Chapter Text
“Good luck at school, nerds,” Jason says, in his customary saccharine, bitchy tone.
Drake flips him off. His second try at high school, following Bruce’s return, has been a sore subject for months now. The blow had been softened, barely, by the promise that he wouldn’t actually have to board at the school, but Drake is still mourning a loss of independence.
Damian would feel the same way, but he’s had longer to adjust. He was forced to give up the luxury of homeschooling in exchange for a normal teenage experience last year while Bruce was dead. His time boarding at Gotham Academy hadn’t lasted long, but he’s been readmitted as a commuter student with a promise that he’ll be on his “best behavior.”
“Maybe you should come with us,” Drake says, matching Jason’s energy. He looks pretty terrible, as do the rest of them--a result of patrol ending at five this morning and none of them getting more than two hours of sleep. “Dropout moment.”
“I died,” Jason says, “what’s your excuse?”
Damian, contained to the backseat and still bitter about the arrangement, rolls his eyes at both of his brothers and slides out onto the sidewalk in front of the school, pulling his backpack with him. As much as he wants to engage in the same childish conversation they have every single morning Jason drives them, Damian has better things to do. Namely, to be the first Wayne to get through both high school and college without giving up and fucking off.
“Look at little Damian,” Damian hears Jason saying as Damian leaves the car. “He’s so eager to learn. Why can’t you be more like him?”
“I hate you so much,” Drake says.
“Many children want to go to school so badly,” Jason starts, speaking with the dry mock-Bruce cadence that everyone has started to pick up to make fun of their father behind his back, “can you--”
Damian slams the door behind him so he doesn’t have to hear Jason’s voice anymore. He’s been working on taking deep breaths to curb the unspeakable violence that Drake and Jason inspire in him, but there’s only so much breathing he can do. If he sticks around much longer, the sharpened pencil in the side pocket of his backpack will finally be used for the shivving purpose he placed it there for.
Putting a physical barrier between him and his siblings immediately makes him feel better. The clawing, dried-out sensation of too little sleep that’s shrinking his brain lessens, or at least it’s easier to ignore it now that he’s not subjected to Drake’s whining. Damian starts towards the steps up into the main building, resigning himself to another first-period English class spent trying to keep himself awake.
Two steps up, and Damian suddenly feels like he’s being watched.
It’s not an uncommon feeling. On patrol, it’s a comfort to know that Oracle has eyes on him in case something goes wrong. In school, Damian can usually chalk it up to the fact that he shows up with weird injuries sometimes, ones that got child protective services called on Richard during the first few months of Damian’s time as Robin.
In a worst-case scenario, it’s some of the upperclassmen zeroing in on Damian as a target, though that’s become less common since Damian finally gave up on his demure act and broke one of their noses.
In a best-case scenario, it’s Talia paying a visit. Damian hasn’t seen her in a while.
Today, when that pinprickly feeling hits his neck, Damian turns his head and, still venturing up the steps, begins to scan the crowd around him. The rush of people is hard to get a read on, so Damian instead darts his gaze up to the roof of the nearest building--the gymnasium--so that he can rule out non-peer surveillance first.
He doesn’t see anyone. Another quick scan of his surroundings yields nothing. Despite himself, Damian feels hope unfurling in his heart, because a lack of evidence means it might be his mom. It’s her M.O. to appear when he’s at school, which is the only time when no Waynes are keeping a direct eye on him.
He checks his watch. If he hurries, he’ll be able to see her before school starts, and she won’t have to wait around for him to sneak out of some unimportant class.
This quick deduction means that he’s only just reached the front door of the school by the time he’s ready to start making a break for the gym roof, which is where he and Talia met last time. Damian moves with the flow of students going in through the front door, and then meanders sideways to gracefully extricate himself from the foot traffic, edging towards the exit door in the side hallway.
Damian has just left the entrance hallway when he hears Drake’s voice near his ear. “Where’re you going?”
Damian stiffens.
While he keeps most things as close to the vest as possible, Damian has taken extra-special care not to bring up his brief visits with Talia around his family. For some of his family members, talking about parental figures other than Bruce is a depressing affair. For others, they’re too predisposed to snitching for Damian to want to let anything slip. Add to that the fact that Damian doesn’t want to share Talia with anyone, and it’s a no-brainer.
Though, given his history of rebellious behavior, Drake might be understanding if Damian explained the situation in the right way.
…No, it’s too big of a risk.
“Class,” Damian says curtly, resuming his stride, now with the grim acceptance that he isn’t going to be able to lose Drake without bringing suspicion to himself.
Drake keeps pace with him. Damian’s just started a growth spurt, and he takes solace in the fact that soon, Drake will have a lot more trouble keeping up with him. “Really? I thought you had gym third period.”
“And I thought you had a meeting with your advisor before school,” Damian says coolly.
“Are you cutting class?”
“No. I’m not inclined to repeat your mistakes.”
Drake huffs. Maybe it’s an amused noise, but Damian doesn’t look over to check. More likely, Drake’s pissed off now, because everyone’s got a short temper today. Damian’s already sensing that this could become an argument soon and he himself might be the instigator, all because he wanted to see his mom and now he can’t and also his head is starting to hurt.
“Hey, Damian!” greets a different voice, and Damian gratefully looks towards the interruption. He finds two classmates, Maps and Olive, walking close together to hide the contraband EMF detector that Maps always has in one hand. Maps is the one who greeted him, beaming and sporting new purple bracelets to match the non-dress-code-appropriate socks that she’s wearing instead of the knee-high dark navy ones of the girls’ uniform. Olive, as always, is more reserved, but she has butterfly clips in her hair that aren’t exactly dress code-compliant either.
“Good morning,” Damian says, stepping away from Drake and reversing directions, attaching himself to his friends and ditching his brother in one movement. “Are there any readings today?”
“None at all,” Maps says, and sighs. “We’re going to the East wing, do you want to come?”
Damian nods, falling into step. Olive and Maps don’t miss a beat, continuing to walk and sweeping Damian along with them as they head towards the second-floor classroom where their English class is.
“Bye, Dami,” Drake calls, sounding a little too pleased with himself, as if it’s his responsibility to make sure Damian goes to class instead of sneaking around outside in his free time.
Damian ignores him. He ignores the look that Maps and Olive exchange, too. He’s never asked for their judgment on his familial relationships.
Even exhausted and sore from patrol, Damian runs a six-minute mile, wanting to get it over with. It usually works out that the mile takes the entire class, so he crosses the finish with a plan to sneak away from class early, having finished his one task.
He has immense respect for the students who walk the entire way, clocking in around nineteen minutes on average and taking up the bulk of the period, because it lets Damian sidle up next to his teacher and ask, “Ms. Contreras?”
“What’s up, Wayne,” she says, not looking away from where she’s holding her stopwatch to the clipboard with one thumb, scrawling down someone’s time with the other hand.
“Since I’m done, can I go to the library for the rest of class? I have a test later.”
Ms. Contreras finally gives him a look, brief and assessing, but Damian already knows she doesn’t give a shit. Also, she’s on his side automatically because Jason was one of her favorite students of all time. “...Yeah, sure. There are yellow slips on my desk if you want to take one.”
“Thank you,” Damian says, and then turns and jogs back towards the locker room.
“Wait, can I go too?” he hears a classmate whine.
“Take another lap, Shaw,” Ms. Contreras responds, amusement warming her voice. “You only did three.”
“Aw, come on!”
Damian pushes through the metal doors of the gym and, a few steps later, the wooden one into the old locker room. It’s empty and completely silent, but that’s more comforting than the alternative. Damian makes short work of changing out of his gym uniform, and then gathers his things, slings his backpack onto his back, and steals towards the back of the locker room to find the flight of stairs leading to the storage loft.
The door’s locked, but Damian learned a long time ago by eavesdropping on a couple of upperclassmen that the lock is so shitty that the door can be easily kicked open. When the locker room is occupied, it’s a dead giveaway that someone’s doing such a thing, but it’s an open secret. Judging by the smell, students have been coming up here during class to smoke weed for at least a couple decades.
Today, though, Damian’s just here to pass through the stuffy storage area to get to the ladder at the back wall. It goes up to the roof access hatch, which is usually unlocked because of the shitty state of the ladder dissuading students from using it.
Damian casts a glance around at the stacks of dusty cardboard boxes, filled with old equipment and obsolete sports team uniforms. Nobody’s up here, so it’s safe for Damian to pull the door shut behind him with a grinding noise, then dart across the floor and leap up to the bottom rung of the rusty ladder, which hangs several feet off the ground.
He grunts as he pulls himself up, aggravating the shoulder that’s been sensitive for a couple of months since it was dislocated. Wincing, he plants one foot on the rung and he uses that to push himself upwards instead, giving his arms a break.
After making quick work of the ladder, Damian presses his palm to the roof hatch and swings it open, letting it hit the roof with a clatter. He hoists himself out and carefully shuts the hatch behind him, and then turns his attention to the roof around him.
It lies abandoned. Damian keeps low, taking careful steps around the HVAC units and other protuberances on the roof. He won’t be caught off-guard, especially not when he needs to keep his uniform pristine.
His first search finds absolutely nobody up here. Damian frowns, straightening and casting a quick glance around him. Since being out on the roof, he hasn’t felt like anyone’s got eyes on him, which would suggest she’s somewhere else entirely.
“Mother?” Damian whisper-shouts, to make a last-ditch attempt at contacting her before he has to leave. “I have other things to be doing.”
Nothing but the wind answers him. Several dry leaves rustle by, tumbling over themselves and catching on the rough surface of the roof.
Strange. He and Talia have almost established a routine, meeting here, but something has changed this time.
Frowning, Damian cuts across the roof, finding the ladder that will let him down onto the top of a shed. He shimmies down and drops from the shed roof to the ground, finding a safe landing in some dying old grass, and straightens his knees.
When he turns his head to orient himself, remembering that he needs to make an appearance in the library before the bell rings, he finds that his descent from the roof hasn’t gone unobserved. A group of four students are camped out behind the shed, in a loose circle with a bottle of something, and all of them are staring at Damian.
“Hello,” Damian says.
One of them gives him a nod of respect. Two of them lose interest and return to carefully pouring vodka into a plastic water bottle. The fourth says, “Sick, man.”
Damian turns and strikes out across the back access road that runs behind the main building. He’ll get to the library and formulate a new plan to find his mother when he gets there.
If he wasn’t out of unexcused absences, Damian would cut the rest of his classes to comb the campus for Talia. Last time, she’d chided him for being too slow to catch up with her, so he doesn’t know if that means she’ll be more or less irritated with him this time, if he isn’t better.
Either way, he’s failed. Damian slips into the library and makes sure the librarian sees him there so he has an alibi, and then he finds a back table and pulls out trigonometry worksheets to stare blankly at while he thinks of other places he could check.
When the final bell rings, Damian tells his friends that he needs to meet with a teacher, excusing himself from walking with them to the loop in front where the three of them will be picked up by their families. Olive nods, already walking away from Damian, but Maps gives him a smile and a promise that she’ll text later before turning and beginning to talk to Olive at four hundred miles an hour.
Damian turns and moves in the opposite direction of the flow of traffic, keeping close to the lockers and trying to remain unnoticed. Getting onto the roof of the main building unnoticed will be difficult right now, so he’ll settle for checking out the perimeter of the campus first.
He leaves the building he’s in and makes a break across the courtyard towards the high school building, which is taller than the middle school and second in height to the shared building-slash-main office. It’s also the building with the easiest roof access, given the gratuitous gothic stylings.
The halls in this building are more difficult to navigate, and not just because of the confusing century-old architecture. High school students are much, much taller than his peers on average. Damian’s growing fast but he still sticks out, with the stripes on the shoulders of his uniform telling everyone he’s only in seventh grade.
As he turns the last corner before the back exit, someone shoulder-checks him into a locker. Damian’s shoulder bangs into the metal, the sore spot shrieking in protest. He stumbles, clamping down on his instinct to nerve-strike the classmate’s arm. Ignoring them is better than escalating, especially considering the number of strikes Damian already has this year.
“Hey, freak, you lost?” the student says--probably someone that Damian was well-acquainted with last year, but Damian doesn’t bother double-checking. It doesn’t really matter which one of the students who used to torment Damian it is, they’re all equally unworthy of Damian’s time.
Determined not to be waylaid, Damian darts forward, weaving through the crowd, and lets the busy traffic in the hallway pull him away from the altercation.
“Watch your back,” he hears the same voice call after him, a threat that pales in comparison to the human trafficker who held a knife to Damian’s neck less than twelve hours ago. Damian shakes off the words easily, refocusing on finding the door to the fire exit stairwell of this building.
Besides that unpleasant encounter, Damian’s left alone. He passes by a couple clumps of students, all carrying varied black instrument cases because this back hallway is home to the band room. None of them pay him any mind, particularly because one student is drinking soy sauce out of tiny packets while another times him with the stopwatch on their phone. It’s certainly one way to spend one’s time.
Damian’s hand finds the handle of the stairwell door. He pushes down, finding it unlocked, but his relief doesn’t last long.
“Excuse me,” says a voice that definitely belongs to an adult.
Damian pulls his hand from the handle and turns around, trying hard not to look guilty or suspicious. He’s been discovered by the band director, who’s frowning at him.
“Students aren’t supposed to be back here. What’re you up to?”
Damian swallows and, in a split-second, comes up with a lie. “I--I think I’m lost. Sorry, I didn’t know I’m not supposed to use these stairs.”
The suspicion on him doesn’t lessen. “There’s a sign on the door that says ‘staff only’.”
Damian stubbornly juts out his chin, not backing down. “I’m trying to find Mr. Hahn’s room, to talk to him about AP Lang.”
“You look a little young to be worrying about AP classes.”
“I’m planning ahead.”
“Sure. Well, I’ll let you off with a warning, but I’d better not see you back here again.” The band teacher keeps his narrowed eyes on Damian, unrelenting. “Hahn’s office is on the second floor, there’s a big sign about debate club next to his door.”
“Thank you,” Damian says. He strides forward, skirting the teacher and heading back the way he came. He’ll have to find a different route up to the roof.
“Take it easy,” the teacher says. Then his focus shifts, and as Damian retreats, he hears, “Keely, I’ve told you a thousand times not to drink soy sauce out here.”
“I’m going for the world record!”
“Please take it outside.”
The teacher’s tone has shifted to something playful and amused as soon as he was done speaking with Damian. It’s a theme around here, at least with teachers who don’t know that he’s Bruce Wayne’s kid. The teachers who do know are kiss-asses that drive Damian insane in the opposite direction, giving him false praise instead of veiled suspicion.
Damian hangs a left and emerges back out into the crisp air outside to begin a quick perimeter check.
His search is completely fruitless. Damian has just begun to doubt that he’s being watched at all when he feels that unmistakable feeling again, the trickling, cold sensation on the back of his neck. He’s made it all the way back around to the front of the science building by now, near the front office, and he turns his head sharply to the left, to the right, to the sky around him as he tries to catch his tail unawares.
He sees nobody. God damn it, Damian’s wasted a lot of time running around the school.
“There you are,” says an irritated voice, and Damian pulls his attention back to earth to find Drake stalking towards him, his face all crinkled with annoyance. “Where the hell were you?”
“Mind your own business,” Damian says with a scowl.
Drake grabs his arm and yanks Damian after him, reversing his path to return to the pickup loop. “I have a WE meeting today and I need to be home now.”
Nobody’s forcing Drake to continue to work at their father’s company. Damian’s pretty sure he’s only doing it so he has something to complain about. Either way, Damian doesn’t have the energy to make this into a full argument. He wrenches his arm out of Drake’s hold and begrudgingly follows his brother back to where Jason’s car is idling by the curb.
Drake chucks his backpack onto the floor in front of the passenger’s seat and drops in after it. Damian opens the back door and hoists himself inside, very aware that the eyes on him haven’t lost their line of sight and he’s missing an excellent opportunity to identify where they’re watching him from.
“What were you even doing?” Jason asks from the driver’s seat. He looks much better than he did this morning. It was a bad pain day for him, but some of that appears to have eased up by now. “Were you trying to make friends with the dumpster cats again?”
“He was just wandering around,” Drake grouses without looking up from the message he’s tapping out on his phone.
Jason snorts and shoots a weird look at Damian in the rearview mirror, and then shakes his head and shifts gears and peels out of the pickup lane. He cuts another driver off to get out onto the main road before them, and appears to take immense pleasure in the parent honking at him in anger.
Refusing to either explain or defend himself, Damian just slumps onto his seat and crosses his arms, staring out his window. Even if he asked them to wait for what he thinks is an important delay, they wouldn’t listen to him.
That afternoon, Damian is trapped into working on his homework because he already blew it off last night to work on a case with his father. He falls asleep on his math worksheets, face pressed into the dining table, and is woken up when Alfred needs him to move so that he can set the table.
“Long day?” Alfred asks, running a hand over Damian’s hair.
Damian nods, tolerating the touch. He rubs his eyes and looks down at the spot of drool on his notes. He’d overestimated his ability to stay focused and alert, and now he’s missed out on the few hours’ worth of time he could have dedicated to sneaking off of the estate to find out where Talia is.
“Will you help me set the table?”
Damian pushes his worksheets into their folder and closes his notebook, acquiescing to the request nonverbally because he’s too groggy to remember how to use his words.
Dinner is quiet. Bruce and Drake are still in a video conference meeting, Alfred disappears to take care of something that’s not his grandsons, and Jason’s pain makes him too sleepy and surly to chat. Nobody else is in the Manor this week. It almost feels lonely, with Damian and Jason sitting in tired silence over plates of puttanesca.
Afterwards, when their plates are cleared and the food is put away, Damian finally gets his chance to escape. Jason retreats to the Cave, so Damian puts on a coat and his shoes and slips out the back door with Titus, making a break for the perimeter of the grounds before anyone can demand anything of him.
This late into autumn, it’s already very dark at this time of early evening. He won’t be able to get far if he wants to get back before Bruce and Drake finish their meeting, but if Talia wants to meet him then she’ll probably be fairly close to the property line.
Titus trots along, running ahead and then doubling back, doing erratic circles around Damian as Damian strikes a determined straight line towards the wooden fence in the distance.
Two minutes later, Damian’s at the fence, peering into the copse of trees that blocks the line of sight between their grounds and their neighbors’ house. It’s so quiet here that Damian would probably be able to hear any sort of intruder rustling around, but Talia is notorious for her stealth abilities so that’s not necessarily applicable here.
He walks along the fence for a while, ears and eyes peeled for any disturbance. Titus snuffles around, taking interest in crunching his paws down on scattered leaves, not at all giving off the impression that he’s heard anyone trespassing.
“Titus,” Damian says, and the dog looks up at him with big trusting eyes, “do you think I’m being desperate?”
Titus cocks his head. Damian sighs and stoops down to pick up a stick, which he throws as hard as he can back towards the house. He throws it without looking, and the stick whizzes towards an imposing figure that has appeared out of nowhere.
Ice freezes his blood, and Damian shouts a warning. His father has already dodged out of the way, and has turned his head back to give Damian an unimpressed look. Titus tears past him, almost a blur, in pursuit of the stick that could have caused serious injury to Bruce.
“Sorry,” Damian says, straightening and brushing off his palms on his jeans. He tries to determine whether or not he’s acting suspiciously--it’s not abnormal for him to take Titus for walks, but it’s pretty late in the evening and it’s very cold outside. Damian’s known for avoiding cold weather by burrowing as deep into his room as he can go. Bruce might question his intentions here.
“Shouldn’t have snuck up on you,” Bruce says, as he jogs closer. Considering how far he had to come to reach Damian’s location, Damian’s really not as aware of his surroundings as he thought he was. If he didn’t even notice Bruce’s approach, Talia could have easily evaded his search earlier. “How was school, bud?”
Damian stands still, watching Bruce approach with a not-insignificant flare of apprehension. There must have been something that prompted this questioning--Bruce doesn’t ask this very often, and the last time he’d inquired, it had been following Damian getting caught skipping his science class.
(That had started all fake-nice like this too, and Damian had been so relieved that Bruce actually wanted to talk to him that he’d fallen for it hook, line, and sinker.)
He should at least play along a little bit, though.
There are a number of things he could mention--Olive figuring out a glitch in her game that let her skip over repetitive dungeon puzzles, or Maps mentioning-slash-threatening the upcoming dance that she was helping to plan, or Damian scoring a ninety on the math test he wasn’t certain about. He knows that Richard would have no issue chatting about these things, even if they seemed unimportant. It just feels like so much effort to express all of these things, when his father might not even recognize how they made Damian feel.
The real thing that he should mention is that Talia is back in Gotham. Bringing her up is risky, though, with Bruce. Sometimes it’s fine, and Bruce gets a look on his face like he’s remembering better times. Other times, it just makes Bruce distant and vaguely furious. It’s confusing.
“It was fine,” Damian finally says. He sees Titus retrieve the stick and double back, running full speed.
“Just fine?” Bruce asks.
Does he know something? Damian keeps his expression schooled, neutral. It’s normal that he can’t look Bruce in the eye, he reminds himself. Bruce has never gotten mad at Damian for avoiding eye contact. It’s only Damian’s teachers who scold him for that.
Titus passes Bruce at too close of a proximity. The stick hanging out of his mouth clips the back of Bruce’s knee, and Bruce staggers to the side as his knee buckles in surprise.
“Good boy,” Damian says, stooping to cup Titus’s head between his hands, scratching under his ears.
Titus refuses to relinquish the stick, but closes his eyes in contentment at the scratches.
Bruce has regained his balance. Damian glances up at his father’s faintly disgruntled expression, and sees that he’s still expected to respond to Bruce’s inquiry.
“There’s a dance at the end of the month,” Damian says. He would rather die than go, but he would also rather go than disappoint Maps, so, “Would I be able to go?”
Bruce says diplomatically, “Let me think about it.”
It’s a probable no, but that’s at least better than a flat-out denial.
“I understand,” Damian says. “Did you come out here to talk about something?”
“Oh. Yes, actually.” Bruce clears his throat. Though he didn’t look particularly content before, he now looks actively uncomfortable. Damian’s getting better at distinguishing the subtle changes in his father’s posture--part of that is thanks to Richard quietly narrating Bruce’s idle behaviors like he’s the subject of a nature documentary, giving Damian a reference guide for what the hell Bruce is thinking, so Damian doesn’t catastrophize things and convince himself that he’s about to be punished for breaking some obscure rule.
Right now, Bruce has his hands pushed into his pockets, his shoulders taut, his face frozen in-between a resting glare and a polite smile. He looks like he’s holding in a cough, sort of.
(Last time he looked like this, Richard had yanked Damian over to where Richard was perched on a stool behind the kitchen counter and he’d trapped Damian with an arm around the waist and whispered, loud enough for Bruce to overhear, “Here we see a Brucie Wayne attempting to broach the subject of his son’s most recent breakup, because he was told he has to at least acknowledge it or he’s an inattentive father. He will find a way to express his disbelief that Tim ever dated the guy in the first place.”
Bruce had looked like he wanted to drown Richard in acid. Drake had sunk lower behind his laptop, face burning bright red. Richard had laughed his head off, and Damian had tried to memorize the feeling of being on this side of an inside joke, and made no attempt to hide his gleeful smile.)
Damian has absolutely not been the subject of any breakup recently. Based on his experience from last time, though, it’s safe to assume that Bruce is going to jump into an uncomfortable conversation, possibly one involving personal feelings that he or Damian won’t want to address.
Richard isn’t here to deflect the conversation, or even to absorb the brunt of the emotions for himself. Damian’s on his own. Besides Titus, who might be convinced to speak up on Damian’s behalf if Damian plays his cards right.
“Are things alright at school?” Bruce asks.
Damian immediately feels defensive.
Things are alright now --Bruce is asking about a year too late. Damian has friends this year, after all, and he’s not skipping classes for no reason anymore, and he’s not hiding from specific classmates during lunch. Given his improvement in social standing, something must have prompted this inquiry. Either one of Damian’s siblings, or one of Damian’s teachers.
The only teacher who would have grounds to be angry with him would be Ms. Contreras, and she didn’t see Damian sneak up onto the roof. Jason knows how to mind his own business, which only leaves Drake.
Ugh, of course it was Drake. He takes after Bruce in the most irritating ways possible.
“Yes,” Damian says, watching Bruce dubiously. He straightens his knees, and Titus trots off to bury his stick somewhere. “Things are fine.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“You can talk to me if something’s wrong.”
“I know.”
“Good,” Bruce says. He slumps with relief. For now, the interrogation is over. “Well, good. It’s cold out.”
Damian nods. The wind has been nipping at his cheeks and nose for a while, and his ears are hurting from the chill. Now that Bruce is keeping a closer eye on him, there’s little chance of Damian having any sort of secret meeting with Talia tonight.
“I was just headed back,” Damian says. He begins to walk towards the kitchen door, and Bruce matches his pace.
After a few seconds of walking in companionable quiet, Damian turns his head to call Titus. He sees the dog standing stock-still, looking at something through the fence.
Following Titus’s gaze, Damian sees movement in the trees outside the property line. It’s too dark for Damian to make out any distinguishing features, but Damian would put money on the fact that it’s a person. Someone had been hidden mere feet from where Damian was standing, and now they’re slipping away.
Damian wants to call out for his mom. He wants to see her, and he wants to make sure that she’s alright. Mostly, he wants a fleeting hug from her, because Richard’s in Blüdhaven and Damian’s feeling deprived. Though she might come out intent to strangle him, at least someone would be touching him.
The last time Talia and Bruce saw each other, they didn’t part on good terms. Damian doubts that things would end peacefully between them.
“Titus,” Damian says, his voice not betraying a thing.
The shape in the trees is gone too quickly for Titus to think of her as a threat. The dog turns and bounds towards Damian promptly, leaving no reason for even Bruce to notice that anything’s wrong.
They walk back towards the house. Damian doesn’t let himself look back over his shoulder, but he’s certain that there are eyes on the back of his neck as he gets further and further from the fence.
The next day at school, Drake drives the two of them. It’s even less pleasant than being driven by Jason, because Drake insists on stopping for coffee but refuses to leave earlier, so the two of them swing into the student parking lot at the same time as the first bell.
It leaves Damian with no time to scout out the campus. He slides out of the passenger seat and slams the door hard enough to make Drake shout at him. Damian doesn’t stop and engage, he just storms across the parking lot towards English.
As soon as he leaves the parking lot, Damian feels eyes on him. During the forty-five seconds’ worth of time between Drake’s car and the back entrance of the correct building, he debates with himself whether or not he should cut class to find Talia and put the issue to rest.
It seems that the universe is mocking him. It’s comical enough that Damian momentarily entertains the theory that Jon’s reading his mind and orchestrating obstacles for him on purpose, even though he knows Jon’s off-world for the foreseeable future. No matter whose fault it is, as soon as Damian decides to ditch class, and is formulating a plan to remain unseen by any and all hall monitors, one of Damian’s classmates calls, “Damian, hi!”
Damian turns his head and finds Amala, who’s in English with him. She’s the student who rounds out the table where Damian, Maps, and Olive sit together, and she’s a good sport about being a fourth wheel. If Damian’s remembering correctly, the two of them are going to be starting a project together later this week.
He greets her with a nod, unsure why she’s flagged him down. He at least manages to hide his annoyance at his plans being disrupted, which shows immense personal growth.
“Did you check your grade for the Tuck Everlasting paper?” Amala asks, as the two of them squeeze through the door side-by-side. The doors of the middle school are the same size as the ones on the building hosting the high-school classrooms, but they seem so much bigger in practice. Maybe that’s because high schoolers seem to delight in knocking past Damian in the doorways, while Amala at least seems content to share her lane.
“No,” Damian says, honestly. It’d slipped his mind entirely. “Did you do well?”
“Oh, I didn’t check either,” Amala says. “Wait, lemme show you this Tik Tok.” She pulls her phone out and abandons the previous thread of conversation easily, a skill that Damian severely envies. A beaded charm swings around from the top of her phone like she’s wielding a chain mace. “It reminded me of you.”
The doors shut behind them, the click of the lock reminding Damian he won’t have a chance to escape until lunchtime, at least. Somehow, the annoyance is soothed by the reminder that his friend had thought of him when he wasn’t around.
At lunch, Damian shakes his friends off with a lie about meeting with a teacher and slips out of the cafeteria. He manages half a perimeter check. Then, as he’s nearing the greenhouses behind the science building, wondering if maybe Talia’s hiding back there out of sight of most of the windows, the intercom crackles to life.
“Attention please,” the vice principal says, voice bouncing off of the concrete and glass around Damian, “we are going into a lockdown until further notice. There is an intruder on campus. Staff, please follow emergency procedures at this time.”
Damian stops short, taken off-guard.
Given that Gotham Academy is the school with the highest family income on average in Gotham, it’s not uncommon for the school to be a target for ne’er-do-wells. Since Damian’s been attending, he’s gone into lockdown no less than nine times, two of which led to an evacuation and partial or total destruction of the campus. That’s part of what makes a good attendance record at GA look so attractive on college applications--it shows a student is willing to suffer life and limb to take even the most inconsequential geometry quiz. That’s dedication that most other students wouldn’t be able to demonstrate.
The vice principal repeats the emergency announcement. This time, he tacks on a short description at the end: “We’re looking for a six-foot white male in a green overcoat, seen near the gymnasium. He does not appear to be armed.”
Something in Damian deflates. He’d hoped it would be Talia, though it makes sense that she wouldn’t have let herself be spotted by anyone.
One of the back doors of the science building swings open, and Damian sees a teacher inside, waving him forward. Damian darts over, obedient, and is swept into the nearest classroom. The teacher must have seen him wandering outside.
“Keep quiet, bud. It’ll be over soon,” the teacher says, giving Damian a brief, reassuring smile that she clearly doesn’t feel like giving.
Damian nods, wanting to make things a little less stressful for her, and turns to where her class is huddled on the floor underneath the windows set high in the ceiling.
He’s ended up in one of the labs, with several small counters scattered throughout. Someone left a Bunsen burner going; Damian switches it off as he crouches low and continues his path.
The first few students he sees look much older than he was expecting. They’re at least juniors, if not seniors. Most of them still have goggles on, and they look weirded out by Damian suddenly appearing. Based on the subject and on the age group, that means that…
“Damian?” Drake hisses, irate from where he’s folded into a corner behind one of the counters.
Great.
With a sigh, Damian plops down on the floor next to his brother. “Keep your voice down,” he grumbles.
They’re far from the only people talking. The older that students get, the less seriously they take lockdowns like this. Most of Drake’s classmates are scrolling on their phones, and a couple clumps of them are giggling or shaking with silent laughter at some inside joke that’s only made funnier by the fact that they aren’t supposed to be making any noise.
“Yeah, Tim, shut the fuck up,” one of Drake’s friends whispers, teasing.
Damian leans against the counter behind him, warily regarding Drake and the two friends sitting in a small circle with him. One of them has short-shaved whitish blond hair, and could uncharitably be described as looking like a hot dog. The other one, the one who had shushed Drake, is a short girl with dark hair and severe eyebrows.
“Are you guys…?” the hot dog begins to ask, confused.
“He’s my brother,” Drake says, like he’s mortified to have to admit it.
Damian crosses his arms and looks towards the teacher, who’s taken shelter now as well and looks as though she’s mustering up the courage needed to shush a bunch of seniors who fear neither God nor death.
“What grade are you, Damian?” asks the girl.
“Seventh,” Damian says.
“Sweet,” she says. “Well, my name’s Ariana.”
“Ives,” says the hot dog, gesturing to himself.
“Okay,” Damian says, not sure what else to say. He doesn’t like the way Drake looks ready to kill Damian right now--does Drake really think Damian is going to embarrass him any more than Drake already embarrasses himself?
“Wait,” Ariana says, “do you know Allison Price? She’s in your year.”
Damian knows the name, but it takes him another second to put it to the proper face. Allison is the daughter of one of the couples that shows up to almost all of the same charity events that Bruce drags his children along to. “Yes. Why?”
“Have you heard anything?” Ariana cocks her head.
Drake is giving Damian an even more intense look than before, now, almost imperceptibly shaking his head. It’s now that Damian remembers hearing Allison’s name in reference to one of Drake’s open cases. Something happened to her-- what was it?
“No,” Damian says. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Ariana says, reluctantly letting the subject go. “I just heard that she was last seen on campus.”
Oh. Right, she’s missing. Drake’s investigating her disappearance, and it seems to be going poorly, if the guilty look on his face is anything to go off of.
Ariana continues, eyes wide, “Just a little scary that nobody is saying anything about it, right?”
“Right,” Ives says. “Usually we at least get time off of school.”
“You’re terrible!” Ariana says, laughing far too loudly.
“Shh,” says Drake’s teacher.
Ariana and Ives both mutter a half-sincere sorry and calm themselves down.
“Do you want to join AP Chem?” Ives whispers a moment later, when the teacher is no longer looking their way. “We need a fourth member for our lab group.”
“We’re asking Peter, remember?” Drake interjects.
“I can replace Drake,” Damian offers, peeved even though he knows the invitation was offered in jest. “My hands aren’t shaky like his, because I don’t use cocaine.”
Ariana laughs suddenly, loudly. Ives claps a hand over his own mouth to stifle a similar outburst.
“Dzerchenko, Ives,” the teacher scolds, “keep it down, please.”
“Sorry,” Ives and Ariana chorus.
When the other students have stopped paying attention to their little group again, Drake whispers, “I’m not on coke.”
Damian knows this. Still, he wonders when Drake’s routine of seven shots of espresso starts being a less healthy alternative to more illegal stimulants.
Continuing to be irritated by the way Ives and Ariana seem to think Damian is funny, Drake nudges Damian’s leg with his foot and asks, “Why were you wandering around there anyway? Don’t you have class?”
“I was at lunch,” Damian says.
Drake frowns. “So you were wandering around without eating?”
Damian doesn’t have a non-incriminating answer to that. Judging by the look on Drake’s face, this is another cause for concern that he’ll mention to their father in passing, and if Bruce feels like he can’t get through to Damian, then Richard will be informed as well.
This is all getting so complicated. It doesn’t make sense why Drake is suddenly concerned with Damian’s health, either. Damian just wants his mom.
“I was going to eat after I saw the cats,” Damian says, because bringing up the dumpster cats is a foolproof way to get the conversation to derail.
Sure enough, Ariana says, “Oh my god, what cats?” and Damian’s able to segue away from anything that could make his family worried about him by pulling out his phone to find some pictures.
Still, after the lockdown lifts, Drake palms him a protein bar. Damian looks at the snack distrustfully, not sure why Drake is acting so overbearing.
“It was nice to meet you,” Ariana says, all genuine.
“Come back anytime,” Ives adds.
“Go to class,” Drake says, cranky that Damian is far more enjoyable as company than Drake will ever be.
Damian turns and leaves, shoving the protein bar into his backpack as he goes. The teacher gives him a smile, more certain of herself now that the threat has passed.
Behind his back, Damian hears Ives whisper, “Tim, why didn’t I know you had a baby brother?” and Ariana chimes in, “Yeah, he’s such a little cutie!”
“Ew,” Drake responds, a sentiment which Damian internally echoes as he pushes through the door and escapes into the hallway.
After school, Damian doesn’t even bother looking for Talia. Drake is already on his case, and Damian can’t afford to arouse more suspicion. He goes straight to Drake’s car and rides home in silence and then retreats to his room to play Roblox until people in his family stop being so invasive.
That night, when Drake’s nosiness still hasn’t abated, Damian makes a drastic decision to skip out on patrol. Drake won’t be able to monitor him if he’s not here, and Damian’s waited long enough to meet with Talia.
Cassandra must know that he’s lying when he makes up an art contest he wants to submit to. His excuse of needing more time for schoolwork had been flimsy, so he beefed it up with an extra commitment--and Cassandra covers for him without him even needing to ask.
“His work is pretty,” she says out of nowhere, coming to Damian’s aid when he needs it most.
“It sounds important to finish, then,” Bruce says. With the Cassandra endorsement, Damian’s lie is left unchallenged. “I’d love to see it when it’s done.”
…Shit, maybe there is a catch in Cassandra’s seemingly benevolent help. Damian’s going to have to produce some piece of art that he’s worked on tonight, to back up his lie.
“Sure, maybe,” Damian mumbles. He focuses on his noodles, after that, and keeps his mouth shut so he doesn’t say any more bullshit.
It’s not enjoyable to miss out on patrol, because he’s already the only Robin who’s ever had a bedtime and even pretending like he’s not on top of his schoolwork and hobbies is humiliating. Some sacrifices are necessary, though. One of those sacrifices is the fact that, later tonight, he will be spending a harried forty-five minutes creating a subpar acrylic painting of Titus that’s nowhere near his personal standard. And he will have to show that to Bruce, and Bruce will have to make up some lies about how good it is because he's been trying so hard recently to be a normal, emotionally available father.
As soon as the Batmobile has left the Cave, Damian shuts himself in his room, turns on the least conspicuous study music he can think of, and slides out his window. Alfred’s standing in for Oracle tonight, so he won’t leave the Cave for a few more hours.
It’s bitingly cold outside, still ten degrees above freezing but nowhere near comfortable. Damian has three layers on, but his face still takes the brunt of the wind. When his feet are on the ground, he zips up his coat, pulls up his hood, and begins his escape from the estate.
Keeping low and out of sight of the security cameras, Damian skirts the house, bolts through the garden behind the high hedges, slips around the back wall, and reaches the service road that loops around the grounds towards the road out front of the Manor.
Talia had come awfully close to the property line yesterday. Damian’s sure that she’s not far away tonight--and when he emerges on the street in front of Wayne Manor’s front gate, shivering and retreating further into his coat, his suspicion is proved correct. As soon as his feet leave the Wayne property, eyes land back on him.
Damian looks up and down the sidewalk. The late-evening traffic isn’t exactly heavy, and the foot traffic is even lighter--besides one man with his dog, who Damian is pretty sure is one of their neighbors, Damian doesn’t see anyone.
Shoving his hands deep into his pockets, Damian starts walking. He keeps his pace as casual as he can. He’s very aware that walking around alone at night in Gotham, without telling anyone where he went, is in the top ten stupidest things he’s ever done.
He walks for a while, hoping that Talia will just come out and start walking with him once he gets far enough from his home. Even as the houses get closer together and start being interspersed with businesses, though, she doesn’t come out.
Damian continues to feel the creeping, paranoid feeling of being tailed. He checks around corners and tries to shake her out of her pursuit, but nothing works.
He must be missing something. There has to be something she’s trying to teach him.
As he hits the block that designates the unofficial start of the actual city, not just satellite neighborhoods and suburbs, Damian slows down. It’s been half an hour, and Damian is no closer to understanding what’s going on. What he is getting closer to is a death by hypothermia. Damian’s fingers are going to fall off. He should’ve worn gloves.
Sighing, seeing his breath puff out in the air in front of him, Damian ups the danger level and turns off the main sidewalk into an alley he knows is narrow and dark. It’s perfect for a meeting if Talia wants to actually talk, and if she doesn’t show up here, then Damian will give up for the evening so Alfred doesn’t find his room empty.
“Mother,” Damian says, into the sharp, dim air. He turns in a neat circle, glancing at both ends of the alley and then to the rooftops sandwiching him. “I have other priorities. Say your piece or leave me alone.”
No response comes, save for a rustling of some discarded plastic bags. Damian sighs, tosses the trash into the nearest dumpster, and then turns to leave.
Most Gothamites know to mind their business, but it appears that some still don’t. Damian feels eyes on him that are closer than before, and he turns to see a man on the sidewalk, no longer walking past, staring at Damian directly. A wannabe Good Samaritan, seeing Damian as one of Gotham’s approximately nine thousand homeless youth.
The man lifts an arm clothed by an ugly green overcoat and waves.
Damian sneers, turns around, and runs in the other direction.
A night of confusing dreams plagues Damian. He doesn’t remember much except for the potent, sickening feeling of abandonment that still lingers once he’s awake. This does little for his overall mood.
Luckily for him, none of his family members seem to have much joie de vivre today, either.
Patrol appears to have been brutal. Drake has forsaken his breakfast entirely in favor of resting his head on the kitchen table to catch a few more minutes of sleep. Cassandra’s eyes are still mostly closed; she appears to be operating mostly on echolocation. Jason and Stephanie are both present, meaning they’d been too tired or injured to go to their own places last night. Bruce looks more or less the same as he always does. He has a thousand-yard stare and a Lilo and Stitch band-aid on his brow. When Damian enters the room, he gives a vague nod, which is the Bruce equivalent of an effusive good morning my dearest son.
Duke’s wide awake and he’s the only one functional enough to give Damian a wave of greeting. His plate is nearly empty; there are about ten minutes between now and the time when Duke usually leaves the house.
“G’morning,” Duke says. He points to the spot next to him, left unoccupied. There’s a plate of food waiting for Damian, piled with what looks like some kind of scramble situation.
“Morning,” Damian responds, yawning wide enough to make his eyes water. He drops onto the seat that’s been indicated to him.
“I haven’t seen much of you this week,” Duke says. “Glad you’re still kicking.”
It’s difficult to reliably see Duke, now that Duke’s on day patrol and also working evenings at Leslie’s clinic. With the world ending, un-ending, and then re-ending a couple times a few months ago, things are just calming down and Duke’s only recently gotten back from space.
“You as well,” Damian says, before giving his breakfast a closer look. It’s scrambled eggs, but there are many unidentified squares of other foods mixed in. It’ll take a lot of work to separate all the peppers and onions and whatever else Alfred has added in to make eggs more healthy. The mismatch of textures may prove to be his downfall.
Duke pats Damian’s shoulder and then rises from his seat with his plate in his hands. “Thanks for breakfast, Alfred.”
“Of course, Master Duke,” Alfred says warmly, shutting the dishwasher with his hip. “Take care.”
“Bye,” Stephanie says, suddenly managing to be alive. She jerks her chin up to give Duke a serious nod.
Duke’s standing behind Damian, so Damian can’t see his face, but he sounds like he’s suppressing laughter as he says, “Yeah, bye, Steph.”
Then he leaves, stopping only to give Cassandra a hug. Alfred follows Duke out of the room to walk him to the door. With them goes any and all life in the room, because everyone else looks like they’d rather be dead than sitting up right now.
Damian picks through his food, painstakingly separating out the vegetables into their own distinct piles so he can decide whether he wants to eat them later. As he’s finishing his plate, leaving behind a pristine triangle of onions that he’s quarantined to their own spot at the center of his plate, Bruce finally rises from his zombie stupor, sitting up from where he’s been staring down into his coffee mug like a reflection pond for the last ten minutes.
“That reminds me,” Bruce says, even though nothing has been said to remind him of anything, “I told most of you last night, but, Damian--we had a security breach yesterday. Some WE servers, not in the Batcomputer, but we’re still keeping an eye on it.”
“Okay,” Damian says slowly. “May I ask a question?”
“Sure.”
“May I have Drake’s job now that he’s certainly been fired for cybersecurity failures?”
Cassandra snorts into her orange juice, splashing it up around her face. Stephanie kicks Damian under the table. Drake lifts his head to glare at Damian for a moment before dropping back down and returning to his doze.
Bruce laughs. It’s barely noticeable, but his mouth twitches and his eyes crinkle. Damian feels a surge of pride in himself for a moment, recognizing the fond look on his father’s face. It makes him a little less irritated about how long his cat-and-mouse game with Talia has been stretched out.
“Not until you graduate,” Bruce says, which is the standard answer now that he’s back in the present time and has a minimum expectation of his children to at least finish primary education. Jason and Cassandra are the main obstacles standing in the way of this particular goal.
“I have another question,” Damian says.
Drake slowly reaches out towards his butter knife, taking it in his palm with clear intent to swing it at Damian’s head if Damian takes another dig at him.
Damian keeps half an eye on Drake, and the rest of his attention on his glass of water. “What kind of information was accessed?”
“As far as we can tell, nothing was stolen, but they accessed some employee records.” Bruce rubs his eyes with both hands. He has a full day of meetings about this ahead of him, probably. “Just to be safe, we’re going to assume they got hold of personal information, so be careful with your WE email.”
Damian shrugs. “Okay.” He’s never once used his WE email, so that’s fine. It was set up for him in anticipation of an internship program that he was going to do, but then the world almost ended and several WE employees were killed, and that got the program canceled.
“Also, all of you,” Bruce says, broadening his focus, “if you get a call from someone you don’t know, don’t answer it until we’ve made sure that they didn’t get phone numbers. If that’s the case, we’ll change numbers, but just keep me updated.”
A general mutter of assent conveys the fact that nobody under the age of twenty-five answers calls from unknown numbers, which Bruce is satisfied by.
In all, breakfast is as boring as usual. As Damian picks up his backpack and the coat of his school uniform, though, the comfort of routine fades away. He’s running out of ideas to coax Talia into revealing herself, and he’s not looking forward to finding even more ways to skip out on class without getting caught.
Damian is watched that day and the day after. By the end of this fourth day of surveillance, Damian’s starting to lose his mind. Does Talia want to talk to him or not? He wants to see her. He thought that the two of them had moved past this sadistic-tests-as-a-love-language thing.
Add to that his normal school tribulations (his Tuck Everlasting essay was handed back today with a big red ‘C’ on it; Maps and Amala got paired up for a project in art class while Damian got put with someone who used to push him around last year; Damian got a bloody nose in gym and had to sit out from dodgeball even though it’s his favorite), and he’s not feeling very chipper by the time he gets in the car to go home.
Today, it’s Alfred picking him up, because Drake has some kind of after-school engagement. Damian climbs into the backseat and drops his backpack on the floor and buckles his seatbelt. It’s a small comfort when he can close the door and let the tinted windows hide him from the eyes fixed on him.
“How was school today, Master Damian?” Alfred asks as he eases the car back out of the pickup lane. He’s the calmest driver in the world--night and day from Drake and Jason, who both honk and shout at other drivers over the slightest provocation. Though, if Gotham drivers aren’t the cause of the concerned crease between his eyebrows, that means it’s Damian’s fault.
“It was fine,” Damian says. He’s too tired to say more--even if school wasn’t so draining, he would be exhausted by the constant worry of what Talia’s waiting for. The weight of all of it stops Damian's voice. He finds that nothing comes out when he tries to elaborate.
Alfred makes a few more attempts at asking Damian some questions, but after receiving only monosyllabic hums in place of answers, he switches smoothly to telling Damian about his own day, which involved catching Cassandra and Stephanie dyeing Cassandra’s hair in the master bathroom, where they had ruined several bath mats with bleach. His voice gives Damian something to focus on that’s not the sweaty, itchy fabric of his uniform and the unpleasant leather that the seats are upholstered with.
It harkens back to a time when Richard and Alfred were Damian’s only guardians, and things felt so much worse in general. Damian had just started to settle in--things were just beginning to feel normal again--but Damian isn’t acting normal enough today. Now Alfred’s going to tell Bruce about his concerns that people are bullying Damian at school again, which is another problem he doesn’t need this week.
(Damian maintains that it shouldn’t count as bullying if Damian could at any point slit their throats and be done with them--it’s about power dynamics, after all--but this defense has never worked on Richard or on Alfred.)
When they get home, Damian picks up his backpack and slides out of the car. Alfred follows him up the stairs to the door to the house.
As they enter, Alfred says in a low voice, “I’m going to make some snickerdoodles this afternoon. Would you like me to bring some to your room when they’re ready?”
Damian nods. He turns and hugs Alfred around the waist before darting away, retreating to his room for the evening.
Patrol that night is blessedly normal. It’s such a relief that Damian feels like he’s flying as he runs after Batman and Red Robin through the financial district. For the first time all week, he feels unobserved. Even his family takes a break from hovering around Damian, their concern about his odd behavior shelved for the moment while they comb the streets.
The respite comes to an end around two-thirty, when Damian stops being able to hide his yawns. Someone scoops him up and it’s not until he’s sitting on Jason’s shoulders that he realizes what’s happening.
“This is unnecessary,” Damian says, trying to find his balance again.
Jason steadies him by holding onto his ankles, unyielding. “Don’t stab my fuckin’ head, kid. You’re getting a free ride.”
Damian considers stabbing Jason in the head anyway, because it was basically a challenge, but he’s too tired to make this into a whole ordeal. They’re going home for snacks and he’ll need to save his energy so he can get to the cookies first.
As Jason carries him back to the Batmobile, Damian casts his gaze up towards the rooftops. He’s not really looking for Talia, but he half-expects her to show up. She knows he’s Robin, and if she was truly following him everywhere then she’d at least make an appearance.
Damian doesn’t see her. An irrational lump in his throat keeps him from talking the rest of the way to the car.