Damian Wayne | First Son (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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dreamsanddisasters2014-08-21 12:12 am
dfordangerous) wrote in dreamsanddisasters2014-08-21 12:12 am
Entry tags:
Age Reversal AU (For Batfam)
[ His father is dead, and he's still reeling from the shock. Alfred and Tim both know he's barely keeping it together, for all his standoffish composure. Years of preparing for this moment--
(steeling himself, to watch his father be laid to rest next to his grandparents)
--have done little to offset the grief. He wouldn't be seen at all if it weren't for his brother; if Tim hadn't coerced him out of his room in the hours following the funeral, hadn't confessed his worries for Cass (retreated, to the attic of all places), Jason (god, Jason, Damian's own cunning little húlí, he'd adored the man), and his father's newest stray, Richard. Dick. His father's Robin.
His Robin, now. As strange as the thought is. But the cowl is his, and so is Robin.
His Robin, who Alfred has informed him is currently making his roost up in the ballroom's chandeliers. Refusing to come down.
Damian, briefly, contemplates leaving him up there in favor of finishing reviewing this case file.
('He'll come down when he gets hungry,' he tells Alfred.
'He's in mourning, Master Damian,' Alfred points out, with all the dry chastisement his stiff upper lip can give.
'I'll get the broom.')
And here he is. He finds himself squinting in irritation up at the boy monkeying around on the fragile, expensive crystal. ]
Richard. [ Prim, clipped tones. Damian hardly raises his voice unless his fuse is blown; usually only when he's locked in a shouting match with Tim or with his father.
He doesn't know Richard that well. The boy is a relatively fresh arrival, and the past few months he's been here have seen Damian on longer missions; international and galactic trips alike. Before Bruce's death, they had maybe spent only a few hours in each other's company, and the boy was clearly not overly fond of him. ]
What are you doing?
(steeling himself, to watch his father be laid to rest next to his grandparents)
--have done little to offset the grief. He wouldn't be seen at all if it weren't for his brother; if Tim hadn't coerced him out of his room in the hours following the funeral, hadn't confessed his worries for Cass (retreated, to the attic of all places), Jason (god, Jason, Damian's own cunning little húlí, he'd adored the man), and his father's newest stray, Richard. Dick. His father's Robin.
His Robin, now. As strange as the thought is. But the cowl is his, and so is Robin.
His Robin, who Alfred has informed him is currently making his roost up in the ballroom's chandeliers. Refusing to come down.
Damian, briefly, contemplates leaving him up there in favor of finishing reviewing this case file.
('He'll come down when he gets hungry,' he tells Alfred.
'He's in mourning, Master Damian,' Alfred points out, with all the dry chastisement his stiff upper lip can give.
'I'll get the broom.')
And here he is. He finds himself squinting in irritation up at the boy monkeying around on the fragile, expensive crystal. ]
Richard. [ Prim, clipped tones. Damian hardly raises his voice unless his fuse is blown; usually only when he's locked in a shouting match with Tim or with his father.
He doesn't know Richard that well. The boy is a relatively fresh arrival, and the past few months he's been here have seen Damian on longer missions; international and galactic trips alike. Before Bruce's death, they had maybe spent only a few hours in each other's company, and the boy was clearly not overly fond of him. ]
What are you doing?
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[ Swarming the building. They'd quickly overwhelmed the automated defenses.
He chuckles, huffing out a snort at the questions. ]
They wanted the boy. Everyone else was collateral damage.
[ Damian is skillful at gently deflecting questions without actually answering them. Oh, sure, they'd attacked him - but that was because he was that boy. ]
Alfred managed to get us to the Batcave, and into lockdown. From there, he carried the fight using the remote defenses, and then eventually fought one face to face. Knocked the woman right out with a fire extinguisher.
[ Just knocked her right the hell out. Beautiful. ]
Unfortunately, by the time Father arrived, we'd been overrun, and the boy captured.
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[He can imagine it now; legions of angry, deadly ninjas, swarming the Manor, leaking in through broken doors and windows like a flood, trying to get to the Batcave-- and Alfred and the kid, barricaded in the Batcave like it was some kind of medieval siege.]
A fire extinguisher? [That thought is one of his favorites; the idea that a super trained and deadly assassin could lose to a fire extinguisher wielded by the elder English butler of the house.
(He hopes Alfred isn't too old to pull something like that again, he'd give anything to see something like that.)]
So wait-- what happened then? [He's almost trying to sit up now, trying to prop himself up to look at Damian with a new energy-- and gets a few coughs for his effort and a reactive shudder in his shoulders. But it's just not important right now, and he bats the various tubes out of his way before his prodding continues.] What did Ra's and the League want with the kid? What'd they do?
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A fire extinguisher. Alfred can bring the pain when he wants to.
[ It had been pretty impressive in hindsight. Only minutes before Damian had been helping the old man when he'd tripped upon the carpet, and the next thing he knew the Wayne butler was smashing a fire extinguisher into the face of their attacker coming out of the elevator.
Damian clicks his tongue, gently nudging Dick back into place - a warning that if the boy keeps pushing it he'll cut off story time altogether. ]
Ra's' immortality isn't foolproof. He uses what's called a Lazarus Pit to keep himself alive and in his prime; every time his life runs out, all he has to do is arrange for a swim and he'll be brought back. But it became less and less effective over the centuries, and eventually stopped working altogether. He intended to use his grandson's body as a new, fresh vessel, so that he could live for another seven hundred years, or longer.
[ Damian's voice darkens at that, a pinch coming to his eyes. How close he'd been to being thrown into the waters as a sacrificial lamb. ]
It would have meant certain death for the child. And he came very, very close to that fate, but Father teamed up with the boy's mother to storm Ra's' stronghold and save him in the knick of time. As expected of Batman. The boy was so charmed by Batman coming to save him that he wanted to go back with him and be his new partner--
[ He'd thought his father so much cooler than his mother, god. He rolls his eyes at that. And if Dick interprets it to mean that Damian was not amused by the thought of a young assassin boy trying to upstage his place at his father's side, all the better. ]
--but his mother knocked him out and fled with him, and Batman escaped as well.
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He decided he didn't like Ra's al Ghul. Not at all. It wasn't much of a jump to make before, but-- the man was willing to take over his own grandson's body so he could keep living even longer so he could kind of basically destroy the world?
His expression sours in distaste at the impromptu turn back to completely sucky at the ending. And Dick isn't so out of it to not connect the dots-- he was pretty sure the story was about Damian. He's kind of amazed that Damian would tell him that story if it was about him. But he is a bit too out of it to remember to voice his thoughts, and instead burrows back into Damian's side, a small attempt at a hug when the man was simply far too large for Dick to give a proper one.]
His mom sounds mean. But I'm glad everyone got away OK.
[Hmph. He really didn't like Ra's al Ghul.]
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(Damian, of course, assumes his youngest brother knows nothing. Certainly not enough to connect dots. All Dick should know, in his eyes, is that Damian was Bruce's blood son and first partner and came from a brief stay in the League of Assassins, during which at no point in time did he ever kill anyone.
Ever.) ]
Mean? [ He purses his lips, considering. ] I thought it was a reasonable action. The kid was about to turn around and run head-first into danger again. Plus, if he had declared his allegiances to Batman, it would have meant making an enemy out of the entire League. He'd have lost everything just to chase after Father's footsteps. What mother would let her son throw away everything like that?
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(It seemed pretty obvious to him right now, and yet it didn't even cross his mind that if Damian was the subject of the story, that mean he would be Ra's al Ghul's grandson. Hopefully he'd remember when he was able to move around, and think to take another look at the files in the computer. Before freaking out about it.)]
But Batman helped save him. If Ra's wanted to do that, then I think he was kind of already an enemy of the League anyway. 'n' if he wanted to be Batman's partner, that means Bruce would be able to teach him to defend himself from ninjas too if Ra's wanted to try and steal his body again.
[Maybe Dick was a bit biased and didn't quite realize how dangerous and stupid it was to volunteer to be Batman's partner.]
Letting him stay with Batman would be the best way to keep him safe from the League. If I were her I'd be scared of what the League would do next and get all the help I could get.
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And what if he was a kid when all this was going down, huh? So? Alfred could have saved him and the boy. Gosh, Dick, your logic, so fallacy.In actuality, Damian may be too confident in how well locked down his information is. Bruce, of course, kept meticulous records on everything to do with Damian. His file is, perhaps, one of the most extensive and detailed out of all the entries in the Batcomputer's database, although most of the information is locked away with one of Bruce's passcodes.
He'd kept notes, theories, approaches. Damian had read them all; entries concerning his mental health, his social behaviors (or lack-thereof), commentary on something he'd said or done and through it all the worried tone of a parent who'd been watching his psychologically scarred son walk a thin line for years. Scans of his sketchbooks. Copies of essays he'd written, his own case notes. Bruce had even gotten a hold of records of his League training, those ages three through ten, what he'd been put through and tasked to do - the dozens of teachers he'd had, found at the bottom of the ocean once he'd outstripped their knowledge and they were no longer useful. Clinical medical photos of the damages he'd suffered and the steps taken to restore his body to perfect condition, interspersed with the rare few pictures of him looking judgmentally at the camera, or sometimes caught unawares in more natural posing.
And, of course, the course of action Bruce would have taken if he'd gone rogue. A hit list, revised and updated as his threat level changed, grew exponentially.
Damian hasn't been able to look at it again. ]
The League is extremely political. The boy's mother had her own people who were loyal to her, and her own resources, and the boy was still the League prince. Batman was one man, and she had an army.
[ His tone is wry - it was dangerous and stupid to take up being Batman's partner. ]
My impression of her? She was a very intimidating woman. Intelligent, cunning, and a leader. By all rights, the inheritance should have gone to her, but Ra's' views are a little dated. And she loved her son, more than almost anything. Good luck to anyone that got between her and him.
[ Sixteen years later Damian is an adult, and she still hasn't given up on him, disowned or not. Although at this point, if he were to be captured, she'd have him broken and then reconditioned -- she knows he would never stay with her willingly. ]
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If Damian had been a kid at the time then clearly he was the only kid given details in the story. His logic was the most impeccable ten year old logic ever.]If she had an army, why did she need Batman's help?
[It's said with an audible scoff to his voice. The man may as well have saved his life, taken him in, and disappeared almost just like that. It still hurt to think about, but the more he heard, and the more he dwelled on the man's memory, the more Dick's imagination would fill in the blanks; the more infallible the man became in his own memory. And he didn't particularly like the sound of the League of Assassins, so it just convinced him more.]
And why would he want to be prince of the organization led by the guy who wanted to go alien body snatcher on him? [So dumb. He didn't understand politics very well, least of all between freaky assassin ninja corporations.] If I were him I wouldn't have wanted to go back at all.
If she loved him, she should've asked what he wanted. [So. She still sounded pretty mean to him.]
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W o w what a master detective not.Damian is quietly exasperated. How can he explain something he'd barely understood at the time, anyway? Everything was politics. His mother needed his father's help because Ra's respected Bruce, and using him was a political statement in and of itself - a chance for her to formally begin seizing power. ]
It's different. [ He finally settles on, with an annoyed huff. ] Their values, how family worked -- it's just different. He was born for the role, and in their family, duty comes before love. Care, affection-- [ He shrugs, casually. ] --in a den of vipers, that's a weakness. Not like our family.
[ It had taken time, but Damian had eventually built into realization the kind of family he'd come to desire after time spent away from the League. One where love came before duty.
Their family is small, and varied, and might be volatile and fragile at times, but it's a family. The best one. ]
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No shut up he's great at this.]That doesn't really sound like a family. [He coughs, as if to punctuate the fact. It sounded a lot more like some kind of weird business, but then he guessed that's kind of what it really was to them.
Dick has been amazingly fortunate enough to have not one, but two families that had given him love and attention. Even with the less savory of their nightly jaunts, he didn't know just how lucky he was.]
I like ours way better. [And it made more sense too.] Y'gotta wonder when the family that dresses up like bats and birds get along better if you're doing it right.
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[ He would have given anything for his mother to join them, however. Damian never managed to give up the dream that his parents would one day get along.
Humming absently, he curls his arm more snugly around the boy at his side. ]
Well, that unpleasant business aside, at least you now know how impressive Alfred can be. Without bringing up the couch incident.
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I thought it was a good story, though. But your story-telling skills could use some work.
[Absolutely just said to be a little snot about it. And the way he smiles and squirms to lean more weight against Damian, you'd have thought he actually said something endearing.
(He had to refrain from asking for more stories, really, or else Damian would probably get annoyed with him. But even just listening to them was fun.)]
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My apologies for not meeting your exacting standards, Richard.
[ He snorts, leaning his head back against the board and letting his shoulders drop. ]
I guess I shouldn't tell stories at all then, hm? Should leave it to the professionals.
[ Who wouldn't divulge anything half so interesting as stories about what a boss Alfred is. ]
I mean, of course you wouldn't want to hear about the time I sent Father on an international scavenger hunt in order to be Batman for a few days, for instance. And you certainly would have no interest in learning about how Jason joined our family--
[ Bruce, there's a key word. And Jason, too. He may have been returned to them early on, back when Bruce was still alive and Dick was his Robin, but sometimes it's just as painful to talk about him before as it is to talk about Bruce.
However, Damian finds it easier, lately. Cathartic. The boy is always so eager to hear about them, and to get to know the standoffish teenager, and his excitement and happiness at picking up those rare snippets is almost tangible, and entirely contagious. ]
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[And he's sitting up again, and he even almost pulled it off without aggravating anything. Almost. He was pretty glad for the steady drip of medication that made the pang in his side more of a sting than a kidney-rending laceration.
(To his credit, he bit back the grunt of pain like a champ.)]
You gotta tell me!
[International scavenger hunt? Damian trying to be Batman when he was younger? The kid absolutely ate up anything he could hear about Bruce-- and anything he could hear about Jason. Jason, who hardly seemed to like him very much at all, but who Dick was still desperate to actually get to know-- and maybe desperate to actually win the approval of the brother who didn't want to give it, even with how abrasive they both acted.
He knew some bad stuff had happened. But his appetite for curiosity was insatiable. He wanted to know more.]
You have to practice your storytelling! You can't get better without practicing. [The tug on Damian's sleeve is gentle despite his insistence, probably because Dick is already feeling tired again.]
Come on, come on, tell me, tell me...! I wanna know more about Jason [He barely knew him now--], I wanna know about Bruce going on a scavenger hunt! [He wanted to know everything about Bruce.] Did he think it was the Riddler? Did you get caught when you got home?
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I'll tell you, later. [ He pauses, lips pursing. ] After all, one story a night until you are well again - that sounds fair, doesn't it?
[ A promise of one story a night is almost too good to believe, and a huge gesture on Damian's part. Stories about Bruce, Jason, Tim, Cass, Alfred, even himself; sharing whatever he feels is safe to share.
He'd been terrified that night, thinking that he'd lose Dick without the boy ever having the chance to hear any of it. ]
I can't promise they are all happy stories, but -- if you want to hear them.
[ Like a game of twenty questions, Dick can pick the person, the topic, and Damian will oblige. It's not like he can't make the time. ]
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[The news was absolutely devastating, and he didn't really have the strength to resist so he simply bounced back into his spot on the bed again when oh-so-elegantly persuaded.]
I guess that's fair. [He sighs; if it had to be that way.] And I don't mind if they're not happy. I'm not scared if that's what you're worried about.
[Psh. Ridiculous.
The idea of weeks of recovery sounded daunting than unhappy stories, but Dick would learn that having the stories to look forward to would make it a lot easier to wait.
(Unfortunately that also meant he'd be completely restless until he did get to hear the story that night.)]
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You should try and get more rest.
[ He underscores his point by resuming petting Dick's hair, in an obvious bid to lull him back to sleep. (When the boy is unconscious, Damian can also get some work done, thank god.) ]
I'll talk to Alfred about getting entertainment set up for you. There were a couple movies you wanted to see in theaters, weren't there?
[ Perks of being outrageously rich: it's no trouble at all to get a stack of screeners sent for their private viewing pleasure. ]
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[So boring. He was pretty sure he had slept enough to last him for like a month by now. He was both wired to go do something, and still felt exhausted. But still awake enough that a few parts were starting to dully ache.
(Despite the complaint, he may as well be leaning into Damian's touch like a needy cat.)]
Mmm... I think the new Star Trek movie's coming out soon... and the one with the monsters and aliens, and I think Pixar's make a new movie too...
[It was probably a good thing that Dick was still an active consumer of pop culture, or else he'd be really bored.]
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So boring. [ Mimicking mockingly under his breath, punctuated by careful scratching.
(Damian has never personally had his hair messed with in a pleasant fashion, has always kept it too short, so he doesn't understand what's so entrancing about it, but his longer-haired brothers and sister seem to especially adore it when he does. It shuts them up and puts them to sleep, and that's good enough for him.)
He's going to recommend to Alfred that they just keep Dick drugged and high as a kite for the next few weeks, otherwise he is going to be hearing that phrase too much. ]
I will contact the production companies about arranging for private screenings.
[ Good to be a Wayne. ]
And that new game, too -- Swordwalkers, right? That, and a few others. Should hold you over for the week or two before Alfred might allow you to hobble around.
[ Damian doesn't underestimate how quickly Dick can burn through games and movies. Keeping the boy entertained and from fidgeting too much will be a feat in itself. ]
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Sooooooo boooooriiiiiinnnnnggggg.
[Mimicking with even more mockery right back. So take that.
(Keeping him sedated was certainly the only way to assure he'd actually stay in bed. He was already planning his route to at least get as far as the window once he could put weight on his legs.)
But lucky for Damian, the mess of his hair succeeded in eliciting a yawn when he was done with his sass, and his eyelids started to droop.]
Oh, yeah! But I think that wasn't out until the end of the month... The companies seriously won't be mad if we don't go to the theater to watch their movies...?
[He still wasn't used to this Billionaire business. All of the DVDs and video tapes he'd had at the circus were probably ancient.]
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Shut up, says one hand. Go the fuck to sleep, says the other hand. ]
They will be happy to oblige, I assure you.
[ They always are. Dick would learn in time that money makes many requests and relationships go much more smoothly. ]
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But he would not be cowed so easily. He would not stand for this. And he wiggles his tongue out from his mouth (finding that indeed, at least his tongue didn't feel number like the rest of him), and licked the palm of Damian's hand with as much spit as he could muster (which wasn't as much as usual, but still enough to be a bit moist at least).
So take that.]
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He wasn't the heart of his team (that honor went to Chris Kent), but Damian is undeniably looked to as the leader in all situations.
He's Blackhawk, one of the world's most lauded and well-known heroes. Co-founder of multiple superhero youth teams, and full member of the JLA.
And Richard "Dick" Grayson, Robin, Boy Wonder, has just licked him.
Damian freezes, as if not comprehending this fact, or what to do about it, looking down at Dick with blatant consternation. ]
Why.
[ Flat. Incredulous. Why this thing? Disgusting. ]
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And it was absolutely probably the best thing Dick's seen in his entire time at the Manor.
So. He just starts laughing. Uncontrollably. Devolved to a fit of giggles and coughs only slightly muffled. But the effect is certainly not lost.]