Bringing My Children Home

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Chapter Eleven

Cass

Her father had called her the greatest weapon he ever made.

Bruce had called her brave, because she had refused to be a deadly weapon, once she understood what it truly meant.

Only in matters of speech, had Cassandra Cain ever felt out of control, until this moment. Even though she had seen Damian's jealousy and anger against Tim, the fear of the death threat had dulled over the weeks, as they had glimpsed the repressed desires for family in the younger boy. Damian had kept out of the way as they sought the clinic's attackers. They had all eased their watchfulness. He was eleven! He should not have been so single-minded.

"Sorry, Cass…" Tim murmured, as she examined the wound. Damian had not had time to pull the knife out, so there was little blood to be seen. "Shouldn't have fought-agh! -sorry. I was angry… he shouldn't have…"

"Quiet, little brother," she said, easing him into her arms. Blood loss had not hit him yet, and Alfred would be here soon. She had never seen their caretaker take longer than sixty seconds to arrive, after someone sent an emergency alert to him.

"Master Timothy! What has happened here?"

"They fought. Tim won, but tried to talk him down. Damian stabbed him."

Words were so important. She could not lose them now.

"Stephanie, lock Damian up," Cass said, when she saw her sister had followed Alfred down. "Search for more weapons."

Alfred was examining Tim's wound the best he could, but they would need to move him into the med bay. She did not think they would need Leslie. Tim was still mostly alert, twitching with guilt, as he made aborted attempts to apologize. With a sigh, Cass pressed her lips to her favorite brother's pale forehead.

"Stay, Tim," She whispered.

"Be 'k, Ca…" Tim was starting to slur.

Stephanie had taken off Damian's boots, socks and outer shirt before satisfied she had found everything. She hoisted him up, carried him to the cell that could hold Bane, and dumped him onto the bench. Cass watched this angrily, as she stroked Tim's forehead. Then Alfred came back with a stretcher, and they were moving Tim onto it. Cass's legs would not hold her weight for a second, as Alfred and Stephanie moved him towards the medical area.

She was terrified.

Jason

Stephanie had called Dick and Jason as they were walking through an empty store front. Somehow, they had let their guard down because Damian was a kid, one who was pretty messed up, and needed their help. With the threat to Leslie, they had put the threat to Tim in the back of their minds. Jason had been angry enough from the death threat.

Now, it was a hundred times worse.

If the brothers raced their bikes back to the manor as if they wore masks, they were not caught. A rage ate at Jason's mind. He tried to restrain it, tried to remember when he had last taken the booster medication that relieved the effects of the Lazarus Pit. He had enough self-control not to go looking for Damian first, hoping to find Tim awake, and healthy enough to reassure his brothers it was nothing dangerous.

"Alfred had to call Leslie," was Cass's unfortunate greeting. "The knife was barbed. They couldn't get it out without doing more damage."

Jason could see into the med bay, where Alfred, Leslie, and Stephanie were hard at work to minimize the damage. Tim's face was the only part of him visible. It was too pale. All self-control failed.

The pit roared into control.

"Jason, no!" Dick grabbed his bicep. A swift punch into the pretty boy's face, and Jason was free and heading for the cells, fire burning in his veins. It would have been poetic to kill Damian with the same knife, but Jason was not going to wait for that. There were three more knives on Stephanie's work bench, all with the Demon's head on them. At least the brat would die on his own knife.

The cell was the most secure one they had, and Jason had to stop and think how to open it. The Demon Brat was awake, staring foolishly out at his executioner.

"Jason, please stop. Think!" Stephanie's voice startled him. Stephanie did not belong to the madness of the pit. She was from something else. "Fight it! Don't destroy what Tim worked so hard for."

Tim. The burning Pit wavered between the fury on the brother's behalf, and the still hurt parts of Jason that could not believe Bruce had replaced him. If anyone should have had his place, it was Tim. The little brother who had not given up on Jason, even when Jason had tried to kill him. Tim, who had saved Bruce from killing, either himself or someone else.

"If you kill Damian, you will destroy everyone," Stephanie said. "Don't break our family up."

Fear, finally, flickered to life in the Demon's face. He was so stupid. Did he think he would not be punished for this?

"Jason, please," his sister's voice broke through the roar of his rage. The big brother stomped out the fire of the pit. The knife dropped from his suddenly paralyzed hand, clattering against the cave floor, barely a foot from the cell. He turned towards Stephanie, who stood in the open doorway between the med-bay and the main cave. Behind her, Dick was watching anxiously, holding a tissue to his bloodied nose.

Bile rose to Jason's throat.

Bruce

Stephanie had called, but Bruce had let it go to voicemail, until the family emergency alert locked his tablet. Without bothering to listen to her message, he called right back. Her voice shook when she explained what had happened.

He did not know what he said to the board, but no one stopped him as he shot out of the meeting. It felt like he did not take a breath all the way home, not until he was standing in the med bay, watching as Leslie finished stitching the bleeding vein in his son's stomach. Jason was on the floor in the back of the room, with Stephanie and Cass wrapped around him. Dick was nursing a bruised nose, but did not seem inclined to share how that had happened.

"He'll be okay," Leslie promised, as she closed the wound entirely. "We've given him a little blood, but I am not too worried."

In a moment, Bruce was at Tim's side, gently stroking the longish strands of sweaty hair from the pale face. He would not wake for some time, but Bruce did not leave his side as they moved him upstairs. The rest of his children were silent, tense, waiting to know what he was going to do. Batman was at a loss.

Every emotional part of him wanted to drag Damian back to his mother, to never see the vicious child again. He had already failed Tim once too many times. If he did not send the boy back to Talia, he might fail Tim again. There was fear in all their faces, fear that if they failed Tim this time, he might turn his back on them.

"You aren't going to send Damian back, are you?" Jason sneered bitterly, as the men stood in the door way of Tim's neat bedroom, watching Cass show Stephanie how to unset all Tim's little traps, so they would not stumble into one as they cared for him.

"If Damian goes back to the Assassins, there is no chance for him," Dick pointed out. Jason casts the oldest a vicious glare.

"If he doesn't go back, he might actually kill Tim."

"You don't know everything that happened! We can't just write him off, or he'll become one of our worst enemies. We need to keep him locked up for now, until we change his mindset, but we cannot send the kid back to his mother. Don't you see, Jason? Damian hates Tim so much because Tim has a place in the family, one Damian believed he would get. Damian wants the affection, the respect, and the pride of his father. Tim has won that all from Bruce, but Damian never saw Tim's struggle to gain it."

"I don't care! I don't care if it makes the brat into a villain. Tim is ours. Damian is the intruder. I will not let you both fail Tim again!"

"Enough. There will be no decisions made while we are filled with anger or regret. We will keep Damian locked up for now. In the meantime, we will be there for Tim. Jason, you will sit with Tim first. Dick, pull up the video feeds from the cave and Tim's room to create a time line for what set this off," Bruce ordered. "Stephanie, I want you to monitor Damian. So far, he hasn't said anything or tried to get out, but I want to know everything he does. Cass, please come with me. I want to know what you saw."

His children dispersed to their roles immediately. He led his younger daughter into his private study, where they sat down on the old futon that he had installed soon after Dick learnt of his role as Batman. All of them had slept there one time or another, waiting for him to get back from patrol, or just to be near him after nightmares. During the month and a half before Bruce allowed her on the streets again, Stephanie had been there every night, until they were all home and in bed.

"I saw them fighting when I went to the cave. Tim was very angry, but he easily won. When he won, he became… sad?" Cass hesitated. Words were still not always under her command. "He had that set to his shoulders, like he had solved something. Damian was terrified. Not of Tim… he was afraid he had lost much more than that fight."

She paused to let her mind work through the next movements, the way their bodies spoke to her. Bruce let her be, glancing at the video feed that let him see Jason softly talking to the sleeping Tim. Would Tim always be the sacrifice for their family? Bruce had tried to drive him away, in the beginning. Dick had resented him, at first, for resurrecting Robin. Jason had hunted him, while under the influence of the Lazarus Pit. Would Tim give up on them after another attack from a family member?

"Tim knew Damian," Cass suddenly spoke up again. "Like he could empathy?"

"Empathize," Bruce answered. Cass smiled briefly.

"Yes. He saw himself in Damian, and he wanted to make Damian understand it. Damian hated it, but he was so scared… He thought he was going to lose everything because he lost the fight. Tim told him they were alike, that both of their parents only wanted them as tools. I saw Damian understand, but it only made him more angry. He did not want Tim to know he was so scared… and then he turned dark, Bruce."

She shuddered and leaned against him, welcoming the strong, fatherly arm that wrapped around her shoulders.

"I yelled, Bruce. If I did not yell, Tim would have seen and been able to defend himself. I was scared. If I lost Tim… if we lost Tim, we might all fall apart."

There was that fear in Bruce as well. He had put his mosaic of a family together, all their broken, grieving pieces into a brilliant picture. It had come with a cost. All of them had lost so much, or never had a real family before. Their brilliance was precariously balanced against the fear of losing the family. When the family was smaller, they had shattered with the 'death' of a Robin.

If they had lost Tim, who had picked up their pieces and rebuilt them stronger, what would have happened? Would Bruce have again fallen into that dangerous darkness, where he flirted with his own death or with murder? Might Dick have ran away to the stronger safety net of his friends? Would Jason have succumbed to the Pit? Would Cass's speech have died away? Would Stephanie have been lost in the madness of their grief?

"He's ok, Cass. We will all be ok," Bruce promised, drawing her into a hug.

Dick

He understood Jason's fury. It had been the oldest bird's first thought as well. How dare the newcomer attack their brother?

Yet, Dick did not want to give up on Damian. He had seen those unguarded moments when Damian saw their family doing things together, and the boy's desire to have that. True, he only wanted it from Bruce, and would easily discard the others, but Dick was determined to win the boy. He wanted the new brother.

The memory of Damian's hand touching his own head, where his father had just affectionately ruffled the boy's hair, made Dick's heart ache. The eldest even understood the jealousy of Tim's position. Even the first Robin had never connected to Bruce in the way the third had. Certainly, Tim had had to work the hardest for it, but he had won Batman over, had won Bruce over, and now he was The Robin. How could the biological son not feel jealousy, when even those who knew they were welcomed and loved had an edge of that same longing?

On the video screen, he watched as Tim furiously crept up on Damian, slammed his hand on the keyboard, and darkly accused the boy. Had he not known what followed, it would have made Dick pleased to see the emotion. Tim usually shut down when he was angry, afraid of drawing dangerous attention.

The brief argument was vicious. Despite their youth, both boys knew exactly what words to speak to hurt the worst. Tim won that round, leading Damian to attack in chaotic emotion. Here Tim recoiled a little, as if he had not expected it to get physical. However, he quickly realized that Damian would not listen to words. While Damian continued to let his fury lead him, Robin's calm had settled on Tim's shoulders. There was no doubt that Tim would win.

Something changed in both boys when Tim pinned Damian, ready to knock him out if the boy continued. There was that moment in Tim's poise that showed something had clicked in his mind. Dick wished he could ask what he had discovered. Damian's change was frightening. It was as if the boy had lost his entire world.

Tim tried to reach out, tried to connect to Damian. His words made Dick's heart ache for the truth in them. If only Damian had seen the sincerity in Tim, had been able to accept it.

"Baby Bird, you are always going to be a step ahead of us," he murmured, making a copy of the recording to give to Bruce.

Stephanie

She felt so guilty, because she understood Damian.

Jason was staunchly against letting Damian stay, Dick was determined to save the child, Cass was dealing with the guilt of distracting Tim, and Stephanie could not read Bruce on this one. Once her initial anger and shock had faded, once she knew Tim was safe, she understood. She had spent nearly two years desperately trying to gain Bruce's attention. When she had met Robin and Batman, Bruce had just started to accept Tim. She had watched the Batman grown fonder, fatherlier of Tim. She had watched Cass be accepted, too. And it had eaten at her gut.

Of course, she had never wanted to kill them, but then she had not been raised as an Assassin. She had not even been raised as a criminal, for all her father's actions. Damian had been raised for eleven years as a scion of the Ghuls. How could he know that his father was serious about his rule of no killing, that even the children who were merely fostered were considered as much a family member as Damian himself expected to be?

The boy was on the floor of the cell, seated with his arms crossed over his knees as he stared out at the cave. Stephanie approached cautiously.

"What do you want?" He sneered.

"I don't understand why you did it. After the knife in the wall, Bruce told you that was not how things are here. He offered you the chance to get to know him and his family and become one of them," she pointed out. She drew up a chair next to the thick glass.

"It was a test. I've passed it," he lifted his young, proud face. "Once Father sorts everything out, you'll see. You will all be gone."

Her heart ached for him, and she reached a hand to the glass. "That's not how it is, Damian. Right now, Bruce is figuring out what happened, and trying to decide what he is going to do with you. You are the interloper here, not us."

"I am blood!"

"You were raised in the League of Assassins! Bruce fights them! He stops Ra's' plans. Bruce isn't an assassin, he's Batman. He saves people your family wants to kill."

"Mother said he's the most powerful man in America. He can make metas listen to him. He's stood up against Superman and won. Maybe they have different ways of going about it, but they are the same. Mother promised we would be a powerful Family when we are all together."

"Oh, Damian," She closed her eyes, and leaned her head against the glass. "I am so sorry."

"You won't have a place here," he gloated, mistaking her sorrow as being for herself.

She quickly left, wondering if it was possible to remove his indoctrination, wondering what would happen to him when Talia's lies became evident.

Bruce came down to her a few minutes later. She showed him the conversation, mutely watching his face for some sign of what he was thinking. He grew graver than ever, but suppressed it. Instead he pulled her out of her chair into his strong, gentle arms, a promise that he was not going back on his word. She was still his.

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