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When Mother instructed Damian on his family outside of the League, she always put emphasis on their strengths: what Damian would need to prove himself superior in.
For Richard, it was how he made people feel comfortable. Damian did not understand, initially, why this was something one would consider a skill. That was until he watched Nightwing pull a woman who had been accosted into his arms and she sobbed. Until he watched children who seconds ago had been about to fight over a morsel of food cheer as Nightwing flipped into the middle of the confrontation and offered to buy a meal for everyone there. Until he was held in Richard’s arms after their father disappeared and told that no matter what, Richard would not leave him.
Richard Grayson had an uncanny ability to understand how people felt and to adjust his actions to make the person feel more comfortable than they thought they could be. For all of Damian’s training in infiltration, that was a skill he still fell short in. So he observed his older brother and he learned.
Fo Todd, it was his spirit. Arguably, Damian could best Todd in all areas: deadly or not when it came to combat, however, Damian also understood the benefit of a tactical surrender until he could return with an advantage to guarantee victory. Todd was either too stupid or stubborn to acquiesce that point and he would instead repeatedly beat on the door of the issue until it caved under sheer pressure. Damian had seen multiple instances of Todd entering a scenario he should not have left alive and then having the older boy prove him wrong. Damian did not know if it was grit, some hidden skill gifted to him by that cursed pit, or just the nature that was Jason Todd, but it was something he could respect.
So despite the fact that Damian likely was already superior to Todd, he still paid the other the respect he deserved as someone truly insane enough to lay claim to an area of Gotham despite Batman’s obvious jurisdiction.
Mother never went into much detail on the Third Robin. She would tell him simply, “He is who you must remove. When you arrive, you will already be superior.” Therefore, Damian never bothered to learn the strengths of Timothy Drake beyond the surface level. He understood that his predecessor was a strategist. This meant his combat prowess was likely weaker than Damian’s. He understood that Timothy Drake had become Robin when both of his parents were still alive. That he was only adopted based on the convenience of keeping Batman’s sidekick close.
From everything he learned of Timothy Drake, Damian understood that he did not deserve the mantle of Robin. He was eager to remove the boy from the position as soon as he could.
When he was allowed to join Father, Damian’s training on his family proved infallible. He understood which weaknesses of his own he needed to overcome and he knew what he needed to learn from his “older brothers” in order to make that happen.
He also saw exactly how soft Timothy Drake was. The boy, when introduced to the one there to replace him, welcomed him “to the family” with a kind smile and gentle eyes. He trusted Damian almost instantly.
Damian gleefully waited for the day he could betray that trust.
But even when the day came, when he made his first attempt on Drake’s life, attempting to show the weakling exactly how inferior he was, Drake instead gave him a pained smile before lying to Damian’s family about the cause of his injuries. And the older men believed him.
Damian was disgusted. He was even more so when his Father died. When his family accepted that. Everyone except for Drake. The foolish, softhearted boy insisted Father was still alive. That he had left them clues and all they needed to do was follow them.
When Richard told him no, with a sense of finality, when he told Drake that he was no longer Robin, Damian took pleasure in the way Drake’s face fell. On some level, he understood this was a part of the grief cycle, the denial of Father’s death. The fact that Drake could not move to acceptance as the other vigilantes already had, once again, proved his inferiority. Damian had almost been relieved when Richard finally asked him to step forward and be Robin. He had not trusted Drake, which Damian was sure to let the other boy know.
He had not expected Timothy to disappear for a year.
He had not anticipated how much the loss of the clearly inferior Robin would impact his family.
And most importantly, he had not understood when Timothy Drake-Wayne was proven correct and Damian’s Father returned from the “dead.”
That was the first day that Damian began to believe his mother had been wrong about the Third Robin. Even when he confronted his predecessor, cut his line, and told him to leave, all Drake did was stare at him sadly. He did not cast a shadow on Damian’s name when, if the situation had been reversed, Damian would not have hesitated.
Damian remembered how cool the knife of betrayal felt when Father did not immediately claim his stocks back from Wayne Enterprises, instead leaving Timothy to govern Damian’s future company—to run it into the ground.
But a month passed, then another. Wayne Enterprises not only stayed afloat but began introducing new, creative ways to support Gotham.
Damian had forgotten that before he was the Third Robin, Timothy had been the Drake Heir. Raised to take over a major company since birth.
In a way, Timothy was like Damian. Inferior, of course, but less so than he once believed his predecessor to be. But still, Damian did not fully understand what this meant until his first Official Gala.
The gala was meant to welcome Bruce back into high society. The official reason for his absence was that he had been kidnapped and upon his return, secluded himself from society in order to recover from the traumas he had experienced while being held captive.
Timothy was technically the host of the evening, and from the few instances he had been at the Manor to ensure everything was appropriate for the event, Damian was frankly intimidated by the way he directed the staff. It was not just the way he spoke to them, with a no-nonsense tone that indicated he would be listened to, whether his opinion held merit or not, but it was the way his staff listened. The group was not mocking in the way they took down notes and asked questions, but attentive. Even if Drake had to repeat himself to one of his employees, he did not snap at them but spoke through his thought process in a quiet, thorough manner.
Damian knew that, as Robin, Drake had been a member of the Titans, often running point on different assignments, but this was a baffling difference in the situation, yet his predecessor handled it as if it was an everyday occurrence to lead.
He, similarly, had a rude awakening when Damain was instructed on his dress code for the night. Drake had set their family to wear deep blue accent pieces to coordinate the group. He felt this was a frankly silly notion, not that he would ever share that sentiment with somebody. However, when his older brothers all nodded in response, even Father giving a faint hum of approval at the color choice, Damian was left baffled.
He had not been in high society much. He had been able to use his age as an excuse for what was likely far too long to be socially acceptable, but Bruce had had other children he could tote along into the limelight so Damian’s status as the “protected baby” allowed him grace from needing to deal with blithering idiots.
He did not realize that this act of coordination would be much more than a message of strength for the Wayne family. He understood, on a broad scale, that the gala was meant to be a statement, but he had not realized how many small pieces went into it. How much Drake was subtly manipulating before the guests had even arrived.
The day of the gala, Damian was dressed in his suit with a tie in the Wayne blue decided on for the night. Richard was helping him knot the tie in an intricate fold that Damian had not seen sense in learning for himself.
“When you’re in there tonight,” his older brother offered as he completed another fold in the design, “if you run into trouble, find Tim.” Damian felt his face curl into some semblance of distaste, and his older brother laughed as he finished off the tie. “I know you don’t like him, but trust me, nobody is more equipped to handle those sharks. He will be the safest person to be by tonight.”
“Even compared to you?” Damian found himself asking, it was petulant, but he truly did not understand. Richard was the person best equipped for dealing with people. Every file he had read on his family shared the sentiment.
“Oh Dami,” Richard sighed, “Especially compared to me. I might be the oldest, but Tim was always the implied heir before you came into the picture.”
They spoke a few minutes more, but Richard’s words clung to Damian’s ears as a limpet. He followed his brother to the hallway where the family was to descend to the gathering, Bruce, Jason, and Timothy already in place.
It was still startling to Damian how similarly each of Bruce’s adoptive children looked to the man. How sometimes, even though he knew he was the only blood son of the man, he felt he looked the least like his Father.
Timothy fixed him and Richard with a closed-lip smile and said in quick order, “We’re descending first. I’ll be going down with Jason, and I want you and Damian following about ten minutes after. Bruce will obviously be last and he’ll be around the thirty-minute mark for his entrance.
“I’ve made sure the buffet has some vegetarian options available for you, Damian, so feel free to grab something to eat if it’s needed. Everyone has their signals?”
“Are you planning for us to be kidnapped tonight, Drake?” Damian asked. He was given a small panic button, strapped to his watch. Richard had instructed him to press it in case of an emergency.
“No, in case you worry about making a faux pas during conversation, or need to be saved from one of those dreadful women trying to set you up with their grandchildren, call for me through that. I’ll get to you as quickly as I’m able. And feel no shame in doing so,” Drake reassured, “the number of times Jason has called me so he wouldn’t hit a woman over the head for a poorly constructed literary take had desensitized me to any issue we Wayne’s might encounter.”
His ears felt even heavier at that statement, as if the limpets had grown another two sizes and were determined to take his ears off before he would even have the chance to enter the event. Before he could even piece together an argument as to why he would be perfectly capable of managing himself, Timothy had already dragged Todd to the top of the stairs. The ringing in Damian’s ears quieted as he heard Drake murmur, “You remember your mark, right?”
“This isn’t my first time doing recon for you, you ass. Mind your own business and let me do my job,” Todd scoffed in response. They descended the stairs towards the dull murmur of the crowd below shortly after.
Damian almost felt offended, did Drake not think he was worthy of gathering intel at this event? Damian was raised by Talia Al Ghul, a master of collecting intel. Then he processed that it would mean having to actually pretend to care about anything Drake was involved in which… Damian was glad he had not been assigned a mark for the night.
As he contemplated this realization, Father came over to Damian and Richard while they waited to descend to the room below. With a firm clasp on Richard’s shoulder and a quiet smile fixed towards Damian, he reassured the two, “No matter what happens tonight you are Wayne’s, and you will not be disappointments. If you feel uncomfortable, do not hesitate to ask for help or step away. Those people are the best of the worst, and I would not force them on you if it wasn’t an absolute necessity.” Damian felt this was all rather dramatic for what was going to be letting his cheeks be pinched and told how rough it must have been waiting for his father to return.
High society was likely a pain, but he still did not understand why so much presentation had to be done beforehand. Not that Damian would ever admit such a thing, admitting weakness was one of the fastest ways for him to get a ticket back to Mother. She had been sure to emphasize that to Damian before he was left with Father, after all.
“Kick some ass out there, Brucie,” Richard answered Father’s reassurances. The diminutive was not worthy of Father’s title, but Damian had been taught it was a mask, much like Batman. He allowed it only for that reason.
They stood in silence as they waited for Timothy’s ten minutes to pass before the last sons would descend. Damian felt his gut clench with what was decidedly not nerves as he and Richard took to the stairs. He only had to last a few hours and he would be allowed to leave. Surely it wouldn’t be that difficult.
Damian scanned the crowd again, looking for any sign of his “brothers”. Every now and then, he would hear Father’s booming “drunk” laugh from somewhere in the room, or he would see Richard drift by with some pretty lady at his arm, or Jason nodding neatly at whomever he had engaged in conversation, but he had yet to see Timothy. He knew that the Interloper was still at the party because of hissed whispers that weren’t quiet enough when socialites didn’t realize Damian was behind them. Of course, the elder folks with their hisses of what a “scheming bastard” the Interloper was (or “charming young man” depending on who he snuck up on) always changed their tune when they realized Damian was there. After all, he must be “so grateful” for all the effort his “big brother” had put into making sure that his Debut Gala was a success. Sickening.
He had yet to feel the need to call for help, as that was a foolish notion to begin with. There was only so much scheming civilians could do to one-up Robin (especially considering he was the blood son), even when they didn’t know who they were dealing with. He was also Father’s heir and trained by Mother to be a formidable conversationalist in his own right. That did not stop him from having to mask his boredom as he hit the same conversation points every ten minutes as a new elder would sweep in to pinch his cheeks.
It wasn’t until the end of his “shift” that Damian understood what Drake and Father had meant when they insisted on backup.
Damian had grabbed a small plate of cheeses and fruits. He knew it wasn’t the most filling of meals, but Alfred would prepare something more lasting before they hit the streets that night for patrol. Crackers were an option, but he felt those had been placed on the tables specifically to sabotage the classiness of the event. Damian would not be able to maintain respect if he was brushing crumbs off of his shirt after every bite. He had stepped back into the crowd to find some of his final conversationalists when a group of men swept him into their circle with a startling amount of efficiency. He had to remind himself that it would be crass to sweep their legs from beneath them and continue with his snacks. Bruce Wayne’s son may know the basics of self-defense but he would be a blight on the family name if he exhibited them in such an unprompted manner. So instead, he stood there and allowed himself to be held captive as the men suckered up to him.
Damian allowed them to prattle at him for a minute or two as he placed who they were. Blighton, Abernathy, and Creighton. Their names were familiar to him, but he couldn’t place from where. One of the recent cases Batman had decided to slop off to the help to keep them from nipping at Batman and Robin’s true greatness, perhaps? Damian’s thoughts continued to drift as he tried to place the names, but when one of the men with a full head of white hair leered at him (Abernathy, he believed) and asked “But you wouldn’t know anything about the toxins would you? Daddy doesn’t let you far from his sights at all,” Damian hissed at the disgusting implication.
If it had just been the one man, Damian likely would have been able to exit the conversation quickly enough without causing a scene. However the other two gentlemen in the group were clearly lackeys of a sort and Damian knew better than to mess up this event which, to his knowledge, had gone off without a hitch to this point. As he was contemplating what to do, the lead man continued to prattle at him. Damian refused to call for help because he would not stoop to needing the Third Robin’s attention. If the button had connected him to Richard, then perhaps he would have called. After all, his eldest brother had the ability to diffuse a situation with ease. Even when he was completely disgusted with the person on the receiving end of his compliments.
As Damian was preparing to damn the consequences and forcefully remove himself from the conversation, a smooth voice cut off whatever taunt the man had been making at Damian’s skin color, and how Bruce must have appreciated it.
“Mr. Abernathy? I haven’t seen you all evening! I was beginning to think you had dropped your wife off for us to babysit and gone to find other entertainment for the night.” The second Abernathy noticed Timothy stepping next to Damian, his weight shifted from something confident and overwhelming to something much smaller and almost anxious. Damian found the shift fascinating, especially seeing the two lackeys who had been practically boxing him in take a step back to make a more imposing wall with Abernathy.
Across from them stood Damian and Timothy. Damian would later deny it but he took an odd amount of comfort from the hand that squeezed his shoulder as Timothy shouldered on in the conversation. “I see you’ve met my brother, what were you talking about before?”
“Oh, nothing at all!” Abernathy exclaimed with a nervous chuckle, “We were just discussing the latest Rogue attack. How grateful we were to not have been on the streets when that wave of fear toxin hit.” Damian nearly hissed as Abernathy avoided the disgusting implications he had been making about his relationship with his Father, but when Timothy’s hand squeezed his shoulder again, Damian allowed the older boy to continue this farce of a conversation.
If Damian had been anybody else, and he had been standing next to anyone other than Timothy, he would have not seen Timothy’s foot shift the same way it would in his Robin days before he would launch an attack (a painfully obvious tell that the Interloper had failed to shake). But he was Damian Al Ghul-Wayne and next to him was Timothy Drake-Wayne. And so he noticed. Abernathy had walked into a trap of some sort. One that he hadn’t even noticed the Interloper had begun to lay.
“Oh it was absolutely dreadful what happened,” Timothy sighed as if discussing the weather as opposed to an attack that crippled the lower-income districts for several days. Damian remembered the aftermath. How the entire Bat-force had been on the streets trying to administer as much of the cure to the toxin as they could. Damian received and administered many crash courses on how to ease a panic attack caused by someone who was not in their right mind at all. He remembered the grim look from Father to the rest of the clan as they worked tirelessly to figure out how Crane had been able to create such a large amount of the toxin in such a short amount of time. Red Robin had volunteered to take over the reconnaissance duties, as he suspected white-collar interference. (Seeing as white collar was boring, Damian had not protested the Inferior Robin taking over something that likely would not amount to anything he and Batman would not find on their own).
“How is your company faring? I heard Scarecrow had commandeered several factories in order to mass-produce the toxin. You weren’t affected, were you?” And that was why the man was vaguely familiar. The head of Abernathy Pharmaceuticals. One of the groups Drake had presented to Father last week as a “maybe” for distribution. Damian had scoffed at the lack of definite proof, but he could not fault Drake for not being as good of a detective. They needed to look into whether Abernathy had been coerced into his work helping Scarecrow or not.
“It was tragic, indeed, we lost several good lab hands to that man,” Abernathy shook his head. Damian gave the man credit, he played the part of the mourning boss incredibly well. “I’m just hoping that since he’s been put away we can move past this and hopefully have no more issues. This latest strain was horrific, we’re still trying to decontaminate the tools he used to produce the toxin.”
“Don’t tell me,” Timothy’s eyes widened, and Damian found himself again shocked at how well Timothy was manipulating this conversation. (And at how stupidly Abernathy was falling for it. He was practically scrawling the confession with a feathered quill.) “Did he really leave evidence of the recipe at the labs?”
“Oh, we’ve got them under lock and key!” Abernathy crowed, like an idiot. “If there’s another breakout we'll hopefully be able to compare it to this strain and see what can be done to stop it.”
A bald-faced lie, how disgusting. However, Timothy did not call the man on it but instead leaned forward almost eagerly. “Wayne Enterprises has been looking at different preventative methods we could put in place to help Gotham against the Rogues. Sometimes a gas mask just won’t cut it.” Timothy flashed Abernathy a beaming smile, like a child who had learned he would be getting a new weapon that weekend. And perhaps he had, “I’m going to have my people reach out to yours. This could be the chance we’ve been looking for to get a vaccine out to help dull the feelings of fear toxin. Especially if you’ve still got his newest recipe. We can create it and distribute it to the streets, after testing, of course, to maybe save some lives.
“Mr. Abernathy, you have given me amazing news! Keep an eye on your inbox for Monday, we’ll be reaching out.” Before the older man could make a sound of agreement or protest, Timothy turned to Damian, “Come on, we need to tell Bruce how Mr. Abernathy is going to help everyone! He’s going to be a hero!” And Damian was whisked towards a side room before he could see how the others reacted, or even react himself.
The door shut with a snick, and the dull roar of conversation became almost nonexistent as Timothy turned and leaned against the door. Damian wondered what the boy was going to do now that he had gotten Damian by himself. Taunt him about his inability to navigate the conversation without interference? Gloat about corralling the man into some form of compliance with the good guys or risk the knowledge that he had been willingly helping Crane escape? He prepared himself for whatever verbal, or maybe even physical, spar was about to take place.
“God, I hate him so much. He didn’t try touching you or anything before I got there, did he?” Timothy asked, turning a concerned eye to Damian and looking him over critically. Which… what?
“He would not have his hand if he had done so,” he snapped, shoving one of the last pieces of fruit he had into his mouth and chewing it sullenly. Apparently, the tactic was going to be reminding him of his inferiority with pretty words, as Drake apparently wielded them like a dagger more accurately than any passive-aggressive compliment Grayson would deliver.
“Abernathy is one of the worst of society. If it hadn’t been for the Scarecrow stuff recently I wouldn’t have even put him on the list, but I had been waiting for a moment like that for him to slip up.” And… perhaps he was wrong and this was not Drake attempting to mock Damian but instead to… bond? Again? Very well, he would attempt to humor the older boy.
“He is one of their regular suppliers?” Damian knew the answer to this, of course, but he had learned recently that his family liked to explain their thought processes and discuss different scenarios. He found the activity enjoyable, in small doses, and so indulged when he could. This was one of those times that would make Timothy’s attempt to bond tolerable.
“Yeah, and now we can trick him into a welfare deal through Wayne Enterprises to make the next round of the toxin less effective, which will likely lose him some of the credibility with Crane, at the very least. Maybe even more of the Galley. We’ll have to see how the initial launch of the vaccine plays out.” Timothy strode to one of the chairs in the room, it was one of the adjacent sitting rooms likely set up for the night for any private business deals that might occur. He gestured to the chair across from him and Damian took it hesitantly, wondering where this conversation was going to go.
Drake poured some water from the pitcher that had been placed on the table between the chairs, cocking a brow at Damian in question. When he nodded, Drake poured another glass of water and began, “One of the first things Mother taught me for galas is that I am a tool, one that she will use however she deemed fit. The next was that I was to use whatever I needed to, my age, height, innocence, whatever it may be in order to weasel information out of those fogeys. I had my own toolkit that I could develop, however I decided to. When she died, I realized I wasn’t truly her tool, but she had been forging me to be my own weapon.
“The thing about us, Damian, is that we’re young. That means we’re underestimated. I’m not able to get away with as much as I used to, they’ve seen me in the CEO seat a bit too often to think I’m some puppet. But I can still ask the right question, or “accidentally” let the wrong piece of intel slip. I’m half their age after all,” he smiled bitterly, “what would a kid like me know about business?”
Damian was startled at the venom in that question. And the candidacy in the confession before. Had that not been something that Mother had explained to him as soon as Damian was old enough to understand the machinations of other people? He too was nothing more than a weapon, but Richard and Father had begun to explain that Damian could exist as more. (“Even if you’re a weapon, Dames, you could be something different than a sword! Like a multi-purpose tool!” “Your analogy is preposterous, Grayson, cease your prattling.”)
However, he hadn’t realized that was how Drake felt as well. He had thought the Interloper confident in his position. It was why he was so openly defiant to any of his roles being taken by Damian (even though they were Damian’s by right .) He had grown enough to understand that Timothy was doing an excellent job as a placeholder for Damian until he came of age at Wayne Enterprises. But that venom Drake spoke with was almost familiar. It was the same vicious stream that would course through him as one of Grandfather’s allies would ask if Damian truly needed to sit in on the meeting because “what would a little kid need to know?” It was the feeling that would only be vindicated when he would go to the training area after the meeting and slice through opponents until Mother called him to stop. They still needed foot soldiers, after all.
“The most satisfying feeling is being able to out-maneuver them. Maybe that’s the influence of being Robin for a time, I’m not sure,” Timothy confided with a self-deprecating laugh. “It’s probably Mother’s last grasp over me. She may not have been around much but her training was nearly as brutal as Bruce’s. But, still, conversation like that is a skill you’re also going to need to make sure you have mastered when you take over.
“Some of the most deadly battles I’ve waged haven’t been as Robin but as Timothy Drake-Wayne, making sure that certain contracts were or were not signed,” Timothy explained. “And I am grateful, at times, for the cruel way I was raised. I would not be near the weapon I am for my family if I was not.” And there was something in that statement that Damian was sure if Richard heard Timothy say, he would protest vehemently. (See above.) However all Damian felt was startling kinship. The belief that he had been raised as the perfect heir for Father had been the thing that motivated him for those hard months after his transition of guardianship. And here was the Interloper… the one who was supposed to be nothing to him… sharing an almost identical sentiment to Damian?
Mother had trained him in several different tactics on how to ingratiate himself to the family and make himself essential to Father’s cause. How to prove himself superior to each of his brothers. But here was the Third Robin, the one he was told was the least threatening to his position, proving exactly how wrong Mother had been.
Timothy Drake-Wayne had the potential to be Damian’s worst enemy. He understood this now with startling clarity. Which meant…
“I… do not know how to navigate high society as you do,” Damian admitted quietly. And it almost physically pained him to do so, especially when Timothy’s eyes snapped to him, showing no emotion, waiting. “Perhaps, after this gala, you can take some time to help me understand what can help me navigate the people easier.”
Something passed Timothy’s face, some indescribable emotion that Damian wouldn’t have been able to place if he tried. It settled back into that careful, neutral expression as his brother responded, “I would enjoy that, Damian.” Damian did not miss the gentle smile that curled at Timothy’s lips as he stood, moving back towards the door.
“We probably need to get back out there, but let’s set a time to talk soon. I can go over a general plan of attack for a circuit of a room with you.” Damian nodded, stood, and stepped next to Timothy. As the two exited the room, Damian pretended not to see the concerned look Richard flashed in their direction (because of course he had been hovering when he realized the two youngest had disappeared) and instead strolled off to find a new target for conversation. He likely just needed one or two more before he could finish the night, but he found he wasn’t dreading them as much now.
It was startling, understanding exactly what sort of ally he held at his back. He hoped someday Timothy would view him as such too. Until then, however, “Hello Ms. Wilson, have you had a chance to try the cheddar array tonight? I find it absolutely delightful…!”