A Starless Night
By: violet_scythe
No, I don't own the characters, they belong to DC and I just play with them once in a while.
Warning: Yaoi ahead with plenty of cussing, bleeding and bad things. You don't like don't read! Maybe some underage-MAYBE! I don't know yet. I haven't made up my mind.
This is an alternate reality where Dick was put into foster care when his parents died and grew up as an orphan in Gotham and became a cop. There is no superhero 'batman', but we will see the entire cast.
A little background:
Bruce's parents were murdered, but instead of becoming batman he took over the Underworld of Gotham as Matches Malone and Bruce Wayne is the head of Wayne Industries, playboy, philanthropist, etc. A mask of what he really controls.
Talia is the daughter of the Demon's Head-a huge international crime syndicate (no eternal life here folks just good old fashioned homicidal crime rage) She and Bruce had a 'thing' for a while and flirted with combining their empires, but in the end that didn't work out-we'll get into that later-and Damian was the result.
Yes, Damian was hidden from his father until he was ten. Yes, he was trained as an assassin like a good crime syndicate grandson and yes, he is very much Damian.
Jason is going to be Dick's cop partner with ties to the Al Ghul's and a street gang called the Red Hood.
Tim is going to be Bruce's corporate lawyer that takes 'care' of ALL aspects of his life the Wayne Industries and the Underworld.
Alfred is Alfred because he is just that fucking badass.
At the end of the day this is a Damian/Dick fic. So if you don't like that pairing get the fuck out now.
I HAVE WARNED YOU!
WELCOME TO MY HELL
…
Dick groaned as he rolled his shoulders. Today had been hectic as all hell. The recent gang wars were getting bad and then there was a rumor that the Demon Head was setting it's sights on Gotham.
He sighed again as he juggled his bagged groceries and scanned the streets around him. It didn't do to be inattentive in Gotham period, but in this neighborhood especially. This city had been bad when he was younger and he had been put into a group home when his parents were killed falling from their trapeze act. Now, he looked around at the depleted buildings and the people huddled, heads down, quickly walking from place to place trying not to make eye contact. Teens either grouped on stoops or shadows of allies with their music booming from their third hand loud speakers-now the city was worse. Gangs wore their colors bold as brass during the day and strutted without fear during the night. Which is why he always volunteered for the night shift.
He couldn't stop the extortion of Haley's Circus and death of his parents when he was eight, but he swore he would never be that helpless again. He wouldn't let anyone feel like he felt that night. That's why he became a cop. Though trying to be an honest cop in a city like Gotham was nigh on impossible and didn't bring many friends or favors with it.
"Stop-THEIF!" The voice riverbeated off the brick walls of the buildings around him as he turned a corner and almost crashed right into the running perp.
It took milliseconds as he turned, foot flashing out and hooking around the other man's ankles and dropping him to the ground.
Didn't even drop my bags. Dick thought smugly as he pressed his foot to the back of the downed man's neck.
He frowned as he noticed what was clutched in the robbers hand. Boxers?
"You fucking bastard!"
Dick's head whipped around at the lightly accented voice and blinked twice at what he saw.
A red-faced ten-year-old boy was running toward him dressed in black dress slacks, unlaced red sneakers and a ratty grey hoodie. His skin looked naturally tan and with that foreign accent he had to be mixed of some kind. His black hair was short and spiked at the top almost as if it had been gelled.
"That," the boy snarled, "is my prey."
"Wowya, kid, wait a sec." Dick grounded a little harder on the man that started wiggling beneath him in warning as he positioned himself between the glaring boy stomping toward him and the man beneath him.
"Get out of my way, plebeian. That piece of trash took of mine and now I shall reap vengeance upon him!"
"Hey, I get it." Dick smiled as he slowly opened his arms still clutching his bagged groceries in the universal gesture of harmlessness. "He took something from you and you want to bash his face in, but isn't it just easier to call the cops?"
"Tt." The boy made the clicking sound as if he thought his brains were beyond mashed and sliding out his ears. "Those morons are all useless imbeciles and more use as target practice than keeping the 'peace'."
Dick frowned at the kid before him, "Hey now, I'm one of those so-called imbeciles and I just took care of your thief problem."
The boy's eyes narrowed and raked him from head to toe and back again, a sneer growing on his face.
Dick's frown grew more pronounced as his irritation at the little brat standing in front of him in the smoggy dawn of daylight, standing with his hands on his hips, arrogance dripping off every pore and line of his body. Even with his mismatched clothes he had a bearing of a king-and Dick kind of wanted to slap him in his smug little face.
"How 'bout this, kiddo," Dick said scanning the streets around them noticing the small crowd that they were slowly accumulating with their phones out and greedy eyes, not to mention the bastard wriggling beneath his feet, "I get the thief and you get your stuff back. No harm no foul. We both get what we want, a win for the good guys." He felt his mouth stretch in a parody of a grin.
The boy's eyes darted around also, snorted and flipped the hood of his hoodie up to shadow his face. "Deal, officer."
Dick ignored the obvious dripping disdain in the boy's voice at his official title as the boy charged past him, scooped up the boxers that had been clutched in the thief's hands and sprinted down the street into the pre-dawn light.
The boxers-a panty thief-who stole a ten-year-old's underwear.
Dick Grayson looked down at the adult struggling under his old running shoes, felt the weight of the bags in his arms and a cruel twitch of his lips. He might be an honest cop, but that didn't mean he was a pushover. Especially when it came to kids.
….
DINGDINGDINGDINGDINGDINGDING!
"Oh for the love of-" Dick Grayson threw open his apartment door, "What?!"
"Tt. At least you could have the decency to put on clothes before answering your door."
Dick's eyes dropped downward to look into the pinched face of a familiar ten-year-old.
The boy was dressed in pressed slacks with a matching jacket, a white shirt, dress shoes and slicked back hair. The only part of his face Dick could see was his frowning mouth beneath his wrap around shades.
So he was only wearing his beat up workout pants. They were perfectly respectable for answering a rude wakeup call. It wasn't like he was naked.
Dick leaned against the doorframe, arms crossing across his bared chest. "Okay, kid, what are you doing here? How did you know that I live here?"
"Do you have no manners? When receiving a guest is it not expected to invite said guest inside?"
Dick pinched the bridge of his nose, his brain still foggy from sleep. He could feel a headache coming on already. He sighed and gestured for the boy to come inside.
"Tt."
He groaned inwardly. Fuck headache hello migraine. How was it possible that a kid could get under his skin with just a sound?
"These are horrible living quarters. I have closets that are bigger than this." Dick watched the boy pick at his uniform jacket thrown over his couch and turned toward him, eyebrow raised as he closed the door and locked it behind him. "Closets."
Dick repressed an eye roll.
He gestured toward the small island in his kitchen/living room, took a seat and pushed out another with his foot.
"Okay, I'm going to completely ignore the fact that you're like super stalker, dissed my house, my cleaning skills or lack of, your thoughts on my profession, the fact that I don't even know your name and just ask what you're doing here."
The boy looked at the empty seat like it contained biohazard material before he gingerly sat down, his little nose twitching in distaste.
Cute. Dick shook his head. Now where did that thought come from?
"It has come to my attention that I have been remise in my gratitude," The boy shifted slightly, removing a thick envelope from inside his jacket as he slid it across the island.
Dick just blinked at the brown envelope sitting on his counter like it was a poisonous snake. "Gratitude?"
"Yes. When one person does another a favor the other party shows thanks by giving them a gift of equal value. Is your culture so barbaric that you don't know this?"
Dick sighed, trying to resist rubbing at his eyes. "Look, kid, you're inside. Take off the glasses. And second," he flipped open the top of the envelope to reveal its contents. "you don't have to bribe me with money as a 'thank you'. I'm a cop. It's my job."
He slid it back toward the young boy sitting across from him, his back ramrod straight, glasses firmly in place as was his scowl.
He could tell by the twitching of the boys arms that he was clutching his hands into fists. "Would you deny me this? Dismiss my pride as if it was nothing more than an inconvenience?"
Dick's eyes narrowed on the boy's face. The furrowed brow, drawn eyebrows, the dip of his lips. His small body wrapped in clothes that would probably feed most of the population of Gotham for half a year if not more. He was ten. He was alone. Something was wrong.
"You're not an inconvenience." He saw the boy twitch, "But I think what I did deserves more than monetary compensation."
If it was possible the boy's back got straighter as he radiated indignation. Dick plowed on before the boy could even open his mouth. "Friends?"
He stuck his hand out toward the boy with a twitch of his lips at the boy's half open mouth.
"Friends?" He gritted out, completely ignoring the proffered hand and Dick could tell that his eyes were shooting lasers at him behind those dark wrap arounds. "You would give up more than twenty thousand dollars to be," his throat swallowed as if he couldn't quite get the sounds out, "friends?"
Dick didn't stop a real smile from sliding onto his face as he grinned at the flabbergasted ten-year-old across from him. "Yep." He would process the 'more than twenty thousand dollars' later. Much later.
"You don't even know my name." The boy's voice rose slightly, his accent slipping out and thickening in his slight distress, "You don't know what alliances I could bring. You don't know anything about me-"
Dick cut him off, not letting the twinge of pity for a kid this young thinking of friendships like alliances show. Where in the world did he even get that word? "That's half the fun. So, what do you say?"
He could almost hear the gears turning under that slicked back hair before a slight nod was given, "It would be advantageous having a-friend-in the police department," the boy reached for his hand.
Dick quickly pulled his hand back and tried to ignore the startled frown settling on the boy's face in front of him and motioned to the glasses. "Friend's look each other in the eye. Off."
"Tt. Fine."
The boy pulled off the wrap arounds and Dick caught himself staring into blue eyes so cold that they reminded him of ice and steal blades. A blue so sharp it could cut right through you and tear off pieces of your heart and keep them as their own.
He felt a sliver of fear slide along his spine. He'll be the end of me.
"Friends." The boy grabbed his slackened hand with a firm calloused grip and let go before Dick could even register the contact.
"As friends we should probably exchange names now. My name is Dick-"
"Richard John Grayson. Twenty-one years of age. Raised in Haley's Circus. Parent's murdered when you were eight and you ended bouncing around boy's homes and foster care until you were eighteen and granted a full ride Wayne Enterprises scholarship for your outstanding athletic ability. Your grades were adequate, but you decided to become a cop instead." The boy snorted as the crossed his arms letting him know what he thought of that idea. "How has that been working for you, Grayson?"
Dick cocked an eyebrow and leaned back in his own seat. "You've done you're homework. I'm impressed."
"Tt. A small, mentally retarded child could do a simple background check."
Dick could feel the migraine starting to return. They'd have to work on his civil conversation vocabulary. "You can call me Dick."
"I will not call you the short hand for a man's penis, Grayson."
Dick almost choked on air. This kid's language! "What," He took a deep breath. "What should I call you then?"
The boy assessed him, eyes as cold as ever as he evaluated him and seemed to come to a conclusion. "Damian. My name is Damian."
…