Chapter Text
Mother places a hand on his shoulder, her nails curling into the fabric of his bodysuit. Damian is grateful for the armor, turning what would be an uncomfortable grip into a light, reassuring pressure.
“Remember what I told you,” Mother says in Arabic-accented English. Damian knows that she can speak with many accents, including the American one that his father will have, but she chooses this one. A compromise, maybe. Mother has spoken English the entire flight and insisted that Damian do the same. It’s frustrating, taking what’s normally a casual context where combined English and Arabic and Mandarin are acceptable and suddenly cutting off two-thirds of the ways he can express himself. Frustrating, but not difficult. Damian is the heir of the Demon’s Head and the Heir to the Bat, the merging of two great bloodlines. Nothing so paltry as English would be difficult to him.
“Yes, Mother,” Damian says, and locks his muscles to keep from fidgeting.
“I can get you as far as Gotham Airport, at which point you will need to use the local currency to reach your father’s manor.” Damian nods. “You will tell your father’s servant that you must speak to him with urgent business from the League of Assassins. And then?”
The corners of Damian’s lips curl into a faint smile. His mother has told him stories of her and the League’s conquests, but this story—the one of what he will do when he meets his father—has always been his favorite.
He pictures himself standing in his father’s sitting room, looking up at the man before him. Damian hasn’t seen a picture of his father, so he invents features for himself, making sure to include the ‘deep blue eyes’ and ‘chiseled jaw’ and ‘black hair’ that his mother always told him about in her stories. And he’s always very tall, fitting for a warrior. This time, Damian’s mind-Father’s hair is long and straight, his shoulders are broad, and he is wearing a suit like Grandfather always wears when he travels to the United States.
“I will look my father in the eyes and say: I am Damian al Ghul, Ibn al Xu’ffasch, Heir to the Demon’s Head and Mantle of the Bat. I am your son and have come to train at your side.”
Talia’s hand moves from his shoulder to the top of his head. “Good, Damian.” She smiles back at him. “You will make me proud.”
Damian knows he will, because Damian knows he must.
Damian doesn’t like Gotham. It’s filthy, far worse than Damian had expected even from Grandfather’s frequent environmental tirades. He passes people lying in tattered blankets with cardboard signs, piles of broken needles and cigarette butts, and a persistent grime that works its way through the entire city. Damian doesn’t like Gotham, but…
It feels strange, that no one here knows him, that no one here is watching him. If Damian wished, he could curl up in an alleyway with a stray cat—Gotham does have stray cats, right?—and just pet it for hours. He won’t, of course. But he could. After a life with tutors and servants watching his every move, it’s eerie how silent even the loud streets of Gotham feel.
Damian stops at the bus stop, reaching into a pocket of his “sweatshirt” to reassure himself that his quarters are still there. He knows they are, but it’s nice to make sure. He’s wearing baggy pants and a sweatshirt over his bodysuit, which he will, of course, remove and stash before meeting his father. But on a mission, especially when travelling alone, blending in is important.
A woman places a hand on his shoulder and Damian’s hand shoots up, grabbing her wrist. No. He’s not supposed to fight here. Father works in the shadows, in secrecy, and Damian’s actions will soon reflect on him. He forces his fingers to unclench and gives a stiff nod of apology.
The woman’s brows, painted with makeup like Mother wears for covert missions, furrow. “Are you alright, sweetheart?”
“I am fine,” Damian says. How dare she touch him, like she has any right to talk to—
No, in her mind, he’s just another commoner child. In the League, her hand would have been chopped off. Here, she just smiles uncertainly and sits down on the bench.
The bus ride is uneventful, and Damian ends up stowing his sweatshirt and sweatpants in some bushes near Father’s property. Then, he walks up the long, meandering driveway to Father’s front door and rings the bell.
His hands sweat, but he can’t wipe them off while wearing gloves. That’s probably a good thing; Father wouldn’t want an apprentice who is anxious instead of eager to learn. And Damian is! He is eager to learn. He’s just…also anxious.
A servant opens the door, and Damian immediately assesses him. He’s old, older than a doorman at the League would be, with an immaculately pressed suit. Over the suit, he wears a strange garment that Damian thinks is some sort of apron. His hands are remarkably steady in a way that one of Damian’s tutors says often indicates a trained marksman, and his posture is perfect. And he’s either incredibly good at concealing weapons or is simply…unarmed. Strange. Well, Mother had said Americans were strange, but from the things the ninja said, he’d assumed that they all carried guns. So the servant’s lack of weapons is strange in the opposite direction of what he’d expect.
This may be a “servant,” but he is unlike any other servant Damian has seen. He can feel his palms sweating even more. Albaqa’ fi alsaytara, he reminds himself. No, English, he amends. Stay in control. He can’t embarrass himself in front of Father.
“My word!” The strange servant says upon seeing him, eyes widening.
Damian doesn’t know what word the servant is talking about, but he has what Mother told him to do. “I need to speak with Batman regarding urgent information from the League of Assassins.”
For a moment, the man seems to freeze, and then he recovers back to careful neutrality. Damian resists the urge to poke at him and ask if he’s a robot. Resists, because it’s childish, and he is not a child. He’s ten, after all, and though he’s been sleeping alone since he was an infant, even the servants’ children sleep in separate beds after ten.
After all, would a child have taken seven lives with his own blade, and one with his own hands? No.
“I see,” the servant says. “And your name is…?”
It takes Damian a moment to realize that the trailing sentence is a question, and not just bad grammar. What is he supposed to say? Just his name, or his titles? Mother said to tell his father his titles with pride, but she didn’t say what to tell Father’s servants.
Damian feels a roiling sensation in his stomach. He has no idea what to do. He had thought—well, he had instructions. He had instructions. Enough to get him here, and what to say to his father, and to not return until he was trained and could protect himself in the middle of the League’s civil war. And then, Father would give him more instructions.
Only—in the League, Damian had ten years of instructions to guide him. Here, Father surely won’t be bothered to explain every little thing Damian is expected to do. And from the streets of Gotham and the polished entryway Damian can see beyond the servant, this place is very, very different from the League.
So, Damian doesn’t know what to do. The strange freedom from earlier is overwhelmed by the sense of wrongness, and the uncertainty starts to close in on him. He feels like a scrap of fabric in a storm, buffeted by its winds, thrown around by fate. Damian chokes in a breath and his sweaty hands clench. He curls his toes in his boots, then relaxes them, then curls them again, and once he’s relaxed them a second time, he feels a little better.
“I am Damian al Ghul,” he says simply.
The servant blinks, and Damian swears he sees recognition flash across his eyes. “I think, young sir,” he says, “you’d best return to the League.”
That isn’t what Damian was expecting at all. He feels the words, frenzied with anxiety, well up in his throat. Desperately, he forces them down, like a rammer with a cannon. Of course, that means they’ll explode eventually, but not now, not yet. Not when Damian’s position is so precarious. “I am Damian al Ghul,” he tries again, calmly. Maybe if he adds a title, this time, his introduction will be better received. “Ibn al Xu’ffasch.” That’s in Arabic, though, not English, so maybe the servant won’t understand it. He meets the servant’s eyes, challenging him. “You will take me to Bruce Wayne.”
And then, the servant’s posture breaks, his shoulders tilting forwards ever so slightly and his head dipping down to rest his forehead in a raised hand. “I suppose…well…” He steps aside, leaving the door open for Damian to step in. Finally. “You’d best follow me, Master Damian. My name is Alfred Pennyworth, and I am Bruce Wayne’s butler.”
Master Damian. Damian smiles, and lets the servant lead him through the hallways. He’s struck by the extravagance of it all. The League of Assassin’s headquarters were fairly utilitarian, at least on the inside. No use in engaging with the “decadence of bloated civilizations.” Or, Damian thinks that’s what Grandfather called it. But Father’s manor…
Damian gazes up at an elaborate crystal chandelier, noting the way the light refracts to make the crystals almost seem to glow. The sunlight pouring in through the windows casts a beautiful warmth on the dark wood floors and reflects off the golden banister. Damian wants to capture it, to trace the rays, to make something to remember the way it looked at this moment. He doesn’t even realize he’s slowed down—stopped, really—until he hears the door to the reception room open. Damian hurries up, following Alfred into a large room with polished wood furniture, a patterned rug, and an actual fireplace.
Damian sits down on a cushioned chair, and the servant—Pennyworth—leaves. Hopefully, he’s getting Father. Damian’s been trained to withstand sleep deprivation, but he is anxious and exhausted and his feet hurt more than he’d like to admit. If Damian has to fight Father to prove his worth, he’d rather it be sooner than later.
Pennyworth is gone for a long time. Damian looks around the room, checking if there’s somewhere else that would be more respectful to sit, and ends up realizing that he has absolutely no idea about the relative respectfulness of the chairs. At this point, the best he can do is sit here and hope he did it right. He ends up tracing the patterns in the chair’s cushion, wishing he could feel the fabric under his hands to ground him. But the gloves are part of his uniform, so he has to keep them on.
Eventually, a man enters the sitting room. His hair is short and slightly wavy, his shoulders broad, and his eyes that dark blue that Talia had always fixated on. This must be Damian’s father.
Only—he’s shorter than Damian was expecting. Not short, but…shorter. He isn’t a hulking giant. He’s significantly shorter than Grandfather, even.
Father is alone, Damian notes, with Pennyworth nowhere to be seen. Attending to other duties, maybe. Unlike Pennyworth, though, Father appears to be armed. Not heavily armed, not with a sword or a gun (these Americans are really not living up to the ninja’s tales) but with some sort of weapon in his sweatshirt that his hands keep twitching towards.
His sweatshirt, because he’s wearing a sweatshirt and sweatpants and it’s wrong, it’s wrong, it’s not like how Damian imagined it at all.
And it’s especially not how Damian imagined it, because instead of impressed or speculative or curious, Father looks upset.
Damian stands up anyway. He has his instructions. “I am Damian al Ghul,” he says. “Ibn al Xu’ffasch, Heir to the Demon’s Head and Mantle of the Bat. I am your son and have come to train at your side.”
Father’s eyes drift away from his face before he has even finished speaking. His jaw clenches, and his fists bury themselves in the fabric of his pants. “No,” he says, voice cold as ice.
But Damian hasn’t even had a chance to prove himself. He stares at Father, dumbfounded. He did what Mother told him. What did he do wrong? Perhaps the lack of eye contact was the problem, but that wasn’t even his fault, Father looked away almost as soon as he saw him. “I am your son and have come to train at your side,” he repeats eventually. Maybe, maybe Father is just confused. If Damian repeats, then he’ll figure it out.
“You are not my son,” Father says, and his voice cuts through Damian’s walls like a whip. As Damian stares at him in shock, heart pounding, Father turns away. He turns his back on Damian. Normally, that’s a gesture of trust. But here, what else can it be but scorn?
“I am,” Damian says. Why is Father saying things that aren’t true? They are clearly true. Mother told him. “You are Bruce Wayne. I am Damian al Ghul. My mother is Talia al—”
“Stop,” Father hisses, and Damian falls silent. He stands stock-still, back tall, face set—not that Father can see it. Father takes three deep, long breaths, before turning back around. “Go back to the League of Assassins and your—your mother.”
“My mother sent me here,” Damian says. “To train with you.”
Father steps forward. “I won’t train you, Damian, and I am not your father. Go. Home.”
But this is Damian’s home. Maybe not the one he was raised in, but he has a right to be here. This is his birthright, his legacy. He is supposed to walk these halls like the generations before him. Why is his father denying this? Is Father trying to disown him?
No, there’s no way, right? Damian makes mistakes. He fails his lessons sometimes and tries to hide injured birds in his room and sneaks extra bal mithai from the kitchens. But if Grandfather didn’t disown him, even right after bathing in the Pit, then surely Father wouldn’t. Especially without giving Damian a chance to prove himself, or, or a warning of some sort.
Damian’s losing control. Father is supposed to train him. Father will train him. Father must train him. “I will be your apprentice,” Damian says. “You will train me.”
Father’s hands clench. “Leave, Damian. Now.”
Leave—the room? Damian can do that. He doesn’t know why Father wants that, but it’s an instruction, and the instruction calms Damian’s heartbeat just a little. He walks to just outside the doorway and waits for further instruction, trying to maintain his façade of calm.
“Leave,” Father repeats, but Damian already left. Does he mean leave the manor? Leave Father? Damian can’t do that. Until Father takes him under his wing, Damian must follow Mother’s instructions, and Mother’s instructions are to train with Father.
“Mother sent me here to train under your guidance,” Damian says. He is confused. He thinks that’s what he’s feeling. It’s a different sort of confusion from ‘I don’t know the answer,’ because when he didn’t know the answer there was always someone willing to happily tell him, even if accompanied with a punishment. But here, it doesn’t seem like there is an answer. Father wants him to leave, for no reason. Mother ordered him to train with Father. The orders conflict. There’s no answer. “I need to train with you.” He takes a step forward.
Father strides forward as well. “Damian, go back to Talia. You belong with her, not with me.”
“But I’m your son,” Damian says, and he realizes—he realizes that his voice has gotten louder, but he isn’t entirely sure how loud. Just, loud.
“You are not—”
Father isn’t making sense. “Check my DNA!” He cries. “I am your son.” How does he say it? How can he get past Father’s shuttered eyes, shallow with anger and sadness and—fear?—so unlike the ‘deep compassion’ Mother had seen? “I’m your son. We share our blood, I am your heir.” And here comes the cannonball, the explosion. “I have trained my whole life for this moment, I am the merging of two great bloodlines, I am Damian al Ghul. Damian al Ghul-Wayne if you wish it!” He’s not getting through. What would he do, if this was Mother? He reaches out and places a small hand on Father’s forearm. It would be rude to anyone except family, but Father is supposed to be family. “I will pledge myself to your service and learn your ways and dedicate myself to my training. I have killed eight men and can kill many more in your name. Please, Father.”
Father’s other hand closes around Damian’s wrist and rips his hand away, holding it above his head in a bruising grip. Fury flashes through his eyes and Damian flinches, his heart leaping to his throat and fluttering there in terror. Then, he throws the hand away harshly enough that Damian stumbles. “I am not your father!” Father screams.
Something stabs at Damian’s right eye, and he realizes that it’s a tear. He’s starting to cry, like a child, like a baby. Saltwater drips into his throat. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. Damian was supposed to prove his worth and be accepted. But he’s been rejected so thoroughly that Father won’t even allow Damian to call him Father.
Father’s eyes flicker to Damian’s and, again, look away. “I will not train you. Go to Talia and tell her I said no.”
“Why—” Damian swallows. “Why won’t you train me?”
“Leave now, Damian,” Father says.
Damian just stands there, staring. And then Father reaches forward, grabs Damian’s upper arm, and pulls.
Damian could extract himself from the grip, but he—he doesn’t. He lets Father drag him forwards, stumbling along behind him until Father pushes him out the front door. “Go back to the League. Go back to your mother. And never come back.”
“Please,” Damian begs. He’s been reduced to something pitiful, but he doesn’t know what else to do. Maybe that’s why Father won’t train him. Maybe he’s just that pathetic. Maybe he was supposed to initiate a fight. “Father, I—”
The door slams in his face, and Damian runs.