Chapter Text
It’s the day after his tenth birthday, and Damian Al Ghul still feels sore all over.
It’s because of the fight with his mother, of course. The hardest fight he’s had in 10 years of training - but he still won. It felt like victory - even more so than the Year of Blood.
He wants to ask her if she had to fight one of her parents - probably her father - on her birthdays during childhood. If she came out successful against the same obstacles. But the idea of his mother defeating his grandfather sits in his stomach wrong. After all, if his mother could defeat her father in personal combat, and he could defeat her, that would mean Ra’s Al Ghul, the Demon’s Head, was capable of being beaten by a ten-year-old.
Even though he’s currently dead - or missing, Damian’s unsure which he believes - that thought still feels vaguely blasphemous to him. His grandfather had been omnipresent throughout his childhood, either to supervise training, send out missions, or alternatively switch between a cold, calculating pride and a reminder that Damian owed his entire existence to him.
The thought that he’s just gone like that makes his head spin.
Damian idly picks at the stitches on his cheek, and his mother moves his hand down. “Stop fidgeting, Damian,” she says. Once she’s assured that he has, she steps back to her bags and begins to rummage through them.
Damian sighs. He has his grandfather’s sword in one hand and his gloves with spiked knuckles in the other. Even though he’s all armed for combat, he doesn’t feel ready for it.
And his mother certainly doesn’t look ready for it. She comes back to him holding a small cylindrical container in her hand, a little larger than a large coin. It has a black lining and some type of soft earthy color in the middle.
“What is that ?” Damian asks pointedly.
Mother reveals that the cylinder flips open and starts to rub her index finger in the interior of the thing. It appears that she’s picking up some type of very soft chalk around the color of her skin.
She smears the chalk on his cheek and it stings, but Damian doesn’t react. She does the same for the cut on his forehead. When Damian tries to reach his hand up to rub it off, she grabs him by the wrist to stop him.
Damian resists the temptation to stick his tongue out in disgust. Whatever she put on him has a heavy, uncomfortable feel, even if he discounted the stinging around his cuts.
Damian holds up his grandfather’s sword to see what she did to his face. In his reflection, he looks uninjured - the cuts have been completely disguised by the skin-colored chalk.
“What’s the purpose of this?” he asks.
Mother shakes her head. “No purpose in particular,” she says, but she immediately starts doing the same to the cuts on her face.
Is she… embarrassed ? Small flesh wounds aren’t really cause for embarrassment in the League. After all, you probably won the fight with a severe injury to your enemy - or their death. If all they could do was graze you, that’s a testament to your speed, to your cunning.
Damian wants to ask his mother how long it’s been since she saw his father. Maybe that will clarify some things. But she’s already explained everything to the best of her ability.
His father is a detective. A very good one, too. He’s also a warrior - he dressed to scare his enemy and strikes at them from the shadows - kind of like an assassin is supposed to.
He hopes his father will approve of him if that’s the case. After all, that is how he fights.
(Damian permits himself the brief fantasy of them fighting together against a common enemy, but knows that his father will probably send him out to work alone or with lackeys - after all, even Mother didn’t accompany him on missions. Instead, he commanded his grandfather’s Shadows).
His father also goes by the alias Batman - which Damian knows he’s heard in the League a couple times, mostly when he wasn’t supposed to be listening. From what he’d heard it seemed like his father was at odds with his grandfather. However, when he asked Mother this, she only said “It’s complicated.”
Damian had sniffed at that. Complicated indeed. As if he couldn’t understand complicated things.
The plane soon arrives at Gotham City, on the water. A car is already waiting for them when they get on the docks with a chauffeur inside.
The chauffeur drives through Gotham with expertise. As Damian presses his face against the passenger window to see the scenery as they go by, he thinks he wouldn’t be able to do the drive better. Whatever the structure of this city is, it’s completely unfamiliar to him. Hordes of civilians stop at intersections, waiting for some light, yellow taxi cabs stop suddenly in front of busses, a type of elevated train chugs along over the streets on a railline.
Completely unfamiliar. Damian eyes the gargoyles and grotesques hanging off some buildings and notes what a perfect place it would be to set up his sniper rifle, he scans alleyways fill with dumpsters and imagines sliding underneath them with a knife brandished, ready to take out the first target foolish enough to walk through them.
His father chose an excellent city for a battlefield.
It isn’t much longer before the car turns out of the city and starts through some woods and meadows. Not entirely bad for training exercises, Damian thinks.
Finally, the car starts to turn around a hill and the chauffeur parks near a waterfall. Mother grabs a handheld electronic device as she gets out of the car. Damian follows her and eyes it curiously.
“A code-scrambler?” Damian asks. “We’re breaking in?”
Mother smiles slightly. “Well, I didn’t call and tell your father to expect us.”
Damian nods sharply. He doesn’t bother asking why. Maybe Mother wants to set him up against whatever defenses his father has. Maybe he’ll be impressed.
Or, the thought hits him, maybe she didn’t call because he wouldn’t have answered. Maybe whatever happened earlier had been too bad and now he didn’t want anything to do with them.
Damian hopes it’s not that second one.
Damian scans the field in front of the waterfall as he walks forward. Mother is slightly behind him. She must want him to demonstrate some initiative.
His father wouldn’t leave his fortress undefended. It was one of the things Mother briefed him on on the way over. Father operated out of a cave attached to his manor, and an entrance through a waterfall was one way to get there.
So… there must be some security around here. Damian doesn’t see any at the first glance, or even the second, but on the third look-over he detects a flash of sunlight off the lens of a camera in the grass.
Damian frowns. He’s pretty sure they’re in range of the camera and have already been spotted, but he points it out to Mother anyway.
She nods sharply at him. “So do something about it,” she says.
Damian extracts a knife from his belt and throws it at the camera. It lands perfectly in the center of the lens.
Damian smiles.
Damian bounds forwards. Now that the enemy -
No, his father.
He’d slipped into assassin mode immediately when he started with the knife. Now that his father is definitely aware of his presence, time isn’t on his side.
He races to the wall of rock near the waterfall, scanning above him for traps of loose rock that might tumble on his head. He keeps his weight on the balls of his feet, ready to change direction in an instant.
The air behind him buzzes with electricity, and he jumps out of the way just in time as a shock strikes where he just was.
Curious, it didn’t feel that strong.
Despite the fact that it’s not his mission, Damian stops to investigate the false rock that nearly zapped him, carefully removing the metal spikes on his glove so that it will insulate instead of conduct electricity.
Prongs of a taser-like weapon are sticking out of the rock, but when Damian bashes it open to see its power source, it’s painfully aware the weapon was intended to be non-lethal.
Maybe to incapacitate his enemies, so that he can interrogate them at leisure?
Damian keeps at least a foot of distance between himself and the rock wall as he continues inside. He looks over his shoulder to see if his mother is following him, and she is. She’s not approaching as cautiously as he did, though. Instead, she walks confidently through the field, as if daring someone to snipe her.
What’s going on here?
Mother reaches Damian as both of them are buffeted by the water of the waterfall. She activates her device but absolutely nothing happens. She sniffs slightly.
“He must have upgraded security since the last time,” she says.
The wall of the rock opens before them. Standing in front of them is his father - dressed in his bat uniform. He’s broad and muscular, like a boxer, but can’t be much taller than Mother - maybe even a little shorter. Damian unfortunately blurts out the first thing that comes to his head upon seeing this.
“Father,” he says. “I imagined you taller.”
“Father?” says Father. “Talia, what’s the meaning of this?”
Mother walks confidently past Father, as if they hadn’t just tried to invade his stronghold. She leans against a rock wall of a cavern.
And Damian - takes in the cavern.
It’s enormous. A multi-levelled cave with trophies from Father’s various victories, Damian presumes. A giant penny. A playing card. A series of cars that Damian can’t help but gasp at. Each one of them is sleek and black, with small detailing and metal panels that might hide weapons or tools. One of them has spoilers shaped like bat wings. Damian can’t tell whether it looks cool or ridiculous, but it certainly looks distinctive.
Further inside the cave, next to a series of computer terminals, is a man who has to be at least 60, probably 70. He’s balding with a combover, has a neat mustache, and is pressing one of the buttons on the computer console. The wall of the waterfall shuts behind Mother and him.
“ - can’t honestly expect me to believe this, Talia - ” Father is saying as Damian takes in the room.
“Why not?”
“Because it would mean you lied to me! You said - ” Father glimpses at Damian and lowers his voice. Damian shuts his eyes to block out non-auditory stimulus and tries to listen even harder.
“You said you’d lost the child,” Father whispers. “And you didn’t.”
There’s a long silence on Mother’s end - or maybe she’s just better at whispering - and Damian suddenly feels intrusive and awkward. He swings his sword through the air, mostly to loosen up his muscles.
Father walks up to Damian. Despite him being shorter than Damian had expected, he still towered over him. Damian was, after all, just 10. Not really much taller than 137 centimeters.
Okay, exactly 137 centimeters, but whatever.
“What are you doing with a sword?” he asks, holding his hand out, presumably for Damian to give him the sword.
Nice try.
Damian tilts his head slightly up, attempting to look dignified. “Well, I am an expert swordsman.”
It’s impossible to tell for sure with the mask, but Father looks skeptical.
“He’s been dying to meet you,” Mother adds, as if she and Father weren’t just fighting. “I’ll leave you two to it.”
“You’re leaving?” Damian asks. He immediately regrets it. It sounds childish.
“I’m sure you want the power to make an impression without me,” Mother says. She looks at Father knowingly. “Wouldn’t you agree he deserves that opportunity?”
“Damn it, Talia - ” Father says. But Mother’s already pressed her device against the wall of the waterfall and this time it opens.
So she was bluffing earlier?
Either way, she slips out. Father makes a couple strides after her before he stops and looks at Damian.
His mouth his pressed in a very thin line. He looks displeased. Damian feels himself get on the balls of his feet in preparation to fight.
If he noticed, Father doesn’t react to it. “Give me the sword,” he says.
What is this even about?
Does he not believe Damian can use it?
Damian holds the sword out in a fighting position.
“Don’t be stupid,” Father says.
“I’m not stupid ,” Damian says. He slashes towards Father with the sword.
He’s not putting a lot of force into it - he doesn’t actually want to hurt his father - but he’s still surprised when he connects. The sword scrapes across the kevlar lining of his father’s uniform.
Now, Father shifts back a little. Still, his stance is half hearted. Like he doesn’t actually want to fight.
Damian thrusts forward with the sword suddenly, this time with more force. Father steps to the side. He doesn’t bother with a retaliatory blow.
Damian frowns. This is humiliating. There’s nothing wrong if the fight had ended quickly - but his father isn’t even deigning to hit him back!
“Show me respect and fight me!” he snaps, this time coming at Father with more than one strike - a kick aimed at his knee (Father shifts his weight so it clanks harmlessly into muscle) a knee to the kidneys (absorbed by kevlar) and a sword strike across the chest (blocked by his gauntlets, though Damian does feel the sword dig a little into his father’s arm). When Father is distracted with that, Damian allows himself the incredibly low blow of kneeing him in the groin.
Father exhales with pain and but recovers quickly enough to strike Damian’s sword arm - on the outside of his hand with one hand and the inside of his wrist with the other. Damian’s entire forearm rings as he drops the sword. He could try to hold onto it, but it’s obvious he’s not going to do much good with it right now. He instead prepares to reach for a knife, but Father grabs for his hand. He’s a little too slow - Damian does get his hand around the handle of his knife - but he lets it go. The less Father attacks him back, the more embarrassed he feels. Like this is just a childish outburst instead of him showing his father his skills.
“What’s your name?” Father asks.
Damian sighs and attempts to step back, but Father’s still got a good grip on his wrist. Damian knows the technique for exiting a wrist grab (at least against unprepared opponents) but doesn’t bother using it. What’s the point? This is what he wanted, right?
“Damian.”
Father nods. He releases Damian’s wrist, steps back, and takes off his cowl. Damian’s a little surprised at his appearance. He was expecting someone his mother’s age, but the slight lines around Father’s eyes indicate he’s probably at least forty. “I’m - I’m Bruce,” Father says a little haltingly, a little awkwardly.
“I think I’ll still call you Father,” Damian says.
Father frowns at that, but doesn’t object.
Now, the man with the combover comes up to Father. He stands by his side, and says “Shall I prepare the guest bedroom, Master Bruce?”
Father nods. “That would be nice, Alfred.”
As the man - Alfred - leaves, Father says “That’s Alfred Pennyworth. He’s - ”
“Your servant?” Damian asks. “I’m familiar with etiquette around servants. We had a lot of them.”
Father frowns again. It seems like that’s the only reaction Damian’s eliciting from him.
“He’s my friend .”
Damian doesn’t say anything, but it seems like your friend wouldn’t be the one preparing guest bedrooms for you.
“Look,” Father says. He sighs and rubs his hand through his hair. Damian’s mostly struck by how tired he looks. “You can’t walk around the manor with a walking armory. You’ve got to disarm.”
Damian grits his teeth. Fine. He can disarm. He takes off his belt of knives and shurikens and removes his gloves with the spiked knuckles. He runs a mental inventory over the weapons he’d packed -
Oh. Pistol on the back of his belt. He hands it to Father.
Father eyes it skeptically. “What are you doing with all these weapons, Damian?” he asks.
What kind of question is that?
Damian leans forward a little to try to see whatever’s attached to that orange utility belt Father has, but he steps back.
“Are you saying you don’t have weapons?” he asks.
Father carries Damian’s weapon to a safe. He barks his codename gruffly at the safe as he spins a combination on it.
He doesn’t even put his body between Damian and the door to block his view of the combination. That could be good, if he thinks that Damian’s trustworthy enough to see it - or bad, if he thinks Damian is so incompetent he wouldn’t have spotted and memorized the combination.
“ I’m not a child,” Father says.
Damian crosses his arms indignantly. “Neither am I!”
Father looks him up and down again.
Damian clicks his tongue against his teeth.
Father sighs heavily. He pulls a toolbox out from under a table and hands it to Damian.
“What’s this for?”
“For repairing the security features you destroyed,” Father says.
Damian holds back a groan. He should have made his security features less destructible.
He sighs as he eyes the tools in the box. It’s a menial job. Probably fit for him when he was no more than a child, before he’d ever gone on any missions - real missions, where people died.
But it’s probably a start. Father didn’t see any of his skills (Because he wouldn’t let him demonstrate them), so he’d need to know what he can do.
Damian takes the box diligently and leaves. As he’s leaving, he hears the hard thwuck of a fist slamming into rock - Father punching the side of the wall, he presumes.
He must not want him here at all.