Part Two
It was on an errand for Mother that Damian saw the familiar cowl once more. For a moment, Damian had hope. Todd was with him; this would be the evidence that could sway Father. Batman would believe him now, and help Damian rescue the others.
His former target slipped away, and Damian barely noted the side street that the rogue slipped down. Guiding Jason after him with exacting commands, Damian rejoined his father a top the nearby roof. A woman tending her rooftop garden in the shade of evening disappeared below when the Batman and a boy in black stared at her expectantly, the dark giant of yet another man hovering as if Damian's shadow.
Superstition was alive and well throughout the world.
"I found them," he told the Batman. "I found them, and Mother has . . . she . . ." Damian paused to reorder his thoughts. "I do not know what exactly she has done, but they are broken. I do not know how to fix this."
Batman waited silently.
"They have no will of their own, and Mother says that it is permanent. I . . . I do not believe her, of course. It cannot be permanent." Damian turned to Todd, intending to demonstrate the pliability of the formerly stubborn villain.
He's stopped short by a black gauntlet on his shoulder, the sweeping shadow of a cape that could swallow Damian up in the depths of enhanced fabric, legend and legacy. As close as his father was, Batman didn't look at Damian. He didn't look at Todd. The thinned white-out lenses of the cowl gazed over their heads in solemn exhaustion.
"You have done enough."
And Damian hadn't . . . hadn't done nearly enough to make up for what his mother had taken. He knew his debt, and Damian would honor it.
"I saw what was done to the Wilkes boy," Batman continued, and that stung. "Your mother has shown me everything."
"Everything?" Damian echoed, mimicking the weight of his father's words unconsciously. He had learned over the years that his Father and Mother had different definitions of such words. Neither definition suited Damian.
"No. More. Lies." The hand on his shoulder pushed Damian back a scant few inches, its owner withdrawing an equal distance until they are two figures again rather than one. "Where is your brother?"
Brother. Not brothers. An unsettling concession from the man Damian had come to know as his father. Benjamin. Not Grayson, Todd, Drake or Brown.
Damian tensed. "What do you know of Benjamin?"
His clone is practically an infant—a source of pain to Damian and a problem not yet solved—but scarcely two years of age. Even without Damian's lies of omission, and especially considering Talia's network of resources, what could a toddler do to land on the Batman's radar?
"I know that you and your mother tried to hide him from me. I know that Ra's al Ghul somehow managed to silence Tim, and I know that he is my son. I know the way that Talia raised you, and it will not befall another child. I will not allow it."
Drake. Of course it was Drake and his habit of committing dangerous information to the untrustworthy machines at his disposal.
Damian could not back up any further without running into Todd and beyond the larger man is the end of the rooftop. "He's a clone. Mother cloned him from me so that he could be better, so that he could supersede me. He is a replacement!" That knowledge burned, and Damian calmed himself, latching fingers into the soft material of Todd's tunic where his Father couldn't see. Twisting of words is a family trait—as is inflicting emotional pain. "What kind of parents replace their children?" Damian prodded Todd back a step. "Mine."
The lines of exhaustion at the corners of his father's mouth twisted into something else.
Damian doesn't care; it's too uncomfortable to empathize with Drake and Todd for any length of time. His father hasn't even acknowledged Todd; it's like the man thinks the others are already dead. "If you want Benjamin, just try and find him."
"Dami—"
With a hard-shove, Damian sent both himself and Todd over the edge.
"—an!"
At least that got a reaction, Damian considered as he hauled himself over the railing of the balcony below. It was almost worth the way that Todd's weight had dislocated his shoulder. At least the Batman didn't think Damian dead. A villain, perhaps, but not dead.
"You could have saved us all," he whispered even though there was no one to hear him but Todd.
It wasn't supposed to be like this.
At one time, Damian had thought himself capable of saving Benjamin. He thought that if Grayson could win over Damian's younger self, then surely Damian would be capable of converting a mere toddler. He had an intimate knowledge of an assassin's upbringing, Grayson's example before him, and a seemingly endless span of time as his mother's captive pet. It should have been easy. Damian should have been able to raise a skilled and capable ally in just a few short years—someone capable of helping him save the others and overthrow Leviathan.
Benjamin made any amount of time seem infinitely longer let alone the endless future that lay ahead of Damian. His clone—brother—was not an easy child, but spoiled and indulged in ways that even Damian had not been shown. Talia seemed to take to a more demonstrative form of motherhood the second time around. Benjamin saw her at least once a day, and so—by extension—did Damian. Any rules that the teenager tried to implement were quickly circumvented by the doting mother. The carefully calculated scraps of affection that Damian intended to dole out as rewards were made negligible in comparison to the constant cosseting that Talia freely bestowed upon her second child.
Damian refused to acknowledge jealousy, preferring to let resentment and anger simmer.
His role as Benjamin's bodyguard seemed a mere formality. There were a few attempts on public outings, and a maid with sloppy habits nearly compromised the security of the entire compound, but the outside world was a distant threat. If not Damian, there were other guards, servants, tutors . . . no, Damian was pretty much here to protect Benjamin from the Batman.
Bruce Wayne in the guise of the Bat had made every attempt to locate and retrieve his second son. The diligence of this obsession made life in Talia's care a somewhat transient experience. Damian had lived in France, Egypt, Japan, and Romania in just the scant few months before his thirteenth birthday alone. Often, Damian made a sudden trip to a new location with Benjamin under the 'care' of one of his siblings. Jason was ideal for this—his bulk and silence off-putting to even the most well-meaning of middle-aged women and some of the more questionably-motivated individuals. Mostly, he provided a suitably-sized obstacle to Benjamin's independence. The innocents who had the misfortune of traveling with the undercover heirs of the al Ghul line didn't deserve any more exposure to Benjamin than absolutely necessary.
A wiser detective might stop pursuing Talia, and look into other patterns surrounding Leviathan.
Batman never did well without a Robin at his side.
Out of sheer contrariness, Damian never made a move towards Gotham during those unsupervised trips. If Bruce Wayne wanted another son, he could find and fight Damian for him . . . or dig the stick out of his ass and do something to save the other Robins. Damian wasn't particular, but forgiveness is never free.
Besides, if Damian had it his way, the clone would never don the Robin persona. Robin was his, and those that came before him. They had earned it, and his clone couldn't have that role no matter how miserable such an action might make Talia. The other—unspoken—reason for her retrieval of Damian was so that the older boy might serve as an example to the younger . . . of what Benjamin must never become.
Robin or no Robin, Gotham is a long-distant goal. The real and ever-present threat to an al Ghul was the training and testing itself.
Even there, Benjamin led a strangely charmed life. Unlike those involved with Ra's al Ghul's carefully-instrumented raising of Talia or even Damian's own closely supervised childhood, no master laid a bruise upon Benjamin's cheek—no matter how poorly he conducted himself in battle—for fear of Talia's retribution. Damian, himself, had only once swept the child's feet out from under him in order to prove Benjamin's perceived immortality nonexistent.
There were only three pills on the next morning's breakfast tray. Todd had convulsed for over an hour before Mother relented, and if it had been anyone but Talia's precious favorite . . . Damian is certain he would have buried a sibling.
Benjamin was trained, but untouched. His skills were good (innate talent came with the genes) but untested. What Benjamin wanted, Benjamin received. Unfortunately for Damian, what Benjamin wanted was to shadow the older boy every step of Damian's day if not commandeer his brother's attention entirely. That was alright in the beginning when Benjamin was small enough to carry easily and his behavior amusing. The child's growing independence ran hand-in-hand with a neediness that Damian was reluctant to identify with . . . and both were left unchecked.
Damian tried. He really did.
He took his brother with him on errands, invited Benjamin back to his quarters and tried to interest the younger boy with Damian's few sanctioned projects. It didn't work—despite Benjamin having been cloned directly from Damian, the boys had very little in common. Damian enjoyed engineering and swordplay. Benjamin was devoted to his dogs and his toy armies. When it came to the younger boy's training, his hand-to-hand skill was alarmingly good for a three year old, and on rare occasions Ra's was summoned to attend those lessons personally.
Benjamin was a bully. With a few words and the flick of a finger, Benjamin could reduce the servants' children to tears. In a rage, only Damian could contain the volatile boy, and caring for Benjamin was time-consuming. Having no responsibilities, Benjamin possessed a great deal of freedom that was rarely put to use. What little free time Damian had, he spent caring for the people that his very existence had crippled. Without the images of his siblings before him, Damian worried that he might crack under the pressure. Or worse, crack Benjamin.
There was no love lost between brothers. Damian followed Benjamin out of duty—not to his mother, and not even to his father—but for the cause of Batman.
Batman was the ideal that Damian had fought for. Bruce Wayne could be a jackass.
Damian followed Benjamin because Dick Grayson would have, because Brown could find something about the assassin child to love (although Damian couldn't imagine what), and even Drake would take responsibility.
Damian was slowly gaining a new appreciation for Grayson. Sometimes, he even told the man so. It was not like the others could ever use this against him.
This is what the other Robins remember.
This is what Jason remembered after everything.
Jason saw a lot of Talia; she liked to comment on how docile he was and how much easier it was to manage him in the zombie-like fog of the living dead. He spent a couple days a week serving as her metaphorical footstool, and in seeing a lot of Talia, Jason saw a great deal of Benjamin. As obnoxious as the spoiled little shit was—the man couldn't help but like the scarily efficient toddler.
That bothered him.
Ten years ago, that was Damian. Six years ago, that was still Damian and Jason walked these same damn halls under his own power without ever noticing the child in their midst. He had been so wrapped up in vengeance and Bruce and what was owed him, that he may as well have been blind.
He had been angry with Bruce, and affected by the Pit more than most. He didn't regret taking action against his replacement, but Jason would like to think that he couldn't take that out on a kid (it was a lie, always a lie, and meeting Damian just two years later, Jason had a whole host of issues that he'd like to take out on the kid).
It was just that Jason really wanted to be the hero that Batman once promised he could be.
But Jason had gone on his righteous crusade, and unknowingly left an eight year old child to be raised by the League of Assassins.
Some hero Jason Todd turned out to be.