Chapter 18: Trust

It was a beautiful sunny afternoon in Metropolis when Damian was just on his way back from that annoying school. Normally he always used his father's helicopter to get from A to B, but today he went home by walking. He just wanted to clear his head a bit and fill his brain cells with fresh oxygen so he could think more easily.

Five days had passed, during which Damian and Jon had sneaked into the Batcave again and again to find out more about Dick's circumstance. But in the end, their investigations led to nothing, or rather Damian's did.

In the end, Jonathan didn't have the sufficient level of knowledge to contribute anything productive to the matter, and Damian had advised him that instead of sitting around in the Cave, he should rather visit the arcades of Gotham or other places that interested him more.

However, Jon didn't do that.

Instead, the boy sat next to him every day anew, playing his portable video games.

Damian just passed a railroad crossing when the thought elicited an amused snort from the boy.

That faithless jerk had really become quite a burdock, especially in the last few days. And while the devil was on the mind, he wasn't far away either.

"Damian, wait!"

The sticky tape instantly ran joyously towards him from behind at a monkey's pace and was far too busy waving at the Wayne heir to pay attention to his own feet. Damian saw the disaster coming before it even happened.

Jonathan got one of his feet caught on the recessed railroad tracks and was now stumbling more badly than good towards Damian, one hand outstretched in search for help. But the older boy did not even think of helping. Pain was just another form of learning.

So unimpressed, Damian took a step aside just before Jon could hold on to him, and left the rest of this lesson to the hard asphalt floor.

Ratcheting, the Kryptonian slithered face-first across the rough surface before coming to a halt barely a meter away and sitting up in protest:

"Ouch, couldn't you have given me a hand?"

While Jonathan was still rubbing his face a bit annoyed, Damian only replied dryly:

"You have to take the consequences for your own mistakes. Especially since you're supposed to learn to keep an eye on your surroundings. Besides, it's not like it's going to hurt you."

Then the elder walked on as if nothing had happened, and Jon called after him:

"That doesn't mean I don't feel anything!"

Immediately, the Kryptonian rose again and joined Damian:

"The others told me that you didn't even fly back in the helicopter today, and they're already speculating about whether your father is going bankrupt."

Bored, the latter replied:

"I don't care what those Neanderthals think."

"But you usually take the helicopter. What's wrong?"

"Nothing, what should be? I can walk for a change, can't I?"

Jonathan now drew his brows together suspiciously:

"You're really worried about your brother, aren't you? I mean, he's calmed down a bit, but still growls at us when we get too close and also refuses to eat. Isn't that starting to be dangerous?"

Damian bit his clench in annoyance, knowing Jonathan was right. He was really worried about Dick, especially because he had begun to show signs of deficiency. The fact that he became calmer was primarily due to the fact that he neither drank nor ate. Alfred had told him that their problem child, out of sheer stress, was snarling at everything that was offered to him and hurling it through the cage as if the food was poisoned.

If this kept going on, soon they wouldn't have to worry about finding a cure, because there would be no one left to cure.

"Damian, are you okay?"

Surprised, the elder pulled his head around and looked into Jonathan's face, who was now looking at him rather worriedly:

"You didn't give me an answer."

Damian looked ahead thoughtfully again before giving an annoyed snort and answered with a played confidence:

"Of course everything is fine. I'll solve this case with ease, just like any other."

Jon wasn't fazed by this. He could tell by now when his partner had doubts. However, he didn't remark on it, since it truly wouldn't help.

Suddenly Damian stopped and stared at a restaurant across an adjacent street. Jonathan did not notice the Wayne heir pause until he took a few more steps:

"What is it?"

A slight nasty grin crept onto Damian's face: "If you want to succeed, you have to take a risk sometimes."

Jonathan didn't understand what Damian meant by that, but before he could even ask, the latter was already walking firmly toward the restaurant.

About half an hour later, both boys were again in full gear, sneaking through the secret tunnel and into the Cave, where Dick was.

As expected, he was lying motionless in his cage, his wings wrapped tightly around his body so that he looked like a pile of fluffy feathers with no head but a tail.

Jonathan was sipping his Coke when they approached about 15 meters on him and then watched from distance. Damian, on the other hand, pulled out two burgers from a brown bag:

"Can you reheat these for me?"

Confused, Jon scratched his head:

"Sorry, but I don't even have a clue where a microwave is supposed to be around here?"

Damian just rolled his eyes and held both burgers in one hand away from his main body:

"I meant for you to heat them up with your heat vision."

With surprise at this demand, Jonathan almost choked on his Coke:

"You want me to do what?! Have you gone completely crazy now? I will saber your hand off with it. After all, I already killed my cat with that crap!" *

Damian only rolled his eyes annoyed:

"I'm not asking you to cut off my hand, I'm just asking you to heat up the burgers. Just use a small amount of your power. I know you can handle it, so go for it."

Not really a fan of this action, Jon hesitated at first, but then finally agreed:

"Alright, but it won't be my fault if your hand gets hurt in the process!"

Concentrating, the Half-Kryptonian stared at the two wrapped burgers about one meter in front of him. Gradually, he put more and more energy into his eyes before a yellowish faint beam finally left them.

Damian felt the fast food in his hand gradually heating up until the elder finally signaled Jon to stop.

The latter paused and looked confusedly at Damian, who only replied with a grin:

"They're warm."

Jonathan exhaled in relief before the older one added: "You should show a little more self-confidence to learn how to control your powers faster."

Damian turned away from the flabbergasted boy and turned in Dick's direction. With his free hand, the Wayne heir removed his belt, as well as cape and mask, and simply dropped everything onto the floor. Concentrating, the boy exhaled calmly and began striding toward the cage, visibly displeasing Jon:

"What are you up to?" he shouted, unable to believe how close Damian now ventured to the cage:

"As I said, if you want to succeed, you have to take a risk sometimes."

Jon watched in horror as the feathers in the cage ruffled and menacing hisses rang out between them, as well as those glowing turquoise eyes.

"Damian, this is far too dangerous!"

However, Damian was not dissuaded from his intention. Instead, he came closer and closer to the sturdy metal bars, and now Dick's wings also stood up menacingly, revealing his actual form again. Snarling, he beat his tail against the bars, signaling to the intruder 'This far and no further!

But the latter did not even think of stopping. When there was barely five meters between them, Damian said:

"Now watch carefully. I'm going to show you what it means to pay attention to your surroundings."

Shocked, Jon watched as Richard's glowing tail spike slipped between the bars in a flash and wanted to impale Damian.

Jonathan squealed in fright when the Wayne heir finally took a step to the side, unimpressed, and the glowing tip sank into the ground, a hair's breadth past him.

In an instant, however, Dick pulled it out again and attacked once more. But again he stabbed at nothing, as Damian only calmly dodged, the burger still in his hand.

Jon watched in disbelief as his partner dodged his brother's swift attacks again and again, seemingly effortlessly, with such an air of indifference that it sent a chill down the Kryptonian's spine. As if that wasn't Damian there, but an ice-cold killer to whom his victims were worth nothing. He was really not normal!

Damian, on the other hand, only analyzed and blanked out everything that could make his mind waver. In the end, the machine his mother had trained him to be, had its advantages. His brain worked at full speed and paid attention to the many muscle contractions, which told him the next attack in advance. Likewise on Dick's breathing, which became more and more strained with each blow. The winged man's last reserves of energy were burning up fast.

Finally Damian felt that Richard was exhausted enough and stood on a very specific point of the ground. Again the tail spike raced down on him and instead of hitting the calculating boy, the pointed limb once again sank into the metal floor. Loud cracks could be heard and smoke rose from the spot where the stinger had entered.

Dick wanted to pull his tail out again as usual to launch the next attack, however this time it got stuck. Damian had let him stab into a machine that was under their feet and wedged itself firmly into Richard's tail with its many gears.

Screeching, the winged man cried out and braced his entire body against the machine's restraint. But still he could not get free, since his body had gotten too weak.

In desperation, Dick began to jump wildly back and forth inside the cage, trying to finally get free. He tore at his trapped tail and Damian had to act before he would hurt himself. In a gentle voice, the boy spoke to his counterpart:

"Richard calm down, you need to calm down!"

But Dick didn't seem to hear him at all and continued to yank on his tail. Finally, Damian has had enough.

Loudly clapping his hands once, the boy shouted out: "Hey!" startling Richard and now turning his attention back to Damian.

Suspiciously, Dick again straightened his wings to appear larger and hissed menacingly at the Wayne heir.

However, the latter was not deterred by this. Damian sat down seemingly calm in front of the metal bars of the cage and carefully began unwrapping the burgers while softly talking down to his brother, always showing his actions clearly visible for Dick:

"I'm not sure if you like vegetarian burgers, because I promised Batcow not to consume meat anymore. But I guess with your hunger, it doesn't matter anymore."

Despite Damian's caution in unwrapping the food, the paper crackled seemingly too loudly once. One of Dick's wings shot off a hardened feather, hurtling toward the boy like a projectile. But he only pulled his head to the side, resulting in a small cut on his cheek and a feather stuck in the ground behind him.

Jonathan visibly tensed, considering the fact that this could have easily end in death of this stupid maniac. However, Damian pretended that nothing had happened.

Instead, the boy now held up one of the burgers and took a bite, while Dick continued to eye him suspiciously. With his mouth full, Damian spoke:

"See, that's something you can eat."

He gingerly placed the other burger between the cage bars and looked at Richard curiously for a few moments.

But when the latter made no move to come anywhere near the bun, Damian exhaled once, straining, before setting down his food, rising carefully again, and addressing the frightened Jon: "You've got to help me pull his tail out."

Disbelieving, Jonathan's eyes snapped open. He was clearly not thrilled about this idea:

"Are you out of your mind? As soon as that thing is out, he's going to kill us both!"

Unimpressed, however, Damian strode over to the feathered limb and carefully placed a hand on the hardened feathers. Again the boy received a warning growl and another feather-bullet from Dick. But as before, Damian dodged these in a controlled manner and then reprimanded Jon firmly:

"Now don't be such a sissy and come here! Before he trusts us, we have to show him that we trust him. He won't attack you as long as you don't do anything stupid and even if he did, his body is already so weak, that he can't keep up with your speed anymore. Even I can dodge him now. Come here slowly and bring the bag with you. But take off your cloak first. It makes you look bigger and therefore more dangerous."

Jonathan swallowed hard and visibly struggled with himself. However, he had inwardly made a promise to himself to help Damian. So the Kryptonian took the bag of burgers, removed his cape and carefully stepped towards the trapped tail before grabbing the body part together with Damian, adding: "I hate that you always keep talking me into stuff like this!"

Together they pulled hard on Dicks Tail. It was primarily due to Jon's strength that it finally emerged piece by piece, and in one final forceful act of pulling, was finally free again.

"Don't move."

Damian instructed Jon, careful so he won't irritate Dick right now. The latter pulled his body part back to him and wiggled it around examining his tail. Apparently to determine whether everything was still attached, before he now eyed the two boys curiously. There was no more hissing, the few sparks of blue lightning stopped, and only little of the aggressive tension remained.

Finally, after a few moments, he snorted once and then retreated to the back of the small cage, where he again curled up impassively into the familiar pile of feathers.

Damian exhaled in a relaxing manner before looking at Dick: "Apparently he has understood that we are no threat for him. Nevertheless, he still won't touch the food."

The boy now turned his head gravely to his partner: "I would advise you to avoid quick movements near him, though."

Jon wasn't sure what Damian was trying to say, because he certainly wasn't planning on seeking out his brother's company any further. But there he had made the calculation without this stubborn smartass.

Instead of retreating, like every normal being would do and being happy about this small success, Damian did the exact opposite. As a matter of course, the boy approached the cage and sat down in front of it, leaning his back against the metal bars. As if probably the most dangerous creature in the world wasn't just two meters behind him just now, the Wayne heir calmly began to pick up his burger again and continue eating.

Horrified, Jon inquired: "What are you doing?!"

Damian just rolled his eyes: "Well what do you think you light bulb, I'm eating lunch."

"But not there! What if he attacks you!"

"Like I said, we have to trust him. As long as we don't put too much pressure on him, he won't attack us. Look at him. Does he show aggression towards you? Now take the bag and get your butt over here."

Hesitantly, Jon stepped up next to Damian and looked uncertainly at Richard, who just lay there motionless. He didn't trust this whole situation at all!

Suddenly some feathers moved to the side and Jonathan's eyes met the piercing turquoise ones of his winged counterpart. A low growl was heard.

Immediately Damian pulled the boy to the ground with him:

"Stop staring at him! It only irritates him and increases pressure. Turn your back against the bars."

Shakily, Jon complied and sat against the cage like the older boy. Damian took the brown paper bag from his stiffened hands and handed him one of the other burgers inside it:

"Here, you should know how to heat these up by now."

Tense, Jonathan just looked stiff at the food offered to him:

"I don't know if I can eat anything right now."

But Damian, as usual, left no room for such behavior:

"Now don't be such a pussy. After all, you haven't had lunch yet either."

Annoyed, the older boy pushed the bun into the Half-kryptonian's hand and then just continued eating.

Hesitantly, Jon began peeling the burger from its wrapper and was about to start reheating it when both boys heard the feathers rustling behind them.

Calmly, Damian said:

"Don't move and don't you turn around." As Dick stepped behind them, making strange clacking noises.

Curious, he sniffed at what looked to him like strange creatures to determine what they ultimately were. He clearly saw that despite their similar appearance, they had little in common physically.

Jonathan was shaking like a leaf. He was so afraid of Richard and could not understand how Damian could remain so calm as the winged one's breath brushed across their necks.

Finally, Dick turned his attention to the burger at his feet and took it between his claws.

Both Damian and Jonathan drew in a startled breath as a sea of soft feathers nestled against their backs, sporadically tickling the exposed areas of their skin. Dick had lain down directly behind them and began to eat the offered food while munching.

Surprised, the two boys looked at each other before Jon remarked uncertainly: "W-what is he doing?"

The corners of Damian's mouth, however, slid upward triumphantly as he said:

"He's eating with us." And now leaned more against the warm soft feathers before continuing to eat his own burger.

Jonathan seemed visibly reassured by this. Although he was still skeptical about their safety, he now also warmed his lunch and began to eat.

It wasn't long, either, before the boy started a conversation with his mouth full, noting the soft feathers:

"He's so...fluffy. I can't even imagine how they're supposed to form some kind of armor."

Serenely, Damian swallowed his bite before replying:

"He can change the molecular structure of the feathers, making them both hard and soft. That's why he was able to turn them into Kryptonite with ease."

"Crazy...and you're just telling me this now?! I thought the kryptonite thing was a one-time thing!"

"What makes you think that? That's a really stupid assumption."

Jon ruffled his hair in the face of the fact that Richard was much more dangerous to him than he had initially thought:

"Oh I don't know, because he just hadn't been doing that all the hole time he's been here."

Jonathan held his head with one hand in frustration and closed his eyes strained before saying, "I'm really going to get killed someday because of you. It's like when we..."

Damian didn't listen, but just looked behind Jon in surprise, where something much more interesting was going on. A nasty grin befell his face.

While Jonathan was talking about his partner and how his questionable methods, Dick's tail slipped between the bars again. Unnoticed, the long feathers nestled around Jon's burger, which he held a little away from him in his agitation, and stole the food from the Half-kryptonian's loose grip, leaving only the wrapping paper behind.

The burger disappeared under the mass of feathers behind them and Damian heard Richard eating it.

"...And that's exactly why you should finally stop trying to kill me!" Jonathan finished, and was about to take a bite of his lunch when it struck him:

"Hey! Where did my burger go?"

Damian just pointed his thumb in Dick's direction in amusement:

"If you wouldn't talk so much and pay more attention to your surroundings, he wouldn't have stolen it from you."

Jon looked behind himself, befuddled, and heard only the soft munching sounds coming from under all these feathers, which testified to the fact that his burger was about to die. Exasperated, he looked back at Damian:

"Blala...surroundings...blala. You don't have to say that all the time. Man, I thought my family was already exhausting, but yours takes that on a whole new level. Are there still some more inside the bag?"

"I told you, you don't want to meet my them."

Damian reached into the bag beside him and handed Jonathan another burger, not giving a glance to the action that followed:

"You better watch out this time though, because Richard just stole the rest of them, too."

Surprised, Jon looked past Damian, where the known thief had just taken the entire bag and was now devouring everything inside it as well, accompanied by tearing paper:

"Man, he's really hungry."

Damian just shrugged his shoulders:

"What do you expect, he hasn't eaten anything over a week."

There was a brief moment of silence where the three just sat there quietly enjoying the burgers. However, Jon couldn't keep his mouth shut for long. Too many questions came to his mind:

"How old is your brother, anyway?"

Undeterred, Damian continued to eat and answered:

"He should be 130 years old now, but purely biologically he isn't older than 25."

Jonathan almost choked on his burger:

"What, really?! What does purely biological mean?"

"In the body of normal humans, the cells start to decay at about 25 years of age. You sort of age from that point on. But that's not the case with Grayson, which is why his body doesn't exceed that age in purely biological terms."

Suddenly Damian noticed how the old thief reappeared next to him. Under Jonathan's curious gaze, the Wayne heir groaned once and then said, playfully annoyed:

"Oh well, take it, I'm full anyway."

He held out his last burger scraps to the feathered tail, whereupon it grabbed them and disappeared back under the pile of feathers.

Jon only commented with:

"By the way, that you know how to trust someone is pretty unexpected."

Annoyed, Damian flicked Jon against the head and replied:

"You talk too much."

"And you too little."

Another short pause arose before Jonathan asked:

"What was he like?"

"What?"

"Well your brother, what was he like before all this happened?"

Damian considered for a moment before smirking and letting himself sink further back against the feathers:

"A hopeless romantic and the biggest faithless jerk I know."

And then Damian just started talking about himself and Dick. How he made him his Robin, how they were the best team together and what stupid ideas Richard always had and Jonathan wondered why his friend suddenly talked about it so openly. It was probably just due to the fact that his mood reached a new high now that he didn't have to worry about his brother starving and constantly rejecting him.

Since his long time together with Damian, Jon's face formed the widest smile so far.

Notes:

Actually the thing with Jon´s cat really happened in the comics. ᓚᘏᗢ

(￣▽￣)"