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“Have a weekend of bonding, he said. It’ll be good for you, he said. It’ll be a chance for you all to connect, he said. You know what, fuck Bruce. Fuck this whole trip!”
“Oh my god Jason, shut up and run!”
“I am running! What’s it look like I’m doing to you? I can multi-task you know!”
Morons. His so called brothers are morons. Once they’re out of this mess Damian’s going to kill them
“Uh guys, I would like to remind you that they’re no more than about 20 feet behind us!”
“Relax Timmy we’re fine.”
“I’m going to circle back and see what they’re doing.”
“Don’t you dare Tim! Tim! Timothy! Dammit Tim.”
Like Damian had thought, morons.
Being sent away to a forest, where no one else was supposed to be, was a perfect opportunity where they could change into their therianthropic forms and ‘bond’ together. It was suggested, no demanded, by their father that they do so. However their plans got rudely interrupted when Todd decided to go and stick his nose in someone else’s business. He ended up stumbling across a group of hunters who took up camp deep in the forest.
Being the imbecile that he is, Todd acted without thinking and charged at the hunters, obviously hoping to take them down. The idiot underestimated them and was almost shot down by the time the others arrived onto the scene. Still being in their animal forms, unless they wanted to be shot, they really had no choice but to run.
So now they’re running through a forest trying to get away from the hunters, unsurprisingly it being all Todd’s fault. Damian had always said that Todd was useless.
Not only was Todd useless but now Drake was being an idiot as well. Bering the only one who could fly, he decided to turn back and scout from the sky to look at what the hunters were doing.
“He’s going to get himself captured or killed!” Todd growls out through their mind link.
The mind link was how they were all able to communicate while in their animal forms. While it comes with many disadvantages, it does come with some advantages. It was one of the thing father demanded they work on while ‘bonding’.
They run for a few more meters when Drake appears above them again. His wings constantly flapping in order to keep him gliding at their pace as the rest of them ran on the ground.
“Bad news, they’re loading rifles with what I think is a drug or a poison and they have multiple guns loaded, but we already knew that.” He reports back.
“Real helpful Timmy.” Todd deadpans
“I don’t see you doing anything helpful Jason! You’re the one that got us into this mess to begin with!”
Before Todd could retort back, it was easy to tell that he was going to, Richard cuts in. “Knock it off! Both of you! Right now we need a plan, something to get us out of their paths just long enough for us to change back. With the pace we’re going at we’ll end up being caught soon enough. Anyone got any ideas?”
No one answers for a while, Damian’s mind was blank at what they could currently do in this situation. There wasn’t a lot of options, both Richard and Todd could probably take down the hunters themselves while in their therianthropic forms but he knows how strict Richard is of the ‘no killing rule’ and he’s aware on how Todd’s trying to be good and stay clean.
The only other option was to turn back to human, but the process of that takes several minutes and that’s time they don’t have.
“Well perhaps if someone didn’t have such a pathetic form, we’d be able to run faster huh?”
Damian knew that the jab was aimed at him. It always was. Out of the four of them, as much as he despises the fact, he has the least powerful form. Richard always tells him that it’s nothing to be ashamed of, but when his so called siblings all have powerful therianthropic forms it’s hard to not be jealous. Even Drake has a more useful form than he does!
His form is weak, tiny and useless. Richard has his powerful and fast form of a cheetah, Todd has his predatory and menacing form of a wolf and even Drake with his superior tracking senses of an owl. He was just a plain simple house cat. Nothing more and nothing less. Just a cat. It infuriates him to no ends. His brothers would constantly tease him about it which would often lead him to lashing out at them and then that would get them all in trouble by father and Pennyworth.
He doesn’t give Todd the satisfaction of a retort. He’s too busy in trying to keep up to even think of one. He’s having to jump over large roots sprouting from the ground, over piles of leaves and twigs which have fallen from above, he’s having to jump over large ditches. He’d have more chance in being faster if he was human, but the likely hood of getting spotted and shot were greater, he wasn’t risking it.
“We need to think of something!” Richard stresses over their mind link.
“I can try and distract them!” Drake suggests. “I can get you guys enough time to get away or to at least turn back.”
That gets an immediate protest from Todd, “Absolutely not replacement. You’ll get yourself shot or captured.”
“It’s something. I’m going.”
Then like that he was turning around and heading in the direction of their pursuers.
“Tim!”
Just ahead of him Richard skids to a stop. His whole body tense and ready to pounce at a moment’s notice. He and Todd stop next to him. Todd gives Richard a low growl, nodding to the side with his head, “He’ll be fine. We gotta go.”
Damian tuts at them through the link, having had enough with the fooling around. “It’s his choice, lets go before we all get captured.”
Richard was still reluctant to go, however. He stays standing there, focusing on where Drake had disappeared for the trees.
Damian looks over at Todd to find the wolf’s startling blue eyes staring back. Even without the facial features of his brother he knew that he and Todd were in agreement. Silently they both start wondering away, leaving the eldest to his own devices. It was when they were a few feet away that they here a cry of pain through the mental link.
“Tim!”
They turn around just in time to see Richard dash through the trees to where Drake had gone. They share another look between before bosh of them were following Richard’s path. They dart back through the trees, going the way they just came, until they here a variety of screams and yells.
“Shoot it! Just shoot it!”
Todd growls lowly before pouncing at the nearest hunter, it was certainly satisfying hearing the terror in his scream. While Todd and Richard cause havoc with the hunters, Damian searches for Drake. He knows his form isn’t up for fighting so he’ll try and be useful elsewhere.
He finds the fallen owl sprawled out on the floor unmoving. Rushing over, Damian quickly assesses his brother’s body. It was hard to tell if he was breathing or not, his therianthropic form wasn’t the easiest to read, however there was a slight twitch in his spread-out wings that told Damian he was in fact still alive.
Just as he was deciding what to do with Drake’s unconscious form, there were some more shouts behind him and then a high-pitched yelp.
“Shit I’ve been hit… that’s a sedative… fuck.”
He looks just in time to see Jason stumble on his legs before falling limply to the ground. Richard comes out of nowhere and quickly steps in front of Todd’s unconscious form, his long printed body filled with tension, the low growl his eldest brother was making was a clear sign of ‘back away’.
Damian watches with rapt attention as the hunters scramble to their feet, clumsily grabbing and reloading their guns to aim at the very pissed off cheetah. As he shield’s the wolf from view he hisses at the hunters in warning as they start getting closer.
“Damian?”
Hearing his name he startles. He had been so absorbed in what was happening he lost track of what he was supposed to be doing. Sloppy. If he was with his mother she would have punished him for his tardiness.
“I’m still here.” He calls back to Richard.
There’s another hiss at the hunters before he gets a response. “Where’s Tim? Did you find him?”
“I’m with the idiot now. He’s unconscious, hopefully by a sedative, or actually they have done us a favour and actually killed him. I can’t tell.”
Richard wasn’t impressed with his humour. “Enough! Can you get him away or not? There’s no way I’m getting-”
Richard growls and lunges towards one of the hunters who got too close. The man scrambles back at Dick’s sudden movement, his arms were trembling as they badly aim the gun in his direction. Richard quickly retreats back in front of Todd to protect him.
“I’m not getting out of here. If you can get away, possibly with Tim, then do so. Go back and get help. They haven’t spotted you yet.”
That much was true. All of the hunters attention was on Richard, him being the most threatening presence at this moment in time. He glances down at Drake who was still unconscious. He could grab him and drag him away, they’re near the forest edge that they could hide in the trees but the chances that the hunters will catch him are high. He’s lucky he’s small in his animal form, they haven’t spotted him yet.
He’s distracted from his thoughts yet again when one of the men surrounding Richard says, “Just shoot the damn thing already before it attacks us again!”
Damian didn’t even have the chance to react to that. Before he knew it, there were a couple gun shots going off, a painful yell inside his head and even him screaming in distress.
In front of him he sees Richard’s form tremble before collapsing over Todd’s. The hunters all visibly relax when the cheetah goes down. Damian’s mind is reeling, they had… did they just… no surely not…
“Now what boss?”
It was one of the hunters, Damian watches as he places his gun down and looks over at another man who had blood running down the side of his face. Todd or Richard must have gotten him before getting shot.
“We skinning them? Eating them?”
“I want to know why there are two completely different animals out here in this forest. Doesn’t anyone else find it strange?”
“How much do you think we could get?”
“I bet a printed rug will fit quite nicely in my living room at home.”
“All of you shut up!” The boss of the group shouts, silencing them all. “I can tell you what we’re gonna do. These kinds of animals are a lot more valuable alive. I’ve got a few contacts which will benefit us all. Now that they’re only sedated we better get our asses moving before they wake up again. Now go back, get the cages and get the damn animals inside of them, I’ve got some phone calls to make!”
All the hunters disperse. Most head for the bodies of his unconscious brothers but one starts heading his way. He freezes on the spot when he and the hunter make eye contact. The hunter seems at a loss at what to do, after a moment he calls over one of his pals and without thinking about it Damian hisses and darts away into the trees.
He runs for what feels like forever until he knows he’s set some distance between him and the hunters. Once he stops running he curses himself for being so weak and useless. While his brothers fought he just stood around doing nothing! Then at the end he ran away like a coward. He had left Drake there despite what Richard had told him. Now his brothers were captured, in their therianthropic forms nonetheless, meaning they can’t change back without giving their identities away.
This is bad. Father will be so disappointed. He was trained to be better than this, how could everything go so wrong! He was useless, weak, unworthy.
He takes a moment to slowly walk through the forest as he tries to gather his thoughts. The hunters aren’t going to kill them, he at least has that to work with. He needs to find out where they’ll be sending his brothers, he needs to get some sort of tracking device on them.
He perks up, if he’s quick enough he can head back to their camp, get everything he needs and then go to the hunters, place the tracking device on them and follow them to wherever they’ll be going. Father wasn’t expecting back for another 3 days, this could his way to prove he is capable and not weak or useless!
With that in mind he starts heading for his own camp, remembering exactly where they had set up. He has half a plan it’s a start and he’ll prove that he is worthy and not useless to all of his family.
Overall it takes about half a day. By the time the hunters were leaving the forest it was dark out. At that point Damian had already packed up their camp, put everything back on the plane they had used to travel to the forest and was comfortably sitting in the pilot’s seat watching everything they were doing from his camera’s he’s sent out on his drones.
Once he had changed back to human, Damian went to their camp, gathered what he needed and then went back to where the hunters had captured his siblings. He followed them to their camp and went about placing his own cameras and tracking devices. There was no way he could take them all on his own, well he could but he would risk harming the others and giving away his identity. To his annoyance, waiting around and being patient was the way this was going to play out.
While waiting in the plane he goes about watching the trackers and observing the route the hunters were taking, they head out of the forest and onto the main road heading towards the closet city.
As he watched them Damian must have accidently fallen asleep because the next thing he knows is that he’s jerking awake to a beeping sound. He looks down at the tablet still in his lap to find that the tracking devices are in a much different location than what they were when he last looked at them.
His tablet reports that they’ve been stationary for over three hours now. Ignoring the way his body was now aching from sleeping in the chair, Damian zooms in on the location on the map to find the trackers at a zoo.
He pauses, surprised. That’s where the hunters took his siblings? To a zoo? He scoffs, how pathetic, couldn’t they think of anything better? He supposes it’s actually good news because that means he can find his family easier but the idea of it is just terrible.
As he starts the plane up he looks on the tablet for a suitable place to park the plane and starts thinking of his next move in how he’s going to get to his brothers.
It’s nearing mid-morning when he arrives at the zoo. The place was filling up with all kinds of people and their families. Young children were running around screaming, others were crying and just being obnoxious. He can’t ever remember being like that as a child. If he even let one tear fall down his face he would have been punished for it, but these children are crying over absolutely nothing and their parents were trying to soothe them for it.
Deciding to ignore everyone around him, he lines up at the ticket booth, pays for a ticket (the woman serving him gave him a funny look to which he just scowled at. Despite what he looked like, he was not a child who needed handling) and enters the zoo.
The first part of his plan was too work out where his brothers were being kept. The next part would be where all the security was and where all the keys to the cages were being kept. The third part was to free his brothers from there cages and then lastly getting out of the zoo and head back home.
A part of him was just tempted to leave them here. He would think that they’d fit in here pretty well after all, but he knows that both father and Pennyworth would disapprove of that choice so unless he wanted to be frowned upon and disciplined when he got back, it’s best that he rescues them.
He grabs a map of the zoo and starts wondering around. Despite that he was practically on a mission he still couldn’t help but distracted by some of the animals. They were incredible to look at, it just saddens him that they’re trapped here instead of out in the wild in their natural habitat.
Damian ends up finding Drake’s cage first. There’s a small crowd gathered just outside of the encloser, children were pointing at various areas in the cages while the parents pretended to be interested. He looks in the cage himself and scans it until he finds his brother.
Drake was perched on a branch in the far corner, mostly away from sight and certainly away from all of the other owls in there with him, to Damian’s annoyance Drake was asleep. Damian rolls his eyes, how typical. Even if Drake was awake he wouldn’t be able to speak with him, their mind link doesn’t work in their human forms, but he would have at least been able to sign to him what his plan was.
Tutting, Damian moves on.
The next one he finds happens to be Richard. Once again to his annoyance, his brother was asleep. Unlike Drake, Richard happened to be fully on show, right in the centre of the cage, on top of some rocks for everyone to be able to clearly see him. outside of the cage Damian was surrounded by people who were both excited and disappointed, they were happy to see the wild cat but were sad because it was only sleeping and so was its other companions.
Damian moves on yet again. He finds Todd on the other side of the zoo. The wolf’s cage was located at the top of the park, at the tip of a large hill. Unlike the others Todd was wide awake, however he was tearing into what looked like a pig’s carcass.
Damian scrunched up his face in disgust. That’s really something he could have done without seeing. Nonetheless, it’s clear that Todd was too distracted to notice him. He watches his brother tear into the meat and as he glares at the other wolves when they get too close.
Having had enough of the sight Damian leaves and starts his trek back down the hill. Now he knows where they are, he starts forming the second part of his plan.
It takes him until the evening to work out everything he needs, where everything is kept and how everything works. As he was scouting the main security lobby he had manged to take one of the spare keys to the place and pocket it, so he’s got that for later. It’s thanks to all of his training that he’s got it done quick and efficiently as he has, it also helps that the employee’s apparently aren’t very bright either.
Just as the zoo’s getting ready to shut, Damian moves onto the third part of his plan.
As he was wondering around the zoo earlier on, he came across a park like area. There were trees around, several benches and even a playground. This area obviously being where families would have a break to have lunch or let their children go and play. Damian goes to the area and buries himself within the trees, using the thick branches to conceal himself.
He waits there until after dark, when the zoo has fully closed and the guards have done their last checks until moving. He heads straight for the security section of the zoo, he needs to get the relevant keys for the cages so he can free his brothers. He has to dodge a few night staff but he makes his way easily to the place and manages to get inside without being caught.
Inside there was only one guard at the time, he was busily reading a book when really he should have been watching the monitors. Damian resists tutting, one job, that imbecile has one job and he’s not even doing it. It’s not his concern either way, the guard was in fact just making Damian’s job easier.
Damian sneaks by and gets to where all the keys are stored, from his earlier investigation he’s able to pick out the three exact one he needs easily and was on his way out in a matter of minutes. Once outside he heads for Drake’s cage first. It wasn’t that he wanted to free Drake first, it was just convenient that he’s got the closet cage to the security building.
Using a torch to light the pathway there, they had dim lampposts around but the torch made things easier, he gets to the owls cage. This time he finds Drake awake. He watches as Drake’s pupils widen in recognition, his brother hoots before he’s flying up to the mesh keeping him trapped in there. There’s a stream of hooting that comes from him and Damian harshly shushes him.
“Quiet Drake! If you keep up that nonsense you’ll get me caught! I will not be beaten because you couldn’t control yourself!”
Damian climbs over the fence that the public have to stand behind and makes his way over to the cages door. Getting the right key he unlocks it and opens the door up just enough for the owl to get through. As tempted as he is to let the others free he knows that he couldn’t. Thankfully Drake is aware enough to be quick with the escape and instantly flies through the gap once he’s opened the door. As he closes and locks it, Drake settles on his shoulder.
Once the cage was secured Damian moves away, but before moving onto freeing the other two he pauses and takes off his backpack that he’s been carrying all day. Opening it up, he places it on the floor and glances at the owl on his shoulder. Drake cocks his head to the side in question, his big round eyes slowly blinking at him.
“In my bag are clothes, change back so we can move on.” He demands the bird.
Drake flaps off his shoulder and down to the ground. He stares up at Damian, Damian tuts as he gets the message his brother was silently conveying. He turns around and starts surveying the surroundings for any security as he gives Drake some privacy.
Several minutes go by and then he’s hears groaning. He looks over his shoulder to find Drake curled up on the floor, slowly stretching out his limbs one by one. He really tries to not focus on the fact that he’s stark naked. That’s one of the problems when changing back from their therianthropic forms, they become naked once they’re human again.
A couple minutes go by and Drake was finally standing up, he glances around as if looking for something.
“Uh where are my shoes? Did you even pack them?”
Damian shoots him a look before looking down at Drake’s barefoot on the ground. He feels his face instantly heat up in embarrassment. He forgot to pack shoes. And socks. He turns away from Drake and starts walking in the direction of Richard’s enclosure. “We’re wasting time, let’s go.”
Behind him Drake sighs, “And you forgot to pack them. Wow. How can you forget to pack shoes?”
Damian stops walking and shoot an irritated glance over his shoulder and retorts, “How can you be so stupid and get captured?”
Drake scrunches up his face and repeats what he said in a higher voice. Damian scowls at him, not amused by the childish behaviour, and turns back around to walk. If Drake wants to be immature then Damian will let him, he’s not rising to the bait. The sooner he can get to Richard and Todd, the sooner they can go home and the sooner he can get away from them all.
Drake gets over himself and follows behind him but not without comments underneath his breath about his feet was cold or how his limbs were aching and how Damian should have been better prepared. Together they make their way to the eldest’s cage, where inside they find one cheetah awake and pacing the length of it. A nearby lamppost was producing enough light for them to see inside of the cage. The animal goes to one end, turns around before heading back to the other.
Damian feels pain watching the trapped animal, they should be free and allowed to run wild out in their natural habitat instead of this stingy cage.
Without any consultation to Drake, Damian climbs over the fence that’s supposed to keep the public away and finds the door. Opening it grabs the cheetah’s attention and for a brief moment Damian worries at what might happen, whether the animal would charge at him with the clear pent up energy it has or something else that may happen.
Thankfully he doesn’t need to worry because as soon as he sees the cheetah’s face he recognises that it’s Richard. He sees the animal perk up and immediately he’s bounding over to Damian at the door, silently he opens the door wide enough for Richard to walk through before closing it back up again.
“Clothes are in here Dick.”
Damian does not jump at the sudden sound of Drake’s voice right behind him. He certainly knew that the idiot was there. He did.
Drake places the bag on the floor before opening it up as Damian had for him, the two of them then turn around to give the eldest some privacy. A couple minutes go by and behind them Richard was groaning and stretching.
“God I hate being in that form for so long.” That’s when arms fling around him and secure him in a hug. “Thanks Dami! You’re a life saver.”
Damian scowls at both the hug and the nickname but allows Richard to hug him until he lets go and moves onto Drake. He won’t ever admit it out loud but he does like Richard’s affection sometimes, it makes him feel like he’s worth something and is part of the family.
“Hey, where are my shoes?”
Drake snorts, “Damian forgot to pack them.”
“Oh.”
“Perhaps if you imbeciles hadn’t been captured in the first place then you wouldn’t be needing shoes now.” He says defensively.
Clearly recognising his tone, Richard pouts. “Hey, it’s okay Damian, at least you got us clothes. I’m sure you had a lot on your mind with trying to find us and everything.” He doesn’t miss the pointed look he gives to Drake, who merely rolls his eyes and looks away.
Damian narrows his eyes before turning away, “Whatever, let’s go and get Todd.”
He leads the way with Richard and Drake trailing behind. They thankfully don’t encounter any security along the way and get to Todd’s cage in a reasonable time.
As they approach it they each could hear a low growling noise, a deep snarl that was quickly followed by another. Once again there was enough light coming from the lamp post on the path to see into the cage, this allows them to see that two wolves were having a stand off inside.
They were crouched low and were growling as they slowly circled one another. It was clear this was an alpha fight, one was challenging the other and they’ll keep growling and fighting until one yields. Much to all of their annoyance (and unsurprise) Todd was one of the wolves.
The three of them stand there watching as Todd has his stand off with the other wolf. It wasn’t anything interesting and while Damian would be curious to see what one would win he’d rather be back at Wayne Manor doing something else that didn’t involve the others.
“What should we do?”
Richard shrugs at Drake’s question. “I don’t know… we can’t really just interrupt them but I want to get Jason out of there before anything happens.”
There’s another growl and suddenly the two wolves were fighting.
They’re bodies collide and then they were biting, growling, twisting and turning around one another as they attack the other. They break apart momentarily before attacking again. It was interesting and intense to watch. Damian knows that Todd can take care of himself but the fool, more times than not, underestimates his opponents both in human and therianthropic form. Damian isn’t willing to admit it, but he’s slightly concerned for Todd.
There was a yelp from one of them and next to him Richard lets out a sharp breath before saying, “Right, that’s it…” He then lifts his fingers to his mouth and lets out a sharp whistle sound.
While it wouldn’t mean anything to the other wolf, it would mean something to Todd. On Richard’s other side Drake hisses, giving their brother a terrified look.
“Dick! What the hell, you’re going to get us caught.”
Richard ignores him, just as Damian was doing, his attention was purely on the wolves in front of them. The two animals surprisingly split apart, both of them looking around for what made the noise. A moment later Todd finally spots them, when he does his posture straightens and his ears flick up in recognition.
A nudge at his side gets his attention. He scowls, pushes away the offending appendage and looks at the owner. “Go and let him out, obviously only Jason, not the others.”
Damian rolls his eyes, “Tt, of course.”
He grabs the bag off Richard and goes to the door of the enclosure. He opens it up waiting. Inside, Todd and the other wolf growl at each other again and very slowly Todd starts making his way to the door, always keeping the other animal in his sight. He even backs out of the door with his behind first. Once he was out Damian locks the door once again and places the bag on the floor for Todd to use once he changed.
Damian leaves him to it and goes back to Richard and Drake who were quietly talking, when he appears Richard turns his attention to him.
“Now we’re all here, how are you planning to put the keys back? You were planning on putting them back right?”
“Of course. I may not agree with the animals being kept locked up like this but that is a matter for another time. As for now, I shall put these keys back and we will head home.”
Richard opens his mouth to speak but Todd’s irritable voice could be heard instead. “Fuck me that was adventure and a half. That bastard has one hellva bite and scratch on him.”
Todd appears and climbs over the fence to stand in front of them. He was dressed in the clothes Damian had packed, his feet bare like the others, but he had a streak of blood running down his arm.
“Jason! You’re bleeding.”
Todd rolls his eyes and gives Drake a deadpan look, “Yes, thank you, captain obvious.”
“Why did you have to challenge that wolf Jay?” Richard sighs, getting a look at the wound. Damian just gets a glimpse of it, it looks like a deep scratch which will need stitches later on. “You should know better than that.”
Todd glares, “I wasn’t taking shit from any of them. As soon as I got put in there all of the others hated me. That bastard at the end deserved a beat down.”
Damian huffs, “Now we’re all here can we go. I have had enough spending time with you and would like to go home where I can get away from you all.”
Todd raises an eyebrow, “Something we can finally agree on brat.”
“Jason. And yes Damian, let’s go, how do we get out of here?”
The four of them decide to attempt leaving through the front gates (there really being nowhere else they can exit from). As Damian put the keys back, Drake tampers with the security, setting the cameras into loop from the amount of time they take to scale the gate and leave the grounds.
Much to all of their surprise, they make it to the gate and over it without any problems. The entire time both Drake and Todd complained about their lack of shoe wear but Richard helpfully reminds them that it could be worse and how Damian had done his best.
They make it to the plane, set it to auto pilot and get settled for the flight home.
“So…” Todd starts off with. He was on the medical bed getting stitched up by Drake. “What the fuck are we going to tell Bruce because I am more than willing to give him a piece of my mind about this whole stupid trip. We didn’t even work on being in our therianthropic forms….”
From the pilots seat Richard sighs and rubs his forehead, “I don’t know. He’ll most likely work out the truth either way, but I am more than willing to let this whole situation go. Though there’s definitely things we need to talk about guys so things like this don’t happen again.”
It doesn’t go unnoticed on how he gives them all a disappointed look with that statement. It goes silent for a moment before the eldest was speaking up again.
“On the other hand, Damian thank you for getting us out of there. I have no idea what we would have done if you didn’t find us.”
Todd snorts, “Who knew the brat had it in him after all…”
Damian sends him a glare, “I should have just left you in there Todd, after all you do belong in a zoo.”
“Watch it brat, next time it’ll be you I bet the shit out of when I’m next in my therianthropic form.”
“Just as you were beating that wolf earlier?”
“Oooohh, he got you there Jason.” Drake comments with a laugh.
Todd glares at Drake and shoots a retort back, from there the two of them begin bicker like children. Next to him Richard gets his attention with a hand on his arm. “Damian, seriously, thank you. I want to know how you managed to find us and in such a sort time to. Despite what the others say, if you didn’t have a small therianthropic form, you wouldn’t have been able to get away. You’re not useless or pathetic. As we each do, we all have our strengths and weaknesses alright.”
Damian studies Richard to find the man looking at him sincerely, it was clear that he meant what he was saying. While it was good to hear Damian still couldn’t really believe it. It was just this once that his smaller form came into use, not any other time. He just got lucky that’s all.
Suddenly he’s being pulled up and out of the co pilots seat that he’s been sat in and dragged into a hug from Richard. “I’m proud of you baby bat. Don’t go beating yourself up about your form, it was helpful today, you freed us because you manged to get away and now we’re going home. In the future there will be times you won’t be able to help, but there will be times when you can.”
Damian eventually relaxes into Richards hold and even wraps his own arms around him. He didn’t know how to take Richard’s words, he wants to believe them but he finds he just can’t. It was nice to hear though and how he’s proud of him, at least Damian knows that he’s done something right despite everything. It’s something he has to go on, not that he’ll ever admit that out loud to anyone.
From the hug he mutters, “Still should have left Todd at the zoo.”
Richard laughs, “Yeah we probably should have, it would be a lot easier to say at least.”
“Hey!”