Chapter Text
“Since man cannot live without miracles, he will provide himself with miracles of his own making. He will believe in witchcraft and sorcery, even though he may otherwise be a heretic, an atheist, and a rebel.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
Damian’s breaths were perfectly even as he climbed the service stairs, boots silent on stone. Father’s last words—measured, calm, infuriating—played in an unwelcome loop through his mind.
You are not ready to patrol alone.
Damian pushed through the door into the manor’s lower corridor and let it shut without a click. The air smelled of old wood and citrus polish; a stark contrast to the cave’s clinging odor of blade oil and steel. It should have been a relief, trading the smell of harsh violence for the comforting perfume of an American billionaire. Instead, the manor pressed in around him like a theatre set, demanding his unwilling performance.
Damian flexed his hand, feeling the cracks of newly formed scabs along his knuckles. No one would dare call Damian al Ghul—blood of the Demon’s Head, son of the Bat—a poor fighter. No one but the Bat himself.
It was probably childish to leave the cave, but Damian couldn’t find it in himself to care. It wasn’t fair. Damian was the best fighter of all the Robins. Richard had said so himself. So why wouldn’t Batman let him prove it? Why was only Damian expected to limit himself so greatly—expected to prove himself only on a leash?
Damian knew why.
Fear. Fear that Damian would become what his blood declared him.
Fear that he would not.
He rounded the corner and paused. The grandfather clock at the far end of the hall read 12:17. The manor held its breath. Even the portraits seemed to keep their eyes fixed forward.
Damian had a go-bag hidden in his room. He’d packed it a lifetime ago, a quiet act of defiance that grew with every blade, smoke bomb, and first-aid kit he added or replaced. If he wanted to—if he dared—he could patrol without returning to the cave Batman surely still occupied.
His bedroom lock turned beneath his fingers. Inside, moonlight cut clean lines across the bed and desk. Art supplies and sketches lay in careful layers: the bird nesting below his window, Richard’s face, Alfred the cat sunbathing.
Damian crossed to the wardrobe and drew out his suit, the one he wasn’t supposed to keep here. The colors are less like traffic lights and more like mulch beneath greenery, subdued in a way Damian had stubbornly demanded. Perfect for slipping through the gardens.
A faint sound stopped him, different from the ambient noise of the manor. A footstep.
Damian froze.
Someone was in the hall.
Damian slid the suit back into shadow, his fingers already moving for the hidden compartment in his desk. The blade there was small, but razor-hungry. He palmed it and shifted his weight so the room’s darkness would swallow him.
The doorknob turned. Damian did not breathe.
The door opened a handspan.
“Master Damian?” Alfred’s voice, low and careful, slipped into the room.
Damian’s grip tightened until the hilt bit into his skin.
Alfred did not enter. He remained a respectful distance away, silhouetted by the hall light, one hand on the door edge.
“I took the liberty,” Alfred said, “of making tea.”
Damian said nothing.
A beat of quiet.
“I am not,” Alfred continued, “attempting to dissuade you.” The words were deliberate, each one placed as if he were building a bridge across a gap Damian refused to acknowledge. “I am simply… present.”
Of course Alfred knew about the go-bag. Nothing existed in Wayne Manor without Alfred’s knowledge, but to have it mentioned now of all times meant—
Damian’s jaw clenched. “Father told you.”
Alfred’s pause was an answer. “Your father is merely concerned.”
“It is an insult.” Damian stepped out of the darkness, letting Alfred see the suit folded across the chair, the packed bag half visible under the bed. He made no effort to hide anything now. “I am not a child, nor am I a rogue.”
Alfred’s gaze flicked over the preparations. His face did not change in shock or disappointment. Damian hated the flare of heat in his chest. Predictable. Of course. If he was really so predictable, why was it Pennyworth, and not Father, that had come to find him?
“I am aware,” Alfred said. “I am not here to stop you. I am, however, here to remind you of your promise to Master Dick,” he added with a brittle edge of sternness. “I seem to recall a certain distress beacon you swore to carry.”
Damian’s throat tightened again.
“I do not need his help,” he said.
Alfred’s eyes held his, kind and unsparing. “Alas, Master Damian, you gave your word you would accept it.”
Damian’s fingers loosened around the blade. He slid it away.
“I will take it,” Damian said, as if conceding to a lesser opponent. “Though it is unnecessary.” He retrieved the beacon—small as a dime—and held it up to show Alfred before slipping it into his pocket.
Alfred’s expression softened. “I dare say your safe return will be proof of that.”
Damian’s mouth twisted. “Your sentimentality is exhausting.”
“And yet you endure it.” Alfred opened the door wider. Bergamot and honey drifted in on the steam from a teacup on a tray. He set it on Damian’s nightstand and withdrew, pulling the door closed behind him.
Damian stared at the cup as if it might be a trap. Then he crossed the room and took it.
The heat seeped into his palms.
A familiar gesture. A steadying one.
It did nothing to quench the cold anger that kept time with his heart.
He set the cup down empty, pulled on his suit, and moved only what he needed from the go-bag to his belt. For a brief moment Damian mourned the absence of his katana, secure as it was with the cave's weapons. At the window, Alfred’s words caught him again, and—begrudgingly—Damian slid Nightwing’s beacon into place.
Then he slipped out into Gotham’s night.
—--------------------------------------------------—
— 1:03 A.M. —
Cold wind cut across the rooftops like a scythe over grass, dragging with it the taste of rain and exhaust. Damian leaned against one of the many looming gargoyles of the Bowery, hood tugged low to shield from the persistent drizzle.
Gotham spread beneath him in grays and sickly sodium gold, its veins lit by eternal traffic and all its accompanying noise. The comm in Damian’s ear was set to receive-only, a stolen sliver of the wider channel Nightwing kept open with Oracle. Damian couldn’t speak into it, couldn’t be triangulated the same way, but he could listen—catch Nightwing’s chatter, keep track of his position, stay one step ahead.
That was the point.
Patrol alone. Not spend the night with Nightwing hovering at his shoulder, keeping him safe and useless.
The problem was, Damian wasn’t sure what to look for.
It could hardly be called sufficient proof of competence to survive a quiet night on Gotham’s rooftops, but—humiliatingly—Damian had neglected to consider exactly which of Father’s criminals he would deliver. He’d never needed to find his targets himself.
In the League he had received orders gracefully, carrying them out with the cruel efficiency expected of him. As Robin he had yet to work a case alone. Always there were tasks and leads and assignments. Batman, Nightwing, Oracle— even Red Robin and Red Hood required his assistance at times.
Tonight he would need to find his own evil to conquer. Away from Oracle’s guiding voice and her many, many eyes.
Damian fired his line and swung down to a lower roof, somewhere he could clearly see the narrow alley below. In his ear, Nightwing began to speak.
“Not that I don’t love a good mugging,” Nightwing said, “but any chance you’ve got anything more exciting tonight, Babs?”
Damian muttered, “No names in the field,” before remembering no one could hear him. He huffed, resuming his scan of the alleyway.
Oracle’s reply crackled through, dry as a reprimand. “Sorry, Nightwing, oh great defender of the defenseless. Is saving a poor, defenseless woman from being mugged not exciting enough for you?”
“No, no,” Nightwing said quickly, all contrition and charm. Damian could almost see the commiserating glance he’d shoot Robin. “Sorry I asked.”
“You should be glad it’s slow,” Oracle sighed. “You could be dealing with B’s traffickers instead.”
Damian’s attention sharpened.
The traffickers were Father’s newest major case. The kind of case that kept him and Drake pouring over evidence and theories well into the time he was meant to be training Damian. Father had kept him away from it with a precision that was almost insulting. Hinderence, the message said without words. Liability.
Damian had stolen glances at the files anyway. He was well versed in stealth.
Not amateurs. Drake’s tight, ugly handwriting had noted the matching brands, the organized routes, the mysterious overseas suppliers.
And the most interesting part of the case: what they were moving.
Magic users.
Father hated magic in Gotham.
Damian was going to make it go away.
“Yeah, right,” Nightwing said. “If there was any chance of catching them tonight, B would already be in their den.” A beat, then: “Is that–”
“Mugging,” Oracle cut in. “You’re on it, Nightwing.”
Nightwing, to his credit, did not complain.
Damian stopped listening.
If Damian found the traffickers first, Father would have to acknowledge Damian as the superior Robin. He’d allow Damian his own patrol route. He’d come to him—before Drake—for case help.
Damian was well suited to this task. He’d performed countless interrogations under his mother’s tutelage, and here, this close to the docks, Damian was almost certain to find someone who knew something.
Unlike the rest of Batman’s brood, Damian would not wait for the answers to come to him.
He swung closer to the waterfront, chasing the sour tang of the river and the oil-slick breath of the harbor. The rooftops changed as he went—less manicured stone, more rust, more patched tar, more broken skylights that no one ever had or ever would bother to replace.
A warehouse crouched at the edge of the district, distinguishable from the others by the faint indentation of fresh tire tracks in the surrounding gravel. Someone had made a delivery.
Damian landed in a low crouch on the lip of its roof and peered down through a skylight filmed with years of grime. From above, it looked abandoned. Rusted metal and peeling paint on old cheery signage.
Damian could feel the lie in his teeth.
He waited.
Movement, below.
A man paced the concrete in tight, anxious loops—short, hunched, twitchy. Too nervous to be a night guard and too alone to be in charge. His head jerked at every settling creak of the building.
Perfect.
Damian slid his knife into the skylight latch and eased it up. The seal gave with a soft hiss. The man did not look up.
Damian slipped through the gap, weightless in flight for an instant he caught himself with silent fingers, grasping at the rusted I-beam stretching about the rafters. He hung there, using his free hand to reach the throwing blade tucked in his belt.
Wing-dings, not Batarangs. Even after all the months of Batman’s training, Nightwing had been the first to teach him this particular skill, and it was his tools that Damian reached for first.
The warehouse air was stale with mold and old tobacco, the kind of stink that sank into cloth and skin. It marked a man, this stench. In the League Damian could always smell the slums on a beggar, no matter how many times they bathed.
Below, the man stopped and lifted his head. Years of prey-like instinct allowed him to sense the presence of a predator—and tonight, that was exactly Damian’s role.
Light from the high windows carved the man’s face into sharp planes, shuttering over his twitching features like an old film. His eyes flicked from shadow to shadow, frantically looking for danger. The angled, jagged lines of a nose, a chin, a browbone stretched out from his face like a rodent’s, and Damian could almost hear the rapid beating of the man’s heart. He was a rat in a man’s skin.
And there it was—the mark.
A delicate white brand at his temple in the shape of an old keyhole.
Drake’s notes had mentioned it. Father had a drawing.
Damian was almost offended by the blatant display. Weren’t these traffickers meant to be clever? Had Father’s fear of the arcane had hindered his judgement? It was possible, Damian supposed.
Luckily, Damian had no such barriers. The traffickers’ arrogance would be their end, and Damian would be the harbinger.
Damian showed Rat-face his shadow.
Just enough.
Rat-face’s breath hitched hard. He yanked a gun free and swept it toward the rafters.
“Who’s there?” Rat-face called. His words trembled. “If this is one of Vane’s games, I— I did what I was told. I’m just— I’m just waiting.”
Damian held still until the muzzle settled, right where he wanted.
Then Damian dropped behind him.
Rat-face spun, gun up—
Damian’s foot hooked his wrist and snapped it sideways. The gun clattered to the concrete.
The scream that followed was high and ugly.
Damian caught him by the collar and drove him into a support beam hard enough to rattle dust from the ceiling. The man’s boots scrabbled against the floor, searching for traction.
“Quiet,” Damian commanded.
Wet eyes stared at Damian’s mask like it might peel back into something worse.
“You’re…” Fear stuttered into disbelief. “You’re a kid.”
Damian tightened his grip.
“Right now,” he said, drawing his knife and pressing the cold edge to the strip of skin between shirt and belt, “I am closer to gutting you than you are to shooting me.”
Rat-face had lasted this long in his profession thanks to one simple, blessed trait.
Cowardice.
Rat-face swallowed, throat bobbing. “I don’t know anything,” he rushed out. “I’m a driver. I move crates. I don’t ask what’s inside. That’s the rule.”
“The rule,” Damian murmured, leaning in until the words vibrated against the man’s throat, “is to keep you alive. There is a great deal of space between whole and dead.”
Rat-face’s breath came fast.
Damian produced a zip tie, looped it around the uninjured wrist, and threaded it through the beam's metal bracing. Rat-face jerked, too late. The plastic bit into his skin.
“Who do you work for?” Damian began.
Rat-face went still.
“I… I don’t—”
“You move stolen people through Gotham,” Damian cut in. “You meet couriers. You transfer them from one vehicle to another. You receive payment under false names.”
Rat-face’s mouth opened. Closed.
“I don’t touch the money,” he managed.
Damian scoffed. “But you’ll touch the product? The sorcerers?”
Silence.
Damian took the inside corner of the man’s elbow and wrenched it back. A little more and tendons would begin to tear.
“Stop! Please,” Rat-face wheezed. “You don’t get it! They’re not people. They’re not.”
Damian held the pressure and listened. Rat-face was shivering, and beneath his sobbing, Damian could hear a faint jingle. His free hand moved lower, searching the man’s belt. A ring of keys. A burner phone.
Damian plucked the phone free.
“No,” Rat-face rasped, eyes blown wide. “That’s— that’s not mine.”
“Lying is futile.” Damian turned it in his palm. The screen was cracked, the casing worn smooth. Utilitarian. Well-used.
“I don’t know what you think you saw,” Rat-face pleaded, voice rising, “but I swear— I don’t hurt anyone.”
Damian’s jaw locked.
“So you claim.” Damian grabbed his hair and yanked his head back, forcing the line of his throat bare. “And what exactly do you move, if not people?”
Damian let him go, stepping backward to take a closer look at the phone. Rat-face collapsed, shaking his head hard enough to make spit fly. “If I talk, I’m dead.”
“There are worse things than death,” Damian said softly. “I can demonstrate, if you like.”
A brittle laugh cracked out of him, a weak attempt at bravado. “Whatever you do to me, kid—they’ll do worse.”
Damian struck him.
Hard enough to make his point—to hear the crack of his head snapping to the side.
Blood darkened Rat-face’s nostril. He coughed, eyes watering.
“A shame,” Damian said. “Now you’ve offered me a challenge.”
Mother’s voice lived in his muscles, in his sinew, guiding him in every action. Strike here. Pause there. What to say, and how to read the man before him. Without Batman, Damian was free to obey her.
Damian did not go as far as she would have—not in Robin’s colors. But he went far enough.
He took the restrained hand and snapped the smallest finger joint with a quick, practiced twist.
The man made a wounded, animalistic screech.
Damian was being lenient. Rat-face was being pathetic.
Damian pressed fingers into Rat-face’s jaw, thumb close enough to the eye to make the threat real, and forced his face up. “Try again.”
“Please—” His whole body shook against the zip tie. “I don’t have it. They don’t tell me anything. They send a text. A time. A street. Rules. I follow the rules.”
Damian held his gaze, searching for the lie.
There was panic. Grime. The selfish narrow honesty of a person who made an idol of their own survival.
Damian believed him.
Which meant the information existed.
Just not in Rat-face’s brain.
Damian lifted the burner phone and powered it on.
“Why are you doing this?” Rat-face gasped out.
Damian’s hand snapped forward, seizing Rat-face’s wrist, immobilizing his thumb. He pressed it to the print-reader on the phone.
“Because this is Batman’s city, and I will not allow you to pollute it.”
It was that—the mention of Father—that seemed to throw Rat-face off kilter. He froze, eyes darting to take a closer look at Damian. The colors. The shape of the mask. “Robin. You’re Robin.” His eyes widened. Damian wondered, yet again, how such stupidity could be associated with a high-profile target. “You can’t be here. You aren’t supposed to be here.”
“Who told you that?” Damian demanded. The phone, slow as it was, finally unlocked.
A single message thread. Numbers without names.
Damian scrolled.
02:10.
MOVE TO LOCAL 2. GATE ON RIVERVIEW.
LEAVE THE BOY.
Cold slid down Damian’s spine.
Rat-face started to babble, as if words could dig him out. “You don’t get it. He’s not— it’s not a person. You need to leave. Please,” if he hadn’t been begging before, he was now, “leave. He’ll— you’ll kill me.”
Damian held up a hand. Rat-face’s mouth clicked shut.
Damian scrolled.
There it was. Recent. A location pin embedded in the latest message.
NOW. DOCKS.
Damian’s pulse ticked faster. The pin was here.
Damian looked down at Rat-face, pieces clicking together in his mind. “Where is he?”
Rat-face’s eyes shone, wet with terror. “You don’t understand,” he wailed. “He’s not a person. He’s a monster.”
Metal clanged somewhere in the dark.
Damian’s head snapped up.
A sheet of corrugated steel quivered where it had fallen.
Behind it—half hidden in shadow—sat a rusted dog cage.
And inside, crouched tight with wrists bound, was a teenage boy.