Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The compulsion is worse than the disappointment. Damian stares at his notification-free lock screen for the fifth time in the last three minutes, the messaging app remaining unbothered by the deepening scowl he’s aiming at it. 

Of course, Father is not texting him. He was told before he left this morning to watch his phone, and Damian has, all day, but he's acutely aware of the fact that any information that he's given will be minimal, if not pointedly vague. He has rendered himself useless. 

His eyes slide from the blank screen to his wrist, freshly wrapped in green plaster, snug and confining. His fingers poke from the top, made clumsy by the injury. It’s a boon that he’s rendered himself ambidextrous, else he might have been hindered by the clunky bandages. 

He’d tried to tell Alfred that he’d be fine with just an ace bandage. It didn’t feel like anything more than a bad sprain last night, but he can admit now that it is definitely broken. The painkillers wore off around noon, and his arm is throbbing down to his elbow, dull and distracting. 

Even wiggling his fingers is agonizing, which is humiliating for an injury that’s so miniscule. If it hadn’t been for Jason, he probably would have gotten the entire thing severed from his wrist down. Alfred had told him he should be grateful. As if. 

It’s ignominious.

Mother taught him better than this. It’s no wonder Father has maligned him. Damian will be living down the shame of this for a while. 

He grits his teeth, watches his phone screen time-out in his hands. Digs his thumbnail into the power button to bring it back to life. There still aren’t any notifications.

There’s little doubt in his mind, though, that there have been developments. If not in the drug trafficker that Jason stole twenty kilograms of fentanyl off of after Damian was sidelined, then the Executioner’s case. Dick's been canvassing the Sprang to try and find new bodies. He was going to give his report to Father this morning. 

His classmate, Haleema Khan, raises an eyebrow at him when he taps his screen to keep the phone on. Her eyes drop to his finger, then his face, then back to his phone. She pointedly returns her attention to where Mr. Helmstutler is solving the Pythagorean theorem on the board. 

Damian hopes the man is proud of himself for teaching such basic maths and struggling so severely. 

He refreshes the messages app. It doesn’t do anything. He’s tempted to text first, but he already reached out to Jason directly, and if he tries Dick, or someone else, then his desperation will be obvious. He won’t give Timothy any more fodder for his mockery. Impatience does not become him.

But neither does idleness.

Khan taps her pencil against his notebook. Damian has to retrain himself from turning on her with violence. He doesn’t know what it is about him that has brought the burden of her attention, but he would rectify that mistake if he knew it. 

The rest of the class has no problem minding their own business. Helmstutler himself has seen fit to turn a blind eye to Damian’s inattention, most likely out of some misguided pity. When Damian had arrived at class this morning, the man had settled his hand behind Damian's neck as he'd cooed over the broken wrist. It had annoyed Damian. He doesn’t care what these plebeians think of him or his injuries.

“What happened?” Khan asks quietly, and taps the notebook next to his arm again. Her expression is tight around her eyes, like she’s withholding blunt concern. He’s not sure if it’s better or worse that it’s sheathed. 

“Nothing,” Damian says. Father may think Gotham Academy a suitable reprieve for Damian to retreat into “ normal life”, but he’d be loath to let his guard down. Eighth-graders will exploit any perceived weakness, oftentimes more cruelly than any other opponent Damian has faced. “Why do you care?”

“I broke my arm when I was seven,” Khan scoots closer. Damian’s still not sure why they’ve been assigned the same cluster. Her math scores are far inferior to his own. “I fell out of a tree. It really hurt, you could see the bone and everything.”

“Riveting.” Damian tucks his phone into the pocket, trying to bury his disappointment. There’s still a half hour before the last period ends, hopefully Father is only waiting until the cessation of his internment in this prison. 

“You know, Dami,” Khan frowns, “you’re always covered in bruises, but this is intense, even for you.”

Damian looks at her. 

“Are you getting into fights?” 

Damian glares at her.

“I can sign it if you want.” 

It’s no wonder her math scores are so low, truly. She is clearly allergic to getting the damn point . Damian pities the poor fools in charge of her education. 

Khan fidgets again. She pulls the edge of her sleeve over her fingers. It’s the third time she’s done so since demanding his attention. Damian’s eyes narrow at her. That isn’t a nervous habit so much as it is a pointed gesture. It isn’t clear if she’s hiding it from someone other than herself.

He pulls the notebook away from her insistent tapping, snapping it shut. There’s nothing Helmstutler can teach him that he hasn’t mastered three times over. Father refuses to let him advance beyond accelerated coursework, citing a neglected social education , whatever the hell that means. The end result is the same. He's stuck in the confines of arbitrary polite society.

Khan reaches out and grabs his casted wrist, lifting up her purple glitter pen and pressing the tip to the plaster. 

The rush of pain at the slightest pressure is overwhelming. He grits his teeth. 

“Restrain yourself,” Damian snaps. 

“It’s really sad if no one signs your cast, Dami.” HAL , she writes, and he jerks his elbow back, hissing as the throbbing renews its vigor. Alfred tried to send acetaminophen with him to school but he’d declined. It seemed like too much of a hassle, to have to spend his lunch period begging pills off the nurse. Haleema pulls back, leaning over their shared desk. Her hair falls into her face with her intent, bangs hiding her expression, and Damian has to clench both fists to keep from lashing out at her.

“I don’t care,” he says, and it comes out louder than he means it to. Draws the eyes of the neighboring desks, and Helmstutler at the front. The teacher has dropped his dry erase marker to turn around and face them. “Let go of me.”

Haleema frowns at him. Has the audacity to look hurt , like he’s deprived her of something by exercising his autonomy. Damian sneers at her. 

“Alright everyone, let’s focus on the problem,” Helmstutler says, before moving over to their desk. He leans over the two of them, his expression tight with disappointment. “What is going on here?”

“Nothing,” Khan says quickly. 

“You’re disturbing the class,” the teacher points out. He looks at Damian, and the warmth in his eyes is surprisingly ominous. There’s nothing about the man visually that’s off-putting, he’s white and brunett, young enough that it’s hard to pin his exact age, but older than Dick by a few years. 

Haleema recoils, but doesn’t unhand Damian. 

The teacher’s eyes settle on her. “Haleema, he asked you to let go. You shouldn’t touch someone if they ask you to stop. Consent is important for little things, too.” 

The girl releases him swiftly, looking vaguely sick. She pulls her sleeve over the edge of her hand again. Damian’s eyes narrow. 

Helmstutler seems proud of himself, smug. He does not walk away. “Are you alright, Damian?” he says. Puts a hand on the back of Damian’s chair, his fingers brushing against the boy’s neck. 

“I’m fine,” Damian hunches forward. Partly because Helmstutler’s breath smells like the tuna sandwich he’d undoubtedly had for lunch, and partly to hide the cell phone sitting in his lap. “You may resume class without further interruption.” 

Helmstutler’s expression does something funny. A passing irritation and righteous anger that settles into something calmer. The teacher looks over at Haleema and she shrinks beneath his gaze, but he doesn’t say anything else. He returns to the front of the class. As Damian said, there are no further interruptions before the bell rings, but Haleema looks like she wants to. Damian steadfastly ignores any attempts to get his attention. 

His notifications stay empty even after class ends, and the school day has come to a blessed conclusion. 

He shoves his notebook into his backpack, along with the unused pencil case before he starts to move toward the exit after the rest of the crowd of students.  

He can make a call before the bus ride home, see if Father needs him elsewhere. He’s pulling up his keypad, typing in the familiar number, when Khan tries to grab him again.

He’d noticed her approach, of course. She wasn’t exactly subtle. It takes very little effort to evade her repeated assault. 

“Dami,” she says, her determination dogged, eyebrows screwed up in frustration. She’s buffeted by the rest of the crowd, shoved by uncaring peers. She almost falls over, and Damian instinctually reaches out and grabs her sleeve, jerking her upright. 

She cries out, probably more from the shock than anything else, but it still has him drawing up short, finally turning to look at the girl.

Khan is on the verge of tears, teeth digging into her bottom lip, eyes carefully fixed on Damian’s. She stumbles before getting her footing, and Damian waits long enough to see her upright before pulling away. She runs her hands over the blazer of her uniform, pulling her sleeve down again.

It doesn’t stop him from seeing the dark, hand-shaped bruise circling her forearm. 

He’s been trained to be better than instinctive anxiety, but it does give him hesitation. A hesitation Mother would not appreciate. Gotham Academy is a part of his life that exists outside the physical damage of Robin or the League.

"Nevermind," Khan says. "I should go."  

At her words, that hesitation fizzles out. He reaches back out to grab her arm and pulls the sleeve back up. It’s too large to have come from a woman. A man’s hand, and the bruise is several days old. Not from her father, who Damian knows is overseas. Khan has been talking about how her parents are trying to scrape funds to get him a ticket to the states after Khan's younger sister was hospitalized last week. 

“Who did that to you?” Damian asks. He believes he has some measure of entitlement to know if she’s harassing him about his broken arm. 

Haleema deflates. She looks like she’s going to start crying. Damian panics some. He doesn’t have Dick to shove her off onto, and he’s not great with emotions. Timothy has told him several times he has the emotional range of a cold, stale piece of bread. 

“Did he break your arm?” Haleema asks. Her eyes are filling with tears now, and her voice cracks as she whispers, "He broke my sister's collarbone." 

“ Who ?” Damian steps closer. This is not the place for a conversation of this nature. There are too many people around, and Haleema is flighty. Damian’s shocked she chose him to confide in, of all people. She must have sensed his heroic nature, his prowess as an arbiter of justice. 

Father will be proud, that his cold nature has worn off enough that people will approach him as himself. 

“Mr. Helmstutler.” her voice is cracking, the syllables coming out in chopped up pieces. If he’s not careful, she’ll start crying in full. It’s always harder to calm down hysterical victims than it is to redirect upset ones. Dick taught him that. To be gentle to start because fast-acting sedatives are expensive.   

“Our algebra teacher?” Damian glances back at the room. Shit .

He thought he was more observant than that. Helmstutler had seemed harmless. A witless fool, but harmless. And maybe he was to Damian, but Haleema lacks any sort of skill set. The perfect, hapless victim for a miserable piece of shit to prey on. 

“Yeah,” Haleema nods. “He was doing the same thing to you, so I thought…” 

No he wasn’t. Damian would have been aware. He has been trained to recognize behavior like that. Then again, despite Haleema’s hysterics, he’s failed to notice the man’s behavior all together. 

“How long has he been laying hands on you?” Damian closes the phone app, pulls up his messages. The hallway is clearing now, he’ll be late for his bus if he doesn’t hurry. “Have you told anyone else?”

“No,” Haleema says. She wraps her arms around herself, looking vaguely sick. “He said he would hurt my mom if I told anyone. I don’t want—I just want it to stop. I thought—he didn’t break your arm, did he?” 

“He did not,” Damian confirms. He looks at his messages to Dick, still unanswered, and Father, also unanswered, and Timothy, left on read, and the irritation spikes. He opens his text thread with Jason instead. He’s the only member of his family that has not earned his ire this morning. 

More sniffling. Damian puts a hand on her shoulder without looking up. It’s on Grayson’s victim checklist. Damian was required to commit it to memory. 

“I’m sorry,” Haleema says, burying her face into her hands. “Don’t call the cops, please. I can’t—I don’t want him to hurt my mom. I really, really—I can’t let her, Damian, please. I didn’t mean to get you involved with his, I just thought you were already—” 

“Be quiet,” Damian snaps, because her panicking is getting irritating to try and think around. His message to Jason is taking far more time than it should. Belatedly, he remembers that this is not on the list of approved behavior for victims, but he’s quick to rectify that with, “I mean that it is not a problem, I do not mind being involved, Haleema.” 

“He’ll hurt you, too.” She’s weeping now, Damian’s failed. Shit. He’s not even sure what the checklist is for if it doesn’t fucking work . “I know he wants to,” she continues, “he talks about you, he says we look alike. That you're pretty.” 

“I look nothing like you.” their skin tone is approximately the same, and that’s about it. Damian’s hair isn’t as curly as hers, his eyes are green, she’s shorter and slimmer. Her face is rounder. More evidence Helmstutler is an unrivaled moron. Can’t even tell his students apart. 

“That’s not the point,” Haleema insists. She’s going to run. Damian sees it on her face approximately a second before she starts to move her feet, and he grabs her arm before she can. 

“Haleema,” Damian says, as calm as he can manage, “my brother is a police officer. He can handle this discreetly. You should not have to suffer at his hands further if it can be helped.” 

Her lip is wobbling. Damian wasn’t aware that was a real thing, outside of dramatized middle-grade novels. She flinches away from his grip, but he does not let her go. Appropriate physical contact. And also if she runs now, she won’t be able to give him the details to build the case file.

“He’s gonna rape my mom.” The word is sharp coming out of her mouth. Damian didn’t think she had it in her to say it. “I thought he’d already done you, and you’d get it, but you’re just a stupid rich boy who thinks this can be fixed with the cops?” Haleema shakes her head, “He’ll know, if I say something. He said he’d know.” 

Damian takes in a breath. The words bother him more than he wants to admit, even to himself. “He will not,” Damian promises. “Look at me, Haleema. He does not have the intelligence to set up surveillance that extensive. You can talk to me, and my brother.” 

“You’re so stupid,” she jerks away from him. Damian needs both hands to hold her in place, and his message is still only half-written. “I already tried to talk to people. Do you think you’re the first? Do you have any idea what he did to my sister?” 

Does anyone not know what happened to her sister? Her assault has been the gossip of Gotham Academy's lunch room for the last week. More proof scholarship children don't belong with the higher classes of society, the fools. 

“What’s your sister’s name?” Damian asks, lifting his phone again. Haleema makes an angry sound, high in the back of her throat, fists balling up like she’s ready to hit him.

He doesn’t understand why. He’s trying to help her, she’s the one being irrational. Making things harder than they need to be. If Helmstutler is doing unspeakable things to her—and likely has done more to others—he is exactly the sort of scum that Damian would rejoice to see pay penance for his crimes. 

Damian runs through what he knows about her family. Her mother is a secretary at Gotham Academy. Her father is working overseas, she has a multitude of siblings, greater than his. He doesn’t remember her mentioning names before, but he’s never thought the information was important. Father will chide him for that, remind him to treat everything as an important detail. 

Haleema has been more withdrawn the last few days. Damian had been certain it wasn't his problem, given the distance he's encouraged between them. Concern is not always his greatest skillset. 

He’s been so engorged in complaining about how he’s not allowed to work cases that he’d completely missed the obvious one in front of him. Helmstuter has been an irritant to him, in the same way that a bug is, but it isn’t anything that Damian isn’t used to, especially from some of Grandfather’s associates. The hair touching, the leaning in close, easing the limits of the social barrier. 

He has seen Helmstuter give the same treatment to one student or another the entire year, he hadn’t thought that much about it. 

“Why don’t you get it?” the tears are streaming down her face now. They’re drawing eyes, teachers stepping out of the doorways of their classrooms to observe, poised to intervene. If she were just a bit louder, she’d be exposing herself exactly the way she doesn’t want Damian to. “Why aren’t you taking this seriously? He’s gonna hurt you real bad, just like he hurt me and Mirah, and you don’t even care.”

“I do care,” Damian protests, because why else would he be here, if he didn’t care? Missing his bus, tiptoeing around the raw edges of Haleema’s trauma, trying to help her. Damian has done nothing but care, even though she’s annoying and bothers him in class. What could possibly have made her think that he doesn’t? “I’m trying to help you—” 

“What’s going on here?” Helmstutler’s voice isn’t nearly as far away as it should be for Damian to be unaware of him. He’d been so wrapped into Haleema that he’d narrowed the entirety of his attention to her. Foolish. 

Haleema bursts into tears. Loud, wracking sobs. The sort that devolve into screaming the longer they go on. It’s enough to draw the attention of Mrs Neudermeyer and Mrs Devon as well, who make shocked tittering noises at the racket. 

Damian steps closer to Haleema, shifting to put himself between the girl and Helmstutler. The man’s frown deepens, brows scrunching together as he approaches. 

“I just wanna sign your cast,” Haleema all but wails. She latches onto Damian’s good arm, forcing him to slip his phone into his pocket or risk dropping it. The message is still unsent. “I just wanna be friends with you, Dami.”

Her acting is surprisingly decent. Crying loudly clearly comes naturally to her. 

“Haleema? What in the world is going on?” Helmstuter asks. He sounds concerned, but Damian no longer trusts it. Even if he hadn’t seen Haleema’s bruises, he’s seen the emotional ones, which has been enough. 

“I don’t want you to,” Damian says, playing along, “I told you that I only want signatures from people I actually care for.” 

“Don’t be rude, Damian,” Helmstuter chides, as Haleema bursts into another round of tears. He wants to reach out and reassure her that he will help her. Robin will take care of this, if not Nightwing and Batman. 

Damian shrugs nonchalantly. 

Now that she’s pointed it out, however, Damian is acutely aware of how closely the two of them are standing together, and Helmstuter’s hand on his shoulder, settled and warm with the rebuke. He doesn’t release him. Let’s it linger. 

Damian sees it in a far more sinister light. 

It makes his skin crawl. 

“I don’t have time for this,” he says, impatiently, trying to pull away from the man. Mrs Neudermeyer has given Haleema a hug, rubbing over her back gently. It’s far kinder than the cold comfort of official detective work that Damian can offer her, if slightly less useful. “It is not important for you to sign my cast, Khan. We are not friends.”

“ Damian ,” Mrs. Neudermeyer reprimands. 

One of the things that Mother stressed to him is the importance of knowing when to walk away from a fight. There are tactical advantages to retreat. Damian is utilizing that now by turning and starting to stalk down the hall. He’s the most help to Haleema without Helmstuter knowing that anything is going on between them. 

“Mr. Wayne,” Helmstutler calls after him, and when that doesn’t fetch him, the man appears at Damian’s side, pulling him to a stop. There is faint suspicion in his eyes anyway; perhaps a brain was not wasted on this imbecile. “If she was talking to you about something…upsetting, you should really speak to an adult. I would be happy to listen. You’re safe with me.” 

“She was talking to me about her inane flights of fancy,” Damian curls a lip, affecting a sneer that would make Mother proud. Even Helmstutler recoils from him. “Delusions of companionship that I do not share, as I’m sure you understand. There is no love lost between Khan and myself.”

The tone—or maybe just the words, clipped and measured, catch his teacher off guard. Makes him falter. “Damian,” he says, hesitant and reproachful for a whole new reason now. “Maybe you should try making friends though. I have some concerns about your social development.”

“You and every other dimwitted moron in this city,” Damian shrugs off Helmstutler’s hands. His touch had never bothered Damian to this degree before. “I assure you, I am worldly and cultured beyond your means.”

Helmstutler does not miss the pointed blow at his teaching skills. His mouth does something funny. “I see. Why don’t you get home, Damian? I’m sorry that Haleema disturbed you. She’s been having a hard time since her sister was put in the hospital, try to have patience with her.”

Damian scoffs. “I am always patient.”

Helmstutler pauses. “You’re sure she didn’t talk to you about anything else?” 

“Yes.” Damian insists. 

Helmstutler sighs quietly, and reaches out to brush Damian’s hair off his face. The gesture is something that his family has done often, and Damian flinches back at the sheer intimacy.

“Don’t,” Damian snaps. 

His teacher’s mouth gets tight. He lets his hand linger in the air where Damian pulled away from. “Damian,” the man’s voice has dropped to something without any of the usual warmth, “you should keep your mouth shut. I'd hate for someone to have to make you." 

He pulls away, chin tipped up. Feels his eyes widen around the edges, when he catches the look Helmstutler gives him. Cold and knowing.

Haleema was right about one thing, he supposes. The old bag is too observant for his own good. This isn’t the sort of situation that can wait on Grayson’s gentle touch anymore.

He says nothing to the man, backing down the hallway instead of turning around, shoulders tight with apprehension.

Helmstutler doesn’t follow him, but his eyes track Damian the whole way. 

“Wha’d’you want pipsqueak?”

“Well.” Damian slouches on the perimeter wall for Gotham Academy, watching the front doors for Haleema and her mother to exit. Helmstulter has already left, but Damian isn't foolish enough to trust that means anything, “For starters, enunciation would be appreciated. I do not believe contractions were meant to be used in that manner.”

“Language is constantly evolving,” Jason points out, “get with the times, Old English, or you’ll need a modern translator soon. You or nighttime shit, Day?” 

Both , Damian thinks miserably. Helmstutler's touch lingers on his skin like a phantom. If this is anything of what Haleema's been experiencing for the last few weeks, he pities her beyond measure. He wants to scrape off the first layer of his skin. 

“Damian,” Jason says, and it startles him enough to have him sitting up a little straighter, at attention. Jason is allergic to using given names, for some nonsensical reason. “Status report. Come on, I don’t have all day. I'm kind of in the middle of something with the drug guy." 

“I require your assistance with something,” Damian clears his throat, awkwardly. Maybe he should take care of Helmstutler himself. Pay the man a visit as Robin. Except that’ll take time as well, to gather and compile evidence, abide by his father’s rules. And as he is, Damian can’t guarantee he can work fast enough. WIth his broken arm, he's hindered even further. 

He’s not sure he wants to face Helmstutler, either. An entirely selfish desire, but there nonetheless.

Jason is efficient, he’s quick, and he doesn’t ask too many questions. It’s the logical solution. 

“Okay,” Jason says, “what kind of situation?” 

“A sensitive one.”

Jason sighs, very softly, “Day, did you call me to ask for my help or to allude vaguely that you want it? Use your words.” 

“I would like you to kill someone,” Damian admits. Then he remembers Father’s discussions and appends, “As a last resort.” 

“Damian, who the fuck pissed you off badly enough—I swear to god if this is about Tim again—” 

“No,” Damian interrupts, exasperated. “It’s…there’s a girl in my class. Haleema Khan. She’s been harassed by Kyle Helmstulter, our sub-rate mathematics teacher, and she needs help. I am currently unable to provide aid, but she and her family may be in danger if someone does not intervene.” 

There’s a longer pause. “Harassed how?” 

“I believe he has defiled her and her sister.” Damian glances up at the school, where the front doors remain closed. He can hear the clunk of something heavy on the other end of the line, and movement besides. “As well as threatened her mother.”

He can’t bring himself to add his own name to the list. He didn’t even notice anything was going on, whatever discomfort he received he surely earned. He should have done better. Been better. Robin is meant to be better than this. 

“He’s your teacher,” Jason says, as if he just realized. “He try anything with you?”

“No, of course not,” Damian says, ignoring the way his heart rate picks up at the mention of it. The ghost of Helmstutler’s fingers on his shoulder, his arm, his neck.“I would never let such a second rate sea urchin besmirch my dignity.”

"Are you on the bus right now?" Jason ignores the statement, though there's resignation in his voice, "Where are you?" 

"I'm outside the school," Damian says. He scowls at his arm. "I would take care of this myself if my arm was in better condition. I simply require assistance--" 

"No." Jason snaps, "Absolutely not. This guy's creeping on kids, I don't want you anywhere near that. You almost got your arm cut off yesterday, I need some time to work through the trauma before I'm ready to work with you again." 

Damian bristles. "I am not an invalid." 

"That's great. I'm proud. But you are a liability right now. Go home, Day. Get some pain meds. You sound like shit. I'll take care of this." 

"I don't--"

Jason hangs up on him. Of course he does. Damian scowls at his blank screen. He misses the days when the man was more likely to plant an incendiary device in their private vehicles than pick up their calls. He's more protective than Dick, and it's irritating. Damian isn't useless simply because his arm is broken. Jason is going to lose hold of Edward Lamont now because Damian couldn't handle this by himself. Because Damian needs a minder, and someone to fix all his problems for him.

Damian is still Robin. He'll fix the Lamont situation, as he should have last night, prove his worth to his family. Then, after Damian has done so, he'll handle Helmstutler as well. 

Liability. The word burns in Damian's stomach, Jason's disapproval even stronger. Is that really what his family considers him now? It must be. Mother would always withhold her love when Damian was injured, she couldn't bare the shame until after he was back together. 

He looks back down at his empty messages. Of course they wouldn't tell him anything. He's the liability.

Fine. Fine. 

Damian calls a cab. He has to walk three miles to find one, but thankfully, the cabbie is minding her own business, intent on the destination Damian’s paying her to take him to. The vehicle rolls to a stop outside of a dilapidated brownstone off Becker street, two and a half miles deep into Crime Alley. Before they attacked the warehouse last night, Jason had shared Lamont's home address with him as a plan B, in case the raid didn't work. 

Father has stressed the importance of remembering information, and so Damian gave the address without a problem.

He's without Robin's equipment, still dressed in his uniform, his backpack in his lap. He can fight with his fists. Well. Fist. A weapon would be preferable, but he's perfectly capable of working without one. 

The cabbie doesn't give him a second look as Damian climbs out into the street. 

Still no messages. Irritated, Damian puts it on silent on the unlikely scenario someone tries to get ahold of him, and slips it into his pocket. Jason will likely have words with him later about this, stress the importance of staying out of Crime Alley again, like the man has any leg to stand on. 

It's been some time since Damian came to this part of the city as himself. The lack of the Robin logo emblazoned on his shoulder like a shield is one he feels painfully. The eyes rake up and down him, over him, assessing. Damian lifts his chin and meets them head-on. Mother taught him not to show fear, especially when he felt intimidated. Which he does, if only marginally. He's still Robin. Still Ra’s Al Ghul’s grandson. 

He climbs the steps two at a time, wishing he’d thought to drop his bookbag somewhere that wouldn’t see it stolen in seconds. It’s heavy on his back, weighed down with homework and textbooks. He’ll have to discard it in the fight—or use it as a weapon. The idea holds merit, a weighted projectile, if he aims it with enough force it might be useful to stun Edward Lamont. Perhaps he's not nearly as disarmed as he thought. 

He rings the bell, listening to the harsh crackling buzz as it echoes throughout the house. No one answers the door. Not that Damian was expecting him to. If he’s smart the man will have vacated this house and gone into hiding.

He waits a beat, listening for movement, before descending the steps to round the side of the house. There are iron bars on the ground-level windows, but the second floor doesn’t have any, and the brick is chipped enough, and articulated enough with the neighboring brownstone, that Damian doesn’t hesitate to dig his nails into the window ledge and heave himself up.

He'll check the building over to see if he needs to do additional tracking, but if the man hasn't fled the city yet, Damian can wait. 

Inside, the Brownstone looks dirty, but isn't, in that odd way old buildings get stained with grime from previous inhabitants. Walls yellowed from cigarette smoke, the corners dyed black and gray over the years, ceiling caked in dust and suspect splatter stains. He lets his feet settle on the carpeted rug. 

Damian’s nose wrinkles. 

The overhead light isn’t on, but he doesn’t bother with it, given the gray dirt covering the shade. The blinds have been drawn on every window that isn’t covered in duct tape or boarded over, casting the hall in a deep shadow. 

He keeps moving into the house. Reaches the staircase and hears movement below. Something crashing violently. A cry of pain. A fight. Damian would recognize that sound anywhere. 

Shit . 

How is he to redeem himself if someone murders Lamont first? He moves down the stairs as quietly as he can, hears metal clatter against the floor. 

He tilts his head, listening in to the sound of a struggle. Muffled cries, more restrained than what Damian would expect from a dispute amongst gang members. He rounds the corner in a crouch, poking his head out into the foyer, just observing for now. The poor lighting works to his advantage, concealing his slight figure from the men.

Lamont is getting the shit beat out of him. He’s on the floor, much closer than Damian was expecting to be, just a few feet away, splayed out and scrambling weakly from his attacker. There’s blood dripping from a cut on his temple, the wound already inflaming—blunt force trauma.

The attacker—taller and leaner, the lower half of his face covered with a blue bandana— wields a truncheon in his left hand, looming above Lamont with deadly intent. 

There is no hesitation, or a period long enough for Damian to think about intervening, the man brings the truncheon down over the back of his skull with a sickening crack. Damian flinches. 

The attacker isn't done. He stoops forward to grab Lamont by the back of his head, forcing the man into a painful backward arch. Lamont is still alive, somehow, though the bloom of liquid scarlet over his skull and rivuleting into his eyes promises to remedy that. The attacker tosses the truncheon aside, and the sound jars Damian back into his body, has him tensing up to move, but the man withdraws a knife. He presses it to the inside of Lamont’s neck, sliding over his vocal chords in one smooth motion, the skin splitting under the blade like over-ripened fruit.  

The blood spray is visceral and explosive, spitting outward with the last desperate pumps of Lamont’s heart. The noise the dying man makes is wet and wheezy, cut short when the attacker drops Lamont limply onto the floor. 

Damian flinches back as the spray hits him in the face, stumbling back onto his ass. It's a foolish mistake, one that he should have training to combat. It's not Damian’s first body. Not even his first time being coated in human blood. 

He wipes frantically at his face anyway. His vision is clouded with panic, and he stumbles backward to get away from the attacker. Abruptly, he feels thirteen and childish, squirming out of the reach of violence he knows is inescapable. 

His movement is his undoing. The attacker’s head snaps up to track him. Their eyes meet, Damian's green against the man’s cold brown. He freezes. There's still blood spray clouding his vision. 

The man is breathing hard, violently, pupils blown almost enough to swallow the iris. His hair is clumped with blood, an odd, hungry set to his gaze. Familiar eyes, dark brown and searching.

He’s just as shocked as Damian, goes just as still, lips parting beneath the bandana, eyebrows raising. For half a second, neither of them dare to move. Damian goes first, training kicking something deep inside him to life. Not to fight. He flails upright to his feet and bolts for the door. 

He could, of course, take the man in a fight if he needed to, but he's hindered by his stiff uniform, the bookbag, and the lack of the Robin armor to hide inside. Tactical retreat. Dick would call him wise. 

“Shit!” The man yells, voice cracking, and Damian can hear him lunge into motion behind him, feel the scrape of his fingers on Damian's bag. It reminds him too much of Helmstutler's fingers against his neck. His heart rate picks up. 

He flails, stumbling on the first step before finding his footing again. He makes it five steps up before the man grabs the handle of his backpack, tugging hard.

Damian shrugs out of it, not letting his momentum slow, moving on reflex now. Except, his cast catches on the zipper and the pain steals his breath as his arm is jerked awkwardly. Damian’s foot misses the next step, ankle twisting beneath his ill-placed weight and sending him crashing to the floor. 

Damian lands on his back hard enough to take his breath away. He tries to move up anyway, scrambling to get out of reach, out of the man’s sight, but he's laying in Lamont's blood and the sensation makes him freeze up again. 

“Shit, shit.” The man is repeating, before he grabs Damian by his neck and slams him back down to the floor. His hands are large, fingers wrapping around Damian’s throat, squeezing with intent. He leans his weight onto Damian, pinning him to the floor. “What the fuck are you doing here?” 

Damian scrabbles to scratch at the man’s wrist, raking his fingernails down his forearm. Let go. Let go. Let go. He can't breathe. He can't breathe. 

“No one was supposed to be here.” He’s not even talking to Damian now, the hysteric edge of a rant in his voice. “What the fuck is a kid doing here?” 

He pulls Damian back by his neck, leaning forward to see his face, before cursing again, shoving Damian back down. His other hand comes up to cover Damian's mouth. 

Damian throws an elbow back, catching the man in the stomach, earning a pained wheeze for the effort. But the grip doesn’t loosen, and the man digs a knee into Damian’s broken wrist in retaliation. 

He's seized by the urge to scream, but he's not a civilian. He just needs to get some sort of leverage. If he can just—

The knife gets pressed to his throat. “What the fuck am I supposed to do with you?” The man demands. 

Damian, still trying to ease the worst of the hyperventilating and hypoxia, glares. It doesn't do much. 

“ Shit .” The man whispers again. He studies Damian’s face for a long second, and seems to come to sort through some rapid-fire decisions. “Shh, shh, shh,” he leans forward, more weight on Damian’s chest. His ribs are aching at the pressure, black spots crowding his periphery, a heady combination of adrenaline and pain making the world spin around him. 

Damian squirms his good arm against his side, reaching into the inside pocket of his blazer, the switchblade tucked into the inner pocket. He just needs to reach it. He just needs to—

The man lifts him up one more time, shifting his grip to thread his fingers into Damian’s hair, his hands surprisingly gentle before he cracks Damian’s skull into the edge of the step.

The world consumes itself in a rush of pain and color. Damian’s eyes roll up into the back of his head.'

Chapter Text

Micah is gone when Dick wakes up, but the blankets are still cooling from the body heat. He rolls over to face the bathroom, sees the stretch of light beneath, and buries his face underneath the blankets. 

It's still early. What the hell is Micah doing up this early? Dick just finished four tens. Does he have a shift that he didn't talk about? Micah got here late last night, and he'd been stressed, but it Dick doesn't think that he'd have stayed the night if he was planning on leaving at—Dick looks at the clock. 

4:32 a.m. 

He groans. Covers his face with his hand. That means it’s something important. He should go and see what’s wrong.

Instead, Dick waits until he can’t hear Micah moving around the kitchen anymore, dozing off and on, trying to encourage himself to wake up fully and not getting anywhere. Patrol ran late, Jason and Tim were radio silent all night, and Bruce turned off his comms to track down supposed leads about the Executioner case. Dick had to pick up routes left and right, and the minute he got home Micah was at his door, all pent up frustration and angry brown eyes.

It’s hard to get Micah worked up. Dick never turns him down when he is. It can be a fun time for both of them, and last night was no different.

This morning is a little different. Especially when Micah eases open the door to his bedroom and turns on the lamp light. A watery yellow glow that illuminates Dick’s still-naked body and Micah in the doorway, standing there in full uniform.

Dick groans again, louder.

“Sorry, babe.” His boots click as he approaches the bed, peeling away the pillow Dick’s trying to smother himself with, leaning down to kiss the scrunch in his brow. “C’mon. They need us down at the station.”

“Why?” Dick demands. “I have OTed the entire week. I'm free. My skin is glowing. I'm resting. Radiant. I'm calling OSHA.” 

“Crime scene was discovered last night,” Micah says, quieter. “Detective Gonzalez is thinking the Executioner. No body, but enough blood the fucker's definitely dead.” 

Dick sobers. He sighs and drops the blanket away from his face. “Give me five to get dressed and overdose on caffeine.” 

“I’ll start the coffee maker then.” Another kiss. Lingering hands down the side of his neck, before Micah’s pulling away again, headed toward the kitchen to do as he said.

“This is why you're my favorite. Thanks MJ.” Dick crawls out from under the blankets, looking for his boxers. 

“Oh so that’s why,” Micah calls. His voice is more relaxed than last night, steadier. It fills Dick with a sense of accomplishment. “And here I thought it was my dick you were after.”

“Your mouth is too pretty.” Dick answers back. “But that too.” 

He gets dressed quickly, and walks into the kitchen. Micah is holding a photo he pulled off the fridge, and his expression is hard to read. “Is this your family?” 

Dick leans over his shoulder to see the photo. Rolls his eyes at the mess that looks back at him. “Yeah. The whole Brady Bunch. Bunch of pains in my ass.”

“They’re cute.” Micah’s fingers are stiff, putting the picture back up and the magnets in place. The coffee is percolating, almost done. Usually Micah would have poured them both a cup from what’s in the carafe by now. 

“You don't have siblings, right?” Dick asks carefully. He knows Micah’s parents are dead. Murder-suicide when he was seven. He was alone with the bodies for a week before anyone found him. Family isn't Micah’s favorite subject. That much Dick only gleaned from the gossip that followed Micah around the BPD after he was made DIC of the Executioner case three months ago when Hendrickson was put on mandatory probation. 

“No, I.” His lips rub together. “Cousins, when I lived with my aunt. But we weren’t really close. You guys look happy.”

“Looks it, yeah.” Jason’s not in the photo, couldn’t be wrangled into the manor long enough, not even with Alfred’s mixture of bribes and threats. Kate and Helena begged off because they were feuding with Bruce at that point. Tim only agreed on the stipulation that Damian be on the other end of the picture as him. 

Micah’s thumb smooths over Damian. “I didn't know you had a kid brother. He looks as old as one of my cousins. He ten?” 

“Damian, yeah. He’ll be fourteen in December, actually. Bruce’s youngest.” 

“Oh. Nice. You're the oldest, right?” 

Hard to tell with Cass. Dick smiles. “Yeah.”

“Cool.” Micah turns to the coffee machine. There's something pained in his movements. Dick tries not to wince. He remembers all too well how painful it had been to see whole families when his own was fractured or gone. Micah hands him the coffee mug, his expression upset. “We should get going.” 

“Yeah probably,” Dick agrees. He kisses Micah’s cheek. “I'll see you soon though, right?” 

Micah nods absently, his eyes on the photo again. Receives a distracted yeah in response. Probably already thinking of the case, and what new threads of non-information they won't get from this crime scene either. 

Dick leaves Micah in his apartment. Usually they’d drive together, but it’s not often that the other man will spend the night twice in a row, and Micah’s house is in the opposite direction from the station. Plus, if there is any new leads on the Executioner’s case, Dick will most likely be putting in an appearance at the cave, if only to hear Bruce complain more about the lack of unified response from the DA and GPD. 

Dick’s heard the rant three times already. All murder is wrong and vigilante killing is still killing . It’s not like he can sway public opinion about that, or strong-arm the captain into putting more people on the case. It’s not his fault the only reason gives a shit about finding this guy is because he's a fucking creep. 

The BPD on this case is new, they found a body on the docks three months ago, and now Bruce is in panic mode because this means that the Executioner is leaving Gotham. The joint-case operation has been a bitch.

Micah does meet him at the station, and Gonzalez has a bullpen full of evidence techs at their disposal. Dick almost does a double-take when he’s briefed on the victim.

Edward Lamont. It’s not the first time the Executioner has cross-sectioned into other criminals on the Bat’s radar, but this one’s rather pointed given how recently Robin had a run-in with Lamont. He'd gotten both Bruce and Damian's ranting perspective about the man, and the broken arm that could have been an amputation if Jason was any slower. 

Dick’s mouth tightens. He doesn't feel anything about the man’s death, but it seems like he should. Bruce would. It's still a life taken, but it's just impossible to give a shit. Numbing out has been Dick's way of coping with all of this. With anything. It's easier to crack jokes and pretend it's not happening than stare it in the face. 

“Any witnesses?” Dick asks Gonzalez. 

“Are there ever?” Micah mutters, beside him, flipping through his own case file. His mood has soured again, not that Dick blames him overmuch. Gonzalez, predictably, shakes his head. 

“What kind of time frame are we looking at here?”

“He was in and out in under an hour,” Gonzalez’s hands are twitching, like he needs another cigarette, though Dick can smell the nicotine on his breath even five feet away. “Blood spatter analysis is still underway. The forensics team wants to have a conference.”

Great. Cause those are always enjoyable and waste no time ever. 

“Okay,” Dick agrees. “Any reason why?” 

Gonzalez grunts. “Said there was something weird about it this time.” 

Dick raises his head from the photos he's thumbing through, but Micah beats him to the punch when he says, “Blood spray stops here. There was some sort of object he took with him when he left.” 

That's new. The Executioner has left the scenes relatively the same since he started, why change up the MO for Lamont? It's not like the man hasn't killed a drug trafficker before. What was different about him? And what did he take with him when he left?

“Like what?” Dick asks.

“Not sure, looks small,” Micah admits. “Maybe some sort of furniture or a bag? The shape is kind of fucked. Look at this.” 

He hands the photo to Dick. He's right. The shape of the missing blood spray is small. Not tall enough to be a human, even a child. And there was no evidence there was a third person anyway. No witnesses. So what the fuck was it? 

“If he bled onto it he might want to take it with him,” Gonzalez speculates. “We might be able to find DNA at the scene this time.”

He doesn’t remark on how unlikely that is. The Executioner is meticulous, half the time the blood of the victim isn’t even able to be processed, because he goes over the place with a peroxide cleaner.

“This one’s rushed,” Micah says. “An hour? Really. The guy’s more neurotic than that.”

“Friends of the victim showed up at the apartment at six, M.E’s rough preliminary time of death from the blood sample is around four pm, something must have interrupted him.” Gonzalez explains. 

“Lamont is a physical threat,” Dick points out. He’d gotten a hit on Damian, after all, and the kid is made out of pretty strong stuff. “He could’ve injured our guy.”

Micah frowns, shaking his head but not offering up any argument. It’s just speculation, anyways, at least until they have something concrete to back it up. This one at least breaks pattern. It's a slip-up. Mistakes happen, Dick relies on that, and it could be a sign that something is wrong with the Executioner. It's not a reassuring thought. 

“If he’s taking risks like this he’s devolving.” It’ll be five minutes before Gonzalez takes a smoke break, tops. The man’s leg has started shaking. Dick wonders if he’s taken his blood pressure medication. “This is the third one dead in as many weeks. How long’s it gonna be before he gets bored of the shitbags and starts going after anyone.” 

“He wouldn't,” Micah protests. “Gotham's got enough shitbags to keep him busy for the rest of his life.” 

“Oh cool your fanboy crush Jorgenson, he’s not a hero.” The file folder is snapped shut. 

“Who’s been studying this case for months, detective? I know him better than all of you. That's why the captain made me DIC.” Micah’s voice is cold. 

“Just don’t forget what he's doing to those fuckers. You might not like them but no one deserves that kind of violation. Our unsub is a freak through and through.”  

Micah’s teeth set. “It's just necrophilia, Gonzalez. He's not exactly raping children, is he? He's got a moral code. A fucked one sure, but there is a code.” 

Dick rests a hand on Micah’s shoulder. Squeezes it in warning. Getting into fights isn't going to fix anything, even if Gonzalez is irritating as hell. The man can't take anything as a statement, it's always an invitation to argue. Besides. Dick isn't really sure there's a worse between the two options. 

“Not yet,” Gonzalez says. “Guy like that doesn’t know morals . We’re dealing with a psycho. He'll show you what he is eventually.”

Micah scoffs. “Right.”

Gonzalez glares at him, until the younger man backs down, tossing aside his file folder and reaching into his coat pocket for a pack of cigarettes. “I need a smoke,” he says. “Try and do something other than salivate over a corpse fucker for once, Jorgenson.”

Micah takes a physical step forward, but Dick reels him back in. “He's not worth it, MJ.” 

“I'm not an idiot,” Micah whirls on Dick. “You know that right? I'm perfectly aware of what's at stake.” 

“I know,” Dick says, “But Gonzalez isn't wrong either. People like this do devolve.” 

Micah makes a frustrated noise. “I’ve been working on this profile for ages, Dick, that’s not what this is. The Executioner is smarter than that.”

Right, and intelligence makes guys who get off to dead bodies the most stable, well-adjusted people in society. Dick raises his hands placatingly.

It’s not worth arguing about. Micah’s been putting everything he has into nailing the Executioner, and it’s clearly stressing him out. More and more he’ll come to Dick frayed and needing. He hopes, for both of their sakes, that they get a break soon.

Bruce is getting his third cup of coffee in as many hours when he gets the phone call. The noise startles him despite himself, causing the cup to tilt, spilling all over the countertop in a gushing wave. He digs the device out of his pocket with one hand as he reaches for a paper towel. 

Last night dragged into early morning. He’s feeling the effects of a two-hour power nap and a twelve-hour patrol keenly, eating at his reflexes and reaction times. It sees him blinking in morbid fascination as the puddle of muddy brown liquid expands, hot enough that the skin he’s splashed it on is quickly turning red, threatening to blister the longer he leaves the coffee sitting.

The phone rings insistently. It’s Alfred’s ringtone, not the manor’s rotary, which means it’s urgent enough that he isn’t bothering to text. Bruce almost sighs.

Jason was loitering around Bristol last night. It’s not his usual territory, far from the Narrows and Alley and downtown Gotham where his route intersects with Tim’s. Between examining the latest Executioning victim, running his own route, Bruce didn’t have time to pick apart Hood’s erratic movement. He asked Tim to follow up with Jason, got no response whatsoever from the teenager, and decided it was a problem that could wait until tomorrow.

If Alfred’s calling, it’s no doubt about one of his wayward sons. 

“Alfred? What’s wrong?” Bruce asks. 

“I was wondering if you know where Master Damian is,” Alfred says, with far too much calm. It’s that perfect edge of smooth that is ragged under the surface. It makes Bruce’s heart rate pick up. 

“It’s ten thirty.” Bruce leans back to check the clock. It is; 10:31 . “He’s at school.”

Bruce had gotten in too late to see him to bed, and left for Wayne Ind. too early for him to be awake. Sleep is important for childhood development, and Bruce has learned better than to disturb his sons’.

“No, I’m afraid he is not,” that careful professionalism again, “the school just called to inform me he was absent. I was hoping you’d know.”  

Bruce pinches the bridge of his nose. He’d thought they were out of the truancy phase. It’d taken several benched patrols, and a visit from social services to convince Damian that yes, actually attending school was necessary and not a side quest that he could choose not to complete. They’ve got a streak going.

Had . They had a streak going.

“I’ve taken the liberty of checking his room and the cave. His suit is still here, he wasn’t out as Robin last night.” 

Shit. 

Bruce smooths his hand down to cover his mouth, scratches at it roughly once. Damn it. He doesn’t even know when the last time he saw Damian was. Yesterday morning? After he’d gotten his arm attended to for sure. He has vague memories of asking Alfred to drop him off. He works to keep his voice calm, too. 

Be rational. Think. “Have you called any of his siblings?” 

“Not yet. I thought you might have him working on something.” 

“I don’t,” Bruce doesn’t care what complaining Damian worked up to last night. “Did he come home last night?” 

“I’m consulting the security footage as we speak, Bruce,” Alfred reassures.

They need to check with Dick. Bruce can’t imagine Damian choosing to crash with Tim on purpose , and Jason is a lot more likely to send him right back to the manor than actually let him stay the night. The watchtower as well, and maybe Stephanie Brown’s apartment, if she’s in town this week. He wouldn't be with Cass. 

Tim came into the office today, he can also drop by and make sure he hasn’t seen him. 

“I’ll make some calls on my end,” Bruce reassures. “Where’s his phone? He hasn’t been picking up, right?” 

“No,” he can hear Alfred’s frown, “he hasn’t. I’ve called several times. His location isn’t active, I believe it’s off.” 

Or destroyed. Bruce refuses to let himself leap to the worst conclusion. This could be nothing. There’s been times that he’s let it run away and it was nothing. Damian’s never been good at staying in one place. He gets into moods . There was an incident just a few years ago where he disappeared and Bruce found him in Bali, looking for Talia. They’ve been getting better, yes, but that doesn’t mean his youngest is anything but unpredictable.

Damian is probably fine. About to be grounded for the rest of his natural life, but fine.

“Alright,” Bruce can hear the unsteadiness and curses himself for it. This is Alfred, but he’s still in a public place, and he can see his employees watching him and trying not to be obvious about it. He can freak out later, in private, when he has no fronts to put on. “Check the tracker.” 

“Of course, sir.” 

Bruce hangs up. Shoves the coffee into the break room sink and leaves the mess for someone else to deal with. He pulls up his messages, already texting Dick before he’s out of the room. His oldest is the only one who both reads and answers his texts almost immediately. Tim has to be jabbed with a cattle prod to respond, and Jason and Damian both decide to keep their own time. 

Lucius catches his eye on the way out of the exec offices, watching Bruce’s path to the elevator with thinly veiled disapproval. They have a board meeting in twenty minutes. Bruce doubts he’ll be back in time to make it.

He hits the button for the fourth floor—R&D, Tim’s active project manager for the Wayne Tech infrastructure division. Bruce hasn’t gotten a lot of updates on what, exactly, the boy is up to. Mostly just reassurances that they aren’t making bombs, which double as threats that, at any point, Tim is certain they can start.

Dick responds to his where are you as the doors close.

DICK: 

Busy. what do you want

(received 10:39 a.m.)

YOU

Do you have a location on Damian?

(sent 10:40 a.m)

DICK

No. Why?

(received 10:41 a.m) 

YOU:

Gotta go, ttyl

(sent 10:41 a.m.)

Dick is typing…

Bruce closes the app before Dick can finish with his thought, swearing under his breath. He presses the palms of his hands into his eye sockets, the phone vibrating against his forehead. Then again. And again. 

Have kids, they said, it’ll be fun.

He’s not even sure anything is wrong with Damian, but he can still feel sweat beading on the back of his neck. His Robins know the danger of going radio silent, and Damian was online all day yesterday soliciting updates about the Lamont case. He wouldn’t shut up.

He’d gone quiet after school, but Bruce had figured that he’d finally found something to entertain himself beyond pestering them. 

He was benched from patrol. How much trouble could he have gotten himself into? 

Bali, Bruce is reminded. Bali could happen. 

Jesus fucking Christ.

The elevator opens and Bruce steps into R&D, moving as quickly as he dares to without drawing any unnecessary attention. It’s not hard. The tech department is dominated by software development, rows and rows of computers and alternative seating , which, according to HR, is good for employee morale. Bruce has never needed any special lighting or cushioned chairs to do his own work.

The actual hardware is kept in the computer labs further down, and Tim’s dominates them all of course. Bruce isn’t invited here very often, but the few times he has come it’s always to a spectacle. 

Today is no different.

“If you had problems with the timeline ,” Tim is leaned halfway out the door of his office, one hand clenched around a can of what Bruce really hopes is a yellow soda, and not an energy drink. His voice has gone high and tight, lips curling around a sneer. “You should have told us that we were going to start in September. Forty-eight hours notice is not enough time to complete this.” 

“Do you know how bad it looks that we didn’t have this done weeks ago?” The director of R&D, Patrick Morrison, is standing in front of Tim, his expression equally unhappy. His dark hair and violent brown eyes make him look almost ethereal. “It’ll be my ass on the receiving end of the fire, but I will make sure that yours is there too.” 

“My ass is none of your fucking concern.” The drink, energy or not, looks dangerously close to being pelted at Morrison in a fit of rage. Bruce hesitates. 

Tim doesn’t look like he’s slept very much, either. Or showered, or reintroduced himself to the idea of daylight in a while. His skin is waxy and shadowed in a way that speaks to quite a bit of time in front of a computer. Bruce doubts his mood will be improved by an interruption. 

“Isn’t it, sweetheart?” Morrison sneers. He takes a half step forward. Tim leans back. Bruce’s eyes narrow on the man. “You’re supposed to be competent, but then again I guess I shouldn’t expect more from a child, you’re only here because of your pretty face, not because you have any actual skillsets—” 

Tim has looked up and seen Bruce. His expression splinters visibly, warring with relief and anger, lips twisting up to match. The can of soda in his fist crunches, loud and sudden enough to cut off Morrison’s vitriol. 

Bruce tucks his hands into his pockets, inhaling deeply before his own anger can show on his face. He forces a smile, opens his mouth, but Tim beats him to it.

“The hell are you doing here?”

He doesn’t let the smile waver, though it feels brittle on his face. “I do own the building, son.”

“No, I’m pretty sure Lucius is major shareholder at this point.” Tim throws open his office door fully, revealing the darkened interior, lit only by a string of LED’s around the perimeter of the ceiling. They’re flashing red, blue, and green in slow, strobing patterns. “What do you want?”

Morrison’s face has gone an interesting shade of red. The only thing the man can seem to do with consistency is put his foot in his mouth. “Mr. Wayne!” his voice has changed completely, losing the hard edge and going silky. It makes Bruce’s teeth set. “I didn’t know you were down here.” 

He seems to think that makes it better, that he would lay into Tim in private. 

“Obviously,” the smile he flashes is too sharp for Brucie, but it’s not like there are cameras on him right now. “I would hope you don’t speak differently to my child when there are witnesses present. What I heard just now will never be repeated again. Am I understood?” 

Morrison’s expression flickers with visible irritation, but the words he says are only a cordial, “Yes, sir.” Bruce doesn’t have time for this. God but he wished he had time for this, if only to make this miserable rat squirm.

Bruce turns his gaze on Tim, who stares back with gritted teeth. There are nail marks in the aluminum now, knuckles white with the pressure. Bruce’s intervention doesn’t seem to have smoothed his hackles whatsoever. “I need to speak with you. Now, preferably.”

Tim runs his tongue over his teeth, silent for a moment while his jaw works, before he finally seems to remember what the drink is for and tips back the rest of it. He drains the can in one long draw, turning his shoulder to toss it into his office once it’s empty. “Yeah,” he says. “I figured that one out when you showed up at my office.” He nods Bruce into his space anyway, stepping back with a second glance at Morrison.

Bruce gives Morrison one of his own, a lasting glare, since he can’t do anything about the man’s unfortunate employment here. A transfer is somewhere in his future. Hopefully. Damn him if he can’t make that work.  

Tim shuts the door behind Bruce, flips the lock, too, plunging them into an incomplete darkness. The window has been covered with blackout curtains, and faintly Bruce can hear music playing from Tim’s headphones, abandoned straddling his monitor. There’s a stack of takeout containers in his trash, which clearly hasn’t been taken out in at least a week. On his desk, the bowl of familiar sour Skittles remains half-full. Bruce can see a few loose M&Ms in there, too, because Tim likes to pair them. 

“What was that, Bruce?”

“I was about to ask you the same thing.” 

Tim’s entire body has gone stiff, rigid with unrelenting, unrepressed tension. There’s something else that Bruce can’t quite name, but it’s almost coating him. “I’m not a child. I don’t need you to beat up my bullies for me. I was handling it.” 

“ That was handling it?” Bruce’s anger is rising, too. He can’t help himself. “No one has the right to talk to you like that, Tim. You’re not—”  

The kid laughs. He almost looks hysterical. “Do you think that I’m just letting him?” 

“I didn’t say that.” 

Tim rounds on him sharply, jabbing a long, bony white finger into Bruce’s shoulder. “The only reason he is here is because of you. You’re just letting him get away with whatever the hell he wants to until you can prove that he’s funding Sionis’s shit. You dumped him in my lap and told me to deal with it while you do fuck all to help!” 

“It’s a passive surveillance op,” Bruce can feel a headache flaring behind his eyes. He’s here because his thirteen-year-old is missing, not to get into it about division of labor with Tim. “If you need him reassigned—”

“Oh, bullshit. Who’re you going to put on it? Gonna give Jason a monkey suit and order him to rub elbows with your shareholders?”

“ I am perfectly capable of investigating my own cases.” 

“Funny, that you didn’t do that.” 

Tim offered to take it. He wanted to. Bruce stares at him incredulously. How is this his fault? What the hell is wrong with him? He’s not usually this—Bruce doesn’t even know what word to put on it. It’s erratic. It’s almost terrifying in its own right. 

“Have you seen Damian?” Bruce asks. Tim’s eyes flare, expression flickering with confusion. His mouth parts, then shuts again with a click .

And, like Bruce expected, all of the anger seems to gust out of Tim in one breath. He’s never been good at holding onto it when presented with something unexpected. 

“What?”

“Alfred can’t find him,” Bruce says, “we can talk about Morrison later, but I need to know where he is.” 

“And you think that I—?” Tim’s expression closes off. With clunky, obvious movements, he leans down to grab his phone from off the desk. Rips it out of a charging cord as he goes. Bruce waits with his stomach tight, but he’s not hopeful. “No. Last text he sent me was yesterday.” 

“What time?”

Tim scrolls. “Three seventeen.” he puts on a falsetto. “' Timothy, your phone sends read receipts. You will answer my texts or receive my ire.' ”

Bruce grimaces. Tim snorts to himself, swipes up on his phone before turning it off again, chin lifting to look somewhere above Bruce’s left eye. “Why?” he says, sounding entirely unbothered. “Did you lose him again?”

“Yes,” Bruce admits, bothered very much. “Let me know if you hear anything. I’m going to call Jason.”

He’s going to get sent to voicemail. He’s going to send texts that won’t be answered for hours. He’s then going to convince Alfred to call instead, because Jason always picks up for Alfred. 

“Don’t know why you bother,” Tim mutters, more to himself than Bruce, tossing his phone with a clatter that makes Bruce wince. He thinks Tim has a screen protector. Hopefully. The kid leans back against his desk, digs his nails into the edge. 

Bruce starts to turn, but stops. His concern for Damian wavers in the face of Tim’s blatant…whatever this is. Not anger. Not really. Fear. Bruce’s stomach goes tight. That something other. It’s fear. Tim is afraid. It’s in the way he holds onto things, like he’s unsure of the ground beneath his feet, waiting for the rug to be pulled out from under him. 

“What’s wrong with you?”

Tim almost stutter-starts at the question, freezing before relaxing. He knows that it’s not something Tim would do in front of anyone else. He couldn’t. But he’s Bruce’s Robin, and he knows better than to believe the facade that he’s putting up.

“Nothing,” Tim says between his teeth. “I’ll tell you if I hear from the gremlin.” 

Bruce considers that. Feels the pitfall where he’s supposed to say something, and just doesn’t know what it is. Doesn’t know how to ease the tension in Tim’s expression, except to apply the same methods that worked when Tim was fourteen. “You should come to the Cave tonight. We can go over the Sionis case.”

“Right,” Tim says, faint. “Maybe.” 

If it were any other circumstance, Bruce would stay and try to wiggle it out of him, if not try to fix the problem. He still needs to call Jason. Whatever is going on with Tim can wait, he’s not in any danger. Bruce doesn’t know if there’s a timetable for Damian.

Bruce leaves. He tries not to feel like an asshole for doing so, already pulling up Jason’s contact. He expects to go to voicemail. He almost wants it to. Instead, Jason picks up on the second ring, and starts talking before Bruce can get the chance.

“Where’s your tiny demon spawn?”

Shit. 

Bruce resists the urge to hit something. He can feel an anxious pit opened in his stomach, emotions circling the drain of it, “When did you hear from him last?” 

“Fuck.” Jason’s voice is loud, pitched and urgent, even over the phone. Bruce can hear movement on the other end of the line. It’s harder to catch Jason when he isn’t moving, but this seems frantic. “That’s the fucking problem, you useless fuck.”

Apparently all of his children are mad at him today. Bruce can’t wait to hear from Dick. “Jason,” he says, warning.

“No. No. Do not lecture me, old man. I do not have the patience to put up with it right now. Just tell me where the fuck the kid is.” 

“I don’t know.” 

Jason swears again. “Did you call—” 

“You’re my last call,” Bruce interrupts, “if you don’t know then I don’t know who will.” 

“That’s great,” Jason says. “He called me after school yesterday and asked me to shoot someone.” 

Bruce is not, much to his immeasurable exasperation, surprised. “ Why?” 

“His teacher’s a fucking pedophile, Bruce. His math teacher at that fancy ass school you send him to. He asked me to shoot him, and now he’s not answering my calls. That was yesterday. Helmstutler’s gone, and so’s your demon spawn. I’ve had my people looking all morning. Did you just fucking realize something is wrong?”

Bruce takes all the information in stride, burying the growing panic. Pedophile. And Damian called Jason? How long has that been going on? How long has he known about it? “Why didn’t you call me?” 

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know your condom slip was suddenly my problem.”

“ Jason .” 

“I’ve been busy , Bruce. The Executioner’s dropped another one in the Alley. Or did you not get that memo, either?”

“I only got to the office an hour ago. Where do you think I was?” Bruce asks. He’d seen the crime scene, he’d watched as Detective Gonzalez arrived on scene and been there until he left. There wasn’t any more information to be gleaned so he’d left until the labs were concluded. He’d looked for the missing object from the blood spatter, but hadn’t had any luck before he called it. 

“Yeah, well it was Lamont . As in our favorite drug distributor, Lamont, and now that he’s not shivering in his fucking boots waiting for Batman to knock his teeth out, there’s a line of rats out the door to replace him. The laced shit hit the streets again last night.”

“Okay,” Bruce officially has too many problems and things vying for his attention. “Can you handle that?” 

“Can you find your kid?” 

“I’m trying to,” Bruce says pointedly. 

“Good. And tell the replacement to get me a location on Kyle Helmstutler. The little fucker knows his phone sends read receipts." 

Chapter Text

His head is aching. There’s cotton between his ears, and a plastic taste at the back of his mouth, tongue too heavy to even swallow. Damian tries to shift to his side, in a vain attempt to ease the pressure on his shoulders and knees. It feels like he’s been grappling for ages, or hit by a truck, or some combination of the two.

But he can’t move. 

He’s met by a wall on every side. It gives beneath his fingers when he pushes at it, snapping back. It’s not a wall. It’s fabric. Course beneath his fingertips. He can feel a zipper above his head, lined over him like a guillotine. 

Tight fabric, pulled taut around his folded legs. His head is cocked at an awkward angle, shoulders hunched to fit. He’s…

He’s in a bag. 

Why the fuck is he in a bag? 

His hands start to move more frantically, pushing at the seams, pressing against the zipper. He can’t wiggle much, everything pushing against him, seeming to shrink the more he struggles. 

His skin abrades the bag without a barrier. He’s been stripped down to his underwear. He can’t feel his clothing in the bag next to him, taken at some point while he was unconscious. His skin is covered in goose flesh, and his toes are completely numb. He isn’t certain if it's from the cold or the position.

He takes in a breath. Then another. Forces himself to compartmentalize. 

He was on the phone with Jason. About Haleema. He went to Crime Alley. And. And he what? There’s a blank hole where memory should be, leaving nothing but an aching emptiness, filled with a fresh wave of terror. He knows he was looking for Lamont. Did he succeed? Is that why he’s here? Surely the man didn’t best him again. 

He kicks out sharply, like he can rip the seams compact and industrial grade as they are. Backstitches layered over with ladder stitches. He can’t pick that apart with his fingernails or his teeth. If it was just straight, maybe. 

Shit.

He can hardly get his hands up to his face. There’s no light coming through the fabric, so he’s being kept somewhere dark. The ground beneath him is too hard to be earth, to ridged to be flooring in a house. There’s something solid jutting out beside his hip, and when he kicks out, his foot hits the edge of whatever small space he’s in. The sound it makes is dull and metallic, rattles the entirety of the container. Damian winces, the throbbing pain in his head spiking with the vibrations.

Alright. 

Alright. 

Breathe. He’s had far too much invested in his training to panic, but he can feel it bordering the edges of his fingertips even now. Every breath in borders on hyperventilation, the rush of adrenaline rattling his thoughts free from his head. He doesn’t know what to do. He’s been taken somewhere, he has none of his clothing, or the weapons that he’s sewn into the lining. 

Assess, Father would say. Always so few words compared to Mother’s advice, but the succinctness cuts through the haze of fear-driven thought looping like he supposes it was meant to. Robin training, always practical even at the cost of dignity. Assess the situation. He needs to understand before he can act.

With effort, Damian rolls onto his back. He hits something else, segmented, with more give than the rest of the compartment. It moves with the impact. Damian decides he’ll be able to do a lot more assessment outside of this fucking bag.

He hasn’t been restrained. Small mercies. Or perhaps an indication that his captor is a fool. He hopes for the latter. 

It takes a bit of squirming to get his arms out from underneath himself and into a position that he can use his fingers, but he miscalculated how useful they would be. 

He needs a knife. His knife, in his bag. With his phone. Father will want an update. Damian has no idea how long he’s been here, or why he’s here, and if Father has to rescue him from Lamont again, he will never hear the end of it from Timothy.

He inhales deep, pressing his palm into the zipper, pushing out as far as he can go before rearing back and hitting it with the blade of his knuckles. It does little. Not enough momentum, he supposes.

Damian blows out a breath, controlled and forceful between his teeth. Assess. Except he’s trailing the nail of his thumb along the zipper instead of taking stock of his injuries, needing to do something so he doesn’t start thrashing his way free.

The bag is locked. Damian’s not surprised, just irritated to wriggle his smallest finger into the space between the teeth of the zipper and find the cold metal of an unyielding padlock. There’s no room to pick it. 

He can—

He doesn’t know.

What if Lamont doesn’t come back? Has Damian been buried? What if he doesn’t figure something out? What happened? Why does this place smell so stale? Bloody? What if Lamont doesn’t come back? What if Lamont—

Damian stays in the bag for a long time before light pools through the zipper teeth, and the bag is dragged back and then up. Dropped to hard gravel. Damian feels it crunch beneath him, feels his skin threaten to tear, and the cortisol deadening his limb raises his heart rate once more, every muscle in his body tensing. He opens his mouth, but the sound that comes out is raspy and pained, and Damian bites down on it before anything more humiliating can escape.

It’s cold, is the worst part. The air, and the ground, and the bag itself without anything but a pair of briefs on. He can feel hands on the bag, moving it, and he tenses to run, even as he hears the clink of a key ring.

No words are spoken, not even a threat or an order to behave. The padlock is undone, and then the zipper is dragged down. 

Damian gets his first glimpse of sunlight in hours, and it’s blinding. A man is leaning over him, dark hair messy around his eyes, his features cast in shadow as he looms. A fabric mask has been pulled over the lower half of his face, a loose hoodie hiding most of his torso and neck. He blocks out the sun, bent over double, holding the bag open slightly.

Damian, of course, wastes no time for escape. He flails, jerking up and slamming his fist into the man’s face. It’s sloppy, his body moves with the blow, and Damian’s muscles spasm even before it connects, elbow locking. Mother would be horrified.

The man is knocked back onto his ass with a shocked grunt. Damian thrashes, pushing at the bag still holding his legs in place, having to crawl his way out.

He re-estimates how long he’s been in the bag, and how severe his injuries must be, when the world crackles into static as soon as he’s upright. Gravel bites into his palms, colors and shapes swimming over his vision in a violent rush of vertigo. Bile surges up his throat, pooling in his mouth and wetting his lips.

Damian scrambles, puts weight on his injured arm. It buckles, Damian crashes to the ground in a graceless sprawl, gritting his teeth to bite back the scream.

“Christ,” the man hisses, aggrieved, and a hand clamps down on Damian’s ankle.

“Let go,” Damian orders, breathless. He kicks out, but he can’t get a good enough angle, or strength to make the blow anything more than pestering. He’s dragged back toward the bag, then his good wrist is clenched in tight fingers and he’s hauled up to his feet. 

He sways violently, nearly crashing into his captor. It’s humiliating, but he can’t stand upright without their aid. He’s standing next to a large black Ford Bronco. There’s a house behind them, a long stretch of woods off to his right. The property is enormous, sprawling in a way that only makes Damian hopeless. 

He can’t see the road. Doesn’t even know what direction it would be in from this angle. There’s no point in screaming, then. The only thing it will do is empty Damian’s lungs and leave echoes of his distress pulsing back at him in the air. No one is out there. 

“That’s the ketamine,” the man says, shifting his grip on Damian to dig into the skin under his arms, hitching his weight up. He tips his head back to see the man’s face, can’t make out much with the wild hair and the dark eyes. Not Lamont, though. Lamont was blond. Skinnier. His Gotham accent was thicker. “It’ll wear off in a few more hours. Don’t hit me again.”

As if Damian would take commands from someone like him. 

Damian scowls at him in return. Jabs backward with his elbow, squirming weakly against the man’s hold. It does nothing—Damian’s limbs are stiff and weak, likely more side effects of the sedative. No wonder his thoughts are so scattered and disjointed, he’s been drugged. 

The thought is unpleasant, but not entirely unfamiliar.

The man’s grip on his arm doesn’t loosen as he hauls Damian forward a few steps. He stumbles as he’s pulled off of the duffel bag onto the rough earth, which digs against his bare feet like it’s trying to bite him. He’s pushed past the car, and the open trunk, where dead, cold eyes look back at him. 

Lamont. It’s Lamont in the back of this man’s trunk, where Damian was just a moment ago. He’s gone blue and pale, blood drying stiff in his light blond hair, eyes held permanently open. His body was there the whole time, the thing Damian kept bumping into in his attempts to escape the bag. He’s dead.

Damian remembers, suddenly, the spray of blood when this man slit Lamont’s throat. The way it coated him, the desperate scramble away before he was captured. He looks down at his own hands, and in the light of day he can see the flecks of Lamont’s blood drying there, brown and flaky.

Damian’s knees lock, feet like lead weights attached to his body, and Lamont’s murderer has to haul him up that much more, taking all of Damian’s weight in his own hands with an irritated grunt.

The yard is fenced in, blocking off a squat little farmhouse with a wraparound porch. There’s a shed next to where the truck is parked, the doors open but the inside is dark enough that Damian can’t make out anything beyond vague shapes. He twists his neck, craning to see the landscape beyond the fence.

He’s shoved forward, up against the side of the house, and the man lets Damian fall when his legs refuse to hold him up. The earth is not forgiving as it catches him. He feels his elbow scrape raw with hot pain, above his cast. The pressure is blinding, and by the time that Damian has managed to catch his breath, the man has returned with a chain. 

“Wait,” Damian finds himself babbling, much to his humiliation, “wait, wait, don’t —” 

There’s a body in the trunk.

The metal is cold against Damian’s skin as he’s shoved against one of the posts for the wrap-around porch and his arms roughly pulled over his head. Thick, unfinished wood, almost as wide as he is. The man’s eyes are cold, movements quick and efficient, despite Damian’s graceless squirming.

He tries to sweep his foot out, the way Tim and Cass sometimes do, in a delicate arc before following up with a high attack. But their legs are longer, and likely stronger than Damian’s are now. The kick bounces harmlessly off the man’s shins, and he gets his own in return, a bruising blow to his calf. 

Damian’s wrists are chained above his head. No amount of squirming or hitting gets him released. His breathing has picked up speed, he’s hyperventilating and acutely aware of this, but that doesn’t stop it. The air is cold as it scrapes in and out of his lungs, dry and unforgiving. His skin is crawling. 

The man shushes him, dropping the length of the chain at his feet before cupping the side of Damian’s neck, bending down and tipping Damian’s head up at the same time to meet his gaze. His thumb digs into Damian’s ear, forcing his neck at an odd angle. “Breathe. It will be over in a second, kid.” 

What will? 

The man lets him fall again, the warmth of his touch fading quickly in the harsh late October air. Damian drops from his tiptoes to the pads of his feet. The wooden planks are smooth and wet from last night’s rain. 

Damian doesn’t know what to say to make this man stop. He can’t get enough air in his lungs to breathe and speak. It’s humiliating, the erratic spasms of his diaphragm, the way fear seizes his chest, skin tingling with the hypoxia. 

The man turns away. Likely to retrieve his murder weapon of choice. To slit Damian open, let him bleed into the grass like a pig. Like Lamont. The idea makes Damian’s throat go dry. He shouldn’t be afraid to die. Mother has ensured that, and the League has always prepared him for the possibility. But Damian is. He is afraid.

Father trained him for kidnapping differently than his mother did. Her priority was always that Damian’s conduct would bring her the least shame, Father’s was that he live. No matter what secrets he would reveal, what he had to comply with, or what ignominy he would bring upon his father’s name, Damian was to survive. 

“Enough,” he gasps, at the man’s retreating figure. His voice isn’t loud, seems to fall flat between them, his words dead and small. Too much empty space. 

He is ignored. 

Damian struggles weakly against the chains, trying to yank down. The harder he pulls the more he scrapes the back of his hands against the wood and sends pulses of pain up his thumb tendons. “Stop! I’m worth more to you alive!” 

Again. Nothing.

“I am the son of Bruce Wayne. He will pay you for my safe, unharmed return.”  

“I know who you are, Damian,” the man says, without looking back at him. He opens the door to the shed and vanishes inside. 

Damian tries not to let the new wave of panic overwhelm him. His heritage means nothing to this man. It always means something to someone, but to his captor, it is empty syllables attached together. There is no power behind them.

Damian pulls harder. Survive, he reminds himself. He just needs to survive. His mother would be shamed by his behavior, begging for his life like a common street urchin, dying stripped naked chained to a post like a feral dog. Father, perhaps, will forgive him, and have enough mercy to spare Mother details for her dignity. 

Damian wraps his right hand around the chains, testing his weight, muscles trembling as he hangs by his wrist. It puts pressure on the cast, and he stops quickly. The post isn’t going anywhere. He can hear the man moving things in the shed, the thud of tools and hollow metal. 

He has mere moments. 

He yanks harder on his left, pulling down. The chains slide up beneath the rough plaster of the cast. It’s straight and clunky, providing a leverage for him to work with. Hope smashes through him painfully. The pain is agonizing, but nothing that Damian won’t ignore in favor of escape. 

He squirms his wrist further, twisting it like a cork screw against the chains. Plaster scrapes against his skin painfully, threatening to leave welts. The man made the mistake of only wrapping his wrists once across. In comparison to the careful planning of the duffel bag, it’s nearly embarrassing how foolish he’s being now. 

The man returns with something in his hands. Damian works faster. His captor doesn’t make any effort to stop him, just comes to a stop several feet away and lifts up his weapon. Damian’s vision is blurred with tears—instinctive tears of pain, he’s not Jason— and he can’t make out what it is. 

Something hits him in the face. He goes completely still without intending to. It takes him a demeaning amount of seconds to realize that it’s water. Not some type of acid, or a blunt object slammed into him. He’s being sprayed down with water.

There is no weapon in his captor’s hands. It’s a garden hose. 

The stream is concentrated, the water frigid. Damian gasps on instinct, inhaling a mouthful that immediately sees him doubled over and coughing. His captor moves slowly, aiming the hose first at Damian’s head, dousing his hair, before arcing a methodical trail down his bare chest. 

It’s freezing.

Damian is shivering in seconds, choking between long, gasping breaths. The water stings like getting shot with needles, dripping from his hair and into his eyes, leaving trails of ice down his spine. He can’t do anything but shake, twisting his body rabidly to try and escape the punishing jet from the hose.

It seems like it takes the rest of the evening for it to be over. Damian knows that only a few minutes have passed before the water stops, and the man drops the garden hose to the ground before turning around and walking back to the shed. Damian watches, teeth chattering and dripping wet, as he turns off the water. 

All his muscles feel almost contracted, squeezed taut against his bones underneath his skin. He’s shaking. 

Damian yanks on his wrist again. The cast, now softened from the soaking, gives easily underneath the pressure like wet paper, tearing down the side. The lack of structural integrity surprises him, despite Alfred’s warnings not to get it wet, but it’s a welcomed one. 

Damian’s hand slides free. Painfully. His vision is blurred with tears. He’s dizzy. Nausea is curling at the base of his throat, and he can’t see straight. But he’s free, and that’s all that matters. With the extra give, his other hand is unshackled. He stumbles forward, nearly bowing over, but managing to tighten his core and get upright. 

“What the—!?” 

Damian is already running by the time his captor spots him. It’s nothing impressive, his body moving at a lag from his brain, but Damian’s feet know the movements well enough. Even in this state, he’s confident in his ability to clear the fence if he can just—

The wood yields to grass yields to gravel, rocks digging into his bare feet. Damian slams into the fence without slowing, unable to ease his momentum without giving up precious seconds. He can’t hear anything except the pounding of his heart in his ears, breath coming fast and shallow. The world has narrowed to a single point—tunnel vision, dangerous, Mother would say, but he can’t stop it. 

Damian grabs the top of the fence, pulling himself up, grateful for years of training making this into muscle memory, easier than breathing.

And then a pair of hands grab him around the waist, wrenching so hard that Damian’s nails rip into the fence posts, leaving claw marks. 

Damian is thrown to the ground roughly. The impact knocks the air out of his lungs again. He squirms anyway. The man doesn’t waste seconds to curse or shout at him, just grabs Damian’s shoulders and rolls him onto his stomach, straddling him, and pulling his arms behind his back. 

Damian cries out sharply as his left wrist is moved. The cast did provide more support than he thought.

“Stop fighting me. I’m not going to hurt you,” the man hisses into his ear, “the only reason you’re here is because you saw what happened to Lamont, but if you make yourself a bigger problem than you need to be, maybe I’ll re-evaluate my stance on killing kids. Do you understand me, Damian?” 

Damian can’t get the words out around the soundless scream building in his chest. His lips part and only a ragged exhale escapes. There’s no part of his body that isn’t in pain, pulled tight by the cold. 

“Do you understand?” 

“Yes,” Damian wheezes. 

“Good. Now let’s get you inside. You’re going to get hypothermia out here.” 

He’s not given any sort of tour. The man’s home looks nothing like what Damian had initially suspected, what glimpse of it he does get before he’s dragged into the unfinished basement entrance and hauled down a set of wooden stairs. Its neat, well-organized and furnished, filled to the brim with eclectic odds and ends and thick rugs. A homely arrangement, more befitted to a family of three, not a cold-blooded murderer. 

The basement turns that image on its head, somewhat. Every step creaks beneath their combined weight. It’s a single room, unfinished concrete decorated solely by water stains. There are shelves, but they’re all well out of reach of Damian, and the only thing that occupies them is sealed cardboard boxes. A single window illuminates the place, small and rectangular in the uppermost right corner. 

He can see the insulation in the ceiling, and stapled wires running the length for lights that were never put in. 

The man pulls him off the last step, then just stands there for a moment, looking. He doesn’t know what to do with Damian. That much is obvious. He was clearly not planning on having a captive. There should be some amount of comfort drawn from that, but Damian finds none. Impulsive decisions lead to others, and there is still a dead body in the trunk of this man’s car. 

The threat to kill him had not felt like an attempt for control, but a promise, and Damian is very aware of this. 

“My father is a dangerous man,” he says, anyway, because he’s naked and shivering and any semblance of control would be appreciated. The words are hollow, and, out loud, they sound more like comfort meant for him than a threat for his captor,

Father is a dangerous man, though. He’s Batman. Even if Damian were to twiddle his thumbs and laze about, he would be out of this place within the week, he’s sure.

As long as he’s still alive at the end of the week.

The man sighs. Quietly. 

He pulls Damian forward, fingers tight around his bicep. He’d zip tied Damian before entering the house, the grating pressure digging into his broken wrist painfully. It’s taken most of his composure to hide how agonizing it is. 

His captor rounds the staircase, then shoves him underneath it. Damian, shivering, glares at him. 

“The sooner you return me to my father, the less likely it is he will do you irreparable harm. I will say nothing.” 

He couldn’t. This is too humiliating to speak of. 

“That’s great, kid,” the man says absently, eyes roving over the space. He looks behind him, then back at Damian, then up at the window. Every passing look grows more resigned. 

He really had nothing prepared for this. It might be an advantage. He certainly hadn’t been expecting Damian to run after the impromptu shower. If he’d been just a little faster, Damian probably could have made it. 

“My mother will also—” 

“I am not ransoming you,” his captor looks back at him. “I don’t need the money. I don’t want the money. Stop trying to negotiate.” 

Damian glares at him to hide the rush of terror. If the man does not want to kill him, and doesn’t want him for money, there must be only one other reason. 

Alright. Fine. Re-approach. Damian tilts his head, drawing his knees up against his chest. The wet fabric of his underwear is chafing uncomfortably, but even that is providing more warmth than his skin right now. The wet hair isn’t helping anything. 

“If you touch me,” Damian says, surprising even himself with how level his voice is. “I will bite your dick off.”

The man releases him sharply. “What the fuck— no. No. I don’t do that shit. You’re what? Ten?” 

“Thirteen.” 

“That’s—fuck.” The man wipes a hand over his face, then buries his head into his hands. Damian stares at him. The reaction is reassuring, but Damian doesn’t dare to let himself relax. Not after what happened with Helmstutler. He looks back up at Damian after taking a deep breath. “I am not going to rape you. I told you why you’re here. Do you remember?” 

Damian’s eyes narrow. “My memory is faultless, I assure you.” 

His captor’s eyebrows raise a fraction. He looks Damian’s state over like he’s seeing it for the first time. “Did… has someone…?” 

“Assaulted, kidnapped, and stripped me naked?” He gets a wince for that, which is interesting. A violent murder and kidnapping is fine, but the implications of pedophilia grate against his sensibilities. What an idiot.

The man decides to ignore that. “Look, I don’t know how long you’re going to be here. Don’t make things worse for yourself than they have to be. I don’t want to hurt you.” 

“You could let me go,” Damian points out, “then you wouldn’t need to.” 

The man shakes his head, wordlessly. He glances at the window one more time, and then back to Damian. “We both know that’s not going to happen.”

“Fortunately, I have not yet seen your face, as I’m certain it is a burden to behold. I have nothing to identify you from. ” Which the man would know, had he thought about this for longer than two seconds. Damian has a voice, a height, and now this man’s home. He couldn’t sketch him for the police. 

For Batman, however, it would make short work of the man’s anonymity. 

The man laughs, short and cut off, but incredibly condescending. Like Damian is a small child that’s said something remarkably stupid. He shakes his head again, and Damian’s shocked to not hear the few brain cells he has rattling around in an empty skull.

“Right.” His captor agrees. He reaches for Damian again. He withdraws a knife from his pocket to slice through the zip ties, quick to press the blade against Damian’s throat before he can take advantage of it. “Move.” 

Damian moves. Another zip tie is withdrawn from his back pocket, and Damian’s hands are tied in front this time, around one of the lower steps. The angle is awkward, and painful, but nothing unlike the common throb that has settled over his entire body now. 

“I’ll be right back,” the man says, then slips out from underneath the stairs to retreat up them. The basement door doesn’t close behind him. Not a long journey, then.

Damian assesses the zip ties. They’re thicker than standard, but if a single zip tie could keep a Robin in place then the world is in a sorry state. Dick would laugh at these kinds of restraints. 

Damian breathes out to steady himself. The stair has an edge. It hasn’t been sanded down, and he twists his wrists carefully— shit, fuck, shit—until he can get the zip tie pressed against it. He starts carefully applying pressure. 

Father will come for him, no doubt, but it will be far simpler for everyone if Damian can make his way home by himself. 

The sawing motion is it’s own exquisite kind of pain. Starts out bad and only gets worse, as the friction heats his numbed skin, the blood flow sending throbbing pulses up and down his injured arm. Damian grits his teeth until he can taste blood, working faster. 

It’s not meant to hold a human, plastic never is. Father told him that Timothy used to carry around a BIC lighter solely to melt the plastic because he got irritated with having to chew through them. 

He believes it. In the League, restraints were only ever of the highest quality. By the time he can hear his captor’s footsteps ambling overhead, he’s reduced the ties to mere strained threads of plastic. 

Damian exhales, pulling harder on his bound hands, and the tie comes free with a snap. He staggers to his feet, tucking his hands close to his body, both because of his broken arm and the friction rash that threatens to break skin.

The window is a lost cause. Too small even for Timothy’s scrawny stature, let alone Damian. 

He scrapes his fingers along the edges anyway, desperate for something. It has to give. It has to. Something. 

He’s Robin. He can’t be conquered by a dingy basement and a man that didn’t even want him here to begin with. This isn’t how this is supposed to go. Damian turns, reassessing. He goes for one of the boxes next, tears it off the shelf and throws it to the floor, scattering the contents across the cold concrete. 

Camera lenses. Light bulbs, what looks like a folded umbrella, and several different tripods. It crashes violently. Loudly. 

Damian looks down at the equipment hopelessly for a long second. Footsteps pound down the stairs. 

His captor and him make eye contact, and he sees the incredulity flash over the man’s expression. The disbelief is refreshing in its own right. He’s underestimated Damian again, the idiot. Did he truly believe that Damian would just sit and let this man have his way with him?  

“What the hell did you do?” his captor shouts. He’s got cloth over his arm. A blanket, Damian believes. Perhaps he’s finally changed his mind and come to smother him. 

Damian looks between him and the photography supplies on the floor. He slides one foot back, bending his knees and clenching his fists. He can fight. Maybe it won’t be his most visually appealing match, but Damian does not doubt his own capabilities.

The man just stares at him for a long minute. There’s a vein pulsing in his temple. His voice is working to be measured as he says through gritted teeth, “What are you doing, Damian?” 

Damian gestures him forward with three fingers. It’s always good to be on the offensive. More likely that his opponent will overextend, and in the case of a match as unevenly weighted as this one, Damian would very much like it if the man overextended himself.

His captor’s jaw shifts slowly. He reaches behind himself to his waistband and withdraws a pistol and fires. Damian flinches violently, but the bullet buries itself next to his foot instead of in his shin. The sound reverberates off the walls, echoing in his head long after the man has flipped the safety back in place.

Damian’s arms fall limply to his sides. 

The man steps off the stairs and rounds them, weapon aimed steadily at Damian. He doesn’t waver, and his grip is secure and familiar. Someone who has received training. His captor steps over a broken lens, pressing the weapon’s barrel to Damian’s cheek.

“Do I need to make myself more clear?” 

Damian licks his lips, trying to put moisture back in a mouth that has gone very, very dry. Maybe his captor isn’t the only one who’s been underestimating people. The muzzle pushes against his cheek, forcing his head to the right. A prod to respond.

Fine.

Damian lets the saliva pool in his mouth, collects it on his tongue, sucking in before spitting a wad of saliva and phlegm at the man’s face. It hits the side of his captor’s nose, dripping slow and sticky down his cheek. 

The backhand is not unexpected. Damian’s only surprised the man was kind enough to use the fist not occupied by the gun. He’s been pistol whipped before, it is not an experience he wishes to repeat.

The man looks like he wants to say more. He doesn’t. Grabs a fistful of Damian’s hair and shoves him back toward the stairs. When Damian has been thrown on his ass, the man crouches down in front of him, dropping the blanket and a T-shirt into his lap.

“Have you ever been gut shot?” the question is calm. Damian props himself up on his good hand’s elbow to try for a glare. “First there’s the pain, here,” he jabs Damian’s stomach with one finger, “and the hole is neat, this big.” two fingers, held together. There’s a faint smile on the man’s face, Damian can tell by the creasing at the corners of his eyes. He flicks his fingers, miming an explosion. “Exit wound is always worse. Outward explosion of skin. Looks like a burst pomegranate. Then it bleeds. You think that you know what it feels like to hurt? Because until you’ve felt that, twisting up inside of you, wrenching everything any time you move, I promise you, you do not know pain.” 

Damian takes in a sharp breath. 

The man pats his shoulder. “I want you to think about what that would feel like the next time you try something. I don’t want to hurt you, kid, but you should remember that I will. As much as I have to for you to cooperate. You understand? ” 

He looks at the gun, still pointed in his direction, down at the clothes in his lap. Damian has been shot before. He knows exactly the kind of pain the man is referring to. But that doesn’t mean he wants a repeat. 

His body carries more scars after he was left largely in his father’s care. Mother was better at keeping his skin clear of the impact of his life. Father can only do so much. Damian has been shot since then, knows that if his captor were to look at his body for long enough he’d notice. Maybe he already did, and this is nothing more than a long-winded vituperative speech. 

“I understand.” 

His captor nods once, “I’m glad we have an understanding then. Stay still.” He reaches back into his jacket to withdraw a syringe.

Chapter Text

The windshield shatters with an explosion of glass as the man’s body slams into it. Jason sighs, racking the slide on his glock as he steps over broken glass, hopping up onto the curb. He has to lean down into the car to grab the dealer by the neck, hauling the man up by his shirt.

The car alarm is going off now. Jason hopes the poor fucker has insurance.

“You never call,” Jason says, letting some of the actual irritation seep into his voice, “you never write, but you’ll throw a man through a car and expect me to be glad you’re here?” 

The head in his hands explodes. Blood, tissue and viscera splatter onto Jason’s armor, his gloved hands slipping, the still-warm body falling back into the wreckage of the car. The alarm goes quiet with a sputter. Jason sighs again. 

He turns around to look at Avery Ramirez still on the overhang at least twenty feet above him. His lieutenant lowers his pistol. His dark eyes meet Jason’s evenly. 

“Where have you been?” Jason demands, shoving the remains of the body back down onto the car. The alarm starts going again. Temperamental bastard. “I’ve been trying to get a hold of you all night.” 

Avery leans against the railing. “I was busy.” 

Busy, the fucker says, like that’s an excuse. Jason has only texted him that it’s urgent about ten times. He’d started to think the man was dead. “With what?” 

“Things.” Shifty. He hasn’t put away his gun yet, even though the street has long since vacated. No one’s willing to stick around when an armor-clad Red Hood starts fights in the Alley. 

The dealer hadn’t been so wise. Chose to pick a fight instead of turning tail when Jason came knocking, put up enough of a struggle that his lieutenant felt the need to get involved. Not a mistake most people live to make twice.

Jason holsters his gun, unholsters his grapple. Winds back the lever and aims it directly at Avery’s face. The man smiles at him, all empty eyes and bared teeth. 

“Do that shit on your own time.” The grapple hits the railing with a thunk, claws digging into the metal before the line goes taut. Jason clips it to his belt, flipping the switch for the gears to start hoisting him upward. 

Avery rolls his eyes, turning to face him better as soon as Jason’s feet hit the ground of the overpass. “Like you give me any. The fuck do you need to talk about so urgently, Jace?”

Jason ticks off his fingers. “Pedophile that I did not find, laced drugs are on the streets again, new body from the Executioner, and my brother is missing.” 

“Again?” 

Jason jabs a finger into Avery’s chest, hard enough to hurt. “You’re not funny.”  

“I feel like only two of those things are a real problem.” Avery looks, pointedly, down at the car beneath them. “And one of them just got solved. You’re welcome.”

“My hero.” Jason says dryly. “Whatever would I do without you?” He takes a step back, peels off his blood-soaked gloves to shove them into his pocket. He’s not going to get the blood out of it, probably, which sucks. He liked those gloves. He studies Avery’s face for a moment. 

His dark hair is messy and matted on his head from some sort of hat, and his brown eyes are almost black in the lighting. His dark blue jacket is zipped up to his chin. “And I found your brother, he’s been looking for you.” 

Shit, really? That was even easier than Jason thought. He’s going to rub this in Bruce’s face until the end of time.

“Where?” Jason demands. 

Avery gestures vaguely behind him. “I can take you. He was like a block away that way.” 

Jason follows behind him, holstering his grapple as he walks. “But the pedophile thing?” 

“No luck,” his lieutenant says, “still missing. Got that girl and her family some protection like you asked, though.” 

Jason nods. It’s good. He’d looked into what Damian said, the hospital records for one Samirah Khan, the SANE kit that came back positive. Police records indicated that the elder Khan was unwilling to come forward about who hurt her, and Jason has little doubt that an interview with the younger one would be any more productive. 

Doesn’t change the fact that Helmstutler is exactly as fucked as advertised. Jason’s going to have fun putting him in the ground. He still needs to unleash the full power of Dick’s big concern eyes on Damian for questioning, because Jason is painfully aware the kid was withholding things from him about just how personal Helmstutler was. He really hopes that it wasn’t. 

If it wasn’t just his classmate, and the man did lay hands on his brother, Jason will make it slow. 

“I need more people patrolling the Alley.”

Avery snorts. “You’re supposed to be running a mafia, not a militia.”

“Same difference.” Jason fits his nails behind the latches of his mask, listening to the hiss as the seal releases, pulling it off. The chilled night air feels good on his face, a welcome relief from the slowly suffocating stench of body sweat and fresh blood. “Bats wants the Executioner found yesterday. Starting to think the only way to catch him is in the act.”

“Hm. Guy’s too good. We need something faster.” 

“Faster?” Jason rounds the block, tucking his helmet under his arm. There’s a familiar silver camaro pulled up onto the curb. Jason stops in his tracks. He turns on Avery. “I thought you said you found my brother.” 

“What?” Avery’s eyebrows pinch. He gestures at Tim, who is standing outside the car, glaring at them. “You said brother, I found brother, what more do you want from me?” 

“Wrong fucking brother.” Jason snarls. That edge of panic, the one that has been seeping into the crevices of his skin all day, comes back at full force. The relief that he’d gained from the half block of believing Damian was on the other end was more powerful than he’d let himself realize, and now that it’s gone, Jason is left scrambling again. 

“Wow,” Tim folds his arms over his chest, jaw set. He doesn’t move to approach, and Jason forces himself to close the distance. “Really feeling the love today. And to think I got you the phone records you wanted.”

“Gimme,” Jason makes a grabby motion, then flicks Tim’s forehead. “And relax your complex, Timbo. You’re just not the brother I wanted. Have you seen Dami?” 

“Amazingly, no. I do not keep track of Bruce’s children for him.” Tim’s expression has gone flat. His body language is tight, eyeing Avery just behind Jason’s shoulder. “Which is what I tried to explain to him before he sent me to drag you back to the house. Apparently the message is not sinking in.”

“Okay,” Jason draws out the a in the word for as long as he can, “someone’s feeling bitchy today. Do you need a hug? Do you want some Skittles?” 

“Get in the fucking car.” 

Jason throws an arm around Tim’s shoulder, pulling him in tight, so it’s more of a choke hold than anything else. He digs his knuckles into Tim’s scalp, ignoring the blood he gets on Tim’s three piece suit, and the savage cursing from the younger man.

“Aves,” he says, over Tim’s shoulder, bullying his brother into the passenger seat. There’s no way he’s letting Tim drive. “Patrols. Up them. And get some guys to clean up here.”

Avery salutes, mockingly. “Si, jefe.” His eyes linger on Tim for a long second, before snapping away again. 

Jason climbs into the car, tossing his helmet into the backseat and stretching theatrically. He brushes Tim’s shoulder with his arm, gets a violent flinch in response, and stops, looking over at him. Then looking at him. 

Tim looks like he hasn’t slept in a week. He’s definitely lost weight since the last time Jason saw him, and his skin has taken on that waxy gray color that never means anything good is on the horizon health-wise. There’s no flush to his features, which is the only thing that stops Jason from injury frisking him. He looks like he has when he had something infected brewing underneath the surface, but there’s no other indication of a hidden injury. 

“10-4?” Jason says, dubiously, hitting the button for Tim’s special little EV to come to life. 

“Big WI project, short deadline,” Tim props his elbow on the window ledge, chin resting on his palm. For all his bluster, he doesn’t look anything except for tired as Jason pulls out onto the street, staring out the window instead of meeting his gaze in the rearview. “Plus this shit with Damian.”

“Yeah,” Jason says, sober. 

Tim still doesn’t look at him. “Do you think something is wrong? Like, actually? He didn’t just fuck off to Bali again?” 

Jason thinks that none of them are ever really going to get over that. Bruce had them worked up to expect another dead baby bird, but instead, the little shithead popped up three days later completely fine, just. Y’know. On a different continent. As one does when they are twelve years old and left unattended for two seconds. At least Jason was fifteen before he was pulling that shit. 

Jason debates for a second how to play this. He wants to admit that he’s freaking out some, but Tim looks like he couldn’t handle someone telling him dinner is going to be an hour late, let alone be a sounding board. “Kid’s tough,” Jason shrugs, “he’s probably fine. Just gotta drag his ass back here. He’ll be back in like twelve hours tops. How long are flights to Bali again?” 

Tim’s lips twitch. It’s almost a smile. Jason decides to take that as a win. “Three. If he’s taking the jet.”

“Y’all check to see if it was missing?”

“Probably first thing Alfred did before calling Bruce.” 

Jason smirks. “Kid’s never gonna live that down.”

Tim huffs. Goes back to staring silently out the window. He must’ve inherited the brooding from Bruce. Can’t do that with adoptions Jason’s ass. 

“So. Helmstutler,” Jason prods, when they’ve come to a stop at the next redlight. “You got any more info on him that I don’t know?” 

“No.” 

Oh good. That was expansive. What the hell is wrong with him? This can’t just be exhaustion. Dick needs to drag out whatever crawled up Tim’s ass before Jason has to shoot him for being so goddamn annoying. 

“Thought you hacked phone records?”

“I submitted an official request,” Tim gives him a sour look in the mirror. “To the phone company. Because this isn’t a Bond movie, Jason.”

God, the kid needs a kitkat or something. Jason flicks him again. “Aguafiesta.” 

“Yeah, that’s me,” Tim agrees, sinking, somehow, more into his depressive episode, “always ruining the mood.” 

Dick is in the cave when Jason and Tim arrive, decked out in Nightwing armor, sans domino mask. His hair is pulled back in a half-bun, eyes locked on the supercomputer screen. There’s an ongoing call to the clocktower, muted for now. The display indicates it’s been going on for nearly two hours. 

This does not bode well. 

Jason takes a breath to steady himself. “Where’s B?” 

Cass, who’s perched in one of the chairs in a way that looks like it’s bending a couple laws of physics, gestures across the room to where Bruce and Alfred are hunched over a tablet. Bruce isn’t wearing his armor, arms folded across his chest, face carefully blank in a way that has every Robin instinct not blown sky high by the Joker perking up.

Dick turns, glancing over Jason to land on Tim and stay there. “They’ve been at it for a while,” he says, faintly. “No luck so far. He didn’t come back last night, last eyes we’ve got is security footage of him leaving the school.” 

“Traffic cams?” Tim asks. 

“Oracle’s on it right now, but it’s slow going. We don’t have a clear shot of how he left. He never made his bus.”

Jason glances at Bruce again. “Did he leave? Or was he taken?”

Dick shakes his head, returning to the screen. Cass has a laptop in her lap, and she’s carefully scrolling up something. “Not sure,” Dick says, “we’re thinking the latter now. I found his phone on Mulholland before I came here when I was canvasing, it was smashed. Cass is going through the card to see if there was anything on it and who he talked to last.” 

“It was me,” Jason doesn’t mean to say that thought out loud, but there it goes, revealing itself to the outside world before he’s ready. All eyes land on him. Jason doesn’t squirm, but he kind of wants to. That gnawing panic is back in his stomach. “He called me after school to talk about his teacher. He was pretty freaked.” 

As freaked as Damian outwardly gets, anyway. 

Bruce puts down the tablet, moving closer, though Jason’s already told him. He supposes news like this hits differently when you think your son might have been abducted. “Helmstutler?” 

Fuck. 

Fuck. 

“He’s missing,” Jason says, slower, “Dami said that he made a lot of threats. He didn’t come out and say it, but I got the impression that his classmate wasn’t the only person that Helmstutler had been sexually abusing.”

Beside Jason, Tim goes incredibly still, his breath hitching faintly. Cass’s eyes lift from the computer to look at the kid, then narrow. 

Dick’s face has lost all its color. “ Damian?” 

“Now they’re both missing,” Jason adds, voice darkening, “right after Damian reports the fucker. What do you think the chances of those being completely unrelated are?” 

A round of cursing, echoed between the five of them like a mutual prayer. 

Dick stands, grabbing the headset off the computer stand and unmuting the call, talking low and fast into the receiver. Bruce circles closer. “What do we have on Helmstutler?”

“His phone was clean,” Tim pipes up. There’s an off quality to his voice. SA cases are hard, but Jason thinks this one must be different. Damian’s just so young. “Nothing of interest. Checked out his credit card records too, they don’t offer any insight into his movements, except some large cash withdrawals a few months back. I didn’t check vehicle records.” Tim eases off his suit jacket, sitting down heavy next to Dick and reaching for the nearest keyboard.

“Putting O on it,” Dick announces, still with his shoulder turned away from them.  

“Did Damian give you a list of known or suspected victims?” Bruce asks. 

“I don’t—” Jason shakes his head to clear it. “No. There was a kid. Two, actually. Haleema Khan and her sister. Sister’s in the hospital, Haleema’s in Damian’s class, probably who told him about Helmstutler to begin with.” 

“I should talk to her,” Cass pipes up, looking to Bruce for approval. He nods. 

“I’m going too,” Jason says. Glares at Bruce when the man opens his mouth. Whether or not it was in approval or argument is anyone’s guess, because Jason carries on, “Khan’s a kid. You can’t show up as Bruce Wayne on her doorstep and expect her to be fine with that. And Bat’s worse. ‘Sides, I know the most about Helmstutler out of any of you.” 

What little that is, but Jason’s not going to advertise that. 

“Fine,” Bruce concedes, with surprisingly little fight. “Tim, I want you to work on building a larger suspect pool if this doesn’t pan out. Dick, run a canvas at Gotham Academy.” 

“If I may, sir,” Alfred says. He’s closed the tablet and taken a step next to Bruce, his expression tight. “Edward Lamont was murdered yesterday evening. He also broke Damian’s arm. The two events may not be unrelated.”  

“The BPD is clocking that as an Executioner kill.” Dick hands the headset over to Tim, who puts it on gratefully. “Damian shouldn’t have been anywhere near that. He was benched.” 

Tim snorts, then mutters, “Right, like that’s stopped him before.” 

“We don’t have Lamont’s body,” Bruce says. 

“No guarantee it was from the Executioner.” Jason catches Dick’s eye, and sees the argument brewing and appends, “Yet. It’s not like there’s any shortage of people who’d want Lamont dead.”

Jason has wanted Lamont dead for a while. He wanted him dead a lot more after the shithead broke Damian’s arm, which is fair. The man’s list of enemies was longer than Jason’s. 

Dick inclines his head in acknowledgement. Cass pulls a sweatshirt over her under armour. It reminds Jason that maybe he shouldn’t show up in front of a twelve year old girl covered in blood. He looks at his sister, then down at himself. Her single, judgmental eyebrow stares back.

Jason leaves to find a clean shirt.

He commandeers one of the many, many vehicles in Bruce’s hangar. A motorcycle this time, because Cass doesn’t mind his driving and the inner city traffic will be a bitch to get through. He leaves his armor in the changing rooms, goes in a pair of Bruce’s jeans and Dick’s sweatshirt that he copped from the lockers. Their own faults for having such predictable combinations. 

Cass saves her words for the front porch of a charming two-story home in the deepest suburbs of Bristol, as they’re waiting for the door to be opened by someone in Haleema Khan’s household, turning to him. “I’ll take point.”

“What?” Jason steps back from the door, head tilted to listen for movement inside the house. The drapes are drawn on all of the windows, the garage door shut. There aren’t any cars in the driveway. “I’m great with kids. Kids love me.” 

Cass doesn’t bother to answer that. Just pats his shoulder once, like she’s trying to be consoling. Rude. Why is everyone so fucking mean to him all the time? 

After a beat of nothing, Jason leans on the doorbell again, listening to it echo throughout the house to no response. Unsettling, edging all the way toward concerning. It’s—Jason glances at his phone—four p.m. on a Thursday, late enough the kids should be home from school at least. Where are they? Surely he and Cass don’t look that intimidating. 

Cass shifts back with him, eyes up, on the second story windows now. Jason knows that look. She’s gauging the distance, trying to estimate the effort it’d take to get up there.

“Uh-uh.” Jason says. The neighborhood is quiet, for Gotham, anyway, but it’s not dead. Plenty of people are circulating the streets, neighbors milling about their yards, raking away the leaves that decorate the deadening grass. “Nope. Not here, hot shot.”

She jabs a thumb over her shoulder, across the street at a van Jason had clocked and then dismissed as the necessary purchase of a soccer mom with too many kids. “We should go in,” she says.

Jason turns, gives the van another look. At this angle, he can see the lack of a license plate. The windows, tinted too dark to pass road-ready regulations. Avery’s people, probably. Tim said that the only vehicle that Helmstutler had registered was an SUV. Garish orange. 

Something about the van strikes Jason as weird. It’s hard to clock what. He trusts Cass’s instincts more than his own, though, and he turns back to her, releasing his lower lip. “Okay,” he agrees, “window or door?”    

She makes a looping motion with her hands, an unkicked habit from when she mostly had to charades her way through conversations. Jason thinks it’s endearing. “Round the back. Over the fence.”

Breaking and entering. That’s gonna make Khan really want to open up to them. He’s getting the sinking feeling that she’s not here, though. 

The two of them slink around the house, making quick work of the fence. Jason withdraws his lockpick kit, kneeling in front of the door as Cass ties up her hair, mouth grim. She’s expecting a fight. Jason wishes he’d brought more guns. It was a thirteen year old girl. How much could she possibly bring with her? 

Jason jimmies the lock open, twisting the handle and pushing into the house, careful to keep his body angled behind the cover of the door. It’s not exactly a fire fight that they stumble onto.

The back door feeds into the mudroom, which is empty. The dryer is on, lights flashing on the sensor to indicate that the cycle is finished. Jason eases open the door to the kitchen slowly, reaching for the knife on his waistband. Cass taps his shoulder.

He tips his chin in her direction, acknowledging. She points at the door they just came through, the alarm mounted to the door. It’s off, the LED in the corner dead. Disabled then, or maybe someone disarmed it.

Jason moves a little quicker, Cass hot on his heels.  

At the base of the stairs is a body, crumpled. Jason doesn’t have to look for longer than a second to know he’s dead from the angle his neck is twisted at. Nearly a clean 360. It’s one of Avery’s people. Jason’s people. He stops for a moment despite himself. Guy’s name was Alejandro. 

“Shit,” Jason mutters, but Cass is faster, vaulting over the corpse on the stairs like she doesn’t even see it, taking the steps two at a time.

Alejandro’s gun was undrawn. Taken by surprise, then. Maybe pushed down the stairs. He reaches down, pressing his fingers against the man’s neck. No pulse, which isn’t a surprise, but the body is warm enough that he’s only been gone for a few hours, tops. The start of rigor has only begun in his fingers and jaw. He peels back Alejandro’s eyelid, well aware that once he calls this into Bruce he’s not going to get anything more than second-hand forensic data.

First impressions are important. The cornea isn’t cloudy at all yet. Under two hours, for sure. Haleema could still be in the house.

And so could her attacker. 

It’s a vain hope, and a bold, stupid assumption, but one that he clings to anyway. 

Jason lets his eyes linger on the man for another second before stepping over Alejandro’s body. Cass is already at the top of the stairs by the time he starts, and he sees her disappear down the hall, resists the urge to hiss at her to wait.

Silence is probably their best ally at this point, whatever advantage they can have. 

Upstairs shows more signs of a fight than downstairs did. There’s broken plaster on the wall from where someone slammed into it. A fully grown someone, because Jason really doubts that Haleema could make a dent that big. He’s not sure if that’s a good thing or not, tries to take reassurance that it wasn’t the kid who was getting damaged. 

Cass is stopped in the doorway of a room and looks back at him, resignation settled over her face. Her fists are clenched at her sides, but she isn’t moving.

Jason wets his lips, steels himself. He’s seen worse. There’s always worse to see. It hasn’t been long enough for her to do a full sweep. He can’t let his guard down.

Cass steps back from the doorway, giving Jason a clearer visual. It’s a child’s room. If the size of the bed weren’t enough evidence, it’d be the glowing stars pasted to every available surface, pink and purple fairy lights lining the canopy of her bed. There’s a nightlight in the far corner, and Jason’s eyes land there despite the gruesomeness of the rest of the scene. It’s clearly old, caked with a layer of dust like it’s been pulled out of retirement. It’s still on, too. 

“She’s gone,” Cass says, though there’s no way she could have checked the entire house. Jason feels it too, a sinking pit of dread in his gut. 

There’s another body soaking blood into the rug on Haleema’s floor. Gutshot. Jason moves to Lucas’ side, kneeling in the pool of drying blood as he jams his fingers into the side of the man’s neck, and forces his own heart rate to calm.

“Jay,” Cass’s hand settles on his shoulder. He looks up at her, and she shakes her head, “he’s dead. I’m sorry.”  

She would know, right?

Shit. 

Jason withdraws. Stays kneeling there, but forces his eyes to take in the rest of the scene. Window is shut and locked. They hadn’t seen any signs of forced entry downstairs. The alarm was disabled. All the struggle happened here—a lamp tossed to the floor, a desk chair overturned. It was muted, restrained. Helmstutler is three times the size of Haleema; it wouldn’t be hard for him to subdue her.

And the only way he could have gotten in is if she let him. Jason’s people had been down the street, not in the house. They must have come to the door once they realized what was going on, but by that point, it was too late. 

The hallway is more of an indication of Lucas and Alejandro’s efforts. Jason doesn’t know them well enough to speak to their skill. Helmstutler might have gotten the jump on Alejandro, and he was clearly armed. He could’ve gone right out the front door, he could be anywhere by now.

Jason needs to call Avery. And Babs. Add this to the list of traffic cam footage they need to cycle through. 

Fuck.

Jason scrapes his hands through his hair. He releases a sharp breath. Think. “What does this mean for Damian? Did he come back for her?” Did he even have Dami to begin with, Jason wonders, but doesn’t say out loud. That would mean admitting that he doesn’t know where the hell the kid could be. Damian has been missing for close to thirty-six hours now, and they still have no idea where he could be. 

If he ran off to Bali again, they would know by now. Someone took the kid, and if it wasn’t Helmstutler, then who was it? 

Cass is looking at the bed. Carefully made, decorative pillows and stuffed animals piled high. It hasn’t been touched, at least. “No witnesses. If he thought Damian didn’t talk to you.” she aims her finger at Lucas. “No witnesses.”

But Damian did talk to him. And Helmstutler’s had him for a day and some change. No way he wouldn’t know that by now. Damian’s phone was smashed, Dick found it this morning, right? So he would have seen that Damian called him. 

“Great,” Jason mutters. He gets up to his feet. The knees of his pants are wet with Lucas’ blood. Seems like all he’s done is get his clothes stained with it today. Maybe the next person’s he’s soaked in will be Damian’s. He looks at Cass, feels his defenses drop. It’s not like they mean anything to her anyway. “Do you think Helmstutler already got rid of him?” 

He wants, desperately, for her to say no. Dick would have. Because Dick likes lying to make Jason feel better, and Jason lets him do it even though he knows. 

Cass doesn’t answer for a long while. Jason doesn’t know how he feels, that he’s more of an equal to her than he is to Dick. Than Tim is to Jason. Maybe camaraderie. Maybe she’s just too much like Bruce to sugar coat things. “He has a new one,” she says, eventually. “He doesn’t need Damian anymore.”

Jason knows he can’t keep the flare of panic off his face. He buries it anyway. “Right.” He looks back at Lucas, then reaches into his pocket to withdraw his phone. Damian is Robin. That has to make up for something, right? Who the hell can keep that kid pinned down? 

He looks at Bruce’s contact name for a moment before pulling up Avery’s. 

Cass’s knuckles crack, audibly. She finally looks away from the bed, ambling over to Haleema’s desk. The bookbag. She picks it up, dumping out the contents on the floor and rifling through them, before picking up a journal and tossing it at Jason’s feet, careful to avoid spattering it with blood. “I want more videos,” she says, more to the empty room at large. She’s got a tendency to think out loud. “From the school cameras. Of Helmstutler.” Then, to Jason, “You should read that.”

Jason’s finger hovers over the call button. He picks up the notebook—plain composition, just black. But the cover is bent and creased with use, the pages inside well-worn. Jason flips it open and dials Avery up, reading the scribbled letters of Haleema Khan. 

I think that my teacher likes me…

Chapter Text

He wakes up gagging. The taste at the back of his throat has gotten strong, compounded by his violently contracting stomach. His guts feel like mealworms writhing inside of him, gnawing through the delicate flesh of his innards. There’s bile pooling in his mouth, stinging the cuts on his lips. 

Damian rolls over, pressing his feverish face into the cool hard floor beneath him, trying to swallow around his heaving stomach. It hurts to move, hurts more to lie in place, aches flaring up on every inch of him. The nausea has only gotten worse as time has compounded. He spits saliva onto the floor, but his tongue is weak, and the drool drips out of the corner of his mouth.

There’s little for him to puke. It’s been long enough since he was taken that his stomach has emptied, and the most he does is heave and spit up, like an infant. 

When the worst of the stomach aches have passed, he manages to roll to his back, hands wrapping around his abdomen. There’s cloth there. The sensation of fabric manages to drag his eyes back open. He’s been dressed in a large T-shirt—his captor’s, Damian presumes—and several blankets have been dropped on top of him. 

Damian shifts again, testing his movements. The give of the quilts pinning him in place. They’re heavy, but it’s for warmth, not restraint. His legs move freely, if stiffly. He sits up unhindered. 

He hasn’t been tied down. The realization almost makes his eyes bulge out of his skull. Damian pushes the blankets away, regretting it almost immediately when the cold basement air nips at his uncovered legs. But his skin is clear, no zip ties, no chains, not even a half-hearted pair of handcuffs. He’s completely free.

God. What an idiot.

The basement looks different than Damian remembers before he was drugged. What little light did come through the small window has been muffled greatly by the boards nailed in place. It was done from the exterior, which means that Damian can’t peel them off and use the nails as a weapon or a tool. The shelving units have been removed as well, all the boxes taken. 

It’s too dark to see into the corners of the room. Perhaps some new torture device has been set up he has yet to behold. A thick fleece blanket was spread out underneath Damian’s body to try and leach up the worst of the cold. Damian is loath to put his bare feet on the concrete, but he’s well aware of the necessity of it. 

A brace has also been wrapped around his wrist. Drug store quality, cheap and flimsy, but the support is welcomed nonetheless. 

It’s been a while, then. Hours. While his captor, what? Worked diligently around Damian’s limp body? Prepared his home for a more cohesive set up? How long does he plan to keep Damian here? 

It doesn’t matter. He has still forgotten the most simple aspect of a kidnapping; the moron made the mistake of leaving him unbound. Damian is leaving at once.

It takes some effort to weasel his way upright. The cold bites into his bare skin, and the T-shirt does little to stave off the worst of it. He steps carefully out from under the stairs, squeezing his eyes shut at a swirl of dizziness. 

The worst of his headache has passed while he was unconscious, but the dizziness lingers. His throat is also dry to the point of pain, and no amount of saliva he tries to swallow eases the sting. Dehydration is a reality, not a looming threat now. No matter. He’ll simply have to steal water from his captor or find some after he leaves. Damian is resourceful. 

He’s careful on the stairs, aware of how creaky they were last time. Damian is too groggy and uncoordinated from the sedatives, he doesn’t need to attract the man’s attention. If he’s even still here. 

The basement door, at least, is locked. It’s just a common pin and tumbler lock. He has nothing to pick it with on him, and he gets the impression he won’t find any downstairs despite searching. The hinges are on the inside of the door, and Damian digs his fingernails underneath the head of the pin, wrenching upwards. It takes a bit of effort, but he manages to pop all three out, wiggling his fingers in and out as leverage. 

He catches the door before it can clatter, nearly tumbling down the stairs himself at the weight. It’s heavier than he’d been expecting given the state of disrepair, and he grits his teeth and digs his toes into the cold floorboards. He sets the door on the floor beside the entrance and holds the pins tightly in one fist. They may come in handy later. 

Damian steps into the main house for the second time. It’s no less bizarre to see now. There are pictures framed on the walls, generic landscapes, yes, but also of a family. A married couple and a young son, smiling genially for the portrait. It’s too dark to make out their features. 

He pauses in the hallway, both in an attempt to remember where the exit is, and also because he can distantly hear noises. Muffled grunts, dull thuds. Damian stops for a moment, staring into the darkness. 

He’s been Robin for long enough to recognize the sounds of someone being beaten. Damian wars with himself for long seconds between sprinting for the door, and the deeper instinct. He might not be the only one here. Ultimately, it’s the memory of Haleema’s face as she sobbed helplessly, begging not to be alone that pushes him toward the noise. 

He’s still Robin. Underneath it all, despite the fear cutting out everything inside of him. He’s still Robin.

He can best his captor. A man who’s relied on drugs and weapons to keep Damian compliant. If he has the element of surprise, if the man is preoccupied with someone else, Damian can save them both.

There are rooms in the hall that are dark, but he can see a light coming from what looks like a kitchen. The living room is just past that, and Damian slinks through the kitchen quietly before taking a step through the entryway and stopping completely. 

There’s a lamp glowing softly, illuminating the space, and the figures on the couch. Only one of them is moving. 

Damian knows what sex is, even if he remains a virgin. Damian isn’t stupid. He stares at Lamont’s dead body, stripped naked and limp. The first rigor has allayed—Damian doesn’t know what that means. Doesn’t like that he notices it. The way Lamont’s pale hand flops as the couch cushion shifts beneath it. There’s deep purple tissue at his back and shoulder blades where the blood has pooled. The wound on his neck has been aggravated, yawning open like a second mouth, the tissue still moist, despite the drying of the blood.

Above him, Damian sees the face of his captor for the first time. He’s younger than Damian thought. 

That’s the only coherent thought Damian has.

A noise escapes him, something awful and ragged. The pins drop from his hands, landing in a clattering heap on the floor at his feet. He can’t breathe. 

His captor stops, twisting around to look back. Damian stares, and stares, and stares, but can’t make any sense of what he’s seeing. The smell is what shakes him out of the shock—sex, and bacteria, a humid mess that sears his insides as it enters his lungs—and he scrambles backward, 

“ Shit ,” the man is breathing hard behind him. Damian has already turned his back and is scrambling through the kitchen. He hears the stutter thumps of the man moving up to his feet, and it seems like every sound is echoing in his head. The door. Where was the—

Oh god. 

The nausea is overwhelming. 

Door. 

He was having sex with a corpse. 

Just find the door. 

Lamont wasn’t moving, but he was moving. 

Just—

He finds the back door, lurches for it, nearly falling over discarded shoes and other dropped supplies before a strong arm loops around his waist and he’s dragged back just as his fingers touch the handle. 

“No!” Damian screeches, the sound ripping out of his throat. “Don’t touch me! Let go! Just let me go !” 

The man pulls Damian against his bare chest, ignoring the thrashing, pinning Damian’s arms to his sides with one strong forearm. He hitches Damian up, taking a shaky step backward. He can smell the sweat on the man, can feel him breathing against Damian’s ear, short. Exerted. Bile and terror churn an uneasy mix in his gut. 

“No, no, no, come on,” the man grunts when Damian’s flailing legs drum against his shins. Damian is still shouting, wordless screams that do nothing but make him hurt. He’s dragged to the stairs again. If the man is surprised by the removed door, he shows no indication, just hauls Damian down the steps like he’s nothing more than a sack of potatoes. 

Damian can smell death on him. 

“You’re okay, you’re fine ,” he’s told, with no small amount of exasperation. His captor nearly trips down the last of the stairs, has to readjust his grip, shifting Damian up, his arms digging into the boy’s stomach enough to make him gag again. “Shit. Don’t throw up on me.”

He would. If he could. His throat is too swollen for that to matter. 

The man drops him back onto the blanket pile, but doesn’t let go of Damian’s arm. In the brief seconds between the couch and getting up, he pulled on a pair of pants, even if his chest is still bare. He crouches beside Damian for a moment of rest, visibly collecting himself while the boy tries weakly to squirm out of his grip. 

“You weren’t supposed to see that. I’m sorry,” his captor rubs his forearm over his forehead to wipe away sweat. He pulls Damian toward the corner of the room like he’s an unruly child needed to be guided through a busy market. “The ketamine wasn’t supposed to wear off for a few more hours, I thought…sorry.” 

He feels like he can’t move. Like he’s the next dead body, yielding and moldable. His chest is full of ice, limbs locked in place, another scream building up in his throat.

His captor pushes him down to his knees. Damian goes. The man’s hands pat down on the concrete for a moment before grasping something metal. Damian stays still, working to ease thin, ragged gasps out of his throat. 

“Hold still,” his captor instructs. The majority of the guilt is gone from his voice now, replaced with the familiar ice. Like it’s an embarrassing quirk Damian stumbled on. You’re fine , he’d said, just another of his endless instructions. 

Damian can see Lamont’s face. All the different versions of it. The way it twisted up sadistically when he broke Damian’s wrist, the acrid fear of death instants before this man killed him, the slack emptiness in the trunk, on that couch, eyes clouded over and features like stone.

He thinks he’s going to throw up again.

Of course his captor doesn’t want to touch him. He’ll kill Damian first. Then he’d touch his corpse. Fuck his corpse. 

Damian gags. The man’s cold hands come up to the sides of his throat, dropping whatever metal he was holding to do so. “Hey, stop. It’s fine. Kid, honestly. You’re good. I’m sorry.” 

There are tears in his eyes, blurring his vision. It’s the second time he’s cried, and Damian can’t even stop himself anymore, feels them spill over and trail down his cheeks silently. The man brushes them away with rough fingers.

“This is why I told you not to move,” the metal is picked up again, the rebuke callous. Damian can’t even see what he’s doing, doesn’t want to know, just wants the hands that touched a corpse in that way to never come anywhere near him again. “I just— God, you’re a stubborn one, aren’t you?” 

Damian’s hair is swept away from his neck. He flinches as something cold settles over his skin, resting on his collarbones, moves to look down but his captor clicks his tongue, pushing Damian’s chin up with a thumb. 

He hears a lock click shut. His hands raise of their own accord to feel the cool metal of a collar. It’s loose enough that he can clamp all his fingers around the inside, but it doesn’t give when he tries a half-hearted, instinctive tug. His captor pushes him toward the center of the room. Makes Damian stand there, while he holds a length of chain in his hands. He circles Damian, pushes his head down until his chin touches his chest. He can hear the slide and snick of a metal padlock, can feel the weight of it when it hits his back. 

The man pats his shoulder, like Damian is a puppy that’s finally learned to heel. The stirrings of resentment in his gut feel muted, distant. Damian just sort of sways.

Shock . It’s the highest bullet point on Dick’s handbooks for civilian victims. Except Damian isn’t a civilian, so maybe this cold, numb feeling is just a side effect of the ketamine and head trauma.  

His captor raises on his tiptoes, the other end of the chain in hand. He’s tall, reaches the ceiling with minimal effort, and Damian finally notices the D-ring nailed overhead, dead center in the room. 

He clasps the chain to the D-ring, yanks on it, once, to test the give. Lets the rest of the chain drop to the floor. It’s heavy enough that Damian’s back hunches at the added weight, the metal collar heavy on his shoulder blades. He blinks, looks down at it, nearly having to cross his eyes to get a glimpse of it. 

His eyes raise slowly. His captor is still shirtless, still coated with a thin layer of sweat that’s leaving goosebumps in its wake. In the darkness, the man’s eyes look wider, strong features, an angular nose. 

“Can you breathe?” his captor asks, mildly, “Or is it too tight?” 

Damian shakes his head. He takes a step back, wishing he could shrink into the shadows. The chainlinks are loud, sliding across the ground with his movement, and Damian flinches at the noise. His captor studies his face for a long second before sighing. “Are you going to say something? C’mon kid, I know you’ve got a mouth on you.” 

Damian opens it, but he can’t think of a single word to. He just takes another step back, trying to hide from the man’s eyes. Out of grabbing distance, with the fingers that have—

Survive , Father would say. But he isn’t here, and neither is Mother, and they didn’t see what he did. They don’t even know that he’s here, Damian has no guarantee that they’re coming . The only thing that surviving does is ensure his body won’t be fucked for that much longer. 

But it’s a waiting game now. It will happen. Damian can’t escape this. 

His knees tremble under his weight, and, for once, Damian lets them buckle. Crashes to the ground in a clang of metal and thud of his body against the concrete. He curls in on himself, tucking his limbs as close to his core as possible, shivering spasmodically.

“Calm down,” his captor chides, “it’s okay.” 

He keeps saying that. But it’s not okay. It’s never going to be okay again. Damian thought he was made of steel. His lineage ensured it. Never has he felt more like wisps of a dandelion at the mercy of a strong wind

“It’s not even that bad, right?” the man tries for a weak smile. Reasons with Damian, as though he is a toddler throwing a tantrum, to be gentled and coaxed into better behavior. “They’re dead. It can’t bother them. It’s not hurting anyone. It’s just a body.” Damian stares at him. That’s not how death works. The man is not fucking an empty shell, the soul is still attached. They feel that. It does hurt them. Damian is going to feel it eventually. 

“Jesus,” the man mutters, shaking his head before reaching out to grab him again, “fine. If you’re going to mope, at least do it where you’re warm.” 

He grabs the collar, fits three of his fingers underneath the metal, right up against the pulse of Damian’s carotid, and hauls him toward the pile of blankets. Doesn’t even bother lifting Damian to his feet, just drags his ass along the concrete until he can drop him on a nest of fleece and acrylic. Damian is glad it’s only the two of them here, the least possible number of witnesses to the frail, high-pitched whimper that escapes him.

The man smooths down Damian’s hair. “Look. Just…just don’t come back upstairs, and we won’t have any more problems, right?” 

Damian can’t imagine going up there ever again. Lamont’s body is still on the couch. What the fuck does he do with the bodies when he’s done fucking them? Does he do it more than once? This man is the Executioner, isn’t he? Surely Father would have told him if the Executioner was fucking the corpses. Does Father know? Father has to know. This must be why he wants him off the streets so much. Damian didn’t understand, because the man’s victims reminded him so much of Jason’s, but this is nothing like his brother. 

Oh god. 

Oh god. 

“I’ll give you some space,” the man decides, patting Damian’s head like a dog again. “Unless you’re going to cause problems?” 

He shakes his head, mutely. Can’t help the profound relief when his captor finally lets go of the collar, and Damian is left alone. His hand goes, but the touch of death lingers on Damian’s skin for much longer.

Dick slaps the flash drive down on the counter, somewhat grateful that the executive decision to move to the kitchen has been made. “Here’s your security feed.”

It was surprisingly difficult to get. GA’s security footage was analogue, had to be pulled directly off the local computers, else Oracle might’ve helped out. Dick grabbed it on his way back, by request from his very ticked off little sister. 

Cass grabs the flash drive without looking up at him. Still ticked off. She doesn’t like dead bodies, and doesn't like being too late. Has gotten it into her head that she’s responsible for every death she doesn’t stop. It’s Bruce’s guilt complex, echoed down into a younger, smaller version of him.

Dick puts a hand on her shoulder and leaves it there until Cass shrugs him off. If Jason hasn’t already talked her through a debrief, he’ll have to later. Cass doesn’t write up her own reports, and Dick still feels out of the loop on the Helmstutler half of the investigation. 

“Good work, young sir,” Alfred says, sweeping into the kitchen like Dick’s presence is what summoned him. Jason’s disappeared, Bruce, too, but Tim is sitting at the dining table in the far corner, hunched over a laptop. 

Dick smiles, thinly. Accepts the protein shake Alfred foists on him with the grace of someone who’s long since given up trying to dissuade the man from putting kale in his diet. 

“I’ll start looking this over with Cassandra,” Alfred says, “you should get some rest.” 

“I can start,” Tim offers. He looks worse than Dick feels, and the pale skin and gray circles beneath his eyes are only worse since the last time Dick saw him. “It might give me somewhere new to start looking.” 

“That’s alright, Master Tim, but thank you.” Alfred reassures. It’s pointed. Dick watches him take the thumb drive from Cass before leaving. His sister follows after him, lurking like an angry shadow, but she does that, so Dick doesn’t give it a second glance before he’s plopping down at the table next to his younger brother, setting the glass on the table. 

“He added a mild sedative,” Tim warns, because he’s actually Dick’s favorite. The teenager doesn’t look up from his computer, the rhythmic click of his fingertips against the keyboard almost soothing. 

Dick slides the shake further away from him. “Thanks. You know where Jay went?”

“Ramirez.” 

Great. That’s what they need, the Alley’s underground getting involved with this. 

“Ah,” Dick nods knowingly, glances out at the now-empty kitchen, and then back at Tim. Not a great sight. Between the bloodshot eyes and the twitching muscles—either from cortisol or too much caffeine, Dick couldn’t say—Tim looks like he should be the one getting served a laced protein shake.

Then again, Tim only would have known that if he’d been on the receiving end of one. Alfred didn’t prepare it here. 

Dick rubs his hands over raw eyes. Settles into his seat more, slouching down and folding his arms across his chest. He rolls his head along the back of the chair to study his brother’s face. Tim endures it for about fifteen seconds before snapping, “What?” 

Dick extends a leg under the table, nudging the boy’s shin with his foot. Tim twitches, his scowl deepening. “Making any progress, babybird?”

Tim’s lips twist unhappily. He shifts his laptop over so Dick can see. “I’ve got a couple of names, I guess. Mostly working on eliminating them. The list was larger when I started. Damian doesn’t make friends.” 

Dick scans them, ignoring the jibe. There are a few no-brainers. Rogues that might be pissed off with Robin, anyone who’s even touched any of Damian’s recent cases. Adults in Damian Wayne’s life, teachers, Talia’s less savory associates, Bruce Wayne’s most vitriolic enemies.

His eyes catch on one name in particular, though. Only because he recognizes it from Bruce’s case files, and Tim’s late night venting. “Patrick Morrison?”

Tim’s body tries to both hunch and straighten. He looks away from Dick. “Yeah. He’s. Yeah.” 

“Isn’t he connected to that Sionis’ case? That has nothing to do with Damian.” Dick knows this, because this has everything to do with Bruce Wayne, who Damian’s life orbits, but purposefully never touches. It’s safer. Dick doesn’t even think that Morrison and Damian would have even had the opportunity to meet. 

“He likes them young.” Tim answers after a long hesitation, addressing the wall. “He’s got porn on his computer. Underage shit. He mentioned Damian was cute.” 

Dick blinks. That, somehow, was not what he was expecting. It feels egregious, that Damian is the center of so much heinous attention. It’s the circles they run in. He knows that Bruce was keeping Morrison around to keep an eye on him. That Tim was supposed to be keeping an eye on him, solely because of how shady the man seemed. The offer for a WI job was a cover to spy on him. It’s always been that. 

“Have they met?” Dick asks. 

“Yeah,” Tim says, dully. “At a gala once last year. Damian said that he was lucky his father was rich because it was the only reason ‘someone as insufferable as himself’ would be there. Pissed Morrison off.” 

“Does he have an alibi for the day Damian went missing?”

“If he did, do you think he’d be on this list, Dick?”

Dick tries to figure out how to say this delicately. “I think it’s a little thin. One comment at a gala months ago doesn’t really strike me as a motive for a kidnapping.” Tim opens his mouth, and Dick adds, more gently, “Even if he does have underage shit, he hasn’t really had any physical proximity to Damian, right?” 

Tim’s jaw clenches. “He’s more than capable, trust me.” 

“Okay, but that doesn’t mean he’s likely.” Dick frowns at him. If this is the qualifications that it’s taking to be on the list, then it had to be fucking huge to start with. “Tim…why is he really here?” 

Tim scoffs. Shoves the laptop away like it’s burned him. He puts his face in his hands. His shoulders are wound tight, voice taut to match. “I told you. He’s a pervert. Stuff has happened at WI.” 

“What stuff?” Tim doesn’t look at him. Dick sits up straighter, abandoning his loose sprawl, putting his hands on the tabletop. He reaches over and grabs Tim’s wrist, tugging. “What stuff, Tim?”

Tim shrugs. His throat works. “ Stuff .” 

He used to be such a sweet kid. Dick’s stomach feels hot, thinking of how much innocence he’s let get stolen from him. All the anger that’s taken it’s place. Dick’s chest squeezes with dread, “Tim, if something has been going on, then—” 

Tim shoves away from the table. “Taxi,” he says, apropos of nothing. The subject shift blindsides Dick for a moment. “I need to talk to Bruce about Damian’s credit card. And see if Oracle has pinned his phone’s location before it was turned off. He took a taxi. And the blood—I…Dick. What if Damian is the missing blood from the Executioner’s kill?”

When his captor returns, he has a take-out bag in his hand. He hasn’t replaced the door, and the light from the hallway streams in unhindered. 

Damian has sequestered himself beneath the blankets. Partly to guard his lower nudity, partly because it really is cold , and partly because it’s the only place he can reach to hide. He’d tried to drag his nest under the staircase, but the chain didn’t reach that far. He can’t even make it to any of the walls, forced to orbit a small circle in the center of the room.

At least he can lie down comfortably. As long as he lays on his back, the collar doesn’t dig into his throat. It feels heavy, pulling on him constantly. His skin itches underneath it. He keeps reaching up to scratch at it, but the inflamed skin hurts worse than the itching sensation does. 

His wrist is aching. There’s a knot on the back of his head where his captor slammed him into the steps. Bruises, scraped skin, a combination from Damian’s escape attempts and the man’s ungentle hands. His feet are scraped raw from the gravel, but the worst of the cuts have scabbed over. It’s one of the few blessings Damian has left to count.

He curls tighter under the blanket when he hears the man’s footsteps descending the stairs. Tells himself it’s for the cold, not cowardice. Damian hasn’t hidden since he was a toddling babe, he will not now.

The man’s steps falter, then slow. Damian can feel those filthy eyes on him, tracing him. Father would call it tactical, his decision to play limp and dead, but it only reminds Damian of Lamont. What’s the difference between a sleeping boy and a dead man? 

He sits upright at the thought, pulling the blanket tightly across his shoulders. He is disgustingly bare. The blanket is not any real level of protection from the man’s hands, but still, it makes Damian feel better to have it, which only furthers his self loathing. 

“Hey kid,” the man says, when Damian has turned to meet his gaze. The chain rattles with every minute movement. He supposes his captor has successfully belled the cat. He hasn’t bothered with the mask this time, his face bare and boyish. It puts Damian on edge, the slightly awkward crease in the man’s brow, after so much sure-footed control. “You hungry?”

He isn’t. Damian can’t imagine ever being hungry again, after what he witnessed. He feels like his insides are rotting just as quickly as Lamont’s, spoiling the flesh. He wants to carve himself out, starting with his brain, so maybe he’ll forget what he saw. What this man did . What this man will do, undoubtedly, when he decides he’s had enough of Damian’s living vessel.

The smell of the takeout is strong. Fried food and cooked meat. Damian can imagine the contents, he doesn’t need his captor to come any closer. 

The man does anyway, lifting up the bag. “It’s a burger. Been a while since you ate, kid.” 

Damian is aware of this. His appetite is not.

The man sets the bag on the floor next to Damian, along with a plastic water bottle. The cap is sealed. No drugs. Not that the man has shown any need to lace anything he gives Damian, he’s injected him plenty now, while Damian has done little to stop him. 

The man turns, as though to walk away. Damian shifts forward. The chain links clank together, collar pulling against his throat. “Wait.” His voice is fainter than he’d wanted, more a beg than an order. 

His captor stops. Turns again. He’s changed clothes. His hair is damp, like he’s come from the shower. “Yeah?” he says, gaze darting to the D-ring on the ceiling, like it might have lost structural integrity since he looked away. 

Damian runs his tongue over his teeth. Survive . It’s what’s imperative, especially now that he knows what's at stake if he doesn’t. Damian knows how to do that, knows a victim’s playbook. It’s surprisingly similar to interrogation. Humanize yourself, build a rapport. Damian rarely bothers with such pedestrian tactics, not when he can take what he wants by force, but now he can’t . 

“What,” Damian can’t finish it. What will make you let me leave isn’t a question his captor is likely to answer. “Is your name?”  

The man seems thrown. His expression curves with sympathy. “You can call me Blade if you want, Damian.” 

He does not want, he would like to know the man’s actual name. To be on equal footing with him. 

“You can’t…” he’s never deliberated his words more carefully. Not even speaking to victims, when he’s supposed to be on his best behavior. Blade is eyeing the door again, like he might leave if Damian says something he doesn’t like. “Keep me here forever.”

Blade looks at him. “Maybe. You should eat that,” he gestures with his chin to the bag. 

Damian scowls. He emerges one hand from the blanket to snatch the bag off the floor and withdraw it back to himself. It’s on the lower end of lukewarm, almost cold. If he purchased it on his way here, that means the restaurant was far enough that it’s cooled considerably. Not within thirty minutes or so, then. 

Civilization looks further and further away. 

He pulls it out of the generic brown paper bag, examines the wrapping paper. The brand is too big to pinpoint where Damian’s captor might have driven in from. He rips the parchment covering the burger, holds it in one hand. The bun is soggy, the lettuce wilted. He can smell the ketchup. Alfred would throw a fit to know something so mundane had disgraced his palette.

Not that Damian is eating beef .

“Didn’t know what you liked,” Blade says. He hesitates, before folding his legs beneath him, sitting on the ground in front of Damian. Still at least six feet away. “Figured hamburgers are always pretty safe. Kids like burgers, right?” 

Damian is unlike most children. He looks down at the burger. There are times when it still appeals to him, the taste and the texture of meat, but now he feels no such compulsion. Especially not with the memory of Lamont still so fresh. 

Blade rubs a hand up his shin, visibly uncomfortable. Damian doesn’t know what it is that he does that makes the man look so perpetually out of place. “How’s your arm?”

The brace is helping more than Damian will ever admit to him. His palm feels wet, still just holding the food, trying to muster up the appetite to peel off the bread and just eat that. Jason would tell him to keep his strength up. He knows it’s been too long since he’s eaten anything. “Fine,” he says, neutrally. 

“How’d you break it?” 

The dead man on Blade’s couch did the honors. Somehow, Damian’s stomach sours further. “That’s none of your concern.”

“Does it have to do with why you were in Edward’s apartment?” Blade asks. 

His first name. Blade calls the man he murdered and then raped the corpse of by his first name. Like they’re friends. He calls Damian by his first name.  

His fingers twitch, clenching without his permission, nails digging into the burger. The ketchup smears on his thumb, wet and sticky.

“What were you doing there, kid?” He leans forward, elbows on his knees. There’s something about Blade’s eyes, the intensity in them, that strikes Damian as familiar. As if they might have met before. “Why were you at that apartment?”

“I was purchasing drugs.” Damian explains, with no small amount of sarcasm. “Fentanyl. Lysergic acid diethylamide. The like.”

“You’re buying acid, at thirteen. Right.” 

This, at least, is familiar. Damian is able to pull on Robin as he answers, “I have had a complicated childhood.” 

Blade snorts, despite himself. Damian doesn’t know how to feel about amusing the man keeping him chained to the ceiling. “Your brother wouldn’t let that happen.” 

Damian stills. “What the hell do you mean?” 

Blade doesn’t blink. His body language doesn’t get tighter, like Damian is stupid for taking this seriously instead of laughing, too. “Richard Grayson is a cop, isn’t he? I’ve been doing research on your family. Been in the BPD for what? Five years? Your other brother, Tim Drake, he’s in charge of one of the biggest corporations in the world and quite sensitive to bad press. And Jason? He’d never give you bad shit, would he? If he was going to get you high, he’d make sure you were safe.”  

Jason. How does he know about Jason? 

“Stay away from them,” Damian says. He can hardly hear himself speak over the whining in his ears. Jason is dead , for anyone who cares to look. That’s not research; Blade has watched them. His fists clench. This is not, perhaps, as innocent of an abduction as it first appeared. Regardless of whether or not Blade was ready for him, that doesn’t mean he didn’t want Damian. 

“That’s up to you,” Blade answers, “I’d hate for you to get company like that.” 

Damian launches the squished burger at Blade’s face. His aim is impeccable, even under the circumstances. It slaps wetly against the man’s cheek, flops into his lap like a dead fish. Damian wishes he could make the man choke on it. 

Blade wipes smeared ketchup off his skin. He visibly collects himself before saying, evenly, “We’ll continue this conversation later. Drink your water.” 

Damian flips him off. 

It looks like it takes everything in Blade not to do it back.

Chapter Text

Bruce is scrubbing a towel through his hair, the motions more automatic than conscious, when there’s a knock on his bedroom door. He’s half-dressed and too tired to bother with finding a shirt. He feels kind of tipsy, a level of exhaustion that hasn’t petered off or gotten better, no matter how little or much he tries to sleep.

He thinks it would be easier if his dreams weren’t haunted by the weight of Jason’s corpse in his arms. Whenever he looks down at the body, it’s never Jason, but Damian, staring up at him lifelessly. His son’s body is already decaying, weighted, and gone. 

Dick is outside the door, chewing on his raw lower lip, looking just as exhausted as Bruce feels. He wonders when the last time he’s slept is, or if everyone has been running on empty since Haleema and Helmstulter were confirmed missing nearly two days ago. 

“I need to talk to you,” Dick says. His arms are folded over his chest, hair loose around his shoulders. Unbrushed and slightly greasy, which means he never showered after last night’s patrol. The circles under his eyes indicate that he might not have slept, either. 

Damian has been missing for sixty-seven hours. Bruce has slept maybe seven of those, he thinks that Dick has gotten even less. Patrol last night hadn’t helped, in nearly any capacity. Tim and Barbara had scoured everything, but all their leads fizzled out. 

Tim had solicited Damian’s credit card records. The jump he’d made—from Damian hailing a cab after school, to the missing object in the Lamont case, had been a bit unsubstantiated. But he followed up, as he usually did. Tracked down the cabbie and wrung a location out of her, corroborated it with the last pinged cell location. Jason is still insistent that Lamont’s killer might not have been the Executioner after all, but that is baseless for now. It matched the Executioner’s MO, down to most of the fine details.

And it only casts more uncertainty on where Damian is, and who his captor is holding. Damain Wayne, or Robin. Damian had been helping him with the case, but Bruce had skimmed details on purpose. Dick has been better at trying to protect the frayed remains of the kid’s innocence than Bruce ever was with any of his other kids. 

Bruce thinks, maybe, in a best-case-scenario, that Robin was there for Lamont, and the Executioner was there for Lamont, and Robin was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

But the Robin suit is still here, and Damian isn’t. And Bruce doesn’t want it to have been Damian. There’s been no ransoms, no demands, no nothing. There’s no reason to make demands on a dead person. 

Joker hadn’t made any for Jason.

Bruce had just found the body.

Please, please, please. 

The expression on Dick’s face doesn’t bode well. Thinned lips and furrowed brows. He won’t meet Bruce’s gaze, eyes fixed on the wallpaper over his shoulder. 

“Dick?” Bruce asks, catching the endearment in his throat before it can escape him. Dick is more than willing to delve them out left and right, but Bruce has never felt he earned the right again after—

God, what not after? 

“What’s wrong?” 

“It’s about Tim,” Dick explains, finally looking at him. 

Tim. Bruce tries not to let his expression show any surprise, but he knows that it must, because Dick’s expression darkens. Damn it, did he get hurt on patrol and neglect to tell them again? How many times does he have to tell Tim that it’s not an optional note to leave on his reports? 

“What about Tim?” Bruce asks, letting Dick into the room. His oldest closes the door behind them. Bruce tries to brace himself emotionally for whatever is about to come out of his mouth if this is a closed-door conversation. 

He scrapes the towel through his hair again before moving to drop it off in the master bath to give Dick the entirety of his focus. 

“I was talking to him before patrol last night about the suspect list he compiled. You saw that right?” Dick says to his retreating back. Bruce makes a noise of the affirmative. Honestly, he saw that last night, and at work today, and he still can’t remember most of the details of it. It’s like the harder he tries to hold onto particulars the more his mind refuses to grasp them. 

He’s fixated on the feeling of Jason’s broken ribs beneath his gloves, and his heart stopping against his fingertips, and Joker —

“One of the guys, Patrick Morrison, he got weird about it. Weird for him, at least.” Dick continues, “He works at WI. He’s part of that smuggling case for Sionis.” 

Right. The problem Bruce had forgotten about, in the midst of things. It’s not like Tim had returned to WI since Damian went missing, unlike Bruce. It shouldn’t be a problem until they find him again. Morrison isn’t a high priority right now. His case has always been something that was intended to be the long game. 

“Tim put Morrison on the list?” Bruce didn’t see that. He thinks he would have mentioned it. Maybe it wasn’t on the one that Tim gave him specifically, because he thought that Bruce wouldn’t take him seriously after seeing him. 

“He might have taken him off before he gave it to you, but yeah, he was there.” Dick confirms, brushing hair from his face. “Tim said he put him on it because Damian and Morrison met at a gala last year or something, and Damian was difficult, but when I tried to point out that was kind of thin he got really defensive.” 

“Tim’s leaps of logic aren’t always articulable.” Bruce frowns. It is thin, though. Bruce didn’t even know that Morrison and Damian had met. He steps into the closest and retrieves a shirt. “Defensive how?”

“Tim said he found child pornography on his computer, and that he’s seen Morrison be ‘weird at WI,’ and I thought it was weird, so today I did some digging on him.” Dick fidgets with his fingers, his eyes dropping to the floor again. His body is tight, and he seems like he’s regretting coming in here period. 

“...And?” Bruce prods, pulling the T-shirt over his head. The fabric is soft, it’s from some sort of WI expo. 

“He’s…got a history,” Dick admits, finally, “of sexual assault. A couple of people filed complaints with HR, he got kicked out of his dad’s company for it. It was all put under wraps, I had to call someone at the precinct to even get any of this, and then there was a lawsuit, about two years ago.”

Bruce’s stomach is sinking and tightening all at once. He feels like he’s trying to breathe in liquid cement. 

Fuck. 

Fuck. 

“Morrison had been sexually abusing one of the board of director’s kids. He was fifteen. God, it,” Dick runs a hand through his hair, closing his eyes, “It was disgusting. He did a lot more than rape him, Bruce.”

“How did I not know about any of this?” Bruce demands. He’d known about the shady history surrounding Morrison, of course, but he’d been sticking to the financial side. The only part that he’d cared about was how Morrison was funneling money to Sionis. Dick has accused him more than once of getting stuck on one track and burrowing out until he’s reached the end and exhausted it. 

It’s not the first time that Bruce has known it was justified. 

But—

Shit. Shit. Bruce was not supposed to put his people in the jaws of a monster. Why the hell didn’t he do more research? Wasn’t that what Tim was just telling him two days ago, that he didn’t care what was happening? 

Bruce hadn’t known. 

What has Morrison been doing? 

“The lawsuit was dropped for a settlement, and you were—gone.” Dick explains. Bruce has to stop himself from gritting his teeth. In the time stream. Seems like most of the important things happened during those months. 

“What’s your point?” Bruce asks, finally. “You said this was about Tim.” 

Dick fidgets. He takes in a deeper breath, that clearly struggles to reach the end of his lungs. His eyes are far away. “I think that Morrison has been doing something to Tim. I don’t know…I don’t know how far it’s gotten, but he’s…” 

This had nothing to do with Damian. It had everything to do with Damian. It should have been enough of a warning sign that Tim genuinely thought that Morrison would be capable of kidnapping a child. 

Bruce considers the conversation he ran into two days ago over with new light. Not just Morrison being an asshole, but how close he’d been to Tim physically, and how oddly intimate the thing had seemed, like it wasn’t two coworkers, but a married couple in the middle of a diner trying not to make a scene.   

A rush of disgust and horror whispers through him. Too late, his brain insists, too late again. Too late. 

Bruce looks at the time. It’s just after three, if he leaves now, he can still make it to the office before Morrison leaves. He starts moving for his shoes. 

“Where are you going?” Dick sounds resigned. 

“Where do you think?” Bruce demands, “If Morrison has been sexually assaulting Tim, or anyone else, I’m not going to let that continue.” 

Dick hesitates. “Do you want me to come with you?” 

“No,” Bruce says, flat. “Stay here. Run point with Damian. I’ll be back in a few hours.” 

Since he was hired, Bruce has only been in Morrison’s office one other time, when he was showing it to the man. It was back eight months ago, when he was still trying to make Morrison feel important and wanted in WI. A corner office with a view was enough to earn Bruce a pleased smile. 

Morrison can be bribed. Morrison can be sweet-talked. Morrison is a dipshit. 

He’s settled in, as the months have passed. There’s a couch now, white, with a small black throw blanket tossed carelessly over the back. There’s a minibar set up at the bookshelf, rows of books that haven’t seen the spine cracked in years settled above and below that. Morrison’s certificates and degrees are framed in gold.

Plants. Fake. Aesthetically placed. 

Bruce hates it. 

Morrison is seated behind his desk, at a computer, and looks irritated until he makes eye contact with Bruce. “Mr. Wayne,” he says, smiles, but his brow is pinched, “I was told you’d already gone home for the day. So good to see you. What can I do for you?” 

Why does he always talk like this is the first time they’ve spoken? As if Bruce hasn’t spent months cozying up to him, to get a leg in on the corruption he’s peddling. 

He invites himself in, doesn’t meet Morrison at the desk, trailing a hand over the decorative statues on the coffee table instead. Pretends to survey the room, gathering his thoughts instead. Child pornography. Bruce knows all the nasty secrets Morrison might want to hide. The depraved shit that gets him off. 

Bruce knows enough now to tank his reputation. Even if he can’t take down the whole syndicate like he wanted, he can at least cut off their money. It would be a start. Sometimes it’s better to work with something than nothing. 

Bruce closes the door behind himself. Looks the man over and tries to decide how to play this. Stupid, he decides. “My son is missing,” he says. 

Morrison blinks. Pales. “Tim?” 

“No. Damian, but Timothy suspects you’re involved.”  

Morrison frowns. His face creases with his confusion, then clears, as though coming to a realization. Cool irritation replaces it. “Your boy is pointing fingers at me, now, Wayne?”

“Is it without reason?” Bruce questions pointedly. He comes to a stop on the other side of Morrison’s desk, plants his hands to lean in. “He found some incriminating videos on your work computer, Patrick. Wayne Industries has strict policies for computer usage.” 

“What exactly are you implying?”

“Why does my son think you’re a pedophile?” his eyes flash, and Bruce sees all he needs to in them. Rage sparks in his gut, hot and righteous, but Morrison beats him to it. 

“Why the fuck would I know? Your son throws accusations left and right. It’s what he did with his parents, isn’t it? About how they were abusing him? Poor, neglected Timmy, no one loves him, he’s going to run off to suck the nearest billionaire's dick.” 

“ What ?”

Morrison gets up to his feet as well, closing the laptop. He’s pissed now, enough that it’s showing visibly, breaking through the wall of professionalism and ass-kissing that’s been clinging to his every action since Bruce met him. He’d known this part of the man existed, just underneath the surface. Bruce saw his dealings at his previous employment—a higher-up in an insurance company—and he knew that something violent existed. It’s different to see it in person. 

“I have done nothing but work for you, and work well. Now you’re coming in here with baseless accusations because what? Tim Drake and I have trouble getting along and now he’s set me up? You know what that little shit is capable of. If he didn’t sleep around for his business dealings he wouldn’t be anywhere. He’s insufferable.” 

Bruce’s knuckles itch. He steps closer to Morrison, feeling his height, the weight he has on the man. He lets his voice drop, low and menacing. Watches the instinctual flash of uncertainty, as Morrison seems to realize the difference between his bluster and Bruce’s power . 

Then comes the second-guessing. Bruce has done well in building up his persona. No one will ever fear the shining prince of Gotham. Not until he gives them a reason to. 

“Effective immediately, you are dismissed from your position at Wayne Industries.” 

“What?” Morrison splutters. “You’re firing me because of what some slut said to you?” 

Bruce grabs him by the front of his shirt, clenching his fingers into the cloth, scratching his nails against the breastbone. He hauls him forward, until his hips smash into the rim of the desk. “You will watch your mouth.” 

“Or what ?” Morrison has grabbed Bruce’s wrist, and he’s trying for calm. In control. There’s sweat beading on his forehead. “Is Brucie Wayne going to hit me?” He laughs, “You don’t have the fucking balls .”  

Bruce slams his fist into Morrison’s face. The man goes crashing first into the desk, then hits the floor. There’s a beat. Morrison groans weakly.

Bruce takes in a breath, rounds the desk and calmly hauls him up off the floor. He drags the man to his feet, or some semblance of it, tilting his head to examine the blood that drips from Morrison’s nose into his gaping mouth. His eyes have blown wide, a pained wheeze all that escapes his working jaw. 

“I don’t?” Bruce says. He straightens Morrison’s suit coat. “I have some questions for you, Patrick. You’re going to answer them without the bullshit this time. Am I understood?” 

“Fuck you, you fucking crazy bast—”

Bruce hits him again, in the kidney this time, robbing the man of the air in his lungs. He’ll be pissing blood for weeks, based on the exquisite pain Bruce can read in his expression. Morrison spits blood. 

“That doesn’t sound like no bullshit to me.” 

The man curls in on himself, takes a deep breath. Then another. He seems to recognize his position in this finally, and sits up with effort. Bruce keeps one hand on his shoulder. “What did you do to Tim?”

More spitting. Morrison’s mouth is a mess with it now, he must have bitten his tongue, canines gnashing pink and red. His nose is bleeding steadily, clearly broken. “I didn’t touch your brat, Wayne.” 

He puts a hand on Morrison’s shoulder, forces him into the desk chair, squeezing with bruising force. “Don’t play dumb with me, you’re not smart enough.” 

Morrison scoffs. Bruce digs his thumb into a pressure point on the back of his neck, earning a sharp cry. He lets go of Morrison, both to give him space to answer, and because he’s taking too much sadistic pleasure from it. Morrison may be scum, but that doesn’t give Bruce permission to take out any dark impulses on him. 

“Yeah, I get it,” Morrison says, breathing hard. The sweat has soaked through his dress shirt, he leans forward to cup his broken nose gently. “You think you’re hot shit, don’t you Wayne? All that money, all that power. But let me clear up one thing for you. You may think that you’re on top of an empire, but you can’t see what’s happening right in front of you, can you? I guess your little whore took me seriously when I said his brother was pretty when I fucked him.” 

Bruce goes rigid. “ What ?” 

Morrison leans forward. He smiles, his teeth bloody. “That’s right, Brucie. Tim has been my slut for months and you haven’t done anything but watch it happen. You proud of yourself? You can’t protect any of your sons, you just let things happen, over and over. I’m sure all your kids are really glad you stole them—” 

White rage settles on him with a level of tranquility that doesn’t seem to fit. He can’t breathe, can’t exhale, all he can see is Tim flinching back from this man. 

My ass is none of your concern. 

Isn’t it, sweetheart? 

Bruce grabs Morrison’s lapels, feeling cold. He cuts his knuckles on the man’s teeth, hits hard enough that he can hear the roots tear through gum, feel them loosen under his blows. Twice in the mouth, for daring to say that shit, and then he lets Morrison go. Drops him to the floor, and kicks him with the pointed toe of his dress shoe into the man’s abdomen to roll him onto his side. Morrison is panting, groaning like a stuck pig. Bruce digs his heel into the man’s stomach, leaning down low. 

The writhing beast of wrath has seized his chest, those dark impulses rising to the surface, just waiting to crest the still surface of his mood. Morrison’s blood looks good flecking the pristine white rug beneath his desk, looks right there. 

Morrison laughs weakly, turns into a wet cough. “What? You think I’m lyin’? A-Ask him. Ask. He’s got freckles on his back. Shaped like a constellation. There’s a scar on his abdomen, here,” Morrison gestures to his own to indicate it, “scars everywhere actually. Kid’s fucked. Birthmark on his hip. Got a pretty kid, Bruce, I wouldn't blame you if you went a round or two with him, too.” 

A cold well opens in his stomach, swallowing him. Tim was scared. Tim was scared, and Bruce walked away. He didn’t even make this man apologize for what he’d said, he’d been too focused on Damian to notice what was going on in the same building he worked in. 

Tim has been nothing but scared and angry since he got to the manor, even in the midst of all of this shit, like his head was a million miles away, and Bruce couldn’t fucking reach him up there. How long would this have gone on? How long would Tim have let it? Why the hell did Tim let it? He can’t imagine, he can’t even begin to process what Tim has been going through. 

All while Bruce was several floors above him.

Dick had put it together in less than twelve hours. Bruce has been working this for eight months. 

How dare Morrison. How fucking dare he? What gives him the right to put hands on Tim? For anyone to? That’s Bruce’s kid, and no one has the fucking right to hurt them. 

Bruce listens to it, all of it. Knows that he’s not leaving this room until the writhing pit of rage is satisfied. He feeds the monster inside him with it, can feel the way his hands tremble around Morrison’s neck, blood rushing in his ears. 

The man is right. He’s been blind. Complacent. Damian is missing , because he hasn’t been vigilant enough, he hasn’t been watching out for his sons. Too much has gone on behind his back, but that ends now.

Morrison has the audacity to look shocked when Bruce closes a fist around his throat, a choked, awful noise escaping him. Bruce cuts it off with his air flow, lifts Morrison again, sliding his grip to the man’s hair before slamming his temple into the corner of the desk.

  Morrison goes limp for a full ten seconds. Bruce shakes him awake again. Strikes the heel of his palm into the man’s solar plexus. Pain over damage. But the damage will come, too. Bruce’s limbs feel cold with it, the kind of frosting rage that leaves him hollow on the inside.

“Stop,” Morrison wheezes, as Bruce pulls him close, so they’re face to face. His eyes are swelling, lips, too, the plea comes out garbled and slurred. The satisfaction from hitting him has cooled. Bruce takes him to his knees instead, grabs the man’s wrist and picks up a finger, twisting it until it crunches, dragging a scream out of Morrison. 

Bruce doesn’t stop. He doesn’t care. The scream doesn’t feel him with any sort of satisfaction, it only makes him more furious. 

Tim is nineteen. He’s a teenager. He’s his Robin. His kid. His son. He’s supposed to be under Bruce’s protection . 

Bruce slams his heel of shoe into Morrison’s groin. There’s not enough air in the man to scream anymore, but Bruce feels the way he writhes . Bruce does it again. And again. And again . Morrison is a bleeding mass. He doesn’t even look human anymore. 

Good. 

He gets up to his feet, wiping the blood off his hands onto his pants. He spares a glance at Morrison’s body. He’s not done. He needs to be done. He’s not. There is nothing he could do to that man that would ever quell the fury in his chest. It’s what makes him turn away. 

His knuckles are torn. He’s shaking from adrenaline. He has to work to force his jaw to relax. 

He licks his lips, taste the tang of his own sweat, and drops Morrison to run a hand over his forehead. His body makes an audible thud, followed by a prolonged pained groan.

The monster in him hasn’t quieted, still so hungry to hurt. It would be so easy to finish this now. To make it permanent. To make sure he never hurts anyone again. Never hurts Tim again. 

Bruce leaves Morrison there, alive, lying in a pool of his own blood and spit.

Damian sleeps easier and harder than he thinks he should. After the sedatives, after spending who knows how long in a dark trunk, consciousness still slips away from him only hours after Blade leaves. The basement is cold, despite the blankets, and the chill pulls him under more than once, has Damian curling in on himself and squeezing his eyes shut, succumbing to sleep once again.

When he wakes up for good, he feels no less tired than he did before he fell asleep. Almost more , somehow, like the longer he stays in this basement, shackled and debased, the more his life force drains. His throat is raw and dry, lips cracked to the point of bleeding. Whatever reprieve the water gave him, it’s long since gone. He hasn’t urinated since he got here, since before that. He hasn’t eaten in longer.

His appetite has roused itself once more, its apparent death at the sight of Lamont not nearly as permanent as it felt. There’s a pulsing ache at the base of his gut, tendrils of dull, beseeching pain up his spine. Bile churns, but he has nothing to throw up but acid.

Damian lies there, feeling pathetic. His forehead cushioned by a blanket provided to him by his captor, swaddled in cold comfort. The metal has warmed to his body temperature, but the skin underneath is already sweaty and chafing. It’s not tight at all, but it does smell . Like wet pennies. 

Every breath heaves the chains a little, not much, but the faint tinkling noise reminds Damian of windchimes in Shirakawa. Short, crisp spring mornings before the height of tourist season drove Talia to more populous cities. 

With little else to do, Damian has slowly bent the plastic of the water bottle into as sharp a point as he can make it. It’s useless against his current restraints—he did try to forge a lockpick out of it earlier to no avail—but he thinks he might be able to use it as some sort of weapon against Blade. 

The man has been careful to keep his distance, but if Damian keeps it close and fakes some sort of injury then—

Then nothing . 

Blade had no key on him before, when he’d chained Damian to the ceiling, and despite his inane behavior, the man has shown to be capable of learning. That’s a dangerous attribute for a captor to have, and Damian is painfully aware of this. He wouldn’t have the key. If Damian damages him enough he falls unconscious, and he’s within reach he might be able to pilfer through his pockets for more tools. 

Maybe Blade would have his gun on him. He could shoot through the chain. Release himself. But if he fails, then Damian will remain on this floor, and Blade will get up and he’ll be right back where he started. Or worse, Blade will be dead, and a moldering corpse will remain on this floor with him as they both rot to nothingness. 

Father and his siblings will find nothing other than proof of Damian’s lack of resourcefulness and his blundering incompetence. 

It would give Timothy too much satisfaction. 

So Damian lies there, with his windchime chains and the slow fading warmth of sleep to cradle him in the darkness. It’s hours before he hears movement upstairs, ambling footsteps, unhurried. A murmur of sound. One voice. It puts a shudder down Damian’s spine.

Mother always stressed the importance of observation. Of negotiation. There was never a compromise Talia Al-Ghul would be made to settle to, never a deal she wouldn’t come out on top of. She’s had the smartest man in the world wrapped around her finger, and Damian was meant to inherit her silver tongue.

He didn’t. 

It is his mother’s shame. His own as well, now.

If this was Mother, she would have already talked herself into being released by now. If it was Father, he would have had the resourcefulness to actually free himself, unlike Damian, who is not creative nor capable. He is only here because he is pathetic. Father will never come for him, not when he knows what shame Damian brings. Mother would have left him for a time to teach him a lesson. 

Blade descends the stairs slower than the last few times. Or maybe that’s just Damian’s perception, making time drip by like molasses, a side effect of the damnable civilian shock. His eyes feel dry in his skull, they hurt from the effort to hold them open. Damian doesn’t want to face the humiliation of learning that he can’t sit up on his own, so he doesn’t bother trying.

“Dames? You up, bud?”

He talks like Dick .

Soft voice, soft words. Probing. Damian can’t even hear the echoes of the glacial apathy from before. It’s like he’s two different people in one, leaving Damian feeling off-kilter and wrong-footed.

Damian can’t get enough saliva on his tongue to form words. His mouth went dry hours ago when he slept, leaving everything hot and sticky. It feels like the skin of his soft palette is cracking. He shifts his head somewhat, tilting back to look as Blade approaches. 

Damian’s hand curls weakly around the water bottle. 

He had, perhaps, overestimated his strength. He doesn’t think that he could scratch Blade, let alone fight him enough to escape. He can’t even raise his head. Father would still be capable of fighting, even as malnourished and dehydrated as Damian is. 

Damian is just weak. 

Blade looks at the shiv. He seems resigned to it. He’s got another tray in his hands. A cookie sheet. Damian smells more food. Somehow, the scent of it makes his stomach roll more, and the nausea returns with full force. 

Blade sets the cookie sheet on the floor before nudging the shiv out of Damain’s fingers with the edge of his boot. Damian doesn’t let him, but it doesn’t matter. The water bottle is kicked out of Damian’s reach, clattering loudly on the other end of the basement. 

“Seriously kid?” Blade crouches in front of him, reaches into Damian’s nest to pull back the blanket. He can feel the man’s eyes on him, raking over his prone form, before coming to the conclusion that Damian hasn’t somehow managed to hide anything else on his person. Jokes on him. The cap is tucked inside the brace, just in case Damian can find a use for it. 

Damian glares. 

Blade drops the blanket. “I told you. You’re not going anywhere. The sooner you accept that the easier it’s going to be on both of us, don’t you think? I brought you more food, and some water.” 

The tray is tugged closer. Damian lifts his head. There’s another water bottle, and a glass of milk, too. The food is a bowl of malt-o-meal. Damian can smell the cinnamon in it. He’s never felt more hungry in his life. He thinks that even if Blade had offered him a bowl of steak and nothing else, he would have begged to eat it anyway. 

Damian swallows painfully. He makes no show of defiance, reaches out with a trembling hand for the water bottle. His fingertips feel numb, and he can’t quite grab the plastic despite his best efforts. Blade seems to take pity on him, because he takes the water bottle and twists off the cap. Shifts closer. 

Damian’s breathing picks up despite himself as the man scoops a hand under his shoulders to help ease him upright. “Okay, kid, just take it easy,” he says, words low and soothing. Damian lets himself give into the fantasy for a moment, that this is his older brother, and he’s safe at home, but sick. And the hands that are touching him haven’t made love with a corpse. The water bottle is pressed to Damian’s lips. “Gotta get you hydrated, alright?” 

It almost hurts going down. Too cold against his cracked lips, too sudden on his parched throat. Damian chokes on the first swallow, aspirates, and he’s pulled up higher, further into Blade’s chest, a harsh hand slapping at his back while he coughs.

He squeezes his eyes shut, tries to steady himself, but the chains are rattling again, and they don’t sound like wind chimes anymore. There’s no mistaking the harsh clang of metal on metal, the way it pulls at his throat until Blade worms a finger beneath the collar and lifts it to give him some breathing room.

“Slower,” he says, and forces the water bottle against his lips again. 

Halfway through it, Damian feels uncomfortably bloated. He can feel the water slosh in his stomach, sitting heavy, igniting the nausea. He’s gone longer without food, but that doesn’t stop the effects of starvation. His stomach has shrunk.

“That’s not good,” Blade tells him, when Damian pushes away the water bottle without finishing it. “Kid, you’ve gotta finish this.” 

Damian pushes weakly at him again when Blade tries to press the bottle back to his lips. “Can’t,” he manages. 

Blade deliberates for a moment before relenting. “Right. We’ll try again later. Do you think you can eat anything?” 

Not prepared by this man’s hands. Damian lies limply in his arms like a doll, but still manages to swallow several times before saying, “Fuck you.” 

Blade sets the water bottle on the floor. Doesn’t let go of Damian. Instead, he starts petting him. “Shh,” Blade murmurs. His fingernails are long enough it hurts to be touched by him. “It’s okay. I know you’re upset, Dames. This is a big change from what you’re used to, huh? We’ll be fine, though. Just gotta make it through the next couple of days.” 

How long has he been here? How long before Father finds him? Damian gave himself a week, but that was when he thought he’d been taken for hours. Given the state of his body, the number of outfits he’s seen Blade cycle through, it’s days at the least. Time has run together, and Damian doesn’t know when he should expect a rescue. If he should.

What does Blade anticipate changing in the next couple of days ? Does he think Damian will cede to him? That his will is so flimsy? Damian will not bow to a man like him. He is the heir to the League of Shadows, the heir to the Bat , his lineage has built empires. 

Damian takes in an unsteady breath. “My father would—” 

The hands tighten in his hair, painful now instead of soothing. “I don’t want a ransom, Damian. I thought we went over this.” 

“You’re asinine,” Damian says, frustrated. “A ransom would end far more favorably for you. You could leave the city, get out of this dilapidated shack, procure a new identity.” 

“I don’t do this for the money .” Blade points out. 

“No,” Damian mutters, “you aberration. You do it to satisfy your sick paraphilia.” 

Blade shoves him off. Damian smashes into the floor. The blow is weak, and the collision even more so, but the pressure makes him ache hard enough he has to grit his teeth. The swirl of dizziness is overwhelming. 

“That’s not what this is about, you stupid— ” Blade snarls, stops himself. The switch has flipped again, the warmth drained from him like it was never there in the first place. He chose his namesake well. The edge of his temper is as thin as the dao Damian trained with as a child.

Damian keeps his eyes closed. Curls a hand into a fist. He wishes he had his water bottle. “Isn’t it?” 

“You know any of the shit that Lamont did? That man was a monster. You want to talk about the dead and dignity? He didn’t deserve any. Sure, whatever, it’s a little fucked, but in comparison to what they were doing? This is nothing.” 

Damian opens his eyes into slivers. Stares into the blurry mass where he knows Blade is. His tongue is sharp, and ready to delve out more verbal blows. Survive, his father’s voice urges in his head. Survive. 

How could this be to your advantage? Mother’s asks, calm. Clinical. 

He’s supposed to humanize. Make his captor like him. He’s supposed to live.

And right now, that isn’t being defiant, or hurling insults, it’s compliancy. He has already proven his capability for escape, which is dangerous. Now, he must play the long game, if Father does not come for him, then Damian will simply have to wait out his captor. He can’t hold him forever. Blade will make a mistake.

It’s Damian’s job now to make him commit it.

Damian’s eyes slide down. “He broke my arm.”

Blade pauses. Follows Damian’s gaze to the wrist brace. It’s not something Damian should advertise—a tenuous connection between Robin and his civilian identity—but it’s not like the man hadn’t already caught him at Lamont’s apartment. “You’re a kid. What could you have possibly done?” 

Raided his drug stash with Red Hood, stealing millions from the man’s grasp. 

Damian shrugs, mutely. He doesn’t really have an excuse for being there. 

Blade seems to realize that he’s not going to get any more information. His shoulders get tight, and his face goes unhappy. “I’m sorry that he did that to you. You know what kind of person he was. Do you really think that what I do is worse? At least I’m cleaning up the streets while I go.” 

Damian swallows his instinctive answer. Survive. “I understand.” 

Blade’s expression flickers with relief. “Good. That’s good, Dames. We need to understand each other, if we’re going to get along. And I want us to get along. Don’t you?”

Damian wants to go home. He wants to roll over and sleep until his stomach has stopped aching, and his head doesn’t spin anymore. He wants Mother, or Father, or Dick. Jason. He’d settle for Tim here with him, if only it meant he wasn't alone with this man.

Instead he nods, biting his tongue for the umpteenth time. Doesn’t bite his captor when the man loops an arm under his back and tugs him closer again, forcing Damian to sit up in his nest and try a bite of the porridge.

It’s sticky and the grains mush in his mouth unpleasantly, but it coats his stomach and warms his chest. And as long as he’s very still, and keeps his eyes squeezed shut, he can almost pretend like it isn’t Blade behind him, spoon feeding every bite.

Chapter Text

Dick is acting weird. 

Tim doesn’t know what’s wrong with him, but he’s been twitchy all morning, like he’s waiting for worse news to land in the middle of their bad news. He’s checked on Tim twice, even though Tim hasn’t left the kitchen or made moves to do so. He gives Tim an awkward smile every time it happens, and always has an excuse ready, but he’s still being weird . 

“You should talk to him,” he tells Jason. The man is pacing a rut into the floors. His visit to his lieutenant did nothing for his nerves, apparently, and now all that anxious energy is Tim’s problem. Eight thousand square feet and he just had to choose the six that Tim is occupying.  

“Not my anxiety attack,” Jason dismisses immediately. Then seems to actually process the words, and looks back at Tim. “How weird is weird?” 

“He’s—” Tim’s nose wrinkles, “ hovering .”

Jason’s eyebrow raises. “Oh. So. It’s like a day that ends in y for him?” 

He gives his brother an exasperated expression. “You know what I mean.” 

“He always hovers,” Jason points out, takes another lap around the room. He stops to sigh loudly. “Where is he?” 

Like Tim knows. Like Tim is going anywhere near the powder keg that is Dick Grayson right now. He’s going to explode, and then Tim will get to know exactly what kind of weird it is, and he’d much rather have a human shield when that time comes. Good thing Jason is always willing to do the martyr play. 

“Not sure,” Tim admits, “probably in the cave. He’s been running point while Bruce is out.” 

No one—I.g. Dick—will give him an answer when he asks where the man vanished to, and it’s starting to make Tim anxious. There’s not a lot of information that Dick and Bruce won’t share with each other, but they can be selective when it comes to including the rest of them. Damian has been missing for seventy-eight hours now. They’re past the three day mark. The chances of Damian’s recovery are dropping every hour. 

Tim has been trying to ignore the idea that they might have found the kid’s body. 

Bruce wouldn’t be this quiet about it, would he? He wasn’t for Jason . He practically screamed his grief into every person he met for months after. Damian wouldn’t be any different. Tim is terrified. He’s trying to pretend he isn’t. 

Focusing on finding him hasn’t been nearly as distracting to that gnawing anxiety as he wants it to be. 

“Timster, honestly, I think he’s probably just like, y’know, freaked the fuck out like the rest of us are.” 

“Yeah, maybe,” Tim says, and neither of them addresses the underlying issue of Damian’s corpse. 

He turns back to his computer. The traffic camera outside of Lamont’s apartment building was a dead end. He’s been tasked with going through all the known Executioner victims and their profiles, any evidence recovered from either the crime scenes or the dead bodies. 

Jason takes a seat next to him, releasing a gusty sigh. He reaches forward and snags some of Tim's Skittles, the ones he forced Alfred to get out, because he can't stand the taste of them and they make him focus just as effectively as coffee. Jason loves Skittles, though, and keeps eating them, smiling benignly when Tim glares at him and moves the packet. 

Jason stares at the computer for a while before rolling his head along the back of the chair to look at Tim’s face. He reminds Tim sharply of Dick with the motion, doing the same thing yesterday. In some ways, Tim has no idea how they could be mistaken for siblings, adoption papers or not, but there are times like this, where their haptics have bled out all over each other, that it’s hard to ignore. 

“Hey, be straight with me. You good? You look worse than last time I saw you.” 

“Haven’t slept.” Tim dismisses. “And I’m bi.” 

Jason slaps a hand over his heart. “You homophobic asshole . You knew you were gay and didn’t tell me? When was your coming out party? Are you stealing my shtick again , Replacement?” The nickname is fond, but it still makes something in Tim’s stomach sour. Jason huffs, opens his mouth, likely to make more jokes, but he’s interrupted by the door bursting open. He doesn’t want Jason to be funny. 

Bruce Wayne all but explodes into the space. Jason jerks forward, hand on Tim’s shoulder in instinct, the other going for his gun. Tim’s reaction time is slower, but he’s already halfway to his feet before he actually looks at his father. 

Bruce is covered in blood. Some of it has dried, most of it hasn’t. It’s splattered on his face, and up his sleeves. The knuckles on his right hand are split, oozing softly. There are no defensive wounds that Tim can see, but he still opens his mouth to try and ask, but can’t. Horror and terror war for dominance, severing his vocal cords. 

The look on his face is somehow worse. A mask of cold anger, too controlled for the way he prowls into the room. For all the world a predator, lithe and graceful. He looks like he killed something, in a three-piece suit, his gelled hair in disarray.

“Bruce?” Jason says, because it’s been longer since he’s been Robin. Because the kind of conditioned paralysis isn’t as effective on him. He’s still frozen in place, halfway to his feet and watching Batman approach, but Tim feels welded to the floor. Bruce’s eyes are pinned on him . 

“Hey,” Jason continues, hand tightening on Tim’s shoulder, “what happened? Did Damian—” 

Tim watches the distance between them decrease with every flailing heartbeat. He doesn’t know what’s about to happen and leans back into Jason on instinct, but by the time his brother seems to realize that’s what he’s doing and reciprocates the desired protection, it’s too late for it to be effective. 

Bruce grabs hold of Tim’s shoulders and drags him into an embrace.

It’s squeezing, the pressure painful, and Bruce releases a half-choked sob. Gross and explosive, and Tim feels every muscle in his body tense up. Strong, familiar arms wrap around him, a hand on his head pushing his face into Bruce’s shoulder. He’s taller now, could nearly be eye-level with the man on even ground, but he feels dwarfed by his father’s bulk. Enveloped completely, practically cradled , in a way Bruce hasn’t since he was a kid. He’s been hugged since then, but not this desperately. 

Tears drip onto Tim’s shoulder, soaking through the thin fabric of his T-shirt, and despite not knowing what the hell has gotten into him, Tim feels his own throat clog up in turn, eyes burning. 

“Bruce,” Jason’s voice, behind them, is straining for calm and landing somewhere south of panicked. “What happened?” 

Bruce pulls back some, not to release Tim, but to look up at Jason. “You should go. I need to talk to Tim. Alone.” 

“Uh,” Jason says, eloquently, “yeah, that’s great. I’ll just take a seat then. Right here. While you explain what the fuck is going on. Tim, are you…did something happen? You’re not dying, right? He’s not dying? You’re not dying. I’d know if you were dying.” 

“Jason shut up,” Tim wheezes.

“Hey, I—” Dick stops mid sentence in the doorway of the kitchen. His presence seems to ease something in Bruce, because the man finally lets Tim go. He grips his arm, his eyes filled with so much sorrow that it hurts to look at it. Tim avoids his gaze, settles on his chin instead. 

Jason rounds the table to stand next to Dick, hands crossed over his chest, looking between all of them. Tim hates the pressure of his eyes. The panic is growing in his stomach, and with it, the urge to flee. He feels like he’s six again, and he’s hiding from his parents after getting into trouble. 

Dick’s mouth gets tight. “What happened at WI?” 

At—

Shit. 

Bruce’s face is wet with the tears. Tim doesn’t know the last time he’s seen the man cry. The last time he saw him this unhinged, uncaring of the mess he’s made of himself. Tim feels a pit drop in his stomach, dread winding around his neck like a snake.

Bruce cups his face with one hand, says, quietly, “Tim,” and he knows exactly what Bruce has found out. His skin crawls. 

“Did you kill him?” Tim’s voice is empty. 

“I hope so,” Bruce whispers. The confession makes Tim cold. His father releases a shuddering breath. “I’m so sorry. Tim. Tim, I should have—I didn’t know. You know that, right?” 

Tim shrugs, looks away. His chest is tight, almost too tight to speak, face hot with embarrassment. He never meant for Bruce to find out, for anyone to find out. He’d just been doing his job, completing a mission. He’s seen Bruce’s logs from the earliest days, how far he went to solve a case. He knows the kind of dedication his father expects. Part of him didn’t want to come clean about what he did, how far he let it go, for fear of finding approval in place of condemnation.

He doesn’t feel any sort of relief, looking at Bruce’s tears. The wash of guilt is worse. 

“Know…what?” Jason again. Lower, more sober. Or maybe just more dangerous. There’s an edge to him now, soothing the frayed strands of panic. Dick puts a hand on Jason’s shoulder, face grim. 

More of that squirmy humiliation. Tim wishes he could sink into the floor. 

The longer he stares at Bruce’s tears, the more that Tim finds a new, unexpected feeling rising in his stomach— wrath . There was a part of him, inside that coiled dread waiting for approval, that assumed Bruce just knew. He had to. He’s the world’s greatest detective. How could he not know? Tim was right there. 

He looks at Bruce’s tears and feels nothing like sympathy. 

“About Patrick Morrison molesting me,” Tim’s voice has more strength than he was expecting it to. It sounds hard. Like steel. He feels like he’s shattered glass, split into dazzling pieces and waiting to be stepped over and broken into millions more. He turns his attention away from his brother to look back at Bruce, and reaches up with shaking hands to peel back the edge of his shirt to reveal the line of hickies on his collarbone. “You didn’t know. Look at me. How could you not know!?” 

His brothers are making noise. Jason is making noise, because Jason’s never known when to shut the fuck up and sit the fuck down. Tim doesn’t bother listening to them, to Dick’s cursory attempts at settling his younger brother. It burns ; the anger that’s been eating at him since he was assigned this case, since the first comment Morrison made about his pretty mouth . He knew it was an occupational hazard, that Dick’s tolerated worse and Jason’s made a game of blowing out kneecaps whenever it happens, but this time still felt uniquely violating. Maybe because of how close his proximity was to Bruce. Because it was Tim Drake getting defiled, not a mask, not Caroline Hill, or some other fake identity. Because Tim hoped he was worth more than that to Bruce.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Bruce sounds like he’s being tortured. 

Tim shoves him back. He doesn’t want to sympathize. He doesn’t want to make Bruce feel better. He wants someone to be just as hurt as he’s been for weeks now. “Don’t you fucking say that to me. I did! I said something to you yesterday!” 

“That wasn’t—” 

Tim is getting angrier. “Enough? What? Was I supposed to sit across from you and list out what he’s done to me for you to care? For me to talk about when he pinned me in the elevator and made me kiss him, or when he shoved his hands down my pants in the middle of a budget meeting? Or how about four fucking days ago, when he pinned me in my office and gave me these?” He gestures wildly at the hickies. “He was going to rape me, he talked about it constantly, and I was supposed to bring that up to you?” 

“ Yes !” Bruce explodes. “What possessed you to keep this to yourself?” 

Tim wants to break something. He wants to shake something. He laughs, wet and desperate. “ Did I?! I told you he had child porn on his computer, it’s not like I was hiding his faults from you.” 

“God fucking damn it, Tim!” Bruce grabs his shoulders, and the contact is gentle despite his fury, “You are too important to me for you to pull shit like this anymore!” 

Tim blinks. “ What ?” 

“I’m not Jack Drake. You’re not on your own anymore,” Bruce says. His voice is trying for patient, but it isn’t. “If you tell me things, I will actually help you. That’s my job. I’m your father. You don’t need to allude to something in the hopes that someone will pick up on it. You’re my son. I would never have let something like this happen if you’d told me.”

Tim is breathing hard. “I see,” his voice is flat, “so it’s my fault for not talking. Got it.”  

Bruce’s expression screws up, mouth opening to argue, but Tim doesn’t need this right now. He’d been handling Morrison just fucking fine, would’ve gotten the case wrapped up, too. Not that it’s possible anymore, now that Bruce has undoubtedly put him in a body cast. That means none of it matters. Everything Tim tolerated, every uncomfortable touch and lingering glance. What the fuck was the point?

Tim shoves past him. Miracle of miracles, Bruce actually lets him. Tim scampers around the edge of the table, avoiding Dick’s arm that tries to snatch at him. His eyes are red with unshed tears, and he’s gone deathly pale. Jason has gone completely still, Dick’s vice grip on his arm meaningless. Tim doesn’t think Jason could move if he tried. 

“Tim,” Bruce calls after him. “Tim!” 

Tim pushes through the door and slams it shut behind him. It’s a childish move, one he hasn’t pulled since he was five or six, and Jack had made sure he didn’t do it again. That doesn’t make it any less satisfying. 

Not as satisfying is the empty hallway, the way the impact echoes around a vacant manor. Tim turns his back on the kitchen, still breathing hard, too warm. He needs some air, needs to clear his head. Everything is stiff and aching from sitting too long, eyes burning from staring at the computer. Not the threat of tears. Just the computer.

He finds the back door before any of the idiots in the kitchen can get it in their head to follow him. Pushes out into the garden without once losing speed. The weather has turned in the past few days, gone from cold to frigid, dew frosting beneath his feet. November is almost upon them, the end of October sneaking up faster now that his days are a void of searching for Damian. He doesn’t have a jacket. 

Whatever. He circles the edge of the garden before slipping inside and easing his way down on the ground next to a tree. He buries his face into his hands and breathes in and out as steadily as he can manage. 

He feels disgusting. He hasn’t showered in days. It’s the longest stretch since he’s been working with Morrison consistently. He was up to four a day, but it felt like no matter what he did, he couldn’t get the touch off of his body. Out from under his skin. 

But of course Bruce had to go in and react with his stupid bullshit, and now Tim has spent months listening to the detailed planning of his rape for nothing but the nightmares. 

It doesn’t take long for Dick to find him. Jason is unexpected, looking sort of lost. Dogging Dick’s steps like an overgrown puppy. Tim swallows the vitriol. Jason’s been getting too much of it, he has nothing to do with this. Tim barely even saw him before Damian went missing.

“We’ve got trampolines,” Dick says, as soon as he’s in ear shot. His voice is purposefully light. The shock’s worn off, then. His talking to victims voice is somewhat condescending, given the circumstances. “A swingset. Loveseat. Two jungle gyms. You chose a wet patch of grass.”

“Yep. At least I chose it.” 

It’s mean. Unnecessarily. He really succeeded in biting back his anger. 

Jason flinches. Dick doesn’t. Takes Tim in stride, the way he always does, stopping right beside him lowering himself to the ground, careful not to touch Tim. His hair has been put up again, a thick aviator jacket pulled on, like he’s anticipating being out here a while. He thinks it was Jason’s at some point. Tim feels abruptly like a tantruming child, throwing a fit that Dick plans on waiting out. 

Jason pulls off his own jacket and settles it around Tim’s shoulders before just standing there, hands folded across his chest. He looks like he would rather be anywhere else, and, at the same time, like there’s nowhere he would rather be more, if stubbornly. No one says anything until Jason finally squats down, sitting on his haunches. He pokes Tim in the forehead. “You’re kind of fucked in the head, kid.” 

“ Jason ,” Dick chides, as Tim mutters, “Fuck you.” 

Jason’s lips purse. “It wasn’t your fault.” 

“Oh please,” Tim pushes his hand away, leans away from him. In turn, it puts him closer to Dick, who puts off heat like a furnace and doesn’t quite manage to restrain himself from wrapping an arm around Tim’s shoulders. “I was Robin . Morrison didn’t do anything I didn’t let him.”

“That’s…really not how that works, kid,” Jason says, more carefully.

Dick exhales. He presses a chaste kiss to Tim’s hairline, smoothing Tim’s bangs away from his eyes. His brother’s victim voice is back, “So why did you? If you could have stopped him, why let him?” 

Tim looks at Dick. It’s too dark, his features are sharp and slanted with it. But their eyes meet, blue on blue, and in the end Dick is the first to look away.

Like he has any room to talk about letting . Tim could be cruel enough to point it out, the hypocrisy. He could . 

But he doesn’t think he could ever be angry enough to dig his heel into that particular sore spot. Not when Dick hasn’t even done anything wrong. 

“You know why,” Tim says, “mission comes first.” 

“Not at the expense of you ,” Dick protests. “Trust me.” 

“Damian,” the name makes them flinch, Tim can see the tightening in their expressions. Too soon. “Broke his arm trying to bust a few kilos of fentanyl. What I was doing could have shut down a billion dollar human trafficking ring.”

“Yeah,” Dick agrees, “it could have. But you can’t help anyone if you chip off too many pieces of yourself.” 

“Plus,” Jason pipes up, nudging Tim’s knee, “I personally would rather the ring remains untouched if it means you don’t get raped or sexually assaulted or like. Y’know. Kidnapped and held in some guy’s basement.”

Tim doesn’t know what to say to that. There’s warmth pooling in his stomach, somewhere. 

“Yeah, I guess,” Tim agrees, empty.

Jason blows out a breath. “Okay, look at me. You’re like. A baby. Sometimes when shit like this happens to us it doesn’t feel as easy to stop. It doesn’t make you a bad Robin or whatever. You’re just…normal.” 

Dick makes a face. Tim shifts, uncomfortable. “I get it, Jason. Thanks.”

“Next time someone bad touches you, don’t keep that shit to yourself. Bruce is right, you don’t have to handle it on your own.”

Bad touches. As if that can be used to summarize everything that’s happened. Like two words encompass the entirety of this, and the haunting panic that has been circling him for months. All it boils down to. Right. 

“Yeah.”

Dick kisses the crown of his hair again. Tim lets himself give into the comfort and leans into Dick’s arm, burying his face into his brother’s shoulder. He hides there, like it can keep him safe from anything when he knows it won’t. He has marks on his collarbones to prove it. 

“I love you,” Dick murmurs.

I wish that meant anything. “ I love you, too,” Tim promises, and buries himself into Dick’s arms the way he’s wanted to for months, and pretends, even for a moment, that his family can actually keep him safe. It didn’t do shit for him, or for Damian, and Tim feels that in every fiber of his being.

At least it wasn’t the kid’s body. Just Tim. 

Blade has left a bucket in the corner. Its purpose is not lost on Damian.

It’s not the only change to his living quarters. He decides to take it as a boon, the extra blankets that Blade has pulled from some dusty crevice for him, the heater on the stairs, far out of Damian’s orbit, plugged in and sputtering a smokey sort of warmth. He thinks it runs on propane, but wonders why Blade hasn’t just run an extension cord down to the basement. If it is a ploy to poison him with toxic gaseous byproducts, it is a needlessly elaborate one. His captor appears to be a complete fool.

Evidenced again by the pedestrian bribery he offers Damian the third time he comes to feed him. 

“He’s soft, isn’t he?” 

Damian holds the stuffed dog in his hands, cradled against his stomach. The tufts of fur contrast with the smooth button eyes. He runs his thumb down the side of it, black coat spotted with brown, stuffed with cotton but also something heavier at the bottom. Sand, maybe? Or some sort of grain. It fits in Damian’s palms perfectly, a stitched tongue perpetually lagging. 

“You should name him.”

Damian will not do so. To accept such a task would be to cast approval on Blade’s actions, and he has none. He’s nearly fourteen, not four , and he neither needs nor wants a stuffed animal. This is a child’s toy, and Damian is a man.

He can’t make himself let go, though. Or stop stroking over the dog’s fur. It is soft, softer than the blankets Blade has brought him, even softer than his shirt. Which has started to smell like sweat and dust, now. Damian’s trying not to think of how dirty this particular pair of underwear has gotten, and instead be grateful he is afforded the luxury of them. 

Blade crouches, setting the tray in front of Damian again. He’s sitting up on his own today, though it’s not without effort. Blade had come back often—yesterday? The day before?—before he fell asleep to force more water down his throat. The rehydration process had been painful and slow. 

Damian doesn’t feel much better today than he did before, but he has enough coordination and strength to be upright of his own volition. 

His silence offends Blade. He thinks he should have thought of something to say by now. Maybe Mother would instruct him to play into this farce of civility, or Father might suggest he take comfort in the affection Blade offers. He can do neither. His jaw is clenched and his eyes are locked on the stuffed dog, fingers moving in a mechanical petting motion.

If this is still shock, it’s getting old. Damian would like to be done with it now. There is a  surreal film covering the world; the lethargy is largely unhelpful to his greater schemes. 

“Dames,” Blade says, wheedling. “Are you going to eat today?”

Blade has brought a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Only that. The idea of eating it, the motion of chewing and swallowing mechanically, seems exhausting. He’s picked up the water and set it down twice, he doesn’t know what Blade is expecting out of him. Uncontrolled hunger, perhaps, wild like a beast that’s been starving. 

Damian is not a beast. Not after Mother sophisticated him, and Father tamed him. Damian is a boy, and his hunger has made him hollow instead of wild. The chains echo his emptiness. He’d gotten tired of the sound of dragging, had coiled them all on top of one of the blankets and folded it over to muffle them. It gives the illusion of freedom, as well. 

He reaches for the sandwich, still holding the dog in hand. Imagines throwing either of them at Blade, screaming at the man, wrapping the heavy chains around his throat and choking him until his eyes bulge out and his face turns blue. It’s a vicious little fantasy. 

He tears off the edge of the crust and jams it into his mouth. Chews. Swallows. It tastes like nothing. He follows it with water. Does the same motion again. Blade relaxes. He’s sitting just on the outskirts of Damian’s reach, legs in butterfly, arms resting loosely on his thighs. He nods approvingly when Damian accidentally catches his eye. 

The chewing motion stops. Damian has to work to get it going again. 

“That's it, kid, good job,” Blade’s praise only makes Damian angry. It’s belittling. He’s not a child. 

He stops thrice to retrieve the water bottle. It’s not a large sandwich, but the peanut butter is thick, and Damian’s mouth is dry. His jaw hurts by the end, like it’s somehow forgotten the motions of eating in Damian’s short break. Let the muscles atrophy. Pathetic.

“Have you ever read Shakespeare?” Blade asks, scooting closer to retrieve the cookie sheet acting as a tray when Damian is finished. “Romeo and Juliet? Maybe for school?”

“I am familiar,” Damian answers, vague on purpose. He hasn’t covered any of Shakespeare’s plays in Gotham Academy’s curriculum yet, Timothy said he wouldn’t start until high school, but Damian’s studies beforehand already introduced him. 

Damian didn’t like it. Shakespeare is too long winded. 

“When I was in college we read the Two Gentlemen of Verona.” He’s chattering. He’s burdening Damian with his chatter . About Shakespeare. Death by propane fuel would have been preferable. “Don’t remember much except the dog; he was funny. His name was Crab. What do you think, think our buddy looks like a Crab?”

No. 

What kind of name is Crab? It’s not strong, or meaningful. It’s an observation from someone. There’s an animal. And in this case, it’s not even accurate. 

“He doesn’t,” Damian says. “He’s a dog.” 

“Well, yeah, so was the one in the play,” Blade points out. 

“Being wrong twice doesn’t make you any less of an idiot.” Damian squeezes the dog. The sand, or grains, or silicone beads, they squish in his hands. It eases a coil of irritation in his chest. Makes him soften his voice. “He will be Titus.”

Blade frowns. It is not lost on him, his proposal of a light-hearted comedy, rebutted by Damian’s selection of a violent tragedy. He’s not brave enough to point it out, though. “Titus. That’s a pretty tough name.”

The little stuffed dog in Damian’s hand looks back at the both of them, tiny pink tongue on a thread smile. Damian closes his palm over the toy. “Yes.”

Blade takes the tray back upstairs. Thus far, this has been an indication that the man will leave him alone for a few hours, but to Damian’s displeasure, the man returns back downstairs in under ten minutes. Just enough time for Damian to hear the faucet running in the sink, the clang of dishware, and then Blade is back descending the stairs and inflicting himself on Damian once more.

This time he has a silver key in hand. A holstered gun on his belt. His jacket has been removed, revealing bare arms. 

Damian narrows his eyes, tugs the blanket up to his chin. Blade sighs when he catches the look on Damian’s face. “Kid, you’re rank. We’ve gotta clean you up.”

He smells fine . His hair might be greasy, and the underwear has certainly seen better days, but it’s not like Damian’s been running laps. It’s not even warm enough to sweat. It’s ridiculous. The man fucked a corpse, and now he’s complaining about Damian’s state? 

He bites back his initial protest. The tub is upstairs. Upstairs provides more opportunities for escape than down here, where the entire room has been stripped bare. Blade will have to remove him from the collar as well. 

Blade steps right over Damian’s nest, only just having the courtesy not to stomp on the bedding with his muddy boots. He reaches above Damian, for the D-ring on the ceiling, not the collar. Damian scowls. 

The chain is gathered up in Blade’s fist. He clicks his teeth at Damian. “Up you go. Come on.”

If he wanted a puppy so bad, he should have just taken Titus for himself. Damian presses his palms into the floor, pushing himself up slowly, wobbling his way to his feet. He hasn’t moved in hours, maybe days. He feels like a newly birthed fawn, coltish and stumbling.

Or like Blade’s puppy. Toddling after the leash Blade tugs him along with. Humiliation makes his stomach turn. Blade has little patience for Damian’s weakness. The chain is pulled roughly to redirect his attention when Damian stares too long at the knives in the kitchen. 

The bath is on the second story. Damian’s legs don’t want to cooperate with a second staircase, and he would have slipped, falling back and likely smashing his skull open, but the collar catches him roughly around the neck, the chain snapping taut as Damian, choking, tries to orient himself. 

Blade curses, jerks up instinctively which does not help Damian’s sudden lack of oxygen, before he reaches down and wraps his hand around the boy’s bicep, picking him up by one arm and putting him back on the step he fell from. The obstacle stresses Blade, but not enough for him to call off the impromptu bathtime. 

“You okay?”

Damian rasps, fitting his hand under the collar to massage the abused skin there. Seething rage settles in his stomach, and he snaps out before he can stop himself, “Have you always been this stupid? You have eyes. Make use of them.”   

He’s jerked up another step, ungently. Blade does not ask again.

The bathroom is cramped. Barely any space between the toilet and the bathtub, lit up by a single un-shaded light bulb. Blade turns the knob on, a torrent of water spluttering from the faucet.

Damian stares at it, bare foot, and remembers all that bathing entails.

“Hands up, over your head.” Blade is reaching for the hem of his shirt. It’s long enough to cover most of his thighs, a paltry offering against the immodesty of his underwear, one that the man now seeks to revoke. Damian recoils. Blade makes an impatient noise. “I’m not going to do anything. You’re fine.” 

“I don’t want to,” Damian says. It’s blurted, a compulsion he can’t keep at bay. Mortification swirls through him. 

“You’re dirty.”

Damian shakes his head. He is, he feels it, he’d never go to school like this. But he would rather be caked in his own filth than undress in front of this man any more than he already has. Why couldn’t he just stay in the basement? No one is going to see him down there. If he grows a skin mold, who’s going to complain? The only person it will affect is Damian. It would even make his corpse less appealing. 

“Look, kid, I don’t want to make you,” Blade says, like he’s being the reasonable one here, and Damian is wild and unruly, “but you can either do this by choice or I will force you. What do you want?” 

“Don’t touch me,” Damian says immediately. 

“Deal.”

He still hesitates to pull off his shirt. The man has already seen him mostly naked, he’s already stripped him once before. This should be nothing. It still feels different, almost intimate, to be the one to choose this vulnerability. 

The air is cold. He hadn’t noticed how much warmth he was getting from the propane heater. Gooseflesh prickles his skin, and he stands there, beholden to Blade’s stare. The shirt gets caught on the chain.

Blade frowns. Threads the chain through the neck hole, displeased at the split second he has to let go of Damian’s collar to get him naked. The shirt is dropped to the floor. Damian thinks it started out blue when he was first put in it, it’s a dull gray now.

Blade reaches over him to dip a finger into the building bathwater. He seems satisfied, shaking the water off his fingertip. He looks back at Damian. “Everything off. You need to wash down there, and I’ve gotta do a load of laundry for you.” 

Damian slips out of the underwear, kicking it off his feet. It’s the same as after a bad injury, stripped down in the med bay in front of his entire family. If he can bear that exposure, he can do it now. There’s nothing Damian has to be ashamed of.

He takes off the brace, fumbling with the velcro long enough that he can hear Blade shifting his weight, impatient. He hands it to the man to be set on the bathroom counter, holding his weak arm still in the other.

Blade nods him into the tub, making good on his promise not to touch. He loops the other end of the chain over the shower rung, locking it in place. 

Damian braces himself on the lip of the tub, not trusting his own balance. The water is hot, bitingly so, stinging against his cold skin. His legs lock up, and Damian has to force himself to sit down in the water, wincing at the pins and needles that go up his spine.

“If I close this,” Blade nudges the curtain, “are you going to behave?” 

Damian’s eyes rove over the supplies that have been laid out. A bar of soap. 2-in-1 shampoo and conditioner. The bottle looks flimsy but breakable. If Damian could snap the plastic right, he’d have a blade far more effective than the waterbottle ever was. His eyes land on the shower rod. After he breaks the bottle, the rod is flimsy, so he could also—

“No, then,” Blade says, and sits on the toilet seat. He sets a syringe on the bathroom counter pointedly before withdrawing his gun and resting it on his lap. 

Damian scowls. He needs to control his expressions better. “I do not need a minder.”

“You took the fucking door off its hinges,” Blade says, flat, “Every time I turn around you’re causing problems. You need a babysitter. You can get more freedom when I can trust you.” 

Damian bites his tongue hard enough that the skin threatens to split. He reaches for the soap, rubbing his hands over it into a lather. Now that he’s adjusted, the warm water is nice. His skin is turning pink beneath it, and the clear bath is already turning murky with the layer of dirt and sweat on him. Maybe Blade was right about him needing to bathe. 

“Get your hair really good,” Blade says, stooping to pick up the shirt and Damian’s underwear. He turns the latter inside out, squinting at it. At first, Damian thinks he’s checking how dirty it is, to see if it can withstand more time against Damian’s skin, but then he realizes that he’s looking at the size printed on the back. 

That, somehow, is much worse. 

That means planning. Planning means that Damian is here long-term. How long has he been here? He thought it had only been a day or two, but the state of his skin suggests otherwise. 

“Blade,” Damian says, when he’s worked the bar of soap over most of his lower body, taking a break now, because even that much is exerting. The man looks up, seemingly startled at being addressed. “What is the date?” 

Blade hunches forward. Elbows on his knees, thinking about it. He doesn’t break eye-contact with Damian, and the boy can see the weight he gives the question. Like it’s the most important question he’s ever been asked.

He won’t tell you , Damian thinks. If he does, it won’t be the truth. Blade’s goal is not only to keep Damian compliant and still, but to ensure that he won’t ever leave. The man has proven himself a resourceful foe. Clever. He will not give Damian even the advantage of knowing how long he’s been here.

“You’ve been here for ten days,” Blade says. 

“It’s November?” The last date that Damian remembers was the twenty-seventh of October. That would make today the seventh. Ten days. How has Father not found him after ten days? 

“Sure,” Blade agrees evenly. He drops the clothing into a pile at his feet. “Slept through Halloween, kid. Hope you didn’t have a costume.” 

As if Damian would ever debase himself enough to go trick-or-treating. He’s not Timothy. Or Dick. He never had time for such childish pursuits. He remembers Haleema discussing it in class, though. Her family didn’t celebrate it either. 

“Hair,” Blade says, with some insistence, and Damian drops the conversation. Eases back against the wall of the tub, bending his knees until he can submerge himself completely beneath the water. He stares up at the ceiling from below the surface, the chain stretching up above him. It blurs, in his vision, until he closes his eyes. The water covers his mouth. Damian feels not unlike a small pebble, sunk to the bottom of a pond, resting peacefully until he is disturbed.

He doesn’t make any move to wash his hair, enjoys the water pressing in on him, wishing only for a larger tub. 

He’s down for long enough that Blade must be convinced he’s drowning—he isn’t, Damian can hold his breath for far longer, all of Batman’s Robins can, but Damian is not only his son, but also Talia’s—because there’s an insistent tug on the collar. Then another one, sharper, until Damian is yanked upright. 

He breaks the surface, coming up glaring. Blade has moved closer, standing now, a furrow in his brow. The concern is touching . He looks over Damian carefully, looking like he wants to reach out, before he stops himself. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Are you trying to drown yourself?”

“Of course not,” Damian snaps, “I would never be felled by something as simple as drowning.” 

“Yeah, of course not,” Blade agrees, “of course not. Why would you? Not like you’re mortal or anything.”

The man seems constantly surprised by the most basic of Damian’s abilities. There’s something shameful about it. Does Blade truly expect so little from Damian so as to anticipate mediocrity or even stupidity? 

Nonetheless, Blade keeps a firm hold on the chain. Damian isn’t able to duck his head beneath the water again, as much as he would like to. He reaches for the 2-in-1. It smells like Timothy does, in the midst of a particularly rough case, when simple things like hygiene have taken the backburner. Damian finds it more comforting than he would ever admit to the boy. 

He scrapes his fingers through his hair, then glares at his captor until the man allows him to dip his head beneath the surface again. He doesn’t test the edge of the man’s patience. His neck is beginning to ache from all of the manhandling. 

“Do it again,” Blade says, when Damian has cleaned out everything, nudging the 2-in-1 toward him. 

Damian has no will left to fight him about such simple things. He reaches for the bottle and lathers it through his hair once more. It does feel better with a second go around, like the first only picked at the surface of the grime, and the second swept it clean. 

The water has gone from clear to brown. Dried blood, dust, and dirt that accumulated over the last ten days, he supposes. The drool and bile that stuck to his face and irritated the skin into a rash has been scrubbed away. He is clean now. More so than he has been since he left school on the twenty-seventh. 

Blade is satisfied as well. Turns his back on Damian long enough to retrieve a towel from the linen closet. “Get the drain,” he says, when he returns. Fishing the key out of his pocket and reaching for the chain above his head.

Damian pulls the drainstop. Watches the water swirl down the pipe, a spiraling vortex, disappearing into the darkness. Damian wishes he could follow it, compress himself into the same sort of slime and ooze and be washed away just as easily. 

Blade holds out a towel to him. “Come on.” 

Damian scrubs it against his hair, then wipes down his body as best he can. It’s not until Blade grabs the chain to guide him from the room that Damian realizes he meant follow me. Blade has Damian’s clothing gathered in one bundle. 

Damian wraps the towel around himself as best he can in a mockery of modesty.

They stop first in the laundry room, where Blade loops his fingers underneath the collar, his cold skin pressing against Damian’s neck. He pointedly jerks Damian back into place any time he fidgets, or starts to move. The man’s gun has disappeared into his clothing once more, and Damian looks for it fruitlessly with his eyes. 

He’s dragged around the laundry room by the collar while Blade starts a load, the man adjusting too well to using one hand. The tile beneath his feet is cold, starts leaching all of the warmth from the bath almost immediately. The towel grows damp, hair dripping onto his shoulders.

“Give me a minute,” Blade says, frustrated, trying to scoop detergent into the wash and stop Damian from inching away at the same time. It’s the cheap shit, it’ll ruin Damian’s clothes. Alfred always uses fabric softener, and he never washes Damian’s underwear with the rest of the clothes. The man hasn’t even separated the whites from the colors. 

“I’m cold.” Damian leans against Blade’s hold, forcing the man to support his weight or let him fall over. His legs hurt from standing. From standing . Like Damian is a helpless waif, who can only make the walk to her fainting couch before dramatically collapsing once more. It only sours his mood further. 

His head hurts and his arm hurts and he’s tired of being up here in this house, tired of playing along with Blade. He wants to go back to sleep. Blade forgot to grab his brace from off the counter. He wants pain medication. 

Blade pulls in a breath between his teeth. “Just wait a second.” 

Damian is going to fall over. His limbs have relaxed from the bath, which isn’t a good thing. The warmth has made him tired, and the cold has produced something horrifically needy in him. 

It seems like it takes the man ages to go through the entire process. Damian is expecting to be pulled back downstairs, is almost looking forward to it. Even if he is naked, the blankets are warm, and the heater will be running, and Damian will be allowed to be flat. He isn’t. Damian is pushed into the kitchen, and shoved into a chair at the dining table. 

Blade clips the end of the chain to his belt. Moves to the sink. Damian sits there, naked in his kitchen, as the man grabs the dish soap and starts washing dishes . 

Damian twists his head around to look back through the entryway. He didn’t even make it out of the kitchen last time before he saw Lamont and Blade. He can see the couch now, but the drug dealer’s body is gone. Damian’s stomach churns uncomfortably as his mind spins new ideas on where Lamont could be. 

They’ve only found the bodies of five victims of the suspected thirty plus. Damian knows that it took about a week before the five did resurface. Father said that they thought the Executioner kept them for about that amount of time. He did not say why.

Damian knows now . Decomposition will have set in to an extent the illusion of life is no longer achievable after that point. Not unless the man put them on ice. Maybe the basement has been used for such a purpose before. The idea makes Damian’s skin crawl. He wants to take another shower.  

“Where is Lamont?” Damian is horrified to hear himself ask. 

“Why do you care?” The bowl is set down in the dish drain, and Damian doesn’t know if he imagines it or if it clatters harsher than is strictly necessary. He wraps the towel around himself tighter, drawing his knees up to his chest. “Guy’s dead.”

That’s the problem. 

“Is he still in the house?” Damian asks. 

Blade stops. Most of the sink is empty now. The man is almost as efficient as Alfred. If he lives alone, Damian guesses he’d have to get very good at doing dishes by himself. The man’s eyes are dark, like they always are, but there’s something distinctly interested in them now. The monster under the surface rearing its ugly head again. “No, kid. The smell’d be too much. There’s pus, too. Blisters. It gets messy. The skin gets loose, when the water starts to leak from lysed cells. The bloating is…” He trails off. Trying to replace whatever word was on his tongue. Damian can only stare. “Unsightly.”

Things Damian already knows. Forensic clues Father walked him through. His studies have allowed him to navigate the stages of decomposition with the experience of a seasoned criminologist. It still sounds different coming from Blade. Something to awe over. His dedication to turning the morbid divine.

“Where is he?” Damian doesn’t know why this is so important to him, but it feels crucial. Maybe it’s just that it’s fortune telling for his own corpse. Also, if Damian can get to it before Blade disposes of the body, perhaps he can leave a message for his father. 

“The shed,” Blade says, rinsing the last of the suds off the clean dishes. His tone is absent, casual. “He still needs to be cleaned off of DNA. I’ll do that tonight, probably. After you go to sleep. Bleaching that off can take a while.” 

Damian doesn’t want more details. If he asks any more questions, he knows he’s going to get them. Blade isn’t afraid to talk about it, almost seems eager to. He knows that his disgust must show on his face, because Blade looks defensive. 

“It’s not as gross as you’re making it seem.” 

“I have witnessed dead bodies,” Damian says. “It is.” 

Blade’s brow furrows, face screwing up with irritation, before it smooths. He laughs, and it seems to startle him, but his voice is amused when he says, “Whatever you say, kid.”

The dishes go into the dish drain. Damian can hear the washing machine going. Realizes, uncomfortably, that he’ll be here as long as it takes for his clothes to be clean. 

Blade works around the kitchen, and Damian shifts along the seat to stop the chain from tugging too sharply, has to keep an eye on the man so he’s not yanked out of the seat. When Blade has finished cleaning the kitchen, he takes a seat across from Damian and turns on a laptop. 

“What are you doing?” Damian asks, after a minute of watching Blade poke around with the computer screen turned away from him. Apparently he hasn’t learned his lesson about questions. 

“Work.” Blade’s voice is sharp, unkind. He glances up only once.

It had never occurred to Damian before that the man might have a profession outside of killing. It must not pay well, given their accommodations. “Where do you work?” 

Blade pulls the computer closer. “Nice try. What, are you bored, kid? Want me to find something for you to do?” 

Damian does, is the thing, but the rush of irritation at this realization keeps his tongue quelled. The fear has mostly dulled, and Damian is too exhausted to craft any escape attempts. Mostly, he wants something to distract himself from how miserable he feels. 

Blade shoves a piece of paper toward him. No pen or pencil, unfortunately. “Here. Make a paper airplane or something.” 

By the time that the laundry is finished, Damian has folded the paper into a plane, dagger, and ripped it apart to make several cranes. Blade only looks up every so often, feigning disinterest, despite the clear intrigue at each new creation. 

“You want to take those with you?” he asks Damian, when he stands to drag Damian back to the laundry room. 

Damian scowls. He nods. 

The basement is colder when he’s returned to it. Blade reattaches the chain to the ceiling, and Damian hates how grateful he is for it, because at least he’s not chained to the man’s waist anymore. He waits until Blade returns upstairs before he settles the cranes on the floor next to Titus. 

There’s four of them. Damian is not a child. Not anymore. He still pretends that the cranes are his brothers and Father anyway, keeping watch. 

Chapter Text

The evidence room is cold. Dark. The tech takes Dick’s name down in a log book. There’s not much that isn’t digital, but Dick’s long since exhausted all the investigative work he can do from the photographs. Plus, it’s something to do , that isn’t running comms in the cave or circling Gotham or Bludhaven aimlessly. 

It’s been a week. Officially. Clocked in at one hundred and sixty-eight hours at four p.m. this afternoon. Dick doesn’t know what to do with that. By this time when Jason was missing, the boy was dead. They had a body. Dick did nothing then, and he’s done just as much now. No leads, no solid suspects, nothing except stumbling over that shit with Tim and Morrison. 

Bruce reported Damian missing to the police on the third day, but they might as well have not filed anything for all the good that it’s done. It’s just another sieve for information to flow through. Damian Wayne is missing. Everyone has a tip to offer if it means they get their name mentioned in the inevitable news story. None of it is useful. 

So he combs through the physical evidence collected from the crime scene for the third time. Sprawled on the floor of the lockroom, several plastic bags strewn about his feet. It’s not protocol, certainly not proper handling, but Bruce always emphasized the importance of looking at the bigger picture.

They’ve only found one murder weapon. On a crime scene with no body, not even technically a confirmed Executioner kill, just one of the suspected thirty-six. A hunting knife, stainless steel, brand new. The victim’s blood was left on the serrated edge, like some sort of taunt. Micah theorized that the kill was personal, and that’s why the weapon was left. A message to the cops, or maybe the victim’s affiliates. 

He pulls out that knife now, examining it. The blood has been scraped off, taken in for DNA testing. They tried pulling fingerprints off the hilt to no avail. Gonzalez managed to track down the specialty shop their killer brought it from. Paid in cash. The shop’s cameras were only for show. 

Dick had pulled security footage from the building across the street, who did have exterior security cameras, but all he’d gotten was a glimpse of a tall man wearing a hoodie. Could have been anyone. 

No demographic data, no age ranges. Barely even a physical profile. Forensic data from the bodies and blood spatter analysis told them little more.

The knife was a dead end, a game the Executioner was playing. He does that sometimes, making up a new wild goose chase to keep them occupied. Dick doesn’t know why he’s fixated on it now.

He’s  still holding the knife when the door to the evidence room is opened, and he looks up, watching as Micah steps into the room. “Dick?” his voice is hesitant, “Are you back here?” 

“Yeah,” Dick calls. He flips the knife around, holding it by the blade, staring down the length of it to the handle. It’s a well-built knife. Jason would probably covet it. 

Micah rounds the edge of the shelf, coming to a stop across from Dick. He looks at the knife, then the box. “What are you doing?” 

Dick drags a hand over his face. His hair has come loose, strands escaping the bun to frame his face, getting in his eyes. “Just going through some stuff, MJ. Looking for another angle.”

“I admire the dedication,” Micah says, “but it will be weeks before we get another body. If we get another body. You should go home.” 

Dick shakes his head. He leans back against the wall, dropping the knife into the box. “No. I can’t. Not yet.” 

Micah steps next to him. He rests a hand on Dick’s shoulder, ducking his head to look him in the eyes. “Hey. When was the last time you slept? You’re not looking so hot, babe.” 

He laughs. It’s humorless. 

No, he doesn’t imagine he would. He may not have sworn off showering or changing clothes like Tim and Bruce, but Dick’s seen all of about five minutes of his apartment in the last seven days, and that was only to drop by and lock everything up, make sure nothing was plugged in. The commute between Blud and the cave is brutal, he’s started crashing in his car in the parking lot before his shift starts. 

“Dami is gone,” Dick admits, brushing his hair back, tucking it behind his ear, “He’s been gone for days and everything else hasn’t panned out, so I just wanted to find something.” 

“Your brother?” Micah takes a knee, eyes wide, alarmed. Shit . Dick definitely has not been keeping his situationship updated on his life. Another thing that he’s failing to keep on top of. “Damian is missing?”

Both hands on Dick’s shoulders, now, holding him there. Micah doesn’t look angry, just blindsided. Somehow that only makes the guilt worse. “Yeah.”

“Oh God. Dick, are you okay?” Micah brushes Dick’s hair back from his face, cups Dick’s face to raise it up so they can meet eyes. There’s a swirl of emotions in the man’s gaze, nothing that Dick can pin down. “I’m so sorry.” 

Dick feels himself caving underneath that gentle concern. He’s spent the last week running from family member to family member trying to help repair everything, there hasn’t been a lot of time to be the one who needs it. Tim’s a mess. Bruce has been handling everything with Damian and Tim as well as he does any other major stressor—i.g. badly— and Dick has been worn down to the last streams of his emotional energy. 

He’s sitting in an evidence locker for God’s sake, hoping that he receives some sort of epiphany. 

He shakes head mutely. Miach sighs, his expression twisting with sympathy. He pulls Dick against his chest, settling his hand on the back of Dick’s neck to hold him there. 

It’s crushing, almost too tight. Micah is never gentle with him. Dick buries his face in the other man’s shoulder, takes his first deep breath in what feels like days, inhaling the scent of him. Stale coffee and fresh laundry. It’s been a while since he’s really spoken to the man outside of police work. Dick hadn’t even texted him, even after an impromptu couple of sick days when Damian first went missing. 

Micah holds onto him like Dick never left at all, doesn’t falter when the frustration, exhaustion, and fear finally bubbles over, and Dick starts crying.

“Shh,” Micah soothes, “it’s okay, Dick. I’m sure Damian is fine.” 

Dick has to bite his tongue to stop himself from exploding about Jason. Jason wasn’t fine . Jason died . They came so close to never getting him back. Second chances like that only come once in a lifetime. Damian is only thirteen. He may act older, but Dick is painfully aware of how young his baby brother still is. 

“I’m terrified, Micah,” Dick whispers. Confesses. He hasn’t even been able to bring himself to admit this to Bruce.

Micah brushes his hair behind his ear, pulling back to rub his thumbs under Dick’s eyes, cradling his face. “I know,” he says. 

“My brother thinks it was the Executioner,” Dick gestures at the evidence boxes around them, the cold, clinical leftovers of a homicidal sadist. “That Damian is the missing object on the Lamont scene.”

Micah is quiet for a long beat. “The Executioner doesn’t hurt kids, Dick. Why would Damian have even been there? He didn’t have any affiliation with Lamont, did he?” 

Dick looks at him. The urge to admit that yes, Damian did have a connection, when Robin raided his house with Red Hood. Because Bruce is Batman. Because Dick is Nightwing. He wants to tell him. Tell him in a way that he hasn’t really wanted to with anyone else. 

Micah would hold that secret close, Dick is certain of that. He knows the man well enough now. But that wouldn’t just affect Dick. Telling Micah would be telling on the others, too, and he wouldn’t want to force that confession from them. 

“Not that I know of,” Dick lies. “He didn’t have any reason to be in that part of the city. But Tim is pretty sure, and he’s not wrong about a lot of things.” 

Micah brushes Dick’s hair back again. “Yeah. It’s just a pretty wild deviation from his MO, don’t you think? I’m not saying you’re wrong, I just can’t think of a reason why the Executioner would want your brother. He’s not secretly a killer, is he?” 

Dick couldn’t either. Micah’s profile has been spot on this whole time. The Executioner goes after criminals, Damian’s done nothing to be on his radar. Tim thinks he interrupted the killer, saw his face, but Bruce doesn’t like that theory. It means Damian is dead, disposed of. 

“I just don’t know where else to look anymore,” Dick grinds the palms of his hands into his eyes, “I just wish I had something. Even if he was dead, I’d want the closure.” 

Micah frowns, lowering himself to the floor in front of Dick. “Yeah. I guess the not-knowing is worse. Leaves room for imagination to run wild.” 

Yeah. Dick shrugs. “I just want to take him home.” 

Micah kisses his forehead. “Yeah. I know, babe. I’m sure something will turn up.” He rests his chin on top of Dick’s head. “I can help you look if you want? Where did you get with the evidence?” 

Dick huffs. 

“Then I’m taking you back to your apartment, and you’re going to eat something and shower.” He flicks at Dick’s hair, offering a gentle smile. “Wetting your hair isn’t the same thing as using shampoo, Dick.” 

… I don’t know what to do anymore. Mirah said that I need to tell mama, or even baba, but I don’t want to get them involved in this. So much has already happened, and he said that he was going to hurt Mama next. 

She works in the school , she’s right next to him all the time and she has no idea what kind of danger she’s in. 

Mirah doesn’t even know all that’s going on. I want to tell her, but i don’t want her to say it was my fault. She’s making things worse. She said she was going to tell baba. 

I don’t know what to do, but I’m scared. I’m really, really scared. He’s been showing a lot more attention to Damian, and I think—

A mug is set—slammed—down firmly on the table Jason’s sitting at. Hard enough that the contents slosh over the side. It’s steaming, visibly, the smell of fresh brewed Colombian wafting from it. Black. It’s not Jason’s preference, but Avery doesn’t make it any other way. Insists that anything else is unhealthy.

“You’ve been reading that for hours,” Jason’s lieutenant says, crossly. He looms over Jason’s seat, jaw set. “Don’t you think you should take a break?”

“Don’t you think you should get off my back?” Jason picks up the mug without a thank you. Takes a bracing sip. If there’s one thing Avery’s good at, it’s coffee. Probably the only thing keeping Jason upright at this point. He’s lost track of how long he’s been awake, or slept for more than a couple hours at a time. He’s burning the candle at both ends, broke it in half, to burn it at four instead of two. Because he’s efficient.

Because the kid has been missing for a week, and Jason is fucking terrified. 

“What is that?” Avery takes a seat on the edge of the table, propping his hip next to Jason’s hand. 

“Haleema Khan’s diary.” Jason returns his attention back to the book. The girl is spiraling. She has been for months now. The first date in the journal is for two years ago in sporadic intervals, she’s written almost every day for the past month. The first entry about Helmstutler that Jason could find was on September 4th, when Haleema opened with I think my math teacher likes me. 

Avery frowns, reaches for it, his expression souring when Jason yanks it out of his hands. “That’s a lot of glitter, man.”

Yeah. She’s been writing exclusively in gel pen for the past ten pages. It’s throwing Jason for the worst kind of loop. The doodles in the margins haven’t helped. Just driven home the point that she is a child , living in a fucked-up adult situation that she never should have touched. 

When it’s pen, and the pages blank save her cramped, tiny handwriting, Jason can almost pretend she’s older than thirteen. 

“She’s allowed,” Jason says, “it’s not illegal.” 

“Okay. But you look exhausted,” Avery points out, “do you want to take a break?” 

Jason shakes his head. He’s two weeks away from the last entry, which isn’t a lot in the grand scheme of things. Damian has been getting mentioned more and more. It’s making Jason feel nauseous, that the only reason that she noticed Damian at all was because Helmstulter do it first. 

I think I should warn him to stay away or at least about what’s coming, she’d written after going into graphic detail about what happened when she was asked to stay after class to go over “grades”, but Damian is so mean .

“What exactly are you hoping to find?” Avery prods. He’s been sticking around a lot more since Damian went missing. Hovering , instead of just fucking off for days at a time. Jason would appreciate the concern, but the distraction isn’t exactly appreciated.

This is the longest consecutive stretch he’s been able to read. Haleema writes a lot for a kid, a lot more since Helmstutler started molesting her. After the fourth, Jason couldn’t make it through a passage without being sick to his stomach. The kid is not one to spare details.

Every entry is more than ten pages now. She added paper to the composition notebook to keep going, and the bulge is damaging the spine and makes it hard to close. 

Jason hates reading this. 

Avery leans further into his space. “You think it’s the Executioner that took your brother, right? Not this Helmstutler guy. It’s not like some kid’s written out his location in her secret journal.”

“We don’t know it’s the Executioner.” Jason doesn’t snap. Avery doesn’t deserve to be snapped at. It’s their leading theory, since Tim connected the taxi ride to Lamont’s apartment with the missing blood from the BPD, but Jason’s not fond of it. Helmstutler’s proven himself capable of murder, able and willing to kidnap kids. There’s no guarantee he didn’t just follow Damian to Lamont’s house and take him from there, no matter how convoluted that is. 

And if it is the Executioner, the odds of them getting Damian back alive are almost nothing. 

Damian was on the phone with Jason about Helmstulter. He’d wanted to do something. Jason had said he shouldn’t, and then he’d hung up on him. If he’d waited a few more seconds, or let the kid help him, maybe he’d be at home right now. It’s not hard to imagine Damian went after Helmstulter himself, in some misguided attempt to prove Jason wrong. 

“I’m just looking at all the angles,” Jason answers, “Tim’s doing his thing, I’d rather we know for sure.” 

Besides. Either Jason goes over the creepy molesting diary, or Tim does, and Jason’s not letting that happen right now. Tim would freak. He’s avoided the topic studiously any time it’s been broached, like he can pretend it away. He’d caught Tim looking at articles about a vicious attack in WI on the director of R&D yesterday, looking like he was seconds from spiraling into an anxiety attack. 

So yeah. Tim’s coping great . 

Jason’s not letting him read the creepy molesting diary. 

He’s been slightly—very—tempted to stop by the hospital and finish the job that Bruce started with Morrison. The only thing that had stopped him from making an impromptu visit to Patrick Morrison was looking over his hospital records. Morrison is fucked. His life quality has been shot, and Jason likes the idea that Morrison won’t get to move again without having to think about what he did to Tim, and the consequences of his actions laid out in his skin. 

“Fine,” Avery says. He grabs for the journal again, and this time Jason lets him pry it out of his hands, reluctantly. He flips to the end. “Lay it on me. What’ve you got so far?”

Jason rubs a hand over his face. Takes another long draw of his coffee. Where does he even start?

“Car was ditched a couple blocks after Khan’s house. He withdrew money before running, so he was planning on running. Gun registered in his name. Apartment was a bust. No other properties listed. Haleema said that he keeps saying he’ll ‘take her back home’, but she doesn’t mention the apartment. I don’t think he meant there. Probably like. His sex dungeon or something.” 

Avery nods along. His dark brown eyes skim over the journal, lips thinning the longer he reads. There’s a furrow in his thick brows, concentration. Disgust. Jason sits back in his chair, arching his spin until it cracks, feeling something like tension release from his shoulders. “She talks about Damian a lot.” 

Apparently Helmstutler did. Guy’s chatty . And Haleema’s the listening type. His words come through her hands in shaky, jagged handwriting, usually accompanied by big water stains, or worse, ripped out pages. He remembers her bedroom, how pink it was, how meticulous the stuffed animals were arranged on the bedding. Haleema’s anger is deep down inside of her, comes out in the little ways.

“Said Helmstutler was eyeing him as his next victim.” Jason puts his elbows on the table. “Mentioned a few other kids, but I followed up on all of them. They either transferred schools or matriculated. My sister went to talk to a few, but  no dice with any. The ones that did talk to her were cagey and didn’t know anything.”

“When did he go missing again?” Avery asks. “The twenty-ninth?”

“Seventh.” 

“Yeah, she wrote about him that day.” He leans forward, shifting so that Jason can see the journal as well. There’s a lot of the usual shit, but toward the end, everything is about Damian. Mr. Helmstulter didn’t break his arm, I was so sure yesterday. He seemed offended when I suggested it. I don’t know why he was so mean to me, it’s not like I was doing anything. Mr. Helmstulter has been getting closer to him. Last week he looked like he was going to kiss Damian and I was freaking out. 

I told him about Helmstulter, and he acted like he didn’t even know what was going on. As if. He said his brother is a cop, but I don’t want anything to happen to Mirah. I feel worse now that I’ve told him. I wish that I’d just kept my mouth shut. 

Mr. Helmstulter knew that I talked to Damian. 

He was so angry. I don’t think the bruising will go away until next week. Baba is going to see it when he comes home, and I’m going to get into more trouble. 

Mr. Helmstulter told me what would happen to anyone I told. Mirah is in the hospital because of me. Damian is going to be next. I wish I hadn’t told him.  

And then, on the twenty-ninth, Damian didn’t come to school today, and neither did Mr. Helmstutler. It’s all my fault. Damian’s probably in a lot of trouble and it’s all my fault . Why am I so pathetic? 

“Shit,” Jason says. It’s heavy. He knew it would be. Has been trying to shove the disgust and horror and righteous anger somewhere that won’t make his chest go tight and his stomach rebel. Compartmentalization. Neat little boxes for all the terrible shit he has to see.

It’s easier when there aren’t kids involved.

“This is sick, Jace.” Avery’s face is screwed up. “These are just kids.” 

“Yeah,” Jason agrees. He takes a sip of the coffee to have something to do with his hands. It’s delicious, which irritates him. He thinks it should taste like shit to match his mood better. Avery keeps reading. Jason watches his face go through a wide range of bad emotions as he flips pages. 

“She knew he was coming for her,” Avery narrates. “Started talking about what she wanted to do before she died. Helmstulter wanted to take her to the ocean. She said she was scared to drown because she can’t swim.” 

“Okay,” Jason perks up. Ocean. Ocean is something. Finally. Does Helmstulter own a boat? Jason doesn’t remember seeing any other property listed to his name beyond the apartment and his car. His mother is alive and well, but Jason has had people monitoring her house to no avail. Helmstulter’s sister lives in Cali. It’s a long-ass drive, but across the country, with a new ID and a large city, Helmstulter could effectively vanish.

Haleema wouldn’t be that lucky. 

Once she’s served her purpose, Helmstulter will dispose of her. 

Avery frowns. “No entry the day she went missing. He probably got her before she could start one.” 

She couldn’t have been home for longer than an hour or two before Helmstulter came for her then. He and Cass barely missed her. Jason scrubs his hands down his face, then opens his phone and dials Tim. 

“Hey,” he says, “Beaches.” 

Damian can hear the swish of plastic bags, a new and exciting sound paired with the now-familiar thump of Blade’s boots above him. 

The man never put the door back in, seemed to realize that it was purposeless. Now, if Damian crawls to the edge of his nest of blankets and cranes his neck, he can almost see up the stairs and into the kitchen. Can make out Blade’s shadow moving on the wall of the hallway, back and forth. There’s a backdraft of cold air despite the heater, one Damian’s come to associate with the back door being left open.

Blade talks to himself sometimes, mostly too quiet for Damian to hear through the walls, but today he doesn’t. His movements are urgent, determined. He goes back and forth from outside three times, the plastic swish of grocery bags loud with every movement. 

Damian tells himself that it’s nothing to be anxious over, even though nothing like this has happened in the two weeks that he’s been here. Blade usually doesn’t move around this much. 

He hears knives. Drawers opening. Things being set on what Damian has now come to recognize as the sound of the metal cookie sheet Blade uses as a tray. 

He’s coming down here. 

Damian backs away from the edge of the stairs, centering himself in the middle of the room and looking around himself desperately. The collection of cranes and Titus aren’t going to do anything. Blade hasn’t indicated he has a desire to hurt Damian yet, but this has never happened, and Damian doesn’t know what to expect from it. 

Sure enough, Blade’s heavy footfalls start at the top step, and Damian’s breath hitches as he watches him descend. He comes down slower than usual, holding something heavy in his arms. It reveals to Damian’s blurry vision a package of water bottles, tray balanced precariously on top. A tupperware full of sandwiches. Damian squints, standing on his tip-toes to see them. At least five. White bread, grape jelly, and too much peanut butter if Damian had to bet. The only thing Blade seems capable of preparing.

He says nothing on his way down. Stops beside the heater to set down the water bottles, still out of Damian’s reach. It’s only then that Damian spots the hunting knife sheathed on his belt, a millimeter of the silver blade visible behind the leather. 

The Executioner’s murder weapon of choice. Damian takes another slow step back, feels the chain run taut, tugging at his neck. Blade’s hair is in disarray, like he’s been running his hands through it, his clothes visibly old and stained with bleach. 

He’d told Damian he’d be cleaning the body today. Last night? He’s not sure he remembers. 

“Come here,” Blade’s voice is calm. He gestures with two fingers, like Damian is a trained dog. 

Damian doesn’t move. Blade’s expression fills with vague annoyance before he reaches up and grabs a handful of the chain, looping it around his palm until Damian is dragged off his feet, scrambling to get closer to stop himself from being strangled. 

Blade’s fingers loop beneath the collar, as they often do now, and he holds Damian in place while he reaches with his other hand for the hunting knife. “Stay still. You’ll make a mess if you don’t, and I don’t have time to give you another bath before I leave.” 

Bath.

Bath implies mess. Hunting knife implies blood. What is he about to do? A rush of cold, dark terror surges through him. Blade doesn’t have a body anymore, and now he has nothing to fuck. Damian is the closest thing, isn’t he? Blade’s going to kill him. 

“What,” Damian’s voice cracks from disuse. He needs water. “What are you doing? Don’t touch me. Stop .” 

Blade doesn’t listen, shifts his grip from the collar to Damian’s good arm, stretching it out away from his body. Damian tugs, trying to get away from him, but Blade’s nails just dig in tighter, squeezing hard. 

A flash of panic kickstarts Damian’s heart. It’s almost surprising, the way adrenaline floods his body, demanding that he run before this man kills him. He hasn’t felt anything other than a miserable resignation in days. 

Damian digs his heel in, dropping his weight, forcing Blade to haul him upright or let him go. The man makes a low, frustrated noise. Damian can’t see his eyes in this lighting, only the edges of his expression, twisted up with impatience. It makes his face look hollow, otherworldly. The fear that trickles icy down his spine and settles at the pit of his stomach makes him want to be sick. He’s not strong right now, and he’s injured. Starvation has already made quick work of him. Blade manhandles him like he weighs nothing at all.

He’s dragged to the edge of the chain’s length, his captor still holding his arm at an odd, nearly-painful angle. The collar cuts into his larynx, and Damian tips his head vainly to get back air flow. He can’t fight it this time, when Blade lifts the knife to his forearm. 

He says nothing to Damian, more silent than he has been this whole time, and somehow that’s worse . To not know any of the machinations behind that awful, blank expression. “Stop,” he says, and the sound of his own voice surprises him. It’s high and reedy, hoarse from the dehydration. He sounds like a child . “Don’t. You said you wouldn’t—”

Blade digs the point of the knife into the crux of his elbow. Damian bites down a scream as the skin is pierced, the steel sliding upward. It’s not fast, and it’s not easy. Father keeps his weapons far sharper. Blade saws upward in a thin line, deep enough that Damian can feel it rend muscle and fat. The pain is exquisite. 

Damian can’t hold back a scream. It’s loud and hot in his throat. The sound of it shocks him enough that he tries to jerk back, only for the knife to slice sharply across his arm. Blade swears under his breath. 

He drops the weapon to the floor, kicks it out of Damian’s reach, not that he can focus on much more beyond the burning sensation. He wants it to stop. Oh god he wants it to stop.

“Stop,” Damian hisses, when he gets the breath to speak. Blade ignores him again, withdraws a glass jar from the bulge of his jacket. There isn’t a lid. It’s a mason jar, for canning, the ones that Alfred pulls out in the summer when the garden has apexed. “Stop, I didn’t do anything!” 

“I know,” Blade snaps, yanking on Damian. It’s not to position him. Damian feels the collar dig into his throat sharply as a warning rebuke. “Stay still .” 

The chilled glass is pressed up against his arm, right beneath the jagged cut, and Damian realizes abruptly what the man is doing. The blood flow is sluggish, oozing from Damian’s dehydrated veins in dark spurts, thick and almost black in the darkness of the basement. It spills over the lip of the mason jar, seeps down the side like sweet molasses. Like the blackberry jam Alfred makes in the dying heat of August.

Damian thinks he’s going to be sick.

A noise escapes him, something close to a mewling whine, and he bites his tongue to stop himself. 

Damian watches as it fills the bottom of the jar slowly. His captor watches, too, dark eyes fixed on the blood pool. When it’s reached some arbitrary internal limit, Blade lowers Damian’s arm from above his head to his side, keeping the one hand on his wrist. The jar stays, collecting. 

Damian blinks at Blade hazily. This is to be his murder? Not some grand battle for escape, but being blooded like a pig and left to die? This is nothing like Lamont’s death was, where the man was given the opportunity to defend himself. Damian isn’t afforded the dignity. 

Father will never forgive him. 

Damian didn’t survive. 

The world is starting to tunnel. He can feel his legs getting weak. He wants to sit down. He needs to sit down. He has to lock his knees, because when they give out, he’s suffocated, and even if that’s Blade’s end goal for him, Damian will not give in so easily. 

The jar is still pathetically empty. Not halfway full, maybe not even a quarter. Damian can’t bear to give it more than a few glances before affixing his gaze to Blade’s dark amber eyes. The warmth was always artificial, Damian knew that. The Executioner is unfeeling, without remorse. Blade might be the permissive counterpart, the soft underbelly that Damian was allowed to witness, but there was always an extent to it. A line that Damian crossed just by existing too closely.

He knew the man had it in him to kill Damian, that’s not surprising. But it still feels almost like a betrayal, to have sat at this man’s table and folded cranes with him, and now die by his hands. 

His knees do give out. A copper taste at the back of his throat, a mirage over his vision. The chains clink together again, and it’s almost peaceful, the way the pain numbs out into nothing at all. Damian buckles.

Blade drops Damian’s wrist to wrap an arm around his waist, pulling him upright again. Damian’s head lolls, his neck a wet noodle attached to his spine. He hears more than sees the mason jar being set down, oh-so-carefully on the concrete floor. Blade puts a hand on the back of his head, thumb scooping at the base of Damian’s neck.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Blade’s voice is soft, for all the violence and bloodshed that he’d just delved out. Damian is pulled toward the center, where the collar doesn't strangle him. His captor eases him to the floor, drags Damian up into his lap, and grabs Damian’s arm. “You did so good. So good. We’re okay, Dames. Just take some deep breaths.” 

Damian stares at him. The words don’t make any sense. He must be misunderstanding. Mishearing. A gentle hallucination before he dies. 

Damiam makes a strangled sound. Blade shushes him, leans forward and presses a soft kiss on Damian’s forehead. It reminds him of Father, and the comparison makes Damian’s heart ache with want. “I’ll be right back. Don’t touch that, kid.” 

He sets Damian’s arm on the floor, then gets up to his feet. He grabs the jar as he passes it, and the knife, then ascends the staircase. 

Damian makes vain noise of protest, reaching out weakly toward him with his broken arm, but Blade doesn’t even glance in his direction before he’s gone. Damian lifts his head from off the floor feebly, trying to look at the damage. He gets a mass of blood in hazy after blinks and nothing else. 

His head flops back against the ground. 

Blade should have left him in the nest, with the blankets. He’s frost over a lake, cold to the deepest, darkest parts of him. His teeth are chattering, even though Blade left the heater on. 

He thinks he could crawl his way to it, if his limbs weren’t so stubbornly frozen solid to his sides. Instead he lies there. Stillness is the enemy of work, of heat. Damian knows he should move, apply pressure to the wound. He saw the jar, he didn’t lose that much blood. Dehydration still ails him, then.

Blade returns from upstairs an intermediate amount of time later. He has a first-aid kit in hand, and seems unhurried. Damian is lying in a pool of his own blood, his arm wouldn’t stop gushing, no matter the feeble attempt at pressure he tried.

Blade kneels next to him. Pops open the kit. “How are you feeling?” 

Damian glares at him. Tries to, at least. “How…” his tongue is so thick, “how do you…think…fucking cretin.” 

Blade sighs. He withdraws paper towels from the kit to wipe up the worst of the blood on Damian’s arm. “Look, this is for the best. You took it really well, okay?” 

Is this to be a regular occurrence then? A new fetish for Blade to visit upon him. First necrophilia, now a twisted sort of vampirism? What kind of freak is this man?

“I’m proud of you. Didn’t even scream that much.” Blade pats his shoulder with approval. The paper towels are removed, replaced with rubbing alcohol. Blade spares a moment to meet his eyes. “This is going to hurt.” 

It does.

Damian’s vision goes white for a few seconds as the liquid makes contact, and he can’t string two thoughts together for what feels like decades. He’s panting when he comes back to himself, looking at Blade’s hands, which are cradling Damian’s arm like it’s something precious.

A string of thick glue has been diligently laid across the skin. Blade pinches it together, and Damian grits his teeth so hard the enamel grinds. 

He’s had worse. Pain is pain. Damian forces himself to breathe in deeply, ignores the way his chest hitches and tears overflow. 

Blade shifts to kneel beside Damian’s arm. It’s a typical position, one Timothy or Dick would assume. Sometimes the best way to apply pressure to a stubborn wound—or to keep someone still—was a well-placed knee on a strong limb. Father never did it to Damian, the man was too big and too strong to need to. Blade looks like he might, if Damian starts fighting him.

The glue is set aside. Part of him is relieved to recognize that it’s medical grade, and not superglue from the man’s shed. A pad is pressed to the length of the wound, and Blade starts wrapping his arm in tight spirals of gauze.

“Little more, kid,” he says. Damian is sweating now, despite the persistent chill in his bones. “You’re doing so good.” 

Will he stop saying that? 

Damian inhales raggedly. The gauze is cut, pressed down to stick, and then Blade is moving away again. Damian allows himself to take the moment of reprieve, to brace himself for whatever pain is coming next. 

Blade doesn’t return with a knife. He gathers Damian up into his lap, smoothing the chain over Damian’s shoulder like it’s long hair before settling Damian’s back against his chest. He has a water bottle at Damian’s hip, and a can of 7up. Cherry flavored. 

Damian sits in the v of the man’s legs, trying to convince his extremities that they are still attached to his body. His head rolls onto Blade’s shoulder, and he lets his eyes pin to the D-ring in the ceiling, staying there. It is no act of rebellion, no brave stand. It is all Damian has in him.

“All done, now.” The water bottle is lifted. Damian feels like a fox kit, abandoned by its parents and invited to suckle at the silicone teat of a poorer substitution under the guise of rescue. It’s only when the first few drops of water land on his tongue that Damian realizes how thirsty he is. 

Blade, however, refuses to let Damian guzzle it like he wants to. He feels like he’s been dropped back into two weeks ago, water being coaxed down his throat. How weak is he, that this has to happen again ? He is a shame to his family. It’s no wonder they haven’t come for him yet. 

When his captor has finished with the water, the cherry-flavored soda is forced down him as well. Damian does not enjoy the taste of it. Is surprised he has the mental capacity to be so aware he hates it.

Blade settles him in the blanket nest, and moves the heater closer to Damian’s shivering frame. He squats in front of him for a moment, just looking. “I’m gonna be gone for a couple days,” he says, “I’ve left you some food, and water. You aren’t going to get anything else until I’m back, you understand?” 

He is expected to starve himself then. Damian nods. 

“Are we going to have any problems, Damian?” Blade is threatening him. Damian can tell. “Because I’d hate to have to come back earlier than planned.” 

Damian doesn’t ask where he’s going. There’s a body to dispose of in the shed. Maybe he takes them out of state, and that’s why Father has had such a hard time tracking him. Damian nods again, saying nothing.

Blade seems to realize he won’t. His posture relaxes some, and he reaches out to smooth Damian’s sweaty hair off his forehead. “Be here when I get back.” 

Damian will be. 

Blade has seen to that.

Chapter Text

The heater is connected to a propane tank. It resembles a TV from the ‘90s, made of thin, flimsy plastic. It’s gone brittle from the cold and old age. There’s a long, jagged crack down the side that’s been covered with fraying duct tape. Blade clearly pulled it out of storage for Damian, and however long it had sat unused, likely in the man’s shed, is unclear. 

He didn’t mean to break it. It’s almost comical, that after all the carefully calculated destruction he has wrought, this perfect accident presents itself, a far better solution to his problems than anything Damian had concocted. 

His head feels like it’s been spun from sugar. Crystalline and fragile, cotton stuffed into every orifice. A dull throbbing radiates out from his left arm. Two down, now. He can flex his fingers, still, but they won’t stop trembling, made clumsy and useless by the blood loss. It’s truly pitiful that his good hand is now the one with a broken bone. 

He’s still cold. Had curled up next to the heater in his sleep, trying to regain some of the warmth. His skin is flushed, now, lips cracked. He might have burned himself, if he’d stayed any longer under the concentrated stream of hot air. But he’s still cold. 

He fell asleep at some point, dreaming only of Blade—Lamont’s death again, a familiar scene now—and when he’d kicked out in his sleep, he’d knocked the heater over. The crash is what had startled him awake, as the plastic splintered and broke open, scattering across the floor. It’s not spread out like a broken mirror, it’s more like the shards of a chunky plate. 

He should check the regulator. A propane leak would be bad, now, with Blade unable to remedy it. Father would never have allowed them to keep the tank inside, but Blade was unbothered. Maybe it didn’t matter to him, the risk of explosion. It’s surprisingly blase, considering the lengths he’s gone to to keep Damian away from any sort of weapon. 

Damian watches, tense, for some sort of explosion, but the tank remains largely unbothered by Damian’s destruction. 

The heater is sputtering. Threatening to start its own fire if left unattended. Damian reaches out with shaking hands for it, shoving aside the broken outer plastic to look on the inside. It’s hot to the touch, and he can’t hold onto anything for long without dropping it. His nerves are raw. The slightest discomfort is the greatest insult to them. 

The inside of the heater isn’t what Damian had been anticipating. It’s not just a mess of wires and the bits for a motor, there’s structure inside. Heating rods. A duct. Other bits of metal to line the inner surface. 

He flips the safety switch, watches it power down. The smell of ethyl mercaptan would be evident if the propane were leaking, wouldn’t it? It’ll be fine to touch in just a minute, when the innards have cooled to match the air temperature.

Blade won’t be back for days. That means he’ll be out of heat for days. A bored, fanciful part of his mind imagines sparking a flame in a controlled stream of propane gas; the logistics of keeping the fire from blowing up the entire house. They do it in the lab buildings of Gotham High, maybe not with propane, but the concept can’t be all that dissimilar.

It is just a flight of fancy, though. Twelve feet of chain and four paper cranes does not a gas line make. 

The temperature cools rapidly without the heater. Damian is shivering despite wrapping himself in all the blankets, and he scowls at the heater from across the room. Why now? Why couldn’t he have broken it before Blade left? He’s going to freeze in this stupid basement, then his captor will return, and see Damian’s dead body, then—

Damin shakes off the thought. Forces himself to. 

Fine.

Fine. 

He returns to the heater. He looks it over from all angles, helpless on where to begin with repairs, but as he dismantles it to repair it, Damian stares down at the set of tools in his hands. Not weapons. Not really. But lockpicks? 

The wires are copper, thin and moldable. Damian twists one in his hand, consideringly. There are several just like it, about the length of his palm. He could twine them into something stronger. It wouldn’t be impossible. The lock to the collar is behind his neck, but Damian has picked locks in less opportune positions. 

A surge of panic washes through him. He should be relieved, and seize hold of this opportunity immediately, but Damian isn’t. What if Blade comes downstairs and sees Damian holding the wires and he knows? What if he orchestrated the heater breaking to begin with, to teach him what will happen if Damian tries to run? 

This could be a test. It’s all too opportune. The promise of several days without supervision, the heater finally pushed within his grasp, only to be shattered at the slightest touch. 

He retreats to the other side of his orbit. Picks up the box of sandwiches Blade left him and flops back down to the floor. Turns his back on the heater, a child exercising will power not to give into temptation.

Damian eats half a sandwich robotically, finishes a full water bottle. Goes back to the heater.

It wouldn’t even be that hard. Damian’s been picking locks since he was old enough to practice a pincer grip. He’d heard Blade drive away in his Ford Bronco. The man bled him to the bone, he has no reason to believe that Damian would ever even be capable of attempting an escape right now. 

Which is why he must have set this all up. 

Right? 

Damian returns to the sandwiches. He eats another one and finds himself sitting in front of the heater. Fine. If this is to be a test, Damian will simply best Blade. He hasn’t succeeded before, but Damian is pathetic enough now, that Blade has begun to underestimate him. 

Damian reaches for the broken heater. 

It takes a while to pick. Every sound upstairs from the creaking wood settling to the heating running makes Damian flinch and wait for several breathless seconds before continuing. Damian’s hands hinder him, but not enough to stop him. He has to take breaks, and what should have taken a minute at most stretches out into well over an hour. 

The collar clicks open. 

Damian goes completely still. 

His breathing is loud in his ears. The metal sides part, going slack, threatening to fall off his shoulders now that they aren’t locked in place. Damian reaches up gingerly and pulls it off, flinching at the clang of the chain when it drops to the floor. He watches the stairwell with bated breath, waiting for the timer to be up, for this to all be revealed as a test. 

Nothing comes. Damian gets up to his feet shakily. His shoulders feel like they’re made of air, the sudden lack of weight jarring. He’s too light-headed to be standing, but he takes a wobbling step forward anyway. Just one, at the very edge of his radius, staring at the collar by his feet. 

Nothing pulls him back.

Damian takes another. He stares at the pile of blankets and the cranes. He feels sick with anticipation. Leaving. He. What does he need? He’s dizzy, and he’ll need food. To eat food. He needs to grab the blankets for warmth, if the basement is any indication of the weather outside. He should make sure that Blade really left the building. He should arm himself with more than a broken piece of plastic.

He should find a phone.

He—

Father. He needs Father. Or his siblings. A phone would be ideal. A call for aid before he runs. 

He should go upstairs. He has to.  

The idea of crossing over that unspoken line makes Damian anxious. The last time he’d done so, he saw what had become of Lamont, and a wave of fresh dread crashes into him. What new, horrible thing does Blade have to offer? 

It doesn’t matter, though. He’s not here. Damian prays he’s not here. 

He grabs another sandwich from the box, eats it as quickly as he can before drinking more water. The blankets he pulls across himself like a cape, knotting it in the front, flinching as it makes contact with the bare skin of his neck. It’s gone raw, blisters lining the worst of the chaffing, and the bruising must be something to behold. 

Damian wraps the blanket as best he can to hide it. He abandons the cranes, but the thought of leaving Titus here, alone in the grimey basement to be forgotten in the cold after Blade’s arrest, makes Damian unbearably unhappy. He grabs that, too. The fur is familiar. It’s been one of the few sources of comfort he’s had in the last two weeks. 

Supplies gathered, and nerves as mollified as they’re going to get—which is none, the adrenaline is making it impossible to take even a deep breath, let alone ease his racing heart—Damian starts his way up the stairs to the landing. 

He goes slowly, and feels like he shouldn’t. Clings to the railing and listens to the creak of his footsteps, remembering vividly what climbing up the first time was like. The brazen confidence, arrogance . He’d stopped in a naive attempt to help another victim, unaware that Lamont was doomed far beyond his capabilities. Maybe, if he’d just run that first day, he could’ve made it out before things escalated to this point. 

Or maybe Blade would have just shot and killed him when he chased Damian down. Hard to say.

The house is empty. Damian listens, easing around corners, walking through the halls on the balls of his feet. He goes to the kitchen and rises to the tips of his toes to stare out the back window. It looks down at the backyard. The SUV is gone, the padlock is back on the shed. 

There is no phone that he can find, even though he looks for it. Blade must only have a cell, and no landline. He probably took his phone with him when he left. He doesn’t check upstairs, it would take too much time. He’s only seen the bathroom up there, and he doesn’t want to see where this man sleeps. It’s not worth the extra time. 

Damian starts opening drawers. Pulls out a lighter on the third one. He should blow this house to smithereens. Go back and open the nozzle, let propane fill the basement. The cranes would burn, and so would his nest. If it got hot enough, it might melt the steel of the chains that kept him here.

He moves for the back door, instead. Winds the blanket a little tighter around his shoulders. 

The air is crisp, thin and biting. He inhales and feels like he’s breathing in shards of glass, and laments that it might be the best sort of pain he’s had in a while. The sting of freedom.

The adrenaline makes it so that he hardly feels the frigid ground beneath his feet as he steps out onto the gravel. The driveway is gated, house concealed by a tall privacy fence and trees that loom just behind it. His breath is visible when he exhales, a cloud of white that leaves him like the nafs leaving it’s flesh prison. Damian just stands there for a minute, trying to calm himself, panting like he’s run a marathon. 

This is good. This is very good. 

Damian’s vision spins on the second step. Black spots, a wash of dizziness. He’s down a significant blood volume, dehydrated and malnourished, he can’t forget that. There’s still a long way to go.

Damian tucks the little dog into his blanket cape. It was childish to take it with him, and he knows that, knows it’s more childish, how he can’t stop drawing comfort from the fact he has it. He clutches at it with a white knuckled grip with his good arm, one of the little paws tucked in next to the water bottle cap. 

The driveway is long. Damian had anticipated distance, but not to this severity. This isn’t like Gotham, where the houses are cramped and practically stacked on top of each other. Damian could have gotten help in seconds there. 

He looks out on Blade’s property, thick and wooded as far as he can see. The driveway curves, giving no clues as to which direction it leads. To a road, though. It has to.  Why would his captor own a car if it didn’t? This wilderness cannot go on forever. 

The darkness is spreading fast. Thick, like ink being spilled down a page. Damian is losing track of where the driveway is. He flicks on the lighter when he has to for glimpses of light, but it only seems to make the stygian that much more obvious.

The end of the driveway comes, shifting from gravel to asphalt beneath his feet. He can tell by the sharp sting of fresh cold. Road. 

Road.

Damian tries to quell his hope. The rush of relief. He needs to keep himself calm and focused. If he lets himself run away with the joy that he’s almost out, he’ll get arrogant yet again with his hubris. Damian refuses to go back to the basement. 

He keeps moving. Tense. Waiting for something to go wrong. He wants a flash of headlights behind or in front of him, and for it to not be Blade, so Damian can flag them down and demand to use their phone and call his family. It doesn’t happen. Damian hasn’t gotten anything that he’s wanted since the Executioner first laid eyes on him. 

He walks on the road. He regrets eating so many sandwiches now, with how they’re churning and twisting in his stomach. The nausea is making it hard to focus on anything. He walks. Feet cold. Breath hitching. Shivering. He’s started to cry. 

The blankets aren’t enough.

Damian throws up twice, the aftertaste of peanut butter lingering in his mouth. 

He doesn’t know how long he’s been on this highway, the harrowing journey of feeble escape, when he spots lights in the distance. Glowing street lights from a building. He can make out a cross carefully placed on top. It’s a church. Damian’s entire body tenses. For a moment, he thinks that it must be some sort of mirage, he’s willed help into being, simply because he wants it. 

But as he walks on the church grows larger. Trees thin out. Damian can see the stained glass windows, a light behind them, giving the illusion of a heavenly glow. The parking lot. There are three cars in it. He forges onward, makes himself go faster, and only succeeds in nearly face-planting on the pavement. Every muscle in his body is aching, atrophied even after so little time. He can barely keep himself upright in a forward trajectory.

Damian grasps the handle of the door and pulls. He loses his balance, has to tighten his hold to keep himself upright. 

The inside of the building is warm. The lighting is soft. It’s small, and cramped, and the foyer leads directly into the nave. Damian takes several steps into the building. The carpet is soft against his feet. The warmth is overwhelming, and Damian’s head spins, the world sliding into streams of long color. 

He doesn’t remember collapsing, but the next thing he knows, he’s on his back, laying on the ground. There’s a face looking down at him, old and weathered. A man, dressed in black. There’s a clerical collar. A priest. 

Damian recoils.

“Shh,” the priest says, “it’s alright, child. Just try to breathe. You’re safe now.” 

Damian reaches up with trembling hands, wrapping his fingers around the man’s wrist. His brace looks like a dark, all-consuming void against the man’s pale skin. The tips of his fingers have started to go white and blister. 

“Help—help me.” He begs. His voice comes out gargled and dry. “Please.” 

Damian wants to cry again. He did it. He did it. Survived, like Father said. Got himself out of that damnable collar in that damnable basement. Blade thought he had Damian, and maybe he did for a while there, but he’s free now.

The rush of relief comes in sputtering bursts, but he can’t cling to it, can’t make this real, no matter how much he tries to force himself to process it. He wants , so desperately, that it makes him hurt everywhere. 

The old man kneels beside him. Damian can hear his knees crack. He’s broader than Alfred, face more rugged, short-cut hair that might’ve been blonde when he was younger, maintaining a copper sheen despite the gray. He has kind eyes.

“Your skin is like ice,” he clicks his tongue, “let’s get you warmed up. Can you stand?” 

Damian nods sluggishly. He can’t, as it turns out. He collapses immediately upon getting up, the headrush apparently too much for his battered body to handle. This doesn’t seem to be inconvenient to the priest, who hauls Damian up like he’s a small child and carries him into an office. 

Damian can’t hold onto consciousness for long periods anymore. The adrenaline has abandoned him before Damian was ready, but apparently it saw its job completed the moment Damian stepped into the churchouse. 

He can’t keep his eyes open. There’s the distant sensation of being put in a chair. Of looking up and seeing a statue on a bookshelf, surrounded by thick tomes. A long-haired man nailed by his hands and feet to a cross, his expression despairing. What a morbid god to worship. 

He’s swaddled in a blanket, in warmth. Damian’s hands have been curled around a cup. The priest is crouched in front of him again, urging him to drink it. “My father,” Damian tries to tell him, around mouthfuls of water he doesn’t want . 

The priest shushes him. Damian’s eyes slip closed again. He can hear the man moving, the cup pried out of his hands and set to the side. More fabric over his shoulders—maybe another blanket? Maybe a jacket.

The sound of a phone ringing. An old rotary, like the one Alfred keeps. 

“I need to call,” Damian tries again, only to get shushed once more. 

“Just focus on warming up right now,” the priest instructs, “there’s no need to get yourself worked up.” 

Damian would like this ordeal to be over. He can’t relax until his call for aid has been received. Until he hears Father or Dick, or anyone tell him that they’re on their way. Damian has never wanted to be burdened by their overprotectiveness more in his life. He wants to hide in Dick’s embrace until it’s easier to breathe and everything gets a little quieter. 

Damian cracks an eye open. Watches the priest pick up the phone, listens to the buzz of an empty line. The man’s mouth is pulled down, brow furrowed in deep concern.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” he starts with, and even though his accent is deep south, and his voice like hail on a tin roof, Damian still manages to hear Alfred in the baritone rumble. Polite, mild-mannered. 

He can’t wait to go home . Father will rejoice. His brothers and sister are waiting for him. He’s so close. Maybe sleeping the rest of the way wouldn’t be that bad. To just drift off and let someone else handle things for a while. 

“He’s small, and hurt. I think the cold bit him. Mm-hmm. Closest ambulance is forty minutes out. I figured I might call you and see what you think before I make the drive.” A longer pause. “Oh. I see. Yes. Oh, this is your boy?” 

Damian frowns, looking up at the man, squinting. Who is he calling? Does this man know Damian’s father? 

He can’t remember what breed of Christian Jason claimed. His brother hasn’t been overly religious since returning from the dead. Said a thing like Kazarus was a real faith-shaker. He doesn’t think Jason knows any priests.

Not unless they’re working in Crime Alley.

It takes him an embarrassingly long time to remember who his father is, and the fact that Damian has been missing for days, and has likely been reported so. Perhaps, under all this dirt and filth and starvation, he is still recognizable as Damian Wayne. 

“Yes, I can do that. No, it’s not an inconvenience at all, I’ll make sure he gets home safe. Yes, of course. Sorry to pull you out of work. I’ll see you in an hour, son.” The man puts down the phone. Looks back up at Damian, and smiles gently. It’s not even forced anymore, and the worry has eased some. “Hey, kiddo. Let’s get you home, hm?” 

Damian makes no move to get up. “Can I.” Damn his stupid, useless tongue. “Talk. To my father?” 

The man’s expression smooths with pity. “You should rest,” he says, “don’t worry about that right now.” 

It’s all he can think about. The nonsensical phone conversation. They’re far from the hospital, the priest said as much, so he’s just going straight to the manor? Or is home a pretty euphemism this man is using to console him, and they’ll just go to the police station? If he could just talk to Father . 

Your boy, the priest had said. Damian belongs to many people, but none of them should be the first call of a catholic priest in the middle of nowhere. 

 Large, old hands tuck under his body. Damian squirms in the man’s grip, trying to push the priest away to no avail. He’s pulled up to his feet.

“Come on now, it’s a short walk to my truck. If my old back can make it so can you.”

Damian is finding that with every passing second he doesn’t want to be with this man anymore. He doesn’t understand, but he thinks that his father would have demanded to speak with him. He wouldn’t entrust Damian’s care to strangers. 

Damian reaches for the phone. The priest gently but firmly puts his hand back under the blanket. “I’ve taken care of it boy, we’re alright. Come on.” 

Damian doesn’t know what else to do. He can’t mope in here. He can’t even fight off an old man for a phone. Going outside and wandering the road, praying for another random stranger to help him seems like the stupidest decision he could make right now. 

“You have to take me to my father,” Damian tries to insist. Finds himself leaning into the arm the man wraps around his shoulders when they step out into the cold

“I’m taking you home,” the priest promises. “Let’s just take some breaths.”

Damian gets into his car. The man leans over him to buckle his seatbelt. He gets into the driver’s seat. Glances at Damian again before winking and reaching into the glove box to retrieve a snickers bar. He holds it out to Damian. “I won’t tell your folks.” 

It’s a full size bar. Probably the sweetest thing Damian’s had in weeks. His stomach rebels just looking at the wrapper. He looks back up at the old man, shifting the car into gear, one foot on the clutch.

Folks ?

“How did you get my father’s number?” Damian asks. “Do you know who I am?” 

The priest nods, humming. “He’s helped me out with some things in the past. He’s a good man. Of course I know who are. Your father and I have been talking about you for the last few weeks. He’s been worried sick about you.” 

Damian stares. Blinks. Damian’s Jewish father found a catholic god in the midst of his distress? Who knew his convictions were so malleable. Perhaps Damian’s father knew him from when he was younger, or he met him on some sort of case. But why would Father tell him about being Batman? 

None of this makes any sense. Maybe it’s just the hypothermia and starvation making it hard to understand, but it seems like everything that comes out of this man’s mouth is contradicting. 

“Who are you?” Damian hears himself ask. Registers dully the right-hand turn the man makes, down a long, winding road. The snickers bar is getting mushier in his hands. The truck’s heater is blasting him, but he can hardly feel it. 

“My name is Father Kenley.” His voice is so kind. Too kind. Almost cooing. The way Dick talks to only the smallest children, as though coaxing compliancy out of a feral, stupid animal. He knows what he looks like. Donned in a blanket cape, without pants and clutching a stuffed dog to his chest. He knows what he looks like. “What’s yours, son?”

Damian Wayne. Al-Ghul. Heir to the demon’s head, son of the Bat. Robin. What isn’t Damian, anymore? Who could he claim that would convince this man to let him use his phone, make a call.

“Damian.” 

“Not Dames?” the man asks.

Dames? Who calls him Dames? His family calls him Dami , if they burden him with a nickname. Damian frowns at him. “No.” 

“Hm. We’ll be there before you know it. And eat that.” He nudges the candybar toward Damian’s mouth, “You look like you could use it.” 

Damian leans his head against the window. He doesn’t mean to fall asleep, but the lull of the car and the adrenaline rush of the last hour have left him exhausted. He stays in some place between sleep and wakefulness, trying to jerk awake intermittently. 

He feels the road shift from asphalt to gravel. 

Damian blinks his eyes open groggily. The car turns off. The headlights are dark, and Damian can’t see anything in front of them. Father Kenley gets out of the car and rounds it to help Damian out as well. His elbow is grabbed firmly, and then he’s herded across the gravel to a porch.

They can’t already be at a police station. Or a hospital. Damian wouldn’t peg that drive as longer than ten minutes, if that. Didn’t he say the ambulance was forty minutes away? If Damian was ten minutes from his father, Batman would have already found him. 

A shift again, to wood planks. A wrap around porch. Damian knows this house. 

Fuck no. 

“You conniving devil!” Damian roars, wrenching backward, “You fucking— no! You would dare to bring me back here!? I threw myself at your mercy! I begged you, and you—” Damian is yanked on. Father Kenley hasn’t let him go. 

“Calm down,” the priest says, “everything’s fine, Dames. I’m just taking you home.” 

“ Home!?” 

There is only one person who calls him Dames. 

The priest hushes him again, grabbing hold of Damian’s hand. The one with the cut, a lesser of two evils, if the wound weren’t so fresh. The pain as the skin is tugged makes his teeth hurt. Damian’s chest is burning, the scream ripping up from somewhere raw and inflamed.

“ Damian,” Father Kenley grasps his shoulder. “I know that things have been difficult with your new guardian, but it will be okay.” 

“Let me go!” Damian shouts. Screams. “Let me fucking go!” 

“Your uncle loves you very much,” Father Kenley promises, “he’s doing everything he can to help you, even though it’s been a rough adjustment for both of you. I know he’s not your father, but this is for the best.” 

“He kidnapped me!” Damian’s voice is wet, the words coming out garbled. He doesn’t know when he started crying. Maybe he never stopped. Maybe it started in that basement with that collar and the respite has been a fever dream. Something his mind created to cope with everything else.

The tears feel too casual. Familiar on his face. This is not a nightmare, it's a cold reality he’s only now just sinking back into.

“I know that it feels like that,” Father Kenley soothes. “Custody change is never easy on children. My parents got divorced when I was younger, I know.” 

“I’ve been chained in the basement. Look at me!” 

Father Kenley pulls him into an embrace. It’s forced, and Damian hates him. Hates him. Had this been a month ago, Damian could have killed him. Would have. Could have escaped his grasp easily, but now, as weak and broken as he is, he can do nothing. 

He claws his fingernails against the man’s skin and tries to bite anything that is within the distance of his mouth. 

The man is startled. Shouts an expletive. Damian starts cursing him in Arabic, the most vile things he can think of. He sinks his teeth into the man’s upper arm, deep enough that he draws blood. He can taste it on his tongue and relishes it. 

The man shoves him back. Damian slams into one of the posts of the wrap around porch, his head thumping loudly. He feels it rattle through his teeth to his collarbone.

He’s panting heavily, vision blurred, but doesn’t miss when Father Kenley makes the sign of the cross at him.

Damian bares his teeth at the man. He can still run. Fuck this stupid priest and his useless god. Damian doesn’t need either of them. 

He takes a fumbling step backward, off the porch, hands outstretched at his sides to try and keep his balance.

“Damian!” Father Kenley calls after him, not moving to follow. “Calm down, child. Everything’s okay. You need to come back.”

Damian licks the man’s blood off his teeth. Spits into the dirt next to the house, walking backward until there’s enough space between them, before turning on his heel and sprinting back down the driveway. 

The car is too much of a hassle right now. It was stick shift, and Damian can’t remember how to do that. Just another way that he’s useless and a shame to anyone who has wasted time in his training. 

His knees hurt. Everything hurts. The gravel is cutting his feet to shreds. Damian doesn’t stop. 

The driveway seems longer his second time down it. He can’t tell if Father Kenley is following him. He might in his truck.

Was it Blade he was on the phone with? Blade was his good man . The thought makes something twist up inside him.

Damian is not Blade’s boy . Blade is not his uncle. The man has spread out a fabrication. In the hopes that what? If Damian were to escape, his neighbors would do this exact scenario? Was this all merely a test of the system, to make sure it was set up enough, and that’s why Blade left him unsupervised? 

There are headlights in front of him. Damian freezes. It’s Blade. He knows it’s Blade, can feel it with every fiber of his being. His captor in front of him, Father Kenely behind him. Damian takes a hard right and starts for the woods. The road was ahead, if he can manage to make it back out there after curving some, then. Then . 

Then he’ll figure something else out.

He can’t go back to the basement. 

“Damian!” Blade’s voice is a roar of sound behind him. Damian hasn’t heard him this furious before, and the danger in it makes every part of his body tense. A new wave of adrenaline crashes through him. “Damian, get back here!” 

He crashes through the woods. Branches whip at his face, he stumbles over tree roots, falling forward with every other step. All he can hear is his heartbeat in his ears and Blade behind him, in hot pursuit. Damian could outrun him. If he were stronger, less injured, if he had a greater head start.

He doesn’t trip, doesn’t falter or look back. In the end he’s just not fast enough. Can’t outpace a strong, healthy grown man, not even with the edge of adrenaline and hysterical fear of death spurring him on.

Blade wraps him up in some grotesque parody of a hug. Lifts Damian bodily off the ground, ignoring his thrashing, arms tight around his waist. Damian screams with all that he has in him. 

Blade squeezes him harder. “Shut up,” his breath is hot against Damian’s ear. “Shut the fuck up, you little shithead.” 

Blade’s fist slams into Damian’s stomach, knocking the air out of his lungs. Damian gasps, mewling, but goes silent, leaning over the fist, clasping at his forearm to try and keep himself from falling. Blade pulls him back up, hands around the back of Damian’s neck to hold him there.

The gun is pressed into Damian’s abdomen. 

“Here’s what’s going to happen,” he says, his voice low and dangerous, still panting from the exertion “we’re going to walk back, and you’re not going to say anything. If you scream, or you shout, I will shoot the fucking brains out of that priest and make you clean up every last cell of brain matter off my porch. Do you understand? Yes or no. Nod.” 

Damian looks at him. It’s always like this, some version of darkness, some brand of cold. A question that isn’t a question. 

Damian nods, feeling numb. There’s blood in his mouth and he doesn’t know if it’s his, or the priest’s, or Blade’s. Do you understand ?

He’s starting to, he thinks. It’s sinking in. 

“That’s right.” Blade puts a hand on the back of his head, fingers threading through his hair. Uses the grip to bob Damian’s head up and down himself, taking even that much choice away, before shoving Damian back toward the road. “Now move your ass.”

Damian walks past Blade’s car, abandoned in the rood, the door still open, the seatbelt warning pinging every few seconds. Damian looks at it with longing. Blade smacks him on the back of the head for the lingering stare. 

Back down the road, to the house. Blade’s fingers are iron on his collarbone, like he wishes he could squeeze his nails underneath the skin and grab hold of the bone like it’s a staircase a railing.

“Oh good,” Father Kenley says, when they’ve come into view. He’s gone paler, his old face almost waxy with sweat. He looks worried . “You got to him. Are you boys okay?”

“Yeah,” Blade’s voice has melted. He’s fond of this man, Damian can tell that immediately. Part of him is tempted to leap forward and start ripping and clawing at the old man, just to punish Blade. “Sorry for the scare. We’re still settling in, trying to get used to each other. His episodes aren’t usually this—intense.” 

Episodes. 

Sure. They can call his escape attempts episodes. Fits of insanity, for thinking he could ever get away from this man. Your boy, the priest had called him. Damian knows that now. He belongs to Blade for as long as the man decides to keep him. There is nothing else now. 

“That’s alright,” the priest pats Blade’s shoulder. “I’m just glad you boys are okay.” Now the man is eyeing Damian, with wariness. Fear of him instead of for him, the fool. “Your boy definitely has—” the man stops for a moment, then settles on, “ special needs.” 

Blade nods. Damian looks down at himself. The blanket fell off, he doesn’t know when. Shirt and underwear. No Titus. Where did the little dog go? Damian feels fresh tears spring to his eyes. He didn’t mean to lose it. It could be anywhere out there. Damian just fucked up something else.
“I know Dames is real sorry about the trouble he gave you,” A pointed squeeze to the back of his neck. Blade shifts, just enough that he can feel the gun strapped to his captor’s hip again. Warning.

Why should Damian care if this stupid man dies? Why does it seize up his chest, weigh on his shoulders? He brought Damian back here, to this wretched man. 

“I’m sorry,” he says anyway, chokes out between muffled sobs. 

“That’s alright,” Father Kenley pats his shoulder. “By the grace of God all is forgiven, child.” He looks up at Blade, “I’ll see you on Sunday for service, won’t I? I think you may need more help than I first thought.” 

They both laugh.

Damian doesn’t. 

Blade promises he will be there, gives the priest a warm half hug, then the man climbs back into his truck and drives down the driveway. Blade waits until the brake lights can no longer be seen in the dark before he grabs Damian by the back of his neck and moves toward the door. Damian feels like he’s underwater. Everything is so distant, he’s observing himself in third person.

He watches Blade pull out his keys. A flash of other gold metal shoved back into his pocket, almost like a rose. The screen door is unlocked, then the front, and Damian is hauled up the steps and thrown into the living room. 

He smashes into the coffee table. The one that Blade had his clothing folded on when Damian walked in on him fucking Lamont. 

The edge of the hardwood digs into his shins, promises to leave bruises. Damian lets himself crumple. 

Maybe Blade will kill him. He hopes so. 

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Blade explodes, flipping on the light. He slams the door behind himself. “I left for four hours, Damian! You little fucking shithead, do you have any idea what you could have done? You almost ruined everything .” 

Blade grabs Damian’s shoulder, wrenching him upward to hit him across the face. The blow is shocking in its simplicity. Just a backhand. 

“I should kill you,” Blade says, “I should. Do you know how fucking easy it would be? You’re pathetic, reduced to a bag of bones, but still causing me so many fucking problems .” 

Being hit reminds him of being Robin. The conviction Damian once possessed, staring death in the eyes. He almost made it out today; surely that’s enough for Father. Proof that he tried. Didn’t just lie down and take it. “Do it,” Damian runs his tongue over his teeth again. He’d bitten the inside of his cheek, the fresh blood is nauseating. “Kill me, then.”
Blade holds his stare. His lip curls into a sneer. Damian is breathing in unsteadily, but even past the blood in his mouth, he imagines that Blade almost smells like Dick does. He tries to take comfort in it. 

His captor releases a sound of frustration through his teeth before slamming Damian back onto the coffee table. He releases him to take several steps away. Runs a hand through his hair. It’s shaking. Blade’s anger has made him erratic, wild-eyed and frantic. He paces a tight circle while Damian just sits there and watches, his gaze skimming the room. “What do I do with you?” he asks, voice high and tight. The question isn’t directed at Damian until it is, until Blade is whirling on him again. “What the fuck am I supposed to do about you?”

Damian is shaking, too. “Kill me. Fuck me. Drop my body. Do you ever do anything different?” 

At least his family would get closure. At least Damian wouldn’t be in the basement anymore. 

“No, no, no.” Blade turns again, his back to Damian. There’s a vein pulsing in his forehead, movements jerky and rigid. He’s dressed in a suit jacket, Damian realizes belatedly. A white dress shirt. It’s the most professional that Damian has seen him. It also makes the lines of his figure that much sharper. 

Blade crosses the living room, towards the fireplace. The canvas portrait overhead is a landscape shot of an open field. There are others surrounding it, pictures of a smiling happy family. Blade slams his fist into the wall like he wishes he could punch through it, gritting out an angry scream between his teeth. 

For long seconds, there’s nothing but silence. 

“I can’t kill you,” Blade says, pressing his hand flat against the dent in the wall. “I won’t. You’re just a fucking kid. I could never live with the guilt. I don’t want you gone in three days. Fuck me. You’re thirteen.” 

“I won’t stop.” Damian leans forward, watching, intently. Blade has always seemed in control, and it’s gone now. Replaced with that erratic rage. Impulsiveness. He threatened to kill a priest, what guilt could he possibly feel? This is all just theatre. Damian knows theatre, the ramblings of an unhinged killer. They can be finessed. “I won’t stop running, not ever.”

He shouldn’t goad this man. Father told him to survive. But to what end? At what cost? Damian doesn’t want to be his boy. If he’s never going to make it out of this damn house, then what the hell is the point . His father isn’t coming for him. He would have already found him by now if he was. 

Blade’s heavy breathing is the only sound in the room for long seconds. He reaches out with a trembling hand and grasps the fire poker. “Yes,” his voice is collected, settled. Resolved. “You will.” 

He pulls the poker out, and stalks toward Damian. For all his bravado about dying, Damian still makes a feeble attempt at escape, scrambling over the edge of the coffee table to try and make for the door. Blade grabs a fistfull of his hair and slams him back down on the furniture, like a sacrificial lamb. 

He lifts up the fire poker.

“No,” Damian gasps, ragged, “wait, don’t—” 

Damian screams when the first blow hits. The center of his shin, hard and fast. A brutal sort of force. Applied to a vital area, his gut or his head or his chest, it would kill him.

This is probably how Lamont felt, in his last moments. Facing down the ochre, lustful eyes of the reaper himself. Marked for death. Did he know what would become of his body before he was killed? Would he have struggled harder if he did?

He hears the crunch of bone on the next blow, a wave of nausea that supersedes the pain. Chills down his spine, a grinding, ripping sensation.

The next blow isn’t any easier. Or the next. Damian loses count. The pain is overwhelming, and he doesn’t have the air to scream, sobs and tries to wail to ease some of the pressure in his chest. His leg is on fire. Damian is dying.

“Please,” he’s begging, rambling it, over and over. “Please, please…”

Blade’s hand squeezes over his throat. “I thought,” he hisses, “I told you to stay quiet .”

Chapter Text

Avery slams the door of his shitty little Toyota, stepping out onto the street. Jason is directly behind him, looking out at the private jetty. “Last one at this pier.”

Thank god. 

Jason’s tired. It’s been a rough day. A rough couple of days, if he’s honest. Ocean went about as far as any single-word clue in a case as big as this one could. Tim and Barbara split the majority of the tracking work, but in the end it’s been a shit ton of ground coverage. Red Hood doesn’t use warrants, doesn’t wait to get invited into places or ask polite questions. He got it into his head that it’d be a good use of his and his men’s time to go boat by boat through the Gotham and Bludhaven marinas.

They only hit up the most suspicious ones, with shady registration details and the like, but it’s still taken three days to get as far as they have. It felt like a better idea to just go through the boats before they started, and Jason hadn’t realized the sheer magnitude of what they’re looking through. 

“The guys we sent to Sandy’s didn’t turn up anything,” Avery reports. The boat in front of them is smaller than the others have been, older. It needs a new coating of paint, and some desperate maintenance. The thing barely looks sea-worthy. “I told Lewis to call it a night, they can start up again at the Anna Point Marina in the morning.”

“Yeah, that’s good,” Jason agrees. He pulls his jacket over his shoulders to block out some of the chill. The early November air isn’t restraining itself, and the late hour has only made that worse. It hasn’t snowed yet, but Jason is expecting it to start soon. 

“You still going out in the mask after this?” Avery shoves his hands in his pockets. The guy has been inviting himself to stay over at Jason’s apartment, crashing on his couch some nights. Asking dumbass questions. He’s Jason’s lieutenant for a reason, but this is overstepping and invasive. “You’ve been at it for a while, could turn in early.”

“We’ll see,” Jason answers vaguely, with no intention of doing so. He starts down the walkway toward the creepy ship. He definitely will be going out later as Hood. It’s been ten days since Damian went missing, and they still aren’t any closer to figuring out where the little bastard is. Jason has been helping Dick cover patrol routes for Bruce and Tim, which has made sleeping more of a fond memory than anything else right now. 

Up close, the creepy-ass ship looks just that. There’s a light on in the cabin, which lets Jason see the poorly maintained deck. It’s late enough that most of the other people have cleared out, what the hell is this guy still doing here? 

He presses a finger to his lips for silence back at Avery, who nods. The mount onto the boat looks rickety, Jason thinks he could climb it without making too much noise with effort. He’s not sure he wants whoever is inside to know they’re coming. 

“You have something against knocking on doors?” Avery asks. 

“Yes. Shut up.” 

Avery sighs loudly, but nonetheless goes quiet as he moves to Jason’s side. The two of them clear the mount without much difficulty, and Jason lands soundlessly on the deck, creeping forward. He withdraws one of his guns, wishing he had his helmet. He’d dropped it off on his bike when Avery picked him up two hours ago. Red Hood has been tagged out by Jason Todd, who’s face generally makes people less hostile on sight. 

He gestures Avery behind him, crouching low on the deck. He rounds the cabin for the door, easing it open with light fingers. It’s unlocked, creaks slightly, but the sound is absorbed by the constant rush of wind over the sea.

The inside isn’t very impressive. Lit by a flickering edison bulb overhead, the ship’s nav system dusty with disuse and probably only semi-operational. This is a stationary vessel, Jason realizes. A houseboat?

He takes a few steps inside, followed by Avery. There’s a map on the nav, small arrow stickers covering a beach. Jason frowns, getting closer. “Am I crazy, or is that the drop sights for the Executioner?” 

He looks back at Avery, who squints at the map. “I guess? I’m not familiar enough to know. Those are in the middle of the ocean.” 

“Yeah,” Jason agrees, “but that’s where he dumped the bodies. Where they wash up on shore is different. This is…a fuckton of math.”

“Um. Okay. So we found the Executioner’s boat?” Avery sounds dubious. “In the middle of some pier, when we’re looking for Helmstutler? Who the hell is this registered to again? That Howard guy, right? The one your brother said didn’t exist five years ago?” 

Jason flips the map, to the pages underneath. Stacks of notes, carefully maintained. Complicated physics. Wave patterns, weather predictions. Tracing the trajectory of the bodies from their endpoint to where they were originally dropped. There’s a sixth star on the map, in blue ink instead of red, that doesn’t come from a body Jason recognizes. He opens the drawer beneath it, pulls out the boating registration from a cabinet full of manuals, tossing it over to Avery.

“Look at that, I’m going to check the hull.” 

Avery makes an unhappy sound. “What? And I sit here and read a manual? I don’t think so.”

Jason doesn’t have time for this. Or the patience. He hasn’t had the patience for shit since he hung up on Damian. Since he left Damian to be thrown into whatever mess he’s in now. Left him to get fucked over by some rapist. “I give the orders, Ramirez. Stay here.” 

Avery flips him off, irritated and frustrated. He never handles busywork well, Jason thinks it reminds him too much of getting bossed around by his shitty older brother. Jason releases a frustrated breath through his teeth. He’ll deal with him later. For now, Jason pulls the flashlight off his belt and slips out of the cabin. 

He sees the deck in a different light, now. The clutter of fishing equipment, rope and hooks and nets, the odd stains. Sea worthy it does not seem, but for most of his bodies, the Executioner hasn’t been going that far out from the shore. They knew he’d need a way to dump them, but Tim and Dick had abandoned hope of tracking down his boat a while back. 

Given what Jason knows about the victim profile of the Executioner, the man behind the hunting knife probably isn’t a pedophile in his spare time. That’s just Helmstulter’s toxic quirk. If the map upstairs was the Executioner’s, then all thirty-something bodies would be penned out, not just six. 

The door to the hull has a padlock on the outside. The frame is rusted, hinges practically welded in place. There’s no way that’s not creaking when he opens it. The element of surprise will not be on his side.

Jason racks the slide of his glock, checking the chamber and taking off the safety. No one ever said things couldn’t be accomplished with brute force.

At least this will give him some element of surprise. 

He plants the sole of his boot on the wood and kicks the door open. It slams hard into the wall, a snapping sound echoing down the stairwell. There are lights on below, casting shadows Jason can make out but don’t resolve into figures. Voices that come to an abrupt stop at his entrance.

Jason moves down the stairs, pointing the gun out. The flashlight he slips back into his pocket, unneeded. He doesn’t know what he was expecting to see at the bottom, because over the last couple of days, Jason has walked in on all sorts of shit, but he doesn’t think that he’d ever really expected to find Helmstulter.

It was something to occupy his time instead of panicking about Damian. Something he promised his brother he’d finish. Something he was hoping Damian would, magically, be on the other end of. 

But no.

Helmstulter is here. Alive. Relatively unharmed. The man scrambles at the sight of Jason, back against the wall, keeping his eyes on the emerging threat. Posture tight and controlled, and it’s no wonder he managed to take out two of Avery’s men, there’s something vicious about the way he moves.

Almost as surprising is the girl behind him: Haleema Khan, the stuff of legends.

Spending a week pouring over the graphic account of her extensive molestation didn’t prepare Jason for the sight of her tied up in the hull of Helmstutler’s boat. She’s smaller than Damian, her black hair matted to her head, arms tied in front of her with fishing wire. There’s a rag shoved in her mouth, taped over with thick, gray electrical tape. She’s completely naked, covered in dirt and bruises. Dried blood smeared down her thighs. 

But she’s alive, too. Jason was starting to think he wouldn’t find her that way.

The shock makes him slow, makes him hesitate, eyes locked on Haleema for a beat too long as he swings the muzzle of the gun to aim at Helmstutler. It gives the man time to reach down, grab the girl by her hair, ignoring the sharp cry of pain to hoist her upward. Jason swears, jerks his arm away, unwilling to risk shooting Haleema as she’s propped up like a human shield in front of Helmstutler.

The man draws a knife from his belt, cowering behind a teenage girl like the pathetic scum he is, hugging her tight against him and shoving the blade up against her throat. Haleema cries out, and the sound of her scream, hoarse and terrified, makes his chest tight with rage. 

“Put down the gun,” Helmstulter’s voice is deeper than Jason had been expecting. “I’ll kill her. Put down the fucking gun.” 

Jason’s head dips, tilting a fraction as he narrows his eyes. He stares at Helmstulter, who takes him in slower. 

The weapon is pressed to Haleema’s throat, cutting a thin line of red that streams toward her collarbone. 

“Don’t fuck with me.” Helmstulter growls. 

The girl is crying now, silent tears, holding herself carefully still so that the knife doesn’t cut any deeper. Jason works his jaw, forcing himself to ungrit his teeth, flipping the safety on.

He pulls one hand away from the gun, flips his grip with the other, holding it out at a harmless angle. Hands up, at his sides, smile as easy as he can make it. It’s more of a baring of teeth than anything else. “Hey, hey. Easy now. No one’s fucking anyone.” Jason’s voice is cold, the humor like a razorblade instead of a balm. 

Haleema whimpers. She’s exposed like this. She must be fucking freezing. Jason can’t make himself look at her body, lets his gaze skim over the damage Helmstutler wrought. What he let Helmstutler do to her. This is on him, on his inability to protect an innocent child, even though Damian had given him plenty of warning that she was in danger. Make that two for fucking two of the kids he should have kept safe and didn’t. 

“Put it down.”

Jason crouches. Watches the knife against Haleema’s throat. He sets the gun on the floor of the hull, pushes it to the side, just out of reach. “Alright, happy? Let her go. She’s just a kid.” 

Helmstulter doesn’t. “You a cop?” 

Jason rises, taking the opportunity to ease closer to the man. Haleema’s staring at him now, wide-eyed. There’s no hope there, nothing but fear and anticipation. “Oh, buddy, I’m a hell of a lot worse than that.”

Helmstulter’s expression gets tighter. “Fed?” 

“Don’t got a badge on me,” Jason says, “which is shit for you, ‘cause I’m going to kill your ass nice and slow, Kyle.” 

Helmstutler considers this, eyes darting to Haleema for a moment before taking Jason in again. Thinking through his options. It’s not the drowning rat look Jason was expecting—hoping for. There’s something so satisfying about watching a man realize he’s going to die, but Helmstutler remains calm. 

“Put the girl down,” Jason tries again, aiming to keep his voice level. Non-threatening.  “And I might not cut your dick off and shove it down your throat while you’re still alive.”

Helmstulter laughs outright, causing Haleema to flinch underneath him. “The hell do you think you are, kid?” 

Jason studies the distance between them carefully. Assessing. They’re about fifteen feet apart. Jason couldn’t cross that space in one leap without Haleema getting hurt in the process. If he was slow enough, Helmstulter might even slit her throat first. The distance chafes. Fuck, he wants his gun. 

“Gun’s down,” Jason changes tactics. He’s still got guns on him, and a switchblade. A couple of other knives. His hands are still raised above his head, and he starts to slowly, slowly lower them, “you can drop her now.” 

“Show me your badge.” 

“Not a cop,” Jason promises. Another careful step. Apparently Bruce’s lectures on de-escalation weren’t completely useless. “No badge, just me and you, buddy. Let her go.”

Helmstulter’s eyes rove up and down Jason pointedly. “Good. You’re pretty, maybe I’ll do you next.” 

Jason feels his face curl with disgust, and he recoils, taking half a step back. Helmstulter was counting on it, finally shoving Haleema aside to leap at Jason while he’s distracted. 

The guy’s got moves. The bodyweight and strength to back them up. He fights like a footballer, lunging forward to tackle Jason, knife still in his grasp. Jason keeps his gaze on Haleema for a beat too long, watching her hit the ground, the blood on her neck, relieved that it’s still just a small cut.

He lets Helmstutler tackle him. What the hell, might as well give the guy a sense of accomplishment before he dies. 

Jason rolls with the impact, flipping them as Helmstutler tries to drive the knife into his gut. He closes his hands around the man’s wrist, wrenching them until he feels something grind and crunch. The scuffle is short lived, ends up with Jason on top and Helmstutler groaning in pain, the knife dropped between them.

Jason shifts back, kneeling now. Picks up the knife, looks once over his shoulder to make sure Haleema hasn’t moved, before turning back to Helmstutler. The man is on his back beneath him, trying to sit up, cradling his wrist like it’s broken.

Might be. Jason shoves a hand against his chest to force him back down, rears back with the knife before driving it into his shoulder, between the blades, right through the meat. It sinks into the flesh with surprising ease, hitting the floorboards beneath Helmstutler. Jason drives in a little harder, pinning him. 

Helmstutler makes a choked, gasping noise, wheezing. Jason leans in, “What’s the matter, Kyle? Not as much fun when they can fight back?” 

There’s that drowning rat look. Real, raw fear. The whites of his eyes are showing, irises swallowed by pupil. Jason grins.

There’s blood welling up behind the knife, coating Jason’s hands. He wipes them on Helmstutler’s shirt, rising to his feet with some effort, stepping over the man’s body to retrieve his gun. 

“You know how long I’ve been looking for you, asswipe?” Safety off. Jason’s ears are ringing and he hasn’t even fired yet. He ambles back over to Helmstutler, bends down to grab him by the collar, lifting. The man screams at the pressure applied to his new stab wound. Jason makes sure not to pull hard enough to unpin him. 

Hemstutler’s mouth opens. Jason doesn’t want to hear it, whatever it is. More disgusting filth or helpless begging. It’ll just piss him off more. He slams his fist into Helmstutler’s jaw, feels some relief from it, like lancing a blister. Ease of tension. The second hit is just for fun.

He rests the gun against Helmstulter’s uninjured shoulder. “You know what a six-pack is, Kyle?” 

The man stares at him. There’s blood dripping from his mouth. Jason thinks he popped a few teeth loose. And yet the fucker still has the audacity to talk back, words garbled and slurred. “Like the muscle?” 

Jason taps the gun against his shoulder. “No. Six bullets. One here,” he taps the shoulder, “here,” other shoulder, “elbows. Knees. Six joints. Nice and slow. We’re going to have a chat, and you’re going to answer my questions. I’m feeling generous, so you can get six chances.” 

Jason is not feeling generous. This is going to be slow. It’s going to fucking hurt, and Jason is glad. Haleema—

Haleema, who is still in the corner, still tied up, still watching them. Still terrified and bleeding and naked. Shit. Shit. 

This will not be slow. This will be very fast, but still painful. Kid should come first. The fuck is Avery? The commotion wasn’t quiet. Jason needs to get the kid upstairs, out of here, and getting medical aid. If he can’t hand that off to Avery, then Helmstulter is just going to have to wait. 

He chews on the inside of his lip, turns, peeling his brown jacket off. The leather is warm with his body heat, lined with shearling. Maybe one of the most expensive pieces of clothing he owns.

Haleema flinches when he kneels beside her and wraps it around her shoulders. “Hey, kid,” Jason says, gently. He pulls a knife. 

The little shit kicks him in the shin, scrambling backward, screaming behind her gag. The fear isn’t satisfying on her face like it was on Helmstutler’s, makes something inside his stomach twist up, remembering all the shit he read in her diary. 

She sounds different in person. Maybe because her diary never included a very terrified fuck off, muffled to incomprehensibility by the duct tape. 

“Hey, we’re good,” Jason raises his hands, spreading as many fingers as he can, “I’m not going to hurt you, just going to cut your wrists free when you’re ready, alright? Here, I’m going to remove your gag.” 

He waits a beat, for Haleema to process the words, then reaches forward slowly to untie it from her messy hair. The girl needs a lot more than a shower. 

The duct tape is old, wet with saliva, so clearly it’s been on for a while. It comes off easier than Jason was expecting, but takes a few strands of hair with it. Haleema gags when he pulls out the rag, doubling forward to heave and choke and cough. Jason sits on his haunches, waiting for the fit to be over, hands held loosely at his sides.

Helmstutler is groaning behind them, an animal for the slaughter. Jason tries not to be impatient.

“Everything’s going to be okay, now,” he says. Reassurances. She’s just a kid. “I’m gonna get you home, Haleema. He won’t ever hurt you again.”

“Home. My parents are alive?” Haleema’s voice cracks when she speaks, dry from disuse and raw from what Jason imagines are screams. “He said,” her eyes drop toward the man behind him, rage overtaking some of the fear and the relief, “that he killed them.” 

Jason shakes his head. Last he heard the Khan’s were splitting their time between the police station and the hospital. “Yeah, no, kid. Your parents are fine,” he promises. He wiggles the knife, looks down at her wrists, “can I?” 

She offers them up without ever quite looking him in the eye. Her gaze stays pinned on Helmstutler. Jason can empathize with that, the refusal to let the threat out of eye sight. Even pinned like this, even with Jason between them. He takes her hands in his own, careful as he slides the dull edge of the knife between her wrists, holding counter pressure so the wire doesn’t dig in too bad as he cuts up. She still winces, grits her teeth. Her pain is silent, despite the welts and bruising, and oncoming infection that Jason can see under the restraints. Tough kid. Jason is a little proud of her. 

“Who’re you?” she asks eventually, once Jason has pulled the wire from the mutilated skin of her hands.

“My name’s Jason,” he says. Then offers, “Damian’s brother.” 

It gets her to look up at him, finally. Her eyebrows rise, lips parting, the picture of shock. She searches Jason’s face for some sort of confirmation, a resemblance between the two of them? Jason quirks a half smile. She won’t find that.

“Let’s get you upstairs,” Jason says, wrapping the jacket more securely around her shoulders. Not just for modesty, the kid is shivering. “You need some EMTs kid, and some blankets, c’mon—” 

“You’re going to kill him,” it’s not a question. Haleema is making a statement, cold and interested. She’d listened to Jason’s explanation about the six-pack, too. Is still obviously aware of the gun on Jason’s person. 

Jason hesitates. “Yeah. I am. You don’t need to see that, Haleema. He’s done enough.” 

“I want to.” Haleema says, looking away from her rapist for the first time to meet Jason’s eyes head-on. There’s something in those dark eyes that Jason recognizes in his own face, staring back in disbelief at the Joker walking free. At Bruce having done nothing, and Jason watching him choose to leave the fucker unharmed. 

Jason didn’t learn until a while later about the body cast. Alfred hadn’t been mean so much as pointed. The desire to see your brutalizer hurt, to watch someone punish them—that Jason understands. 

Because at least if they’re hurt, that means that Jason was worth hurting them for. 

It’s all he’d wanted from Bruce. That reassurance that it mattered that he was killed by the Joker. That Jason was worth that pain. 

What innocence could Haleema have that this man hasn’t already taken from her? Wouldn’t it be better, for her to know that Helmstutler is dead, that he’ll never hurt her again? That’s what Jason would have wanted.

“It won’t be pretty, kid,” Jason says, softly. He won’t deny her this, not if it’s all that she’s going to ask for. Not when Jason already wants to beat the shit out of Helmstutler, make him pay for what he did.

Haleema’s chin raises. Steel in her eyes. “Good.” 

Jason takes her to the stairs, lets her take a seat on the edge, making sure that she’s as warm as she’s going to get until this is over. She zips up his jacket to her chin after finally slipping inside it, grimacing as her wrists are rubbed against the fabric. “Don’t look if you don’t want, or wait upstairs,” Jason says. She nods. Looks at Helmstutler with a gleam in her eyes that’s dangerous. 

Jason knows she’s not moving. 

He returns to Helmstutler. Blood has oozed in a pathetic little puddle around his shoulder, and the man has ripped the knife out. He hasn’t made it off the floor, but holds the bloody weapon out in defense. He uneasily starts to make his way upright. 

Jason laughs. He digs in his belt for his silencer, screwing it onto the muzzle of the pistol. A consideration he usually wouldn’t bother with—it doesn’t make much difference in close quarters—but Haleema’s hearing needs to be spared. 

He nails Helmstutler in the shoulder, the same one that he stabbed. Gets a hoarse scream in response. Jason pauses to glance at Haleema, make sure she’s not checked out and traumatized by the show, but she looks fine. 

“That was for the kid,” he says, conversationally. “Now we’re gonna chat. Question one, where the fuck is Damian Wayne?” 

Helmstulter doesn’t look surprised or confused. His expression gets dark, eyes filling with a smug sort of relief. He adjusts his grip on the knife. Jason makes lazy note of its position, but isn’t that concerned about it. Helmstulter can hold onto it if it makes him feel better. Not going to matter in the end. 

Helmstuttler spits bloody saliva at him. “Why the hell would I tell you anything?” 

Jason shoots his other shoulder. Helmstutler screams. His back arches off the ground, and he finally loses his death grip on that little security blanket of his, knife clattering to the floor. “Because I didn’t think masochism was on your list of fetishes you freak. Four more answers.” 

“Fuck you,” Ah, he’s the unhelpful sort. Jason should’ve gone with fingers; a lot more opportunity for an idiot like him to change his mind. “Your little princess isn’t my fucking problem anymore.” 

Jason steps on his shoulder, leans in, watches the blood squelch on the floor. He feels something grind against his boot. “And why is that?” 

Helmstulter sucks in gasping breaths. Jason eases up, only so he can drag up the air to speak. “That map upstairs, I’m sure you saw it, right?” 

“Yeah, so?” 

Helmstutler lets his head drop back, laughing wetly. “Where I drop the bodies when I’m done. Damian Wayne’s dead, probably gonna wash up on the shore in the next couple of days.” His head cranes back up, trying to meet Haleema’s eyes. Jason shifts, but not before Helmstutler can say, “you were next, you bitch. Was going to take you out tomorrow.” 

The gun shifts downward, Jason pulls the trigger. Left elbow, a long, cut off groan. The sound is almost enough to drown out Haleema’s hitched breath. 

She’s crying again.

“Don’t. Don’t talk. Don’t look. She’s off limits now.” Jason says, resisting the urge to kick him again. He’s bleeding out too fast, now. “Where is Damian?” 

A bloody sneer. Teeth bared, eyes flashing. He can see the nightmare in Haleema’s journal, the boogeyman. “I told you. At the bottom of Gotham Bay. Guess his—” Helmstutler sucks in a breath, “his parts haven’t washed up yet, huh?” 

Jason can’t control his face. Helmstutler sees it, the flash of horror. The man’s smile only grows wider. “You,” he spits the word, “are never going to stop him. Head’ll wash up one day, his leg in a few weeks, clothing six months from now. Some big brother you are. Damian goes to you for help, out of everyone in your family—not your father, not your siblings, you.” He drops his voice high, pitchy, “‘I would like you to kill someone—as a last resort’,” he mimics. “And you hung up on him.” He clicks his tongue in shame. 

Jason shoots out his left elbow. Does the knee, too, before he can stop himself. His tongue feels numb, that ringing in his ears starting up again. 

No, no. This is not how this was supposed to go. Finding Helmstutler was supposed to fix things. Damian can’t be dead, not by the hands of some pedophile, not like this. Jason fists a hand in Helmstutler’s shirt, but it’s weak. Reeling, at the information he asked for but only really wanted one answer to.

Helmstulter coughs up blood. It’s leaking down his face like drool. Red and thick. Dark. He’s still smiling. “You…you really…wanna know what happened? I didn’t kill him, but I watched the Executioner do it. Slammed…slammed his head. Over. And over. He’s dead, fucker. He’s dead.” Helmstulter starts laughing, choked and garbled. Spitting up blood.  

The words won’t load, even though Jason can see the honesty of it, wielded out as a last defense. He had been watching Damian for days. Haleema had noted that, in her glitter pen. He saw what happened. 

Jason’s hands are too loose on the gun. It stays limp by his side. He should do the other knee, he should finish what he started. What Damian asked him to do.

“He put…put your brother’s corpse…in a duffle bag…and then into his car.” 

Jason lets go. Takes a step back. He can hear himself breathing, now, the press of anger and panic swirling something dark inside him. He just needs a minute. Compartmentalization. Damian might be dead. He is dead. They knew it, when they connected his disappearance to the Executioner. That’s what Tim said, right? What Cass did? This was always a possibility. An inevitability. 

And Jason hung up on him.  

Helmstulter coughs. Gags. “Funny. Executioner…Executioner turning out to be—” 

The gun discharging is the first thing that registers, loud, like an explosion in comparison to Jason’s muffled bullets. Helmstutler’s head explodes at Jason’s feet with a spray of viscera and blood, brain matter splattering across the floor like a dropped snow globe. 

Jason is breathing, he knows he is, but he can’t feel it in his chest. His reflexes are shot, broken somewhere between seeing Haleema down here and now, like he’s moving at a tenth of his regular speed. 

Helmstutler’s body is limp and bleeding, broken in so many different places. It barely resembles human anymore. The shards of his jaw bone stick out of his marred skull, gleaming a sickening sort of pink and yellow. Jason turns, follows the path of the bullet up. He should pull his own gun, aim it at the threat, but his hands stay at his sides limply, shoulders stiff from holding himself still.

Avery stares down at him, gun in hand, still aimed at Helmstutler’s corpse. The scent of gunpowder has grown unbearable, acrid and smoky. Avery’s face looks like it’s coming from behind a haze, wide-eyed, jaw set.

Haleema makes a baby-bird type noise, soft and scared, half-stumbling down the stairs to get away from Avery and his gun. It shocks Jason back into his body, has him lurching forward to meet her, to catch her before she can fall into the pool of gore that was once Kyle Helmstutler. She crashes into him and clings to the front of Jason’s shirt, still moving, scrambling despite there being nowhere to go.

“Jace?” Avery says, not quite alarmed. There’s a coolness to his voice that eases some of Jason’s nerves. Unbothered detachment. Helmstutler is just another body in a line of them, nothing to make note of. “What—” 

Jason is still furious, despite all of this. “He was talking! What the fuck is wrong with you?” 

Avery bristles. “With me? I was trying to help you. He was clearly lying, but you believed him because? You want to have an interview session with a pedophile who might have information to soothe the complex you have about your brother?” 

“What, like you? I don’t have a fucking—” Haleema has curled back from him. Jason stops. Breathes. Let the anger get sucked out of him in one heave. He pulls the girl closer, shifting her weight until he hoists her up bridal-style, taking care to make sure she’s as comfortable as he can get her. “We’ll talk about this later,” Jason warns. 

Avery’s expression is furious. He nods once. 

Haleema doesn’t protest the hold, which is good, because Jason’s not sure she could walk out of here on her own. Her hand fists weakly in Jason’s collar, knees drawn in as tight as they’ll go, cringing away from Avery.

It’s almost funny. Jason—the man she watched graphically torture Helmstutler in front of her—he’s fine, but not Avery, who delivered a relatively merciful headshot. 

He hitches her up higher. He can’t do much about the blood covering him, but it’s not like she’s clean.

“Get the fucking car, Avery.”

The drive to the hospital consists mostly of calming down Haleema, who has started to cry. Jason lets her. Gathers the kid against himself in a half hug and lets her cry however the fuck much she wants to. She’s more than earned it. He runs his hand through her grimy hair, withdraws his phone so she can call her parents. 

It sets off another round of tears, but the relief in her eyes is worth it. 

Jason takes her into the ER alone. Avery is being pissy, which is going to be hell to sort out later, but whatever. Jason lets him go.

The hospital staff eye him. Jason deserves that. He’s a strange man, spattered with blood, carrying in a half-naked child, and being generally vague with his identity and where he found her. 

The nurses don’t press him too hard. He watches them call for security, for the police. He’s still armed, hadn’t really planned on doing more than dropping her at the door and leaving, but Haleema’s got a death-grip on his hand and Jason doesn’t have the heart to leave her.

They don’t make her sit in the waiting room at all, just hurry to grab her another blanket and set her in a wheelchair before taking her back. The RN stops him before Jason can follow to Haleema’s hospital room, body moving on autopilot.

“Can I ask your relationship to the patient?” she says, voice thin. Her hand is shaking where it’s held out, not quite touching Jason’s chest. A physical barrier. 

She’s a Gotham city ER nurse and her hands are shaking at the prospect of denying him access to her patient. Jason mentally re-evaluates what he must look like. 

“I’m not,” he says, even though at this point it feels kind of like a lie. He takes a placating step back, palms out at his sides, trying to project harmlessness. “She’s my brother’s classmate. I don’t know her very well, we just…” he shrugs. 

Haleema looks back at him. Her eyes are filled with tears, but her jaw is set. “Thank you, Jason,” the words are a whisper. Jason nods once, mimics exhaling. She does so. He tries to muster up some margin of happiness that the girl is safe, that this is over. Helmstutler is relegated to rotting in the hull of that ship. 

A numbness settles over him. Jason turns back to the nurse. “I have her parents phone number, can I give it to you?” 

The relief is plain on her face. Her subordinates wheel Haleema out of sight, behind a set of swinging doors, and Jason is herded to the nurses station. He gives her as much as he knows about the kid, which by this point is extensive. He could start listing out her least favorite foods, from brussels sprouts to dried apricots. 

“Make sure she’s okay,” Jason doesn’t mean for it to come out as a threat, but the nurse seems to have calmed enough to just give him a fond huff instead of calling security. 

Jason finds a bathroom before he leaves, looks up at himself in the mirror. He looks about as good as he expected. Drying blood coating him in spurts and waves. Dirt. Grimy hair. Exhausted, pale. 

He washes off his hands, sucks in a breath. He needs to tell someone about Helmstuttler. He opens his phone. He has seven missed calls, three from Tim of all people, the other four are a mix between Dick and Cass. 

Given that Tim’s is the most recent, Jason calls him first, swearing under his breath. Fuck. What now? 

Tim picks up on the first ring, which immediately sends Jason’s stomach south. “How quickly can you get home?” Tim’s voice is quiet. 

Jason’s eyes roll skyward. He can hear his heartbeat in his ears. “I’m at Gotham Memorial. Maybe half an hour, if I push it. What happened, Replacement?” There’s a lag. Tim’s breathing is unsteady, and it’s the only thing that stops Jason from asking if he’s still there. “Hey.” 

“GCPD found a body,” Tim says, “Edward Lamont’s. Washed up on shore a couple hours ago.”  

“Okay.” Tim should not sound this close to—or in the midst of—tears for that. 

“You should come home, Jay.” Jason pushes away from the sink on numb legs. Edward Lamont was the last person to see Damian alive. Helmstutler’s words replay in his head. Bottom of the Gotham bay.

The man was a liar, that much is obvious. Changed his story halfway through telling it. But he sounded so sure about Damian being dead. So smug. 

“Lamont wasn’t the only body,” Jason says. Closes his eyes. Exhales. 

“No. Police notified Bruce twenty minutes ago. Damian’s been declared dead.” Tim’s voice is calm. Numb. “You should come home.” 

“Yeah,” Jason hears the words leave his mouth, doesn’t feel them. “I’ll be there in thirty.” 

He hangs up. There are no words of consolation he can offer his sibling, no words of relief or comfort or understanding. Jason is useless. Jason has been useless since Damian called him ten days ago, asking for help that Jason didn’t even fucking deliver on for two weeks. 

Damian goes to you for help, out of everyone in your family, Helmstulter had said, and the words ache now for the truth in them, not your father, not your siblings, you. And you hung up on him.

The phone shatters against the wall when Jason throws it. The mirror is next, shards of glass snapping sharply beneath his knuckles, digging into the skin. A scream is building in his chest, but Jason only presses the back of his bleeding hand against his mouth, moaning lowly.

 The glass crunches underneath his shoes as he leaves for home.

Chapter Text

He sits in the passenger seat of Micah’s car for too long, engine idling, fiddling with the cufflinks of his suit. There’s a hand on his leg, thumb rubbing soothing circles along his knee. Dick has to remind himself to breathe. Not because he’s hyperventilating. The grief is sinking so heavily in his chest that it feels like he’s drowning. 

“Thanks for being here.”

The other man clears his throat, awkwardly. His formal suit is ill-fitting, maybe a couple years old. Tight around the shoulders, but still in good condition. He won’t make eye contact with Dick, staring vacantly out the windshield, at the full parking lot. The procession of black suits and dresses.

“Yeah,” Micah says, after a pause, “I’m glad that I could be.” 

That makes one of them.

“Thanks.” Dick looks back at him. Micach’s dark eyes meet his. The concern is overwhelming. It’s almost painful to witness. He hasn’t been able to meet anyone’s eyes for the last two days, not that he’s had a lot of opportunity to. If he hasn’t been avoiding someone, they’ve been avoiding him. 

No one has handled the announcement of Damian’s death well. Bruce hasn’t said a full sentence since he saw the positive DNA test on the shirt and pants that washed up four days ago on the shore of South Gotham beach. There were stab wounds, rending holes in the fabric. Lamont washed up wrapped in a tarp with the clothes Damian was abducted in. Forensics pulled three to four thousand milliliters of blood off it, most of which didn’t belong to Lamont. There was hair and skin, also Damian’s, and no possible way for a thirteen-year-old boy to survive that kind of blood loss.

Most of the blood had been stripped of DNA from the bleach, but not everything. What hadn’t been was Damian’s. Dick had seen the crime scene photos of Lamont’s body when it was found. 

There is no way that Damian survived that. The only other thing was the familiar set of DNA that didn’t match Lamont’s body or Damian’s. 

It didn’t match anything in CODIS, and it won’t. It’s just another thread of meaningless DNA that matches this case back definitively to the Executioner, like Alfred and Tim suspected. There is no reason to believe Damian is alive anymore. Not with the Executioner's track record. This isn’t Bali. Damian isn’t out there, but safe, he’s just out there and gone. 

Dick wasn’t fast enough to stop this again. He wasn’t there again . He didn’t even know until it was too late again. 

Micah reaches over, settles a hand on the back of Dick’s neck. He’s glad they’ve chosen a somewhat distant parking spot, and none of his brothers are around to see the display of affection. He doesn’t want to answer questions about this. He lets himself lean into it. 

“Wayne made this public,” Micah says, and it’s not a question. There’s disapproval in the furrow of his brow. Dick hasn’t told Micah a lot about his family, wanted to keep these two parts of his life separate, but what little he has, hasn’t endeared Bruce to him.

Dick scoffs. Glances out the window again. It’s not exactly public. Not like the entirety of Gotham city has flooded the cemetery. It still has more people than Dick is comfortable with. His parents’ funeral hadn’t been this big. Maybe thirty people if he’s being generous. That’s not what this is. 

“At least he invited people this time.”

More disapproval. Dick closes his eyes, trying to soothe the headache flaring behind them.

He’d fallen asleep in his own bed last night, for the first time since Damian was taken. Passed out for twelve hours, woke up with just enough time to shower and get dressed before he had to leave for Gotham. The post-case crash. Like it’s over.

It is, and that’s the worst part. All they can do now is find the Executioner, get justice. There’s no point in hurrying; they’re not getting Damian back. 

“What do you mean?” Micah asks. He looks slightly sick. “ This time?” 

Dick shakes his head. “It’s not important.” 

Jason is alive. Doesn’t matter who got to attend his funeral. Who got notified of his death before the funeral. Dick has always wondered who did get an invite, if Jason’s brother wasn’t important enough for Bruce to call. He’s tried not to harbor that against his father, especially not since Jason’s revival, but he’s still angry. 

The publicity was Gonzalez’s idea. He’d sat Bruce down along with the GPD taskforce, and talked to him at the station after he’d given the death notification, said in short, clipped sentences that if Bruce wanted to help catch his son’s murderer, making the funeral open to the public would be the way to do it.

Micah’s profile said that the Executioner fixates on the victims. Going to their funerals would be a way of reliving the high of the kill. Dick had known on a logical level that Micah and the others had staked out the five other known victims' funerals, and they’ll be doing so with Lamont in a few days after the autopsy is completed, but it’s different when it’s his brother . 

They still don’t know what the fuck the Executioner did with Damian’s body. Lamont and his brother’s clothing washed up at the same time , on the same damn shore. His brother’s blood had been under Lamont’s fingernails. They don’t know if it happened pre or post mortem. 

“He’d been killed on the tarp,” Gonzalez had said, “the Executioner took his body on purpose. But I promise you, he is dead.” 

You don’t get to know what happened had practically been written out in blood with the man’s fingerprints. 

Forensics said that this murder was different. That Damian wasn’t sent back because he was a kid, and there was likely incriminating evidence. The clothing was a point. Damian is dead. Stop looking. Stop making this a public mess. It’s over. 

M.E. dated the blood four days old. Damian died less than a week ago. Evening. He’d been alive when Dick had been helping Jason with Helmstulter. Dick just wants to know what happened to the body. He wants to bury the body. He doesn’t want the Executioner to hold onto it. The idea of Damian’s corpse getting fucked—

God fuck it.

The kid isn’t even fourteen. 

“Hey, we’re gonna find this guy, Dick.” Micah sounds so sure . Righteous. “That sick fuck is going to pay for what he did to your brother. I promise.”

“Yeah,” Dick agrees, toneless, but his words have far more bite and venom than the comfort deserves when he snarls, “I’m sure that Damian will be really grateful. Let’s go.” He unbuckles his seatbelt and climbs out of the car. 

Finally . 

It’s been more than ten minutes since Micah parked. The scent of the cold, bitter air makes Dick’s eyes sting. He hasn’t cried since he was told about Damian. He keeps waiting for it. 

For the edge of desolation to slip inside him like a knife and wrench something open. He feels a little broken. He knows Bruce has cried, because any time that he sees him his eyes are red, but he hasn’t seen him crying. Even Alfred broke down in tears in the cave when he told them all what the GCPD had found. Dick stood there, watching, numbed and exhausted.  

The tears will come later. That’s what happened with Jason. And his parents. Like he’s loading everything at a slower speed emotionally. 

Micah walks beside him, their shoulders brushing, a buffer between Dick and the crowd. It doesn’t take much for the sea of black to part around them, just the sight of Dick is enough to have people ducking out of the way.

Faces pale when they spot him, going tight with discomfort. The air hangs heavy, despite the relatively clear Gotham morning, still wet from last night’s rain. His dress shoes sink into the grass. Micah puts a hand on the small of his back, guiding him through the rows of headstones.

He doesn’t quite manage to make eye-contact with anyone, not even the people he knows. Spots Wally’s head of riotous curls in the crowd, but doesn’t wait for him to approach, shoving to the front where the rest of the family is. There are security guards, and the GCPD has sent a few plainclothes officers that Dick recognizes. The commissioner is in attendance. 

He sees a couple of kids, probably from Damian’s class, including Haleema Khan, who looks wet, miserable, and like she should be returned to the hospital in the next five minutes. Judging from the expression on her parent’s faces, she will be. 

 Dick was the one to make the decision to have a public funeral. He was the one who made the phone calls to notify people. Helped Alfred plan the funeral. Bruce has not been functioning, and Dick is fucking tired of being the parent. 

It almost makes him grateful that Bruce didn’t bother to do this for Jason. It would have all been lumped onto Dick anyway. If Dick hadn’t pushed, Bruce wouldn't have bothered with a funeral, even for closure. There isn’t a body. Nothing to put in the ground. All of this is for show. 

Dick knows that. Bruce knows that. Everyone knows that. 

And yet, somewhere, deep and dark in his stomach, he also knows that closure isn’t going to happen if none of them can come to terms with the fact that Damian is gone. 

There had been too much blood on that fucking tarp. 

Cass spots him and Micah first, turning. She’s in a dress, for once, her hair combed back and held in place with a headband. The ever-present placidity hasn’t faltered, but Dick can see the strain in the corners of her eyes, lips pressed thin. The sorrow in her expression only grows when she sees him, and she sinks further in on herself, pressing against the wheels of Barbara’s chair.

He knows that funerals are hard for Cass. He’s glad that Babara came, hopefully she can help. Dick won’t be doing shit. 

Selina is on Cass’s other side. She’s been crying, and trying valiantly to hide it. Dick feels his jaw spasm, looking down the row. Tim and Jason are sitting side-by-side, the former has been crying. Jason’s expression is perfectly blank. Empty. 

Dick spent hours with Jason after he came home, knuckles bloody and phone shattered. It hadn’t been an easy conversation. Jason had been quiet. He knows he’s spoken to Tim, but the conversation always ends up circling to Damian and Dick can’t stop himself from bolting from them. 

Bruce, Dick’s eyes settle on last. His father is sitting next to Alfred, who is buffering between him and Jason. Dick can’t see his expression well, but his dark clothing contrasts sharply with his pale skin. He looks sick. His hands are trembling. 

Dick starts forward. Micah touches his elbow, leaning in, lips against Dick’s ear. “You going to be okay?”

No.

“Yeah,” Dick says. “Yeah, thanks.”

Micah pulls him into a brief hug, tucking Dick’s face against his cheek. “I’ll be back here if you need me. Just let me know.” 

The warmth of his touch fades quickly. Dick hadn’t realized how much he was leaning on Micah until the man is gone, melting easily into the crowd. It’s respectful, he supposes, but he can’t help but wish Micah had stayed with him. If only to give Dick an excuse not to speak with his family. 

He steps forward anyways, into the pointed space left between Bruce and Selina. It’s not hard to read the tension in both of their body language. As far as he knows they’re on good terms, great terms, but it’s Bruce . Leave it to him to burn every bridge while he’s crossing it. God knows what happened after Jason.

They don’t have another Tim Drake to harass Bruce out of this. 

He takes the seat. Now he wishes that he’d gotten here earlier, if only to sit as far away from Bruce as possible. He doesn’t want to make his brothers deal with the man right now either, he knows how Bruce can be after something like this. 

“Hey,” Dick says, to Selina. “Thanks for coming.” He didn’t know she was going to be here. Did Bruce invite her? Did Alfred? Did she just show up? It doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. 

She puts a hand on his forearm, nails scratching gently. Soothingly. She looks over his shoulder, at Micah’s retreating back, her eyes narrowed. “Of course, baby. And I’m so sorry.”

The lump in Dick’s throat feels sudden. Brought on by the gentleness in her voice, her touch. He looks away, swallowing thick. Makes the mistake of glancing at the closed casket positioned over an empty grave.

His chest feels hollow. It feels more real now than it did staring down the evidence of Damian’s passing. 

Selina shifts in her seat, leaning over to fold Dick into her arms. He sinks into the warmth of her embrace, squeezing. Her hands find his hair, nails running delicately over his scalp. “I’m sorry too.” His voice is muffled in her black lace shawl, hoarse from tears he hasn’t even shed yet. 

It takes him a while to pull away. 

Bruce is watching them. Dick folds his arms over his chest, a self-hug that doesn’t have to end. It’s what he did at his parents’ funeral. He feels, functionally, about the same right now. There’s no one there to provide any real comfort. 

Dick was never supposed to go to Damian’s funeral. He was supposed to be the safety net. To protect him. Damian was Dick’s Robin. His responsibility. He was the kid’s guardian. The first line of defense. He wasn’t even the person that Damian called first to ask for help for the last time. 

Damian was supposed to outlive him. He’s just a kid. 

Was. 

Was just a kid. Is going to be just a kid, forever now. Never make it past thirteen, just like Jason was rooted inside fifteen for a long, long time. 

Dick slips back in his seat, swallows again. His mouth is impossibly dry, eyes stinging. The grief sitting heavy on his chest feels crushing. Like if he gives it a second to settle it’ll consume him. Micah has occupied his time, kept him busy when his family wasn’t. He doesn’t think he’s had a free moment to breathe since Damian was declared dead. Didn’t realize how much it was holding him up, the constant business.

Dick feels empty. He doesn’t know what it is, burning acrid in his stomach. Some combination of anger and guilt, and, overcoming all of that, loss. 

Very soft, tentative fingers rest on his elbow, as if to coax out his hand from within. Dick’s entire body stiffens, and he snaps his arm away, staring up furiously at Bruce. Of course he picks now, after Selina has made a show of comfort, to pick to be Dick’s parent . He only seems to remember that after someone reminds him loud enough. 

Bruce’s hand spasms, and his face gets tight, but he pulls his hand back, and sets it in his lap. He returns his gaze back toward the priest, and Dick resists the urge to scowl at the side of his face. 

The question of religion for the funeral was a mess. There was no respectful way to go about it. Dick doesn’t even know what Damian’s viewpoint was, if he believed in a god, or would have preferred a non-denominational one. Or something from the League. They had nothing to do to the body. He was thirteen. No one thought to ask what he wanted his funeral to be. 

Alfred had finally decided that it would just be easier to not try and force it. Dick almost wishes that there was some sort of ceremony to this. Rituals to cycle through. Steps to check off. Even if they were the wrong ones, it would have been something to do. 

The funeral feels clunky. Dick actively tries not to pay attention to it. Any sort of mention of god is avoided, which is weird in comparison to what Dick has attended. 

There’s no prayer, the speech is solemn, about the celebration of fleeting joy. Children taken too soon. Dick doesn’t listen to it. Lets himself stare at the ground, until the world is distant and muffled. The numbness is better than feeling it all, than listening. He can hear people crying behind him, despite the stoic faces of their closest friends and family. Sniffling, the droning voice of the celebrant, the uncomfortable shifting of dozens of well-dressed people in November air.

He sits there and waits for it to be over. 

The celebrant, who has thus far been speaking to everyone at large, asks if anyone would like to say a few words before the casket is lowered. There’s a profound, deathly silence that follows. The man looks strained, but not like this is unexpected. How many funerals has he presided over where no one said anything? 

A rush of panic swallows Dick. He didn’t think to prepare anything. He didn’t think he was going to have to speak. He doesn’t have funny stories, or something consoling to say about all of this. He just wants it to have been a mistake. For Damian to be alive, and Dick to go home and see the kid. He doesn’t want to speak at his funeral, that would make it real.

No one moves. 

Dick looks at Bruce, who’s entire face is clenched with visible pain. His fingernails are digging into his palms, and he shifts forward like he wants to get up, but can’t. Won’t. He’s blinking back tears. Jaw tense. Dick feels sick to his stomach. 

Mouth hot.

Of course Bruce isn’t going to say anything. Or Jason. Or Tim. Or anyone . Because Damian has, largely, been Dick’s responsibility. And apparently that’s not going to change, even now. 

Dick starts to get up, but his legs give out beneath him before he can make it more than a few inches off the chair. His shoulder smashes sharply into the back of the chair and the pain is what sets him off. It’s minor, barely more than a pinch, but it makes tears spring to his eyes, and Dick loses the frayed remains of his composure. 

Bruce’s hand settles on his knee. Clenching. 

The tears come hard and fast. It’s not a slow progression, fighting back and letting silvery trails slip down his face. This is an explosion. Dick feels like he’s being ripped apart from the inside out, his chest squeezing, and the pain a physical entity so visceral that it grabs his lungs and twists. 

He doesn’t make a sound. He can’t. The pain is too much. 

Dick buries his face in his hands and chokes. Digs his nails into his skin, as though he could hold himself together. His shoulders heave, silently, wracked with overwhelming shudders. Bruce’s hand on his leg gets tighter, almost bruising, but he can’t make himself look up at his father. Can’t do anything but sit there and shake, grotesque, wet noises leaving him.

He tries to get up. Tries again, that is, but doesn’t do more than lean forward. He can’t . 

Oh god, he can’t do this. 

Bruce takes his other side. Slides halfway out of his chair to wrap an arm around his shoulder. He doesn’t want his comfort, or the attention. He can feel every eye on him, his sudden breakdown. Someone needs to say something. This whole thing has been impersonal, lifeless. It’s had nothing to do with Damian.

Alfred gets up. His expression isn’t calm. His eyes aren’t sharp. He looks every inch an old, exhausted man in his early seventies who just lost another grandson. It makes Dick ache. Alfred makes his way unsteadily to the celebrant’s side. He’s leaning heavily on his cane. Looks like he actually needs it for once. He takes a moment to gather himself. 

“There are few words to express the grief that I feel. Damian Wayne was taken from us far too soon. I loved that boy like he was my grandson, even when he didn’t always make it easy,” Alfred smiles weakly, but the attempted humor falls flat. His voice drops, and the somberness is suffocating. Alfred’s voice is quieter, like the words are almost for himself now instead of them. 

“He was supposed to carry my casket, not the other way around. His birthday is in five weeks. He would have been fourteen. He asked to visit the ranch again, and spend the day riding. Damian came from a life of struggles, survived more than a boy his age should have. He rose above it. Damian was strong. Damian was intelligent. But most importantly, Damian was loved. We will never be lucky enough to have another one like him.” 

Alfred takes in another breath. His eyes shift to the empty casket. “Damian, wherever you are, I hope you know how terribly sorry we are for having failed you. May you rest in peace until we meet again. We love you, and we’ll—” Alfred’s voice cracks. He takes in a breath to steady it. “We’ll miss you. Goodbye, young sir.” 

Alfred kisses his fingers and presses them to the casket. 

A fresh wave of tears pools in Dick’s eyes. He bites his tongue hard, refusing to make any more of a scene than he already has. Alfred steps away from the casket. The silence is oppressive once more, as the old man moves his way back to his chair. His grip on the handle of his cane is white knuckled. Dick can see him trembling, face bloodless and tense. He wears his grief so easily it’s nearly dignified.

He’s almost back to his chair when his knees buckle, eyelids fluttering. Bruce tenses, but he’s still holding onto Dick, and Jason is on his feet first, surging forward to grab the old man’s elbows, hauling him up. The cane clatters to the ground, and Dick can hear the soft oh that escapes Alfred before Jason manages to ease him back into his chair. Jason wraps an arm around his shoulder, bending to murmur into his ear. Dick shoves a hand against his mouth. 

The celebrant says something else. Something about beauty and Damian having found peace now, Dick doesn’t really hear it. It’s almost a relief when they step away and allow people to approach the casket.

Dick stands with Selina and Bruce, winces when the man finally lets go of him. Alfred holds onto Jason’s arm, face dewy with tears. Tim has appeared at Dick’s side, and he grabs Dick’s hand and clings to it. Dick squeezes back. 

The family goes first. Files past an empty box with nothing of Damian’s inside. Dick skims a hand over the smooth wood and lets another wave of tears wash over him. Bruce walks stiffly behind him, and Tim won’t look at the casket or the grave, eyes stubbornly downcast. 

He did the same thing at his mother’s funeral, like refusing to bear witness to the casket meant it didn’t happen. 

They stand in a line beside the casket as the rest of the crowd ambles forward. Dick accepts a bracing hug from more people than he can keep track of. Roy says something that makes Jason laugh. Dick stares at him blankly. Cassie, Kon, and Bart all talk to Tim quietly for a few minutes, a round of hugs is passed. Dick watches them. Wally pulls him into a tight hug, and he grimaces at Dick’s expression when he pulls back. “I’m sorry,” he says, squeezes Dick’s shoulder, “let me know what I can do to help.” 

Bring back my brother. 

Dick hears himself respond but can’t hold onto what he says. Diana squeezes his arm as she passes, pulls Bruce into a hug and murmurs a few words into his ear. Micah doesn’t come up to the casket, and Dick can’t find him in the crowd, not even when it starts thinning as people file back to their cars.

The casket is lowered. Dick didn’t stay for this part for his parents’ funeral, or Janet Drake’s. Leaving the casket above the ground and walking away has been his normal. He doesn’t like watching it get lowered. There’s nothing in the casket, and he knows that logically, but it’s final . 

Bruce waits, his expression blank and cold, until the wood has been settled at the bottom of the grave before he moves forward. It’s stiff, and uncomfortable, like he’s moving without joints. He takes a single handful of dirt and throws it down before withdrawing a small, smooth stone from his suit coat and laying it on the earth beside the hole. 

Dick’s mouth goes tight with pain. The tears return with force, thinking about Jason’s headstone covered in them. He presses the back of his hand against his mouth, digging his teeth into the skin. 

It doesn’t muffle the noise of his crying.

Bruce walks away, leaving all of them to stand over Damian’s grave alone. Dick feels stupid for having wanted anything different. 

When Dick leaves, Tim attaches himself to Jason, clinging like a barnacle, as if he hasn’t been doing this since he got here. He doesn’t like funerals. Not that he thinks there is anyone out there who does .

It’s just starting to feel like he’s been to an unfair amount. He gets to hate them, more so than the average person. It’s hard to imagine a funeral he hasn’t been to.

His parents, Steph, Kon, Bart. It’s Tim’s curse, to bury everyone he’s ever loved.

Somehow he never imagined Damian Wayne making that list. The little gremlin had existed outside of normal planes of reality to him. He was impossible to kill. Death was allergic to him. He was Damian. An Al Ghul. Heir of the Bat. He had death-defiance in his DNA. 

They don’t have a body. There was blood, but that’s not a corpse. That had, Tim knows, been the point. The Executioner had dropped the clothing off to tell them to shut up. 

Damian was supposed to be in Bali. Scaring the shit out of Tim, again, but safe and unharmed, and bitchy the entire flight back to the States, as Tim yanked him around by his ear and resisted the urge to strangle him. 

Jason keeps an arm around Tim’s shoulders once Alfred sees Bruce off. Steers him around the crowd of well-wishers. He doesn’t say anything, Tim’s not sure there’s anything to say. 

There are more things to do. It doesn’t end here, despite the grim finality on Bruce’s face. They need to catch the Executioner, find Damian’s body, and put him to rest for real. Find justice for him, or maybe revenge. It’s what Damian would have wanted.

He hadn’t been given access to Lamont’s body. There’d been no time. Tim needs to visit the morgue, the beach where it washed up, needs to map the trajectory point back to the dumping site and see if he can glean anything from it this time. 

“You’re making my head hurt,” Jason says, “stop thinking so loudly.” 

“What?” Tim blinks, looking up at him. 

Jason’s eyes are red. He wipes at his face. “Your thoughts— so fucking loud. What are you thinking about?” 

Helmstutler said that he witnessed the Executioner kill Damian, according to Jason. Jason also admitted that the man might have lied to rile him. Forensics put Damian’s death at four days ago, not two weeks, so there’s no way Helmstutler could have seen his original abduction. If he’d left the man alive …

But maybe there are other witnesses that Tim can find. 

“Tim.” 

He shrugs, releasing his lower lip. “Not much.” 

Jason taps his finger against Tim’s upper bicep. Nervous tic. He sighs quietly. “Uh-huh.” He looks too exhausted to push, just pulls Tim a little closer before asking in a monotone, “When do you want to go to the memorial?” 

He’d rather not. He’s been to several, before, and none of them get any less awkward than the burial. The obligatory socialization feels cruel. Too much like a party. This one isn’t even about Damian. It’s about Damian Wayne , the son of the prince of Gotham, and the entire state was invited in an effort to get the Executioner's attention. 

It’s going to be awful. 

Tim has been to his fair share of rich people events, he knows how miserable they can get, how rapidly it devolves. He doesn’t want to play social games while keeping a lid on the tears that have felt like a cough he can’t suppress all day. 

“Dick’s gonna be there,” Jason says, and Tim can’t tell if he means it as a bribe or a warning. Some sort of obligation to go since their eldest brother will. It wouldn’t be fair to leave him alone like that. 

“Yeah, okay,” Tim answers. He’d figured. “I guess…I just need a minute.” 

Several. An hour. Two to six business days. Jason nods, lips pressing together tightly, and the two of them stand there, watching the horde of people leave. It’s only then, as Tim is sweeping his eyes across the cemetery, with the presence of mind to actually load the terrain, that he clocks the guy with a camera. 

Tim goes still without meaning to, locking up in a way that immediately catches Jason’s attention despite himself. “What? Tim?” His arm shifts from comforting to protective, eyes raking over Tim’s line of sight. Jason swears under his breath. “What the fuck is he doing here?”

“Do you know him?” Tim asks, baffled. 

“It’s Avery.” Jason explains. His lieutenant. Right. Tim had to pester him into getting a location on Jason back when Damian first went missing, and in the end the guy just told him to wait on the side of the road.

He’s got a disposable camera. Aimed out into the crowd. He’s taking pictures at Damian’s funeral .

Tim can’t keep anger and disgust out of his voice, “What the hell is he doing ?”  

Jason is seething, visibly. “‘Cause he’s a little fucking weirdo. I don’t know,” Jason pulls on Tim’s arm. “Let’s go ask.” 

Tim pulls away so he’s not being dragged, and instead at Jason’s side. Ramirez isn’t facing their direction when they approach, so he isn’t aware of them. Tim thought he saw them, but apparently not, because when Jason slaps a hand down on his shoulder the man practically jumps a foot and shouts, “What the hell ?”

“Funny,” Jason’s voice is flat, “I was about to ask you the same thing, Aves .” 

The man’s expression splinters with frustration. “¿Mi? ¿ Por que? ¡Mierda, Jace! Que carajo—”

“No, callate .” Jason is furious, bites back with equally angry Spanish. “Este es el funeral de mi hermano, y tú—qué? ¿Qué estás haciendo?” 

“I’m helping,” Rameriz snaps in English. He waves the camera pointedly in Jason’s face. “You said the Executioner would be here, I’m helping you find him.”

“You’ve never given a shit about Damian, don’t start acting like you do now. What gave you the impression that I wanted to see you after what you pulled on the boat with Helmstutler? I had that hijo de puta pinned to the wall and you fucked that for me. Moment he starts talking about Damian, you shoot him?” 

Yeah. Tim has wondered the same, questioning the timing. He looks between both of them. 

“All I’ve been doing is putting my ass out to help you this whole time, Jace,” Avery jabs a finger at Jason’s chest. It puts him uncomfortably close to Tim, but it’s not like his brother is letting him go any time soon. “Two of my men are dead because of your little vendetta against Helmstutler, you expect me to just let him live after that?”

“Long enough for me to ask a couple questions .” 

“He was already bleeding out! He was lying through his fucking teeth! What useful information was he going to give you?” Ramirez waves a hand toward the grave, “Your brother was already dead, what does it matter? It’s not like you could have saved him if I hadn’t shot the guy. Aren’t you glad you have closure? Isn’t that what all you fuckers have been looking for? You knew that kid wasn’t coming back, so don’t you fucking blame me for all your fucking incompetence. At least you get to know he’s dead.” 

Tim feels Jason wind up beside him like a spring at the words. His brother lurches, but Tim grab’s his wrist to stop him from decking Ramirez. Or shooting him. Because they’re in public . Tim’s shoulder wrenches sharply from the force. 

“Jason,” Tim hisses. 

“Shut the fuck up, kid.” Jason snaps, jerks his wrist free from Tim’s fingers and moving closer to Ramirez anyway. There’s a level moment where the two of them just look at each other before Jason slams his fist into the guy’s face anyway. He grabs a fistful of his shirt to haul him back up, his expression cold. Tim finds himself curling back from it on instinct. “Don’t talk about him to me.” Jason says to Ramirez. “No one asked you to be here. Leave.” 

Ramirez’s expression flickers. His grip on the camera gets tight, and Tim watches as his eyes go dark and cold. “Fine. Message received.” 

Jason stalks off, taking the worst of his mood with him. Tim stands in front of his brother’s lieutenant, rubbing at his jaw. He glares at Tim, shifting his weight so he’s towering instead of leaning back. “What?” 

“Closure?” Tim hears himself ask, eyes pinned to the man, as if taking him in for the first time. Tall, built, brown hair, brown eyes. His skin is fair, features wide-set. Tim doesn’t remember hearing any background from Jason, but the guy has to be important if he’s the Red Hood’s lieutenant. He knows Jason’s name. Their brother’s name. Is familiar enough with their family, details Jason has always kept fairly close to his chest, that he can goad Jason into hitting him. 

Ramirez has the tact to look somewhat ashamed, though, when Tim throws his own words back at him. “Yeah,” he says. “You don’t have to keep looking now. It’s over.”

Tim lets his gaze slide past Ramirez. Most everyone is gone now, or are standing around their cars chatting. He hopes Jason will wait to drive him to the memorial. “It is?”

“Kid’s dead.” Ramirez winces. “Sorry.”  

The apology doesn’t mean anything. “His killer is still out there,” Tim points out. He was supposed to be here. “This isn’t over until he’s caught.” 

Ramirez doesn’t look happy about that. His lips purse together, his eyes darkening. “Yeah. I guess. You’re done looking though, right? For Damian?” 

Tim’s eyes narrow. Why would that matter to him? This hasn’t exactly been a great burden to the man. Jason only really pulled in people from the Alley to search for Helmstutler, and it’s not the first time there’s been a manhunt for a child abuser like that before. This seems…personal. Anxious , almost. 

“I don’t know,” Tim says, to egg him. “We didn’t find a body.” 

Ramirez looks at him. His expression is dead. “I hope you don’t. It’s better not to know,” his eyes are haunted with memory, “trust me. Tell Jason I’m sorry. I’ll give him the photos when he’s cooled off.” 

The photos. Because he was taking pictures. Fucking psycho. 

“Sure,” Tim agrees, with teeth, “I’m sure he’ll want to know what his brother’s funeral looked like through your eyes.” 

Rameriz winces, but he doesn’t say anything else. Tim is left standing in the cemetery alone.

Talia finds him in the garden. Bruce doesn’t know how long he’s been outside, but enough that his fingers have started to go numb, and his face aches. He raises his eyes toward her for a moment. The blanket that she drapes across his shoulders is unexpected, but welcomed. He pulls it closer. “Thank you.” 

“Your butler sends his concern,” she says, and takes the seat next to him. 

She is beautiful, still. And out of place. Bruce had been notified by Barbara that she was in town, had been expecting it, especially after Damian’s death was announced publicly. He’s not surprised she didn’t bother to call him.

She wears a simple sage dress and a black mink coat. There are opals dangling from her ears, and her hair has been secured into a bun at the crest of her skull with silver hair pins, lotus flowers carved from jade, curls artfully framing her face. She looks elegant, and effortlessly put-together, especially next to Bruce. He hasn’t taken off his suit from the funeral, as rumpled as it is. Alfred’s the only reason he’s shaved in the last week.  

Talia speaks first, as she normally does. Bruce hasn’t managed more than a handful of words since he got back from the memorial. It had been awful. Dick is furious with him, for reasons that Bruce can’t place, but is trying to understand. Tim and Jason spent the entire time clinging to each other and Cass wouldn’t look him directly in the eye—wouldn’t look anyone directly in the eye. Babarba had taken her home early, so she could breathe from the heavy weight of the room. 

Bruce had stood there, shaking hands as Brucie, and hadn’t been allowed to cry once even though his son was dead . It isn’t the first time he’s wished that his entire life wasn’t a performance to them. He knows he’ll be called cold by the press, by not being upset enough, but if he had cried, they would have said he was drunk. 

It was why he didn’t want anything public for Jason. Why he’d decided against it, because if he’d made Jason Todd, the son of Brucie Wayne’ s funeral public, it wouldn’t have been about Jason at all. The only regret he has about that is Dick. His eldest had never understood.  

Everyone had disgusted him, trying their best to cozy up to him despite the fact this was his son’s memorial. When Selina had found him trying to discreetly throw up in the bathroom, she’d stayed with him until the event was over. He thinks she’s the only reason he managed to hold himself together at all. She’d offered to stay the next few days with him, but Bruce had wanted space. 

She had understood, because she always does. She is too good for something as broken as him. 

“How was he, before?” Talia asks, soft. “It had been some time since I last checked in on him. He seemed…content, I think. Happier, since your return.”   

Bruce shifts. He doesn’t know how to look at this woman he loved once. Her voice is as quiet and melodic as it always is, but he expects it to twist with wrath at any second. Waits to see that familiar accusation. Where were you , she’d spit, and hiss, where were you, when he needed you ?

Bruce tongue rots in his mouth. He doesn’t know what to say to her. Every story he heard from Damian about her made him hate her that much more. Hate the League. Damian has never been a happy child, and to accuse him of it is gross negligence. But he can’t say that to her. She lost her son . The only thing that isn’t a blatant lie that he can manage is, “He talked about you sometimes, it was clear how much he loved you.” 

He watches Talia’s throat bob, the thin, shallow exhale. She does not cry, and Bruce knows her too well not to see the tremor in her hands as she resettles them in her lap. The kohl around her eyes is smudging with tears she can’t quite hold back, but refuses to let fall. Talia bows her head. “We failed him, beloved. Our son is dead from our inattention. I should have been here.” 

She’s right. Maybe if she had been, Damian wouldn’t be dead. 

Bruce needs to talk to the police again, to review their statements and surveillance of the funeral. He should go out as Batman, he should find the man that did this, and bring him to justice. But he has only barely been able to force himself out of bad, these past few days, and part of him is worried what he’s capable of. What he’d do if the Executioner was presented to him now.

“It is good, that you grieve him. I had wondered if you would,” Talia says, and he tries not to wince at the stiff coldness in her voice. 

“He was my son, too,” Bruce whispers. He thinks that people forget that. Dick seems to have entirely, if the raging anger he’s been directing at him the last few days has been any indication. Talia’s anger isn’t undeserved. He knows he’s been less attentive with Damian than he should have been. And Tim. And Jason. And all of them. He’s never been a great parent, but he’d been hoping to achieve something above actively awful and he didn’t even do that. 

He wipes at his face, and can’t look at her. It takes work to keep his voice steady. “Have you found anything?” 

“No,” Talia says. “I assume your investigation is the same. I didn’t come here tonight to exchange information.” 

“Then why are you here?” Damian has his excuses for her. Why she left him with Dick when Bruce was gone, why she handed him off to Bruce in the first place, and didn’t come back. Somedays the boy swore she would. that she was waiting for him to be older, to be readier, before claiming him as her heir once more. Other days, Damian told Bruce that he was her failed experiment. That he brought too much shame on himself for Talia to bear even looking at him.

Bruce doesn’t know what he thinks. The woman he fell in love with wasn’t so cold, but the years haven’t been kind to Talia, and he knows too vividly from his time in the league how that life can harden someone.

Talia’s hand rests on his. It seems so much smaller compared to his own, but no less scarred and calloused. She doesn’t answer, and both of them sit in the weighted, heavy silence of their grief. It’s not until Bruce’s shivering starts to get noticeable, when she murmurs, “you should go inside. You’re going to get frostbite.” 

“I loved him so much,” Bruce whispers, and presses his free hand to his mouth, wishing that he could hide his tears, and this horrible, raw vulnerability. But when he looks up, all he sees is Talia’s own tears, streaming down her face. 

“I did as well.” 

Bruce exhales shakily, and he tips his head forward, letting it fall against her chest. She doesn’t hold him, but the weight of her body against his face is enough to let him gather himself back together. He forces himself to sit up, and then get up to his stiff feet. She looks up at him from her place on the bench. “If you find his body, you will let me know.” 

Bruce goes cold. “You can’t… Talia.” 

Damian wouldn’t want that , sits on the edge of his tongue. He knows that it doesn’t matter, because Talia does . There’s wrath and denial in her face. This is the first child she’s lost. It would be the second of his that she’s brought back. Bruce wonders if this is what he looked like, after Jason. It scares him. 

“You will let me know,” Talia repeats, harder, and she gets up. I don’t know if I can, Bruce doesn’t say, if it means you hurt him like you did Jason. “I’ll see you soon, beloved.” 

Bruce wants to ask her to stay longer. He thinks that she’s the only one that can possibly understand what he’s going through right now, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t know how much longer either of them can pretend this isn’t a gaping wound. 

“Thank you for coming,” he says. She nods once. 

When he goes back into the manor, and the heat sinks into him like it’s burning, he can’t find anyone. Tim is staying the night, and he knows Jason was, too. He doesn’t know where Dick went, because they’re still not talking. He finds Alfred in Damian’s room, sitting on his bed, Damian’s sketchbook open on his lap. His eyes are blank, but he’s been crying. 

Bruce tries not to think of this scene from before, when it was Damian, curled and hunched over the papers protectively, glaring up at him for daring to interrupt. The thought just makes the tears come back. He knows, no matter what he does or where he goes, that he will not stop being haunted by Damian’s memory in this house. 

“Alfred?” Bruce asks from the doorway. 

The old man clears his throat, but does not look up. His weathered hands smooth down the paper, over the clean lines of Damian’s art. “Master Bruce,” he says, voice thick, sounding so, so old. “Should I start dinner?”

Bruce steps into the room and he closes the door. He takes a seat on the bed beside him, and keeps his voice gentle, “Why don’t we just sit here for a while?”

Chapter Text

For a while, Damian isn’t. 

He drifts in and out. He has scattered memories, mostly incomprehensible light, or a voice—Blade’s, only ever Blade—talking to him. The words are soothing, the touch is soft. Damian has an awareness of his captor’s hands smoothing back his hair. He remembers asking for Dick, his father, his mother, his siblings and he receives no one. No one but Blade.  

The pain does not relent. It grows steady for a while, throbbing in time with his heartbeat, so constant he can feel it in his teeth. Radiates outward, so his stomach and back ache as well, and Damian imagines it a wildfire spreading through him, leaving him a chilled, hollow husk. He passes out when it gets too much, and comes to, nauseated and shaking, muscles tense from holding himself still.

He vomits a few times in his sleep, but there’s nothing in his stomach. Stringy bile clings to his lips, pools on the blanket beneath him, and Damian doesn’t even bother wiping it away, he just lies there.

In the past few years, he’s grown complacent. Damian can handle pain. He has been broken before, in far more violent ways. It’s father’s coddling that sees him so effeted by this. Always indulging in pain medicine, the gentle methods in training, shying away from harsher lessons. Damian’s tolerance has suffered for it, his grandfather would be most displeased. 

The skin of his leg is misshapen. Not quite an open fracture, but it’s not right either. There’s a knot over where the crux of Blade’s blows reigned, and grotesque swelling that inflamed even the joint of his ankle. His left leg is twice the size of the other, Damian can’t stand to look at it. His right has been untouched. 

Part of him is grateful that he’s only wearing Blade’s T-shirt, because it prevents the skin from swelling and pressing up against fabric or a shoe. If he’d been wearing his Robin boots when this had happened, he can’t imagine the struggle of trying to wrestle it off, and the pain of the constant pressure.

Damian can’t stay conscious in more than patches. He’s not sure if it’s because of him, or because of Blade. His captor isn’t afraid to use sedatives on him, and at this point, it might be a mercy that he does. Damian wakes to the sun, wakes to darkness, the sun at the morning or evening, and darkness again. His throat aches from thirst. He can’t imagine crawling the distance to the water bottles that have been left for him.

Damian accepts that he’s going to die. He waits for it, and waits for it, and waits. 

Blade doesn’t. 

He coaxes water down his throat, and holds Damian as he cries. Wraps the blanket around his shoulders when he shivers and cleans up the worst of the vomit. He tries to get him to eat. He smooths Damian’s sweaty hair off his face and promises that he’ll be okay. Damian hates him. Damian loves him more than anyone. Damian wants to go home. This is home. Damian is starving, and Blade is steady. Gentle. Firm in the reminder of what this punishment is for, the way Grandfather and Mother always were. It feels familiar.

The next time that he wakes up—or the time after that, or the time after that, he doesn’t know, his entire world has shrunk to the length of his leg—it’s dark out. Blade is shaking him awake, his fingers gentle and hesitant. “Dames? C’mon, kid, you’ve gotta drink some water.” 

Damian blinks, and it hurts to do so. There’s crust around his eyes, like he hasn’t opened them in a long time, and Blade’s face above him is blurry. Expression twisted up. He’s got one large hand supporting Damian’s neck, trying to lift him gently.

There’s sweat rolling down Damian’s forehead, despite the way he shivers. It makes him colder, makes him shiver more violently, and Blade draws him in, hushing him. Only then does Damian hear the soft, wounded animal sounds escaping himself. A fox in a trap, mewling for mercy. He wishes he could shut himself up. Wishes Blade would just end him already, and let this mockery of kindness lead to its inevitable conclusion. 

Blade slides Damian up a little more, so careful, but it still jostles his broken leg, and he cries out weakly. The free hand comes up to pet at his face, to soothe him, and Damian hates that it works.

“Damian,” there’s a lilting quality to Blade’s voice. Cajoling. “Sweetheart, I know that it hurts. I know. Just try to breathe through it, okay?” 

Damian wants to cry. Maybe he already is. He can’t remember ever starting or stopping anymore, just notices his cheeks are wet sometimes and his eyes are swollen. Sweetheart, reminds him painfully of his father. He wants his father here. He wants Dick. He wants anyone that isn’t Blade. 

He only has Blade.

Is only ever going to have Blade. 

This is reality. 

Damian sucks in deep breaths, and closes his eyes. He tips his head back, ducking it beneath Blade’s chin, searching desperately for comfort that he knows isn’t coming. Blade’s hand smooths over his skin, wiping away tears. 

“Do you think you can try some water?” 

Damian doesn’t know why he keeps asking questions. He hasn’t said anything since begging the man not to break him. Words failed him then, disgusting and useless. What difference would they make now? 

“Let’s try some water.” Blade reaches for the bottle. Damian hears the cap twist off. Feels, absently, the plastic being pressed against his lips. 

Blade makes him drink a little at a time, even when Damian remembers his thirst, and tries to empty the bottle in long swallows. It’s so cold it stings on the way down his throat, and Damian’s stomach fills with it almost painfully. He tries grabbing for Blade’s wrist, weakly, wanting to take it from him and drink himself, but his limbs won’t coordinate, and Blade ignores him to hand feed Damian.

They stop when the bottle is still half full, and Blade refuses to let him take any more. Presses a palm against Damian’s forehead and makes a disapproving sound. He can’t see the man’s face like this, held close to his chest. Doesn’t want to see the expression on it. He doesn’t know what would be worse, some sort of twisted sadism or a benevolent pity. 

Blade leans over his shoulder a bit, to look down at his leg. “I think that we need to put you in the bath. I’m worried about your fever, we’ve gotta get that down.” Damian thinks about water lapping against his leg and starts crying again. He shakes his head vehemently and tries to pull out of Blade’s grasp, but Blade doesn’t let him go, shushing him. “Hey, hey, hey, no relax. You’re going to hurt yourself.” 

Blade will hurt him. Moving will hurt him. Damian’s already fucking hurt, and he doesn’t want to be dragged upstairs and stripped to nothing on top of it. He wants to stay here, and close his eyes until he never opens them again.

Blade pins him against his chest, keeping Damian’s arms against his side, stopping him from squirming. Damian doesn’t make any verbal protests beyond mewled sounds in the back of his throat like an unhappy kitten, as he’s dragged carefully up into Blade’s arms. The bath will happen because his captor has decided it. 

Every step jostles his leg, and makes him press his face harder into Blade’s shoulder. The man is careful not to let his leg make contact with anything on the way up, and even more so as they cross through the halls, going so far as to step through the doorway to the kitchen sideways. The gentle consideration is agonizing.

Dick would do this for him. Bruce would. His family would. They’d take care to see that his hurt wasn’t exacerbated any more. 

Blade is not meant to care for him. Blade is the enemy, and he’s treating him with more kindness than his mother or grandfather would have. Pain is meant to make him stronger, it’s not something to be coddled for. 

The bathroom is still cramped, but there’s been changes since the last time Damian was in it. The shower curtain has been replaced, now completely transparent. There are U-rings nailed into the ceiling above the faucet, and the wall next to the toilet paper holder. Blade eases him down to sit on the counter, wincing sympathetically when bending Damian’s knee makes him gasp with pain. With the light on, and face-to-face finally, Damian can see that the man hasn’t been sleeping well. His hair is in disarray, eyes ringed in dark circles, a flush to his cheeks that hadn’t been there the last time Damian took stock of him. Something wild about his eyes.

He looks at Damian for a long time, just looking. Sniffs once, and reaches for the mirror that opens into a bathroom cabinet.

Damian sits there, shuddering on the cold of the counter top, while Blade rifles over his head. Just sitting up alone expends more energy than he feels he has. Damian resists the urge to sway, stomach muscles pained from the simple act of keeping him upright.

“Shit,” Blade is muttering, softly, to himself. He lifts a pill bottle, turning it to glare at the instructions on the back, the insides rattling. Damian blinks slowly and waits for this to be over. He doesn’t give Damian any of the pills, but does turn on the sink to wash the tip of a thermometer, before shoving it in Damian’s face. “Open your mouth, lift your tongue."

He does. Feels the metal probe settle in the sublingual space, and closes his mouth around it. Blade hovers close, watching with a frown as the numbers rise. 

Damian almost tells him not to worry. That he couldn't possibly be felled by a mere fever, because he’s not Timothy.

But maybe he could be, because the furrow in Blade’s brow only deepens when the thermometer beeps to indicate that its work is done. 

The device is removed from his mouth. Blade sighs. “I need to find some tylenol.” Damian isn’t sure if the man is even speaking to him anymore. It doesn’t really matter. He looks down at the floor beneath his feet. His swollen leg sticks out like it’s glowing. The skin is red and covered with dark, hideous bruises in various shades of color. It looks like someone dumped water color out beneath his skin.

Damian tries to find the urge to cry, but there’s nothing. This would need surgical intervention, if not his mother simply slitting his throat to start over with the Pit. He will probably never walk again. Never run. Never be Robin. 

It would be a mercy to have his corpse fucked. At least his miserable existence would have reached a horrific conclusion. 

“Alright,” Blade leaves his side, finally. Crosses the room to turn on the faucet, shoving a hand under the water until it runs warm. He stoppers the tub and returns to Damian, grimacing as he looks down at his clothes.

Specifically, his underwear.

Damian sighs, letting his gaze roam up. The humiliations never cease. He grabs the edge, thumbing over the top to awkwardly shift out of the briefs. He doesn’t get far, because he’s sitting down, and he can’t imagine wiggling enough to get them off. Blade’s teeth set audibly before he reaches forward and his hands replace Damian’s. 

The man is careful, trying to ease it off his leg without scraping, but he isn’t successful. The hitched, gasping wheeze that escapes Damian at the pressure has Blade reaching up to shush him again. Damian closes his eyes, and tries to pretend he can’t feel anything. 

He wishes that his mother had been kind enough to remove his nerves when she took his spine. 

Blade picks him back up, like a limp doll, then carefully, slowly eases him down to the floor of the tub. 

“Is it too hot?” he asks, and Damian has to grit his teeth when his leg touches the floor of the tub, vision whiting out for an instant before it’s back again, and he’s gasping his pain. The temperature doesn’t even register. The only thing he can focus on is the pressure. The water ripples as he displaces it, and when it comes back to settle it feels like it’s dragging teeth across his skin.

Damian tips his head back and moans, fingers white around the rim of the tub. He squeezes and squeezes until it feels like he can crack the porcelain. 

He doesn’t. 

Damian isn’t capable of anything impressive at the moment. Maybe he never really has been. 

“Hey,” Blade’s hand cups the side of his neck, “look at me, Dames. Are you okay?” 

No. None of this is okay. 

He forces his eyes open, staring at Blade’s face. The man’s expression is pulled with genuine concern. He cares. He actually cares. He wants Damian not to hurt right now, and he looks like he’d do anything to make it stop.

Something squeezes in Damian’s chest. Cold, and aching. “Kill me,” Damian whispers, and the words are barely audible. “Please.” 

Blade recoils. His face is a wash of horror and shock, as though it’s a ludicrous request. As though he has not debased Damian, rendered him enfeebled and useless, bared naked before him. Shivering and wasting in this man’s basement. It’s been weeks. “What? Dames, no—”

“What is the point,” it comes out without venom. The acid Damian feels scoring him isn’t strong enough to taint the words. He’s hoarse, and tired, and in pain, and that’s the only thing that comes through. “Why are you doing this? If you won’t let me go, just put me out of my misery.”

“I…” Blade is clearly fumbling for something to say. He smooths Damian’s hair out of his face again, and he looks like he might be sick. “Damian, baby,” his voice is soft, “I couldn’t do that to you. Or to—I just. I couldn’t. I know that you’re in pain right now, but you’ll feel better, I promise.” 

He promises. What about the next time that Damian does something? There was always a next time with his grandfather. There is no feeling better. Just waiting for the next pain. 

Blade sighs, then reaches down and presses a soft kiss to Damian’s forehead. “I’m sorry that it had to go this far. I really didn’t want to hurt you like this, sweetheart.” 

Damian sits there and takes it. The numbness only recedes enough to allow hot, silent tears to roll down his cheeks. His skin is warm where Blade has laid his tenderness, his stomach turning.

“Then why did you?” Damian whispers. “Why am I still here? Killing me is easier.”

Blade bites his lower lip. He leans back some, reaching for a bar of soap. He collects a washcloth from off the rung. Damian’s teeth set in anticipation. Blade never answers him. He lathers the cloth with soap and starts to rub it across Damian’s limbs. 

They fall mutually silent. Damian leans back against the wall, and allows Blade to pick up his arms one by one, dragging the cloth down Damians chest and around his neck. He fixes his gaze on one of the tiles on the floor and does not let it wander. 

Alfred has sponge bathed him before, when he was bedridden. The old man’s hands were just as gentle, just as thorough. Blade scrubs behind Damian’s ears and between his toes, leaves his injured leg to float there.

He doesn’t touch it. He seems afraid to, and Damian is grateful for it. He doesn’t think that he could take the pain of having it scrubbed over. 

Blade is thorough, cleaning everywhere, looking awkward and uncomfortable as he gets the genitalia, but then it’s over, and the man is putting the soap down to reach for a 2-in-1 shampoo and conditioner. 

Damian lets him tilt his head back, fingers combing through his curls diligently. Blade spends a while just scratching at Damian’s scalp, and he finds himself leaning into the sensation, eyes falling shut. 

Blade cups a hand over his eyes to rinse out his hair, keeping the shampoo from running into them. He repeats it with the conditioner, and detangles the worst of the knots from Damian’s hair. It’s getting long now, longer than he normally keeps it at least. Dick would tease him about becoming Rapunzel again if he were here. 

Blade brushes it out of his eyes. Damian is too exhausted to do anything but watch him. He feels glazed. It’s not a sensation that he’s often experienced, but it’s different than the dissociation he can have after a bad patrol. He’s here, he just doesn’t care about anything. He thinks about Blade’s hands closing around his throat almost like a fantasy. He thinks about the man dunking his head under the water. Forcing him to drink the 2-in-1. 

None of it happens. When Blade has determined him suitably clean, Damian is extracted from the tub with as much misery and discomfort as when he was settled, but this time he’s wrapped in a towel. 

Blade falters then, with Damian dangling in some bastardization of a bridal carry, looking from the bathroom cabinet to the hallway, and then back down at him. It takes him a while to make up his mind, shifting Damian around until he’s perched on the man’s hip, like an overgrown toddler. 

Damian has to grab hold of Blade’s shirt to keep from falling, and then eventually wrap his arms around the man’s neck, alarmed. Blade supports Damian’s weight with one arm under his thighs, but otherwise leaves him to cling. He can’t remember ever being carried like this, not even by his own mother. 

Blade flicks off the bathroom light and shuts the door behind him. Doesn’t turn to take him back down to the basement. Instead he follows the hallway to the end of it, opens one of the other doors. Damian stares.

It’s obviously Blade’s bedroom. 

The man flicks on the light and moves in a way that’s too familiar in the space to be anything but. There’s a closet, the is door firmly closed, a chest of drawers that’s been painted white but is peeling. A desk with a billboard above it, packed with newspaper articles that have been pinned and taped in place. There’s a bedside table with a tablet, and a phone charger cord disappearing somewhere under the bed, where Damian presumes there’s an outlet. 

The bed is a queen, small, but it looms. 

“Blade,” Damian says, voice coming out choked and thin. The man hushes him, hitching Damian higher on his hip. He ambles over to the dresser, dragging the top drawer open. It screeches, the wood sliding out with some effort, and Blade starts fishing out a T-shirt and boxers, sweatpants. Damian can’t focus on him. He puts a hand on Blade’s shoulder, twisting to look at the bed again, at the door left open to the hall. As if he could run, as if he could do anything, with a broken arm and leg to match. Blade opens the second drawer, pulls out more clothes, but Damian has stopped paying attention to him entirely. The apathy has drained, acrid fear chasing away the vestiges. He doesn’t want this. Whatever this is. He tugs at the man’s shirt, unable to get his attention. “Blade you promised.”

“Promised what, kid?” Blade is distracted. Still looking through the drawer to fish out another set of fresh clothing.

Damian doesn’t even want to say it. 

There is one more thing that Blade can take from him. He’s already taken his family, his arm, his leg, Robin, his freedom, and his strength. But he can still take. 

“Blade,” Damian’s voice is barely audible. 

The man finds what he’s looking for and shuts the drawer with his hip before moving them back toward the bed. Would struggling be futile at this point? Will Damian hate himself more after this is over if he doesn’t? He knows that he should want to fight, but all he can dredge up is terror, mixed with a numb paralysis like a cocktail. He doesn’t want to get hurt again, because he knows Blade would find something worse, and Damian is already barely functioning. He can’t imagine what else could be done. 

The man sets him on the end of the bed, and Damian bounces a little on the springs of the mattress. His tongue is leaden in his mouth. The adrenaline feels static, like his body has grown tolerant. No longer responding to the stale terror. His leg throbs, and Damian can’t even react to it, just looks up at Blade, holding the towel against his chest in some vain attempt at modesty. 

Waiting.

Blade looks down at him, frowns for a split second at his expression before he sets aside half of his bundle of clothes and starts unfolding the other. “What, Dames?”

Damian swallows thickly. His mouth feels full of ash and saliva, creating some sort of sticky paste. “Will it hurt?” 

Blade’s brow pulls together. He looks back down at the clothing. “Probably, but I’ll try to be gentle. Do you want to get started or should I?” 

Damian blinks several times to stop himself from crying. He can feel the pressure building in his sinuses and it makes him sick. He knows he’s going to have a migraine from all of his tears. And yet. 

He’s not—he wishes that Blade wouldn’t try to make him an active participant in this. Maybe it will be better if he does take control to whatever extent he is able, and hold onto that. It might make him feel less helpless. Damian reaches out with a trembling hand to rest it on Blade’s hip, fingers brushing over the edge of the man’s belt. 

His captor freezes. “Damian,” he says, completely serious and snatches Damian’s good arm in a vice, his fingers almost bruising. “What are you doing?” 

Damian stills with him. His head feels like it’s been hollowed out and replaced with cotton. What is he doing?

Whatever Blade says. A slow, agonizing perish of his dignity. He’s surviving, like Father said, as little as he wants to do so. 

Damian blinks up at him, lips parting soundlessly. Bereft of the words to explain. He’s not sure he understands the question, or why Blade is looking at him like that, disturbed and searching. The hand on his wrist loosens, but only to press Damian’s back into his lap firmly. Blade takes a hesitant step back. “You need to get dressed,” he says, pointing again at the bundle of clothes. When Damian’s expression doesn’t clear, he adds, “To sleep.”

“What?” Damian doesn’t feel like they are speaking the same language. 

“We’re going to go to bed,” Blade explains, “You’re exhausted, and I am too, but I need to monitor your fever. This seemed like the easiest solution given everything.” 

Damian blinks again. He still feels so behind. So slow. “You’re…” he has to swallow again. “You’re not fucking me?” 

Blade flinches. His fingers squeeze around the T-shirt in his hand. “No,” he says. “I’m—you’re just a kid. I—no. Damian, that’s not…” he runs a hand through his hair, exhaling sharply. “It’s just to monitor your fever.” 

Damian exhales, sharp, almost like a wheeze. He wraps the towel around himself a little tighter, shuddering.

Blade sighs, looks away, looks back. He crouches in front of Damian on the bed, something pained in his gaze. “I promised, right?” he says, meaning for encouraging and ending on a grimace. Damian nods, numbly. “When have I ever lied to you, kid?”

Damian can’t think of any. If anything, Blade has been excruciatingly honest. I thought I told you to stay quiet. 

“Oh,” Damian says, faint. 

Blade hands him the clothing. A pair of boxers and a large T-shirt. It’s a Robin T-shirt, with BOY WONDER in black. Faded, and old. 

The Robin depicted is a cartoon Dick or Jason, scaly panties and all. In the middle of a handstand. 

Damian looks up at Blade, confused, and his captor shrugs. Damian gets the impression the shirt wasn’t his to start with, which implies that Blade has people in his life he knows well enough to steal clothing from, which implies that Blade has friends, or family, or Blade has been in a romantic relationship before. 

The idea of this man not existing solely on this property, of him and Damian not being the only people in existence, is almost impossible to process. He looks down at the shirt and feels numb. Will they come back? Do any of them know about Blade and the bodies? 

The man didn’t seem to have any qualms about telling his priest about Damian. He can’t imagine what kind of fucked up circle of associates he keeps.

Apparently, the kind that wear old Robin paraphernalia. He drops the towel to pull it on over his head, the material worn soft from age. It dwarfs him, like all the other shirts have, and the return to a baseline modesty is welcome. 

Blade fists his hands in the underwear, kneeling to help Damian put them on over his broken leg. It ends in another round of hissing and wincing, but the underwear gets on. Plain gray, clearly new, and in Damian’s size. The man really did go shopping. It makes him want to laugh, but instead, he cries again. 

“Aw, hey,” Blade slides a hand under his thighs, one behind his back, and lifts him up. Just to shift him to the top of the bed, so he can sit against the headboard. Damian’s head is throbbing, pressure built up between his eyes. He thinks he’s cried more tonight than he has in the past twelve years of his life combined. It’s like he can’t stop himself, the torrent of emotion that keeps him off balance, perpetually buffeted by the tides of his… 

Grief, maybe. Or relief, or just pain. He’d say it’s a morose longing for death, except he’s scared of that too. He wants to go home.

“Are you tired, or does it hurt?” Blade cups the back of his head, rubbing soothing circles with his thumb. “I should get you more medication.” 

Damian fists a hand in the man’s shirt desperately, terrified at the idea of him leaving, even for a moment. He doesn’t want to be left to rot in this house alone. What if Blade doesn’t come back? What if he decides to leave him now that he’s broken? Damian has only been kept because he’s useful, and when that ends he’s always shuffled off to the next person, but now, there is no one else.

And Blade will not even do the mercy of killing him. 

Blade settles him at the top of the bed after peeling back the cover, slowly extricating Damian’s fingers from his shirt. The sheets are cold against his skin, and Damian groans softly. Blade grabs a spare pillow to tuck underneath his leg, careful and apologizing as Damian hisses through his teeth. 

Blade looks down at him. He does look exhausted, eyes ringed and face pale and harrow. That concern hasn’t gone anywhere. He pulls the blanket over Damian’s body, settling it at his chest, tucking it under his chin. 

Damian is reminded so much of Dick that it hurts. He thinks if he focuses, he can even smell him, like it’s radiating up from the shirt, or the man, or everything in this room. He thinks he’s going insane. He doesn’t think even Mother was this tender with him, like Damian is something made of glass, and not razor sharp on the end, just fragile and meant to be protected. 

“Can I have water?” Damian murmurs. 

Blade almost startles at the sound of his voice. Or maybe the question. For once the concern is allayed by dismay, his gaze darting to the window, then the bedroom door. As if Damian could, what? Make a break for it? Crawl his way to the sill and kneel to pry it open, haul himself up with a strength that certainly hasn’t atrophied in the last few days? Damian’s almost amused by Blade’s paranoia, almost proud to be the cause of it.

But his lips are cracked and his throat is sore and he wishes that he’d never done any of it. The stupid, reckless escape attempts that never got him anywhere besides firmly in Blade’s contempt. There was no point to them; Damian was never getting out. All it did was chip off pieces of him, leave him fragile for breaking.

“I’m not,” Damian’s voice cracks on the word. Shame sputters through him, but it dies, numbed out like everything else. “I’m not going to run. I just want water.” He hesitates before adding, “Please.” 

Blade’s expression crumples. He takes in a breath, and smiles, weak, like they’re sharing some sort of inside joke. “Promise?” 

Damian feels more tears. His face is hot. “I promise.” 

Blade still lingers. He smooths Damian’s hair out of his face again then nods and leaves the room. Despite himself, Damian’s eyes do move toward the window. 

The curtains are drawn, slivers of pitch black night only just visible in the cracks between them. They look heavy, like the thick blackout curtains father uses to sleep until noon. More than he wants to escape through that window, Damian wants to press his face against it, feel the cool glass against his feverish skin. Maybe see the stars.

He doesn’t move even an inch. Curls and uncurls his fingers in the top sheet, trying to ignore the throbbing of his leg. It's a demanding sort of pain, all-encompassing. The constant jostling today hasn’t helped any.

Blade’s room, at a second, less petrified glance, is smaller than Damian was expecting. The bed takes up most of it, the drawers and desk the rest. There aren’t any pictures on the wall, not like out in the living room. Nothing except for a clock. But Damian can see pockmarked drywall where things might have been hanged, once, and taken down again.

He studies that, wonders at the recent-ness. Despite letting Damian see his face, Blade has been shifty about his name, and other identifying information. If the priest said it, Damian doesn’t remember him doing so. Not that Damian remembers a lot of that night. He wonders what exactly there is to hide. If he’s not killing Damian, and he’s very clearly not letting him go, why bother?

Blade returns with a water bottle barely a minute later, moving quickly, like he ran to get it. He apprises Damian unsubtly, looking pleased to find him exactly where he left him. The water bottle gets placed into his clumsy hands. He takes in a breath, stares up at the man through his lashes. “Can you—” he has no pride left, yet he still finds himself stopping. He closes his eyes, fisting the water bottle. “Help me.” He means for it to be more of an order. It isn’t. Comes out weak and pathetic. 

Blade sighs sympathetically and takes a seat on the edge of the bed, twisting off the cap of the bottle and then helping Damian take it with his shaking hands, the man’s large fingers practically swallowing his own. 

His captor withdraws some capsules of medication, offering them out to him wordlessly. Damian doesn’t know what they are. He doesn’t care if it kills him. His body is one large fracture held together by skin and muscle tissue. 

When he’s taken the pills and drunk more than half of the water, Blade sets the water bottle on the floor next to the bed. “Do you want anything else?” 

To go home. 

“No,” Damian says. 

“Good.” Blade pushes at his chest, trying to get him to lie down, and he goes easily enough. Sinks into the pillows, relieved to not have to hold himself up anymore. The mattress is  a lot more comfortable than his sprawl of blankets in the basement. 

Blade stands and crosses the room to the bedroom door, nudging it shut and then locked. Slips a hand under his shirt to tug it off. He undresses quickly, and Damian averts his gaze until Blade is wearing sleep clothes and turning off the light, plunging them both into darkness.

Damian listens to him approach the bed, footsteps shuffling. Pull back the blanket, then the sheet, and then the mattress dips with his weight, and Damian slides a little toward him as Blade moves onto the mattress. It’s surreal, to stare up blindly at the ceiling as the man who kidnapped him and broke his leg settles in beside Damian to sleep.

The man plugs his phone in at the bedside table, fumbling with the cord for a moment before setting it face-down. It’s past one a.m. now. Damian didn’t realize it was so late. He wonders where Blade was all day to have gotten home past midnight. Or. Maybe eleven? Damian doesn’t know how long it’s been since he woke up.

He can already feel himself lurching toward sleep. He stares at the location of the phone, beyond the bulk of Blade’s body, and wishes he had the strength to fight. If he could call his father, he would be home in less than an hour. He would be free. But Blade sits between him and freedom still, and Damian is too hurt, too broken, too weak to try and fight him again.

He closes his eyes, and lets sleep pull him back into its warm embrace. 

He’s not sure what wakes him up, minutes or hours later. Thinks, at first, that it’s the pain. His leg is pulsing now, though the elevation had done something for the swelling, and he can’t think around the dull, pressing ache. Damian blinks up at the ceiling, groggily, swaddled in blankets to the point of overheating.

It takes a long minute for him to hear it again, the faint, shuddering sound of hitched breathing. Just beside him, close enough that Damian can feel it on his shoulder. Blade is a line of heat to his right, twitching in his sleep, fists clenched at his sides. 

Damian stares at him.

There’s sweat dripping off the man, soaking the sheets beneath him, brow twisted up in some kind of fear. As Damian watches, Blade groans, breathing hard. A nightmare, evidently.

Damian’s used to being on every side of those. He had them a lot as a child, before he learned meditation, and mastered lucid dreaming to make better use of his sleeping hours. They’re a much less common affliction now, though he can’t say others in his family have had the same fortune. 

Damian breathes in. He exhales. If this were his family, he would risk jabbing them awake. He’s familiar enough with how they come up swinging to defend himself. He doesn’t have that luxury here. 

Blade moans. Damian stares at him further. The man’s agitation only gets worse before he jerks awake with a gasp, throwing himself upright into a seated position. Damian freezes, watching Blade’s back as he sucks in heaving breaths and presses his face into his hands, shaking.  

He’s gone silent now. Whatever plagued him in his nightmare has left him trembling all over, shoulders hunching. Blade looks smaller like this, in pajamas in the dark, only illuminated by the glow of morning through the crack in the curtains. His hair is a mess, fingers digging into the skin.

Damian bites his lips. Can’t make himself move. He entertains the idea of closing his eyes and pretending to have slept through it. Before he can, though, Blade is falling back against the pillows, turning his head and catching Damian watching. 

His eyes go wide, gleaming with fresh tears in the darkness. His face is so pale as to be translucent, like he’s seen a ghost. Blade looks exactly like any of Damian’s brothers, shaken and unsteady after a nightmare, and he doesn’t really know what he’s thinking when he reaches out and puts a hand on the man’s arm. Just. Rests it there, in some semblance of comfort.

Blade’s eyes trail down to it slowly, like he can’t believe what he’s seeing.

“Dames?” Blade’s voice is quiet, but strangled. He exhales on a shudder, and reaches out to pull Damian against him, burying his face into the crook of Damian’s shoulder and neck. He cries, the noise loud, and the shaking of his shoulders is painful. Damian clings back, trying to draw any comfort he can, pretending that this isn’t Blade. 

Damian doesn’t ask what the nightmare was. He doesn’t want to know. Blade doesn’t offer an explanation, just holds Damian close, and eventually, he settles. His breathing gets even and his tears go quiet. He falls asleep, half tangled around him, arms secure and warm.

Damian buries his face into Blade’s hair, closes his own eyes, and sleeps.

Chapter Text

Damian wakes, later, to the sun streaming through the window. His skin is hot and sweaty, having long since overheated in the night, pressed flat against the body of another. Because he’s…beneath him, is Blade, his arms wrapped loosely around Damian’s waist and upper back, like he’s a toddler that needs comfort.

He remembers doing this with Talia, when he was still young enough that it hadn’t gotten so hard to love him. Her hands carding through his hair. She used to be softer with him, when it was easy, before he became such a terrible son. So brisk, so cold. The thought of her makes him close his eyes, a shudder of resignation swelling in his stomach.

Blade is still asleep underneath him, the rise and fall of his chest steady. 

His leg is throbbing, almost distantly. The pain never quite abates. He’s queasy with it, and hungry on top of that, and Damian can’t help but shift his weight, trying to alleviate pressure off the limb.

In the light of day, he can see flecks of missing paint on the ceiling, like dozens of items were taped on and removed at one point. The paint is peeling in other areas, faded over the years. Everything about this house is faded, like it got lost to time. Just like Damian.

Damian isn’t tired enough for sleep, but he doesn’t have the energy to even raise his head. He lays there for a while, until Blade’s phone buzzes with a notification. Damian’s head lifts from Blade’s chest to look at it, the small innocuous black rectangle laying face-down on the bedside table, attached to the charging cord. 

If he moved. 

If he moved…  

How long would it take, to make the call? Everything in his head is hurting, and he can barely remember his own name, let alone his father’s number. He’d gotten lazy, relying on the contact information. He keeps mixing up Dick and Father in his head, but muscle memory would guide him, he’s certain. 

It would take ten seconds. All he’d need to do is leave it ringing, shove it under the bed, and start screaming to distract Blade from its presence, and while Blade deals with him, his family can track the phone. 

Barbara would be able to find him. Or Timothy. He knows this. Knows it. 

Damian’s hand inches, slowly, toward the phone. 

He can hear his heart beating between his ears. It’ll be painful. Blade doesn’t like it when he’s unruly, and if he finds the phone…

He almost shudders to a stop at the thought. Pain doesn’t cover what will happen to Damian if his captor learns of his schemes. But he’s had worse. There’s always worse . Worse would be staying here, with Blade, in this awful fucking house .

His hand closes around the phone, and Damian flips it up, careful not to disconnect it from the charging port. Like this, still wrapped up in Blade’s arms, it’s difficult to see the display. He makes out a bland lock screen, the email and messaging symbol, alerting of new notifications, but the text swims in his blurry vision. Damian holds down on on the left corner, to open the emergency call screen. 

He waits a beat, listening for any sign that Blade isn’t as soundly sleeping as he seems. Damian fumbles with the dial pad, wincing at the clicking noise each tap makes 2015552073 Damian recites in his head, and his stomach is twisted. He can’t breathe as his finger hovers over call.  

He should— 

He should just. 

His breath hitches, and he freezes, waiting for Blade to wake and catch him, and this whole thing to be over. There is a part of him, he realizes with nauseating clarity, that’s almost hoping that he will . Would Blade be kinder, if he failed before he even tried? 

He doesn’t dwell on it. It’s that more than anything that makes his finger push down. The phone takes a moment to process, and then starts to dial, and Damian frantically lifts it from the table to muffle the buzz. Jams his finger along the side to flip on silent, and holds it, desperate. 

Please, please…

The line rings. It rings. Over and over, buzzing in his hand. Dick doesn’t answer. The phone goes to voicemail, and Damian’s breath hitches, swallowing a soft sob. He can’t speak. He knows he can’t speak. Not just because of Blade’s presence, but his words are so tangled and stuck in his throat that he couldn’t manage it even if he was alone. 

The message he leaves isn’t even two seconds before he ends it, and holds the phone.

It was the wrong number. It must have been. His brother has been a vigilante for longer than Damian has been alive, he would know to answer. 

He misdialed. He can try again. Blade isn’t awake yet, his breathing is even and soft. Damian types in the number more carefully, lifting his head as much as he dares to do so, squinting at the screen until he’s sure .

It goes to voicemail faster the second time. Damian counts each ring, holding his breath between them. Dick is declining the call.

No. 

Please, no. 

Damian doesn’t even know what entity he’s begging. He wants to throw up. He shifts again, to get closer, and this time, Blade moves underneath him, too, his hand going flat on Damian’s back, sighing softly. 

Recklessness has consumed him. Damian doesn’t care anymore. He calls a third time, gets sent straight to voicemail this time. He doesn’t have time to type in another number, not with Blade this close to waking. 

He starts to anyway, because Dick has abandoned him, because Dick thinks that this is spam, because Blade came back with evidence of Damian’s funeral, and Dick is no longer looking for him, and if Dick is no longer looking, then Bruce won’t be either, nor Jason, or Tim—

No. Timothy is paranoid at the best of times, and when their father had been lost in the time stream, he hadn’t given up then. He won’t give up now, not on Damian. Even if his brother hates him. 

Timothy wouldn’t fall prey to Blade’s machinations. He’s clever. His brother is so, so clever. 

Damian starts to type in the numbers, fingers fumbling over the keypad, when the phone chimes in his hands. A new alert pops up—a text, from a contact saved to the phone, but not one that he can read because Damian startles badly enough to drop the phone back down to the bedside table, recoiling from it.

Blade wakes with a start, eyes fluttering, then his body goes stiff, and his arm loops around Damian’s waist to pin him there. “Damian? You okay, bud?” Then, more awake, more aware, “What are you doing?” 

He takes in Damian’s position, and the phone, still open, the number half completed on the screen. 

At once, Blade surges upward, scooping Damian into his lap, rotating him violently as he turns them both away from the phone, wrenching Damian until his back is pressed flat against his chest, his arm wrapping around Damian’s neck, the crook of his elbow pressing roughly against Damian’s trachea. 

It jostles him everywhere, his leg dragged roughly across Blade’s blankets and the man’s knee, and Damian cries out at the white hot agony. It takes him long seconds to even realize that Blade is yelling at him, past the roaring in his ears. 

“— do!?” Blade is shouting, “What the hell are you doing?” 

Damian can hear Blade’s heartbeat, the uptick in his breathing, panic in his voice. There are already tears in his eyes, spilling over hot and sticky, even though Damian was almost sure he’d met his quota thrice over yesterday. Panic chokes him up more than Blade’s punishing hold ever could. He tugs at the man’s arm, shaking his head mutely. 

Blade holds him in place easily, reaching out and grabbing the phone, dismissing the dial pad and bringing up the call history all in one. Damian screws his eyes shut, knowing what the man will find, what he’ll do .

How could he have been so stupid ? He knew it was a bad idea. If he’d just tried Timothy first, not wasted valuable time holding out hope that Dick would answer.

“I’m sorry,” Damian gasps, “I’m sorry. Please .” 

Blade is swearing, “Who did you call?” he demands, “Did you call 9-1-1?” 

It doesn’t show in call history, Damian remembers, dizzy. Because of domestic violence cases. For kidnapping. For threats. For things just like this. It had not, even once, occurred to Damian to summon the police. He’s not a civilian. His father—his family —are synonymous with assistance. He hasn’t used the word help in so long, when their names and titles do the same. There wasn’t a need. 

When Lamont had broken his arm, Damian had shouted “ Hood!” and that was enough. It’s not enough now, because Dick didn’t answer and they’re not coming.

They’re not coming . 

“No,” Damian wheezes, “ no .” 

“Are you lying to me?” Blade’s grip gets tighter. Squeezing, now, shaking Damian as he tosses the phone to the side again, one hand replacing the press of his forearm to cup Damian’s jaw, thumb digging into the temporomandibular joint, jerking his head back to meet the man’s gaze. His eyes are furious. Still shocked, somehow, even when Damian told him that he’d never stop trying to escape. 

“No,” Damian repeats, again, it seems to be the only thing he’s capable of. “N—promise. I promise.” 

The severity of the hold loosens, until Blade is just holding him instead of choking. His captor is breathing heavily, filled with adrenaline, and Damian can feel the hot press of his muscles and his skin against his back. Damian feels very small. Breakable. The way that Blade is holding him, he could wrench Damian’s neck and break it in one smooth motion. He wouldn’t even have time to scream before he was dead. 

He will have failed his father’s order. 

“I’m sorry,” Damian says again, in the reprieve. Gasping in deep, shuddering breaths that do little to stave the air hunger. He keeps inhaling, and inhaling, and can never seem to fill his lungs. 

Panic attack , says a voice in his head, and it sounds like any of his brothers. Like Cassandra’s firm regard, when she puts a hand on his chest like Blade has done, and tells him to breathe .

He cannot panic. He’s not a child, with the option to succumb to the throes of emotion. He needs to be steady. Why can he never find level anymore? 

Blade is still, for long, long seconds. Damian sees his thumb move, and hears the tap of his nail against the screen. Slowly, Blade relaxes in stages. His hand pulls back from Damian’s throat, settling instead across his collarbones, his thumb smoothing up and down his neck. It’s a threat and a comfort, packaged into one horrific swell of pain. 

“Why did you do that?” Blade says, “Haven’t I been taking care of you? Dames, I thought, last night…” 

He doesn’t sound angry anymore. He sounds hurt . 

Damian swallows thickly. He has to be careful. He keeps forgetting to be careful. He closes his eyes, and risks letting his body slump back against Blade’s a little more. His captor shifts to adjust to it, as Damian suspected. 

He wants me, Damian realizes, cold. Not in the way that he wanted Lamont. Not to keep him quiet. He wants Damian , the way that a child wants a puppy. 

“I want my brother,” Damian whispers. “I’m in pain. He helps me.” 

There’s a small pause. “ I help you now,” Blade chides, “you should have woken me up instead of dialing random people.” 

Like he is three years old. It is an image that isn’t not aided by Damian now, and hasn’t been aided by Damian this whole time, trembling and helpless. Allowing Blade to hand feed him, to bathe him and clothe him, the way one would a toddler. He’s inadvertently made himself an appealing pet, regressed his maturity and autonomy in Blade’s eyes. His escape attempts are tantrums, the simple-minded thinking of a child, and not fits of desperation, a desire to leave. To go home. To be put where he belongs. 

Because he belongs with Blade now. To Blade, like a dog. 

Blade releases a soft breath, something not quite a sigh, and his hand pulls back further to pat Damian’s chest twice. He smooths Damian’s hair out of his eyes, then again, compulsively. It reminds Damian of Dick, and he has to force his face to clench, his throat to tighten, to stop the onslaught of tears.

“Okay,” Blade says, then louder, “okay. Let’s…let’s just get you some medication then. Come on, up.” 

Damian shifts away from him, and slowly eases his way toward the other side of the bed. By the time he gets there, Blade is already at his side, ready to assist him. Damian lifts up his hand, as if to wrap it around his shoulders, and Blade grabs his broken wrist, and squeezes. 

Damian gags, wet and hoarse. 

“Damian,” Blade warns, as he hauls him up, to his feet, and Damian is forced to put pressure on his broken leg, biting back more pleading. “You’re not going to do that again, promise?” 

Damian chokes. He inhales. His mouth tastes like pennies. “I promise.” 

Blade puts him on the counter, while he prepares breakfast. Damian sits there, eyeing the knives, and then pretending he’s not every time Blade looks up at him, which is often. He’s preparing more oatmeal. Early morning sunlight is slowly bleeding through the window, leaving half of Blade’s face in shadow. 

Damian’s good foot sways, idly. Almost in contrast to the way his lame one sits swollen and useless. He fantasizes about killing Blade in this kitchen, in this sun. The way his blood would turn copper as the day wore on, and his flesh would part around Damian’s hands as he drove a knife into his stomach again, and again, and again.

The violence captures his mind’s eye. He drifts on it, like a fetid daydream, and forgets to pay attention to Blade until he’s sliding a bowl into Damian’s limp hands, calling his name insistently. 

When he looks up at him, through his lashes, Blade’s expression is concerned. “Hey, what’s wrong?” 

Damian takes the bowl from him with numb fingers. “I am tired.” 

Blade is frowning. “Yeah, finish that then we’ll get you back to bed. You look wiped. I think you’re coming down with something, your fever hasn’t broken yet.” 

That would explain the persistent chills. 

Damian pushes at the mush in his bowl with the back of the spoon. It smells sweet. Like cinnamon and honey, and in his periphery Damian can see slivers of fruit Blade must have added. He tries a bite, valiantly, and finds that the gnawing pit in his stomach has not translated to an appetite of any sort.

“Where were you yesterday?” 

Blade is drinking coffee, Damian doesn’t remember him making it. He’s moved to the table, to rifle through some of the papers stacked there. “Your funeral.” 

Damian blinks, and it feels like his eyelids get stuck halfway. Blade says it so casually, offhanded, but it catches in Damian’s chest.

His funeral .

No wonder Dick didn’t answer. They’ve already dug him a mound in the Earth. Without even a body to bury. How many days has it been since Blade planted the evidence? How many days since it washed up? If Blade could attend the funeral, it was public enough that Mother would have gotten word. He wonders if she believes it. If she’s still looking for him, or if she’s sent her assassins to dredge the Gotham Harbor in search of his corpse, so she can reanimate it at her own leisure.  

“Oh,” Damian manages. 

Blade says, after a moment, “I knew your mother was alive, but I didn’t realize how much she hates your father. She was very upset at the wake, started yelling at your father. They got into a public scene. It’s all anyone is talking about. Your parents don’t get along very well, do they?” 

Damian thinks a jolt of electricity would have felt less jarring. “You saw my mother?”

A public scene. His mother. Damian can almost picture it. The flying sort of rage that would goad her into lashing out at his father. But it feels wrong . His mother loved Bruce Wayne, even when she despised him. Damian used to dream of them finally reconciling, the wedding that they’d have, the household they would share with him. 

It felt tangible. When he was ten or eleven, it felt like if Damian were good enough. If he could prove himself to his father, if he could just persuade them , make them love him enough to close the fissures between them.

But that never happened, and instead Damian was the unwanted burden shuffled between the two of them. 

Blade looks up at Damian, and he seems both upset and understanding, “Neither of your parents ever wanted you, did they? Your brother had custody of you for over half a year, didn’t he? What did your father do to you that made him feel like he had to step in? Was it abuse? Neglect? Where was your mother? Did she not care enough to take custody?” 

Trying to fill the power vacuum left in the wake of Nyssa Al-Ghul’s death. She’d said Damian was in danger, anywhere near the League of Shadows. The faction loyal to Ra’s wanted him on the throne of an empire he was not yet ready to rule, and the faction loyal to Nyssa wanted him dead by virtue of being Ra’s’ heir.

“My father was sick,” Damian says, because that’s the story that the media was fed, about where Bruce Wayne was during his disappearance. His death. Tim had argued violently with Dick about it, about not making the death public, until he was sure. Dick had humoured him, because he had to. “My mother travels frequently. Dick was the logical conclusion, while my father couldn’t care for me.” 

“Hm,” Blade intones. He takes another sip of his coffee, still staring at him eating. Damian doesn’t have an appetite. He knows he should be starving, but it’s like he’s forgotten how to be hungry. “Your brother talks about you,” Blade says, “he loves you very much.” His eyes drop to the coffee, “ Loved , at least.” 

He doesn’t know which one Blade is referring to, but he doesn’t think that Jason or Timothy have ever even liked him. Which leaves only Dick. Damian thinks it would have hurt less if his captor struck him. Would have been preferable. His breath hitches. “How…how do you…?” 

Blade looks up at him, and this time, his eyes are serious. “I talked to him at your funeral yesterday.” 

Damian manages to hold his stare for all of ten seconds. Takes it in. How close must his brother have stood, how near to Blade, to Damian by proxy, was he? Couldn’t he see it in the man’s eyes, the blistering sickness? Damian swallows tears, and the spoon clanks on the side of the bowl, falling out of his lifeless grip.

His mother attended his funeral. He tries to imagine it. Funerals in the League were  ritualistic. He attended some of them, for Ra’s’ lieutenants, his Ubus. Knelt and listened to his Grandfather speak of honor, of sacrifice. He wonders if his mother said a prayer, or if the shame and disappointment rendered him unworthy of it. 

Did Father cry? Did he fall apart, the way Tim said he did after Jason? How their father was volatile, controlled by grief. His mother had told him that Jason was his father’s favorite, and his resurrection was, in part, a gift to her beloved. 

His father would be upset at his death. He has to have been. His father wanted him. He must have, at some point, to take him back after Dick. Unless it was guilt. Because Bruce Wayne is too good of a man to say no, even if he didn’t want him. 

“Oh, Dames,” Blade puts down his coffee. Rounds the kitchen island to stand in front of him, an arm looping around his shoulders, even as he pries the oatmeal from him and puts it on the counter, ensuring that Damian can’t drop it. “It’s okay,” he says, measured. And Damian isn’t so stupid he can’t tell when he’s being manipulated, when Blade has erected a saccharine excuse to drive it home just how hopeless it all is. His family thinks he’s dead, they’re not looking for him, he’s not going home. Knowing what it’s meant to do doesn’t mitigate the hurt. 

“It’s better this way,” Blade says. “They can move on, now.”

I don’t want them to. 

Damian says nothing. He picks back up the oatmeal, and shoves another spoonful into his mouth. 

“You don’t need them anymore, anyway. I’m going to take care of you now,” Blade offers him a small smile. “Promise.” 

That is, perhaps, the worst part of this. Damian feels something in his chest snap, brittle and broken, whatever had remained after Dick hadn’t answered the phone call. The emptiness comes back, and he glazes out again. The motions of eating disappear into that repetition.

Blade is on the phone, he’s talking to someone in the living room, far enough away that the sentences are in indistinct. Damian watches him talk, and can’t listen well enough to understand. It doesn’t occur to him until after the man has hung up that he should have screamed. Done anything to make his presence known. What is the point? He’s never getting away from him. 

Blade collects him eventually, scoops Damian up like a young toddler, balanced on his hip, arm secure around his waist. He takes him back downstairs, and Damian has to bite back a sob as the familiar darkness encroaches on them. The smell. The feeling. The atmosphere. 

He thought—he’d been so certain— that this was over. His feet had hit the road, his body had touched that churchouse, and he thought safe, finally. 

He’s back, and nothing has changed except for how many parts of him are broken. He hadn’t been conscious of it before. It hits too keenly now. 

The heater has been taken away, its broken pieces swept up and out. Damian hadn’t noticed in his fugue from before. He thinks Blade laundered the blankets of his nest. They’re less blood-flecked, now, and not quite so dirty. The bucket in the corner of the room has been washed.

The chain to the ceiling has been removed and set on the floor. So has Damian’s collar, but it’s not vanished into the void like everything else. It’s sitting on the floor, beside the piled chain next to other prepared equipment. Damian thinks, when did Blade do this? and realizes it doesn’t matter. 

It’s instruments for welding. A soldering iron. Thick glasses, leather gloves and an apron. Damian isn’t familiar enough with the practice to name it all, but he’s watched his siblings create and repair their weapons. Seen Timothy build hardware for machinery, hunched over the desk, sparks glowing like glittering rain. 

Dread has lost meaning to Damian. Familiar and encompassing, swallowing him whole, but he still manages to find fresh waves of it, staring down the spread. 

Blade drops him onto the nest of blankets, gentle. Damian sits there, holding his leg so it isn’t jostled, eyes drawn immediately to the four paper cranes, left untouched, guardians of his little sanctuary. It soothes something in him, to know that even as angry as Blade was, he didn’t destroy them.

Blade turns his back on Damian, crouches in front of his tool box, fishing around. Damian draws his good knee up to his chest, wrapping his arm around it.

His captor is putting on gloves, thick leather ones, and a face shield that he props on his head without pulling down. Damian doesn’t ask what he’s doing. He doesn’t want to know. Is fine to sit here, with his cold comforts, and hope to be allowed to sleep.

“Hey,” Blade nudges his knee, after standing up and returning, “look what I found in the woods. Titus wants to say hi.” 

The little dog was washed, but it didn’t remove the stains from the harrowing journey. Titus looks as scared as Damian is. He stares at the stuffed animal, numb everywhere. The fur isn’t soft anymore. 

“I’m not a child,” Damian says, even as he takes it. He squeezes the dog’s neck between his fingers, as if strangling it. “Don’t patronize me.” 

Blade sighs and mutters, “There he is.” 

His captor shifts behind him, and Damian hears metal clink, chains rolling over each other, as he picks something up. The collar. Damian realizes what’s about to happen, finally. This is welding equipment. His collar is metal. Damian broke free with the remains of the heater, picked it like it was child’s play, and ran. 

Blade isn’t locking him in this time. This is to be permanent. Something found on Damian’s corpse. Buried with him. The weight of it will be felt on his spirit long after he dies, and his body decomposes.

“You’re going to need to be still for this,” Blade is saying. Warning. Instructing Damian, even as he hauls his tools closer to his nest. The collar is attached to the chain, now, not just clipped. Damian can see the crude sealing done on the chain links. It will only clip to the ceiling, now, instead of including the collar, far above Damian’s head, out of reach. “And keep your eyes shut until I say. I don’t want to hurt you. Do you understand?”

He does. More than he wants to. It’s sinking into him, and it sits heavy on his shoulders. Permanence. Just like his funeral, just like his broken leg. Even if Damian manages to live through this, he will not emerge unaltered.

Blade lays down a swathe of leather across Damian’s neck, up the length of his face, and down his shoulder. Damian’s head is pushed down to the floor, tilted, his captor’s knee at his back to leave his neck at an angle. The collar is pulled over the leather, and Damian hears the click of it shutting again. The weight is familiar. 

Blade withdraws a welding rod, something long and thin. “Eyes closed, Dames,” his captor says again, “I mean it. You’ll go blind.” 

The leather is pushed further over his face. Damian squeezes his eyes shut and hears the machine turn on. It’s loud, and the hissing metal is louder, searing against his neck. He can see the intensity of the light, even behind his closed eyelids, brighter than the sun. Even beneath the protective layer of leather, Damian feels the heat. 

He was expecting it to take longer. He thinks it should have. For this to take minutes or hours as he’s entombed to this, but instead, it’s only a few seconds before the rod is withdrawn. The noise stops. Blade doesn’t tell him he can move, and Damian doesn’t. 

The metal is still cooling. Won’t be cold for hours. How many times has Timothy shouted at him not to touch something after he put the soldering iron to it? 

“Good job.” Blade’s got a hand on his shoulder, squeezing. His ears are ringing, and he doesn’t know if it’s the fear or the noise, or some combination of both. “Good job, Dames, that was great. Stay still for me buddy.” 

Damian can smell it. The hot metal, the leather burning. His skin is uncomfortably warm. He wants to open his eyes again, wants to squirm, and forces himself to do neither of those things. Even as Blade shifts beneath him, reaching for something. 

Damian yelps when water is poured over the collar. Jerks, and it’s only Blade’s grip on him that keeps him from falling out of the man’s lap. “Shh,” Blade says. “You’re okay. You’re alright. One more.”

Damian is soaked, when the man is done with him. It feels like he’s been waterboarded, and he’s coughing wetly, wiping water from his closed eyes. 

Blade removes the leather after carefully touching bare fingers to his collar. The place the metal was welded is bordering on uncomfortably warm, but it doesn’t burn him. Blade shifts him, pulling him up into his lap. Damian lets him. The weight of his collar, wrapped around him like a noose, is more comforting than Blade’s arms. 

Blade presses a kiss to his head, and his hands run through Damian’s hair, soft and careful. Damian has started to cry again. 

“You’re not going anywhere,” Blade says, softer, desperate, wanting, “promise?” 

Damian’s tears trace down his face, curling under the collar. “Promise.”

Chapter Text

Tim’s teeth have begun to set bloody grooves in the back of his hand from how much he’s biting at it, digging in instead of screaming. Dick tries to keep his heart rate from spiking, hands careful as he works the suture kit. He’s not shaking, he’s not freaking out, he’s fine. Tim is fine and going to be fine because no one is allowed to not be fine anymore. 

“You should have gone home,” Dick chides for the fifth time, because somewhere under the artificial calm, he’s still trying to panic. He shoves that down deeper, deeper, and keeps digging for the bullet. 

“Get it out of me, you asshole.” The words are muffled to the point of incomprehensibility. Tim’s head tips back, knocking against the marble countertop of Dick’s kitchen island, back arching as Dick twists the tweezers, alighting on another shard and pulling it out of Tim’s thigh. 

It was a birdshot, from an unregistered shotgun of some thug that never should have gotten a hit on Red Robin, let alone a bullet. It’s sloppy, is what it is, streaming blood onto his kitchen cabinets. The lidocaine, apparently, hasn’t done anything.

Dick is bitterly grateful that Tim wasn’t closer, because the wounds are shallow, if wide spread. At least it wasn’t a buckshot. Tim wouldn’t have a leg anymore. This conversation would have gone very differently as they rushed him to the hospital to discuss an amputation instead of Tim slamming on his bedroom window with blood-smeared hands. 

“You need a doctor,” Dick insists, “Bruce is going to find out anyway, you should have gone to Leslie.” 

Tim moans, slamming his fist into the counter several times as Dick retrieves the next pellet, the round ball soaked with blood. He’d pulled out tissue with it, and sets his jaw as he dumps that on the paper towel next to Tim’s hand with the other six pellets. “She…” Tim says, panting, “she would have insisted on morphine and I can’t…no narcotics.” 

“Fuck that,” Dick mutters, because Jason is the one who’s supposed to have issues about drugs and he’s the one he can be understanding and gentle for. “You’re being an idiot.” 

“You’re helping me—fushint!” The word is a garbled mess of some bastardization of shit and fuck and Dick lets him have that. He reaches the tweezers down, resisting the urge to tell Tim to be still, because he knows that his brother is trying. His phone starts vibrating against his leg, and Dick’s concentration slips, jamming the edge of the metal against inflamed skin. Tim swears again, louder. 

His brother is gagging now. Dick’s kitchen is going to be a biohazard by the time he’s done. He knew the lidocaine was expired, he didn’t realize how poorly it would work. 

“Sorry, sorry,” Dick chants, setting down the pliers and ripping off his plastic glove to pull out his phone. It keeps ringing while he fumbles with the glove, then wipes his sweat-soaked hand against his pants. The caller ID says MJ (personal) and Dick declines the call without thinking, setting his phone down on the counter, and reaching for the box of gloves to grab another. 

“Do you need to…?” Tim says, and he sounds like he’s dreading the answer. His eyes are bloodshot, and there are tears streaming down his face. He wipes at them with the back of his hand, smearing more blood.

“You have shotgun pellets in your leg,” Dick tries to make his tone jovial instead of horrified, “I think everyone else can wait, baby bird.”

It didn’t come from Bruce, or Jason, or Babs, which means it’s not a world or city-ending emergency, at least. Not that he’s sure he could have abandoned Tim even for that. His brother comes before Bludhaven or Gotham or the world or whatever new problem has been dumped into their laps to fix. 

Tim says nothing. There’s a rolled up towel under his hips, both to prop up his leg and to soak up some of the blood. It’s bleeding steadily, but none of them have gone deep enough to nick the femoral. Still, Dick’s new gloves are drenched in seconds. 

Tim wasn’t even scheduled tonight. None of them were, not after the funeral. He wasn’t scheduled for the rest of this week, but Dick has it on good authority that he put three of Hood’s informants in the ICU in the span of an hour last night. 

His phone vibrates again. Dick swears, glancing at the caller ID. It’s Micah again. His phone says missed call (2) and Dick only realizes then that he missed the first one entirely. A voice mail exactly two seconds long was left. Dick declines the third call with his elbow. He’ll call him in a few minutes, as soon as Tim is stable and he isn’t in pain anymore. 

At worst, there’s an emergency in the BPD. It can wait.

Everything can, for his family. Should have, for Damian. 

“You should get that,” Tim hisses, “your boyfriend wouldn’t call this early unless it was important.” 

“Just shut up,” Dick says. “And he’s not my boyfriend.” 

Not for lack of trying on Dick’s part. He did bring it up a few weeks ago before Damian went missing, asking if it’s something that Micah wanted, but the man had only smiled at him gently and said he didn’t need to put a label on this. Dick had wanted one, and he’s still in an awkward in-between place with him, like he is about almost everything else in his life. 

He loves uncertainty. He loves not being able to plan or coordinate or know anything. He loves it so much. He loves not knowing if he can rely on Micah being in his life in six months, and whether or not one of his siblings is going to explode, or whether or not Bruce is okay, or if Damian is alive and if he isn’t, where his body is. 

But Tim is right. Before he puts back on his glove, he unlocks his phone to text busy rn. Everything ok?? And then a string of question marks. He leaves his phone unlocked, and puts back on the glove, and returns his attention back to Tim. 

“Right.” Tim moans again, back arching as Dick drops another piece of metal onto the tissue. “God, please be done.”

Dicks shoves his leg down, a little more firmly, holding it in place. “One more. Deep breaths, Tim.”

Tim doesn’t listen, but he only curses a little as Dick fishes the last of the bullet out of his leg, face somehow simultaneously flushed and white as a sheet. Dick had cut his tights down the inseam with trauma sheers. His uniform from the waist down is peeled off and put aside, and from the waist up Tim had stripped almost as soon as he was inside, down to his under clothes. The armor thins close to the joints—an unlucky hit in this case, but plenty of damage was stopped by the kevlar padding on his quads. There’s stark contusions on his pale skin, already starting to darken into a deep scarlet.

“You’re okay,” Dick promises, as he digs out the final pellet, he smiles at Tim’s twisted expression, “you’re good. You did so good, Tim. Look at that. Eight little pellets, we’ll make an ornament, you can hang it on the Christmas tree this year.” Tim groans. He probably would have made some comment about how that’s weird, Dick if he wasn’t in too much pain to talk, and Dick’s expression falls. “I’m gonna flush it now, and then we’ll start stitches, and I’ll get it wrapped. Five more minutes, okay?” 

It will be much, much longer than five minutes, but Tim nods weakly anyway. Dick sees Micah’s text bubbles rise and fall once, then he texts back: all good! Call me when you can.

Okay. Okay. Dick locks the screen. 

It’s another twenty minutes before Dick is easing him up off the counter and helping him toward his bed. The couch is closer, but it’s cramped and Tim needs to be able to stretch his legs out without them touching if he wants to have any hope of sleeping. He helps remove the rest of the armor, then tucks Tim under a thin blanket. 

“I’m going to go make sure MJ isn’t dead,” Dick says, smiling weakly, “I’ll be back in a sec, okay?” 

Tim grabs his arm before he can take more than a step away from the bed. He seems delirious, his cheeks flushed with fever and his eyes hazy. Dick will need to get him azithro. He only has penicillin in his apartment, and Tim’s allergic. “Dami’s not dead.” 

Dick freezes. Something in him clenches painfully with hope and denial. The rush of adrenaline doesn’t come, or the relief or the tears. Not anymore. No one has brought this up in any serious capacity since the night Damian was declared dead. On that night, Tim had caught Bruce suiting up preparing for a self punishment to rival Prometheus like he did after Jason’s death, and it had ended with a blow-up fight that ended in both of them crying. 

Dick doesn’t know what happened, he wasn’t there—he’d been in Micah’s Bludhaven apartment, staring at the wall blankly while Micah tried to get him to watch some TV series he can’t even remember now and stroked his hair—and has only heard about it in bits and pieces after. 

Tim had, somehow, convinced Bruce to take a break. And Bruce, in return, had weaseled Tim into going into therapy. 

Damian’s death, and the lagging investigation, has been a quiet, unspoken thing ever since that happened. The only person that Dick really talks to about it is Jason, but Jason barely spoke about it this week with him either. Just gets a set, unhappy look in his face about the conversation topic and drops it. 

“We’re still looking,” Dick soothes. But only for the Executioner. The GCPD is dredging the bay to try and find a body. Jason had told them about Helmstutler—what he said, before he died, and Tim’s gotten it into his head that if he’d seen something, there might be other eye-witnesses.

There was always the lingering notion that the Executioner might not be as subtle as he seems. That anyone who might’ve seen him, at a crime scene or near it, was just reticent about sharing, either for fear of retribution or in support of vigilante justice. But it was a tenuous theory at best. It’s more likely that Helmstutler was lying to rile Jason. Even if the man had seen something, it was obvious he was stalking Damian before he was taken. Helmstutler would have been in a unique position to catch the Executioner in action.

After the fact, when they’d known to look for it, they had found Damian’s blood in Lamont’s apartment. He’s never had his fingerprints or DNA on file, so the GCPD didn’t connect it. The unknown DNA hadn’t been the Executioner's, just Dick’s little brother. He was the missing object. His blood had also been intermingled with Lamont’s. 

He wants to hold out hope, but it’s been three weeks of nothing. He knows what the odds are.  Damian’s body could wash up tomorrow, next week, it could never wash up. They don’t find most of the Executioner’s victims. 

Tim shakes his head. 

Dick wants Damian to be alive. But. But. 

He returns to the kitchen and picks up his phone. Micah hasn’t texted or called him again. He looks across the biohazard. His situationship said everything was fine. He can take fifteen minutes to bleach everything over before he calls him. It’s fine. It’s fine. 

Dick shoves down the lingering, darkening voice in the back of his mind reminding him that the last thing Damian had done was call someone and then he was dead. 

Micah is fine. His life is normal. He’d never get caught up in something like this. This wasn’t the last time he’ll get to talk to him, because Micah is fine. Dick tells himself that, over and over, and believes none of it. 

He cleans until the anxiety overwhelms him, dirty paper towels in gruesome clumps on the counters and floors. He pauses to lean against the fridge, wiping his sweaty palms on his pants. He texts Micah, and then, when that goes unanswered, breaks down and calls him. 

Micah picks up right before the line drops, sounding slightly strained. “Babe?”

Dick’s eyes fall shut. Something like relief at the sound of his voice, mingled with a sickening longing. Micah is so simple. Uncomplicated. “Hey. Um. You called me? Everything okay?” 

Micah’s pause lasts for just a second too long. “Oh. Yeah. Sorry. I had this…god, it sounds so stupid now,” he laughs softly, and Dick can almost see him doing that thing where he runs his fingers through his hair twice. “I had a nightmare and it felt pretty visceral. I just…wanted to hear your voice.” 

“Oh,” Dick isn’t sure what to do with that, because he’s not sure that anyone has ever told him blatantly that the sound of his voice is comforting. And now he feels like a grade-A asshole for putting him on hold. “Yeah. Sorry. I was…Tim’s here. He’s sick.” 

“Is everything okay?” Micah is worried. Dick’s guilt only intensifies. He tucks the phone between his ear and shoulder, bending down to pick up the spray bottle again. Of course Micah is worried about him. He’s always worried about him.

“Yeah. Yeah, he’s good. He was just throwing up everywhere. I just got him back to bed, and now I’m cleaning up. I’m sorry I couldn’t…” he winces. “Help.” 

Never can, can you? 

Micah makes a soft, sympathetic noise, “No, I understand. Believe me,” he sounds slightly exasperated. “Sick kids come first.” There’s a moment of hesitation, like Micah didn’t mean to say that before he pivots abruptly, “Hey, uh, while I have you, I did want to talk to you about something?” 

“Are you in Washfield?” Dick crouches, picking up the scraps of Tim’s cut pants. “I can swing out there tomorrow.” He’s on bereavement. Detective Gonzalez petitioned Commissioner Sawyer to give him the rest of the month, and she’d enforced it instead of suggesting it. Dick wishes she wouldn’t have. Not being at work only gives him more time to ruminate on things he would rather not. 

He knows, when he goes back, that he’ll be taken off the Executioner case. Conflict of interest; he’s too close now. They might even pull off Micah, by virtue of them being together, and he can’t imagine how devastating that will be for him. This has been his case for three years. Dick doesn’t know if he can fight it without getting himself on Sawyer’s shit list. 

“No,” Micah says, quickly. Then, “I mean, yeah. I’m at my parent’s house. But I. Do you remember what you asked me a few weeks ago?”

Dick rubs at his forehead. To be honest, he doesn’t remember what he ate for dinner. If he even did that? When did he go to bed? He’s lived a decade between Tim slamming on his window and collapsing a bloody heap on his bedroom floor. “Uh, how bad of a person would it make me if I admitted no?” 

“You’re going through a lot right now, you just buried Damian yesterday,” Micah says, gentle and understanding, as always. It makes Dick feel worse that he doesn’t yell at him. “You asked if I wanted to be your boyfriend. I’ve given it a lot of thought, and I just…when I think about the future, there’s not one where I don’t want you in it. If that’s still on the table…?”

He sounds nervous now. He’d be making the face that Dick would find hard not to kiss if he was here, and a flush rises to his cheeks despite himself. “Yeah. Definitely. Yes. I mean.” Fuck it, he’s not cool, he can be excited about this like a twelve-year-old with their first crush, “That would be amazing. Thank you.” 

Micah laughs, soft, but genuine, “Don’t thank me, Dick. You’re kind of lame, you know that?”  

There’s a lump in his throat. He’s smiling, at his feet, covered in his little brother’s blood and with half the kitchen left to clean. The gnawing monster of grief is still sitting heavy on his chest, asking how dare he be happy, with Damian dead, with his family in shambles. But Dick is selfish, too selfish to give this up.

“Yeah,” Dick agrees, and hopes his voice isn’t as thick as it feels, “I know.” He hesitates for a second, then blurts, “Thanks.”

Micah chuckles again. “I’ll talk to you later, okay? I’ve gotta check on something. Let’s have a date night this week. Let me know when I can swing by.” 

“Okay,” Dick agrees, smiling faintly. And tries, so, so hard, not to feel guilty for it. 

It takes Bruce exactly four hours to show up on his doorstep, looking rumpled and slightly terrified. Dick had texted him to let him know he had Tim, but he knows that if he were in Bruce’s position, he wouldn’t be comforted by anything until he saw him. The first words out of his father’s mouth aren’t a scolding, but a very soft, “Is he okay? Where is he?” 

Dick leans against the doorframe. He couldn’t sleep, after cleaning the kitchen. Tim’s breathing took on this shallow, hitched quality that had him jerking up every five minutes to check on him, and eventually he gave up. Around nine he put a pulse ox on the kid and started a pot of coffee. 

He’s in a white tank-top and shorts, blinking at his father. Bruce hasn’t shown up on his doorstep in years. He was only unwelcome for part of that time. There’s an unspoken arrangement that, unless they are in masks, Dick is the one to go to the Manor. 

“He’s in my room,” Dick says, rubbing at his eyes, “I cleaned him up, but he needs antibiotics. He was in a lot of pain.” 

Bruce nods once, then again. “Okay. Thank you. For taking care of him. I know…” he stops, stumbles, then says again, “thank you.” 

Dick shrugs. Steps aside, so that Bruce can come into the apartment. It’s a peace offering and they both know it. They haven’t really spoken, not alone, since Damian was declared dead. Bruce sighs, scraping his hand through his hair, and the silence sits between them. His father finally says, “He’s resting now?” 

“Yeah,” Dick promises. 

“I’ll take him home when he wakes up,” Bruce says, then stops, and adds, “if he wants. He hasn’t been sleeping very well.” 

I can tell, Dick thinks but doesn’t say. He crosses his arms over his chest, uncrosses them, because Bruce is always looking for defensive tells. He goes to the kitchen, and pours a second cup of coffee. When he offers that, Bruce takes it gratefully, leaning against the counter Tim bled on just a few hours ago and staring at Dick over the top of his mug. 

It’s awkward. Dick’s not sure what to say. Are you driving yourself into a maudlin stupor, again? Or maybe, hey dad, I’ve got a boyfriend. 

“How are you doing?” Bruce asks, and Dick blinks at him. 

“Um.” Dick has to shift his position, to ease off the worst of the discomfort. “Fine, I guess. I don’t know. How is anyone recently?” 

“Yeah,” Bruce agrees, quiet. He looks into his coffee, rubbing his thumb across the rim of the mug. He releases his lower lip. “I’ve been meaning to check in, I’m sorry. Things have been…” he trails off again. He taps his thumb against the mug anxiously. Dick wonders if they’re ever going to be comfortable talking to each other again. 

No matter what wave of camaraderie they crest on, they always crash back here. Like they’ve never been more than strangers that saw the same people fall to their death and were affected by it. Maybe not for the better. 

“I know,” Dick promises. The silence comes back. He says, trying for even, “Why didn’t you stop Tim from patrolling last night? He shouldn’t have been out there after…” Bruce shakes his head, and his eyes darken some. And Tim nearly died just like Damian, great move, bringing that up. “I’ve been seeing someone,” Dick blurts. 

Bruce blinks. His expression doesn’t change much, but there’s that familiar lost look around the edges of his eyes. Dick rubs a hand over the back of his neck, abashed.

He’d told Bruce about Barbara, when he was sixteen. Bruce was the first person he told about Barbara. Not that the man didn’t already know, given that they weren’t exactly subtle, but. Still. He’d barely been older than Dick is now. He wonders if Damian would’ve come to him with teenage crushes. 

“Oh,” Bruce says, at length. “Who is she?”

“He.” Bruce really must have been out of it, to miss Micah at the funeral. “He works with me at the BPD. Detective Micah Jorgenson.”

That’ll give Bruce something to do for a while. As though Dick hasn’t run his own background checks on the guy he likes. Dick anticipates cryptic text messages over the next few weeks, asking if he knows about the fender bender Micah was involved in two years ago, and if he’s really interested in someone who demonstrates a lack of basic road safety.

Or some other bullshit. He doesn’t even know. 

Bruce squints at him. “Was he at the funeral? You were with someone, I think? That wasn’t Wally.” 

“No,” Dick agrees, “I mean. Yeah. He was there. It wasn’t Wally. MJ’s running point on the Executioner case,” he says, and then both of them falter completely, because the unspoken rule has been broken. Damian has been brought up. 

Bruce doesn’t get angry. He doesn’t even visibly shut down. His jaw sort of spasms, and his eyes go distant. Mentioning Jason before he came back was always like navigating a minefield. Bruce doesn’t seem like he’s going to explode, he mostly just seems sad. Thick and weighted, mouth set. 

“Do they have any leads?” Bruce asks, after a beat just too long.

“They found carpet fibers in Lamont’s wounds, they’re trying to process them back to the manufacturer. It’s a long shot.” It is. Tracking a specific carpet fiber is a trick only Bruce could pull off. It speaks to desperation, to the complete lack of leads. They’ve been working on this case for three years, there’s no reason that they’re going to get a sudden break now.

Bruce hums, and doesn’t say any of that. He doesn’t remark on Dick’s proclamation, or ask about his boyfriend, or ask if he’s happy, but Dick has never expected that from him. He does say, “When are you going back?”

Dick shrugs, lets his set jaw and brief glance away speak for itself. 

“Talia came to see me last night,” Bruce offers.

Dick’s eyebrows raise despite himself. “You talked?” 

For the briefest of seconds, Bruce’s lips quirk, and Dick thinks he might really be hallucinating again. Like those long months after Jason died, just fucking. Seeing things. “She is the mother of my child.”

Maybe he’s drunk. Maybe therapy is a euphemism for neurosurgery. Talia was the mother of his child, because Damian is dead. 

Bruce seems to remember that before Dick can say anything. His eyes shutter just as quickly, tongue running over his teeth. “She wanted to know if we found his body, so she could take it to the Pit.” 

They won’t find it in time for that, if at all. 

It might just be one of those things no one solves. People will come up to Bruce in a few months or years or decades and claim to be Damian back from a kidnapping, the same way a few tried with Jason, and the way that dead children always draw those types of con men to grieving parents.
None of them will be Damian. Because Dick knows, deep down somewhere, that Damian isn’t going to come home, no matter how much he wants that. 

It’s always a dead Robin, with them. 

Bruce stays a few more hours working silently on a computer, hunched on Dick’s couch and looking out of place, until Tim wakes up. Tim goes home, eventually, with coaxing and the promise of painkillers, and the apartment feels horribly and graphically empty without them. 

Dick stares at the empty spaces they were occupying, and tries not to think about Damian staying the weekend with him sometimes, because it makes him miserable. He tries not to think about Micah staying with him either, because it just makes him lonely. He resists the urge to call Babs again, and instead forces his grimy body up and out, and goes on a proper patrol for the first time in days. 

It isn’t eventful. Not in the self destructive way he wants it to be. He doesn’t end up dragging himself to Gotham to get stitches and stay the night at the manor like he half-hoped, because the worst injury he gets is a few rough scrapes and deep bruises. He spends another night alone in the apartment, staring up at the ceiling. 

He goes through his ritual punishment cycle, the one he’s engaged with since Damian was declared dead: finds the collected album of pictures on his phone with Damian in them, and he scrolls until his eyes ache and his heart is twisted with grief so heavily that he wants to be sick. 

He doesn’t have that many. Damian wasn’t camera shy, but he was never photogenic, and even most of the pictures he does have are of him scowling. There’s a few he got of him concentrating on his artwork, and one where he’s smiling, and Dick stares at that one the longest. He puts down his phone. He stares at the ceiling. 

He throws himself through this cycle for the next few days, or week, or longer. He sees Micah and has no memory of doing so, and he thinks he talks to Jason at some point, but it doesn’t matter. 

He doesn’t get so hurt on patrol that it warrants going home, and Dick wonders idly if that means he’s not doing enough. 

When it’s acceptably early on some random Tuesday not even halfway through his bereavement leave, and Dick has grown weary of lying in bed doing nothing, he goes to the precinct. Commissioner Sawyer almost shouts him out immediately, but Dick wheedles until he can talk with Detective Gonzalez. He’s surprised to learn that Micah isn’t at work, and has been calling in sick a lot the last few weeks. He’ll have to call his… boyfriend. Make sure he’s alright. Or maybe just swing by his apartment later. He can do that now.

Well, he could do that before, too, but then he was accused of needing a booty call, and Dick didn’t want to seem clingy.

Detective Gonzalez doesn’t have anything new on the Executioner case, though given his schedule, they’re expecting another body to go missing soon. They’ve started working on potential victims—the Executioner was on a drug syndicate kick with Lamont and a few others before him, and there are plenty of drug lords between Bludhaven and Gotham for them to keep an eye on. 

At this rate, if this is going to be the new victim profile, Dick might need to warn Jason to watch his back. Or at least tell his people to watch theirs. 

Dick isn’t reassured by this, and feels significantly and profoundly worse for having bothered to show up for work than if he’d stayed home and spent another day staring at his apartment wall and wishing. 

When he gets home, he makes dinner and can remember eating none of it, only to discover he didn’t. He put it in containers like he was meal prepping, but whatever. He’s not hungry. He texts Micah to see if he’s busy tonight, then he goes and takes a shower. Then he finds himself, seemingly possessed by the ghost of Bruce Wayne, standing in front of his living room wall with a single post-it note pasted there, the beginnings of a rogue agent board. All he needs is red string. 

DAmIAn’s body, is written in uneven lettering.

No. No. Dick rips off the sticky note and crumples it, throws it across the room. Damian is dead. There are no theories to extrapolate from this. What is he going to do? Map out the ocean? Figure out where his body is going to wash up? That will be helpful. As if Babs hasn’t already tried making a fucking algorthim. 

He walks away. Crunches the discarded paper under his bare foot. He’s not going to do this. He’s not going to turn this into a thing. He’s not going to make his insanity and complex everyone else’s problem. 

He finds himself back at the wall. This time, there are two sticky notes. 

Dick hates himself. 

It’s a little too familiar, being stuck. He remembers his first big case, when he was twelve and Bruce was twenty-five or twenty-six. Young and stupid enough to invite a preteen to slog through the investigative work for a string of dead prostitutes. He’d taught Dick this, how to lay out all the evidence in physical space. They’d sat on the floor in the solarium of Wayne Manor, with two packs of expo markers and a pound of sticky tack, printouts of all their case files. They’d worked at it for hours, so long that the sun set, and Alfred had to drag them away with threats of sedatives. They cracked the case after two days—a rival pimp was having the competition picked off—and Dick’s hands were ink-stained for weeks. 

He doesn’t have a solarium, but he makes due with the hardwood floors of his apartment. He’s glad for his own anal tendencies now, and the copies of the BPD Executioner files he keeps at home. 

When Micah knocks on the door, some hours or maybe days later, it looks like a bomb has gone off and Dick is at the center of it. 

“Dick?” he says, from the doorway. He’d heard the man coming, heard his key in the lock, and made an educated guess as to who it was. He doesn’t get up from his squat over the image and demographic details of the Executioner’s seventh and third assumed victims. 

He hums, questioning, flipping the page over—Seven’s rap sheet is longer than Dick’s resume. In and out of jail for all thirty years of his life. The first ten victims were all of two types: sexual predators and domestic abusers. Their profile for the first years was a deranged abuse victim, projecting onto his kills and enacting divine punishment via the… necrophilic rituals. That changed after he started taking armed robbers. One or two dirty politicians that had been taking bribes and cutting funding in the wrong places.  

“Holy shit,” Micah breathes. 

“Don’t start,” he grumbles. Micah closes the door behind himself, and carefully works his way toward him, not disturbing any of the papers as he does so. It’s impressive. And annoying. Dick had kind of wanted something to yell at him for, because he’s a horrible person like that. 

“This is… a lot,” his…boyfriend says, and squats down next to him, resting a hand on his back. His fingers are warm. “Babe, what are you doing? I thought…you were feeling better about everything after you got closure about Dames, weren’t you? What’s going on?” 

Dames? 

Dick can’t remember ever using that nickname before, but he must have, for Micah to regurgitate it. He frowns, files that away to think about later. It’s terrifying, the well that opens in his chest. He’s forgetting shit already. What else is he not going to remember in a week? Six months? 

Dick shakes his head. He picks up a piece of paper and jams it into Micah’s sight line, “I don’t think he owns the boat he uses to take them. Everyone has been working under that assumption, but I think he just keeps renting under different names.” 

Micah blinks at him, uncomprehending. He takes the paper from Dick without looking at  it, goes onto his knees, and sets it aside just as quickly. “Baby, when was the last time you slept?”

Dick sneers, then swallows it. His eyes are burning, for once, not with tears. “I got the name of the company that does overnight rentals, it’s the only one in Gotham. It’s called Gotham Blue Horizon. I pulled the records off their databases, they take credit only, and they make their clients sign a shitton of waivers, put down their address and shit.” Dick takes a breath. “Every time we find a body, they get a new client with a new credit card. The card’s real, but the person isn’t, and the address it’s registered to doesn’t exist.”

“Okay, okay, I hear you,” Micah says, his voice warm, but not invested, “but I think this can wait for a little, okay? He’s not going anywhere. Why don’t you let me look at this and you can—” 

“I don’t want to sleep,” Dick snaps, “I want to find my brother.” 

“You…” Micah stares at him, uncomprehending, “his body?” 

“No. Him. Yes. No. I don’t know.” Dick rubs at his face, exhales. He wants to hyperventilate, he can feel how swollen his eyes are getting. 

Micah cups his cheeks, suddenly enough that Dick can’t stop himself from flinching back. His boyfriend lets go of him, but only for long enough for Dick to steady himself. Then those hands are back, soothing down his neck and shoulders, forcing him to look at Micah. 

He’s worried. Those pretty brown eyes narrowed, taking Dick in. He presses the back of his hand to Dick’s forehead, like his mom did when he was eight and had a fever, and Dick can’t help but to lean into it. “Baby,” he says, again, so gently. “Dick. Steady, okay? Take a breath.”

Dick sucks in one. It hurts. He doesn’t think he’s done that in a while. 

Micah pulls his face close, pressing soft kisses to his hairline. Dick doesn’t cry, even though he thinks he should. The papers settle on his lap with limp hands, until Micah gently pulls those from him, too. They stay there for what seems like an age, Micah slowly stroking his hair, and when he speaks, it’s soft, “Why don’t you let me make you something to eat, and then we can take a shower, and if you’re not tired, you can tell me more about this, okay? I’ll help you.” 

Dick nods mutely after long seconds. 

Micah is a steady, unwavering presence as he plops Dick on the kitchen counter like a child, and patters around his kitchen with familiarity that no one has had in a long time. He ends up making them waffles, chopping at the fruit that hasn’t been fresh in a week with calm precision as he slices away the worst of the mold and weird spots. Every so often, he reaches up to stroke Dick’s face again, or kiss him gently. 

“Talia thinks she can find him and bring him back,” Dick says, numbly. Maybe it’s because, compared to her, he’s really not that delusional. It’s good to have a litmus test. He’s somewhere between an Al Ghul’s obsession with cheating death and Tim’s brucequest. 

Micah squints. “His mom? CEO of Lexcorp?”

She’s not anymore, but Dick nods. He doesn’t know what Talia is up to these days. Every once in a while she’d drop in, take Damian, and he’d come back talking about death arenas and the battle of heirs, or some other bullshit, and Dick will have one or a dozen new reasons to hate her. 

Would. Did. When Damian was alive, that is. 

“Yeah.”

“Wouldn’t that take…magic?” Micah asks, cautious. Gotham and Bludhaven exist a little in a bubble, where everything can be explained away by some type of science. Their supervillains are scientists. It’s gut instinct not to pin something on magic. Micah has only lived here, has no other point of reference, and Dick almost laughs at the way his nose crinkles with displeasure. 

“Talia has connections. I think she could, if she wanted.” Dick mutters.

Micah’s brow pinches. He frowns. “You don’t want her to do that.”

Sanctity of death. If one person can come back, why can’t everyone? He thinks he said that to Tim, once. It was easier to say when it was Tim’s father. Tim’s girlfriend. Not that he wanted Steph dead, it just…

Wasn’t quite so close. Dick can admit he’s been tempted to seek out the Lazarus waters more than once. 

He knows, deeply, that isn’t what Damian would want. Talia spent most of his life tweaking him. Patching him back together, in better and worse ways. Damian was tired of being changed. Fixed. Perfected. 

Part of Dick wonders if it would be kinder to leave him dead, so he would never have to relive the moments before he died again. He can’t imagine what the kid went through. He doesn’t want to. 

“I want to wake up,” Dick says, and feels like a child saying it. “I want to wake up from this, and for it all to have been some fucked up nightmare. I want my brother to be alive.”

Micah stops cutting the fruit. He looks up at him, and studies his face. His dark eyes are searching, but impossible to read. It takes him a moment to do something, and it’s not to speak. Micah sets down the knife and moves closer, pulling Dick into his arms and pressing another soft kiss to his face. “I’m so sorry, baby. I wish you didn’t have to go through this. I know how much you love your brother.”

“He turns fourteen in exactly a month,” Dick mutters into Micah’s shoulder. He takes in a deep breath. “And you know what’s fucked? I already had a gift for him. He liked drawing, and I got him these stupidly expensive pencils. He would have loved them. And now I don’t know what to do with them.”

Micah is quiet for a second, smooths his hair again. “Why don’t we take them to his grave next month?”

We. Dick wants so desperately to be part of a we right now. He doesn’t want to do this alone. He nods. Micah pulls back, and his smile is there, but it doesn’t seem to reach his eyes at all. 

The wall of crazy only spreads. Dick eventually has to dedicate a permanent space to it. He knows that it makes Micah unhappy every time he comes over, but he can’t stop it from spreading like asbestos. His boyfriend adds to it, pulls things off. Dick takes his boat theory to Babs, but it leads nowhere. All of the names lead back to dead people—more victims, Babs tells him, grim, he was using their information to rent the boats. 

He stops making as many appearances in Gotham, and tries running down as many leads as he can. He keeps coming up empty handed, but it only makes him more frustrated, not less determined. 

Micah is worried about him. 

Bruce is worried about him. Tim is worried about him. Everyone is worried about him. Jason starts calling periodically, and he doesn’t outright ask how he’s doing, but he rambles around it. Jason tells him about Haleema, who he saw out of the hospital, and has been keeping an eye on. Jason tells him about Avery, who is driving him insane, and he tells him about Tim, who hasn’t let go of his theory about a second witness, and started appearing all over Crime Alley. 

Dick, in turn, tells him little. He has nothing to report on. 

Cass drops by once, and her eyes skim over his wall, then look back at him. Her expression is sad, but awkward. “Unhappy,” she says, and Dick just stares at her miserably. He doesn’t think she likes being around him very much. He knows he’s not a lot of fun, and she’s reading concerning things off of him.

But the days keep passing, and more and more, Dick finds himself circling Micah. Their time together gets longer, their nights together grow more frequent. He thinks that he’s doing something stupid and horrible and selfish like falling in love, which is why the question blurts out of him one afternoon, barely three weeks after they made it official.  

And he receives resounding silence. 

Dick can feel the heat rising to his face as that silence wears on between them. Micah’s barely awake, blinking down into his mug of coffee, leaned up against the kitchen island still in just a pair of Dick’s sweatpants. His hair is mussed, eyes blood-shot. They’d both pulled a couple twelve hour shifts the previous week, working the nines trying to shake down a double homicide over on Newport. Dick hadn’t even meant to ask, it’d just slipped out, between Micah handing him his own cup of coffee, and kissing the man on the cheek, turning on the stove to fry a couple eggs.

It was cripplingly domestic, is the thing. So much that it blindsided him, staring down into the slowly burning food in the pan. It hit him that he was making food for someone again, in his apartment again, waking up with them at his back and trusting them to not stab it, again, and even though he’d popped the question kind of impulsively, it’s not like this is the first time he’s thought about it.

Micah, clearly, has not thought about it. He’s starting to blush as well, a splotchy red making its way down his neck. He flusters, which is pretty hard to get Micah to do. 

“I, uh,” the mug is set down. Picked back up. Set down again. Dick’s stomach sinks, at the hesitance. “Dickie.”

The no is in the nickname before he even says anything else, and Dick has to force his face to stay blank, so it doesn’t betray the lurching want in his stomach. He hadn’t meant to be that vulnerable. 

“It’s okay,” Dick says, looking back down to the eggs. He swishes them around the pan with the spatula, a wooden one, that Alfred got him when he moved last. He said it would be better for his non-stick pans. “I, um.” 

“It’s not that I don’t want to move in with you,” Micah has put the mug down for the fourth time, and this time it seems to be a more permanent thing, as he comes around the corner of the counter, and wraps his arm around Dick’s waist. “It’s that things are a little complicated right now. I don’t know if this is a decision you should make given…everything.” 

He says that like it encompasses the last three weeks since Damian’s funeral. Almost four now. It’s mostly one elongated blur. 

The days passed so slowly when it was Jason. It felt like Dick was living in a miasma for a while. He could never get away from it; every second spent with the Titans, staring into the faces of the young adults and teenagers he was supposed to protect, after he failed to be there for his own brother. 

It’s not like that with Damian. For a few seconds at a time, between the BPD, and the never-ending crush of his responsibilities as Nightwing, he can close his eyes and completely forget that Damian is dead at all. That he’s not just back in Gotham with Bruce, or blowing up Dick’s cell, waiting for him whenever Dick goes home.

But Damian never texts him, and he never calls, and Dick always remembers eventually. 

“I know,” Dick says, twisting off the stove. He should find a plate. Plates, so they can divide this. He should also get out the pepper, because Micah likes that on his eggs. “It’s just.”

There’s a lot more to this than just asking Micah to move in with him. Asking Micah that means that he’d have to tell him about Nightwing, and the other Bats. Revealing his identity wouldn’t just affect him. He wants to. It kind of terrifies him. He trusts Micah almost more than he trusts anyone right now, and that, itself, is terrifying. Everything about everything is terrifying. 

“Later, yes,” Micah says, and he presses a kiss to the side of Dick’s neck again, “but I don’t want you to rush into this decision.” 

Dick tries for a smile. “Yeah.”

Micah hesitates. He doesn’t pull away, instead draws closer, and as the eggs continue to cook on the cooling stovetop, he says, “I love you.” 

Dick freezes. It’s not words they’ve exchanged in anything but a joke before, something to wildly emphasize their statements. I love you, but that’s a shitty thing to say.  It’s different to hear it spoken calmly, to hear it spoken at all, and hear the weight behind it. 

“I love you too.” He thinks he does, anyway. It’s so hard to tell. 

Micah smiles, and kisses him again. “So,” he says, between those kisses, “not right now, but soon. I’ve got some things to work out on my end, too.” 

Dick nods sarcastically and asks, “Oh, yeah? What? Aren’t you still living in your parents’ place? It’s not like you have a lease or something.” 

“Okay, first, you have seen my apartment in Bludhaven, and second," Micah's voice goes completely serious, but he's smiling, "I have someone chained up in my basement."

Dick smacks him with the egg-covered spatula. “Ha-ha,” he rolls his eyes, “yeah, don’t we all?” 

Micah laughs, and he gets out the plates, and kisses Dick again. 

Chapter Text

“Happy birthday.” 

There are candles stuffed onto the homemade cake. A one and a four. Fourteen. The icing is green, lopsided and patchy. Damian looks up from the cake to Blade, on the other side of the table, smiling nervously. 

It’s December. The weather has taken a turn for the frigid, a coldsnap sweeping through the past few weeks that saw Blade finally breaking down a purchasing a new heater—installed pointedly as far from Damian as he could get it, and bolted into the wall. He got Damian a jacket as well, one of the ridiculously large, puff jackets that anxious PTA mothers stuff their two-year-olds into so that they waddle around like ill-balanced penguins. Or bowling balls with extremities. The socks have been a welcomed change.

He’s been sleeping a lot more, mostly to pass the time, but also to try and stave off the chill. Blade’s concern has only grown the fewer words that Damian can manage to put together. 

It’s December now. The eighteenth. 

It had felt, at once, so much longer and shorter. He was taken in late October. It has been more than seven weeks. Maybe even upward of nine. His father hasn’t found him. They had a funeral. His mother has given up on him.

And the only person to celebrate this year with him is the man that took everything from him. Damian wants to be angry. Instead, he finds that all that’s there is a stale, sickly sort of gratitude that he bothered to at all. 

Blade crouches beside him at the dining table, one hand braced on the back of Damian’s chair, the other on the length of chain coiled on the table. He looks between Damian’s face and the cake, his expression carefully neutral. Not apathetic, just… anticipatory.

Damian thinks a veneer of indifference between them is too much to ask these days. He is too relieved to be out of the dank-smelling, dark walls of the basement. There’s a sliver of tepid sunlight coming through the parted curtains of the kitchen window, and he thinks he can see the snow coating the world outside. 

Blade had hauled him upstairs, during the first blizzard of the season. They’d sat out on the porch in a bundle of blankets, Blade holding Damian against him like he expected him to make a run for it. The weather hasn’t let up since then. Damian is glad that it’s snowing now , when he is lazy and complacent, and not when he made his earlier attempts at escape. It would have been miserable to run through ice and hail. 

He hasn’t given up.

Maybe he has.

Though he thinks about running and escape constantly, after the phone call, he has done nothing. He has convinced himself—tried to, with no success—that he’d misdialed. Surely Dick would not give up on him this easily, but he had, and Damian has been left here, and now there is a cake in front of him.

“Thank you,” Damian manages. Birthdays were not something celebrated in the League. They were a test of strength, a trial, to see if you were fit to live another year. It was not a joyous occasion. He remembers the first one that Dick had celebrated with him, after Father had gone missing, and the way that his entire body had clenched up. He’d been dreading it for weeks, and Dick had stared at him from the other side of a plate of cupcakes, his face morphing with confusion when Damian had promptly thrown them across the room and bolted out the front door. 

His mother had yet to test him with poison, but he’d known it was a possibility. 

Everything about Damian made Dick sad that first year. Damian wonders if he will ever stop making his brother sad, or if even now, Dick is still upset because of Damian. He doesn’t know if it would be better or worse for him not to have grieved at all. 

“I’ll light the candles,” Blade murmurs, but there’s a smile curling at his lips, even as he lets go of the chair to rifle in his back pockets, pulling out a zippo lighter.

His gun is across the room, on the kitchen counter. No one, apparently, has seen fit to warn him about gun safety. He’s become far more lackadaisical about that sort of thing recently. Hence the fire, in easy reach of Damian.

He considers the small flame, flickering above each candle. It would snuff before he could ever try to burn Blade with it. It wouldn’t be worth it, not for the ire it would earn him. Damian wouldn’t be allowed to eat for days after a stunt like that.

Blade pulls out his phone, and he lifts it up to take a selfie of both of them, leaning in closer to do so. It’s not the first time that he’s done so, not even of Damian alone, but Damian can’t do more than stare at himself, and into the hollowness he sees. Blade rests his head against the top of Damian’s, and he seems far happier than Damian. 

“Okay, okay,” Blade returns the phone to his pocket, and says, “make a wish.” 

He settles his hand over the back of Damian’s neck, cajoling. Damian leans into it. Blade deigns to touch him more often than Damian could ever be comfortable with, less often than his traitorous body feels it needs , constantly alone in the darkness. “Or are you too mature for that, at your big age?”

Fourteen . He wonders what Timothy or Jason might’ve done for their fourteenth birthdays. Tim no doubt had a droll, juvenile lineup of school friends to pass the event with. Even Jason would have had some semblance of normalcy to cling to. Dick always promised to get him a car for his sixteenth. He’d constantly needle Damian about what sort he wanted over the comm lines during slow patrols. Damian rebuffed him. It was not in his interest to purchase a fossil-fuel burning, carbon emitting death machine, let alone drive around in one. Even if his family saw it as a rite of passage. 

Damian doesn’t answer, just leans forward and blows out the candles. They go out with a wisp of smoke curling in the air. Blade takes them out of the cake and sets them on the table, then goes to the kitchen to retrieve a knife and two paper bowls. 

“You’re quiet today,” he comments, idly, setting down the utensils in front of Damian, leaning over him to cut into the cake. Thinking hard or hardly thinking, Dick would quip. Blade does not have the same levity. 

Timothy’s favorite cake was lemon carrot cake. The cream cheese icing was always thick, and there were nuts and raisins in it. Damian hated it, but he thinks he’d given anything to eat it right now, if only so Timothy would be here, and Jason would again complain about how cakes shouldn’t make your jaw pop out of alignment, and Cass would pretend to hate it even when she didn’t.

“Tired,” Damian says, and his voice comes out hoarse and raspy. He’s been waiting for the register to drop into his father’s baritone. It’s yet to happen, though over the last year or so, hair has been growing patchwise and scruff on his sideburns, and everywhere else besides. He picks up the spoon Blade has set in front of him. 

The cake is chocolate. The icing tastes too sweet and it’s runny, nothing like what Alfred would have made. Damian doesn’t like it much, but he still feels the insatiable, childish urge to weep at the thought put into it. Blade is not a cruel man, for all his machinations, and that in itself is worse. 

He wishes that he was an exacting captor, that he would beat him and threaten him, because then, at least, it would be easy to hate him. Blade takes care of him, even though he doesn’t have to, even though he shouldn’t. 

Blade sinks into the seat next to him, still nervous. “I, uh,” he rubs a hand across the back of his neck, “I got you something.” 

Damian raises his eyes from the cake to Blade. He says nothing, which Blade takes as encouragement, and the man gets up again, like he didn’t just sit down, and goes to fetch the paper bag. 

He takes another bite of the cake, licking icing off his teeth, watching Blade futz around. Damian’s gifts are rarely presented with such fanfare. The jacket was tossed at him unceremoniously, and the heater installed perfunctorily. Damian thinks this is supposed to be special .

The cake is pushed aside to make room for the bag. Blade sits next to him again, nudging Damian. 

“What is it?” he asks, not reaching for it. He pulls his knees up, resting his chin on them. The collar digs uncomfortably into his throat. He ignores it. It’s not impeding his breathing, just heavy and chafing again. 

“You’ll see,” Blade promises, nudging it closer. He smiles, trying to be reassuring. “It’s nothing bad, Dames. I promise.” 

That makes him relax despite himself. Promises have, at length, become the only source of trust between them. Damian, loathe he is to admit it, has come to take the man at his word. Mother would be ashamed of him. 

He reaches for the bag, and takes out the tissue paper. Inside isn’t much, for all that he’s still half-expecting a severed human limb. It’s a sketchbook, a small compact one. There are no spirals, it’s the type that flips open on the top, held together by flimsy glue. There’s a roll of charcoal pencils. They’re new, but wrapped in a rubber band. Blade has already removed the plastic covering. A black kneaded putty eraser. Damian can smell it. 

“Figured the crayons were getting old,” Blade jokes. They had been. Damian had complained extensively at how childish it was, to be given a coloring book and pack of Cra-Z-Art to fill his time. “Keep looking.”

Damian sticks his hand into the bag. Pulls out a few slips of laminate paper. He has to flip it over to understand what he’s holding. 

“I’ve been keeping tabs on them for you, Dames,” Blade says, and he’s leaned in to hover over Damian’s shoulder, staring down at the picture in his hands. “They’re doing much better now that there’s been some time. The funeral was good for them..” 

They are candid shots. Six of them. Bruce emerging from a restaurant— L'Artusi , Cass’ favorite—smiling faintly at the woman on his arm, helping Selina Kyle down the steps and to the car. 

Cass is in a crowd, sunglasses pulled over her eyes, and the photo is from behind, but Damian still recognizes her in the mirror of the shop she’s in front of.

Jason on the second-story balcony of his penthouse in the Diamond District, the details of his expression too blurred to make out, head tipped to talk to a man on his right. Damian recognizes the profile of Avery Ramirez, his lieutenant. They’re smoking together, shoulders loose and relaxed.

Tim is coming out of an office, on the phone with someone, picking through a bag of purple Skittles, and Damian doesn’t recognize where, but he thinks he sees Whole Mental You in the window. 

The picture of Dick is the one that’s the closest, and Dick is looking at the camera, his badge visible on his belt. He’s at the foot of an apartment complex, working , as a detective. The flash of red and blue emergency lights paints the background. 

All of the shots are too far for Damian to make out distinct expressions, but their body language tells enough. They seem…

Fine.

Damian doesn’t know what he expected, but it’s like a rush of cold, icy water has been poured inside of his stomach. He’s always known that he’s a difficult child, and he’s not a good son or brother—not for lack of trying— but he’d hoped that somehow they would have cared anyway.

Tim spoke to him, exactly once, after a long, rough patrol when both of them were sitting on the edge of a roof, staring out at the city, about Jason’s death. Damian hadn’t wanted his family to collapse like that, but.

They’re fine.

Damian misses them. The wave of it hits him all at once, encompassing strobes of pain. Stuck in his throat, cascading down his spine. He wants to be there. He wants to throw his arms around his siblings and bury his face into his father’s neck and he wants to go home. He wants to go on patrol, and be bothered by Timothy, and for Cass to sneak him Oreos from her secret stash in the cave no one can find, and to stay the weekend at Bludhaven with Dick again, and for Jason to make him dinner then let him help make a mess of his case because he’s avoiding correcting his English homework. He wants to go to school. He wants to be Batman’s Robin. He wants to be Bruce Wayne’s son. 

He wants to go home.

He wants to go home so badly he can’t breathe. 

“Aw, don’t cry, Dames.” Blade’s thumb, swiping beneath his eyes, rubbing away tears that Damian hadn’t noticed overflowing. He cradles Damian’s face in his hands, hushing him, soothing. Damian has to grit his teeth against the awful sob that tries to wrestle its way out of his throat. “It’s better this way. You want them to be happy right?”

He does. 

“I want…” Damian sucks in a sharp breath, “I want them to want me.” 

“It’s too late for that,” Blade promises. “They’re okay without you, Dames. They don’t need you anymore. I do.”

“I want to go home.”

“You are home,” his captor reassures, and he leans down and presses a soft kiss to the crown of Damian’s head, smoothing a hand down his arm. He nudges the cake back toward him, “Do you want to finish that up here, or take it downstairs with you?” 

Damian’s shaking hand reaches for the cake. “Up here.” 

The basement has no concept of time. Damian does not either. It seems to exist in some in-between place, both drawn out and shortened to a degree that makes it hard to remember he’s a real person. His leg makes moving almost impossible, impeding the looping circles that he used to do before his escape attempt. There’s little else for him to do but lay there or draw. 

He works through the sketchbook quickly. Maybe slowly. He works through it. Charcoal stains become like a second skin to him, and Blade seems more fond than annoyed as he takes Damian upstairs to wash his hands off, tearing out the pages of the sketchbook to pin to the fridge like Damian is a small child. The fridge quickly runs out of room. He watches how Blade will finger over them fondly as he prepares food, and he tries not to let it sink in that the man appreciates his art more than anyone in his family ever really did.

Blade is his only contact. Damian has started to grow anxious for his visits. It’s weakness, one that he knows is starting to rotten him. Mother would hate him. Father would be disappointed in him giving up. 

Damian doesn’t know what else to do. This is his life now. He circles around escape attempts. The one time that he manages to get his hand on a knife, all Blade has to do is say, sharply, Damian, and then he drops it immediately, already apologizing profusely, stumbling backward, broken leg faltering him. Blade doesn’t hit him, but it’s obvious he wants to. He wasn’t allowed into the kitchen for almost a week after. 

He gets sick, days or weeks after his fourteenth birthday. Comes down with a high fever and a coughing that barks from his chest in awful, frantic fits. It sounds like a dying seal has taken up residence in his esophagus, baying its pain at the world. It hurts badly to breathe, or move, and Blade ends up hauling him back into his room to watch over him, pressing a nebulizer into Damian’s mouth for hours at a time, dragging him to the bathroom so he can take steam baths when that doesn't help.

 He sees the panic in Blade’s eyes when he takes a turn for the worse, watching Damian’s lips turn blue as the coughing fits only got more prolonged. For a while, Damian thinks he might die of a simple infection, left untreated because Blade refuses to take him to a hospital. 

It takes him weeks to recover. Long enough that Blade is antsy about the amount of time he has to take off of work, and Damian gets to watch the moon wax off from Blade’s bedroom window. 

Blade keeps careful watch of his leg. He never seems happy with it, but the swelling goes down, and the bruises slowly fade from black to purple to green to familiar pale brown skin. Blade says that it’s a good thing, smiling, even as both of them stare down the crooked length of his shin and know that it’s deformed. Blade removes the brace eventually, and Damian is eased upright, and any time that the man is home for days afterward, Damian is hobbling in looping circles around the circumference of his collar to try and walk. The limb won’t take his weight. His balance is shot, and he ends up falling more often than not. His hands slowly amass bruises and scrapes. But he finds that if he grits his teeth and leans awkwardly, he can manage a slow, uneven hobble. 

Blade says nothing. He doesn’t apologize for the injury, only seems more anxious that Damian is mobile now, going so far as triple checking the collar anytime he goes upstairs, and Damian can see the looks of despair that he aims at his leg sometimes, as if missing the grotesque injury. 

Damian tries not to let the panic show on his face when that happens, at how ready Blade seems to delve out another broken bone, just for peace of mind. 

“I’m not going anywhere,” Damian tells him, over and over and over, when he can see the man contemplating it in his mind, yanking on the collar again, and Damian starts to believe himself. 

Their routine has settled, and Damian is losing himself and his mind to the mundanity of it, only broken by Blade’s small fits of anger, or Damian’s foolish longing for escape. He’s grown used to Blade. Even come to crave him. His contact, his noise, his talking, everything. 

Damian needs him like a hit, and he can’t get enough of it. He begs more to not be put downstairs, for Blade to stay, for their time not to stop, but Blade always leaves him, looking guiltier for it every time, but he goes. 

Then, some unknowable time after his birthday, when the weather is still freezing but trying vainly to warm—Blade will let him outside at least once a week now, even went as far as tying the chain to the porch railing to let Damian roam the muddy earth with his bare feet last time—his captor comes downstairs. There’s blood on his face and hands, his mask pulled down to hang on his neck, and he says, with visible eagerness, “I need your help with something.” 

Damian puts down his charcoal. It’s the start of a portrait of Blade—a side profile, the wobbly memory of the man staring into the fireplace on Christmas Eve. Blade’s face is the one most familiar to him now. The easiest to draw, when he only has to wait and look upon him to remember the exact slant of his nose, and stretch of his smile. He shuffles the sketchbook off his lap, into the neatly arranged pile of Damian’s belongings. Cranes, Titus, charcoal pencils, rubber eraser. 

The last time Blade asked him for help with something, he’d stared into the reflective surface of a serrated steak knife for so long that Blade left a ring of bruises on his arm just for contemplating it. He doesn’t want to help Blade with his chores, not when it's just a pity trip upstairs, because his mood has sunk low again.

He also doesn’t want to spend any longer in the basement than he has to, strictly. And Blade is more affable, amenable to suggestion, when Damian plays along with this stupid domestic fantasy of his. 

“What?” Damian asks, warily, standing, not without the usual twinge of pain from his leg. It’s swelling, and aching. It’ll snow again soon. 

“Put on your jacket,” Blade urges. Damian wonders if Blade’s hurt himself, and wants him to play nursemaid. He can’t see any evidence of injury, but the blood must have come from somewhere . 

Damian leans down to grab his jacket, and waits for Blade to take the end of the chain off the D-ring before the two of them move for the stairs. Damian wants to ask for more details, but there’s a frenetic energy that has settled inside of Blade, and he’s loath to be on the receiving end of it should the man’s impatience burst outward again.

He’s taken upstairs. It’s dark out, and none of the lights in the kitchen are on. Blade has needed his help the most there, and Damian starts to ask, “What did you—?” before the chain is yanked and the words get strangled in his throat as he’s hauled toward the back door instead. He hasn’t been outside at night since his failed escape. 

It’s cold. Blisteringly so. He’s not wearing shoes, and the T-shirts that Blade has been giving him are thin, the air leaking up his legs and stomach despite the jacket. 

“Blade,” Damian complains, trying not to let the anxiety leak into his voice. He lifts both hands, holding onto the chain so the collar can’t bite as badly into his skin, trying to match Blade’s fervent pace. The sleeves of his jacket have ridden up, and Damian can see that there are wounds on his arms, but only shallow scratches, like he was fighting with a cat.

His toes sink into the sludgy ground. The last snow melted with an odd warm front. Damian doesn’t think it’s December anymore, or even January. The weather has changed. 

He doesn’t have pants. The porch light only offers so much illumination, enough for Damian to hobble along after Blade without fear of tripping over the darkness. Blade’s SUV is idling, the engine running like he just got back. The license plate says KAZ 2Y5. 

Damian feels dread coil in his stomach. 

“Come on,” Blade encourages. “I’ve got something to show you, kid.”

“It’s cold. I’m,” he’s not tired, it would be a lie, and Damian doesn’t want to go back to the basement. But his heart is slowly beating faster, every disjointed memory of this car tinged with blood and pain and fear. He remembers Blade ripping him out of it, his own cock-sure attitude, certain that he’d escape in mere hours.

And the blood on Blade’s hands, the look in his eye, a lusty thrill. The revived prey-animal inside of Damian recoils from it.

The trunk had been suffocating. There had been a corpse hugging his back. The bag had been tight, compressing him. 

Crushing him. 

“You’ve just got to,” Blade licks his lips, draws Damian to a stop in front of the trunk, grabbing for the latch. “I want to show you something,” he repeats. 

Damian shakes his head. Blade ignores him, throwing the trunk open. His chest is rising and falling in quick, shallow breaths, the start of a grin pulling at his lips.

There is not a corpse in the trunk, not like Damian had convinced himself there would be. Illogically, he’d pictured Lamont, his waxy rigid death stare, the greasy strands of his blond hair. This is not that. The body curled fetal on the felt upholstery is shaking and crying, so thin as to be emaciated. A woman’s form, arms covering her head and frame coiled in anticipation of a hit. 

Her wrists and ankles have been ziptied, a gag shoved into her mouth, several layers of duct tape pinning her dark hair to her cheeks. 

“I don’t normally take them alive,” Blade explains, and grabs hold of an ankle to start tugging.

“Blade,” Damian whispers.

He drags her out of the trunk like that. Just a cursory grip on her leg and so much strength, dumping her onto the cold ground. She screams, a flurry of hyperventilation and movement, crying and curling on herself. The sound of her voice—muffled pleas for mercy—is the first Damian’s heard from anyone other than Blade and the priest in a long time. The pitch startles him, high and effeminate, like Cass or Barbara.

But he’s never heard Cass or Barbara wail like that.

“You’re hurting her.” Damian sways forward, unsure of what he’s doing. Blade is still holding his chain in an iron grip. The car is still running. Damian doubts he could get anywhere hauling just himself, with his broken, hungry body. There’s no way he could save this woman.

He’s brought back to that night, with Lamont, and his stupid, stupid attempt to save him, convinced that someone was being beaten, and that he was Robin, and he could fix it. He’s not a hero, he’s a broken, starving corpse, desperately playing at a boy. 

“She deserves it,” Blade says, and sounds sure. So sure . The way Grandfather sounded, when he condemned criminals and tyrants and traitors to execution. The way Jason sounded, when he sought out his own bloody justice.

The woman screams louder. 

Damian flinches back from the noise. “What did she do?” he demands, resisting the urge to run, but only because his legs won’t take his weight. Blade has started to drag the woman, and him, back toward the house, her squirming body leaving a trail in the mud. There’s blood caked onto her face. 

“That’s the point, Dames.” Oh, good. His lecturing voice, his shut up and listen voice. He has to grab Damian’s bicep to haul him up the porch steps, unwilling to wait for the boy to navigate them himself. And then he reaches down and fists a handful of the woman’s hair, yanking her onto her hands and knees. Damian winces for her sake, even as Blade bares her to him. She’s got a mousy face, bulging eyes. Pretty in a flat way, in a thin way. 

Blade hooks Damian’s chain to his belt loop, a motion so familiar now he doesn’t even have to look down to do it, before he withdraws a knife with his other and cuts the tape down the womans face. He gets plenty of skin as he goes, then peels the tape up with the blade and rips it off. 

She starts screaming immediately, loud and wailing. Desperate. 

Blade lets her. Damian watches, fixed, and has to quell the instinct to shush her, eyes pinned on Blade’s face, searching for signs of anger. 

“No one can hear you out here,” Blade says, when she takes in a breath to release a ragged sob, “be quiet .” 

“Oh God, oh God,” she’s babbling. “Oh God, please don’t hurt me, please .”

Blade looks amused at the prospect. “Do you want to tell my kid what you did, or should I?” 

She blinks, rapidly, taking in air like she’s been drowning this whole time. Her head snaps from Blade to Damian, and she seems to see him for the first time. Her eyes blow wide, alighting on his face first, and then down to the collar around his neck, and then down to his underwear, his bare feet. “Oh God,” she says again, barely a whisper. 

Damian thinks the cold has stolen into his ribcage. Taken up residence there and spread a numbing frost. His stomach hurts, from the tension twisting him up. He wishes she wouldn’t look at him, he’d give anything for her to avert those hideously wide, beseeching eyes. The only person who’s looked at him in months is Blade .

“I didn’t think so,” Blade snarls and grabs hold of her bicep and starts to haul her into the house again. Damian doesn’t move until his collar is tugged, and then his feet shift without his choice as he stumbles, grabbing onto the stair railing to stop himself from falling. 

She screams again, like she can’t help herself, as she’s pulled through the back door. “Don’t, please! Please, I’ll do anything,” she says, as they come to a stop at the table. “I’ll give you sex, I’ll—please don’t kill me. Please. I won’t say anything, I promise, I won’t talk. You can do whatever you want to me, just please don’t kill me.” 

She’s starting to sob. Ugly and loud. Damian watches her, but more, watches Blade. The man drops her to the kitchen floor like she’s a sack of discarded potatoes, then he withdraws his gun. Damian and the woman freeze together, and she finally goes silent as she sucks in a ragged breath of horror.

“Blade,” Damian whispers, again, it’s the only thing that he can seem to say . He takes a step forward, then another wobbling one, and grabs Blade’s arm. “Wait.” 

Blade’s arm lifts. Damian flinches, expecting a backhand again, or even to be hit with the handle of that gun, but the man doesn’t. Just shakes Damian off, finally looking away from the woman to stare at him. There’s no small amount of frustration there, a little furrow in his sweat slicked brow.

“Don’t shoot her,” Damian pleads. 

“Dames,” Blade says, long-suffering. He lowers the gun anyway, touches Damian with his free hand, just his bloody fingertips against the apple of the boy’s cheek. “You don’t understand what she did, what she is .” 

No. But he knows what Blade is. He saw what happens to the people he kills, how he turns them into things. He knows that he doesn’t want that, not even for the most horrific of Gotham’s criminals. He understands killing, for all Father’s insistence otherwise. 

The woman is, advisedly, silent. She curls in on herself and stares up at them, watching the exchange. Gathering information, or searching for allies. Damian thinks that she is smart, smarter than he was anyways, to abandon histrionics so readily when they don’t benefit her, biting her tongue to play into Blade’s power fantasy. 

“Then tell me,” Damian says, letting his hand fall to the man’s arm again, testing. “But don’t kill her.” 

“I wasn’t going to kill her,” Blade reassures, and his expression is filling with something like sympathy. He leans forward and presses a kiss to Damian’s forehead, murmurs into his skin, “I just need to make sure she won’t run away like you did.”

Damian stares at him, stunned, and the man acts in the second of his shock. His foot comes down on the woman’s knee with a horrific crash of power and strength and she screams as it crunches. He does it again, and again, until Damian can see the deformed knee cap already swelling. Damian closes his eyes until it’s over, sucking in a sob, and keeps it buried in his chest, flinching at every smack of skin. 

I thought I told you to be quiet. 

Blade doesn’t shoot her. Damian wonders if it would have been a mercy if he had. If Damian has just exacerbated her torture, and turned it into something far worse. 

“I brought her for you,” Blade says, still staring down at the woman, eyes cold and calculating. She’s shoved her entire fist into her mouth to muffle her sobs. There’s bile leaking out, awful retching noises, but she doesn’t vomit. “To make you understand why I have to do this.”

Damian doesn’t think he’s ever understood less in his life. “Why?” he asks, and looks up at Blade. He’s been avoiding his eyes as much as possible the longer his captivity has drawn out, something animalistic in his chest squeezing at the idea of trying for dominance. “Why does it…” he looks down at the woman, then back up, “...this isn’t the first person you’ve killed since Lamont, is it?” 

Blade hesitates. “No. She’s the fourth. I don’t want to hide it from you anymore, Dames, and you just reacted so irrationally to Lamont. You don’t understand anything, but if we’re going to make this work, I need you to get it.” 

“I’m not fucking a corpse!” Damian’s voice is rising. He doesn’t think he’s shouted in weeks, and his throat aches from it. 

The woman goes still, and says, low and horrified, “What?” 

Blade turns on him, ignoring her, and there’s blazing anger in his gaze. “It’s not about that. Don’t climb on your moral high horse, the world isn’t black and white, Damian, you’re not a child anymore, I know you know that. The things that my parents—the things that they did to each other, that they did to me, no one gave a shit, and I have to live with the consequences of that. No one did anything about it till they died, I don’t wait for some arbitrary god to delve up justice, I take it. ” 

Damian’s eyes raise. Oh. For the first time, the dilapidated state of the house makes sense to him. It’s clinging to sentimentality that Damian has never been allowed to indulge in.

The urge to laugh consumes him. His father’s parents were murdered in front of him, and he became a vigilante, and tried to stop that from happening to anyone else. Blade had the same, and instead became a killer, desperate to inflict the same pain. Even his mother did not have such pedestrian reasons for enacting murder. Hers was a higher calling. 

“This is not,” Damian starts, and he finds that he’s smiling , hysteria pulsing through him like a wave of dizziness. “That was not a divine mandate. You don’t do this for justice, if you did you wouldn’t fuck them when you were done with them. You’re not a hero, you’re a sick man who needs an outlet for his depravity .” 

Blade’s backhand is severe enough that Damian stumbles back a step, even though he saw it coming. His captor loops his fingers underneath the collar, and hauls Damian closer, his rapid heartbeat pulsing against the man’s gloved, blood-soaked fingertips. For long, wordless seconds, all Blade does is stare at him, the rage all-consuming and powerful. 

“I have done nothing but take care of you,” Blade snarls, “even when it would have been so much easier to kill you. I will make you understand this, because we’re the same , Damian. I’m going to keep you, and you can make that comfortable for yourself, or we can start on ground zero again.” His eyes drop deliberately to Damian’s leg before rising and he says, lowly, “What do you want?” 

Damian grabs his wrist with both hands, eyes locked with Blade’s. He’s on the tips of his toes to take the pressure off his throat, chin tipped back to meet his gaze. He exhales, sharp and shallow, and listens to the crunch of the woman’s kneecap replay over and over, echoes rattling around his skull. He’ll never understand Blade, just like he could never be forced into understanding Father, or becoming the perfect League prince. Damian is fickle, and unruly, and he is nothing like Blade.

Blade’s jaw spasms. “ I want you. We’ll talk about this more when I get back, when you’re feeling more cooperative. I have things I need to prepare anyway, and if you’re just going to get in the way, then you can wait.” 

Go where? 

Damian doesn’t ask. Damian doesn’t protest as he’s hauled by his collar, not the chain, back toward the stairs. The woman’s terrified sobbing follows him down. Blade throws him to the floor, ungentle, and attaches the chain back to the ceiling. His attitude and frustration is practically rolling off of him in waves. 

“I’m sorry,” Damian says, to the ground, where he’s curled up to protect himself. 

“I don’t want you to be sorry,” Blade snaps, “I want you to try.” 

He can’t do what this man wants from him. He can’t understand. He can’t watch. He can’t participate. He can’t do any of this. He’s not like that. He wants to scream . Blade goes back upstairs, and Damian hears pattering around, the woman’s muffled screaming again. She talks, and the words are indecipherable, too faint for Damian to make out, but every fresh sound makes him jolt. Someone made that noise and it wasn’t Blade. It wasn’t him. 

Eventually, Blade comes back downstairs, the woman swung over one shoulder. Her face is more bruised than it was before Damian was put down here. 

Blade is silent, even as he approaches. Damian curls his knees up to his chest, scooting until his nest ends, eyeing their advance. The woman is stiff enough that, for a beat, he thinks Blade’s killed her, but she whimpers when the man drops her into Damian’s ragged pile of blankets, twitching with pain. 

With only a cursory glance at Damian, Blade crouches and starts handcuffing the woman’s wrists together, and then, with another set, reaches for Damian’s chain and handcuffs her to one of the links along the length.

“Where are you going?” Damian whispers, refusing to look at the woman anymore, staring at Blade as he gets up, as if to leave. 

“Away,” Blade says, “watch her while I’m gone.” 

Damian says, instinct, desperate, “Please don’t leave me.”

Blade sighs, and he brushes Damian’s hair from his face. He kisses his forehead again, the way that Dick used to, and the thought of him makes Damian want to sob. “It’ll only be for a few hours.” 

Then he’s gone.

Chapter Text

Dick raises his eyebrow at Tim from the other side of the table, where he’s swirling the double espresso brown sugar macchiato. “Do you hate yourself?” 

“Immensely.” Tim is staring at their waitress, where she’s filling up some other table’s drinks, taking a round of orders. He gives a look, brief and assessing, trying to parse the meaning behind the comment no doubt, before sitting back in his seat. Relaxing his shoulders pointedly, unclenching his jaw. “When are you coming back to Gotham?”

“Does that matter?” They both wince. Dick clears his throat, and tries to think about what he’s saying before he says it. “Why?”

The cafe Tim’s chosen is sequestered in a corner of downtown Bludhaven that Dick doesn’t frequent—there’s a university crowd that it caters to, and Dick doesn’t have the budget for overpriced mochaccinos that Tim does. It’s not terribly busy at this time of day, but there’s enough chatter to drown out their conversation in case anyone gets nosy.  

Tim’s gaze drops for a moment. He’s got a packet of purple Skittles he’s been working his way through the entire conversation, an indication that it’s been at least twenty hours since he slept. His brother forces his eyes back up. “Bruce has been asking.” 

He knows. He’s been getting the texts, too. Micah had been there for the last one, and rolled his eyes and asked if he should respond with how Dick actually feels and tell him to fuck off. He’d been so angry that Bruce left him alone at the funeral, angry with Dick when he’d gone on a rant about how it was normal, and he shouldn’t have expected much else. 

Not a lot of his anger with Bruce was justified those first few weeks after the funeral, but the damage has already been done. Micah doesn’t like him, and Dick is too tired to defend him that much anymore. 

So the texts remain unanswered, checking in? 10-4? Dick if you’re angry maybe we should talk. 

Dick bites his lower lip. He's been peeling himself away from the manor like he’s separating layers of skin the last few months. Life has had to move on, as much as Dick doesn’t want it to. Damian is dead. He doesn’t want to pretend that it doesn’t hurt, and if he goes home, he needs to put effort into being happy. 

“I don’t know, I can try and swing by in a week or two,” he offers, without any real meaning behind the words. Micah wouldn’t like that. He says Dick isn’t well after he visits Gotham, and he’s right. He always comes back crying, missing Damian more keenly, remembering the loss. 

“That would be good,” Tim says, and there’s an earnest sort of exhaustion to it. 

Dick waits until he’s sitting down before asking, trying to be careful, “How are you doing?” He doesn’t feel like he really has the right to ask the question, given how much he’s been declining Tim’s calls and leaving his texts unanswered recently. 

Micah keeps turning his notifications on silent, when he comes over, and Dick just keeps forgetting to turn them on. 

Tim shrugs. The therapy has been helping. He looks better than he did a few months ago. He’s managed to put on weight, which has helped his frame lose the scattered starvation, and he’s relaxed. Bruce has said that the nightmares have been reducing.

It’s January now, and Tim still hasn’t left the manor. Dick’s not sure when he will at this point. It can be a cage like that sometimes. Jason keeps texting him to complain about them during patrols, so Dick thinks that they’re doing okay. He only talks to Jason because Jason won’t force him to talk back, and Micah doesn’t have huge opinions on him yet. He doesn’t have to hear about how horrible Jason is when he brings him up, and how he’s bad for Dick. Micah likes Jason, he’s met him a few times now, they got coffee together a few weeks ago. 

Any time that Dick thinks about going home to even patrol, the absence of Damian still lingers like a gaping wound. 

“Cass has been helping me with this new Riddler case,” Tim says, idly. “Nygma planted deposits of silver iodide in giant aerosol canisters—do you remember Harvey’s plot last summer, with the acid rain? Yeah, he did that basically. Except without the acid.”

Dick’s nose wrinkles. “What’s the riddle in that?” 

Tim’s expression goes flat. Exhausted, but annoyed down to skin cells. “‘These are the color of bells, in a famous Christmas song, it’s said clouds have this lining, even when something is wrong.’”

Oh good. So the creativity has been booming. “Do you ever wonder about whether or not he just needs like a Sudoku or something?” 

“All the time.” Tim plops another Skittle into his mouth. Humouring him. 

“Like the thing is, though,” Dick continues, he’s really getting on this now, “I’d say he was running out of material because it’s been more than a decade, but he’s never had any, so like what’s his excuse at this point?” 

“How are you doing?” Tim asks pointedly, cutting through Dick’s careful avoidance tactics. He’s no fun like that. 

“Right as rain,” Dick says. “Get it, because of the clouds.”

Tim says, eyebrow lifting. “Dick.” 

Micah caught him sobbing in the shower this morning and had to drag him out so he wouldn’t drown himself pathetically on the floor of the tub and had to dress him and clean him up to send him on his way, for all his insistence that it would be better if Dick just stayed home, if talking to him is freaking you out this much, maybe you shouldn’t go. “Yeah, y’know, it’s okay.” 

Tim swirls his coffee more. “Yeah. I guess.” 

There’s silence. More of it. That’s all that Dick’s been getting from his family recently. Tim looks back up at him, and says again, stiffly, “You should come home. You haven’t been since the funeral. We miss you.”

Dick does too. More than he expected to. He misses Tim, and Cass, and butting heads with Jason and Bruce. He misses Gotham. Micah says that’s a symptom of a bigger problem. A codependency Dick has let fester. Dick knows that Micah doesn’t understand his family, could never understand his family. It’s easier to just let him think what he does about the Waynes.

“I’ll think about it.” Dick says. As much as he misses it, he can’t go back to that place. The memories of Damian haunt him there, and Dick is so exhausted with fighting them. He gets enough of that at home with his wall of crazy. 

He looks down as his phone starts to buzz Micah (Personal) and he frowns. “Um. Sorry, I’ve gotta take this.” He puts the phone up to his ear, and asks, “Babe?” as he starts to half get up to his feet, unsure if he should try for more privacy. Micah knows where he is, he wouldn’t interrupt this unless it was something important. 

“Just checking in,” Micah says, with faux-lightness. Even over the phone, Dick can hear a thread of something strained in his voice. 

Tim is giving Dick a look, over his coffee, slightly judgemental. He puts another Skittle in his mouth, crunching it between his teeth like he’s making some sort of point. 

“All good,” Dick paces a few steps away from the table. “Everything okay?”

“You sound upset,” Micah says. Dick thinks he can hear him in the kitchen, but they ate breakfast together, and it’s too early for lunch. “Did Tim say something again?” 

“No one said anything,” Dick chews on the inside of his cheek, and tries not to feel irritated at the hovering. Micah just cares about him, he’s protective. “I’m not upset.”

Micah’s silence is lingering and pointed. Dick shakes his head, “It’s not about him, I was just thinking about Damian. You caught me at a weird moment, but it’s fine, and we’re good. It’s good to see him.” 

“Dickie,” his boyfriend sighs, “I really don’t like this. I think you should just come home.” 

“Seriously, Micah?” He’s been here fifteen minutes. They just got their coffee.

“It’s a long drive back,” Micah says. “They always upset you. I don’t know why you keep putting yourself in this position. I’m not trying to be controlling, I’m just looking out for you. You can’t take care of yourself right now. You’re still a little fragile, and you’re allowed to be, okay? So why don’t you let me help?”

Dick presses his hands over one eye, digging the knuckle in. You’re upsetting me right now. He bites the inside of his cheek. “Okay. Um. Maybe in fifteen, okay? I love you, I’ll talk to you in a minute.” 

Micah’s disapproval is audible as he says, “Love you too.” 

Dick returns to the table, and he tries to talk to Tim like a normal person, because he’s a normal older brother, who can talk about anything but their dead brother’s murderer to people, but Micah won’t stop texting him. He doesn’t know if he makes it five minutes before he looks up and grimaces, “I’ve gotta go.”

“You just got here,” Tim says eyebrows rising. 

“Yeah. I know.” Dick agrees, but he’s going to start crying again if he stays here, and it’ll only piss Micah off if he comes back to the apartment in tears. “Sorry. I’ll catch you later, okay?”

“Okay,” Tim says, and he sounds hurt. His eyes are avoiding Dick’s as he gives him a joking two-fingered salute. “I’ll see you soon?” 

No, Dick thinks, miserable, you probably won’t. 

He texts Micah otw home <3 and tries not to be stung by the oh thank god that he gets in response.

Micah’s apartment is just outside of downtown Blud. He lives on the fourth floor, which Dick finds a lot funnier than he should, as both of them trudge up the stairs—elevator’s broken, naturally—and try to keep the mood going. Micah laughs when Dick pulls him into a kiss on the landing, and Dick feels like a small teenager full of horny as he chases his boyfriend’s mouth up the stairs. 

Micah has a thing of box wine in the hand not wrapped around Dick’s shoulder. Vella Red, that’ll probably make Dick puke faster than it gets him drunk, but he doesn’t plan on overindulging tonight. He presses himself as close into his boyfriend as he can get, ears red with the cold. Late January has brought with it several blizzards. Temperatures haven’t dipped above freezing for two weeks now, and the heat in Dick’s apartment broke yesterday. He’d barely even mentioned it before Micah was inviting him to stay over.

He’s been around Micah’s apartment, picked him up for work a few times, walked him to his door, but the inside is a mystery to him. It makes him ridiculously excited. One more way Micah is making Dick a part of his life. 

Micah rented a Redbox movie they won’t watch, and they have plans to do absolutely nothing productive tonight. It’s the first time in weeks that their days off have aligned, and Dick is very intent on making the most of it. 

“You have to,” Micah is still laughing, as he elbows Dick’s hands away from his stomach when they get to his door. “Let me get my keys.”  

Dick pouts, and Micah kisses him, but withdraws his keys and twists the lock. Dick pushes him into the apartment, pulling the door closed behind him with his foot. Micah turns on the light, and Dick pulls back from him enough to take in the space. 

It’s smaller than he’d been expecting. Small enough that it’s less homey and more cramped. The kitchen and the living room are joined together, and he can see the door to the bedroom from here. Dick decides he likes it anyway, because it’s Micah’s, and anything that belongs to Micah is perfect. 

“No alarm?”

Micah pulls back for long enough to set down the box wine. Puts his hands on Dick’s waist and crowds him up against the wall in the entryway. He ducks his head, kissing Dick again, more thoroughly, his nose bumping against Dick’s cheek. He smirks against Dick’s lips, looking at him from beneath his lashes. “You’re too paranoid. You should relax. Not everyone’s out to get you.”

“We live in Bludhaven,” Dick says, exasperated, but gasps when Micah slides his grip a little lower, thumb pressing against the dip of his hip.

“Which is,” Micah’s breath is hot in his face, “still statistically safer than Gotham by like one percent.” 

“One percent save me,” Dick snickers, tipping his head back and biting on his tongue when Micah presses soft kisses down his throat. Then he stops thinking at all as Micah’s hands carefully slip beneath his shirt. 

The wine won’t even open. Dick laughs at him when the cap stays firmly lodged in place like it intends to die there when they’re finished, and dripping wet from the shower. Micah has to go into the kitchen to grab a knife.  

He busies himself with the rental while the man is gone, popping the disk loader-thingy of his shitty CD player. His television is old enough to have been young when Bruce was a kid, but it plays well enough. Micah picked out an action movie Dick has never heard of and had a direct to video release. He doesn’t expect it to be any good. 

The knife that Micah comes back with is far larger than the wine bottle deserves. Dick sputters at the size, dipping his head back along the armrest of the couch. “Oh my god, where did you get that,” he says, “do you just have machetes in your cabinets? Why do you own that?” 

Micah stares down at the hunting knife, and he flushes. “Bludhaven,” he reminds Dick, and jabs the blade into the cork to wrestle it out. He holds it with a skill that surprises him faintly, and Dick files it away despite himself. Huh. He remembers Micah said he grew up pretty isolated before his aunt took him in, maybe he was killing wild animals before he was three or four to survive. 

The wine spills all over Micah and the floor when he does get it open. 

“Hopeless, helpless, pathetic,” Dick decides, and gets up to kiss him. “Where’s your towels?” 

“Bold words to say to someone holding a knife,” Micah brandishes it, then uses the tip to point at the hallway closet. He sets it aside to heft the wine, drinking directly from the box. Dick grimaces at him.

He goes to the closet and pulls it open, digging around for a towel that looks the least loved. He knows from personal experience how much wine stains can be a bitch. On the bottom shelf, underneath the most ragged looking towels, Dick finds more weapons. For all the shit he gave Dick about being paranoid. 

Dick rolls his eyes, grabbing up a towel with a particularly vicious slice through the center, and hesitates for a second. Something about one of the knives is familiar to him. He picks it up, testing the weight, and frowns slightly. Isn’t this the same type of knife that was left behind at Edward Lamont’s apartment? 

“Baby?” Micah has come up behind him. Dick nearly startles out of his skin, turning sharply to look back. “Hey, you get lost, or…oh.” 

Dick holds the blade. He doesn’t drop it. Part of him is tempted to pretend that nothing happened, and set the knife down and laugh, but something cold and horrible has seized in his chest. This make and model of knife was the last thing that Damian saw. 

It’s been three months. The thought of his brother shouldn’t send a paralyzing cocktail of grief and helplessness and anger down him anymore. There’s nothing he can do to fix what happened, only try to make the aftermath better. 

The Executioner has taken another victim since Damian went missing, but nothing came of it. It was a serial child rapist. His body never reappeared. 

The only thing left behind was a knife like this one. 

Micah’s gaze is suddenly wary, but pained. He squats down next to him, and sets his hand on Dick’s. “Hey, can you tell me what you’re thinking?” 

“I just,” Dick looks back at the weapons. He sucks in a breath. Exhales it. “Damian.” 

Micah’s expression crumples. “I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t think,” he takes the weapon from Dick’s limp hands and sets it back on the shelf. He covers it with the towels, and pulls Dick up and into an embrace. 

“Why do you have those?”

The Executioner uses weapons exactly like that, Micah, Dick wants to say, and doesn’t. After all the time that Micah has spent chasing after this man, how can he want anything to do with him in his apartment? Dick can barely stand to look at his wall of crazy some days. 

Micah is quiet for a second. When he pulls back, he cups Dick’s face gently, “My parents died in front of me when I was seven, Dick. I know…I know you know that, because everyone thinks I’m crazy at the BPD, but I can’t…” he trails off, “It helps me feel better, to know I can defend myself. I used to sleep with knives until I was seventeen, so next time I’d be ready. This is…it’s old habits.” 

Dick’s shoulders hunch. He rests his cheek on Micah’s. He knew that Micah’s parents died. Had looked him up, when they first started working together in the BPD, and Detective Gonzalez had sneered behind his back, calling him a creepy mother fucker. Micah told him the story after the first time they had sex, tracing the scars on Dick’s back as they laid together. Dick had offered him his usual cover story for the older wounds—a rough and tumble life in the circus, a juvenile delinquent childhood. He’d let Micah attribute some to Bruce, just hadn’t corrected the assumption he made, and so Micah told him about his father. 

Hirum Jorgenson was an angry man. The classically angry kind, perpetually drunk and beating on his wife Sophie, pushed her to the edge, separated her from her friends and family until she was a shell of herself. Micah told Dick about how she cracked year after year, the times when she would break every dish in the house just to feel an ounce of control, scream until her voice was the only thing in his ringing ears. The night his parents died, she crawled into bed with Micah and held a knife against his throat, and promised he’d be happier in Heaven with the angels. His father hauled her off of him just in time, but neither of them survived the ensuing struggle. 

The one who had found Micah curled between his parents decaying corpses, after that week, was his priest. Not his family, not his friends, not anyone, because Micah didn’t have anyone, the same way that Dick didn’t after his parents fell to their deaths. Not until Bruce had stepped in. 

Micah, Dick thinks, has always been shifting from one form of alone to another. 

This is just more proof of that. 

It makes Dick sick to his stomach, and unbearably sad. He leans up to kiss Micah, soft and slow, unlike the hungry desperation of earlier. He holds Micah’s face. “I understand,” he promises.

Micah smiles against his cheek. “Maybe I should just invest in another gun. I’m sorry you had to see that, baby.” 

“It’s just knives,” Dick shakes his head, “I have knives.”

Damain had knives. Dick knows he had one on his person the day he went missing. They never found that. Maybe the Executioner has it, still. Kept it like a trophy, or buried Damian with it, wherever his corpse went. 

Micah kisses him again, squeezing him, all but holding Dick up. When he pulls Dick back into his bed, and serves him the shitty box wine in a chipped coffee mug, Dick resolves to forget about it.

There isn’t a point making a big deal out of nothing. Everyone has knives. 

Jason is the first person that finds the wall of crazy. Dick hadn’t been thinking about it when he’d finally given into his harassment, and agreed to lunch. Dick goes to grab his shoes so they can get this over with and he can go back to work, and when he comes back, Jason is staring at it, mouth parted slightly, eyebrow raised. 

Dick doesn’t have it in him to argue. He just lifts up his finger to snap, “I don’t want to hear it, Jay.” 

Jason picks off a piece of paper, ruining the arrangement, and Dick bites his tongue to stop himself from snapping, “I wasn’t going to say anything. Trust me, you’ve got nothing on Tim right now. You’d think stay out of the Alley would stop him from killing himself, but he’s creative. I think he’s eaten all the Skittles in the country.” 

Dick winces. He hasn’t heard much since Bruce’s last attempt to stop Tim from throwing himself at every Crime Alley thug in the general vicinity of Lamont’s old place. As far as he knows, the mutual therapy ultimatum has only worked so well. 

“Are you having any luck?” Jason asks. 

“No,” Dick admits, instead of the much meaner you’d have heard by now if I did, “I thought I had something, with the rentals, but…” 

“Yeah. Babs mentioned.” 

Dick blinks at Jason a little, startled, and feels guilty a moment later. He shouldn’t be so surprised that Jason is talking to their family, that’s awful. But since his return, Jason has spent most of his time avoiding them, and now it seems like everywhere he turns when he bothers to poke his head into the Waynes, Jason is there or has talked to someone. 

If Dick has been coping with this by exiling himself, Jason has thrown himself into the family like it’s his personal mission to fix everything. When Dick last saw Jason a few weeks ago, Bruce had called him, and Jason picked up. Dick thinks it’s bitterly funny. He used to think of himself as a bit like glue, but it’s always been Jason. The memory of him worked just as well until the living version came along. 

“It’s just collecting dust now,” Dick says, jamming on one of his shoes. “I don’t have any new leads ‘till the Executioner takes another body.” 

Or finally drops one of the ones he has. Commissioner Sawyer is still adamant that he stay off the case, but Micah gives him anything they find anyway, and nothing can stop Nightwing from working it. He doesn’t like the waiting, but it’s not like he has anything better to do with his time. 

There are other cases in Bludhaven. In Gotham. Other murderers being caught, and nothing will bring Damian back, so Dick tries not to feel bad that he hasn’t been focusing on the Executioner as much lately.

“I did want to talk to you about this a little,” Jason admits, and gestures at the wall. He withdraws his phone. “At Dami’s funeral, Ramirez was taking photos. I didn’t find anything useful, but I dunno, maybe you’ll spot something I didn’t?” 

“The PD was also taking photos,” Dick points out, but he steps in beside Jason anyway, looking over his shoulder at the camera roll. He thinks Barbara was set to look those over, with Cass’s help. She flagged six people she described as being suspicious, but that lead nowhere except independent bloggers and a few parasocial freaks with crushes on the Wayne family.  

“Yeah, I know,” Jason shrugs. “I gave Avery a lot of shit for it, but I think he wants to find the Executioner just as much as we do, though.” 

“What, he kill Rameriz’s brother, too?” Dick grumbles, flipping to the next photo. More people in black. He sees Micah, with his own phone out, taking a few photos. 

“...Yeah. He did.” Jason says, quieter. Dick stops, and looks up at him. Jason licks his lower lip. “We talked a while ago. He’s pretty fucking sure that the Executioner's first vic was his brother. I tried to follow it backward, but…it wasn’t helpful.” 

As usual.  

Dick shifts forward, eyes widening. They pegged the Executioner’s first kill as some pimp the Basin, it was clean, very clean, and it had the characteristic taunts left behind on the early bodies. They’d thought it was weird, that his first kill was pulled off so seamlessly, but if it wasn’t his first kill…

“What was his name?” Dick asks, pulling out his own phone. He tosses Jason’s back, forcing the man to fumble to catch it. Dick crosses his apartment, picking up his laptop off the counter and pulling it open. Toes off his shoes while he’s at it, kicking them into the corner. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Jason’s eye twitches, and he says, slowly. “You haven’t exactly made it easy to get in contact with you.” 

Dick’s mouth sets. It’s pointed, and it’s fair, but it still stings. He doesn’t apologize. “Name?”

“Miguel. Ramirez.” Something about it is familiar to him. Jason gets closer, leaning over the edge of the counter to look at the screen. “Aves said that he was a piece of shit, but he basically raised him. It’s complicated, I think. He died about three years ago. They uh, did find his body. It wasn’t pretty.”

“Did the Executioner…?” 

“Yeah. Fucked him nasty. They think he was alive for some of it.” Jason explains. He drops his eyes, while Dick pulls up the BPD’s database. His voice is quieter when he asks, tapping a slow, nervous pattern on the granite surface, “Do you ever feel relieved we didn’t find Damian’s?” 

Even if Dick thought he could stomach knowing what the Executioner did to it, he’d hate to think of what Talia would do. There are days he resents knowing that they’ll never get him back in that way, but Dick doesn’t know if it’d change anything; to have a body to put in the ground.

Sometimes he has nightmares of finding Damian, months or years later, when there’s only mangled flesh and bones left. He’s glad that the last time he saw his brother, Damian was healthy and round-cheeked and whole, and he doesn’t want to ruin that memory.

Dick says nothing to Jason. He looks up Miguel Ramirez, and finds him almost immediately. The odd familiarity of the name abruptly makes sense. He knows this man. 

“We booked him for disturbance of the peace,” Dick says, stunned. Jason’s mouth is set in a thin line. 

“Yeah, I know,” Jason agrees. 

Dick looks up at him, then looks up at him again. “Bruce sent you here to talk to me. This wasn’t about the photos.” 

Jason grimaces. He’s not nearly as good of a liar as Tim is. He rests a hand on Dick’s arm, fingers tentative and unsure, “The arresting officer was your boyfriend.” 

“Yeah,” Dick says, because he fucking remembers. Micah had just been promoted to detective, he wasn’t even supposed to be on patrol. He’d been investigating a call to social services placed by the Bludhaven public hospital, a Raiysa Winslow had been assaulted violently, had implicated her boyfriend to the nurse who was treating her. Micah had asked Dick to go with him, in case Ramirez got out of hand, and Dick had been there when Winslow opened the door. Saw the fresh bruises on her face, and heard her voice shake as she swore over and over that there had been a mistake, and no, it wasn’t her boyfriend who hit her, everything was fine.

Micah was furious, Dick was too, but he mostly remembers the seething anger on the other man’s face. How he’d goaded Ramirez into a screaming fit just to have an excuse to take him down to the station. They bought Winslow one night of peace, knowing with certainty that Ramirez would go right back to beating on her when he got out.

“What are you saying?” Dick pulls back from Jason. Tries to make sense of this, and not think and not feel and not think. “Micah was there, so was I. Do you want more details on the murder or—” 

“Dick,” Jason’s voice is very quiet. 

“No.” 

Jason sets his phone down on the table, with the picture of Micah. One that Dick hadn’t even thought twice about. “Why was he taking photos at our brother’s funeral? He wasn’t assigned to the task force. He was involved in the Executioner’s first killing, he knew the victim—” 

“He’s leading the investigation in the BPD,” Dick snaps. 

Jason rubs at his face, shaking his head. Dick thinks he hears him mutter fuck me before he looks up. “Did you know he’s been in a psych ward? He tried to kill someone. He’s got a list of mental issues longer than mine. He’s got a juvie record. I know that…look, there’s just a lot of circumstantial shit and Bruce thinks—” 

“Bruce!?” Dick explodes. He didn’t realize how tight his fingers were getting on his computer until releasing it makes his hands ache. “All of you are in on this? Are you kidding me? What? I won’t come home, and now you’ve started a conspiracy that the one good thing I have in my life right now that’s stopped me from killing myself must be a serial killer?” 

“That’s not what this is.” Jason’s face has shut down. “Avery said—”

“Avery is a fucking criminal and so are you!” Dick snaps, “This is thin and you know it, Jason. You’re just grasping at straws because you don’t want to be responsible for our brother dying.” 

Jason flinches. When he speaks, it’s without volume. “I was the only one who noticed he was missing for eleven hours. Don’t pull that shit on me. I tried to find him.”  

“You want to talk about pulling shit?” Dick slams his laptop shut, turning on Jason. “You pulled psych records on my boyfriend? Was that before or after your druggie tag-along accused his arresting officer of killing his brother?”

There. The flicker of guilt in Jason’s eyes. Dick knew Bruce would cross boundaries if he copped to dating Micah, he didn’t think it would be illegally accessing medical history. Fuck’s sake.

“I…” Jason trails. “I don’t know.” 

“Don’t you think,” Dick starts for the killing blow, “that it would be pretty fucked of Micah to date me after killing my brother? Does he strike you as that type of person? You’ve met him.” 

“I’m not saying he’s the Executioner,” Jason says, even though he was, very much, implying that, “I’m just saying that there’s some stuff that doesn’t add up. You need to watch your back.” 

“Yeah, whatever. Fuck you. Get out.” Dick slams his laptop lid shut. “And tell Bruce to stay the fuck away from me.”

“Dick,” Jason tries, but Dick stalks past him and slams the door to his bedroom. He throws his laptop on his bed and tries not to fume openly as he stalks toward the bathroom and flips on the shower. Jason will leave when he hears the water turn on, he knows that.

He just doesn’t know how to guarantee that Jason won’t come back. 

He turns up the water as hot as it will go, stands under it, unmoving and unthinking, until it runs cold again, and the shock steals his breath and plummets his stomach. Forces him to get out of the tub, shivering. 

He needs to call Micah. Maybe just to hear his voice. He needs to just… think for a minute.

His boyfriend isn’t the Executioner. But if Miguel Ramirez was his first victim, then that means Dick is responsible for everyone who followed after. Dick had gone back to Winslow’s apartment that night, not as Officer Grayson, but as Nightwing, and he’d walked in on the end of that fight. The blood smeared everywhere, the mess of broken furniture and glass. Raiysa had been crying. 

Dick remembers her more than anything else. He’d gone to comfort her, and only then seen the figure hauling a body out the back door. Miguel’s body. The man who killed Miguel had looked back at Dick, and there had been a tense second where he’d paused in the doorway, with the blood dripping from his hands, but Dick hadn’t moved. Hadn’t stopped the killer.

He was glad that someone had killed Miguel. 

He’d thought it was Raiysa’s brothers, or even Miguel’s. He hadn’t thought…

Dick had done nothing. He’d picked up Raiysa in his arms, careful of the bruises Miguel left her with, and turned his back on the figure in the darkness. If that had been the Executioner, at the beginning of his killing streak, and Nightwing had all but given him a nod of approval for it, then everything that’s come after, that’s on Dick. 

He sucks in breath after breath in the shower, and no matter how deeply he tries, he can’t breathe. 

The woman is quiet for a long time. Her sobs dry out eventually, and she lays down in the blankets. Damian stares back at her, arms wrapped around his legs, and tries to pretend that he’s somewhere else.

It takes a while before she speaks, but when she does, her voice is calmer than he expected. Her hyperventilation has worn out, leaving only groggy pain in its place. “My name is Rachel. What’s yours?” 

He didn’t think he’d ever have anyone but Blade and himself down here, in his nest. Even when he fantasized about father rescuing him, about his brothers and sister storming into the house and felling Blade, he was always upstairs. Able to walk to them, unchained, falling into their embrace. He never wanted anyone to see him, to see his nest of blankets and odd things, the spread of his sketchbook pages still incomplete. 

She lies on one of his own pillows, tears drying into a stain on the fabric, blinking at him with one eye, the other swollen shut from Blade’s machinations. There’s a cut on her temple bleeding into her hairline, and he can hear the rattle of her breathing through a deviated septum.

“Damian,” he answers. 

“Hi, Damian,” she says, softer. “How old are you, sweetheart?” 

It’s the same placating words, same terms of endearment that Dick and Father use when he’s upset. When they’re working with terrified victims. It makes him feel small and breakable, like everything else in this basement does. “I just turned fourteen.” 

Just may, perhaps, be an over exaggeration. 

Her eyebrows raise some with surprise. She’d clearly been expecting a lower number. Damian wonders how small he must be to her eyes. “Oh,” she says, “that’s…how long have you been down here, honey? Is that…is he…” she fumbles, then manages to catch herself. “Is he your dad?” 

“No,” Damian says, and tells himself it only tastes like a lie because he can’t quantify what Blade is. He knows what he should be, that he should hate the man who’s kept him in this basement, that he should want death for him as fervently as Blade wants it for this woman. But he can’t. “I don’t know.”

She blinks at him, again. Her pupil is oddly constricted for the low light. He wonders if she’s concussed. Or high.

“That looks like it hurts,” she whispers, and her arm lifts. Her hands are dainty, knobby at the knuckles, the nails thin and cracked. Some of them are missing. He flinches before she can touch him, the cheek where Blade hit him. Out of the two of them, Damian is not the one worse for wear. 

He’s done worse. Damian says, “It doesn’t bother me.” 

“That’s really brave of you.” Rachel pushes a hand against the ground, trying to shuffle closer, but her leg impedes her. She moans with the pain, and Damian empathizes. He remembers a time when even the passive motion of breathing made his leg throb with electric agony. “How long have you been here?” 

“I said I don’t know,” Damian says, trying not to be frustrated. “The last date he told me was in December.” 

Rachel’s expression grows horrified. Then pitiful. “It’s March third,” she says, sucks her lips against her teeth. 

Damian stares at her. Stares. Stares more. 

October.

November.

December.

January.

February.

March.

He’s been here for four complete months, the end and beginning of two. This is the beginning of the fifth. Cass’ birthday was two months ago. Dick’s is in two weeks. He missed most of the school year. He’s been here for a lifetime. The touching edge of half a year. 

“Oh,” he says, and feels tears spring to his eyes. He tries to blink them back, feels his sinuses grow painful as he swallows.

“Sweetie.” There’s something maternal about the way she says it, inching closer again, even though it pains her. Damian wishes she wouldn’t. He misses his own mother too much for it to do anything but hurt. Talia wouldn’t sweetie him. Talia would fix it. Damian wouldn’t be here if <other knew where he was, Damian wouldn’t be hurt.

“I’ve been here for six months,” Damian says. He looks up at her. “The last body he let me see was here for only a week. Do not get your hopes up.” 

Rachel redirects immediately. “Did you draw that?” she gestures with her chin toward the sketchbook left open. The charcoal pencil has started to get stubby and inconvenient. He’ll need to get a fresh one soon. He’s been trying to draw his family, but he can’t get their faces right anymore. He doesn’t remember what they look like in distinct angles, and the photographs that Blade gave him on his birthday has done nothing to help him. 

Blade is the only one he gets right. 

Damian doesn’t bother to respond. He should think that the answer is rather obvious. It’s not like there’s anyone else in this room to be drawing. 

“Is that what you want to be when you grow up?” she prompts, a voice she’d use for toddlers. He wonders if fourteen really means five to her, or if he seems that regressed in this basement. “An artist?”

“I wish to be alive.” 

She falters. “...Yeah. Me too.” 

Damian wonders how old she is. She doesn’t look much older than Dick. Maybe her late twenties or early thirties. What did she do to end up on the Executioner's radar? The most she looks capable of is stealing an extra helping from a soup kitchen. 

“I used to,” she blows out a breath, shifts again, like she can’t get comfortable. Damian doesn’t tell her it’s a useless endeavor. There’s no comfort to be found here. “I wanted to be a singer. My dad used to take me to shows, Garth Brooks and such. And he’d put me on his shoulders, so I could see the band. And that’s all I wanted, was to be like them.”

Damian’s stomach curls with pity. “You did not.”

“No,” her face gets tight. “It didn’t work out like that.” 

What did it work out as then? 

She takes in a breath. “Are your parents looking for you? I don’t…there’s no one to notice, if I’m gone. They won’t,” she looks like she’s about to cry, ugly, horrific sobs, that Damian is dreading. “My ex hates me. He’ll be glad I’m gone.” 

“My parents think I’m dead,” Damian says, “Blade showed me pictures from the funeral.” 

The woman goes still. She looks at him for long seconds, mouth moving, then she has to look away before she manages words. “He showed you pictures of your funeral? What kind of fucked up—” she stops. “I mean.” She seems to remember where they are. “That’s fucking shit, oh my god.”  

If she survives, it’s doubtful that her knee will ever be repaired enough for her to walk unaided again. But yes, the funeral photos were excessively morbid. Damian, for the first time in a while, feels a flicker of familiar irritation for civilians. Never focusing on the right things. Telling fairy tales about growing up and becoming a singer instead of acknowledging their fate.

Damian brushes hair from his face. “Why are you here? The Executioner only goes after those he considers depraved.” 

Rachel’s eyes darken. She wraps her arms around her stomach, and tilts her face back up to stare at the ceiling. “We were starving,” she says, simply. “I thought it was mercy.” 

“What was?” 

“My kids,” she says, “Jemma and the baby. We were starving. They were dying.” She’s quiet for a long time, but Damian has learned the value of silence from Father in interrogations, and she talks again eventually, “A week after I had my baby, I smothered both of them. They were going to die anyway.” 

Like drowned kittens in an overburdened litter. It’s something the small outcroppings of villages regularly practiced when tending their livestock. A culling of the runty and weak to preserve resources. 

But children are not livestock. They are not kittens, and death is not mercy.

Damian draws away from her. Children can be left in hospitals. They can be left at the doorsteps of fire departments. In those first weeks after Bruce went missing, Dick threatened him with it, to just tie him up and drop him off in front of the first fire truck he spotted, let him be someone else’s problem. It was just a joke, strained and trying so hard for levity it wasn’t funny at all. It happens to kids. Not him, barely, but to others.  

“I was just,” she’s grasping. Trying to sway him, but he can’t look at her anymore. “I was sick, and in so much pain, and the baby. I couldn’t even produce milk, I couldn’t feed them.”

And so they had to die. Damian closes his eyes and imagines his own mother, at her most frustrated, at her most infuriated by him. His mother would never have killed him in such a permanent manner. She had contingencies. Abandoned him in an unfamiliar country with a father he barely knew, yes, but she ensured his safety. 

“I didn’t know what I was doing. If I could take it back, oh, I would—I, as soon as I did it, I regretted it.”

“Then why did you do it to the second child?” Damian can’t stop himself from asking. 

“I…” Rachel falters. She’s crying again. “I don’t know. My ex husband took me to court for murder, but I was acquitted for temporary insanity and I just... the hormones…”  

“Did you love them?” Damian asks, and he doesn’t know why he does. Doesn’t know if it matters. But he’s imagining a little girl with Rachel’s buggy eyes and a swaddle of blankets, limp like Lamont was when Blade raped him. And he can’t help but notice that Rachel said she’d take it back, and not take them back. 

Rachel says, after a long hesitation, “Not as much as I should have.” 

Then it must have been easy, after the first child was dead, to do it to the second. Damian wonders if she was sad they were starving, or she was angry they wanted her to fix it. The cold detachment of responsibility over the unconditional warmth of love. 

“I was going to be a singer,” she says, miserable. “I never wanted this.”

Dick would be disgusted with her. He would shout at her about responsibilities and care and other options. He wouldn’t be able to just sit here. Jason would look at her with pity and understanding. Timothy and Cass wouldn’t have expected her to care about her children to begin with. 

Damian.

Damian doesn’t know what he thinks. Blade wouldn’t—

Blade would never let him starve. He wouldn’t smother him with a pillow. He’s done everything in his capacity to keep Damian alive for the last six months, like it was not only a responsibility he had to shoulder, but one that he wanted. He told Damian he wanted him. 

Rachel didn’t want. God, how Blade must hate her. 

“I know I messed up.” Rachel says, and Damian wishes she wouldn’t. He doesn’t want to talk to her anymore. Doesn’t want to hear the explanation she has for it. His stomach is turning, and he wishes Blade had chained her up somewhere else, somewhere away from him. “God, I know that.”

“They were just infants,” Damian whispers. He doesn’t know how not to condemn her.

“Hardly had a life to begin with,” Rachel says, blurts, “it was over before it could mean something.” 

It meant something to her ex-husband. If she didn’t want the children, she should have gotten an abortion if that was presented to her. She should have given them to someone else. Let her husband take them. She can’t just kill children because she didn’t want to deal with them anymore. 

Their lives had meaning, and would have had more, if she hadn’t taken away that opportunity from them. Taken them from their father. 

“Damian,” Rachel tries, “Sweetie.”

“Don’t touch me.” He doesn’t mean to snap at her. Recoils violently anyway, shifting as far away as the chain will let him. He wishes, vindictively, that Blade had just killed her instead of subjecting him to her. That she could be another on his endless tally, and Damian would never have to know.

“I didn’t mean to…” Rachel exhales, shuddery. She says again, “I wanted to be a singer.” 

Chapter Text

The apartment shows signs of a struggle, but not death. 

The ERT’s have already combed through it—Dick is right on their heels, watching them take pictures and scrape evidence off the ransacked home. Belonging to one Rachel Kurn, twenty-four. She’s a barista at the coffee place across the street, and works part time at a bar downtown to make end’s meet. Every single one of her coworkers, neighbors, hell the fucking landlord , made it clear they knew exactly who’d killed her. Apparently she ended things on bad terms with her ex-husband.

Dick had already sent a few guys to take him in for questioning. There’s something about this that chews on him. The apartment is in bad condition, even without the clear attack that took place here. There’s mold, and water damage in the ceiling. There are piles of dirty laundry, stacks of horded DVDs and trashbags. On top of that, half of the furniture trashed, like Rachel fought . 

The window is broken, her attacker crawled through it to gain entry. There’s blood, but not lots of it, all of it belonging to Rachel. She was a small woman, and her husband was not a small man. There’s violence writ into every bit of destruction—Rachel was slammed around this apartment, and when her attacker eventually dragged her out the front door, she clawed and fought for him to let her go. They find her nails in the grooves of the floorboards, pulled off.

It’s another bastard who put his partner in the grave for nothing . This won’t take long. Dick hates how much he wishes that it would. He wants something to actually chew on, and take his mind off of what Jason told him a few days ago.

He hasn’t answered any of their calls. Ignored Tim’s texts. He doesn’t want anything to do with them right now until they get their heads out of their asses. 

Gonzalez approaches him as the last of the evidence is being bagged. Dick hasn’t seen much of him since after Damian’s funeral, except passing him in the hall. His wrath at Dick’s continued existence has mellowed out to something resigned. Everyone looks at Dick differently now.

He’s the one they keep waiting to go defective and rogue. He wonders if this is how Tim felt, a little, after Bruce went missing.  

“Haven’t seen you in a while, Grayson,” Gonzalez says, and he sounds, slightly, like he’s disappointed to have broken that streak. Dick can’t say he feels any differently. Not only because of how the man treats Micah. 

Gonzalez is a professional, consummately, but he’s never liked Dick. He has a case file already open, no doubt with Rachel’s demographics. He’s been here longer than Dick has. 

“Been on leave.” Because of you. Dick puts his hands in his pockets, staring at Rachel’s refrigerator. There’s a calendar there, her work schedule marked off. And alphabet letters, for some reason. Tickets to a concert for a band Dick doesn’t recognize, at a venue in New York. 

Gonzalez does not say, sorry for your loss, because he was part of the team of detectives that talked to their family after Damian’s death to convince them to make the funeral public. He’d been there, taking photos. 

“Sawyer normally assigns Jorgenson to you,” Gonzalez says, “did he quit? He’s barely been at the station the last few months.” 

Yeah. Dick has noticed. When he’d asked Micah why he’d suddenly been burning through his PTO when he’d barely touched it before, his boyfriend had smiled and flushed a little. He’d admitted that he was trying to work on his parents house, fix it up to sell it, so that he’d have extra money for when they moved in together.

When. 

Not if. 

Dick had felt sick to his stomach for days about it, in a way that was wanting instead of dread, for the first time in a while. He hadn’t been able to tell anyone, because his entire family doesn’t want to hear about Micah. They never have, and that was weeks ago. Now, he knows, it would just get him looks .

“He’s busy,” Dick says, shrugging. He tries not to get outwardly hostile. “Sawyer can’t pair us together anymore, there’s a conflict of interest.” 

Gonzalez’s head snaps up from the paper. His eyes get big, but not surprised. “You are fucking him?” 

Dick flushes. He resists the urge to walk away from the man. He doesn’t need Gonzelez’s approval, it’s not his fucking business who Dick dates or doesn’t. Whatever issues he has with Micah, they’re petty and prejudiced. 

Dick’s not stupid. Micah had told Dick about his past, he’d looked into the man when they first met. His juvenile record had been sealed, not only because they were crimes committed when he was fourteen , but also because, understandably, Micah hadn’t been in his right mind. 

Things had been hard for Micah when he was younger, the same way they’d been for Dick. He did plenty of shit when he was fourteen, too. Michah’s aunt had him committed to the psych ward because she couldn’t handle him, not because he needed it. The same way that Bruce had pulled him off of Robin and kicked him out for failing once . 

Jason, Bruce, they’re seeing what they want to. A confirmation bias. Not even Batman is above it, apparently. Micah had an alibi for at least half of the abductions. Hell, the night Lamont was killed and taken, he was with Dick . 

“What do you know about Rachel?” Dick asks, forcing himself to focus on the conversation, and the open-and-shut case they just need to slap closed. 

Gonzalez raises an eyebrow, lip twitching in a repressed sneer. He looks at Dick with no small amount of disgust, like he’s dying to say something about it, but he doesn’t. “Her sister reported her missing this morning. She was her lawyer in her criminal case a few weeks ago. Got her off.” 

Dick frowns. “For what?” 

Gonzalez’s lip finally does make that sneer. “Jorgenson didn’t tell you? He worked the case. She murdered her kids. He was up at the station fuming about her arraignment last week.” 

Oh . Dick looks over the apartment with new eyes, taking everything in again. He can see evidence of previous habitation, like something significant and big got scraped out. There are clean patches of wall from removed hanging photos, nail holes. There’s an attempt at scrubbing off crayon that never made it. This is the apartment she lived in with those kids. 

That explains the alphabet letters. 

“Girl and boy, aged two and a newborn respectively. Rachel got off on an insanity plea, and a charge of gross negligence. Her husband filed for a divorce the same day.”

She kept the apartment. Dick makes a mental note to check whose name is on the lease. He doesn’t think he wants to know. If he had been in her husband’s position, he never would have come back here. He knows, he still hasn’t been back to the manor. 

Dick suddenly isn’t sure he entirely cares who took her. “You think this was the husband?” 

“Nathan,” Gonzalez offers, “and yes. I do. I would have.” He looks up at Dick, and there’s steel in his eyes. “She murdered his kids and then left them there for him to find. When he came home, she was making cookies.”

When Blade returns, it feels like it’s been a long time. Rachel has tried to start conversations with him haltingly again and again, but Damian can’t maintain it for long before she says something else that makes him furious or shut down. She keeps bringing up her singing , like that’s the most important thing in the world.

She asks him about his drawing again, about his family, his parents, and asks him what he did to get Blade to keep him. 

She asks it in a way that makes Damian acutely aware that she’s prepared to do the same. Damian can’t manage an answer. He doesn't know. She’s trying so hard to be nice that it makes him ache. 

Blade comes down the stairs smelling like gunpowder and aftershave, hair slightly damp like he’s showered. There’s no more blood on him, and he’s wearing a dress shirt and slacks, rolling up the sleeves as he descends. His eyes find Damian first, flicking on the overhead light the way he rarely does. His gun is holstered on his belt, in clear view. A message. “Dames?” he says.

Damian stands, wobbly. He doesn’t do that anymore, forced himself to stop, when he realized how conditioned he was becoming, eagerly awaiting Blade’s return. But Rachel puts him off balance, has him staggering in Blade’s direction before the man is even fully in the room, ignoring the way it tugs Rachel along behind him.

Blade catches him by the shoulders. Touches Damian’s chin, tilting it up and frowning down at him severely. He brushes a thumb over the bruise forming there, wincing with Damian. He sighs. “I’m sorry.” 

Damian says nothing. 

Blade squeezes his arm, then turns his attention down to Rachel, and his eyes get cold. He squats down next to her, withdrawing a key from his pocket and unchaining her from Damian. He loops his hand around the chain between her wrists, then swings her over his shoulder again. She gasps, crying out as she’s jostled, and Blade seems only irritated. 

He reaches up to the D-ring, then tugs on Damian lightly. “I have some things upstairs to help you understand,” he says, and any relief that Damian had managed to scrape together at the sight of him drains completely at that.

He follows Blade upstairs obediently anyway, like the trained little puppy he is.  

The table has been moved to the side instead of the center of the kitchen, and in its place, there’s a plastic sheet taped down on the corners. Rachel starts to cry at the sight of it, and her pleading gets louder and louder until Blade drops her on top of it, retrieves the duct tape off the table, and within a few more seconds, her cries have been muffled. Her skin has started to chafe and go red from the abuse. 

She can’t do anything but watch them, trying to squirm away, but her legs are dead weight that hinder even the most basic struggling. 

“Blade,” Damian says, quietly, as the man kneels beside her, pinning Rachel to the ground with a hand on her shoulder, the other straying to his belt. He unsheathes a knife, his hunting knife, and for a split second Damian thinks that he’ll kill her right there, unceremoniously, but he only slides the blade between her skin and the fabric of her shirt, cutting it off in rough strokes.

Blade tips his chin down, brow furrowed in concentration, giving Damian a cursory glance. He nods to the counter beside the fridge, says, gruffly, “There’s a manilla folder.”

Damian looks at him. At Rachel beneath him, blubbering as she’s cut out of her clothes. She’s begging Blade again. “Not in front of the boy,” she says, voice broken up with tears. She doesn’t even try to fight Blade’s hand. “He’s just a kid.”

Damian doesn’t know how he feels about being the bargaining chip, a vain appeal to Blade’s better nature. That he might not rape or kill her because Damian’s sensibilities would be offended. 

Damian wants to laugh at her. He can’t remember a time that ever meant anything. Dick will throw it at Bruce sometimes in the worst of their fights, a concussive blow, but it’s not something that actually holds any weight. He’s not a child. He’s never been a child. 

“The folder, Damian,” Blade insists. He leaves her bra and underwear on, fortunately. He turns his attention to the counter and slowly moves in that direction. The chain to his collar drags across the floor in clunking heaps, and it’s heavy against his back. His weight is offset, and he moves only with difficulty and pain now. 

His stiff fingers take the folder off the granite countertop. It’s thick. Most of Father’s files were digital, at least the ones Damian had access to. Timothy had a habit of printing off physical copies of any of the cases he was working on—he always complained about eye strain, between work and Red Robin. Damian considers the folder for too long. Long enough that Blade says, impatiently, “Open it. See what you think about Mrs. Kurn here when you see what she’s done.” 

Damian’s fingers are numb even before he flips the cover. There’s pictures. They’re gathered in a neat stack, held together with a small paper clamp. Police reports line most of the paper inside, save for a few newspaper articles on the subject. Rachel’s confession is at the top, signed with her name in perfect cursive at the bottom. Unhindered, emotionless. 

The story she told him is not the one that she told the police. She was kinder to herself orally. The hatred that spews from her pen as she details what she did and why makes him want to withdraw physically from it, like that will spare him any of the details. I was going to be a singer, is how she starts it.

Damian undoes the clasp, and he flips through the photos. The woman was poor. The apartment she’s residing in has mold festering visibly in the corners of the room. Damian doesn’t know how long passed between the police being called and the death of the children, but they’ve been left in the bathroom. The baby’s corpse is floating in the filled tub, lips blue and chapped, skin broken, bruises littering its arms and neck. Dark tufts of hair are uneven and patchy on the oblong skull. 

Blood has pooled in the toddler’s thin arms. Maceration riddles the two of them, a clear indication of just how long they’ve been left to float. There’s excrement in the tub, both of them are naked. 

Rigor mortis has already come and passed if the lax, loose-limbed way the girl’s upper body is swung over the side of the tub is any indication, hair falling toward the floor. The apartment only has one bathroom.

Rachel was there when her husband got home. When the police arrived. She hadn’t left. Just carried on while her children rotted. She was baking. The cookies covered most of the scent, one of the first officers had noted in a report, in an off-hand way, like an inconsequential detail, but all Damian can think is Lamont didn’t smell either when he died. 

He doesn’t remember the man’s corpse smelling like anything, and it had been clinging to his back the entire drive in the trunk, when Damian was zipped into the duffle bag. 

“Dames,” Blade says, softly. He’s still just kneeling over Rachel, but he’s finally stopped molesting her dignity and turned his attention to Damian. There’s something pitying on his face. 

It takes some effort to tear his eyes away from the casefile. He looks at Blade. “Why did you show me this?”

“You know why.” He nudges Rachel with the blunt side of the knife. “People— things like her don’t see justice for what they do. That’s our job. They don’t get to just get away with it with no consequences. You’re a smart kid, Dames, I know you understand.” 

He is perfectly capable of comprehending the why behind murder. He was raised in a society where death was better justified than living had been. There are so many reasons to kill people. 

Damian’s father had hated all of them.

He feels like that now, as if he’s Robin looking up at Batman, and they’re in the cave going over some case, and Damian doesn’t understand and Bruce is talking to him in low, even tones. He didn’t over explain anything, he’d let Damian come to his own conclusions, draw his own inferences. He’d come to appreciate that his father respected his intelligence enough not to lay it out for him the same way that the League would. They believed there was only one correct way to think about something.

Blade is the same. 

You know why, his grandfather would say, and Damian would recite whatever it is he was supposed to, even if he didn’t, until he believed it. You know why, Bruce would say, to Robin, and Damian would hedge a response carefully. You know why, Blade says, and offers out the knife to him. 

I know nothing. 

Damian stares at him. The length of chain between them seems less like a restraint and more like a metaphor. They’re linked, wrapped around each other so tightly there is no escape. The blade is gleaming in the pale light of the bulb over the kitchen sink. 

It’s not that he doesn’t want to kill Rachel. He could, he knows he could. He wouldn’t feel bad for it. What she did was vile, unforgivable. It’s the reason why he and Father got into so many arguments. The League may not have been nearly discriminatory enough in who received their strangling hand of justice, but they hadn’t been wrong either. Some people don’t deserve to live.

Rachel’s children were defenseless. Innocents. And Rachel’s remorse is evident only as a vessel for her own self pity. Damian is sure that she’d do it again, if she had the chance.

So it’s not that he objects to killing Rachel morally. What stops him outright is Batman’s voice, in the back of his mind, begging him to survive, to be good. It’s the painstaking hours Dick spent trying to make Damian into someone he could be proud of. It’s the freedom that Damian can acknowledge his father afforded him, that he’d be giving up again if he let himself become Blade’s weapon.

That's our job , Blade said. It was, wasn’t it? Damian’s entire purpose, the reason Mother made him, was to make the world a better, fairer place, by any means necessary. 

Rachel is crying still. Saying his name, under her breath, a repeated plea. She looks so small beneath Blade. Her face is flushed, waxy with pain.

“I don’t want to,” Damian says, and he knows it doesn’t matter. 

Blade’s eyes go hard. “I thought you were smart.”

“I don’t want to,” Damian repeats, harder. He forces himself to meet the man’s eyes, and finds only cold anger. Worse. Pity. Damian can almost imagine what he wants to say, it’s always harder on the first kill, it will get easier. You said you understand me, Dames. I don’t want to do this without you. 

What Blade says instead is, “You don’t have to,” and Damian feels himself start to relax until the man adds, “But I’m not going to, and she’s going to stay here, on this plastic sheet, until she’s dead. So what do you want?”

If this had been a few months ago— it’s March now— he would have laughed in Blade’s face. As if the man could hold someone captive for that long, with his dilapidated home and his incompetence. 

But Damian knows better.

God how he knows better.

Rachel will be dead on that plastic sheet in a few days from dehydration. She’s going to die. Damian can either wait for it, or he can get it over with. He thinks of himself in that basement so many weeks ago, dizzy and listless and aching everywhere, and broken and how much he’d wanted Blade to do a mercy killing just so he would stop hurting.

He shakes his head. Death is not a mercy. It was not mercy when Rachel killed her children, and Blade cannot twist it into mercy now. He will not be Blade’s weapon, he is no one’s weapon, not anymore.

Blade says, eyes narrowing further, “Are you sure, Damian?” He’s angry with him now, he uses Damian’s full name the way Dick used to say Damian Al-Ghul Wayne in that exasperated tone. He tries not to flinch at it. Dick never said it this cold. “Because I never said that I would leave her alone.” 

Rachel whimpers. She looks pathetic and broken on that plastic sheet. If he had been less small, would Damian’s life have ended on it, too? 

“ Look at her,” Blade says, firmly, “she’s disgusting. She murdered her own children and left them rotting in her bathroom. They weren’t in rigor mortis when their dad found them, do you know how long it takes a corpse to go through rigor?”

Six to eight hours. Less, given the size of their bodies. Children decay faster. How long was their father gone, did she drown them immediately after he left for work? Did she drag the little girl from her bed and bury her face into the tub before she even really woke up? 

“She got off on a technicality, because the cops fucked up the investigation, and they messed up the chain of custody. She wasn’t saved in some sort of miracle. She is not,” Blade emphasizes that word, “a good person. What I do to them after they die is rarely personal, it’s just a hole to fuck, but her? I will enjoy her. I’d be more than happy to do it to her now. Beat her until she’s unconscious. It’s the same thing, isn’t it? Fucking a corpse versus fucking someone asleep? When she’s lying there, limp and pliant? Is that what you want, Damian? You want to see that? I won’t put you downstairs, you’ll watch. This is what her children would want, they probably hate her. How can you not hate her?” 

He’s going to throw up. He can’t look at Rachel, where she’s staring at them wide eyed, moaning behind the duct tape. Her eyes beg him. He shakes his head, and it spins slightly, breath caught somewhere high in his throat. Panic is thrumming in his chest, an instinctual fear at the hissing anger in Blade’s voice, in conjunction with the threat. “I won’t kill her”

He doesn’t want that. He doesn’t want Blade to hurt Rachel, doesn’t want to hear that, to imagine her going through it. It was bad enough when it was Lamont—he still sees the man’s face in his nightmares. In his waking dreams, superimposed on the back of his eyelids. A constant reminder of what Blade is capable when he isn’t Blade. When he’s the unceasing appetite of the Executioner. He is manic like this. 

He did not choose Rachel as a convenient victim. Or even because she fit some revenge fantasy of his. Blade took her because he needs it, the satisfaction of a kill, the way a man dying of thirst needs water. It is compulsive, that much is clear, in the way Blade raves about her. About what he wants to do to her.  

“Damian,” Blade says, and waits until Damian looks at him. He waits for a long time. “You don’t give a shit about her? Fine. I will hurt you . I will break your other leg if you don’t do this. You have to kill her, so we can move forward. There’s no way I can trust you out of the basement if you don’t do this.”

Rachel speaks behind the gag again. Articulate enough for Damian to make out the no . He hears it like he’s underwater, though. Slipping past layers of film to penetrate. Damian is wrapped in gauze and dissociation, the panic stringing him out so far that he loses track of himself, that familiar numbness overtaking him once more.

Damian is afraid. Afraid of this man.

“This isn’t about her,” Blade is quieter, almost gentle, “it’s about us. She’s just a proxy.” 

A proxy for what? The man just detailed, graphically, how he will rape and murder her. Is that what he wants to do to Damian? He promised. Blade doesn’t lie. And he isn’t lying now. He will hurt Damian. He will hurt Rachel. He’ll break Damian’s good leg, and he’ll take Rachel on the floor in front of him while he can’t crawl away. Then Damian will be put back into the basement, and he won’t see the sun for weeks if not months. 

Blade holds out the knife, hilt first. 

Damian wavers. 

Survive, his father’s voice urges in his head. Damian cannot survive the consequences if he doesn’t kill her. He won’t survive months longer in the basement, rotting away to nothing. He will never be the same watching what happens to Rachel. It is a mercy, to kill her now, and not leave her to be raped and beaten to death. 

Damian reaches out and takes the weapon from Blade. He spares a thought, passing and nullified, that this is the first time he’s held a weapon in his hands since he was Robin. 

He does not feel like Robin.

He barely feels like Damian Al-Ghul. 

He’s not much of anything anymore. What little of him that’s left is Blade’s. Hasn’t he just proved that?

Blade doesn’t even seem worried that Damian will take this chance to plunge the hunting knife into his stomach and run. Break them both free, in a haphazard, bloody mess, his chain gathered like a scarf in his arms as he and Rachel flee. Where would they go ? Would Rachel kill him before they got anywhere at all, because he was slowing her down? Does he care? At least it would be over. 

Escape lingers like a fantasy. But it’s just that. They cannot leave this property. Damian proved that already. 

Blade shifts out of the way. Damian’s legs move on autopilot, limping and staggered. He crashes to his knees behind Rachel, and rests one hand across the bare skin of the woman’s collarbones. She’s warm to the touch. She’s making frantic noises. Pleading. He can tell, even though there are no distinct words. 

Damian is breathing heavily. His body is so far away from him that he can barely recognize his own trembling hands. The scar down the length of his forearm from this very knife is ugly and grotesque in the lighting. Dark red and squirming like a snake in thick and thin patches from the glue.

He has to dig the weapon deep if he wants this to be fatal. He positions her head, ignores the squirming. She’s practically in his lap, bare back frantically moving across his knees. She’s trying to run. Her broken legs make that impossible. 

Damian sucks in a breath.

Another.

Another. 

It’s March. He’s been here for four full months. She’s going nowhere. She was never going to go anywhere. She’s not going anywhere. This is a mercy. This is better. Does it matter if she dies, when she’s done something so despicable? Does he care? He doesn’t care. He doesn’t. 

The blade presses to her throat, but he can’t stop shaking. He can’t dig it into her skin. The way that it’s going to spurt and bleed and gush, and he’ll be soaked with it. How warm and thick it will be. Corrosive almost. His father would be ashamed of him. His father already is. 

I don’t want to do this. 

And yet.

It’s still March. 

“C’mon, Dames,” Blade murmurs. 

He makes the mistake of looking at the man. His eyes are on Rachel, pinned to her, something dark and hungry behind them. Damian’s grip wavers.

It doesn’t end with Rachel’s death. No matter what he says, this is not a righteous crusade for Blade. It is an excuse for him to violate people in one of the worst ways. 

Blade sees it when Damian falters. His lips thin, but he doesn’t look surprised. Rises to his feet to circles behind Damian, crouches, so that Damian is sandwiched between him and Rachel.

He fits his hands over Damian’s, over the hilt of the knife. He guides Damian’s hand, as if it is his own. As if Damian is an extension of his will. The man is pressingly warm behind him, and Rachel is feverish and emotive. He can feel her heart through her skin, so fast it seems impossible. Damian tries to move away, tries to abandon the knife, this sick perversion of death, but Blade holds him fast. Presses his cheek against the side of Damian’s head, one arm looped around him and Rachel both, pinning them in place as he drags the knife over Rachel’s throat. Damian’s hands shake too badly at first, the cut too shallow, crooked, but Blade corrects for it. The man’s breath hitches, as the skin parts beneath the serrated edge of the knife, and he exhales sharply. Rachel howls loudly enough that it sets Damian’s ears ringing.

The blood spills down across his bare fingers, and it doesn’t stop. The woman screams until she can’t anymore. She goes limp in his lap. His clothing is wet with her blood across his thighs and his stomach. It soaks through him, until he feels warm and feverish beneath the weight of it. 

She barely squirms as she dies, just twitches and jerks, like she’s a mouse caught in a trap, and she knows that it’s snapped shut around her. She doesn’t last long, with both carotid arteries split open, her blood volume pooling down onto him instead. Blade is left out of the worst of the spray, and the plastic sheet is covered in the spray. 

The death rattle wheezes out of her. Damian feels her chest move against his stomach and ribs. And then—

Nothing .

Her head lolls onto his shoulder, and her hair falls in front of her face. The wound on her neck is so deep on the side they finished, it seems almost more to be an attempt at decapitation. 

She’s dead.

Damian doesn’t cry as Blade moves out from around him, and he doesn’t cry as the knife is taken from his limp fingers, and he doesn’t cry when the woman’s corpse is hefted off of him, and he doesn’t cry when Blade attaches his chain to the D-ring that’s been installed on the counter. He doesn’t cry as the blood dries and cools in his lap, like he’s been baptized in it. 

Damian doesn’t cry.

Nathan Kurn is an imposing man. He’s at least as big as Bruce, with just as much muscle mass and bulk. His hair is dark and thick with curls. He doesn’t look old. He isn’t. He’s twenty-two. He hasn’t even finished college. Dick doesn't think he will now. 

He sits in the interrogation room with his hands held loosely in his lap, staring down at the table. According to the officers that brought him in, they’d found him at a bar, nursing an untouched pint of beer. He’d gone with them without putting up a fuss. He barely reacts when Dick comes in, doesn’t yell, or cuss, or scream. Just continues to stare tracing the bracelet around his wrist with his thumb.

“Did she kill herself?” Nathan’s voice is deep and rumbling. It’s emotionless. 

Gonzalez takes the seat in front of him, his mouth thinned. “How do you know this is about your wife, Mr. Kurn?” 

Nathan’s eyes lift. “ Ms. Powell. She’s not my wife. Did she kill herself?” 

“No,” Gonzalez says, “we believe she was abducted. Everyone we talked to thinks it was you. Where were you between the hours of eight and twelve p.m. last night?” 

Nathan laughs. It’s an awful, humorless laugh.  “Someone got her?” He shakes his head, and his face screws up, like he’s in pain. “I wish. I wish it was me.”

Dick releases his lower lip. The ragged wound of this man is bleeding all over them, and it makes him hard to look at. He takes the other seat, and keeps his body language relaxed. “Where were you?” he asks, gentle. 

“AA,” Nathan says. “For all the good it did me. Can’t stay sober more than a couple of days anymore. I can give you some names for people who were there.” 

A profound sense of pity washes through him. He tries not to let it squirm into empathy, because he can’t think about Damian right now. He can’t. “Do you have any idea who would have done this?” Dick asks. 

Nathan wipes at his face, with one big palm. “My brothers? My parents? Her parents? Anyone she talked to about her fucking singing career? Anyone who met my kids. Everyone except her bitch of a sister apparently. Said I should have had more sympathy for Rachel’s’ mental’ break. Throw a dart, you’ll find them. I hope they kill her.” 

“This interrogation is recorded,” Gonzalez reminds him, not unsympathetically. Nathan scoffs. “And I would lawyer up if I were you, kid.”

“I don’t need a lawyer, I didn’t kill her.” Nathan looks up at both of them, his eyes dead, “If I did, I’d tell you. What do I have to live for anymore?” 

Chapter Text

He is aware of what Blade is doing. It’s impossible not to know. Not just because of the noise, but the memory of Lamont is seared inside of him, a burn that has refused to cool. 

Damian is left alone in the kitchen for a while. He gets off the plastic sheet eventually, his legs numb, and he limps over to the sink. It takes more effort than it should to clamber onto the counter, like he’s some sort of small, helpless infant, but he manages. He turns on the faucet—to cold water, as Mother taught him—and starts to rinse out the blood. 

It’s pointless, and he knows that. He imagines that Blade will simply give him another too-big T-shirt as some fading gift of modesty, but he thinks it helps him feel better, to go through the motions. Wipe the blood off his hands, and watch it run down the sink, then scrape at the skin with his fingernails and run soap across them. His fingernails are getting long, and he leaves ragged welts across his skin.

Blade will cut his nails again soon, if he engages in more self-injurious behavior. 

He’s unwilling to stop himself. 

He has to get the blood off.

It’s all over the floor, too. Seeped off the plastic. There are boot-shaped stains on the hardwood, from where Blade stepped into Rachel’s blood to pick her up and carry her into the living room and drop her on the couch. There’d been something frantic in his eyes, restless. He’d spared a few seconds for Damian, to ensure he was well secured.

Those awful, rhythmic thuds are echoing around the house. They remind him too much of Lamont, of standing in the hall and looking in, about the nightmares that have him gasping awake. Screaming, sometimes, but he tries not to. If he wakes Blade, the man will come downstairs to comfort him, and in the darkness, after a dream like that, it’s no great reassurance to have Blade’s hands all over him. 

He doesn’t remember turning off the faucet, but he did, at some point. His legs are in the basin, and his shirt is slowly cooling. He’s staring at the wall across from him, blinking slow. He doesn’t see anything until Blade’s figure blurs into focus in front of him. It takes Damian several seconds to bring his image clear. 

Blade doesn’t have a shirt on. His hair is rustled. Damian still shirks away. 

“Dames?” Blade says, and Damian gets the impression that it’s not the first time. The man catches sight of his fingers, and the ugly welts scratched up the back of his hand down his forearm. He grabs Damian’s wrist, gentle, and he sighs, “Oh, sweetheart.” 

Father would call him that. 

“You’re filthy,” Damian says, pulling his hands back, with a grimace. He doesn’t know if Blade so much as washed his hands after he was done with Rachel. There’s no telling what he’s covered in.

Blade’s lip quirks, faint amusement. His gaze wanders from Damian to the clock over the oven, to the blood on the floor. “We both are, bud. We should probably wash up, huh?”

Damian shrugs. It doesn’t matter what he thinks. When has it ever? 

Blade unlatches his chain, wraps it once around his wrist, before reaching for Damian, hauling him up out of the sink.

He smells strongly of body odor and fresh blood, sweat and something salty underneath it. And semen. Damian curls away from him as much as he can, even as Blade hoists him onto his hip, turning course for the bathroom. 

He sets Damian on the toilet seat lid while he starts the shower going. Starts taking off his pants—the fly was already unzippered, Damian notices, swinging his legs idly. Blade kicks the dirty clothes into the corner, looking up at Damian. “You did good,” he says, running a hand through his hair to get it out of his face. “That was good, Dames. I’m proud of you.”

Is that what Talia thought? When her men reported Damian’s first kill to her? He thinks Dick said as much to him, after they closed their first case together.

Father’s I’m proud of you’s always came for littler things. A well-executed grapple, a high mark on his schoolwork. It was never contingent upon Damian’s use as a weapon. 

The porcelain is cool beneath his legs. His shirt is already soaked. He thinks he’s going to start shivering, and he’s exhausted already at the idea. He’s spent so much of his time here freezing or hypothermic. He misses warmth. 

“The first one’s a rush, huh?” The shower curtain is yanked back. Blade is naked, and Damian has to avert his gaze as the man climbs into the tub. The mirror is fogging up with steam, Blade’s silhouette in the opaque curtains reaches for the shampoo. “I remember my first.”

He hopes the man will be willing to spare him details, but that’s unlike him. Damian wonders vaguely, distant, if Blade even remembers all of them anymore. There’s been so many now. What had his kill count been when Damian was taken six months ago? Thirty? What is it now? He doesn’t remember how many the man had said he’d taken since Damian arrived. 

Damian’s first kill had been sudden, but utterly unremarkable otherwise. He was eight or nine, and his training partner had let his blade stray too close to Damian’s face. He’d watched Talia’s handservants move. They would have killed him first, if Damian didn’t, in a moment of blind panic, sink his dull training dao between his fifth and six ribs. 

“His name was Rafael Ramirez.” Damian will not be spared details yet again, then. “He’d been raping his girlfriend. She went to the police, and they didn’t do shit, Ramirez had paid them off. I went to talk to her, and I saw the state she was in, bruised and bloody and broken, and she withdrew her statement. I killed him for her that night.” 

He makes it seem like such noble endeavors. The way that Jason talks about his kills, about the Alley, about when the system fails, and prison isn’t enough. 

Blade continues, huffing softly, “The girlfriend saw me do it. Nightwing watched.” 

Damian’s breath catches, seizing almost violently in his chest, and he finds himself ignited full of a wave of adrenaline he hasn’t in weeks. He wants to grab at Blade. The world feels like it spins, and whirls, coming in and out of focus. He can hear himself breathing hard. 

Blade is talking still. Stops, when Damian breathes, ragged, “What?” 

Had his brother seen this man’s face? How had he let him walk away? Did he let him walk away? Does Dick know who the Executioner is, and he just doesn’t care? Has he left Damian here? Is that why he didn’t pick up when Damian called him, because he no longer wants Damian, and he’s realized that this is the best place for him, out of sight, out of mind. 

Has Damian been abandoned by Dick? He must have seen his face, he must have known, and he didn’t—

The curtain is pulled back, just enough for Blade to poke his head out, checking to make sure Damian hasn’t keeled over and died, apparently. “Dames?”

Damian’s mouth is dry. He doesn’t like talking to Blade, it’s difficult, but he forces himself to say, “Nightwing?”

Blade considers him for a long, drawn out moment. The silence grates on Damian, thoughts spiraling. At the idea of Dick knowing Blade, seeing what he is, what he’s capable of, and walking away from it. He only barely tolerates Jason’s occasional executions. 

Eventually, Blade ensconces himself once more in the shower, talking over the background rush of water in the faucet. “He caught me leaving with Ramirez’s body. I thought I was done for sure,” he huffs a laugh, rueful. “Never meet your heroes, kid, they’ll only disappoint.”

Dick let him walk away. 

Dick could have stopped all of these kills years ago.

Dick is the reason that Damian is here at all, because he refused to stop Blade to start with, looked at the destruction that this man had done and went that’s fine, great behavior, carry on. Had he thought it was a one time occurrence? Why was he there? Had Dick gone to check on the woman because he was a police officer, and he knew what was happening?

Nightwing hadn’t saved her. Blade had. What inner circle do they share where they would have both come across this woman? 

The faucet is switched off—Blade’s always taken short showers. Damian’s eyes are locked on his hands anyway, doesn’t have to see his nudity as the man gets out and towels off. He doesn’t leave to get clothes, just wraps a towel around his waist and starts the bath running. 

There are days, sometimes, where Damian’s completely numbed to any nudity, especially on himself. Blade has seen him naked so many times that any modicum of privacy was beaten forcefully out from between them with Damian’s broken leg. 

Today is not one of those days. 

He flinches back when Blade’s hands reach for him, to help ease him upright, in a way that Damian has not required for weeks. His legs hold him steady enough on his own now.  

Blade sighs at him. Crouches, and he shouldn’t with only a towel to cover his genitals, but Damian carefully doesn’t look down. A hand touches his knee. Blade’s hands are clean again, the man smells like cheap soap and hot water. Damian shouldn’t recoil. “Don’t freak out on me now.”

“I’m not freaking out,” Damian lies. He reaches for the hem of his shirt, pulling it up after only a moment’s hesitation. 

“That’s your freaking out face,” Blade pokes his cheek. “C’mon, don’t pout.” 

Damian glares at him. Blade only looks relieved for it. He pulls the shirt over his head, and lets Blade take it over the chain. He pulls down his underwear, and lets Blade take that too, before he eases himself up and climbs into the tub. 

He washes quickly. The fingers on his right hand are still stiff, and have been ever since his brace was removed. He doesn’t think that it healed correctly, and it will hinder his movements. Perhaps permanently now. He avoids the scar on his left forearm, grotesque and all-consuming that it is. 

Blade sits on the edge of the tub, having collected his nail clippers. He lifts out his hand expectantly for Damian’s. He does not approve of Damian’s self-injurious behavior, the same way that his family didn’t. His nails have been filed down from claws to stubs. He won’t let Damian do it himself. He doesn’t trust him with it. 

He clips at Damian’s fingernails with patience and care, taking the time to cut away the banana skin, too. Damian has been biting at it. 

There’s blood stuck underneath his nails. Rachel’s. Blade flips open the file to clean out that, too with the small hook. It’s like Rachel didn’t happen. 

If Blade gave him the knife today, will he be entrusted with the nail clippers soon? How complacent has Damian grown become? He can’t imagine putting up the same type of fight that he used to, full of self-righteousness and enough hubris to level a city. Just another way that Damian has weakened, another way he shames his family.

“Soak for a while,” Blade tells him, when he’s finished with his nails. Standing, and attaching the chain to the curtain rod. “Do your whole fish routine.”

He goes to get boxers, finally. Returns after only a few seconds, and pulls his shaving kit out from the cabinet. He has the same aftershave as Dick.

Damian watches him work. Wiping down the mirror with his used towel, dabbing his face with foam. He wets the safety razor before he uses it, filling the sink with water.

On the first downstroke of the blade, he catches Damian’s eye in the mirror, staring at him. He holds the gaze, then his lip quirks some. “Guess I’ll have to show you how to do this soon, huh?” 

Oh.

Damian is old enough for that now. He’s fourteen. No longer prepubescent, or close enough to be rounded down to it. Dick used to joke about teaching him. Alfred had reassured him that he would, as he had for most of the boys in the Wayne household. Like Bruce, and Tim. Jason. 

He won’t do that now. 

Blade has taken that from him, too. 

Damian has to blink away the tears. He lets his gaze fall on himself instead. He doesn’t recognize his reflection anymore. His face has lost most of its baby fat, leaving him looking hollow and sunken. His eyes are swollen, bruises stretched along the socket. His hair has gotten long. He doesn’t look like Father or Mother. 

He looks like Dick. At least, the memory of him that Damian has, as blurry as it’s getting. He can’t remember what Dick’s face looks like enough to find distinct differences anymore. It’s just a fuzzy outline. Panic begins to swell in him. He can barely remember Timothy, the sharp angles of his hair, or his glare. Father is a warm idea in his mind, and he can remember Jason’s smile, but little else. Cassandra had scars on her face, and he couldn’t draw them anymore. 

He’s forgetting them. He’s forgotten himself. He doesn’t want to look like Dick anymore. He wants to be Damian. 

“Blade?” his voice shouldn’t be as even as it is. Dull, emotionless, even as Damian rattles to pieces on the inside.

“Yeah?” Another downstroke of the razor. A patch of clear, smooth skin. 

Damian blinks, long and slow. His eyes have a film over them, slightly blurry, like the world is behind a glass pane. When he breathes in, it feels like a machine is doing it for him, the steady pump of a respirator. His body is a lifeless automaton, and Damian is the pilot asleep at its helm. The words feel like they’re coming from someone else. “Can I have a haircut?”

Blade’s hand stops. He looks back at Damian in the tub fully, and he shrinks, despite himself. The man returns his attention to his razor, says, flat, “No. I like your hair long.” 

Damian stares at nothing. He feels himself blink belatedly, only once his eyes have started to hurt. “Oh.” He says. “Okay.” 

Blade returns to shaving. Damian doesn’t ask again. 

The paper crane burns like the butt of a cigarette against the waistline of his underwear. 

Blade keeps the bodies for a week. Damian has known this since his father took up the case. He watched it with Lamont. The last time that Damian was required to help dispose of a body, it was his own, when Blade had sliced him open and collected his blood in a mason jar. 

He isn’t allowed to be a spectator with Rachel. 

The last week has passed slowly. Damian has felt aware of every shift in the house, and he knows of at least three other times that Blade descended on Rachel because of this. When he’s allowed upstairs to eat, he’s looked for Rachel’s body and found nothing. Blade seems to keep them locked away like toys on a shelf, only taken down when in active use. 

Damian is allowed to help with cleaning. 

He doesn’t know what it means. He hates it. He seems to have earned some modicum of Blade’s trust through helping him with the murder, and he’s scared to lose that. He doesn’t want Blade to be upset with him again, even if it means that he doesn’t take the knives and stab him through the throat. 

That extended trust has not stopped with household chores. 

“A little tighter than that,” Blade says, crouched with Damian on the floor in the kitchen. He was right earlier—Rachel has started to smell. Stale and not yet putrefied, but he can scent the erosion of tissue within her, waste and stomach acid lysing into cells once regulated for their pH, no longer without the beat of her heart and oxidation of her heme to keep her going. Her skin is loose and thin, and it tears if Damian holds it too tightly, but he tugs the plastic down anyway, tying the rope around it tighter at Blade’s direction. Encasing her hands and feet. “Don’t want the tides to yank it off her.”

No, why let nature run its course at all.

He’d known this was coming, when he’d been forced to help with the bleach last night. Wiped down the entirety of the corpse and watched as Blade paid her genitals special care. It had been late, and Blade had been tired, and said they’d finish today. 

Damian hadn’t slept. 

He has a stack of Cra-Z-Art crayons he's been using for sketching, after he used up all his charcoal pencils. All he’d done was stare at the papers, thinking and thinking and thinking. Damian knows so little about Blade. 

He’d fantasized, about shoving one of his drawings of the man down the woman’s throat, and that somehow guiding someone back here. He doesn’t know if the man’s face would be enough, because Father Kenley had seen it bare and done nothing. 

The crane had stared at him. 

Damian had reached out with a trembling hand once the Moon was high in the sky, streaming light into his room. He’d unfolded it delicately, the paper worn and creased. It had been the crane he’d foolishly been thinking of as Timothy, small, but perfectly balanced. He had been careful. 

Precise. 

Damian knows little about Blade. He knows his face. He knows what he looks like naked. Knows his preferences, and that he works on a computer, and that Nightwing knows him, and Dick abandoned him to this man on purpose. He has also seen the Ford Bronco. The trunk that he’d been locked inside for hours. The one that he’d been staring at when Blade had hosed him down. 

Father taught his Robins to remember small details. 

Damian knows that Blade’s license plate is KAZ 2Y5. Those had been the careful numbers he inscribed on the inside of Timothy’s crane, and on the outside he’d sketched the insignia of a bat with his crayons, hoping but faithless. He had folded the bird back up and stuffed it into the waistband of his underwear. The one that burns against his skin now. The one that has made him unworthy of even the base trust that this man offers him. 

“Good boy,” Blade praises, reaching over to pat Damian’s back gruffly. Something like guilt flares in his stomach. Blade would not be calling him a good boy if he knew what Damian was thinking.

“Like this?” he says, tucking the ends of the rope into the knot itself, so neatly, hoping that Blade’s attention stays on Rachel and not him. “Is that right?”

“Yeah, yeah. That’s good, Dames. Do the other leg.”

He does, and Blade goes back to swaddling her torso and neck in plastic. For a beat he thinks that Blade will do her head as well, that Damian’s plans will be dead in the water before an opportunity could present itself. But Blade just tapes up the tarp around her neck, leaving her head to loll, foam leaking steadily from her mouth. 

“I’ll carry her out to the car,” Blade says, when they’re finished. “You get the door for me, okay? God, this goes so much quicker with another set of hands.”

Hysterically, Damian wonders if Blade will invite him to fuck the next one.

He stands on leaden feet, at Blade’s gesture. The scalding adrenaline that kept him up all night is stale and dead in his veins. Damian feels strung out and raw, eyes burning from the effort of keeping them open. His arms and legs are distant things, he moves without thinking. Stands beside Blade when he hefts Rachel into his arms. Dutifully opens the screen door, and then the backdoor leading onto the porch. 

It’s raining outside. A steady drizzle that Damian somehow hadn’t heard in the house, the sky a tumultuous grey. Even with the precipitation, the humidity is overwhelming, the air heavy with it.

“Careful on the steps,” Blade grunts, as he descends. “They’re wet. Hold onto the railing so you don’t fall.”

Damian does. He follows Blade to the car, his bare feet squelching in the damp grass. The feeling of rain on his skin is jarring, shoves him back into his body, so he’s uncomfortably aware of every extremity. For a second, once he’s out from underneath the shelter of the porch, Damian just blinks up at the sky, shoulders rising and falling shakily.

“Dames!” Blade calls, without turning back. The chain has run taut. “Come get the trunk for me!”

Damian forces his eyes away from the woods—it’s so green now, alive and awash with color, in a way it wasn’t when he ran through them so many months ago. The snow has mostly melted, only sticking in wet patches—and moves back to the car. He checks the license plate compulsively, to make sure he remembered correctly. 

KAZ 2Y5 remains the same. 

Damian’s stomach squeezes with something like relief and dread. He takes the keys that Blade hands him, and twists the lock before pulling up the trunk. “Here, pull her in,” Blade says, grunting softly. 

Damian hesitates. The last time he was there he was in the bag, padlocked and arrogant. Lamont had been dead behind him already, a warning of what was to come, and Damian had been too stupid to see it. 

“She’s not made of air,” Blade complains impatiently, shifting his weight. “Anytime now.”

He doesn’t want to get in the fucking trunk.

Damian climbs inside, his breath tight, his limbs stiff. His arm had hurt so much. It’s bizarre to think about what a minor pain that was compared to what he’s endured now. He’d been terrified, but too stubborn to admit it, even to himself. Remembers the way that everything had clenched inside of him when he realized he couldn’t wrestle his way out of the bag with only his teeth and sheer dumb luck, by nature of being Bruce Wayne and Talia Al Ghul’s child. 

He turns quickly, breathing fast, and watches as Blade drops her corpse to the ground. He hefts her up by the rope wrapped around her chest, fingers tight, and Damian grabs hold of her shoulders, trying to haul her inside. 

Six months ago, he might have even managed to be helpful. He thinks he does little beyond wiggle her back and forth pointlessly. The plastic tears along her leg from the trailer hook, and Blade swears under his breath, shoving her legs in. She’s already passed through rigor, and her limbs contort easily under his grip, loose and pliant. 

Damian tries not to think of what else it was that way for. 

“I’m going to have to grab more plastic,” Blade says, annoyed, “stay here.” 

He unlatches the chain from his belt, then stops, and looks at Damian for a second. The end of the latch gets attached to the rope along Rachel’s chest. Then Blade goes, moving back to the house, unhurried. Irritated yes, but unhurried. 

Damian isn’t going anywhere, is he, so what’s the rush? 

He looks at Rachel’s body, and feels everything in him go tight with dread. Breathes. Breathes. His trembling hands move quickly. It’s now or never. He can’t let his brain convince him otherwise, and he knows he would, he would let this linger, and give into self-doubt. He’s prone to that now.

He pulls the crane out from his underwear, and stares at it. It won’t survive her throat if she’s to be thrown in the ocean. He looks at the broken plastic. Damian reaches out and rips along the length of it with desperate fingers, tearing off a section large enough to encase the little bird. 

He rips at some of the binding to tie a knot at the top, like this is some sort of goodie bag of food. The way that Alfred would, when he gave things to his friends or Damian’s siblings. Rachel’s mouth has no smell. There’s no breath to go fetid anymore. He’s spent too much time around her corpse to be anything but numb to her. 

Still, he says, faintly, hysterical again, “I’m sorry,” before he shoves the plastic down her throat. 

It is, he realizes, the only time he’s apologized to her. He hadn’t even bothered to say it when he slit her throat. He’d cried for her, in the basement that night, but he hadn’t said he was sorry. 

He checks Rachel’s throat. The plastic can’t be seen. That’s good. Okay. He breathes. He checks Rachel’s throat. Still can’t be seen. He checks it again, and when he goes in for a fifth one, the back door opens. Damian scrambles to the other side of the trunk, trying not to look guilty. He doesn’t have Timothy to blame his delinquent behavior on. 

Blade barely looks at Damian, though. Just re-wraps Rachel’s leg, studiously, prodding her further into the backseat. Only then does he unlatch Damian’s chain, back onto his belt, holding out his hand for Damian to take.

“Thanks for your help,” he says, easing Damian out of the trunk, ruffling his hair fondly. 

Damian says, his voice faint, “You’re welcome.” 

He looks back at Rachel’s face one more time before Blade slams the trunk closed. The plastic still can’t be seen. Please, Damian begs, he doesn’t know to what, there’s nothing out there listening. Please, please please. 

Blade’s hand is secure on his back as he leads him back toward the house. “Good boy, Dames,” he says, fond. 

That’s me, Damian thinks, and shoves down the guilt. He’s taken back to the basement. A good boy.

Chapter Text

Dick thinks, at first, that he’s dreaming. 

A grogginess has settled over him, making it hard to distinguish between everything. The first thing that he notices is that his mouth is dry, the second is that his body is warm. 

Very warm . A throbbing ache down at his groin, sweat prickling up and down his back. He ruts instinctively into the mattress, half-hard and still blinking himself awake. It’s been a while since he’s had a wet dream—he can’t even remember what it was about, just the purely physical arousal, the feeling of weight all around him. 

A feeling that doesn’t abate.

He’s being pressed down into the mattress. Micah’s hands are on him. Not in the way they usually are, carefully cuddling him after Dick has a nightmare bad enough to wake both of them up, but pushing down. His weight is carefully pressed against the outside of Dick’s thighs, but not on him, straddling without applying pressure.

It’s not supposed to be noticed. 

Dick knows that immediately, from the way that Micah’s hands are roving over him, his fingers delicate and warm, one hand intermittently coming up to stroke his member, the other shifting down prepping him for—

“What the fuck are you doing?” Dick breathes, and scrambles up, away. He’s freezing. The blanket was pulled off of him at some point, a while ago, and goose flesh scatters up him immediately at the movement. His toes are like ice. He yanks at the blanket feebly, like it will do anything to cover him at this point, grabbing a handful of his underwear and the sweatpants, trying to squirm back into them from where they were pulled down. 

How did he—?

Why didn’t Dick wake up? When did he do that? How long has he been touching him? Dick isn’t a light sleeper, he can’t be, not with the life he leads. 

Micah is sweating, mouth still open, completely naked. His eyes are black in the darkness, the sclera only visible by way of the street lights shining in from the still-open window. His chest is heaving, his own hardness so painfully visible where he kneels on the mattress.

He falters for a beat, face falling as he looks at Dick, as they both look at each other , and Dick is breathing hard too, but for an entirely different reason. He can hear his heart pounding in his ears, something like horror freezing his spine.

“Hey,” Micah says, soft, “relax. It’s okay.” 

“What—? No. No.” Dick moves. He’s at the top of the bed but still feels pinned by Micah’s eyes. He starts to shift, but his limbs have locked up. He falls onto his hands and knees as he rolls off the bed, and he yanks half the comforter off with him. Micah is moving, he can hear the mattress creaking. But Dick isn’t aware of it, so much as he is how rough the carpet is beneath him. His palms feel bruised. 

He inhales raggedly. For a moment, he’s not here, he’s on a rooftop, and there’s Catalina softly murmuring above him, and I’m poison, I’m poison, I’m—

“Dick,” Micah has gotten off the bed, too, and his hand comes to settle on his shoulder, “breathe, baby, it’s okay. It’s fine, I promise.” 

Oh, God, he sounds like Midnighter , voice gruff with sleep, naked and firm. Dick hates Midnighter, hated every second of working with him, and every second after, and Micah isn’t a blond, and he’s not nearly as built, but it’s bleeding together. His sharp features and Slade Wilson’s sardonic smile. 

“Micah,” Dick breathes, and he curls away from his hand. “Micah, stop.” 

“It’s okay,” Micah repeats, but he pulls his hand back, taking a seat. He’s still naked, and he’s still hard, and Dick is going to throw up. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize…” 

“What?” Dick’s voice is pitched, he sounds like he’s a kid again, “That I’m not interested in being fucked when I’m sleeping!? If you—If you wanted—we had sex last night, what the fuck were you—” he can’t breathe right, all the words are disjointed and wrong and thin. 

Micah is staring at him. His eyes are so dark. His fingers are twitching, like he might reach for Dick again, lips pulling into something flat and half-angry.  Dick shoves his fist into his mouth so he doesn’t scream at the man. He’s upset? Dick woke up with a hand around his cock and he’s the one who’s upset. “Dick, I’m,” he doesn’t stutter, he pulls a deep, frustrated breath. “Can you come back to bed, please?” 

“No.” His hand fumbles for the bedside, and manages to grab his phone. Shoes. Socks. Clothing. More clothing. Oh god, Micah removed his clothing. 

Dick pulls back from him violently when he tries again. “Don’t touch me.” He slams his elbow into the bedside table for his efforts, and it crashes dramatically to the floor, breaking in all the visible ways that Dick wants to. There are no physical long-term effects for this. No bruises, no scars, no nothing. 

There never is.

“You—you—” Dick inhales raggedly. He scrambles up to his feet, barely managing to remember to grab his phone from the ground as he goes. 

“Where are you going?” Micah calls after him, “you’re not fucking leaving , Dick, it’s the middle of the night, don’t be stupid.” 

“ Stupid!?” Dick whirls on him, the phone clutched like a weapon. He doesn’t have his escrima sticks on him, he’s not armored. Not that his armor did fuck-all for him before, but he feels painfully vulnerable in a way he hasn’t since Slade. “I—I—oh god. Don’t fucking touch me!” 

“Dick—” 

“ No.” Dick snarls, “No. No.” It’s the only word he can say now, the one he’s wanted to, for years and years and years. He makes it sound harder than it feels in his chest, something snapped and furious instead of desperate and mewling. 

He’s backpedaling. A hand on the bedroom door frame, one foot in the hall. Micah steps forward with him, face twisting up more. Follows him even as Dick flees to the kitchen, to the fucking door , because he needs to get out of here. 

Micah grabs his wrist, before he can get past the counter. His fingers are much tighter than Dick is used to, not just holding, but restraining. He can’t get his wrist free when he yanks on it. Even when he starts to struggle. “Let go. Let go, MJ.” 

Shit, Micah is strong, how did he not know he was so strong? He’s never been on the receiving end of it like this before. He can lift Dick up without a problem, but he never thought—fuck. Fuck. He has to get him to let go and he can’t, because he’s useless all over again and again and again and again. 

“Why are you making a big deal out of this,” he says, still more irate than genuinely angry. He tugs Dick into him, into his chest, and Dick only just stops himself from doing a nerve strike.

His blood is too high, too up, he can’t hurt Micah like that, he’s a civilian . He’s winding an arm around Dick’s waist, his erection pressed into Dick’s hip.

“Just—just come back to bed, baby,” Micah insists, smoothing Dick’s hair from his face, tucking it behind his ear, “we can talk about this. It’s okay, alright? Don’t freak out. I didn’t think you’d wake up, but it’s nothing we haven’t done before.”  

“When I’m.” Didn’t think he’d wake up ? What the fuck, what the actual fuck? Dick can’t breathe around the seizing pressure in his chest. He wheezes, “When I’m awake, you asshole , you can’t just, you can’t touch me like that when I’m asleep.” 

He’s stopped struggling, but he doesn’t know when. Micah sounds so reasonable, even though every inch of Dick’s skin is crawling, and hyperventilation is slowly shooting his balance. 

He clenches a fist, resting it on Micah’s bare chest, over his heart, as if to hit him. He can’t make himself do it. 

Micah sounds confused, when he says, if after too long of a beat, “Why? It’s not like it’s bothering you when I do it. We’re dating.” 

“It’s—please let go,” Dick can’t think around the pressure of his hands, “MJ, please .” 

“But I’m not done, Dick,” Micah says. There’s a darkness in the words. He’d been rough last night, they’d gone for long enough that Dick’s legs felt like jelly afterward, but that’s just how Micah liked it sometimes, he never crossed any boundaries. Never—

Did he?

“I’m done,” Dick says. “I’m done, let go of me.”

Micah doesn’t. He ruts up against his hip, against Dick’s struggle, and seems only more aroused for it. Dick makes a bitten off noise, as Micah pulls him closer, hand cupping his back to pull them together. His fingers slide underneath the waistband of his stupid, useless sweatpants, to cup his ass, squeezing roughly. 

“You like it,” Micah insists, “you like me. Just come back to bed and let me finish.” 

Dick is frozen, and Micah is strong, but this is not Slade, or Midnighter. Dick is stronger , this time. 

Micah leans down to press a deep kiss to the side of his neck, where the array of hickies and bruises are from last night, and Dick makes a soft sound of pain. Micah leans up to kiss him, hands roving, and he says, breathily, “just come back to bed. You don’t normally wake up, but it will be better like this. I like it when you move, too.” 

When you—

When. 

What? 

For a moment, it feels like he’s falling. He can’t do anything but freeze, feeling all of sixteen with Slade staring down at him. When he lands in his body, gasping sharply, he’s not a helpless child anymore. He’s not. He’s not. 

Dick plants both hands on Micah’s chest, and shoves him, driving his heel into Micah’s toes at the same time. Micah cries out, and Dick stumbles backward, away from him. He hits the counter as he fumbles, but he doesn’t stop. Micah is starting to move toward him again, and Dick grabs his phone from off the floor and bolts. 

He pulls the door closed behind him as he goes, scrambling down the hall toward the stairs. Four stories. He leaps down the edge of one of the staircases to land in a roll on another floor, distantly hears Micah shouting for him. He’s saying he’s sorry, begging for Dick to try and understand and let them talk about this. 

For a breathless moment, perched at one of the landings, he looks back. Maybe it is a misunderstanding, and Dick is reacting on nothing, but the sensation of Micah rutting against him, of his body pressing him down—

Dick scrambles out of the apartment building. He doesn’t stop moving after, cold be damned. It’s March, it’s not like it’s the middle of December. It can’t be under forty or thirty or, or it doesn’t matter. 

His thumb hovers over the panic button on his phone, but he stops himself, mortification seizing his limbs. What is he going to say? I haven’t spoken to any of you in weeks, but that guy you all hated? Turns out. Hahaha. Oopsie! Would they even pick up, would they care? After all that Dick has shut them out, has turned them down and pushed them away, maybe they wouldn’t even come anyway.

It’s better not to know. 

Dick doesn’t know where he’s going. Micah lives in a fine-ish neighborhood, for Bludhaven, but it’s not residential and the streets aren’t quiet so much as they’re abandoned. A pick-up truck drives past him, with several people piled in the cab and the back, all of them clearly drunk and in the middle of having a good time, and they honk at him, jeering cat calls.

He’s shirtless, with only sweatpants and bare feet. God fucking damnit. 

He inhales raggedly. He can’t cry, but he thinks that he wants to. There’s too much panic for that. Damian used to call it a blow up when he would do this. 

Dick pulls his phone up. The screen is cracked in the corner from—from something, he doesn’t know what he hit it against that did that, and he flips open the lock screen clumsily. He can’t drive himself. He didn’t drive himself. Micah drove him here. It’s walking or an Uber. 

He opens the phone app. He doesn’t call an Uber. He stares down the length of his contacts. The urge to press the emergency alert on the side of his phone is all-consuming, but what is he going to say? I think my boyfriends been raping me, and then that’s that? Is that even what happened? Micah had apologized. No one else had ever apologized. 

Dick misunderstood what was happening.

He looks at Bruce’s contact for a long time, thumb hovering. He feels nine or twelve or fifteen again, terrified and broken and pathetic. All he wants is his fucking dad, like a child. And what? He’s barely spoken to Bruce since the funeral. Bruce wouldn’t come. 

Dick wants to sink down and rock back and forth. He wants to climb up somewhere and perch there, because he always thinks better when he’s not on the ground. He stands, frozen, but unable to stop himself from moving. What if Micah comes after him? Slade did? 

Catalina did. She didn’t let him leave. Never let him. 

Stupid stupid stupid. What the fuck did he think, that he could just like someone, that he could love them, without something like this happening. Dick had it figured out a long time ago, everything he touches rots or dies or both . He’s a corrupting force no good thing sees the other side of.

Dick doesn’t deserve good things. He’s such an idiot. He doesn’t get to trust people. He thought he’d found one good thing— one. 

He moans softly, pressing his phone to his forehead. He wants to call Tim, but he can’t call Tim. He can’t dump this on him, not after Morrison. He can’t stay out here, he’s going to get a frost bite. 

He opens his phone back up, and calls the last phone number on his recents list. 

He hasn’t spoken to Jason since their fight about Micah— stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid— and he doesn’t know if he’ll pick up at all. But Jason does, after the third ring, and Dick definitely woke him out of a dead sleep, because the slurred, “Dick?” is more confused than annoyed.

Dick can hear himself hyperventilating. He regrets calling almost immediately, but that’s typically the case with his family. “Can. I’m.” 

Form a fucking sentence, you dipshit.  

“What’s wrong with you?” Jason sounds fractionally more awake. Dick can hear him shifting. “Where are you?” 

Where is he? He doesn’t look up from the phone, or the BMW currently sidling toward him, that must think he’s a prostitute or something. Or maybe just wants to try their luck robbing him. The last street sign he saw was F street, at the junction of fifth, but that was at least a full minute ago, and Dick has been instinctively crossing the road to throw off anyone who might be following.

Anyone , he thinks, deliriously. Like his boyfriend, who just tried to—

“I don’t know,” Dick says, trying to force himself to stay calm, even as he shrinks back. “I don’t know.” 

“You’re crying,” Jason states. He’s still moving. Grabbing something. 

“Am I?” Dick asks. He lifts a hand to his face. It’s wet. He doesn’t know when that started. 

“Send me your location, I’ll come get you.” 

“Oh,” Dick says, and he forces himself to calm a fraction, wiping the back of his hands over his eyes, to present that outward steadiness. He can grit his teeth through this panic attack, and make his own way home. He’s not on speaking terms with Jason right now. “Everything is fine.” It’s not. He can’t get his fingers to open the tracking app. It’s two clicks away, and of course Jason would come get him, of course .

They don’t have that kind of relationship, not anymore, if they ever did. Dick’s fallen apart so thoroughly even Jason’s taking pity on him now. 

“Right.” There’s shuffling on the other end of the phone. Something clatters, footsteps that echo oddly. “Very convincing. How about I call Bruce, and you can try that line delivery on him?”

“N-No,” Dick shakes his head, even though Jason can’t see it. He grits his teeth, to stop the shivering. “No. Don’t call Bruce. I’m fine. It’s—” a sob escapes him, and he’s mortified. He bites at the back of his hand to keep it quelled, but there it goes, loud and vicious and obvious. God, what the fuck did he expect? Micah didn’t even get anywhere, he didn’t do anything except touch him a little, and Dick’s never stopped Micah from touching him. He’s working himself up for no reason, he can’t feel his legs or arms, can barely hear Jason for the ringing in his ears.

What did he expect? It’s always something like this. 

“Dick?” 

It’s the tone that breaks him, that soft, gentle concern that he’s come to expect from Micah. He forces his eyes to stop blurring, blinking away the tears. “Can you just track my phone?” Dick whispers. “I can’t get the app to open.” 

“Let me call Babs,” Jason says. “She’ll find you.” 

Of course she will. She always does. Dick comes crawling back into her arms one way or another, ruining her.

“What’s wrong with you? Should I get Tim or something? Do you need backup?” Jason asks. Nightwing. He thinks this is a Nightwing problem. The urge to laugh hysterically has to be shoved back down. He hasn’t patrolled in weeks. Dick says no, which doesn’t stop the barrage of questions, because Jason promptly follows up with, “Should I bring a kit?” 

A first-aid kit? No, he should bring a rape kit. Dick laughs again, and it’s hysterical. “No. I’m just cold. Nothing happened.”

Despite Micah’s best efforts.  

When Jason shows up thirty minutes later, Dick has managed to collect himself enough that he’s no longer sobbing actively, and sitting at the edge of the street, legs folded underneath himself to keep his toes warm, the jacket wrapped tightly around his shoulders. He’s rocking back and forth, and he tells himself it’s because he’s cold, not because it makes him feel better. 

He’s twenty-six. He turns twenty-seven in a few months. He’s not a child stimming for comfort. 

Jason hops out of Bruce’s red camaro—he must have been at the manor, and isn’t that a trip. Six months ago Jason wouldn’t have been caught dead within a mile of the place—faltering when he sees Dick. He’s wearing his leather jacket, and a few holsters on his thighs and ankles, but no armor and no mask. He wasn’t on patrol. 

“Mother fucker ,” Jason says, and swears some more, as he jogs to close the distance between the street and where Dick is sitting. He’s already checking Dick over for injury before he can open his mouth as soon as he’s within arms distance. Dick is processing everything slow. Shock. Emotional exhaustion. The unceasing panic, swirling in his gut.

“I’m not injured,” Dick manages, as his brother’s hand flattens down his stomach, and he flinches as it drags up, searching for unnatural rigidness that would suggest internal bleeding. “Don’t—” he stops himself. Ducks his head, and shakes it.

“Okay, great, whatever sob story you have, it can wait until you’re wearing fucking shoes .” Jason hauls him up, and Dick hisses as his feet make contact with the asphalt. He’s herded none-to-gently over the road to the car, bundled in Jason’s jacket. 

Jason blasts the heat once they’re in the vehicle, and reaches into the back to rip open one of the emergency blankets to wrap around Dick’s feet. That satisfied, and Dick shivering again, he says, flat, “What happened? Why do you look like dog shit?” 

Dick wraps Jason’s jacket tighter around himself. He’s grateful that he’s smaller than Jason, because he can hide inside it without showing any skin. “Thank you for coming.” 

“Don’t thank me,” Jason says, impatiently. He’s tapping his fingers against the steering wheel. He’s scanning the streets, and Dick can see the moment that he realizes, because he turns toward him and says, “Jorgenson lives a couple blocks from here, doesn’t he?” 

“Yeah,” Dick agrees quietly. 

“And I was your first call?” Jason asks. Dick nods, looking at his lap. Jason visibly forces himself to calm. He turns in the seat slightly, then orders, “Talk.” 

“MJ shoved his hand down my pants,” Dick says, and it comes out of him the same way Bruce’s case reports always did. Not even dull, just wry and bored, and his voice is too even for the way the panic threatens to claw up his throat at the thought of Jason knowing . Anyone knowing .

Jason blinks once. “Okay,” he’s pausing. It’s something Bruce taught all of them to do, a mannerism he picked up along with the Robin mantle. Give people time to answer your questions before you have to waste time asking them. Dick is immune to that, though. “Was this unusual behavior? I was under the impression you were,” he makes a face, “fucking.” 

“I was sleeping and I woke up and he was…was prepping me. For.” He can’t even finish. 

Jason blinks once. Twice. His expression visibly darkens. He turns bodily in the car, one of his hands going to his holsters, and the other moves to the car door handle. 

“Jason,” Dick grabs his arm, and his fingers are so white against his brother’s skin. 

“I’m sorry, am I supposed to be totally fine with your rapist being alive and well up there?” Jason demands. 

“He didn’t—” Dick looks away, but he doesn’t let go. Jason is real beneath his hands, and there’s something distinctly relieving about that. “He didn’t get that far. I woke up.” 

This time. 

This time , he didn’t get that far. But Micah said that he usually doesn’t wake up . That he didn’t expect Dick to wake up. That he’d want it. Has he been doing this the entire time and Dick just didn’t wake up? How far has he been pushing this? Dick didn’t think to set up an explicit boundary about it because he didn’t think he’d have to. 

Dick is a light sleeper. He doesn’t understand how Micah could have done anything without him knowing. He had to know. Micah wouldn’t—

Micah seemed so normal. So sweet. So loving. 

He was—

Dick was wrong. About everything. Something cold and twisting swirls up his spine at the memory of Micah’s hands on him, and waking up, and realizing. 

He’s trembling. He can’t seem to stop. 

“Please don’t go,” Dick says again, and this time, Jason does lean back, turning toward him. His hand releases his gun with effort, and his expression relaxes. 

“Okay,” Jason promises, letting go of the door handle, “not going. Breathe. And keep your hands near center mass, you’re going to lose fingers.” He jams Dick’s hand back into the pooling warmth underneath Jason’s jacket, and Dick slumps back against the seat. He looks at Dick, something dark in his expression. When he talks, he’s calm, “Was this the first time?” 

Dick shrinks into the seat. 

“Dick,” Jason doesn’t sound annoyed, he doesn’t sound concerned either, he doesn’t sound like much of anything. “We’ve barely seen you in months , and every time we do, that asshat has been yanking you away. If something has been going on, then I want to know.” 

Dick is quiet for a long time. The silence of the humming car engine is enough white noise to make him tired. He doesn’t look at Jason when he says, “I’ve been,” well, he tries to say, and fails. “It’s not. People got further before. I just…I just freaked out.” He puts his face in his hands. His voice breaks. “Why the hell would he do that? He was supposed to be—he’s not like that. He was supposed to be safe and—and—” 

“What’s forty four times a hundred and seventy two?” Jason interrupts.

Dick’s brain lags. He stares at his younger brother blankly for long seconds that only grow longer, fumbling, before he manages, “seven thousand four hundred and sixty-eight?” 

“Five hundred,” Jason corrects. “You dropped a one.”

“Oh.” 

Can he really have expected more from himself? Can’t see that his boyfriend was having sex with him when he was asleep, couldn’t solve a stupid, simple math problem. Stupid, stupid, stupid. 

“He slipped you a mickey,” Jason says. “Your pupils are dinnerplates, Dickie.”

“He what ?” Dick shrinks into himself further. Horror washes through him, icy and hot. The wine. Oh god. The wine. They don’t always have it, but when they do, Dick sleeps like the dead. Micah always handles it. Micah was so normal. Micah was so normal. Micah was—

“Hey,” Jason rests a hand on his arm. He applies pressure, getting tighter, forcing Dick to stay focus and not puke all over the inside of Bruce’s car. “Hey, breathe. What’s seventy-three times forty-six?” 

“I—” 

He’s so rough with Dick, sometimes. Bruises him and looks hungry after. Micah is so gentle, but there exists a part of him that isn’t. Dick had been ignoring it, had put both hands over his eyes and ignored it, because the good parts were so good. 

“Seventy-three times forty six, Dickie, c’mon, you know this.” 

Dick shakes his head. He wraps his arms closer as a shiver wracks through him. “We were supposed to move in together,” Dick whispers, and bites back the moan, “I was going to tell him. About Nightwing, about everything, and…he was selling his parents house for me.” 

“Jesus Christ,” Jason mutters.

He cared when Dick froze up in sex, he pulled out and stopped and coaxed him through his panic and held him after. 

Micah doesn’t drug him and rape him while he’s sleeping. You don’t normally wake up, but it will be better like this. I like it when you move, too.

He understood . He never pushed Dick past what he could handle, he never complained when Dick couldn’t put up. Micah was more willing to work through his issues than any of his previous partners. He made Dick feel safe .

The look on his face, when Dick left him, the awful twisting anger, the burgeoning tears, is burned into his mind’s eye. 

“Why did he do that?” Dick whispers. “I love him.” 

“I don’t know,” Jason says, after a long silence, where it’s clear he bit off every instinctive answer until he was calm enough to say it. His eyes have gone so dark. His hand reaches out absently in the car, and finds Dick’s to squeeze at his wrist. “We’re going home. Just try to stay warm.” He hesitates again, and finally meets Dick’s eyes, “And I’m sorry. That he isn’t who you thought he was.” 

“Yeah,” Dick says, and grabs Jason’s hand in the dark, squeezing, “me too.” 

Jason squeezes back. 

Micah leaves him seven voicemails before they get back to Gotham. Jason takes him to the Manor and chatters mindlessly to fill up the space. Dick says little, but he realizes at some point he isn’t expected to. He turns off his phone when the texting notification makes Jason look over at him more than once. 

Bruce is waiting when they get there, awake and as haggard as the last time Dick saw him. He’s lost a noticeable amount of weight, and he hasn’t been sleeping. He sends Jason away, snapping at the man when he tries to make more threats of imminent violence against Micah.

Bruce takes him down to the cave to run a bloodtest, to see what Micah drugged him on—roofied, like Jason thought, and Dick stares at the results and feels very, very far away—and he lets himself get taken upstairs. Bruce sits next to him quietly, softly running his fingers through Dick’s hair until he falls asleep again. 

The expression on his face is impossible to read, but Dick pretends not to see it so he doesn’t have to ask. 

He wakes up later, dazed. He has fifteen messages from Micah. Two more missed calls. And three dozen texts. He tries not to read any of them, but he sees the latest one from his notifications scroll and it’s just I can explain if you’ll let me, I’m sorry. Dick turns off his phone again. He takes a shower hot enough that it scalds him, and scrapes his nails across his body like he can rip off this layer of skin. 

He used to do that, after Slade. Scratch and scratch and scratch. Bruce had eventually sat him down, and he’d given him ice to use instead, but his grimaced concern had never really gone away any time Dick had to use it in front of him. 

Dick climbs out of the shower, and he repeats I can do this and coaxes and bribes himself through getting dressed and going back to his room , and he stops dead in front of Damian’s closed door. He’s working on something, Dick thinks immediately, and then falters. 

He closes his eyes against the press of tears, and for the first and far from last time, he wishes Micah were here to hold him against the tidal wave of grief. It was always Micah, taking him to visit Damian’s grave, getting drunk with him on the night of his birthday. 

He reaches for his pocket, where he stowed his phone. Not really thinking, just on autopilot, thumbing over the power button.

“Dick?” Tim is behind him. Dick flinches, turning. The boy looks better than he remembers. Less thinned, like someone had been cutting out bits of him. He looks less empty . And that makes Dick angry, for reasons he doesn’t want to put into words. He doesn’t think that anyone should look better the longer Damian is gone, like his death should sit and reshape them forever. “I didn’t know you were home. How long have you been here?” 

Dick’s mouth moves soundlessly for seconds. “You’re living here?” 

“Not for a few months,” Tim frowns, “I just had a long patrol. Bruce said I could…you don’t look good. Are you sick?” 

He feels sick. He feels like the only thing more fragmented than his heart are the thoughts circling a vortex in his mind. He can’t piece them together, except that Jason was right. Micah isn’t who he thought he was. 

Dick’s one good thing . The rock he’d clung to, that hadn’t budged under him even during some of the worst months of his life.

“Dick?” Tim says, and it doesn’t sound like the first time he’s said his name. He sounds scared. He’s holding a blue mug, Dick recognizes distantly. Dressed in pajamas. Still has socks on. A long-sleeve. It’s still March. The cold doesn’t exist only in Dick. 

“Master Dick?” Alfred’s hand settles on his shoulder. Dick blinks at him dizzily. Tim is behind the man, his expression pinched. His mug is gone. Dick can’t find it anywhere he looks. He’s losing time again, like he did, after Jason, and the first few days after Damian. “Let’s get you downstairs.” Alfred shoots a look at Tim, reassuring, smiling, “He’s alright, lad. Go back to bed.” 

Tim doesn’t look like he’s believed anything less in his life. 

Alfred puts a hand on Dick’s shoulders. He’s steady, he’s seen Dick like this before. So did Tim, after Catalina. But Tim had been fourteen and not nineteen, he’d looked at Dick like he was crazy and tattled on him to Bruce. Now he just looks scared. 

Dick stumbles the first few steps, reaches out and grabs Tim’s wrist before he passes. “Miguel Ramirez,” Dick says, and Tim jerks like he slapped him. “Why did you think he was the first victim?”

His body didn’t wash up on the Gotham bay, or Bludhaven shore. He was found in a dumpster behind a fast food restaurant, brutally sodomized pre and post mortem. Unlike the other Executioner victims, he was disfigured. His body had to be identified from dental records. 

“The murder weapon,” Tim says, haltingly, after looking at Alfred first. Like he needs permission to speak to Dick. “It was the same hunting knife. Same method of injury. There aren’t a lot of murders that end in necrophilia.”

“Jason said he was alive for the rape,” Dick’s grip doesn’t relent. 

“He wasn’t. Not for most of it,” Tim’s eyes are tight with growing pain. “Why?” 

Because of me. How angry had Micah been, when Winslow turned them away? At the idea of leaving another abusive shitbag to drive another innocent woman insane. Angry enough to go back? Angry enough to kill him , and look Dick in the eye after he did? Angry enough to rape him the same way that Ramirez had been doing to his girlfriend? 

Like he did to Dick?

Yesterday, Dick would never have said that Micah was capable of rape. He’s Micah. He’s Micah. 

“Because I was there,” Dick says, numb. “I watched him walk away with the body.” 

“You what?” Tim’s eyes go very wide. “You saw the Executioner?” 

“I guess,” Dick tries to remember, but that was three years ago, and now when he looks back, all he can picture is Micah’s face transposed onto the man. He wants to cry again. Forces himself to let go of Tim. “I let this happen. Damian is dead because of me.”

Tim’s mouth sets. “You let him get away?” 

“We let people get away with murder all the time,” Dick whispers, “we let Jason get away with murder. We let Huntress, Roy, Cass, me —we let everyone get away with it. How was I supposed to know? I thought it was just another…I barely remember it.” 

“You couldn’t have known,” Alfred says, trying. Dick doesn’t want him to be understanding, he wants someone to blame him. To scream at him. How stupid and useless and pathetic Dick is, for having not seen this coming. For being so fucking happy he didn’t look at the man who was doing it.  

“I should have,” Dick snarls. “He was right in front of me. Micah was right in front of me.”

“It’s not Micah,” Tim says. Dick feels all his anger pop, deflating like a balloon in his chest. His younger brother won’t meet his eyes. “We kept looking after you blew up at Jason. We’re not stupid. We couldn’t find anything. He has alibis. He just fit Bruce’s profile enough that…” Tim doesn’t say it gave us hope, because he’s not stupid enough to do that in front of Dick like this, “it’s not him, Dick.”

Of course they did. Dick did, didn’t he? Even when he hadn’t believed it. Dick hadn’t been able to find anything, and he had access to the man’s apartment. 

Dick presses his fingertips into his temples, and tries not to feel like his head is exploding. His phone is burning a hole into his pocket. Tim shakes his head again, and he’s angry at Dick but too kind to say it. “What the hell are you doing here, Dick?” he says. “Did Jason bring you back? I thought you were off the Executioner case.”

Did anyone ever invite him on it with them? Dick’s wall of crazy is Dick’s wall of crazy. 

“Funny,” Dick can’t stop himself from snapping, “you didn’t tell me I was on it.”

Tim’s anger finally cracks through the surface of his facading calm. He throws up his hands, “You’ve been MIA for weeks. How the fuck was I supposed to do that, Dick? Telepathically communicate it to you? If you wanted to be a part of this you should have fucking picked up the phone! Or was this all a big point about how the only person in this fucking family you cared about was Damian?!” 

“Timothy!” Alfred says, sharply. He hasn’t let go of Dick’s arm, but now he uses the grip to haul him away from his little brother. Dick’s teeth are aching, the lump in his throat only rises. He deserves it, this vitriol, from Tim and Jason and whoever wants to spew it next. He deserves what Micah did. Even if Micah’s not the Executioner. Dick let a murderer go, he doesn’t get nice things. He gets everything and everyone he loves stripped away or warped or taken, one by one, and he can do nothing but watch . “That is enough,” Alfred is saying. 

Tim shakes his head again, like that’s all he can do, like he’s too disgusted to look at Dick. “Damian’s dead,” Tim’s voice is tight, trying too hard to be calm that it just makes it sound that much more fractured, “but I’m not. I needed you. Where were you?” 

He stares at Tim, feeling like all the breath has been frozen in his lungs. Tim is grown up, he’s almost the same height as Dick now but he still looks like a kid, like a Robin. Dick’s brain has been scooped out and replaced with a hornet’s nest. 

Isn’t that what he accused Bruce of? Wrapping himself up so completely in his grief that no one else could reach him?

“Timothy, you need to calm down,” Alfred says, “Dick has been in mourning. It would do you well to have a little sympathy.” 

“And we haven’t ?” Tim snarls, rounding on him. “Damian was my brother, too. Do you think I’m not upset? We all know that the only reason Dick is here is because they found Kurn’s body last night, and once he’s done beating around Damian’s corpse, he’ll fuck off to Bludhaven again into the arms of his beloved.”  

That explains why Bruce disappeared so suddenly. Why he wasn’t here when Dick woke up. They’d been waiting for Kurn’s body, it was delayed from the Executioner’s schedule by a few days, and he was starting to think they wouldn’t get one this time around.

What had Micah been doing the night she went missing? Gonzalez said that he’d called out, didn’t he?

He needs a computer. To talk to Barbara. He needs to see who Kurn’s arresting officer was, who investigated her children’s death. It was a BPD case, and Micah is one of only six detectives in their violent crimes unit. 

Dick blinks, and says, “Micah tried to have sex with me while I was sleeping last night. He fits the profile better than you think.”

Tim deflates. He looks back at Dick with horrified eyes, looking like Dick just yanked the floor out from underneath his feet, or shoved him hard off the side of a building. No balance, no chance of pretending otherwise. He’s breathless when he says, “Micah raped you?” 

Dick flinches. “No. He—” the instinctive words that want to fall out are he would never, but he did. “He just tried. Did Bruce already leave? Did anyone go with him?” 

“Master Dick,” Alfred sounds exhausted, “please. Sit down. You’ve been through quite an ordeal, this is not the time for you to be throwing yourself into casework. Your father and Master Jason will take care of this.” 

“I can,” Dick takes a step, stumbles, “I can…” 

Alfred grabs him. “You will be doing nothing but rest.” 

“No,” Dick shakes his head, “we can’t wait now. The Executioner is still out there, and if…if it is Micah, then. Then he was upset, last night, about me, he might do something stupid, and we’ll never get him if he runs.” 

He knows that, in every fundamental part of him. If Micah decided to leave, given everything he’s done to premeditate and prepare, they will never get him. 

“Micah’s clean,” Tim says again, but he doesn’t sound sure anymore, and he doesn’t stop Dick from pulling away from Alfred. He even follows Dick, down the hall and toward Bruce’s study. “We surveilled him, planted bugs on him, Jason had a tracker on his car for a week, we looked through his internet history, his calls—he’s clean. ”

He would know how to be. He’s one of the best detectives on the BPD, Dick only considered trusting him with Nightwing because he knew how smart he was. The way Micah’s mind works, it’s so much more analytical than other people’s.

The Executioner never does anything in his own name. The boats aren’t in his own goddamn name.

Alfred doesn’t stop him before he makes it downstairs. The cave is cold. Dick hasn’t been down here in weeks, months maybe, and the chill settles into him easily. He wraps his long-sleeves tighter around himself, and lets Tim and Alfred follow him. 

“Dick,” Tim sighs, but he doesn’t stop him as he pulls up Bruce’s files on the Executioner. 

It’s much, much, much bigger and longer and more thorough than Dick’s wall of crazy. Still got him fuck-all no where. Whatever investigative pool that his father and his siblings have been doing is far more extensive than Dick’s. At this rate, they might as well be trying to clean out the entire city. 

Dick pulls up what he has on Kurn, her initial arrest, the court cases. He’s not even surprised to see Micah listed as the lead detective. 

He should have talked to Dick about it. A case like that, as gut-wrenching and awful as that. They always tell each other stuff like that, but Micah said nothing, even after he was forced to take the stand and watch Rachel Kurn get off scot free. 

He must have been furious. 

Gonzalez had been furious. 

The way Gonzalez had looked at Micah, looked at Dick for just interacting with Micah. The lingering distrust, that he’d always dismissed as the prejudices of a grouchy old man.

  We’re dealing with a psycho. He'll show you what he is eventually.

“Have you…” Dick starts to ask, and stops, because no. Why would they think to cross reference anything with Micah’s parents house? They don’t know about the second property, it’s under his uncle’s name. Even if Jason had a tracker on Micah, he doesn’t go there often. He thinks. At least he didn’t, not before. Not before he started trying to sell it, before Dick asked him to move in with him. 

He pulls up the files. Bruce has narrowed out the general location of the dump spot. It’s an hour away from that house. Someone made a date list for when the bodies were dropped, and it has general estimations down to the minute. 

Dick freezes, at the time listed for Lamont’s death and Damian’s kidnapping. He knows the date, because he’s replayed that day over and over in his head, tried to figure out what he could have done differently to fix it. 

Lamont was killed just after four p.m., and he knows— knows— that Micah had showed up a little after five, because they’d eaten dinner together. Dick had made him fried rice, after, they’d had sex, because Micah had all but jumped on him when he’d opened the door. He remembers laughing, making jokes about Micah being pent up. His boyfriend had brought champagne. 

Micah had nodded and he’d been almost hungry. There are times where they have sex differently, when Micah seems so dominating and possessive, like he forgets Dick can move. Dick never minded it much. He never—

I like it when you move, too.  

Who. 

Who would…

That’s psycho behavior, to murder someone, and then go to Dick and fuck him, fresh off the kill. No one would do that. No one would do that. Not Micah. Miach would never—

Micah.

Micah tried to have sex with him last night when he was sleeping. He drugged him. 

Micah was. Is. Was. 

He wouldn’t do that to Dick. He couldn’t. He did, he did, he did, he did, he—

“I think ‘m gonna be sick,” Dick says, and Tim stumbles out of the way, kicking the trash can tucked under Bruce’s desk in his direction. The only thing that comes up is stringy bile and a wealth of stomach acid. Dick stays hunched over and gagging for a long time.

Tim puts a hand on his shoulder, but he’s leaning into the computer, pulling up the victim profiles again, this time just the ones in Bludhaven. Of the twelve, Micah worked directly on the arrest or conviction of four of them, not including Rachel Kurn’s. Tim bites his lip.

It’s thin and you know it , he’d said to Jason. Circumstantial. It doesn’t feel thin anymore, it feels like a crushing reality, but it can’t be. He’s known Micah for three years, he wouldn’t do that. Dick would have noticed. Micah wouldn’t shatter his trust like this. Micah loves him. They were going to move in together. 

“Dick,” Tim says, anxious.

“How many of the funerals did he go to?” Dick rasps, putting his elbows on his knees, face in his hands.

“...all of the public ones,” Tim’s voice is quiet. Then offers, placating, “He was part of the task force. He’s the lead detective, Dick. There isn’t a reason for him not to be there.” 

“They weren’t all public,” Dick remembers, he’d been on the fucking task force, too. Not that it matters. Can’t see what’s right in front of his face. “Ali-Zaid Muhammad, Sanya Shostankova. A few others. They refused police presence. Most of the mob families did.” 

One of Salvatore’s nephews were killed. Gang violence in Gotham spiked for about a week, as the crime boss vowed to get revenge, and never did.

Tim types for a bit, one-handed, still not letting go of his bracing grip on Dick’s shoulder. “Okay,” he says after a beat. “I pulled his cell records. Give me fifteen minutes okay? I’ll let you know where his phone pinged towers at the time of the funerals, to see if he was there anyway.” 

Dick nods. He shrugs off Tim’s shoulder, getting to his feet unsteadily. Tim looks up at him with a pensive furrow in his brow, like he wants to force Dick to sit back down. “Do that,” Dick says. “I have something else to check out. Tell Bruce to call me when he gets back.”

“Wait,” Tim says. “I’ll go with you, pass this off to Oracle, just give me a minute.”

Dick shakes his head. “Stay here, Tim,” he says. “I need to make this right.”

Chapter Text

The phone call is a welcomed distraction from the self annihilation he’s engaging in. Jason has never been much of a heavy drinker, not after everything with Willis, but the last few months have found him staring at the bottom of a bottle over and over again, with little memory of how he got there. 

He doesn’t like getting blackout drunk, but he enjoys the novelty of it. Hours lost to consumption that he never has to see again. He hates how easy it is to come back, and how much heavier it is when he returns, but those blissful few hours of lightheaded nothingness have been welcomed since the funeral. 

He blearily looks at the caller ID. Can’t make it out. Maybe it’s Dick again, Jason thinks, half hysterical. He left his older brother with Bruce, in the dubious custody of a well-equipped adult. The call had scared the shit out of him. After where they’d ended things their last conversation, getting a sudden phone call at two in the morning could only mean one thing. 

The whiskey has done a good job of muffling the memory of his brother’s crying. He knows he shouldn’t have left Bruce alone with him, shouldn’t have left the Manor period, because there was so much that needed to be addressed with that situation. But it felt like just another nail in the coffin of their fucked up family. Five months of shit, might as well keep it coming.

Jason tried drinking in the Manor all of one time. Broke into Bruce’s stash of high-brow bourbon and shut himself up in the library. It ended with Alfred dumping out the entire liquor cache, refusing to watch yet another reckless, pointless spiral, and Bruce pointedly leaving an AA pamphlet on the kitchen counter. Jason doesn’t think he’s been more humiliated since the first time he stripped naked in front of Talia Al-Ghul.

“Hey,” it’s Avery, of all people. Jason mentally drags together some semblance of coherent thoughts. His lieutenant sounds less annoyed than he does rattled. “Knox, Blair, and Zheng found something I think you should see.” 

He struggles to remember exactly who they are. They’re street people. Jason thinks that Avery has had them checking up on the docks to keep track of the deals going on there, the ones their people are doing, and the ones that no one wants them to know about. The surveillance shit that no one likes doing but they need to stay ahead. 

“Is anyone about to die?” Jason asks. 

“What?” Avery sounds baffled now. “No. Do I sound like I’m being shot at?” 

He doesn’t, to be fair. Jason takes another swig of the bottle, feeling every inch a masochist for enjoying the burning ache in his throat, “Hm. Tell me tomorrow. Busy.” 

Avery doesn’t hang up, so Jason pulls his phone back to do that. “It’s him again, Jace. The Executioner. He dumped another one.”

Shit. He leans forward, setting down the glass, resting his elbows on his knees. He’ll need a caffeine pill, at this rate. And a cold shower. 

Who the hell did the bastard get this time? Jason hadn’t realized anyone ever went missing, not since the last pedophile from a month ago, but that one’s well outside of the Executioner’s timeline for dropping.

“Where?”

“Southpoint Marina,” Avery rattles off his location. Jason can hear him moving around.

He’d been a suspect for half a week. Jason kept finding him at crime scenes, places where people had gone missing and when he’d finally given up and just asked him, Avery had told him about his brother. In more than just passing, or the way they used to commiserate about shitty family in a self-deprecating way that felt uncomfortably like actual human connection. 

Avery told him every graphic detail about his brother. About what had been done to him post mortem, about how Avery had been the one who found the body. For years, no one wanted the Executioner caught more than Avery. Except, now, Jason’s family. 

He understands, after hearing Avery describe what his brother had looked like, with the mutilated dick shoved down his throat, why he hadn’t wanted Jason to find Damian’s body. So he wouldn’t see. Wouldn’t have to know. Every day since they talked about Miguel Ramierez, Jason has been relieved not to hear anything about his youngest brother. 

Jason forces himself to get up. “You know the vic?”

“Some woman. Mid twenties, maybe older. She’s skinny.” More shifting. If Jason focuses, he can hear the water on the other end. “I already took a look at ‘er.”

“Course you did,” Jason mutters. “How’d she look?”

“Fucked.” Jason doesn’t laugh, and neither does Avery. He starts toward the kitchen, the coffee maker. “You coming, or should I call it in?”

“I’m on the way. Have you and your guys clear out, I’m bringing company.” 

Bruce does not look impressed with him, when Jason stumbles into the car, coordination still shot. To Jason’s mild defense, his father was the one who picked up the call and agreed to come, so he knew what he was getting into, and should, therefore, have come sans judgment. 

An impossible task for Bruce Wayne, really. 

Jason presses his hands against his face, resisting the urge to groan, as Bruce pulls away from the curb. He hears Bruce open his mouth. “I don’t want to hear it,” Jason mutters. The only reason he’d called him was because he’s not stupid enough to drive when he couldn’t see straight. It’s not like Dick was available, and Tim just got off patrol. 

“I was just going to ask if you’re okay,” Bruce says stiltedly after a long, laborious silence. “Tonight must have been...” he trails, some, clearly not sure what to put there. Jason hadn’t told him what happened. He’s not sure if Dick did, but the evidence was written all over him. 

When they’d arrived at the Manor, Dick had burst into a fresh wave of tears at the sight of Bruce, and then Alfred had to be collected because neither of them could get him to calm down at the ensuing panic attack. It had been its own kind of terrifying. 

Sent Jason stumbling back down the steps with an indefinable excuse, and to his apartment to dig out the bottle. 

“Peachy.” Jason pretends not to notice when Bruce dims the dashboard lights. Pretends not to be grateful for it. Bruce is only wearing a domino and stealth, which makes Jason feel less awkward about the bomber jacket he’d tugged on over his stained t-shirt and sweats. The cold is getting him sober far faster than the coffee did, and in its place a headache is tugging at his brain stem. “I’m peachy. How’s Dickie bird?”

Bruce makes an awful, constipated, I’m brooding about this, face. Jason, for once, doesn’t want to hit him for it.

First Damian, then Tim, now Dick. By the end of the year, Cass’ll have gotten recruited back into the League by Cain and Jason will be in the grave again. 

“He was resting when I left.”

“He disclosed some things.” Jason shouldn’t say this. This’ll only make Bruce hate himself more, or, fucking, over identify with it. And then Jason will get to hear some more disclosures, from his father of all people, and he doesn’t think there’s enough whiskey in the world to drown that kind of awful.

Bruce’s eyes aren’t visible behind the domino, but Jason can imagine the dead resignation in them. His jaw sets, anger pulsing a vein in his throat. He doesn’t look away from the road. “Did he?”

 People got further before.

Jason puts his hands over his eyes. “Do you ever wonder if we’re…like, I don’t know. Fucked as a bloodline or something?” He sighs, annoyed, then adds, “The metaphorical bloodline.” 

Bruce’s expression is only getting darker. Miserable. He’s miserable, Jason realizes, and is uncomfortable in it. “I think,” Bruce mutters, “that I have, unwittingly, taught all of you to put yourself into dangerous situations without caring what the outcome was, and that has caused a type of damage that I can never make up for. Damian never had to go after Lamont to prove himself to us, to me, and if I had been a better father, he would have known that. You never…Ethiopia wouldn’t have…” 

Bruce stops.

Jason does, too. 

His father clears his throat. “It’s not a curse. It’s just me. And I’m sorry.” 

The urge to say something nasty rolls to the tip of Jason’s tongue. How easy it would be, to fire a verbal blow into this, and desecrate the vulnerability that Bruce has laid down before him. His father would roll over and take it, because he’s never really defended himself in any serious manner when they call him terrible since Jason came back. 

He doesn’t know how to smooth this over either. 

“C’mon, old man.” Is the drinking habit even from Willis? Can he pin that on Bruce, too? It’s just like him, to calmly lay out every reason he should be condemned. He wants to say something funny, about how it’s homegrown stupid and Bruce doesn’t get to take that from them, but instead, he says, quietly, “Damian would have forgiven you.” Then, quieter, so soft he’s not sure that his father hears him at all, “I know I did.” 

Bruce’s breath hitches. 

They change the subject. Jason watches the streets blur past them, and the conversation inevitably ends on the Executioner again. 

Bruce doesn’t have any ideas who the body could be. Well, he does, but none of them are any more or less likely than the others. Of the missings persons cases in Bludhaven and Gotham from the last week, only twenty have criminal records, and only ten of those records are anything substantial enough to tempt the Executioner. Bruce just happens to know those names off the top of his head, which speaks more to his neuroticism than anything else. They speculate on what victimology might suggest about this body in particular.

Specifically, a deviation from his normal modus operandi. They never got an abduction scene. All thirty known bodies, and the only other time they didn’t have an abduction scene was Avery’s brother. 

Bruce thinks it makes this victim significant. Jason thinks it makes them insignificant. Some nobody that’s been missing for an entire week, their blood drying stale and unnoticed. They argue about it for the rest of the trip. 

When they get to the beach, the smell of salt, rotting fish, and acrid metal fills his lungs like it’s eagerly inflating a balloon. Jason grimaces, but he forces down his gag reflex—drinking makes him sensitive and pukey, which is unfortunate and annoying. Always makes him feel like he’s pregnant—and takes halting steps toward where he can see Avery standing alone next to the corpse. 

His men have cleared out, as Jason instructed. 

Bruce moves next to his side, zipping up his dark jacket. In the dark like this, with his eyes covered and the mass of his body hidden underneath loose clothing, he seems largely insignificant. Another one of Jason’s people, someone to be dismissed and passed over. Without the hulking mass of Batman’s armor and cloak, Bruce seems so much smaller. 

Avery is crouched next to the body. One hand has a plastic glove on, the other is holding his phone. Jason pulls on his own pair of plastic gloves, handing another to Bruce as they draw closer. 

“Hi, Avery,” Jason says, then, louder, “goodbye, Avery.” 

Avery isn’t startled to see them. He looks up, then double takes almost immediately. His expression gets pale, and he looks at Jason again, like he hasn’t known for over a year who Jason is, and, by extension, who Jason’s family is. “I wanted to make sure no one disturbed the body before you got here.” 

Bullshit. He wanted first crack at it, in case the Executioner magically lost his marbles and put his full government name on the corpse somewhere, just for him. 

Jason scowls. 

It’s a woman, like he said, skinny. The Executioner did a good job keeping the water off her, the seal on the plastic unbroken, but the temperature has her rigid and well preserved, her milky white eyes staring endlessly upward.

Consistent with the Executioner’s previous kills, her throat is slit. It’s messy, though.

There’s usually a bit of blood, but wherever he keeps them the Executioner cleans them, too. Leaves his own sort of mess, in the form of bite marks that’ll never bruise and ejaculate smeared over soft tissue. There is some of that, but the wound on her neck has been left mostly alone. 

Jason crouches. Whatever the whiskey was doing for him, it’s almost gone. The full effects of a hangover hitting him like a truck. Avery puts his un-gloved hand on Jason’s shoulder. 

“He left the clothes on her, this time,” Bruce says, rumbling from behind Jason. Avery startles violently, checking over his shoulder like he thinks Bruce will bite.

Jason rolls his eyes. He’s not even wearing the cowl.

“She’s a woman, Mr. Wayne,” Avery blurts out immediately, like someone pushed the dialog option for him. 

“He raped her corpse,” Bruce says, squatting down next to her and gently peeling at the edges of the underwear, as if looking for something in the lining. His entire expression is pinched and unhappy. “Something isn’t right. About any of this. Why did he change his MO?” 

“I don’t think he did, he just doesn’t kill women that often,” Avery points out. “Maybe he does it differently with them. Have we ever found a woman’s body from him?” 

Jason nods, acknowledgingly to his lieutenant. They have, three actually, but most of those weren’t publicized as widely as the others. There would be no approval from Gotham in sexual violence toward women, no matter how heinous the crime. The city has double standards like that.

None of the other women were afforded the dignity of clothing. The Executioner isn’t sexist, Jason can give him that.

Bruce finishes the inspection of the underwear, then her bra, his fingers so careful and delicate, trying to be respectful, but unable to stop from looking. “None of this is stained with body fluids,” Bruce murmurs, “he put them back on after he was done.” 

“You can just see that?” Avery mutters, petulant now. 

Bruce ignores him. Jason is amazed how quickly he put together that’s the best course of action. His father shifts up, toward her face, and Jason tilts his head, trying to follow his line of thought and sight. 

There’s something off about her throat. Her mouth. It looks a little like the tongue got swollen and bulged, lodging halfway down, like she choked on it after someone tried to feed it to her. 

“Jay,” Bruce says, quiet. The same way he used to say Robin, and Jason looks up at him on instinct, then down to his pointing hand. “Look at this.” 

Jason does. They know what kind of knife the Executioner uses—he left a few of them at the crime scene. They know what kind of cuts he makes, he’s done it thirty times now. This woman, with her clothes on. By the swelling, she died a day ago, maybe two, not the full week.

“The cuts are shallower,” Jason realizes, and Bruce nods, “hesitant. It’s not as deep, and it started in two places.” 

Bruce hms. He points at the place next to her jugular, “It goes abruptly deeper here, like a secondary force was applied, and the angle switched, going across instead of down. The blade switched hands. This wasn’t the Executioner. Everything is close, but it’s not right.” 

“We have a copycat now?” Jason can’t help the hissing frustration in his voice, the way the words rise in pitch and tone. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

Bruce makes a noncommittal noise. His mind is racing, Jason can see that in his eyes. His face has blanked, but from the set of his shoulders and his jaw, Jason can read the same frustration and anger washing through his own body. It was bound to happen eventually. Serial killers go uncaught long enough, people start getting rid of their unwanted byproducts and blaming it on them. 

“Was it personal?” Jason asks, “Maybe that’s why he left her dressed. Remorse?”

Bruce shakes his head. Then stops. He shakes his head again. “His methodology wouldn’t let him take victims he felt remorse over killing. But everything here points to remorse. The hesitation, the clothing…” 

Jason leans in closer, presses his gloved fingertips against that gruesome wound on her throat, just trying to see what Bruce does, the angle of the cut. But it only draws more attention to how misshapen her esophagus is, the awkward way the skin bulges. 

If she was alive for all of it, the rape, if she died choking on her own tongue, this isn’t the Executioner. Their guy is a necrophiliac.

With the way that her mouth was left, it looks like something was shoved. If the Executioner violated her mouth, maybe they can finally find conclusive DNA that isn’t partial or stripped. There’s no way he could have cleaned everything out with how her throat was slit. 

Bruce has moved away, picked up the rope binding her feet together. The knots. “These are different,” there’s something upset in his voice, “this copycat has to be someone on the case. They know details not released to the public.” 

Yeah. Like Micah fucking Jorgenson. 

“What?” Jason asks. Bruce looks up, frowns, and Jason says, “You’re upset. What?” 

“Nothing, it just…” Bruce blinks several times, like he’s trying to clear his thoughts. The lenses of the domino shudder and whirr with the motion. “These look like the knots I taught all of you.” 

Like he taught Damian, goes unspoken. 

Behind him, Avery’s eyebrows have raised very high. Jason grimaces. “You didn’t make up an entirely new knot strategy, old man.” 

“I know, Jason.” Bruce says. Sharply. Sharper than he meant if the look he gives Jason is any indication. 

Jason sighs, and he lets Bruce brood over fucking knots of all things, as he moves back to her mouth. There’s something white and filmy sticking out in her throat. He thinks it’s plastic. Dread seeps through every pore of his body. Is that a fucking condom? Fuck him. Fuck the Executioner. Fuck everything. 

“Aves, give me your phone,” Jason says. His lieutenant hands it over, for once not putting up a fuss about it. Jason presses his thumb into the woman’s mouth, shining Avery’s flashlight down. 

Her tongue has been shoved back. Jason can see just the edge of wadded up plastic concealed behind her teeth and uvula and epiglottis. He grimaces, reaching down with a hooked finger, wiggling it up her throat. There’s puss and pooled, congealed saliva. The overall corpse hadn’t smelled too bad, kept semi-refrigerated by Gotham bay’s plunging temperatures, but this is enough to nearly make him gag. The odor of putrefaction comes up with the plastic.

It’s not a condom. It’s a piece of the tarp wrapped around the rest of her body, folded in on itself and tied several times. Inside of it is a folded, misshapen origami crane.

Jason frowns. “Bruce,” he says, already unwrapping the plastic. He takes it slowly, pulling at the edges, unwilling to rip the paper.

It’s been a while since the Executioner taunted them. No crime lists, no names, no letters to the police. But if this isn’t him, then maybe the copycat wants the attention. The infamy. He holds the paper crane up to the light, squinting at the writing. He unfolds it with one hand. 

It’s a string of letters and numbers, six digits, KAZ 2Y5 written in terrible chicken scratch with blue crayon. The fumbling, unsteady hand of a child. A license plate number.

Bruce inhales sharply. He reaches out and grabs Jason’s wrist, so quickly Jason doesn’t even get the chance to flinch, before he’s prying the note out of Jason’s hands. It’s gentle, but it’s more mindful of the paper than him. 

“Hey, what—?” 

Bruce flips the paper, he stares at the numbers. He flips it over again. The note is double-sided. On the other side is a bat, Batman’s bat, sketched out in that same blue crayon. Jason stiffens. His thoughts blank out entirely. 

Bruce’s breathing has picked up speed. He doesn’t sound like he can inhale right. The paper falls from his limp hands, fluttering back to land on the woman’s body as his father surges up to his feet. 

“Is Nygma out?” Bruce demands, breathing sharply. Trying to force himself to calm down, to be emotionless, “Did he—he would do this. I thought—” 

Jason takes the note back. He looks it over. Stares at the bat and the license plate. He forces himself not to let the rush of feeling swirl out of his stomach and consume him. It’s clawing inside of him, desperate for any sort of release. “He would have written it in green,” Jason says. And, probably, in this woman’s blood. He wouldn’t have had the patience to wait a week for them to find his clues and then not claim the kill explicitly. “This isn’t his handwriting.”

Bruce’s hand is on his face again, covering his eyes. He stands, pacing away in a short circuit, rubbing at his forehead. “Then someone else. Someone who wants my attention.”

There are only so many crazies in Gotham who fit that bill. Who think it's fun to mess with the bats for shits and giggles. 

“Hey,” Avery says, and he snatches the note from Jason’s hands. “Why don’t you use those big brains of yours and actually look this up?” He points at the license plate number, “We can sit here and think about how miserable we are in a minute.” 

“It won’t lead anywhere,” Bruce says, flat. “This is a game. This is a scheme. We’re only indulging them, whoever they are.” 

Jason, with growing misery, can only nod. What if it’s the Joker again? This is exactly what the Joker would do. He’d think it was funny. Pervert the Executioner’s attempts at justice, make this all into a big show. Maybe whoever did knew about Damian, and this is a taunt about another dead little bird. The list of people who know their identities and want to use that to harm Bruce isn’t long. 

Joker is always, always, always making his stupid little jokes about birds outta the nest. 

“This is crayon?” Avery is still glancing back and forth between them, eyebrows only getting higher. He says, slowly, “You think that the rogues of Gotham used a crayon? And couldn’t even be bothered to make sure the note would make it through the bay, and splurge on a ziploc? Or something vaguely waterproof?” 

“We don’t know if they dumped her in the bay,” Bruce mutters, “she could have just been dumped on the shore for us to find.” 

“Oh my god,” Avery all but throws up his hands. “My five-year-old nephew has better handwriting than this. Run the fucking plate. Where’s your stupid little database? If neither of you are going to get over yourselves, I’ll do it.” 

Jason forces himself up to his feet. He sucks his cheeks against his teeth, “B, he’s right. We have to work this like any case. Even if this is someone fucking with us, we have to play the game anyway.” 

Bruce’s expression darkens. He looks exhausted, then, staring into Jason’s eyes. It’s been a long time since he was Robin, but the urge to reach out and watch his six overwhelms him for a moment. Throw himself at the weaknesses and make sure that Batman remains untouchable. 

Bruce takes the paper from Avery, and they move back to his car. Bruce pulls out a tablet. Jason and Avery watch over his shoulder as he types in the license plate number. 

Jason expects—

He doesn’t know what he expects. Maybe another riddle. Another clue. Something to cement this as a joke, and to scream got you!

Instead, the registration is listed for a Hirum Jorgenson. Bruce stops. Jason’s breath hitches, and they look up at each other. They ran so much shit on Micah Jorgenson, dug up files of his life, and registration that all into a file that they then discarded. 

They’d cleared him from the Executioner suspect list a few weeks ago. Micah was clean, good as. There was nothing in his apartment except some questionable self-defense items, and if anyone with those were declared suspicious, they’d have to investigate the entirety of the Bludhaven and Gotham populace. His computer and phone were clean as well, and a week of surveillance on his single vehicle, his stupid little Mazda, turned up jack shit. Micah’s mental problems ended when he was seventeen and put on a cocktail of mood stabilizers and antipsychotics, and they didn’t come back even after he was weaned off them.

Except, apparently, in one glaring way.

Micah Jorgenson, who went to Damian’s funeral and took pictures. 

Micah Jorgenson, who had knives just like the Executioner's. 

Micah Jorgenson, who just tried to rape Dick. 

He’s had contingencies for everything, for the boats, and the execution sites, of course he’d have one for his fucking car. 

“Shit,” Jason whispers. Then, darker, “That mother fucker.” 

Micah has never given him the address of his family’s house. Never invited him up there. Never done anything to indicate it was a real place that he actually visited, instead of a figment of the imagination. No pictures, no nothing. It had never struck Dick as weird. 

It doesn’t take much to hack into the property records. It’s still under Micah’s uncle, Thomas Whitley. Dick’s phone says it’s an hour and a half drive from Gotham, forty minutes if they were in Bludhaven. 

He puts that together while he drives back to his apartment with one of Bruce’s cars. He doesn’t know if he’s seething, if he’s grieving, if he’s hysterical. 

He doesn’t even know if he believes that it’s Micah.

What, just because he doesn’t like how his boyfriend touches him, he accuses him of being a violent serial killer? He’s being ridiculous. He’ll violate Micah’s privacy, go to that damn house, and find fuck all, and then he’ll have to grow up and deal with the current shambles that his relationship is in. 

He doesn’t remember most of the trip. Has to jerk himself out of the path of oncoming traffic a few too many times. His phone starts ringing again, but he’s too scared to check the caller ID and see Micah’s name again, too scared that he’ll be weak enough to pick it up, and he’ll lose his nerve at the sound of his boyfriend’s voice.

A seething, anxious voice at the back of his mind tells him he imagined it all. Replays the image of Micah crying, telling him not to go out into the cold alone. He wonders if that blurry, dark memory of Micah’s hand sliding down his front is even real, or if he’s concocted a fucked up nightmare and decided to make it into a full-fledged delusion.

He does that. Like he did with Jason. 

He doesn’t have the key to his apartment on him. He must have left it at Micah’s apartment along with his wallet and his clothes. His sanity. He has to break in with fumbling fingers, has to keep walking himself through everything. Shove the turner into the tumbler, twist, hold, twist, hold. He’s just here for his gear. To grab everything he couldn’t at the Cave. 

He shoves the door open, and he pushes it closed behind him. Bedroom, he tells himself. Armor. Escrima sticks. He needs his bike. He should…

He stops, frozen, at the figure standing in front of his wall of crazy. He practically bleeds into the walls, the early morning sunlight glistening along the threads of Dick’s thoughts, pinning him in the center like some haunting creature. 

Micah Jorgenson turns around to look at him slowly. There’s a long hunting knife in his hand. The one that Dick found under his towels, that he’d said was because he felt unsafe, and had, every day since his parents died. 

“What are you…?” Dick manages. It takes everything in him not to back away at the memory of Micah’s hands. Not to take one forward and throw himself into the man’s arms. 

“I acted too soon,” Micah whispers, taking a step toward him, “I should have waited. I almost had everything ready. I was so close, but I woke up, and you were so beautiful laying there. I couldn’t…I’ve wanted you for so long, so, so long. I just needed to touch you. I never meant to scare you. I love you, Dick.”  

Dick’s heart is beating in his ears, but it has been since he woke up. Since he stood in front of Damian’s door and it crashed into him how fucked everything has gone. He exhales, and his breath ghosts in front of him in the darkness. He left the heat off, when he went to Micah’s apartment. He’d planned to stay over a few nights.

Dick opens his mouth, and the first thing that springs to mind is, I love you, too. Muscle memory. How often has he said it, these last few months? Kissed it into Micah’s skin, murmured into his lips, gasped it into his sheets.

He manages, unable to tear his eyes away from Micah’s, “What are you doing here?”

The knife glints. Micah tips it away, so the point is turned inward, away from Dick. His head tips to the side, the darkness in his eyes lightening. They turn golden in the sunlight. “I came for you, baby.”

Dick wants to still. Everything in him springs for running instead. He reaches back blindly for the door handle. “I don’t understand.” 

“I’m the Executioner,” Micah is blinking back tears, “you know now. All the horrible parts about me, with the wine, and the sex, and everything—but I can fix that, I promise. I’m here for the most important thing in my life, and then we’re going. I won’t leave without you. We’re made for each other.” 

He steps forward, and Dick steps back. Paradoxically, he can feel his heart rate lowering at the low, dangerous tone. The anger that seeps from Micah in waves. The threat of the knife is familiar enough. Dick feels his pupils dilate painfully, feels his shaking hands finally steady, all of Bruce’s operant conditioning finally working in his favor. 

Nightwing needs a mask, but Dick can make do without one. His foot slides out a little, centering his weight. 

“You’re not stupid,” Micah whispers, “I know that you know, baby. I think you’ve known for a while. Months. You agree with me, maybe not everything, but enough. You stayed. You knew and you stayed.” 

He thinks, somewhere, somewhere, somewhere, maybe he had.

“You…” Dick’s stomach is tight, “You killed my brother?”

“I saved him for you.” Micah’s hands are steady, too. He’s been in this place before, stared down a victim before. “I made sure you got closure. You said you wanted closure, and I…Dick, please. Come with me. I can’t imagine my life without you.” 

“What are you saying?” He’s buying time now. Mapping his route. Three steps sideways, two meters to the bedroom. Three steps back, four meters to the door. Or step in, hope Micah isn’t as sure with that knife as he looks, drive him to his knees with a kick to the stomach and get him in a submission hold. It’s too much to think about, his mind is racing. He can’t keep it all straight. “What are you asking me?”

Micah really is the Executioner. He’s the one who killed all of those people, who killed Damian. He’s still looking at Dick the way he used to; like he hung the stars and the moon in the sky.

What is he supposed to do? What is he supposed to do with this? He’s the reason Damian died. He’d snapped at Jason, at Tim, but it’s him. He let the Executioner walk away from Miguel Ramirez, let Micah into his life, into his bed, none the wiser.

“I’m asking you to pick me. Just me. No more distractions, none of your stupid, abusive family. I can take care of you. I want to. You need me to.” 

“No,” Dick shakes his head. “No. You—you killed my brother. You killed,” the words get heavier and darker every time he says them, holding weight that seems to drown him,” my brother.” 

“I didn’t!” That temper. He’d always had a temper, but never with Dick. He should have seen the signs. Micah takes another step forward, so there’s only feet or inches between them. His face is flushing, eyes shining, as he realizes Dick won’t be cooperating with him. “I didn’t kill him, Dick.”

Yes. He did. There was too much blood on that fucking tarp. No one has been looking for Dick’s brother in twenty weeks. 

“We didn’t even get to bury him,” Dick whispers, “how could you do this to my family? Do this to me? You saw what it did to me! How could you have stood by and watched everything! Was this all some sort of game to you? Was I some sort of game? After you had sex with those bodies you’d come and do me…” oh god. Oh god, oh god, “You sick fuck.”  

Micah snarls, like a wild animal. The hectic look in his eye is all the warning Dick gets before he’s lunging forward, hands outstretched. Dick scrambles back instinctively, body arching as he tries to get away from the knife. He grabs Micah’s wrist, pushing, but not trying to break it. 

Dick marvels at himself. His life’s being threatened by a fucking killer, and he can’t bring himself to hurt him because he’s wearing the face of his boyfriend.

His rapist. 

“You’re coming with me, I’ve given up too much not to get this,” Micah hisses, like that’s an infallible statement, “don’t make me break you first like your brother did.” 

He forces Dick onto the ground, forces himself on Dick, straddling his hips, but that’s fine, because it gives Dick the leverage to grab his wrists, squeeze until the bone grinds under his fingers, and toss his hips so they flip. 

Micah makes a soft, surprised noise. Dick reverses their positions, pinning Micah’s hands on either side of him. He’s still holding onto the knife, trying to break free, but Dick is stronger. He lets go to rear back, punching Micah in the face. 

Micah’s head smashes back against the floor with a thunk, and the man’s expression dazes, making a thin noise of pain. Dick tries not to flinch at it. He meant to hurt him, but he didn’t want to hurt him. 

Dick takes the knife from his limp fingers. He gets off of Micah, clutching it as tightly as he can, his knuckles pressing so viciously into the handle it aches. 

“Dick,” Micah gasps, chest heaving. There are tears in his eyes. “Dick, baby. Baby, I love you. Don’t do this.”

Dick paces away, bends over double, hands on his knees, exhaling spit and stomach acid onto the floor of his apartment. He’s hyperventilating. He doesn’t think he’s been this badly affected by a fight since he was twelve. 

They barely even touched each other. 

“How long—were you planning this?” Dick demands. “Were you always going to take me? Was this…this was all some sort of—of what, Micah?” 

“Since I saw you,” Micah’s back arches, he pushes himself onto his elbows, and then sits up, staring at Dick with wide, wild eyes. “Since the first moment I saw you, I knew I wanted to kill you.”

Dick blanches, and sways. Micah isn’t moving toward him anymore, is only staring, but it feels like he’s invaded Dick. Crawled inside all of his hollow spaces and left his fingerprints there, as bloody as they are. “Why didn’t you?” Dick whispers.

“You were good,” Micah moans it. “I couldn’t kill you because you were so good. And that would make me a bad person, and I never wanted to be bad, Dick, I never…”

“You are,” Dick snarls. And disgust pools in his abdomen, “You rape all those people. You have sex with corpses. What the fuck is wrong with you?” 

Micah puts his face in his hands. His shoulders are shaking, violent spasming tremors. Dick can’t tell if he’s laughing, or crying, or falling apart. “No,” he says. “You’re wrong. No.”

Dick needs to call Bruce. Or maybe the police. He needs to tie Micah up with the cuffs in his uniform, in his room, and end this. 

“If I killed you, I’d only get you for a week,” Micah whispers, “but if I take you, I get you forever. You love me, Dick. I didn’t think you would. You’re so—you’re so kind, and you’re so sweet, and you love me.” He sounds almost awed, reverent, “I’m not doing this without you.”

“I hate you.” It’s too bitter on his tongue. Tastes too much like a lie. Dick closes his eyes against it, the awful wrenching feeling as his heart splinters. “I’m going to arrest you, and you’re going to go to jail for the rest of your miserable life, you freak.”

“No,” Micah pushes up on his knee, shoves his way to his feet, “I’m taking you home, and we’re going to be happy. All of this was for you.” 

Micah’s hand moves to his jacket, and Dick thinks gun, and he lurches toward him to wrestle it from his grip, not letting him get the advantage, or pin Dick in a corner with it, but it’s not a firearm. 

It’s a syringe. 

Dick ducks out of the way, balancing back on his heels to change trajectory when Micah swipes at him. His hands are trying to grab any part of him he can reach now, like if he can just lay contact on Dick, he can reel him in. 

Like he did in the bedroom this morning. 

His hands are like claws, and Dick dances out of reach. He grabs the edge of the counter, flipping himself over the length of it with ease, and brandishes the knife at Micah from the other side. He still, stupidly, stupid, cannot bring himself to hurt him first. 

Stop fighting me, Dick wants to beg him, just make this easy. Lay down. Stop. 

It’s all over Micah’s face, his thoughts, echoed. He moves slowly around the counter, daring Dick to lunge, the needle brandished, gaze predatory.

Dick doesn’t win, he jumps first. Kicks out at Micah’s legs, in a bid to keep the space between them, but Micah avoids it just barely, lunging for Dick again. Dick grabs for his hands, always hands with an armed assailant, control the threat, but Micah’s wised up, keeps them close to his chest.

“Damian called you,” Micah says, taunting, or maybe a threat, “the morning I asked you to be my boyfriend. I didn’t have a nightmare.” 

Micah called him three times. Persistent. He’s never, even once, woken Dick up for a nightmare. Oh god. Dick stills, his hands going lax and limp. “He what—” 

The needle is jammed into his neck, and Micah has depressed the plunger before Dick can finish the sentence, crying out harshly at the sudden spike of pain. The blade tumbles from his fingers, clattering to the floor between them. 

Shit. 

Shit. 

Dick tries to shove him back, but Micah twists his face, grinding it roughly against the floor. His jaw and cheek burn at the pressure, and Dick twists roughly to try and get out. Micah’s hand is twisted so tightly in his hair that it’s making his vision blur. 

“God,” Micah says, panting, leaning his weight all the way onto Dick’s back. He bends over Dick, his breath ghosting his neck “You’re just as difficult as he is.”

He. 

I saved him for you, Micah had said, I didn’t kill him.

Dick can feel the sedative, the edges of it, creeping up slowly on him. He has time, a minute maybe, but he’s still reeling, when Micah presses his lips to the side of his throat, opens his mouth, and bites down hard. 

His teeth break skin. Dick cries out, writhing. Micah’s breath hitches, stilling where he’s perched over Dick. His tongue laps up the blood slowly. “Just stay still, baby, just a few more seconds,” he murmurs into his neck. 

Dicking hand jerks out, finding the knife Micah dropped. Dick wraps his fingers around it, grip looser than he’d usually like. He stabs backward blindly, aimless, just as shocked as Micah when the blade sinks into something solid and fleshy. 

The hunting knife is buried in Micah’s stomach. 

Oh god. 

He hadn’t—

“I’m sorry,” Dick gasps. Micah wrenches backward, falling onto his ass, hissing between his teeth. “I’m so…” dizzy, is what he is, dizzy, and everything is clouding. “I’m.” The knife is soaked with blood. Micah’s blood. Dick stabbed him. “Let me.”

Micah screams at him, frustration and pain. His hands are pressed over his stomach as the blood oozes, and Dick stares at him in spinning horror. “I don’t have time for this,” Micah hisses, “Why won’t you just go with me? Why did you have to fight it?” 

I don’t know, Dick wants to say, but his head is getting heavier and heavier. His tongue is weighted sandpaper. 

He closes his eyes. “I’ll be back,” Micah says, but it sounds like he’s whispering. “I can’t take you like this. I’ll be back. I’m not leaving you. I have to take care of the kid first now.” 

The last sensation that Dick feels is Micah’s lips on his. 

Then nothing.

Chapter Text

“Do you think Dick is okay?” Tim asks Cass through the comms, as they approach the Jorgenson property. 

His arms are wrapped around her waist, chin hooked over her shoulder, pretending not to feel the tension in her spine, the rigid way she holds herself. The motorcycle is loud, engine thrumming beneath him, but the white noise doesn’t drown out the panic, or the breathless note to Cass’ voice when she says, “He’s sleeping. Can’t be scared now.” 

Right .

Sleeping is one term for it. Drugged by his psychotic, serial killer boyfriend is another. And Tim let him leave . For all the useless shit he’d given Bruce about Morrison and leaving Tim there, for all of the pain and frustration he had felt, he had done the exact same thing. Anything that happened to Dick during that fight is his fault . 

If he had just stopped him. If he hadn’t let him walk off until the drugs had worn out of his system. If Micah did something to him, that’s on Tim, for being too stupid to do more than monitor him. 

They’re lucky he’s alive . They’re lucky that he was still there. There was a blood trail moving back toward the door, according to Jason, but Micah hadn’t been able to take him, given the state of his injuries. He’d tried . 

Dick isn’t conscious yet, can’t tell them what happened, but Tim’s imagination has provided plenty to go off of. 

Bruce is going to lecture him later, maybe even bench him, for letting Dick walk out like that. The only reason he was banished to the Jorgenson house at all, the busiest busywork that Bruce could think of while he and Jason go after Jorgenson, is because he let Dick walk off. 

He’s on the run. Barbara pinged his phone an hour after he left Dick’s apartment—stabbed, but still mobile—headed south and in the general direction of Wessock, before it was turned off and destroyed. 

Tim doesn’t know if he knows about the note in the throat, if he’s running because of that, or he’s running because of Dick. It doesn’t really matter. They need to find him before he vanishes off the face of the earth again, for Damian’s sake. 

His brother deserves better justice for his murder than what they’ve given him. 

The Jorgenson house is in the middle of Wessock County, an absolute nowheresville. They’ve passed through miles of farmlands and woods. Tim hasn’t seen a gas station in an hour. His nav system puts them out forty-five minutes from the nearest grocery store.

It’s an hour drive from Bludhaven, three from central Gotham, with traffic. Tim has little confidence that they’ll find anything. The Executioner has proven to be meticulous and neurotic with his premeditation. 

The property is twelve acres. One neighbor, Daryl Young, over a mile away. The corn crop belonged to a larger agri farming company. 

Plenty of space to carry out unsavory business. 

What Tim doesn’t understand is why the bodies turned up at all. He thinks, if he had this much property, this much space , that he’d just sink them in the ground in the woods somewhere, and call it a day. It speaks to ego, which is something they knew the Executioner had, but it also means the house might be a complete bust. 

“Dick is alive,” Cass says, and not Dick is okay . They both know that isn’t true. His boyfriend killed Damian. There is no walking back from that, no way to regain the shattered trust. Tim was never able to look at Steph the same way after what happened to Ariana, and what she did was nothing comparable to Micah. 

“Thanks for coming with.” Tim’s never been squeamish. Half his job when he was fourteen and still Robin was evidence collection. Bruce didn’t trust him in combat for the longest time. Not until well after Shiva had her go at him, and even then. 

“No problem,” Cass assures, then, with some wryness, also adds, “no choice.” 

Tim huffs. Yeah, me too. 

The two of them pull off to a stop in front of the house. It’s smaller than Tim had been expecting, a squat two-story that was built at least thirty years ago. It hasn’t been well maintained. Everything has been weathered with time, and it needs a fresh coat of paint. The roof is in surprisingly good condition, for what little good that does. 

There’s a car parked out front, and Tim’s heart sinks as he recognizes the familiar KAZ 2Y5 stamped across the license plate. The Executioner has more than one car. Micah has more than one car. They have him driving a sedan from Dick’s apartment, something expensive. A Mazda hatchback, he thinks. Early 2010s model. 

“He’s not here,” Tim says, unless he trashed the car and walked . Doubtful. “We missed him.”

Not a surprise. Bruce all but told them that they had. Jorgenson had a four hour head-start, and wasn’t an idiot. Of course he went on the run.

Still. They have to investigate the house, see if it gives them any clues on where Jorgenson is going. 

“Side door,” Cass says, catching his arm when he moves to the porch. He lets her lead him around to it. There’s a patch of gravel where there’s room for another car, and the porch wraps around to the back as well, limewashed posts holding up the overhanging roof. She picks up a spare key off a stepping stone. The screen door is locked, but it’s just a wire mesh and no glass, so Tim rips through it with a bat-a-rang and forces it open. 

The side door leads immediately into the kitchen. It’s very clean. 

Very tidy, to the point of looking unlived in and off-putting in a way that the aftermath of a well-cleaned, violent mass murder should. It smells like bleach and lemons. There’s no clutter, not a dish in the sink, or mail left on the counter. The only appliance left out is the toaster. There are no chairs at the kitchen island. 

Cass moves in cautiously, head on a swivel, and Tim follows her just a step behind. 

There’s a bunch of D-rings installed across the space, nailed to the ceiling above the sink, to the side of the counter, the heavy table. There’s nothing hanging from them, not flowers, like what Tim’s mother used to do in the kitchen when he was four or five. They’re just…there. Like decoration. Without a point.

“You think he propped them up?” Tim says, without thinking. 

Cass cocks her head at him. “What?”

“The bodies.” He touches one of the d-rings, positioned over the kitchen sink, right next to the curtain rod. When he looks back at Cass, her nose is wrinkled with disgust. “You know, like, when he—”

“I know .” 

Maybe it would be better not to know. Tim glances around them. There’s a living room in front of him, a staircase off to his left, and a door to the basement. 

The blueprint of the house is on his wrist computer, but it’s not big enough to need it. Tim can see into the living room from here, the plain blue sofa, the blinds closed over the windows. “You go up, I’ll go down?”

Cass gives him an unimpressed look. “Let’s stay together,” she says, opening, pointedly, a drawer at the far end of the kitchen. 

There's assorted odds and ends of murder weapons inside. Wire, zip ties, duct tape. Unopened tarps, long, wickedly sharp hunting knives. Tim grimaces. “Yeah, okay.”

The kitchen doesn’t hold deep secrets. There’s no map detailing out where the bodies were dropped, or a convenient list of them. Most everything inside is just a kitchen. He finds bowls, spoons, the food in the fridge was bought a few days ago, if the way none of it has wrinkled or molded yet is any indication. The raspberries are even in pristine condition. 

Cass’s expression is tight. There’s something almost angry about it. “Two people lived here,” she says. 

Tim can feel something tighten in his stomach. “Long term?” he asks, and looks at the D-rings everywhere with a new light. He can feel his face drain of color, studying everything over with new eyes. Everything he learns about this man unsettles him in new, graphic ways. “Oh god. You don’t think…he kept them alive then…” 

“Played house,” Cass says with a shrug. Disgusted, but unruffled. “Up or down?” 

He can only imagine what’s in the basement. They didn’t find over eighty percent of the Executioner’s suspected victims, and it would be cold enough down there that, with a little bit of ice, he could keep the ones he really wanted for months or maybe even years. Tim thinks he’s going to be sick. “Up.” 

Cass nods, shuts the cabinet she was perusing. She’s right; there are two glasses in there, with water stains from frequent washing, the rest left untouched and visibly dusty.

They go upstairs. The stairwell is cramped, and they have to walk single-file, unable to avoid the creaking wood planks. It still smells clean, just not as strongly of bleach, and Tim can see pictures on the walls of the Jorgenson family, before the incident.

The first door they stop at is a closet. There’s nothing in it except linen, spare bed sheets. At least five, and just as many blankets. It feels like a lot. They’re all perfectly white, folded with military precision. Tim shuts that just as quickly as he opened it.

The bedroom is plain and largely empty. It’s lifeless in a way that speaks of someone who isn’t here a lot, not in that devoid personality-less way that Tim saw from Kon the first few weeks in the Tower in San Francisco. There’s tape stuck to the ceiling, and Cass finds a container of discarded glow-in-the-dark stars shoved in the closet. 

Tim rifles through the desk, but all he finds is case files from the BPD, taxes, mortgage shit, and documents. Birth certificate, SSN, death certificates for the Jorgensons.  

The bed is also made, blue comforter but white pillowcases and bed sheets. It’s a queen size, and there’s a bedside table with a phone charger still plugged in beside it. The drawers are ajar, but not thrown open. Cass bends down and smells the pillow, nose twitching.

“Got his scent?” Tim jokes, but the humor falls dry. It gets him another narrow-eyed look, but that’s just Cass’ thinking face.

“Not just his,” she says, frowning. 

Tim doesn’t want her to expand. He very much doesn’t want her to expand. He turns, and leaves the bedroom. The room down the hall is a bathroom, with more D-rings installed. The shower rung has been nailed into the wall, in the tub, not just balanced precariously like he’s seen in every other bathroom. 

What the fuck has Micah been doing with these bodies? He has to keep them alive long enough to…to what? Dress them up, puppet them around like dolls, fuck them at his leisure, then kill them when he’s done messing with them? 

All of the rape, all of the abuse, beyond that first killing blow had been done post mortem on the bodies that they found. But it’s not like they found all of them. It’s not like they have a good idea of how many people have even gone missing.

But why would he need to restrain corpses ? Some of them have to have been alive for this. To be hauled around and humiliated in a way that Tim can’t even find words to express. How long had it taken before they gave up? Gave in? Before they realized help was never coming, and they just went along with it? 

Why is there no evidence of blood anywhere? This house was a torture chamber, and it should bare the stains of that, and it isn’t. It’s so clean that it’s unreal. 

Is this what had happened to Damian? Or had he just been killed? How many days had his brother been here? How often had Micah raped him? Had Micah beaten him and chained him and left him broken? How long did Damian last before he broke in that week he was held here? How many days had he fought? What had that fucker done to his younger brother? 

Tim’s stomach is swimming. He has to grab at the edges of the counter, spitting bile into the sink, hand pressed to the back of his mouth, sucking in a breath. 

Damian is dead. Micah can’t hurt him anymore. Hasn’t been able to for months. 

Tim has wanted to know every gruesome detail of what happened that week, wanted to know in what ways he failed his brother, to know what happened. Reality is far worse than anything his imagination conjured. 

“Red,” Cass calls. He looks up. She’s in the hall again, her back to him, the beetle-like carapace of her suit reflecting light and absorbing the darkness of the house. Tim rejoins her, where she’s crouched in front of one of the doors. “This one’s locked.”

She’s picking it already, sliding a pin into the simple key-mechanism, jiggling it. It pops after only a matter of seconds, the knob twisting under her palm. She glances up at him, and he steels himself.

He doesn’t know what he expects to see. Maybe their missing bodies, all stacked one on top of the other, in some gruesome pyramid. But the room is just an office. Lined with shelves, a desk, a corkboard on the far wall. The curtains are drawn in this room. Tim leans forward, and flicks on the light. 

The far wall, from floor to ceiling, is covered in photos. The corkboard is layered in more, the final wall obscured by a map of the Gotham Harbor, pierced with red pins and spools of thread.

“Bingo,” Cass says, with no audible sense of accomplishment. Tim slaps her shoulder. 

The photos are small, 4x6s, layered out in perfect, even rows. Three photos for every single corpse. One posed on the couch in the living room downstairs, dressed in revealing clothing, one naked, and the last one is wrapped up in the tarp, likely before he drops them. The lighting is worse on those ones, taken from the boats. 

The photography is cheap, the photos printed from home. The camera is expensive, Tim can see where lenses were changed out to get the lighting better, but the printer isn’t, sitting on the desk, and the photo paper is glossy, but the pixel count it can hold is minimal. Tim is certain that the actual photos are far more detailed and perfect than these slightly hazy ones of the people. 

They’re of the corpses . Not of the victims, just their bodies, cold and stiff and so visibly dead that it makes Tim’s stomach roll. There’s women’s lingerie in some, chokers and garters placed artistically over horrific wounds. The bodies are posed, as best as they can be with their rigid tissue and slowly bloating decay. Shots that could’ve been taken out of a playboy magazine, if it weren’t for the gray tinge to their skin.

There was actual photography equipment, he can see where the umbrellas were set up to make the skin pop, and the gleam of their eyes radiate. A light off to the right. Micah didn’t waste effort or time taking these, he was deliberate and slow and careful. Tim can see him picking up skill as the time goes on. 

He’d looked it up, Tim realizes. How to take better photos. How to get the blue light to pop. Or he started editing his photos on the computer before he printed them. So the camera would see every detail that his eye did, and he could relive staring them down over and over and over. 

The naked photos are… different. Less of a shrine to whatever beauty or appeal that Micah saw in the corpses, and more a wild animal wanting to memorize their kill. The eyes have been closed, but the evidence of sex is coated in smeared, wet lines across their skin. It gleams in the lighting in the photos. He can see trails of white and ugly, dark blood down the legs of several of them. Pre-fuck, post-fuck, disposal. 

They don’t look human anymore, they look like decrepit dolls, used to the point of abuse by a small child, the plastic broken and stained. The lack of caring, the lack of any sort of respect or even a mocking attempt at remorse settles over him slowly. 

Tim presses his hand to the back of his mouth, glancing away. Whatever lies Micah Jorgenson was telling himself, this has never been about getting these people off the streets, not in the way it is for Jason. This? This has always been about the sex, or he wouldn’t have built a shrine to their corpses to memorize and worship the necrophilia. 

“Thirty seven,” Cass says, after a long minute. She doesn’t stop staring at the wall of photos, gaze raking across it over and over. “Thirty seven. We missed five.”

It’s fewer than Tim was expecting to miss. Tim blinks, and makes himself look at the wall again. “Is he—”

“ No ,” Cass snaps, so viciously that Tim recoils from her. Her hands are clenched into fists, she’s still looking, still searching . He doesn’t know if it’s an answer to his question or a threat. Tim looks with her.

Damian isn’t on the wall. The victims go in chronological order. He finds Lamont, and then he finds McTyson, the pedophile that disappeared in January, and there is no gap between them. No memoriam to Damian’s death. Tim thinks he’s relieved. He can’t— he doesn’t think he could look at that, not even if he owed it to the kid. 

Knowing is different from seeing it, and he couldn’t… can’t. 

He forces his eyes away from the wall. It’s all too easy to imagine Damian like this, to shove his brother into the three piece picture set. He’d have been so small, compared to all the others. Tim wonders how much he’d bled when Micah raped him. What the man had done to him, to leave him so malformed that his body wasn’t even given as an option, let alone photogenic. 

Cass puts a hand on his shoulder, and leaves it there. She moves to look at the corkboard, but it’s obvious what that is. There’s no mathematics in it like there was for Helmstutler’s mimicry—Bruce’s theory was that he was going to try and pass off Haleema as one of the Executioner’s victim, as stupid as that would have been—just a simple tracking process. Jorgenson just figured out where to dump so that the bodies will wash up, and where they won’t. There are a few spots mapped out, presumably for his next victims.

Tim takes in a deep breath to steady himself, and turns away. He moves toward the closet. His limbs feel a little unattached, as he watches his hands reach for the first box. Everything is labeled with a stupid little label maker that Tim thinks he could find next to the printer on the desk if he looked. 

There are file folders, more photo boxes. They figured the Executioner was the type to keep trophies, to relive the kills over and over, during the interim period between murders. Otherwise he wouldn’t keep the bodies for so long. 

The file folders are dated, labeled by name. Tim can recognize each of the victims, and he flips open the first just to get an idea of the contents. It’s a more in-depth look into their lives, where they worked, their routines. Pictures of them before they died, taken during a selection period. Micah was stalking them.

Stalking them, lying in wait. They never knew he was coming.

The thickest file folder is at the very back. It’s number thirty-eight, so potentially a new victim. It might give them some idea on where Micah is going, in case he feels he has unfinished business with them, but when Tim pulls it out, the name it’s labeled with is Richard J. Grayson.

Cass peers over his shoulder, as Tim flips it open. Morbid curiosity mixing with a sick dread. He thinks he knows what he’ll find.

Of course he does. Micah drugged Dick, tried to take him. Tried to rape him. He’s not shocked by the pictures that spill out of the file folder, the up close angles of Dick’s face, the stretch of his smile. Of him getting on the bus, and drinking a cup of coffee at a kiosk outside of his job at the BPD. Dick on the phone, taken from just outside his apartment looking in through the window. On his morning jog, in only a tank-top and a tight pair of shorts. Dick sleeping. Dick in the shower, and this is the only one where Dick acknowledges his photographer, dripping wet and hand outstretched as if to block the camera, grinning so hard that his eyes have squeezed shut.

There are a few more that follow after, where Dick is posing dramatically, still laughing, and no longer hiding anything. 

Cass makes a thin noise behind him. Tim flips them over quickly, swallowing bile. The notes are worse. Micah had access to the police database, he must have justified running a background check on Dick, because there are fucking police reports about the death of Dick’s parents. The court records for Bruce’s wardship, and, later, the actual adoption papers from last year. Tim remembers Bruce offering them out, hesitant, and how Dick’s eyes had softened. Tim thinks he cried. Dick had known Micah at that point. Had he told him? 

“This is,” Tim says. And Cass finishes, “Sick.”

He doesn’t know how Dick will come back from this. Tim doesn’t think he could, if it were him. Micah was…

Micah meant the world to Dick. 

Cass reaches forward, picking up documents and photos from the back. These aren’t perfectly printed case files, or abstract information that he could have found from the internet, it is, as far as Tim can make out, a detailed plan of Dick’s extraction. Times when Dick was alone, a loose plan on how to get him back to this house. 

“He was going to kill him,” Cass says. She picks up a handwritten sticky note, tacked to a couple of movie tickets dated three years ago. The Equalizer , at the Bludhaven drive-in theater, an evening showing. 

Not tonight , the note is written in hasty handwriting, sloppy, different from the meticulous print on all of Micah’s other documents. Need a gun .  

The third victim listed by Micah was taken less than twenty-four hours after the movie-theater ticket. Like he’d…just…found something else to project onto. They look enough like Dick that the implication is not lost on Tim at all. It was a stand-in. For his brother. That Micah was going to kill. Had thought about. Has thought about. Dated. Fucked. Loved. 

“Oh my god,” Tim whispers, and the papers drop from his hands, spattering across the floor and his knee, it feels like acid against his skin. 

“Tim,” Cass says, and there’s gravity in her voice that scares him. It’s his name that snaps him from the spiral, because Cass doesn’t fuck around with that in the field, none of them do, and he snaps his head up toward his sister, only to see her holding out a packet of photographs taken from another box perched on her hip. 

“What?” he takes them, forcing himself to inhale, so the air isn’t trapped in his lungs. The packet is lighter. He doesn’t want to look at his brother’s naked body anymore, or the Executioner’s victims. He should have made Jason come here.

He flips over the pictures, and feels his stomach drop out. 

It’s the missing ones of Damian. Except it’s not, because his baby brother isn’t dead in any of them. They’re not in any sort of order, but Tim flips through them, his breathing picking up speed. Damian isn’t dead in any of them.

He can see his brother decaying anyway. Losing weight, his hair growing out, a chain wrapped around his neck that seems to start to swallow him. He’s in a basement with a single window the only lighting, he’s sitting at the table and there’s a handmade cake in front of him, candles perched inside the icing for 14. Micah is pressed up against him, it’s a selfie, from a phone. 

In half of them, he doesn’t look at the camera. His gaze fixed somewhere in the middle distance, as if he doesn’t even register Micah’s presence. In others, his head is downturned, brow furrowed with concentration, hunched over a piece of paper, drawing something the camera doesn’t capture. The few that manage to capture his whole body show a litany of marks on his legs and arms, welts. In some of them his right leg is swollen to twice its size at the calf, the bone of his tibia jutting at an unnatural angle. At some point, he loses the brace on his wrist and it never comes back. 

These photos don’t have the same perfect clarity of the others, the same resolution. Damian blurs with movement, he scowls and shifts out of frame. Tim only finds three where he’s looking directly at the camera, but when he does, his eyes are wide and emotionless, perpetually staring into nothing.

Tim presses his hand against the back of his mouth, and he can’t speak for painful squeezes of his heart. His tongue has seemed to have swollen up behind his teeth, gagging him. His vision blurs. 

Damian was alive. 

Damian was alive. 

Might.

Oh god. 

Oh god. 

Damian might still be alive, in that fucking basement. Tim abandons the photos on the floor, shoving up to his feet with such force that he can barely stop himself from falling over. Papers and photos flutter around his feet as he moves for the hall. He’s not thinking anymore, he’s not anything, he’s just moving, moving, moving. 

Taking the stairs two at a time as he all but throws himself down them, landing roughly on the base. Cass is just behind him, as they blow through the house with a force that they should have had when they got here. They should have torn the entire thing to shreds, shouldn’t have waited around for something to happen, to be told where to go and what to do.

Damian was here. 

Damian. 

Tim can hear himself hyperventilating. There is no door leading down to the basement, though half the hinges are still attached, like it was there at some point and removed. The wood creaks beneath every step as Tim all but throws himself down them, rounding the barrister. He wants to shout, he wants to scream, but all that escapes him is a desperate, breathed, “Dami?”

The basement is empty. His voice echoes on the unfinished concrete. 

Like in the photos, the room is centered around a pile of blankets, and an unshaded lightbulb overhead. Everything has been cleared out, or shoved onto shelves high out of reach. There’s that D-ring in the ceiling, where in the pictures a chain looped from around Damian’s neck, dragging upward, tethering him in place. 

His legs give out beneath him when he tries to take a step forward, and Cass has to catch him around the waist to stop him from pitching. Tim’s hands are pressed against his mouth, and he’s biting at the skin, but the pain isn’t making him focus. A horrified sob escapes him, something that feels like an explosion rattling apart in his chest. 

Damian was here. Damian is alive. Damian has been alive, this entire time, and they didn’t know and they weren’t looking. They didn’t…why did they believe the Executioner? The blood could have been faked, the blood was faked, they shouldn’t have given up so easily, they should have kept fighting, and, and, and —

There’s a stuffed animal, a dog, ruffled and well used. There are little cranes set out, three, in a perfect row, and the sight of them breaks something in him. 

“Bruce,” Tim gasps out, and he grabs at his sister’s arm, squeezing at it, “we have to—we have to tell Bruce. Damian’s alive.” 

The world is bright. 

Damian’s eyes burn from the ache of the sun, gleaming through the windows of Blade’s vehicle, a 2010 Mazda Hatchback Damian’s never seen before. His legs still ache from being yanked up the stairs, and his body is throbbing with unused adrenaline. The weight of his collar’s chain is looping in his lap.

Numbing panic has begun to set in Damian’s stomach. He has never been taken by Blade anywhere, never been inside of Blade’s car, not since he was first released from the duffle bag. He does not know what it means for him to be here. Damian thinks, somewhere, he is terrified. His breathing has been scraping steadily toward hyperventilation ever since he was shoved into the passenger seat fifteen minutes ago. 

Blade is silent. Grip white-knuckled on the steering wheel, eyes locked on the road in front of them. He’s pale, sweating and shaking visibly, and there's an awful dark patch seeping through his navy blue sweatshirt, right over his kidney.

The sweatshirt is warm, insular. Embroidered on the breast is, Bludhaven County Police Department , in white, scripted lettering. His collar is hiked up around his throat, but he’s shivering anyways, despite the heat blasting in the car.

“Blade,” Damian whispers, not for the first time.

It’s morning, the sun shining through the windshield. They’ve made a left onto Duerson lane, and Damian recognizes nothing, least of all the rows and rows of cornfields. He doesn’t know where they are, except it’s rural and wooded, and he can’t see over the crop line. 

Blade doesn’t twitch. 

Bludhaven County Police Department . How many stations did they have? Compared to Gotham, Bludhaven is tiny. Damian can’t imagine there were too many satellite stations, and Dick works at HQ. 

He forces his voice to get louder, though it makes him wince, and something in him stiffen, “Blade, where are we going?” He still doesn’t answer. “What’s going on? I don’t understand—” 

“ Shut up!” Blade hisses. 

“Blade. If something has happened—” 

“I said shut up!” 

“But I don’t—” 

The car skids across the pavement as Blade throws them into the shoulder of the road, hands moving harshly, jerking the car into park. Barely seems to do so. The fury in his wild, dark eyes terrifies Damian. He tries to lean back, scrambling against the door, hands moving vainly for the handle. Blade yanks on the chain, pulling him closer, and his hands are cold and thick and heavy when they wrap around Damian’s throat above his collar. 

He holds him there for long seconds, until something in his face clears as Damian struggles weakly underneath him, fingers clasping at his wrist. Blade’s hands release as fast as they came, and Damain sucks in a heaving breath, dizzy. He gags, and Blade’s hands are there, smoothing at the skin, rubbing in circles, like he can soothe the forming bruises away. “I’m sorry,” Blade gasps, “I’m sorry, Dames. I didn’t mean—fuck. Fuck.” 

He looks scared. He looks scared , and in pain, holding Damian’s neck in his hands like it’s the only thing he has left. Damian blinks until the tears in his eyes clear, wheezing slightly, reaching up to hold onto Blade’s wrists. 

“It’s okay,” Damian says, faint and rasping. “I forgive you.” 

Blade keens at that, moaning low, and presses his forehead against Damian’s, shuddering. It is warm to the point of feverish, and there’s something off about the way he’s holding himself, something deeper than distress. 

Slowly, it sinks in that Damian made a very stupid mistake. 

Bludhaven County Police Department . Was Blade their first call, after they found the body? 

He didn’t pack anything from the house. Just Damian, and three pairs of his underwear. The duffel bag of knives and bleach and fresh tarp, his gun and all the ammunition in the closet.

Blade sobs. Closes both hands over Damian’s neck, rubbing at his jaw. Damian draws comfort from him, lets his own forehead rest against Blade’s, sagging. “Something is wrong,” Damian murmurs. He can smell blood, now that they’re close enough, and the enclosed cage of the car is trapping it with them. “What’s wrong with you?”

Blade only cries harder, and it makes him sound like a child, breath hitching with pain, holding onto Damian like a beloved comfort item. He chokes, and groans softly, and the dark stain on his shirt expands.

Damian reaches down with shaking hands, curling his fingers around the edge of Blade’s shirt, pulling it up. It sticks, and Blade makes an awful wheezing sound as the fabric peels away from the suction of blood on his skin, revealing the gaping wound there.

It’s a stab wound. The collapse of tissue around a rend about as wide as two of Damian’s fingers, bleeding steadily. It passes through epithelium and fat, and Damian can see the dark venous blood feeding the underlying organs. His entire stomach has gone the color of poppies, a horrible flushing scarlet.

Horror, an awful dread, seizes Damian’s lungs.

“I tried,” Blade gasps, “I tried to get him to come with us, Dames. And he wouldn’t. He hates me, he hates us, and I don’t understand. I don’t…” 

Damian’s breathing is trapped like a sealed container lid has been plopped over his throat. It takes momentous effort to get his tongue to work. “Blade, you have to go to a hospital.” 

“No,” Blade shakes his head, vehemently. His hand clenches around Damian’s collar. “I won’t lose you, too. I tried…tried to pick both, but I can’t get both, so I…I’ll just take you. I can’t lose you, Damian. I love you too much.” 

Someone stabbed him. Damian revealed his identity, willingly betrayed Blade’s trust, and he was stabbed . The violence of it is stark. Blade will die if this goes untreated, he will bleed out, or it will get infected and sepsis will claim him. It makes Blade seem mortal in a way he never was in that house. 

The car is filled with the sound of their breathing, the labored quality to Blade’s sinks into Damian like knives. This is too much. The sunlight, the cornfields, the winding backroads. Damian’s eyes are burning.

A quiet, endlessly hopeful part of him thinks that means someone wants Damian enough to kill for him. Someone must have fought him, must have tried to maim his captor. Blade had come home in a rush, and he had dragged Damian out of the basement and into the wild for the first time ever. Someone must have been coming for him. Perhaps, maybe, maybe, maybe, they would come for more than Blade . 

If there is someone after them, then that means that all Damian has to do is nothing. 

And wait. 

For the blood to spill, or the infection to gather. Then Blade will die on his own, by his namesake, and Damian will—

Will what? 

The last time that he attempted an escape, he ended up right back with this man. No one has tried to help Damian since this happened. If he leaves Blade’s moldering corpse behind, then what? This is even assuming that he dies in a place that Damian can escape , because if he puts him in another basement, and chains him back up, then all that will happen is that he joins Blade, a few days late, the two of them dead together like a suicide pact. 

“D—don’t cry,” Blade is stumbling over his words. He sounds like he did that night, after his bad dream, curling into and around Damian like a dandelion arching toward the sun. Damian rubs his cheek against Blade’s palm. “Don’t be scared, Dames.”

“I’m not afraid,” Damian whispers. Is he? Isn’t he always ? He feels frozen with indecision. Things used to be so easy . 

Damian used to know what to do, always. Even if it weren’t outlined for him, by Father or Mother or Grandfather, he never had so much difficulty deciding .

He could let Blade die. He could pick up the gun off the console, rack the slide back and shove a .44 mm into the chamber, bury it between Blade’s eyes or his own. He could stumble out of this car, walk into the cornfields, and probably never be found again.

“Damian,” Blade is trying for serious, and weighted, but he sounds more terrified than Damian. “I need…I need you to stitch me up, baby. I can’t keep losing blood, but I can’t go to the hospital. Can you do that for me? I’ll walk you through it. I know you’re scared, but I’ll be right here, I promise.” 

Damian’s stomach clenches painfully. The urge to tell him no is so overwhelming that he has to bite his tongue to stop himself. He eyes the bleeding, horrific mass of Blade’s stomach, parted like a gaping mouth. 

Blade’s thumb smooths over the length of his jaw, urging. 

Damian closes his eyes. Not now. Not now. Not now. Later, he can always kill Blade later. Will he suffer, some dark, aching part of Damian wonders, if he kills him later, will he suffer? Because Blade is, now, laid before him. 

“I know how to do stitches,” he hears himself say. Then, fainter, “Do you have a suture kit?” 

“In the back. Hey,” he grabs Damian’s shoulder, before he can reach for the door, tugging him back. “No, no. Don’t leave.”

A car rolls by, driving ten under the posted speed limit Damian saw a mile back. Damian watches it go, and hears the thudding, rhythmic sound of his heart in his ears. He lets go of the door handle, climbing up onto the middle console, careful of his bad leg, and crawls into the back seat. His chain rattles behind him, sticking in the seat belt buckle. His captor reaches over to untangle it for him. 

“It’s a red bag,” Blade calls, resting against the headrest. He meets Damian’s eyes in the rearview mirror, staring from below his lashes, gaze unwavering. “There’s a black zipper. Yeah, that’s the one. On the inside pocket.”

Damian finds the suture kit, pulling it out, and then the isopropyl alcohol stored beside it. Gauze, medical tape. When he crawls back, Blade has reclined the seat as far as it’ll go, and pulled up his shirt and sweatshirt, to bare the wound to the open air. He’s shuddering violently, shock slacking his expression, eyes hazy as he watches Damian crawl over him, moving only to shift the chain so that the collar doesn’t dig into his neck. “Good boy,” he says. 

There is no way to do this without touching Blade, given the gear shift. Damian weighs his options, considers climbing out of the car to do this kneeling at his feet, but ultimately, Blade has made the choice for both of them. Damian crawls onto Blade’s legs, settling over the man’s lap, careful to displace his weight in a way that won’t make his own legs go numb as quickly. 

One of his feet is resting on the floor of the back, and the other is wedged uncomfortably against the door. The handle is close enough to Damian’s side he could open it with his elbow. Push himself into freedom. Blade couldn’t stop him, not like this. 

He opens the suture kit, and he stares at the row of familiar tools. Any one of them could be a weapon of death in Damian’s hands. He pulls out the scissors and stares at them for long, long seconds. It would hurt, if he buried it in Blade’s throat. He wonders how much he would bleed. Would it spurt out, or would it gush like Rachel’s had? 

“Disinfect it first. Wait, actually.” Blade takes a breath, deep, and for a beat Damian pities him, as he pops the prong of his belt buckle, shimmying it out of his pants, and looping the leather in on itself. “Don’t get scared. Don’t stop until it’s clean, okay?” he says, and then bites down on the belt buckle, clenching his fist in the grab handle above Damian’s head. He nods to Damian. 

He picks up the bottle of alcohol, hefting its weight. Presses a proprietary hand against Blade’s hip, to keep him steady, and then overturns it directly over the stab wound.

The belt does little to muffle the prolonged, half-screamed groan that escapes Blade. His back arches, violently, grip going white-knuckled, fresh sweat beading on his temple. Damian pours until the blood runs away pinkish, and he’s sure that he’s flushed the wound with it, and then he picks up the needle and thread. 

The skin is inflamed already, puckering red and unhappy, swollen and cut ragged. The knife was buried clean through him. If Blade passes out, Damian doesn’t think he would be capable of hefting the man on his own. 

Would he bother? 

Or would he just let this be the end? 

The stitches are perfect, even rows. Damian’s hands aren’t shaking, and he thinks they should be. The act of repairing damage, of doing a field dressing and a temporary fix-it is so familiar to him that he doesn’t have to think as he does so. He’s done an emergency blood transfusion to Dick before, with Timothy swearing steadily at his side. 

Blade sits, and sweats, and bites down on the belt until his teeth leave divots in the leather. He doesn’t move half as much as Damian was expecting him to, doesn’t pass out, though his eyes roll up into the back of his head a few times, and when it’s over, there’s snot and tears dripping down his face.

When Damian finishes, and is rubbing antibiotic cream and applying the gauze, Blade finally spits the belt out onto his heaving chest. Damian doesn’t realize what he’s done until his hand is carding through Blade’s hair, applying comfort to his captor the same way he has done for him so many times before. 

Blade relaxes under his petting. 

“Who did this to you?” Damian whispers, dumping the alcohol onto the needle, and then his hands, bloody as they are. He doesn’t have anything else to wash them with. He folds the suture kit away, putting it into the console. The stain on Blade’s sweatshirt is still conspicuous, but he doesn’t seem to care, pulling it back down over the wound with another pained hiss. 

Blade doesn’t look at him for a long time. He doesn’t move to start the car again. Can he drive, in this state?

“Dick,” his captor whispers. “He wouldn’t come with me.” 

Damian stares down at him. He stares at him more, until his vision blurs and his head aches. It does not make the words easier to process, to hold together and shove into coherency. “My brother ?” 

Blade wheezes a chuckle. It’s humorless, but he nods anyway. Puts his hands under Damian’s armpits, to pick him up like he’s a toddler and resituate him so he’s straddling Blade’s hips. He pulls Damian down against his chest, like some kind of hug. “Yeah. Yeah, your brother. You kept asking me…” he trails off, covering his eyes with a hand, and he’s crying again. “I love you, Dames.”

“I love you, too,” Damian says, numbly, cheek against Blade’s chest. 

“I just wanted all three of us to be together,” Blade is gasping and miserable, “and he wouldn’t come. I’ve loved him for so long, I wanted… years. Everything was perfect, and then I had to ruin it by pushing. I was almost ready, I was going to take him, I was…I couldn’t kill you, I knew how upset it would make Dick.”

My brother , Damian thinks. Dick ? 

Bludhaven County Police Department . Dick only had Damian over to his apartment every once in a while, rarely brought him into the station. Blade is one of his coworkers ?

All of this, the last agonizing six months, were all because of Dick? Blade’s uneasy fascination with him, extended to Damian simply by proxy? 

Dick stabbed him. There’s relief, unraveling the noose Damian hadn’t noticed tightening around him. The idea that Dick might have wanted this for him, might have condoned it. ate at everything in him. But it wasn’t true. Dick had fought him. Had tried to kill Blade. This was not approval. It was ignorance. Dick learned, and then he did this. 

Damian blinks slowly, taking it in, putting it together. The priest, he’d called a cop . He hadn’t been in Blade’s cahoots, he’d confided in a trusted safety officer. Who was Damian compared to that? A rabid, delirious child. 

Dick stabbed Blade, he comes back to it, again and again. Does he know Damian is here, now? Did he get the message? Is he on his way?

“The first time I saw your brother,” Blade whispers, confessional and soft against the skin of Damian’s neck, “I wanted to kill him. I thought about it, I fantasized. But he was a good person, and as much as I wanted to fuck him, I couldn’t kill him. Not like that. I thought about breaking my rules, making him the exception, but it would only be for a week, and I wanted him for so much longer. I wanted him to go limp and cold and for his skin to loosen and rot, and I wanted him to stay warm and happy. I wanted to kiss his blue lips forever. I think if I had taken him,” Blade continues, in that soft, murmuring against his neck, making Damian’s skin moisten, “I would have killed myself when I was inside his corpse.” 

Damian whimpers. The noise is thin and horrified. He thinks about Lamont, and Dick’s pale, dead face on that couch instead. About Rachel squirming, before the blood spilled down her neck, and the noises of her corpse as Blade fucked her. 

That was almost Dick.

That was almost Dick. 

Damian dry heaves, gagging roughly, and the surging push of stomach acid comes up in dribbling heaves onto Blade’s sweatshirt. It does little to stop him, and it doesn’t quell the nausea at all. The panic, the rush of it, is overwhelming. 

“Shh,” Blade whispers, kissing his cheek, “shh. It’s okay. We…we have to go. Your brother will wake up soon, and he’ll be coming, he knows where we are. I told him who I was, and he was so angry. We don’t have long to get out of the city.” 

“Blade.” He’s whimpering , like an insipid toddler, clenching his hands into fists in Blade’s shirt, refusing to move even as the man pushes at his shoulders. “Blade, please . This has to end.”

Dick can’t find them. If he does, if Blade hurts him… 

The nausea crests again, but there’s nothing in Damian and he doesn’t have the strength to do more than heave and wretch. The smell of Blade’s blood is permeating the car. Sweat and alcohol and oxidizing metal that trails the collar.

“It will,” Blade sounds positive of this, “we’ll find somewhere else, Dames. I’ll…I’ll keep taking care of you. I’m going to go back for Dick. If he doesn’t want to go with us, I’ll just kill him. I have you now.” 

Have me how? 

Damian shakes his head. “You can’t kill him.” He would make Damian watch. He might make Damian help. Even if he didn’t, there would be no way for Damian to be unaware what happened to Dick after he died, and he would have to help wrap his body, and have to know what was done, and Blade might kill himself, make this a murder-suicide and leave Damian abandoned between their corpses, waiting for someone to never find him. 

Blade shushes him again. Kisses him again, this bridge of Damian’s nose, his cheeks, brushing away the tears there. He forces Damian back into his seat, reaching over him to buckle the seatbelt for Damian, even when that makes Blade grimace in pain.

Damian doesn’t let go of him, can’t , so Blade leaves his hand in Damian’s lap, restarting the car one-handed, breathing shallowly as he navigates off the shoulder. 

“We’re going to be fine,” Blade repeats, “it’s okay.” 

“It’s okay,” Damian echoes. “It’s okay.”