Chapter Text
“Keep up, habibi, we’re almost there.”
A mother and son slipped through the shadows of Gotham. Talia al Ghul ran side by side with her beloved older son, once her father’s heir. He wasn’t anymore, or wouldn’t be soon. Not if she had anything to do with it.
“Tt, I am quite capable of outpacing you, mother. I simply do not know these streets as you do.”
“Don’t underestimate your mother, Damian,” she chided gently, knowing full well that he couldn’t move faster than her, but he was easily able to keep up now at only ten years old. Not only in speed, but he was skilled enough to go toe to toe with some of the most skilled masters in the League. She was so proud of her son.
Sons. She was equally proud of both her sons, and soon the other would be making the same journey.
“Remember what you are to do when we arrive,” she prompts, making sure they go through the plan once more. Her beloved had no idea of what was to come, and Talia knew they must be delicate. She had no idea how the man would receive unwanted children. He had wards, yes, but he had chosen those. There was not a Wayne heir, an heir to the great Batman, who was by blood. Not that was known of. Each heir had been selected and trained by the Bat for their qualities alone. How would he take two children forced upon him that, beyond anything else, were killers?
She hadn’t planned to let the man know like this. Their actions now weren’t anything but a last resort, a desperate escape from a certain death by the hands of their Grandfather, or worse, each other.
It would have to work.
Damian squared his shoulders. “I will introduce myself as the Batman’s blood son. I will declare my right to stay as a blood son and heir. I will not,” he paused, a slight frown forming on his small face. “I still do not understand why I cannot mention Danyal. He is a blood son as well.”
Talia sighed in sympathy. “I do not know if your Grandfather has discovered our absence yet, or if news of your brother’s mission has reached him. Until both of you are safe, we must keep any information about him quiet. If Batman decides to search for him, the League may use him to get to Danyal.”
She didn’t add that she didn’t know if Bruce would accept another child if he were not already on his doorstep with Talia already out of sight.
“We are almost there,” she said, a hint of sadness in her voice. She did not want to give up her son, not so soon into his life. Soon she would give up two.
Mother and son emerged from the shadows of Gotham in front of Wayne manor. Talia stooped to take her son’s face between her hands. “I love you so much, habibi. I will visit any moment I can, but I will miss watching you grow. I will bring your brother to you soon. Father will not reach him before I do.”
Then she stood and rang the buzzer to the gate of Wayne Manor.
An elderly voice answered. The butler, no doubt. “What can I do for you, Miss?”
“I am here to speak with Bruce Wayne.”
“I’m sorry, but Master Bruce is not in at the moment,” the butler said. “If I perhaps could get a name, I will notify him of your visit upon his return.”
“I will wait for him, then. Tell him that Talia is here to speak with him, he will come.”
“Miss Talia al Ghul,” came the reply, the recognition now apparent in his voice, right along with subtle disdain. “Wait there, I will come fetch you.”
Talia nodded, relieved that there wasn’t more of a fight to get in. She would bring Damian to his father, and he would be safe. Mother and son would enter Wayne Manor, but only mother would come out.
Gotham was quiet. It had been for several nights, which made Damian uneasy. There were the standard muggings and robberies, of course. No occurrence, no matter how strange, could keep Gotham from being Gotham. But there hadn’t been any major breakouts at Arkham. No free rogues had shown their faces. The whole family was stuck dealing with petty crime, and that was never good news.
He could feel it through the absence of chatter over the comms. Normally, he would look down on Brown’s needless additions in attempts to lighten the mood, but he found himself almost missing them. The silence only served to emphasize the tension so thick, a child could cut it with a butter knife.
Damian glanced around once more from the rooftop he was perched on. There was a hint of movement in the alley below, so slight that only someone with the training of a bat could notice. It wasn’t much, but it was something, and with the recent lack of things to fight, Damian would take anything he could get. He would never admit his desperation, of course, but the rest of his family was spread far enough across the city that he didn’t need to worry about one watching him jump at the barest shift of a shadow.
Silently, he dropped from the roof to the ground below, rolling and ending in a defensive crouch. There was another slight movement from where he had seen it before, but from his new position Damian could better tell what it came from. He relaxed his stance slightly and moved to open his utility belt.
The shadow stretched and melted into two, the smaller slinking towards Damian’s outstretched hand. A small black cat nosed at his glove, impatiently demanding the treats enclosed inside. Damian cooed quietly at the creature and offered his palm. The cat eagerly snapped up its prize, then looked up at Damian expectantly.
“Alright, you may have one more,” he told the cat quietly, digging in his belt for another treat. He would have to start bringing more along if he kept pampering every animal he met. Not that he minded, but Alfred would notice the increase in rapidly depleting treats from the several tubs kept around the manor. Damian held out the offering, which earned him a purr. He reached to stroke behind its ears and softly smiled when the cat pushed its head against his hand in return.
“Your name will be Shadow,” he decided, the words too soft for his comm to pick up. Shadow meowed softly in return.
He was glad that his family was not there, half because the interaction would likely bring about a wave of insufferable teasing and half because he could take a few more moments away from patrol without being reminded to stay alert. Gotham was plenty quiet at the moment. He could afford to briefly step away for Shadow.
His thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a voice crackling in his ear. “A fire just broke out in the Bowery. Requesting backup.”
“Be there in five, RR,” came the immediate reply. Spoiler sounded almost too eager to take care of it, and none of them liked dealing with fires.
"Arriving in two minutes." Batman was also making his way toward the call.
Damian sighed and moved to stand. He would have been grateful for the action two minutes earlier, but he wished he could spend a few more seconds with Shadow. It wasn’t often that feral cats were so friendly. A life spent on the streets of Gotham was not kind to anyone, and made most strays hostile and distrustful. A few would trust you if you offered respect, and fewer still stayed trusting despite a difficult life.
“I will be there shortly,” Damian said to the rest of the bats as Shadow let out a loud meow of protest. He winced, hoping the comm didn’t pick up the cat’s noise.
“Focus, Robin. No picking up strays on patrol,” Batman’s voice came through the comms. The tired father undertones were faint, but not to those who knew the bat.
He could hear the faint snickers from the others in his ear. That was Brown, most likely, and probably Drake as well. He would get his revenge later.
“I was simply feeding one. It is not as though there was much else to do,” he bit back as he grappled to the rooftop once more and set off towards the fire.
“So Agent A wouldn’t have found another cat in the barn tomorrow morning, then?” Spoiler teased.
“I do not take in every stray I meet. I doubt you idiots remember shelters exist, I will deliver her there when I am able.”
“Oh so A totally—"
“Spoiler. Robin. Focus. Now is not the time for this conversation.” Batman’s interruption earned an almost audible eye roll from the blonde vigilante.
“Yeah, yeah, B. I’m almost there, Red. Where do you need me?”
Damian refocused as the orange glow rising from the Bowery faded into view. He reached for his rebreather, knowing that he would need it shortly if the blaze had caught in any of the apartments, since there would almost certainly be hostages.
Red Robin’s voice filled his ear again. “Two buildings on fire, one just caught. I’m checking over the first one right now for any civilians, but there’s probably people in the second. Whoever gets here first should start there.”
“Roger that. Entering the second building now. I’m pretty sure I just saw B go in the other side.”
“I’ve entered the third floor. Spoiler, evacuate floors one and two. Robin, assist Red Robin in evacuating the first building.”
Damian had arrived at the burning buildings and quickly surveyed the scene. Red Robin must have caught the fire early, since the flames were just starting to lick against the walls of the higher floors. One building was a four story made of old, weathered brick, and it fought the hungry fire even as it slowly climbed its height.
The other was even older and obviously wooden. It was practically a miracle that it had survived as long as it had. The fire already burned intensely on both floors, and he was already dreading going inside. He just hoped that Red Robin had almost completed his sweep. By the time any forces would get there to put out the fire, it would almost certainly have consumed the entire building. Even now Damian was unsure if the second floor would hold weight.
“I am entering the building now,” Damian answered, bracing himself before slipping inside. The spreading fire around him was already suffocating, and he quickly got to work. “Red Robin, have you identified any citizens inside?”
“Negative. The whole place is pretty much empty. Seems like it was being used as storage for something, but nothing in the boxes has any correlation with each other. It doesn’t make any sense.”
Drake’s voice already was tinged with the familiar need to discover answers, and Damian was sure that getting him out of the building before he combed every corner, blazing or not, would prove near impossible. Keeping an eye out for any movement, Damian began to open any boxes that weren’t burning. Even if they had to leave quickly, they could still use visuals later. Red Robin had been right, none of the boxes’ contents made sense. Every few boxes held merchandise unrelated to any of the items before. After a dozen boxes, he had found glassware, a large assortment of pens, cleaning supplies, and tubes of paint.
“What is all this?” Damian wondered, tearing through more boxes with abandon. The growing heat was making him more irritable, and the second floor wouldn’t hold for much longer. “There isn’t anything of use, it’s all just useless junk.”
“I can’t make any sense of it,” Tim complained. “There’s no pattern and I’ve gone through everything already.”
Oracle’s voice cut into Tim’s whining. “If you’ve gotten visuals on everything, you guys should leave. Building one is barely stable. And Spoiler and B could use an assist.”
Damian could hear the loud sigh that answered. “Alright. What floor?”
“Four. There’s still likely people trapped.”
Quickly, Damian ripped open another box. It was the third one he had found that contained chewing gum. “I will join shortly, there are still a few unburned boxes on this floor.”
He scanned what of the floor was left unburnt, but realized the last boxes had caught in the seconds he had looked away. With nothing left he could investigate, he scanned the room once more and then slipped out the last free window.
The four vigilantes made quick work of the other building as the first collapsed under the weight of its now charred bones, the old unsteady wood now charcoal and ash. The apartment had been barely inhabited, with a total of twenty people and two dogs ending up being pulled from the building. All three younger vigilantes were happy to let the Bat deal with the various authorities that had arrived.
A chipper Spoiler and distracted Red Robin began to direct the displaced people to one of the buildings Bruce Wayne had set up for anyone who found themselves suddenly homeless from any of the many building destroying accidents that seemed to happen every week. Too many people had to be evacuated from apartments that had been burned, gassed, overgrown with vines, or any of the other stunts rogues decided to pull, and there was more than enough money available for the charitable Brucie to renovate a few abandoned buildings.
Damian watched from the side, having retreated into shadow as soon as they had confirmed all people had been evacuated. He was as proficient as the others at civilian interactions, but like his father he much preferred to slip away from a crowd when he could. The other two had the situation handled well enough. As he watched still shell shocked families accept the slips of instructions and the comforting words of his siblings, he felt a tug on his cape. Looking down, a small boy no older than six or seven stood looking up at him.
“Mister Robin?” the child said quietly, almost inaudibly. Big blue eyes stared up into his own and he felt himself soften. It had been years since he had received such a look from anyone, and Richard didn’t count, yet the color of the eyes alone drew out a long buried instinct to care for the boy.
“Yes?” he answered, unsure what else to say. He made sure to keep his tone soft so the child wasn’t scared off. After a moment of thought, Damian crouched to better hear the child. He had seen Richard do the same many times before, but had never before had the need to do so himself.
The child looked down, suddenly nervous. “Could I have your auta- autograph? I think you’re so cool, an’ the best bat, an’ the best Robin! Everyone at school says you’re mean and the others are nicer but I don’t!”
Damian looked at the boy, too stunned to form full thoughts. “I… appreciate your kind words. It’s true that most see me as mean, why don’t you?”
Blue eyes met his own again, this time accompanied with a small smile. “You’re not being mean right now,” he replied sincerely.
“I suppose I’m not. Tell your friends, then, that you have proof that I am the superior Robin,” Damian instructed, and reached into his belt for a scrap of paper and a pen. He had never been asked for an autograph either, that was usually reserved for the big Bat, but he always kept supplies for any necessary written notes. After scribbling a large, stylized version of his title, he handed it over for the other to see.
“Wow! Thank you Mister Robin, you’re for real the best!” The child had just begun to marvel at the gift when a voice frantically called from the others.
“Danny! There you are!”
Another boy, this one around ten years old, came running up to the vigilante and his admirer. He skidded to a stop, unable to control the momentum he had built, and threw his arms around what Damian assumed was his brother.
“Danny! You can’t just run off like that, you could have gotten hurt! Mom and Grandpa didn’t know where you were,” the older boy scolded.
“But Arin, I got Robin’s autograph! I told you he’s the coolest!”
“I think Robin has things to do. Come on, Mom’s waiting for us.” The older brother grabbed Danny by the hand and dragged him away from Damian. Danny turned to give him a little wave as he went, but Damian couldn’t wave back.
The boy’s name suddenly slammed into him full force. The cobalt blue eyes, the black hair, the age, the protective older brother. Memories that he only allowed himself to consider when alone and vulnerable ripped through his mind, and he choked back a sob. That little boy, the first one to not look at him for the first time and only see hostility since he had come to Gotham, since he had last seen him.
The eyes, the hair, the name, the name the namethenamethe—
A hand on his shoulder startled him out of his spiral, and he whirled on an unsuspecting Tim Drake, a weapon already drawn. Tim threw his hands up defensively.
“Whoa, calm down. I just thought you should know that B said we’re good to go. Spoiler is handling transport and he just got called to the Tower for some emergency meeting, so it’s just us heading back.”
Damian relaxed slightly and sheathed his sword. “I thought you had learned not to sneak up on me. Any injury you would have obtained would have been your fault.”
Drake frowned at him. “I said your name like, three times. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Damian snapped, turning away. “I will make my own way back.”
Without giving Tim time to reply, Damian grappled up to the nearest roof and took off across it. He didn’t look back as he ran. He needed to clear his head, and to do that he had to be alone.
Tim sat at the Batcomputer, sifting through and sorting footage he had gotten from the burning warehouse. Nothing about the situation made any sense. There wasn’t a pattern to follow. There weren’t any through lines, no markings on the walls, no writing on any of the boxes.
But, all signs pointed to the fire being set on purpose. For whatever meticulous plan had been made to hide what was previously in the building, whoever had started the fire hadn’t cared to cover their tracks. Tim had seen the clear, multiple points of origin in the way the fire had burned in different parts or the building without a connection in between. The fire had also been on the top floor before it could have possibly spread from the lower one.
Tim groaned and reached for the mug next to him. With no new pressing cases, he had actually been considering getting a little more sleep that night. Now he knew that the first of likely many all nighters was imminent if nothing more turned up.
As he started to organize the photos for a third time, this time by potential brand connections, Tim heard the telltale sound of a bike pulling into the Cave. He frowned, suddenly remembering how strange Damian had acted earlier. The kid didn’t tend to get distracted on patrol, in fact, he usually was one of the ones who called others out about that kind of stuff. He was pretty much always on alert, so Tim being able to sneak up on him, especially when he wasn’t even trying, was odd.
A few moments later, Damian stalked into view. The freaked out expression he had worn earlier, which was the normal frown but with about twenty percent more dissociation, had settled into his usual scowl. He didn’t even glance at Tim as he began to dismantle the different layers of armor of his suit. Usually Damian loved to get in a snide remark before heading out of the cave.
“Hey,” Tim called, deciding to reach out instead. “Let me see your mask, I need the footage you got from that building.”
He got only silence in return. Damian continued to robotically hang up his belt and cape.
“Demon Brat.”
Nothing.
“Damian.”
The other paused mid peeling off his domino, but didn’t look up.
Tim squinted at Damian, his concern growing. “Are you alright? You didn’t inhale a bunch of smoke, did you?”
“Of course not, Drake, we have rebreathers for a reason,” he snapped back, but it lacked its usual bite. The teenager just sounded tired.
“You’re acting weird. You should go see Alfred just to make sure.”
“I’m fine,” Damian snarled, and this time he sounded truly angry. Not wanting to risk a knife being sent his way, Tim sighed and swiveled halfway back around. This is what he got for caring.
“Whatever, Brat. Just leave me your mask, I need the footage.”
The domino suddenly hurtled toward him, straight toward his face. Tim caught it and swiveled back all the way to avoid any further attacks.
“Fuck, watch it,” he grumbled. “I don’t want to have to fix this thing tonight.”
There was no reply. When Tim peered behind him, he was alone once more.
He went to work uploading the new footage, hoping that it had the pieces that he was missing. As the progress bar slowly moved, processing the hours of video that had been captured that night, Tim leaned back and closed his eyes. He knew he should be using the time to look at the latest WE tasks that he hadn’t completed before patrol, but his laptop was upstairs and his tablet was sitting on the other side of the cave. Plus, he didn’t think that he would be able to focus on anything else right then.
Except how strange his two interactions with his younger brother. First there was a complete lack of his usual bluster and hostility, then much more than was usual these days. Tim was frankly surprised a volley of different knives hadn’t followed the mask.
Some moments later, a noise sounded that signaled the upload was complete. When he opened his eyes again with a sigh, ready to once more comb through nonsense, someone had appeared next to him.
“What’s up?” he asked Cass, who was leaning against desk.
She shrugged, silently returning the question.
“Fire in the Bowery tonight, I’m sure someone started it as a cover. Nothing we found has any connections, though, it’s all random junk.”
Cass frowned and looked at the screen, which displayed thumbnails of several videos from Damian’s patrol. Tim clicked on one that he assumed had the parts he needed. Neither of the two vigilantes spoke as the video played, with intermittent interruptions from Tim taking screenshots of the different contents in each of the boxes.
There was still no visible pattern by the end. He groaned in frustration. “You see?” he asked Cass. “It’s obviously a coverup for something, but they completely scrubbed everything. This stuff might as well have just been there so the fire caught.”
“Vandals?” Cass questioned, but Tim shook his head.
“The initial burn was too neat.” He pulled up the pictures from when he first entered the building. Cass hummed her agreement and allowed him to continue.
“I couldn’t even see if there was residue on the walls, and now I can’t even check,” he complained, flicking through more photos from Damian. Glassware and gum to add to his napkins and mechanical pencils. Useless.
Both considered the material they had. Then, a shadow of something in the corner of one of the photos caught his eye. “Hold on,” he murmured as he zoomed in. It may have been nothing, but where the carpet had begun to blacken and peel back, something lay beneath.
“Does that look like a corner of something or have I been looking at pictures of fire for too long?” he asked, squinting. The longer he looked, the more sure he was that the lines weren’t just shadows.
“Yes,” Cass replied with a smirk. Touché. He didn’t actually know how long it had been since he had gotten back and immediately gotten to work.
He shot her a look anyway. “I’ll see if I can get blueprints, that might lead to a basement or something. I can’t believe I didn’t think of that possibility before.”
Finding the blueprints for the building was easy. Tim pulled them up on the screen and flicked through them looking for a possible basement. Sure enough, the old building had a subterranean storage room in the far corner, likely to be used as some sort of speakeasy originally.
“Ha! Finally!” he exclaimed excitedly. “I just need to get in there.”
Tim jumped up, already preparing to go back out into the city. Just as he started to head to where his belt was hung, since he hadn’t bothered to shed his suit yet, he felt a hand on his shoulder. “Cass,” he protested, but she didn’t let go.
“Tomorrow,” she said. “The site is still warm and people will be watching.”
“I could take them,” Tim grumbled, but in reality he knew she was right. The rubble was likely still smoldering, and if the fire was deliberate as he expected, there would be people making sure their tracks were covered. If he went while they watched, they might try to interfere. He turned back and plopped back in the chair. “Might as well go through the rest of this just in case. There might be something else.”
He clicked open the footage from later in the night, where Damian had watched him and Steph take care of the evacuees. He watched as the little boy, who was absolutely adoption bait, sang Robin’s praises. It was almost adorable, how the sulky teenager didn’t seem to know how to respond to a genuine fan. Tim could see Cass smiling out of the corner of his eye, most likely thinking the same. It wasn’t often they could genuinely call Damian cute.
He watched the moment the boy’s brother came over. He watched the moment that Damian froze, the only sign of change was a small, sharp intake of breath. Then, Tim had called out to him and Damian had grappled away.
Tim exited out of the video then. “Did you pass Damian at all tonight?” he asked Cass.
She shook her head. “He was acting weird tonight, after that. I don’t know what set him off,” he explained.
“The boy and his brother,” she proposed, and Tim frowned.
“That’s the only thing it could be, but I don’t see why. I think he’ll stab me if I try to get anything out of him tonight, though. I’m kind of surprised that he didn’t try earlier.”
Cass stayed silent then, but the message was clear. It was yet another thing that would have to wait for the next day. They both sat there in comfortable silence for a few minutes before Cass stood and began to walk towards the elevator. “Good night,” she said, and Tim returned the farewell and turned back to run through the pictures again. One more time couldn’t hurt.
He would just have to see what was wrong with the building, and maybe with Damian, later.