Chapter Text
A light wind blows across the rooftop, and Damian wrinkles his nose at the smell of exhaust carried on the breeze. The Gotham night is surprisingly warm for April; warm enough that he’d been able to leave his thermal padded armor behind for the first time this spring. Patrol has been slow, and for once, Gotham is almost…pleasant.
What’s not pleasant, however, is his brothers’ incessant chattering.
Damian pointedly ignores Red Robin’s obnoxiously impassioned rant about how Diet Coke from the can tastes fundamentally different from Diet Coke from the fountain and shut up Nightwing that’s not a sign I have issues, I’m just perceptive—
Damian rolls his eyes, opening his mouth to tell them both to be silent—
—when something catches his eye.
Damian stills, his gaze zeroing in a patch of shadow a few rooftops over. Something warm and familiar fills his belly when he recognizes the silhouette. The shape is broad-shouldered and unhurried, pausing when they realize that Damian has seen them.
Damian glances back at Nightwing and Red Robin. Drake is still blabbering—now about how Coke and Pepsi’s bubbles are different, it’s completely understandable for me to know soda companies’ carbonation density stop looking at me like I’m crazy—and Richard nods along with a smile, only half-listening. Damian scoffs at their utter lack of vigilance. Sometimes he’s surprised they’ve even made it this far.
He slips from the rooftop without a sound. He was an assassin long before a vigilante, after all. They’ll notice his absence eventually, but Drake’s rambling might buy him a few blessed minutes. Damian lands lightly behind the familiar figure—
And they still turn the instant he touches down.
“Sup, habibi.”
Damian fights a smile at the endearing term, schooling his expression into a scowl no matter how much his cheeks heat up and it feels like Alfred the cat just cuddled up on his chest.
The Red Hood stands tall and relaxed—his trademark helmet glinting in the city’s soft glow, hands tucked casually in his jacket’s pockets. Damian can’t see his face, but he doesn’t need to. He can hear the smile in Jason’s voice, see it in the tilt of his head—the soft one that tugs gently at the scar tissue on his lip, the one that’s reserved just for Damian.
“Hello, akhi,” Damian replies coolly. “I trust you are fairing well?”
Jason snorts fondly. “Yeah, kid. All’s quiet on the western front.”
Damian rolls his eyes at akhi’s antics. Jason slightly stiffens, his head tilting as he not-so-subtly cases the surrounding rooftops.
“B’s…not around, is he?”
“No,” Damian answers. “Father is meeting with Gordon regarding a case.”
Jason’s shoulders drop minutely. A faint sigh crackles through the modulator.
Damian scoffs. “Father would be pleased to have you return, as would Alfred. You know this, akhi. Yet you chose to stay away. And—“ He pauses, trying to figure how he wants to phrase his next words. “Richard would also be…pleased.”
Jason is quiet for a long moment. Damian can practically hear all the arguments swirling around his mind like water down a drain. They’ve had this conversation many times, circled the same issue over and over. He resists the urge ot roll his eyes as Jason finally shakes his head.
These conversations—they always end the same way.
“I don’t think so, habibi.”
“Tt.” Damian clicks his tongue. “Your stupidity is beyond me.”
Jason huffs a fond laugh, and Damian has the sudden urge to step closer, to press himself into Jason’s side. To steal his warmth and feel strong arms around his shoulders, like they used to do in the League’s chilly halls—when no one was watching, of course.
His hands remain rigid at his sides, knowing full well that Jason would happily indulge him if he snuggled up to his brother’s warmth. Jason would like it and get all weird and sappy and Damian cannot possibly deal with three bumbling idiots.
Damian scowls harder and pivots, launching into a detailed recounting of Batcow’s latest escapade instead.
She’d had an interesting afternoon.
“—and then we find her,” Damian continues his story as mechanized chuckles warble out of the helmet, “halfway down the street, en route Gotham—“
“Step away from Robin, Red Hood.”
Nightwing lands a few feet away, escrima lit and crackling, body pulled taught with deadly intensity.
Damian clenches his jaw. All his brothers are idiots. He is not in danger, yet they still chase after him like he’d just been abducted by a serial killer (and yet—he feels a kind of…warmth, spreading out from his heart at the sight of Nightwing’s fury, at the protective energy radiating off him).
Jason sighs, though his body still goes rigid. “And they call me dramatic…”
Nightwing only stalks closer, eyes darting between the two of them. Red Robin drops in silently behind him, bo staff raised, ready for violence Damian absolutely does not need right now. Unfortunately, he can’t really say he’d expected anything different—deep-seeded guilt complexes really hinder basic cognitive functions in their family.
“Welp,” Jason says lightly, turning back to Damian, “that’s my cue to leave.”
He ruffles Damian’s hair. Damian leans into it because he can.
“See ya, kiddo.”
“Tt. Goodbye, akhi.”
Jason grins beneath the helmet. Damian can’t necessarily see it, but he knows it’s there, because they’re all birds who simply cannot act without trademark flourish and fancy.
You are dramatic, Jason.
“Catch ya later, Dickface!”
Then he leans back, salutes Richard—
And falls of the roof.
Silence. The wind blows warm again. The three of them stand there in stunned desbelief. Well—Richard and Drake stand in stunned disbelief. Damian just stands, resigning himself to visiting akhi later, seeming as he is not even allowed five minutes of peace.
“Soooo,” Drake ventures, confusion evident in his voice as he glances between Richard and the edge of the roof. “…was that just a general insult or does he know your identity?”
Damian closes his eyes long enough to mourn the fact that he is, inexplibacly, related to these people.
“Both,” Damian says flatly.
Richard turns to him immediately, his domino mask creased with a deep frown.
“You’re grounded.”
Damian scoffs, lifting his chin. “You cannot ground me.”
“You are grounded.”
Oops—Gordon and Father must’ve finished early.
Behind them, boots meet the gravel rooftop with a near-silent thud—one that would have been completely silent if Father had not wanted to be heard. The long sweep of his cape settles behind him with a soft woosh. His tone bodes no argument.
“Engaging with known crime lord Red Hood was an unecessary risk.”
The wind carries the bump of bass from a passing car on the street below. Damian glares and rolls his eyes beneath the domino. If he’s not careful, they’ll get stuck in the back of his head. But really, how is his whole family this dense?
“Trying to wake Drake from a nap involves more risk,” he grumbles, crossing his arms.
“Hey!” Tim calls from behind him. “It was one time!”
Damian steps forward, deliberately placing himself between Tim and their father’s line of sight. Bruce’s mouth presses into a thin line. Disappointment rolls off him in waves.
Damian understands why akhi won’t come home. He’s unavenged. His moral compass points to a fundamentally different true north. The wounds between him and Richard have festered with distance, unable to scab or scar with time. Drake is…there.
But sometimes, he wishes Jason would just…come back. His time in Gotham hasn’t been bad, per se—just different. And sometimes, when he doesn’t understand the customs or the rules or the family, he wants to run back to the comfort of familiarity. Back to akhi.
“If it is my safety you worry about,” Damian says. “I can assure, you akhi has never and would never let harm befall me.”
Richard crosses his arms. “We can’t just trust a violent crime lord, Dames—“
Drake nearly tumbles off the roof. “The Red Hood is your brother?!”
(Damian really hopes Drake doesn’t bring up the conspiracy board he’s had up for months.
“Oh I’m sorry the clueboard—you mean MY clue board?? That I made?? WE LIKE THE CLUEBOARD NOW???”)
Damian clicks his tongue. “Tt. Obviously. I haven’t seen him since my arrival in Gotham.”
Richard pinches the bridge of his nose as though he’s the mother of five. Drake begins pacing, his boots crunching erradically on the pea-gravel of the roof.
“So they are brothers," he mutters, more to himself than anyone else standing on the roof. "Maybe Hood has League training as we already supsected. This gives us a reason for him to know our identities if he trained under Talia. Is Hood also B’s kid—? That wouldn’t match up time wise, but—well, there’s been crazier—”
Damian thoroghly ignores him with practiced ease and turns back to Bruce.
“I was checking in to make sure his return went smoothly,” he continues. He feels like he’s planting a grenade in the middle of his family—all it takes is one single question to pull the pin.
Bruce’s brow furrows. “His return?”
“Yes. He said he was born and raised here. You should be quite familiar with him.”
Richard runs a hand down his face and reaches out blindly to steady Drake, who jerks like he’s been shocked, his mutterings increasing.
“Oh—so he was raised in Gotham. That makes sense. Hood does seem to have a soft spot for the people of Crime Alley—but then how is he Talia’s kid—”
The white lenses of the cowl narrow. “Did he go by any other alias?”
“I’m surprised you would even have to ask, father,” Damian says with a shrug.
“He was your Robin, after all.”