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Baby Assassin scowled at Dick from across the room. Despite the mold licking up the walls of the abandoned apartment and the cracked windows and the fact that he’d just been kidnapped by a kid half his age who was now curled up with his knees to his chest and glaring daggers at him, Dick tried very hard not to smile.
Baby Assassin was good. He’d managed to take Dick down—admittedly, Dick had just taken down ten men all twice his size, and he’d been a bit worn out—not to mention his rope skills. It had taken Dick a full five minutes to get out of his ropes without being obvious about it, and the kid had been watching him like a hawk the entire time. He’d lost a bit of time passed out, but it had already been several hours, based on the morning light, and yet no one had found him yet. Dick couldn’t help but be impressed, especially since the kid must have been exhausted by now.
“So,” Dick started. He’d gotten the gist of it all from the kid’s yelling when he’d jumped Dick in the alley. Bruce’s kid with Talia, heir to the demon, etcetera, etcetera. Basically, Dick’s new little brother whether Baby Assassin liked it or not. “What’s your name, kiddo?”
Baby Assassin snorted derisively. It was adorable. “Why should I give you my name?”
Dick shrugged one shoulder, careful not to shrug too high and tip Baby Assassin off to the fact that Dick’s hands weren’t tied with the complex and painful loops anymore. The kid didn’t seem to notice Dick’s extra freedom, though, so point for Dick.
“Because I’m your big brother?” Dick suggested.
Predictably, Baby Assassin’s scowl deepened. “You are not my brother. You are an interloper. My father shall soon relegate you to your proper place beneath me.”
“Ah.” Dick bounced his eyebrows and smirked. “He will, will he?”
Baby Assassin turned up his nose. “Yes, he will. I have proved my superiority to you in every way by capturing you. The only reason I have let you live is because I have heard of—” The kid’s nose crinkled dramatically. “—my father’s reluctance to kill or to associate with those who do. When he comes to find you, Father will be disgusted with your performance.”
There was a long list of very incorrect statements the kid had just made, but all Dick could really think was yup, that’s Talia’s kid alright. Leave it to her and Ra’s to brainwash a kid—who must have been what, nine? Ten? But there was one main problem Baby Assassin needed to understand first.
“You’re wrong, you know,” Dick said casually.
Baby Assassin stared at Dick for several moments, waiting for him to finish, but Dick was in no particular hurry, so he sat back and waited.
“What do you mean?” Baby Assassin asked at last, minutely tightening his grip around his knees to pull them closer to his chest.
Dick shrugged again. “This won’t make your dad proud. It just won’t.”
For a split second, the mask slipped, and Dick saw real fear and confusion under the façade of the angry anklebiter. It was gone just as fast as it had come, and the glaring was back.
“My father is a mighty warrior. He will respect my strength,” Baby Assassin growled.
“Of course he will,” Dick agreed simply. “That doesn’t mean he’ll be proud of you.”
The kid tilted his chin back and regarded Dick down his nose. “You think I should fight Red Hood to prove my supremacy.”
That made Dick snort, and he shook his head with a grin. “No, baby bat. It’s not like that. You see, you might not like it, but I’m his kid and he loves me. He wants me, and he won’t be happy with you if you hurt me or any of his other kids.”
“You are not his children,” Baby Assassin spat. “I am his child. He will love me.”
Dick sighed. Poor kid. “You’re wrong and you’re right. Bruce will love you just as much as he loves all the rest of us, but he won’t be happy with you if you’re running around trying to hurt everyone he loves.”
“My father doesn’t love you—”
“Yes he does.”
“No, he does not!” Baby Assassin shrieked. “He is my father, and he will love me because I showed him how utterly useless—”
“Kid.” Dick waited for the kid’s breathing to slow back down to calm, meditative breaths to control all that anger and anxiety. When the kid had calmed back down to glaring, Dick continued. “You dad calls me his son. He calls Jason his son. He calls Tim his son. He calls Cass his daughter. If you want to be his son too, do you really want him to think of his sons as so replaceable? So unloved?”
Baby Assassin’s face wobbled between disbelief and fear, and it wasn’t an instant recovery this time. The kid stood up and stomped over to the door—really testing the structural integrity of the floor—and pulled out a knife. For a moment, Dick thought the kid was going to throw it, and he tensed in preparation to roll forward and dodge it.
Instead, Baby Assassin gripped the handle of the knife like it was his lifeline.
“I—I am not like you,” the boy whispered at last. “I am his…I am his son. He will love me.”
“Kiddo, your dad will love you and accept you, but if he thought you needed to be blood to be family, he wouldn’t have adopted so many kids,” Dick told him as gently as possible. It wasn’t that blood doesn’t matter to Bruce, because blood was why Bruce was going to take the kid in, but it was just that blood didn’t matter to Bruce any more than free choice did.
Even as cautiously as he’d tried to say it, the words still made the kid flinch. The weakness lasted just a moment before he spun on his heel to face Dick, fury hot in his features even as his eyes glistened.
“You’re lying to trick me into making a fool of myself in front of my father. It won’t work!” the boy screeched.
Dick raised an eyebrow. “Your dad has four adopted kids, and you think he doesn’t love them at all?”
There was barely a warning before Baby Assassin launched himself at Dick with a furious screech scream. Dick instinctively rolled forward, dodging the knife that would have landed in his ribcage if he hadn't moved.
Before the kid could recover, Dick kicked him in the back, making the kid rock forward. The knife sank into the plaster wall, momentarily stuck.
That moment was all Dick needed.
Dick swung his other leg up, catching Baby Assassin in the ribs. He could feel the armor under the kid’s robe by the throb of his foot, but he wasn’t actually trying to hurt the kid, just knock him off balance.
Baby Assassin wobbled, and Dick quickly spun and lunged at the kid, wrapping his body around the kid’s in a restraining hold before the kid could stab him or escape. That didn’t stop Baby Assassin from trying to get out, though; it just made actually succeeding a bit more of a challenge for the kid.
“Let me go!” the boy shrieked, thrashing wildly.
Dick wasn’t stupid enough to do that, but he loosened his grip for a split second before tightening it again. Predictably, the kid fought even harder at the perceived weakness. A few minutes later, when the kid’s fight was trailing off, Dick’s leg “slipped” off the kid’s, nearly enough for Baby Assassin to get free. Nearly. The kid might have been a good fighter, but he was still just a kid and fell for the trick easily.
Baby Assassin fought and writhed and screeched in righteous indignation, but he was still only ten, and Dick was much larger. Not to mention, Baby Assassin had been up for hours watching Dick, probably way past his bedtime, and that was even taking into account time zones. Once Dick had pinned the kid, there had been little chance of escape for Dick’s little kidnapper.
It only took one more feint like that for the kid to wear himself out and slump in Dick’s hold.
“So.” Baby Assassin’s voice was strained and heavy with the tears he was holding back. “You’ve caught me. Will you kill me? Or take me to—my father?”
The kid’s voice wobbled when he mentioned Bruce, like that would be somehow worse than death. Honestly, though, mood. Bruce could be a pain.
Dick shifted his hold on the kid so he could roll onto his back while keeping the boy restrained and on top of him. Baby Assassin put up a token struggle, but it wasn’t much, and Dick didn’t even have to work to keep him contained. He fought a bit more when Dick pushed both the kid’s wrists into one of his hands, but Dick had no trouble keeping a grip.
Shuffling backwards with the kid on his chest was a bit more of a hassle, but Dick reached one of the walls and managed to get himself up into a seating position with Baby Assassin in his lap.
Once situated, Dick brought his free hand up to card it gently through the kid’s hair. “What’s your name, kiddo? I think I’m owed that at least.”
Baby Assassin tensed at each pass of Dick’s hands over his scalp, like he thought Dick was going to make it hurt at any moment. Dick continued, though, to show the kid that that wasn’t going to happen.
“Well?” Dick prompted.
The kid swallowed and lowered his head in shame. “I am Damian W—al Ghul.”
“Damian,” Dick tested.
Yeah, that was a name that would fit right into the Gotham upper class. It suited the kid perfectly, though. At least Talia had done one thing right.
“I’m not going to hurt you, Damian,” Dick promised.
Damian winced, then pulled sharply to get away. It didn’t work, and but the point was made clear. Damian didn’t believe him a bit.
“You’re lying!” Damian snarled, very nearly in tears. “I am not a fool. Do your worst.”
This kid. This poor kid. Dick hugged him a little tighter without meaning to, and Damian flinched. Dick watched as a single tear slipped down the boy’s cheek. Damian’s shoulder jerked toward his face to try to wipe it away, but he couldn’t quite reach with his hands restrained.
Dick sighed and brushed the tear from his little brother’s cheek. Damian turned to stone until Dick pulled his hand back.
“I told you, Damian. Bruce doesn’t like when people hurt his kids.”
It was getting late—early, really, but same difference to a vigilante—and the kid needed sleep. Actually, the adult needed sleep too. The hard part was going to be getting Damian back to the Manor without losing track of him. Maybe if Dick tied Damian in the ropes he’d been tied with but kept a closer eye on the knots, that would hold him until Dick could dump the kid in front of his dad.
Damian thrashed against Dick’s hand hard enough that Dick had to use his free hand to hold Damian still.
Damian’s breathing came fast and nearly panicked as he fought for what he must have thought was his life. “But I hurt you! And if Father doesn’t care about blood, then—”
“No, no, no,” Dick hushed. “That’s not what I meant, Damian. Your dad does care about blood—” At least, he cared about Kate. Damian was small and cute, though, and Bruce would have no doubt adopted him if he’d had to anyway. “He cares about his other kids too, though. You are his son, and I’m not going to hurt my little brother.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Damian half-shrieked, half-sobbed.
Truthfully, it didn’t make sense to a lot of people, even people who weren’t raised in psychotic murder cults. Some people just didn’t get that family by blood or by adoption were both valid and not…separate in the way one might think. One wasn’t more valuable or special because of how he’d come to meet them. He loved his parents so so much, but he didn’t love them more than he loved Bruce and Alfred and all the rest of his family. They were all his.
“It’s the truth,” Dick told him, letting go of Damian’s hands and wrapping him instead in a hug he was too tired to fight. “I promise. No one is going to hurt you, and your dad would stop them if they tried.”
Dick still didn’t think Damian believed him, but the little sniffles and weak struggles were killing Dick slowly, and he knew that nothing he said would truly get through to the kid. Dick would just have to show Damian that his family was safe.
Dick switched his hold on Damian and gathered him up in his arms. Damian barely fought, too busy trying to hide his tears like Dick didn’t know they were there. His new little brother was a tough cookie, though, and he wasn’t showing any more weakness than he had to. It was going to take a long time to train that constant vigilance out of him, but Dick was sure they’d manage it. Someday, Damian would know that family meant safe.
“Come on, kid. Let’s go see your dad.”