A/N: I know I haven't yet finished my other story about Dick and Jason but this idea popped into my head and wouldn't go away. I was going to do them in the order that the characters met Dick but for some reason Damian's was easiest to write and so got finished first.
Disclaimer: I don't own Batman or any of its characters. That ingenuity is the credit of DC!
His father was Batman, a creature of the night, the Protector of Gotham, a dark and stoic man. Or at least so Damian had previously believed, based on his interactions with the man. He'd only been here for a month or so but had already come to realize that much like himself, his father was not one for talking or showing emotions. That was fine by Damian, he'd not been exposed to much affection or emotion growing up, so the lack of communication or shown affection was normal to him. Or rather, it had been normal up until today when something happened that shifted his entire perspective.
The oldest of his father's adopted urchins, a man called Richard Grayson, was coming home for the week and the house was in an uproar. Well, a small portion of the house was in an uproar, a quarter of the house to be exact, which was one Timothy Drake. Damian was not at all encouraged by the enthusiasm with which Drake regarded Grayson's arrival. He detested Drake and only refrained from killing him out of respect for his father, though privately he believed that he would be doing his father a favor. If Drake was so excited about the arrival of this Grayson person then Damian shuddered to think what this new 'brother' of his was like. He didn't think that he would be able to restrain the urge to kill someone should there end up being two Drakes running around the house.
With this in mind, he had resolved to stay in his room until the initial excitement of the arrival had dissipated or even for the entirety of the visit. Soon enough though, his curiousity began to get the best of him, not that he actually wanted to meet this Grayson he just wanted to scope out a potential enemy. Creeping down the stairs, he noted that Drake was leaving reluctantly citing something about a mission or disturbance that had come up. With a feeling that felt disturbingly like satisfaction, Damian realized that the disturbance would mean that Batman would also have to leave, because there was no way that he would leave his city to Drake's incompetent hands. That meant that Grayson would be here alone and would give Damian plenty of time to thoroughly investigate him and eliminate him if necessary.
Waiting calmly and patiently until he was sure that his father and Drake were gone, Damian crept quietly towards the kitchen where he heard the low murmur of voices. Of course Pennyworth would keep the visitor company, but it would be ridiculously easy to send the butler away and get Grayson alone. Unfortunately the sight that greeted him was not at all what he expected and he froze in shock and disbelief. That wasn't right, it couldn't be right. There was something else going on here, something else going on that he wasn't aware of that made this situation completely reasonable. Why else would his father and a young man that he assumed was Grayson be sitting across from each other at the kitchen table and laughing?
Abject horror gripped Damian, his father was laughing, laughing. There was something fundamentally wrong with that, or perhaps it was simply the fact that Damian had never before heard his father laugh. He'd never seen that expression on his father's face either, it was affectionate and happy when he looked at the man across from him. Damian knew that his father was less secretive with Drake but that was because he trusted his young ward, with Grayson he seemed to… well to love him. Damian finally understood why Grayson was always referred to as Bruce Wayne's son and not simply as his ward, their bond was deeper than that. It was deeper even than the bond between Damian and his father, which Damian was now realizing was practically nonexistent no matter how hard he'd tried to convince himself otherwise.
Unable to bear looking at the scene in front of him and feeling as though he were intruding on something private, Damian fled back up to the safety of his room. He didn't understand the drastic difference between the father that he thought he knew and the one downstairs laughing and talking with Grayson. He was so open and free with Grayson, but so closed and stiff with Damian himself. But why? He wasn't that way with Drake and as far as he knew he hadn't been that way with Todd, so was it just Grayson? Was it because he was the first son that his father had known, regardless of blood? It was then that Damian understood. Of course, as the 'first son', even though that title rightfully belonged to Damian, Grayson would be his father's favorite. Well, Damian would merely have to prove himself as the rightful heir to the Wayne enterprise and win his father's favoritism that way.