Chapter 3
When Damian first arrived at Wayne Manor, he despised his father’s first son.
Dick Grayson embodied everything the League had taught him was weakness—he was too open, too emotional, too soft. He smiled too easily, forgave too readily, and offered kindness to people who had done nothing to deserve it. To Damian, this was nothing short of foolishness.
Among all the unfamiliar things in his new life, his father’s cold, calculating nature had been a comfort—a steady reminder of what he had been taught since birth. Bruce Wayne was distant, pragmatic, and controlled. That, Damian understood.
Dick Grayson? He did not.
Damian wasn’t sure when the scales began to tip, when what he had once seen as weakness began to look like something else.
Maybe it was when Dick treated him with warmth and patience he’d never experienced before—not from his grandfather, not from his mother, not even from his own father.
Maybe it was when, alongside the firm necessity, Dick guided him with understanding and a sense of humour that Bruce lacked.
Or maybe it was when Dick was there to support him when Bruce was too emotionally constipated to be.
Bruce had taught him how to fight. How to strategize, how to push himself beyond his limits.
Dick had taught him how to be a person.
And at some point—Damian couldn’t pinpoint exactly when—Dick had become less of an older brother and something more of a second father.
Perhaps that was why, when he learned that Dick had a son, an inexplicable surge of anger flared in his chest.
It was early in the morning, and almost the whole family was assembled in the kitchen. Duke was having an early breakfast, Bruce and Tim were having a late-night snack, and Damian himself was doing his homework before school.
The morning was uneventful, at least as uneventful as things in a dysfunctional family of violent vigilantes could get, until Dick and Jason had walked in together, nauseous, noise-sensitive and with sunglasses covering half their faces.
To say the family was surprised would have been an understatement. Dick and Jason hanging out was unheard of, and them going clubbing together was an absolutely frivolous idea.
Damian didn’t think things could turn any stranger, until Jason announced that Dick was now a father.
He could barely believe it at first, but as Jason recounted last night’s events with the accuracy of a 19th century poet, the bitter truth slowly started to settle in.
Grayson was a father.
He had a son.
He had a bloodson.
An inexplicable ache formed in Damian’s chest, which he ignored with the skill level of a professional.
Dick stayed quiet while Jason passionately narrated last night’s events. Whenever he made a particularly outrageous statement, Dick would silently open and close his mouth, as if he wanted to correct him but couldn’t the words to do so.
“Hah!” Jason’s lips were twitching as he elbowed Dick in the side. “I can’t believe you asked him to go fishing with you!”
Dick looked at him as if he had grown two heads. “What?”
“You don’t remember?” Tim asked, eyeing him incredulously.
“Wouldn’t surprise me,” Jason mocked. “He drank like he poured water into an empty well.”
Tim grinned. “Poetic.”
Damian frowned. He couldn’t remember the last time Grayson had drunk that much, and he hated that the presence of a potential son had pushed him into an emotional breakdown.
“Thanks.” Jason turned back to Dick. “You know, I could not think of a worse way to reveal yourself to your long-lost son than to call him an alien and then pass out mid conversation. Seriously, couldn’t have gone worse if you tried.”
Dick’s mouth was agape as flashes of memory came back to him.
“We can do father-son stuff now. Throw footballs. Practice the trapeze.”
He put his head in his hands and turned red in shame.
“Oh god. What I have I done?”
“What you have done is ruin any chance for your son to ever respect you,” Duke cut in.
Dick blinked tears away as another memory overcame him.
“No offense Mr. Richard, but I’m grown up now. I don’t need another father figure in my life at his point.”
“He said he didn’t want anything to do with me,” he choked out. “I ruined everything before we ever even had a relationship.”
Damian didn’t know what was worse—that there was a weak civilian walking around Gotham with Grayson’s blood running through his veins, or that Grayson already cared about this stranger like he would about anyone else in the family.
“We cannot be sure that he is your son until we’ve completed a paternity test,” Bruce finally chimed in, his voice low but calm. “We should remain open to other possibilities until then.”
Dick’s head shot up with a newfound fire in his eyes.
“Are you fucking serious?” he hissed. “You find out that your son has a son and this is your reaction?”
“Chum—”
“No, I don’t have to listen to this.” Dick pushed back his chair, standing so abruptly that it scraped against the floor. “This whole time you’ve been quiet, haven’t wasted a single word to ask me how I feel about this, to ask me if I’m fine. And now, the first thing you say is that you don’t trust me?”
Bruce met his gaze, unwavering. “We need to be certain before making assumptions.”
“I’m not making assumptions,” Dick shot back. “You‘d understand if you met him. Jason did.”
Jason’s eyes shot up to the ceiling, as if to say, ‘Don’t bring me into this’.
Bruce inhaled slowly, as if carefully choosing his next words. “You’re overwhelmed right now. We’ll talk about this when you’ve calmed down.”
“What, because I have feelings?” Dick snapped back. “Must be nice, huh? To be so goddamn detached that you don’t feel a thing when your son’s life is flipped upside down.”
Bruce’s eyes flickered with something—guilt, maybe—but his voice remained steady. “I understand this is difficult for you, but rushing into this without proof—”
“And what exactly is wrong with that?” Damian suddenly interrupted. “With you being so emotional, somebody else has to think things through. As I see it, father listened to your problem and came to a rational conclusion.”
All eyes shifted to him.
“He is my son, Damian, not a problem to be solved.”
The word ‘son’ felt like a slap to the face, but Damian barely flinched.
”Father and I see him for what he is—a harmful complication that needs to be dealt with,” he bit out, fingers curling tightly around the edge of his chair. ”By definition, that makes him exactly that—a problem.“
For a moment, the kitchen was deadly silent.
Damian didn’t know why he said it—only that something ugly and bitter churned inside him, clawing its way out in sharp, cruel words. He wanted to hurt. He didn’t care how.
”You—” Dick’s voice cracked. “How can you even—”
His hands clenched into fists at his sides, shoulders drawn tight like a bowstring ready to snap. Damian had seen him angry before—but this was something different, something raw. This was pure fury that left his body trembling and his breathing uneven.
Damian watched as his jaw clenched and unclenched, as though he was physically restraining himself from biting back at him, from saying cruelties that he would regret later.
For the first time in a long time, Damian felt like he had truly crossed a line.
“Dick.” Duke intervened, before either of them said something to make the situation even worse. “You know Damian doesn’t always express himself well. I’m sure he didn’t mean—”
Dick didn’t answer, only left without another word.
A pit settled in Damian’s stomach.
“Good job, dipshit,” Tim mocked, glaring at him obnoxiously. “As if he didn’t have enough on his plate already. No, you just had to act like a selfish, spoiled brat on top of it.”
“I am not selfish, spoiled or a brat, Drake,” Damian countered, almost as defensive as he would be if it was true. Almost. “Maybe if you looked in the mirror in the morning, you would know how—”
This time it was Bruce who interrupted him. “Damian, I think you’ve done enough.”
Bruce let out a slow breath, rubbing his temple as if this morning alone had taken years off his life. Then, he turned to Damian.
”That was unnecessary.”
Damian scowled. "It was a realistic assessment of the situation."
“It was cruel.” Bruce corrected, voice measured but firm.
His gaze lingered on Damian for a moment longer before he stood. That was it. No lecture, no real reprimand—just a quiet, pointed observation that somehow felt worse than being yelled at. Then, like his eldest son before him, Bruce left the room.
Silence settled over the kitchen once again.
”Well, that was awkward.” Tim stretched, standing up.
Duke frowned at the ominous grin on Tim’s face. “Where are you going?”
Tim smirked. “To get a DNA sample.”
“How exactly are you planning on doing that?”
A shiver ran down Duke’s back.
“Guess.”
“I’m leaving too.” Jason’s eyes were still locked on the door Dick had left through. “Gotta see how our little birdie is doing.”
Damian barely heard them. His thoughts were elsewhere, turning over every bombshell that had been dropped on him this morning.
Grayson had a son.
Grayson had a blood son.
And despite everything, despite the logical part of his brain telling him that it didn't matter, that it shouldn’t matter—something restless settled in his chest.
He refused to sit here and let it fester.
No. If Grayson was too blinded by sentiment to recognize a potential threat, then he would determine for himself whether this so-called son was a threat to the family.
Tonight, he would find him.
And he would judge whether he was worthy of the blood flowing through his veins.