CONTENT WARNING: This chapter has a brief, non-graphic torture scene. The same scene happened in Batman and Robin #2, but they cut away from it.

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After an incredibly judgmental training session on Dick's part, Damian sits down by the Batmobile to tinker with it some more.

It's relaxing. It's something he can fix that can't talk back to him about why he needs to be fixed. It's something of his father's that Grayson can't appropriate or pervert. Damian tries to shut his eyes and imagine what Father would say right now, if they were working on it together –

But he can't. When they met in person, Father had never given any inclination he'd later change his mind. The closest he came was commanding Damian to fight when they were surrounded in Nanda Parbat. That… that counts right?

It counts, Damian tells himself.

Father's voice: What makes you think I'll let you stay here long enough to try again?

It counts, Damian thinks again. Father just… didn't know the whole situation then, when he said that. But he must have seen something in Damian later. He must have.

The elevator door dings open and Pennyworth arrives. The smell of cooked chicken wafts through the room.

From his spot in front of the computer, still staring over what they uncovered last night, Dick says, "Hey, Alfred. Turns out domino tiles are also known as bones. I bet you knew that, right?"

Damian wants to know why Grayson thinks Pennyworth will be able to solve the mystery of the drug dealer who gets paid in toys, but he doesn't ask. He's worried Grayson will take the question as an invitation to talk more.

"'Smacking down the bones'," Pennyworth quotes. Then, to Damian, he says, "Master Damian, a light supper is served."

Damian grunts. "You can leave it by my tool kit, Pennyworth." After a moment, he adds, "Thank you."

Pennyworth does not take the "thank you" as a dismissal. Instead, he hovers around Damian's head, obscuring the light of what he's working on. "Remarkable work, if I do say so," he says. "The gyroscopic array was an endless source of frustration for your father, as I recall."

Damian clicks his tongue against his teeth. It's like Pennyworth could see his thoughts, see his doubts about Father. Again. "I told you I'd carry on my father's work," Damian says, and then adds, in case Pennyworth missed the subtle hints to leave him alone, "That will be all, Pennyworth."

Pennyworth finally gets the message and goes to take dinner to Grayson. Grayson starts going on about missing the current enemy in his databases, and Damian can't help but roll his eyes. What does he need someone to tell him about their enemy? And Damian thought father's people prided themselves on their detective skills.

"I'm running some of the residue on Toad's briefcase from last night," Grayson says. "I mean, it's probably nothing, initial scans read it as a cold virus, but…"

"You were taught to leave no stone unturned?" Pennyworth asks.

A sigh on Grayson's part. "Yeah. That's what…" a little pause, a heaviness in his voice. "That's what being Batman and Robin is all about."

"Indeed," Pennyworth says. "And on that note... Are you looking forward to your first week in earnest as Batman with your own Robin?"

"Yeah," Grayson says. "I just wish I could shake the feeling that I'm wearing a shroud."

Damian scowls at that. He doesn't even know why Grayson is bringing up this; it's not Grayson's father who got killed, it's his. It's Damian's. And Damian never even got to hear him say –

To hear him say that he did good work.

Damian steps away from his toolkit and crosses the space between them. He clicks his tongue against his teeth and says, "If you're not up to it, stand aside, Grayson. I was born for this job, trained in the arts of war by my mother and the rest of the masters in the League of Shadows. I could just as easily continue my father's work without you."

Damian says it partly to get Grayson to object, because he knows neither Grayson nor Pennyworth can see any connection with Damian's training and his situation right now, despite the same rigid adherence to discipline and violence. Because of the way Grayson reacted when they were sparring. Does the man think Damian is socially stunted, that he couldn't recognize the expressions of horror Grayson had permitted himself upon hearing the conditions of his training?

But Grayson doesn't object. He just says, "Maybe one day, but not today, Damian. Did you finish what you were working on with the Batmobile?"

"Tt. Have I ever failed?"

"I'll take that as a 'yes', then," Grayson says, and pulls up his cowl. As he does he seems to change his posture, no longer resting slightly on the computer console and making sad dog eyes at Pennyworth.

As it should be. Leaving whatever insulting and appropriated weakness that's afflicted him in the bunker. Time to go to work.

Grayson nods then, and says, "C'mon, kiddo, let's go."

"'Kiddo'?" Damian grumbles. "Do you enjoy your viscera being on the inside of your abdominal cavity, Grayson?"

"No real names in costume," Grayson says, not deigning to respond to the threat.

Damian frowns. He knows they both are acutely aware of the fact that Damian wouldn't actually attack him, but he still misses when his threats meant something –

Well, he actually can't recall threatening many of his subordinates in the League of Shadows. No one ever needed it, because he had respect. Which is what's missing from his and Grayson's interaction right now. Damian's been upholding his end of the bargain: he's been following the nonsensical rules laid down by Grayson, he's been giving as much of his all in combat as he can when handicapped in such a manner, he fixed the Batmobile without prompting or invitation. What's Grayson done, other than alternating between infantilizing and demonizing him? He certainly hasn't been upholding his father's image as Batman: he can't even do the voice right, he doesn't look like him, doesn't act like him – even when he's attempting to be menacing it's insultingly non-menacing, emphasizing his own weakness rather than his strength.

After a couple minutes in the air, they're quickly diverted to Gotham Police Station, where the bat-signal is up in the sky – and even though it's tradition, Damian can't help but roll his eyes. He never would have been allowed to beg for help on his missions, but the police don't have such dignity. In front of the officers is Gordon, and Damian wonders if he's going to have to put on a silly voice as Robin – after all, he did meet Gordon in person.

Fortunately (and it's a weird thing to feel fortunate about) Grayson takes over, using his parody of Father's voice. Damian doesn't have to say anything.

Grayson starts to make up excuses for why they've been inactive as of late and Damian scans for enemies while Grayson is busying himself with small talk. Some of the police officers are giving him untrusting looks, and –

Hmm. Unfortunate. One of them conspicuously has an eyepatch over one eye, the police officer Damian stabbed a couple weeks ago. Damian's wondering if he put two-and-two together – the anonymous child combatant working with Nightwing, and the new Robin, who has the same body type and complexion.

Damian decides not to care. Grayson, however, obviously does. His body language is subtle, but Damian can still catch the occasional glance at the casualty. Guilty. Even though he didn't do anything.

Gordon must not know, because he doesn't bring it up. Instead, he asks Grayson in a soft voice: "Another one?" with a look to Damian. "What happened to the last one?"

"He graduated," Grayson says.

Damian rolls his eyes. He bites back the He was fired correction (after all, if Father was making him Robin, didn't he know Drake couldn't be?), because he wants to avoid stretching this confrontation out any longer than it needs to be. And, saving them from yet more of Grayson's small talk, one of the officers grabs his walkie-talkie and says "Sir. It's Casey at the desk. Something's up. Trouble."

Damian relaxes his stance and prepares to move. They're in his domain now, not Grayson's. Combat, not small talk. But he can't make the first move, because he doesn't know where the front desk is.

Grayson does, and he's off in an instant. Damian follows him just a pace behind. Grayson bursts through the roof entrance of the police station and jumps over the side of the staircase railing, only reaching for his grappling line when he starts falling. Damian does the same, and the two land near-simultaneously two stories down, quicker than any of the officers on the roof. Perfection, exactly as they practiced.

An explosion goes off, almost like they're in a warzone, not a police station, and the acrid smell of gas wafts in from the next room. Without prompting, Damian secures his gas mask to his face.

Damian takes the lead, opening up the door to see the scene in the next room. There's someone with his face literally on fire, but he doesn't seem bothered by it, dusting off his hands and humming happily. A circus strongwoman shoving a gun in an officer's face. Three identical men standing back-to-back , almost as if they've been tied together, with their hands up, prepared for combat. And a dead police officer on the floor.

Damian leaves the strongwoman for Grayson; he knows Grayson distrusts his capacity to disarm an opponent without killing them and she is pointing a gun straight at someone's face. Instead, he focuses on the three men prepared for combat. If they want a fight, they're about to get it.

He leaps across the room, confident enough that Grayson can manage his part, but as he's in the air, he gets kicked into a wall by one of the men. He's only just landed on the floor, not even had time to get his bearings, when another strikes right at him, and he barely ducks in time as the enemy's foot collides with the wall behind him, dusting him in plaster.

It takes all of Damian's considerable training to block the assailment. The men move in perfect synchronization – Batman and Robin wish they could work like that – and two on the outside prevent him from dodging out of the way and using his mobility to his advantage – he's forced to parry blows from three combatants at once with his back to the wall. It's… not a good position to be in.

One of them makes a mistake – pulling back his leg to come in for a hard sidekick, creating an opening that Damian can dash through. And he does. But just as he's about to regain the advantage in combat, Grayson says, "Robin, step aside."

Tt. Doesn't he trust him at all? And speaking of which – where's the combatant Grayson was supposed to eliminate? "What about the woman?" he asks.

Grayson doesn't respond; he just charges the three men with a kick, using his superior body size to shove them back, whereas Damian couldn't. Damian rolls his eyes. He'll solve Grayson's problem, if his alleged mentor hadn't.

He dashes off, leaving Grayson to deal with the combatants in this room. Down the hallway, he sees a pair of legs being dragged behind a corner – it must be the hostage officer. He runs.

Around the corner, the strongwoman is dragging the officer by his hair – why isn't he fighting back? doesn't he feel embarrassed? – but doesn't seem to have her gun, so Grayson must have disarmed her on that front. She holds out a hand to Damian, warding him off, which would be a lot more effective if she had bullets. "Don't come closer," she says.

"I don't need to. I can cripple you from here."

Damian makes good on his promise – he throws two batarangs, and at least one of them finds its mark between her acromion and humerus. She yelps, and Damian charges her while she's distracted by the pain.

With her good arm, she catches him mid-charge and slams him into the wall. Stars shoot through Damian's vision – the second time he's allowed himself to be tossed about like a sack of potatoes today. It will be the last.

Damian blinks, too slow for a moment, as she grabs two weapons – they appear to be two beaten-up, metal of canes that she's wielding like escrimas. One strikes the wall behind him and he hears a screech of metal on brick and realizes they might be sharp.

The same as Grayson's lesson from earlier today, then. But she's not using the weapons to her advantage – she's still close, in Damian's personal space, which he assumes is supposed to be intimidating, but it really just keeps them equal, still allowing him to go on the attack. As she's on the slow draw-back of a cane embedded in the wall, Damian grabs her hand by the pinkie and thumb, kicks her in the face, and rotates the hand over as he moves with the kick, putting his entire body weight into the wrist break. She yells again.

In the din of the background noise, Damian can hear Grayson yelling his name – Robin, he means – but Damian's already busy with his own fight, and honestly Grayson had already acted like Robin needed help, but now he's begging for it as Batman? Amateur. Condescending amateur. Instead, Damian decides to finish off the strongwoman.

With two arms crippled, she doesn't pose much of a threat, but not much of a threat isn't acceptable. Only no threat is.

The officer the woman had been dragging behind is now crawling away, through the hallway lined with temporary holding cells, and attempts to pull himself up on a wooden stool next to an empty bucket. He doesn't succeed, but he does give Damian an idea.

The strongwoman kicks at Damian, but it's slower than her punches were, she's clearly not trained in the matter. Damian hops across the room, grabs the bucket near the wounded officer, and turns to face his opponent. Another batarang, this time to her knee, right under her patella, and she falls to the ground. Damian runs over, elbows her in the face, and slams the bucket over her head.

Grayson's inspiration, really. Grayson hanging a blindfolded Toad up above a roof and pretending they were above a ninety-meter drop may have been to fool Toad into thinking he was really in danger, but Damian also knows that without the sense of sight, an opponent is ill-at-ease, they can't see you or figure out what you're doing. Their mind fills in the blanks with something more horrifying than reality. They're easier to intimidate.

However, Grayson clearly was missing something from his strategy. A reason for anyone to believe they're in danger. So Damian snatches the stool from the officer's hands, smashes it against the floor, and grabs the legs as improvised escrimas.

"You got her…" mumbles the wounded officer. "Good work…"

Damian ignores him. Instead he approaches his enemy. She tries to get the bucket off with her right arm, but it won't raise all the way with the batarang in her shoulder. Damian kicks her hand to the floor and stomps on it.

"Where's your boss?" Damian asks. He hopes she's had enough damage done to her body that she understands talking is really in her best interests, but he's not expecting it. Gotham criminals don't seem to be excessively smart.

She doesn't answer, so Damian draws back his weapon and hits her on the head as hard as he can.

"What are you planning?"

Again, he is met with silence.

A rush of footsteps in the hallway; Damian has to speed this up before Grayson can come in and insist on restraining him, insist on making him do everything weakly and ineffectively. He starts with a flurry of blows, one with each weapon, to the sides of her head.

"Wait," she mutters.

Damian draws back a weapon, an implicit threat she can't see.

"We were gonna…" the rest of the words are incoherent.

"Speak fast."

She pauses, so Damian hits her on the head again to remind her of the severity of the situation.

The flurry of footsteps arrive. It's Gordon and one or two officers in pursuit. They draw their guns on him. Like he's the enemy here. Didn't they notice that the person he's interrogating is the one who killed their compatriots?

"Step away from the suspect!" Gordon shouts.

Damian doesn't bother listening. If the police wanted Batman and Robin's help, they should really be prepared for the form in which they'll receive it.

"Ow! We were gonna attack the city, okay?"

"How?" Whack! "Where?" Whack! "With what?" Whack!

"Wooden gallopers…"

Tt. That was useless.

"I'm giving you one last warning – !" Gordon yells.

Damian hits one escrima against the bucket on the strongwoman's head so hard it breaks in half. "What does that mean?" he asks. "'Wooden gallopers'. Where?!"

A rush of footsteps and a whoosh of a cape in motion, and Damian knows his time is up. Grayson charges in and catches Damian's raised hand, stopping a final strike.

"Enough!" Grayson yells, commanding, like he deserves to command after this debacle.

"I almost had it out of her!" Damian says. Doesn't Grayson see that? Doesn't he see that pain is a much more effective interrogation route than mere fear? "Her boss is planning an attack on the city!"

"And now she has a concussion!" Gordon says. He still hasn't lowered his gun, despite Grayson's intervention. "Step away!"

Damian balls his hand into a fist. He wants to fight the commissioner. Who does he think he is, pulling guns on him? Does he actually think he could win?

Before they can do anything, one of the officers checks a holding cell and says, "Sir, you should check this out. It's the Toad. He croaked."

Gordon puts his gun away – good decision on his part – and turns to the officers. "And nobody saw this going on? Someone just killed a suspect right under our noses and nobody saw who did it?"

Grayson starts ushering Damian out of the police station, like he did when Damian attacked the police earlier. Does he think the police will try to arrest him again? Even when he didn't attack any of them this time?

"Robin, what were you thinking?" Grayson asks, as he escorts them to the Batmobile.

Damian shakes him off. He doesn't want Grayson's patronizing hovering, his moving him around as if he has to protect Damian from the police – or protect them from Damian. Damian's unsure which option is worse.

"I was interrogating a suspect," Damian says as he hops in the Batmobile. "Like you do."

"You were torturing someone!"

"Which motivates them to talk, don't you think?"

Grayson groans. His hands squeeze the steering wheel, and Damian's wondering if he's imagining it's his neck. If there's a crack in his moralistic facade.

"After all of the training we were doing to work on you being non-lethal – "

"I'm not an idiot, Gr – Batman," Damian says, even though Grayson doesn't deserve the name, just to avoid the 'no real names in costume' lecture. "I wasn't going to kill her. You can't get any information out of a corpse."

"Oh my God," Grayson says softly.

"And I wasn't even using lethal weaponry. I didn't use her swords, even though they were right there; I made some escrimas, like you do!"

"Robin, do you honestly think it matters which weapon you use to beat a defeated opponent with?"

"You clearly do!" That was Grayson's thing during training, wasn't it? Put away the swords, don't practice with lethal weaponry, blah blah blah.

"You're not supposed to do it in the first place!" Grayson yells. "Intimidation is one thing, but there have to be limits, Robin."

Damian crosses his arms and rolls his eyes. "Tt. Limits!"

Grayson pulls in the Batbunker, and not a moment too soon, because Damian's sure that if they spent any more time in the small car together, they'd come to blows. He hops out before it's even finished parking.

Even though Damian is walking away, a clear invitation for Grayson to shut the hell up, Grayson keeps lecturing.

"Yes! Limits! We step over the line, and Gordon won't hesitate to hunt us down!"

"Let him try!" Is Damian supposed to be intimidated by an inept police force that couldn't even maintain order without his father's help? "I already haven't killed anyone, now you want me to play nice with the police as well?"

"Yes!"

"Why?!"

"'Why'?" Grayson mimics back at him. "What are you, a child?" A pause as he realizes the answer to that question. "If you want an answer beyond 'it's wrong', how about 'not alienating your allies' –"

Damian scoffs. "What 'allies'? If you didn't notice, we were the only ones doing anything in there, Grayson! The police are incompetents. We're in this on our own!"

Grayson takes a step towards him, leaned slightly forward over him, and Damian wonders if he isn't trying to intimidate him. It doesn't work, which is yet more proof of is insulting inability to be Batman. "Being Batman and Robin isn't about working alone and thinking with your fists! What about detective skills? What about learning how to obey a direct order?!"

Damian feels his upper lip curling involuntarily in a snarl. Can Grayson even see himself? See how impotent and ridiculous he looks and sounds? "Look at you!" Damian says. He exhales sharply, buying himself a little bit of time to translate the sentence in his head. It needs to come out perfect so Grayson understands exactly how stupid he's being. "This pathetic impersonation of my father makes a mockery of his memory. Keep your detective skills and orders and limits!"

Damian takes a step away from Grayson, if only to avoid punching the man in the stomach. It wouldn't do any good – even if Damian beat him senseless, Grayson's too high on his own self-righteousness to ever listen to him. "I'll do this my way!" he says. As he should have from the beginning.

"How? You're ten years old, Damian," Grayson says, frustrated enough to drop his inane 'no names in costume' rule. "You have a lot to learn."

Damian rips off the R insignia on his costume and tosses it on the ground at Grayson's feet. "Then I'll find a teacher I respect!"

Damian turns his back on Grayson – it feels weird to turn his back on a hostile person, but Grayson's hostility is tamed enough that he's only capable of yelling some more. "Get back here, Damian!" Grayson shouts. Like a dog chained up in a yard. Only capable of barking, not defending its territory. And to think Damian was concerned about the man's reaction when he'd killed someone. To think he'd feared some type of punishment.

Grayson shouts, more useless than before, "That's an order!"

If you have to clarify it's an order, you're terrible at giving orders. Damian can't believe he ever listened to Grayson, ever let the man try to change him into something he's not. Damian completely ignores him – something he'd never have gotten away with in the League of Shadows – and gets on the motorcycle he never even got to try out before now. But it's red, too small for an adult, and clearly his.

Grayson yells something again, but Damian revs the motor over his useless words and takes off. As he exits the bunker and the cool night air hits his face, he feels tension he didn't even realize he had leave his body. It wasn't clear exactly how much Grayson was stressing him out until now. Damian's finished actual combat and not had that same demarcation between tension and relief. Grayson's worse to be around than people who are shooting at him.

Damian blinks. His face feels warm and he doesn't know why. A shudder runs through his body. A loss of control muscular control. Why? Did he get poisoned? When did the opportunity even present itself?

He pulls the motorcycle over to the side of the road. He can't lose control of a two-hundred kilo machine at a hundred kilometers per hour and expect to walk away. He walks the motorcycle to an ally between two apartment buildings, checks to see if anyone's around, and leans against a wall and sits on the ground.

Above him, the air conditioning units in the apartment windows seem almost to spin. Damian takes a deep breath and reaches for his utility belt. There are some antidotes here – fear toxin, joker venom, naloxone – but he doesn't know the source of the illness yet.

Right. How to discern? He needs his vital statistics first – he takes off his glove on his right hand, presses his index and middle fingers right underneath his jawbone, and starts taking his pulse. As he counts the seconds, his breathing starts to slow – he hadn't even realized he'd been taking shallow, short breaths until now.

Oh.

Eighteen heartbeats in the first ten seconds, sixteen in the next, and thirteen in the next, as he keeps counting and breathing. He wasn't poisoned. He was freaking out.

That almost makes it worse.

He takes off this mask very quickly and frantically rubs at his eyes. He's glad he left, glad no one can see him like this. Since he was very small, he's always tried to keep these bouts of weakness away from witnesses, away from anyone who could use them against him. It's not fitting behavior for an Al Ghul, and he's sure neither is it fitting for the son of Batman.

And speaking of that –

Damian puts his domino mask back on.

He still has a mission. The luxury of a breakdown is one that's never been permitted to him in ten years of life, and it's certainly not one he has now. Just because he left Grayson doesn't meant he's giving up on everything he's been working towards this last month. Everything Father left for him.

Grayson had prevented him from getting the intelligence the easy way, so it's up to Damian to do it the hard way. What information does he have at his disposal?

The enemy is fairly obscure – Grayson couldn't find traces of them in his databases. Ostentatiously themed, like too many Gotham reprobates. Circus themed. Cirque d'Etrange. Bad French for Circus of the Strange.

What else? Toad had dominoes in his suitcase – Grayson asked what kind of criminal wants to be paid in dominoes. The strongwoman had two metal canes sharpened at the edges as weapons. Unusual weapons, she must have gotten them somewhere, and the shoddiness of them looked almost improvised, as if she had used an object originally having a different function, like the stool legs Damian turned into escrimas earlier.

Tent pegs. Obviously. The enormous size of the things had thrown him off, but they could easily be nailed into the ground to pitch a giant tent, like one at the circus.

And then there were her words. Wooden gallopers, she said. Unless he's missing a subtlety of English, it's just from the verb to gallop. Nominalization, Damian thinks it's called. You add a -er suffix and it becomes galloper, meaning one who gallops. Which are… usually horses?

Damian groans. This is stupid. He's never had so little to go on in any of his missions before –

But he's never let anything stop him before, either.

A wooden type of horse, then. It sounds like a toy for a child, but Damian can't possibly connect it to any image or experience because for once in his life, his dearth of normal childhood experiences is a disadvantage.

If Damian had his phone, he could use the internet to find out where to look, since it was one of those phones that isn't even made with verbal communication in mind. Grayson and Pennyworth seemed to use theirs primarily to connect to the internet or store family photos. Damian's not sure he's ever even seen them make a phone call with them.

The point is moot – phones are left behind on patrol, just as real names are. No if he wants to outsource his thinking like Grayson did – a process of which he now understands the necessity, having neither the knowledge of Gotham to know where to go nor the prerequisite childhood experiences with wooden horses – he has to find some other way to connect to the internet or search through records. The library, maybe. It would be closed, now, being past midnight. But Damian can always break in. And important thing is – he didn't need Grayson.

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After doing his research at the library, Damian thinks he has a lead. There are various places in Gotham that might have carousel horses – wooden gallopers – and giant tents, but only one of them is abandoned. It used to be two, but a recent news article had announced the re-opening of Amusement Mile for the first time since the quake –

So Damian has one solid lead. Bonus Brothers Carnival and Amusement Park. It's been out of service for nearly as long as he's been alive. It sounds like an ideal hiding spot for criminals with a ridiculous circus theme.

After driving over there, he pulls up his cycle and parks just inside the perimeter fence. He ignores the Condemned KEEP OUT sign and strides in confidently. The entire place looks dilapidated and pathetic – the fence is bent, out of shape, broken, there are some hooked, rusted tent pegs in the ground, but with no tent tied to them – it's long since been removed or rotted. And up ahead –

Someone whimpers.

Damian rushes forwards.

Up ahead, a carousel horse. Tied to it is a young woman with – something's going on with her face, but Damian can't tell what.

"Help," she says, and as she speaks, the flesh on her face doesn't seem to move how Damian expected it to with the word. It almost seems stiff, like she's wearing a mask, but he doesn't see where it ends and her flesh begins.

Damian has no clue what he's looking at.

"Help," the young woman says again.

He came here to fight whoever the drug dealers were working for, but this must equally be an important part of Father's job, mustn't it?

A tear springs from the corner of her eye. "Huh – behind you."

Damian turns around.

He'd been so distracted with the civilian that he let himself get surrounded and –

What?

Around him is a veritable army of people with that exact same face as the young woman, the same bright red hair he now assumes are garish red wigs. They're all wearing purple dresses and red dress shoes. They start moving towards him as a mass of humanity. Clearly a threat.

Damian raises his hands up and prepares to fight.

As the mob is equally spaced and around him on all sides, any direction he goes will be equally advantageous – or disadvantageous. He sprints ahead and punches the first one he sees in the gut and they sprawl forward. The two immediately closest both reach towards him, but Damian jumps up, using the back of the sprawled forward… person… as a springboard and kicks each of them in the face, one after the other.

Damian's never fought so many combatants at once. It would be easier – like everything – if he had his sword. He could cut a swath through the mob, but of course that's outside the limits –

It just takes one. Just one person grabbing his arm, Damian hooks their hand and tries to apply an armbar, but he's slowed and the entire mob can engulf him. One hand grabbing him becomes two and then three, three adults larger than he force him to the ground, Damian tries as hard as he can to elbow one of them but his arm is still trapped and he's just not strong enough to break it free and –

The entire mob starts kicking him.

Damage control. A situation he never wanted to be in. He doesn't think he's ever even trained for it, because who would train for losing a fight this badly? Instinctively, he curls into a fetal position, protecting his head and organs as best as he can. He can't get out, and no one is coming for him – not Mother, not any League of Shadows lackeys, not Grayson. Each consecutive kick just reminds him that he's going to die alone and it's not even going to mean anything.

It's not fair.

His head spins from the blows and the world seems a bit off kilter and –

And what is he? A common child? Losing and crying isn't an option. Damian rotates over on his stomach to prepare to force himself to his feet. He must have something with him – Mother taught him that there's no such thing as a no-win scenario –

The belt. Of course. He'd been too resentful at not having his sword that he didn't focus on what he did have. He reaches a hand to his utility belt –

But it leaves his head undefended. One last, strong kick, a final jolt of pain –

And the world goes dark.