Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

CHAPTER ONE
THE DEAD DO NOT PAY PROPERTY TAX

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Damian Wayne needed a raise.

Badly.

Granted, Damian Wayne did not technically have a job.

Nor had anyone agreed to pay him.

Nor, as of approximately seventeen minutes ago, had Damian Wayne actually been aware that he was a Wayne.

These were irrelevant details.

He deserved compensation.

Now, let us set the scene.

Imagine, for a moment, that you are twelve years old.

You have finally escaped your mother's care.

Was the League of Assassins a cult?

Damian had never particularly considered this.

There were ceremonial robes, unquestioning devotion to a centuries-old leader, several underground compounds, and a rather alarming number of swords.

In retrospect, there may have been signs.

You have crossed an ocean.

Alone.

This is already considerably harder than it sounds.

Airports, as it turns out, are designed around the bizarre assumption that twelve-year-old children traveling internationally will possess things like documentation, adult supervision, and a healthy fear of federal law.

Damian possessed one of these.

Barely.

Still, through a combination of forged paperwork, stolen currency, excellent posture, and the apparently universal human terror of questioning a child who looked extremely confident, Damian had made it to America.

He had made it to Gotham.

He had made it to Bristol.

He had made it all the way to the iron gates of Wayne Manor.

And then he had discovered that his father had been dead for two years.

Not recently dead.

Not secretly dead.

Not presumed dead.

Dead.

Publicly.

Famously.

Internationally.

There were memorial articles.

Documentaries.

A commemorative scholarship.

Someone had apparently named a library after him.

Damian had discovered all of this from a gas station cashier named Peggy.

Peggy had looked at him with growing concern while he stood beneath the fluorescent lights holding a map of Gotham and asking for directions to Bruce Wayne's residence.

"You mean Wayne Manor?"

"Obviously."

"Kid, Bruce Wayne's dead."

Damian had stared at her.

Peggy had stared back.

A refrigerator full of energy drinks hummed loudly between them.

"What?"

"Bruce Wayne."

"I am aware of whom you are referring."

"He's dead."

"You have said that."

"Like... two years ago."

Damian had placed both hands flat upon the counter.

Peggy, apparently sensing danger, had slowly moved her coffee away from him.

"Explain."

Apparently his father's death had been, and Damian quoted, "a whole thing."

There had been news coverage for months.

Wayne Enterprises had undergone restructuring.

The city had held a vigil.

Several conspiracy theories remained active online.

One woman on a podcast believed Bruce Wayne was alive and living beneath Denver International Airport.

Damian had listened in complete silence.

Then he had thanked Peggy for her time.

Because he had manners.

Then he had walked outside and considered homicide.

Because he had limits.

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The cold air of Gotham sank into Damian's skin as he stood at the bottom of Wayne Manor's steps.

The house was larger than he expected.

Which was irritating.

Damian had not expected to be impressed.

He had been raised in palaces, compounds, estates, mountain fortresses and, for six miserable months, an underground facility where every hallway looked identical and the showers produced hot water only when threatened.

Wayne Manor should not have been impressive.

Unfortunately, it was.

It rose above him in dark stone and narrow windows, the evening fog curling low around the grounds. Ivy clung to one wing. Bare branches scratched gently against the roof.

Some distant light burned gold behind an upstairs window.

Damian frowned.

That was peculiar.

According to Peggy, the estate had been largely unoccupied since Bruce Wayne's death.

Perhaps staff remained.

Good.

Staff could explain what, precisely, had happened to his father.

Staff could also provide food.

Damian had consumed half a sandwich eleven hours ago and refused to acknowledge the growing weakness in his knees as anything more than jet lag.

He climbed the steps.

His suitcase bumped behind him.

It contained three shirts.

Two pairs of trousers.

One formal tunic.

Four knives.

Enough emergency currency to survive approximately nine days if he was careful.

And a small wooden box he refused to think about.

Damian reached the door.

He knocked.

Nothing.

He waited.

Still nothing.

He knocked again.

Louder.

The enormous brass fixture boomed through the entrance hall.

Silence.

Damian's expression flattened.

Wonderful.

He had traveled approximately six thousand miles to be ignored by an empty building.

He reached for the lock picks hidden beneath his sleeve.

"Those doors are alarmed."

Damian spun.

A man stood three steps below him.

Dark hair.

Blue eyes.

Broad shoulders.

Black sweater.

Pale skin.

Late thirties, perhaps early forties.

Familiar.

Very familiar.

Damian froze.

The man froze too.

For several seconds neither moved.

Damian had seen that face in photographs.

Not many.

His mother had not kept photographs of Bruce Wayne lying around the compound like sentimental trophies.

But Damian had searched.

Of course he had searched.

Old magazine covers.

Gala photographs.

Archived interviews.

Grainy charity footage.

Bruce Wayne smiling beside diplomats and actors and businessmen, looking slightly different in every image, as though nobody taking the photographs had ever managed to catch the real man.

Damian knew him immediately.

The stranger looked at Damian.

Damian looked at the stranger.

"Father?"

The man's face did something complicated.

Shock.

Recognition.

Confusion.

Then alarm.

"Who are you?"

Damian's expression hardened.

"I beg your pardon?"

The man stepped upward.

Or tried to.

His foot passed directly through the third stair.

Damian stared.

The man stopped.

Damian slowly looked from his foot, to the stone step visible through it, and back to his face.

There was a very long silence.

"Oh."

Damian blinked.

The wrought iron railing was visible through his left arm.

Damian blinked again.

Bruce Wayne sighed.

"Right."

Damian dropped his suitcase.

It hit the stone with a crack.

"Absolutely not."

Bruce stared.

"Excuse me?"

"No."

"I don't understand."

"Neither do I, yet somehow I remain considerably more offended."

"Who are you?"

Damian pointed sharply at him.

"You are dead."

Bruce looked down at himself.

"Yes."

"You are standing here."

"Also yes."

"Those conditions are mutually exclusive."

"Usually."

Damian's eye twitched.

He had prepared himself for many possibilities.

His father might reject him.

His father might not believe him.

His father might despise the League.

His father might despise Damian.

His father might attempt to send him home.

His father might be foolish.

His father might be weak.

His father might already have another family.

His father might be dead.

Technically, Damian had added that possibility after speaking to Peggy.

He had not prepared for his father to be dead and then have the audacity to remain conversational.

Bruce watched him carefully.

"You called me Father."

"I am beginning to regret it."

"What's your name?"

Damian stared at him.

There were few things in life more humiliating than crossing an ocean to meet your biological father only to discover he had died without knowing you existed.

Being interrogated by that father's ghost was rapidly climbing the list.

"Damian."

Bruce went still.

Something subtle changed in his expression.

"Damian."

"Yes."

"As in..."

"Do not make me regret answering."

Bruce descended another stair.

Again, his feet did not quite touch them.

Damian decided not to look.

"Talia's son?"

Damian's jaw tightened.

"Our son," he corrected.

Bruce stared.

Damian folded his arms.

"I see death has done nothing for your intelligence."

"I didn't know."

"Obviously."

"I really didn't know."

"Yes, Father, your confusion has made this abundantly clear."

Bruce looked at him for a long moment.

Then, softly:

"You're twelve."

Damian bristled.

"I fail to see how that is relevant."

"You came here alone?"

"I fail to see how that is relevant."

"From where?"

Damian said nothing.

Bruce's expression sharpened.

It was different from the vacant billionaire face in the photographs.

This looked more like Mother's face when she had already identified every exit in a room.

"Istanbul?"

Silence.

"Nanda Parbat?"

Damian's shoulders went rigid.

Bruce exhaled.

"You came from the League."

"I came from myself."

That stopped him.

Good.

Damian preferred conversations when people stopped speaking.

Unfortunately, the universe hated him.

"Bruce, who're you talking to?"

Damian looked up.

A face was hanging upside down through the ceiling.

He drew a knife.

The face yelped.

"Oh, cool, he's armed!"

A body dropped through the porch roof.

Not from the roof.

Through it.

A young man landed beside Bruce without making a sound.

Black hair.

Blue eyes.

A bright grin.

Some sort of blue shirt with a faded acrobat logo.

Also translucent.

Damian stared.

The newcomer stared back.

Then his eyes widened.

"Whoa."

Damian raised the knife.

"Identify yourself."

"Okay, wow, tiny Bruce."

"Richard."

"I'm just saying."

"Richard."

The young man held up both hands.

"Richard Grayson. Hi."

Damian looked between them.

"Another one."

Richard frowned.

"Another what?"

"Corpse."

"Ghost, technically."

Damian turned slowly toward Bruce.

"You have company."

Bruce pinched the bridge of his nose.

This accomplished nothing because his fingers passed slightly into his own face.

Damian felt a violent headache beginning behind his eyes.

Richard leaned toward Bruce.

"Is that..."

"My son."

Richard's mouth fell open.

Damian decided immediately that he disliked him.

"Your what?"

"I just found out."

"You have another kid?"

"I wasn't aware children were collectibles," Damian said.

Richard looked delighted.

"Oh my God."

"Do not invoke deities."

"You sound like him."

"I do not."

"You absolutely do."

"Richard."

"Sorry."

Richard was not sorry.

This was obvious.

Damian's grip tightened around the knife.

Then someone spoke from inside the house.

[Can you all keep it down?]

Another figure walked directly through the front door.

Damian stepped backward.

The figure stopped.

Black hair.

Dark circles beneath the eyes.

Red shirt.

Coffee mug in hand.

The mug, unlike him, appeared equally