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His mother has acquired a pet.
Damian knows who the pet is, catatonic and half-dead that he is: he is the second of the boys under Father’s kafala . He knows that the pet is meaningless, useless, barely human.
He also knows that he will snap the spine of anyone who touches the pet with the intent to do violence.
It is only because the pet belongs to his mother that Damian has a blade up to the throat of Omar, one of his grandfather’s men, with the pet cowering on the ground at their feet. His nose has been bloodied. There is violence running through Damian’s veins, as cold as his grandfather’s fury.
“The Demon’s Head—”
Damian shifts the blade, drives it straight into the man’s windpipe, and he dies with a gargle of blood.
He doesn’t bother to catch the man, just lets him fall where he is. The body will be cleaned up. Instead, he crouches down to haul the pet up, saying in English, “You are to tell me if you are attacked again.”
The pet doesn’t respond. He has not spoken since Damian’s mother brought him here. Damian will have to keep a closer eye on him.
He doesn’t wipe the blood away, so Damian does that for him, examining the pet’s nose critically. It’s not broken, though, just bloodied. Damian has had worse from his mother.
But the pet belongs to his mother, and she has not given the order for him to be bloodied, so it is unacceptable. And previously he belonged to Father.
That means that, by virtue of Damian being their heir, the pet belongs to him as well.
“You are mine now,” Damian tells the pet, pulling him along to the pet’s room. It is irritating to have to speak in English to the pet, but he supposes it is good practice. He will be sent to Father soon. “You are not to put yourself in positions to be harmed.”
The pet says nothing.
He is Damian’s age, or approximately so, but there is nothing behind his eyes. They are not the eyes of a child, or of an aged adult. They are the eyes of a corpse.
“I will fix you,” Damian tells him. “You will be my gift to Father when I go to him.”
Damian would have gone to Father previously, but things had been…volatile. First, with the first boy under Father’s kafala , and then with the boy that this pet was before. Damian’s mother had not thought Damian ready to go there, had thought Father would be distracted, had thought it would not go well.
But Damian is older now. He will prove himself. He will bring Father proof that he is ready to serve by his side.
He simply needs to figure out how to fix the pet.
–
The pet does not get better on his own. He follows orders well enough, when necessary, and he learns Arabic well enough to follow orders in Arabic as well, but he does not take individual action, and his eyes never resolve into thought.
If there is anything in there, it is not reaching past his brain.
But his body knows how to fight. Damian trains him—trains with him—and it becomes clear that whatever was done to him, it did nothing to his muscle memory. He must build up his muscles again, but the skills, they are there.
And he can learn new skills as well. He learns how to use a blade, though he clearly does not know it when Damian puts the sword in his hand. His abilities grow, and that means that there is something there.
He will be a brilliant gift to Father, when he is fixed.
–
Things come to a head before Damian manages to make him better, and then Damian is dropping him in the Lazarus Pit because he has no other choice, because his grandfather wants the pet dead or in his hands, because Damian isn’t willing to give him up, because the pet is his .
The pet comes out of the Pit sputtering, choking, flailing, but his eyes are full of life for the first time, bright green and glowing as he snarls, “Get the fuck off of me. Where—who the fuck are you? Where am I?”
“We need to run,” Damian tells him, shoving the hilt of a sword in his hand, and he doesn’t even realize he’s speaking Arabic until the pet blinks at him, blinks at the sword. But his hand curls around it like he knows what he’s doing, and when Damian runs, he does too.
Damian has had paths out for years, but they still have to fight their way out, and the pet fights too. But he fights not to kill, and Damian will need to train that out of him, because that how he’ll get himself killed.
Which Damian will not stand for.
The pet is his.
The pet waits until they’re in a car to demand again, “Who are you?”
“My name is Damian al Ghul, Ibn al Xu’ffasch.”
“Son of the Bat,” the pet says, and then he looks surprised at himself. “How do I—how do I speak know…whatever you’re speaking?”
“I taught you Arabic,” Damian tells him. “It is my native language.”
“Arabic? You’re—son of the bat ? Are you saying you’re—shit, did Bruce and Talia—” He makes a face, staring pointedly out the windshield. “Gross.”
“The relationship between Mother and Father is not gross ,” Damian says stiffly. Right now he misses the version of the pet that didn’t speak.
“Right,” the pet says. “Sorry. I didn’t mean—it’s just, I mean, your mom’s an assassin, right?”
“Mother is Talia al Ghul, daughter of Ra’s al Ghul, the Demon’s Head.”
“Right,” the pet says again. “And how again did I end up with Talia fucking al Ghul?”
Telling him is a risk, given the possibility of pit rage and the fact that they’re in an enclosed car, but not telling him seems like more of a risk at the moment, so Damian says, “You were killed by the Joker. You dug yourself out. Mother found you and brought you here to keep you safe.”
“Why don’t I—why don’t I remember anything? Why don’t I—”
“Head trauma often causes traumatic amnesia.”
“But I don’t remember being there. I don’t remember—I don’t remember you.”
“Your eyes were that of a corpse,” Damian tells him. “You were walking, but you were not alive.”
“Jesus,” the pet breathes. “Well, I feel really fucking alive now. So we’re, what, brothers, yeah? I went from being an only child to fucking collecting siblings, I guess.”
“We are—” not brothers , Damian intends to say, but he doesn’t want to say those words, not when the offer is there. “There is another,” Damian says instead.
The pet’s jaw tightens, and he asks, “Bruce replaced me already?”
“My understanding is that the new Robin insinuated himself into Father’s life to keep his violence to a level seen as appropriate to those in Gotham. He has been…successful,” Damian admits grudgingly. There had been concern that Father would allow himself to die, following the pet’s death. That Father is still alive, and is taking fewer risks, says something about the new Robin’s abilities.
But he will be temporary. Father will no doubt see that he is a pale imitation of what a true heir can be.
The pet’s jaw stays tight for a long time as they drive, and Damian fears that he will succumb to the pit rage. But the glow in his eyes doesn’t intensify, just stays at a steady light, and eventually his shoulders relax, and he says, “I guess that’s fine. Like me with Dick. I mean I fucking hate him, but I’ll probably manage to stop hating him by the time we get back there. Fuck. What’s his name? Actually, no, don’t tell me his name, I might put this sword through a window if I know his name.”
They continue to drive. Damian knows the route to an airport, and he can drive it well enough to keep half his attention on the pet, just to make sure he isn’t at risk of succumbing to the rage.
The pet is alive now. He will be the perfect gift to Father.
–
They are at Jinnah International Airport when the pet succumbs to the rage building inside of him, and Damian has to corral him into a bathroom stall and hold him against the wall, pinning him against the tile as the pet snarls and fights back.
“You must be calm,” Damian tells him. “The rage will pass. You must be calm.”
“Fuck you ,” the pet snaps. He tries to bite at Damian, aims for his shoulder, his throat, trying to rip and tear and bite , but Damian is stronger than him, better trained, and even with the weight the pet has put on Damian is still heavier. “Fuck you, I don’t want to be calm, I want to kill someone. I want to kill the fucking kid who took my place, I want to kill Bruce, I want to kill the Joker, I want to kill you.”
“That will pass,” Damian tells him
“Fuck you.”
“That would be inappropriate, given our adoptive relation.”
That seems to startle the pet out of his rage, because he relaxes reflexively, his body going still against the wall. He barks out a laugh. “Sorry, sweetheart, you’re not my type.” He leans forward until his head is resting against Damian’s. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to lose my shit. Fuck.”
Damian tells him, “You are forgiven.”
“Jesus,” the pet breathes. “I can’t wait to get home.”
–
It takes nearly twenty-four hours to get to Newark International Airport, which is the closest international airport to Gotham. Neither is old enough to rent a car, but there is a train to a station in the center of Gotham, and neither has much in the way of belongings, so it isn’t overly inconvenient.
No more inconvenient than taking public transportation is, but the train is more empty than not, and so Damian is less concerned than he otherwise would have been about the pet’s rage.
If a few civilians are injured, Damian will hardly be bothered. His concern is getting to Father with the pet intact.
He keeps the pet on the window side anyway, to keep himself between the pet and anyone who might agitate him. The pet seems tired now, but determined to stay awake, clutching a cup of horrendously inferior coffee in his hands and taking intermittent sips.
“D’you think Bruce is going to want to see me?” the pet asks ten minutes into the train ride, as they pull away from a station. Damian is a little too tired to process the English writing, but he knows what Gotham looks like. It was one of the first words he learned in English.
“There is no evidence that he would wish for anything else,” Damian says.
The pet rubs at his face, nearly hitting himself with the coffee cup. A few drops splash out of the top onto his cheek. “I just—I think there’s something wrong with me. With how I came back. You know? Like in the airport.”
Damian does not have a good response to that, so he stays silent. The pet drinks more of his coffee and scrubs the droplets off of his face.
The train pulls into another station. It is not Gotham.
–
They take a taxi from the station to a house half a mile from Father’s. Damian has approximately twenty-seven thousand dollars in cash of various denominations, so he is able to pay for the taxi without raising undue suspicion. The pet stays silent, staring out the window.
They walk the remainder of the way, a good opportunity to stretch their legs after so long trapped in vehicles.
The gate is of little difficulty to scale, though Damian goes first so he can catch the pet if needed. He has seen the pet do well enough in combat situations, but he has not seen sufficient proof of his acrobatic abilities yet.
The pet lands with nimble feet, though, bending his knees appropriately to soften the fall.
They make their way up to the door, and Damian is prepared to be attacked before they reach it, but nobody comes to intercept. He knocks, and after a long wait, the door opens.
“Hello, Father,” he says. “I have brought you a gift.”