re going to head out at seven.”

“I appreciate you letting me know,” Damian replies, “but I will be assisting Barbara with communications instead. I will be listening in for the full duration of the mission, so you can feel free to speak to me anytime over the line tonight. I … hope that everything goes smoothly on the field.”

He knows that this mission is important, and that they could really use his help as Robin today more so than ever, but his opinions aren’t something he’s willing to let up on simply because the situation necessitates it. He’s standing his ground.

It won’t be all bad, though. With how crucial tonight’s operation will be, having a second set of eyes on the computer could be the difference between winning and losing. His work with Barbara is just as important as anything else. Moreover, it’s his way of contributing.

Tim nods again. “Gotcha. Thanks.” He gives Damian a small but sincere smile. “Best of luck to you too. I’ll catch you later. I gotta make some phone calls to the others—7 PM is a bit iffy compared to our usual time, and I’m not sure everyone can make it. I don’t think B’s gonna be happy about it, but, I mean, he’s gotta face reality.”

This complication was something that had previously crossed Damian’s mind as well. It still hadn’t been enough to convince him to relent and pick up his uniform again, though.

Nonetheless, it’s a valid concern.

“I can take care of making the calls,” Damian offers, stopping Tim before he can leave. “Do not worry about it. I will inform Father.”

He doesn’t want Tim to take the brunt of something that isn’t anyone’s fault at all.

Additionally, if Damian is to run the logistics of the mission tonight, this task might as well serve as his first foray into it.

---

“Oh yeah, Babs texted me earlier while I was out volunteering,” Stephanie says over the phone. Damian can hear plenty of background noise, indicating that she’s likely still on campus. “I have an exam that begins at six for one of my evening classes. As much as I’d like to make sure my dad gets locked up for good this time around, the truth is, he’s interfered with my life enough just by existing. I’m not about to let him screw up my education too, so I’m gonna take my exam. I’m not skipping. Tell B to shove it up his ass if he doesn’t like my answer.”

Damian smiles to himself. “Okay. Good luck on your exam. That is by far the more important thing.”

He has a lot of respect for Stephanie prioritizing herself and her own needs before those of the team’s. That, in particular, is something he understands very well.

“Thanks!” Stephanie replies. “I gotta go soon, but Babs told me that this would be your first time running comms with her?”

“Yes,” Damian confirms. “She asked me to join her at the Clocktower tonight, and I agreed to it.”

He’s a little nervous, considering that he’s never done it before and that his initial opportunity in doing so will be for a high-stakes mission, but Barbara had reassured him that his responsibility would solely be to keep track of what everyone is saying on comms. Nothing more, nothing less. She’ll still be the one managing things happening on the computer.

“Ooh yeah, okay. If that’s the case … stay tuned,” Stephanie tells him cryptically. “I could show up a few hours late, depending on what’s happening when I’m done with my test. I can’t just pass up an opportunity to support you now, can I?”

A warm and fuzzy feeling of gratitude blossoms in Damian’s chest. “Stephanie,” he counters, “focus on your studies, please.”

“I will,” Stephanie reassures. “But keep an eye out, yeah?”

Damian smiles to himself once again. “Okay. I will be sure to.”

---

“Alright. Tell B that I’ll be there,” comes Jason’s response through Damian’s phone’s speaker. “Let’s put this rip-off Riddler behind bars tonight.”

“Great,” Damian says, even though he’d already expected Jason, of all people, to say yes. “I will inform Father, then. Do you feel ready?”

“For this? Yeah. Cluemaster’s been on the loose for far too long, and it’s not like I have anything better to do,” Jason says. “I’ll be sure to clean my pistols thoroughly before I head out.”

“Jason,” Damian warns, even though he’s pretty sure Jason is saying that more for dramatic effect than anything else, “we are not aiming to harm him. Our objective is to turn him over to the police. Remember that.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jason replies nonchalantly. “I know. It’s a last resort measure.”

“Mhm,” Damian says. “Well, I will catch you over the communications system tonight. I wish you all the best.”

“Thanks; you too. You’ll kill it out there for sure. You know … I’m proud of you,” Jason tells him, “for forging your own path and all. Babs is lucky to have you on her side.”

“Thank you,” Damian says before broaching a subject that’s been on his mind for a while. “About what you told me last month … um, I really appreciated that. It helped me in making my decision, so thank you.”

“Anytime, kid,” Jason responds in earnest. “You don’t need to thank me; there’s no situation in which I wouldn’t do that for you. So yeah. I’ll see you at seven, Damian.”

---

“Dude,” Dick says. “Bruce is an idiot. I’m still at work. I can be there by eight, sure. Not seven, though. I’ll try to be as quick as possible, but tell him he needs to consult the Jus—”

He cuts himself off abruptly, but Damian knows what his sentence was supposed to end with.

The Justice League. Dick is suggesting that Bruce reach out for additional support.

“Sorry,” Dick apologizes, keeping his voice low. “I’m at my desk. I’m inside the station right now. But yeah, tell him he needs to speak to some of his buddies. I gotta go—I have a lot to do before I clock out. Sorry, Dami. This is Bruce’s problem, not yours. Just let him know what I said and he’ll figure it out. I love you. See you later.”

Damian doesn't get a chance to say goodbye in return before Dick hangs up, but he doesn’t take it personally.

Dick has been busy, and he’s been making sacrifices to fit time into his schedule for Damian recently, even though he really doesn’t have any to spare. He’s been carving chunks out of his PTO to bring Damian to therapy, and he’s even taken a few nights off patrolling Blüdhaven to keep Damian company over phone calls. They’ll sometimes stay on the line for hours while doing their own things in real life, and Damian appreciates his presence each time.

It helps Damian to know that he’s this well-loved by his brother, despite their geographical distance.

---

“Stephanie cannot make it. Jason can. So can Richard, with the caveat that he will meet you at the designated location no earlier than eight,” Damian informs Bruce in the Batcave as he watches Bruce sharpen a utility knife. “I know you were expecting Timothy to tell you this, and not me, but I am aware of what the mission plans are, and I assure you I made the phone calls to everybody accordingly.”

Bruce’s hands pause on the whetstone, and the uncomfortable sound of metal scraping against rock ceases, which Damian takes reprieve in. He’s always hated that aspect of sharpening knives.

Bruce glances up at him.

“Have you always referred to them by their…” Bruce trails off before waving his hand dismissively and getting back on topic. “Alright. If Stephanie and Dick can’t be here, that is fine. I will manage.”

Have you always referred to them by their first names, Damian thinks, is what Bruce was going to say.

Something bitter brews within him, but he pushes the feeling down, choosing to ignore that Bruce even asked. The fact that Bruce doesn’t know already speaks volumes. He’s not close enough to Damian to need to know.

Both of them have more important things to concern themselves with at the moment; they’re now down to the final hour before everything begins.

Damian himself has even less time than that, because he needs to head out to the Clocktower.

“Richard suggested that you consult the Justice League,” Damian tells Bruce, relaying a key detail.

Bruce gives a nod, unfazed. “I thought about that earlier. I spoke to Clark. The more assistance we can get, the better.”

Damian blinks, surprised. “You did?” he asks.

He hadn’t expected Bruce to have already contacted other people, but he supposes it makes sense. In missions past, the Bats themselves hadn’t been enough to stop Cluemaster, and if they try again with fewer of them this time around, the outcome is even more unlikely to be favorable.

“Yes,” Bruce says simply. “A few of them will be joining us.”

“Oh. That is good,” Damian replies, dumbfounded. “I am glad.”

He doesn't ask which ones, but he'll find out soon enough. He doesn’t really know them beyond their names, either way. What matters is that they’ll be there, which will greatly increase their chances of success.

“Um,” Damian mentions as he prepares to leave, “our earpieces—I assume you have enough spares. Please make sure everyone is wearing one. I will be assisting Barbara tonight, so I will update her on the situation.”

He hadn’t intended on telling Bruce he’d be running comms, because he’s not seeking Bruce’s approval or permission, but it seems pertinent to mention now.

Bruce nods. If he has any underlying thoughts about the arrangement, he doesn’t voice them. “Alright. Thank you, Damian.”

---

“Okay,” Barbara says into the microphone of her headset. “So. A couple of TPD officers have been dispatched to investigate the premises. You guys might encounter them when you get there. They may end up preemptively evacuating the civilians, but remember that all they’re basing this investigation on is a single phone call—they won’t take any measures unless they determine it’s serious. Help them out if you see anything, please.”

“Gotcha,” Jason’s voice comes through, “thanks, Oracle.”

Barbara taps a button on her headphones to mute her microphone before turning to Damian to speak to him. “I have a few concerns about the whole thing. I know we’re beginning an hour early and all, but Cluemaster’s never given us a specific time within his clues before. I just feel like he wouldn’t make it this easy, you know? It’s suspicious.”

Damian nods. “I have been thinking about that. However, I am not sure. I assume that he knows we do not typically patrol this early, and by striking earlier in the day, he would inherently hold an advantage over us. Perhaps he believes that listing an exact time would not put him at a disadvantage either way, due to our availability.”

He hopes that the specification of 8 PM doesn’t hold any implication deeper than that, but even he has his own doubts about it.

“I suppose so,” Barbara says. “Things might become clearer to us as events begin to unfold.”

“Yes,” Damian agrees, “although we should remain cautious and scout the area thoroughly.”

“Yeah,” Barbara says as she turns towards the screen to pull up the GPS markers of everyone currently out on the field. “We will.”

There are the three familiar dots that Damian recognizes as Batman’s, Red Hood’s, and Red Robin’s, but on the screen are three new ones as well—the ones that Barbara had to set up and label just an hour ago.

Those three are for Superman, Wonder Woman, and Green Lantern.

Barbara reactivates her microphone. “I request that everyone check the perimeter of the building before entering. Additionally, do not enter until you speak to the TPD officers on site and receive permission to. There are civilians using the gym right now; your presence would tip them off.”

“Roger that,” Superman says.

Damian waits in anticipation as the minutes tick down. They’re nearing seven-thirty, and while Barbara has access to cameras inside of the gym, they’re not using them yet. Right now, they only get to know each person’s location on the map based on their tracking signals.

Damian wonders how Barbara does it everyday—giving commands to the team when she really only knows so much about the situation. She can coordinate where everyone goes, and she can manage the behind-the-scenes information with the databases she has access to, but despite all that, it feels very limited.

It feels vastly different to be sitting here than to be out on the field. Damian used to think that Barbara’s role as Oracle allowed her to be omniscient—and in some ways, almost omnipotent—but now that he’s getting a glimpse into what it’s like, he no longer thinks so.

In fact, it’s nearly the opposite. It feels disempowering, to be this far from everyone else, knowing that you can sort out the overarching plan, but not the finer details. Barbara could know exactly how to carry a mission to success, and yet, none of it is guaranteed to come to fruition unless everyone else effectively executes their parts within the plan.

But Damian supposes that this is what being part of a team entails, in the end. Each and every one of them is important. If one person falls out of line, the entire thing unravels.

Damian thinks that, in a way, he can see where Bruce was coming from, last December. Viewing it objectively now, the concept becomes clearer to him.

But nothing is ever that simple, and thinking that it is would just be pure fantasy.

“We’re here, and from what they told us, the cops don’t seem to have a good feeling about it,” Green Lantern relays after a bout of silence. “They’re going to ask the civilians to leave before it hits eight. It’s going to take a while—they don’t wanna rush anyone or freak them out. We’ll stand by.”

“They also mentioned that they will verify everyone’s identities as they leave.” Wonder Woman adds. “Each person signed in with their unique membership ID when they entered the gym, so we know exactly who’s in here, and this way, we can make sure the counts match up.”

“Wonderful,” Oracle replies. “Let’s hope it all goes smoothly.”

“Indeed,” Batman mutters.

Damian watches as Oracle turns towards her second monitor to pull up the live surveillance for the building. Damian observes each camera’s screen carefully, but he doesn’t spot anything out of the ordinary, nor does he see anyone who looks like Cluemaster, regardless of attire.

People filter out of the facility slowly as per the cops’ instructions. They stop by the checkpoint at the front entrance to present their driver’s licenses, confirming their identities before they leave. As the police take care of this process, the gym’s employees assist in cataloging each person, making sure that they’re accurately keeping track of everyone.

Another ten minutes pass by before they manage to clear the building. The security cameras have no audio output, but Damian observes as the employees speak to the cops, informing them of something.

“I’m listening in,” Superman says in the meantime, eavesdropping despite not even being inside the building. “They’re saying that the counts don’t match up. Some of the civilians who signed in haven’t yet signed out, even though they cleared the first and second floors.”

“We are going to have to do a sweep of the interior,” Batman replies. “Bathrooms and storage rooms.”

“Okay,” Oracle acknowledges. “Wait for the all-clear from TPD, and then you can go.”

And so they do. They give the police time to tell them the same information Superman already did, and then they wait as the officers dismiss the gym’s employees—supposedly the last of the civilians.

Then, Damian watches on screen as their team of six head on inside to conduct their own investigation.

“Spread out,” Damian instructs, activating the microphone on his headset and speaking up for the first time tonight. “Superman and Batman, go to the second floor. Red Robin and Green Lantern, remain on the first. Red Hood and Wonder Woman, check for any back rooms or balconies. See if there is a basement.”

Red Robin indulges him. “Aye aye, captain.”

“Who’s talking?” Green Lantern asks, eyes scanning over everyone else before he gives Batman a questioning look. “Is this your youngest?”

Batman glares at him. “No personal details on the field,” he states, putting an end to the question. “Get to work. All of you.”

Damian watches as Superman levitates up to the mezzanine, whereas Batman has to take the stairs. He finds it a little funny. Just a little.

Red Robin, ever the strategist, immediately begins his search in the locker rooms and bathrooms. Green Lantern checks the weight room.

Red Hood opens the door to one of the gym’s many storage rooms, and Wonder Woman unlocks a secondary exit.

As they work, Barbara glances over at Damian briefly, mouthing a quick good job.

“Nothing in the men’s lockers,” Red Robin informs them, and Damian can hear the faint sound of metal slamming against metal—Red Robin must be opening each one.

“Nothing outside either,” Wonder Woman says, reentering the building.

“The second level is clear,” Superman tells them. “I’m going to check the rooftop.”

As Damian continues to keep track of everyone, he can pinpoint where the blind spots of the surveillance cameras are—where someone will walk continuously and disappear from view for a second before reappearing on another surveillance screen.

Wonder Woman does this as she walks through a doorway in the back halls that seem to lead to a set of descending stairs, but Damian can only see so far into that space before she’s out of his sight completely.

“Hostages,” Wonder Woman says after a minute. “In the basement. They have hostages.”

This seems to kick everyone into gear as they all head towards the employees-only area.

“Not everyone at once,” Barbara warns. “Superman, Green Lantern, and Red Robin: stay on guard. Red Hood and Batman, please assist. Wonder Woman, I’m unable to get a visual within that area. Can you tell me how many there are? And tell me if you see anybody who isn’t a hostage.”

Wonder Woman pauses as she counts. “Nine … no. Ten. There are ten civilians. I do not currently see anyone else.”

As requested, Red Hood sprints into the basement, and then so does Batman, and that’s the last Damian can see of them, too. He’s going to have to rely entirely on comms for intel now.

“Well, shit,” Red Hood states in a way that sounds much more serious than his conversational profanity. “They’re strapped.”

“Strapped to what?” Barbara presses.

“Contraptions,” Batman answers. “By the look of it: homemade explosives.”

And that is definitely bad news.

“Okay,” Barbara says, her voice as steady as it always is when she’s giving commands. “Is there a visible timer? And what do the devices look like? Are they similar to anything you’ve defused in the past?”

“There is a countdown. Seven minutes and forty-one seconds,” Batman tells her. “The designs of these explosives appear makeshift and rudimentary. This is nothing we haven’t encountered before; we can handle this.”

Damian checks the current time. 7:52 PM. These are scheduled to go off at eight—the exact hour that Cluemaster gave them as a hint.

Seven minutes isn’t necessarily too little time—they’ve historically been able to handle crises in much shorter of a timeframe—but, for ten hostages…

“Red Robin,” Damian says, grabbing the attention of the one person whom he knows is proficient at this type of work, “please assist them. Superman and Green Lantern, remain where you are.”

Red Robin obliges, going down to the basement to join Batman, Red Hood, and Wonder Woman.

“Ah, shit!” Red Robin exclaims shortly afterwards while Wonder Woman begins to cough.

“Smoke bombs,” Red Hood reports, lowering his voice as he gives them context as to what’s happening, “unrelated to the hostages—this is coming from somewhere else in the room. Cluemaster. He must be here somewhere, but our visibility is low.”

“Understood. Red Hood, Red Robin, and Batman: keep attending to the civilians. Whisper if you need to speak,” Barbara commands. “Wonder Woman, stay on guard. Hold still and use your ears. You’ll be able to hear Cluemaster if he’s moving fast.”

Silence falls over comms as everyone focuses.

Wonder Woman mumbles, “I’m going to start walking towards my left. There’s some shuffling.”

“Noted,” Barbara says. “Be careful. Green Lantern, block the stairs.”

As Green Lantern begins making his way over, Cluemaster comes on screen as he scampers out of the basement and past the dissipating smoke spilling into the hallway.

“Cluemaster is on the first floor,” Damian informs Green Lantern. “He is coming your way. Block him.”

And so Green Lantern does, with a conjured barricade. This effectively redirects Cluemaster, causing him to turn the opposite direction, but not before he throws a handful of small pieces of what looks like miniature explosives.

They ignite immediately upon contact with the barricade, popping like firecrackers in front of Green Lantern, who backs up a few paces.

“Superman, be on the lookout,” Barbara says after that. “He’s going to head out into the gym’s open area soon.”

“Those of you with the civilians—keep it up,” Damian adds. “We have five minutes.”

“Managed to defuse one!” Red Robin announces. “I’m going to move on to the next. This guy’s still tied, though—can you check if the TPD officers can come in and undo the ropes? We don’t have time.”

As if on cue, someone interrupts.

“Oracle.” A new voice comes online over comms, belonging to none other than Nightwing. “I just got here. Fill me in; where do you need me?”

“Thank god,” Barbara remarks. “Head on inside. We could use your help in the basement. Please bring the civilians to safety, and do it quickly.”

“Gotcha,” Nightwing acknowledges before getting to work.

Damian, in the meantime, continues to direct Green Lantern and Superman as he keeps track of Cluemaster’s location.

Cluemaster makes a run for the stairs leading to the second level, tossing out a few blinding flares as a distraction as he does so.

“Fuck,” Green Lantern curses as he finally catches up, running into the room. He shields his eyes. “Supes, I’m gonna need you to go after him.”

The light from the flares doesn’t just obstruct Green Lantern’s vision—it hinders the surveillance cameras, too. A loud clattering sound filters over comms.

“What was that?” Barbara asks.

“Nothing important,” Superman answers. “He tossed a barbell off the mezzanine. It barely touched my shoulder. I’m making my way up now.”

Damian barely suppresses a laugh at the information. If anyone else but Superman were standing there, a forty-five pound metal pole being launched at them would very much not be inconsequential, nor would they be that nonchalant about it.

Wonder Woman speaks up. “I am heading there as well,” she says, and Damian catches a brief glimpse of her making her way towards the stairs.

“B, Hood, and Red, this is your three minute warning. Nightwing, report,” Barbara orders.

“I’ve got five rounded up. Cutting through the ties of a sixth right now,” Nightwing says. “I’ll bring them up in a sec and I’ll let TPD and EMS deal with everything else: taking off their mouth tape, checking for any injuries and all that.”

“Good,” Barbara says. “Great progress so far,” she tells everyone kindly, which Damian admires, because it’s hard to remember to give such compliments when they’ve still got four civilian lives at risk with just over two minutes remaining.

“Three to go,” Red Hood announces just then.

“Two,” Batman corrects, right as he finishes defusing a bomb of his own.

“Wonderful. Keep up the momentum,” Barbara acknowledges.

Damian watches as Nightwing escorts his group of recently freed hostages through the building and out into the open, allowing TPD to take care of the rest.

A loud shattering noise comes through the commline, along with an apology from Superman. “Sorry. I didn’t think he would be able to dodge that treadmill.”

“Get out of the way!” Wonder Woman shouts in response. The crack of a rope hitting the floor is audible—she’s using her lasso.

“Hey!” Superman exclaims.

“I told you to move!” Wonder Woman yells at him.

“Uh, guys,” Green Lantern interrupts, “you created an exit for him by breaking the window.”

The surveillance cameras that are located around the perimeter of the building’s exterior pick up the flash of an orange uniform before Cluemaster is out of viewing proximity entirely.

“Damn,” Nightwing comments. “Wait, I think I saw him. I’m already outside—I’ll go after him.”

“Be careful!” Batman shouts to Nightwing, right as Red Robin tells them, “The final bomb’s been defused. We’re good to go.”

Simultaneously, someone new logs onto the comms system.

“Hey, y’all. Missed me?” the familiar voice of a certain purple-clad vigilante chimes in through Damian’s headset. Damian’s gaze flicks over to the GPS, and sure enough, there’s a distinctive purple dot that falls within the frame, near the mapped entrance of the LA Fitness.

“Welcome in, Spoiler,” Damian greets, and he can’t help but smile.

“You chose a shit time to show up,” Red Hood tells her. “Fucker’s on the loose right now.”

“I’m approaching him!” Nightwing shouts as consolation. His location marker is moving rapidly across the screen as he chases after Cluemaster behind the gym, where the harbor is.

“Oracle, can you check how far this dockyard spans?” Red Robin asks. “What point of the Delaware river is this, exactly?”

“Can someone intercept from the side?” Green Lantern adds. “The only direction Cluemaster can go is in a straight line.”

Nightwing swears all of a sudden. “Fuck—something just flew by my head—something cylindrical. He’s still armed.”

“I’m going to come towards you two from the opposite direction to block him,” Superman replies. “And I don’t think you should grab him. Does he appear to be in possession of any knives? Firearms?”

“About that,” Spoiler cuts in, “I have good news for you, because I know for a fact he doesn’t carry any weapons—at least not in the traditional sense. Nightwing, when you get closer to him, you’ll see that the vest he’s wearing contains multiple pellets. They’re vessels for different flares, gases, smoke bombs—you get the gist. The only thing you’ll really have to look out for are explosives, especially if you’re within close range. But here’s the catch: none of those work underwater. You’re right by the harbor. Get him in the water.”

“Hold on,” Batman says. “Is that the best course of action?”

“B,” Spoiler snaps, “we don’t have much time. If you have a better plan, say it now.”

Green Lantern chimes in, “Listen to the lass, Batman. It’s a damn good plan.”

“Yeah,” Red Robin adds. “Spoiler knows Cluemaster better than we do; I’m vouching for her. Superman, please try to force him towards the direction of the river, and keep watch above the water when he and Nightwing go in. Nightwing, as for you, be very careful. The water will weigh you down more than you might expect. Don’t do anything you’re not comfortable with.”

“He’ll be fine,” Red Hood counters. “Have you seen his uniform at all? Damn thing is skin-tight against his ass. It’s practically a wetsuit.”

“Red Hood,” Batman warns sharply, right as Stephanie bursts into laughter.

Green Lantern chuckles at the comment, while Red Robin snorts.

“We get it, he can swim,” Wonder Woman says.

Damian cracks a smile. Beside him, Barbara facepalms.

“See?” Red Hood says.

“Guys! That’s enough—keep the comms clear,” Barbara cuts in. “Everyone, please stay on task.”

“ETA five seconds,” Superman informs them. “Coming up in front—the suspect has nowhere to go. Your move, Nightwing.”

“Roger that,” Nightwing responds, a little out of breath from the running.

Damian keeps his eyes on the GPS display for everyone’s location indicators. Superman’s electric blue pinpoint marker approaches Nightwing’s dark blue one, and then, in the span of a few seconds, there’s an audible splash as Nightwing makes a dive into the river in pursuit of Cluemaster.

That part is tracked by the GPS momentarily before his pinpoint disappears from the screen entirely.

Each person’s tracker is located within their earpiece, and none of the earpieces are designed to be waterproof, despite being water-resistant. While they can withstand small amounts of water such as that of rain, they will inevitably be irreversibly damaged if submerged.

Damian knows that they were designed that way for good reason. It’s pointless to make them functional underwater when water isn’t a good conductor of sound waves. Additionally, if any member of the team were to be in a body of water for any reason, it’s safe to assume that their priority wouldn’t be to communicate.

Lastly, should any of their earpieces get lost underwater and be retrieved later by an outsider, the last thing they would want is for someone outside of the team to gain access to their communication system, regardless of who that person happens to be. Waterlogging the earpieces is a failsafe.

Still, the thought of Dick not having any way to speak to Damian or Barbara from this point forward makes Damian nervous. He doesn't like the fact he can’t track Dick’s location anymore, either.

He speaks into his microphone. “I request that everyone keep Oracle and I in the loop of what is happening on the field, please.”

“Gotcha, Robin,” Stephanie says. “I’m standing by the docks. They’re kind of far out, but I’m keeping an eye on them.”

“Superman,” Batman instructs, “when they surface, take Cluemaster’s vest off of him. The pellets he carries should be rendered ineffective by the water; however, we want to be sure he cannot access them anymore.”

“Noted,” Superman says. “I see them close to the surface—alright, give me a sec.”

“Hood and I are going to speak to the TPD personnel on site and have them surround the area,” Red Robin informs them. “Be on the lookout for boats and aircraft.”

There’s some faint coughing and splashing over comms that’s audible through Superman’s earpiece.

“Grab him!” Dick yells, his voice strained, and then there’s some shuffling and unintelligible shouting between him and Cluemaster.

“I’ve got him,” Superman announces. He must be addressing Cluemaster when he says, “Don’t struggle. You’ll make it worse for yourself.”

There’s some rasping and choking over the line.

“Not that tightly,” Dick says from a distance, his voice cutting in and out as some parts are picked up and some aren’t. “Don’t—dude, we’re not trying to kill him. Loosen up.”

“Sorry,” Superman acknowledges as Cluemaster takes deep, gasping breaths of air.

Damian speaks up. “Superman, please instruct Nightwing to swim back to the port.”

“Nightwing, I’m going to submit our culprit to the authorities,” Superman says. “Robin’s asking you to return to land.”

Damian can’t hear a response from Dick directly, but Superman relays the message.

“He says thanks, for caring about his wellbeing, and that he’ll see you soon,” Superman tells him. “Fast swimmer, that one,” he remarks after a beat.

Although Barbara has been monitoring the computer screens the entire time, Damian catches her looking over briefly to give him a reassuring smile.

There is absolutely no way Cluemaster is going anywhere at this point. This is the end—their victory is pretty much secured.

Still, Damian watches the GPS, lamenting that they no longer have cameras at their disposal, because he really would love to be observing this happening. He wonders what it looks like, and where everyone is in relation to one another. Being behind a computer screen is nothing like the real deal.

In some ways, he almost misses being out on the field. He wanted to be Robin for a reason in the first place: he wanted a piece of the action.

He finds that, even now, he still does. Nonetheless, he’s aware that this viewpoint is skewed by nostalgia more than anything.

“Supes and TPD are putting that bastard into handcuffs right now,” Red Hood tells Damian and Barbara. “Man. Red and I could use some popcorn for the show.”

“With extra butter,” Red Robin adds.

“I could go for some of that right now,” Spoiler chimes in. “Ugh. I’m tired. I mean—I’m relieved, for sure—but I’m kinda worn out too. I just … I can’t believe this is it.”

“It’s okay,” Batman says softly, more gently than Damian thinks he’s ever heard Bruce speak. There’s an odd duplication of sound over comms—Batman must be right next to Spoiler. “It’s over.”

“Yeah … I suppose so,” Spoiler replies. “Okay, B, no need to get sappy—guys. Guys. Save me. He’s hugging me.”

There’s the distinctive sound of water washing up over solid ground, and then the familiar voice of a certain acrobat vigilante rings through Spoiler and Batman’s comms. “Aww. How cute. Make some space for me.”

Spoiler shrieks abruptly. “You are soaked! And cold! Let go of me!”

Red Hood snorts. “I can see y’all by the docks. Tough luck, Spoiler.”

Red Robin sighs. “I’m gonna ask EMS for a towel before one of you catches a cold.”

As they continue to banter, all Damian can feel is relief. Relief that Dick is okay. That Cluemaster is with the police. That things played out this way.

For tonight, this is all that matters.

---

“I mean,” Stephanie tells Damian, her laptop braced against her knees as she types her school email address into the username portion of Canvas’ login page, “the thing is that none of this feels any different, you know? I thought I would be a lot more thrilled when he finally got taken into custody, but I guess that didn’t turn out to be the case. Even when my dad and I lived in the same house, it never really felt like he was my dad. He just wasn’t a parent to me.”

Tim groans dramatically from where he’s sprawled out on the living room couch opposite of Damian and Stephanie, his phone still in his hand even though Damian swears he saw Tim almost drop it on his own face several times while on the verge of falling asleep.

“Remind me again why you’re choosing to do your homework at three in the morning?” Tim asks. “You have, like, another twenty-one hours to complete it.”

Stephanie rolls her eyes as she continues to type. “I’m attending a house party tonight, and I’m about to sleep for a full twelve hours after I’m done with this assignment. Go figure. Anyway … yeah, Damian, that’s all, if you get what I mean. Sorry for the rant.”

Damian hugs his knees to his chest, considering her words. They’re a little too on the nose for him to not know she means, really.

“Yes,” he replies after a beat. “I understand that.”

Chapter Text

The week following Cluemaster’s arrest, very little happens.

Well, that isn’t necessarily true. A normal amount of things happen.

But in comparison to the stress that Cluemaster’s case caused everyone, everything that comes after that seems tame.

Things go on as usual. Everyone returns to their usual patrol routines. Dick in Bludhaven, Jason in Park Row, and Stephanie—

Stephanie discussed it with Damian before she went through with it: the idea of taking a break from being Spoiler.

Not forever, she said to him, just right now, so I can focus on finishing my associate’s degree.

She’d chosen to take time off her vigilante duties so that she can be a normal 19-year-old, and Damian had encouraged her to do so. It’s what she deserves, and it’s what she’s finally getting.

Damian supposes that all of these events combined mark the end of an era, and the beginning of a new one.

---

As Damian catches sight of Bruce approaching underneath the broad daylight of the mid-afternoon sun, he makes a mental note to cross off the estate’s garden from his list of spots where he can spend time by himself without being bothered.

But now, however, there’s nothing he can do about the fact that Bruce very clearly sought him out. Damian can’t move from here without his leaving being a very blatant act of avoidance.

He very reluctantly scoots all the way to the corner of the bench he’s sitting on in order to make room for Bruce on the other end of it.

“Would you like to come with me on patrol?” Bruce asks while taking a seat, and as Damian’s about to instinctively argue what he’d stated so many times before, Bruce adds, “Just the two of us, without your brothers. Without Barbara, too.”

This causes Damian to hesitate. What was Bruce trying to get at?

Damian frowns at him, puzzled. “Why?” he asks, lest Bruce had reverted back to his age-old habit of hyper-independence once again.

“It would allow me to familiarize myself with your combat style,” Bruce explains, “and I would be able to accommodate it accordingly. This would be an opportunity for us to work together in a way where we complement one another, and I would like for you to grant me that chance.”

This leaves Damian speechless. Since the beginning, the two of them have been clashing with one another. They perpetually traversed a one-way street—there was never any other outcome.

Any time they worked together, they always, always ended up working against one another. The majority of the time, this was more tame and subtle. Not every patrol ended up in disaster—in fact, most were fine.

But there was always an air of tension between them. Damian never felt comfortable by Bruce’s side, and he doesn’t see any reason why that would change now.

He regards Bruce dubiously. “Do you believe that to be possible?” he asks, and hopes it comes off as intended: cautiously curious as opposed to cheeky. Bruce seems to have a lot of optimism for something that has never worked out before.

Bruce glances down at Damian, and Damian finds it annoying how tall and looming Bruce seems even as the two of them are seated. Bruce’s frame partially blocks the sunlight from behind him, casting a slight shadow over where Damian sits.

“What I believe is that the approach I am proposing is something we have never tried,” Bruce answers, “and that we will not know the outcome until we try it. As I mentioned, I would like to work with you one-on-one. No distractions.”

Damian frowns. He trains his gaze on a row of gardenias on the ground. Bruce wants to try to make it work.

The two of them, as Batman and Robin. It’s almost comical.

Admittedly, this conversation is not at all what Damian thought it would be. He hadn’t expected Bruce to want him back on the field.

Not need, but want.

Cluemaster is in prison, and Bruce has proven time and again that he’s more than capable of going out alone as Batman. Robin is just an accessory.

After all, Batman started off as a one-man show.

All of this is to say that Bruce doesn’t need Damian’s help at all, and yet, he’s out here, speaking to him, asking him to work together in the hopes that they can learn from each other.

Perhaps Damian would be a fool for saying yes, but he wouldn’t be any less of one for saying no.

Bruce wants to try, and that’s what Damian keeps in mind as he gives his response.

“Okay,” Damian says, “but this will be a temporary arrangement. If I do not like it, I will not continue.”

He’s not making any promises. Not to Bruce.

Bruce nods. “We can begin on a night you feel ready to.”

---

In the beginning, it all works out. Things run smoothly; more pertinently, they go as promised.

Bruce follows through with his offer; he holds true to his words.

He works with Damian, and he bolsters Damian’s strengths rather than work against them. He accentuates Damian’s pre-existing abilities instead of overwriting them.

They fall into a steady rhythm, a set routine.

Bruce takes care of the heavy hitting, the offense, the pushing and shoving. He does what he’s best at, which is using his raw strength to his advantage. He confronts and he intimidates; he embodies all the aspects of Batman that the city is so afraid of.

Some things never change at all.

Damian on the other hand, focuses on the more minute details: the strategizing and the approach. He tells Bruce what he’s going to do before he does it, and this is how it goes as they prepare to go up to carjackers and shoplifters, burglars and vandalizers.

Additionally, Damian is good as a secondary combatant—a backup and an assist. He works flawlessly as a support to Bruce.

So it really is ironic that as much as he craves his own independent identity, he falls into the definition of a sidekick quite seamlessly. He fills the shoes of Robin, and the size is a perfect fit.

---

Damian can hardly call any part of patrol his favorite, because that would imply he likes patrol at all, which he doesn’t. Not really. Even with things sailing smoothly, he doesn't like it any more than he likes other parts of his daily routine such as brushing his teeth or getting dressed for school.

Nonetheless, Damian’s favorite parts of patrol are when Bruce points out the little details of the city he defends so unrelentingly—the aspects of Gotham that seem to make it less cold and dreary.

Bruce will say that is the store where I received my first gaming console and it’ll throw Damian in for a loop. Or, as they pass by different shopping centers and plazas, he’ll mention the defunct mall that went out of business fifteen years ago. He’ll point to a thrift store that’s undergone four transfers in ownership over the past decade and proceed to inform Damian of such.

It’s the little things that breathe life into this city they live in—the same one that Bruce has been in all his life.

The one he seems to care so much about protecting despite the Sisyphean effort it is to do so.

Damian thinks about the familiarity of Nanda Parbat and all the things he loved about his birthplace, and only then can he see where Bruce is coming from. He can understand the charm of a place so deeply ingrained into his being that he doesn’t think he’ll ever be free of it.

But even then, Damian doesn’t think that he would have chosen to be in one place all his life, even if Talia hadn’t forcefully brought him to live with Bruce.

It gets suffocating after a while. Damian wonders if the perpetual gloominess of Gotham ever gets to Bruce.

But he supposes it doesn’t matter. The fact is as clear as day, evident in everything Bruce does, night after night: he loves this city, and he would never leave it.

---

One thing leads to another. What purportedly as separate drug deals throughout the backlit alleyways of the city appear to be interconnected, and this is where the facts begin to unravel.

As Batman and Robin, they force names from the different henchmen. They demand the street dealers to reveal the identities of their higher-ups, locations of their suppliers, and so on. They build their way up with their web of information, and like the natural flow of events that so often takes place out on the field: an incident turns into a case.

The beginnings of a case, at least. Damian doesn’t have a good feeling about this, but this is unavoidable, and if he is to be Robin, he can’t pick and choose what aspects of the role he wants to carry out and what he doesn’t. This is what crime-fighting involves, and he needs to either take it or leave it.

He takes it. This is his first mistake.

---

“Why the hell did you let her go?” Batman demands.

Damian stares up at him, body tense with carefully contained anger.

This is the first time, he thinks.

The first time he’s ever felt just anger towards Bruce, and not anything else. No trepidation and no dread.

It’s ironic, how the one thing that very much is his fault, is the one thing he doesn’t feel any sort of shame for.

Batman’s question merely relays the truth: Damian had allowed one of the culprits to flee the scene.

They had been taking down the drug den—all the leads they gained throughout the past few weeks culminated to this: a base of operations that served as the centerpiece of the connections they’d tracked down. The people in this warehouse didn’t work in isolation, Damian’s sure; this is merely a small chunk of the overall puzzle they’re seeking to build.

But Bruce will be alone on that front, because Damian is at his limit. He can’t do this anymore.

One of the accomplices—the one he let go in the midst of the tussle—had been a young girl. She couldn’t have been any older than he was, and she’d been a formidable opponent. She was someone who could fight, and she was someone who had evidently had ample experience in doing so.

More than that, she was scared. Damian had faltered upon seeing the expression in her face, unbridled and genuine, pure terror as he’d prepared a batarang, and in that moment, he couldn’t go through with it.

He’d taken down several of the other members without hesitation, but they’d been different. They were men and women in their thirties, forties, fifties—all fully grown adults who chose this life, and all of whom knew exactly what they were risking with their line of work. Damian hardly felt sympathy for any of them.

With the child, however, Damian couldn’t justify his actions. No kid would choose this life for themself. No kid could choose this life, for that matter.

Perhaps she reminded him a little bit too much of himself, but whatever the reason, Bruce’s point still stands: Damian had turned his back to her, and he’d given her the opportunity to make a run for the exit as he’d focused on another target instead.

Perhaps that’s all the answer Bruce needs. Perhaps it’s all the answer Damian needs.

He isn’t cut out for this. All of Batman’s goals and objectives—Damian just doesn’t see things the same way.

He’s tired of pretending he gets it. He doesn’t, and he doesn’t care to, either.

He isn’t the same person he was a year ago, and no matter how badly he wishes he could be a good soldier, he isn’t. It has nothing to do with Bruce, and everything to do with himself.

He’s tired.

Batman continues to press him for an answer. He repeats his question slower and firmer this time, his tone so flat that it’s hardly a question at all. “Why did you let her go.”

Justifying this to Bruce right now would be futile. If Damian’s playing a losing game, he might as well surrender.

“I do not care!” Damian yells. “At all!”

Before he can really register the potential consequences of it, he tears his domino mask off his face.

He surprises himself with the act as much as he surprises Batman, and he can discern that from Batman even with the cowl on. Batman’s entire body goes still. There’s tension along the line of his shoulders. He falters for a bit before he speaks.

“Robin…” he placates, his palms in the air as a show of neutrality. “Let’s discuss this after we get somewhere safe.”

There’s nobody around them; they’re not in any immediate trouble. Batman continues to address Damian as Robin despite that, and Damian knows that the longer he keeps standing here, the more likely it is that something will happen. They can’t keep stalling forever.

Damian is trembling with barely contained anger. But it’s more than just that. He’s … hurt. He doesn’t even want to know what he must look like without the domino mask—what kinds of unfiltered emotions must be on full display right now in front of his father.

Damian just shakes his head. He can’t stand the thought of walking back to the Batmobile with Batman right now. He needs a breather—he wants some space away from Batman before he can approach this in a level-headed manner rather than an impulsive one.

He turns away from Batman while putting his mask back on, grappling gun in his hand, and begins to leave.

He knows his way back.

By this point in time, he now knows this cityscape like the back of his hand, and he wishes he didn’t.

---

The conversation that comes later that night hardly qualifies as closure, but it’s better than nothing.

It’s all that Damian needs, really. Nothing after this will matter.

“Is this truly what you want?” is what Bruce asks, and the question makes Damian hesitate.

Not because he doesn’t know the answer—he knows what his response is better than anything—but because he doesn’t think that Bruce wants to hear it.

Is this your final decision? Is this your permanent choice? Are you quitting?

Damian looks at Bruce, scanning his face in an attempt to decipher what Bruce might be thinking.

Bruce looks back at him. His expression isn’t guarded, but it reveals nothing.

No judgment, contempt, or dissatisfaction.

Nothing.

This is what pushes Damian to give a sincere answer.

“Yes.”

Time seems to come to an impossibly slow crawl before Bruce gives a simple nod.

“Alright,” he says, against all odds; against all of Damian’s predictions.

And that’s that.

---

The pain from the cut doesn’t sting as much as he thought it would.

Damian doesn’t think about what he’s done until after it’s already over. By then, it’s too late to take any of it back. There is no undoing this.

He looks down at his thigh, feeling distant and detached from his own body, as if he’s staring at the limbs of a stranger rather than himself. He barely registers the pain of it. He feels numb. Out of tune.

It’s jarring. He didn’t mean to go that deep, really. He holds the towel against his skin, wincing, willing for the bleeding to staunch.

---

The next few days go by in a blur of sloppy bandaging and constant over-the-counter painkillers. It doesn’t matter until it does. And when it does, it does.

The first rule, Damian thinks.

The first fucking rule, to treating any injury, is to disinfect the area. He’s known this his entire life; it’s a concept that’s been drilled into him as early as he’d been taught how to fight.

Injury is an inevitable part of combat. One way or another, it is something that will come up, no matter how skilled someone is, or how many preventive measures they take. Knowing how to treat it, however, is what’s important.

Jason told him to keep his wounds clean, as did Dick. So did Dr. Stewart.

It’s common sense.

Damian can’t believe he’d put it off that night. It was intentional, too—the thought had crossed his mind, but he’d been too exhausted to do anything about it, and because one time couldn’t hurt. It was just once.

And for that, he’s paying the price.

Damian fumbles with the bottle of hydrogen peroxide he keeps under his bathroom sink. He pours it over his thigh with shaky hands, the solution spilling onto the tiles of the floor as he does so, but he can’t bring himself to care. Making a mess isn’t his biggest issue right now.

The sharp sting of the disinfectant makes him nauseous, but it’s better than the alternative.

He’s felt bad about his self-harm before, mostly in the context of the people he’d be letting down if they knew what he was doing to himself—and this guilt was only exacerbated when Dick did find out—but this is the first time Damian’s ever felt regretful about it.

This wasn’t the outcome he anticipated. This wasn’t the outcome he wanted.

He knows, logically, that an infection can clear up on its own. It’s highly dependent on the strength of one’s immune system, but it’s not impossible. He could get through this. He stands a chance.

---

The next morning, barely six hours later, his head is killing him, and he finds himself throwing up onto the floor beside his bed. He knows now that he’s fucked.

For the first time in over a year, he wishes he were back in Nanda Parbat. His mother had all sorts of remedies for things like this—in her youth, she’d studied medicine at the University of Cairo.

If she were here, she’d help him. She’d go with her shoot first, ask questions later approach, and Damian would have to deal with a whole lot of consequences in the aftermath, but she’d help him.

But the fact is that everyone here would help him too, if they knew.

Damian has no reason to be this stubborn, really. His symptoms are progressing way quicker than he anticipated, and it’s obvious that no amount of self-treatment will reverse what’s already happened.

If he is to act, he has to do it now.

He gets up, and with shaky legs he makes his way over to his door. His first instinct is to seek out Alfred, and so, that’s what he does.

He manages to make his way upstairs and past the manor’s various doors and hallways, searching for the room that he knows is Alfred’s. A few doubts cross his mind as he does so.

What if Alfred isn’t there? It’s well into the morning—Alfred could be doing anything else instead. He could be in the kitchen, or the laundry room or the garden—

Damian suddenly bumps into someone and immediately loses his balance, tumbling to the floor. His head spins and his vision swims and he squints up at the figure.

“Damian?” Tim asks, crouching down to grab onto Damian’s arms. “What … are you okay?”

Damian grasps onto the hem of Tim’s shirt with both hands, fists tightening around the fabric like a lifeline. He can’t focus enough to form a response.

“Damian,” Tim tries again, looking alarmed. He grips onto Damian’s shoulders tightly and attempts to lift him into a sitting position. He immediately begins asking pertinent questions. “What happened? Are you injured? Where does it hurt?”

Fighting the black spots that threaten to overtake his vision, Damian knows he doesn't have long before he’s going to be out cold. He hates this. He hates it, but he has no choice. If he wants help, he has to tell Tim.

“On my thigh,” Damian chokes out, his grip on Tim’s shirt weakening despite how hard he tries to maintain it. “Right side.”

The affected area is really high up on his thigh, and he feels extremely bad for it the moment he can see that Tim realizes this too. Tim pats him down on his sweatpants, running his fingers across the entire surface area of Damian’s thigh until he pauses on a spot near Damian’s hip. He lifts his hand, turning his palm over to see blood staining his fingers.

Tim’s face contorts, several emotions flicking through his expression all at once. He then reaches for the waistband of Damian’s pants, his fingers hooking onto the elastic before he hesitates, as if he’s unsure whether it’s appropriate to do this—whether he’s qualified to handle it.

He then twists his body to face the empty hallway behind him. The movement knocks Damian’s hands off from where he was still latching onto Tim’s shirt.

“Bruce!” Tim shouts, his voice an abrasive, scratchy sound against Damian’s ears. His tone is fierce, desperate, and urgent. “Bruce!”

Damian internally cringes at the yelling, but he’s unable to outwardly react to get Tim to stop. His entire body goes slack, and he welcomes the sweet relief that the blissful, dark nothingness brings him shortly afterwards.

Chapter Text

When Damian wakes up, he finds himself enveloped in white sheets on a rather uncomfortable mattress. White walls box him in on all four sides. The acute scent of antiseptic makes his stomach churn, but it’s not the only thing that has this effect on him.

In fact, he thinks he might feel even worse than he did at the manor. His entire body feels hot all over, but he finds himself shivering uncontrollably. He turns his face to the side and the simple movement makes his head spin.

He can barely prop himself a few inches above the level of the bed with his elbow; his arm feels like it’s about to give out at the miniscule amount of exertion.

He can feel the pressure in his throat building a split second before he starts gagging, and he’s only vaguely aware of the people around him scurrying to his side.

Someone mercifully brings him a bin, positioning it under his chin, and he doesn’t so much throw up as he does dry-heave into it. Nothing comes up, but his stomach cramps nonetheless.

This is the last thing he remembers before an all-consuming wave of exhaustion claims him almost instantaneously.

---

The second time Damian comes to, it’s for a longer duration of time, and he can actually comprehend what’s going on around him, including the fact that Bruce is there with him.

It’s unfortunate, however, that this opportunity is wasted by the fact that all the events of the past twenty-four hours—or however much time has passed that he hasn’t been aware of and has no way to find out just yet—come to the forefront of his mind. Everything he feels—all the pent-up emotions he’d otherwise be adept at suppressing if he weren’t so out of it right now—hits him at full-force.

The all-too familiar feelings of frustration and anger come into play, but those, at the very least, he’d been expecting.

What he wasn’t expecting to feel was shame. Embarrassment. Humiliation.

The situation he’d gotten himself into was bad enough. He’d known that what he did was wrong, and he didn’t intend on doing it again.

He promised himself that it would be the last time, and he really meant it, too.

He just hadn’t expected it to culminate to a hospital stay due to his own negligence. Dealing with his self-harm alone was awful in its own right, but it was under his control, and that was what mattered. It was something that was his, and his alone.

And now, he doesn’t even have that much anymore. Everyone knows, not just Dick.

Everyone.

He doesn’t mean to, but he finds himself spending the entire remainder of time he’s awake sobbing so uncontrollably that the nurses have to ask Bruce to exit the room to respect his privacy.

And in that moment, Damian neither had the energy nor the desire to ask Bruce to stay.

---

Alfred is the one sitting beside Damian when he wakes up the third time, and unfortunately for Alfred, Damian feels significantly less like he’d been run over by a truck this time around. He feels like he got run over by an SUV at most, which is a rather large degree of improvement.

The first thing he chooses to do with this newfound lucidity is to immediately force Alfred to explain the situation. Damian is more harsh with it than he needs to be, but he can only feel so bad about it when this entire hospital stay is already a family-sanctioned act of stripping him of control. He’s at least entitled to taking a little bit of that control back.

And so, he makes Alfred procure the medical notes the staff have written up on him so far, but he finds that he’s only able to look them over on his own for approximately thirty seconds before the letters on the paper seem to blur together no matter how much he tries to focus his eyes on them.

This effort doesn’t do his headache any favors, either, so he quickly relents and demands that Alfred read the diagnosis to him instead.

Severe sepsis, is the technical term Alfred relays to him as he elaborates on the situation,It is the second stage of sepsis. One step below septic shock.

Alfred tells him that he’s lucky they treated it this soon, and not any later, because had Damian waited any longer to disclose his infection to Tim, the consequences could have been much more permanent.

Alfred also tells him he’s lucky that he’s strong, for speaking up, and for reaching for help when he did.

But Damian doesn’t feel strong. And he certainly doesn't feel lucky.

Against his better judgment, he asks Alfred how long he’ll have to stay at the hospital, and Alfred merely shrugs, telling him it could be anywhere from a few days to a month, because such estimates are given on a case-by-case basis.

Ultimately, Damian could thank Alfred for his honesty and for his willingness to answer all of these questions, but Damian doesn’t do this.

Instead, he rips his IV out of his arm with such impulsive ferocity that he doesn’t complain about the way the nurses hold him down against the pillows with equal intensity after Alfred calls for assistance.

---

Dick is sitting in the corner of the room, arms braced against his knees, hands loosely clasped together. He has his head bowed down as he stares at his lap.

He must’ve been here for a while. Damian wonders how long exactly—he’s wearing his officer uniform from work, still.

“Richard,” Damian calls out, and the act of doing so sends him into a coughing fit as he realizes just how dry his throat is.

Dick immediately glances up, his eyes widening as he realizes Damian is awake.

“Damian,” Dick says, his voice scratchy. He smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. He wipes at his nose with a tissue he has balled up in his hand, and that’s when Damian sees the puffiness in his eyes as well.

Damian’s heart sinks.

Dick reaches for an unopened bottle of water he’s kept under his chair. He twists the cap open and stands up, bringing the bottle over to Damian.

Damian pushes himself up into a sitting position, his arms still feeling a little wobbly as he does so, but the movement is doable nonetheless.

He takes the bottle of water from Dick and brings it to his lips, taking small sips from it.

He feels especially guilty about everything now that Dick is here.

He knows that this is affecting everyone, and that Dick is not the exception, but he feels as if his choices are especially cruel when it comes to the one person who tried to help him with his self-harm in the first place.

It’s wrong. Hiding this from Dick is wrong. Choosing to harm himself on his thigh is a betrayal of Dick’s trust.

Damian’s just making one bad choice after the other.

The same way that what happened on the field with Bruce was Damian’s responsibility entirely, so is this.

---

“Don’t feel too bad about it,” Tim jokes from the chair across the room. “You’re not the only one who’s on antibiotics.”

He’s leaning forward, his elbows propped up against his knees, watching Damian frown at the IV in his forearm. Damian’s on his fourth day of antibiotics—the medical staff is starting to narrow down which ones to give him instead of the generalized, aggressive life-saving blend they started off with when he was first admitted.

Damian rolls his eyes at Tim, but he’s actually feeling well enough today in comparison to the past three that he manages to offer him a small smile despite the unrelenting nausea in his stomach.

---

Jon, to Damian’s relief, doesn't say anything about the fact that Damian landed himself in the hospital. He doesn’t comment on the faded scars, nor the more recent wounds that litter Damian’s upper arms, exposed by the medical gown he’s wearing.

Instead, with his Nintendo Switch in hand, he hoists himself onto the hospital bed, curling up in the empty space beside Damian.

“Take your pick,” Jon tells him, showing him the carousel of digital games he owns.

As Damian takes hold of the device and maneuvers the joystick to see his options, he feels warm and fuzzy with fondness for this friendship that he’s so incredibly lucky to have.

---

Stephanie makes an exaggerated, dramatic show of looking around to make sure nobody’s listening before she leans in, cupping her hand by her face like she’s about to tell Damian a secret.

“Between you and I,” she whispers, “rumor has it that this is actually one of the better hospitals to volunteer at. Don’t tell Bruce.”

Damian cracks a smile. “You don’t think Wayne Hospital is as good?”

Stephanie grins at him. “Solid B tier, according to the list my classmates made. Wanna see our rankings of every medical system in the city?”

As if it’s even a question. “Of course. Show me.”

---

Jason walks into the room, shutting the door behind him.

He’s holding the book that Damian requested he bring from the closest library. The cover reads To Kill a Mockingbird.

“So,” Jason begins, “let me get this straight: you ended up in the hospital after a near-death experience involving an infection that got so bad it you were at risk of organ failure, and one of the most pressing matters on your mind right now is that you’re falling behind on your schoolwork.”

“I did not undergo a ‘near-death experience’,” Damian counters. “That would have only been the case if I had progressed into the third stage of sepsis, which is septic shock.”

Jason drops the book in Damian’s lap and raises an eyebrow at the overly-nuanced response. “Do you want me to bring you an MCAT preparation textbook too, next time?

Damian’s one step ahead of him. “There is no need. My mother studied medicine at the University of Cairo. I have looked through some of her old academic materials in the past.”

“Better than Ra’s’ shitty alternative medicine, I hope,” Jason quips. “You know he tried to get me to chew some yarrow stems once, when I was having really bad stomach issues?”

Damian huffs out a laugh. “He was a physician in the 15th century. You need to give him some time to catch up on the concept of evidence-based practice.”

Jason rolls his eyes as he pulls a chair up to Damian’s bedside. “Okay, enough fooling around—how many chapters of To Kill a Mockingbird are we reading through today?”

---

“Listen,” Barbara tells Damian as she pulls a box of homemade cookies out of her tote bag, “I know the doctors have you on some sort of meal plan to recover from sepsis, but from experience, I know how shitty hospital food can be.”

“The soup might be the only good thing from the cafeteria,” Damian agrees. He reaches for the cookie on top of the pile when Barbara opens the container. “Chocolate chip. You know me well,” he compliments.

“Anything for you, Damian. The whole thing is yours—keep it as a little reminder of home,” Barbara says. “You’ll be back there soon enough.”

---

The next time Damian sees Bruce is within a purely clinical setting, with the two of them seated across from Dr. Sterling, the psychiatrist assigned to Damian once his treatment team had deemed him physically stable enough to proceed with behavioral health.

Calling it painfully awkward would be an understatement. Damian can’t even find it himself to be angry at Bruce anymore. With the types of background questions Dr. Sterling is making Bruce answer, he’s clearly uncomfortable.

They field through the basics: consent forms, medical history, home dynamics.

It’s all part of the process. Bruce handles it as professionally as he can, even if his body language puts his unease at full display.

Dr. Sterling, satisfied with the paperwork, eventually looks up with one final question.

“To preface,” she begins, clipboard braced in one hand and pen in the other, “I want to let you know that the only reason I’m asking this is because many psychiatric diagnoses tend to have a genetic basis. Mr. Wayne, do you have any relevant conditions that I should be aware of?”

“I’m not—I don’t—” Bruce stammers, dismayed. His brows are furrowed, his entire body tense. His fingers grip his knees tightly. “I … attended one counseling session when I was eight. There is no documentation of it. This was in the 80s, before electronic health records were widely implemented. I never returned for another session.”

“I see,” Dr. Sterling says. She doesn’t write anything down. “Thank you for your input. That was everything I needed.”

Damian glances over at Bruce out of the corner of his eye and tries not to dwell on the ‘what ifs’ of life. Had Bruce made different choices, grown up under different circumstances, he simply wouldn’t be Bruce.

---

It’s just Damian’s luck that Tim or Jason—maybe both of them at once—mentioned something about his past eating habits to Bruce, because in Damian’s final inpatient psychiatric evaluation he has to complete before he gets discharged from the hospital, Dr. Sterling suggests that a dietician’s services might benefit him, but that it was something a parent or guardian would have to seek out, as it wasn’t one of the hospital staff’s prioritized concerns on top of everything else.

There’s only so much that can be done for him inpatient when the doctors’ responsibilities are solely to ensure that his condition is stabilized so that he can return to his regular life as soon as possible. Every follow-up beyond that is up to him.

Well, it’s more like it’s up to Bruce, but the point still stands.

Regardless, Damian is glad to be out of there. He was starting to get really fed up with the blank white walls he was surrounded by for two weeks straight.

Furthermore, he felt like he wasn’t truly benefitting much from the mental health treatment he received there. Dr. Sterling gave him banal, vapid advice that was well-meaning, but ultimately unhelpful. Damian can’t blame her for it, because he hadn’t given her much to work with. He’d been closed off and unrevealing. He was so vague in discussing his issues that he’s impressed she managed to come up with any kind response to him at all.

The truth is, he wishes he could have disclosed more.

But as entangled as his vigilante life is with his civilian one, he can’t ever combine those two worlds.

---

He notices the changes immediately when he enters his room.

His belongings are tidy, but not in the way he personally maintains it. Everything on his desk has shifted a few inches to the side; any loose jackets he had strewn around his room and hadn’t had the time to pick up yet have been placed back on the hangers in his closet. Even his stack of school books look more neatly aligned than he left them.

It’s clear that someone came in here and sifted through his belongings before reorganizing everything.

As a matter of fact, it’s undeniable, because while the minute details are distinguishable to a trained eye, it all pales in comparison to the elephant in the room.

The cherry on top is this: the most glaringly obvious change of all is the fact that his bedroom door is completely fucking nonexistent.

It’s been detached from his hinges and confiscated entirely. It was the first thing he saw, and it’s making this entire ordeal worse than it needs to be.

The message it conveys is clear: Whoever did this, Bruce or Alfred—likely both, together—doesn’t trust Damian to act in his own best interests.

Damian tries very hard not to feel hurt by that.

As he searches through his stuff, he begins to pick out more and more discrepancies from when he was last inside his room to now.

The few pocket knives he keeps around his room have been taken from their usual spots. His utility blade, too.

Even the letter opener that’s normally on top of his desk is gone. Additionally, the pair of scissors he keeps there has been replaced with a pair of safety scissors instead—its blades made of plastic, as opposed to metal, no less.

He then searches for where he knows he last stashed the one and only knife he truly cares about—the one he received from his mother.

And sure enough, that one is gone as well.

---

Damian’s scrolling mindlessly on his phone when Bruce walks into his room that evening, because of course Bruce can just do that—there’s no goddamn door.

Damian had been too distracted all afternoon to focus on anything that required actual critical thinking or effort. He tried to draw something even though he hadn’t touched his sketchbook in over a month with everything that had been going on in his life recently. He had a blank page open in front of him, however he found himself lacking the imagination or willpower to actually start a piece.

That, combined with the thought that anyone who happened to walk through the hallway could watch him, had him closing his sketchbook immediately.

Which brings him to now, where he’s sitting on his bed, well into his fourth hour of looking at banal, vacuous social media posts and videos on his phone that he doesn’t even remember the contents of after he scrolls past them.

“Damian,” Bruce says softly from where he’s standing a foot away from the bed. “How are you feeling?”

Damian ignores him and pointedly continues to stare at his phone.

Thirty seconds pass. Then a full minute.

“Damian,” Bruce tries again, and this time, his voice is even softer, down to a level that Damian hadn’t even known Bruce was capable of.

Damian reacts without thinking—without considering whether his response is justifiable or rational as per the situation.

“I do not want to speak to you!” he shouts. Where he would have once been quiet and bashful in a confrontation with Bruce, he now feels nothing but pure, adulterated anger. “Get out!”

It’s in the heat of the moment that he does something he doesn’t even fully register until after it happens; it’s in the heat of the moment that the grip he has on his phone is suddenly so tight that it hurts, and the pent-up resentment and frustration he harbors snaps like a rubber band surpassing maximum tension.

It’s in one swift moment after he lifts his dominant arm that he swings in a straight horizontal motion, right to left, the same way he’s done by rote so many times at his school’s gym class when they had to play Ultimate frisbee.

The same way he launches a batarang.

The maneuver—forehand—is not labeled as the most efficient throw in Ultimate for no reason. He flicks his wrist with as much force as he can put into it, and it sends his phone flying cleanly across the air.

It hits Bruce on his left cheekbone. There is a resounding smack as it makes contact with his face, followed by a loud clatter when it lands on the hardwood floor.

Damian is breathing hard, and it’s not from the exertion. His palm is still open, and his phone is all the way across the room.

Bruce stands there, lips slightly parted. His expression is vulnerable with surprise. There’s a red spot already starting to form on his face—a welt by Damian’s own doing.

Everything feels like it’s going in slow motion from that point forward.

Bruce doesn't say anything. He doesn’t look angry. He doesn’t even raise his hand to feel his face, even though Damian knows that it has to be hurting badly right now.

His lack of a reaction makes Damian far more uncomfortable than he thought was possible. Not even when Bruce benched him over winter break did he feel this way. What he’s experiencing isn’t sadness, or pain, or dread.

It’s fear.

Not of Bruce, but of himself, and what he just did. What he chose to do.

Damian is breathing fast but he doesn’t feel like he’s actually getting any oxygen. He grips the collar of his shirt tightly. Desperately.

He suddenly feels very, very nauseous.

“Get out,” he repeats, but it lacks any real hostility. “Please.”

Bruce swallows, evident in the way his Adam’s apple moves. He turns around and does as requested, stepping through the bare doorframe.

Damian really wishes he still had his door.

He waits until he’s sure that Bruce is out of earshot.

When he throws up, he doesn’t even make it as far as his bathroom, just the small trash can he keeps under his desk for tossing eraser shavings and crumpled up notebook papers.

---

“Father,” Damian calls out from where he stands, leaning against the doorway.

Bruce is nose deep into a book inside the manor’s library. He’s settled into an armchair.

Damian’s next breath catches in his throat when Bruce looks up. His cheekbone is a deep purplish-red blend that blooms over a significant portion of the left side of his face.

Bruce’s eyebrows furrow. He lowers his book. “Damian.”

Damian remains frozen in place. He knew that there was no way a bruise wouldn’t form, but…

Bruce reaches up to his face as if he just remembered what was on there. “It doesn’t hurt, Damian. It’s nothing.” He waves his hand dismissively, appearing almost as if he’s bashful of the attention he’s drawing to himself. But he keeps his eyes on Damian, hopeful. Waiting for Damian to say what he sought Bruce out for.

Damian knew Bruce wouldn’t deliberately seek him out first, after their previous interaction. It’s been three days since then, and this has held true. Bruce has been giving him space, because it’s what he asked for.

Damian had to take the initiative to approach Bruce. He hadn’t thought too deeply about what he was going to say; all he knew was that he wanted to talk.

He regrets not thinking about it more, but now that he’s here, it’s on him to follow through.

He steps into the library and takes a seat on the armchair that’s situated across from Bruce.

There is so much he wants to say, but doesn’t know where to begin. Should he start with an apology or a confrontation? Is it even possible for them to keep this limited to a civil discussion? Should he be angry or sad, or should he talk without letting his emotions get in the way?

He’d wanted this for so long. Even when he avoided Bruce as much as Bruce avoided him, he’d wanted this: a chance to talk to his father freely.

And now he has it.

Bruce gazes slightly off to the side, looking somewhere around the area of Damian’s shoulder, likely to make it less uncomfortable for Damian by not staring directly at him. But his hands on his book are lax, and Damian knows he’s listening.

Damian begins with what’s easiest to discuss. He begins with facts and recent events, because it’s the only thing he can manage at the moment.

“The psychiatrist from Gotham General Hospital,” he states, “is not going to work for me.”

Bruce’s brows furrow. “She is a crucial member of your treatment team,” he says. “I can’t just … dismiss her.”

“That is not what I meant,” Damian says, because he’s realizing now that Bruce must think he’s trying to avoid treatment, which he isn’t. At least not at this point in time. “She is adept at her job. However, she is a civilian. I am having the same issue with Dr. Stewart, my psychologist. I cannot receive counseling on matters beyond my civilian life, and it is affecting me.”

He’d never brought up Dr. Stewart before this point, but Bruce doesn’t show any reaction to the information.

Damian’s not surprised. The worst of his secrets have been declassified to essentially the entire family. What’s one more thing?

“Okay,” Bruce nods slowly in understanding. “I can get in contact with the Justice League. They can likely refer us to a list of options. I will work on that as soon as possible.”

Damian lets out an exhale in relief. It’s a simple offer with an even simpler response. “I would appreciate that.”

---

“Raymond Terrill,” Bruce begins, a manila folder opened up on his lap in front of him. “A retired Justice League member. Formerly known as The Ray.”

They’re both sitting on the edge of Damian’s bed, and Damian keeps a cautious amount of distance between the two of them.

“He was employed as a psychologist for the past several decades before his retirement in 2015. I contacted him. He would be happy to work with you, if you are open to it.”

Damian gives the file a half-hearted cursory scan.

“You asked him to come out of retirement for this?” He asks, dubious about the arrangement, because that doesn’t seem like a choice someone would make that easily. “And he agreed to?”

Bruce clears his throat awkwardly. “Well, I let him charge a rate of his choice.”

Oh.

Damian falters. “How much?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Bruce dismisses.

“I am serious,” Damian presses, because there’s no way this is worth it. “I do not want you making such a sacrifice for me.”

“I am serious too,” Bruce counters, a familiar sternness seeping into his voice, “and it’s not a sacrifice. So don’t concern yourself with this.”

Damian sighs. Like most things with Bruce, arguing would be fruitless either way. “Okay,” he concedes. “I suppose … that I would be willing to give it a try.”

Bruce blinks, seemingly a little surprised by Damian’s easy agreement. “Would you like to look through his background first?” he offers, sliding the folder over to Damian.

Damian grabs onto it and shifts it over to his own lap, but doesn’t pay it any attention. He fidgets with the corner of a page as he works up the courage to speak something on his mind. Anxiety pools in his stomach.

“Do you … resent me?” Damian asks, a non-sequitur, and he’s very careful to keep his tone neutral. The last thing he wants to do is to dismiss Bruce’s own pain or guilt trip him to answer one way—what he wants is simply for Bruce to say the truth.

Bruce falters at the question. He exhales slowly. “I don’t. I resent the circumstances. Not you. Never you.”

Bruce’s answer is firm. Unwavering.

Damian nods, because that’s something he can work with. They can build off of that.

But it still doesn't change the fact that Bruce has hurt him, and Damian wants to address that.

“Your words and actions affected me,” Damian says, and he immediately feels guilty for it, because he doesn’t want to make it about himself only. He quickly adds, “I understand that it might not have been intentional.”

Bruce’s face shutters. “I’m sorry,” he says, for the first time. “Your wellbeing is important to me, and I am making the choice to prioritize that.”

It’s a simple statement, but where else would it start? How can they uncover 11 years of deeply rooted history without first finding a launch point?

Damian nods again. Bruce isn’t making any excuses for his behavior; he’s just apologizing. And that counts for something.

He looks down at his knees, and where they’re sitting side-to-side on the mattress, they’re almost close enough to touch. Damian’s arm is just a few inches away from Bruce’s.

Near, but not enough. Distant, but still warm.

---

“You’re a fucking mess, Bruce. Can you go upstairs and get changed?” Jason’s voice comes from the hallway, increasing in audibility as he approaches the living room. “I’ll take it easy tonight and stick with Damian. I promise.”

Bruce, speaking much lower than Jason, replies with something inaudible. His voice sounds alarmingly hoarse.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Jason insists. “Dude. You need to get your shit together. Now go and take off that stupid bat suit. Come back when you’re ready.”

Damian can’t see his older brother from his location on the couch, and while it’s clear that he’s irritated, Damian knows Jason well enough to tell when he’s concerned as well. He’s using that exact mixed tone right now.

Alfred, who’s helping Damian set up a new board game they bought over the weekend, exchanges a knowing glance with him. Alfred is a seasoned mediator to the many, many arguments he’s witnessed in the Wayne household throughout his decades of serving the family. Damian only hopes that what they’re hearing is the end of an argument, not the beginning of one.

Jason walks into view, wearing the same clothes he’s had all day long. Patrol officially began half an hour ago. He must not be going.

Bruce is also noticeably not behind him anymore.

He glances at the board game—Wildcraft—with mild interest. “I haven’t seen this one before,” he remarks, taking a seat beside Damian, directly across from where Alfred is situated on the recliner.

“Master Damian picked it out a few days ago,” Alfred informs him while shuffling a deck of chance cards. “How much do you know about foraging?”

“Uh…” Jason shrugs, running a hand through his hair absentmindedly. “Absolutely nothing?”

“Then this will be a wonderful opportunity to learn,” Alfred responds nonchalantly.

Jason pulls his knees to his chest and rests his chin atop them. His right arm presses into Damian’s left one. He keeps his eyes in the direction of the instruction manual at the corner of the table, but he doesn’t seem like he’s really looking at anything at all.

Damian nudges him with an elbow. “What is up?” he asks, hoping that Jason chooses to be open and honest with him today. He did not lay his soul bare this past month just to have Jason be as closed-off as ever.

“It’s April 27th,” Jason tells him, as if it means anything to him.

“And?” Damian presses. That wasn’t a fair answer, and he knows that Jason knows it too.

Jason sighs, relenting. “It’s the anniversary of the day I died. Everyone knows it happened, obviously, and that there’s nothing that can be done to change that. But B is weirdly fucked up over it this year. He was like, y’know, MIA last year, but the year before that, he couldn’t care less about me. He just saw Red Hood as another threat to Batman. So it was really fuckin’ weird when I tried to report for patrol an hour ago and walked into the cave to face him throwing a massive fit over me wanting to go outside.”

Oh. That answered any questions Damian may have had. He turns to meet Jason’s side profile, his eyes tracing the white streak of hair that falls over Jason’s eyes. “I am sorry. If it is any consolation, he throws a ‘massive fit’ over me wanting to go outside any day.”

His joke hits the mark. Jason snorts. Alfred raises an eyebrow at Damian, humored.

“Alright, kid.” Jason elbows him gently. “You win. Congrats. Come pick up your medal for having suffered the most tragedies.”

Damian smiles before growing more serious again. “I am sorry, though. If you were the only one prevented from going on patrol.”

As far as he knows, the other Bats are out in the city right now.

“Nah.” Jason picks at a loose thread on his jeans. “It’s fine. I got Bruce to make an agreement with me. Originally, I was pissed off because his reaction was out of the blue, so we started yelling at each other, and that’s when he started rambling about how he was withholding my uniform tonight for my own good. It made me realize that the whole fiasco was more complicated than him simply not wanting me to go outside—he was really fucked up, Damian. He was … like, having a breakdown and being all hysterical n’ shit. It scared me, so I told him I’d skip my shift if he would do the same, because he’s not in any condition to be out right now either.”

They’ve been increasingly open with one another this past month. Since Damian got out of the hospital, Jason has come over a few times to see him, and he’s been more comfortable sharing more of his past with Damian.

Damian nods in acknowledgement. “Do you think that he will be okay?” he asks, even though it won’t change anything. If Bruce is upset, he’ll stay upset. They can, however, at least take comfort in knowing that Bruce will be safe tonight.

Jason shrugs. “I don’t really know. You did quite a number on him, kid. He’s been texting me after patrols all month to make sure I get back home fine, which he has never done before. And I mean never.”

Damian goes quiet at that. Bruce has been keeping close surveillance on Damian since he’d been released from the hospital, which makes sense given the circumstances. But Damian hadn’t once considered that Bruce could have been doing the same for his brothers.

Perhaps the severity of Damian’s situation kicked him into motion.

Damian doesn’t really know what it is that caused Bruce to react like that, but he continues to think about it even as he focuses his attention back on his board game.

Bruce walks into the living room a few minutes later as Damian is about to move his piece five paces forward. Damian glances up and has to do a double-take to confirm what he’s seeing.

Bruce looks awful. His hair is standing up in all sorts of places, messy in the way Damian’s only ever seen when Bruce has recently removed his cowl. His polo is unbuttoned and the collar isn’t folded down. His khakis are lacking a belt and he’s barefoot. He’s clearly just changed out of his uniform and into civvies, and he did so without bothering to double check what he looked like in a mirror.

More prominently, though, his eyes are red-rimmed and his nose is irritated from being rubbed.

He’s been crying.

Damian doesn’t mean to stare, but the fact is so jarring that he does so anyway. He scans over Bruce, looking for any signs of injury or physical pain.

There’s nothing. Bruce’s hands are slack by his side. His shoulders are minutely slumped like he doesn’t care to stand up straight, but his posture is otherwise normal. There are no bandages on him. Any bleeding would be apparent on the light colors he’s wearing, but the only thing wrong with his clothes is that his pants need to be ironed.

It’s a dumb assessment anyway. Damian knows that Bruce doesn’t tear up over corporeal pain. He’s never done so from a deep stab wound or a gunshot to his torso. Nor did he react this way when he was dosed with a primitive version of Scarecrow’s fear toxin last week, having been exposed to it accidentally at a copycat criminal’s lab Barbara recommended he investigate.

Damian has never seen Bruce cry. He didn’t think it was even possible, if he’s being honest, so to say that this took him by surprise would be an understatement.

Bruce blinks tiredly when he meets Damian’s eyes.

“Damian,” he says, sitting down to the right of Damian, effectively sandwiching him between Bruce and Jason.

Jason scoots over a little to make space for Damian in the center, and Damian can tell he’s very pointedly not making eye contact with Bruce. Jason is evidently feeling just as awkward about the situation—if not more—as Damian is.

“Would you like to play?” Damian asks, gesturing to the board, unsure of what else to say.

Bruce sniffs. “Of course.”

Alfred, as calm as ever, swipes the game pieces off the board. “We’ll restart, then. Master Jason, would you like to participate as well?”

Arms crossed, Jason frowns at the coffee table blankly for a bit before he relents, shrugging. “Sure.”

As Alfred shuffles the cards, Damian silently sits back against the couch and leans towards Bruce. They sit side by side, and Damian presses his arm into Bruce’s in a subtle offer of comfort.