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Dick was fifteen now. He had been living with Bruce for six years. He was Robin, the invisible, mischievous magical sidekick to Batman.
And he did not like Talia al Ghul.
But Bruce did. Bruce, who called himself his dad, and should be paying attention to him, not some random human lady.
It was not a childish stance, for the record. Dick was the picture of mature reasonableness.
Even now.
“How would you feel about having a baby sibling, Dick?” Bruce asked.
Dick leapt into the air, antennae snapping to attention and his wings shimmering. “A baby sibling?! Did you find another kid? Are they a human or a fairy?”
“Well,” Bruce said. He looked over to Talia, sitting beside him on the couch, and he took her hand in his own. “Actually.”
“Actually, what?” he asked.
“Well,” Bruce said again. “Talia and I are going to try to have a human baby together.”
Dick’s jaw dropped.
He snapped it shut and his face burned red with anger. He glared fiercely at Talia.
He did not like Talia. For very legitimate reasons! Talia had killed people before.
“It won’t work,” he said flatly. “Nature favors good people.”
He spun in midair and zoomed away.
Dick turned out to be right.
It was terrifying. Dick had never wanted to be right less.
He only had a little magic. Definitely not enough to curse anyone, especially not by accident.
He didn’t do this. Bruce had to know that, right?
...He took to avoiding the Manor. Staying outside, in the fairy preserve that Bruce had built for him. It was an entire acre in size. There was a playground. One bajillion giant flowers-- and he meant giant literally. Wooden trails with ropes of string lights crisscrossing up above them like street lights.
Hollowed out logs forming round buildings. There were little glass panes in windows and teeny wooden doors. Blue banners hanging down from curled rooftops.
A court tree sapling. A bluebell willow. Long arching stems draped with blue flowers, practically dripping with them.
It was little, yet. Only a few years old as the land and the ambient magic adjusted to the presence of a permanent fae resident. It was about the size of a full-grown Earth oak, now.
It was going to get so much bigger.
But even as young as it was, it still practically sparked and crackled with magic. And Dick was a lanky fifteen-year-old fairy. He was 5.7” tall-- almost or completely at his adult height.
He fit easily into one of the giant bluebell blooms, was the point.
It was a good napping spot. A good homework and casework spot.
A good vantage point to see the rest of the fairy preserve.
Dick spotted the sprout early on. Of course. It was directly at the base of the court tree. It grew exponentially every single day.
The sprout was a foot tall within a month. It was three feet tall and budding the month after.
The bud had red petals. A pale green symbol on one side. Glowing faintly.
The fairy symbol of fertility. Of pregnancy. Growth and new life.
Dick was trying not to look at it. Or think about it.
The flower started blooming on October 29th.
Dick watched red petals slowly open from his spot in the tree. He snuggled deeper into the blossom, buzzing his wings and getting them absolutely covered in pollen.
He focused his attention more determinedly onto his textbook.
Three hours later, a baby cried.
“Fuck,” Dick said. He dropped his book, and it fell dozens of feet through the sky.
He felt sick.
He didn’t fly down to the flower so much as he dove, feet first. A controlled fall.
He hovered in front of the flower blossom. The petals were round and brilliant red. The eye of the flower was yellow, and the little baby pixie inside it was covered with matching yellow pollen.
He was… cute.
The baby stopped crying. Stared at Dick. He had green eyes just like Talia. Skin the same color as her, too. He didn’t really look that much like Bruce at all.
Noticeably, though, the baby had no wings or antennae. Like a human. His ears weren’t even pointed, like, at all.
Dick frowned. Did he even count as a fairy? Or was he just, like… the world’s smallest human?
Was it possible for humans to be less than an inch tall?
The baby sneezed, sending pollen flying. And then he started crying again.
Dick moved without thinking. He scooped the baby up in his arms.
“Shhh,” he said. “I got you now. I’m your big brother. I’ll take care of you.”
He flew as fast as he could back to the Manor. Burst in through the special little revolving portal that Bruce had installed above the human door.
“Alfred!” he shouted. “Alfred! I need help!”
Alfred came running.
“Dick!” he shouted, and whoa, he dropped the ‘master’ title. “What on Earth is going on?”
Dick thrust the baby forward.
Alfred froze.
He stepped forward hesitantly. Stared at the small naked not-pixie.
Then his eyes flicked back up to Dick’s face.
“Master Dick,” he said. Slowly. Carefully. “Is this your baby?”
“Wh-- No!” he said. “He grew out of a flower! He… I think he’s… Bruce’s, okay?”
Alfred paused. “Such a thing is possible?”
Dick shrugged.
The baby squirmed in his outstretched arms, and Dick nearly dropped him. He scrambled to clutch the little bundle of fat baby to his chest. Alfred went almost scarily pale.
“Do be careful holding him, Master Dick,” he said.
“I will. I’m not a little kid, Alfie.”
“But of course. Let us go find your father. Swiftly, if you please.”
He held out a hand, palm up. Dick rolled his eyes, but landed on Alfred’s hand anyway. The human carried him through the halls, and yes, okay, Dick could admit that his big human footsteps were much faster than the speed he could fly at.
Still, though.
Also the baby was squirming, and still naked. Like. What if he pooped in Dick’s arms? That’d be so gross.
And now that possibility was all that he could think about.
Anyway, Alfred carried them both into Wayne Manor’s library, where Bruce and Talia were reading together in silence by the fire.
“Congratulations, Master Bruce,” Alfred said. “It’s a boy.”
“I beg your pardon?” Bruce asked, looking up over the rim of his reading glasses.
“I found a baby,” Dick said.
“What?!”
Dick gestured to the gross little jelly bean in his arms.
Both Bruce and Talia’s jaws dropped.
“Where did you find this baby?” Bruce asked.
Dick shrugged. “In a flower.”
“Is that… typical, for fairies?” Talia asked.
“He’s not exactly a normal fairy,” Dick said.
“I’m calling Zatanna,” Bruce said, standing up from his seat.
Alfred had Dick put the baby in one of his old outgrown shirts. Even that was still swimming on him. It covered him like a very long dress with a train. Then Alfred got out his sewing kit and began fashioning the world’s smallest cloth diaper.
They were using a teacup full of cotton balls and one of Alfred’s fabric quarters as a crib, for now. Talia was on her phone, shopping for high end custom fairy nursery furniture.
Her face was growing more and more displeased as time passed. Dick got the feeling that nothing she was finding on Etsy was quite good enough for the new baby.
Bruce finally reappeared out of his Cave, Zatanna striding forward at his side. She beelined for the teacup-crib resting on the coffee table and crouched down to peer at the baby inside.
Dick didn’t like that, but he knew it was irrational. Zatanna was fine. An ally. A friend of Bruce’s. She wasn’t going to hurt the baby, and he didn’t need to protect him from her, of all people.
Talia clicked off her phone and set it aside. “Well?” she asked.
Zatanna tilted her head. Kept staring at the new baby.
The entire room seemed to hold its breath.
Finally, Zatanna leaned back on her heels and stood. “So,” she said. “How familiar are you with the story of Thumbelina?”
“Don’t joke,” Bruce said.
“I’m not,” she said. “You have a young court tree growing in the backyard with an open fairy ring beside it. This place is drenched in ambient magic, stronger than anywhere else in Gotham, and it gets more powerful by the hour. I’m guessing you have been trying for a baby?”
Bruce nodded. Talia frowned.
“You essentially made a wish on a shooting star, only about a thousand times more powerful than that,” Zatanna said. “The magic in the land and air and water here responded, and created a baby.”
“Why is he so small?” Talia asked.
“Well. You already have a fairy child,” Zatanna said. Dick shifted uneasily. “I think it’s highly likely that the magic got confused and split the difference between human and fae biology. I believe your child is a hybrid.”
“A fairy-human hybrid,” Bruce said. “But he’s… mine? And Talia’s?”
“Yes, that’s easy to confirm,” Zatanna said. “You can also run your own DNA test on him. Don’t really need me for that.”
Very true, Dick thought. Anyone with eyes could see that this was Talia’s baby.
“Stairs will need to be built onto all the buildings of the preserve, I should think,” Alfred said. “It is not designed for a little one who cannot fly.”
Bruce and Talia’s eyes widened.
“What do you recommend for baby-proofing measures with a child of this size?” Bruce asked gravely.
Zatanna shrugged. “Hire a fairy nanny?” she said. “Good luck.”
“Babs is a babysitter,” Dick said. “And she just turned eighteen, so she’s, like, a responsible adult, too.”
“Of course,” Talia said. “Barbara.”
Bruce nodded. “I’ll speak to her and Jim tonight.”
Dick looked down at the little half-inch baby child wearing an old t-shirt. He had fallen asleep by now. He was really stinking cute. Dick wanted to poke his fat little cheeks.
“What’s his name gonna be?” he asked.
His parents Bruce and Talia exchanged a look.
“Something natural,” Talia said. “He is half-fae. We will honor that aspect of his heritage.”
“Not a floral name, however,” Bruce said. “It’s cliché.”
Dick nodded vigorously. Every human girl in the world “renamed” their pet fairies after flowers. It sucked.
“Damian?” Talia suggested. “It means ‘to tame.’”
“Damian,” Bruce said. “It suits him.”
Dick rested his hands on the lip of the teacup, leaning over his new little brother. “Hi, Damian,” he said. “My name is Dick.”