Chapter Text
“Wake up.”
Damian woke and sat up all at once, turning on the bed in the cell to face the door. His father was outside, staring him down through the small, barred window. Damian was not wearing his Robin uniform, instead clad in what seemed to be a black cotton shirt with pants of the same material.
“Father?”
“Yes.”
Already, that wasn’t right. Damian squinted at the outline of the man’s face, illuminated from behind. Why was he in a holding cell? Why was the cell dark?
“What’s happening? Was I compromised?”
“Yes. You’re under observation. Take this.”
His father--The man opened a slot in the door, sliding a tray forward. On the tray were two protein bars, a bottle of sealed water, and a small cup. Damian stood slowly to approach, examining what he’d been given. Inside the cup were two pills, oblong and white.
“What is the medication for?” he asked, eyes moving up to meet the man’s through the window. Still, it was difficult to read him, the rectangle of visible face concealed beneath the black mask with white lenses.
“You were dosed by a new toxin while on patrol. The antidote isn’t safe to administer intravenously yet. Those will slow down the effects until I can finish modifying the antidote. While under the influence of the toxin, you may be a danger to others.”
“And that’s why I’m in the cell,” Damian concluded for the man’s benefit. If this man were his father, he’d know Damian wouldn’t take any medication without knowing exactly what it was.
The man grunted in affirmation.
“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” the man said, though he didn’t sound like he thought this was particularly urgent. A shade past stoic. Damian didn’t curl his lip, because he could act, even if this man couldn’t. He took everything back with him to the bed set up in the rear of the cell, unsealing the water and pretending to swallow the pills. The man closed the viewing window with a click. He made no noise, but it was likely that he left.
There was a single obvious camera on the ceiling in the right hand corner of the room, next to the door. The red light on it blinked. In all likelihood, there were more concealed cameras. Damian sat in a meditative position and tried to work backwards.
Before this, what had he been doing? He’d been on patrol, hadn’t he? It had started normally. Batman had been called to an urgent incident uptown, and Damian had been trusted to wrap up the robbery they’d been foiling. Nightwing was in town, only a few blocks away. He’d been thinking about whether he could speak with Richard after patrol, discuss a flip he’d been modifying. One of the robbers had gasped, even though he’d been tied up and Damian hadn’t been doing any interrogating.
A pain in his shoulder. Damian had spun to face the threat, realized it was outside and that he’d been dosed with something via dart. Someone had hit him from behind. Then, a flash of light followed by the absence of a loss of consciousness.
He’d been captured then. The man had responded to his greeting of ‘father’ with no surprise, although he could have suppressed it.
Damian opened his eyes and stood again, examining his cell. Two by three meters, a toilet but no sink, a bed, no sheets. Meant to hold someone for a short period of time. The packaging on the protein bars and water bottles was plain and black, lacking a brand. No bat, another sign that something was wrong.
The walls were made of metal, a steel alloy, he thought. The ceiling was three meters high. A small vent (five by ten centimeters) provided air circulation, as did the metal door with its two slits for the viewing window and the tray. From the acoustics of the man’s voice outside before, the cell was inside of a larger room. It hadn’t sounded like a hallway, although it could be a very wide one.
Damian checked underneath the thin pallet on top of the bed, then felt the whole thing. Weak, synthetic fabric. He could make something with it if he needed to, but the provided clothing would work best. The water bottle could be carved into a weapon, though it’d be difficult to do so without being seen. The paper cup could also work. No obvious avenue for escape presented itself, although he could attack the man the next time he visited through the window.
He paused, checking the door again-- external hinges. Doors were often the weakest part of any prison, so that was the best exit point. He’d check the vent later, as well, after he’d better ascertained the monitoring capabilities of his captor. If it could be removed-- it looked made of metal-- it would make the best weapon of the things available to him.
As it was, Damian began to slowly empty the water bottle, taking mock sips every few minutes. The time dragged, even with the meditation techniques he’d learned. Hopefully he hadn’t been unconscious too long-- he could last longer than the average twelve year old without water, but he was still human. It was likely he would escape before that became a real issue.
A sound from outside drew his attention. Quietly, Damian crept forward, crouching at an angle where he would not be immediately visible if the window were opened (though he imagined that, if the camera were being monitored, someone would likely come to investigate why he was out of sight shortly).
“--the last one,” a voice said.
“Great!” A louder voice, not his father’s, replied, cheerily. “--started now?”
“--Girl-- Oldest.”
“You got it, boss! I’ll go get--”
Damian’s brows furrowed.
That voice had sounded familiar, as well, though… off. Through the metal and the echo of the… cave, it was distorted. Carefully, Damian reached over and tried to slide the tray slit open. It resisted, not providing any good holds. His close-trimmed fingernails were just long enough to slip into the space between the strip of metal and the door and shimmy it to the side slightly-- just enough that he could hear the footsteps moving past.
Why were the steps audible? The sliver wasn’t enough to see through, but that struck Damian as strange. They moved from somewhere to the left of the cell towards the right, where the voices had come from before.
“Ha!” the second voice said- Grayson? Was that Grayson?- and the steps came closer. “Nosy!”
The slit clicked as it slid back into place. Damian clicked his tongue quietly, backing away from the door so that he would not be in immediate range-- an ambush attack would not be advisable so soon after being noticed. But the man with Grayson’s voice didn’t linger. His footsteps were no longer audible with the slit closed.
Damian resumed not-drinking the water. After nearly an hour, he finished it, crumpling the bottle and tossing it to one side of the bed, as if in disinterest. It would likely not fool his captors, whether they were his father and Grayson under some sort of mind control or doppelgangers imitating them. Fifteen minutes later, he yawned. Five minutes after that, he yawned again, laying down.
The plastic of the bottle was cold under his fingers as he lay back and began slowly working at it, first breaking it with his fingers and then curling onto his side away from the door (he would hear them coming before they could enter, he knew). With his teeth, he began fashioning a rudimentary shiv, holding the rest of his body carefully still.
A scream ten minutes later from outside, muffled but high and either childlike or feminine had Damian’s jaw tensing as he froze. It came one more time, pained and long, before trailing off into nothing. After a minute, Damian curled up again, grimly resuming his gnawing.
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Two hours later, a faint hissing noise drew Damian away from his passable weapon. Gas? He sprang from the bed, lifting his shirt to serve as a rudimentary mask, and went for the door. His shiv functioned to slide the door slit open, though that wasn’t enough to prevent the gas from overwhelming him if he could not leave quickly. Tensing from adrenaline and irritation, Damian checked the door again, testing its strength with a shove. Solid metal, steel alloy. No new information.
The Grayson-like man outside laughed, and the slot clicked shut. Damian slowed his breathing as much as he could, pressing the shirt against his face. After a believable amount of time, he fell over on the floor, simulating unconsciousness. The knife he carefully palmed, keeping it out of sight. The gas had no odor, but seemed likely to be a variant of BZ. If they ventilated the room before entering, then Damian could be sure to shake off the effects that he knew would soon present.
Unfortunately, the door unlocked after only a few minutes-- Damian’s internal clock was thrown off by the whispers he’d begun hearing and the strange, floating feeling of anesthetization. The man who entered the room was the same height as Grayson, from what little Damian could glimpse through his eyelashes, though he seemed to be built differently.
The man lifted him, one arm beneath his back and one under his knees, letting Damian’s head and arms hang limply. He was wearing gloves, Damian could feel through the fabric of his shirt-- it felt similar to the kevlar formulation that those operating with Batman out of Gotham used, though it was impossible to know the exact composition like this. The weight didn’t seem to slow him. It could be Grayson.
Knowing this, when the man stepped out into the hallway still carrying Damian, he did not immediately attack. Regardless, he should ascertain more information. The cave around them was large and echoed the man’s steps. Some tens of meters away, a large computer whirred, though the placement was wrong to be the Batcomputer. It smelled of rock and metal.
Damian opened one eye the barest amount.
His body did not tense, because he was an expert. The cave was like the Batcave, but everything was in the wrong place. More importantly, a man was standing over an incapacitated blonde girl in this cave’s approximation of the medbay. Wires and tubes were connected to her, and she was unconscious.
That meant two hostiles and at least one incapacitated person to rescue. Mind working quickly, Damian debated whether to attack now or wait until he’d gotten closer to the other man-- he could use the girl as a hostage, though he seemed to be keeping her alive for now. As a means of control over Damian, perhaps? He thought he’d been taken as Robin (though the gaps in his memory loomed irritatingly), so they could think that keeping a girl as a threat would be worthwhile?
“He’s awake,” the man said, looking up at the Grayson-impersonator. Damian did not tense up. The shiv in his right hand was ready to flip out the moment he needed it.
“I know,” the other man laughed. “I was waiting to see what he’d do--”
Damian stabbed upwards with the shiv, aiming for an incapacitating blow to the back. In the same motion, he slid from the man’s grip, flipping to land behind him.
“--And there it is,” the man said, not moving. His arms were still held up in front of him, and the smile was audible in his voice.
His blood was wrong. Damian didn’t have time to think on it, but he could see in the dim light of the cave that the blood was wrong .
“We don’t have time for your games, Talon. Incapacitate him.”
Damian pulled the knife out and took two steps back. The man-- Talon? turned to face him, and he had Grayson’s face , but his eyes were golden, luminescing faintly. He swung out with a punch before kicking towards Damian’s head-- Damian dodged and ducked, flipping sideways away from the next hit and trying to find a weak point. The stab from before didn’t seem to be slowing Talon at all, and the man had a much longer reach than Damian’s. He dropped low to try and sweep Talon’s feet out from beneath him.
Talon responded by flipping up and over Damian, landing a blow on his back in the same place Talon had been stabbed before. The blow was heavy, stronger than it should have been, but the man shouldn’t have had glowing eyes, either. Damian rolled back into a standing position and shoved forward into the man’s space, stabbing low towards the gut. Non-lethal if he landed it correctly, though he was no longer certain that this man had organs.
“Again?” the man asked, sounding faintly disbelieving. His voice lifted to call across the cave to the other man. “This is really the one we wanted?”
“Yes.”
Damian clawed up towards the man’s awful golden eyes, using the other hand to yank the knife from him.
“Better,” Talon said, seizing Damian’s wrist in a lightning-quick grip. His other one was caught as he swung the knife again. Damian kicked up, trying to force the grip loose with a flip. Talon didn’t let go, and the force of Damian’s move sent a searing pain shooting up his arm from the wrist.
“That’s enough,” Talon smiled at him, pinching at a pressure point in his wrist. The knife fell to the floor with a pathetic clatter. Damian continued to struggle until Talon hit another series of pressure points that sent his body limp and useless.
“Incapacitated, O.”
“Wasting time,” the other man repeated as Talon hefted Damian up in the same carry from before. The hard metal of a table met his back after a few steps as Talon dropped him.
“You like it better like this anyway.” Talon lifted Damian’s wrist, still smarting and aching in a way that indicated that he might have sprained it. A restraint clicked into place, cold and tight. “He’s awake. Should be able to scream, too, though you can wait a bit if you want. Might even try another breakout, you think he’s got any wires hidden under the skin for emergencies?”
“Unlikely,” the man-- O? What was the O for? Not Oracle-- said. The air shifted, and Damian’s eyes rolled to look down the length of his body at the man standing there. He’d pulled the cowl back, revealing a face that was leaner than his father’s. The bone structure was identical, but his eyes were strange. Not gold, like Talon’s, but like the distance his father maintained from the world when needed had been made permanent. It wasn’t something Damian could articulate well-- the important thing was that this man was not his father.
As Talon fastened Damian’s other wrist into place, O strapped his ankles down. Damian still couldn’t move. The pressure points in the sequence that Talon had hit them would mean immobility for another three minutes at least.
He cataloged the uniforms the men were wearing, noting the utility belts, the strange colors and silhouettes, the sharpened fingers of the gauntlets. Metal rattled as O rolled a tray of something closer to the table, just out of Damian’s sight as Talon was holding his head down and strapping that in place as well.
He could only look up at the stark white light suspended directly above the bed, so bright that it left echoes dancing in the absence of vision when he blinked. A shock of cold against his torso, and Damian realized that O had cut his shirt down the middle.
“Hook him up,” O said, head bobbing as he moved at the bottom of Damian’s periphery. Eighty seconds until Damian could move again. Pressure on his arm, then a needle sliding in.
Talon leaned forward to meet Damian’s eyes, face barely visible given the light silhouetting him. His teeth, though, when he smiled, were stark and white. Too sharp.
“This will hurt,” Talon said.
And it did.