#assassin! reader

Batman stood over the corpse in silence.

Nightwing crouched near the shattered remnants of a fear toxin canister, expression stripped of its usual brightness. Red Robin moved through the room in slow, exact lines, scanning everything twice, then a third time because Tim Drake did not trust anything that behaved too neatly. Red Hood leaned against the wall with his arms crossed, helmet angled down at the body.

“Gotta say,” Jason said, voice crackling through the modulator, “I’ve seen worse interior decorating.”

“Not helpful,” Nightwing muttered.

“Wasn’t trying to be.”

Batman said nothing.

That was the second strange thing. Bruce had gone still in that terrifying way he did when the world presented him with an answer he didn’t want to understand. His cape pooled around him like a shadow trying to remember how to be human.

Tim straightened, tablet glowing pale across his face. “No forced entry. Security disabled from inside the system, but not remotely. Whoever did this physically accessed the building.”

“Crane has guards,” Dick said.

“Had,” Jason corrected.

No one laughed.

There were twelve of them, all unconscious. Alive. Bound with their own belts, positioned where they would wake slowly and painfully, but wake. No unnecessary casualties. No collateral damage.

A clean path through chaos. A blade through the throat of a monster.

Damian stood apart from the others, frozen near the far wall.

At first, Dick thought he was staring at Crane. Then he realised Damian wasn’t looking at the body at all.

He was looking at the cut.

A single wound. Precise. Merciful, almost, in its efficiency.

Damian’s face had gone pale beneath his mask.

“Robin?” Bruce asked.

Damian did not answer immediately.

Jason’s helmet turned toward him. “Kid?”

Damian swallowed. “I know this work.”

The cave went colder than winter.

Tim’s fingers paused over the tablet. Dick rose slowly. Bruce turned his head, just enough to make the cowl’s white lenses catch the dim light.

“Explain,” Batman said.

Damian’s mouth tightened.

“That is not merely League technique,” he said. “It is older. Ceremonial. Reserved for correctional executions.”

Jason pushed off the wall. “Correctional?”

“When an enemy of the League acts beyond the bounds Grandfather permits.” Damian’s voice was flat, but something underneath it trembled like a wire pulled too tight. “When an example must be made quietly.”

Tim looked at Crane’s body again. “Scarecrow stole from the League?”

“Or poisoned something they wanted,” Dick said.

Bruce’s gaze did not leave Damian. “Who would Ra’s send?”

Damian’s silence answered before he did.

A small, terrible thing passed across his face.

Not fear. Not exactly.

Recognition.

“There were rumours,” Damian said softly. “In Nanda Parbat.”

Jason went still.

Damian never sounded young when he spoke of the League. He sounded carved. Like every memory had been sanded down until only edges remained.

“Rumours of an heir before me,” Damian continued. “A child raised deeper within the citadel. Not displayed. Not praised. Not allowed failure.”

Bruce’s jaw tightened.

“Talia’s child?” he asked.

Damian did not look at him.

“My mother’s,” he said. “Not yours.”

The words landed like a blade placed gently on a table.

Dick inhaled. “Damian…”

“I never met them,” Damian said quickly, too quickly. “Not properly. I saw them only once.”

His eyes flicked toward Crane again.

“They were training in the eastern courtyard. Seven assassins against one. They were older than me. Perhaps by five years. Perhaps more. It was difficult to tell. The League does not allow children to remain children.”

Jason’s hands curled at his sides.

Damian’s voice lowered. “They won.”

Silence swallowed the room whole.

Then Tim’s tablet chimed. He looked down, and every bit of colour left his face.

“Bruce,” he said. “You need to see this.”

On the screen, a symbol appeared. Not carved. Not painted. Burned into the underside of Crane’s desk, hidden where only someone investigating properly would find it.

A black blade crossed through a green flame.

Damian stepped back like he’d been struck.

Bruce saw. “Robin.”

Damian’s lips parted.

“That is them,” he said.

Jason looked between them. “Them who?”

Damian’s eyes lifted, and for the first time since entering Crane’s hideout, he looked afraid.

“The Blade of Al-Ghul.”

You left Gotham before dawn.

Not because you were afraid of the Bats. Fear was a tool. A chemical. A weakness in the breath before pain. You understood fear intimately, the way a surgeon understood the body: by opening it, studying its shape, learning what made it stop.

You left because the mission was finished. Jonathan Crane had taken a vial of Lazarus compound from a League caravan six months ago. He had diluted it, corrupted it, tried to lace it with fear toxin and sell the result to the highest bidder. He had not known what he carried. Men like Crane rarely did. They saw the sacred and wondered how much it would fetch in dirty money.

The Demon’s Head had spoken. You had obeyed.

That was the whole world.

A command. A target. A blade. Silence after.

Gotham sprawled beneath you, ugly and glittering, all bruised neon and rain-slick rooftops. It was a city with too many heartbeats. Too many witnesses. Too many ghosts.

You understood, now, why Damian had changed here.

The city was a disease.  Or perhaps a cure. You had not decided.

The wind shifted.

You stopped walking.

Three rooftops away, a shadow moved wrong.

Not civilian. Not police. Not League.

Bat.

You tilted your head.

“Come out,” you said.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then the shadow detached from a gargoyle, and the Red Robin stepped into view.

He was smaller than you expected.

No. Not smaller.

Young.

Sharp-eyed. Tired. Dangerous in the way of people who had taught themselves to survive by noticing everything.

“You’re hard to find,” he said.

You watched him.

He smiled faintly, but it did not reach his eyes. “That was almost a compliment.”

“You followed the wrong trail.”

His expression flickered.

Then something clicked behind you.

A gun.

You did not turn.

“Did I?” Red Robin asked.

Red Hood stood at your back, weapon trained between your shoulder blades. His stance was aggressive, but not careless. He had positioned himself outside the most obvious range of your reach.

Good.

Not good enough.

“Hands where I can see them,” Hood said.

You lifted your hands slowly.

Red Robin’s gaze narrowed.

He knew.

Smart one.

The wire around his ankle went taut.

You moved.

Not fast.

Perfectly.

That was what the League had carved into you. Speed was sloppy when worshipped. Strength was crude when indulged. Perfection was not the rush of movement. It was inevitability.

You stepped sideways as Red Hood fired. The bullet struck the rooftop exactly where you had been standing. You pulled the wire, and Red Robin hit the ground hard enough to lose breath but not consciousness. Hood advanced; you turned into him, caught his wrist, redirected the second shot into the sky, and drove your elbow into the seam beneath his ribs.

He grunted.

You almost admired him for staying upright.

Almost.

Red Robin swept for your legs. You let him catch one, let his hope bloom for half a second, then twisted with the momentum and dropped your knee beside his throat.

Not on it.

Beside it.

A warning dressed as mercy.

Hood lunged again.

You threw one of your blades.

It pinned his jacket to an exhaust vent.

His helmet snapped toward the knife, then back to you.

“Okay,” he said. “Rude.”

Red Robin’s staff extended beneath your arm.

You caught it.

For one breath, the two of you stared at each other over the weapon.

His eyes widened slightly.

He knew he had lost.

Before you could break the staff, a body dropped from above.

Blue and black.

Nightwing came down like a falling star.

You released Red Robin and rolled away from the strike, cloak snapping behind you. Nightwing flowed after you, escrima sticks sparking to life. His movements were acrobatic, beautiful, almost joyful.

You hated that. Combat was not meant to be joyful.

Combat was prayer.

He struck high. You ducked. He spun. You moved inside the arc, fingers finding the pressure point beneath his arm. He saw it coming at the last possible second and shifted enough that you caught muscle instead of nerve.

Impressive.

He smiled despite himself.

“You’re definitely related to Damian.”

That name did what bullets had not.

It made you pause.

Only slightly. Only for the width of a heartbeat.

But a heartbeat was an eternity to the Bat.

Smoke exploded across the rooftop.

You held your breath before it bloomed fully. Standard concealment tactic. Irritant compound. Mild sedative underlayer. Designed for human reflexes.

You had been trained out of those.

Something moved in the smoke.

Small. Fast. Familiar.

A sword rang against your blade.

You turned.

Robin stood before you, cape whipping around his slight frame, katana held in both hands.

Damian Wayne.

Blood of your mother. Son of the Bat. The child who escaped.

For the first time in years, you felt something that did not have a name.

He stared at you through the white lenses of his mask. His jaw was clenched so hard it must have hurt.

“You,” he said.

You inclined your head. “Little brother.”

Everyone froze.

Nightwing’s escrima sticks lowered a fraction. Red Robin stopped trying to rise. Hood, still pinned by his jacket, went utterly silent.

Damian flinched as though the words had touched bare skin. “You are not permitted to call me that.”

“Am I not?”

“You do not know me.”

“No,” you said. “I know what you were meant to be.”

His grip tightened on the sword.

You studied him. He was smaller than you had imagined. Not weak. Never weak. But there was softness in him now, hidden badly beneath all that anger. Gotham had infected him thoroughly. It had put warmth in the cracks the League left behind.

How strange. How terrible. How lucky.

Damian lifted his chin. “Surrender.”

Behind you, Red Hood gave a rough laugh. “Yeah, I’m sure that’ll work.”

You ignored him. Your gaze stayed on Damian.

“And if I do not?”

“Then I will stop you.”

You looked at his sword. His stance. The tremor he thought he was hiding.

“You will try.”

He attacked.

For half a second, he was magnificent. The League had not wasted its training. Damian moved with the precision of a prince raised in war. His blade cut the air in clean silver arcs. His footwork was disciplined, his rage contained, his eyes always searching.

But he had left too early. Or perhaps you had stayed too long.

You caught the first strike, redirected the second, avoided the third by less than an inch. He pressed you toward the edge of the roof, exactly as he had been trained to do. He expected resistance.

So you gave him none.

You stepped backwards off the roof.

Damian’s eyes widened.

He lunged after you on instinct.

Predictable. Painfully brave.

You caught his wrist as you fell, hooked your line around a gargoyle, and swung both of you hard into the side of the building below. Glass cracked beneath your boots. Damian gasped, but did not cry out.

You pinned him against the wall with one arm across his chest, blade angled beneath his chin.

Above, the others shouted.

Damian glared at you, breathing hard.

“You should not have followed,” you said.

“You should not have come.”

“I go where I am sent.”

“That is not an answer.”

“It is the only one I have.”

Something shifted in his face then.

Not pity. Damian would never insult you with pity.

Recognition. He saw the shape of the cage because he had once lived inside it.

“You can leave,” he said, very quietly.

The words were absurd. Almost cruel.

You stared at him.

Below, Gotham traffic whispered like distant rain.

“No,” you said.

His brows drew together.

“You think you cannot,” he said.

“I know what I am.”

“You are not a weapon.”

You smiled. It felt unfamiliar on your face.

“Then why does everyone keep reaching for me?”

The grappling line above you jerked.

Batman descended through the fog like judgment.

You released Damian and kicked away from the wall before the Bat could reach you. Your boots hit the side of the neighbouring building; you ran three steps across the vertical surface, launched yourself upward, and landed on a fire escape.

Batman landed opposite you.

No flourish. No wasted motion.

You understood immediately why the League had spoken of him like a storm given bones.

“Enough,” he said.

You drew your second blade.

Batman’s gaze flicked to it. Then to your stance. Then to your face.

“You’re Talia’s child.”

It was not a question.

You said nothing.

His voice lowered. “Damian’s sibling.”

Still, you said nothing. Words were openings. Openings were weaknesses. Weakness got children locked in rooms beneath mountains until they learned to stop crying.

Batman stepped closer. “You killed Crane.”

“Yes.”

“On Ra’s al Ghul’s orders.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Crane stole from the League.”

“That doesn’t justify execution.”

You tilted your head.

“No,” you said. “It explains it.”

His mouth tightened beneath the cowl.

There. Anger. Controlled, but present.

He cared too much. Damian’s father cared so much it bled through armour.

How inefficient. How devastating.

“How old were you,” Batman asked, “when they started training you?”

The question was so unexpected that you almost answered.

Your silence was answer enough.

Batman’s cape shifted as the others arrived around him. Nightwing first, landing light. Red Robin next, staff in hand. Hood last, knife gone from his jacket, gun lowered but ready.

Damian climbed onto the fire escape behind them.

He did not look away from you.

“They won’t let you keep killing,” he said.

“No,” you agreed. “They will try to stop me.”

“You don’t have to make this a fight.”

You looked at the five of them.

The Bat. The golden one. The detective. The dead man. The heir who ran. A family made of broken things that had chosen, impossibly, to hold.

Then you looked at Damian. “You already have.”

The fight lasted four minutes.

Later, Tim would replay the footage seventeen times and hate every second of it.

You fought like you had been built in a room without love. Every strike had purpose. Every dodge became an attack. Every attack became a lesson in anatomy. You used their hesitation against them, their teamwork against them, their mercy against them most of all.

Dick tried to bind your wrists; you dislocated your thumb without flinching and slipped free. Jason tried brute force; you turned his strength into momentum and sent him through a rusted railing. Tim tried distance; you closed it. Bruce tried pressure points; you knew counters older than his training.

Damian tried to face you alone. That was when you made your only mistake.

You could have cut him.

You didn’t.

Batman saw.

He adjusted instantly, changing strategy mid-breath. Not aiming to beat you. Aiming to protect Damian long enough for Tim to deploy the modified restraint foam across the fire escape supports.

You noticed too late.

The foam burst upward, hardening around your boots, your knees, your left arm.

You cut through the first layer.

A taser line struck your shoulder.

Your body locked.

Not enough.

You tore free with a soundless snarl and nearly reached Damian again before Nightwing wrapped both arms around your waist from behind.

“I’m sorry,” he said in your ear.

You slammed your head back into his face.

He held on.

Jason caught your right arm. Tim caught the left. Bruce stepped in front of you, one hand raised, waiting for the instant your balance shifted.

Damian stood behind him, sword lowered.

You met his eyes.

He looked horrified.

Not by what you had done.

By what had been done to you.

That was worse.

You bared your teeth. “Do not look at me like that.”

Damian’s voice broke around the edges. “Like what?”

“Like I am a warning.”

His silence was a blade.

Batman struck.

A precise blow to the nerve cluster beneath your jaw.

The world went white.

Then black.

You woke in the Batcave. You knew this before you opened your eyes.

The air was too damp. Too metallic. Too alive with machines breathing softly in the dark. Somewhere nearby, water dripped in slow, patient intervals.

You catalogued yourself first. Wrists restrained. Ankles restrained. Shoulder bruised. Thumb reset while unconscious. Three ribs tender but not broken. No sedative fog in your mind. They had either underestimated your tolerance or chosen not to drug you further.

Interesting.

You opened your eyes.

The Bat stood across from you.

No mask this time.

Bruce Wayne looked less like a storm without the cowl. More like a man haunted by every child he had failed to save.

You disliked him immediately.

Damian stood at his side. You disliked that more.

The others lingered at the edges of the cave. Nightwing had bruising along his nose. Red Hood’s jacket was torn. Red Robin watched you with the expression of someone solving a puzzle and hating the picture it made.

“You are in no danger here,” Bruce said.

You almost laughed.

Instead, you looked at the restraints.

“Is that what you tell all prisoners?”

“You’re not a prisoner,” Dick said gently.

Your eyes moved to him.

He stopped talking.

Good.

Bruce stepped closer. “We need to know what Ra’s is planning.”

“Ask him.”

“We’re asking you.”

“I heard.”

Jason snorted. “Oh, this one’s fun.”

Damian shot him a glare.

You looked at Damian again. He had changed out of uniform. No mask. No sword. Just a boy in dark clothes trying to stand like a soldier and failing because his hands kept curling and uncurling at his sides.

You wondered if your mother knew he did that. You wondered if she missed him. You wondered when you had started allowing yourself such useless thoughts.

“You called me little brother,” Damian said.

Bruce’s face tightened.

You said nothing.

Damian took one step forward. “Did Mother tell you about me?”

“Yes.”

“What did she say?”

“That you were gifted.”

His mouth twisted. “That is all?”

“That you were arrogant. Undisciplined. Brilliant. Precious to her plans.”

Damian swallowed. “And after I left?”

You studied him carefully.

This was a trap, though perhaps not one he knew he had set.

“She said,” you answered, “that Gotham had made you weak.”

Damian’s eyes flashed.

Then dimmed.

“And what do you think?”

The cave seemed to lean closer.

Even the bats above were silent.

You looked at him.

Really looked.

At the green eyes identical to your mother's. At the posture that had once been beaten into both of you. At the boy who had escaped the mountain and found a father waiting in the dark. At the Robin who had pointed a sword at you and offered you freedom like freedom was something you could simply hand another person.

Weak, the League would have said.

You thought of him pulling his strike when Red Robin crossed too close behind you. You thought of him saying you are not a weapon. You thought of his horror when Batman knocked you unconscious.

You looked away first.

“I think,” you said slowly, “that Gotham has made you inefficient.”

Jason gave a low whistle. “Ouch.”

Damian did not react.

Because he had heard what the others had not.

Not weak. Never weak.

Bruce heard it too.

His expression shifted, subtle as moonlight through water.

“You protected him,” Bruce said.

You looked at him sharply.

“You had three chances to injure Damian badly enough to end the fight,” he continued. “You didn’t take them.”

“Sentiment is not the only explanation.”

“No,” Bruce said. “But it is one.”

You leaned back against the chair.

The restraints hummed faintly with electricity.

“You want me to be redeemable,” you said.

No one answered.

So you smiled again, colder this time.

“How very Gotham of you.”

Dick’s face softened. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“It is a foolish thing.”

“Usually,” Tim said quietly. “But not always.”

You looked at him. He held your gaze, brave and exhausted and breakable in ways he had somehow weaponised.

“You don’t know what I’ve done,” you said.

Bruce’s voice was steady.

“No,” he said. “But I know what was done to you.”

For the first time, you felt anger. Real anger.

Not mission heat. Not defensive calculation. Not the clean, cold violence the League preferred.

Anger.

It rose in you like a struck match.

“You know nothing.”

Bruce did not move. “I know children are not born blades.”

Your hands curled against the restraints. “They are forged.”

“Yes,” Bruce said. “And forging is violence.”

The words hit something buried so deep inside you that for one impossible second you could not breathe.

Damian took another step closer.

You could see it in him now. The awful hope. The desperate, childish thing he tried to bury under discipline and sharp words.

He wanted you to be saved because if you could not be saved, then maybe some part of him had never escaped either.

Poor little brother. Still looking for proof that cages could open.

You turned your face away from him.

“Send me back,” you said.

“No,” Damian answered before Bruce could.

Your eyes snapped to him.

His chin lifted.

“No,” he repeated. “I left. You can too.”

Your laugh came out too soft. “You think leaving is the same as being free.”

Damian flinched.

Good. Cruelty was safer than tenderness. Cruelty had handles. Tenderness was a blade with no hilt.

Bruce watched you like he knew exactly what you were doing. Annoying man.

“You are not returning to the League,” he said.

You stared at him.

The cave seemed suddenly smaller.

“You cannot keep me here forever.”

“No,” Bruce said. “But I can keep you here tonight.”

“Ra’s will come.”

“Let him.”

Jason laughed once. Sharp and delighted. “Oh, I love when he gets dramatic.”

Dick sighed. “Jay.”

“What? I do.”

Damian did not smile.

He was still looking at you.

Like a warning. Like a wound. Like family, which was worse than both.

“You should have stayed away from Gotham,” he said.

You looked at him for a long moment.

Then you gave him the truth. A small piece of it. So small it should not have hurt.

“I wanted to see what stole you.”

Damian went still.

The cave fell silent again, but this silence was different.

Not tactical. Not fearful.

Grieving.

Bruce’s face changed first. Then Dick’s. Tim looked down. Jason turned his helmet away.

Damian’s eyes shone, but he did not let anything fall.

Of course not. You had both been raised better than that.

At last, Damian stepped closer until he stood directly in front of you.

“You were not stolen from,” he said, voice low. “You were abandoned with them.”

Your throat tightened. You hated him for that.

You loved him for it too, though you did not yet have the courage to know.

Above you, the bats shifted in the dark. Below them, machines hummed. Water dripped. Gotham breathed.

And for the first time in your life, you sat in a cage that someone else was trying to open from the outside.

Ra’s al Ghul came before sunrise.

Men like him did not knock. They arrived like prophecy, certain the door had always belonged to them.

The first warning was not an alarm.

It was you.

You sat restrained in the Batcave, head bowed, wrists locked in humming cuffs, and went utterly still.

Damian noticed first.

He had not left. Bruce had tried to make him. Dick had offered tea, rest, a blanket, anything that sounded soft enough to pretend this was not a hostage situation with family trauma wearing ceremonial blades. Tim had hovered near the computer. Jason had leaned against the medbay entrance like he was only there for tactical reasons, which fooled exactly no one.

But Damian stayed in front of you. Guarding you.

Or guarding everyone else from you.

You were not sure he knew the difference.

Then your breathing changed.

Damian’s eyes narrowed. “What is it?”

You lifted your head. “They are here.”

The cave lights shifted red a second later.

Tim spun toward the computer. “Outer perimeter just went dark.”

Jason straightened. “League?”

Bruce was already moving. “Positions.”

Dick reached for his escrima sticks. “How many?”

Tim’s fingers flew over the keys. His face went grim. “Enough.”

Damian did not move.

Neither did you. Your gaze stayed fixed on the far tunnel where the shadows deepened.

“He did not send soldiers,” you said quietly.

Bruce paused. “What do you mean?”

You swallowed once. “He came himself.”

A silence fell.

Heavy. Ancient. Green-edged.

Damian’s hand went to his sword.

You looked at him. “Do not fight him angry.”

His jaw tightened. “Do not presume to instruct me.”

“You lower your left shoulder when emotionally compromised.”

Jason barked a laugh despite himself. “Oh, they are definitely related.”

Damian glared at him, then back at you.

For half a second, something almost like a smile touched your mouth.

Then the cave exploded.

Smoke poured from the tunnel. Not Tim’s smoke. Not Batman’s. This was darker, threaded with bitter herbs and the scent of old mountain incense. League smoke. The kind you had learned to breathe through when you were seven and crying was considered a disappointing use of oxygen.

Assassins dropped from above. Green and black. Curved blades. Silent feet.

The cave became motion.

Nightwing launched himself into the first wave with a bright, furious grace. Red Hood opened fire with rubber rounds, cursing in three languages. Red Robin vanished into the smoke and turned the cave itself into a trap, lights flickering, platforms shifting, drones waking overhead.

Batman moved like a wall given vengeance.

Damian stayed between you and the tunnel.

You hated that most.

You could have helped. You could have ended half the attackers in less than a minute. You knew their forms, their blind spots, the way League assassins were taught to favour the killing strike over the disabling one. You knew because you had been the lesson they failed against.

But the restraints held.

Then the smoke split.

Ra’s al Ghul stepped into the Batcave.

He wore no armour. Only dark robes, a green cloak, and the serene expression of a man walking through a garden he intended to burn for warmth.

His eyes found Bruce first. “Detective.”

Bruce’s face became stone. “Ra’s.”

Then Ra’s looked at Damian. “Grandson.”

Damian’s sword lifted.

Finally, Ra’s looked at you.

And smiled.

Not warmly.

Proudly.

“My blade.”

Something inside you went quiet.

Not peaceful.

Dead.

Your spine straightened before you told it to. Your breathing evened. Your face emptied. The cave vanished at the edges until there was only the Demon’s Head and the command he had not yet spoken.

Damian saw it happen.

His eyes widened.

“No,” he said.

Ra’s took one step toward you. “You have performed well. Crane’s theft has been answered. The League’s honour remains intact.”

Bruce moved in front of him. “You’re not taking them.”

Ra’s almost looked amused. “You collect children now as trophies?”

Jason’s gun snapped up. “Oh, I hate this guy.”

Ra’s ignored him.

His gaze remained on you.

“Come.”

One word.

That was all it took.

A word with ten thousand days of training behind it. A word carved into your bones. A word that had opened doors, sealed graves, ended lives.

Come.

Your body moved before thought could catch it.

The restraints sparked.

Your wrists twisted.

Damian turned sharply. “Stop!”

You did not.

You dislocated your thumb again.

The pain was clean. Familiar. Almost soothing.

Bruce lunged toward you, but two assassins intercepted him. Dick shouted your name—no, not your name, because none of them knew it, not really. Tim triggered the restraint override, but you had already shifted your weight exactly enough to crack the locking hinge.

Metal snapped.

You stood.

Damian stepped in front of you.

His sword was lowered.

That was his mistake. Or his mercy.

“Don’t,” he said.

Your eyes met his.

Little brother, you thought. But you did not say it.

Ra’s voice came from behind him. “You see, Detective? You cannot rescue a weapon from its purpose.”

Bruce slammed an assassin into the cave wall hard enough to shake dust from the ceiling. “They’re not a weapon.”

Ra’s smiled. “All children are weapons. The only question is whether their parents have the discipline to sharpen them.”

Damian flinched. Just slightly.

But you saw.

The dead quiet inside you cracked.

Not much.

Enough.

Ra’s noticed too.

His gaze cooled.

“Blade,” he said.

You turned your head toward him.

“Kill Robin.”

The cave stopped.

Even the fighting seemed to falter around the edges.

Jason’s voice went flat with horror. “No.”

Dick’s face drained of colour.

Tim whispered, “Bruce—”

Bruce moved.

Too far. Too late.

Damian stood before you, sword still lowered.

His eyes did not leave yours.

You could kill him. You knew seventeen ways from this distance. A strike to the throat. A blade under the ribs. A broken neck. A nerve severed beneath the jaw. Quick. Clean. Merciful, if mercy meant efficiency.

Damian knew it too.

He did not raise his weapon.

“Do it,” Ra’s said.

Your hand moved to your blade.

Damian inhaled.

But he did not step back.

“Look at me,” he said.

You did.

His voice shook once, then steadied.

“You are not what he made you.”

The blade slid from its sheath.

Ra’s watched with satisfaction.

Bruce fought like the cave itself was trying to hold him back.

Damian lifted his chin.

“If you must kill me,” he said softly, “then let it be your choice. Not his.”

Choice.

The word entered you like a foreign object.

Choice was not a thing the League gave. Choice was what undisciplined people called hesitation. Choice was the space between command and obedience, and you had been trained to erase that space so completely no one could find where the child ended and the blade began.

Your hand trembled.

Ra’s saw it.

His face hardened.

“Obey.”

The command struck deeper this time.

Your knees nearly buckled.

Memories flashed, brutal and bright.

Stone floors beneath your palms. Talia’s voice telling you pain was information. Ra’s standing over you while you held a blade too large for your child’s hand.

Damian, small and furious in a courtyard, watching you win against seven assassins.

Your mother saying Gotham made him weak. Your grandfather saying weakness could be cut out. Your own voice asking, years later, what stole him.

Damian’s voice answering: You were abandoned with them.

Abandoned.

Not chosen. Not honoured.

Left.

Your grip tightened on the blade.

Damian closed his eyes.

That broke you.

Not because he was afraid.

Because he trusted you.

You turned.

The blade left your hand.

It flew across the cave and buried itself in Ra’s al Ghul’s cloak, pinning the green fabric to the stone behind him an inch from his throat.

Everyone froze.

Your voice came out raw.

“No.”

Ra’s stared at you.

For the first time since entering the cave, he looked truly displeased.

Not angry.

Worse.

Disappointed.

“My blade,” he said softly.

You lifted your chin. “Not yours.”

The cave erupted again.

Ra’s tore free of the pinned cloak and drew his sword in one fluid motion. Damian moved first, stepping beside you, blade raised now. Not in front of you.

Beside you.

A strange thing happened then.

You fought with Damian.

Not around him. Not despite him. With him.

He was smaller, quicker, all sharp angles and righteous fury. You were older, colder, built from discipline he had survived and escaped. Together, you were terrible.

You knew the League’s rhythms. Damian knew how to break them.

An assassin lunged for his left side; you intercepted. Another came for your back; Damian cut their blade away before it landed. You moved like a sentence finished in two voices.

Across the cave, Jason laughed breathlessly while punching someone into a storage cabinet.

“Okay, that’s horrifyingly cool!”

“Focus!” Bruce snapped.

“I am focused! On how horrifyingly cool that is!”

Ra’s watched you and Damian carve through his guard, and something ancient twisted across his face.

Possession. Rage. Loss.

“You shame your blood,” he said.

Damian’s blade met his with a ringing clash. “No. I am improving it.”

Dick, somewhere behind him, made a wounded little sound. “That was so good. I hate that I’m proud right now.”

Ra’s pressed Damian backwards. He was stronger. Taller. Crueller with every strike.

You came in from the side.

Ra’s caught your wrist.

For a moment, you were close enough to see your reflection in his eyes.

“You could have been perfect,” he said.

There it was.

The hook in the wound.

Perfection. The holy word. The altar you had been raised upon and sacrificed to, piece by piece, until nothing remained but the shape of what they wanted.

Your wrist strained in his grip.

He twisted.

Pain flared white.

Once, you would not have made a sound.

Now you gasped.

And Damian heard.

He slammed the hilt of his sword into Ra’s ribs with a furious snarl.

Ra’s released you.

Batman arrived like judgment.

The fight between Bruce Wayne and Ra’s al Ghul was not beautiful.

It was history with fists. Every strike carried years. Every block answered an old argument. Ra’s fought like a king. Bruce fought like a father.

And fathers, you were beginning to learn, were far more dangerous when their children were watching.

Ra’s drove Bruce back toward the Lazarus containment case. Bruce caught the blade between armoured gauntlets, twisted, and forced Ra’s to one knee. For one breath, the Demon’s Head looked almost mortal.

Then he smiled.

“Detective,” Ra’s said, “you remain sentimental.”

He pressed a hidden trigger.

The cave lights died.

Not dimmed.

Died.

Complete darkness swallowed everything. You moved by instinct, grabbing Damian and pulling him low just as a volley of darts cut through the space where his throat had been.

He stiffened at your touch.

Then, incredibly, he leaned into your grip.

Only for balance.

Probably.

Maybe.

“Tim!” Bruce shouted.

“Working on it!” Tim called back.

Emergency lights flickered on in harsh red pulses.

Ra’s was gone. So were three of his assassins.

The rest were unconscious, bound, or being sat on by Jason, who looked deeply satisfied with himself.

The cave smelled of smoke, blood, and old ghosts.

For several seconds, no one spoke.

Then Damian turned to you. “You saved me.”

You released him immediately. “You were in the way.”

Jason groaned. “Oh my God, it’s like listening to Damian argue with a mirror that has more knives.”

Dick wiped blood from his nose. “A scary mirror.”

Tim, bruised and breathless at the computer, looked between you and Damian. “A mirror that can dislocate its thumb on command, apparently.”

You flexed your injured hand.

Bruce approached slowly.

You tensed.

He noticed and stopped two steps away.

Ra’s had come to collect you. You had refused. Which meant you were no longer a blade of the League.

You were something worse.

A loose end. A traitor. A child who had stayed too long and finally stepped out of line.

You looked toward the tunnel Ra’s had vanished through. “He will not stop.”

Bruce’s voice was quiet. “No.”

“He will send others.”

“Yes.”

“You cannot protect me forever.”

“No,” Bruce said.

Something cold settled in your chest.

Then Bruce continued.

“But we can teach you how to protect yourself without belonging to him.”

You stared.

That was not how protection worked. Protection was ownership. Investment. Utility. No one guarded a blade unless they intended to use it.

Dick stepped closer, gentle but steady. “You could stay.”

Jason crossed his arms. “Or don’t. But maybe don’t go back to Murder Mountain with Grandpa Cult-Vibes.”

Tim blinked. “That might be your worst name for Ra’s yet.”

“I’m workshopping.”

Damian did not laugh.

He looked at you like the answer mattered more than he wanted to admit.

You wanted to say no. No was clean. No was safe. No meant no debt, no hope, no soft-eyed vigilantes trying to pry open the armour welded to your skin.

But your body remembered the command.

Kill Robin.

Your hand remembered trembling. Your blade remembered turning.

Not his.

The words lived in your mouth like the first breath after drowning.

Not yours.

Not yours.

Not yours.

“I do not know how,” you said.

It was not an answer. It was worse.

It was the truth.

Damian’s expression changed.

Small. Careful. Almost young.

“Neither did I.”

You looked at him.

He shifted, uncomfortable beneath your attention.

“Tt. I am still learning.”

Jason muttered, “Understatement of the century.”

Damian ignored him with royal intensity.

“You will be irritating,” he said.

Your brows lifted.

“You will be arrogant,” he continued. “Violent. Condescending. Emotionally stunted.”

Dick coughed. “Damian.”

“You will attempt to escape at least twice.”

Tim raised a finger. “Statistically, probably more.”

“You will insult Father.”

Jason perked up. “That part’s encouraged.”

“You will find our methods inefficient,” Damian said, voice quieter now. “You will think mercy is weakness. You will hate it here.”

You studied him. “And yet?”

Damian swallowed.

“And yet,” he said, “you should stay anyway.”

The cave softened around the edges.

Not physically. The stone remained stone. The machines kept humming. The bats above kept shifting in the dark like scraps of living night.

But something changed. 

A door did not open. Not yet. But maybe, somewhere deep beneath the mountain inside your chest, a lock turned once.

Bruce held out his hand.

Not to grab. Not to command.

Just offered.

You looked at it for a long time.

Then you looked at Damian.

He gave a single stiff nod, as if granting permission to survive was something he could do without falling apart.

Your injured hand twitched.

You did not take Bruce’s hand.

Not yet.

But you did not step away.

For tonight, that was enough.

The first week was war.

Not open war. Not blades in the hallways or poison in the tea, though Alfred did catch you studying the spice cabinet with “strategic suspicion,” as he called it, and banned you from unsupervised kitchen access with the politest death glare you had ever witnessed.

It was quieter than that.

You slept facing the door. You stole three knives from the Cave and hid them around the manor. You mapped every exit. You refused to eat anything you had not watched someone else consume first.

You nearly broke Tim’s wrist when he woke you from a nightmare. You did break Jason’s nose when he startled you during training.

Jason, to his credit, only held a towel to his face and said, “Okay, fair, but next time aim for literally anyone else.”

Damian watched you with the grim satisfaction of someone seeing his worst qualities reflected back at him in 4K.

“You are impossible,” he told you on the fifth morning.

You looked at the breakfast plate Alfred had placed in front of you. “What is this?”

“Pancakes,” Damian said.

“Why are they shaped like animals?”

Across the table, Dick’s face lit up. “Oh, Alfred does that when he’s emotionally adopting you.”

Alfred, from the kitchen doorway, said mildly, “Master Richard.”

You stared at the pancake. It was shaped like a bat.

Poorly. Lovingly.

An inefficient food.

You ate it anyway.

Damian pretended not to notice.

He noticed everything.

The first time you laughed, it was Jason’s fault.

This surprised no one more than Jason.

He had dragged you into the Cave’s training area after you informed Bruce that firearms were “cowardly tools for those with poor wrist discipline.” Jason took this personally, spiritually, and with great volume.

He spent twenty minutes explaining why guns were not inherently cowardly, actually, and then tried to demonstrate.

You disarmed him in four seconds.

He stared at the empty space where his gun had been.

You held it by the barrel.

“Poor wrist discipline,” you said.

Tim made a strangled sound from the computer.

Dick turned away.

Damian looked like he was trying not to ascend to a higher plane through sheer smugness.

Jason pointed at you. “You know what? I liked you better when you were unconscious.”

And you laughed.

It was small. Barely a breath.

But it was there.

Everyone froze so abruptly that you stopped too.

“What?” you demanded.

“Nothing,” Dick said too quickly.

Tim looked intensely at his screen. “Nope. Nothing. Normal cave sounds.”

Jason grinned.

Damian’s expression softened by one treacherous inch.

You scowled at all of them.

It only made Jason grin wider.

“Oh, you’re stuck with us now,” he said.

You threw the gun at him.

Safety on.

Mostly.

Ra’s sent assassins on the twelfth night.

You knew before the alarms.

This time, when you woke, you did not run.

You went to Damian’s room first.

He was already awake, sword in hand.

For a moment, you stood in the doorway looking at each other.

No words. No old commands. No mountain between you.

Then Damian nodded. You nodded back.

Together, you went to wake the others.

Later, after the attack failed spectacularly and Jason declared the manor’s security “a group project from hell,” Bruce found you on the balcony overlooking the grounds.

Dawn bruised the horizon purple and gold.

You stood with your arms folded, watching the trees.

Bruce joined you but did not stand too close.

He was learning. Annoying man.

“They will come again,” you said.

“Yes.”

“You keep saying that.”

“You keep being right.”

You glanced at him.

His mouth almost curved.

Almost.

For a while, neither of you spoke.

Then Bruce said, “You need a name.”

Your body went very still. “I have a title.”

“You deserve a name.”

You looked away.

The League had given you many names.

Blade. Heir. Asset. Shadow. Failure, once, when you were nine and your hands had shaken too hard to hold the knife steady.

Your mother had called you child only when no one else could hear.

Ra’s had called you perfect only when you bled.

“What did Talia call you?” Bruce asked quietly.

Your throat tightened.

You almost did not answer.

Then you said it.

Not loudly.

The name felt strange in the air. Too soft for the life you had lived. Too human for the thing you had been made into.

Bruce repeated it once.

Carefully. Correctly. Like it mattered.

You hated him a little less.

Maybe.

A month later, Damian found you in the library.

You were sitting on the floor with three open books, a mug of untouched tea, and a knife hidden beneath your thigh.

Damian noticed the knife.

You noticed him noticing.

Neither of you mentioned it.

He stepped closer. “What are you reading?”

“History.”

“Which era?”

You looked down at the book. “All of it.”

Damian huffed.

He sat beside you.

Not close.

Closer than before.

For several minutes, you read in silence.

Then he said, “I used to wonder about you.”

Your eyes stayed on the page. “No, you did not.”

“Yes,” Damian snapped. “I did.”

You looked at him.

He scowled at the carpet.

“I saw you once. In the courtyard. You defeated seven assassins.”

“You said this already.”

“I thought you were extraordinary.”

Something in your chest shifted.

Damian’s voice became quieter. “I also thought if I became like you, Mother would be proud.”

You closed the book.

Damian’s hands were clasped too tightly in his lap.

“I am glad,” he said, each word dragged out like it cost him blood, “that I did not become like you.”

The old you would have taken offence.

The new you—still raw, still half-formed, still sleeping with a blade under the pillow—heard the grief beneath it.

“So am I,” you said.

Damian looked at you sharply. You looked back.

The silence held.

Then he leaned sideways, just enough that his shoulder brushed yours.

It was not an embrace. It was barely contact.

But Damian Wayne did not offer comfort casually.

You sat very still.

After a while, you allowed your shoulder to press back.

From the doorway, Dick made a muffled sound suspiciously like crying.

Damian threw a book at him without looking.

Ra’s came one final time in winter.

Snow fell over Gotham in thin, silver sheets, softening the city’s ugliness into something almost gentle.

He did not bring an army. Only himself.

He stood in the manor gardens beneath a dead tree, robes dark against the white ground. Bruce went out first. Damian followed. Then you.

The others watched from the shadows.

Ra’s looked older in the snow.

Not weaker. Never that.

But older.

“My blade,” he said.

You did not flinch this time. “That is not my name.”

His eyes narrowed.

Then he said your name.

It sounded wrong in his mouth.

You hated that it had ever lived there.

“You have been corrupted,” Ra’s said.

Damian stepped forward. “They have been freed.”

Ra’s glanced at him. “Freedom is a story weak men tell their children so they do not have to teach discipline.”

Bruce’s voice was cold. “You don’t get to speak about children.”

Ra’s smiled faintly. “And yet, Detective, here we stand among yours.”

His gaze returned to you.

“I offer you one chance. Come with me, and your betrayal will be corrected. Refuse, and the League will consider you an enemy until your final breath.”

Snow gathered on your shoulders.

Once, the threat would have hollowed you out.

Now, you only felt tired.

All that power. All that immortality. All those centuries. And still, Ra’s al Ghul could not imagine love except as possession. Could not imagine loyalty except as obedience. Could not imagine family except as inheritance sharpened into a knife.

You stepped forward.

Damian tensed. Bruce did too.

But neither stopped you.

You walked until you stood close enough for Ra’s to see your eyes clearly.

“I was your blade,” you said.

His expression remained unreadable.

“You honed me. Used me. Named my wounds discipline and called my silence devotion.”

The snow fell harder.

Your voice did not shake.

“You taught me perfection meant having no self left to save.”

Ra’s said nothing.

You drew a blade.

Behind you, Damian inhaled sharply.

But you did not raise it.

You turned it in your hand and offered it hilt-first.

Ra’s stared.

“This is yours,” you said. “The weapon. The title. The obedience.”

The blade dropped into the snow between you.

You stepped back.

“I am keeping the life.”

For a moment, Ra’s looked at you with something almost human in his eyes.

Then it was gone.

“Sentiment has ruined you.”

You looked past him, toward the manor.

Dick in the window, pretending not to hover. Tim on comms, pretending not to worry. Jason in the shadows with a rifle he absolutely claimed was “just decorative.” Alfred waiting inside with tea.

Bruce beside you, steady as stone. Damian at your shoulder.

Your brother.

Not little, not weak, not stolen.

Alive.

You looked back at Ra’s.

“No,” you said. “It found me late.”

Ra’s’s mouth hardened. “This is not over.”

Bruce stepped forward. “For tonight, it is.”

Ra’s looked at all three of you.

Then he vanished into the snow like a ghost too proud to admit it had been exorcised.

No one moved until the garden was empty.

Then Damian exhaled.

“You were dramatic,” he said.

You looked at him. “You carry a sword and wear a cape.”

“Tt. That is tactical.”

Jason’s voice crackled over comms. “For the record, that was dramatic as hell, and I support it.”

Dick added, “Ten out of ten emotional symbolism.”

Tim said, “The blade in the snow was a little much.”

You frowned. “Should I retrieve it?”

Everyone shouted, “No.”

You blinked.

Damian sighed. Then, after a long moment, he reached for your hand.

He did not hold it properly. Just hooked two fingers around yours like you were both still too proud to need anyone.

You looked down at the contact. Then at him.

He stared straight ahead, ears faintly pink from the cold.

“You are still irritating,” he said.

“You are still inefficient.”

“I am improving.”

“So am I.”

His fingers tightened around yours.

Behind you, Bruce said nothing.

But when you turned toward the manor, he walked beside you, not ahead.

Not leading. Not commanding.

Beside.

Snow covered the garden behind you, hiding the blade beneath white.

For the first time in your life, you left a weapon where it fell.