Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There was a kid staring up at him from the bushes.

"Hi." The kid said, waving his hands slightly.

"Hello." Damian said, completely perplexed, lowering his sword, which he had been using to expertly cut the bushes into little pieces.

The kid took the acknowledgment of his existence as an invitation into the garden, as he wormed his way through the bushes, coming out on the other side with only a few scratches on his face and a big grin.

Before Damian could even open his mouth and say something smart like: What are you doing here? Or get off my property, the kid had already opened his mouth and started talking.

Damian had over the years learned to let kids talk, they oftentimes knew more than adults wanted to consider, but that was mostly on his own terms and not in his garden while he was trying to work out frustration with his sword.

“I am Tim.” The kid said, “You guys have such a big garden,” the kid, Tim, started walking around, “I thought our garden was huge, but yours is like at least twice the size, our previous house had like an itty bitty garden, mom says we might need to hire a gardener.”

“Okay,” Damian said, “What are you doing here.”

“We moved there.” Tim pointed at the bushes he came through.

“The bushes.” Damian raised an eyebrow.

Tim laughed, “No, the house.”

“Ah, yes, of course.” Damian looked back at the bushes he hadn't known they had neighbours.

"Can I touch your sword." Tim interrupted his contemplation.

"No." Damian said resolutely.

"Oh," Tim pouted for a few seconds before going right back to the conversation, "what were you doing?"

Damian looked back to the remnants of the bushes he had been demolishing just a few minutes prior, "practicing my sword skills."

Tim nodded, "My mom won’t let me do sword fighting because she is convinced that the teacher is part of the mafia, which is so stupid because she made me take these self-defense courses and everyone knows that that guy is a part of the mob, and when I told her that, she just laughed. I did learn a lot, though.” Tim punched the air a couple of times to demonstrate his skills. "But I always wanted to learn sword fighting."

"Alright," Damian said, mentally taking note to later research if there really was a self-defense teacher that was part of the mob.

Tim picked up a stick from the ground, "Maybe you can teach me."

“No.” Damian said.

“Why not.” Tim said.

"You don’t know me." Damian said reasonably

Tim opened his mouth for a few seconds, clearly attempted by Damian’s excellent rebuttal. Before frowning for a few seconds, "I guess."

Without a goal, Tim just stood there for a few seconds, kicking the ground, before his name got called through the garden next to his. "Guess, I’ve gotta go anyway, bye." Tim turned back around, disappearing in the bushes leaving Damian standing before he too decided to just go home.

Damian quickly forgot about the interaction and turned to more important manners, which namely involved working on cases, ignoring his father and very much ignoring the fact that school would start up again in a few weeks. Some might say that avoiding a problem would not solve it, but Damian found it high time to test that hypothesis.

School itself wasn’t really the problem, most of the time it was useless dribble, but Damian managed fine. It was the fact that it was the last year of high school, the last year of mandatory education. After this, the real adult life began and slowly was approaching that time that Damian had to answer the question, What does he want to do with the rest of his life?

It was clear to Damian what Bruce would want from him, either go to college and get a degree that would either help keep his secret identity or get a degree that would help him with Robin, preferably one that does both. He could also skip college all together and continue being Robin.

The truth was, Damian didn’t know if he wanted to continue being Robin. When he was younger, it had all been clear who he was supposed to be—the heir, the grandson of the great Ra’s al Ghul. Then, when he had gotten to Gotham, Robin had been a lifebuoy in the sea. It had saved him in more ways than he could count, it had given him something only he could do.

Damian had always been sure in what he wanted, he didn’t mull over every single option, he trusted his instincts and went for it. Whatever it may be. But now he just didn’t know what he wanted. So he avoided any mention of the topic as well as he could.

His father, on the other hand, was all for talking about the future. What college Damian should go to, what he should study, all that fun stuff.

Damian was staring angrily at his food. His father was watching him, “Damian, I think we should talk about yesterday.”

“Nothing happened yesterday.” Damian said. Mushing some peas together (he did not like peas).

“Some bushes do tell me a different tale.”

Damian rolled his eyes.

“I get that you are scared about the future, but that doesn’t mean you should ignore it.”

“I don’t know what you are talking about.” Damian said, feeling slightly annoyed, he wondered if he could fake illness to get out of this conversation. The one good thing about school is that Damian could always fake a project he had to work on to get out of dinner conversations.

His father opened his mouth, probably to start a tirade about how, college could broaden your horizons or something equally lame, even though Damian knew for a fact that his father dropped out after two months.

To say that he was glad that Alfred walked in the room to announce they had visitors would be an understatement.

In walked, his snot-nosed neighbor, Tim, with a woman who was clearly his mother, the woman stuck out her hand, Bruce stood up from the table slightly confused and shook her hand, "Janet," the woman introduced herself, "we moved in next door, and Tim here told me that he already met your son. My Timmy told me that your son is a prolific sword fighter and that he was willing to teach my son?”

“He is?” Bruce looked surprised at Damian.

Tim looked quite pleased with himself even though Damian knew he had been lying since he promised nothing of the sort, but on the other hand, this did mean that if he played his cards right, he could get out of this conversation without having to fake an illness.

"Ah yes, Damian has been training with the sword from a very young age, but I didn’t know that he had promised to teach your son." Bruce looked at Damian, a question clearly written on his face. Damian knew he wasn’t the kind of person to normally promise to teach someone sword fighting.

"I completely forgot to tell you." Damian said, smiling sweetly at his father, “Do you mind if I excuse myself.” He said, motioning towards Tim.

His father looked at him puzzling, “Okay, you can go.” Damian knew that look meant something along the lines of we will talk about this later, but that is a problem for future him, as Maps would say.

Not long after, he stood with Tim in one of the gyms in the manor, both with practice swords in their hands. Damian expertly, having escaped the dinner table.

"I never promised to teach you." Damian said, feeling like he should at least mention it.

"You said that you wouldn’t teach me because I didn’t know you, and now I do, so you will." Tim said

Damian raised an eyebrow, staring Tim down.

“I accidentally said that to my mom, and I couldn’t back out. I didn’t want her to know I lied."

Damian nodded, satisfied with the answer, "Okay, let’s start."

Tim straightened, upholding the sword completely wrong, in a way that he obviously thought that was the way to hold it.

Damian sighed internally. This was going to take a while.

Damian had never formally taught someone anything really, and the way the league taught was probably the incorrect way to teach young kids things, add to that the fact that he, at Tim’s age, was already an expert in the blade, Damian didn’t really know where to start. Still he had been a beginner at some point, so he could probably figure it out.

The first steps were surprisingly easy, Tim, despite his nerdy demeanor, who was actually quite athletic, Which was a pleasant surprise. If Damian had been a normal teacher, Tim could have probably become pretty good at the sport. Only Tim didn’t have some average sword fighter as a teacher, so one thing Damian was certain of was that if he wanted to, he could make Tim great.

To Damian’s annoyance, the school year started. The end of summer meant the beginning of his last year in high school.

Before school started, they got to an agreement for Tim to spend two days a week after school at the Wayne Manor, where Damian would train him. Despite it still being the beginning of the year, the teachers all had gotten the drift that it really was the last year, and to celebrate this special occasion, they decided to give every single student massive amounts of homework.

Damian was furiously working through his math homework when Tim entered his room.

Tim looked over Damian’s shoulder, “What are you doing?”

“My homework.” Damian said, while glaring at the math problem that just wouldn’t let itself be solved. Damian looked at the clock, “Aren’t you a bit early.”

Tim shrugged.

“You did do your homework, right.” Damian narrowed his eyes.

“I did.” Tim said.

Damian narrowed his eyes a bit more.

“Okay, fine, don’t tell mom.”

“Sure, but only if you do your homework now. In silence.”

“Fine.” Tim plopped down on the ground and opened his back, Damian had an acute sense that this was somehow exactly what he wanted. He ignored that feeling and turned back to his work.

Tim used this first invitation to show up earlier and earlier, with supposed homework. Damian just let the kid sit, as long as he wasn’t making a ruckus.

Every day, like clockwork after about 15 minutes, Tim would silently put his pen away and start to observe Damian instead. After a few weeks of this, Damian had enough.

“Are you already finished?”

Tim shrugged, “It isn’t very hard.” He said matter-of-factly.

Damian nodded. Primary school wasn’t very hard. He turned back to his homework.

Tim apparently saw his acknowledgment of doneness as an invitation to talk to Damian and he pushed himself up on Damian’s chair to look at Damian’s homework, "can I help you?"

"Do you know how to integrate?" He said

Tim shook his head.

“Well, then no, you can’t.”

“What is that integrate?”

"A way to calculate an area of two points using equations."

Tim gave him a blank stare, "Ah, I see." Then he smiled proudly, “I can calculate the area of a square, we learned that last week.”

“Well, that is good.” Damian said.

Tim nodded enthusiastically.

Damian tried to turn back to his homework, but Tim continued to stare confused over his shoulder, as if he were trying to figure out the math on Damian’s worksheet. "Wait a second." Damian said before getting up and rummaging through his old school supplies until he found an old book of the first year of middle school math before giving it to Tim, "Maybe you can try this."

Tim nodded and opened the book.

Damian noted the ease with which Tim worked through the book, of which the difficulty should still be a couple of years away from him. Tim had excellent logical reasoning and problem-solving skills, just like Damian had around that age. Damian patted himself on the back for finding and nurturing this talent.

Slowly the months flew past, as they tend to do, as September turned into October.

They were standing in the garden, it was a beautiful day, autumn, still quiet, Damian was teaching Tim a summersaultkick. That is when you kick someone while doing a somersault. Tim was still having trouble doing it he was almost doing the sault part of the summersaultkick, but he ended up face planting too often for Damian’s liking. He was pretty sure that when he learned it when he was Tim’s age, he didn’t have that much trouble, but no matter, he was sure that with him as a teacher, Tim would learn it in no time at all.

Damian was once again looking at Tim’s footwork, correcting it where it needed correcting when Bruce walked outside. Damian looked up and immediately glowered, but Bruce didn’t say anything, just waved at them. Tim looked up and waved back before he shouted,” Look what I can do.” He jumped up somersaulting forward, managing to not face-plant, (but just barely) before tripping up the landing and falling back on his but. He looked up with a blinding smile.

“Good job, Tim.” Bruce said.

“Yeah, I almost got it that time.” Tim said proudly.

Tim was sitting behind the computer, “So, this is my house.” Damian looked at the blocky screen where Tim was showing him the game of Minecraft on. Damian didn’t really get it, but he knew that some of his classmates played it in their free time, so admittedly he was curious.

Since Tim had sprained his wrist last week during one of their sessions, they couldn’t really continue their usual program, so Damian decided he would branch out and teach Tim some hacking skills; this had somehow dissolved into Tim showing Damian Minecraft.

“If you also buy a copy, we can play together.” Tim said.

It was probably a couple more hours before Tim had to go home, “Okay, why not.” Damian shrugged.

Not long after, they were sitting in the living room, both behind their laptops, Tim teaching Damian how to play the game. They already had built a house, and Tim was just showing him how to make a ‘nether portal’ when Bruce walked in.

“Sorry to spoil your boys’ fun, but Tim, your mom is here.”

Tim pouted but did grab his laptop, “You can continue finishing our house.” Tim said wisely, “I probably will not be allowed to continue gaming when I get home, to many hours behind screens make your eyes go square, my mom always says.”

The first day of December was met with a snowstorm. As school for the entire week was cancelled, Janet very gratefully left Tim at the manor, Damian wasn’t really sure if he too was happy with the development, as snow flew directly into Damian’s face. Luckily, Damian had fought doctor freeze many of times, so he could handle a little cold.

He grabbed some snow from the ground and threw it at Tim’s face.

Not a half-hour later they were completely soaked through the bone, but Tim had a gigantic smile on his face, and Damian was pretty sure that his face was contorting into something that Jon would call a smile .

Damian shook his hair to get most of the snow out, and Tim, who was watching him, immediately copied him, “Now what.” He said.

“Time to get back inside before you catch a cold.” Damian said.

Tim rolled his eyes, “I can handle some colds; my mom says I have a great immune system.”

“Well, mister great immune system, what do you suggest we do then.” Damian said dryly.

Tim’s eyes lit suddenly, “Let’s make a snow fort.”

The good thing was that they definitely made a snow fort; it was sturdy and would make any architecture proud. The bad news was that Tim’s great immune system was highly exaggerated, and Damian’s many fights against Doctor Freeze apparently did not hold a candle to one fight with Tim.

They both lay sick on the couch as a Disney movie played in the background. It was a movie about a mouse detective, which would feel ridiculous if it weren’t for the fact that Damian had met Detective Chimp. “This is just like the chimp.” Damian muttered.

Tim nodded miserably into his blanket.

He shivered; he finally didn’t feel like dead warmth over anymore, but patrol had been going on for way too long, but with the first dregs of winter rearing his head, a lot of nasties had decided to come out of the woodworks. He was taken a few minutes break, Batman was somewhere on the other side of the city.

A reddish shape was walking through the streets below. Damian frowned and got up slowly, following it for a few blocks.

Tim stood in front of him, shivering in the cold. He had a clearly homemade cape and mask on and he had the absolute gall to smile, “Hi.” He said, putting up a hand.

Damian really had to stop himself to not throttle the kid. What was Tim thinking, being out here by himself looking like that. Damian took a deep breath, Tim didn’t know that it was him in the suit, “Kid, what are you doing out here.”

Tim looked at him with big eyes, “uuhmm.”

“I am pretty sure it isn’t Halloween.” Damian continued getting closer to Tim. Damian made a motion to grab him and drag Tim home himself if he had to when he was suddenly lying on the ground. Tim looked shocked at him before booking it.

Damian would have been proud that Tim had finally pulled off that move (Damian knew for a fact that it was the first time that Tim had managed to do it since they had been working on it for the past few weeks) if he wasn’t so incredibly annoyed and also slightly embarrassed.

Damian quickly got up and sprinted after the boy. It didn’t take long before he had caught up to Tim, they really had to work on his getaways, and grabbed Tim by his cape, effectively scuffing him and lifting him up.

“Good afternoon.” Tim had the gall to say.

“What are you doing out here, kid.” Damian practically growled.

Tim hung there for a few seconds fidgeting, “So, uhm,” he started, and then in one breath, “my friend was teaching me how to hack and I was practicing it at home and then I was like, Hey, maybe I can test my skills on my mom's company, so if the security isn’t good I can also later improve it, but then I found all these sketchy things and I was like, This is not good, but I didn’t really have any evidence, and I couldn’t really go to my mom and say, Hey, I hacked your company, and I think something is really wrong, so I thought maybe if I did some detective work and gathered proof, I could give it to the police and then they could arrest the right people and stuff.”

“Tt” Damian pinched the bridge of his nose, “If I let you go, will you promise me not to run away.”

Tim’s head bobbed up and down.

Damian carefully placed him on the ground. Tim straightened his homemade cape, which Damian was sure was just a blanket fastened around his neck. Tim went through his pockets before he produced an usb stick. I’ve put my evidence on this. Damian grabbed it and put it in his belt.

Damian nodded, “I’ll look at it.” He promised.

“Really.” Tim said with a smile.

“Of course, but now it is time for you to go home.” Damian motioned for Tim to follow him to where he had parked his bike. He almost forgot to ask for Tim’s address, but after that he quickly brought Tim home.

Tim left the bike and stood nervously in front of the bike, ”Are you really going to look at it.”

Damian recognized that look, it was one of a child scared that they wouldn’t be taken seriously. Damian, being as he was, knew a lot about that. People weren’t used to the fact that a kid knew more than them, knew better than them, and although the younger version of him certainly had a lot to learn as he knew now it was always hard to listen to adults when you knew for sure that they would not extent the same courtesy to him, “I promise.”

Who he watched sneak back in through his window.

This really wasn’t good, Tim sneaking out like this, Luckily Damian had an excellent way of dealing with this, which was ignoring it and hoping it would go away.

When Damian got back to the cave, he immediately checked what was one the usb stick. Batman probably would have gotten a hernia if he saw how he put this unknown stick into his laptop without any precaution. It is overall a good rule not to do that, but Damian trusted Tim.

There wasn’t a lot of evidence, certainly not enough for any arrest, but there was something. Damian couldn’t help but be impressed with that Tim had found the links. Because there was something there—a lot of money going from one place to another using the company. Damian couldn’t immediately figure out where the money was coming from, he had no clue where it was going either. Damian frowned, he would have to look into it.

Over the next few months, Damian slowly started to gather evidence. While he also started to teach Tim how to sneak around more properly, which quickly became apparent he was a natural at. It probably also helped he wasn’t wearing a bright homemade costume while they practiced, but it was still too early to tell.

Damian was working on his homework alone in his room when there was a knock on his door.

“Sorry, to trouble you, but the young sir insisted on seeing you.” Alfred said.

“Thank you, Alfred.” Tim said.

Tim stood in the door opening, his hair was a complete mess, sticking slightly to his skin with sweat. As soon as Alfred left, Tim quickly closed the door and walked further into the room.

Tim stood nervously, bouncing from one leg to the other for a few seconds before shucking off his backpack and walking closer to where Damian was seated. “We have a problem.” He stated.

Damian raised his eyebrow.

Tim opened his bag, producing a map filled to the brim with paper. “Did you look at it?”

“Look at what?” Damian asked.

“What I asked you to,” Tim said, “a couple of months back, in my mom’s company, I found all those shady things?”

Damian almost said yes, but he caught himself at the last second, “What are you saying?”

Tim gave him a look, “I know that you are, Robin.” He said.

Damian could probably try to dissuade him, but he knew that it probably wouldn’t work, Bruce was going to be furious. Teaching Tim all the Robin moves probably wasn’t the best decision if he had wanted to keep the secret, secret. “When did you figure it out.”

A shy smile spread across Tim’s face, “When I was nine, I saw you as Robin on the television, and I connected the dots.”

“How?”

“This is a bit of a story,” Tim admitted, “ it started, ‘when I was three. My nanny kidnapped me, You helped rescue me, you weren’t Robin yet.”

Chapter Text

It had all started just after Damian had arrived in Gotham. Before he had arrived in Gotham, he had learned a lot about his father. The Bat. He was supposed to be the ideal child, the prodigy. The perfect DNA mixed together to make him. Trained from birth to take his rightful place. He was the heir.

His father had wanted nothing to do with him, not really. Now, Damian could admit that he didn’t make it easy on him. In the first week, he had been desperate to prove himself, and his father didn’t care about anything but his city. Every night he was out fighting crime. Damian had been desperate to prove himself, as he knew his mother would want. So he had locked Alfred up in a closet, gone downstairs and used the resources there to go out himself, and fight crime.

He killed someone that night. He had killed people before that night, of course, that night is the one that still haunts his dreams the most. Maybe because of how proud he had been of it. He had cut up the head and brought it back to the cave, and when his father had come back, he had shown it off proudly.

His father hadn’t been happy. As the Batman had towered over him, he suddenly had understood what his mom had meant, why he from all the men in the world, had been chosen to create him. Damian, for the first time in his life had been truly been scared, but he hadn’t been regretful. He hadn’t cared that he had killed the man he only cared that Batman was angry about it.

It was clear after that that Batman didn’t know what to do with him. He went after his mother, locking Damian up temporarily in the cave. Damian had raged and screamed, but when he got let out again later, he was mostly surprised that he was allowed out in the first place.

Bruce after that mostly ignored him. He didn’t want Damian there, but he also couldn’t give him back, he was basically stuck with him. He was out late, Damian was mostly left alone with Alfred, who at the time also wasn’t a big fan of him, mostly due to the shoving him into the closet and then throwing away the key thing he did.

It was clear that whatever Damian was supposed to do here, what training he was supposed to get, his father wasn’t willing to give it to him.

Damian at that point had heard a lot of things about his father—how an amazing man he was, the ultimate warrior. He was also used to getting ignored. Damian knew his mom loved him, but her way of loving wasn’t what one would call necessarily hands-on. He had to prove that he was worthy of her love, that he was worthy of the legacy that was trusted upon him.

So, a month after he moved into Wayne Manor, Damian snuck out. He knew he had to prove himself to his father. His swords had been confiscated on day one, Damian could probably have easily recovered them, but he decided against it, if he really wanted to prove himself he had to go without.

It started off well, he had previously already scouted the place out. It was a group of traffickers that had set up in Gotham.

Damian could admit that he had messed up somewhere as the traffickers towered over him, laughing their asses off. Damian knew he could get out of these stupid ropes, he strained against the ropes, trying to find some give.

“What are you supposed to be, some kind of Batman wannabe?” A big burly man was grinning in his face, in response, Damian spit in his face.

Not long after, he was sitting in a cell, blood still streaming down his face from his broken nose. No matter, now that he was alone, he could undo the ropes and get out of here.

He couldn’t get out of there. He couldn’t even get the ropes off. At that point, Damian knew that he was in big trouble. If this had happened while he was still living in the league, he knew what would happen to him. He would have been left to his own devices, if he couldn’t get himself out of this mess, then he had to deal with the consequences himself. He didn’t know if his father thought the same, he also didn’t know if he wanted his father to find him like this.

Damian didn’t know how long he sat there, until one of the guards opened the door and threw a teenager inside. The teen was a couple of years older than Damian and was dressed very much the opposite of him. He was wearing a bright yellow cape, a red shirt and the most surprising part, a complete lack of pants. He was still shouting at the guy who threw him in for a few seconds before he noticed Damian sitting there.

The teen was lying on his side observed Damian for a few seconds. He pushed himself into a sitting position, which wasn’t easy with the amount of rope bounding his body together, “Huh.” He said.

Damian felt his hackles rise the longer the teen looked at him, “What are you looking at.”

“Just, hmm.” The guy paused for a few seconds then produced a blinding smile, “I am Robin, and you are.”

Damian glared at him, “Shadow.” He muttered after a few seconds, feeling heat rise to his cheeks.

Robin kept looking at him intensely, Damian would have squirmed if it hadn’t been for the ropes.

“So, How old are you?” Robin said.

Damian jutted his chin out, “That is none of your business.”

“Ah, I see,” Robin clacked his tongue and leaned back, “so you come here often.”

Damian scowled, he felt himself getting annoyed, “This is no time for idle chitchat.”

“It isn’t.” Robin gasped dramatically, “Why is that?”

Was this guy stupid, Damian wondered for a second, “Because we have been kidnapped and taken prisoner by these lowlifes.”

“I know that, but Batman is going to rescue us, right?”

“Why would he do that.”

“Well, with a name like Shadow, I thought you would work together.”

“I work alone.” Damian said proudly.

“Yeah, I figured,” Robin said mysteriously before standing up, the ropes falling off of him. Damian could only look at him, surprised, who was this guy.

“Who are you?” Damian said.

Robin smiled at him, “Robin.” He said

Damian felt himself getting frustrated, he huffed, “I have never heard of you before.”

Robin looked at him again as if he was a puzzle that he couldn’t figure out. “That doesn’t surprise me.” He walked over to him, “You can think of it this way, if Batman is the night and darkness, then I am the light that shines the way.”

“Well that is stupid.” Damian said.

“Is it now? ”Robin said.

“Yes.” Damian grunted out, “Now get me out of these.”

Damian could feel Robin roll his eyes even though they were hidden behind a mask, but he did produce a knife and started cutting the rope, “You know what I think? I think you are just saying that it is stupid because you would not be able to do it. You could not be a light.”

The ropes fell away from Damian’s body, and he immediately sprung up, “Yes, I could.”

“If you say so, mister shadow.”

Damian really wanted to hit Robin, but even he could admit that it wasn’t smart to attack the person that just rescued him. Damian glared at him instead, “I could so be a light if I wanted to.” He snapped back.

Robin gave him a blinding smile, ignoring his words, “Let’s get out of here, shall we?” He said just as the door flew open. A big, burly man stood in the door opening, looking at them both before he even had the time to react. Robin flew forward, attacking the man. He was good, very good, and within no time at all the man was lying on the ground groaning.

“Come on,” Robin motioned to the ropes, “help me tie him up.”

“We are just going to leave him here?”

“Of course, did you want to bring him.”

“No of course," Damian tried to say but Robin interrupted him, “or did you want to kill him.” Robin said it in such a way that it was clear that he thought that was incredibly stupid.

“Of course not.” Damian said.

“What did you think then.”

Damian ignored him and grabbed a rope and helped tie up the man. They left the man tied up in their cell and walked further through the complex.

They got to a door, voices came from inside. Robin put his arm out to stop Damian, he made some motioned with his fingers which pretty clearly meant, I’ll take the one on the right, and you take the ones on the left.

Damian nodded.

They ran inside; they were in a large room, clearly where they kept their wares; large crates were stacked along the hall. A group of three men were playing cards, and on the fourth chair a small child was tied up. Damian didn’t hesitate and knocked the man sitting on the left side out. Robin jumped up high and, with a kick, knocked the first man into the second, both immediately collapsing to the ground.

The child upon seeing them stared at them for a few seconds before starting to cry, loudly.

Damian stood frozen watching the kid cry, knowing full well that every second that the kid was crying, more of these men would come here.

Robin jumped forward and kneeled down so that he was on eye level with the kid. He smiled at the kid as he cut through the ropes, “Hi, my name is Robin, I am here to rescue you. What is your name?”

The kid sniffed and blinked at Robin with large eyes, “Tim.” He said with a small voice.

“Of course you are.” Robin picked up Tim and smiled at him fondly, and somehow the kid smiled back, the tears completely forgotten.

A shout, “They escaped.” Could be heard through the warehouse.

“I think we need to leave.” Damian said with as much authority as possible.

Robin frowned, looking around, before shaking his head, I think it is better if we attack them from here. He looked down at the kid in his arms before frowning and looking back up at Damian.

The kid started to cry again, but softly this time, “Hey,” Robin said, “You have to do something for me, can you do that?”

The kid nodded.

Robin smiled, “Great, any minute now a lot of bad men are going to come in, but you don’t have to worry about that, you wanna know why?”

Another nod.

“Because I am a hero, and I am going to beat them, what you need to do is keep your eyes on me, and then I am going to do a very special jump just for you.” He booped Tim’s nose, Tim giggled, “A quadruple somersault. Do you think you can do that? It is very important that you do that, okay?”

The kid looked all serious and he nodded.

“Great.” With one swell swoop, he pulled Damian’s mask off his face, “My friend Damian here is going to look after you.” Before Damian could react, Robin pushed Tim in his hands and ran off just as multiple men ran into the room.

Robin smiled as he flew through the air, it was almost like it was easy for him, knocking out a man after another, all the while doing tricks. The kid’s eyes were fully blown watching Robin. Then Robin winked at them and gave them a smile. He pulled himself up on a beam and then somersaulted off it, one, two, three, four before landing legs stretched out on a man’s face knocking him out instantly.

Tim pulled on his costume, “Did you see that?”

Damian did see that. He stood frozen to the ground watching him, and he hated to admit, but Robin was better than him. He could see now how this child could be the light in Batman’s darkness. He was beating up men twice his size, all the while laughing, taunting them, in a way that was befitting to a child.

By the time that Robin knocked out the last guy, sirens could be heard in the distance. Robin was smiling at him, Damian put the kid down and walked towards him angrily, “How did you know my name?” he demanded to know, pushing his finger into Robin’s chest.

Robin just continued to smile, pushing Damian’s hand aside and putting his finger questioningly against his cheek. “Well, I am trained by the world’s best detective.”

“There is no such thing.” Damian spat out as suddenly policemen flooded the building, momentarily he was distracted, and when he looked back, Robin was gone as if he had never been there in the first place.

The rest of the night was a blur. The goons got arrested, and Damian and the kid got taken to a police station, where grateful parents were waiting for the kid. Damian reluctantly gave his father’s phone number to the police. Damian’s nose still ached.

The police were murmuring too each other and shooting him looks when Damian’s father finally walked in. The police station immediately fell silent. Bruce walked towards the reception, shooting the lady sitting behind the counter a blinding smile, “I am here to pick off my son.”

One of the policemen was already tugging him off, Damian hit the man’s hand off his arm and stood up himself. “Oh, of course, mister Wayne.” The lady said, “Here is the little rascal, not to pry or anything, but I didn’t know you had a son.”

Bruce smiled sheepishly, “Oh, you know the folly’s of youth, I am honestly lucky he is the only one that has shown up so far.” He did a full belly laugh. The lady laughed at him in tandem, as if what he said was the funniest thing so far.

“Can we go now.” Damian grunted childishly.

The lady who, for the entire time that Damian had been in the station had only sent him dirty looks, you must be very tired.” She said.

Damian just glared at her.

“I must apologize for him, it has all been a big move.” Bruce leaned forward, “I think he just misses his mother. You know how it is.”

Damian could hit him.

“Of course.” The lady said, “well off with you, then.”

Bruce smiled at Damian, “Don’t forget to say thank you to all these nice policemen for rescuing you from that nasty situation. “

Damian opened his mouth to tell Bruce where he could stick it, but he saw something in his gaze that made Damian remember just why his mom had fallen for the man before him, so instead he turned around and said, “Thank you.”

Bruce steered him outside, still having on that dumb smile, but the moment they were outside, the smile disappeared. Alfred was waiting outside and opened the door for Damian as he got into the car. For a few tense seconds, he waited until his father got in.

“What were you thinking.” Damian’s father didn’t shout, he was barely looking at Damian.

“You can’t just keep me locked up in your manor.” Damian shot back.

“So, you decide that it is okay for you to go beat up a bunch of criminals by yourself.”

Damian opened his mouth to defend himself, “But I wasn’t by myself.”

“Good story for the police, sure, but you don’t lie to me.”

“I didn’t”

“A three your old does not count, and I know full well what you are capable off.”

Damian felt himself seethe in his seat, “You don’t trust me.” He wanted to say more to explain that he could follow his father's rules, but before he could, his father interrupted him. “No, I don’t.” Bruce affirmed, “For all I knew, you decided you had enough and killed someone else. If you were anyone else, I would have already turned you in for the murder of that man.”

“I didn’t murder anyone.” Damian shot back.

“I know, otherwise this wouldn’t even be a conversation.”

“Maybe I should have,” Damian continued, “they were weak little men, and it would have shown them their place.”

“This is why I can never trust you.”

For the rest of the ride back to the manor, it was silent in the car.

The next few days, silence returned to the manor. Damian’s father continued to ignore him as much as possible, spending most of his time in the cave, where Damian was not allowed. He hadn’t proven his worth, not in a way that either of them would accept, at least. Damian might not have told his father that the reason that he had been there was that he had been kidnapped after his very bad attempt at being a vigilance.

Voices came out of one of the living rooms (Damian still couldn’t figure out the difference in purpose between them), “You can’t keep ignoring him.” A British voice, Alfred. Damian snuck closer.

“I know, I know, I just don’t know how to talk to him, with the way he was raised.” Bruce was silent for a moment, “there is a darkness in him, I don’t know if I even can reach beyond that.”

Damian backed off from the door, he didn’t want to hear this. In his head, he could hear Robin taunting him, “You could never be a light.” Damian started walking back to his room, it was true, really. He was born in the shadows, and in the shadows he would remain. It was clear that there was nothing his father was willing to teach him. It was time to go home.

He snuck into the garage and stole a car and drove the car to the closest metro station, where he dumped the car a few blocks from the entrance. He would have enjoyed continuing driving the car, but he very much did look his age, and no matter how corrupt the Gotham cops, a driving ten-year-old would still get arrested.

Damian dumped the car a few blocks from the metro station and started to go the rest of the way on foot. Damian was under no impression that getting back home would be easy, but he was confident that he would make it. He probably would have made it, eventually, if it hadn’t been for the girl.

A girl around Damian’s age was hanging up posters, her eyes were slightly red-rimmed, but she looked determined.

“What are you doing?” Damian demanded to know.

As soon as he said that, the girl zoomed in to him as if she were a wolf, and he was her prey. “I am looking for my cat, have you seen him? “She said as she practically shoved a missing poster into Damian’s. In large bold letters stood missing: Mandarin below the ugliest red cat that Damian had ever seen.

“I haven't,” He said, pushing the girl back slightly.

The girl visible deflated, “Yeah, I figured.” She shoved the poster into his hands, “Take this, just in case.”

Damian gave her a nod and quickly walked to the metro, crumbling up the poster and putting it into his pocket. He entered the metro and quickly forgot about the encounter. Damian continued riding the metro for a couple more stops before getting off.

He probably shouldn’t have underestimated his father. Still, Damian couldn’t help but be surprised when his father was waiting on top of the stairs, leaning against one of his cars. When they made eye contact, Damian’s father just raised a single eyebrow. For a split second, Damian considered trying to run but instead decided against it, it would not do well for him to underestimate his father for a second time in a single day. Instead, he got into the car, not saying a word.

His father didn’t say a word either, when they got back home, there was a new lock on the garage door. Damian continued to ignore his father, instead pushing the bureau in front of the door so that he would not have to deal with any consequences.

When it was time for bed, the poster fell out of his pocket. Damian frowned and picked it up, straightening the paper. It really was an ugly-looking cat. He went to lie in bed and was just about to put the poster down when he noticed text on the back of the poster.

‘Prove it then, prove that you can be a robin.’ It said, ‘Signed, Robin.’

Angry, Damian threw the poster through the room. How dare he, how dare that phony of a hero. He didn’t have to prove anything to him. He was a great warrior. He was more than capable. What had an ugly looking cat to do with anything?

Damian stared at the ceiling; he tried to put the poster out of his mind. It wasn’t important, tomorrow he would just try to run away again; he just had to change clothing a couple of times, and then he was scot-free.

The poster was staring at him. The big R staring up at him from the ground where Damian had angrily thrown the paper. Damian fidgeted in bed before giving up and grabbing the poster. Damian did love animals, I mean, who didn’t even if they were very ugly. Still, it wasn’t his responsibility, the pet owner always had to take good care off their pets and if they died, they died. He never had a pet himself, but if he had, he would make sure that the animal did not run away. There were plenty of animals back at the league. You really couldn’t restore earth to its former glory without animals. The animals at the league were handpicked to be the best of the best, to ensure the prosperity of earth.

Mandarin didn’t look like the best of the best. He looked slightly angry, and there was a hole in his ear.

The girl had been crying because her cat had gone missing. Damian suddenly couldn’t help but wonder if his mom was sad that he wasn’t at home anymore, would his father be if he left? If he disappeared off the face of the earth right now, his mom would probably never know, and his father would only care out of obligation.

Angrily, he picked up the poster from the ground. He would prove that stupid Robin wrong, he could be a light, be a hero.

Somehow, he made his way back to Gotham Center (not without removing all the trackers from his clothes). With some quick hacking (googling), Damian found out where the girl lived. He decided that it was as good place as any to start looking.

A woman walked towards Damian, “Hey, kid.” She said, concerned, “You shouldn’t be out this late, where are your parents?”

Damian ignored the question, “Have you seen this cat?” He asked, showing the cat to the woman.

She shook her head, Damian continued walking before she could say anything more. Hours ticked by like that. Damian’s legs felt like lead, he really hadn’t kept up with his exercise as he should have, but he continued on, asking any passer-by if they had seen the cat.

Most people ignored Damian. Some people threatened him, but just like in any place in the world, there are people that care. An older woman, clearly homeless, approached Damian. Her hair was completely grey with a layer of filth caked into it. She was slightly twitchy. In any other circumstances, Damian would have turned up his nose at her, but at this point he was slightly desperate.

The woman smiled at him, Damian noticed that she was missing some teeth, “You're that boy, right, the one looking for the cat.” She said.

Damian nodded.

“I know where he is.” The woman said before turning around and walking towards an alley.

Damian ran after her. He wasn’t stupid, it was probably a trap (it had been a long night), but honestly, it would just waste his time then more than anything.

The woman turned around and pointed at a dumpster, “He is underneath there.”

Damian sighed and went to sit on his knees to look underneath the dumpster, expecting to be jumped.

A small meow sounded from underneath the dumpster, the cat's ugly face stared at Damian. Damian put his hand underneath the dumpster to get the cat out. The cat immediately started to hiss at him.

“He doesn’t want to come out.” The woman said helpfully.

Damian didn’t have time to wait and coach the cat out slowly, so he just shoved half his body underneath the dumpster and grabbed the cat, who immediately started to scratch him open. Damian just ignored the sensation as he pulled the cat out from underneath. As he successfully got the cat out from underneath the dumpster, he grabbed the scruff of the cat, who dangled angry underneath Damian’s hand.

“What are you going to do with him?” the woman suddenly asked, staring intently at Damian and the cat he was holding.

“Obviously, I am bringing him back home.” Damian said.

The woman nodded, “Good, yes, good good,” She nodded to herself a few more times, “It is a good thing you are doing, not everyone would do this.”

Damian shrugged, he didn’t really know what to say.

The woman fidgeted a little, “I used to have a cat just like him, before.” She motioned to the alley

“What happened to him?” Damian asked.

“Oh, what happens to everyone, honey? He got old.” When Damian didn’t answer, “Now off you go, get that kitten back to his home, I am sure they are missing him very much.”

Damian was about to walk away when he turned around, “Do you miss him, your cat.”

“Oh yes, very much.”

Damian nodded, turned around and walked away, feeling something cold settle in his stomach.

It wasn’t that far back to the girl’s apartment, but when Damian finally got there, it was already starting to become morning. Damian rang the doorbell, “A tired woman opened the door, a small wailing baby was sitting in her arms. Damian held up the cat, “I got your cat.”

“Oh, thank god.” The woman said before turning around, “Alice!.” She screamed through the house.

The girl came running towards the door, “What is it, mom!” before she came to a stop.

“Mandarin!” she shouted, her face lit up as the first sun after a misty winter, and as Damian looked at her face he slightly felt like he could grasp what Robin had been talking about. How Gotham needed a light, as he felt his heart grow towards the light, drinking it in.

Damian let go of the cat, and the cat immediately ran to the girl and started purring up a storm against the girl's leg. “He was telling the truth.” She said in wonder before looking at Damian, “How did you find him?”

“Saw him on my way to school.” Damian lied.

“I can’t thank you enough.” The mom said.

Damian felt heat creep to his cheeks, “It’s okay, I have to go now, I don’t want to be late.” He quickly turned around and ran off, as he fled from the side of sunlight.

Damian went back to the manor after that. His arms ached as he sat down at the bus stop. One of the walls was completely covered in posters. Damian got back up, and he walked over to the wall. It were all kinds of posters, but the ones that drew Damian’s attention were the missing posters. Missing pets, mostly dogs and cats, but what surprised Damian more were the missing kids. A lot of missing kids, all different ages. Some of the posters were clearly older and more worn; others had been taped over with new posters. Damian ripped a bunch of posters from the wall and dumped them into his bag just as the bus arrived.

Damian got home around 10 in the morning. The door flew open as he walked towards the door. His father stood in the door opening, looking as tired as Damian felt. He was probably out all night as the bat. Damian was mostly glad that Bruce hadn’t found him before he could complete his objective.

“What did you think you were,” Father started angrily, before he suddenly trailed off. “What happened to your arm?” the anger suddenly drained out of his voice.

Damian looked at his arms and back up at his father in confusion, most of the wounds on his arm had stopped bleeding at that point, and even if it had been worse than it should have awakened the anger in his father even more, not suddenly drained it out of him, “I got scratched.” Damian said, confused, “By a cat.” He added, in case Father wanted to know.

Bruce walked towards him, grabbing his arm carefully, “Let’s get inside.” He led Damian to the kitchen. Where he grabbed a stool for Damian to stand on. The stool looked brand new. Damian went to stand on it as his father turned on the faucet. His father frowned as he carefully cleaned off Damian’s arms from the crusted blood. He was silent as he worked, he didn’t shout at Damian that he should have been more careful, he didn’t demand to know where he had been. He just cleaned Damian’s arms. After which he dabbed them dry with a cloth towel.

“Can you turn around for a second?” Bruce asked.

Confused, Damian did as was demanded of him. Bruce grabbed him under the shoulder and hoisted him on the kitchen counter.

“I could have climbed on myself.” Damian said.

Bruce, who was grabbing a first help kit out of one of the cabinets, looked back at him, “sorry.” He said, ‘I probably should have asked.” He put down the kit and started to grab some bandages to put around Damian’s arms.

Damian didn’t get why his father was acting like this. It uneased him, he wanted to shout and run away again, but something kept him rooted to the spot, sitting on the kitchen counter.

“Do you want to tell me what happened.” Bruce asked calmly.

“A cat scratched me.” Damian frowned, “I think he was just scared.” Damian could feel the callouses of Bruce’s hand around his arm as Bruce put the bandages on, his hands were warm and dwarfed his smaller arms.

“Sometimes small things, lash out when they are scared.” Bruce said slowly, looking at Damian weirdly. His hands paused around his arms, the bandages laying still for a couple of seconds before he continued on.

Damian nodded. He watched his father bandaging him up for a few more seconds. His backpack was standing in the corner of the kitchen, completely filled up with missing posters. He thought back to the homeless woman, how she still missed her cat. Damian suddenly felt very small.

“All done.” Bruce backed away from Damian. He watched Damian sit still on the counter for a few seconds. “Look, Damian, I know that we didn’t have the best start, but I can’t have you running off.”

Damian rolled his eyes, “Tt.”

“Damian.” His father repeated.

Damian looked at his father, “ I am not a child. No matter what you think, father and I don’t need supervision, but rest assured I won’t be killing anyone as long as I reside in your city.” He hopped off the counter and started to walk towards his room.

“Damian, as long as you are living here, you are my responsibility, and that means that I need to know where you are.” Bruce crossed his arms, “You can’t just leave, Gotham is a dangerous city and no place for a ten-year-old to be wandering in alone.”

“I have been trained by the best.” Damian spat back, “I have been in more dangerous places, this city is child's play.” He turned his back on his father and quickly walked towards his room.

He removed the posters from his backpack and spread them out on his bureau. There were a lot of them, he barely got any from the wall. The faces of the children stared back up at him, as did the faces of the various missing pets. The posters for the children were impersonal, detached. The posters of the pets, on the other hand, were all differently crafted. A couple of the children’s posters were different, pleading parents to ask anyone if they had any information on their kids. It took Damian embarrassingly long to figure out what the difference was. Most of these kids didn’t have parents to care whether they disappeared or not.

Damian, not for the first time, wondered if someone would care if he went missing. Would he even get a poster? His mom definitely wouldn’t hang up posters if he went missing, if he did, it would be on him to fix it himself. His mother trusted him to solve his own problems. Damian knew that his father didn’t trust him at all, let alone to solve any problems. He rubbed the bandages on his arm. Would he care if he was gone. Damian doubted it, his father probably would be relieved that he no longer had any responsibility over him, but would he feel responsible enough over Damian that he would hang up posters? How detached the maybe, Damian did not know.

Damian looked at the toothy smile of a six-year-old-boy, His father was supposed to protect Gotham, that was his entire mission—to eradicate crime, to stop the bad things from happening. Damian’s grandfather had called his father, brilliant but weak, just because of the fact that he refused to kill anyone. His grandfather always blamed the fact that Gotham was still such a mess despite Batman’s rampage on that fact, Villains could get back up, murderers could roam again, and the prisons never stayed full for long.

Still, you can’t murder your way to a missing child, but whatever his father was doing was also not fixing the problem, maybe just maybe they were both doing it wrong. Maybe Robin had been right, maybe a light was needed. He grabbed the poster of Mandarin, the proof, then stared at him mockingly, ‘Okay,’ he suddenly thought, ‘I will prove it, watch me.’

Damian sat down on his bed, looking at the posters. He knew that he was going to do something about it. He was determined to do something about it. It was something that was clear in his mind, the thing that frustrated him was that he couldn’t figure out why he wanted to do something so badly, it was clear to him that his father would never accept him, train him. He couldn’t be the child that his father would want, he was a murderer, which was the antithesis of what his father would want. Damian could not even really say he regretted it, his father's cowardice did contribute to the decline of this city. If his father had taken his rightful place by Damian’s mother's side, things would have been different, for that Damian was sure.

He snuck out again the next night, and the night after that, and every night onwards. At first, he put his shadow costume back on. He wasn’t completely daft and knew that if he wanted to continue doing this, he needed to keep his anonymity.

Damian, quickly realized that if he wanted to make any progress on this case, he needed to talk to people. Specifically children. There were a lot of street kids out and about. Damian quickly figured out that they did partly account for the missing posters, but far from all of the posters. Damian wanted to ask them why they had ran, where were the other kids. Still, whenever Damian tried to approach them, they just saw a shadow and ran.

After another night of failure, Damian sat on his bed, defeated. It wasn’t working. “It is because you're trying to be all dark and mysterious, Mr. Shadow.” The annoying voice of Robin said in his head.

“Well, what do you think I should do then?”

“Be the light,” Robin’s voice laughed in his head, “At least if you're capable of doing that, that is.”

Damian frowned, Robin was an imbecile Damian decided, of course he could do it, and he was going to prove it to him and everybody else.

Damian walked towards Pennyworth, he jutted out his chin and held up the paper, “I would like to learn how to sew.” He pointed to a small ad for sewing lessons, to make clear what he meant.

Pennyworth raised an eyebrow as he stopped ironing the clothes, “Do you now.”

“Tt.” Damian said, “Obviously.”

“You should ask your father.” Pennyworth said.

Disappointed, Damian turned around and started to angrily walk away when his father entered the kitchen, “What is going on?” Damian tensed as his father started observing him.

“The young master, was simply asking me about local lessons in sewing.” Pennyworth said.

Bruce raised an eyebrow, Damian showed him the paper, “You want to go to this.” He said surprised.

“Obviously.” Damian said.

“Okay.”

“Okay?” Damian asked.

“I don’t see why you couldn’t.”

Damian tightened his grip on the paper, he felt surprised, “Good.” After which he promptly walked away.

The group was led by an older woman, in the class there were two teenagers, a middle woman, an older man and a girl around Damian’s age. The girl was incredibly excited that there was someone else that was her age.

Damian wanted to immediately sit somewhere else, the girl was distracting and, above all, very annoying. She was asking him all kinds of questions he did not have answers for, What cartoons did he like best? (He didn’t watch them.) What school he went to? (He did not go to school.) He felt the instinct to snarl something mean at her to make her shut up come in him, but he stopped at the last second. The girl’s brown eyes twinkled at him as she described her favourite cartoon in incredulous detail. If he wanted to figure out where the missing kids were, he had to talk to other children, which meant not snap at them if they were annoying. The girl, how annoying she may be, was the perfect practice dummy.

“I’ve never really watched cartoons before.” Damian admitted.

The girl gasped loudly. The girl clearly wanted to continue on her rant when the older woman interrupted the class to start explaining some things, after which they finally started sewing. Throughout the class

Over the next few lessons, Damian learned to sew, he got his father to buy him a sewing machine, and secretly he worked on his suit.

He also learned that the girl's name was Mia but that her friends called her Maps because she likes maps, which was followed by a thirty-minute explanation about maps. She liked cartoons and books,, but mostly the ones with magic and ghosts. “When I grow up, I want to be just like Batman.” She said.

“Batman?” Damian looked up from where he was trying to get the pins in the right position.

“Or an explorer, I haven’t decided yet.” She shrugged.

“Why Batman?”

She spread out her arms like if she was a bat, “Don’t you think he is cool, he fights bad guys and stuff.” She punched the air a couple of times to punctuate her point.

Damian shrugged.

“Who is your favourite superhero, then?”

Damian was speechless for a few seconds. When he was younger, he probably would have agreed with the Maps, now he wasn’t so sure, there was a bitter taste if he thought back on his idolization of his father. His father, who didn’t like him.

“Robin.” He suddenly felt himself say.

Maps, frowned, “Who is that?”

Damian felt that it was true, his favourite hero was Robin. Robin like Maps was very annoying, but still, if Damian wanted to be like someone, he wanted to be him, but he couldn’t really tell Maps that. So instead he said, “He is new, he is Batman’s partner, but they say that he is our age.”

Maps gaped at him, “You are making that up.”

Damian shook his head, “I never make things up.”

She laughed.

It took a month, but Damian did it, he finished his costume. When he put it on, he felt slightly ridiculous. Still, he wasn’t one to let those things get to him. He made his bed, and he would lie in it whether it killed him or not.

In the costume he took to the streets, he felt visible exposed. He could still somewhat disappear into the smog, but it had become a lot harder.

But the most surprising thing was, it worked. Damian followed the screams that echoed through Gotham’s alleyways to see some men harassing two street kids. The bigger kid spat on the man, while the smaller one hid behind him. The man immediately pulled a knife, “You shouldn’t have done that, kid.”

Damian jumped down before the man could do anything. The man looked him up and down, “What are you supposed to be.” He said, laughing.

Damian kicked him in the nuts.

The man dropped the knife, Damian kicked him away, and with one swell swoop, he hit the man’s legs out from underneath him. In the same movement, he cuffed the man to a rain pipe.

Damian turned around as the man behind him started cussing him out, but was unable to do anything with his hands tied to the pipe.

Damian tried to look reassuring in the way he had seen Robin do he wasn’t sure if he was succeeding, “Are you okay?” he asked the kids.

The two kids nodded, “Wow.” The younger boy said, looking at him in awe, “How did you do that?”

Damian crossed his arms and looked proud. “Well, I have been trained by the best.” He said.

The older kid scoffed, “Right, who is that then.”

“Batman.” The younger kid piped up excitingly.

“Better than that.” Damian said, “I am Batman’s right-hand man.”

“Really?” The older boy said, “You don’t really look like a batboy.”

“Well, that is because that would be a horrendous name, no, I am Robin.” Damian said, “And I would like to help you if you would let me.”

The older boy deflated, he looked like he might cry, he looked at the man, “let’s go somewhere else.”

The two kids told him everything they knew about the missing kids, they also told them about their lives on the street, how it wasn’t safe in homes anymore, they never really had been, but kids had been disappearing out of those homes. Many of the kids living on the streets now had decided not to wait until it was their turn and just try their luck here, which was more than Damian had found out by himself in his month prior. After that word spread fast, he helped out more kids, and after a while some of them came to him with more information. Some others came to him requesting help. Damian felt weird. He didn’t know if it was good or bad yet. He knew how the league thought about these people, they were weak and, therefore, lesser, people that would be culled when they created paradise, and in the end humanity would be better off. Damian had just lost that plot so long ago, he was supposed to prove himself to his father, to further his training under the bat’s tutelage. If his mother were here, he could argue that was in fact what he was doing, proving his worth, but Damian knew that would be a lie. He couldn’t prove himself to his father, which left the question, Why was he doing this? Why was he helping these peasants instead of just going home?

Somehow, within a few short weeks, he managed to track down where a bulk of the missing kids had gone to. A sense of déjà vu hit Damian as he watched over an abandoned warehouse. His cape waved behind him in the wind.

Batman’s arms were around him as the warehouse exploded into a thousand bits. Damian hadn’t even seen him coming, but now he was flying through the air as the heat singed his face. He had done it, he had freed the kids. He had given one of the kids a small USB stick with everything these criminals had done on it, with it should be possible to find the remaining children.

Damian had been surrounded, but he wasn’t trained by the best for nothing, when suddenly one of the men had screamed. Damian had been too late to understand what was going on. He watched as the explosion started, when suddenly strong arms were wrapped around his body and he was whisked away through the air.

They landed on a nearby rooftop, Batman let go of Damian. Damian turned around to his father towering over him. Damian straightened his back and looked his father in the eye.

“What were you thinking?” Batman boomed.

Damian did not shrink into himself, he balled his hands into fists, “I was saving those children.”

Batman started to walk back and forth over the rooftop, “I told you not to go out again.”

“I saved them.” Damian repeated fruitlessly.

Batman turned around, glaring at Damian, “Is this what you did with those lessons I gave you.” He motioned towards Damian’s costume.

“So what if I did?” Damian snarled back.

Batman balled his fists and for a moment Damian wondered if his father would hit him instead he shouted out, “I didn’t know where you were, and if I hadn’t gotten here in time,” Bruce turned around for a few seconds before looking back at Damian, “You could have died.”

Damian bristled, “Why would you care.” He snarled.

Batman stopped whatever he was going to say next, swallowed down, he stared at Damian for a few seconds, “Why wouldn’t I?”

Damian felt like a hot poker was shoved to his chest. "You don’t even want me here, the only reason you haven’t given me back yet is because you think my mom is a villain.” Damian took a deep breath, “You think I am a monster.” He said angrily.

Batman kept staring at him, and after a few seconds he took off his mask, he rubbed in his eyes, and kneeled down, so that he was on eye height with Damian looking his son straight in the eye. He put his hands on Damian’s shoulders, “I don’t think you are a monster.” He said, “And I would be devastated if you were gone.”

To Damian’s horror, he started crying, “But why, you don’t even know me.” He felt like a winey child for a few seconds. He was scared that Bruce would take away his hands and just leave him, but he didn’t, he kept looking at him.

Bruce gave Damian a wry smile, “And that is my fault, I guess I should have been paying more attention to you, shouldn’t I?” And when Damian didn’t react, “For what it is worth, I am proud of you for what you did today.”

Tears were streaming down Damian’s face as he tried not to sob, “You are?”

“You scared me, yes, but I am also immensely proud.”

Damian just started crying harder when suddenly two large arms enveloped him into a hug. It was incredibly awkward; it was clear that neither of them hugged people often, it was also the nicest hug that Damian had received in a while, The mantel completely enveloped him as the entire word disappeared, just for a few seconds.

After a bit, Damian pushed his father back slightly as he wiped away the last tears. Batman got up putting his mask back on. He extended his hand, “Come,” he said.

Bruce led him to his car.

“Ah, I see you have brought the Batmobile.” Damian said, trying to regain his dignity.

“Batmobile?” Bruce said, confused, looking back at the car and Damian.

Damian felt himself getting red, he just assumed what Maps had told him about it was the truth. He jutted out his chin and decided to double down, “Everybody knows that you name everything with bat in front of it. “

“Ah, yes, of course.” Bruce said, slightly flabbergasted.

Bruce brought him to a midnight ice cream place. The place was completely empty except for one stressed college student who didn’t even look up from their computer screen as they entered the establishment.

Bruce bought Damian the largest bowl of ice cream, while taking a small scoop for himself. It didn’t take long before they were sitting in one of the booths, where Damian was eating his well-deserved ice.

“The children have been brought somewhere safe to stay, the rest of the operation will be rolled up soon.” Bruce said, putting his phone back into his belt.

Damian nodded as he took another bite of ice cream.

Bruce fidgeted with his empty cup for a few seconds, “Why did you think that I thought you were a monster.”

Damian shot his father a look, “Because I kill people, and you made pretty clear what you thought of that.”

Bruce nodded, “I don’t like that you killed people. ”He paused for a few seconds before continuing, “But do you know why I don’t go out and kill every murderer.”

“Mother says it is because you are weak.” Damian paused, “I don’t know if I agree with her.” He said, surprising himself, “It is just that some people just deserve to die, they kill people, and they are never going to stop.”

“Look, there are people out there that kill and hurt people indiscriminately, and some of these are never going to stop nor change, but some of them will. Sometimes people change; they reflect on their past actions and decide to be better moving forward. Sometimes people hurt others because they don’t see another way, because they don’t know how to live any way else. Sometimes they do it because they themselves are hurting. That is why I refuse to kill.

The lights of the ice-cream shop flickered slightly as Damian looked at his father, the bright yellow of his cape wrapped around him, “Oh.” He said. He had changed, hadn’t he? The old Damian in the league would have never done what he did today. He didn’t know if he completely agreed or even understood what his father was saying, but he also knew that he couldn’t go back to the way he was. Somehow he had proved it, he had become a different kind of vigilante, not one that hit in the shadows. “I have changed.” He declared, then he stuck out his hand, “My name is Robin.” He said feeling the mantle settle around his shoulder

Chapter Text

Tim stood nervously before Damian. “My parents obviously hoped that I would forget about the experience, but I couldn’t. Whenever I closed my eyes, I could see Robin fly through the air, making the quadruple somersault.”

“What does that have to do with me? I am not him.” Damian interrupted him.

Tim looked slightly annoyed at him for interrupting him. Damian motioned for him to continue, “I know that.” Tim said, “Because of that I became obsessed with Robin, but the thing is nobody else knows about that other Robin, just us. I looked around for any mention of him, but it is just like he appeared out of nowhere just on that day and then simply disappeared. The only accounts are from me and from you. So, when there suddenly is another Robin taking up that name, it has to be you, and if you are Robin, well, Bruce has to be Batman.” Tim finished triumphantly.

“How did you know that we were different Robins?” Damian asked.

“You can’t do a quad.” Tim said simply, “And the other Robin was a lot taller than you were.”

Damian felt himself bristling but kept his mouth shut because it was true; he motioned for Tim to take a place on his bed, and Tim sat down, looking slightly smug.

Damian started to pace through the room, “Oké”, He said, “We will talk about this later, but first you said that we had a problem? What happened?”

“Somebody tried to kidnap me.” Tim said. “I don’t know what happened, but my mom was home late. She is never home late, not without telling me at least. I got worried, so I tried to call her, she didn’t pick up. Then this man knocked on my door, he told me my mom sent him to watch me. The thing is I know my mom would never do that. She just wouldn’t.”

“How do you know that?” Damian asked.

“After the kidnapping incident, she got paranoid.” Tim explained, “My dad saw no problem with leaving me behind again, he wanted to be able to travel for their work, my mom refused. It is why they divorced. She wouldn’t let just any random guy look after me, not without a proper background check.”

“She did a background check on us?” Damian asked.

Tim nodded, “You guys are lucky. I already knew you were Batman and Robin, if I didn’t, she would have definitely figured it out otherwise.”

Damian sighed, “So, the guy – what happened?”

“Oh, I knew he was lying, so I kicked him in the balls and came here.” Tim finished.

“Ah.” Damian said, “Using those fancy moves I taught you, I see.”

Tim shrugged.

Damian moved on and grabbed his phone. “Do you know your moms’ number? We need to figure out if she is reachable at all.”

Tim quickly rattled off his mom’s number as Damian entered the number into the phone. The phone rang into the silence of the room. Tim stared intently at the phone, then, “Hello, this is Janet. I can’t answer the phone right now. I will return to you as soon as I can, please leave your message after the beep.”

Damian redialled the phone, voicemail again.

“You don’t think they kidnapped her.” Tim said.

Damian gave him a tight smile, “She is probably fine.”

Tim jumped up from the bed, “We have to find her.” He looked scared, he probably was scared.

Damian grabbed him by the shoulder. “Don’t worry, we will find her, I promise.”

Tim looked up at him; there were tears in his eyes. He nodded, “What do we do?”

“First, we need to figure out if she was kidnapped or if something else happened, then we need to figure out where she was taken from if that is the case. What time would she normally come home?”

Tim frowned and bit his lip slightly. “Normally, she gets home about 30 minutes after the school bus drops me off. On all the other days she picks me up from school, but on Tuesdays she has a meeting, so she can’t leave earlier.”

Damian nodded, “Okay, that is a start. Do those meetings ever run late?”

“Very rarely, but Mom always calls me if they do.”

Damian frowned, it would be easiest if he could check out the place for himself, figure out if her car was still standing there, maybe find some clues.

They were standing in the garage of the {company}. Damian had failed to keep Tim back home. He was currently wearing Damian’s old League of assassin’s uniform. He sincerely hoped that he got all dangerous weapons out of the fabric, but it had been a long time since he wore it, and he wasn’t sure if he remembered them all.

The garage was quiet, it was filled with cars, seeing as the workday hadn’t completely ended yet.

“Do you see your mom’s car?” Damian asked Tim.

“She has a blue Subaru 2023 Outback.” Tim said, looking around.

It didn’t take long before they found the car. “Look around, see if you can find anything.”

Tim nodded before he started looking around.

Damian observed the car. It was a normal-looking car, there weren’t any clear signs of a struggle, if there had been any. They could have taken her from anywhere in the building. Damian started to slowly track towards the entrance of the building before stopping in his track. Something silvery was glittering underneath a car. He got on his knees and fished a set of keys out from underneath the car.

“Have you found something?” Tim asked, looking at him hopefully.

Damian pressed the button, and immediately Tim’s mom’s car lit up.

“She definitely was here.”

“That’s good, right?”

“Maybe.” Damian trailed off as he looked around, “There was a camera, he could probably boot into it using his glove. It was a bit too high for him to reach it, so he would need to find a ladder. He looked at Tim. He supposed having a small sidekick had its benefits: “I need you to do something for me.” He said to Tim.

Tim was standing on his shoulders; Damian had a grip on his ankles to make sure that Tim wouldn’t suddenly slip and fall. ” Okay, I’ve got it open. Know what?” Tim said.

“There is a cable from my glove put it into the camera.”

“Okay.” Tim is silent for a few seconds. "Got it.”

“Good, now a button should light up on my glove press it.”

“Done.”

“Now wait until it lights up green; that means it has downloaded all the files.”

Tim was quiet for a couple of minutes. Damian shifted slightly to redistribute Tim’s weight better. “It is green now.”

“Good, put everything back, and then we can look at the footage.”

After a few seconds of rummaging, Tim suddenly jumped off Damian’s shoulders, using them as a footboard to somersault to the floor before handing the glove triumphantly back to Damian. “Good job,” Damian said.

It didn’t take long before they sat in Damian’s car looking at the footage. For a few seconds Damian contemplated turning Tim away, not having him watch the footage. Tim was still a child after all, but by some measures so was Damian, and he knew that if someone had tried to stop him from watching something like this when he was Tim’s age, well, it wouldn’t have sat well with him, to say the least. Even though Tim was more of a child than Damian ever had the chance to see, Damian also knew that Tim was capable, so he pressed the button.

There was a whole lot of nothing, through which Damian quickly sped through, until Janet, Tim’s mom, walked outside. Damian practically held in his breath as she walked through the door. He could see Tim watching with rapt attention, kneading the cloth of his uniform into his hand.

There was no sound in the video; it was just Janet walking towards her car when a group of men approached her, and before she could do anything, she was grabbed. To her credit she did not go quietly; she kicked and scratched trying to get out, but it was still early in the day, and no one else was going home yet. There were more of them, and she was just one person in the end. They managed to throw her in the back of their van as they drove off.

Luckily for them, the number plate was incredibly visible. Damian jotted it down. There was no use in staying here any longer, he could track them way better from the Batcomputer. He slowly started driving back.

“Do you think my mum is okay?” Tim looked worriedly at the screen, at the white van.

Damian grimaced, “I am sure she is fine.”

“Why would they do that?” Tim asked.

Damian froze for a second, he had never been good with this. Explaining to small kids why the bad things happened. He got better at consoling children as he got older, but despite Batman’s gruff exterior, he had always been better at it than Damian. “Sometimes bad people do bad things.” Damian tried.

“I know that.” Tim said, “I mean, why would they take her? Why now?”

Damian was surprised, he didn’t know why. He should have known better, of course. “Good question. Do you know if something was different today?”

Tim shook his head, “Not so far, I know. Do you think it has something to do with the people that were stealing the money from my mom’s company?”

“Maybe”, Damian said, “or maybe they saw her as someone rich they could take, for money.”

“They knew that I would already be home, it is the only day of the week that I am home alone at all.” Tim realised.

As they got into Bristol, Damian slowed down, they drove past Tim’s house, there was still a car out front. “They are waiting for me.” Tim said.

Damian nodded, “That is good news for us.”

“Why?” Tim said.

“Are you up for some advanced interrogation?”

Tim looked at him with wide eyes, “Are we going to torture them?”

“Okay, maybe not that advanced, we are going to scare them though.” Damian said, “Most of the time that is more than enough.”

“And if that doesn’t work?” Tim asked worriedly.

“You can kick them in the balls again.” Damian said, “And if that doesn’t, well, people really do use their phone for everything.”

“You think that they would have the location of their hideout in their phone.”

“You would be surprised.” Damian said, “Most of this lot are imbeciles.”

Damian parked the car around the corner so they wouldn’t see them coming. He motioned to Tim to be quiet and stealthy. Tim nodded and followed him just as practised. Tim tapped on Damian’s shoulder before pointing at a hole in the hedge, Damian nodded and went inside. There was a small path through the bushes leading into the garden, obviously used a lot by Tim himself. It was quite small for Damian, but he managed to get through.

One guy was hanging around the car, while a different man and a woman were setting up something by the house.

A woman with a buzzcut was pacing around the front garden. “Will you hurry up? I don’t want to be here when the cops show up.”

“Chill”, the woman by the door said, “if the cops are known for one thing, it is inefficiency, and as far as they know, the kid is just overreacting.”

“It is not like we couldn’t bribe them.” Said the man by the car lazily.

The woman in the buzzcut frowned angrily.

Damian bowed towards Tim’s ear and whispered softly, “You take the woman in front, I’ll take the rest.”

Tim turned towards him wide-eyed, but before Tim could protest, Damian shot him a quick thumbs up and ran out from the bushes, not waiting to see if Tim would follow him.

The goons jumped up; multiple shouts of Robin could be heard through the garden.

The two by the door had barely time to react before Damian was right in front of them.

He grinned at them. The man shuddered. The woman had a slightly bigger mind on her and attacked him, which still wasn’t very smart because Damian used that motion to throw her over his back on the ground. The man stood there frozen, and with a second swoop, Damian tied him to one of the posts.

The man at the car was still dazed by the time Damian reached him. It was then also no problem to incapacitate him as well.

Damian turned around, the woman with the buzzcut was lying on the ground. Tim stood beside her when he saw that Damian was watching him, he grinned, “I did it.”

“Of course you did.” Damian said, “I am an excellent teacher.”

He turned back to the door to the only goon he hadn’t left groaning. The goon was glaring at him.

Damian ignored the glare and walked towards him, grabbing his knife from his shoe. He started to twirl the knife between his fingers. Before kneeling down in front of the man holding the knife close to the man’s face, “If you want to keep your fingers attached, you better start talking.” He said, glowering at the man.

The man swallowed miserably; he tugged once uselessly on his arm to see if he could get free before turning back to Damian. “Okay, okay, I’ll talk please don’t cut off my fingers.”

It didn’t take long before they were back on the road. Tim was looking at him with awe, “That was so cool.” He said for the millionth time.

Damian just grinned, “It is all about your presence.” He explained.

Tim nodded enthusiastically, “Can you teach me that knife twirl thing?”

“Of course,” Damian said.

Damian stopped the car by a house. It looked like a normal house, but according to the guy, this is where they kept Tim’s mom.

“What is the plan?” Tim asked.

“The biggest advantage we have right now.” Damian said, “The fact is that they don’t know that we are here, as far as they are concerned, you are just some normal child.”

Damian watched how Tim walked towards the door he was taking off his mask before he knocked. Nothing happened for a few seconds. Then Tim talked to someone through the door. The door swung open. Tim looked up at a man who looked confused at Tim. Tim smiled at him and then, without warning, jumped up, his head connecting with the man’s jaw, throwing the man’s head back. Tim immediately used his advantage and hooked his feet under the man’s knee, pulling the man over.

Damian dropped down next to Tim, “Good job.”

The man lay down groaning; he was about to reach for his walkie, but Damian stomped on his hand and grabbed the walkie. “Hey.” The man said uselessly.

Damian ignored him.

The walkie crackled to life, “Who was it?” a voice said from the other side.

Damian pressed the button. Imitating the voice of the man on the ground, he said, “Nothing, just some kids.”

Tim looked at him amazed, “How did you do that?”

“Do what?” Damian said in Tim’s voice.

Tim’s mouth stood agape, “That is so cool.”

“I know.” Damian said, looking away from Tim, “Let’s keep going.”

Tim put his mask back on, and they kept walking. After that it was easy, Damian took the lead, going from room to room, taking out every single goon in the place until they found the room where they kept Tim’s mom.

Damian motioned for Tim to get back. “Boss”, Damian said through the door, “I think we have a problem.”

A sigh could be heard through the door, followed by some footsteps, “What is it, Charles?”

As soon as the door opened, Damian ran forward, giving the man no chance, hitting him unconscious.

Janet was sitting on a chair in the middle of the room, looking angry and disgruntled but unharmed. Damian hoped that Tim stayed outside, their disguises hold up a lot less well up close to their parents.

Janet immediately relaxed slightly when she saw him. “My son?” She immediately asked, “Is he okay?”

Damian nodded, “He is fine, he recognised what they were up to and ran to your neighbour’s house.”

Janet let out a breath as Damian cut away the ropes. “The police should be here any second,” Damian said, “you should wait outside.”

She rubbed her wrist and nodded; they could hear sirens in the distance. As soon as she stepped outside, Damian made himself scarce. Tim was waiting on the roof of a nearby house.

“She is okay.” Damian said, “Just worried about you.”

Tim gave him a small smile. “Thanks.”

“We do now have to go back because she will except you there.”

Tim nodded before climbing back down into the car.

Damian drove back while Tim was nodding off into the seat next to him, the events of the day finally catching up to him. When they finally reached the cave, Damian shook him awake. “We’re here.”

Tim opened his eyes blearily, “What?”

Damian got out of the car, and Tim followed him. “This isn’t the garage.” He said, confused.

“Tt, of course it isn’t. This, my pupil, is the Batcave.”

Tim turned to him, “You guys really have a Batcave?”

Damian couldn’t help but grin, “Of course we do.” He said as bats flew past him.

Tim’s mouth fell open. “This is literally the best day ever.” Tim said as more bats flew past him.

Tim started to run through the garage, looking at the different cars, rambling about their models. Damian let him for a little while, but they didn’t have forever because he doubted it would be long before people came knocking looking for Tim.

Damian led Tim to the main part of the Batcave.

“And what sort of time do you call this?” A voice sounded through the cave. The chair swivelled in front of the Batcomputer, revealing Bruce sitting in his costume, petting Alfred the cat who was napping on his lap.

Tim let out a shriek beside him, to spare his dignity, Damian elected to ignore it. “Father,” he said.

“Son.” Bruce looked at him before letting his gaze go to Tim, “Tim.”

Tim smiled nervously and waved, “Hi.”

Bruce raised an eyebrow. Damian straightened his back and did not acknowledge the thing that his father wanted him to acknowledge, namely Tim and specifically Tim in the Batcave where he very much should not be.

“Do you want to explain yourself?”

“Not particularly.” Damian answered, “You?” He turned to Tim, Tim shook his head loudly. “Well, seeing as that is all, we shall go upstairs.”

“Damian.” Bruce said, his tone leaving nothing up for discussion. Damian froze and turned back to his father. Damian could feel himself get ready, his father wasn’t happy, and he could feel the fight simmering in the air – just one spark and the whole place would blow – but before they both could say anything that they would regret. Tim stepped forward, “Don’t get mad at Damian; I made him take me.”

“You made him?” Bruce said, with a dangerous tone in his voice, the kind of tone that made Damian want to push Tim behind him even though he knew that Bruce would never do anything to hurt the kid.

Tim jotted his chin out. “Yes, he didn’t tell me he was Robin if that is what you are mad about; I already knew, even before we moved here.” Damian could tell that Tim was smug about that fact.

“You already knew?” Bruce said, the anger leaving his tone.

Tim nodded, “I figured it out myself, and my mom got kidnapped, so of course I went to him for help.”

Bruce pinched his nose, “And you went with him to get her, I presume.”

Tim nodded again.

“I see.”

“She is fine now; I told her that Tim was here.” Damian added.

Bruce sighed and pushed Alfred off his lap. “Okay, well, we better go upstairs then.” He said, casting one last look at Damian that clearly meant something along the lines of We will talk about this later, but at least for now he avoided a lecture.

They led Tim upstairs, he was practically bouncing off the stairs, and he immediately started to interrogate Bruce about the clock as soon as they got upstairs. He clearly had so many more questions, but Bruce quickly shut that up with a well-placed, “No bat business upstairs.”

Tim pouted the rest of the way to the foyer. There they sat down and waited; it didn’t take long before Bruce got a call. He talked into the phone for a few seconds. Tim looked at him nervously. Bruce, clearly noticing it, knelt down and said, “That was the police, your mom will be over soon.”

“Is she okay?”

“Yes, they didn’t hurt her.”

Tim chewed on his lip and fidgeted in his seat; Alfred came in and gave them all some tea to calm their (mostly Tim’s) nerves.

It took another half an hour before the doorbell finally rang. Bruce luckily had decided to not continue his lecture during tea time, so they had just drunk some tea and eaten some biscuits.

Tim had sat fidgeting on the couch the entire while, and he jumped up as soon as the doorbell rang. Damian followed him into the hallway.

Tim ran up to his mom, throwing himself practically against her. She smiled down at him, Tim to Damian’s surprise, started crying.

“Oh, honey.” Janet said, “I am okay, see.”

Tim looked up at her through his tears and nodded.

“I am very proud of you.” She said, and Tim started crying even harder, burying himself in her arms.

“I am going to bring this one home. I think this is enough excitement for today. I can’t thank you enough for looking after my son, who knows what would have happened otherwise?”

“He wouldn’t have gotten here if you hadn’t raised him so well.” Bruce said in lieu of an answer.

Janet nodded, “Let’s go.” She steered Tim out of the house.

As soon as the door closed, Damian turned on his heel and tried to sneak back to his room.

“Damian, downstairs now.” Bruce said.

Damian didn’t fidget as he waited for Bruce to come down. He refused to feel bad; he hadn’t actually done anything wrong, the opposite in fact. It wasn’t even really his fault that Tim figured out his secret identity.

Bruce came down not much later, he didn’t give Damian a second to defend himself or to say anything. “What were you thinking?” he practically shouted, “bringing Tim with you.”

“His mom was kidnapped,” Damian tried to explain.

“So, you thought it was a good idea to take him with you,” His father said, righteous fury spitting off him, “Tim is a civilian.”

“I trained him.” Damian shouted back.

“Just because you taught him how to do a backflip doesn’t suddenly make it okay to take him with you to fight mobsters.”

Damian glared at his father. “You didn't seem to think that when I was his age.”

“It is not the same.” Bruce argued.

It hurt, and Damian couldn’t really explain why, a part of him knew that his father was right, that it wasn’t the same. Tim hadn’t gotten the intense training he did, and he would never want to put Tim through that. “You don’t get it.” He shouted.

“Then explain it to me.” Bruce said in a tone that Damian knew meant that Bruce didn’t expect an explanation, at least not one he would find satisfactory no, what he wanted was an admission of fault.

“He wanted to help, and I knew he was capable enough.” Damian said, “It is not like I send him out all alone.”

“He could have been hurt, Damian, he could have died.” Bruce emphasised.

“He didn’t.” Damian bit out, “He is fine, they couldn’t even touch him.”

“But they could have,” Bruce said, “You can’t control what they do; you should know better than this.” Bruce sighed and pinched his nose. “You are benched from patrol for the next month.”

Damian nodded; he had seen that coming. He continued glaring at Bruce.

“And you will seize training Tim.”

Damian froze, he was about to turn around and stomp off (gracefully) upstairs, he hadn’t expected that. “What? You think now I am going to take him crime fighting every day or something.”

“No, but I don’t want you to give him any more ideas. This is dangerous, and we should not be encouraging him any more than you have already done.”

Damian opened his mouth to protest, but Bruce interrupted him, “My decision is final.” The Bruce turned around effectively cutting off the argument, leaving Damian alone. The cave echoing around him in abrupt silence.

Chapter Text

Damian was sitting in his room, his music as loud as possible, which still wouldn’t really annoy his father because the manor was so huge that it was impossible to hear it on the other side. At least it would ward off any further attempts of conversation.

Damian never felt more like a teenager. Every single cliché was bubbling up at the surface. He was very glad that Maps had introduced him to My Chemical Romance because now he didn’t have to make his displeasure known through classical music.

He didn’t know how Bruce had made it known to Tim that the lessons were cancelled, but he hadn’t heard from Tim since.

Damian felt angry, unreasonably so. The only reason that he wasn’t jumping up and down and screaming, ‘This isn’t fair,’ in Bruce’s face was that he had too much respect for himself to stoop that low.

Instead, he had been staring at his computer angrily as if just staring at it would finish his assignments. A part of him wanted to sneak out, but he knew that would just make things worse for himself; the best thing he could do was wait for things to calm down since there was no way to contact Tim without Bruce knowing.

Damian stared at his computer, unless.

He booted up Minecraft. The server that Tim had set up was still running. It still wouldn’t change anything; it wasn’t as if he could continue the lessons. Even that, it had just been something he agreed to to get Bruce off his back.

Damian didn’t know why he cared this much. Tim was just the kid from next door. There was, of course, the connection between them and Robin. Tim knew about Robin, the original one.

Even without that connection, Damian would have been sad. That was the truth. Damian was sad that he could no longer spend time with Tim; it had been fun to have a prodigy who looked up to him.

It wasn’t that he had never taught anyone else; when Maps and her gang decided that playing detective was an incredible idea that anyone should do, Bruce sent him too make sure they wouldn’t die.

He didn’t exactly phrase it like that; he wanted Damian to make them stop, which, seeing as Maps decided to become a superhero in her own right, did not exactly go according to plan. At least not according to Batman’s plan.

She wasn’t the only one, Damian had teamed up plenty of times with other teen superheroes, bringing in his own expertise. He wasn’t friendless.

The difference was that no matter what Damian did, he couldn’t leave the shadows of his parentage. Whether they saw him as the son of the bat or the grandson of the great Ra’s al Ghul. It didn’t matter they saw him as one of those first and Damian, second.

Tim cared about Robin first.

Damian never blamed anyone for treating him as the son of the bat. For the longest time he had seen himself as his lineage; it was important to him. It was, in part, why he was created. He knew that at some point his parents had loved each other. Sometimes Damian silently wondered what would have happened if his father hadn’t been the bat but just some civilian man.

Damian sometimes didn’t know who he was, outside of his legacy.

Damian opened the server. It was exactly how he left it, he spawned into the house he had been building. Nothing happened for about ten minutes as Damian just wandered the server. Then Tim joined.

Crockythecrocodile: Damian?

DamianWayne147: Hello, Timothy

Crockythecrocodile: :D

Crockythecrocodile: hi!

DamianWayne147: I apologise that we can’t continue our lessons.

Crockythecrocodile12: It is not your fault!

Crockythecrocodile12: Did you get in trouble because of me?

DamianWayne147: I got in trouble because Father is being obstinate.

Crockythecrocodile12: He showed up in my room to tell me off

Damian sighed before he continued typing.

DamianWayne147: Did he frighten you?

Crockythecrocodile12: Nah

And a second later.

Crockythecrocodile12: Maybe a little bit but don’t tell him that

Damian smiled.

Crockythecrocodile12: I did tell him that it wasn’t your fault and that I already knew

DamianWayne147: It’s alright when my father decides that something is the right way; nothing can change his mind.

Crockythecrocodile12: I think it is stupid, you didn’t do anything wrong

DamianWayne147: I did have you fight criminals.

Crockythecrocodile12: So?

DamianWayne147: You could have been hurt.

Crockythecrocodile12: But you were there?

DamianWayne147: I know, but he doesn’t see it that way.

Crockythecrocodile12: That is dumb

A loud knock sounded on Damian’s door.

DamianWayne147: I have to leave now; I will talk to you later.

Crockythecrocodile12: Okay :D

Damian quickly closed Minecraft and opened the door. He was greeted by Alfred, who invited him to dinner.

When Damian later logged on to the server, he found a book that Tim had left behind. It was titled 'For Damian!!! And inside it said, ‘I can’t play anymore, my mom doesn’t want me to have too much screen time :( but don’t worry I have got a plan!’

Which was something that Damian worried slightly about, but he decided to trust his young prodigy and not warn Bruce about whatever it was.

Three days later, Damian was sitting in the Batcave waiting for his father to return for the night. He might have been banned from patrolling, but Bruce quickly gave up banning him from the cave. It wasn’t as if Damian could sleep right now anyway.

He was just slowly going through his exercises as he had done the previous nights. He hadn’t heard from Tim since his ominous message.

Bruce had returned the past few days looking very moody, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything, he was almost always a bit moody, and going out without backup always made him a bit more moody.

Loud rumbling vibrated through the cave. Damian frowned, it was very early to end patrol. He got up and walked towards the entrance.

The Batmobile came to a halt. Batman got out of the car upon seeing Damian he physically sighed. For a moment Damian felt offended until Tim leapt out of the car wearing a homemade superhero suit. Tim waved to Damian; hesitantly, Damian waved back.

“What is going on?” Damian asked as he walked closer.

“Someone got inspired.” Bruce was glaring hard.

Tim happily skipped over, “The Batmobile is so cool. Way better than my mum's car.”

“Tim.” Bruce said harshly.

Tim took a step back, but there was a smile playing around his lips.

“What happened?” Damian asked again.

“Nothing to concern you with.” Bruce said at the same time Tim said, “I am proving that I totally can be a vigilante and that you didn’t make a mistake bringing me.”

“I see,” Damian said.

“And you will stop it now.” Bruce said.

“No.” Tim said, even as Batman towered over him, “I will not.”

“You are ten years old.”

“I want to help.” Tim continued.

“You can help by staying at home.” Bruce said.

“I want to make clear that this is not my fault.” Damian said.

Bruce whipped around, “You trained him; you thought it was a good idea to bring him with you.”

“So, what?” Damian bit back.

“He is ten years old.”

“So was I.” Damian glared at him, refusing to back down.

“That was different; you know it was different.”

“I don’t see it.” Damian snarled.

Damian waited for Bruce to clap back for them to continue the fight; instead, Tim piped up, “It isn’t Damian’s fault. Please don’t be mad at him.”

Bruce deflated and turned to Tim, Damian saw him breathe in and out once before kneeling down in front of Tim, “It is very nice for you to stand up for him.”

Tim’s face scrunched up in annoyance, “It is the truth.”

“Would you have gone out if it weren’t for his training?”

“I don’t know, but anyone could have taught me those skills, and most people would have done a worse job at it.” Tim glanced towards Damian, “I snuck out before.”

“Before?” Bruce implored

“Before Mom got kidnapped, I had found something shady on her company, and I wanted to know more, so I snuck out, Damian found me and took me back home.”

Bruce turned towards Damian, “You didn’t tell me about this.” He said the accusation heavy in his tone.

Damian felt his hackles rise again. “So?” he said.

Damian could almost see his father physically bite his tongue, but he didn’t take the bait, instead turning back to put his focus on Tim.

He took off his mask and gave Tim a small smile, it surprised Damian. “I get that you want to help, but Tim, it isn’t safe, you are a child.”

When Tim opened his mouth to protest, Bruce just held up one finger, silencing him.

“I know that you are smart and capable, but that doesn’t mean that you are not a child, a child that I promised your mother to keep safe. I can’t knowingly put you in danger.”

Tim frowned, thinking lines appearing in his forehead, “You are right.” Tim said.

Bruce blinked, surprised at the easy dismissal.

Tim walked over and sat down on the mat.

“I probably should bring you home soon.” Bruce said.

Tim nodded, but he was still frowning off into space.

Damian shot Bruce a look and sat down next to Tim. Bruce nodded and walked away to the computer, which was the second time that night that his father surprised Damian; he trusted him.

“What are you thinking about?” Damian asked, he bumped Tim slightly with his shoulder.

Tim looked up, “Do you think that Bruce is right? Am I really too young?”

“Yes and no.”

Tim looked at him confused.

“I was ten when I started as Robin.” Damian started, “but I was trained from a much younger age, I was always expected to be grown up without being treated as such. I didn’t get to have a normal childhood, I needed to be Robin.” He looked ahead into the darkness. “You can be a normal kid; forget about all of this.”

“I don’t think I could ever forget.”

“Didn’t think you could.”

Tim bit his lip. “I don’t want to hurt my mom.”

Damian shot a look at his father. “That is just a part of growing up sometimes, hurting our parents.”

Tim followed his gaze, “Okay, I know what I am going to do.”

He stood up and walked over to where Bruce was standing. Damian didn’t follow him he just watched as Tim talked to him. He could read the lines in Bruce’s face, furrowed tense; still, there was a fondness there in the way he looked at Tim as the kid talked passionately. In the end Bruce nodded before he held out his hand, Tim took it, and they shook once.

Tim ran back quickly to where Damian was sitting, “I am going home now, I will see you next week.” He was smiling.

Damian waited sitting on the mat until Bruce came back from bringing Tim home. His father slowly lowered himself to the ground to sit next to Damian.

“I am sorry.” He said.

Damian blinked; this night didn’t cease to surprise him.

“I shouldn’t have benched you or forbidden you from seeing Tim again.”

“Okay”, Damian said, “I didn’t mean to endanger him.”

“I know.” Bruce said, “He is stubborn, that one.”

“What did he say?”

“We agreed that you could continue training him.” Bruce said.

“I gathered.”

Bruce breathed out long and hard as if it was difficult for him to say, “I am also going to be training him.”

Damian raised an eyebrow.

“He promised not to go out again until I deem him ready.” Bruce explained, “I don’t like it, but.”

“You couldn’t dissuade him.” Damian said.

“And he reminded me what it felt like to be a child.” Bruce said.

Damian frowned, “What do you mean?”

Bruce was silent for a bit as if he was trying to find the words. “When I was eight, my parents got shot, and I was powerless to stop it.” He started, “Children are powerless. They can’t make the bad things stop happening, and when they see the bad things happen, they are oftentimes not taken seriously. You have given him the tools to stop it. How can I stop him from using them?”

“Oh,” Damian said.

Bruce was staring at him, his eyes intense as if he broke down to Damian’s core, the helpless child within him that, despite everything, was still screaming. Tears suddenly pricked in Damian’s eyes. He blinked quickly to keep them at bay.

It was silent in the cave except for the screeching of the bats and the soft humming of the computer.

“I don’t think I want to go to college.” Damian suddenly said.

Bruce turned towards him but didn’t say anything for a little while. “What do you want to do then?”

“I don’t know,” Damian said.

“Okay.” Bruce said, “We will look into it.” He put an arm around Damian and pulled the boy to him in a half-hug. Damian let himself fall into the embrace.

A month flew past as Damian's exams crept ever closer. Summer slowly warmed up the streets of Gotham, leaving the mornings surrounded by mist as the water slowly rose up from the streets.

Damian still hadn’t decided what he wanted to do next year, but the freeing feeling of not having to know yet kept most of the anxiety at bay.

Tim had become a staple of the Batcave. Bruce was sitting behind the Batcomputer. Damian had sent Tim to sneak up to him and try to catch him off guard.

“What are you doing?” He said loudly.

Bruce just calmly looked at him, Damian could see a small smile play around his lips. He looked back to where Damian, previously presumed hidden, was standing in the shadows. Damian sighed and walked over to the computer.

“He didn’t react at all.” Tim reported.

“Nobody catches the night off guard.” Bruce said, putting on the Batman voice.

Tim laughed as Damian rolled his eyes.

“Just keep practising, chum; you’ll get me someday.” Bruce said.

Tim nodded seriously.

“Do you want to see what I am working on?” Bruce asked.

Tim’s eyes widened, “Can I?” he said before enthusiastically grabbing a chair.

Damian wandered over to the equipment while he kept observing the two. His father's eyes were crinkling around the corners as he explained the case he was working on. It was strange to watch the two communicate. Despite the subject, a gruesome murder on the street between the 4th and 5th avenue, Tim managed to light up the room.

Sometimes Damian couldn’t help but feel jealous of him. The way it came so easy to Tim, being good.

Damian had to fight for every smile that his father made, smiles that Tim produced easily. It was an ugly feeling, and Damian did not like it. He did not like feeling like that. Despite that, the feeling didn’t leave easily, curling deeper in his stomach as Tim somehow managed to find a detail in the case that Bruce had missed.

Damian sat in the car angrily staring out of the window. It had been a calm night, and they were headed back to the cave.

He could feel his father’s gaze bore into his back. “What is wrong?” He asked.

“Nothing.” Damian said angrily.

“That doesn’t sound like nothing.”

Damian ignored him and kept glaring at the window.

The car suddenly swerved into the wrong street. Damian looked up, “What are you doing?”

“Nothing.” Bruce said annoyingly.

Damian glared at him before deciding it was not his problem and continuing his staring competition with the glass window.

Bruce stopped in front of the clock tower in the middle of Gotham. He got out, walked over to the other side and opened Damian’s door. “Come on.”

Damian rolled his eyes but followed him. Bruce shot off his grapple and pulled himself up onto the tower. Bruce stood in front of the clock, his cape blowing in the wind. Damian landed next to him.

Bruce was silent for a while before finally saying, “What do you see?”

Damian raised an eyebrow, “The city?”

“No, look.” Bruce said insistently.

Damian sighed and put his gaze on the city, on the many rooftops, on the smoke billowing up out of the chimneys, and on the few people still out even at this late hour. It wasn’t a nice city; no, Gotham didn’t put up with any fake kindness, but for the past 7 years it had been home.

Bruce must have seen something in his face because he started talking. As he observed the city, “When you came to me, I had no idea what to do. I didn’t want a child, and you were just so.”

“If you are going to list my failings, I don’t need to hear it.” Damian interrupted Bruce.

“No, that is not.” Bruce said, “Robin, I wasn’t ready to be a father, but I wouldn’t change anything for the world.”

Damian looked at his father; he couldn’t see his face, but there was a softness to his gaze as he looked at the city. “You wouldn’t?”

“I wish I could have made things easier for you.” He answered honestly, “But no, I am glad you are here.”

Damian hesitated, “Sometimes.” He started and then he stopped, but Bruce didn’t say anything. He continued, “Sometimes I fear that you would rather have me be a normal kid.”

“Like Tim.” Bruce said, annoyingly knowing exactly what Damian was feeling.

Damian looked away, not wanting to admit to the ugly pit in his stomach.

Bruce stepped closer until they were almost touching. “Would it have been easier if you were a more normal kid? I won’t lie to you and say that that wouldn’t be the case. It would have been easier but I can’t erase your past, just like nobody could erase mine.” He said.

“What do you mean?”

“You might not know this, but I was a nightmare as a child. I am honestly lucky that Alfred put up with me.”

Damian couldn’t help but gape at him, “You were.”

“The absolute worst,” Bruce grunted, “It is not easy to raise a kid who is grieving both his parents.”

“Oh.” Damian said the wind was softly blowing through the air. They stood there for a while just in silence watching until Damian suddenly yawned, after which Bruce just nodded and jumped down to the street.

The next morning Damian woke up early despite the late night. Slowly, he made the track downstairs where Alfred was preparing breakfast. Damian sat down on a stool by the kitchen and led his head lean on the counter.

Alfred didn’t say anything and just continued with the preparation.

After a while, Damian lifted his head, curiosity getting the better of him. “Is it true that Father was a difficult child?”

Alfred looked at him surprised upon hearing the question, “Well, that is one way of putting it.” He said. Then he gave Damian a smile and started fondly telling him anecdotes of his father as a child.

An hour later Bruce finally made it downstairs, still looking half-asleep.

“Is it true that you ran away for six years when you were sixteen?” Damian asked as soon as he entered.

Bruce just grunted tiredly.

Alfred shook his head, “If I am not mistaken, that is how he met your mother.”

Bruce shrugged, “I needed training.” He said in lieu of an explanation.

“You wanted me to go to college.” Damian said accusingly.

“Yes, I do. I think it would be good for you.”

High school graduation was a whole affair for something which, in theory, almost everybody should be able to do. Still, at the end, Damian walked off with a diploma, and that was that.

It wouldn’t be very long before Damian turned 18, which in America would make him an adult in almost all ways except alcohol consumption and gambling. He had slowly started to plan out his next year. His father wasn’t happy with his choice, but he also wouldn’t stop him.

Still, before he could do anything else, he first had to do something important. Tim was sitting on a chair in front of him, pushing his legs back and forth as he waited for Damian to take a seat.

“What is going on?” Tim asked.

“We need to talk.” Damian stated.

“I gathered.” Tim said, holding up the invitation that Damian had sent him.

Damian suddenly felt very nervous. He grabbed the bag and put it on his lap. “As you know, there was a Robin before me.”

Tim nodded.

“As far as I am aware, we are the only two who have ever seen him.”

“Except for the goons.” Tim added.

Damian nodded, “Except for the goons.”

“He told me that if Batman was Gotham’s darkness, then Robin was his light.” Damian crinkled the bag slightly.

“Batman needs a Robin.” Tim said seriously.

“In a way.” Damian said, “As you know, I soon will become an adult, and I have decided to leave Gotham and travel back to my homeland.”

“You are leaving.” Tim exclaimed, jumping up from his chair.

Damian held up a hand, “Not forever.”

Tim deflated, falling back into his chair. “Where are you going?” Tim asked.

“I was born in a place called the League of Assassins; I came here when I was ten,” Damian said.

“They don’t sound very nice.” Tim said.

“They aren’t very nice, but it was my home once.” Damian said.

Tim nodded, and Damian was glad that he didn’t continue asking. He didn’t really know how to explain his reasoning, why he wanted to go back now. He hadn’t felt the need in a long time, the memories slowly warped by time. Maybe that was why he had to go. He had already told Bruce about this part of the plan the night before. He had listened quietly as Damian explained himself and what he wanted.

“I don’t like it.” Bruce said.

“I know. That is why I am bringing Jon and Maps.”

Bruce grimaced, “Superboy and Batgirl.” A beat and then, “Fine.”

Damian smiled.

“As long as you keep in contact.”

“I promise.”

It would still be a couple of months before they would actually leave. Before Damian would go, he still had something important to do. He handed the bag to Tim. Tim hesitantly took the bag from Damian.

“What is this?”

“Open it.”

Hesitantly Tim opened it, as soon as he saw what was inside, his mouth fell open. “Are you sure?”

Damian nodded, “There is nobody else I would give this to.”

“I will not disappoint you.” Tim promised.

“I would expect nothing else from you,” Damian said as Tim completely removed the costume from the bag, “Robin.”