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Damian woke up to the feeling of his father’s gaze on him. Maybe it was that feeling that woke him up in the first place; Damian knew the weight of that gaze well, its load was almost physical.
He blinked, head fuzzy, and watched Father’s eyes go from sharp concern to soft fondness. He tried to speak—Father only got that look on his face when something unspeakably embarrassing happened to Damian or his brothers—but his mouth was full of cotton.
A ring of alarm sounded in the back of his thoughts, but it wasn’t loud enough to penetrate the fog in his head. Instead, he watched stupidly as Father’s eyes softened even further. He began stroking Damian’s hair and, despite himself, Damian leaned into the touch. He was just so tired.
Ugh. Whatever. Father was here and calm, so nothing could be too wrong. Damian closed his eyes. He could figure out what was happening later.
Damian found out what had happened the very next day.
He found out because Grayson had put up a picture of him on the family room mantlepiece.
No. Not him. Not Damian. The baby.
Because that was what had happened. Damian had been turned into a baby and his family had simply left him in that state for a week. Unbelievable.
“Take it down,” Damian ordered, and Grayson flashed him a smile.
“C’mon, Damian. It’s cute!”
“It’s humiliating,” he insisted. And it was. The baby in the picture had Damian’s green eyes and brown skin, mouth open in a gormless smile. Father was in the picture too, holding the baby up by his armpits, looking down at him warmly.
The very sight of it made Damian feel nauseated.
“Take it down,” Damian ordered again, palms curling into fists. He was willing to use force if he had to.
“Damian, leave it be,” Father said from somewhere behind him. Damian whipped around, argument ready on his tongue, but Father wasn’t looking at him. Father was looking at the picture. At the baby.
Damian swallowed down his ire. “Fine,” he choked out, and stalked away.
Maybe the incident wouldn’t have affected him so much if it had ended there, with the one picture on the mantelpiece that Damian could train himself to ignore. But it didn’t end there.
The next day, the group chat Damian shared with his family began pinging with pictures and videos. A quick look at the backlog of texts from Damian’s time being indisposed showed that the group had done nothing but share media of his humiliation. And apparently, they weren’t done. Not even close.
Damian scrolled through the series of photos Grayson had sent most recently, each featuring the baby in ‘adorable’ animal onesies. The baby was smiling in almost all of them.
‘This one’s my favorite,’ Grayson wrote, highlighting a photo of the baby in a rabbit onesie. The baby was holding onto an ear with one hand. The other was stuffed into his mouth. Damian’s phone rang with another notification. Father had reacted with a heart to Grayson’s statement.
Damian clicked his teeth in irritation and kept scrolling. There were hundreds of other pictures, mostly taken by Grayson, a surprising amount by Drake and Father.
They showed the baby holding onto various pieces of furniture as he toddled along, the baby with food bowls of mush, waving around his utensils, the baby stacking blocks and stacking blocks and endlessly stacking blocks.
Like a masochist, Damian tapped open one of the videos. It started with the baby, making a chain with those forsaken blocks. Drake was sitting on his knees, off to the corner of the video screen, dutifully handing the baby his toys. The camera must have been set up somewhere specifically to capture this interaction, Damian realized.
“Can’t believe how docile he is,” Drake was saying.
“He’s just a baby, Tim,” came Father’s voice from somewhere off-camera.
“Yeah, but still! Can you believe this is our little gremlin?”
“I can believe it.” Father sounded amused.
The baby started to make grunting noises, annoyed at the delay in block-passing Drake’s conversation was causing. When that failed to sufficiently attract Drake’s attention, the baby lunged forward.
“Hey, woah!” Drake reached out to steady him with one hand. Damian’s eyes focused on the way Drake handled the baby, the firm but gentle hold under his arm. “You really want this, huh? Hey Dami, can you say please?”
The baby squirmed in Drake’s hold. “Come on,” Drake tried again, “say pleeaaaseee.”
The baby did not say please, but he made a sound that vaguely sounded like ‘Pzzzssss.’ Drake laughed in delight and handed the baby his prize.
“Damn, and so obedient too. Are you sure we can’t keep him like this?”
Damian quickly pressed the side-button to turn off his phone. The dark screen reflected his face back at him. His face. Wide-eyed and startled and twelve years old. Damian Al Ghul Wayne.
He dropped the phone on his bed and turned on his side. For some reason, his heart was pounding.
Eventually, Damian had to get up from bed, even though he wanted nothing more than to close his eyes and sleep the day away. He told himself that he was being ridiculous, and he was. Nothing truly terrible had really happened. And anyway, he still had to clean his room.
There were towers of colorful blocks and rows of plump plushies that Damian didn’t need or want. He entertained the thought of using them as chew toys for Titus but discarded the idea. He wasn’t sure if they were safe for animals. Instead, he retrieved his laundry basket and poured all of the toys in. Pennyworth would know what to do with them.
In the kitchen, Pennyworth was busy preparing for dinner. When Damian deposited the laundry basket at his feet, he raised an eyebrow.
“I don’t want them,” Damian said and then winced at how whiny he sounded. He cleared his throat. “I have no use for them.”
“Yes, Pennyworth agreed easily with an amused smile. “I do believe your brothers went a little ‘overboard,’ as they say, especially given that you would inevitably outgrow them in a week.” Drying his hands on a towel, Pennyworth leaned down to inspect the basket.
Something about Pennyworth’s easy acceptance of Damian’s wishes settled him. Against his better judgment, he asked, “My brothers got these?”
“Oh yes. Masters Richard, Tim and Jason. Everyone contributed something. A little overzealous, perhaps, but babies tend to excite even the best of us.”
“Right.”
Pennyworth continued speaking. “A donation to a shelter is in order. I shall look into it— oh!
Master Damian, I think you will want to keep this one.”
With one hand, Pennyworth plucked a grey, worn-out toy. A stuffed elephant, Damian realized. An old toy, one that had seen many patch jobs over the years and was in need of re-stuffing. He frowned, but Pennyworth quickly headed off any complaints.
“It was Master Grayson’s. He was very fond of it when he lived here. Zitka, he called her. Named, I believe, after a friend at the circus.”
Damian looked down at the dull, beaded eyes of the toy. His fingers twitched. What should he do? Take it? Did he want to?
Apparently sensing his dilemma, Pennyworth held it towards him. “I’m sure it would mean a great deal to Master Richard if you were to keep Zitka, and treasure her the way he did.”
Mouth dry, Damian took the elephant into his hands and looked at it carefully. One ear had been patched with fabric of a different kind, and Damian couldn’t decide if its overall effect on the toy’s appearance was whimsical or sad.
“Where is Grayson?” he asked. His heart was beating fast again, but he couldn’t understand why.
“He left an hour ago, while you were napping. He couldn’t stay away from Bludhaven any longer, he said.”
But he could spend all of last week at the Manor, evidently.
“Tt.” Tucking the elephant under his arm, Damian fled back up to his room.
Later that night, Damian lay in bed and scrolled through the pictures and videos, looking for the elephant. He had assumed that Grayson would have documented the moment he passed on his favorite childhood companion, but there was nothing. Grayson hadn’t bothered taking a picture or a video of the moment; he’d simply done it.
He tried to picture it. Grayson smiling and exuberant, saying ‘I got you something!’ Or soft and honest, ‘Hey Damian, I think you’ll like this.’
If he was the baby and the baby was him, he should remember, right? But the images dissipated like smoke, nothing but a figment of his imagination.
Whatever emotion had compelled Grayson to share his childhood toy, whatever look was on his face, whatever words he’d shared, they were gone forever, lost. They were for the baby to keep. Not Damian.
Over the next week, more evidence presented itself regarding the baby’s existence, such as baby-proofed furniture and diaper bags in the bathrooms. Damian made sure to have it all removed. Loudly. To their credit, his family mostly complied. However, as reminders of the baby disappeared, his annoyance at the baby morphed into annoyance at the ones who had done the baby-ing.
“A splinter faction of the League of Assassins,” is all the information Batman, the World’s Greatest Detective, had apparently gathered on the matter. They’d used a mystical talisman of unknown origin (typical) to turn Damian back into a baby. The idea had been to present Damian to grandfather again, a new and more malleable heir. A do-over.
The whole thing made Damian crave the satisfaction of punching their faces in. Father, it seemed, was more interested in getting frozen yogurt together. Or dog-walking. Or gardening. Or any number of things that seemed to involve no-assassin-face-punching at all.
Damian complained as much to Pennyworth, who hummed as he trimmed the rose bushes.
“Has it occurred to you, Master Damian, that your father is simply trying to spend some time with you?” Pennyworth said gently.
“But we spend time together all the time,” Damian replied, baffled. “We train together. We patrol together–”
“Outside the suit, Master Damian.”
“...We eat dinner together,” Damian said, petulant. “I don’t understand why we should spend time outside the suit when those miscreants are still out there!”
Pennyworth looked at him for a long moment. However, any reply he could have made was interrupted by footsteps approaching.
“Damian,” Father said, appearing from around the corner of the Manor, sidestepping Pennyworth’s garden tools. “I’ve been looking for you.”
“Speak of the devil,” murmured Pennyworth.
“I was wondering if you wanted to go to the museum with me,” Father continued. “There’s a limited exhibition on display. Treasures of the Mughal Court. I thought you might be interested.”
Damian scuffed his toes against the grass, petulant. It did sound good, but he was unwilling to be won over just yet after the indignities he had suffered. There was a rebuttal on the tip of his tongue when a sudden thought struck him. A baby could hardly enjoy a museum; now could they? They were good for playgrounds and sandboxes, not sophisticated things like painting and art. These were things that Damian could do. Father was asking for him.
This was his chance! To show Father exactly what Damian could do, and outside the suit too, as Pennyworth had put it.
Feeling uplifted but trying not to show it, Damian sniffed. “Very well,” he said. “I will accompany you. But I demand frozen yoghurt in recompense.”
He pretended not to see Pennyworth and Father’s indulgent smiles.
The exhibit was exquisite. He had been introduced to Persian and Mughal miniature painting by Mother of course, which had then been supplemented by his tutors. The ones on display at the museum were almost as good as those in the collection back home, at the League base where Damian had grown up. He paused at every painting, examining each fine brushstroke.
The best part of it all was that Father was interested. Father tailed alongside Damian as he explained himself, unable to help his excitement. Father asked questions, and Damian knew the answers to them. Who painted what and where. Which style belonged to which era. How they made that exact shade of lapis. This, at last, was familiar. Here, at last, Damian knew all the answers.
Eventually the two of them found themselves in a seat in front of Ustad Mansur’s Dodo.
"One of the few contemporary paintings made from life," Damian said. " Emperor Jahangir's court received a living dodo, and Mansur painted it before the species disappeared."
Father looked from the painting to Damian. "So this is one of the only records of what it looked like?"
"One of the most important ones," Damian corrected automatically. "Most people know the dodo through copies of copies. This was painted while it was still alive. I was made to recreate it during my studies.”
Father leaned forward, studying the painting. “It's so detailed.”
“It has to be,” Damian replied. “If the emperor brought a rare animal to court, Mansur’s job was to paint it as accurately as possible.”
Father squinted at the dodo's feathers. “Those look...almost metallic.”
Damian brightened. Of course Father had noticed. His new family’s cultural education might have been lacking, but it pleased him that Father’s observational skills were as sharp as Grandfather had always said.
“They're layered,” he explained. “You lay down a flat wash first, then build individual feathers over it.” He traced the shape of the bird in the air. “Then you burnish the paper until the pigments catch the light.”
“Burnish?”
“With a smooth stone.” Damian was pleased that Father had asked. “It compresses the fibres. That's why Mughal miniatures seem to glow from within.”
Father leaned closer. “And that blue?”
“Lapis lazuli, ground into pigment,” Damian answered immediately. “Expensive enough that painters didn't waste a grain of it.” A small smile tugged at his mouth. “My tutor made me grind it myself once. It took hours.”
Father hummed and looked at him sideways. “How long have you been painting?” He asked.
Damian paused, thinking. “Years,” he replied. That was how it was with most of his talents, be it art, music or combat. He had had the best tutors in the world in the League. More than that, he’d had confidence. Certainty. He was his mother’s son; of course he would excel. Of course he was singular amongst his peers. It wasn’t until he’d come to his Father’s house that he’d learnt what being insecure felt like.
Damian realized he was shaking his leg and stopped. Clearing his throat, he tried to channel that old pride. “I had tutors for everything,” he said. “Painting was simply my strongest suit.”
“They must have been very good tutors.”
“I…” Damian faltered again. He thought of a warm smile and pale, bloodless eyes. Ravi, now sitting alone amongst a sea of bloody artifacts. “I– yes,” he choked out. “He was very good.”
He could feel Father’s gaze on him. It made his skin prickle. Before he could suggest that they continue the tour, Father spoke.
“I’m sorry.”
“What?” Damian asked.
Father was watching him with intent, sorrowful eyes. “Damian, I…I should have been able to protect you.”
Cold dread settled in. “This is about the baby.”
Father blinked, as if confused. “It’s…about you, Damian. When you first came here, I didn’t treat you as I should have. I didn’t welcome you. I regret that more than you could know.”
“And why the sudden apology now?” Damian asked through clenched teeth.
“...Because of last week,” Father said. He spoke slowly, carefully, as if he’d suddenly sensed that he was navigating a minefield. “When I held you…I remembered that I was once a man who was waiting to welcome you into this world. And not only did I fail to do so, I failed to protect you from everything else. I…”
I don’t regret it, Damian wanted to say. But that was a lie. I wish it had been different too. But that wouldn’t be true either. Damian was who he was because of how he had been raised, because of the ‘everything he’d been through.’ If you took that away, what was left?
He heard Father’s point loud and clear, however. I wish it had been different. I wish I had raised you. You would have been different if I had been the one to raise you.
Before he knew it, he was on his feet, sneering. “I suppose both of us will have to reckon with our disappointment then.”
And then he ran, ignoring Father’s shouts behind him.
Outside the museum, the sky was already darkening. The museum was in Central Gotham, but it was child’s play – hah! – to duck into one of Gotham’s numerous alleyways. Damian furiously rubbed his stinging eyes before digging into his pockets to find his domino mask. Slapping it onto his face, he grabbed the grappling gun from the inside of his hoodie pockets and fired it into the sky.
On the rooftop of one of these buildings was stashed a spare Robin outfit. Damian would retrieve it, and then he would proceed to do what he should have done all along– beat the tar out of those League assassins.
“Stupid Father,” he grunted as he landed on the rooftop and made his way to the safe box, pulling his hoodie off in one swift motion. “Stupid baby talisman.” He pulled out the familiar red tunic and slipped it on. He was just about done fastening his boots when a shadow fell over him.
Stupid assassins. What was it that Pennyworth had said? Speak of the devil.
Damian spun around and leapt away, fastening the latch on his cloak as he did so. Behind him stood five assassins in a loose semi-circle. One of them was holding that dreaded talisman in their hand.
Damian’s heart hammered in his chest, but he resolutely ignored it. He would not be cowed. He, Damian, would prevail.
One of the assassins came at him with a sword, and Damian met it with a batarang from his belt. Using his shorter stature, Damian twisted beneath the strike and drove a fist into the assassin’s gut. As the man doubled over, Damian struck the back of his skull. The assassin instantly crumpled.
One down, four more to go.
Another lunged at him, and Damian ducked to avoid a blow and spun around to kick the attacker’s knee until he heard a sharp crack. Good. This was familiar too. This push and pull, the heat of battle. This was what he’d been born into. Damian felt a vicious grin steal over his face as his blood sang.
A knife flashed. He blocked it with his batarang just as another blade came from the opposite. Too many. They were herding him. The assassin with the talisman approached slowly, circled by his minions.
“The Heir to the Demon is still under there after all,” the assassin said with soft wonder. “But you have been corrupted. Fear not, my lord. We will return you to your true potential soon. You will be the perfect heir once more. Hold him!”
The two beside the leader leapt into action immediately, capturing Damian’s arms and forcing him to his knees.
“No,” he protested weakly. “Don’t.”
Not like this. He couldn’t be erased so easily.
The leader approached, the talisman glowing faintly in the moon. The symbols on the glass seemed to blur together. Suddenly they looked like nursery mobiles, bright blocks across a polished floor. A rabbit onesie. Damian thought of Father’s arms around something impossibly small and felt sick.
And then—
There was a roar from behind the leader, who was suddenly knocked backwards hard enough to skid across the rooftop. The two assassins holding Damian let go immediately as bigger prey manifested.
Not prey, Damian corrected himself as the silhouette of the Bat loomed over them all.
A predator.
“Robin,” Father commanded, and Damian immediately snapped to attention. Finally, Batman and Robin, exactly as it should be.
The two assassins dashed forward, aiming to help their leader. Hah! As if! Damian intercepted one, throwing a bolas around one of their feet. They tripped and fell. Father punched the other across the jaw, and Damian could hear the sickening crack as bone broke. The assassin fell. The leader got to his feet. The only one left.
Damian charged forward and tackled the leader in fury, and the talisman went flying out of his hand. With two precise punches, the leader was knocked out. That left only the talisman to deal with.
And it was on the floor between Father and him.
Father moved forward. To Damian, it seemed like he was moving impossibly slowly. Step by step, he drew closer to the talisman, while Damian remained frozen atop the leader, unable to move.
One step, two steps, three. This was it. Father had reached it. He would pick it up. And then, and then…
Father put a foot on top of the glass, and then, in one decisive motion, crushed it beneath his boot.
Damian stared, stunned.
“C’mon,” Father said, tilting his head towards the assassins. It was time to clean up. Damian’s body moved on autopilot, dragging the assassins to the nearby pipes and tying them up with zip-ties one by one. Between the two of them, it was quick work.
And now it was time to go. Call the GCPD or mother and tell her that her factions aren't welcome in Gotham anymore. Everything would return to normal, now that the talisman threat was gone. It was all fine. Except–
“Why?” Damian asked, mouth dry. “Why did you destroy it? I thought…I thought you wanted the baby back.”
Father looked at him. Bruce Wayne had tells, but inside his armour, Batman had none.
“You thought I would use it on you?” At Damian’s nod, he said, “Why on earth would I do that?”
“Because you loved the baby!” Damian yelled. “Because he brought everyone in your family together, and he wasn’t a murderer. And– and– he was perfect and you loved him!”
That wasn’t entirely true. The baby could have been perfect. That picture, the way Father was gazing softly, proudly, at him. The baby had potential. The baby could have been perfect, if only Father had been able to raise him. Damian was already ruined.
Father stared at him, eyes dark and glistening. In the starlight, his eyes looked almost like two glass gems.
“He wasn’t perfect,” Father said at last. “Honestly…he was kind of a nightmare.”
“What,” Damian croaked out.
“He fought every diaper change and bath time. He cried every night at bedtime because he hated sleeping in his own crib. He wanted to be held all the time. It was impossible to get any work done.”
Damian felt cold. “He was a hassle. You’re glad to have me back. You didn’t want to raise him instead.”
Somehow this information didn’t make him feel any better, but he wasn’t sure why. The baby had been a nuisance. Damian was preferred. This was what he’d wanted from Father, right? Right? He didn’t know.
“No,” Father protested loudly, before his shoulders slumped. “No, that’s not what I meant.” Father rubbed a hand across his face. “I’m messing this up.”
What else is new? A part of Damian wanted to snark at him, but he couldn’t. Instead, he simply waited for Father to gather his thoughts. To say something that could help Damian make sense of the knot of emotions in his chest.
“I loved him,” Father said. “Because he was my son. And I love you, Damian, because you are my son.”
The words hung between them for a beat. Then Father continued.
“If you'd been a baby forever, I would have loved you. If I met you today for the first time, I would love you. When you first arrived…” His jaw clenched. “I was wrong. And that’s on me. But as far as I’m concerned now, I don’t want a different son.”
Then Father opened his arms wide. Damian repeated the words in his head. I loved him. And I love you.
He took one step. Then another. And before he knew it, he was engulfed in Father’s embrace. And it felt just as familiar as Robin’s tunic settling across his shoulders. As familiar as falling into step beside Batman. It felt like coming home.
coda:
“What are you doing?” Damian asked, arms crossed
Father startled and turned to face him. In his hands was the baby photo from the mantelpiece. Looking guilty, he cleared his throat.
“I thought that I should put it away.”
“Why?”
“Well.” Father hesitated. “I thought that was what you wanted.”
Damian considered it for a moment. The mantelpiece was already full of bizarre, sentimental knick-knacks like Todd’s middle school essay writing certificates and Drake’s skateboarding pictures. Still, it looked strangely empty without the baby picture.
“You may keep it where it was,” Damian declared, feeling magnanimous. After all, he already shared Father with multiple other incompetent idiots, Drake being chief among them. What was one more stupid little baby in the face of that?