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A sharp crack rang out through the cave, and all of a sudden, there was a person standing where there had previously been nothing but empty air. In the next instant, all the vigilantes in the cave—who had just struggled through a week’s worth of rogue attacks after a mass Arkham breakout—had weapons leveled at the intruder.
“Who are you?” Batman demanded instantly, his usual deep growl betrayed by the slightest hint of exhaustion.
Damian Wayne, who had made the grave mistake of tampering with the magical artifact that Father was investigating and was now in an unfamiliar cave with family members who were staring at him with open suspicion, swore under his breath, before rattling off a code of letters that indicated either temporal or dimensional travel.
“I am Damian Wayne,” he stated once he was done with the code. He scanned the room, and his eyes landed on what was undoubtedly a smaller, younger version of himself, dressed in his Robin costume. He couldn’t have been more than nine. “Based on your Damian’s age, my timeline is roughly eight years ahead of yours.”
Batman narrowed his eyes. “So you're sure this is dimensional travel?”
Damian nodded, pointing to the T-Rex and giant penny, which were on opposite ends of the cave. “In my world, they have always been kept together, towards the center.” After another quick scan, he gestured towards Timothy. “Red Robin’s outfit never had that cowl, either.” Thankfully so, Damian thought. That thing makes him look like a condom. Hopefully this Damian gets rid of it. Honestly, the pants-Robin of all people should’ve known better.
“Hn. We’ll need to test your blood to confirm your identity.”
Damian let out the smallest sigh he could and nodded. “Of course, Father.” He followed his father to the Batcomputer, wary of the family’s stares from where they were settled loosely around the large meeting table in the cave’s center, all still in costume, and allowed Batman to take a small prick of blood.
As they waited for the results to load, Batman asked Damian, “How is it that you’re here?”
“A magical artifact. My family is aware of my… sudden disappearance, and I suspect that they’ve put together at least an idea of what happened by now. Our technology has significantly improved in the last seven years, so they should hopefully be able to retrieve me within the next twelve hours.”
Thankfully, Timothy had been with him at the time, and would no doubt realize what had happened soon enough. It was just a question of how long it took him to find the exact universe Damian had been transported to.
“Hn.” Thank you, Father. Such a wonderfully enlightening response, truly.
The Batcomputer pinged as a match for the DNA came up. Damian Wayne.
Batman sighed, a bit of the tension he was carrying seeping out of him. He reached up to lower his cowl, and gestured for Damian to follow him to the meeting table. His family, who had been, frankly, unnaturally silent so far, took this as confirmation of Damian’s story.
“So,” Nightwing piped up immediately, “You’re really Dami, huh?” He gave Damian a crooked smile, ignoring his own Damian’s grumblings of “degrading nicknames”. “All grown up.”
Damian couldn’t help the small smile he gave Richard. “Yes. It’s me.”
The brief bout of silence was broken when Jason drawled, “You ever manage to kill Tim?”
Richard let out a squawk of “Jason!” and Timothy shot him a truly scathing look, while Duke and Stephanie let out shocked laughs.
Younger-Damian—Robin, Damian thought—sat up at the words, looking at Damian expectantly. “Well?” he demanded, and suddenly Damian was acutely aware of what his siblings had had to deal with for his first few years of living in Gotham. “Did you?”
Damian rolled his eyes. “No, I did not.”
Richard looked positively over the moon at the news. Robin, on the other hand, decidedly didn’t. Before he could launch into a tirade, Cassandra made a motion to capture the table’s attention. She gestured at Damian’s costume and tilted her head questioningly.
He glanced down at it quickly, before looking back up and answering her unspoken question. “Oh. I haven’t been Robin in roughly two years now. The costume… reflects that.”
“Oh.” That gave Richard pause. “So… what’s your name now?”
Damian hesitated, eyes flicking to Timothy, who, in true Timothy fashion, had his eyes narrowed as he attempted to puzzle out the answer before Damian could give it.
At that moment, Damian’s utility belt gave a short buzz, and the small, interdimensional communicator they were all required to wear crackled to life.
“Red Robin, come in. This is Cardinal.”
Damian winced, closing his eyes briefly as he heard a sharp intake of breath from someone. He stalled a second more, opened his eyes, and bit the bullet. “Red Robin here.”
“Are you safe?”
“Yes.”
“Alright. Where are you right now?”
“The cave.”
“Perfect. I’ll be there in two.”
“Okay.”
“See ya.”
The line went dead. The table was just as silent. Timothy’s hands were balled into tight fists on the table. Damian was worried he’d end up breaking it.
“Red Robin,” Timothy spat out with a vitriol that Damian hadn’t heard in years. Not since Timothy had gotten Father back. Richard started to say something, but was harshly cut off. “What,” Timothy asked, voice rough with anger and hatred, “was Robin not enough for you? You had to take my name too?! The one I made, the one I got Bruce back with, my name! Are you really such a conceited piece of fucking shit that you took the name of someone you fucking hate, just because it was the one damn thing I made all by myself—”
“You gave it to me!”
Brief silence.
“Bullshit. Bull. Shit. No way in fucking hell would I give it to you.” He said the word “you” with such poison that Damian nearly forgot where he was. This was not his Timothy, who had spent three years training under Ra’s al Ghul, who had taken over the League of Assassins and turned it from a force of evil to a force of good in two years with such ruthless efficiency that it had frankly terrified Damian, to the point where he had confided his feelings to Richard. This was not his Timothy, who had been told by Richard that “Damian doesn’t hate you,” and had sought him out, not to amplify Damian’s fear of him, but to tell him that he understood how easy it was to feel less than in a family like the Waynes, especially when you had not been chosen, but had rather forced your way in. This was not his Timothy, who was a brother to Damian in every sense of the word, but who was nonetheless absolutely terrifying when his loved ones were hurt, who could intimidate even Ra’s al Ghul with barely a glance. This was not his Timothy, who had the capacity to maim, to torture, to kill. His Timothy would never hurt him. This Timothy couldn’t. At least, not yet.
But the way he spoke to Damian in that moment made it easy to forget that this man had not yet gained a kill count higher than the Red Hood.
Damian took a steadying breath, careful not to let his thoughts show on his face. His old instincts, from when Grandfather was still head of the League, resurfaced. Show no weakness. Not to the Demon’s Head. “You may ask Cardinal yourself when he arrives. He is my dimension’s version of you.”
Timothy sneered and started to speak again, and Damian nearly collapsed in relief when the tell-tale baby blue light of his own Batcave’s portal machine flickered into being. Through it, thank all the gods, stepped Cardinal, aka Timothy Drake-Wayne. The portal flickered out as soon as he crossed through, and Damian got up quickly so he could move behind Cardinal.
“Please stop him from killing me,” he pleaded, looking between the two Timothys.
Cardinal smiled slightly and raised an eyebrow, angling himself between Damian and Timothy so he could see both of them properly. “Depends. What did you do to piss him off?”
“Nothing! He got pissy when he heard my name!”
Cardinal sucked in a breath at that. He looked at Timothy, at the rage still lingering in his expression, and at the rest of the family, whose eyes were rapidly flickering between the Timothys. “I gave it to him,” he said firmly. “I promise. He didn’t—... It was my choice. And I don’t regret it. Not at all.”
Timothy stared at Cardinal, jaw locked, but he didn’t say anything. Richard tried to reach out to him, and Timothy smacked the hand away violently. He sat down hard, still glaring daggers at Damian. Cardinal was looking at Timothy with a somewhat sad expression.
After a beat, Cardinal said, “Well!” with the kind of forced levity he could’ve only learned from Richard. “Unfortunately, our portal machine isn’t perfected yet, so we’re going to have to wait a couple minutes for it to recharge enough to take two people through it.” An awkward silence settled around the room. Cardinal made for one of the empty chairs—on the opposite end of the table from Timothy—and Damian followed. Before they could sit, Robin stood up with a screech of wood on stone as he shoved his chair harshly back.
“Battle me.” His katana was drawn and pointed at Cardinal.
“Uh,” Cardinal paused. “What?”
Robin sniffed haughtily—How did he just sniff haughtily? Did I use to do that? How did Richard deal with me?—and answered, “Fight against me. If I truly accepted your name, then clearly I saw enough potential in it for me to mold it into something far greater than what you could ever accomplish. I need to assess just how hopeless you truly are, and how much work I will need to do to gain a worthy reputation under the paltry name of Red Robin.”
“I— No! I’m not going to fight a nine-year-old.”
“I see. You are afraid that I will establish just how worthless you really are when I best you in combat.”
Cardinal laughed a little at that, incredulous. “Wha—no, I’m just not going to fight a child.” His lips quirked up a bit. “I’m not Jason.”
Jason opened his mouth to reply, but shrugged and closed it. “Yeah I can’t really defend myself there.” The rest of the family looked vaguely surprised at his easy acquiescence.
“I am not you, Drake. I will not be beaten by an opponent simply because he is older than me.”
“Well he was also hopped up on Laz juice, so,” Cardinal mumbled. Damian sent him a judging look. “Hey,” Cardinal put his hands up in surrender, “I didn’t take a dunk in them! It’s just… ambient exposure. Totally different. I can actually tell that beating up a toddler isn’t exactly ethical.”
“What.” Batman’s rough monotone made Cardinal and Damian freeze in place. He was staring at them from across the table, a cautious expression on his face. “What do you mean ‘ambient exposure’?”
Cardinal and Damian had a short, heated argument about who was going to step on that minefield with nothing but pointed looks. Eventually, Cardinal sighed. “For the past five years, I’ve regularly been in close proximity with at least one Lazarus Pit. It’s led to a few… side effects, though they’re all pretty much negligible.” He clicked the panel on the side of his mask to let the whiteout eyes open. His eyes were tinged green, though not as much as Jason’s when he succumbed to Pit rage. The bats were too well trained to let out gasps, but the slight widening of eyes was a good equivalent. Cardinal flicked the lenses back on.
“‘Pretty much’?” Batman asked, eyes narrowed.
“Ah, yeah, every year or so I go find Jason to try and snap his neck, but that’s only ‘cause I know he’s able to fight me off without getting too injured.”
“And… why, exactly, are you around the Pits so often that you try to ‘snap my neck’ once a year?” Jason asked, voice laced with suspicion.
Cardinal shifted awkwardly. “...No reason?”
Every bat in the room sent him an unamused glare. All but Timothy, who seemed to have caught onto what was happening. “Ra’s,” he said with finality. “You took his offer.”
Batman snapped to Timothy. “What? What offer?”
Cardinal sighed lightly. “When I was running around the world trying to get you back, I had some… help. From Ra’s. There was a whole thing—I lost my spleen, double crossed two assassin organizations, nearly committed genocide. Y’know. The usual. But a week or so after I got back, Ra’s sent me a letter. It said… it was an offer. To become the new Heir to the Demon. I said no, obviously. Initially. Five years ago, I… took him up on it. Spent the next three years training, and the next two being… well, being the Demon’s Head.”
The table was dead silent. Richard looked seconds away from tears. Stephanie and Timothy both seemed close to blowing a gasket. Duke looked vaguely sick, Robin was confused and betrayed, Cassandra was, as always, the calmest of the bunch, and Jason—
“Oh my god!” Jason let out a wheeze as he doubled over, laughter pouring out of him. Tears gathered in his eyes, and he tried desperately to wipe them away to no avail. “Holy shit, that’s fucking gold! Ra’s really did his damn best to get a batkid to be Demon’s Head, huh? And it worked!”
Cardinal gave a relieved smile at the reaction. “I mean, it wasn’t like you, Cass, or Dami wanted the position. Even Talia said no. It was either take over or let Ra’s pull a Bruce and pick a random child off the street for the job.”
Jason laughed even harder at that.
“Wait, wait,” Richard cut in, waving his arms wildly, “What do you mean that Jason, Cass, and Dami didn’t ‘want it’?”
“Well, obviously Damian was the blood heir, but that was only because Talia refused to take the throne when she was younger. But when he said no, it was supposed to be Cass, ‘cause, y’know, deadliest assassin on earth. But of course she said no, because, y’know, Cass. After two failed attempts, Ra’s wanted Talia to pick someone as heir, so she asked Jason, who, from what I’ve heard, laughed his ass off and told her in no uncertain terms that the All-Caste was enough work, and there was no way he was leaving it just to fuck around with ninja. At that point, Ra’s had tried and failed to make three separate family members his heir, and I remembered his offer. It must’ve been about three years since he had given it to me, and he clearly hadn’t gotten a proper heir in that time. So one day I broke into the Cradle, scared the shit out of Ra’s, and told him I’d take him up on his offer, if only so he didn’t resort to someone with even less morals than me. That was five years ago. Since then, I’ve had to be pretty active in the League, which entails the Pit-exposure. Actually,” he tilted his head slightly, “the LoA has managed to gain favorable relations with the Court of Owls in the last few years. I’m pretty sure that you’re next in line, Dick.”
Richard, who had been steadily paling during Cardinal’s explanation, managed to pass the border from “just saw a ghost” to “straight up milk,” which was honestly impressive, considering his skin tone was just a shade or so lighter than Damian’s.
“Okay,” Duke said faintly. “Back up. Before the whole heir thing. Did you say you… don’t have a spleen? And you ‘nearly committed genocide’?”
Cardinal opened his mouth to explain, then looked at Timothy and waved it off. “Eh. He can explain it all to you. I can’t be bothered.”
“Holy shit, Tim,” Stephanie said lowly, a small, awed smile on her face. “I thought you went insane for a second but… yeah that definitely sounds like your brand of bullshit.” Cardinal shot her a grin and a salute in response.
Robin, who hadn’t actually sat down this whole time, drew his sword back up. “I refuse to believe this. I am the Demon’s Heir. There is no universe in which Grandfather would ever declare you fit for my birthright!”
Cardinal sighed, “Look, I can’t choose what you do or don’t believe. You’ll see in a few years anyway.”
“It’s true,” Damian pitched in. “I did tell Grandfather that I no longer wished to be Demon’s Head. And he did, in fact, choose Timothy as his successor.”
Robin snarled at him, but didn’t seem to know what to make of that. He whirled back to Cardinal. “This is all the more reason for you to fight me. I will prove right here and now that you are not fit to be Demon’s Heir. The title belongs to me.”
Pinching his nose, Cardinal told him, “For the last time, I’m not fighting a baby!”
“I am not a baby! I am a trained assassin, the Demon’s Heir, and Son of the Bat! I will defeat you in combat and prove that you are unworthy!”
This kid was starting to give Damian a migraine. Can he just shut up?
Damian glanced at Cardinal, and had an idea. A really, really, terrible idea. But… he had been trying to find a way to gather the courage for this for months now. At the very least, this would mean he couldn’t back out of it… Plus, his siblings had been bothering him about it for nearly as long, and this would get them off his back… On top of it all, it would hopefully get Robin to shut up.
He leaned over to Cardinal to whisper into his ear. “If you fight the nine-year-old, I’ll tell Jon I like him.”
Cardinal’s head snapped up. He stared Damian dead in the eye. “Damian. I need to know that you’re serious right now.”
“Completely.”
“Swear on Sunday crepes.”
“I swear on Sunday crepes.”
“...”
“You’ll get to hold it over Jason’s head.”
At the realization that he could tell Jason that he’d been the one to finally get Damian to confess, the resolve hardened in Cardinal’s expression. He turned to Robin. “C’mon kid,” he said, leading the way to the sparring mats, “I’m going to fight the infant.”
Richard and Father both let out strangled protests, but they were drowned out by Stephanie and Jason’s loud whooping as the family made their way to crowd around the training mats. “Don’t worry, B,” Cardinal called over his shoulder, “I won’t hurt him!”
“As if you could hurt me,” Robin snarked. Cardinal ignored him.
They both got into position at opposite ends of the sparring mat. “Whenever you’re ready,” Cardinal said, a mean grin on his face.
Robin lunged immediately, and the fight was over before it started. Robin’s katana clattered to the ground where Cardinal had thrown it, and Cardinal kept Robin pinned to the mat as Damian counted out to three. Once he reached three, Cardinal sprung off of Robin and dashed over to Damian. He didn’t wait to register the shock on the family’s faces, and didn’t pay any mind to Richard helping Robin off the floor. “You’ve gotta do it by the end of the week, okay? If you don’t, I’ll do it myself, and that will be much, much, worse for you. Plus, I’m not waiting any longer to rub it in Jay’s face.”
Damian sighed. “Yes, yes, I understand.”
Cardinal’s face split into a grin, and he reached over to ruffle Damian’s hair. “Aw, I’m so proud of you, Dami!”
“You’re fucking annoying is what you are,” Damian mumbled, but he didn’t smack Cardinal’s hand away.
“Uh, sorry, but, what, exactly, are you planning to rub in Jason’s face?”
Cardinal turned to Richard with a shit-eating grin. “Can’t tell. I wouldn’t do that to him,” he jerked a thumb at Robin, “but trust me—you’ll know soon enough.”
Damian rolled his eyes. “You’re incredibly overdramatic. Can we leave now? The portal should’ve recharged.”
Cardinal hummed and pulled a small device from his utility belt. “Just give it, like, thirty more seconds, I don’t wanna risk getting sliced in half if our timing’s off.”
Suddenly, Stephanie gasped loudly. “Dude! Is that a wedding ring?!”
Cardinal blinked and looked down at the hand holding the device. “Oh, uh, yeah,” he replied with a small laugh.
“Nice,” Stephanie grinned, holding a hand out for a fist bump that Cardinal obliged. “Who’s the lucky girl?” she paused for a second “Or guy, actually.”
Cardinal sent a searching look at Timothy. “You’ve already told them?”
“Uh, yeah,” he replied, caught off guard by the question. “Uh, sometime after Jason came back.”
Cardinal hummed. “I didn’t tell my family until after I got B back from the timestream.”
“Well?” Stephanie huffed, “Who is it?”
Cardinal cocked an eyebrow at Stepanie. “Steph. Who do you think?”
A grin spread across Stephanie’s face as she took in Cardinal’s expression. “Oh, hell yes! Cassie owes me so much money!”
“Not yet, your version of us might not get together at the same time that our version did.”
Stephanie waved it off. “Yeah but with how similar the timelines are, there’s a pretty good chance anyway.”
Cardinal laughed lightly and shook his head.
“So… who is it?” Timothy asked, somewhat unassuredly. It was strange to see him like that, when Damian was so used to him being perfectly—and rightfully—confident in everything he did.
“Yeah, Cardinal,” Damian teased, “Who is it?”
Cardinal sent a faux-judgemental look his way, then turned back to Timothy. “I don’t know,” he said dryly, “maybe the guy you’ve been in love with for… what would it be, two years now? You know, the one you tried to unsuccessfully clone multiple times in a misguided attempt to get him back after he died? That one, perhaps? Just maybe?”
Timothy’s face turned a concerning shade of red at that. “I—”
“Timmy,” Richard said, voice discomfortingly calm, “you did what?”
“Oh, would you look at that!” Cardinal said, looking back at his device, “Portal’s all charged up! C’mon, Dami, off we go!” He flicked a switch and another baby blue portal swirled into existence. “Nice meeting you all!”
Damian paused a second to point at Timothy. “Always check your grapple before you go out at night! Robin will try to snap it!” Then, he followed his older brother through the portal, and back to their own time.
Shit. He actually had to tell Jon about his feelings now.