Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Run, run, run. Her feet pound against the forest floor. Her heart beats red and bloody in her chest, dripping, leaking. A pool, a river, a lake, of red spreads before her. She stutters to a halt. Listens. Something approaches from behind her. She whips around, reaching for a weapon that isn’t there and—

Damian shoots up with a gasp. He pushes his hair out of his face, panting. Another one? Damn it.

Father needs to get his act together about twenty years ago, he thinks to himself. He exits his room, heading toward the kitchen. He pauses in the doorway, observing Bruce tiredly making a pot of coffee, and enters.

“Father,” he says, silently relishing the way Bruce twitches. “You had it, too.”

“Yes,” Bruce says. “I don’t know… where she is.”

“Do you think that was… real?” Damian asks. He knows that Soulmate Dreams are… strange. At best, they are like seeing through your Soulmate’s eyes for an hour. At worst, they are horrific, abstract dreams, eldritch and Lovecraftian. The most recent one seems to have fallen directly in the middle.

“No,” Bruce says. Sighs, really. “I think that something like it may have, but…”

“It was exaggerated,” Damian finishes. “Did you see her face?”

“She was tan,” Bruce says. “Maybe Hispanic? It looked like she said something at some point, but I didn’t catch what. Dark, curly hair to just above her collarbones. She had bangs.”

“I think at least a portion of her hair was dyed,” Damian says. He pours himself and his father cups of coffee when the machine beeps. “But everything was bathed in red.”

“Her eyes may have been blue,” Bruce says. “It was hard to tell.”

“She was tall, about 5’10 from what I could see.”

“Really?” Bruce hums into his coffee. “Far above average height for a girl of her approximate age. She looked about seventeen.”

“Yes, it’s 5’3, isn’t it?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Well,” Damian says. “At least Todd and Drake will be pleased to have a new sister.”

“You aren’t?”

“I am the blood son,” Damian grumbles. Bruce rolls his eyes, affectionate.

“That doesn’t mean you have to be the only one,” he says. “And besides, she’d be the blood daughter.” Damian scowls.

“You’re not as clever as you think you are,” he says and takes a sip of his coffee. “You buy terrible coffee.”

“You drink terrible coffee.”

“I like it black!”

“I know for a fact that you don’t.” Bruce grins at his son. “I’ve seen you go to Starbucks.”

“I—I would never—” Damian protests, but Bruce snorts. “Maybe I have. Once. But—this is beside the point! We should…” He grumbles. “We should find her. Based on the Dream, she could be in danger.” He shoves up his left sleeve. Lo and behold, there’s a black-and-purple Mark on his forearm. It’s still blurry—after all, Damian doesn’t know the woman. Bruce pushes up his right sleeve, showing Damian his new Mark. This one is also blurry, framed by the Marks of Damian’s siblings—and Damian’s own Mark. “And I want to know her symbol.” Bruce rolls his eyes. “Don’t roll your eyes at me, Father! The symbols—”

“Are important,” Bruce finishes, raising an eyebrow. “I’m well aware.” Damian huffed and crossed his arms. “It’ll form eventually, even if we don’t meet her soon.”

“They’re plotting!” one of Damian’s brothers yells dramatically from the doorway. “Hide the silverware!”

“Hilarious, Drake,” Damian deadpans and walks past him.

“What’s up with him?” Drake asks. Gentle. Damian loves and hates him in equal measure for it. (And if he actually loves him slightly more than he hates him, that’s private.)

His breath is coming in short bursts as he stumbles to the end of the hallway. Someone is behind him. The telltale sound of a knife being drawn rings out behind him. He breaks into a sprint, turning left, right, right, left, go straight… it’s a dead end. He whips around just as the person reaches him and—

Anita shoots up with a gasp.

“Shit,” she gasps out. She sighs and hauls herself out of bed into the kitchen, careful not to wake anyone. She checks the clock. The blaring red letters tell her it’s 4:27. Better than usual.

“Anita,” Percy mumbles as he shuffles into the kitchen and sits on the island. He lies down on the cool granite, grumbling.

“Go to bed,” Anita says fondly.

“No…” Percy groans into the stone. “Can’t sleep anyway.” He looks up and Anita takes note of the dark circles under her brother’s eyes and the tear tracks on his cheeks. “The Pit.” Anita hums and loops an arm around his shoulders.

She lifts her left leg up and balances on her right as she shows him her calf. There are several Marks there—one of them, of course, is Percy’s, a green-and-blue sword with twinkling stars in it, next to Lou Ellen’s pink-and-purple star-topped magic wand. The others belong to her family—Sally’s blue waffle, Paul’s purple-and-red stack of books, Estelle’s sparkling yellow stars, along with the rest of her half-siblings’ shiny Marks. Next to them are Kevin’s lock-and-key and Odette’s shattered, heart-shaped mirror. Above those, centered on her kneecap, are the smaller, no less colorful friendship Marks, many of them gray and two of them scarred. There are Pollux’s gray glasses that used to be blue, Castor’s pink-and-orange nail polish bottle, Charlie’s still-shimmering, slightly faded gray wrench. Two are scarred over—Silena’s gray feather and Luke’s gray shield. Two more have appeared with her family Marks, not yet fully formed: a black-and-royal-blue blob and a black, red, and yellow blob.

“I dunno who they are, apparently,” Anita says.

“Sucks for you,” Percy says like he doesn’t have two unformed Marks on her shoulder.

“I’ll fucking kill you,” Anita says teasingly.

“I’d like to see you try,” Percy scoffs. Anita cocks an eyebrow. “Okay, after you make me my coffee.” Anita snickers and makes her way to the coffee machine, hobbling slightly as she readjusts her leg from the high position it was in. Her hip cracks and Percy winces, sucking his teeth. “You all good?”

“Peachy fine, brother-o-mine.”

Percy shoots her a flat look over the top of his empty mug. “Drop dead, bitch.”

“Such a charmer!” She grins over at her brother. Percy pretends not to notice her shoulders snapping taut when a thud sounds from Estelle’s room, the same way his do. He tightens his grip on his mug.

“She’s okay,” she reminds him (and herself) softly. Rubs a thumb over his knuckles. Soothes what she can. “She probably just knocked something off her bed.”

“I know,” he says, even tone betrayed by his shaking hands.

“Hey,” Anita says. Percy looks up, catching Anita’s eyes. Those pools of black catch the light bleeding in weakly from the windows, purple flaring under the depths of nothingness. Percy finds himself missing camp, if only because Kevin and Odette were always better at this than him.

“She’ll be okay,” he repeats.

“Okay,” Anita says.

They both know they’re not talking about Estelle.

Chapter Text

PAIN.

Anita wakes up screaming.

Knife in her hand, pillow torn from pulling the blade out from under it too quickly. Percy hurtles into her room, Riptide white-knuckled in his right hand. Anita sits in bed, chest heaving, cold sweat soaking her pajamas and sheets. Blessedly, Sally and Paul do not wake across the hall. Neither does Estelle.

“Anita,” he says.

“No,” she rasps. “I can’t—I can’t—” Her leg is burning and she cannot fucking breathe. She kicks the sheets away, clutching at her calf. Percy flicks the lights on, shoulders relaxing minutely. He gently tugs the sheets all the way to the bottom of the bed, sitting next to her.

“Is it yours Marks?” he asks. She chokes on an awful, wailing sob, trying to keep quiet, and nods, tears glimmering in her eyes. “Let me see them. This has happened to me before.”

“They’re not supposed to hurt,” she mutters, voice raw from screaming.

“No, but they can,” he says. He winces at what he sees. The previously unformed Marks, now burned into her skin. The black-and-blue shape, once just a formless spot, is now in the shape of a bat, dripping blue from the black spikes like blood. The other one became a gleaming katana, the blade shimmering red with spots of yellow like sunlight bouncing off the sharp edge and the black handle. Around them, her skin is red like she’d been sunburned. He opens his arms and lets her slump into them, embracing for a minute. She keens into his shoulder, still pained. “Holy shit, dude.”

“What?”

“I think one of these is Batman.” He types something into his (demigod-safe) phone as she leans away from him, shoving it in her face. She squints at it. It’s the Batman symbol on a yellow background. She holds it next to her Mark and immediately starts to giggle. “That’s—that’s just…”

“Just my fucking luck,” she cackles. They both dissolve into loud laughter, barely managing to muffle it so Sally doesn’t have to wake up. Then she catches sight of the time in the corner of the screen and the blood drains from her face. “Shit, we have to go to school!”

(Sometimes, she forgets that Percy’s just barely two years younger than her, just a baby at seventeen to her nineteen.

She remembers what it feels like to be seventeen and invincible, after a battle gone well and many of your friends left survivors. She also remembers what it feels like to be nineteen and weary, still getting occasional growing pains and periods but feeling like you’re ninety. She just wants to sleep, to let herself sink into her mattress and the darkness and not emerge until Sally comes in to drag her out of bed and drive her to school, letting her play whatever music she wants or take a nap in the car. Her doctor said she’s not done growing and maturing yet, but she doesn’t feel like there’s anywhere else she could go. In the back of her head, a voice whispers, “There’s always down.” She lifts a hand to the shock of white at her temple and tells it to shut up.)

Instead of thinking about that, she shoves her brother out of her room and says, “Go get dressed, jackass.” He grins over his shoulder at her, blinding, and she understands why he buries it all so deep. It’s easier that way. They both have scars littering their skin, varying in size and shape and method, but neither ever acknowledges them. Instead, they ignore them or pretend they’re birthmarks or something stupid like that.

Another thing in common is their hair. Both have dark, curly hair, as well as light streaks in it. Her streak is white where Percy’s is gray, right on his part. It matches Annabeth’s, something they earned from holding the sky on their shoulders. No matter how long their hair grows, it will always be gray. Anita’s story is less impressive: Luke thought she could be useful to him and had her taken, but the monsters hadn’t been under his thumb completely yet and just dragged her back to the Underworld, keeping her right near the edge of the Pit. Sustaining herself on three granola bars and magic for a month severely impacted not only her mental state but her physical state as well. Being around the dead for so long had practically sucked all the life out of her.

By the time she had clawed her way back to the land of the living and stumbled into camp, her hair was almost completely white and she looked like she hadn’t eaten in years. A strict regime of three full meals and two ambrosia squares a day got the color back in her skin and her hair (thank you, Will Solace, you heaven-sent angel), except for a chunk at her temple, always a silvery-white. It was a mocking, permanent reminder of what she had been through. Odette always said it was beautiful and Kevin claimed it was basically just a birthmark, but Anita could barely look at it without feeling like she was back there, unable to save herself or anyone else Luke coerced onto his side.

(Anita stares at herself in the mirror at school and wonders, When the fuck did I get so bitter?)

(She used to think surviving made her strong. Now she thinks it’s just another way she failed.)

(Anita tries not to think about the fact that it’s Luke who told her she was weak. Instead, she tries to remember Percy telling her she’s strong. (It doesn’t work.))

Damian doesn’t Dream that night. He wakes up precisely at 7:30, left arm itching. He glances at it, only doing a double-take when he notices the symbol has formed. A purple crescent moon behind two crossed torches, inked in black with details in shimmering gold. He dresses quickly, but not messily—never messy, or else he wouldn’t be perfect—

Well. That train of thought wouldn’t do. He shoves that to the back of his mind and makes his way downstairs for breakfast.

“Good morning, Father,” he greets. Bruce grunts softly.

“Morning,” he rasps. How informal. Damian understands that his new… family is trying to break him of the habits passed down to him by Mother and Grandfather, but there are times he finds them a bit ridiculous. Drake and Cain stumble down the stairs one after another, though Cain is much more graceful than the young man trying to force his way into Damian’s family.

“G’morning,” Drake mumbles, dragging his hand down his face and yawning. Damian feels a surge of—something. It isn’t rage, nor hatred. He’ll have to figure it out later. He does not like it. Damian wishes Drake would sleep more, just so they didn’t have to deal with him half-asleep at the breakfast table. “Where—Dick and Jason?”

“Not this morning,” Bruce says. “Dick’s working overtime, and Jason is… well. Jason is also… working.” Drake snickers into his coffee. Cain kicks him under the table and smiles, hurting and soothing in the same breath. Drake kicks her back, much more gently, and then pushes the plate of breakfast pastries towards Damian.

“Tt,” he says, “I do not eat sweets for breakfast.” Drake appears to be holding back another laugh.

“Right. Sorry, Dames,” he says, pulling the plate back towards himself and Cain. They exchange a glance and then focus on their individual breakfasts. Damian ignores the horrible nickname in favor of buttering his two pieces of toast and taking one spoonful of eggs.

“Eat more,” Cain insists quietly. She scoops another helping of eggs onto his plate and then two pieces of vegetarian bacon. Damian purses his lips but allows this. It’s true, the extra food will allow him more energy for patrol tonight.

“Thank you,” he says. She beams at him over her apple juice and takes a happy sip.

“Little brother,” she says instead of ‘you’re welcome,’ because it brings her joy to remember that. Drake rolls his eyes fondly and kicks her again.

“I don’t understand why you insist on inviting Todd,” Damian starts.

“Oh, not this again, Damian,” Bruce interrupts. “I invite him because I want him here.”

“Does he want to be?”

“Sometimes,” Bruce says. “He comes sometimes.” Drake’s face takes on an interesting expression. He is clearly still conflicted over his relationship with Todd, though the elder is no longer trying to kill him for being a replacement.

(Damian will admit that he understands Drake’s strange relationship with Todd. After all, he and Drake have a similar one…)

(Damian resolutely ignores that he knows how distraught and heartbroken Drake had been when Robin was taken from him. Grayson had only given Damian his birthright.)

(Deep in his head, Damian feels regret over that instance. He shoves this thought away as soon as it appears.)

Chapter Text

“Damian, honestly.” (Anita’s name isn’t Damian, as far as she remembers.)

“Apologies, Father,” she hears herself say. “It will not happen again, so long as Drake does not provoke me.”

“I didn’t provoke you, and you know it!” someone else shouts. Her face twists into a scowl.

“Do not even speak to me.”

Anita wakes more well-rested than she’s felt for a while, though her Dreams were far from peaceful, rife with tension between whoever this Damian was and who she assumes are his siblings. (Far better than any demigod dream, though.)

“Morning,” she yawns to Paul. He smiles at her over his coffee.

“Sleep well, sweetheart?” Paul is from a small town where everyone and their mother called you ‘honey’ whenever they felt like it. (It makes her like him more than she already did when she saw him making her mom smile.)

“Yeah,” she says. “Better than normal.”

“I’m glad,” he says. He takes a bite of his bagel and offers the other half to her. She takes it gratefully, biting back another yawn. “I figured, since it was Saturday, we should do something fun! Sally took Estelle to a playgroup earlier this morning, and they’ll be out until around 3:00.” Anita had heard them leave. She may have slept well, but she still wakes at any slight noise. He turns to Percy, who dragged himself across the kitchen to the cereal cabinet. “Aquarium?” Percy perks up immediately, hitting his head on the counter in his haste to straighten up from where he was bending to get a sock onto his foot. He barely even seems to notice.

“Yes,” he says. “Paul, I love you. You rock. I’m calling Annabeth!” He disappears back into his room, still holding the box of Lucky Charms. “Yo, Fleecy!” His door shuts. Paul and Anita share a grin and then turn back to their respective breakfasts.

“The aquarium sounds great,” she says, “but you know he’ll try to stage a prison break, right?”

“I’m counting on it,” Paul confesses. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen him just… be.”

“Aw, Paul,” Anita says, voice sarcastic but sentiment sincere. “Can I call Odette? She’ll pay for our lunch.”

“Yeah, sure,” he says. “And you know, I can pay—”

“Paul,” she says. “Odette’s rich. Let her.”

“Are you voluntelling again, Anita?”

“Only if you look at it that way.” She tosses a smile over her shoulder at him and walks into her room, a tiny grin still playing on her lips as she calls up an IM. “Odette Velázquez and Kevin MacLeod, please.” Three of her Soulmates appear in a grid.

“It’s so early,” Kevin groans.

“It’s ten in the morning,” Odette says, disbelieving. Kev moans and slams one of his pillows over his head.

“Mom and Estelle are out till 3:00 today,” Anita says. “Paul, Percy, Annabeth, and I are going to the aquarium. You wanna meet me after for food around 1:00?”

“I’ll pay,” Odette says, muffled by her toothbrush.

“We know,” the other two chorus.

“Shut up,” Odette complains, rolling her eyes. “I’m rich. Let me be generous!”

“I’m game,” Anita laughs.

“You both suck.”

“Yeah, but you love us.”

“What the fuck even ever. See if I’m ever nice again.” Odette flips them off and then swipes a hand through her connection so she can go back to sleep, leaving the two remaining to burst into laughter. Anita’s phone buzzes in her pocket.

“Oh, hey, hang on a sec,” she says, opening it. “Oh! Mom said she did a contest with Estelle at the… wherever they are… apparently it’s a place a lot of people with adopted kids go. They got two free DNA tests.”

“Interesting!” The low light of the Hermes cabin catches on his cheekbones, illuminating him in a way that makes him look heavenly. He’s fiddling with his camp necklace. “You should take it,” he says. “I assume the other one will be for Estelle, because that way everyone else in the house is covered.”

“Yeah,” Anita says absentmindedly. She taps out a quick reply to her mom: sounds cool! see u soon :) . “Anyway, meet me at the deli at 1:00. Don’t be late or I’ll fucking kill you.”

“Rude,” Kevin says.

“Anyway,” Anita says. “Guess I’m finding out who my dad is soon.”

“Good luck.”

“I hope he doesn’t suck,” Kevin says, beaming. Anita finds herself grinning back.

“Thanks,” she says. And then, after only a short hesitation: “I love you.” He smiles gently.

“Love you, too,” he says, and then they swipe their hands through the IM at the same time. (Yeah, they’re cute like that. It’s almost like they’re high-fiving!) Anita turns and goes back to the kitchen, where Paul and Percy are excitedly discussing plans. Gods, she loves them.

“Ready?” Paul says when he catches sight of her, lurking at the edges of their conversation. She smiles.

“Duh.”

The aquarium visit goes exactly as Anita predicted, which is that Percy spends most of the time at one tank talking to the fish and trying to free them.

“No, Percy,” she says, gently steering him away from the clownfish.

“They’re so sad,” he says, eyes big. Across the room, a young boy with tan skin and green eyes observes them from next to his tall father. “Please, just one!”

“Dude,” she says.

“No thievery,” Paul says, appearing over her shoulder. She twitches so hard her left shoulder slams into Percy’s skull.

“Concussion central this fine morn,” he says, clutching the back of his head.

“Sorry,” she and Paul say at the same time.

“S’fine,” he mumbles, straightening up. She and Percy are the same height, 6’0” exactly. Paul and Sally think it’s hilarious. “Lunch?”

“Hells yeah,” Anita says. Paul grins, eyes crinkling at the corners.

“You kiddos ready?”

“Hells yeah,” Percy says. The three of them laugh for a second. Paul’s is loud and booming, which is frankly very history teacher of him, Percy’s a soft rumble in his chest, and Anita’s a low chuckle that one could possibly call a little evil. “Odette's paying?”

“Obviously,” Anita says. “We’re meeting at the deli down the street.”

“Gross, your romance deli?” Paul says, laughing as she shoves at his arm a little. They walk past the young boy and his father, both of whom are now looking at them. She pretends not to notice.

“Yes, dearest Paulie, our romance deli,” she says, “because it’s the best in the city.”

It really is. It’s a hole-in-the-wall, owned by Mr. and Mrs. Rodinsky, two little Jewish elders who go to the Jackson family’s shul. They have the best vegan-bacon-egg-and-cheese bagel sandwiches in the entire country, as Anita has said on many occasions. They also make a fantastic brisket in a pinch, which she learned when Sally accidentally forgot about the one in the oven and let it cook for about three hours too long. Anita ignores the boy and his father following them, keeping them in her peripherals while she follows her brother and step-dad down the street. She can see Percy doing the same, but a glance at her incentivizes him to focus on Paul.

“Anita,” the voice rumbled. “You know you must.” There’s a menacing air to the room Damian—Anita?—stands in. Some being, older than DamianAnita can comprehend, slides its gentle wispy tendrils of power into the chamber.

“I don’t need to do anything, Mother.” The being’s displeased huff echoes through the black marble room, which looks more and more like a dungeon by the second. The crossed torches on the wall flare with purple light.

“Anita—”

“I will not let you get another of my siblings killed.”

Damian wakes up bone-tired. This hasn’t happened often before, and assumes he’s reached the stage of Soulmatching where your emotions in sleep begin to switch. It only lasts until Soulmates meet. He hopes, for his sake, that they meet soon.

“Why don’t we head to New York today,” Bruce says at the breakfast table. He must have had a different dream than Damian, then. “Tim, Cass, I trust you two can hold down the fort?” Tim opens his mouth to say something, eyes bright, but—

“Pennyworth is here to clean up the mess they will inevitably make,” Damian says. Tim frowns into his eggs, shoulder slumping. Cass’s eyes are sharp on Damian, assessing him. He rolls his eyes at her. Bruce’s face goes soft, and he nudges Tim’s—Drake’s—knee with his foot.

“What is it, Timmy?”

“Well, I was thinking I could bring Cass to the office,” he says hesitantly. “Show her the ropes. She told me she was interested.”

“It would be in more capable hands if you passed it over to her,” Damian says, valiantly ignoring the pang in his chest at Drake’s crushed expression. It’s just pity, he tells himself. Pity.

“Damian,” Bruce says.

“Right,” Drake says. He steels himself. Damian’s breath shudders in through his nose.

Pity.

“Uh. I’ll do that, then,” he says quietly. Cass kicks Damian, hard, under the table. He doesn’t react. He knows he doesn’t, because he was trained better than that, but she looks infuriatingly smug as Damian’s eyes flicker to Drake.

“Fantastic,” Bruce says, delighted. “I think it’ll be great for you two to work together. Lucius will be there to help if you need it. Good luck!” Bruce and Damian stand at the same time, and as they reach the stairs, Damian peers back into the dining room to see Drake shove his plate away and bury his head in his hands, Cass’s hand gentle and soft on his back. “You really need to quit it with the remarks, Damian,” Bruce rumbles.

“What?”

“Tim is your brother. I expect you to treat him like one.” Bruce disappears into his room before Damian is even able to formulate a witty response, much less spit it out. He gets dressed with a sour feeling in his chest and a pounding ache in his skull.

The visit to New York takes them to an aquarium, where Bruce and Damian loiter in the lobby and people-watch. Damian does love these outings with his father, but he quickly notices that the man’s attention is locked on a tall pair of what appear to be siblings and their father, the girl tugging the boy away from the tanks. Their father follows behind them, smiling. Damian wonders if he and Drake could ever—no. He isn’t sure where this thinking is coming from. It’s useless, anyway. Utterly useless.

“Father, come,” he says instead, taking his father by the wrist and pulling him after them as the trio exits the aquarium. They follow at a reasonable pace, several people behind them at all times. They stop abruptly at one point to take a selfie, which seems a little ridiculous considering they’re clearly natives to the city. Perhaps the graffiti doodle of a small dog saying “suck my wang” is nostalgic for them. Ridiculous.

They walk directly past the deli the group had entered and continued walking, back to where Bruce had parked.

“That had to be her,” his father says.

“She is taller than I thought,” Damian says. “And her hair was white. The red light of the first dream must have confused me.”

“Well, at least we know she’s safe,” he says. “Happy.”

“Yes,” Damian says. “Happy.”

The knowledge that he could have a sibling, a real sister, who is perfectly happy perhaps without the understanding that he even exists, stings in a way he isn’t sure he can place until he realizes it’s the same sting as when he says something rude to Drake now. Something in him has cracked. His mother would know how to fix it—his grandfather would destroy it. Bruce wants it to fester, though, to grow into something he cannot control. He has a feeling that if he ever expressed this new emotion to his father, he would simply smile. Tell him he’s proud.

It’s strange to Damian, that now his father’s pride is not the first thing he wants. It’s strange that he wants to make his siblings smile.

Chapter Text

Damian’s chest aches as he watches Drake tumble from the bars into Cain’s waiting arms. There are no more Dreams to be had, not since he knows who she is. He misses them a little, the gentle comfort of knowing she is still there. It is the same strange feeling he gets now when he looks at Drake, when he brushes a thumb over the black-and-red Mark that Damian knows is his. Damian’s teachers at Gotham Academy whisper that he is jaded behind their hands, that he is too mature for a child his age.

His sister is named Anita Mendez(-Jackson). She is nineteen years old, and every picture he could find of her has her smiling, lovely and brilliant. She looks like Father, though his nose is aquiline where hers is Greek. Her eyes are not green like his nor blue like Father’s, but instead endless depths of brown so dark they are nearly black, framed by long curled lashes. Her jaw is sharp, her eyebrows are thick, and there are moles scattered across her face between the scars and piercings. Damian misses her so much it almost hurts, despite never having met her before.

He thinks perhaps she will like him.

(He thinks perhaps she will like the others more, because he is jaded and mature and everything no one seems to want in a little brother. He thinks maybe the others deserve a lovely and brilliant sister more than he does.)

Anita hasn’t Dreamed in a little while, not since the man and the boy had followed them on the street a few weeks ago. So that was them, she guesses. She doesn’t try to identify them or find them, but she finds herself mourning the empty spaces in her life all the same. Percy leans his head on her shoulder and Lou Ellen drapes themself across her lap and Sally braids her hair gently, and she finds herself mourning the empty spaces in her life all the same.

The phone rings.

“Hello?” Sally says, keeping the wireless tucked between her shoulder and ear while she plaits Anita’s long hair. “Oh! Yes, of course. What is this for again? A job offer! Wonderful.” A slight pause. “Anita, phone.” Anita hauls herself up and lets Sally tie off her braid, leaving Percy to flop onto his side on the couch and Lou Ellen to tumble to the floor, grabbing the phone and disappearing into her room.

“This is Anita Mendez,” she says, dropping into her desk chair.

“Hi, this is Bruce Wayne.” The man on the other line has a faint New Jersey accent, and she almost doesn’t believe him, but she’s seen interviews. She knows how he sounds better than how he looks because he’s on the radio so often. Anita blinks for a few seconds, this close to gaping like a cartoon character. “Miss Mendez?”

“Sorry, um, yes. Hi. Uh. Wow. Bruce Wayne. This is… sorry, a job offer?”

“Right, uh, I just didn’t want to alarm you, but I think that—”

“Father, is that her?” a sharp voice asks, drawing a sigh from Bruce Wayne—Bruce Wayne! Talking to her on the phone!

“Yes, Damian, if you would let me speak…?”

“Apologies.”

“Alarm me?” Anita says. “I’m a little alarmed.” He chuckles awkwardly.

“Right, well, we—that is, Damian and I—my son—my biological son—we believe that—”

“I’m another one?” she cuts in, a little too sharp. “Were you following me around New York last month?”

“Ah, yes,” he says. It seems she inherited the inability to hold a normal conversation from her real father rather than the childhood trauma enacted upon her by her adoptive father. “That was not executed in the most, uh, subtle way.”

“I’d have to agree,” she says. Percy sticks his head into her room and she glares at him so fiercely he immediately backs away with his hands raised. As she continues, there’s the sound of a brief scuffle on the other end. “Uh, how would you… well, I guess you’d been having the Dreams, too.”

“Yes, we have,” Damian says, apparently having successfully seized the phone from his father. “Would you like to meet? It would have to be somewhere private, but you may bring guests if you please.”

“How businesslike,” she says before pulling the phone from her ear and shouting, “Percy! Lou! Write this down.”

“None of us can spell,” Lou Ellen says.

“Greek, idiot,” Anita snaps before putting the phone on speaker. “Sorry. When would you—well, where is more important, we’re not that busy…”

“Paul works,” Percy points out.

“Paul’s not coming, he’s busy. I meant the three of us, obviously. The ones without jobs who definitely can tell the school we’re all taking mental health days? You know, those guys?”

“Shut up,” he says, wrinkling his nose. “I bet I could convince the counselors better.” She actually laughs in his face for that one, ignoring his offended gasp in favor of Damian rattling off an address, time, and date.

Damian represses every urge to fidget as he waits impatiently in the meeting room. He sullenly sips his coffee in the hopes it will calm his nerves, knowing full well it will not. After what seems like forever but was apparently only three minutes, Anita stalks in, all long limbs and wild hair. Her piercings glint in the low light of the late Gotham afternoon, sun barely peeking through the clouds into the skyscrapers. She grins when she sees him, and two other teenagers follow after her.

“Damian?” she says, sliding into the seat across from him. The unknown teenager slumps into the chair next to her, while her brother slips in next to Damian.

“Yes, hello,” he says. To her credit, she does not falter at his professional tone.

“So what’s good here?” She says this like they are in a coffee shop and not Wayne Enterprises’ corporate headquarters, which earns her a few points.

“The regular coffee is quite delicious,” he says. “I believe it’s imported from Colombia.”

“Just like me for real,” the young man says, causing Anita and the other teenager to roll their eyes in tandem. “Hi, I’m Percy, Anita’s younger brother.”

“I’m Lou Ellen, her sibling for actual,” the other one says. Percy gasps, offended. “Imported from New Orleans” —she pronounces this as “Norleans,” which Damian understands is the local pronunciation— “and also smarter than Percy. For actual.”

“For actual? How dare you, I am—”

“Yeah, for actual,” Anita says, eyes gleaming with mischief. Percy’s mouth drops open.

“I’m going to get drinks,” he sniffs, looking on the verge of tears, though he makes no move to get up. Damian can tell it is an act, but a well-constructed, seemingly familiar one to the three of them. He feels a bit foolish not to have taken anyone with him, even in his father’s building, but feels a sense of innate trust that Anita will not let any harm come to him. The power of the Mark, he supposes.

“Thanks, babe,” Anita says absentmindedly. “So. Siblings?”

“So it would appear,” Damian agrees. “If I may, how old are you?”

“Oh, yeah, no worries. I’m nineteen, my birthday’s in December.”

“Mine is in August,” he says. “I am twelve.”

“I remember being twelve,” she says. A haunted look overtakes her face. “My condolences.” Lou Ellen shudders beside her.

“Fifth-worst year of my life,” Percy says sagely. Lou Ellen kicks him in the ankle.

“Drinks, peasant,” they say. Percy yanks on one of their locs, harder than Damian has seen any sibling do, so hard that it would certainly earn him a reprimand from Bruce, but Lou Ellen does not even flinch. There is a strange sense of physicality to these three that sets Damian’s teeth on edge. Anita trips Percy over her ankle as he makes his way to the counter and does not wince as his steel-toed boot comes into contact with her calf. When he brings their coffees back, the hot drink in his left hand has sloshed out of the cup onto his skin with no reaction from him at all.

But it is not just that. Anita’s eyes spark and gleam like someone is reigniting a fire in them every two minutes, purple flaring around the pupil as the sunlight hits her face. Lou Ellen’s fingers twitch and tremble like they should be holding something, green nails intermittently warping into claws atop the wood of the table. Percy’s legs shake and move like something is beckoning him to run, muscles tensed in preparation to flee.

And finally, the most incriminating of the reasons Damian should never have come alone: the outlines of weapons beneath their clothing. A bronze dagger in Lou Ellen’s boot, a loaded handgun tucked into the back of Anita’s jeans, a polished switchblade in Percy’s coat pocket. They are prepared for something, and Damian does not know what. It is a decidedly unwelcome fact. Beneath the table, without looking, he texts his father and siblings for backup.

“So,” Anita says, drawing the vowel out. “What do you wanna talk about?” Her shoulders are taut, snapped back like she is a soldier. Lou Ellen, in contrast, slumps in their seat, but their eyes are trained on the door. Percy twirls a pen between his fingers.

“Hey, Dami,” Dick calls from the doorway. “Sorry I’m late.” Anita’s eyes barely flicker over to him, but Lou Ellen seems to know the underlying threat in Dick’s very being. Percy does not look at Dick or Damian, but the pen stills. “You’re Anita?”

“Yeah, hi,” she says, smiling. It does not reach her eyes, but maybe that is just how she smiles. (He ignores the memory of the pictures of her, teeth gleaming in the sun and eyes sparkling with delight.) When she turns back to Damian, she brightens considerably.

“The eldest,” he tells her. Her teeth seem to sharpen in her mouth. “Richard.”

“Please, call me Dick,” he says.

“Sure,” she says, voice a bit tremulous.

Anita, Damian realizes, is shaking. Every inch of her is trembling, something like terror or rage deep in her bones. Damian still does not trust her. Lou Ellen and Percy have it, too, the latter more than the former.

“Nice to meet you,” she says. A lie. “Do you work here?” Dick falters and Damian feels himself frown. Most people know who they are at the very least, and for someone who has known she is a part of their family, she does not seem to have done much research.

“Uh—no,” he says. “I’m a cop in Blüdhaven.”

“Oh,” she says. Percy frowns. Lou Ellen’s eyebrows furrow, mouth twisting into something like a sneer. “That’s too bad.”

“Um,” says Dick.

“We’re heading out,” Percy says, jumping to his feet. The mugs on the table rattle. Anita’s eyes do not leave Dick’s.

“Yeah, au revoir,” Lou Ellen says, wiggling their fingers and leaving unnerving trails of green mist in the air. “See you at home?”

“Mm,” Anita hums, still staring.

The door closes behind the two teenagers as they leave.

“It seems we have quite a bit to chat about, Nightwing.”