Welcome! So, this is a story I actually wrote for HC-Bingo. I decided to write a 25-in-1 story, which is taking all 25 prompts on the card and combining them into a single story. Yeah, it's crazy. It also doesn't count as a 'real' bingo, so I decided fuck it, I'm not officially posting it as an HC-Bingo story. This damn thing is 9 chapters and 47k; it should count. (And yet...)

So, we're going to do prompts by chapter here. (These are just the first time these things happen; they might pop up again later.) This one is home to: Loss of Job, Branding, Mistaken Identity, and Assault. (It also includes reference to death-of-an-unborn-child.)


He hardly cares when Nyssa, his mother's half-sister, slips back into their lives with a new husband and declares herself with child. There's the thought in the back of his mind, of course, that if it turns out to be a boy he might have to deal with it in some way. He is his grandfather's only current heir, but the thought of another does not particularly worry him. He is the eldest, and he has been trained to take over his grandfather's empire for his whole life, what could one infant possibly do to threaten that, even if it is does have a — technically — more lawful birth?

His mother may not have been married to his father, and may never have divulged exactly whose son he is to his grandfather, but Nyssa's husband is no one of importance or recognition. There's no advantage there.

Which is why it comes as an utter surprise when, two weeks after her arrival, he hears a commotion in the halls outside of his room. He's barely closed his book before there are three guards bursting into his room, hands already moving in the curls of spells to release magic. It bursts to life within the moment, and he only has time to draw a breath and begin to drop the book to cast his own when the bursts of light crash into him, slamming him back against the headboard with enough force to make his world black out for a moment. By the time his senses return there are hands dragging him forward, and he feels cold metal click into place around his throat and upper arms in quick succession, and far too late to do anything about it.

He does manage to bite back the gasp as the hot core of his power gets shut off behind walls as cold as the engraved, enchanted, metal locked around him. It's an awful, uncomfortable, shocking feeling, but he holds back any response to it but to bare his teeth in a small snarl and pull against the guard's holds, raising his head to look the one not holding one of his arms straight in the eyes.

"What is the meaning of this?" he demands, making sure his voice comes out with an edge of steel and fire. "What do you think you are doing?"

The guard looks just a bit unnerved, but no one releases him, which simply means that he hasn't scared them enough yet. "The Emperor has demanded your arrest and presence before him, my lord. Bound."

Which is all the warning he gets before his arms are being pulled behind him, and heavy metal cuffs are locking into place around his wrists. Not magical this time, just plain metal, but with the other bindings locking away his power they may as well be inescapable. They're certainly tight enough that he won't be slipping them without the right tools, or a key.

The far more worrisome part of this is that his grandfather has apparently ordered him arrested, and he cannot recall having done anything. It would take a rather serious crime for his grandfather to order him, the singular heir to the kingdom apart from Nyssa's unborn child — assuming it is a boy — arrested and bound to be brought in for an audience. If he had done something wrong, his grandfather would have summoned him to a private meeting, and delivered some sort of suitable discipline. To bind and pull him in before an audience suggests that he has done something terrible enough to condemn him in front of both court and family.

But he hasn't done anything.

"Why?" he demands.

The guards pull him to the door instead of answering, dragging him down the corridor outside. Not that he is resisting, but they seem determined to drag him instead of simply guiding anyway. That is also worrisome; it implies that the guards know whatever reason it is that he is being brought before his grandfather, and are either secure enough to believe that he won't be retaliating for this treatment, or are disgusted by whatever his apparent crime is and simply do not care for consequences.

He clenches his jaw for a second, studying the guards to see if he can get anything off of them, since they seem unwilling to speak with him, and he has nothing better to do on this enforced trip to his grandfather. What he can see isn't encouraging; defensive and slightly repulsed body language, which is rather impressive for his grandfather's elite guard. Not much disgusts them, not after the kind of shows of loyalty it takes to become one of them.

The silence is not particularly new, so he simply weathers it as well as the guards' disrespect as he is taken across the palace and to the throne room his grandfather holds court in. The thread of unease in the center of his chest grows a little stronger when he's guided to the larger, main entrance with its imposing, heavy double doors, and not one of the veiled side entrances that family usually enters by. Still, he holds his tongue and doesn't speak as the third guard pushes the doors open, and then he is pushed through.

It's late, past dark, but there's still quite a large collection of nobles and court members here. He can feel their gazes on him, and they're easier to read than the guards escorting him. Fear, hatred, revulsion…

He raises his gaze to the throne itself as he's pushed towards it, looking for some clue of what's happened. His grandfather is sitting in that throne, leaning to one side, and the expression on that face is one of steel and ice. Nothing good. His mother is standing to the left of that throne, and she's the same steel, though he can read the worry in her eyes probably better than anyone else in the room apart from his grandfather. To the right is Nyssa, sitting with her husband standing at her shoulder, and there is fury on his face, and a sort of pained fury on hers. She's pale, and— and her clothing is stained with blood, quite a bit of it, though the origin is hidden underneath the arms she has crossed over her stomach.

An idea of what this might be starts to grow in the back of his mind.

He's pushed to his knees at the foot of the short flight of stairs leading up to the throne, and the guards step back to leave him relatively alone as he bows his head for a moment. The whispers of the court, behind him, grow, and though he can't quite make out what they're saying, the emotion behind the words is much easier. Shock. Anger. Fear .

"Silence," his grandfather commands, and the room quiets in a heartbeat.

He raises his head, making sure his shoulders are straight and not an inch of his uncertainty is showing. "Grandfather," he says into the silence, "I would appreciate an explanation for this."

As much as he wants to, he doesn't pull against the cuffs locked around his wrists. This is not the place to betray weakness or fear, and if his grandfather has ordered him bound, he refuses to fight that. There's no quicker way to anger his grandfather than attempting to disobey orders or test the limits of them. He doubts this would be a good time to risk that anger.

Nyssa jerks, teeth showing and for a moment she looks wild , before his grandfather raises a hand and stills her. Mostly.

"Damian," his grandfather starts, voice low and completely matching the steel and ice of his expression, "you have been accused of attacking Nyssa, resulting in the loss of her child."

His gaze snaps to Nyssa, to the blood on her clothes and the fury and the grief in her gaze, and it feels like his blood freezes in his veins. His lungs constrict around the breath in him, and he has to fight not to let his eyes widen or the sudden fear in his chest show. Assaulting a family member, killing her unborn child, and getting caught at it would certainly be enough to get him dragged before the court for a shortened version of a trial. The punishment for that would be…

Except that he didn't do that.

"Do you have anything to say to that?" his grandfather demands.

He draws his gaze back, makes sure that his head is held high, and gathers enough confidence to answer, "I did not do this, Grandfather. Nyssa's—"

" Liar ," she spits, and her voice is an ugly, broken, raging thing. "I broke your glamour, Nephew, I broke it! It was you! " Her voice rises, until his grandfather flicks a hand again in a command for silence.

His mother is very still, ramrod straight and wearing that mask of steel. He does his very best to imitate that himself, and not betray any of the rest of what he's feeling. Something here is very wrong. Nyssa's child is dead, apparently as an intended target, and the blame is falling on him . She claims that she saw him, that she broke a glamour — implying that he had disguised himself as someone else — which either means that someone is very good at glamours and could make it look like one broke to reveal him, or…

Or she's lying.

That worrying thought brings up the question, is this on purpose, or is she taking advantage of someone else's attack to frame him? It's not exactly a secret — at least among their family — that Nyssa would like him removed from the line of succession. But would she really be ruthless enough to kill her own unborn child to frame him for it, to get him out of the way?

It unnerves him a bit that he can't quite bring himself to say no to that theory.

His grandfather's hand flicks down at him, gesturing for him to continue, and he draws his gaze up to meet those green eyes squarely. "Nyssa's child was no threat to me," he says plainly. "Even if it had been male, an infant would be no threat to my position, Grandfather. I am not certain what exactly the details are of what I am supposed to have done," he glances over at Nyssa, "but frankly I am not stupid enough to risk so much to get rid of such a small irritation, and if I made such plans I would not be foolish enough to get caught."

He bites back the urge to add that an assault is a very messy form of murder, especially with such an obvious eyewitness, and that poisoning Nyssa to kill the child in her would have been much more efficient and cleaner. While he's sure that his grandfather would appreciate the practicality of that, the court would not. He's known to be dangerous, and ruthless, but not that sort of ruthless. Making clear that you can kill a man before he blinks is very different from saying that you'd poison a mother to kill her child.

His grandfather frowns just a touch as the court bursts back into whispers, and then looks to Nyssa. "Describe the attack."

Nyssa shivers — her husband's hand clenches down on her shoulder — and then gives a small nod, gaze lowered to the floor. "I was headed to my quarters. A guard approached me, saying I'd been summoned to speak with you, Father, so I turned back to accompany him. He waited until I was close and then put a knife in my stomach. He— He tried to do it again, but I cast and knocked him away. It was instinctual; I lashed out with my power, and in his efforts to put up a shield the glamour he was using shattered."

Her gaze rises from the floor, slow, damning, focusing on him.

"It was Damian . He ran; left me to bleed out. I managed to— to get far enough to find you, Father. The healers saved me, but my child…" A sound comes from her throat, something broken and grieving, as her head falls and her shoulders curl inwards. "My child is dead ."

The unease curls larger as he realizes she absolutely, without question, has the sympathy and support of every member of the court. He can tell by the sound of their whispering. He's the enemy in this room.

His grandfather's gaze is hard when it comes back to him. "Damian, where have you been for the last few hours?"

The realization comes sharp as a punch. "In my room," he answers honestly, uselessly . "Reading."

"Alone?" He confirms the question with a small nod, and the slight frown on his grandfather's face gets a touch deeper. "Damian, do you have any defense at all?"

He stalls, mind whirring and trying to figure out something he could use to prove his innocence. Nothing comes to mind. "Only to repeat what I have already said," he says, and then decides in a flash that he's not going to pander to the court, not when the alternative is being convicted of this. "I did not do this. It sounds poorly thought out and there would have been far easier and more efficient ways to kill an unborn child, Grandfather. Poison, for one. If I did plan to murder a child, and for some reason a clumsy attack like what I am being blamed for was the only way, I would not be enough of a fool to do it myself . I cannot say what did occur but I can say that it was not me ."

Judging by his grandfather's expression, that's not enough.

Especially not when Nyssa looks up and all but snarls, "I want him dead , Father. Justice and vengeance for the life he took."

His mother takes a sharp step forward, moving for the first time, and snaps, "You will not kill my child, Nyssa!"

"But he can kill mine?!"

" Enough ," his grandfather snaps. "It is a serious crime, but the decision is mine ."

Both of them settle back, and he loses the battle and swallows, trying to hold the gaze of his grandfather without revealing how much he's starting to worry. Murder of a family member, no alibi, and Nyssa sitting there with bloodstained clothes and playing every ounce for pity and sympathy? There aren't many ways that this could go well. His position shields him somewhat, but not from something like this.

Silence — apart from the court's whispering — for a long stretch of time, where the seconds drag, before his grandfather suddenly pushes up and stands from the throne. Those green eyes are cold, and from his peripherals he watches Nyssa's husband help her stand, listens to the whole court grow silent in preparation for his grandfather to deliver his sentence, whatever it is.

"Damian, I find you guilty of the murder of Nyssa's child." He holds his breath, watching his grandfather stare down at him with that frown. "You are disowned. I strip you of the name al Ghul, and strike you from all record of our family tree." His blood runs cold, and his world tunnels as his eyes widen. "Given the situation, your magic will also be sealed from you, so that you are no longer a threat to anyone of this family and will never challenge it. Guards; take him to the dungeons and brand him. He'll be released once he's recovered enough to travel."

He hears the movement, but it's only once he's been wrenched to his feet that he finds the voice to cry, "Grandfather! I did not do this! "

His mother looks stricken, stunned, and there's a sharp gleam of victory on Nyssa's face, but his grandfather's expression is fixed in the kind of dangerous, blank mask used on court members who haven't learned to keep their mouths shut . That expression has certainly never been aimed at him.

"I witnessed the glamour break myself, Damian, and you are not my grandson any longer." A hint of a sneer, and his grandfather's voice lowers to say, slow and clear, "Make that mistake again and you will spend a much longer time in my dungeon than a mere week."

One hand flicks, and the guards start to drag him from the room. He wants to protest, to shout, to beg that this not happen, but there's no chance of his grandfather reversing what's already been decided. His fate is sealed, as his magic will be, and that is a fact set in stone that he cannot hope to break, not without evidence or an alibi he doesn't have.

Nyssa's certainly gotten what she wanted, because this has to have been planned. It would take masterful timing for someone to make the casting of a glamour look like the breaking of another, and to fool his grandfather into actually believing it. This is the plan of someone ruthless, powerful, and skilled, or at least someone with minions or hired mercenaries that have those traits. Certainly worthy of his family, and it would be something that would impress him, if he wasn't the target. As it is, any hint of being impressed is drowned underneath the fear eating its way up his throat.

Being disowned is one thing; he could recover from that. He has other connections, he's been trained and taught all his life to lead and to survive, and he could have created a life away from the rest of his family. Having his promised inheritance wrenched from him is frustrating, but it wouldn't have been enough to end him. He has power, skill, and ruthlessness himself, and he could have ripped the title from Nyssa's child if he had to.

However, having his power sealed is permanent , and it will mark him as a serious criminal. The brands can be hidden, with work, but the combination of that as well as the fact that his face is fairly well known ruins all chance of him having a life anywhere but far outside the boundaries of his grandfather's empire. The sealing of his magic won't quite make him helpless, but it will put him at a disadvantage against everyone else with enough power and the training to use it as a weapon, which is a fair portion of the world.

Sealing a criminal's power is very rare, because at that point, why not simply kill the offender and get it over with? Even imprisoned criminals generally have their power bound with the sort of restraints currently around his throat and arms, not permanently sealed.

Approaching the dungeons has never scared him like it does now, but then, he's never been convicted of murder before either. He's been down in these cells to study prisoners, or be trained in interrogation or torture, or such similar lessons, but he's never been brought down here to be punished . The discipline he's earned over the years has always been relatively minor, and nothing that ever required a cell. His mother would never have allowed things to become this serious if there were any other option.

He stays obedient as he's pulled inside, making sure not to struggle because he's only going to get one single shot at any kind of resistance. His legs aren't bound, at least, and he's been trained to fight since he was a child. Three guards is not necessarily a problem, if he can get this right. A fourth joining them — the current guard stationed in the dungeon, with the keys — makes it a little trickier. If he can get a hold of the keys, that frees him from the cuffs and gets him out of here, but usually guards set primarily in the dungeons are the ones specifically talented in restraining magic, in case of any attempts at escape. Four is pushing the limits of what he can handle too, especially without his own magic.

One of the original guards stays at the front of the dungeon as the others guide him towards the back of the row of cells, past other occupied ones and then a long row of empty ones on either side. He's dragged inside the very last one on the right, and pushed down to his knees in the center of the room. He stays utterly still — both to lure them into false security and for the safety of his own skin — as one of them draws a knife and sets to work slicing apart the thin fabric of the sleeveless shirt he'd been wearing before all of this even began.

Distantly, he recognizes that this is in preparation to brand him. Sealing requires a complicated set of runes on both the chest and back, backed up with magic to make them permanent, so simply taking a knife to change them won't do anything. They'll need his chest bare, and if he remembers the size of the branding iron correctly — he hasn't seen it in many years — part of it will stretch onto the backs of his shoulders, so his wrists will need to be freed at some point so that they can make sure that the brand is applied cleanly.

That will be the only chance he has. The moment where his wrists are free, before they're restrained in some other way, will be the only time that he'll have a chance of escaping. It's a shame that they know that too. If it's possible, it will be very hard.

The shirt falls away from him, and he hears the approaching clatter of metal, managing to turn his head just enough to catch a glimpse of that fourth guard returning, holding two brands in one arm, slipping through the open door of the cell. He's pulled to his feet, and metal brushes against the skin of one of his wrists. He tries not to betray reaction as hands close hard around his arms, and then there's the metallic click of the cuffs on his wrists coming off.

He jerks into action, lunging forward to drag the guards holding him as he twists and kicks a foot backwards. He hits solid flesh, and hears the grunt of pain and the impact of that dungeon-guard against the cell's bars. They yank at his arms, dragging them up and off to the sides, hands as unyielding as the steel they just took off of him. He pulls, tries to kick, but these are his grandfather's elite guard and they are at least skilled enough to dodge what he's capable of doing while held like this.

One of the two guards behind him kicks the back of his knee at the same time the two holding him twist his arms to force him down, and he curses, struggles, but it's not enough to stop them from slamming him down against the floor and pinning him there. Heavy weight settles across the back of his legs as well, but that's all the warning that he gets before metal presses firmly against his back.

For a moment it feels shockingly cold , like patterns of ice from his shoulders to midway down his back.

Then the pain hits, the sizzle of his own skin reaches his ears and nose, and he screams . He's held too firmly to do any more than twist his head and grit his teeth, eyes wide and every instinct telling him to run, to escape, to get away . It's agony on a level he hasn't felt before, and he loses track of exactly what else is happening around him. The sole focus of his world is the pain of his back, and he can only struggle to breathe and try in vain to endure it.

He doesn't know when the brand is pulled away, only that suddenly he's being pulled to his feet, hanging almost entirely limp in the grip of too many hands and being carried backwards. Metal closes around his wrists again, and then his back is pressed to metal and he gasps, jerking and crying out. It doesn't stop them, and it takes him too long to realize that he's being restrained against the metal bars of the cell, held up and back by hands on his arms.

It takes him even longer to remember that there's a second brand, and that drags his eyes open. The sight of one of the guards standing in front of him, holding the handle of the brand in one hand and heating it with the other — fingers conjuring flame — is enough to get him to struggle again, not that it does anything. His breath comes ragged, fast, and there is a complete lack of pity in the guard's gaze when he steps forward. The brand is glowing, and he gives a wordless, high sound of fear and protest as it's held up.

Then it's pressing against his chest, held still despite his fighting. There's the same moment of cold before the pain. He can't help screaming again, back arching what little it's allowed and his head flinging back and cracking into one of the bars. It feels like it should help, being partially stunned, but it doesn't.

The moment he's released he collapses, sliding down the bars to the floor. His wrists are still tied to the metal, arms spread wide, but with no one holding him he's leaned forward, and that at least gets his back away from it. His head hangs, gaze aimed blindly at the floor, washes of cold sliding over him like little douses of ice water, and underneath it all there's just the pain .

Hands touch his arms, then his throat, and dimly he realizes that the magical restraints are being taken off. He waits for half a moment out of a useless hope that his magic will return, but he feels as hollow and cold as before.

The door shuts, and he fades from consciousness.