Chapter Text
Damian hadn’t intended to apologize to McGinnis.
He was their heir to the league of assassins, the one true son of the greatest warrior in the world and the daughter of the demon’s head. He didn’t apologize, ever. Apologizing was for lesser beings, for those who wouldn’t survive the League of Assassin’s ultimate plan. Not for people like him.
But, for some reason, he felt compelled to tell McGinnis that he may have erred by deciding to stab him during their duel.
Perhaps it was father and Grayson’s constant spewing of sentimental drivel over the course of his stay at Wayne Manor. Or the constant guilt-tripping that came with it. Maybe it was testing Drake and realizing that out of the two, McGinnis was a far superior combatant.
He had stood in for the Red Hood and held his own for long enough to fool most of Gotham’s scum into thinking he was the real article. Therefore, McGinnis was clearly skilled, even if his disposition was idiotic at best and annoying at worst.
From what he could tell. Because he most definitely didn’t sneak to the Bat Cave when no one was looking and patch into the security feed for his room. Not at all.
He’d been trained to know better than to let a threat remain unmonitored, no matter if said threat was incapacitated. And while McGinnis was not a true threat, he was the one with the family’s allegiance.
Not Damian. But him.
Maybe that was the real reason Damian felt compelled to speak to him. Obviously there was something that McGinnis had learned that helped him gain the family’s allegiance, despite his obvious lack of combat prowess. Something that Damian had never been trained in, since the family obviously despised him.
He’d listened to how Todd and Drake talked about him, behind his back. To his face, they merely glared and hurried away as fast as possible, but behind his back, they made him out to be some terrible monster, a spoiled brat with no care for anything except bloodshed.
At least they feared him, Damian thought. But despite that, they didn’t show him the proper respect he was due as the blood son of Batman. And he couldn’t quite figure out why they didn’t. If they feared him, surely they should respect him as well?
Why did they prefer the company of an injured, impure weakling over the company of someone practically raised to be their father’s perfect heir?
But, even then, that was the only reason he regretted not making sure McGinnis was wounded in a more critical area. Not because he was curious about what made the other blood son so desirable, compared to him.
Not at all. And not that he would ask how he did it. He didn’t need aid from a blatant imbecile with a disregard for proper threats and a stupid fascination with animated American children’s propaganda.
But, no matter how long he’d watched McGinnis, no matter how much he’d studied the man’s body language and interactions with the rest of his father’s cohort, he couldn’t figure out how he’d won them over.
And before he could muster up to ask, his mother’s men had already burst through the parlor’s windows, swords at the ready.
The assassins stood stock still, as if they were waiting for him to make the first move.
Damian regarded them the same way they regarded him. If anyone was making the first move, it would be his mother’s men, not him. His mother vetted her men thoroughly before letting them swear themselves to her service, and despite his skill, he wasn’t nearly foolish enough to rush a group of highly specialized assassins. He knew the names and abilities of every person in the room, and he’d even worked with some of them find men that would help him confront McGinnis and Pennyworth in that garage, all those weeks prior.
However, he wasn’t the only one in the room the assassins were facing.
McGinnis had hauled himself off the couch, holding himself in a ready stance and looking ready and raring to rush the group on his lonesome despite still being in a state of injury.
Idiot. If Father knew and preferred him so much, why had he encouraged his recklessness?
“McGinnis,” Damian barked, holding his hand out, “Wait. I’ll handle this myself.”
“Are you crazy?” McGinnis replied, “You might be tough, but you wouldn’t stand a chance against an entire group of crazy assassins unarmed!”
Damian rolled his eyes and turned towards his mother’s men. Perhaps, if he played his cards right, he could keep McGinnis from getting his fool self further maimed, or killed. Father would be especially displeased if either happened, after all.
“State your business,” Damian barked in the League’s Arabic, turning towards the leader.
“Your mother sent us to retrieve you from your father, young master, ” the leader replied. “She is displeased that you ran off to him, and especially displeased that your father made sure that we couldn’t retrieve you earlier. I am sorry.”
Damian opened his mouth, and then closed it again. On one hand, he was surprised his mother had taken so long to retrieve him. Even if they’d been apart for longer, It was unusual for her to leave him without trusted supervision or some word for longer than two weeks, let alone a month.
She’d been on a mission when he’d left. His grandfather had sent her on some long-term mission halfway across the world, so he supposed he couldn’t fault her for taking so long to send her best men after him. The men he’d taken to Gotham obviously wouldn’t have stood a chance against his father, being some of the weakest-willed of the League. No one else would have gone with him. Anyone else would have either refused to take him seriously or attempted to assassinate him, heir to the demon or not. But weak-willed men were easy to convince and even easier to threaten, so he’d had no trouble finding men willing to follow him and aid him on his quest.
He could have requisitioned some of his mother’s allies, but most of his mother’s men had gone with her. That was for the best, probably. They would have stopped him from undergoing this ill-fated quest before he could even start. His mother most definitely would have - at least, until he was better trained and could go with adequate supervision.
This was nowhere near the longest they’d been apart, but he found himself missing her already.
His father’s estate was vast and prestigious, as was befitting of him. But the people living on it left… a lot to be desired, at best. Grayson was alright, even if he was obviously unused to Damian’s quirks. Drake avoided him like the plague - which was fine by him, since he was an imbecile at best. McGinnis, obviously, had been too incapacitated to bother with. But, for some reason, Todd hadn’t said a word to him. After what Damian did to McGinnis, he was shocked the man hadn’t even challenged him to an honor duel. That’s what they would have done in the league, and Todd had been League until very recently. At least, that’s what his mother had told him.
“I’m surprised she didn’t come here herself,” he gritted out. And he was. She was notoriously overprotective when it came to him, and everyone knew it.
“I’m afraid she was otherwise occupied,” the leader responded.
Before Damian could respond, McGinnis fell to his knees, clutching the back of his neck before keeling over onto his face in an especially undignified fashion.
A tranquilizing dart, Damian noted upon seeing the projectile sticking out of McGinnis’s unprotected neck. He spun around, looking for its source - but before he could, a stinging sensation appeared at the back of his neck.
He’d barely started to feel his legs start to wobble before his vision started spinning, and everything faded to black.
He’d learned the hard way years and years ago that waking up after being tranquilized was never a fun sensation.
Despite the pounding in his head and the dryness in his mouth, Damian was able to note his current circumstances. He wasn’t just bound at hand and foot and tethered to some sort of post, but blindfolded and gagged as well. He’d obviously been searched, judging by the absence of cold steel at his ankle and the small of his back - where he usually kept knifes in case of emergency.
Being his mother's personal guards, his captors seemed to appreciate his skill despite his age - which was a point in their favor, Damian decided. He’d been kidnapped dozens of times due to his position, but rarely had his captors gone to such lengths to keep him contained.
He’d have to thank his mother for taking him seriously at some point in the future.
Their precautions didn't matter to him, however. He’d been trained to escape from worse - and besides, the idiots hadn’t bothered to cover his ears. As long as he pretended to be asleep, he’d be able to pick up vital information while they thought he wasn’t listening.
So far, there was little sound besides the low hum of an engine - plane turbines, judging by how different breathing felt compared to normal - lighter and less constricted, but shallower regardless. But the sounds around him would change soon enough. The plane had to land in the near future, and he had to be offloaded onto his mother at some point.
For now, Damian was content to parse through his thoughts in lieu of anything else to do.
Everyone had an ulterior purpose for everything, he’d come to learn. The men holding him hostage probably had some other benefit to his capture besides his mother's will. And every decision his mother and grandfather made was calculated in order to further the influence and standing of the League, to keep their assets under their control. And his father wasn’t the type to do things frivolously - at least, he hadn’t seemed the type to, before Damian had met the man and learnt otherwise.
So what was his father’s motive for keeping him at his manor? And why had Damian humored the man and not tried to escape?
He’d spent the long first days at his father’s manor waiting for his mother to send his team to extract him. And after that had failed to happen, he’d spent the rest of his so-called punishment pondering a multitude of questions. Why hadn’t a team appeared already? Why hadn’t father sent him back to the League, knowing he was one of them? Why did he insist on continuing to give his gang of street urchins more privileges than his own blood heir?
Once he’d finally been released from his room, other questions started to pile up. Why did Grayson insist on showing him animated children’s propaganda and challenging him to asinine games? Father had tasked him to watch Damian, but Grayson seemed to insist on treating him like he had the intellect of that fool Drake, not like the heir presumptive to one of the largest multinational organizations on the planet.
And, on that note, why hadn’t Todd challenged him to that duel for McGinnis’s honor? Todd had some league training, even despite being a brute. His mother had seen to that. It would have been well within his rights to do so, even if Father probably had banned him from doing so. Even then, why was he listening to him? He knew for a fact that Todd was at odds with Father. Some of his men had been tracking the Red Hood’s exploits for his mother, before he’d assumed command of them for his impromptu quest to challenge McGinnis for his birthright.
So, what was going on? What was his angle? What did his cohorts have to gain by being “nice” to him? And why had his mother’s men only come now?
A door opened somewhere in his vicinity, and Damian strained his ears for any hint of conversation.
A few stray murmurs, but nothing intelligible. Just as he'd expected, judging by the distance between him and the noise. But that didn't deter him in the slightest. He'd eavesdropped in worse conditions, anyway.
The door closed, and the heavy plodding of footsteps approached. Probably a man, judging by the time between footsteps and the heaviness of their gait.
The footsteps abruptly stopped and the approaching person sighed, before letting out a string of curses that would've had both his mother and Alfred scrambling for the nearest bar of soap.
“Damn brats,” the man murmured in Arabic, “More trouble than they’re worth, both of them.”
Brats?
That was when Damian remembered that he wasn’t the only one who’d been knocked out before ending up here. McGinnis had also been tranquilized - and, evidently, his mother had tasked their men to retrieve him as well. Most likely because of Damian’s ill-fated quest.
Damian cursed internally.
Just when everything seemed to be returning to rights, everything had to be upended yet again. As per usual, during the past month.
And, as per usual, it was definitely McGinnis's fault.