A/N: Pfft, those essays haven't gotten finished. I got caught up in reading though. So, um, if my writing style is a bit different this time around, it's all at the faults of Shakespear, Wilde, and Carroll.

Also, I had ONE vote for which background to do, and they wanted Steph, . . . which I found out AFTER I wrote out Damian's so, I suppose I must go straight to Steph's background after I finish with Damian's arch. Might as well, I guess, after all, that's the order they come in anyway. ;)

My Robin Reversal AU:

Damian - 5

Chapter Ten: Bruce Meet Damian

When Bruce was but 9 years old, he walked with his parents home from the picture theater. He had just seen the first showing of the Legendary Zorro and was completely enthralled with his play as a masked hero protecting those who were incapable of protecting themselves. He danced about the sidewalk, balancing along the curb, showing off great feats of athletics and impeccable swordsmanship; all of which went unseen to the literal mind. His mother and father looked on his play with amused bewilderment. How grateful they were to have such a lively child, so full of imagination and roguish spirit.

A contagious moment of daring caught Mr. Wayne as he witnessed his wife try to stifle a yawn.

"This way," he insisted, thumbing down a dark alleyway. Mrs. Wayne looked on skeptically as she gave her husband a doubtful look for his sanity. "It's perfectly safe, Martha, what with young Zorro here to protect us. Besides, it will get us closer to where the cabbies are waiting much faster. My dear, I see you're asleep on your feet."

"Tom, we can go around with the lights, just like last time. I'm perfectly awake," Mrs. Wayne protested.

"Come on, Mother, I'll protect you!" Little Bruce shouted in glee as he raced down the darkened cobblestones within the alley.

"Bruce! Not so fast, Dearest!" Mrs. Wayne called out to her child.

"Hell's fire couldn't make the boy any swifter. We best catch up to him," Mr. Wayne joked as he took his wife's hand.

Halfway into the alleyway, Mr. and Mrs. Wayne found their child waiting for them, staring fixed at something hanging off a gargoyle alongside the roofing.

"Father, do you see that?" Bruce asked, pointing to a dark mass of shadows beneath the stone creature. It unnerved him, the wrongness of the shadows in contrast to the direction of the moon's light, the way its inky blackness left not even the barest hint of what it hid. Young Bruce couldn't take his eyes from it and felt his heart quicken. He didn't like it, and as his child's mind played up all sorts of horrors, it only served to frighten the boy farther as the inky shadow grew quickly - before, like black lightning, it shot down and glided down before spreading itself long, catching the wind and swooping just above Bruce's head. This caused the boy to shriek and crouch in a fetal position with his head in his shaking hands.

"Oh, silly boy," his father called to him, taking quick steps to be by his son's side, "it was just a bat. Harmless creature if any."

Bruce let his father's words coax him out of his fear-induced state and stood shamefaced by his mother, embarrassed for having acted so cowardly.

"Let's just get home," Mrs. Wayne pressed and her husband agreed. The two flanked their beloved son as they walked farther into the darkened alley.

It wasn't until they were just about to the exit that someone stepped before them.

"Excuse me, Sir, we need to get through," Mr. Wayne called out to the immobile figure. The only response given was the gun pulled out in a practiced manner. Mrs. Wayne gasped loudly and clutched protectively at her son.

"Pearls; the ones around your wife's pretty neck," the stranger called out, "and your wallet, while you're at it, Sir."

"Please, we will do as you ask," Mr. Wayne replied softly. He slowly reached into his inside breast pocket, where he always kept his billfold. As a gentleman, Mr. Wayne had opinions about those who stow their wallets in the pockets of their trousers. It would seem that this man did not agree with those opinions and decided that the person whom he held at gunpoint was trying to pull a piece of his own.

With two shots the Wayne's hit the ground. With such a protective grapple upon her son, Mrs. Wayne's cold-growing arms dragged the boy down with her. By the time he was freed from her lifeless limbs, the murderer was no-where to be seen. The only sound Bruce could recall from that point in further memory was the heart-wrenching sound of his own painfilled scream.

000

Bruce Wayne - recently turned 17, shot up in his futon. He was drenched in sweat and breathing harshly. He looked around to the other fledglings, most had roused when he did, though all kept still as graves. It was shameful of him to react to a mere illusion of the night. He was here to become part of something greater than himself, he could not do this while he continued to allow himself to be a victim of his own mind!

"Watiwat, you rise before the day has colored the land." The soft voice came from behind him as he felt his heart stop. So, she was the one keeping watch tonight. He tried not to give away his feelings, or how confused they were. He watched her out of the corner of his eye as the daughter of his new master silently walked before him. It was as if she stepped only on shadows. With the same silence and grace, the young woman knelt down to be at eye level with him and the two teenagers locked gazes. He could never tell what she was thinking behind those breathtaking browns, yet they always penetrated deep into his very soul. "You had the dream again?"

Bruce swallowed around the lump in his throat and gave her a silent nod in confirmation. She narrowed her eyes just a little- in either thought or disgust, Bruce could never tell - before she stood again.

"Come, we will go to my father. Your nightmares grow frequent. When the same vision forces upon itself, there is usually a message to be heard in it." Bruce took a shaky breath and stood as quietly as he could. Trying to keep in mind his every lesson since coming to the secret study of the League, he toed after the graceful daughter of the Demon's Head.

The two came before a grand throne room and as soon as they made it to the center, Bruce fell to his knees and kowtowed before his master while his superior, Talia, stood proudly next to him.

"Father, the student you inquired upon earlier, renamed 'Watiwat' for his own great fear, continues to have terrors in his sleep," Talia informed her father, the great and terrifying Ra's Al Ghul.

000

"Master Bruce," called Alfred Pennyworth, "I believe there is a parcel for you at the door." Bruce turned in his bed. The 22-year-old was trying to catch what vestiges of sleep he could after his late-night crime fighting.

"Leave it. I'll get to it in an hour or so," Bruce called out through the door.

"I'm afraid, he may need your attention much sooner than that. In fact, I have taken the liberty of showing him to the library for your reunion." Bruce scoffed in his sleep at the butler and pulled his blanket closer to himself. He had just about dosed back to sleep before the elder man's word finally caught up in his mind.

"Wait, what?!"

Damian Al Ghul, five years old, walked about his father's small library. He was unimpressed with its size and selection, though a small part of him had to admit that not one of the books he had laid eyes on so far seemed at all familiar to him. He supposed if he were to really challenge himself, he could read the library dry within a year, but he didn't see much importance that could be had in such titles as 'The Picture of Dorian Grey'. What could such a thing even be about? Was it a history of a famous painting? Maybe 'picture' was a metaphor and the small tome was, in fact, a biography about an important man named Dorian Grey. Falling victim to his own curiosity, Damian withdrew the book from its place on the shelf and opened it. He started into it, though he hadn't gotten past the preamble set by a painter and lord, and had only been introduced to the titular character through the painter's portrait of him.

Just as the painter began to explain to his friend about the strange character that was Grey, the door opened itself in a disgraceful rush. Damian's eyes forced themselves from the passages he was reading and to eyes that would have matched their own, had it not been for the age and experience that divided them.

"Master Bruce, did you forget to mention a certain 'goings-on' that took place while you were in Russia?" The old man that had lead Damian into his estranged father's home snarked. Damian held off a glare and waited for his father to reprimand his servant.

"I, uh, she didn't, how old is he?" Damian couldn't help but express how dumbfounded he was to see his own flesh and blood react sheepishly to his own servant!

"I have already inquired to the young master's age. He is but five-years-old and manages to have your every mannerism down plus sum. I assume any addition would be a gift from his mother's part? I take it from your reaction, you have in mind who she could be?"

"Well, there really is only one woman on the face of this planet that it could be Alfred. I only keep a persona to the media of a horn-dog. And even when it came to her, I admit things went farther than I should have let them-"

"You needn't explain yourself to me, Master Bruce, after all, it would seem the consequence is now upon us. He was left with this letter on your doorstep. It would seem his mother felt it was time to reunite father and son." Damian couldn't help but glare at the wretched letter his mother had tricked him into handing over. Had the boy known what was written, he'd have never delivered it. At the very least, he would have forged new ones to say something different.

Damian watched in disgraced silence as his father took the papers from the old butler and unfolded them before reading aloud:

'My Beloved,

I hope you have the decency in you to recall that night nearly six years ago, during that time you were once true and faithful to your vows toward my father. You were wrecked with horrid visions every night, calling to you to exact revenge upon the wicked that defiled your home and felled your parents. With father's blessing, I comforted you to my best as we concluded your training was to change. You were to be heir to the greatest army any mortal realm had ever seen.

When you left, it was decided that if your cowardice would keep you from your destiny, whilst you'd carve yourself a new path of righteousness in Gotham, then your own heir would serve to usurp you properly. It was with this in mind that his merciful Ra's Al Ghul chose not to pursue you, and would instead start a new with our son, Damian.

Through matters that which I see no reason to disclose with you, that plan has changed. With no reason to farther his training as the new Demon Head, it was agreed that the most convenient course of action would be to send him to you, his father. Whether you farther his training on your own or stunt his growth is completely up to you. It would be my personal wish that you teach him to inherit the symbol which you have chosen to wear upon your chest. He has already been unjustly stripped of one birth-right, My Love. I cannot give him any more than the hope that you, his own father, would see to it that he is promised the other.

Your ever faithful love,

Talia Al Ghul

(Take care of our prince, Bruce, or I shall take care of you.)'

"Ah, if ever the need for proof of a mother's love, look no farther than the truth of her threats," the old butler jested at his mother's letter. Damian grounded his teeth. So this was to be his punishment? This new world was to be his hell.

"Well, uh, Damian," his father stuttered, "Welcome, to Gotham?"

A/N: So, trying to look up an Arabic name for Bruce for his time with the League, I found that in the media 'Bat Man' had its own name and I thought it'd be cool to put it in there. But when you flip it around in Google and try to translate what the media says رجل وطواط , 'rajul watiwat' to English, it translated it to 'Man and tit', . . . so, no I didn't make an error with Google translate, it's just one of those times that the algorithm gets, . . . wonky. ^_^;;

Also tried playing with Damian's Arabic name, considering in the comics his translates to 'Son of the Bat', but I couldn't get 'of the bat' to translate properly. Anyway, the name won't be used again, hardly ever, so I'm not going to worry about it, . . . much...

((source- [three W's dot] almaany [dotcom] /en/dict/ar-en/%D9%88%D8%B7%D9%88%D8%A7%D8%B7/ )) (legit the only way FFN would let me link ya)

I actually had something different planned for Damian's background, but then I started to think up something a bit more probable and easy for me to write. If you think it's a bit out of character for Talia to just dump her son on his father, it is, . . . unless you remember that Talia is a tricky person with secret motives for EVERYTHING. I already have this issue addressed, just, not yet.

R&R if you liked. (need a default response? just say: 'Welcome to Gotham, Dami'. I'll accept it.)