Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Damian was lonely.

It wasn't something he’d willingly say out loud, or admit even with himself on most days, but he was too self-aware not to notice how sometimes a sliver of emptiness would bite him from the inside, making his stomach clench and his heart drop. 

When he had first arrived in Gotham, finding his father surrounded by people — what Damian had considered fake sons, pretenders, usurpers of his birthright — had been… unpleasant. Unfair, even.

Years had passed from that day, though, and with time he had grown accustomed to having so many people around; Richard’s warm smiles, Timothy’s sharp mind, Jason’s protective fire. Cassandra’s comforting presence even when silent, Duke’s gentleness, and even Stephanie’s humor and Barbara’s calm remarks, although the two had never lived with them.

Of course, Damian knew what was happening was quite normal. Boringly so, even.

People grew up. Kids, birds, left the nest.

And now that Damian was eighteen, and all his siblings were older than him, his father and Alfred were the only ones still at the Manor with him. It was normal.

Boringly so, yeah.

Still. 

The Manor was silent and empty and Damian, even if he didn't like to admit it, was feeling a little lonely.

He still saw them all, of course. Sunday brunch was a must and nobody skipped more than one or two in a row. Patrol still took place every night, although the routes differed a lot and they didn't always meet up.

But even when they met… they’d still leave come daylight. And Damian would go back home, write his report, say goodnight to his father and Alfred and just go back to his room. 

No chatter, no mocking, no relentless banter.

Titus would follow him, at least. He’d rest on the floor near his bed with his head toward the door, checking for intruders in a way Damian didn’t want to admit made him feel better — and sometimes Ace, bones weak and fur whitened by age, would come as well, although it looked like he was moving less and less every day. An older gentleman, Bruce had called him a few days before, fond and a little sad, and Damian’s stomach had clenched at the prospect of losing another one of his friends.

They were his friends, yes, and even a year after losing Alfred the Cat the echo of his absence was painfully clear in every room — at least for Damian. Damian, who had hugged him and kept him in his arms all the way to the clinic, under his father’s watchful gaze. 

Damian, who had said goodbye and stroked his fur and thanked him for being there for him all those times he desperately needed someone to hold onto, and who had then nodded to the vet and watched as his friend was put to sleep.

Damian, who had dug the grave himself.

He loved Titus, of course, and Ace and Batcow and Jerry the Turkey. And he loved his father and his brothers and sister and the two women who were constantly around as well, and the butler who was more than a butler and always would be — and he was getting old too, Damian could see it in the way he’d walk down the stairs, or struggle to raise something too heavy, or in how sometimes his hands would tremble a little.

The truth was that Damian was growing up, and the rest of his family was growing old, or apart.

So yeah, he felt lonely, sometimes.

Cold in a way he couldn’t fix by covering up.

He looked around, checking the stability of the opposite roof before jumping on it with the utmost grace. It was a quiet night, especially in his area; now that he was eighteen he would often patrol alone at least half of the night, although with the imperative that he’d call for backup for anything bigger than the usual robbery or attempted assault, and that he kept away from rogues. He would have been perfectly able to deal with them, of course, considering his training and his superior skills, but he really didn’t want to argue with his father about it, so he followed the rules.

He patrolled up and down the entire neighborhood, before he offered to walk an elderly woman home just for the sake of actually doing something, and maybe feel a little better in the process. She tried to get him his granddaughter’s phone number, as she was “such a great girl, so pretty! And I could help with the kids while you go out!”, and he blushed so much he was sure it was visible even through the dark street, his skin tone and the mask covering part of his face.

He grappled away as soon as she walked inside her building, like moving fast could get him to forget the embarrassment of hearing a grandma tell him she was hard of hearing, so he didn’t need to worry about keeping her up with her grandkid; he just wanted to forget about the whole encounter.

He was still reeling from that talk, when he heard a soft cry.

He frowned, before taking silent steps toward the center of a roof, where a small wooden shack was locked with a big chain. There was a hole in the door, however, big enough to warrant a check.

After all, what was a lock for someone like Damian Wayne?

It was open in less than ten seconds.

He lightly kicked the door open, a hand on his katana just in case he needed to react quickly, and he looked around. The shack had been clearly abandoned for a while, with nothing inside if not the remains of old bird cages and a few pieces of fabric thrown around, and Damian was about to turn around and leave when he heard a shuffling noise — coming from something tiny, half-hidden by broken metal and a dirty cloth.

Not big enough to be a kid, not even a small dog unless it was a puppy of a tiny breed. Probably a rat.

And then, he heard another soft cry… and this time, Damian recognized the sound.

He moved past the metal and crouched in front of the bundle of clothing, raising a gloved hand with a kind “tt” coming out of his mouth in a way he hoped was comforting, instead of scaring. When he raised a corner of the fabric, he immediately smiled.

Because underneath it, peaking out with green eyes wide in fear and a pink nose in the midst of black fur, there was a kitten. Two months old, if Damian was correct, not more. Dirty, shaking.

“Everything is alright,” he heard himself muttering.

He got his hand closer to the kitten, slow and steady despite the tiny tremor running through the small creature, and waited for it — him, her? — to smell him and deem him safe enough to approach. It froze, although still trembling, and a moment passed, then two, three, until the kitten finally stepped forward into the pale moonlight coming from a broken window. 

Damian had barely the time to lean and check under the tail, that she headbutted lightly against his glove. A soft purr started a second later.

A breath he hadn’t realized he was holding escaped him. Slowly, carefully, he put a hand under her bottom and one around her torso, and lifted her until she was pressed against his chest; she was lighter than she should’ve been, even with how young she was, and through the thin fur he could feel every rib. Her heartbeat was too fast against his palm — hopefully for the fear and not because she wasn’t as healthy as Damian fully believed every animal should be.

And a two-months-old kitten?

“All alone,” he murmured, the words sharp with disapproval but softer than usual. There was no mother cat around, making him think that either something bad had happened, or she had left the runt behind to take care of the rest of the litter; still, there was no way that baby could survive alone, especially in January.

He could count her ribs with a finger!

Neglected, he thought. Abandoned.

She mewled, and Damian felt something tighten in his chest.

“You are coming home with me,” he decided, holding her gently with one hand, because she was so tiny she fit in his palm. Small enough that he could hide her between the folds of his cape.

He stood up and left the shack behind him, quickly shooting his grappling hook; the kitten let out a startled noise at the first swing, claws clutching uselessly at his suit — too thick and reinforced for such weak nails to cause damage —, but she quieted quickly. She pressed her head against his chest and it made Damian feel uneasy to think she was too weak to fight or act properly out of fear, and had given up so fast.

Well, she had him, now.

He’d take care of her, get her back to health. And they’d discover her real personality together.

The bike was waiting for them in the exact place Damian had left it and he didn’t hesitate before wrapping the kitten in a cloth from a compartment of the bike and settling her under his suit, against his torso, where it was warmest. He could feel her breathing against him; small, young, fragile. A wet nose and tickling whiskers on his abs.

He tapped his comm.

“This is Robin. Patrol complete. Going back now.”

Red Robin’s voice came in a second later, teasing but with a hint of worry not completely hidden underneath. “Cutting it early, uh?”

“Nothing worth reporting,” Damian replied, already starting the engine.

The ride back to the Cave was a blur of dark tunnels and quiet engines, of soft breaths on his skin and his mind going back again and again to the kitten hidden in his suit. She didn’t make a sound, just trembled, and Damian drove a little faster than he’d usually risk, even with his trained reflexes, and a part of him felt guilty for not finding her sooner.

He slowed down only when he saw the other parked bikes in the distance; he was pretty sure everyone was still out or wouldn’t come back to the Cave that night, and those bikes were the spare ones, but he didn’t want to chance it. Both his father and Alfred had made it clear after Jerry the Turkey that he wasn’t to bring any more animals home and not to even try to plead his case, so he really didn’t want to be seen.

If it hadn’t been for the rule about suits in the Manor, to be honest, he would have run directly upstairs, instead of wasting time and risking getting caught. 

He parked and killed the lights, looking around to make sure he was alone. 

Good.

He took off his gloves first, then the sword, the belt, the boots — moving quickly, methodically. When he took off the rest of the suit, a tiny yawn met him.

“You survived the ride,” he said, a hint of pride in his tone that surprised even him. He raised the kitten to his face, green eyes meeting green eyes, and she blinked slowly in the way cats did when they were comfortable and trusted who they were with.

Damian felt his breath hitch. She wasn’t shaking anymore, warmed up by his own body temperature.

He had already changed the path life was taking her on, hadn’t he? 

He let himself show a hint of a smile, soft and proud. “You are stronger than you look.”

She meowed and he looked around, thinking that she was right: they had to move. He wore a change of clothing as fast as he could, but when he heard an engine echoing in the Cave he took off his sweater again and wrapped the kitten in it instead, covering her up enough that no one would imagine there was a pet in the bundle of clothes in his arms, while still allowing her to breathe. At the last second he also hid in his pocket a small carton box of the milk Alfred always stored near the coffee maker.

At that point, satisfied, he walked quickly toward the staircase and he had almost reached it, almost found his way to freedom, when Batman himself arrived. A man with a cowl in his hands, an eighteen-year-old with a hidden kitten in his.

Damian couldn’t help it: he froze.

Only a second — but enough for his father to raise an eyebrow and look him up and down.

The kitten squirmed, and Damian’s eyes widened before he schooled his features and hid her movements with one of his own.

“Patrol over?” Bruce asked tentatively.

Damian nodded. “Quiet night,” he said quickly. “I was just heading upstairs.”

A faint sound, a nearly inaudible meow, broke the silence.

Damian coughed. Loudly.

Bruce’s brow furrowed, but before he could say anything else, Damian was already moving toward the stairs.

“Goodnight, Father.”

“Damian-”

“I am very tired and require sleep,” he pressed, “so I will see you in the morning!”

He left before his father could answer and didn’t stop walking until he was in the safety of his own room, door locked behind him just in time for the kitten’s head to weakly push out of her hiding spot. 

“Almost betrayed us,” Damian tried to lightly scold her, but she chose that moment to yawn and it became quite hard to stay irritated.

They looked at each other again, both blinking slowly.

Meow.

Damian rolled his eyes, lips tugging involuntarily into a soft smile, and when he caught himself he decided it was fine, as long as nobody was there to see him. 

Still, the kitten needed to see how serious he could be.

“Time for a warm bath, missy.”

And in the ensuite bathroom they went.

In the cabinet, behind spare hair products and a first aid kit, Damian had kept an old bottle of Alfred the Cat’s shampoo — one he hadn’t been able to throw away. Just in case, of course, if there was any need, and not for any sentimental reason; still, he had tucked the bottle away, turning the label, faded with time, so that someone snooping wouldn’t immediately see what it was.

Now it paid to be ready, so Damian let himself feel a little smug, a little vindicated, because he didn’t have to wait or sneak out to buy shampoo made for cats. Soon, of course, he’d need to buy something created for kittens instead of adults, but for the moment it would be fine and you know what? He hadn’t been sentimental. He had been prepared.

The kitten was shaking in his hands, fitting nicely with how small she was, all bones and black fur, and eyes that were too trusting for her own good — she was lucky Damian found her, she had no idea how lucky —, and he kept her still while he turned the tap of the sink until the water ran warm. Even that was far too large for her, to be honest, so there was no point in putting her in the tub.

When he eased her in, after testing the water with his wrist and finding it at the right temperature, she hissed; only once, small and desperate, as if the world had already taught her to expect cruelty, and he really couldn’t blame her.

“I was like you,” he confided in her, “but life can change in a moment. I promise I am not going to hurt you.”

He didn’t hesitate. “And I will protect you from anyone who tries.”

The kitten’s heart was beating furiously against his palm, but she stopped protesting and settled down, retracting the small claws that had been scraping with no use across his skin.

“Good,” he praised her, voice low and gentle. “You are not alone. I am not going anywhere.”

He picked up the bottle, checked with a quick look that it wasn’t expired, and poured the amount he deemed right for such a tiny creature. “You will have something better soon,” he continued, just in case she liked his voice and found it comforting, or at least less scary than silence, “something made for bab-kittens. For you.”

She blinked up at him like she understood, and that small, unbothered trust made his chest tighten.

When the dirt was gone, shockingly with no trace of fleas left behind, he rinsed the soap from her black fur and carefully patted her down with a towel, finding once more her ribs to be too visible, too close to the surface for comfort. She hadn’t lost any fur, which was surprising too, and a quick check revealed decently healthy baby teeth — not sick, then, although malnourished.

Damian dried her while holding her to his chest, feeling through the towel how fragile she was, and he wondered, jaw clenched, if anyone had ever taken care of her before.

She deserved better than being abandoned like that.

“I am not going anywhere,” Damian promised her again, voice small in the quiet bathroom, and only when she shivered he realized he still had the carton of milk in the pocket of his sweats. He set her on the towel by the tub, unwilling to force her to stand on the cold tiles, and quickly poured the milk on a little plate, which he cleaned carefully because Alfred would usually use it to hold the soap.

He kneeled down, then, and watched the kitten's pink tongue sneak out over and over again to lap at the liquid, making a mess of her recently cleaned muzzle.

“Easy,” he whispered, but didn’t stop her. He could imagine how empty her little belly was.

In the end, it didn’t take her long to slow down and eventually stop, and apart from sitting back she didn’t move, simply looking at Damian; it was a little odd, the fact that she wasn’t trying to clean herself, but maybe she hadn’t learned yet? 

He grabbed her towel, wetted a corner of it, and gently fixed the mess with strokes he hoped resembled the ones of her mama cat.

“Tt. Disaster,” he scolded her, no real heat in his tone.

She blinked up at him, a little drowsy, and when he stroked her chin with a finger she dropped her head on it, falling asleep in the way kittens usually did: all at once, like a rock, trusting and surrendering to exhaustion.

For a long moment, Damian just stayed there, holding her inconsequential weight with a finger as he listened to the steady rhythm of her breaths.

She was impossibly small, impossibly sweet, and his heart clenched thinking at how alone she must have been — but she wasn’t, anymore, and… and neither was he.

She didn’t even stir when he picked her up, nor when he settled in bed with her curled against his side, and Damian stayed awake longer than he meant to, staring at her little whiskers and her black, now shining fur, and the long tail wrapped around her. He stroked her once, just once, unable to stop himself… and when she started purring in reply, he smiled and finally closed his eyes.

Just a couple of hours later, feeling something warm move in his arms, Damian opened his eyes again — and promptly jumped out of the bed when he realized there was no kitten anymore.

In her place, a little girl.

Chapter Text

Damian had been trained for all kinds of situations. Assassins, rogues, poisoning attempts — he was prepared. He was ready.

He wasn’t ready, however, for waking up with a little girl in his bed.

He had brought home a cat! A cat! A kitten, a fuc-

Damian passed a hand over his face; he was awake, of that he was certain, and he hadn’t had any encounter with Poison Ivy’s plants or Scarecrow’s toxins. He also remembered quite clearly the light weight of bones and fur, the soft vibration of purring against his ribs, the familiar warmth of another small life breathing beside him.

And now… 

He blinked hard, once, twice, eyes scanning the room to find signs of forced entry, although he wholeheartedly believed he was too trained not to notice an actual threat walking in the room. The door was closed and so was the window, the ensuite bathroom was empty and… and there was no kitten anymore.

In her place, curled up in the same position, there was now a child. A girl no older than five, maybe even four years old, with long black hair badly tangled and lightly damp on one of the pillows. She was naked, with the sheets covering one of her legs but leaving the rest of her, bum included, out in the air.

Damian frowned, recognizing she was cold way before he thought of how bad it looked to have a little girl naked in his room. 

He had jumped out of bed out of instinct, rolling on his feet in one smooth motion, muscles tense, stance defensive because years of training would always override tiredness or confusion. After assessing the situation, however, and seeing the girl breathing slowly, steadily, clearly asleep and still very naked, he felt what he needed to do — assess for possible dangers, keep his distance, call for his father — went against what he wanted to do: cover her up, first of all. Understand if she was an intruder and the kitten had just hid somewhere, or if… 

His hand twitched against his side. No matter how much Damian tried to, the thought of what kind of magic could be at play — because they lived in a world with magic, so it really wasn’t that far-fetched, was it? — wasn’t his first one. It was, and if irrational, also much louder, that the girl looked small. Smaller than she had any right to be.

Naked, too, but Damian was more worried about the ribs he could clearly see from where he was standing.

His body reacted as soon as his mind caught up. He approached her carefully, kneeling on the bed, his shadow falling over the small shape, and slowly covered her goosebumps-filled skin with the sheet and a thick blanket. 

Her hair, he noticed, was still damp at the ends, and a faint smell of cat shampoo lingered in the air. 

Was it possible?

He remembered clearly every detail of the kitten; her heartbeat, the fragile warmth, the trust…

His fingers hovered over the girl’s shoulder, uncertain. Touching her could have been dangerous, or inappropriate, but she looked so tiny, so cold, so fragile…

"What are you?” he whispered, almost to himself.

The girl stirred at the sound. Her lashes fluttered once, before green eyes opened, the same shade he had seen in the kitten, and as she sleepily raised her head and the light of dawn caught her pupils they narrowed. Just like a feline’s would.

Damian froze.

And then, softly, the little girl yawned and closed her eyes again, burrowing under the blankets.

Great survival instinct, he thought with both a silent snort and a hint of disapproval. He looked at her black hair, so similar to his own but also to the fur of the kitten, and the tiny button nose and the parted lips, from where he could see small teeth — and in particular a little fang peeking out. He studied her sleeping, now covered body, how tiny it was, how messy her hair was, how long, how unkept, and how long her nails were as well.

He wasn’t sure how long he stayed there, kneeling on the bed by her side, like a guard dog watching over a stranger that wasn’t supposed to exist, and he was so lost in his thoughts that it took him a second to notice her fingers, twitching in the way a cat’s paw would knead the mom’s chest. 

Because that was it, right? 

Damian hadn’t rescued a kitten, nor a child, but a mix of both.

He took a deep breath. He should have moved — called his father, taken a blood sample, run every test the Cave had to offer — and yet he didn’t. He just stayed, watching the rise and fall of her chest, slow and steady, almost hypnotic.

Cats have the same power over people, he mused. People would be enchanted by them, staring at their sleeping forms as they weren’t just pets, or family members, but incredible sights worth spending time watching. 

And wasn’t that what parents did with their kids, too?

Damian was familiar with the animal part, considering how long he had spent just watching Alfred the Cat, or Titus, or Batcow, but it was the first time he found himself doing so with a child. Except she wasn’t a simple child, was she?
She was special.

Special and yet abandoned in a shack, freezing and starving.

Kittens were supposed to be around their siblings, learning from littermates just as much as they learned from their mother, or other queens; females took care of the kittens of the colony, after all, whether they were their own or not, and even cats sold by breeders weren’t separated before they were two-three months old. This girl was probably five, too young for a human to be alone, but as a kitten she looked two months old. Both races social learners, totally dependent on others at first. Damian clenched his jaw.

Why wasn’t the mother with her? Why weren’t her siblings?

He looked at the closed door, thinking about all the empty rooms in the Manor, and a woman who technically hadn’t been allowed to set foot in Gotham, but with enough skills to do so, and yet who he had seen only a couple of times in ten years. 

He shook his head.

It wasn’t about him. It was about a little girl.

Also, he realized as he studied her again, maybe it wasn’t a choice. The possibilities were many and Damian couldn’t know which one was the correct one; maybe she was the only shapeshifter of her family and she’d been tossed aside, or she was an orphan and they’d never discover if her abilities were inherited or not. Maybe she’d been experimented on — although the simple thought made him want to get his sword —, or the parents had been hunted down and the only way of saving her was hiding her. Maybe she wasn’t human, but a cat who had stumbled upon a magical artifact, and the rest of the colony had suddenly been scared.

He looked at her long, tangled hair, wondering if it was worth it to try to fix it or it was better to give her a short cut, and it was easier to be around her like this, asleep and harmless, than to face the questions clawing at the back of his mind.

Had it been a coincidence that Robin, Damian Wayne-al Ghul, had found her? 

And why had she chosen to change back to human while in his bed? So young, naked and vulnerable in her sleep. 

Unless it hadn’t been a conscious decision. Maybe she couldn’t control it.

Of course, that was if she was an actual kid. She could have been an immortal who simply looked young.

Damian sighed. Her eyes hadn’t looked deceiving. 

He obviously knew better than to allow feelings to get in the way of logic, but he couldn’t help but wonder what kind of ploy could get a naked child into his sheets, after what, gambling on the fact that he’d hear her on a roof and decide to take her home? Of course, the fact that she was an innocent kitten didn’t mean someone else wasn’t using her — but as Robin, wasn’t it his responsibility to protect her anyway?

Or maybe it had been fate. Maybe he had just found her… he inhaled. The same way his father had found Jason in an alley. 

Richard had been a choice after a tragedy, Timothy had pushed in. Cassandra had found their father, in a way, rather than the opposite, and Duke had been an offer. 

But Jason had been chance.

What a ridiculous thought, Damian scolded himself, scowling. Those were his father’s children. 

He was not at all in the same position!

The girl was nothing if not a nuisance, he was sure of it. Comparing this situation to all of those that ended up creating Damian’s family was idiotic, and he knew better than to indulge in it.

What he had to do, now, was to decide the next move. 

He crossed his legs on the mattress, wondering why he was hesitating so much instead of forcefully waking her up and interrogating her, but he felt something in his chest ache at the thought of scaring her. 

Ant then her hand — impossibly small, impossibly human — brushed against the edge of the blanket, and Damian reached out without thinking and tucked it back under.

So what. He was just making sure she was warm. That’s what Robin did.

He sighed and raised his eyes to the ceiling.

At eighteen years old, he was legally an adult. He’d been way more mature than his peers for a long, long time.

And yet.

Could he deal with the situation? Or did he need a more… adult adult?

He let himself lie down on the mattress, on the sheets this time rather than under, and he refused to think too much of how nice it was to listen to someone breathe by his side, a quiet proof that he wasn’t alone. 

It was thanks to how focused he was on that rhythm, that Damian heard the shift in the pattern and the following rustle on fabric. A low, broken sound that wasn’t a word, but not a real meow either.

He froze, waiting for her to do something, and he forced not to flinch when he felt a new weight on his shoulder; the little girl was rubbing her chin against him, probably trying to spread her scent or something equally feline, and soon she settled down on his chest, hands pressing on his abs before moving away and pressing down again, kneading his shirt and meat underneath.

When the soft purr started, Damian was almost expecting it.

“Alright,” he whispered, raising a hand to lightly pet her hair. He counted her breaths, noticing the way they slowed down again, and somehow, despite any kind of training or common sense, he found himself drifting away as well.

The next time he woke up, it was actually morning. The numbers on the clock signaled it was almost time for breakfast and a few birds outside the window echoed the feeling, while from the closed door sounds of someone up and about seeped through.

None of that was what Damian noticed first, however. 

No, it was the light weight on his chest.

He passed a hand on his face, huffing. Had he dreamed it all?

Frowning, he put an arm around the fluffy kitten and sat up, trying not to jostle her too much but of course waking her up nonetheless. The cat was tiny just as Damian had found her the night before, all black except for the pink nose, and a tail flicking in a way that told him she hadn’t appreciated the sudden movement.

“I am not crazy,” he told her, narrowing his eyes. Had he really dreamed it?

He couldn’t have, right?

Sighing, he left her on the mattress and stood up, picking his clothes for the day before disappearing in the ensuite bathroom. Maybe he needed a check-up downstairs, just in case he had been dosed with something without realizing, or maybe he just needed to work on his issues — not that he’d say out loud he had any — so that his mind wouldn’t concoct such weird dreams.

Still.

Damian couldn’t really deny it had been… nice.

And in the privacy of his own mind, he could even admit he wasn’t… pleased that the little girl hadn’t been real. He wasn’t his father and she wasn’t Jason; it wasn’t as if he had planned on taking her in and raising her himself, of course. He just…

He dressed quickly, like routine could chase away whatever dream had lingered. 

All those feelings were beneath Damian Wayne-al Ghul, he knew it. There was no point in allowing himself to what, mourn someone created by his subconscious?

He scowled and left the bathroom — just to stop on his tracks and open his mouth in shock.

On the bed, sitting against the pillows, eyes wide and uncomprehending, there was the little girl. For a second she only stared, head tilted, pupils thin and sharp in the morning light. It was somehow both the look of a frightened child and the one of an animal cornered in a strange den.

Damian raised both hands slowly, palms open so as not to startle her further. “Everything is alright,” he promised, tone low, measured. “No one is going to hurt you.”

Then, because he wasn’t sure she had heard him talk to his father, or if she had but couldn’t remember, he pointed at himself. “My name is Damian.”

He took a step forward and gained a hiss in return.

“Tt, there is no need for that,” he told her. “You are safe.”

Another hiss, this time lighter, like she wasn’t sure what to do, and her posture seemed to relax minutely from raised shoulders and hunched back. 

Well, Damian realized, if she was acting like a cat then… He approached the bed, slowly, and raised his hand just as carefully, leaving it hanging in the air. Stilling, and with held breath, he waited.

And the little girl, as curious as expected, sniffed it. Her nose twitched once, before her whole expression relaxed and she was suddenly rubbing her chin all over his fingers, purring loudly just like she had when in his arms. 

“I found you outside, do you remember?”

She blinked and her lips moved, but the sound that came out was more of a whine than a human voice. A moment later she sneezed, small and sudden, like she was trying to clear the scent of the world from her nose.

Damian kept his expression blank, even when her movements dislodged the sheets covering her naked body, and he actually looked her over quickly; he hadn’t seen signs of bruises or wounds, so he was relieved to confirm he was right.

And yet…

He put a hand in her tangled hair, hiding a grimace when his fingers got almost stuck in, and when he freed it again he rested it on the side of her neck, scratching lightly behind her ear. The low rumble in her chest got even stronger.

Was it wrong? To treat her like a cat? She was one, after all!

Maybe.

He shifted his weight, slow and deliberate, until he was sitting on the bed at her side and could grab the edge of the sheet to cover her again. 

“Do you understand me?” he murmured.

The girl blinked, once. Then, hesitantly, she nodded. 

“Good,” he praised her and scratched her again. “Do you remember your name?”

She shook her head. Her green eyes were bright and full of life, and when he smiled — instinctively, without really thinking about it — she imitated him, small fangs visible and, frankly, quite cute.  

“Alright,” Damian said softly, almost to himself. “But do you remember ever having one?”

The girl denied again.

It didn’t mean much, of course. While cats usually had a good memory, children weren’t able to recall much from their first years of life. Speaking of…

“Do you know how old you are?”

The girl tilted her head, either thinking of the answer or maybe just trying to make sense of his words, before she shrugged.

“Around five, probably,” he replied to himself, although he knew for a fact that malnutrition could slow down a kid’s normal growth — his brother had been proof of it, before the Lazarus Pit.

Damian stroked the little girl’s skin once more, his thumb drawing absent circles, and he felt another smile tug at his lips when she rested her cheek in his palm. She was just a little creature that purred when he touched her, like she trusted him despite not knowing who he was, or even who she was, and Damian wasn’t her parent and he wasn’t her guardian, but he did need a way to call her somehow.

“You have nothing, do you?” he murmured, with more kindness than he’d usually show anyone. “No name, no memory. Nothing that is yours.”

She scooted forward until she was halfway in his lap, purring and rubbing her head under his chin, like cats did to mark their territory — like she was telling him she did have something, after all. 

Him.

He draped the sheet around her a little better, somewhat bothered by that line of thought, or at least bothered by how… warm it had made him feel.

“You need a name,” he declared, clearing his throat.

The girl blinked slowly, her breathing calm and steady, and her pupils rounder now that he was shielding her from the sunlight coming from the window. She seemed to be waiting for him to speak again.

Damian’s eyes had been so different, when he had first arrived in Gotham; entitled, distrusting, betrayed by the whole situation. He’s also seen the animals he’d rescued over the years, half-starved strays that didn’t know whether to fight or curl up somewhere warm.

This child, however?

Except for the first moments, hissing and arching her back, she’d been nothing but sweet and open toward him. He thought about seeing her for the first time, a tiny kitten stepping into the moonlight in a freezing shack, and he turned his head to look out of the window. In the way sometimes happened in the morning, the moon was still slightly visible, a sliver half-hidden by clouds and overpowered by the sun.

There had been instances where Damian had felt like that.

Moonlight, caught in the day.

And the little girl… she needed a name that was light, small, but not fragile. Something alive. 

He put his pointer under her hand, playing with her fingers as his mind recalled her tiny paws stepping into the silver glow of the night, scared and desperate and trusting nonetheless.

“Ayla,” he murmured before realizing he had spoken aloud.

The little girl tilted her head.

“An Arabic name,” Damian explained. “It means the halo of light around the moon.”

He hugged her to his chest, lost in thought. “Not the moon itself, but the glow that surrounds it.”

She meowed, settling into his arms with a satisfied purr before she started kneading his skin.

Damian pursed his lips not to smile. “Beautiful,” he went on, “but indirect. A reflection of light, not the source itself, like something that should not shine, and yet does.”

He looked down at the little girl. “Do you like it? Ayla?”

“A…yla,” she repeated, the sound soft and slow under her breath — a hesitant echo, uncertain but curious.

Surprised by the fact she had spoken for the first time, he schooled his expression in one of quiet pride. “Yes. That will do.”

She smiled — a flash of tiny fangs and warmth — and the sound that escaped her was something between a purr and a giggle, so he let himself smile as well. 

Names were important things, after all. They rooted you somewhere, even when you had no past.

In this case… they rooted her to him.

Chapter Text

Attending breakfast under his father and Alfred’s watchful eyes had been taxing for Damian, especially because he had noticed them share knowing looks a few times, when they believed him to be distracted. He was sure they had no idea there was a little girl currently in his bedroom, and yet they seemed amused by something, something concerning him.

For a second, Damian had thought they had realized at the very least he had taken a stray cat in the Cave, but no one had mentioned it, so he was probably in the clear.

Maybe they had some plan in mind — it was worth keeping an eye on it. 

He had other matters to take care of, however, which took precedence over anything else.

Smuggling food out of the kitchen hadn’t been as easy as he would have liked, considering Alfred always went back to clean after meals, washing everything that didn’t need to be soaked before eventually moving to other areas of the Manor. Damian hadn’t enjoyed tricking him, but he could hardly leave Ayla alone too long, could he? So calling the landline by his cellphone — of course hiding the caller ID — and therefore getting the butler to leave the kitchen had been a means to an end he hadn’t shied from.

And now, back in his room, he locked the door and left on his desk everything he had deemed necessary to get. 

“It should be enough to-” 

Words died in Damian’s throat as he looked around; he had made the bed after dressing Ayla in some old clothes of his that his father had kept for sentimental value, like it really mattered to hold onto the first shirt the man had ever bought him, and a quick glance told him no one had even sat on it. When he had left for breakfast, repeating time after time that Ayla had to stay in the room and not make a sound, she was sitting at the desk, but she was clearly not there anymore, considering he was standing by the chair and couldn’t see her. He bent to check under it, before doing the same with the bed.

The ensuite bathroom was empty as well and so was the walk-in closet. He also had a wardrobe full of blankets and spare pillows in his room, which Damian opened swiftly and closed a few seconds after. 

Damn it, he thought, eyes scanning the rest of the room.

If she wasn’t there, then…

He ran out in the hallway, trying to make a list of all the rooms she could have sneaked in, and it was so long it soon became clear it was pointless. There was only one thing to do: check them one by one.

Well.

At least they were in a Manor and not a palace, right?

Damian moved quickly, years of training evident in every step: he kept to the walls, silent and alert, his eyes scanning the corners of every hallway to avoid being found out by the two other men living there. He checked the other bedrooms, because they were the closest to his, and then the library, the music room, the sitting room, even the second study, the one his father used when he didn’t want to be disturbed. 

Every time he found nothing, the knot in his chest tightened.

Of course, Damian wasn’t really worried. He simply didn’t enjoy the idea of a five-year-old wandering alone in a Manor full of priceless antiques that could break very easily, and for him to be blamed. 

That was all.

He paused at the top of the stairs, glancing toward the kitchen from where he could hear Alfred’s voice.

Damian didn’t know where his father was — although that didn’t mean much, because being Batman he had the ability to silently appear where you least expected him —, but at least he knew where the butler was. He only had to worry about not being caught by the greatest superhero and detective of all time.
Easy.

He exhaled quietly and went on with his mission, disappearing behind the closed door of the art room before coming out of it again, disappointed, and by the time he had checked three more rooms frustration was starting to build up under his skin.

Ayla couldn’t have gone far, right? Unless she had left the Manor entirely, Damian was bound to find her sooner or later. She might have been small, after all, but she was clearly more instinct than logic and he doubted she could have planned a great escape. In a way, she was barely more than a kitten in a human’s body.

He stopped mid-step, the realization taking his breath away.

Idiot, he thought and he turned around, running down the hallway and up the stairs until he was back where his search had started. He locked himself in his bedroom and leaned against the door for a second, feeling dumber than he knew he was.

If he had been someone else, Damian would have accused them of letting emotions cloud their judgment, but he knew he was too trained for that; still, he had reacted too fast, holding onto the image of a little girl when he had seen her change shape more than once.

The truth was that he shouldn’t have looked for a child to begin with: he needed to look for a cat.

Damian scanned the room with fresh eyes; the bed was still untouched, the space under it was empty and so was the one beneath the desk. He had checked in the wardrobe, in the beginning, because it was the only space big enough to hide a little girl — but now?

He quickly walked to the dresser. Shifted and more driven by instinct, Ayla could have sought somewhere dark, small, protected, or even just a place that smelled like him.

Somewhere she’d feel safe in.

After taking a deep breath and readying himself to be wrong, he put his hands on the first drawer’s handles and carefully opened it… just to meet a pair of wide green eyes blinking back at him.

The tiniest meow escaped the kitten’s mouth, soft and questioning, as if asking whether she had done something wrong, and Damian stared at Ayla for a second, before exhaling slowly and rubbing a hand over his face.

“Tt,” he muttered under his breath, not even bothering to hide his relief. “You really do like making things complicated, don’t you?”

The kitten stretched one paw, unsheathed claws grazing lightly on his fingers, before she curled into a ball on top of his folded underwear, now covered in dark hair. 

Damian breathed out a tension he hadn’t realized was building in him and felt an unwilling soft smile tug at his lips — he then squeezed his eyes shut and cursed quietly at the relief flowing in his veins.

He might have been in more trouble than he’d thought.

“Whatever,” he mumbled, picking up Ayla’s sleepy form and holding her to his chest. He had other priorities than thinking about the power that little troublemaker had on him.

Settling her on top of the desk, Damian sat on the chair and stared at her for a few seconds, before pointing at the food he had smuggled from the kitchen: fruit, cookies, milk, but also the beef jerky Alfred would usually buy for Jason’s post patrol snack and one of Duke’s juice pouches.

“Change back, so you can eat.”

Ayla tilted her head, eyes wide, tail curling around her paws.

He huffed. “You need to eat.”

Although he had given her some milk the night before, he was quite aware it wasn’t enough to sustain even a kitten, let alone a child — and who knew if transformation took energy from her, or had an influence on her metabolism. He was acquainted with too many metas not to consider she might need more food than a normal human.

Unless she needed less, having a small stomach half of the time?
He scratched her chin and her cheek, getting a soft purr in reply. “Are you not hungry?”

She meowed, low and miserable, and Damian straightened up in alarm. “Change back,” he ordered her, tension building in his voice and in his body. “Now.”

The kitten’s ears flattened at his tone, in what people usually called “airplane mode”, and Damian held his breath. Then, slow and uncertain, Ayla stood on her four paws and just stayed like that, blinking — before curling back on herself as if exhausted. She meowed again, heartbreakingly fragile.

Damian felt his chest tighten. “You cannot change shape, can you?”

Ayla looked up at him. He could almost read the answer in her eyes.

He let out a quiet breath and leaned back in the chair, studying her in silence and remembering the times she had shifted since he had met her; she had been asleep, right? And then another time after he had left her for breakfast, in which he had no way of knowing if she was awake or not.

Maybe it wasn’t a conscious process.

Or maybe… maybe it could be, she just didn’t know how. 

“Abandoned before anyone could teach you,” Damian murmured, the words half thought, half spoken, and he petted her with as much kindness as he could. When his finger stroked her along her back, she instinctively arched into his touch. 

She was the sweetest little thing he’d ever seen.

He shook his head to shake his thoughts as well. 

“This complicates things,” he told her just to say something and avoid the weird feeling making his eyes sting: so what if she had been left to her own devices? What if no one had taught her how to behave and how to be the best version of herself? 

Many kittens, many animals in general were left behind by their mothers. Taken away from their siblings. It wasn’t the first time and it wasn’t going to be the last.

She rubbed her chin over his fingers and Damian sighed, defeated. “You deserve more,” he mumbled, “than a life spent alone, stuck as someone you cannot choose.”

He wasn’t even sure which part of that hurt him the most — that she had been abandoned, or that he understood it so well. He, at least, had been able to change the fate that had been decided for him; she couldn’t even change skin.

For a moment he simply sat there, staring at the tiny creature on his desk. He had found her freezing, all skin and bones, with no name, no home, no knowledge of what she was, and yet she had trusted him, she was still trusting him, with virtually no hesitation. Undeserved as it felt, that trust settled on him like a warm blanket.

And Damian could have pressed her to shift, he knew it. Terrified her until maybe some instinct would kick in, punish her the way he had been so many times, after failing or even hesitating, until she’d change shape just to please him enough not to be hurt again.

He tightened his lips, revulsed.

“Everything is alright,” he comforted her, petting her with all the kindness he had learned to use his hands for. Hands first trained to hurt, to maim, to kill. Hands that had been taught love, nonetheless, with more gentleness than he could have ever believed to be possible.

And now, little Ayla needed him to be just as sweet — it was painfully clear, after all, that the world hadn’t been.

“Alright,” he repeated. 

She purred under his fingers, blinking slowly while looking right into his eyes, and for a moment her fur seemed to shimmer, like light was bending around her… and then nothing. She let out a low, frustrated sound, with more and more fear seeping through, and Damian couldn’t help it; he picked her up and held her close to his heart, shushing her and swaying lightly on the chair. 

She was warm against his chest, small and fragile and alive, and Damian felt a lick of shame at the realization that he’d only picked up food for humans and not for cats, except for milk which was only okay because Ayla was still young. He couldn’t get her to eat a banana in that form, could he? 

His hand came up to rest between her shoulder blades, his thumb moving slowly through the fur. “We will learn together,” he swore quietly, “and when you are ready,” and not a minute earlier, “when you are not scared anymore, you will be able to change every time you want.”

He kissed her head, right between her ears. “This fear will be nothing more than a memory,” he went on. “I promise.”

Ayla purred, the sound faint but steady.

"I will be here,” Damian added, barely a whisper, “you will not be alone.”

He wasn’t sure whom he was reassuring — her, or himself. Still, he hugged her a little tighter. 

And when the next promise came out of his mouth, he wasn’t holding a cat anymore. Just a naked little girl.

He smiled.

“We will be fine.”

“Is everything alright, Master Bruce?”

Bruce blinked and raised his eyes to the butler standing in front of him. He had lost himself in thought, still holding WE papers in hand, but he liked to think he hadn’t reacted to Alfred coming inside his home office because he trusted him, and not because he was getting sloppy with age. 

Even considering how many of his kids were now adults, Bruce wasn’t old and he’d rather not feel as such for as long as he could, no matter how his joints would sometimes fight against him.

“Fine, thank you, Alfred,” he replied and he put the documents down to take a sip of coffee from the abandoned cup on his desk. He hid a grimace when he realized how cold the liquid was.

As the all-knowing real master of the house, Alfred switched his cup with a new one and Bruce nodded in thanks.

“Did you need anything?” he asked, sighing in pleasure when he tasted the fresh coffee.

Alfred left an envelope on his desk. “You have been invited to a wedding.”

Bruce hummed, eyes scanning the WE papers once more. “Important?”

“Not very. I have already picked the present. Excellent taste as always, sir.”

Smirking, Bruce nodded as a thank you.

“If that is all,” Alfred concluded. 

He went to turn around and leave the office, but Bruce stopped him; something had popped into his mind and while he was sure the butler already knew, he really wanted to talk about it.

Outside the room, the Manor was quiet, too much almost, in the way it had been since all of his kids but one had moved out. On Sundays, a day dedicated to brunch and family, the whole property became chaotic and full of noise and simply warm, filled with people who chose to be there time after time.

Now, however?

It was silent — in a way that made him aware something was missing.

“Is Damian still in his room?” Bruce asked eventually.

The eighteen-year-old had been restless, during breakfast, trying too hard to appear composed, not like someone who was choosing silence to keep the peace, but more like someone whose mind was somewhere else. There had been glances, too, quick and almost guilty, toward the door.

Alfred nodded. “I believe he is, sir. Has been all morning.”

Bruce grunted, because he had expected that answer, and he allowed himself the ghost of a smile. “He brought another stray into the Manor.”

“That would hardly be a novelty, sir,” Alfred said, standing straight and proper as always, “but if I recall he had been expressively told not to.”

Looking down into the dark coffee, its surface still like everything seemed to be in that place, lately, Bruce tightened his lips. He knew there was a certain truth in those words and if Damian had been younger he might have agreed, knowing how important it had been to teach him to follow the rules and the structure they created in general — but the kid was no longer a kid. He hadn’t killed in years, he had graduated from high school with excellent marks, he was remarkably good during patrol… What more could Bruce have asked for?

He looked outside the window, to the pale sunlight filtering through Gotham’s usual clouds of pollution.

He would have liked for Damian to open up more, maybe, sure. He wasn’t the greatest example of that, however, so who was he to judge? It was his fault, if he hadn’t been able to teach him to talk about feelings, not Damian’s.

Bruce was also quite aware, unfortunately, that his son wasn’t very happy at the moment. 

Maybe he wasn’t unhappy either.

But nowadays he only smiled during patrol, or at the usual Sunday brunch.

If Bruce were a betting man — and while he wasn’t, he was for sure a detective — he’d say Damian was lonely. 

“He’s been guarding his room like Fort Knox. Wouldn’t even let Titus in this morning,” he murmured, something soft taking over his expression. Then he frowned. “Alfred, did I make a mistake when I told him he could take a gap year?”

With his usual aplomb, the butler didn’t look surprised by the apparent change of topic. He did, however, take some time to think. “I believe Master Damian has a certain right to choose his future,” he settled on after a few seconds. “And whether to become a doctor or a veterinarian is an important decision. One that takes time.”

He hummed. “I also believe the young Master has fought hard for quite a while. He was entitled to a break.”

Bruce nodded, feeling a little lighter. The two of them had discussed the topic at length, although being eighteen Damian hadn’t really needed permission, and at first it had been good. He had appeared lighter, and his work with the Teen Titans during the summer had been great, but with fall his mood had gone down a little and after the winter holidays it had worsened. Maybe because the Manor had been full of people and light for Christmas and then, by contrast, January was looking colder.

“I think it’s a cat, this time,” Bruce affirmed at that point. 

“Shall I-”

“No,” he interrupted him, softly, “let him keep it.”

That earned him a look, one eyebrow raised in restrained disapproval, before Alfred nodded as he always did. He might not have agreed, but he wasn’t going to fight him on this and they both knew it. “Very well.”

“He’s been off, lately,” Bruce said, somehow feeling he needed to justify his parental decision to his own father figure. “Quieter than usual, distracted. He’s been like that for a couple of weeks now,” he went on, frowning, “and I can’t tell what caused it. He doesn’t talk to me… and I don’t want to force him.”

Alfred hesitated long enough for Bruce to feel a pang of worry in his chest. “Do you believe his current mood might be connected to his mother, sir?”

His jaw clenched. “It often is.”

He sighed, then, staring at the dark coffee and breathing in its strong aroma. He took another sip. “I don’t know what happened, but whatever it was, he’s not letting anyone in. I think a kitten might do him some good.”

The butler nodded, slow and careful, any kind of earlier disapproval gone.

“I think he’s lonely,” Bruce added at that point. “Not that he’d admit it.”

Alfred studied him for a moment, eyes piercing in a way only the person who raised him could have, because he had been there when the walls had been built, through the trauma of that first brick, and when the mask had been put on for the first time. “He is not the only one, sir. Is he?”

Bruce met his gaze and blinked, schooling his expression because he really didn’t want anyone to read him as easily as he knew the man could, and he tiredly raised a corner of his mouth. “He doesn’t know we know,” he reminded him, trying to get back to the topic of his son. “Let Damian choose when he’ll tell us.”

He didn’t mind, not really. 

Kids needed to have their secrets — even when those secrets had paws.

“Very well,” Alfred repeated. Then he picked up the phone and pushed him toward Bruce. “In the meantime, may I propose that you call your children?”

Bruce accepted the phone and hid a smile. “If you insist.”

Chapter Text

Although Damian was always wary of describing anything as torture, considering it was something he had gone through multiple times as a child, as he grappled from roof to roof he couldn’t help but think he could, if maybe just silently, in his head, compare patrol to a new brand.

It hadn’t even been hard; no major threats, just a lot of civilians needing help in the cold weather, like the homeless people shivering in the snow he had taken to a shelter. Still, Damian had stayed out hours, unwilling to let anyone else on comms know he had somewhere to be and therefore unable to quit earlier than the others. He had patiently waited for his father to tell them all to go home — and Red Hood’s quick remark that he could do whatever he wanted —, before he finally found his way back to the Cave.

He knew Ayla understood she had to keep quiet and stay in his room, and that she wouldn’t really mind either, considering how many hours per day cats slept. Still, he was uneasy, thinking of her there all alone —without him to comfort her and make sure she was alright. Reassuring her she had him and always would.

It had been just three days since finding her, but each patrol had been harder than the one before. 

And if a part of him thought it had started well before her… no one had to know.

On top of all of that, anyway, Damian still needed to find a moment to take Ayla down to the Cave and run some tests; checking if she was healthy, first of all, but also if someone was looking for her. If she had, after all, a family. 

And if she did… 

He shook his head. Of course Damian would be happy for her. He’d make sure to set up a trust fund so that her future was as full of possibilities as she deserved, and he’d send her on her way. Right?

Right.

But if she didn’t…

He climbed off his bike and took off his domino, before starting to remove every piece of equipment he had on him. A hot shower and a change of clothes followed.

He didn’t stop in the kitchen on his way back to his room, because before patrol he had grabbed some leftovers he knew Alfred wouldn’t mind seeing missing. Of course, the butler would think Damian was the one who ate them, but at the end of the day, did it really matter? He’d skip meals if he had to, if that meant making sure Ayla was fed; it was simple luck that the Manor was a place where no one would care about how much food went missing.

Damian unlocked his door and locked it again behind his back — he had been wary of leaving Alfred able to walk in, or Ayla to walk out and find herself in front of the rest of the family, but also worried about caging her somewhere she’d been incapable of escaping in case she needed to. He wasn’t sure what she might need to run from, of course. It wasn’t like she could get the place on fire. Still, all he had needed had been teaching her how to open the window and explain to follow her feline instinct and jump on the tree nearby… only in case of emergency.

“Ayla?”

She meowed and ran into his open arms, hugging him tightly and rubbing her cheek and chin all over his stomach. “Da-mi,” she called him and Damian couldn’t care less that her voice broke in the middle — she had said his name.

He choked a little, although he wasn’t sure why as it was clearly beneath him, before kneeling on the ground to look at the little girl right in her eyes. They were spending hours working on training her vocal chords to human words again, after who knew how long only meowing and hissing, but each time she called for him — now a total of three — his heart would clench with pride and… and…

He took her into his arms, feeling her purring against his chest. 

He wasn’t sure what he was going to do, if she had a family of her own waiting for her.

“Have you eaten?” he asked just to be able to distance himself from that possibility. He stood up, setting her on the ground again. 

Ayla nodded. She grabbed his hand and Damian let a small smile take over his features, thinking she’d pull him to the bed and curl up against him, so that they could sleep a little; she put a foot on his leg instead and started climbing him.

At eighteen, it was quite clear Damian had inherited his father’s physique; he was tall, with broad shoulders, and apparently an interesting climbing structure for a girl who was often more cat than human. He allowed her to curl around his neck, in a way she had done over and over again as a kitten, and he silently wondered if she was aware of what form she was in.

Still.

It was night. No wonder she was feeling active, that was how cats were. Damian being tired didn’t mean a lot, not when she was cooped up in the room with no real distraction when alone.

He rubbed a hand over his face. He wasn’t going to be able to keep her hidden for long, not if he wanted her to be healthy — but was there a solution? He had just finished high school; would anyone trust him with a kid?

Not a normal kid, he reminded himself. 

Something burned in his chest. 

She was his.

… Could she be? Could he just… choose? Choose her?

Damian threw her on the bed to get a giggle in return, which he promptly shushed. He stayed still for a moment, trying to understand if someone might have heard her in the silence of the night. Even though his father was still in the Cave when he had left it, the worry never left.

Small fangs bit his hand and he jumped, before smirking. Ayla was a kitten again, tail swishing playfully as she played with his fingers, before something flew outside of the window and her attention was diverted that way.

With her curiosity making her run around the room to catch shadows and whatever else she saw, Damian went to lie under the covers, muscles aching from the long patrol. He tried to watch Ayla play, he really did — but he was asleep in a few seconds.

“What is this animal called?” 

Damian held one of the cards Barbara had once used with Cassandra, which he had stolen from the library as soon as he had realized Ayla could speak, although with some difficulty and in a way that wasn’t really instinctual for her. He waved the card, because keeping the little girl’s attention up was harder than he believed it would have been with another five-year-old, probably due to her feline side, and he nodded in encouragement.

“Ele-phant,” she said.

He beamed and ruffled her hair. It wasn’t as tangled as it had been the first night, not after using almost an entire bottle of conditioner — with Ayla lying on the bathroom counter with her head in the sink — and a lot, a lot of patience. It would have probably been easier to cut it short and it was still a possibility, considering how messy it quickly became after every transformation and how unkept it looked, but they could wait a little longer. Now, dressed in the clothes he had bought her, sunglasses and a cap to hide himself from whoever might have been interested in snapping a picture of Damian Wayne in a children’s store, she looked like any other girl of her age.

“And this?” he asked as he waved another card, before he held a hand to stop her from answering for a moment; he had taken the habit to keep his stereo on with music low enough not to bother Ayla’s sensitive ears, but loud enough to cover the sound of them talking or at least give him the benefit of the doubt in front of his family, and every time the song ended they had to wait for the following one to begin.

When it did, Damian motioned Ayla to answer.

She shrugged. “Yummy.” 

Laughing, he shook his head. “Fish.”

“Fis.”

“Fish. Repeat after me. Fish.”

The word cat got him a beaming “me”, dog got him a hiss, and so did a seagull, which allowed him to understand she had spent some time near the docks, while giraffe proved to be a hard sound. 

They went on for a while, dedicating part of the morning to study, and when he was satisfied by the improvement with animals, verbs and objects, Damian picked a new deck to change the topic one last time. “Do you know what color this is?”

“Green.”

He raised the orange card. “And this?”

Ayla frowned. Her focused expression was so sweet it almost made Damian understand why Richard would coo the first years after meeting him — not that he had ever been this innocent-looking, of course, but he could now sort of get how seeing a child acting so serious could be considered adorable.

Except that the feeling faded when she shook her head.

“This is orange,” he explained. He picked another color. “And this?”

She frowned even more, lips drawn back to show her tiny fangs. “Same.”

“No,” Damian corrected her, “these are different colors. This is red.”

He picked the orange card again and put them close to each other. He had a feeling he knew the answer to the problem. “Do you see a difference?”

Hesitating, she nodded.

“But do they look like different colors,” he began, “or a darker and lighter shad-versions of the same?”

Ayla narrowed her eyes in concentration. “Same.”

Damn it.

“Alright,” Damian reassured her, leaving both of the cards aside. He had thought she was more human than kitten; after all it was clear that someone had taught Ayla how to speak and that she must have lived with people for a while, but her reaction to colors had shown him he couldn’t underestimate how much of a cat she also was. And she couldn’t have been clearer than this. Cats were great with blue and grey and green — red, orange, brown? Not so much.

He showed another color, just to test his theory. “This is pink.”

Ayla rose to her knees and crawled until she could sit on his lap, fingers tracing his lips in interest.

Damian smiled, his mouth opening and nipping gently at her hand. “Do you recognize pink? Or do you just like my voice and the way I say it?”

She smiled, a sweet little thing in his arms, and headbutted him on his chin and neck. 

“Alright,” he repeated, holding her a little tighter. “Enough for today.”

And then, because he refused to be the way his grandfather had been, making him feel like Damian was never as good as the man wanted him to be, he praised her. “You did great.”

Ayla purred, burrowing closer on his chest and kneading his skin everywhere she could reach.

She understood most of what he’d say, Damian knew it, because at some point she must have lived with humans — even just the fact that she knew how to use a toilet was telling! 

Sometimes, however, she struggled with simple concepts, and that meant she had been in her feline form for a while.

She just didn’t know how long.

Hesitating, he separated her a little from under his neck, while still keeping her on his crossed legs, and looked into her green, curious eyes. “What is the last thing you remember, before living as a cat?”

She rubbed her nose with the side of her index finger, hand loosely closed in a fist. “Lights,” she murmured, before sniffing. “Sweets.”

Damian raised an eyebrow. The air had smelt sweet? “What kind of lights?” he asked instead.

Not leaving his lap, Ayla reached for the cards and threw away one after the other, creating a mess on the bed, before stopping on the image of a tree. 

Words failed her, sometimes, probably because she wasn’t used to them, but Damian knew it: she was smart. And she had just given him a hint in the best way she could.

He picked the card. “The lights were on the trees.”

She pressed her cheek on his chest again and nodded.

He closed his eyes, holding his breath. “Because it was Christmas.” 

“Screaming,” Ayla whispered then. “Loud.”

Damian’s heart sank. He had a feeling he understood what kind of event might have pushed her to turn into her other form, maybe even for the first time, unlocking a new ability due to desperation, but he seriously hoped he was wrong. “Were there a lot of people around?”

She nodded again.

“In a park?”

Another confirmation.

He held his breath, mind running fast as Ayla hid her face in the crevice between his chest and his arm, shaking. 

He remembered that day. His father had insisted on having a family outing, both for the sake of bonding and of getting photographed by paparazzi to keep their carefully constructed image up, and what better place than the Christmas festival in Gotham’s biggest park? 

The air had been sweet with sugar and cinnamon and holiday spirit, with lines of fairy lights strung from tree to tree, and children running around with ribbons and Santa hats, losing gloves and scarves in the haste of playing. At the entrance, right by the gates, there had been a snowman competition, while another area had been set aside for kids to lay down and create snow angels on the ground — he remembered because Jason had had the moronic idea to push him in, under the pretense of making him have the childhood he had skipped because of Ra’s, and Damian… Damian hadn’t been able to retaliate, being in public, fuming with anger until Timothy had hit Jason in the face with a snowball and Richard had put a handful of snow in his pants, both avenging him in a very civilian way. Duke had laughed so hard he had almost choked on his hot chocolate and Cassandra had patted him hard on his back.

Father had complained like he did when he wasn’t really bothered, smiling softly in front of his sons and daughter, but Damian had wanted to make it clear anyway: he wasn’t a kid.

Because it had happened the year before, when he was already seventeen.

And now, over eighteen, he had the sick feeling in his stomach that told him Ayla had been a cat for a little more than a year.

With a wave of nausea, Damian hugged her and kissed her hair. She was around five. Of course there was no way for him to know for certain, until he went to the Cave to do some tests, but the point remained. 

She had been alone, abandoned and stuck in a shape she couldn’t control, since she was just a child. For more than a year.

As a kitten, Ayla looked to be two months old, so he was sure time passed differently for her while trapped like that — probably because her animal form was a direct result of how young she was as a kid, rather than the real development other cats would follow.

Not that it mattered.

If that festival was the last thing she recalled…

Screaming, she had said. 

And Damian remembered that day quite clearly. Running to the car to change as fast as they could and go back, this time as heroes. Civilians begging for help. People getting trampled while trying to escape. 

Children crying.

Ayla’s small hand clutched his shirt and he moved her a little in his arms, so that she was lying instead of sitting and he could lull her gently. She blinked up at him, slow and full of meaning.

He remembered, yeah.

It had been the beginning of December. A perfect, glittering illusion of peace.

And then, from one moment to the next, it had turned to chaos.

Grabbing the remote abandoned on the mattress, Damian turned off the music, by now well aware of how Ayla would get when she was right on the verge of falling asleep and recognizing the signs. She purred when he grazed the side of her cheek and temple, in the sweetest of caresses, before he carded his fingers through her hair and… there, she was going to stay down for at least a couple of hours.

Staring at her closed eyes, Damian thought about that day, at those fairly lights and the sugary smell in the air and the life that had filled the park. 

Until something had shifted. Joy had turned into fear — and suddenly everyone was running.

He and his siblings had already been scanning the area, instinct never truly sleeping, but it had been their father to notice the first movement: vines crawling up the light poles, curling around the electric wires and bursting them in a shower of sparks. Snowmen suffocated by dark branches. Leaves falling like snowflakes. 

Damian remembered looking at the decorations as they began to twist, to grow, to breathe. 

Until, skin green against the white of the snow, Poison Ivy had stepped forward like the ghost of the forest herself. 

And the thing was… they should have expected her to.

A side of the Christmas fair had been dedicated to the sale of trees.

Poison Ivy’s voice, when screeching that they had carved life into stumps and called it festive, had been angry and almost desperate at the same time.

Damian had barely heard it over the people’s panic, but he knew she had soon lost control, whether because she and Harley had been arguing for days at the time, or because some kind of chemical had caused her plants’ pheromones to have a bad reaction. 

The real reason didn’t matter.

Not when roots had broken the ground, trees had crashed the stands, branches had trapped people and squeezed them in deadly hugs.

The whole family had gone to work instantly, of course, cutting vines and guiding civilians out, but there had still been casualties — more than anyone would have liked, probably even Ivy herself.

Now, Damian wondered if between all the cries he had heard, there had been Ayla’s too. If paying more attention might have meant he could have spotted her in the crowd, helped her and held her and protected her from the trauma that had left her hiding in the shadows as a kitten. 

Sitting on the bed, with the sweet girl sleeping in his arms, Damian felt nausea clog his throat and his thoughts. Had she been there with her parents? Had he failed to save them? 

Was Ayla’s last human memory his back, as he ran away to help someone else?

Of course, it was useless to think like that now; there had been dozens of children that day, although thankfully not in the casualty reports — having to choose, Damian and his family always prioritized kids —, and not knowing her family there was no way to remember if he had even seen them. 

Maybe she had been there with someone else altogether.

Or maybe her parents had died protecting her. Maybe they didn’t even see it coming. 

Maybe they’d be somewhat pleased to see him taking care of their little girl.

Or they had lost her in the crowd, and they had been looking for her ever since.

She stirred in her sleep, nuzzling closer, and Damian followed his instincts and petted her hair until her breath evened out again. Who knew if she could smell the messy emotions he was feeling.

He lulled her gently, although it wasn’t really needed, and his throat tightened. 

He remembered, days later, Ivy’s hollow stare as she whispered that she hadn’t meant for it to happen. Locked in Arkham, there had been no reason to lie. And Damian had believed her: she had only wanted people to listen.

It didn’t change what had happened, though, did it?

He wondered, once more, if he had seen Ayla that day. If he had heard her cry. If he had walked away.

But that didn’t change what had happened either.

So Damian hugged her to his chest and kissed her forehead.

This time, he’d stay.