"Grayson…what is it that you wish for most?"

Dick paused in grabbing his cereal (his favorite cookie cereal, he thought despairingly. He knew somehow that he wouldn't get a chance to finish it) With a look of resignation on his face Dick regretfully placed his (Precious) cereal on the counter top. He turned to face Damian, eager to talk to his baby brother, but also eager to eat his breakfast. Patrolling ran late last night, and Dick didn't get to eat dinner and he was starving. Dick sighed having a feeling he wouldn't get the chance to grab his sugary treat

"Why do you ask?" Dick wanted to see what his youngest brother was getting at before he decided if he would answer the question. You had to be careful with handing out information like that in this family. Last time Dick thoughtlessly answered a question of Damian's the kid had flown to China to "Personally massacre" the people who tortured animals before eating them, because they believed that the adrenalin made the meat taste better. He ended up getting along famously with several animal rights activists in that area and had been invited to come visit them whenever he pleased. Never the less, he had ended up terrifying his entire family (Talia not included) because they had no idea where the kid was. It was only when they Batfam saw a picture of Damian on CNN with the title "Billionaires son suspected for arson of a Chinese meat supply plant" did they realize what'd happened.

The brat had pulled the same stunt many times in the U.S on people he knew were animal abusers, however at least they knew where he was when that happened. Damian was grounded for a month after that incident, and Dick learned to think before he spoke. It's not like Damian was the only one who Dick had to be careful with,

Hell, Jason used to-

"I want Jason to come back." Dick replied before he could stop himself.

"Todd? Why?' Damian scoffed derisively. "He's just a useless traitor- "

"DON'T YOU DARE TALK ABOUT JASON LIKE THAT" Dick interrupted with a shout. Dick's posture had turned threatening, his eyes blazing with rage as a red flush creeped up his face.

Damian took a step back, his past training forcing him into a defensive stance unconsciously.

"Why do you defend him?" Damian questioned, confused and angry, yet also…hurt. Grayson had never gotten this angry with him before, no matter what he had said or done. Damian had thought Grayson cared for him, but apparently the "Demon Brat" was not worthy of his affections. Deep down, Damian's insecurities caused him to believe all the snide comments made by Drake and Todd about his past.

Damian may act tough, and he is rather mature for his age- which is unsurprising considering what his life has been like, but he is still just a child. He was still only human and he had feelings too. His past "occupation" heavily discouraged such weak things as emotions, and being the grandson of Ra's al Ghul as well as the heir to an underground empire put him in the spotlight. There were no allowances for weakness. One time Damian had smiled and thanked one of his mother's servants for bringing him water after a training session. He later received a letter in the mail informing him that that servant had been kidnapped and would be tortured to death if he did not give the kidnappers $350 million by the end of the week.

Distraught, Damian went to his mother and promptly explained the situation to her. Talia merely gazed at her son and said "This is your fault. Let this be a lesson to you that emotions will only hurt yourself and others. In this line of work there is no room for weakness."

Damian was traumatized and from then on, ruthlessly worked on suppressing his emotions. He still tracked down the kidnappers and killed them, but not before asking what happened to the servant. On finding out that she was raped, then beaten to death Damian stabbed both men in the stomach, ensuring an excruciating death as the stomach acid ate away at the wound.

However, just because one refuses to acknowledge emotions does not mean they go away. Grayson's anger had brought up feelings he'd thought he'd abandoned a long time ago. He felt more feelings in response to those emotions, so Damian tried to distract himself from the hurt by focusing on the conversation.

"Why do you defend him?" Damian questioned, adding betrayal to the list of unwanted emotions he was feeling right now. "Todd's just a useless traitor, a failed Robin who couldn't even die right- "

"HOW DARE YOU SPEAK ABOUT JASON THAT WAY?! HE'S MY BROTHER, MY FAMILY! HE WAS ROBIN BEFORE YOU WERE EVEN BORN, AND HE'S A BETTER MAN THAN YOU'LL EVER BE! SURE, HE'S KILLED BUT ATLEAST IT WAS OUT OF A SENSE OF MORAL OBLIGATION AND NOT BECAUSE SOMEONE PAID HIM TO! AT LEAST BRUCE WANTED HIM! JASON WASN'T TAKEN IN BECAUSE BRUCE HAD TO! BRUCE WANTED JASON! BRUCE NEVER WANTED YOU!"

Damian felt like Grayson had taken a katana to his stomach. He flinched as Grayson practically shrieked the last part of his rant. 'Repress your thoughts. Do not feel. Feelings get people killed. Grayson's right. About all of it. Repress, Repress RepressRepressrepressrepressrepress.' He repeated those words like a mantra inside his head. Damian saw Grayson open his mouth, presumably to shout more. Damian knew that his composure would not last another round so he decided to distance himself from the argument.

"I see that you have decided to divulge not only your greatest wish, but also your true opinion." Damian spoke with feigned indifference, that was further emphasized by his formal way of speaking. Damian had reverted to Ibn al Xu'ffasch. Prince of the Al Ghul's. Little did Damian know, that some of his hurt was visible in his ice blue eyes.

Dick noticed Damian's hurt and began to feel guilt for his words. He started to apologize.

"Dami- "

But before he could finish Damian interrupted him. "You do not need to feign affection anymore Grayson. You have made your feelings known, an action I am thankful for."

Dick really felt like a piece of shit at that moment. He didn't mean any of the things he'd said. He merely felt protective over Jason because in Dick's mind he had already failed Jason once. 'But still,' he thought. 'What I just said was inexcusable.

"Look Dami- "

He said repeating his previous attempt to apologize to his youngest brother, ('My baby brother' he thought with growing horror, starting to grasp the consequences of his actions. 'My baby brother who is just a child') only to be cut off once more.

"Save your false platitudes Grayson!" Damian snarled, having given up on indifference. "You don't have to pretend anymore!"

And with that final remark Damian leapt out the kitchen window (It was installed for Alfred so that he could grow some herbs in the kitchen), ignoring Grayson's shouts to come back. He quickly barricaded the window shut with a few well-placed kunai and began his escape from Wayne Manor- from Grayson. The last thing he heard before he disappeared into the shadows of the nearby forest was a panicked cry of his name.

"DAMIAN"

Damian continued running through the woods for about an hour. While Damian may have been extremely fast, his father's estate was enormous. Measuring over 5,000 acres of untouched forest. Luckily the manor was close to the city, which was where Damian was heading. Damian paused on top of a branch. He was sure he would not be followed. By the time, Grayson got out of the manor he had already disappeared, and one of Damian's first lessons in assassination was on how to cover his tracks.

When Damian demanded to know why he had to learn this (He was 3 and full of delusions of what assassins did) his mother replied in an unimpressed tone "Sometimes one must run away, especially assassins, so Ibn you will be able to run away properly." Not wanting to insult his mother since that led to two days without food, Damian threw himself into the art of the "Tactical Retreat" and was soon able to cover tracks in all terrains. And when Damian said "all terrains" he meant ALL Terrains.

His mother was nothing if not thorough in his training. Damian had been dumped in the middle of Antarctica with some supplies and clothes, and told he had an hour before his mother's men began hunting him. If Damian was caught the consequences would be severe. If he could avoid them for 3 days, then he would be able to start weapons training when he got back. Those three days were brutal, with Damian nearly being caught a multitude of times. At one point, Damian was so desperate he dove into the ocean and hid under an Iceberg for 3 minutes straight. For a while after that Damian was terrified of swimming, something his Talia immediately noticed and decided to rectify via forced exposure.

Damian wasn't sure what he was going to do once he got to Gotham city. Leaving was not an option. Grayson had probably informed Bruce ('My father' Damian thought. My father who doesn't want me, who was forced to take me in') what had happened. Bruce would be checking every way out of the city. Damian would never be able to leave without being noticed. No, the best bet was to remain in Gotham, until Batman (It hurt too much to call him Bruce or Father) was distracted enough for Damian to escape. Damian had several hideouts in Gotham. The most well-stocked and best defended was in the slums of Gotham. Damian figured it was his best bet. It was deep enough into the slums to be avoided, but close enough to the wealthy for there to be little crime. In the safe house, (a one bedroom apartment that Damian had modified to fit his high paranoid standards) there was about $300,000, weapons, food, emergency first aid, a motorcycle, fake ID's, Passports, disguises, animal feed, and changes of clothes. Plus, it was one of the hideouts that Damian was sure Bruce didn't know about.

'It's settled then' Damian thought to himself. Damian decided to take the sewers. It would allow him to pass unnoticed, and Batman would most likely be checking the rooftops for Damian. Everyone thought that Damian thought himself too good for things like the sewers or cheap cars as escape routes, little did they know that Damian knew what true desperation was and that sometimes, you needed to make due with whatever you could get your hands on.

"Damn it" Damian muttered, as the gravity of the situation hit him.

Damian had no idea what to do after he got to his safe house. Sure, he had a lot of supplies both there, and other places, but eventually he would run out. Contacting his mother was out of the question. She would drag him back to his grandfather, and Damian had no desire to be Ibn again.

He decided that once he got to his safe house he would become someone else. Damian knew how to put on a disguise. When he was 8 he'd spent 4 months pretending to be a girl in a sex-trafficking ring. This was so he could get close enough to his targets who "liked them young".

He wasn't sure if he wanted to change his gender though, last time was an extremely uncomfortable experience. His name would definitely have to change, as well as his age, and personality. Damian decided to keep himself young enough so that he didn't have to "date" someone, but old enough that the if he absolutely had to he'd be able to. Damian chose the age 15 as that seemed about right. He would alter his appearance accordingly based on the birth certificates and ID's when he got home.

When Damian arrived in the city, he immediately chose the largest crowd he could find and blended into it. Once the crowd had walked past an alley way with no security cameras, Damian turned down the alley way, an expression of disgust emerging as he took in its filthy state. He quickly located the sewer hatch and propped it open. Damian flinched at the smell wafting up, so he put on a mask he had stored (God knows where) and climbed down.

'I'm going to have to burn the shoes' Damian decided the moment his feet hit the sewer ground. The sewer was absolutely repulsive and the yellow glow the few lights produced did nothing to hide that fact.

Damian had studied maps of the Gotham sewer system before. As an ex-assassin, he'd used the sewers to escape quite a few times. Though since joining…. Batman he hadn't had to. There were actually a lot of things Damian hadn't had to do since he'd joined B-

'Stop thinking about him you idiot' Damian thought to himself.

Shaking his head, Damian continued his lonely trek through the sewer, resigned to the fact that he'd lost the family he'd only just gained.