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Damian, if he had been given the choice, would have chosen being an assassin over having to fight a new kind of nightmare every week.
At least, that’s what he tells himself when he wakes up tied up in the sewers.
(Again)
Biting back the urge to shout a plethora of insults, he jerks his wrists against the ropes and winces when the harsh texture rubs at his gloves. Wonderful. Just wonderful. Of course, he’s bound. Putting escape on the back burner for now, he narrows his eyes through the darkness and attempts to identify his captor.
Unfortunately, he can’t see anything in the murky sewer lighting—nothing but dull black walls and dripping gray water.
The shadows shift.
“Oh, you’re awake,” a familiar voice muses, and Damian almost (almost) groans out loud when he recognizes it as none other than Dr. Jonathan Crane. The Scarecrow’s discombobulated voice echoes from all over, and Damian digs his nails into his gloved palm because he’s not scared. Not when that is exactly what the bastard wants. “How was your rest?”
“Scarecrow,” Damian deadpans, getting to work untying the knots around his wrists as he continues his search for the man’s body. “What the hell do you want?”
The doctor laughs, but the sound is strained and humorless, “Such a foul mouth for such a young boy.”
Damian, trained assassin and serial killer by trade, snarls viciously at Scarecrow. “Wanna see just how young I am? Because I will show you if you,” he yanks angrily at the ropes, heart hammering like a hummingbird in his chest. “If you really want to know, I’ll beat your old ass into tomorrow!”
A rumbling scoff spills from the darkness, but this time it’s clear enough that Damian manages to pinpoint the location of it as a couple of feet to his left. Good. Now, if he could just get these ropes untied before Scarecrow doses him with the fear toxin he almost definitely has nearby, he’ll be set.
“I don’t mean to hurt you,” Scarecrow says, his voice dry and bored as though Damian’s presence is nothing but an unfortunate side effect of a much larger plan.
Unease swims in Damian’s gut, “Then what do you want from me?”
The doctor draws closer, and Damian curls his lip in disgust at the filthy mask looming in front of him. “Not what, Robin. Who.”
Right.
Batman.
Rage throws Damian’s head forward, crashing his forehead into Scarecrow’s face with a blow loud enough to send a shockwave of nausea throughout his system. Scarecrow roars in pain, wheeling backward and clutching at his mouth as he swears incomprehensibly at Robin for being a “Little brat with no sense!”
From Scarecrow’s mouth, it sounds like a compliment. Damian beams a toothy smile and hooks his fingers under the rope, sliding himself free from the bounds. “Next time,” he says, scrambling to his feet. “I’d recommend not humiliating yourself.”
A gun clicks.
Damian goes cold, dread seeping through his skin and poisoning his blood with palpitating panic.
Somewhere at the fuzzy forefront of his brain, Damian knows he can disarm Scarecrow before the gun goes off. Knows that he has performed this exact training exercise a thousand times, both in the League and with his father. Performed the needed move gagged, bleeding, and blindfolded.
He knows this, so when his body locks up in terror and he can’t move, all he grits out is an accusatory, “You dosed me!”
Scarecrow tilts his head, studying Damian like a surgeon examining a live subject, and his calm, clinical attention sends a shiver down Damian’s spine far worse than the fear toxin itself.
“Twice,” Scarecrow eventually murmurs, voice soft but cutting. He waves a vial and the glass reflects in the small light leaking from the ceiling. “Almost a third… since you weren’t responding well, but here we are.”
Damian growls, fists balled at his side as he stares down the barrel of the gun. It shakes slightly in Scarecrow’s grip, though the tremor comes from an unsteady hand rather than any kind of hesitance. No, Damian knows that Scarecrow will shoot. Maybe not to kill— not yet, but to maim?
“Sit down,” Scarecrow orders, any previous humor leaking from his voice and leaving it cold and calculating.
No.
Damian’s legs fold anyway, and he collapses to the ground in a heap of cape and limbs.
Damian’s heart pounds in his chest with an aching aggression, and he growls, eyes narrowed into slits. “You are going to regret this,” the kid warns, but hands trembling, eyes watering, it doesn’t hold nearly as much heat as intended. “Batman will be here any minute.”
A smile spreads to Scarecrow’s face. “Oh, I intend for him to.”
______
Twenty-four minutes.
It takes Dick twenty-four minutes to locate Damian after his distress beacon goes off. Twenty-four painful, oxygen-less minutes in which anything could be happening to his little brother.
He lands in the sewers and the smell hits first, acrid and bitter. A puddle of dark, black-blue water splashes underfoot and he glances down the long hallways with a narrowed stare.
“Oracle,” Nightwing says into the comms, voice clipped with panic. “Which way do I go?”
Oracle’s voice is smooth and calming, a balm to the roar in panic in his chest. “Take a left.”
He listens without question, turning and launching himself into a run down to the left, ducking under the massive sewage pipes strung abovehead. “Heard anything from him yet?”
“Radio silence,” Oracle responds, and her voice is stressed with concern that even she cannot hide.
“Of course,” Nightwing glowers, his grip tightening around the escrima sticks. Delving deeper into the sewage system, Nightwing curls his lip at the water dripping along the walls. “Are we sure he’s in the sewers?”
There’s no response, and Nightwing takes the silence as a resounding yes.
He only needs to head straight for a few more moments before the tunnels open up into a dimly lit room, where in the corner a dark red and green shape lies bundled in a ball. Panic slices through Nightwing because yes. There! “Robin!”
Damian’s voice is scrambled and unsteady, and he unfolds slightly to look at Dick with wide eyes. “Batman?”
“Not quite,” Dick clears the distance between them in seconds, the fragility in his baby brother’s voice sending him forward in a half-scramble, half-run.
If his brother is hurt. If whoever took Damian did anything—
Dropping beside Robin, boots splashing in a shallow puddle, Nightwing smooths a gloved hand across his younger brother’s sweat-slicked forehead. “Hey, Robin,” he soothes, his voice soft with forced assuredness. “Report.”
“Don’t,” Robin snaps, flinching from the touch and planting a seed of dread inside Nightwing’s gut. When he speaks again, Damian’s voice is raw, fragile, and achingly young. “Don’t—“ he jerks away further. “Don’t touch me.”
That’s wrong.
It’s so, so wrong.
Robin doesn’t flinch. Robin doesn’t scramble away like a cornered animal. Robin doesn’t sit shaking on a sewer floor with his back pressed so tightly to the wall that it looks like he’s trying to phase through it.
Nightwing doesn’t pull his hand back, instead letting it hover just above his baby brother’s hood. Scanning their surroundings for some kind of threat, Dick murmurs a gentle, “Okay. I won’t touch you. That’s fine.”
Damian’s breathing is erratic. Too fast. Too shallow. His eyes dart but don’t land on Dick, don’t focus on anything real. Tracking ghosts. Hunting things that aren’t there.
It hits Nightwing like a sledgehammer.
Fear toxin.
And not a mild dose, either.
Wrathful anger boils just below the surface, lapping at Dick’s skin with a heat that has his thoughts running rampant. Fucking asshole. How dare Crane fuck with Dick’s little brother? Dick’s jaw tightens as he flicks his gaze around the room. No immediate sign of Scarecrow. No movement. No second presence.
That’s almost worse.
(Where has he gone?)
“Report,” Dick repeats, sharper this time. Not unkind but clear enough to sever through the haze haunting his younger brother.
Damian swallows. It looks painful. “Crane,” he eventually forces out. “Dos— dosed. Multiple times.” His fingers twitch against his knees, as though he’s trying to remember how to make them work. “Gun. He— he wants—”
“—Batman,” Dick finishes, already knowing and already hating it.
Damian’s lip curls, but it lacks its usual bite. “Obviously.”
There he is.
A crack of normal.
Dick forces a smile onto his face, and though he knows Damian can see straight through it, they both pretend it accompanies a sense of relief. “It’s okay. Everything—“
“—Nightwing,” Scarecrow croons, and Dick whips around with a snarl. From the corners of the room, Crane eases forward, head tipped to the side curiously. Just like he’d been warned by Damian, a flash of silver in the villain’s hand has Dick’s shoulders tightening. “You’re not who I was expecting.”
“Sorry to disappoint,” Nightwing says with a glower, shifting his escrima sticks into a fighting stance. “But for the record, you’re not exactly who I wanted to see, either.”
Scarecrow hums, low and thoughtful, like he’s cataloging the moment for later. “No, I imagine not.” His fingers twitch against the gun, the barrel dipping just slightly— not enough to lower the threat, but enough to make it unpredictable.
Dick doesn’t wait.
He moves first.
A sharp crack splits the air as an escrima stick flies from his hand, spinning end over end toward Crane’s wrist. The doctor jerks back on instinct, the shot going wide— a deafening bang that ricochets through the sewer tunnels. The bullet slams uselessly into the ceiling and a burst pipe sprays thick water on top of them.
“Close,” Dick mutters, already closing the distance.
Scarecrow recovers fast, pivoting on his heel and swinging the gun like a blunt weapon. Dick ducks under it, water splashing beneath his boots, and drives his shoulder forward into Crane’s chest.
They go down hard.
The two of them hit the ground in a violent tangle of limbs, water splashing up in a filthy arc as Dick drives Scarecrow flat against the concrete. The gun skitters somewhere into the dark with a hollow clatter.
Dick presses onward.
A fist slams into Crane’s masked jaw — once, twice — sharp, efficient strikes meant to stun, not savor. Scarecrow chokes on a laugh anyway, the sound wet and broken as he twists beneath Nightwing’s grip. Reeling his fist back again, Nightwing feels his hands tremble with poorly suppressed rage. The urge to hit him again burns, but Dick swallows it back, instead grunting out, “The antidote, Scarecrow.”
Innocently, “What antidote?”
Murderous, “Now, Crane!”
The doctor doesn’t move, so Dick does it for him, launching his fist into Scarecrow’s head and knocking him unconscious with a punch hard enough to make his knuckles ache. Crane’s head splashes into a puddle, and Nightwing growls as he starts searching the doctor’s pockets for anything.
Nothing.
Damian wails.
Nightwing scrambles off the Scarecrow, rushing over to his little brother with his hands stretched palms out. “Robin!” he calls out, desperate to cut through the fog in Damian’s mind. “Robin, can you hear me?” Quietly, to Oracle and the comms, he adds, “Robin’s been compromised. Need backup ASAP.”
Oracle’s voice is stone-cold seriousness, “Understood.”
Dick barely notices the comms go quiet, too fixated on the trembling form of his baby brother on the ground. Robin has his hands raking through his hair, nails digging into his scalp like knives as he buries his thumbs into his eyes. “Robin!” Dick tries again, louder this time. More desperate. “Robin, you’re safe, now. Scarecrow is down—”
“—Where is he?” Damian screams, pressing his thumbs deeper into his eye sockets. Dick’s fingers twitch nervously, and it takes everything to hold himself back. Damian tries again, “Where is he?”
Softly, as not to disturb Damian’s ever-shaky sanity, “Where is who?”
His brother’s voice pitches high and cracks into a whine around the edges, “Batman! Where is Batman?”
Dick bites down on the inside of his mouth, dreading. “He’s coming. He’s coming, baby bat. It’s okay. I just got here first.” Warily, he takes another step forward.
“Stop—” Like an invisible wall is keeping them separate, Damian jerks back, dropping his hands from his head and dragging himself into the far corner of the room. “Don’t— don’t. Shut up! No— no, no, no, no—” Terror wages war against rage, and the white of Robin’s lens stretches wide and flighty.
“Robin, breathe.”
“Shut up!”
“There you are,” Dick soothes, gentle and concerned. He throws a glance back at Scarecrow’s limp body before pressing on, “I know you’re in there, Dames. It’s me. It’s Dick. I’m right here.”
“Nightwing…” someone warns before Dick grimaces and turns the comms off altogether.
“Damian,” Dick repeats, and finally, his brother looks straight at him. While still trembling something awful, Damian’s unwavering attention has hope flaring in Dick’s chest. He nods encouragingly and holds out his hands, palms out. “Damian, hey. It’s just me. I promise you, you’re safe now.”
Robin curls in on himself, tight, before unwinding some and tilting his head at Dick. Slowly, like the word is sandpaper against his throat, the young vigilante whispers, “N-Nightwing?”
“That’s right…”
“Dick, please—”
That’s all it takes. Dick rushes forward and crushes Damian’s body into his own, hugging tight enough that he knows he’s risking hurting his brother’s ribs. He plants a firm kiss on the crown of Damian’s head before drawing back slightly. “You’re safe.”
A low whine rumbles in Damian’s throat, and he shakes his head. “Don’t lie to me!”
“Robin—”
“—No!” Hands press against Dick’s chest and shove him backward. Having not been holding Damian very tightly, Nightwing stumbles backward with a choked gasp. “You’re lying! You’re just a figment of my imagination. You’re just—” Damian shakes his head, quick and angry. “You’re him!”
Dick’s heart aches, and he shakes his head, “No. Scarecrow is down. Look.” He gestures wildly to the unconscious lump on the ground. “Can you see him?”
Damian’s voice is venomous, “Oh, I see! I see what you’re doing, and I won’t fall for it! I won’t! I’m not a fucking idiot!”
Dick stills, every instinct inside him screaming at him to fix this, to grab Damian and shake him back to reality. To yank his baby brother out of whatever hellscape Scarecrow has trapped him inside. And yet, with iron-clad restraint, he reins in the impulse.
Pushing will make it worse.
“You’re right,” Dick says instead, voice low and steady.
That throws Damian.
Just enough.
His snarl falters, confusion flickering through the panic. “What?”
“You’re not an idiot,” Dick continues, slow and deliberate, like he’s traveling across a thin sheet of ice. “You’re trained for this. You know when something’s wrong.”
Damian’s chest heaves. His hands tremble at his sides, fingers twitching like he doesn’t know what to do with them. The back of his hand swipes at his face, rubbing away either tears or sweat. “Then why—” his voice cracks, sharp and frustrated. “Why can’t I—”
He cuts himself off with a choked sound, jaw snapping shut hard enough that it clicks.
Dick softens, “Because you are drugged,” he says as gently as he can summon around the anger. “You said it yourself,” Dick stresses the words gently. “Multiple doses of Scarecrow’s fear toxin. Anyone, and I mean anyone, in your position would be just as scared as you are right now. That’s normal.”
A beat.
Damian’s gaze flickers again, darting between Dick and the space just above his shoulder.
“…prove it,” he demands, but there’s a hitch in it now. Uncertainty and a vague understanding bleeding through the anger.
“Okay,” Dick says immediately. “Okay, we can do that.”
He lowers himself slowly, making sure every movement is visible, predictable. No sudden shifts. No surprises. “I’m going to stay right here,” he says, settling onto one knee and ignoring how the water laps at his legs. “Not coming any closer unless you tell me to.”
Damian watches him like a cornered animal.
Doesn’t bolt.
Doesn’t attack.
“You remember the safehouse in Blüdhaven?” Dick asks.
Damian’s brow furrows despite himself. “What—”
“The one with the busted heater,” Dick continues, talking over him gently. “You complained about it for three hours straight.”
“I did not—”
“You absolutely did,” Dick cuts in again, a hint of something fond threading through the tension. “You called it ‘an unacceptable failure of modern engineering’ right before you stole my Hudson sweatshirt. Do you remember that? I told you that you weren’t allowed to keep it, but you did anyway.”
His little brother tilts his head, calculating, “You didn’t stop me.”
“How could I?”
“It was your favorite hoodie.”
Dick smiles lightly, “Still is.”
Damian shakes his head, a hand coming up to clutch at the side of his skull. “You don’t understand—” he gestures at nothing behind Dick. “He’s—”
“—Scarecrow is beat.” Dick soothes carefully, pointing at the limp body on the ground. Then, catching Damian’s attention with a small wave, Dick continues, “Do you remember what I said that day? When I gave you the hoodie?”
There is a beat of silence in which Damian stares daggers at Scarecrow’s unmoving, shallow-breathing body, before he drags his attention back to Dick. “You… you said…”
“I asked if you wanted to go to college.”
Damian rubs his hands together. “I can’t,” he says automatically. “I’m not built for college. I’m—” he shakes his head. “I’m Robin.”
Dick frowns, and it takes everything inside him to rein in his irritation with Batman. With Ra’s. With everyone who has told Damian who he can and cannot be. “You’re Robin,” he agrees with a suspicious ache in his chest. “But you are also so much more than that. You are so much more than all of this.” He readjusts his position on the ground and thanks Superman when Damian doesn’t flinch away.
“I’m drugged,” Damian says slowly, and Dick can’t tell if he’s escaping the topic on purpose or by accident. His voice hitches, “Can we go home?”
Dick nods.
“Yeah, let’s go home.”
___________
The cave is too bright.
Not in the way the surface is bright — no sun, no warmth — but in that sterile, artificial way that leaves nowhere to hide. White lights bounce off steel, glass, and polished stone, making everything feel too sharp. Too real.
Damian hates it immediately.
“Easy,” Dick murmurs, voice low as he keeps one arm braced around Damian’s shoulders, the other steady at his wrist. Not restraining, but there, grounding, keeping him steady. “We’re home.”
Home.
The word doesn’t land.
(Damian doesn’t have a home)
Damian’s boots drag slightly against the cave floor, uneven, his weight not quite his own. His head lolls once before he jerks it upright again, jaw snapping shut like he can force himself back into control through sheer will alone.
“I can walk,” he mutters, the words slurred at the edges.
“Yeah,” Dick says easily. “I know you can.”
He doesn’t let go.
The touch, even if Damian would never admit it, is soothing. Still, nerves batter against his ribcage, and Damian takes an unsteady breath. “Where…” he glances around and feels his stomach caving in on itself. His desperation, he knows, is pathetic. “Where is father?”
“Dealing with Scarecrow,” Dick responds softly, and Damian bristles at the gentleness his brother seems incapable of shaking. He’s not a bomb that is about to go off at any moment. And he’s certainly not a child who needs to be babied. “He’ll be back soon, don’t worry.”
Stiffly, “I’m not.”
Unconvinced, “Okay.”
A beat of frustration rises in Damian, and he tries (and fails) to shrug his older brother off of him. Then, a slip of tongue more than anything intended, Damian mutters, “I don’t need him, anyway.”
“Dames?” Dick helps Damian to a chair before stepping aside to give him some air. When Damian doesn’t immediately respond, too fixated on his own bitterness, Dick tries again. “Damian. Can I ask you something?”
“No,” Damian says flatly, crossing his arms against his chest and letting the pressure on his midsection serve as a balm to the rest of his nervous system. When Dick’s shoulders sag oh so subtly, Damian bites back a groan. Stupid Grayson and his stupid puppy dog eyes. “Tt. Fine. You can ask whatever you’d like.”
Half expecting some kind of victorious gleam in his older brother’s eyes, Damian feels a pitter-patter of anxious surprise in his heart when Dick doubles down and actually frowns. What had he done wrong? Is Grayson mad at him? Has he—
Stop.
Damian takes a deep breath through the haze of chemically induced fear and levels Dick with an expectant frown. “Well?”
“What did you see?”
His grandfather. Being left behind. Plunging a sword into a faceless person’s chest cavity. His father kicking him out for failing one too many times. Death. His mother. Being left behind. His family suffering and dying and not being able to stop it. Being left behind.
Around the rock in his throat, Damian says, rather harshly, “It’s none of your business.”
Dick’s voice is soft, “I know.”
“Then why ask?”
“Because…” his brother hesitates before shrugging and wringing his hands. When he manages to speak again, his tone is cautious, treading unsteady territory, “Because you know that there are good people in the world, don’t you?”
Damian glances up at Dick, mild surprise painting his expression into a conflicted frown. “What do you mean?”
This time, Dick seems to find his footing. His words are clear and firm, “You have a family who would do anything for you, Dames. Who would protect you from everything they— we possibly can. You’re not,” he stumbles briefly on the sentence before catching himself. “You’re not alone.”
Tension rises like a flood in Damian’s shoulders and he fixes Dick with an unreadable straight face. “Why are you telling me this?”
“You weren’t expecting me to show up.”
“No,” Damian admits.
“Were you expecting Bruce?”
Slightly less certain, “Yes.”
Dick smiles, but it’s sad enough that Damian’s stomach does an awful twisting thing. Then, as though he is saying something that he expects Damian to remember forever, “Bruce would’ve come if he could.”
The young vigilante shrugs, trying to loosen the tightness in his muscles. With a small scoff, he presses his crossed arms deeper into his stomach. The pressure has stopped providing comfort, and the hollowed-out feeling in his gut leaves Damian feeling cold all over. “I know that.”
“Any of us would’ve come.”
And.
And Damian doesn’t think they are talking about Scarecrow anymore.
He avoids eye contact, opting instead to stare at the floor of the Batcave. Not sure what else to say, not sure what else to do, he simply shrugs, “Tt.”
Dick places a hand on Damian’s shoulder, and it warms him more than he’d ever care to admit. “I just want you to know…” There is a beat of silence and Damian holds his breath the entire time. “I need you to know that I would’ve burned down the League of Assassins to bring you home. That I still would.”
Damian’s face burns with heat, and he focuses on the ground's marbled texture. “How do you—” his breath hitches. “How do you know?”
How do you know what I saw?
Graciously, his brother remains gentle and nonjudgmental. “I’m your big brother, Dames. It’s my job to know these things.” Dick’s thumb smoothes gentle circles into Damian’s shoulder and the young boy, feeling all sorts of childish, leans into the touch. Dick ruffles his hair. “It’s also my job to take care of you.”
Too tired to be indignant, Damian just frowns. “I don’t need to be babied.”
“Not babied,” Dick corrects. “Taken care of.”
Damian chews that over for a moment before eventually dragging his gaze back up to Dick’s. Unable to handle the feeling of hollow fear rattling around his chest, he asks, rather pathetically, “Do we have an antidote?"
His brother’s shoulders droop and Damian knows the answer well before Dick says, “I wish. I already tried giving you the antidote from Crane’s last concoction, but it seems he’s changed his recipe again.” Under his breath, but not quiet enough to go unheard, he mutters, “Bastard.”
Eyebrows raised, Damian debates calling out Dick for swearing. Instead, though, he just shrugs. “It’s okay. I don’t need it, anyway.”
Dick smiles, and it’s such a warm expression that Damian almost forgets how cold he feels. “If you wanted, though… we could watch a movie?”
“A movie?” Damian deadpans.
Eyes twinkling, Dick nods. “A movie. Whatever movie you want.”
A beat passes where Damian thinks of rejecting his brother. Thinks of stalking to his room where he can sleep off the rest of Scarecrow’s fear toxin in the privacy of his own bedroom. Away from prying eyes and too nice older brothers. Instead, however, he just says, “Can you read to me, instead?”
Dick smiles.
“Of course, I can read to you. Come on, let’s go pick a book.”
And as Dick leads his shaking form out of the Batcave and up to his room, Damian wonders if maybe his older brother is right. Wonders whether his family would really come to his rescue if he were left behind. If he was kicked out.
Strangely, for once, he thinks that maybe he could rely on them.
“What are you thinking?”
Damian glances up at Dick, “None of your business.”
“Yeah, okay. Fair enough. What do you want me to read?”
The choice is simple, actually, “Art of War.”
“Oh, right. Obviously.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Dick stretches out his hands innocently, “Nothing. It’s just… we’ve already read that a dozen times…”
“It’s a good book.”
“Yeah. Okay. You’re right. We’ll read it.”
Damian smiles, “Good.”