Chapter Text
Bruce Wayne was a widely respected philanthropist. He was CEO of Wayne Enterprises, which was leading innovation in the world of medical tech and security. He had a Master's in Psychology from Princeton and an MBA from Harvard. He was GQ’s most eligible bachelor three years in a row.
Really, there was absolutely no reason he should still be on several watchlists.
You date the daughter of possibly the most dangerous crime lord/cult leader in South Asia one time and suddenly you're a lifelong threat to world peace?
Unfair.
Also, not really the point.
“You dated Talia al Ghul?” Tim says when he brings up the topic to give the boys the news he himself is only just beginning to process at the breakfast table. “Isn't she like the deadliest woman in the freaking world?”
“Allegedly,” Bruce says, mostly out of habit. “And she wasn't the deadliest when I first met her. We were twenty-two, if she'd killed anyone she sure as hell didn't act like it.”
Talia had been arrogant and domineering and a bit too keen on rough over intimate, sure, but those were not always signs of killers. Just sometimes.
“How come I've never heard of this?”
“You were, like, a toddler,” Dick happily offers from his seat on Bruce's right. “Man, it was all over the tabloids. They'd already broken up for good for a while by then but someone leaked some pics to the paps and then it was everywhere! He got death threats from the KKK and everything.”
“He's gotten death threats from white nationalists for funnier shit than dating an alleged criminal.”
There's Jason.
His beloved second son looks fairly dead to the world as he slumps into his seat next to Dick.
“What's this about Talia? I thought you hadn’t seen her since she got arrested at that fundraiser eight years ago?”
“Ten, and she was not arrested. She was invited to the FBI regional office for questioning about an urgent matter.”
“She totally tried to kill someone at your party, didn’t she?”
“...probably.”
Listen.
Bruce is not proud of his dating history. He knows it has been a mess of epic proportions. Talia wasn’t even the worst ex. At least she had the decency to leave him alone after they broke things off for the last time. She hadn’t even been in the country in years, as far as he knew.
Which was what made the phone call this morning even more concerning.
“Anyways,” he says, clapping his hands in front of him to call for order. His sons do not straighten themselves up but at least they push pause on the interjections. “This is not about my past poor choices in the romance department. This is serious, I got a call from an Interpol agent earlier this morning. Talia is requesting, what she called, a business meeting with me, and the agents are strongly suggesting I accept.”
“Will they take you off that watchlist if you go?”
“Unlikely, but I think my lawyer is asking.”
Tim snorts into his orange juice. Dick, seemingly not finding the situation as amusing as his brothers, frowns at his eggs.
“This sounds extremely suspicious. First of all, why does she want to meet you at all? And secondly, why would it involve the freaking Interpol.”
Bruce considers his options. He has enough intel to make a guess that this likely has to do with the taskforce Talia is cooperating with to bring down her father. But he can’t exactly go around telling his literal children about spy secrets that he himself only knows because of his secret nighttime activities that they’re not supposed to know of.
Well. Dick knows about that part of his life but the others don’t.
And may they never find out. He still regrets telling Dick.
“I suppose I’ll find out when I get there.” He takes a bite of his own eggs, which have sadly gone cold, before continuing. “Now, I was not supposed to talk about the meeting. However, if I’m gonna fly to Egypt on short notice to go meet my ex and a whole lot of agents for whatever reason, I’m gonna let my kids know first. So, just, keep it in the house.”
“Wait, when are you going?”
“Jet’s ready, I’ll pop by the office and get my work commitment figured out first. Don’t worry I don’t plan on staying longer than I have to so, if all goes well, I’ll be back sometime tomorrow. I’ll miss bedtime, though.”
“You don’t need to tuck us in anymore, old man!”
“I’ve already talked to Cassie-” Bruce ignores Jason’s little jibe “-but Duke had left early for morning practice when I got the call so one of you will have to fill him in. Dick, can I trust you to help Alfred hold down the fort?”
Alfred, always one for dramatics, pops back in from the laundry room at just that moment.
“I do not believe I require assistance in looking after your teenage children, Master Bruce,” he says sharply. “It is almost as if I have been watching the lot for years now!”
“Sorry Alfred,” he says, running a hand through his hair sheepishly. “I’m just not looking forward to this whole thing.”
“I suppose one can only hope that you learn to better vet your romantic prospects from this ordeal.”
“Ha!” Jason, ever his biggest hater, says. “Nice one Alfie! Up top!”
Alfred gives him the high-five and Bruce pops an Advil in preparation for the long, long day ahead.
^-^
Interpol’s very own Agent Carlton is there for Bruce when he gets off the plane in Cairo. They take an unmarked SUV courtesy of the agency to the Hyatt where Talia is apparently squared away in a penthouse suite. The taskforce is temporarily operating out of another suite at the hotel, paid for by Talia herself because she refused to stay somewhere with less than five stars.
That sounded like the woman who once called a diamond necklace a ‘small gift’ alright.
“We can’t say much about what’s going on,” Carlton starts carefully. “But I am warning you now, that we really need you to cooperate with her. The operation we are running is already precarious, we cannot afford any setbacks.”
Ra’s has a weapons smuggling operation that goes via Turkey to get product to buyers in Europe. If Bruce had to guess, that was going to be their first target. Cairo is likely just a good location to hide their main asset while they work. Ra’s had very little influence here, and not for a lack of trying. Still, no place is ever truly out of reach for a man of Ra’s’ stature.
“I am still confused as to what she could even need from me? We haven’t spoken in close to a decade.”
Carlton gives him an odd look, like he’s doing math in his head.
“That sounds about right,” the guy mutters, then, “Just. Hear her out.”
The rest of the trip goes by in an awkward silence. Quite a few times, Bruce spots Carlton’s lips twitch minutely almost as if he’s holding something back. The whole thing is getting increasingly suspicious and he’s starting to wonder if he should have insisted on bringing Alfred along just so he would have some backup when Carlton guides him through the double-doors of the penthouse suite and he gets his first glimpse of Talia in a decade.
She looks… incredible, as always.
For just a moment, Bruce is twenty-two again, seeing the most gorgeous woman he’s ever laid eyes on from across the Princeton campus. It seems laughable now, that they’d met in college. That they had only been grad students, almost living normal lives, when they first fell into a passionate but ultimately doomed romance.
Bruce had spent five years of his youth failing to stay away from Talia.
And then, well, the almost-arrest. The watchlists. Talia confessing her sins to him on their last night together, telling him she understood they couldn’t do this anymore.
Bruce isn’t stupid enough to still be in love with Talia al Ghul, but there’s something so bittersweet about the wave of nostalgia that hits him when he sees her again - perched on a leather couch sipping on a latte.
She’s wearing green like she was the first time they met, too, and Bruce just knows that’s on purpose. She always did love mind games.
“Hello, beloved.” Her voice is soft, sultry, but there’s an edge to it, like she’s nervous and refusing to let it show. “It’s good to see you again.”
“I don’t know if I can say the same,” he says warily, sitting down on the couch opposite the woman. “What is going on, Talia?”
The agents scatter, one to the balcony and one to the dining area opposite the open-floor kitchen, but Bruce knows they’re listening. A third, he spots from the edge of his vision, slips into one of the bedrooms. Carlton hovers by the door, trying not to look overly suspicious.
“It may have come to your notice I have gotten myself into a spot of trouble,” Talia starts, pulling two manilla envelopes from somewhere under the couch cushions. “And, loathe as I am to admit, I need your help.”
She hands him a piece of paper, Bruce reads the damning words and freezes.
“What? Talia, what the hell is this?”
“Come now. I’m sure you have not lost the ability to read since our last rendezvous!” A manicured nail scratches at the paper where his name is scrawled in perfect cursive against father. “Though, I suppose that is the shock talking. I do apologise for springing this on you so suddenly, but it couldn’t be helped.”
“Talia.”
“Bruce,” the woman turns slightly just as the bedroom door the agent had disappeared behind creaks open to reveal a boy. “Meet your son, Damian. Come here, love, say hello to your father.”
The first thing Bruce notes are the eyes. Talia’s bright emerald irises blink back at him, wary and suspicious, as the boy slowly steps closer. The second thing, which really should have been the first, he makes note of is the sling around the boy’s right arm.
Alert eyes scan the small body for any other injuries and find several, cataloguing them away for another time – a small cut above one brow, a slight limp indicating a bad knee, a bandage peeking out from under the collar of the boy’s tennis polo.
“Damian?”
He doesn’t mean for it to come out like a question. He’s just… stunned.
“I assure you, he’s yours.” Talia hands him the second set of papers. “But I suppose you can wait till you have arranged for a paternity test before you sign the papers. I do hope you would do it sooner than later, though. As you may have noticed, our safety has been compromised.”
“He has my mother’s brows.” It is an absurd comment, but it is the truth. “Hello, Damian.”
The boy stops by the couch, leaning subtly against his mother.
“Father,” he says, curt and as un-childlike as a boy his size could manage. “I imagined you taller.”
Bruce would like it noted that he is, in fact, sitting down. He tears his gaze away, somehow, to glare at Talia.
“Is this why you were okay with breaking things off? Talia, what the hell? How could you hide my kid from me?”
Carlton, the bastard, clears his throat.
“Mr Wayne, I have to insist you do not stray from the matter at hand. We are under quite a bit of a time crunch. The sooner the boy is out of this country, the better for us all.”
Bruce checks the second pile of paperwork and, just as he’d suspected-
“You’re giving up your parental rights?”
Talia nods and the puzzle pieces start putting themselves together in his head. The taskforce. The injuries. Talia al Ghul acting uncharacteristically polite.
“I have been selfish in the past, keeping Damian by my side. I know now it was the wrong choice.” She pauses to rest a gentle hand on the boy's arm. Damian remains quiet, subdued as he stares holes into the marble flooring. “He will fare far better under your care, if your own brood is any indication.”
His kids do alright. He can’t say he takes much credit for their accomplishments though, they came to him too close to perfect.
“I will take him, of course, I will take him. I just- what is going on?”
“Grandfather wants me dead, so mother has deemed it necessary to send me away.”
“You may hate me all you want, habibi, but I will not let him hurt you anymore.”
Talia had always been formidable, but there’s something special about this fierce protectiveness that she seems to hold for her- their son. It reminds Bruce of all the little things about her that had made him throw caution to the wind far too many times in his youth.
“Damian is a key witness in our case,” Carlton offers. “Of course, our hope is to have enough that he will never have to testify in court, but if it comes down to it, we will need him someday. Miss al Ghul has refused to put him in witness protection, however, and she insists he will be safer with you in Gotham.”
He will. Talia knows what Bruce gets up to when no one is looking. She knows he’s capable of things that most of these agents likely couldn’t accomplish.
Bruce grabs a pen from his breast pocket and swiftly signs the custody papers.
“He will be safe with me, I give you my word.”
“That is all I need.”
Guess he’s a father. Again.
^-^
All of Damian’s worldly belongings seem to fit in a medium sized suitcase and a leather satchel, since that’s all the luggage the boy is bringing with him to America. Bruce almost comments on it before he remembers the kid recently fled his home in the dead of night to escape an assassination attempt and figures mum’s the word.
Bruce glances at the boy where he’s hunched over in his seat, angrily scribbling on a sketchpad while the ground crew does their final checks. He looks preoccupied enough that Bruce should be able to get away with a quick phone call.
“How’d the not-date with your evil ex go?” Dick says, as soon as the call goes through.
A wave of relief floods him at his eldest’s amused tone. Ever since he found out about Damian’s existence and, more importantly, how much danger his youngest was in, he has been on edge. Listening to Dick, so light and cheerful, settles some of that anxiety making his stomach roll.
He knows all good parents say it, but his kids truly were a blessing.
And now he had one more to count.
“Dick.” The severity of the situation must be evident in his tone, because he feels Dick tense down the line. “I have a son.”
“You have quite a few of those, yeah.”
“No, I mean, I have a son with Talia. His name is Damian. He’s nine and he’s coming home with me.”
There’s a long enough pause that Bruce starts sweating.
Of all his kids, Dick wasn’t the one he was worried about upsetting with this sudden addition to the family. He’d only ever had a hard time adjusting to getting a new sibling the first time, with Jason, and the kid had worked hard to make sure he never messed up his relationship with a new sibling that way again.
Dick was a good kid, and a phenomenal older brother. Bruce isn’t sure how he’ll handle this without Dick’s help, in case he decides he’s not too keen on a new sibling.
“I’m getting another baby brother?”
Of course, he never needed to worry at all.
“Nine? He must be teeny tiny, omg Bruce, send pictures!”
“You’ll see him soon, chum.” He sighs, runs a hand through his hair. “It’s- things are quite serious, Dick. We’ll need to talk once I’m home. I just wanted to give you a heads up so you’re not caught unawares. Will you talk to your siblings and have Alfred prepare a room? We can have a family meeting when I return.”
“When you say serious… is the kid in some kinda trouble?”
“We’ll talk when I get home, okay?”
“Yeah, okay. Bye dad.”
When Bruce looks up, Damian’s eyes are trained on him, sharp and calculating. He can already tell the boy has trust issues, for good reason, and he really needs to start formulating a plan to tackle all the problems that come with them.
Bruce waits until they’re well in the air before he gives up on seeing if Damian will break the not-so-comfortable silence.
“So,” he says, clearing his throat to get his son’s attention. “You like to draw?”
Damian had angled the sketchpad carefully away from view, but Bruce had spotted clean lines and impeccable shading nonetheless. The boy seemed fairly skilled at his craft, even just from a rushed glance.
“It is merely a hobby.” Wary, Damian seems to be constantly wary. A surefire sign of long-term abuse. He’d wager the recent incident was far from the first time his grandfather had hurt him. The thought makes Bruce’s blood boil but he keeps his rage in check. “If it is not allowed in your household I can easily discard my materials. Grandfather was not fond of it but he did not care as long as it did not get in the way of my education.”
The fear in those familiar green eyes betrays the air of nonchalance Damian tries to maintain. Bruce’s heart aches to soothe those worries away, but he has to be careful, has to make sure he doesn’t spook the kid.
“No, I think it is a very admirable skill to have. Your grandfather loved to draw as well, he used to fill his journals with sketches of the city.” Damian’s brows furrow in confusion and Bruce realises his misstep. “I mean my father, Thomas Wayne. Your other grandfather.”
“My middle name is Thomas.”
Bruce had spotted that on the birth certificate but he had been too distracted by finding out he had a biological son to truly appreciate Talia’s gesture. It was a whispered confession he’d offered her on a cold night when they were too young to be talking about children. He’d told her he would likely never have kids, but he liked the idea of honouring any hypothetical child with his parents’ names.
It makes his heart ache, the thought that she had not just remembered the conversation but kept it close enough to honour his father in his stead.
“I’m glad.”
Damian nods, then stifles a yawn.
“How about you get some sleep? It’s a long flight. I promise to wake you up when it’s time to eat.”
He smiles, Damian does not smile back but at least he sets his sketchbook aside and gets comfortable for a nap. Once he’s sure the boy is asleep, Bruce decides to follow suit. The seven-hour time difference is just enough to fuck up his already shit sleep schedule, better to take a nap now than be tired later when he gets home.
They have plenty of time to talk. There won’t be as much time for rest when they get back to a house full of extremely excitable children.
Bruce is already mourning his peaceful routine, that’s for sure.
^-^
Dick’s phone pings as he’s getting out of his car and he opens up the text chain to a picture that makes him go aww out loud.
A little boy with dark hair, tan skin and sharp green eyes glares at the spread of airplane food in front of him. Absolutely adorable.
He’s vegetarian
Please alert Alfred
We will be home soon
Bruce must have taken the picture during mealtime and then sent it off as requested as soon as they landed.
gotcha
cant wait to meet him !!!!
In the manor, his siblings are mostly gathered in the media room, minus Tim who is probably somewhere in a corner doing something irresponsible on the internet.
“Bruce is almost home little birdies, are we excited!”
He gets a cushion to his face for his troubles.
“Try not to be this hyper when the kid actually gets here,” Jason drawls as he turns the volume on the TV higher than it really needs to be. “Or you’ll creep him out. He’s got nine years of single-child-hood under his belt, don’t think he’s gonna be super excited about suddenly becoming the youngest of six.”
“Don’t hit Dick!” Cass comes to his rescue. “But Jason has a point.”
“Yeah,” Duke pipes up. “As the soon-to-no-longer-be the youngest, it’s definitely an adjustment.”
Traitors. The lot of them.
“You don’t love us, Dukey? You wish you had gone to another rich family with fewer mouths to feed, huh? Is this because I ate your ice cream?”
“Oh yeah.” Another pillow goes flying, but he ducks on time. “That’s totally it, I hate you all for eating my ice cream one time. Send me back to the orphanage!”
“What did I just walk in on?” And there’s Tim, earphones in and clearly on a video call with one of his friends from school.
“Jet just landed,” Dick explains. “And Bruce sent a pic!”
“Oh I’ve got to see this!” Jason says, lunging for his phone while Tim sighs and turns back to his friend with a quick, “I’ll call you back in a second. Do not log in without me! What’s happening?”
“Bruce sent a pic of Damian!”
Tim eyes Dick’s phone, then studies the chaos in the room once before seemingly deciding not to engage. “Cool. I’ll see the kid when he gets here.” The teen turns around and disappears right back to wherever he’d come from.
“Ignore him.” Cassie says, making grabby hands at the phone. “Show!”
Dick takes her advice and settles on the couch, his siblings gathering around him as he opens up the chat. Jason is quick to try to grab the phone out of his hand but he persists and eventually the shoving from all sides calms down.
“He’s got B’s scowl!”
Holy fuck he does.
“Why’s he injured?”
Dick’s grin slips at Duke’s question. He’d been trying not to think too much about the sliver of a cast visible in the picture. Bruce had said they’d talk later, and clearly the kid was safe now, whatever may have happened.
He did have a cult leader for a grandfather. That cannot have been ideal.
“Bruce said we’ll have a family meeting when they get home,” he offers.
“I do not like the sound of that,” Jason says, grabbing the phone from him. “B say anything else?”
“Nope. Wait for family meeting.”
“Ugh fine.”
The group mostly disperses after that, going back to whatever they were doing before but staying close-by for when Bruce gets home with the kid. Dick makes a stop at the kitchen to let Alfred know about Damian’s dietary requirements before moving up to change into some loungewear.
He finds Tim on the landing. The boy hasn’t returned to his friends and their gaming session as he’d assumed. Instead, he’s skulking on the stairs listening to the madness in the family room from a safe distance, like he used to when he first moved in.
“Hey,” Dick says, taking a seat next to his brother. “What are you brooding about?”
Tim huffs, focused entirely on fidgeting with his wireless headphones.
“I’m not brooding,” he says eventually. “Just thinking about some stuff.”
“Stuff like?”
“You’re gonna be an ass about it.”
“What, why? I’m gonna be the super nice and mature big brother that I always am!”
“You threw Jason out the window last month for taking your jacket.”
“It was the first floor window, he was fine!”
Tim snorts and relaxes into him a little and Dick sees that as a good sign. He can somewhat guess what this is about, now that he’s had a moment to think on it. He’s been so wrapped up in the idea of getting a new brother he may have neglected to properly check in on all the siblings he already had to gauge their reactions.
Everyone else had seemed pretty cool about it, so it was perhaps easy to dismiss Tim’s lack of enthusiasm earlier.
Now that was coming back to bite him in the ass, about twenty minutes from Bruce and Damian’s arrival, at that.
“Is this about Damian?” he asks carefully, not wanting to push Tim too hard but needing to work around the aforementioned time constraints. “You know this isn’t gonna change anything.”
“He’s gonna have a whole new kid in the house. A kid that apparently looks like him and would probably act a lot more like him too. Bruce got a real son, how are none of you even slightly worried about where that leaves us?”
“Tim-”
“Fuck, shut up. Oh my God I sound so whiny! I know I’m being stupid and unreasonable, okay? I just- I don’t know I got all in my head about it and it’s happening so fast there’s no time to process.”
Dick pulls his little brother into a firm sidehug. The bastard struggles for a moment before accepting his fate with a huff.
“Nothing is going to change as far as our relationship with Bruce goes. He adopted us because he loved us, not because he didn’t have any bio kids.”
“See you’re being all nice and understanding instead of telling me I’m being dumb. Total asshole move.”
Tim shoves him and Dick pretends it hurts far more than it really does and by the time they’re done laughing about it all some of that tension has melted off of Tim’s wary shoulders.
He would have to keep an eye on this, but he’s sure it’ll be okay.
Their family had been through far worse than a surprise secret brother, after all.
^-^
Damian does not know what to make of this man he is now to call his father.
Bruce Wayne is tall and imposing, all sharp angles and formal suits. It clashes so starkly with the warm smiles he keeps throwing Damian’s way that the boy is getting whiplash.
Damian will admit he has never known what a father is really meant to be, had never had one and never known one outside of TV shows and films. And, of course, his grandfather.
If Bruce Wayne was anything like Ra’s al Ghul then Damian was about to have a truly tiring few weeks or months or however long it may take mother to accomplish her goals and come back for him.
If she ever comes back for him at all, a traitorous voice at the back of his mind whispers. After all, mother had made it seem like this was to be a very permanent move.
“We will be home soon.” The man is speaking of the manor Damian has been told he will come to reside in. “Your siblings are all there now, they can’t wait to meet you!” The man pauses his gushing suddenly, a frown taking over his sharp features. “Has your mother told you about them?”
“Mother has mentioned that you have other children, though I was not privy to many details.”
His mother had told him an hour before his father had arrived, as she helped him pack his meagre belongings, that Damian was not father’s heir. She had warned him that, unlike the al Ghul household, the Waynes had no shortage of heirs and spares, and Damian, being the youngest, would not find himself in quite as privileged a position as he was used to growing up.
“But I am the only blood son!” he had argued.
“Your father never put too much stock in blood,” mother had scolded, “You would be wise not to attract his ire by demeaning his children. Remember, they were chosen by him while you will be forced upon him. If he does not protect you, my father will have his way.”
It was annoying to admit, but that was a terrifying enough consequence to keep him on his best behaviour.
“You told me he was a good man,” he had muttered sullenly, internally questioning why he was even being sent away to Gotham at all if his safety there was not truly guaranteed.
“He is to those he loves,” mother had offered, tilting his head up to make him meet her gaze. “You, however, are still just a stranger. Do not forget your place before you have even found it.”
Mother’s warning rings loud in his head. Next to him, father smiles all warm and disarming. Damian keeps his guard up the best he can.
“That’s alright,” father says. “You have three older brothers and an older sister, who are all adopted as you might know, as well as an older foster brother. I’ll introduce you to them once we are there.”
He nods, then frowns at a distinction that just caught his attention.
“Why is the youngest not adopted? Why is he different?”
He tenses for a second as the question hangs in the air. He had asked without really thinking about it and now he was instantly regretting it. What if father found it rude? What if Damian had annoyed or angered him in some way?
Father’s smile does not fade and his fingers do not form fists that could come hurtling at him any moment. He tamps down on the panic.
“Well Duke, that is your foster brother, does not want to be adopted. Which is alright, of course! His parents are still alive, but they have been in a coma for a few months and he is staying with us for as long as he needs a place. He only sees me as a temporary guardian and not as a parent. I love him like the rest, but it is a different relationship than what I have with the others. Your other older brothers and sister, on the other hand, were all legally adopted a long time ago and see me as a father. Sometimes they call me dad and sometimes they might call me Bruce or B. Jason loves to call me old.”
He chuckles, shaking his head fondly as if reminded of a funny memory. Damian studies the man’s face as he takes in the information.
Jason and Duke. Those were the first names he’d gotten. Well, he had also heard father speak to a ‘Dick’ on the phone earlier but he was still hoping he had heard incorrectly and would not be forced to have an older brother who willingly let himself be called that.
“We are here,” father says as two massive wrought iron doors open ahead of them and they enter onto a private road. “Before we meet everyone, I want to warn you that I am quite transparent with my children, so I will have a family meeting to let them know some of the details of your… situation. As it could affect them in the future, I would rather not keep it from them. Is that alright?”
Is it alright? Damian doesn’t understand the line of questioning. What father tells his other children, his real children it would seem, is of no consequence to Damian. He is not ashamed of himself or his circumstances. He has done nothing wrong.
He… father does not know what happened with grandfather that led to Damian falling from his good graces. There is nothing he could tell those other children that truly matters to Damian.
“Yes,” he says stiffly. “Do I have to be present for this talk?”
He does not care if they know that he has been marked for death by his own family. Still, he would rather not have to endure the staring and the silly questions the news would surely trigger.
For a moment, the only sound is that of the gravel crunching under the tyres of the car as the driver parks in front of the stately manor that will be Damian’s prison- mhm home for the foreseeable future. Father studies his face for something, and whatever he finds must concern him because his smile shrinks just enough for Damian to notice.
He may stiffen for just a second before reminding himself that he was not some scared little child who would live in fear of a man who barely knew him a day.
“No,” father says eventually. “You do not have to be present for this. However, I will expect you to attend future family meetings, barring any instances you have a good reason to not be there.”
Father does not explain what may qualify as a ‘good reason’. Just another thing for him to figure out.
Damian goes to grab his luggage as they disembark from the car but father gets to it first, lifting the bag out of the trunk with ease before strolling inside. Damian follows quietly as they pass through a warm foyer and into a cosy-looking living room.
There’s a boy and a girl sitting on the couch watching some American horror movie. They’re much older than him, he thinks, before remembering that they are all much older than him.
The girl notices them first, jumping up with a smile much like father’s as she walks over to introduce herself. The boy is slow to follow, turning off the TV first before he gets up himself.
Cassandra and Duke, they tell him. The sister and the one who does not want to be father’s son.
A second boy appears from somewhere, though perhaps it would be more accurate to call him a man. Jason is tall and broad and looks like he gets into a lot of fights, but he’s calm and almost as quiet as Damian himself. It is unnerving.
Cassandra and Jason are adults, he is told. Barely so, but enough to make them disqualify as children. Duke is thirteen, which makes him the second youngest, with Damian's introduction.
Two more stand in the doorway now, one timid and almost distrustful as he hangs back, the other overly friendly. Smile too big, arms open too wide. He’s almost as tall as father and Jason.
“This is Tim.” Father points to the sullen one right as the smiley one comes to stand too close to him. “And that’s Dick, he’s the oldest.”
“What kind of fool goes by such a moniker?”
The words are out before he can remember to mind his cursed tongue. His mother’s warnings were all for nothing because Damian has already destroyed any chance of finding peace in this strange household by insulting father’s chosen heir.
He used to be smarter, but he’d never been much better at holding back his true feelings, that much he could admit to himself.
“Well,” the sullen one says, his mood lifting inexplicably as he finally steps into the room. “He was raised in a circus.”
Giggles erupt all around the room, Damian looks around and realises he and the fool are the only ones not laughing. Even father is hiding his chuckle in a cough. They seem to find it hilarious that a child they don’t know and have to put up with for who knows how long has walked into their home and insulted their heir.
Absurd. The lot of them.
He decides to not worry about his misstep and simply march forward. Socially speaking.
“I will not be calling you that, thank you.” The fool has the audacity to pout. “May I go up to my room so I can change?”
Father nods. “Alfred will show you the way.”
As he follows the old butler down the hall, he catches the heir yell- “Well my legal name is Richard!”
Richard The Fool. It had a nice ring to it.
^-^
“He seems nice,” Dick says once he’s sure the kid is out of hearing range.
“He seems fucked up,” Jason counters, throwing himself on the couch and completely squishing Duke, who squawks but does not manage to escape.
“Hey!” Dick protests, but Bruce puts a hand up and asks- “Why do you say that, Jay?”
Jason rolls his eyes and finally lets Duke breathe. He tenses a bit as he sinks more into the couch cushions, an angry and haunted look taking over his features. Dick remembers that look from when Jason first started going to therapy.
The look he always got when he thought about Willis.
“I'm sure you saw how he stiffened up after insulting Dickie over there. I know a kid expecting a hit when I see one. The fuck is going on, B? I know I didn't really know Talia but I never thought she was the type to hurt kids.”
Jason hadn't been around when Talia and Bruce were having their years-long ill-fated will-they-won’t-they romance, but Dick had told him plenty of stories about the entertaining but ultimately annoying woman that was almost their stepmother.
Dick and Talia had never gotten along in the years they'd been connected through Bruce, but she'd never been cruel to him. Argumentative, infuriating, embarrassing sure. But never cruel.
“She would never.” Dick had always thought that Bruce never truly got over the idea of what he could've had with Talia. Maybe, now, he never would. “Talia chose to give up her parental rights to keep Damian safe. She has been trying to break away from Ra’s and the League of Shadows, and it seems Damian was caught between them.”
“So he was abused, just not by his mother. Gotcha.”
Dick flinches at Jason’s performatively casual tone. Jay and Cass share knowing looks between them, the two had always found comfort in the fact that the other could understand the trauma of their similar pasts.
Dick and Duke, and even Tim for the most part, had come from safe, happy homes with parents who loved them. No matter how much Dick wanted to be everything his siblings could ever need, he couldn't understand that part of them. Not really.
“Not even Talia knows the full extent of what Damian has experienced with Ra’s,” Bruce explains eventually. “She told me he spent over a year on the League’s compound in the Himalayas without her. They had a custody dispute. Eight months ago, Ra’s suddenly sent Damian back to Lahore to live with her. Then, almost two months ago, Damian was in a near-fatal car crash that Talia believed was her father's doing. And last month, there was another suspected attempt, which is why Talia and Damian have been hiding out in Cairo.”
“Why would this Ra’s guy want his grandson killed, though?” Tim had been quiet a lot longer than Dick expected. “I looked into the League of Shadows. They're basically a cult that may be tied to a ton of eco-terrorist activity across the globe. How does any of that translate to killing a nine-year-old?”
The League’s main objective could be boiled down to saving the world by killing people who were deemed unworthy of it, but that was a lot harder to find from just a quick google search. The illegal weapons trade they were running was even harder to nail down.
Not that Tim’s research methods were ever so limited.
Tim was too smart for his own good, and he took after their father more than any of them, not that he knew as much. Dick always thought it was a shame Bruce was adamant on hiding his online activity from the other kids, because if anyone would take to the operation like a fish to water it was Tim.
Dick could do all that Bruce could as the Bat because Bruce had trained him well. Tim could do all that and more just because it was fun.
Dick looks between Tim and Bruce, the latter looking like he's trying to decide how much information he can or should offer.
He sighs eventually, looking like the very tired middle-aged father of five- six now holy fuck - that he truly was.
“There's a lot of factors to it, but right now there's a taskforce Talia is part of that's trying to dismantle the League and get Ra’s locked up. Damian has been directly or indirectly privy to a lot of illegal activity during his time at the compound.”
“Witness.” Cass says, nodding along like she's pieced it all together.
“If-” Duke looks nervous where he's got his hand raised like they're in class. “If this Ra’s guy is so dangerous then how do we know Damian will be safe here?”
“What?” Jason huffs. “You worried the kid's gonna attract assassins to our home?”
“I'm just saying! This Talia woman sounds a lot more dangerous and capable than Bruce-” She was, most days. But Bruce wasn't far behind. “-How is it that she thought he would be safer in the crime capital of the United States? Assassins live here too!”
Tim snorts and even Jason manages a grin.
“Don't you worry, Duke,” Bruce does not offer any real explanations this time. “I have plenty of resources at hand to keep Damian safe.”
Meeting adjourned, alright.
^-^
Damian gets an entire hour-and-a-half alone to himself before he has to suffer the company of father and his children again.
When the butler had deposited him in his room and made a swift exit, Damian had changed quickly then waited to be called upon. After a good twenty minutes of peace, however, he'd wagered that there truly were no expectations of him until dinnertime and set about acquainting himself with this new space.
The room assigned to him was large and well-furnished. A queen-sized bed sat in the middle, headboard against one wall and facing a blank wall that, upon closer inspection, had a hidden projector screen on it. He found the remote in one of the nightstands.
Father's children must be utterly spoiled, if they all had meaningless entertainment so readily available.
One wall had large bay windows, with a reading nook to rest on while looking out at the vast gardens of the manor. The spot alone made Damian like the choice in boarding. Since art was apparently encouraged here, maybe he could paint the view someday.
Mother had always loved Damian’s landscapes, their living room walls had been adorned by his pieces.
Moving on to the other side revealed an en-suite bath with a small claw-foot tub and an overhead shower. He wondered if all the rooms in this ‘family wing’ were so well-equipped. Father appeared to be just as well-off as mother.
She wouldn't have chosen a man of lesser value to sire her son, after all.
One glaring detail stands out to him after his quick appraisal. The bathroom has a lock, one easily picked but it was there at least. The bedroom door was not as guarded.
Anyone could walk right in as they pleased. It was… worrisome.
The study table in one corner had a sturdy wooden chair he could use to jam it, but surely the lack of a lock was intentional? He didn't think father would appreciate such measures.
He would simply have to be careful.
Pennyworth knocks on his door at exactly five before eight, the time he’d told Damian dinner would be served. Damian opens the door already dressed and looking as presentable as ever. He had combed his hair twice, just in case.
The butler gives his outfit a once-over that feels pointed, but he makes no comment. It puts him on edge.
“Is your room to your liking, Master Damian?”
“It is acceptable.”
Pennyworth nods and leads him downstairs. They are, apparently, not eating in the dining hall he had passed on his way up. There is a smaller dining area just off the kitchen where the family has already gathered. The table is smaller, clearly not meant to host crowds larger than his father and his brood.
Still, there is an empty seat waiting for him when he arrives, to father’s left with Richard on Damian’s other side. He pauses in the doorway and does a quick headcount to make sure everyone else truly has taken their places.
Strange.
Damian does not understand why he would be offered the seat next to his father and the heir, when it is only his first night in the household. Cassandra being sat on father’s right makes sense to Damian, she is the second oldest and the only daughter. It is clear that she is favoured.
Father’s left should then fall to Richard, surely.
He looks around quickly to make note of everyone else’s positions and finds none of it makes sense.
“Hi Damian!” Richard greets him as he finally takes his seat. “You’re looking quite dashing there!”
Damian feels the frown taking over his carefully crafted poker face. He looks down to check his outfit, a classic cream sweater and dark brown trousers. A casual outfit, surely. He looks up and realises, suddenly, that the rest of the family are in loungewear.
Timothy is wearing basketball shorts. Jason’s shirt has a hole in it. Duke is the best dressed on the table and he’s in jeans and a letterman jacket. Even Cassandra is in sweatpants.
He checks on father – designer sweats and a muscle tee.
Abhorrent. Does no one in this household care to look presentable for meals?
At least Pennyworth’s looks earlier make some semblance of sense now. Perhaps he was admiring Damian for his sense of decorum after spending so much time around utter hooligans.
Or perhaps Damian has misunderstood yet another one of the Waynes’ customs and the man had been embarrassed for him. Is- is he overdressed?
He has never been overdressed for anything in his life.
Damian keeps his gaze trained on the cutlery in front of him and does his best not to think about it. If no one’s mentioning it then it clearly must not matter. Chatter floats all around him and Damian cannot make out a single word of it.
All he can focus on is the glint of the knife in front of him. He stares and stares until his eyes hurt and then he stares some more.
It doesn’t matter, he tells himself. He doesn’t have any clothes more casual than this anyway, and he’d rather die than show up to dinner in his pajamas. It was fine. No one cared.
No one cared.
He almost startles when Pennyworth sets a plate down in front of him. Almost. But he’s better than that. He survived Ra’s al Ghul’s training, he will not be bested by a butler.
Or a minor social blunder.
Dinner, apparently, is mashed potatoes with sauteed mushrooms and broccoli with gravy to pour on top. Damian had seen dinners like this on TV before but he’d never had a meal like this. Not by choice. He checks to make sure that the others have begun eating before he takes a bite of the mushroom with some of the potatoes.
The food is not as bland as he had come to expect from eating in western countries in the past. Before he was moved to the compound mother would often bring him along on work trips. He’d hated trips to England the most because they always had to dine with clients and the local cuisine simply did not compare to the rich meals he was used to.
This, especially with the gravy, was splendid.
“Do you like it?” father asks suddenly, voice soft so as not to disrupt whatever argument Tim and Jason appeared to be having.
“It is delicious,” he says earnestly. Father had implied he appreciated honesty, after all.
“That is good to hear,” Pennyworth chimes in from his stance next to father. “I had never made vegetarian gravy before, but I was hopeful I could manage it.”
He looks around the table again and finds everyone else is pouring from a larger gravy boat while he has been given a smaller one just for him. They are all having steak. He remembers father fussing about Damian not having enough to eat on the plane when it had turned out there were no vegetarian meals.
“Alfred is being modest,” father says, either oblivious to Damian’s shock or ignoring it altogether. “There’s no dish he cannot cook perfectly. He’s a wizard in the kitchen.”
“You do flatter me, sir.”
Damian continues his meal in silence.
He doesn’t know what to make of his father, of this seeming lack of expectations. He’s been given no rules, no schedule to follow, there has been no talk of schoolwork. He has known the man for a day already, been in his house for hours and nothing!
All he’s done so far is eat and talk.
Perhaps father is being lax because Damian has only just arrived. He’d had no warnings of this change in his household, perhaps he just needs some time to decide where Damian would fit into it all.
Tomorrow, surely, will come with rules and expectations and he will know how to behave.
Tomorrow.
Damian retires to his room right after dinner, despite Richard’s offer to join the others in a movie night. They had been watching those when he arrived too, how much TV could anyone get? Damian was only allowed TV on the weekends, after his schoolwork was done and his training had finished for the day. At the compound, TV was not allowed at all.
Mother had not been as strict as grandfather about managing his day, but that was only because she had been busier. By then, Damian had known well enough to keep to his schedule and not make any trouble.
He wonders, as he lays in bed, eyes trained at the door, what he would be like had he grown up in this house with father and his supposed siblings.
He shudders at the image of himself in tattered loungewear at the dinner table.
No. It is better to have been raised by mother, he decides, even if that had come with the displeasure of being grandfather’s heir.
At least he knew how to dress himself.
Damian closes his eyes and tries to sleep. He’d had a long day.
^-^
Tim tries not to watch Damian too closely over dinner. He fails.
The kid is something of a mystery and even more of a rival and Tim can’t help but hyperanalyse every single detail about his behaviour in anticipation for… something. He’s not sure what.
It’s kind of sad and majorly annoying how he’d always wanted a baby brother and now that he had one he couldn’t get over his insecurity long enough to try to talk to the kid. Granted, the kid wasn’t exactly talking to anyone but still.
He hadn’t been like this with Duke, he doesn’t know why he’s so stuck on the whole bio kid thing, why it suddenly matters to him so much. But Duke had never wanted Bruce to be his dad and Tim had wanted it for far longer than he felt comfortable admitting even to himself.
That likely played a role in it.
Damian wasn’t like the rest of them. He would never have to earn the chance to be a Wayne. It was his birthright.
They won’t whisper at the galas about how Damian was only around because Bruce took pity on him like they do with the rest of them. No one would ever question how one of them looked shockingly like Bruce when they weren’t really related in that haughty way that let everyone know what they were implying.
No one would sneer at Damian’s face and call him a charity case.
It just wasn’t fair.
Over the course of one dinner, Tim learns many things about his father’s new son.
Damian is a vegetarian. Damian is apparently unfamiliar with American food. Damian is the kind of pretentious little kid that dresses himself in formal sweater vests for dinner at home. Damian doesn’t talk much but he glares a lot.
Mostly into his plate.
He also doesn’t seem to want anything to do with the rest of them, judging by the fact that he refused to talk to anyone but Bruce.
It doesn’t escape Tim’s notice that the kid had only talked to Dick earlier and that was just to insult him. He spoke all stiff and unnaturally proper, his over-the-top vocab only adding to the overly posh air about him.
All of it annoyed him.
Especially the way Bruce’s attention was constantly on the kid.
Dammit Tim was being an asshole again.
He huffs and focuses on dessert. Alfred’s cheesecake is always a delight, and it seems the new kid isn’t averse to eggs so he gets a slice from the same cake as the rest of them. Tim is not watching him. Nope. Not at all.
He’s totally not noticing how awkward and tense he is or how he’s had his plastered-up left hand resting in the exact same position in his lap without moving the entire meal. That cannot be comfortable.
He’s broken a bone or two in his time. Though none of those injuries were won surviving assassination attempts so he can’t say he completely understands Damian’s struggles.
When Damian finally sulks back up to his room and the rest of them are left to their movie night, Tim finally feels like he can breathe again. The weight of the new addition is stifling, he can't focus on anything other than the kid he really has no right to feel so hostile towards.
The kid hadn't chosen this.
But he had it now, everything that Tim had ever wanted, and he didn't even seem to like it. How could Tim not feel slighted?
“Everything okay, chum?” Tim hadn't noticed Bruce sliding next to him on the couch. “You've been quiet.”
Tim ignores Dick's pointed side-eye from the armchair and prays his cheeks aren't giving him away by cosplaying a tomato.
“I'm fine. Just thinking.”
“This is a big adjustment, if you want to talk I'm here.”
But Tim can't do that to Bruce, can he? Bruce has more than enough on his plate with the company and the family and taking in a whole new son he hadn't known existed until literally a day ago. He's already going to be stretched thin between work and settling Damian in on top of the million little Parent Things he has to do for the rest of them.
Tim won't add to his problems by telling the man who was kind enough to take him in when he had no one that, hey, actually, I hate that you've got your own kid now because it makes me feel redundant and now I have one-sided beef with the abused child that's supposed to become my new brother.
That would be such a dick move.
“I know, B. I'm fine. Just need some time to get used to this.”
He will figure this out on his own.