Part 2 – Chapter 1
Selina opened her cupboard and immediately noticed her cereal missing.
"Dick!" she shouted, taking a very well educated guess at the culprit.
"Yeah, Ma?" came the responding call from her lounge. She stalked out to see her son sitting with his feet up on her coffee table and a bowl of cereal on his lap. Milk slopped around, threating her nice leather furniture with liquid damage.
Why couldn't she have had a girl? Girls were supposed to be neat and clean.
She stood there with her hands on her hips. She wasn't going to let him calling her 'ma' distract her, although she would like to know where he picked that certain inflection up because it wasn't from Bruce.
"Feet. On the floor, mister."
He snorted as he did as she instructed. Then she noticed what he was wearing.
"So he did make you go back to being Nightwing?"
"Uh, not really. He suggested I might be happier as Nightwing after we had an argument last week."
Selina sighed. Really, her boys were such trouble. She did not envy poor Alfred for having to deal with all the Wayne boys.
"What was the argument about?" Dick hung his head. She couldn't tell if it was shame or if he didn't think it was her business. "Dick?"
"It was about Damian. I told Bruce to spend more time with him. Well, now they do, as Batman and Robin."
"And what does Damian think about this?" A shrug. "Dick," she sighed, "you need to talk to you brother. Ask Damian what he wants."
"Don't wanna."
He slouched in the seat, head hanging low. Like he was feeling guilty about something.
"Dick?" she questioned and then recoiled as he jumped up like a puppet with its strings pulled.
"Its fine, no worries," he said. "I'll head off and do that now!" He picked up his bowl and messily drank down as much of the cereal and milk as he could in one gulp and then dashed out the door.
Selina looked at the discarded bowl and wondered if he really was going to talk to his brother. Something told her it was highly unlikely.
A few days later, Damian slapped a newspaper in front of Bruce.
"Father, do something about this," he demanded, "these people are besmirching the family with their lies."
Bruce raised an eyebrow; so that's where his morning paper had gone. He took the newspaper and looked at the front page.
Nothing much there.
"Turn to page four, father," Damian huffed.
Bruce did so and was amused by what his son found so offending.
"Dick Grayson, love baby?" he read.
"It says that Grayson is your child!" Damian ranted, giving him the furious expression which meant that Damian was annoyed that Bruce wasn't giving this the seriousness it deserved. "Yours and that... that harlot!"
"Which harlot?" Bruce sighed because Damian did tend to call most of his dates that.
"Kyle!"
Bruce nodded as Damian continued ranting about how the newspaper was grasping at straws by referencing the similarity in appearances between Bruce and Dick. That just because Selina took Dick out to the zoo once, did not make her his mother!
"It's despicable! What would Grayson think if he read this? His parents are the Graysons, everyone knows that!"
Something in Bruce's chest twinged at that. Did everyone really know that? He just realised that his biological connection with Dick had been ignored for almost the entire time he had been looking after the boy.
Selina had a closer blood bond with their child. After all, Dick called her 'mama C' and 'ma' at times. No matter how much Bruce insisted that he stop because he sounded like a country bumpkin.
"So, how do you see the relationship between Dick and I?" Bruce asked his youngest.
Damian paused and gave Bruce the flat 'are you stupid?' expression he usually reserved for Tim.
"Student and mentor. The first Dynamic Duo. Grayson speaks highly of you, father."
The 'you don't talk about him much' went unsaid.
Bruce cursed himself. He hadn't thought about this in years but now he was feeling insecure about his place in Dick's life.
"And father?" Damian said, "could you keep your indiscretions with Kyle out of the press?"
"We're just friends," Bruce responded.
The 'yeah, right' expression Damian gave him in response reminded Bruce of Dick. Apparently, Damian didn't believe him either.
Jason Todd grabbed his gun the moment he heard the knock at his safe house door. No one in the family knocked and he knew a few of his enemies would just for the irony aspect of gunning down the Red Hood at his front door.
"Not today," he muttered as he stalked over.
There was more furious banging.
"Todd! Open this door now!"
Jason relaxed at the sound of the demon bird's yelling but was still cautious as he opened the door.
"I thought you used windows or just appeared on people's ceilings," he said as Damian shoved his way through the now open door.
"Yeah, well, I need your help."
"Oh?" Jason's eyebrows went up in surprise. The demon bird never asked for help unless it was important.
"Father refuses to assist me in this crusade so I've found myself in need of new allies."
"Okay?"
Damian held up a copy of the newspaper, open to page four.
Realisation dawned and Jason started laughing.
"Geez, Robin! You sure know how to pick 'em!" he howled. Damian's cheeks puffed up as he thinned his lips in annoyance.
"This is not a joke."
"Oh, I know," Jason responded, trying to calm himself down. Deep breaths. "And that's what makes it funny. You know, kid, that the people who write the news pull this every few months? The Wayne name sells newspapers. Taking them to court or whatever you have in mind will just bring more attention to those attention seekers."
Damian paused and thought about it.
"I see. You have a point, Todd. If I'm to do this, then I need to be sneaky."
"That's not really what I meant." Too late, Damian had it in his head that he needed to be sneaky and sly about this. Which meant he was already out the window after the sneakiest person he knew.
The team was setting up for an uneventful weekend. Conner and Bart were playing the gamestation while Beast Boy watched. Tim was going through staff movements in the background.
"Drake!" a young male voice hollered. Conner flinched and ended up snapping the controller. He hadn't heard Robin's approach.
"No real names in the field!" Tim hollered back, not even falling out of rhythm as the hooded bird stormed into the room with a newspaper in his hand.
"Look at this!" Damian demanded, shoving the newspaper into the teen hero's face. Tim blinked and quickly adjusted his stance, reversing his staff mid-swing and losing his footing.
"Don't do that!" he growled.
Damian just shot him an unimpressed look and shook the paper in front of Tim's face.
Tim sighed and took the paper from him, reading the article Damian demanded he read.
While he was reading, M'gann, Cassie and Steph came out from the training room. M'gann and Cassie went into the kitchen for a snack and Steph, the current Batgirl, walked over to see what Tim and Damian were up to.
"What? How can they get away with printing this?" Steph screeched, snatching the paper from Tim.
"What?" Tim questioned in a deadpan. Steph glared at him and pointed to the article.
"How can they do this to them? This is filled with lies and slander!"
"For once, Fatgirl, I am inclined to agree with you," Damian said with sagely nods of his head.
Tim opened his mouth to question what they were thinking when Steph repeated;
"Lies and slander! We must do something about this!"
"We must," Damian agreed.
Tim was shocked that this would be the thing that the current Robin and Batgirl would agree on.
"The newspaper pulls stunts like this all the time," Tim sighed. He took the paper from Steph's hands. "Although, I haven't even seen this picture before."
"Think it's photo-shopped?" Steph asked with a smile which made Tim carefully consider his response.
"I don't… know?"
Steph squealed.
"If it's photo-shopped then this might be easier than I thought," she said.
"This is a bad idea," Tim sighed.
From his spot on the couch, Conner couldn't help but silently agree. He knew that the article spoke the truth, whether the writer of it knew it or not. The context confused him. It seemed like Dick's brothers didn't know about his parents.
Conner pulled out his phone and shot a text to a number he wasn't even sure worked anymore.
[Hey, don't your brothers know about your parents?]