Chapter Text
It was only when Damian himself was a grown man that he realized just how young Bruce was. Old enough for Batman to be feared in his own right, but not old enough to be the legend he became, and too young to have an eight year old assassin dropped on his doorstep.
Once Damian realized that, he understood a little more. Damian was unplanned, unknown, and as much as no child wants to admit it, unwanted. Bruce had to sharply adjust to having a child he had previously known nothing about, while Damian had to slowly reconcile the great hero he had created in his mind with the reality of who his father was.
And, in spite of their living apart for the first eight years of Damian’s life, Bruce and Damian were very much father and son, who matched in temper, stubbornness, and inability to communicate. They burned the same fire-- and that fire grew uncontrollable too close together.
But understanding was not the same as forgiving.
Not when, after one final screaming match, Bruce had kicked Damian out (and Damian had never gotten over that, because even though Damian was about to storm out of his own accord, Bruce had gotten there first). Not when, after traveling the world and forming an identity of his own, Damian returned to find that Bruce had taken in another teenage boy. A quieter, gentler one. A new son, but this one was easier to love.
Never, after Bruce formally submitted the adopted papers for one Timothy Drake. Never, after Shadow was born again, because Gotham needed their Bat and their Bird more than Damian needed his identity.
---
Jason should have been easier.
Damian wanted it to be easier.
But Damian had been filled with so much hate, and Jason had been smart enough not to toy with a viper.
And now Jason was dead.
---
“A circus, really?” Damian scowled at the old popcorn on his seat, and brushed it off with his fingernails so he wouldn’t have to touch it. “What a pedestrian form of entertainment.”
Tim sat between Damian and Bruce, as he always did. He chewed happily on his over-salted popcorn, seemingly uncaring that it was half cold. It was better than the things they dared to call ‘peanuts’, at least. Still, the thought turned Damian’s stomach.
“Haly’s Circus is one of the best in the world,” Alfred said, from Bruce’s other side. It had been his idea to come-- apparently, they had all been too willing to wallow in their grief, and he refused to have the Manor turned into a mausoleum again. Perhaps more importantly, their tactics had turned from brute force to savage violence, and they were all growing nervous about the dark path they were walking down. Regardless, no one turned down Alfred, not even Bruce.
The lights in the tent focused on the center stage, and the show began. Alfred was right about one thing: it was impressive. Some of the stunt work displayed by the performers expressed talents that Damian would have to study, so that he could incorporate them into his fighting style.
He wished the crowd would shut up with their “oohs” and “aaahs” so that he could focus better, but that was one unfortunate thing about dealing with the public.
“And now,” the booming voice of the circus owner announced through the speakers, “our signature act! Renowned throughout the world for their heart stopping, death defying acrobatics!” Spotlights danced around the stage. “Please welcome-- The Flying Graysons!”
The crowd cheered as the spotlights all focused on the trapeze, where a man and a woman in leotards of red, green, and yellow, waved. They looked different enough to most likely be a husband and wife act, rather than siblings, but they both radiated a matching charisma as they stood on the platform, something that made you transfixed as you watched them. The woman, Damian noted, had one of the most radiant smiles he had ever seen.
Silence fell as music began to play on the speakers. They all watched intensely as the Graysons began their routine-- a somersault here, a triple spin there, a truly impressive moment where she was only held aloft by the traction of his movements, a display of ultimate trust in the skill of their partners.
Damian wondered what it must feel like to trust someone that much.
The music swelled, clearly building up to a finale. He began to swing on the rope, building velocity for the act that she was about to perform. Everyone in the crowd watched in rapture at the grace of their movements, the anticipation of what would come next. Even Damian could feel the pound of his heart, wanting to see what they were going to end their performance with.
She danced in the air, moving in time with her husband, seemingly unencumbered by gravity. Reaching out, putting that perfect trust in her partner again, and her husband took her hand, easily, as if it was as simple as breathing. Then--
The wire must have snapped. Both of them, in fact, because the swing was suddenly no longer aloft, and they were falling, hurtling towards the ground, twisting as if there was any manner of expertise that would save them from this fall.
Damian had heard people die before, but not often did he hear as someone fell to their death. The sound of their bodies hitting the ground, the crack of bone and wet gore of their bodies bursting on impact, was horrible. Several people screamed, or gasped, or made other noises of horror.
But the noise of the crowd was nothing compared to a piercing, high pitched scream, never ending.
Damian’s eyes followed the noise to the side of the stage, where a small child was being held back by several of the performers. Even without the similarities in their faces, the child’s anguish, his unsettling screams, made it obvious that this was their son. Their young son, who had just watched his parents die in front of him.
He looked away from the child, to Bruce, who was already standing, staring at the scene in front of him. Alfred reached out to put a heavy hand on Bruce’s shoulder, but Bruce was already gone, running up to the stage.
Damian followed, chasing Bruce only to stop at the bodies. He knelt down and checked for a pulse on either of the fallen, but there was nothing. The woman’s eyes were still staring up at him, the bright blue frozen in the moment of death. Damian closed them--there was nothing else that he could do.
---
Damian flew across the rooftops of Gotham.
It was an old agreement between them that, for the most part, Batman and Flamebird could share the city at times, but that Damian preferred to patrol alone. It was smarter, Damian had tried to convince Bruce during the many times they had the argument. It allowed them to cover more ground, keep more of Gotham safe.
(And the best way to keep them from coming to blows with each other, rather than Gotham’s criminal underbelly).
When Tim Drake was Shadow, he would never dare stray from Batman’s side long enough to bother Damian. The most Damian would see of him would be the distinctive bird-inspired silhouette in the night sky. It was a consequence of Damian being too distant, too scary, for his not-brother to want to spend time with. Which was the way Damian preferred it.
Jason’s Shadow followed him sometimes. Not often, but when Bruce and Tim became too caught up in the symbiotic bond they had, essentially leaving the teenager to fend for himself, or decided that Jason was too young to face certain criminals, Jason would come to Damian. He knew better than to talk, following Damian’s orders silently and obediently, so Damian never got the urge to force him away.
Sometimes, Damian missed it.
But tonight, Damian had a case to work. Tony Zucco, a two-bit mobster who had been strong-arming the circus, and was just smart enough to make sure the cops didn’t have anything on him. Or knew exactly which palms to grease. In Gotham, it was essentially the same thing.
Bruce was wanting to go after Zucco on his own, get justice for the little boy in a way he never got justice for himself. But the Penguin was up to something at the docks, and that required Batman far more than a Capone-wannabe who cut a couple of wires.
So Damian had volunteered, and was now coming to a stop on a rooftop overlooking the alley-way entrance to a gambling den Zucco frequented. Noise radiated from the metal door, most of it from the kitchen to the Italian restaurant being used as a front. It was a good thing that he’d always been good at waiting.
He crouched into a perch, and watched the doorway. Only a handful of people entered and exited. He kept a note of them all, even the ones who were most likely staff at the restaurant. People were clever sometimes, though not often, in Damian’s experience. But it was better to assume the enemy was smart, rather than the usually fatal mistake of the reverse.
Something fell in the alleyway.
Damian’s head snapped to the side, following the noise to a metal serving tray falling from the top of some garbage bags. It would have been easy enough to write off, but then Damian saw the garbage bag’s shadow-- and the small foot peaking out.
Whoever it was, they were observant, because as soon as Damian moved towards them they were up from behind the garbage bags and sprinting. Damian trailed them along the rooftops, ready to fly down and strike, when the spy suddenly flipped into the air and latched onto a fire escape, slowly scaling a building until they were going down a new street.
Damian smirked. He loved it when he had the chance to give chase.
He pulled out his grappling gun and swung to the other side of the street, soon regaining sight of the spy. They were smart, and certainly athletically capable, but an amateur-- it seemed that they thought their one trick would be enough to lose Damian, and had stopped running, simply perching on a fire escape.
It was almost too easy.
Damian swooped down, grabbing the spy as he went, before landing firmly on the ground with a wriggling captive under his arm.
“Lemme go!” The spy yelled. Thick accent, high voice, but not female. Most likely a pre-pubescent male. Was the mob using children to do their dirty work for them, now?
(Damian recognized the irony).
Still firmly keeping the child in his grasp, Damian lowered him so that he could get a clear look at the child’s face. The child squirmed as Damian pulled back his hoodie, revealing a tuft of black hair and tan skin, and blue eyes that had been imprinted on Damian’s mind for weeks.
“What are you doing here?” Damian demanded, holding tight onto the Grayson child, who was doing an admittedly admirable attempt at escaping.
“He killed my parents!” The Grayson child yelled.
“And you want him to kill you, too?” Foolish child, Damian thought to himself, and began dragging the boy, who struggled every way a child knew how.
“Where are you taking me?!”
“Back to the orphanage,” Damian answered. “Where I’ll be having a word with them about their security.”
“I was never at the orphanage,” the child snarled, the way Damian remembered doing when someone got what he felt to be basic information wrong.
Damian’s eyes narrowed. “Where have you been staying, then?”
“Prison,” the child said, scowling. “They didn’t have any beds in the orphanage.”
Damian’s grip nearly slackened. “They put an orphan in juvie?”
The boy looked up at Damian, and for a second he looked like he was about to cry. Thankfully, he didn’t, and bit Damian’s arm instead. That was much easier for Damian to deal with.
“C’mon,” Damian said, lifting the child over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. “Let’s get you something to eat.”
---
Damian was very concerned at how much the juvenile detention center was feeding their inmates. Grayson wolfed down the batburger meal as if he had been starved, and was even eyeing Damian’s Poison Ivy Deluxe, even though when Damian had ordered the boy had wrinkled his nose at the suggestion of a burger without any meat.
“It’s the entire point of the meal!” Grayson had exclaimed, as if that was the weird thing and not the fact that he was getting a late night meal with a superhero. He hadn’t even noticed the cashier’s squeak when Damian had handed him the money for their food.
“So why Flamebird?” Grayson asked, chomping down on his fries. He was scanning Damian up and down, clearly examining the costume. “Seems a bit showy.”
Damian sighed, and went into the legend Clark had told him of Flamebird and Nightwing, the wondrous tale of death and rebirth without any pits, the madness they brought, or the cruel Grandfathers who controlled them.
The Grayson child listened rapturously, his eyes lighting up whenever Clark was mentioned (of course the trapeze artist was a fan of Superman). He didn’t even touch his food until Damian had finished regaling the story behind his second name.
Once the story came to a close, Grayson blinked up at him.
“Yeah, but why Flamebird?” He asked. “Nightwing was right there!”
Damian sighed.
---
“How old are you, child?” Damian asked.
Grayson sipped his milkshake.
“...twelve,” he answered.
Damian raised an eyebrow.
Grayson put his milkshake down. “Okay, ten.”
Damian raised his eyebrow higher.
Grayson sighed. “In seven months.”
Damian almost laughed. Instead he leaned forward across the table, feeling every bit like Bruce when his father decided to try his hand at parenting.
“Tony Zucco is a very dangerous man,” Damian said.
Grayson scoffed and looked away.
“No--” Damian pushed Grayson’s face until the pouting child was looking directly at him. “I need you to listen to me. Tony Zucco has hurt a lot of people, not just your parents. And while they try to claim otherwise, most mobsters have no qualms about hurting kids.”
“I don’t care,” Grayson said miserably, fiddling with the zipper on his hoodie. “He needs to pay.”
“And he will,” Damian tried to impress. “But I won’t let you take you down with him.”
“Okay,” Grayson mumbled.
Damian moved his hand to the child’s shoulder and squeezed it. He hoped it was reassuring, and not threatening. He had never been good at distinguishing between the two.
“I swear to you, I will do everything I can to make sure he rots in prison,” Damian said.
Grayson looked up at him from under his floppy hair, his expression unreadable.
“Okay,” he said, but Damian couldn’t escape the feeling that the conversation wasn’t over at all.
---
“Hey Flamebird!” Grayson was sitting on the roof of a well-frequented Gotham nightclub, waving at Damian while he swung his legs in time with the music.
“Friend of yours?” Tim asked, and Damian just sighed.
“Children should be in bed,” Damian said exhaustedly, going so far as to fold his arms.
“I’ve been reading up on you,” Grayson sang, grinning brightly. “You’ve been doing this since you were my age. So if you didn’t have to go to bed, then neither do I.”
Tim snickered beside him, and it took all of Damian’s self control not to elbow him in the ribs.
“I was a trained warrior, taught how to survive the night from before I could stand,” Damian answered, unable to stop his heckles from rising. “You are a boy who won’t stop running away.”
“You would too,” Grayson said with a pout, “if you had to put up with that place.”
Damian sighed. “Has your case worker made any progress?”
Grayson just shook his head.
“Caseworker?” Tim asked.
“The child has been put in the juvenile detention center because there were no beds left at the orphanage,” Damian said quietly, disdain dripping from his voice.
Tim’s expression turned frosty.
“The child is named Dick,” Grayson said.
“Dick?” Tim asked.
Grayson nodded. “Richard Grayson, but everyone calls me Dick.”
Tim held his hand out. “Nice to meet you, Dick Grayson. I’m Cardinal.”
Dick looked between them. “You people have weird names,” he said, before tickling Tim’s hand.
“It’s all Batman’s fault,” Damian said seriously.
“Your name is Dick,” Tim said less seriously.
Grayson snorted, before picking up a stuffed elephant and holding it to him while Tim asked inane questions about school, and his new home. (“Not my home!” Grayson had snapped). It seemed to be a comfort item, based on how he was stroking the toy’s fur. Damian had never had a comfort item, having that beaten out of him young, but he remembered doing the same to Titus and Alfred the cat.
Damian’s hand tremored, and he clenched it into a fist. He didn’t like people who hurt children. He liked systems that hurt children even less.
“We will get you out of there,” Damian said, when the child’s eyes began to droop and it became obvious that he needed to return to his… residence. “I promise.”
The child nodded solemnly, before running forward and wrapping his small arms around Damian. Damian froze, still instinctively readying himself for an attack. It hardly relaxed him to be touched by a stranger, especially not a young one. He put his hand on Grayson’s back anyway. The child was so small that Damian could feel his heart beating, and he briefly thought of a young teenager who had been so starved throughout his life that he never had the chance to grow, and now never would.
“Bye Cardinal,” Grayson said. “Bye Flamebird.”
They waved him off, watching as he climbed easily back through his bedroom window.
“Cute kid,” Tim said, once Grayson was gone. “He likes you.”
“Mn.” Damian didn’t tell Tim where he had found Grayson, and wasn’t planning to. It was his job to protect the child, now.
---
“Why can’t you do anything? Explain yourself, father.” Damian followed Bruce around his home office,
“It isn’t like there is anywhere else to put the boy,” Bruce said, dropping some files onto his desk. “No one likes it, but what else are they supposed to do?”
“Send him back to the circus, to start!” Damian’s voice began to raise. “How dare they take a boy from his life, without appropriate resources to care for him?”
“He was meant to be on that trapeze,” Bruce said, heavily. “When the investigators discovered that… there is no chance that they will give the boy back.”
Damian tapped his fingers on his elbow. It was time to say what they were both thinking. “You could--”
“No, Damian.” Bruce’s face and words turned hard. “Not after-- no.”
“The child needs help!” Damian gestured to emphasize his point, a bad habit he had picked up when he felt particularly impassioned. “He is locked up with criminals, further traumatizing an already scarred psyche. What do you expect will happen to him, if he stays there?”
“Damian!” Bruce shouted, once.
Damian clamped his mouth shut with enough force to hear the click of his teeth.
“I will do everything I can to help the boy,” Bruce said, his voice returning to his normal level. “But I will not do that. Never again.”
Damian’s hand trembled again, and he schooled his face into a blank expression in spite of the fury raging inside of him.
“You are hurting him because you are afraid of repeating your mistakes,” Damian said, before leaving the office. He didn’t want to see if the words landed deep enough to cut.
---
If he couldn’t save the Grayson child from his current suffering, then at least Damian could channel his anger into someone who deserved to bear the brunt of it.
Tony Zucco stumbled out of the side entrance, clearly intoxicated. He was puffing on a cheap cigar, and leaned against the brick wall, thumbing his way through a stack of cash he had clearly just won with a sick smile on his face.
Damian wondered how much money Zucco was trying to shake Haly’s Circus down for, how it compared to the stack currently in Zucco’s hand. Did two people die, for less than what Zucco was holding right now? Was an innocent child being condemned for less than what a mobster could win at the gambling table?
He prepared to strike, muscles tensing to ready him for jumping into combat.
But he heard the sound of a gun’s safety being clicked off first.
Zucco also snapped his head around, hand reaching for his jacket, where a gun of his own was no doubt hidden. The bills scattered to the ground. Then his expression from one of concern to one of… delight?
“Gotta say, kid, I’m impressed,” he said, his Gotham accent thick and sugary.
Grayson stepped out of the shadows, holding a handgun tightly in his small hands. He was aiming it at Zucco’s chest, but Damian could tell from where he was perched that the shot likely wouldn’t be fatal. Grayson’s hands were shaking too much for that.
Damian had to get down there without startling Grayson into setting the gun off.
There was a loud woosh, and suddenly Batman was behind Zucco, blocking the alleyway. He must have been following Zucco too. Damian took his cue to jump down between Zucco and Grayson, preventing Zucco from taking the child as a hostage.
“Put down the gun,” Batman ordered, but for the first time since Jason’s death it wasn’t a low rumble, keeping his rage in control only by the skin of his teeth. Instead it was gentle, and Damian’s heart shattered for a moment. He had thought he would never hear Bruce speak that way again.
“No,” Grayson answered, but his voice was wavering. “He killed my parents!”
“I know.”
Zucco had pinned himself against the wall, eyes flitting around trying to find an exit.
“When I was your age,” Bruce continued, “a man like him murdered my parents as well.”
Grayson’s lip wobbled. “Then why are you trying to stop me?”
“Because,” Bruce stepped forward, the light illuminating the harsh outlines of his suit. “I know what you’re feeling. And I know that once those emotions start to settle, if you do this, you will hate yourself much more than you hate him.”
“He’s bad!” Grayson yelled. “He’s a bad man, he deserves to die!”
“Does he?” Bruce took another step forward.
Damian thought, briefly, of being Grayson’s age, so uncertain of why his father wouldn’t let Damian just kill the criminals they fought every night, when so many of them would just get up the next day and continue hurting people tomorrow.
“Kill him, and he won’t care,” Damian said. Grayson and Bruce both flicked their eyes to him. In turn, Damian fixed Zucco with his best, most threatening glare. “He’ll be dead. But you will care. It will be another way for him to make you suffer. Do you think your parents will be able to rest peacefully, knowing how much pain you’re in?”
Grayson sniffed. “I’m already in pain,” he said, voice thick and wet. “Why shouldn’t he be?”
“Because it’s cruel to hurt someone just because you want them to suffer,” Bruce said. He took another step forward, enough that Zucco was eyeing the gap and clearly wondering if he should make a run for it. “That’s why Zucco is a cruel man. That’s why he killed your parents.”
Bruce knelt down in front of Grayson, his cape pooling around him on the ground. “The police are coming to arrest him,” he said, putting one hand on Dick’s shoulder.
Damian kept a firm eye on Zucco, who now looked ready to make his escape.
“He is going to go to prison, where he will have to think about what he has done for a long, long time,” Bruce explained. “He won’t be able to hurt anyone the way he hurt your family, while he is in there.”
Grayson sniffed again. “It won’t bring back my parents.”
“No,” Bruce said sadly. “I’m sorry.”
Grayson dropped the gun and flung himself into Bruce’s arms. Unlike Damian, Bruce caught him immediately, wrapping his arms tightly around the sobbing child.
Believing Batman distracted, Zucco began to run. Damian leapt forward and grabbed Zucco by the lapel, twisting him around and shoving him into the wall, where his face collided with the brick.
Bruce looked up to check that Damian was alright, and Damian gave him an affirmative nod. Bruce didn’t answer, but Damian could tell what he was saying, as Bruce’s arms squeezed even tighter around Grayson’s shoulders.
---
“Woah.” Grayson gaped at the manor’s entrance, marveling at the winding staircases and chandeliers. “You could fit our entire big top in here!”’
It wasn’t an inaccurate observation.
Grayson’s eyes lit up, and he tugged on Bruce’s hand. “Do you ever have those big parties that happen in fairy tales, where people wear masks and long, fancy dresses?”
“Well, usually only the women wear the fancy dresses,” Bruce said.
“Boring,” Grayson pouted.
“Quite. But yes, sometimes.”
Grayson looked between the two. “Are you two fairies?”
Damian heard a small choke from further down the hallway. Probably Alfred, seeing as it wasn’t followed by the sound of poorly muffled laughter.
“No,” Bruce said with a chuckle. “But… Damian is a prince.”
Grayson gawped up at him, and Damian tried not to wince.
“Prince isn’t entirely accurate,” Damian said.
“That means it isn’t entirely inaccurate, either,” Grayson parroted back.
Damian sighed.
They continued their tour of the manor, with Grayson asking increasingly illogical questions while swinging his and Bruce’s joint hands.
“Kid’s got Bruce wrapped around his finger,” Tim said, having hung back with Damian while drinking his 4 pm cup of coffee.
“It will be good for Father,” Damian replied, watching as Grayson saw something that took his interest and began dragging Bruce towards it. “The child will help him to heal from the pain of Jason’s loss.”
“Yeah.” Tim took an obnoxiously loud sip. “I’m sure Father will find him a lot of help.”
Damian was sure Tim was implying something, but didn’t bother thinking about what it could be. The man had an annoying habit of repeating Damian’s words with an unknown, secondary meaning, and Damian had long since given up trying to decode it.
He had only wanted to help the child be free from his new circumstances, after all. And now that was done, and Grayson was attaching himself so well to Bruce, it was time for Damian to move on.
If only he could figure out why his chest hurt at the thought of it.