Okay so this is my first fic in this fandom and honestly it's a mess. I'm smashing pre and nu-52 together and I'm pretty sure Damian is OOC. Everybody's probably OOC I hope you guys enjoy anyway.
Disclaimer: I do not own Batman or anything in the DCU.
Damian had always considered himself to be an only child. His mother hadn't disabused him of the notion. He was his father's heir. The child of his blood. Born of two noble lineages.
Then he turned ten, defeated his mother and won the right to his father's name...and the right to meet him.
It was then he learned of the...others. His father's adopted sons. It did not change his thinking. He was still an only child, the only true son. He merely supposed that his father had adopted them in order to better keep his facade hidden. Having his sidekicks as heirs was to be expected, after all it wasn't as if he'd known he'd had a blood heir.
His mother had cautioned him that he must prove himself to be the better heir, assuring him that his father respected competence highly enough that blood alone wouldn't do to run an empire. This too Damian knew. After all, isn't that why his mother had had him so extensively trained?
Damian had known from the moment he'd heard of the current Robin, the current heir to his father's empire that he had to get rid of him. It would be easy of course. This Robin, though trained under his father had not been trained from birth. He wasn't heir to the demon's head. He wasn't the true heir to the bat. Damian would remove him easily.
He hadn't expected his father's wrath when he pushed Drake of the catwalk..
He hadn't expected his care for his inferior sidekick.
Why should he care? Was Damian not his son? Was he not the better, more competent choice? Why was father so concerned about Drake?
It had taken him long, too long, truly for someone of his intelligence, to realise that he was not, in fact, an only child. That while he may be the only heir to the demon, he was not the only heir to the bat. He was, in fact, frustratingly the last of his father's heirs. It had been incomprehensible the first time the thought had entered his head.
Did, did father count the others as his real children?
Did Damian have siblings?
He'd almost spit at the thought.
But...father cared for them. Damian might not have been as proficient as Cain in reading the bodies of others but he'd been taught and he'd never failed a class. He could read his taciturn father well enough to know that he loved the children he adopted, loved them as if they were of his blood.
Loved them the way mother had assured him that father would love him.
His father considered them his children which meant...which meant many things but the only thing of true importance to Damian meant that he did, in fact, have siblings. Not contenders. Not placeholders. Siblings.
He did spit then, he recalled. Into one of Pennyworth's favorite flower bushes. He'd scuffed the dirt over the patch of spittle after. Father reacted to any slight to Pennyworth much in the way that Mother reacted to any slight to his Grandfather that wasn't done by her. Which was to say, not very well. Also Pennyworth made the food. Damian was resistant to many things, but there were rare poisons that could get to him. No need to test what those would do to him.
But yes, siblings. It was strange, to go from an only child to one of many. Damian wondered idly if this was how older siblings felt when their parents brought home a new baby. But in this case, Damian was the new baby, trying desperately to fit into the family and only resulting in screwing up pre-set patterns, frustrating his parents and making his siblings hate him.
He didn't care of course. His siblings could hate him. His father did and could not hate him but he was frequently frustrated by Damian while Damian was equally frustrated in not being able to please him.
Pennyworth was a strange contrast to the only other grandfather he'd ever known. Like Ra's, Pennyworth was able to scold Damian with a single gesture or make him feel smaller than he'd ever felt with a single word. Like Ra's he was always perfectly calm, perfectly in control of his surroundings and always knew exactly what was going on in his domain. Like Ra's he could go up against Damian's present parent and win.
Unlike Ra's he played roles that only servants in his previous life had done. Unlike Ra's he was as kind as he was stoic. Unlike Ra's he used his knowledge of everything to help all participants in his domain instead of playing them off each other. Unlike Ra's he offered advice on various aspects of life, was a listening ear and gentle encourager.
Like Ra's he was wise beyond even his vast age. Like Ra's he protected what was his fiercely.
Unlike Ra's he loved Damian for Damian, saw him as light, saw him as a grandchild and not an heir.
It was...acceptable to have Pennyworth as a grandfather.
Grayson was the most tolerable of the lot of his siblings, Damian decide when he'd had to accept that he did have siblings. He was the first of his father's children, the first Robin, the first to prove himself worthy to fly at his father's side. The first to leave the nest and stake out a claim of his own, a domain, a kingdom and hold it against all who dared challenge him. Gotham was a festering mess. Bludhaven was the heady trip of madness after the filth had fermented into the liquor of the insane. And it was Grayson's. Nightwing's. The one to hold the cowl after father was...father was not. Damian's Batman, who always startled him with his clash of bright smiles and eyes dark, burning with rage and intensity. The first one to look him in the eye and proclaim him brother.
Todd was...Todd was a failure, a warning, a mystery, a hope, an aggravation, an adversary, a kindred spirit, who knew the fire, the rage, the need, the confusion and frustration, that roiled inside Damian's bones. He was the robin that wasn't a bright light anymore. Damian was the robin who had only ever been a weak spotlight in a city of fog. There was darkness, there was death, there was masks and real faces speaking out of masks that weren't their own. Todd was everything Damian had trained to be, inferior, of course but no one could be Damian anyway. Todd had been everything Damian was training to be now. The juxtaposition, the irony, hurt. Damian drew mirrors and couldn't draw reflections. His second oldest sibling was a pain though. He was careless, and foul-mouthed and reckless in a way that really should have ended his second life already. He was skilled though, that Damian couldn't dispute and stronger than normal in a way that was familiar to Damian who'd sparred with a mother who'd bathed in lazarus pits. He was driven, smart in a terrifyingly unpredictable way and had a way of drawing the outsiders, the dangerous ones, to himself. The Red Hood was a terror on the streets of Gotham whether he was wearing the bat symbol or not. Damian was a well enough judge of skill to know that he should be wary of him if they ever met again. He has a small round scar that reminds him to be wary of his second eldest brother. He has smooth patches of skin, unscarred, corresponding with permanent marks on Jason, that urges him to trust him. Damian is a son of the bat. He does both.
Drake was an embarrassment and Damian loathed that he was related to him. He was however forced to admit Drake's slight skills. It would never do to underestimate an opponent after all. And...Damian had seen others do the same to Drake with unfortunate consequences for them. He loathed Drake but he couldn't quite deny that Drake did have some intelligence. He was not as smart as Damian himself of course but, but Drake thought differently. It never fails to surprise Damian that someone who was so straight forward, whose vision of truth and right was so cut and dried, had such a convoluted mind. It never failed to leave him confused, that someone so unsure of their own small worth was so arrogant. That someone so immersed in right could play in so many shades of gray. Damian didn't know any other of his sibling that could play in the murky gray waters without being sucked down into the dark, could hold their own against the opposing currents of right and wrong, of good and bad, of practical and empathy.
He, he did not envy Drake. But Damian was forced to concede that without Drake his father might not have been alive to meet Damian. Without Drake he might not have ever come back, would have stayed lost while Damian mourned him and mourned the chance to get to know him. He'd watched father and Drake brush aside each other's insecurities with gentle words or blunt harsh surety. He did not envy Drake but he did wish he knew his own father as well as Drake seemed too, wished he could read his father's micro expressions with the ease that Drake could. He wished, he wished he did not understand the simmering heat he'd felt when he'd first seen Drake, first seen the way his father had looked at the other boy, seen, felt, read the warmth that he now knew his father hadn't even been aware he'd been projecting when he looked at Drake. Damian had always thought he was an only child but he hates to think that Drake might have the first one to plant the seed of doubt in his mind, make him question whether or not he truly was. In his dreams he sees Robin's hand held out to him on the top of a catwalk, he sees Red Robin's startled eyes across the room as a burning pain bursts though his chest. In his waking hours he sees Tim Drake's sly smirk as he burns through WE's board again.
Drake is infuriating. He trusts too much and too little. He gives second chances and holds grudges. He is a fool who works too hard and cares for himself far less than he should. He is an idiot and Damian is terrified of what might happen if the dark ever gets ahold of him. He knows Drake will never fall into the abyss.
Cain is...well to put it plainly she is infuriating. Father lies when he says he has no favorites among them. Damian cannot even challenge her. It would not end well for either of them and Damian has been trained enough to admit that there is a chance that Cain would defeat him. Not without heavy losses of course but it doesn't matter if she's the one left standing. And anyways Pennyworth would frown at both of them and father would look disappointed.
Damian often thinks this is unfair. He is the blood son. If he is not to be the only child, he should at least have the right to be the favorite. Father chokes and chortles when Damian says this. Grayson laughs and then hugs him. Cassandra is unmoved, but her eyes twinkle. She signs 'warm, heart, brother, family, safe' and catches up his hands and makes him dance despite his fervent protests. Grayson, damn him, puts on music and blocks his exit. Damian thinks that the most infuriating thing about Cain is that he cannot hate her. He's working on that.
He can never deny her skills however. Or her scars. Or her past. She is, of all the others, the closest to him in that regard. They'd spent an evening matching their scars together. She has less blood her hands than he does however. Damian is glad. Cain's soul scars easier than his does. He hates how easy it is for her to follow his father's philosophy when he struggles so. In his darkest hours he thinks she was born to be a bat so much more than he. She flies under the bat banner like she was made for it. Hong Kong is hers, the second of his siblings to take and hold a territory. Cain is the success story Damian struggles to be. He hates her for it. He longs to be her match, to surpass her.
She signs 'time' at him when he is struggling. She signs 'strong' at him when he is crumbling, points to him, believes it.
Damian doesn't regret learning how to sign.
Damian had always considered himself to be an only child. He came to Gotham expecting threats, enemies, usurpers. He found allies, co-workers, siblings, family. He was the heir to the Demon but he was the son of the Batman. Which meant he was the brother to Dick, Jason, Tim and Cassandra as well as the grandson of Alfred. He was a part of the bat-family which was far more extensive than he'd imagined and far more real than he'd understood.
He was one of the sons of the bat. He was one of the Wayne children. He was strangely enough, more than he'd been when he'd left his mother's side to fly at his father's.
Damian, strangely, did not mind.
Review please and tell me what you think!