Titans: Legacies (Secret Origins 1)
Title: Titans: Legacies
Secret Origins 1: Son of the Bat, Scion of the Demon
Author: V5_Vendetta
Fandom: Batman
Disclaimer: DC's, not mine.
Significant Characters: Damian Wayne, Jason Todd, Mar'i Grayson, Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson, Cassandra Cain
Cameo Appearances: Selina Kyle, Helena Kyle, Tim Drake
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: References "Resurrection of Ra's al Ghul" and Batman & The Outsiders 3.
Summary: Just how did Damian end up becoming the Robin of Titans: Legacies? Here's a way it might have happened.
“He’s staying with us.”
Two years ago, Bruce Wayne took Damian Wayne, his son by a brief, ill-fated liaison with Talia, the “Daughter of the Demon,” into his home on an indefinite basis. The boy was not safe under Talia’s care, not with Ra’s al Ghul wanting to use Damian as his host body. Ra’s had found a way to prolong his life, but it was relatively unsatisfactory for the long-lived madman; he wanted a body he could grow into, one at the peak of its health and vitality.
Bruce was not letting that happen. He was not letting Ra’s use Damian to prolong his life and he was not letting Talia poison his mind any more than she already had. There was never a time that he questioned his decision to bring Damian into his home, but there were times when he wondered if he’d bitten off more than he could chew.
Such as this particular moment.
“Mr. Wayne, Damian is not adjusting well here,” the headmistress stated bluntly. She glared sharply at Bruce. “And no, another donation is not going to grant him an extension. Either you rein him in, or you will have to find another school to take him.”
“Ms. Macpherson, Damian has shown improvement,” Bruce insisted. “The amount of incidents you’ve had to call me in for isn’t as high as it was in the beginning of the year. And his grades have been exemplary, as you yourself admitted.”
“Yes, he is a gifted student, but he is also a recurrent safety risk in and of himself,” Macpherson answered.
“How so?” Bruce asked.
“He’s still getting into fights,” Macpherson replied.
“Are the kids he’s fighting all right?”
“They will be, given some stitches and braces and wiring.” Macpherson’s tone was wry, but her face was as hard as iron. “But he is dangerous. If you cannot rein him in, I will expel him.”
“I understand.” Bruce nodded. “Good day, Ms. Macpherson.”
“You as well, Mr. Wayne.”
Later that day, when school let out, a limo came to pick up Damian, who opened the back door roughly and threw his backpack in the backseat before plopping himself roughly inside. “Hard day, Master Damian?” Alfred asked from the driver’s seat.
“Just get me home,” Damian spat.
“As you wish, Master Damian,” Alfred answered kindly.
Once home, Damian stomped into Wayne Manor and stormed up to his room. Inside, he threw his backpack aside and plopped onto the bed. He picked up a kunai from under his bed and threw it at the dartboard on the wall across from him, the kunai striking the circle immediately preceding the bull’s-eye.
He knew Batman had been at his school, masquerading as that fop Bruce Wayne. He didn’t see why his father kept up that silly charade; the man that had sired him was no man, but rather a tempest of righteous wrath upon evildoers in human form. The fact that he pretended to be no more than a feeble-minded, effete socialite was offensive to Damian.
Soon enough, Damian heard a knock on the door. He knew that knock very well; it was his babysitter. He didn’t bother answering; he just threw another kunai at the dartboard, hard enough to make a sound upon impact. That was the signal for her to come in.
A petite girl with long dark hair tied back in a ponytail and green-brown eyes opened the door. She wore in a loose gray blouse and black drawstring pants, along with white athletic shoes for her feet. “Hello.”
“Hi,” Damian spat, though there wasn’t as much force in his vitriol as there had been when he spoke to Alfred.
“Training.” The girl ordered.
Damian grumbled, getting off the bed and starting to discard his uniform, a gray blazer over a white dress shirt and black pants with gray tie. Once out of the uniform, he crossed the distance to his dresser and found a pair of black sweatpants and a black long-sleeved T-shirt. He quickly put them on before following his babysitter out of his room and into the Batcave beneath the Manor.
Inside the Batcave, the babysitter guided him to the training area. “Why don’t I get a weapon?” Damian asked petulantly.
“Not until you learn self-control,” the babysitter replied. “We agreed.”
Damian growled. “Let’s just get this over with.”
“Come,” the babysitter challenged, shifting into a fighting stance.
Damian lunged at the babysitter, only for her to easily deflect his punch with one hand and throw him overhead with the other hand. Damian flipped to land on his feet and whirled into a kick, which the babysitter easily deflected with a backhanded brush of her hand. The brush knocked him off-balance, but he recovered by landing on his hand and spun on that hand into another attack, which the babysitter also deflected.
“Stay clear,” she instructed.
Stay clear? Damian echoed internally. It was the same instruction she always gave him whenever they sparred, meaning that he had to keep his thoughts focused when he was in a fight. He couldn’t let anger or frustration rule him and he couldn’t get impatient; he needed to think beyond those emotions and focus on how to win, not merely on winning itself.
When Bruce Wayne finally came back, he found the babysitter and Damian continuing to spar, with Damian having been no more successful in striking her than he had been at the beginning. “Cassandra,” he called out. “How has he been?”
“Getting better,” Cassandra Cain answered, even as she deflected another attack from Damian. “That will be enough for today, Damian.”
Damian snarled. “I’m not finished yet!”
A subsequent neutralization of his attempt to attack proved him false. “You are.”
Bruce looked sternly at Damian from the steps of leading into the Batcave. With a single tilt of his head, Damian knew his father was displeased. Even worse, tonight was the night of the monthly family dinner. That meant dining with the bastards he had reluctantly begun to call “brothers” and that . . . woman. He could not even think her name; the very idea of her felt like an insult to him.
The family dinner was a splendid gathering. Alfred had gone all out, cooking the best food for that occasion. Bruce sat at the head of the table, with Dick Grayson and Selina Kyle sitting closest to him on either side. Mar’i Grayson, Dick’s eight-year-old daughter, sat next to Dick and toddler Helena Kyle sat next to Selina, while Damian sat next to Mar’i and Cassandra sat across from him, with Tim Drake sitting next to her. There was chatter on the parts of nearly everyone, save for Damian, who contributed nothing at all, and Cassandra, who contributed very little.
“How are you doing, Damian?” Dick asked.
“Fine,” Damian grunted in response, taking small bites of his food. It was good, he had to admit to himself, but that didn’t mean he liked sitting here and bearing all this chatter.
“I’ve been hearing you’re still getting into fights,” Bruce commented.
“I win,” Damian answered bluntly. “I always win.”
“But do you start the fights?”
“They had it coming. They should have left me alone.”
“Damian. We are supposed to use the skills we’ve learned to protect people, not to engage in random and gratuitous acts of violence.”
“And maybe if you’d let me join you on the streets, I wouldn’t have to ‘engage in random and gratuitous acts of violence.’”
“We’ve discussed this before. You’re not ready.”
“I’m more than ready!” Damian was on the verge of exploding. “I have ten times the skill any of your other ‘sons’ had when they were my age!”
“Skill is nothing. The will is everything and you don’t have the will.”
“I have the will! I believe in the mission!”
“Do you? Or do you simply want a legitimization for your impulses?”
“F$#% this!” Damian yelled. “I don’t have to prove myself to you!” Damian rose from the table and ran for his room.
“I’ll talk to him,” Cassandra offered.
Three years later
Damian packed his bags. There was no reason to stay anymore. Not with his father dead. After all these years, after all those narrow escapes . . . that monster had to be the one who killed him. And his father, his foolishly noble father, had actually tried to save him, after all the lives that monster had taken, all the graveyards the laughing beast had filled.
The monster didn’t deserve to live. And he was the only one who saw that. His father would not be avenged so long as the false sons were the ones who held the keys to his legacy. The monster would continue to live, continue to kill, continue to fill more graveyards. That was an affront to the very code Damian had been raised with, which was that threats should be answered with the force necessary to completely neutralize them. If Dick, Tim, Cassandra, and that woman wouldn’t do it, then he would.
Thus it was that Damian found himself fleeing from Wayne Manor, never to return if he had his way. He knew Dick and Tim would be happy to be rid of him, to be rid of the living challenge to their claim on Batman’s legacy. It didn’t matter anymore; nothing did, nothing except seeing that monster dead.
Damian sneaked through the back alleys and side streets of Gotham City. He didn’t know where he was going, honestly, but he knew he was getting deeper into the city, farther away from Wayne Manor. As he moved through the intricate web of forlorn city streets, he saw something that made him pause.
It was a man in a black leather jacket, gloves, and boots with gray body armor covering his body and a red helmet concealing his face. He was fighting several goons and handling them with mocking ease . . . just before he slashed them with a curved, asymmetrical blade. Once he was done with them, the masked man left the goons in small puddles of their own blood.
“You might as well show yourself,” he said. “I know you’re there.”
“Red Hood,” Damian greeted tersely. “Or do I call you Jason Todd?”
“If it isn’t the bastard,” Red Hood retorted snidely.
Damian snarled and lunged to attack Red Hood for the perceived insult. Red Hood simply slammed the heel of his palm into Damian’s chest, stopping Damian’s charge and dropping the young boy on his rear.
“That’s a big bag,” Red Hood remarked. “Running away from home?”
“It’s not my home,” Damian spat. “It never was.”
“I get what you mean, believe me, I do. I know what it’s like to be a placeholder for someone else . . . but you weren’t even that, were you?”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m worthier of carrying on the mission than any of you ever were.”
“Watch your mouth, kid. You may be a better fighter than any of us were at your age, but you might want to think twice before shooting your mouth off like that.”
“F%$# you.”
“You’ve got attitude. That’s great.”
“I’m going to kill him.”
“The Joker? Good luck with that. Golden Boy and his little brother won’t let you.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Damian spat. “He’s going to die, no matter what they have to say.”
“Then you might as well come with me,” Red Hood suggested. “Like minds need to stick together.”
“We’re not alike,” Damian snarled.
“We’re more alike than you think and you can’t stay on the streets,” Red Hood answered. “Even you need sleep and bad things tend to happen to people who sleep unguarded, especially thirteen-year-old boys all alone on the streets.”
Damian snarled. “Don’t try to intimidate me.”
“Just warning you.” Red Hood’s tone was more an amused smile.
Thus it was that Damian Wayne moved in with Jason Todd. While the accommodations were not what Damian was used to, he would learn to adapt. Besides, as much as he hated to admit it, Jason was probably the only person who even began to understand him. Hell if he was going to admit it out loud, though; he had his pride, after all.
Six months later
“I brought us a playmate,” Jason announced with sardonic joviality.
Damian, having just turned fourteen, barely looked in the direction of Jason’s voice. Then he did a double take and found Mar’i Grayson, somewhere between eleven and twelve years old, standing next to Jason. Jason was garbed in his usual attire of a leather jacket over a tank top and worn and torn jeans, while Mar’i was wearing a black sweater and a navy jean skirt over black leggings. There was an almost hollow look in her eyes, a deepening of the chasm he had vaguely seen in her when he’d first met her.
“Mar’i . . . what are you doing here?” he asked.
“Running away,” Mar’i replied. “Like you did.”
“Turns out she’s more like us than I thought at first,” Jason remarked. “She doesn’t fit in, either. She’s not wanted, either.”
Damian could see Mar’i flinch at those words and he felt something inside him that compelled him to reach out to her. He brutally quashed it; he did not do such things. He did not get emotionally involved with anyone, not even if they were Mar’i Grayson.
“Where’s she going to sleep?” he grunted.
“With you,” Jason replied.
Damian glared. “With me?”
“Yeah, I’ve been taking the couch so you can have the bed and the couch is cramped enough as it is,” Jason retorted. “Either she takes the bed and you take the floor or vice versa or you sleep in the same f#$%& bed.”
“Fine,” Damian grunted. “She can have the bed.”
That night, Damian slept on the floor of the singular bedroom in the rundown apartment. He curled in on himself, resisting every urge to look up and see how Mar’i was sleeping. He didn’t care, he told himself, he didn’t care at all. He didn’t need to care about her and she didn’t need to care about him.
Finally, Damian managed to drift into the oblivion of sleep, only to relive the night of his fourteenth birthday. In his mind’s eye, he was inside one of the satellite Batcaves that Jason had managed to find. He saw the Joker bound by cable wire, the mad smile still on his face. He saw Red Hood toss him his kris.
“Go ahead,” Red Hood encouraged.
Damian watched through his own eyes as he stalked toward the Joker, kris in hand. “Ah, poor little Bat-brat,” the Joker taunted.“Killing me to get Daddy’s love.”
Damian gritted his teeth in rage and brought down the kris . . . slicing through the cable wire binding the Joker and cutting him in the process. “What are you doing?!” Red Hood asked.
“He’s not going to die this way,” Damian heard his own voice answer. “He’s going to die on his feet, fighting for his miserable, misbegotten life.”
He heard Red Hood chuckle sardonically, but paid him no mind. “Come on, Joker.”
The fight was long and brutal, with the Joker having more tricks up his sleeve than Damian had expected. The flower that squirted acid had resulted in him losing his shirt and getting a burn mark on his left pectoral. The candy bombs had burned him in other places, but all of those were just delaying tactics. The Joker was doomed from the very beginning and Damian made sure he knew that when he electrocuted the bastard with his own “joy buzzer.”
The dream of the Joker’s death faded out into the remembrance of overhearing Alfred reading Bruce Wayne’s will. Damian had not stuck around to hear the entire thing, but he had been around long enough to hear that control of Wayne Enterprises and access to the Wayne billions was to be divided evenly between Dick and Tim. He had waited and waited and waited, but he had finally left when it turned out he would never be mentioned in the will. That had proven it for him, that he had meant nothing to his father, that the ‘sons’ Bruce had chosen mattered more than he ever would.
When he awoke, he found himself on the bed and with lithe, strong arms holding him. He turned his head and found Mar’i holding him tightly, having somehow tugged him onto the bed with her. He wasn’t surprised that she had accomplished that feat - the alien part of her heritage granted her superhuman strength - but he was confused as to why she would want to do such a thing for him.
Two months later
“Birthday present,” Damian stated in his most deadpan tones.
He watched as Mar’i gaped at the object in her hands. It was sleek black fabric in a humanoid shape and a translucent purple symbol resembling outstretched wings, only simultaneously sharper and more ornate. A mask grew from the collar of the costume, enough to cover her face all the way to her hairline.
“The suit has miniature solar emitters woven into the fabric, to keep you charged up even if you’re cut off from sunlight,” Damian explained. “The fabric is a special protective weave, derived from Tamaranean armor. Speaking of Tamaranean armor . . .” Damian handed her a pair of translucent purple bracers.
“Where did you get this?” Mar’i asked.
“I made it,” Damian replied simply. “I’ve been working on it since you came.”
Mar’i hugged Damian tightly, but she had enough control over her strength not to crack or break his bones, although he would be nursing bruises later. He didn’t mind, though; anyone who would be stopped by pain was weak. “There’s just one thing I don’t like,” she said.
“What is it?” he asked, keeping any traces of solicitousness out of his voice.
“The mask,” Mar’i answered. “I don’t like masks.”
“They’re necessary for what we do, and what we do we do in the dark.” He held her gently. “I understand.”
“You do?”
“You weren’t meant for the dark.”
Mar’i squeezed Damian tenderly and pulled out of the embrace, going to change into her new costume. A brief hint of a smile formed on Damian’s face before he began to change into his costume. He first donned the skintight body-sheath that comprised the main part of his costume, a white torso and sleeves with black legs and pelvis, the white and black separated by an “M”-like divider that made the white on his torso look vaguely like a bird in flight. Next, he donned white combat boots and black gloves with brass knuckles attached. He strapped his sheathed sword, a jian-style blade, to his hip, wrapped a black utility strap around his torso, and threw on his standard khaki cloak. Finally, he donned his standard triangular domino mask, the point facing toward his forehead.
Mar’i came out in her costume . . . and Damian had to do a double take to properly gauge her. The costume fit snugly against her developing frame, the wing symbol shining resplendently on her chest. The bracers held fast on her forearms and Damian’s only regret was that the mask hid her eyes. Other than that, she looked absolutely perfect.
“How do I look?” Mar’i asked, her voice subdued by the fabric of the mask.
“Perfect,” Damian replied, his own voice darkening. This was customary for him when slipping into costume, as the costume freed him from the restraints imposed upon him in “civilian” garb, allowing him to unleash the demon. However, the demon seemed to be coming out more forcefully than usual, as though aroused by the sight of Mar’i in that costume.
“Don’t you two look cozy?” Jason remarked, wearing the entirety of his costume save for the helmet, revealing the red domino mask he wore beneath.
Damian resisted the urge to growl at Jason. “We’re fine.”
“I’m sure you are, kiddo,” Jason replied, donning his helmet. “Let’s go. It’s time ‘Batman’ got a good look at what he was stupid enough to cast off.”
Thus it was that Dick Grayson, who had assumed the mantle of Batman following the Joker’s death, got the surprise of his life. The eldest son of Bruce Wayne, in heart and in legality if not in blood, was in the middle of a fight with the Jokerz, a juvenile gang that modeled itself after the deceased “Clown Prince of Crime.” The Jokerz dressed in twisted variants of clown and jester costumes and used weapons that were deadlier versions of the gag objects used in clown acts.
At first, Dick had thought they were just a bunch of disorganized little punks attracted to the Joker’s “intimidation factor,” but he had soon realized that they were serious. Times like this simply reaffirmed that conviction, since as of this moment, twin Jokerz with their faces made up like clownish dolls and straw wigs for hair were attacking him with ribbons. These were not ordinary ribbons, though; the twins’ gloves contained a device that transmitted an electrical current into the ribbons, changing them from flimsy things to sharp, deadly lashes that sparked when they struck something.
Dick was ably dodging the twins’ lashes; as agile as he was, the twins were no slouches when it came to agility. They were nowhere near his level, but probably good enough to be fierce competitors in Olympic gymnastic contests. That made them somewhat of a challenge . . . somewhat.
Time to stop playing around, he thought; he pulled out razor-edged Batarangs and threw them into seemingly empty space. They appeared to miss, prompting the cocky twins to lash at him with their ribbons. The twins were surprised, though, when the Batarangs returned and cut the ribbons in two. In fact, they were so surprised that they couldn’t react in time to stop Dick from knocking them unconscious with swift chops to the backs of their necks.
Dick smirked. “Anyone else?”
The other Jokerz moved to attack and that was when Dick burst into a flurry of movement, dodging candied explosives and acid pies and smashing faces with his fists and feet. Suddenly, a small but clear clinking noise could be heard, as though something small and metallic had struck a nearby surface. That was all the warning the Jokerz got before a cloaked teenage boy in white and black descended from the shadows alongside a masked girl clad in black and translucent purple. The two youths dived immediately into the fray . . . and the boy unsheathed the sword strapped to his hip.
Oh, no . . . Dick thought.
To his surprise, while the boy was slashing the Jokerz, he didn’t seem to be going out of his way to give them fatal wounds. The wounds he was dealing were easily survivable, provided the blood loss was stopped in time. When he wasn’t slicing them with his sword, he was brutally striking them with the hilt of the blade, hitting them with his brass-knuckled fists, or kicking them with his reinforced boots.
Beside him, the girl wearing Dick’s former symbol was an exhibition of unearthly grace and agility. She almost literally danced through the Jokerz’ attacks, but her strength was something else entirely. With singular blows, punches and kicks enhanced by flashes of purple energy, she sent sundry Jokerz practically flying before they landed on the ground. And they couldn’t touch her . . . no matter what they did, they couldn’t even get close.
Dick quickly got his head back in the game despite all temptation to watch the two youths. He added his own skill and experience to the fray, mostly neutralizing the Jokerz that tried to sneak up on the youths. After several minutes of frenetic activity, the Jokerz were all fleeing for the lives, the ones that were still conscious enough to flee, that was.
“Damian. Mar’i. Where have you been?”
“With someone who actually wanted us around.”
“What gave you the idea that I didn’t want you?” Dick asked.
The girl pulled her mask down, revealing the face of Mar’i Grayson. “Whose face do you see when you look at me? Mine, or Mom’s?”
Dick looked at her, taken aback by her question, which gave Mar’i the opportunity to continue. “Since Mom died, I’ve spent more time with Uncle Tim, with Uncle Roy, with Uncle Jason, with even Grandpa Bruce, than with you, my own father. Why? Is it that painful?”
“Mar’i, I . . .” Dick started to say, but his response died in his throat.
Damian held his sword tightly, watching Mar’i pour her heart out to her father. “You hurt her,” he snarled, the demon growing stronger. “She loves . . . with everything in her being. Even people others don’t think are worth loving. And you spat on that. For something as weak and insipid as grief.”
Dick glared at Damian, who stared right into that glare with one of his own. “She saved me . . . from myself. From tearing myself apart. And as much as I hate you, she loves you. So let her save you. Or I’ll send you to join Father.”
“Are you going to come back?” Dick asked.
“Don’t hold your breath.”
Two years later
“What made you change your mind?” Dick asked, wearing the Batman costume minus the cowl.
Damian stood in a short-sleeved black suit with a burnt gold birdlike symbol spreading across his chest and onto his shoulders, a red stripe extending from the bottom of that symbol and splitting to cover the insides of his legs. Black steel-toed combat boots and black gloves added to the uniform, along with a dull gold utility belt with a birdlike buckle and a feathery-scalloped black cape. A birdlike domino mask completed the uniform.
“Batman needs Robin,” was the young man’s terse answer.
Dick took a breath. “If you’re going to be Robin, I expect you to follow my orders precisely. The chief order is this: You’re a protector, not a punisher. You don’t kill. You disable, you incapacitate, but you do not kill. Am I understood?”
Damian’s terse nod was Dick’s only answer.
“Welcome, Robin.”
Secret Origins 1: Son of the Bat, Scion of the Demon
Author: V5_Vendetta
Fandom: Batman
Disclaimer: DC's, not mine.
Significant Characters: Damian Wayne, Jason Todd, Mar'i Grayson, Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson, Cassandra Cain
Cameo Appearances: Selina Kyle, Helena Kyle, Tim Drake
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: References "Resurrection of Ra's al Ghul" and Batman & The Outsiders 3.
Summary: Just how did Damian end up becoming the Robin of Titans: Legacies? Here's a way it might have happened.
“He’s staying with us.”
Two years ago, Bruce Wayne took Damian Wayne, his son by a brief, ill-fated liaison with Talia, the “Daughter of the Demon,” into his home on an indefinite basis. The boy was not safe under Talia’s care, not with Ra’s al Ghul wanting to use Damian as his host body. Ra’s had found a way to prolong his life, but it was relatively unsatisfactory for the long-lived madman; he wanted a body he could grow into, one at the peak of its health and vitality.
Bruce was not letting that happen. He was not letting Ra’s use Damian to prolong his life and he was not letting Talia poison his mind any more than she already had. There was never a time that he questioned his decision to bring Damian into his home, but there were times when he wondered if he’d bitten off more than he could chew.
Such as this particular moment.
“Mr. Wayne, Damian is not adjusting well here,” the headmistress stated bluntly. She glared sharply at Bruce. “And no, another donation is not going to grant him an extension. Either you rein him in, or you will have to find another school to take him.”
“Ms. Macpherson, Damian has shown improvement,” Bruce insisted. “The amount of incidents you’ve had to call me in for isn’t as high as it was in the beginning of the year. And his grades have been exemplary, as you yourself admitted.”
“Yes, he is a gifted student, but he is also a recurrent safety risk in and of himself,” Macpherson answered.
“How so?” Bruce asked.
“He’s still getting into fights,” Macpherson replied.
“Are the kids he’s fighting all right?”
“They will be, given some stitches and braces and wiring.” Macpherson’s tone was wry, but her face was as hard as iron. “But he is dangerous. If you cannot rein him in, I will expel him.”
“I understand.” Bruce nodded. “Good day, Ms. Macpherson.”
“You as well, Mr. Wayne.”
Later that day, when school let out, a limo came to pick up Damian, who opened the back door roughly and threw his backpack in the backseat before plopping himself roughly inside. “Hard day, Master Damian?” Alfred asked from the driver’s seat.
“Just get me home,” Damian spat.
“As you wish, Master Damian,” Alfred answered kindly.
Once home, Damian stomped into Wayne Manor and stormed up to his room. Inside, he threw his backpack aside and plopped onto the bed. He picked up a kunai from under his bed and threw it at the dartboard on the wall across from him, the kunai striking the circle immediately preceding the bull’s-eye.
He knew Batman had been at his school, masquerading as that fop Bruce Wayne. He didn’t see why his father kept up that silly charade; the man that had sired him was no man, but rather a tempest of righteous wrath upon evildoers in human form. The fact that he pretended to be no more than a feeble-minded, effete socialite was offensive to Damian.
Soon enough, Damian heard a knock on the door. He knew that knock very well; it was his babysitter. He didn’t bother answering; he just threw another kunai at the dartboard, hard enough to make a sound upon impact. That was the signal for her to come in.
A petite girl with long dark hair tied back in a ponytail and green-brown eyes opened the door. She wore in a loose gray blouse and black drawstring pants, along with white athletic shoes for her feet. “Hello.”
“Hi,” Damian spat, though there wasn’t as much force in his vitriol as there had been when he spoke to Alfred.
“Training.” The girl ordered.
Damian grumbled, getting off the bed and starting to discard his uniform, a gray blazer over a white dress shirt and black pants with gray tie. Once out of the uniform, he crossed the distance to his dresser and found a pair of black sweatpants and a black long-sleeved T-shirt. He quickly put them on before following his babysitter out of his room and into the Batcave beneath the Manor.
Inside the Batcave, the babysitter guided him to the training area. “Why don’t I get a weapon?” Damian asked petulantly.
“Not until you learn self-control,” the babysitter replied. “We agreed.”
Damian growled. “Let’s just get this over with.”
“Come,” the babysitter challenged, shifting into a fighting stance.
Damian lunged at the babysitter, only for her to easily deflect his punch with one hand and throw him overhead with the other hand. Damian flipped to land on his feet and whirled into a kick, which the babysitter easily deflected with a backhanded brush of her hand. The brush knocked him off-balance, but he recovered by landing on his hand and spun on that hand into another attack, which the babysitter also deflected.
“Stay clear,” she instructed.
Stay clear? Damian echoed internally. It was the same instruction she always gave him whenever they sparred, meaning that he had to keep his thoughts focused when he was in a fight. He couldn’t let anger or frustration rule him and he couldn’t get impatient; he needed to think beyond those emotions and focus on how to win, not merely on winning itself.
When Bruce Wayne finally came back, he found the babysitter and Damian continuing to spar, with Damian having been no more successful in striking her than he had been at the beginning. “Cassandra,” he called out. “How has he been?”
“Getting better,” Cassandra Cain answered, even as she deflected another attack from Damian. “That will be enough for today, Damian.”
Damian snarled. “I’m not finished yet!”
A subsequent neutralization of his attempt to attack proved him false. “You are.”
Bruce looked sternly at Damian from the steps of leading into the Batcave. With a single tilt of his head, Damian knew his father was displeased. Even worse, tonight was the night of the monthly family dinner. That meant dining with the bastards he had reluctantly begun to call “brothers” and that . . . woman. He could not even think her name; the very idea of her felt like an insult to him.
The family dinner was a splendid gathering. Alfred had gone all out, cooking the best food for that occasion. Bruce sat at the head of the table, with Dick Grayson and Selina Kyle sitting closest to him on either side. Mar’i Grayson, Dick’s eight-year-old daughter, sat next to Dick and toddler Helena Kyle sat next to Selina, while Damian sat next to Mar’i and Cassandra sat across from him, with Tim Drake sitting next to her. There was chatter on the parts of nearly everyone, save for Damian, who contributed nothing at all, and Cassandra, who contributed very little.
“How are you doing, Damian?” Dick asked.
“Fine,” Damian grunted in response, taking small bites of his food. It was good, he had to admit to himself, but that didn’t mean he liked sitting here and bearing all this chatter.
“I’ve been hearing you’re still getting into fights,” Bruce commented.
“I win,” Damian answered bluntly. “I always win.”
“But do you start the fights?”
“They had it coming. They should have left me alone.”
“Damian. We are supposed to use the skills we’ve learned to protect people, not to engage in random and gratuitous acts of violence.”
“And maybe if you’d let me join you on the streets, I wouldn’t have to ‘engage in random and gratuitous acts of violence.’”
“We’ve discussed this before. You’re not ready.”
“I’m more than ready!” Damian was on the verge of exploding. “I have ten times the skill any of your other ‘sons’ had when they were my age!”
“Skill is nothing. The will is everything and you don’t have the will.”
“I have the will! I believe in the mission!”
“Do you? Or do you simply want a legitimization for your impulses?”
“F$#% this!” Damian yelled. “I don’t have to prove myself to you!” Damian rose from the table and ran for his room.
“I’ll talk to him,” Cassandra offered.
Three years later
Damian packed his bags. There was no reason to stay anymore. Not with his father dead. After all these years, after all those narrow escapes . . . that monster had to be the one who killed him. And his father, his foolishly noble father, had actually tried to save him, after all the lives that monster had taken, all the graveyards the laughing beast had filled.
The monster didn’t deserve to live. And he was the only one who saw that. His father would not be avenged so long as the false sons were the ones who held the keys to his legacy. The monster would continue to live, continue to kill, continue to fill more graveyards. That was an affront to the very code Damian had been raised with, which was that threats should be answered with the force necessary to completely neutralize them. If Dick, Tim, Cassandra, and that woman wouldn’t do it, then he would.
Thus it was that Damian found himself fleeing from Wayne Manor, never to return if he had his way. He knew Dick and Tim would be happy to be rid of him, to be rid of the living challenge to their claim on Batman’s legacy. It didn’t matter anymore; nothing did, nothing except seeing that monster dead.
Damian sneaked through the back alleys and side streets of Gotham City. He didn’t know where he was going, honestly, but he knew he was getting deeper into the city, farther away from Wayne Manor. As he moved through the intricate web of forlorn city streets, he saw something that made him pause.
It was a man in a black leather jacket, gloves, and boots with gray body armor covering his body and a red helmet concealing his face. He was fighting several goons and handling them with mocking ease . . . just before he slashed them with a curved, asymmetrical blade. Once he was done with them, the masked man left the goons in small puddles of their own blood.
“You might as well show yourself,” he said. “I know you’re there.”
“Red Hood,” Damian greeted tersely. “Or do I call you Jason Todd?”
“If it isn’t the bastard,” Red Hood retorted snidely.
Damian snarled and lunged to attack Red Hood for the perceived insult. Red Hood simply slammed the heel of his palm into Damian’s chest, stopping Damian’s charge and dropping the young boy on his rear.
“That’s a big bag,” Red Hood remarked. “Running away from home?”
“It’s not my home,” Damian spat. “It never was.”
“I get what you mean, believe me, I do. I know what it’s like to be a placeholder for someone else . . . but you weren’t even that, were you?”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m worthier of carrying on the mission than any of you ever were.”
“Watch your mouth, kid. You may be a better fighter than any of us were at your age, but you might want to think twice before shooting your mouth off like that.”
“F%$# you.”
“You’ve got attitude. That’s great.”
“I’m going to kill him.”
“The Joker? Good luck with that. Golden Boy and his little brother won’t let you.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Damian spat. “He’s going to die, no matter what they have to say.”
“Then you might as well come with me,” Red Hood suggested. “Like minds need to stick together.”
“We’re not alike,” Damian snarled.
“We’re more alike than you think and you can’t stay on the streets,” Red Hood answered. “Even you need sleep and bad things tend to happen to people who sleep unguarded, especially thirteen-year-old boys all alone on the streets.”
Damian snarled. “Don’t try to intimidate me.”
“Just warning you.” Red Hood’s tone was more an amused smile.
Thus it was that Damian Wayne moved in with Jason Todd. While the accommodations were not what Damian was used to, he would learn to adapt. Besides, as much as he hated to admit it, Jason was probably the only person who even began to understand him. Hell if he was going to admit it out loud, though; he had his pride, after all.
Six months later
“I brought us a playmate,” Jason announced with sardonic joviality.
Damian, having just turned fourteen, barely looked in the direction of Jason’s voice. Then he did a double take and found Mar’i Grayson, somewhere between eleven and twelve years old, standing next to Jason. Jason was garbed in his usual attire of a leather jacket over a tank top and worn and torn jeans, while Mar’i was wearing a black sweater and a navy jean skirt over black leggings. There was an almost hollow look in her eyes, a deepening of the chasm he had vaguely seen in her when he’d first met her.
“Mar’i . . . what are you doing here?” he asked.
“Running away,” Mar’i replied. “Like you did.”
“Turns out she’s more like us than I thought at first,” Jason remarked. “She doesn’t fit in, either. She’s not wanted, either.”
Damian could see Mar’i flinch at those words and he felt something inside him that compelled him to reach out to her. He brutally quashed it; he did not do such things. He did not get emotionally involved with anyone, not even if they were Mar’i Grayson.
“Where’s she going to sleep?” he grunted.
“With you,” Jason replied.
Damian glared. “With me?”
“Yeah, I’ve been taking the couch so you can have the bed and the couch is cramped enough as it is,” Jason retorted. “Either she takes the bed and you take the floor or vice versa or you sleep in the same f#$%& bed.”
“Fine,” Damian grunted. “She can have the bed.”
That night, Damian slept on the floor of the singular bedroom in the rundown apartment. He curled in on himself, resisting every urge to look up and see how Mar’i was sleeping. He didn’t care, he told himself, he didn’t care at all. He didn’t need to care about her and she didn’t need to care about him.
Finally, Damian managed to drift into the oblivion of sleep, only to relive the night of his fourteenth birthday. In his mind’s eye, he was inside one of the satellite Batcaves that Jason had managed to find. He saw the Joker bound by cable wire, the mad smile still on his face. He saw Red Hood toss him his kris.
“Go ahead,” Red Hood encouraged.
Damian watched through his own eyes as he stalked toward the Joker, kris in hand. “Ah, poor little Bat-brat,” the Joker taunted.“Killing me to get Daddy’s love.”
Damian gritted his teeth in rage and brought down the kris . . . slicing through the cable wire binding the Joker and cutting him in the process. “What are you doing?!” Red Hood asked.
“He’s not going to die this way,” Damian heard his own voice answer. “He’s going to die on his feet, fighting for his miserable, misbegotten life.”
He heard Red Hood chuckle sardonically, but paid him no mind. “Come on, Joker.”
The fight was long and brutal, with the Joker having more tricks up his sleeve than Damian had expected. The flower that squirted acid had resulted in him losing his shirt and getting a burn mark on his left pectoral. The candy bombs had burned him in other places, but all of those were just delaying tactics. The Joker was doomed from the very beginning and Damian made sure he knew that when he electrocuted the bastard with his own “joy buzzer.”
The dream of the Joker’s death faded out into the remembrance of overhearing Alfred reading Bruce Wayne’s will. Damian had not stuck around to hear the entire thing, but he had been around long enough to hear that control of Wayne Enterprises and access to the Wayne billions was to be divided evenly between Dick and Tim. He had waited and waited and waited, but he had finally left when it turned out he would never be mentioned in the will. That had proven it for him, that he had meant nothing to his father, that the ‘sons’ Bruce had chosen mattered more than he ever would.
When he awoke, he found himself on the bed and with lithe, strong arms holding him. He turned his head and found Mar’i holding him tightly, having somehow tugged him onto the bed with her. He wasn’t surprised that she had accomplished that feat - the alien part of her heritage granted her superhuman strength - but he was confused as to why she would want to do such a thing for him.
Two months later
“Birthday present,” Damian stated in his most deadpan tones.
He watched as Mar’i gaped at the object in her hands. It was sleek black fabric in a humanoid shape and a translucent purple symbol resembling outstretched wings, only simultaneously sharper and more ornate. A mask grew from the collar of the costume, enough to cover her face all the way to her hairline.
“The suit has miniature solar emitters woven into the fabric, to keep you charged up even if you’re cut off from sunlight,” Damian explained. “The fabric is a special protective weave, derived from Tamaranean armor. Speaking of Tamaranean armor . . .” Damian handed her a pair of translucent purple bracers.
“Where did you get this?” Mar’i asked.
“I made it,” Damian replied simply. “I’ve been working on it since you came.”
Mar’i hugged Damian tightly, but she had enough control over her strength not to crack or break his bones, although he would be nursing bruises later. He didn’t mind, though; anyone who would be stopped by pain was weak. “There’s just one thing I don’t like,” she said.
“What is it?” he asked, keeping any traces of solicitousness out of his voice.
“The mask,” Mar’i answered. “I don’t like masks.”
“They’re necessary for what we do, and what we do we do in the dark.” He held her gently. “I understand.”
“You do?”
“You weren’t meant for the dark.”
Mar’i squeezed Damian tenderly and pulled out of the embrace, going to change into her new costume. A brief hint of a smile formed on Damian’s face before he began to change into his costume. He first donned the skintight body-sheath that comprised the main part of his costume, a white torso and sleeves with black legs and pelvis, the white and black separated by an “M”-like divider that made the white on his torso look vaguely like a bird in flight. Next, he donned white combat boots and black gloves with brass knuckles attached. He strapped his sheathed sword, a jian-style blade, to his hip, wrapped a black utility strap around his torso, and threw on his standard khaki cloak. Finally, he donned his standard triangular domino mask, the point facing toward his forehead.
Mar’i came out in her costume . . . and Damian had to do a double take to properly gauge her. The costume fit snugly against her developing frame, the wing symbol shining resplendently on her chest. The bracers held fast on her forearms and Damian’s only regret was that the mask hid her eyes. Other than that, she looked absolutely perfect.
“How do I look?” Mar’i asked, her voice subdued by the fabric of the mask.
“Perfect,” Damian replied, his own voice darkening. This was customary for him when slipping into costume, as the costume freed him from the restraints imposed upon him in “civilian” garb, allowing him to unleash the demon. However, the demon seemed to be coming out more forcefully than usual, as though aroused by the sight of Mar’i in that costume.
“Don’t you two look cozy?” Jason remarked, wearing the entirety of his costume save for the helmet, revealing the red domino mask he wore beneath.
Damian resisted the urge to growl at Jason. “We’re fine.”
“I’m sure you are, kiddo,” Jason replied, donning his helmet. “Let’s go. It’s time ‘Batman’ got a good look at what he was stupid enough to cast off.”
Thus it was that Dick Grayson, who had assumed the mantle of Batman following the Joker’s death, got the surprise of his life. The eldest son of Bruce Wayne, in heart and in legality if not in blood, was in the middle of a fight with the Jokerz, a juvenile gang that modeled itself after the deceased “Clown Prince of Crime.” The Jokerz dressed in twisted variants of clown and jester costumes and used weapons that were deadlier versions of the gag objects used in clown acts.
At first, Dick had thought they were just a bunch of disorganized little punks attracted to the Joker’s “intimidation factor,” but he had soon realized that they were serious. Times like this simply reaffirmed that conviction, since as of this moment, twin Jokerz with their faces made up like clownish dolls and straw wigs for hair were attacking him with ribbons. These were not ordinary ribbons, though; the twins’ gloves contained a device that transmitted an electrical current into the ribbons, changing them from flimsy things to sharp, deadly lashes that sparked when they struck something.
Dick was ably dodging the twins’ lashes; as agile as he was, the twins were no slouches when it came to agility. They were nowhere near his level, but probably good enough to be fierce competitors in Olympic gymnastic contests. That made them somewhat of a challenge . . . somewhat.
Time to stop playing around, he thought; he pulled out razor-edged Batarangs and threw them into seemingly empty space. They appeared to miss, prompting the cocky twins to lash at him with their ribbons. The twins were surprised, though, when the Batarangs returned and cut the ribbons in two. In fact, they were so surprised that they couldn’t react in time to stop Dick from knocking them unconscious with swift chops to the backs of their necks.
Dick smirked. “Anyone else?”
The other Jokerz moved to attack and that was when Dick burst into a flurry of movement, dodging candied explosives and acid pies and smashing faces with his fists and feet. Suddenly, a small but clear clinking noise could be heard, as though something small and metallic had struck a nearby surface. That was all the warning the Jokerz got before a cloaked teenage boy in white and black descended from the shadows alongside a masked girl clad in black and translucent purple. The two youths dived immediately into the fray . . . and the boy unsheathed the sword strapped to his hip.
Oh, no . . . Dick thought.
To his surprise, while the boy was slashing the Jokerz, he didn’t seem to be going out of his way to give them fatal wounds. The wounds he was dealing were easily survivable, provided the blood loss was stopped in time. When he wasn’t slicing them with his sword, he was brutally striking them with the hilt of the blade, hitting them with his brass-knuckled fists, or kicking them with his reinforced boots.
Beside him, the girl wearing Dick’s former symbol was an exhibition of unearthly grace and agility. She almost literally danced through the Jokerz’ attacks, but her strength was something else entirely. With singular blows, punches and kicks enhanced by flashes of purple energy, she sent sundry Jokerz practically flying before they landed on the ground. And they couldn’t touch her . . . no matter what they did, they couldn’t even get close.
Dick quickly got his head back in the game despite all temptation to watch the two youths. He added his own skill and experience to the fray, mostly neutralizing the Jokerz that tried to sneak up on the youths. After several minutes of frenetic activity, the Jokerz were all fleeing for the lives, the ones that were still conscious enough to flee, that was.
“Damian. Mar’i. Where have you been?”
“With someone who actually wanted us around.”
“What gave you the idea that I didn’t want you?” Dick asked.
The girl pulled her mask down, revealing the face of Mar’i Grayson. “Whose face do you see when you look at me? Mine, or Mom’s?”
Dick looked at her, taken aback by her question, which gave Mar’i the opportunity to continue. “Since Mom died, I’ve spent more time with Uncle Tim, with Uncle Roy, with Uncle Jason, with even Grandpa Bruce, than with you, my own father. Why? Is it that painful?”
“Mar’i, I . . .” Dick started to say, but his response died in his throat.
Damian held his sword tightly, watching Mar’i pour her heart out to her father. “You hurt her,” he snarled, the demon growing stronger. “She loves . . . with everything in her being. Even people others don’t think are worth loving. And you spat on that. For something as weak and insipid as grief.”
Dick glared at Damian, who stared right into that glare with one of his own. “She saved me . . . from myself. From tearing myself apart. And as much as I hate you, she loves you. So let her save you. Or I’ll send you to join Father.”
“Are you going to come back?” Dick asked.
“Don’t hold your breath.”
Two years later
“What made you change your mind?” Dick asked, wearing the Batman costume minus the cowl.
Damian stood in a short-sleeved black suit with a burnt gold birdlike symbol spreading across his chest and onto his shoulders, a red stripe extending from the bottom of that symbol and splitting to cover the insides of his legs. Black steel-toed combat boots and black gloves added to the uniform, along with a dull gold utility belt with a birdlike buckle and a feathery-scalloped black cape. A birdlike domino mask completed the uniform.
“Batman needs Robin,” was the young man’s terse answer.
Dick took a breath. “If you’re going to be Robin, I expect you to follow my orders precisely. The chief order is this: You’re a protector, not a punisher. You don’t kill. You disable, you incapacitate, but you do not kill. Am I understood?”
Damian’s terse nod was Dick’s only answer.
“Welcome, Robin.”