Chapter Text
It was a cold night in Gotham City. September was usually pretty cold, but with the wind in his face, Damian still couldn’t help but shiver in his insulated Robin uniform. He crept silently along the thin edge of the windowsill he was balanced on, several stories high, crouching to slide the unlocked window open. Fools. For such prestigious “ghost hunters” with all their advanced technology and high-tech weapons, their personal security was severely lacking.
Damian slipped into the shadows and melded into the darkness behind the curtains, greeted by the timeless, still air of a freezing hotel room. Damian scowled, realizing it was so cold he could see his breath when he exhaled. Who doesn’t turn on the heat in their room in September? In Gotham?
If Damian was totally honest, he much preferred his task to those of his brothers. The Ghost Eradication Convention they’d attended earlier had been unlawful at best, and cruel and downright psychotic at worst. From what the Bats had gathered from Barbara’s research and the Justice League Dark’s intel, the Infinite Realms was a dimension that connected all other universes and dimensions as well as being home to a whole other range of species. The foolish convention was promoting the capture, torture, dissection, and eradication of these ecto-entities. According to the Justice League Dark, they were practically begging for interdimensional war—one that Earth wouldn’t win.
Damian hated it there. He acted unbothered, but Richard could always read him like a book. Once they’d gotten to the “live dissection” events, they’d watched in horror as more than one ecto-animal was pinned or restrained and treated like a science experiment.
The Fentons had led the event. Father had tasked him, Robin, to search the Fentons’ hotel room that night during the weapons unveiling show. Red Robin and Black Bat were placed to watch the exits of the convention and take names and faces of those who arrived or left, with easy transport nearby in case Robin needed backup. Batman, Red Hood, and Nightwing were attending the showcase in their hero identities under the guise of looking for defense against ghosts.
So yes, Damian much preferred his job to theirs.
The room was quiet. There was nothing particularly odd about the room itself—bland art on the walls, a brown and beige color scheme, and ever-so-slightly sticky carpet, Damian noted with distaste—but when he took a good look around, it became incredibly apparent that the Fentons were not known for their subtly. They’d hidden nothing, leaving bulky guns with cheesy branding out on the drawers and counters. Their packed bags sat at the end of the queen bed, overflowing with unfolded clothes. Damian’s nose scrunched in disgust. He quickly rifled through the drawers and closet, finding them empty, and was digging through one of the luggage bags when he first heard the noise.
Damian froze and ducked behind the bed, scanning the room with the night vision in his mask lenses. He saw no motion near the door or windows. Nothing.
So where did—
There.
A quiet scuffle, a soft hitched breath. Someone else was in the room with him.
Damian crept out of his hiding place, a hand on the hilt of his sheathed sword, and rechecked the room properly. This time he saw something he’d originally missed. In the corner of the room, there was what looked like a large box covered in some kind of blanket or sheet. Through an uneven fold near the bottom, Damian catches a wisp of what looks like white fur. Not a box beneath that drape after all, then.
He swelled with righteous fury. The convention started early in the morning and the Fentons hadn’t left once. Did those sick scientist freaks leave a caged animal in their freezing hotel room all day?
His hands left his katana as he rushed towards the cage. Damian pulled back the blanket cover slowly, conscious in his efforts to soothe whatever creature was inside, no doubt afraid.
That is not a cat, nor a dog.
That is a boy.
A meta of some kind, from the looks of it. Damian was immediately drawn to bright, Lazarus-green eyes, staring up at him like he was the enemy and filled with terror and uncertainty. Damian’s instinctual reaction to the sight is to tense and reach for a weapon—eyes of that color have never been a good sign. But the boy doesn’t seem angry at all.
Richard’s soothing voice comes back to him in memory, reminding him to take a step back and reevaluate. The meta boy was curled up with a soft, quivering, fluffy white tail wrapped around him and white ears pressed flat against his head of messy white hair. There was a leather muzzle locked on his face, hiding his mouth and preventing all sound from escaping. He looked like he was wearing some kind of modified hazmat suit, and the logo on the front would’ve been easier to see if the outfit wasn’t torn and burned in random places, revealing cuts and wounds with dried green blood surrounding them.
The cage was too small for the meta, even malnourished, and a kid looking around Damian’s age already shouldn’t be that small. His cheeks and nose were flushed green, likely from the chill in the room, making a spattering of white freckles in the shapes of constellations stand out more.
“Hello,” Damian said, softening his voice the best he was able. “Do you recognize me?”
The cat boy didn’t respond, only ducking his head a little more. He was shaking, and Damian was sure it was not entirely from the cold.
“That’s alright. My name is Robin, and I am a vigilante hero of the city of Gotham. I am here to rescue you.”
The boy pressed further against the bars, a visible shudder running through his small frame and frail limbs. He tilted his head, letting Damian see the metal collar around his neck and the chain connected to it.
Burying his anger momentarily, Damian slipped a pair of lockpicks from his gloves and slowly reached forward. Even then, the meta flinched back violently with wide eyes, tail pressing harder against his cowering body. A small whine came from behind the muzzle. Damian tutted gently at him, more akin to his interactions with Alfred the Cat than any person he was close to.
Perhaps he was looking at this wrong. Damian might have the list of questions to ask victims memorized and studied tips for comforting those in distress, but his abilities to study did not exactly speak for his social aptitude. He had a long way to go in his people skills. But animals? He knew animals.
So Damian sat back on his heels and kept his hands on the floor, stretched out in offering to the animal meta, and prepared to wait as long as necessary. The others would inform him should the Fentons decide to head home early.
The boy didn’t move for the first two or three minutes, warily curled up and watching him for any sign of a threat. When he decidedly found none, he shifted uncomfortably in the little cage, inching forward. Damian maintained patience, and finally, the boy got close enough to nudge Damian’s hand lightly and retreat. Robin forced away his smile and extended his hand, letting the meta move his head beneath it, and he took that as a sign that it was alright to gently stroke the soft fur of one of his twitching ears.
His comms sprang to life.
“Rob? It’s been radio silence from you, everything okay?" Richard’s worried voice filtered in.
“That is a subjective inquiry,” Damian replied, keeping his voice low and steady to not spook the cat boy.
“Why are you talking like someone might hear you? Robin, what’s your status?” Drake asked, the rest of the chatter on comms quieting at the urgency in his tone.
“Tt. Relax, Drake. I am fine, but there has been a new development. I’m requesting backup.”
“Robin. Report,” Batman’s firm, gravelly voice demanded. The lack of a rebuke against using real names in the field speaks to how concerned he actually was.
Damian watched the scared half-cat (half-boy, too, but Damian’s mostly ignoring that part) tremble under his hand, tail swishing uncertainly, ears still plastered back and anxious eyes darting back and forth, and decided that he didn’t mind having inherited Father’s adoption instincts.
“Have Agent A prepare the infirmary, and a new room in the manor, preferably near me.”
The comms exploded with noise as his whole family spoke at once, and Damian let the sound of their voices wash over him as he worked at the collar of his new brother friend acquaintance and plans his revenge on the Fentons.