Fictober23 Prompt: 10 - "It's alright, I'm here now."
Fandom: DPxDC
Rating: T
Warnings: Slight mention / implications of experimentation
A/N: I might have gotten a bit carried away with this... I also might take a little inspirational break tomorrow.
Damian should have known better, he knew his mother and he knew his grandfather. He should have known, especially after having met Respawn. Could his mothers behavior maybe clued him in sooner? But nothing had seemed any different lately, maybe that was what should have tipped him off. Yet if it hadn't been for Drake's paranoia, after another incident with his grandfather, Damian knew he probably wouldn't have found out anytime soon, either.
He ran through the halls of the League of Assassins facilities, knowing this place probably better than his siblings that were keeping his grandfather's men busy. He could hear them over the coms, he could also hear his father confronting his mother. They were in a different location to cover more ground. Richard and Todd were with him in this location while Drake and Cain had gone with their father. Brown and Thomas were back in Gotham awaiting hopefully good news.
Damian rounded a corner, dodging another of his grandfather's men. He did not wait or turn to pin the man down. Trusting his siblings to take care of this, and a second later, gunshots echoed behind him.
There were various options of where the child, his newly created younger brother, could be. But considering how his grandfather had changed, Damian took another turn leading to the underground area. As much as there was a likelihood that the child was created to replace him, he was sure that grandfather was raising the boy differently also, as he was now considered a failure since he had left.
When he reached the underground area he slowed down, blade drawn and surveying the area. It was surprisingly empty, something Damian did not trust. Carefully he walked along the hall until the distant sound of sniveling made him pause.
"I think I found him." Damian relayed through the coms.
"Gotcha we will catch up with you brat." Todd answered and Richard agreed a second later, spouting some 'mushy' nonsense in addition.
"We will finish up here then and prepare for the pick up!" Drake on the other hand informed, despite the fact that Damian could still hear their fathers end of what appeared to be a heavy argument with his mother through the coms.
Carefully he made his way over to a heavy looking metal door. Locked. Damian clicked his tongue. It took a bit of lockpicking but soon enough he heard the soft click of the lock and he slowly pushed the door open.
"Of course grandfather would have an underground lab." He eyed the room and the equipment stored in it. Different machines with different functions were lined all along the walls. He could see villes, tubes, containers and pinchers of Lazarus Water. But what really caught his eye was the huge tank in the back of the room. The tank was nearly empty except for a four inch high puddle of Lazarus Water and a barely clothed, blue eyed child sitting in it.
The child was indeed the source of the sniffling Damian had heard early as he now saw the boy looking at him wide eyed and rubbing at his eyes furiously like he did not want to be seen crying.
"W-who are you?" The child asked, voice cracking from obvious disuse. How bad were they treating this boy? "You look weird."
Damian knew his eyes were softening just a tiny bit at the child's question. They hadn't trained out the child's natural honesty yet. There was still a chance for this boy to grow up with more normalcy than he ever did.
"You can call me Robin." He answered the child as he stepped closer, noting how tiny the boy appeared to be, unintentionally clicking his tongue. Something must have been wrong with the documents Drake found. The papers spoke of a boy at the age of six. But this boy was tiny, clearly younger than that. Or perhaps they hadn't had the chance for the forced aging process?
"Are you a fruitloop?" The boy inched to the back of the tank away from Damian and he barely refrained from clicking his tongue at that motion.
"I am human, not a type of cereal." Damian shot back at the kid inspecting the tank and how to best open it to get the child out.
"Well duh. But you could still be a fruitloop." Richard would have a great time talking to this child, Damian briefly thought as he knocked against the glass of the tank, trying to judge from what kind of glass it was made and if a Batarang was enough to break it.
The child watched him, there were still some tears in the corner of the boy's eyes but there was also curiosity. "You really are getting me out of here?"
Damian absentmindedly nodded as he reached back with the batarang in hand. "Keep were you are, I am going to bre-"
"No, it's fine!" The child suddenly hopped up, splashing the puddle of Lazarus water against the glass as he clumsily stumbled forward, pressing his hands against the glass from the inside. Damian stopped mid movement, watching how the child's tongue stuck out in concentration as the boy continued to press his body against the glass.
For a moment, Damian was wondering what the child was doing until the boy's hand suddenly went through the glass, falling forward. Damian hurried to catch the boy as he literally fell through the glass.
"What did you do?" He asked once he had the boy, his new baby brother, securely in his arms. The boy giggled, swinging his legs a little in the air.
"I got powers!" It didn't make sense to Damian, neither his mother nor father had a meta gene but there was the possibility of his grandfather mixing in other DNA or possibly, he looked around the lab, no he didn't want to imagine this.
"I see." Was his only answer to the boy for now, he turned to his com. He balanced the boy in his arm while placing a couple of devices in the room in preparation. "The child is safely retrieved. Prepare for pick up."
The boy's eyes widened as Damian made his way out of the underground part. Richard and Todd were waiting at the entrance of the stairs for him. The weight of the boy in his arms and the feeling of his small hands clinging to his uniform, it slowly caused the realization that Damian indeed had a blood related little brother now. Not a clone, but a little brother. Sure he had been created through an artificial womb but the boy was not a clone.
"ETA 5 Sending the pick up location." Drake spoke over the coms.
He was close to the stairs when he noticed the boy pressing his face into his shoulder, shaking slightly. It caused Damian to slow down and inspect the child. Did he overlook an injury?
"You… are you really taking me out of here? It's not a trick from the fruitloop to make me trust him? You are taking me away?"
The words made Damian stop right by the foot of the stairs. Richard and Tood were right at the top, waiting for him. He could go up and let Richard carry the child and do the comforting. His brother was better at this than he was. But for some reason, Damian didn't want to do that. He sent one look up the stairs before putting his focus on the child.
"Do not worry." Carefully, while still holding the boy securely Damian made the boy look at him, wiping the beginning of tears away from watery blue eyes. Whatever his grandfather had done to this child, Damian as well as the rest of his family will not let it happen any longer, especially now that they know of his existence. "It's alright, I am here now."
Saying this sounded very 'cheesy', as his oldest brother would put it, in his ears but the small hopeful shine in the boy's eyes was worth it. "As long as I am here, grandfather will no longer lay a hand on you, nor put you through anything you do not want. I am sure father and the rest of our family will agree."
And didn't Damian know it? Because despite all the conflict and contempt that sometimes existed among them, it was still a fact that his family was protective, it was not a if but a certainty that if anyone harmed his baby brother then he was surely not the only one burning down a building or two.
It rang especially true that once they got picked up, instead of letting one of his siblings hold their new brother he tossed them a controller with a certain gleam in his eyes and watched them fight over who got to trigger the explosive he had placed underground before they were out of reach. All while their baby brother was snuggling into his arms and purring like a cat. Damian smirked at his older siblings, it appeared that his baby brother already had a favorite. Not like his siblings would have been a competition in the first place.
756 notes
·
View notes