Work Text:
“Drake, if one more old lady tries to pinch my cheeks, I’m going to stab her with a cocktail fork,” Damian Wayne hissed as he leaned against the wall beside Timothy Drake-Wayne.
He wasn’t hiding; it was a strategic retreat, and it could barely be called that. Gotham High Society was worse than the League of Shadows.
“Be grateful you’re not Dick,” Drake deadpanned behind his glass of champagne.
Damian didn’t understand how the invitees could be so pathetically unobservant. How any of these supposed elites couldn’t tell the difference between fruit juice and alcohol was unfathomable.
Hadn’t Father said several of these people ran international corporations? Hmm. Perhaps Father utilized that word ironically. These were clearly the sort of people whose entire contribution to running a business involved a surname on the side of a skyscraper.
They were nothing at all like Drake, who had barely managed to double the Wayne family fortune in his past three years as CEO of Wayne Enterprises. It was a piddly increase. When Damian turned eighteen and became CEO, he would double the entire family fortune again within the first three months.
Drake was obviously too sleep-deprived to pay proper attention to his duties on a long-term basis. This would be easily corrected now if Father would allow Damian to assume his rightful place as head of the company. Unfortunately, Father continued to insist that he was “too young” to be CEO.
If Drake could do it at seventeen, why couldn’t Damian assume the position at thirteen?
That would allow Drake the time he clearly needed to acquire the necessary amount of sleep so that he would be occasionally useful. The next time Drake lost his grip on his grapnel due to exhaustion, Damian wasn’t catching him. Drake already owed Damian his life several times over. It was beginning to turn from pathetic to ridiculous.
How Drake had not already expired from embarrassment, Damian didn’t know.
And no, those times with Killer Croc and the Penguin and Poison Ivy didn’t count. Damian had it. He would have emerged victorious despite his injuries. Red Robin hadn’t saved him. He had merely intruded on Damian’s battles as if he belonged.
He didn’t.
It was unacceptably rude of him to interrupt Damian’s fights and fuss over his broken bones and wrap his bleeding wounds.
“Tt.”
“They pinch Dick’s cheeks, too. Just not the ones on his face.”
Damian scanned the ballroom rapidly; his gaze found Dick Grayson right as a woman Damian knew was married pinched Grayson’s — “How dare that harlot besmirch Grayson’s honor? I shall avenge—”
Drake grabbed Damian’s wrist. It was only the very public setting that kept Damian from injuring Drake to get loose.
“Stay,” Drake ordered frostily.
How the older Robin — whom he had replaced, as the much superior model; Damian could actually feed himself and complied with his body’s desire for sleep — could claim to be so intelligent and yet miss the obvious infuriated and baffled Damian.
Did Drake truly not understand what it meant to be raised by Talia al Ghul in the League of Shadows? Of course Damian’s first response to physical contact or surprise was a violent attempt to get away! Such things had saved his life when he was a child; his mother and grandfather had many enemies.
Such behaviors and instincts could not be unlearned in a matter of years. Drake desperately needed to work on his self-preservation.
“Tt.”
Damian subsided only because Father would have words with him if he physically retaliated in public. Father would deliver a factual lecture about the necessity of keeping their identities separate and secret. Damian loathed such lectures; they meant he had disappointed and failed Father behaved in a manner unbecoming of the Wayne Family.
“B’s got it,” Jason Todd stated, rounding a column and joining them. “Don’t you remember what happened last month when Lex Luthor got handsy with me?”
“Tt. My memory isn’t feeble, Todd,” Damian said as he crossed his arms over his chest, inadvertently not pulling hard enough to release himself from Drake’s grasp.
He did, in fact, remember what had happened. He still wasn’t entirely certain if his father’s response was in order to preempt Damian from throwing the knife he acquired from the buffet table once he witnessed the incident.
Technically, Mother had taken pity on Todd when he was catatonic and useless and adopted him. So while Todd wasn’t an al Ghul by blood, Damian still could not tolerate any attacks against his family bloodline.
If they had still been with the League, where Todd insisted on reading to him and teaching him to fight and took bites of all Damian’s food — even after the poison testers tasted it — Damian would have castrated Luthor for daring to put his hands on an al Ghul. Even one that was an al Ghul in name only.
“This should be entertaining,” Drake said, lips curled with amusement.
It was a hideous look. Drake should cease and desist such things immediately. His smiles caused an alarming amount of warmth in Damian’s chest. It was a dangerous weapon that Drake wielded carelessly, affecting his own family allies, as well as foes.
Damian created a mental note to inform Father that Drake required remedial training. Again.
“Where’s the popcorn when you need it?” Todd complained.
As if on cue, Damian watched his father amble toward Grayson and the adulterous harlot with a wide smile on his face. Then Father tripped over nothing — it was humiliating for his father to act in such a demeaning manner in public. It also, Damian acknowledged, achieved immensely satisfying results.
The harlot screeched like a dying animal as Father dumped an entire schooner of sherry down her dress. There was no doubt that it would stain. Damian doubted even Pennyworth himself could remove sherry from … whatever she was pretending was mulberry silk.
“I’m so sorry, Mrs.—”
Damian smirked as the woman wailed and his father offered false apologies; the woman was too foolish to realize Father was insincere.
In fact, the glint in Father’s eyes as he lied to her reminded Damian of the time he had broken his arm fighting the Riddler. Father was very protective and possessive of his children his true son. Damian approved. Even though Damian, himself, didn’t need protecting.
He was skilled.
However, Grayson, Todd, and Drake received an unacceptable amount of injuries. They obviously needed to train more often to correct their weaknesses. It was extremely inconsiderate of them to cause Father to worry over his sons allies.
“Her nails are like claws,” Grayson said, society smile wiped from his face, back turned to the ballroom. “I’m going to have an enormous bruise.”
“Well, she is a cougar,” Todd said.
Drake snorted into his champagne in an undignified manner.
“Hey! Puns are my territory!” Grayson objected with a pout on his face.
Damian did not care that Grayson was pouting. It was a blatant attempt to garner sympathy, which Damian did not possess. It didn’t matter that Grayson wasn’t smiling; his teeth were entirely too bright and tended to give Damian headaches if he was subjected to them repeatedly.
It was much better, all around, that Grayson was faux-sad.
The now-quivering lip absolutely did not almost inspire Damian into subjecting himself to one of Grayson’s infamous octopus-hugs. Which were, for the record, suffocating and irritating and not the least bit coveted.
“Trust Fund Brats at three o’clock,” Todd reported.
“I just escaped,” Grayson groaned, but dutifully slapped the society smile back on his face.
“Bear with it another hour and I’ll come up with an excuse to get you two out of here,” Drake said, before downing his champagne and wobbling a bit, even though he was leaning against the wall.
The aforementioned “Trust Fund Brats” eyed them like a pack of coyotes hunting prey. It was appalling. Everyone in Damian’s family Batman’s employ was a predator.
Damian looked up at Grayson, hating how it put a slight crick in his neck. He couldn’t wait until his growth spurts hit. With how tall Father was, Damian expected to reach a superior height compared to Father’s other children subordinates.
Grayson had wrinkles around his eyes, which only appeared when he was overly stressed and uncomfortable but felt like “The show must go on.” A glance at Drake revealed that the bags under his eyes were nearly visible, despite Drake’s undeniable talent at make-up application. Drake swayed slightly; Damian was certain it wasn’t intentional this time. And Todd was keeping almost all his weight off his left leg; Red Hood had been shot in the thigh four days ago. Honestly, Todd should still be in bed. He wasn’t young and healthy like Damian, and neither were the other two.
“Tt.”
Once again, it fell to Damian to be the mature and responsible one. None of the people who dared to claim him as family could take care of themselves. It was infuriating!
As the people approached, Damian sneered.
Then, staring right at them, he stated, “I’ve come down with a horrific case of food-poisoning. Grayson is required to escort me to my room. Drake is required to blacklist the caterer and acquire the necessary medicine. And Todd is required to keep Grayson from smothering me with concern. You’ll have to speak with Father if you want to talk to a Wayne.”
“You … look fine?”
“Of course I do. Wayne genetics are unequaled.”
Todd snickered. Drake’s shoulders were shaking. Grayson was beaming that annoying smile down at Damian.
Their reactions were completely improper. Damian had only been referring to himself as a Wayne, obviously; he hadn’t subtly acknowledged them as his brothers. At. All.
“Come along,” Damian ordered the three idiots who seemed incapable of taking care of themselves. “Dying of food poisoning in public would be undignified and I’ll never forgive you if you allow me to do so.”
Grayson ruffled his hair. “Let’s get you to bed, Little D.”
“Tt.”
As they followed him toward the stairs, Drake texting on his phone — as if he were really blacklisting the caterer; he should, because the amuse-bouche were atrocious — and Todd and Grayson teasing each other, Damian’s chest ached and his heart malfunctioned.
He reminded himself, as he always did, that it wasn’t love.
Damian did not love them. They were not his brothers.
He despised them. And because he did, it wouldn’t hurt at all when they inevitably erred and got themselves killed.
Damian would resurrect them in the Lazarus Pit and brutally incapacitate anyone who got in his way.