Work Text:
Footsteps echoed down the hall as they came closer and closer to Damian’s cell. He sat up from where he was leaning against the wall, trying to ignore how the chains on his wrists and ankles bit into his skin from the slight movement. His shoulders didn’t ache as much as they would have had they restrained his arms behind him instead of in front. He saw Tim shift in his cell from across the hall as well as the footsteps seemed to grow louder as they drew near.
It had been around two days since Damian, Drake, Thomas, and Brown had all been captured by the League of Assassins. They were all put in different cells, but close enough to where they could hear each other, and somewhat see each other through the bars the fronts their individual cells had, although the word “cages” might be a more accurate description. Damian was only able to see Drake across from him, and Thomas in the cage next to him. He wasn’t able to see Brown due to the fact that she was in the cell to his left.
The footsteps finally revealed his mother, standing with perfect posture and a calculated gaze in front of him. She was flanked by two assassins on each side, all of them with katanas across their backs and various other weapons strapped to them.
“Hello Damian,” Talia al Ghul said cooly. “It’s been sometime since we’ve seen each other, I was thinking we could have a little chat.”
Damian glared up at her from where he sat on the floor, “I have nothing to say to you Mother.”
Talia just laughed at him, “Oh darling, did you think you had any choice in the matter?” She motioned to two of the men next to her, “Bring him.”
The door to his cell was slammed open. The assassins made quick work of unchaining him from the wall. They didn't even let Damian get his footing when they hauled him up before they dragged him out, their grip tight and unwavering despite his struggles.
“Get your hands off of me!” Damian snarled at them. Of course this did nothing, and they continued to pull Damian down the hallway, following his mother’s lead.
“ Hey! Let go of him!” Thomas shouted after them. He had moved as close to the door of his cell as he could, and was now shouting as the assassins took Damian away from his siblings.
“Yeah! You let our baby brother go!” Brown yelled at them, and Damian only saw a brief glimpse of her as he moved past her cell. She was relatively unharmed, like the rest of them. Tim had gotten the worst of it, with Talia landing the most blows on him before Damian had attacked her and drawn her attention to him. He heard Tim and the others call after them, their shouts becoming more and more different as he was taken away to a small room.
The room had nothing except two chairs in it facing each other. His mother was already sitting in one of them, and Damian was shoved into the other, and assassins flanked his sides immediately, in case he tried anything to escape.
“Well now habibi, here we are, Mother and son together once more. It’s been quite some time has it not?” Talia asked him, as she settled comfortably in her chair.
Damian said nothing, and just glared at the woman sitting across from him.
“Oh come now Damian, we both know the silent treatment won’t work here. Why must you be so stubborn? It is time you accept your role in the League, and come back to your grandfather and I’s side.”
“Is that why you brought us here?” Damian scoffed, “To get me to ‘accept my role in the League’? I’m done with the League, Mother. I will never be you or Grandfather’s pawn again.”
Talia gaze became angry at this, and she leaned forward in her seat, “Don’t be foolish Damian, don’t throw away your future for whatever nonsense your father has told you.”
“What nonsense?” he asked. “Nonsense like realizing that you and Grandfather never cared? That you were just using me?”
“Don’t say such foolish things,” his mother hissed, “Of course we cared! You and your brother were the future of the League!”
“Don’t you dare speak of my brother,” Damian snarled at her.
Talia straightened, and raised her chin, “I have every right to speak of Danyal. He was my son. It was such a shame that he had to die. I have wondered many times over the past few years if we picked the wrong twin.”
It was as if time had stopped. As if the world around him had frozen, leaving just Damian and his mother. All of the air seemed to be sucked out of the room, and Damian struggled to breathe as he rasped, “What did you just say?”
His mother seemed to realize what she had said, surprise fleeting across her features before it changed into a smirk. “Ah yes, I had forgotten. It has been so many years since Ra’s decided that your brother was no longer needed, I had forgotten that you never knew how your brother had actually died.”
No. No no no! Damian thought. What Mother was saying couldn’t be true. Danyal had died during a mission gone wrong in the States with their mother. Mother had come home with grief in her eyes, and she had held Damian all night as he cried for the loss of his twin.
“Mother,” he whispered, eyes widening and with breath quickening as the horror of her words sinked in, “What are you saying?”
His mother’s smirk turned into a sneer as she spoke, “What I’m saying is that keeping the two of you alive was unnecessary. I knew that only one of you was going to live when you were born. I suspect Danyal realized it two at some point before his death, but that didn’t stop him from being a failure. It was you or him, habibi, and you were stronger. Better. The choice was obvious at the time, but it’s unfortunate that it may have been the wrong one looking back.”
Damian’s world was falling apart. His Mother had killed his brother. Had killed Danyal. His twin. And he hadn’t even known. He hadn’t known for years, as he continued to follow her and Grandfather’s orders. Orders from the man that had been the one to decide his twin’s fate.
He screamed, a guttural, throat scraping scream as he surged towards the woman in front of him. The woman that was supposed to be his mother. That was supposed to love her children.
Hands pulled him back, trying to restrain him as he fought to kill Talia. He screamed, tears welling in his eyes as he sobbed, breathing ragged. Damian fought with everything he had, and he managed to elbow an assassin in the ribs hard enough to where they loosened their grip enough that he could grab the knife strapped to their side. He plunged it into the man’s stomach before slicing the other's throat.
He lunged towards Talia, aiming to kill, when a punch to the side of his face sent him falling to the ground. The knife was immediately kicked from his hand, and Damian curled into a ball as the remaining assassins beat him.
They kicked him, stomped on him, swung things at him, they beat him to a bloody mess, ignoring his cries of pain, and Talia al Ghul watched with disinterest, doing nothing to help her son as he was mercilessly beaten by her underlings.
Eventually they stopped, and Damian’s entire body was racked with pain. From a quick evaluation, he definitely had a concussion, a few broken ribs, a broken nose, and bruises covering his body. Hopefully there wasn’t any internal bleeding, but Damian couldn’t be too sure, since his head was swimming and it was becoming increasingly harder to focus. Someone above him was saying something, but it took him a second to make out what.
“-ack to his cell. Maybe he will come to his senses later and realize that it would not be wise to refuse our offer.”
Then all of a sudden there were hands on him, lifting him up by the harm. He cried out from the pain, his injuries screaming at him as he was dragged out of the room and down the hallway once more.
He hung limply between the two assassins that carried him, blood dripping down his face and onto the floor, creating a trail.
As he neared his cell, he heard cries of shock and horror as his siblings saw him. They called out to him, asking if he was okay, and screaming obscenities and threats at the men who they assumed to be the ones who did this to him.
The assassins threw him into his cell, and Damian screamed from the pain when he hit the floor hard. He curled up on his side, agony racing through his body. The door to his cell slammed shut, and the men that had brought him there left, not even bothering to chain him back to the wall, making it to where the only restraints Damian had on him were the cuffs that bound his wrists and ankles. They knew that he wasn’t going to be able to escape.
His siblings were still talking to him, begging him to answer them, to move, to do something , but Damian did none of those things as he faded from consciousness.
When Damian finally came to, the first thing he noticed was how everything hurt. His injuries throbbed, and breathing hurt. Tears and blood was smeared across his face. He rolled onto his side, his body screaming at the movement, and groaned as he opened his eyes to stare at the unfamiliar ceiling.
Where am I? He thought groggily. What had happened?
“Damian?” a quiet voice nearby asked, “Are you awake?”
Damian slowly turned his head to his right where the voice was coming from, the cell across the hall. He saw a figure in a red and black suit and cape with a domino mask sitting against a wall in the cell across from him, holding his arm awkwardly.
“Drake?” Damian croaked.
Some of the stiffness in Drake’s posture eased, and the older boy said in a soft voice, “Hey Baby Bat, you doing okay?”
It took a moment for Damian to process what Drake had said, so he took a second before responding. “I’m doing fine Drake, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he wheezed.
“Hate to break this to you kiddo, but you don’t sound fine,” Brown said from the cell next to his.
“What happened in there Damian?” Thomas’s voice asked, concerned.
That’s when everything caught back up to him, and Damian’s breath hitched as he remembered what his mother had told him. “ Keeping you both alive was unnecessary.”
He sucked in air with strangled breaths despite the pain it caused him. No. Please no! This couldn’t be happening. It was like he was experiencing Danyal’s death all over again, except this time Damian knew that it was his fault. Damian’s thoughts spiraled, and his breathing became more and more ragged and uneven.
There were voices around him telling him to calm down, that he was okay, but he wasn’t okay. Danyal was dead, he was murdered at age eight. His mother had killed him on his grandfather’s orders, and it was all Damian’s fault.
He began coughing and wheezing struggling to get any air in. Then as the reality of what really occurred seven years ago began to sink in more and more, the cough turned into hysterical sobbing. The voices of his siblings faded in and out as Damian began to lose himself to his grief and pain.
Eventually, they faded completely as Damian returned to being unconscious once more.
It was the sound of the metal door opening and the footsteps that followed that woke him up the next time. The footsteps stopped right next to him, and Damian opened his eyes to see the hazy image of his Talia al Ghul above him.
A distant part of him knew he should be angry, that he should attack and scream at the woman standing before him, but it was overtaken by the exhaustion and pain that had settled into his body.
“Hello Damian, have you come to your senses now my son?” Talia asked him in the League’s dialect. Damian then noticed the two assassins that were behind her. Both had their hands on their weapons, waiting for Talia’s orders.
Damian focused his gaze back on the woman staring down at him and hissed in the same language, “How dare you call me that after what you did!”
Talia’s eyes narrowed, “Damian, I am beginning to lose my patience. If you don’t accept my offer willingly I’m afraid we must do things the hard way. You are Ra’s heir, my son, whether you like it or not.”
He looked his mother dead in the eyes, rage overtaking the pain for a moment, and answered her in English, “I stopped being your son the moment you killed Danyal,” he snarled, “You are not my mother.”
Before he had time to react, Talia grabbed him by the collar of his suit and slammed him against the wall behind them. He couldn’t help crying out from the pain that it brought him, the pain that continued as he struggled against Talia’s grip.
“I would consider your next words wisely Damian,” Talia said with a cold deadliness, “Do not test me.”
“I. Will. Never. Serve. You,” he ground out despite the pain that raced through his body, that made it hard to breathe.
Talia raised her hand and slapped him. “Don’t be foolish,” she hissed, “Don’t you dare throw away everything that has been sacrificed for you. Your grandfather and I, we just want to help-”
“Sacrificed? Sacrificed?! SINCE WHEN DID I ASK FOR MY BROTHER TO BE SACRIFICED?? ” Damian screamed.
Tears sprang from Damian’s eyes as he thought of Danyal. His twin, who had died because of him. With one more act of defiance, Damian headbutted Talia in the face, effectively breaking her nose with a sickening crunch.
She yelled out in pain and staggered back, releasing her hold on Damian, and he fell to the ground. Talia was glaring at him murderously now, holding her broken nose as blood gushed down her face.
“ How dare you! ” she screamed. She then turned to the assassins next to her, “Punish him,” Talia seethed, “Make sure he learns his lesson, but do not kill him.”
Both of them nodded to her, and she stormed out of the cell. Brown was yelling all sorts of profanities at her in various languages, and Thomas and Drake were trying to get the assassins’ attention, begging them not to hurt Damian, to punish them instead.
None of them listened, and one of the assassins proceeded to take out a weapon that looked eerily similar to the escrima sticks that Richard uses, and thrust it towards Damian, electricity crackling as it electrocuted him.
He screamed from the pain that felt endless. While one of them electrocuted him, the other took to beating and cutting him. The screams from his siblings were drowned out by his own, and Damian struggled against his captors who were relentless.
Eventually, after what seemed like an eternity, they stopped, and walked out of the cell, leaving him on the ground in pain once more. Damian felt himself go limp, and he laid there for a moment, struggling to breathe once more, as he felt his consciousness fade.
“-amian! Baby Bat, wake up!” someone said to him. Hands were on his shoulders, shaking him gently, and Damian let out a groan from the pain, head lolling to the side.
“Hey there kiddo, Damian can you hear me? We need to get you out of here,” the voice told him.
His entire body was filled with agony, and his head throbbed as he slowly opened his eyes. The person in front of him with a hand on his shoulder was a man in a black and blue costume with black hair that was in need of a haircut. Behind him was another man in a brown leather jacket, with a red helmet standing by the cell door. That was all he saw before his eyes closed again.
“Dickwad, we need to leave now. Who knows how many more assassins the League has coming our way.”
Dick- Richard- cursed, and he hurriedly removed the cuffs on Damian’s wrists and ankles. “Nightwing to Orphan, you and Hood need to get the others out of here, I got Robin.”
“Like hell I’m leaving you and the Demon Brat,” Todd shot back, “You’re going to have to carry him, and if you run into trouble, you’re not going to be able to fight back.”
Oracle must have said something in their coms, because Richard took a moment before answering, “Fine, yes that works, B, we’ll meet you and the others at the jet. Let’s go Hood.”
And with that Richard carefully hooked his arms around Damian, and lifted him up into a bridal carry. Damian couldn’t help the whimper at the pain the movement caused.
Richard made a soothing noise as he started towards the door to the cell with Damian, “Shhh, it’s okay Baby Bat, I got you.”
Once they got out of the cell, Richard began running, and from the footsteps nearby, with Todd next to them. Each step that jostled Damian was agony. He was trying desperately to not sob from the pain, causing his breathing to come out more rapidly. His breathing hitched, sending Damian into a fit of wet coughing and wheezing, each inhale rattling his chest.
“C’mon Dami, just hold on for a little bit longer,” Richard said, not knowing how that nickname would turn Damian’s coughing into sobs, tears openly flowing down his face as he remembered the only person who was allowed to call him that, Danyal. He would never hear Danyal call him that again, and that thought had him sobbing even harder.
Richard held him tighter, his voice thick with emotion as he told Damian, “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry that this happened Damian. It’ll be okay, we’re getting you out of here, you’ll be okay.”
Damian was shaking now, his mind muddled with the pain from his injuries, from his mother’s betrayal, and the knowledge of how his twin really died. He continued crying as he clung to his older brother.
“I’ve never seen him like this,” Todd murmured to Richard, emotion clear in his voice despite what his mask did to disguise it.
“Me neither,” Richard whispered back.
“What the f*ck did they do to him?”
“I don’t know Little Wing, I don’t know.”
Eventually, they made it to the jet, barely running into any assassins along the way, with Damian going in and out of consciousness.
As they approached, he heard Richard yell, “We got him! Get ready to go!”
“Oh thank goodness,” a voice ( Thomas?) responded as they made their way up the ramp and into the jet, “Is Damian okay?”
“He’s been banged up pretty good,” Richard said, “He needs medical attention now.”
Damian felt himself be set down on a cot, he felt someone start examining him while someone else was petting his hair. His chest was in agony, he couldn’t stop coughing and shaking, each gasp of air bringing in tears from the pain of his injuries and what he had learned. He started to lose track of what was happening around him as he fell asleep.
“Alright,” Jason says, standing in the middle of the jet, “does anyone know what the hell they did to Damian? I feel like that would be a good place to start.”
Duke, Steph, and Tim all looked at each other, a silent conversation passing between them. They were all situated on cots in the jet’s medical area, since even though they got out relatively unscathed, they were still starved, dehydrated, and bruised.
Damian was by far the worst, with three broken ribs, a concussion, burns, a broken nose, a fractured leg, and his whole body was covered in bruises and cuts. He was currently unconscious on his cot, with an oxygen mask on his face, and most of his injuries bandaged the best they could.
Trying to treat his injuries was a nightmare. Damian seemed almost hysterical, his chest heaved with sobs and coughing, making it impossible to hold him still. It didn’t matter what they did, what they told him, it was like Damian couldn’t hear them at all.
Dick felt his heart break into pieces trying to keep him still while Cass and Bruce tried to treat his injuries. Damian didn’t stop shaking until he fell unconscious, and even then his body shook from each labored breath.
“Yes, I would like a report on what happened,” Bruce said. Cass nodded silently in agreement, her eyes hadn’t left Damian since he entered the jet.
Duke was the one who spoke first, taking a breath before he began, “Well I’m assuming you all know how this all started, the four of us were working on our mission to take down an underground fighting ring, that doubled as a place for informants and illegal trades to happen. What we didn’t know going into it, was that this place was being sponsored by the League of Assassins. Everything had been going well, until Talia and her people showed up, and overpowered us. They took us to one of their compounds, and nothing bad had happened until…” his voice trailed off, pain and regret flashing in his eyes as he lowered his head.
Bruce moved to place a hand on Duke’s shoulder, “It’s okay chum, you’re all safe and away from the League now. Take your time.”
Tim looked at his brother, gaze full of sadness, and continued the story for him, “They had barely spoken to me, Duke, and Steph, but they kept dragging Damian away, and I literally mean dragging, but he never seemed too affected by it. Sure, he might’ve come back with a bruise or two and been angry, but never with major injuries, until Talia herself came to take him away.”
“The three of us were close enough to wherever they had him to hear him yelling, then screaming. I couldn’t make out any words of what they were saying, but Damian sounded so angry and-” Tim paused, hands grasping the air in front of him as if that would help him find the right words, “- heartbroken . When he came back, he was in bad shape. His face was covered in blood, and he was pretty much limp in the guards’ arms. He passed out for a bit, and when we woke up, he got only a few words out before he broke down into coughing and crying.”
“I’ve never heard him cry like that before…” Duke said quietly, still staring at the ground.
“Yeah,” Steph whispered, “Especially when Talia came back. I’ve seen the kid angry before, we all have, but I’ve never seen him like that.”
“What happened when she came back?” Dick asked, his brow furrowing. He could tell from the three of them that he would not like the answer.
“When she came back, she went into Damian’s cell instead of taking him somewhere, probably because of his injuries,” Tim said, “She asked him something in the League’s dialect, and Damian was answering in the same language, until she said something that really set him off and he switched to English. He said something like ‘You stopped being my mother the moment you killed Danyal’-”
Bruce’s sharp inhale interrupted Tim. Everyone turned to face him, to see that Batman had gone utterly still, and seemed to have stopped breathing for a moment.
“Tim,” in a tone that showed he was obviously trying to hide his emotions from showing as he asked, “Are you sure those were his exact words? That Talia killed Danyal?”
“...yes,” Tim said slowly, looking at Bruce, trying to figure out what was so important about that statement.
“I heard too,” Steph added, and Duke nodded in agreement.
Bruce blew out a breath, and slumped in a seat, putting his head in his hands. “This isn’t good,” he whispered, “I can’t believe that Talia was the one who killed him.”
“Now wait a d*mn minute,” Jason growled, “Who the h*ll is the ‘Danyal’ guy? Why haven’t we heard of him before?”
“Was he a friend of Damian’s?” Dick asked, trying to connect the dots.
“This… is not my story to tell,” Bruce sighed, then he looked up at his children, “I swore to Damian that I wouldn’t talk to anyone about it, or tell anyone. If I tell you all without his permission I don’t think he would ever forgive me.”
“The h*ll you mean ‘this is not my story to tell’!” Jason exploded, moving towards Bruce, “I’m not asking for every detail, but we should at least have some idea of what happened that made the Demon Brat like this!”
Bruce opened his mouth to say something, but anything he had to say was promptly cut off by Damian’s groan as he blearily opened his eyes.
The first thing Damian noticed when he woke up was the pain. It wasn’t as bad as it had been, but his whole body ached, with his chest being the worst. He opened his eyes slowly, and groaned as they struggled to adjust to the light above him, increasing the throbbing pain in his head.
Someone was talking to him, he noticed. It took him a moment to realize who it was and what they were saying.
“Richard? Where am I? What happened?” he asked.
“Hey there Baby Bat,” Richard said gently, smoothing his hair with one hand while the other was gently pushing him back down onto the cot as Damian tried and failed to sit up.
“Rest little brother,” Cain said quietly from where she stood next to him, “Safe.”
“You took quite the beating Demon Brat,” Todd said from across the room, standing with his arms crossed.
“What Jason means to say,” Father said, sending a look of warning towards him, “Is that you had us worried there Damian, and we’re glad that you’re awake now.”
“I figured that was implied,” Todd said dryly.
“Hey Damian,” Brown said quietly, “Who’s Danyal?”
Damian tensed at the sound of his twin’s name coming from her mouth. It took him a moment longer than it should have to come up with a response, “That is none of your concern, Brown,” he said through gritted teeth.
“We’re just confused,” Thomas said, obviously trying to diffuse the situation, which was completely unnecessary, “It looked like whoever this person is, you care about them a lot, and if they’re important to you, they’re important to us.”
Damian saw the others nod in agreement, “We just want to understand what’s going on,” Tim said.
“As I’ve already stated, ‘What is going on’ is none of your business, ” Damian hissed at them.
“Demon Brat, whoever this person is, they’re important enough to make you cry. Of course we want to know who the h*ll this person is!” Todd exclaimed.
Dick gave Jason a pointed glare, opening his mouth to say something in response, but he was cut off by Brown, “ Please Damian, none of us have ever seen you this upset before! We just want to help-”
Damian saw red. His mind flashed back to what Talia said in the cell- ‘ we just want to help-’
“Well excuse me Brown for being distraught over learning the fact that the woman who was supposed to be my mother killed my twin,” Damian snarled at her before she could finish her sentence.
The room fell silent.