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“He is your attendant.”
Damian Wayne was born with one purpose.
“He will obey your every command.”
It was predicted he would become a beta. With the capabilities of advanced technology, his mother determined what his role would be, and how he should be trained for the rest of his life. Once it was clear that he would mature into a beta, his mother made the necessary schedule for his training, and Damian obediently submitted to her plans. He spent many of his younger years learning how to hold a sword, how to please an alpha, and how to protect an omega. He was taught that he was disposable. He was taught that his only purpose in this life was to serve, no matter how he felt, or what he thought.
Questions were prohibited. Damian was to accept the information given to him without thinking about it, and within time he learned it was better to not speak at all. He listened to his teachers, his mother, and grandfather. He carried out every order, every command, silently. There was no point for him to speak, not unless it was to confirm a command, and even then it was merely assumed that he would carry out a command. He didn’t need to verbally acknowledge something unless his pack leaders demanded it.
Damian was six years old when he met Jason Todd.
Jason was a brain-dead alpha, numb, with foggy eyes. Talia made one thing clear to Damian, he was to take care of Jason, and protect him at all costs. Damian agreed. It was not unknown to him that Jason was his father’s son. Damian might have been envious, in a different life, but not in this one. Jason was an alpha, he had higher favor. That meant, as his father’s beta son, and as an obedient pup, he would put Jason’s life over his own.
After his mother made it clear that it was his duty to tend to this new alpha, Damian took over many duties often left to the servants. He bathed his older brother daily (sponge bathing, since he could not carry him to the bath), fed him, and clothed him. He protected his flank. He made sure he wouldn’t trip over the stairs when they descended downward to a lower floor. He held his hand when they crossed the rough terrain outside the fortress. He wiped the sweat off of his brow when it became too hot. He combed his hair. He helped him brush his teeth. He tended to his accidental wounds. He defended him from disloyal servants.
He did this all at the age of six.
Damian is seven when Jason is taken from him.
Damian didn’t feel too sad. He was used to things being taken from him, and so he felt nothing of it. He was surprised, however, to have Jason returned to him feral. His eyes glowed with the restoring waters of the lazarus pit. He was growling in a fierce green anger, nearly frothing in the mouth, pupils slitted like that of a viper. Damian was to prevent Jason from hurting himself, or from hurting others, and he was locked in a room with him. Damian had accepted the task gracefully, only slightly fearing for his life, but ultimately feeling no regret.
Jason hated him.
The only reason Damian did not die the first night was because Jason was chained to the wall. Damian was forced to use sedative darts to take care of Jason’s basic needs. He would force-feed him, bathe him, and change his clothes quickly (Jason couldn’t exactly get up and use the bathroom). Jason wouldn’t stay down for long. His venomous, life-giving, blood would burn through the sedatives faster than average. Damian could not afford to dally.
Damian would sit himself in the corner of Jason’s spartan room every day, 24/7, waiting to accomplish his chores. Sometimes Jason would tire himself out with all of the barking, growling, and snapping teeth.
Damian remembered one particular day where he’d decided to test out Jason’s fatigue. The feral alpha had slumped over himself, hanging to the wall only by chains, leaning his weight against the metal bands wrapped around his wrists. Damian dared to brave getting close to him, testing the alpha’s limits, and he was not at all surprised to hear a tired warning growl.
That did not deter Damian. He took the cloth that he had prepared, alongside a bucket of water, and carefully dragged it over Jason’s skin. Jason’s growls faded the longer Damian scrubbed the dirt off of him, and at some point Damian looked up to see blue eyes staring into his own.
That had been the start of a relationship Damian did not know would change his entire life.
Jason became more compliant the more time passed. He was not entirely tamed, but he seemed far more coherent than before. He would watch Damian for hours. Damian wouldn’t dare watch him back. It was out of respect. Betas didn’t challenge alphas, not unless they wanted to become an alpha themselves, and Damian was not in the position to consider such a thing.
Jason’s angry, frustrated, growls would eventually cease to be. Quiet would reign between them, only interrupted by the muffled chatter of servants outside in the hallway. Jason’s examination would intensify when Damian would feed him. His blue piercing eyes would never leave his face, even as Damian lifted the spoon of stew to his lips. Jason would accept the offering without any struggle, as opposed to his earlier state, and Damian would wipe his mouth with a rag afterwards. Then, with the same rag (he would not dare ask for more than he was given), he would wipe down Jason’s forehead. After that, he would tend to his neck, gently so as to not anger him. It was quite hot in Jason’s room, and Damian’s job was to make him as comfortable as possible.
Jason becomes more receptive after Damian’s initial test. One day, when Damian had been feeding him chicken broth, Jason made a sound Damian had never heard his entire life. He chuffed.
Damian might not be aware of what such a thing meant, logically, but his puppy instincts picked up on the sound immediately. Damian was surprised to have called back with a hesitant noise in the back of his throat, unsure, and confused. He had never felt prompted to do such before.
Jason’s features brightened at the sound. It was as if he had won something grand, satisfied with the results.
“What’s your name?” He asked.
Damian bowed his head in respect. “Damian.”
Jason would ask a lot of questions after that.
“Where are we?”
“Why am I chained up?”
“Who are you?”
“Why are you helping me?”
Damian would answer every single question as was his duty.
Jason didn’t seem too happy when Damian had told him that he was his attendant, and that he had been taking care of him ever since he’d been brought in. He didn’t remember any of it. Damian could not blame him for it. His original state was akin to brain-dead, and his lazarus pit rage had been blinding.
Regardless, Damian would tend to him as he always did, and Jason would finally be rid of the chains.
His mother was pleased with his progress. Damian would receive no praise for his service, but Jason would defend him for the lack of recognition. Damian didn’t know why he would, he felt it unnecessary, but it made his heart warm. Needless to say, Damian’s chores began to diminish, and Damian would find other things to do. He would stand at Jason’s flank during his training sessions, which got him back into shape, and he would carry his things without having been asked to. Jason was not pleased with his behavior, Damian didn’t know why, but he couldn’t just stop. This was all he knew.
One day, it happened, in a pit feral-rage.
Jason cried out in anger, slapping the towels out of Damian’s hands.
“Why can’t you just-”
Damian stared at him apathetically.
“Stop acting like a damn servant, you’re not a servant, you’re a-”
Then he paused, looked at his hands, and took a step back.
Jason wasn’t the same.
Jason changed. He would treat Damian with kindness. He was honest in what he felt, and he would ask for permission to touch him. At night, when Damian slept on the cold floor, he insisted Damian climb up into bed with him.
Damian listened to him, as was his responsibility, but nothing could compare to the feeling of sleeping in the arms of an alpha. It was an addictive feeling that Damian found himself craving everytime the evening arrived. There was just something about sleeping in the same bed as his older brother, who curled his arms around him tightly, that made him feel privileged. Safe. Protected. What Damian didn’t know was that sleeping in the same bed as an alpha was essentially asking to be scented, because the bed sheets carried Jason’s scent, which meant that Damian began to carry his scent.
His mother would be the one to point it out.
“Has he claimed you?”
No, Damian would reply, but the way Jason would treat him said otherwise.
The more time he spent with Jason, the more he got comfortable touching Damian, and the more he would make those sounds at him. The chuffing. Damian would later learn from his fellow betas that such a noise was reserved for puppies, often biologically related, and comforting. Alphas did not just chuff at anyone, not if they were outside of the pack, which gave Damian the conclusion that he had been integrated in Jason’s two-man pack. Damian hadn’t known, though, and it had a lot to do with his unfamiliarity with being so close to another human being.
Damian would know for certain when he was tripped by a particularly authority-obsessed alpha, head of the servants, in front of his protector.
One minute, Jason had been walking, but in the next he turned to see Damian on the ground.
It was a no-brainer for him. He swerved around to grab the alpha head by the collar, drag him up the wall, and snarl in his face.
Jason would later be rebuked for tearing the skin off of the servant’s neck, but he received no significant punishment. It was made clear from that event, don’t mess with Jason’s pup.
He would call him such.
Pup.
Jason stopped calling him Damian. He started calling him pup. He would call Damian his pup. He would rumble Damian to sleep, telling him he was such a good, good pup, and Damian felt inclined to believe him.
He felt inclined to believe everything Jason told him. Damian didn’t realize how much an alpha could influence his opinion on things. Jason’s word was law, Damian made sure to accomplish it, but after becoming his- it became more of an absolute. When Jason would command Damian to go to sleep, Damian would go to sleep, and when Jason told him to eat a portion of his food, Damian would eat.
When Jason told him it was time to leave, Damian did not question it, for Jason was his alpha. His protector. His provider. His everything.
They left in the evening when the servants finally finished with their tasks. Jason said leaving at night was too dangerous, especially since they had their most esteemed assassins on night-watch, and Damian had to agree. So, with what little they had wrapped in a single knack-sack, Jason led them outside into the wilderness.
They traveled the entire day, barely stopping, in fear of being followed. Jason would cover up their tracks, taking care of their scents by caking mud on himself, and wiping it all over Damian’s scent gland. Damian would obediently allow him this privilege, staring into his blue eyes, realizing that he couldn’t look away for the first time.
Jason had smiled at him.
They spend many a night huddled together for warmth. What had started out as side-by-side sitting turned into Damian rooted in his alpha’s lap. Jason was a walking heater. His purring made him warm up, and Damian would melt backwards into his heat. They could not light a fire in fear of being spotted, but Jason was enough for the both of them.
“Love you, pup,” Jason would remind him constantly. “You’re mine.”
Damian wouldn’t mind living in the wilderness forever with Jason, but Jason had plans for a place called Gotham. Their father’s city.
They would eventually reach their destination, and Damian would not be impressed with the state of the city. Jason would not, either, especially when laying his eyes upon a television set displayed in a store window. The news anchor talked about a man called The Joker.
Jason didn’t recover.
Damian watched his hopes shatter.