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Damian hates stakeouts.
It’s not just that they’re tedious and dull—it’s that they’re indefinitely tedious and dull, with no absolute time frame or way of reliably estimating how long it will take to make their observations and gather the necessary intel. It could be minutes, or hours, or days, and even then there’s no guarantee of a satisfying confrontation at the end to make it all worth his while.
But the worst part about stakeouts is that they are never solo ventures.
“I’m just saying, I could totally pick out the catfish,” Red Hood declares as he leans back against the building ledge, one boot crossed casually over the other. “You know I’m good at sussing that shit out.”
“And I’m saying that it doesn’t matter if you can pick out the catfish or not,” Red Robin argues for the fourth time that night, “because you don’t win the game that way. You win it by creating the most strategic alliances with the other players. You don’t need catfish spotting skills. You need to be likable.”
“Excuse me?” Red Hood balks, clutching at his chest. “I am a fucking delight, thank you very much.”
There’s the familiar chink of a grapple gun firing and latching onto metal railing, and then the electric whir of the motor pulling someone up. Nightwing appears a moment later to hoist himself up onto the roof, a flimsy plastic shopping bag in hand.
“Finally,” Damian mutters. “I was starting to think you had abandoned me with these imbeciles.”
Nightwing gives him a slightly sheepish smile. “Sorry kiddo. You would not believe the line at the Gas-N-Sip...”
Damian’s brow furrows slightly. The convenience store on the corner of 17th and Belleview rarely services more than two or three customers at a time, particularly at this hour. He’d seen four on one occasion, but that had been back when they still ran their 99-cent slurpee promotion, and as everyone knows the price of slurpees has been sitting firmly at $1.89 for months now.
But just before Damian can voice his skepticism–
“I got you Combos.”
“Tt,” Damian scoffs, rolling his eyes. “I am not a child that can be manipulated with paltry snack foods.” He side-eyes the bag. “...Which flavor?”
Nightwing grins. “Jalapeño Cheddar.”
Shooting out a gloved hand, Damian snatches the peace offering straight from his brother’s grip. “I’ll allow it.”
This time.
“Yo Dickwing,” Red Hood interrupts, diverting his brother’s attention. “One, where the fuck is my teriyaki turkey jerky, and two, tell these bozos I could totally win The Circle.”
Damian rolls his eyes. Reality television, particularly programs as frivolous as the ones his siblings indulge in, hold about as much entertainment appeal to him as watching paint dry.
(Which is to say, approximately the same as this current stakeout.)
With an amused huff, Nightwing starts rummaging through the bag, distributing snack foods and drinks amongst them. “Sorry, Lil’ Wing, you’ve got no hope. You’re not even Twitter verified.”
“That’s because I’m still legally dead, you asshole!”
Black Bat swipes a bag of Spicy Doritos from their haul. She rips them open, offering them first to Red Robin, who takes a handful, then to Nightwing, who declines with a shake of his head.
“If anyone is winning The Circle, it’s me,” Red Robin declares. “I was born to play that game.”
“Please,” Red Hood scoffs, “you’ve got like, four friends, and two of them are your exes.”
He looks utterly offended. “Have you ever seen me at a gala?”
“True,” Black Bat hums. “Good at fake friends.”
“Hey now–”
A sudden choking sound cuts off their bickering. All four heads turn in Nightwing’s direction as he coughs violently on the drink he just sipped.
“Could you drown a little quieter over there?” Red Hood demands, but Nightwing just shakes his head, still coughing into his elbow, and Black Bat reaches over to thump him on the back a few times.
“Holy crap,” Nightwing finally gets out, face twisted in pure disgust as he stares at the green sports drink bottle in hand. The obnoxiously neon pink label reads Maui Melon Mint. “That was literally the worst thing I’ve ever put in my mouth.”
“That’s what she said,” Red Robin snorts, and Nightwing shoves his arm.
(Damian’s brow creeps upward. He does not know who this woman is, but if he ever meets her, she shall pay dearly for insulting his favorite brother.)
“No, I’m serious,” he insists, turning the bottle around to show them. “This thing tastes like how B.O. smells.”
“You’re telling me sweat is the worst thing you’ve ever put in your mouth?” Red Hood demands, eyebrow hitched. “The level of privilege here is frankly disgusting.”
“I didn’t say it tastes like sweat. I said it tastes like how B.O. smells.”
“Then why the fuck would you buy it?”
“I didn’t. Ravi gave it to me. It’s some kind of new electrolyte thing.”
“Wait, Ravi’s working tonight?” At the mention of the laid-back night-shift manager at the local convenience store, Red Hood’s expression morphs into a lopsided grin. “Man, I love that guy. You know he ordered a whole pallet of those limited edition Scorpion BBQ Takis just ‘cus I told him they were my favorite?”
“He’s the best,” Red Robin agrees with a contented sigh. “He always throws in an extra Red Bull, on the house.”
“Gives me free gum,” Black Bat says.
“Not to mention the leftover donuts,” Red Hood throws in.
Red Robin frowns. “Powdered sugar?”
“Boston cream,” he says smugly.
“No way, those cost extra!”
Red Hood traces a finger over his heart in a crisscross motion. “Swear to god. Ravi’s my man.”
“This is absurd,” Damian, who has never received such special treatment from Ravi Kumar and is definitely not jealous about it, says with a scowl. “Only morons would consume food provided suspiciously free of charge from a virtual stranger.”
At that, Black Bat blows a large pink bubble and pops it right in front of his face.
“Tt.” Damian crosses his arms over his chest. “I rest my case.”
“Aw, lighten up, Lil’ D,” Nightwing says with a small laugh. “Ravi’s a solid dude. Not everyone is out to get us.” Holding the bottle up to eye level, he peers inside. “Though I am kinda starting to wonder if this one was supposed to be a prank…”
Curiously, Black Bat snatches the bottle from him. She swirls the liquid around twice, shrugs, and tips it back into her mouth.
A split-second later, she’s spitting it back out onto the rooftop, coughing and sputtering violently.
“You good?” Red Robin asks.
Black Bat locks eyes with him. “Death,” she declares hoarsely. “It tastes of death.”
Red Hood rolls his eyes. “Gimme that, I’ve tasted death.” He grabs the bottle and takes a swig then instantly recoils. “Oh my god, what is this shit?” He shoves it at Red Robin. “Here, you try it.”
Red Robin raises his eyebrows sharply. “Why the hell would I want to try ‘the worst thing’ Wing’s ever tasted?”
Red Hood snorts. “What, are you scared of our cooties?”
“I am,” Red Robin says in a deadpan. “I am one hundred percent, unapologetically scared of your cooties.”
“Well, I am scared of nothing,” Damian—who has no idea what ‘cooties’ are, but figures they surely can be no match for an al Ghul—declares. He snatches the bottle out of Timothy’s hand and throws back a gulp.
For once, his siblings are not exaggerating; the drink is horrendous. It is a contradiction in a bottle, an unholy amalgamation of flavor profiles. The ‘melon’ (if it can even be called that) is unidentifiable and sickeningly sweet, to the point that it makes his teeth ache. Meanwhile the ‘mint’ is reminiscent of those green and white halitosis-remedying hard candies Father always keeps a roll of in his breast pocket. The aftertaste is so bitter and chemical that it leaves the consumer wondering if perhaps this liquid has already been regurgitated.
It takes all of Damian’s League training to keep his expression neutral, but he does not break as he swallows the mouthful down, so he considers it a success.
“Weaklings,” he states, taking immense pleasure in the looks of horror on his siblings’ faces. Nightwing in particular goes a shade greener, a fist pressed against his lips as though stifling a gag.
“As thrilling as this entire conversation has been,” Oracle’s voice interrupts over the comms, “I thought you guys might like to know we’ve got a visual on the target.”
Damian grins, leaping to his feet.
Showtime.
“Do hold still, Master Damian,” Pennyworth tsks, a loaded syringe of lidocaine in hand. “I should like to anesthetize the correct limb.”
“Tt. This is highly unnecessary.” Damian twists his arm further out of reach, causing the butler to heave out an exasperated sigh. “It’s only a flesh wound.”
“You heard the man, Alfie! ‘Tis but a scratch!” Jason hollers across the cave in a terrible imitation of a posh British accent.
“A scratch?” Timothy calls back from the computer station in an even worse attempt at the same accent. “His arm’s off!”
Damian rolls his eyes as the two continue shouting lines from that infernal comedy film Richard forced them all to watch last weekend back and forth across the cave. His arm is not, in fact, off. There is, however, a ten-centimeter laceration across his left bicep where one of the assailants managed to pierce his uniform with a surprisingly effective boxcutter. It doesn’t help Damian’s pride at all that he’d been the only casualty of an otherwise successful mission.
“I have had injuries far more grievous than this one heal without medical intervention,” he argues as Pennyworth readies the hypodermic.
“Oh how silly of me,” Pennyworth drawls. “To think of relying on my forty plus years of medical expertise when I could simply trust the judgment of a twelve-year-old suffering mild blood loss.”
“Tt,” Damian scoffs.
For not the first time that evening, Damian wonders where Richard has run off to. Usually when Damian is injured in the field, the man won’t let him out of his sight. He’ll hover just inside the storage room and pretend to take stock of their supplies, or lean casually against the medbay’s door frame to chat with Pennyworth about unrelated topics, or sit spinning in lazy circles on the padded exam stools to dodge Damian’s glares. Once, when Damian had broken his leg in two places, he’d given up all pretense and stood directly beside the cot, silently offering up his hand to hold.
Damian had refused, of course—in Urdu colorful enough that Pennyworth hadn’t even required a translation to reprove him for it.
Richard didn’t even smirk when at last Damian did take the hand, nor did he flinch when Damian proceeded to grip it so tightly during the resetting process that it had left marks on Richard’s skin for hours. There was an unspoken agreement between the two that neither of them would ever mention this again.
Not that Damian needs such childish comforts. This is, after all, a minor injury. The League physicians would likely not have even bothered to dress such a wound, let alone suture it. But still, it is… unprecedented, that Damian has sustained physical damage in the field and Richard is nowhere to be found.
This time when Damian dodges the needle, Pennyworth has had enough.
“Master Damian,” he snaps, “either you will keep still of your own accord, or I shall be forced to ask one of your siblings to restrain you.”
“NOT IT,” Timothy and Jason shout in unison from opposite ends of the cave, further deepening Damian’s scowl.
“Me.” There’s a whoosh of fabric as a black-caped figure drops down from the rafters, landing in a crouch atop the exam table. Damian jerks away, but Cassandra’s reflexes are too quick. In a flash of movement, she strikes at a pocket of nerves in his injured arm, immobilizing the limb. Before Damian can so much as howl, he’s pulled onto her lap, arms pinned to his sides in an iron grip.
“Unhand me!” Damian bellows, kicking wildly, but Cassandra simply hooks her legs around his shins, trapping them easily against the table.
“Hush, baby bat,” Cassandra says, a devilish grin on her lips. In that moment Damian despises her almost as much as he despises his cackling brothers in the background. “Stitches now, fight later.”
“How dare–”
Pennyworth takes this as his cue and moves in with the anesthetic. This time, the needle goes in.
Across the cave, Jason shouts, “We’ll call it a draw!”
“Call what a draw?” Richard emerges from the cave’s locker room area dressed in civilian clothes, a small towel draped around his neck. He uses the end of it to wipe at his brow.
“Nothing,” Damian huffs, while Pennyworth disposes of the used needle in the sharps container. “Where have you been?”
It comes out a little more accusatory than Damian had intended it, but he doesn’t back down. It has been a thoroughly unpleasant evening, after all.
Richard smirks. “Needed a shower.” He nods towards the weapons cabinet. “We can thank Jay for that.”
Jason lifts both hands in front of his chest, palms out. “Look, for the record, I still have no idea how that dude’s blood spattered so far. Like, he had to be a fucking hemophiliac or something. That shit was not natural.”
“Language, sir,” Pennyworth says reprovingly, but Damian is more focused on the fact that his eldest brother’s hair is not damp in the least.
Curiouser and curiouser…
While they wait for the anesthetic to take effect, Pennyworth slips off to the supply room. Damian tries to push himself off Cassandra’s lap, but her arms only tighten around him further.
“Not yet,” she chides. “Be still.”
Damian fixes her with a glare. “Do you honestly intend to restrain me the entire time?”
Her eyes sparkle. “I always complete my mission.”
Damian’s ears burn.
Richard gives a breathy laugh. “Alright. Well, it looks like you two have this handled.” He jerks a thumb sideways in the direction of his motorcycle. “I’m gonna head on out.”
“Whoa whoa whoa!” Jason whirls around, tossing a freshly polished Batarang back onto the workbench. “What do you mean ‘head on out’? You said you were spending the night!”
“Yeah, you agreed to pick up the order from Francesca’s tomorrow!” Timothy throws in, fixing his eldest brother with a look that’s equal parts accusatory and hurt. “You know I can’t go back there—not after my mom chewed out the manager that one time. He’ll totally spit in the food.”
(It’s Pennyworth’s birthday tomorrow, and the family has elected to have the meal catered from a local restaurant rather than relive last year’s attempted cooking fiasco. Even after three coats of paint, the soot stains above the stove are still slightly visible in the morning light.)
Richard rolls his eyes. “Calm down, guys. I’ll be back in the morning. I just have a couple things I need to take care of at home first.”
“Nuh-uh. No way.” Jason crosses his arms over his chest. “If I have to stay over for this family bullshit, so do you.”
“A noble sacrifice indeed,” Pennyworth remarks as he emerges from the supply closet, causing both men to wince.
“No, I— it’s not you, Alfie,” Jason says quickly. “You know I’d do anything for you.”
“I’m blushing, sir.”
“Unlike Goldie over here”—he turns to shoot his eldest brother a glare—“who apparently gets to decide that the rules don’t apply to him.”
Richard throws his hands up. “Alright, alright! I’ll stay! Happy?”
“Ecstatic,” Jason deadpans.
“Bursting with delight,” Timothy says with equal amounts of monotone.
“So dramatic…” Richard mutters, shaking his head.
Then he turns and jogs up the stairs without giving Damian so much as a second glance.
There are few occasions capable of bringing the entire family together, but Pennyworth’s birthday is one of them. It’s the one day a year that everyone clears their schedules, sets aside their petty differences, and gathers round to celebrate their esteemed elder’s latest revolution around the sun. Nothing stands in the way.
Except, it seems, for this year.
Brunch is scheduled to begin promptly at 10:30, yet when the clock strikes half-past, only four seats at the kitchen table are occupied: Damian’s, Father’s, Pennyworth’s, and oddly enough, Todd’s.
“A truly impressive turnout,” Pennyworth remarks dryly, casting his gaze around the deserted table.
“This is some bullshit,” Jason grumbles. He’s slouched in his seat with his legs extended and arms crossed over his chest, the hood of his sweatshirt tugged down so far over his face that he resembles an ornery monk.
Father just sighs and rubs a hand over his face. “I knew we should have made it eleven.”
Displaying his usual disregard for punctuality, Timothy strides into the room at 10:38, head bent over his phone as he taps at the screen.
“Duke’s on his way,” he says, sliding into the seat next to Jason. “He’ll be another five or so—got caught up chasing a mugger on his way back from patrol and lost track of time. He says he’s sorry.”
“And the others?” Father asks, clearly exasperated. “Cass? Dick? Steph?”
Timothy shrugs. “Did you text them?”
“I added the event to the shared family calendar,” he defends. “It should have automatically sent out a reminder notification at 10:00, and again at 10:15.”
Timothy snorts. “Yeah, well there’s your problem. Everyone’s got those muted.”
“Since when?”
“Since you started using them to micromanage everyone’s schedules,” he says, tapping at his phone.
“I do not micromanage. I simply provide helpful time management suggestions.”
“Post-patrol nightly checklist,” Timothy reads off from his Google calendar app, “2:20 a.m. clean batarangs. 2:22 a.m. sharpen batarangs. 2:27 a.m. polish batarangs. 2:30 a.m. hang batarangs back on rack in order of size, starting on the far left with the thirty-four millimeter and moving down to the—”
The back door suddenly flies open.
“Sorry! Sorry I’m late!” Stephanie rushes out, arms laden down with three paper bags stacked to the brim with white styrofoam boxes. Pennyworth’s nose wrinkles at the sight of the catered fare. “Traffic was awful. Did you know they closed the bridge on Trigate? High winds, or something.”
Damian snaps his head up, instantly alert. “I thought Richard was picking up the food.”
She shrugs as she starts to unload the food onto the table. “He texted me super early this morning asking if I could pick it up instead. I figured he got called in for a last-minute shift or something.”
“No, he’s here,” Timothy says, still tapping at his phone. “I saw him get up at like, four a.m. to use the bathroom.”
“Why were you up at four a.m.,” Father rounds on him, but Damian is already out of his seat and making his way towards the hall. He has no interest in overhearing yet another lecture on Drake’s atrocious sleep habits; there are far more pressing matters at hand.
Namely, what on earth could be keeping his eldest brother.
His other siblings’ absence is irritating, but hardly anything out of the ordinary. Duke often loses track of time on patrol, and Cassandra finds large gatherings overwhelming and frequently dips in and out at will—a particular idiosyncrasy of hers that they’ve all just come to accept over the years—but Richard is well aware of the significance placed on this morning’s celebration. It is… unlike him to treat such a cherished occasion with such blatant irreverence.
Just as it had been unlike him not to accompany Damian for medical treatment last night.
It was Timothy who’d first noticed the blood seeping into Damian’s uniform, and Jason who’d dragged him to the gurney upon their arrival back home. Cassandra had been the one to force him through Pennyworth’s ministrations—suturing, dressing, and starting him on a course of precautionary antibiotics to ward off infection.
Richard, meanwhile, had been MIA for all of it.
Now, Damian is a reasonable individual. He knows that his eldest brother is a busy man, and that he is entitled to an off-day every once in a while. An entire off-weekend, even.
But he also knows that this is Gotham, meaning there are no less than four rogues currently on the loose who’ve been known to dabble in mind control, and another two or three capable of producing extremely convincing body doubles. Not to mention the likes of Crane and Isley, either of whom could have manipulated—
“Psst. Dames.”
He whirls around, startled to see Richard lurking in the hall outside of the kitchen, just around the doorframe.
“Where have you—” Damian begins, but Richard shushes him, a finger to his lips.
“I need you to go get B,” he whispers, nodding sideways towards the kitchen. “Quietly. Without alerting the others.”
Instinctively, Damian’s hand moves toward the small knife he keeps concealed in his belt. “You’re requesting a private audience with Father?”
(Away from prying eyes, precisely where an interloper would position themself to carry out their mission of sabotage?)
“Huh?” There’s sweat beading on Richard’s brow. He wipes a hand at it distractedly. “Uh, yeah. Sure. That.”
Damian’s eyes narrow. He gives the man claiming to be his brother a scrutinizing once over. “What is my favorite Pokémon?”
Allegedly-Richard blinks at him. “Your… what?”
“Pokémon, Grayson,” Damian grounds out. “It’s a simple question.”
“Um… Scizor?”
“Wrong!” In one swift movement, Damian unsheathes his blade and presses it to the imposter’s windpipe. “It’s Eevee!”
“It is?” Not-Richard doesn’t react to the weapon in the slightest, but he seems oddly hurt by the other news. “You never told me that.”
“The real Grayson would’ve been able to deduce it!”
“Damian,” Father snaps, and Damian glances over his shoulder to see that the man has materialized around the corner. His arms are crossed over his chest and he looks highly displeased. “What have I told you about holding your siblings at knifepoint?”
“But Father– ”
“Put it away.”
Damian hesitates, eyes flitting between the imposter and Father.
“Now, Damian.”
Scowling, Damian lowers the knife and stabs it back into its sheath. “This man is impersonating Richard.”
Father’s gaze turns calculating as he looks the imposter over. “What,” he says slowly, “makes you think that’s the case?”
“He’s been acting strangely,” Damian reports. “He keeps disappearing, he did not accompany me for medical treatment last night, and he cannot answer even the most basic of security questions.”
The imposter sighs in exasperation. “He asked me to name his favorite Pokémon, B.”
Father frowns. “Scizor?”
Damian bristles, but before he can protest, he’s interrupted by a bellowing voice in the background:
“CASSANDRA GERTRUDE ELIZABETH MIRABELLE WAYNE! FOR THE LAST TIME, THE FOOD IS HERE.” Stephanie is standing with her feet planted at the base of the grand staircase, one hand on each railing as she shouts up to the second level. “IF YOU’RE NOT DOWN IN THREE MINUTES, I WILL BE EATING YOUR ENTIRE FRENCH TOAST ALLOTMENT. DO NOT TEST ME, WOMAN!”
“Miss Stephanie,” Pennyworth calls calmly from the other room, “that is not what I had in mind when I requested you round up the stragglers.”
“I am inspiring a sense of urgency!”
Ignoring the commotion, the interloper addresses Father. “Look, I really don’t want to ruin Alfred’s birthday, but I can’t do this right now and I need you to cover for me.”
Damian rolls his eyes. “A likely stor—”
“Hush,” Father interrupts, causing Damian to glance back over his shoulder in surprise. Father’s eyes are locked on the man before him, his brows knit in what could only be called deep concern. “Dick, what’s going on?” he asks seriously. “You don’t look well.”
Now that Damian is looking a little closer, he has to admit that the man claiming to be Richard does appear to be rather poorly. He’s standing slightly hunched over himself, like it’s causing him pain to straighten up all the way. His complexion is washed out and there’s a sheen of sweat to his forehead, his hair lying in limp, tangled strands.
“I’m fine,” he insists anyway, absently wiping at his brow again. “I just need to not be here right now.”
The back of Father’s hand is already moving to press against his forehead. “You have a fever,” he murmurs. “Low grade. What else?”
“I think it’s just food poisoning.”
“Symptoms?”
“You know.” He gives Father a meaningful look. “The food poisoning ones.”
(“Cass! Let’s go! Chop chop!”)
Father is undeterred. “What have you eaten lately? Have you been hydrating? When did this start?”
“B.” He manages to draw this single syllable out into such a distinctly-pathetic whine that it immediately dismisses any lingering doubts as to his identity; this is unquestionably Richard. “Do we really have to do the whole Spanish Inquisition right now? It’s Alfred’s birthday.”
“Dick, if you’re sick–”
“If I’m sick, Alfred is going to spend the rest of the day holed up in that kitchen simmering bone broth, giving out food safety lectures, and bleaching every horizontal surface. It’ll ruin his entire birthday, and you know it.”
Father opens his mouth like he’s going to speak, then closes it again. It is difficult to argue with an objective truth.
“All I need is an out,” Richard goes on, his tone pleading. “I just need you to cover for me so I can duck out of this brunch without attracting a bunch of attention or hurting anyone’s feelings, that’s all.”
(“CASS!”)
“Bruce, please.”
Father hesitates a moment, then at last, relents.
“Alright,” he says. “I’ll handle it.”
“Just don’t—”
“I’ll handle it,” Father repeats, a little more forcefully. Turning to Damian, he adds, “Go sit down. We’ll be in shortly.”
“Fine,” Damian huffs.
Back at the table, he finds Pennyworth idly polishing a piece of silverware with his napkin, Timothy slouched in his seat, still tapping away at his phone, and Jason looking particularly murderous.
“If everyone’s ass is not in a chair in the next sixty seconds,” Jason says through gritted teeth, “I’m out.”
Timothy scoffs. “You can’t just leave.”
Jason’s glare could melt stone. “Fucking. Watch me.”
Pennyworth lets out a deep sigh. “If I am showered with any more affection this morning, I fear I shall simply dissolve into a puddle of goo.”
Jason looks properly chastised. “Look, Alfie—”
“I got her!” Stephanie bursts triumphantly into the kitchen, a somewhat disheveled Cassandra following a few steps behind. “And Duke’s on his way up from the cave now, so mission accomplished! I’m starving. Let’s freaking eat.”
That’s when Cassandra—moving forward with quick determined strides—blows straight past everyone and proceeds to vomit into the kitchen sink.
For a brief moment, no one says a word. Then there’s a flash of movement as Richard lurches around the corner of the doorway, stepping on the trash can pedal to open the lid before emptying his own stomach as well.
Then a sudden retching from Damian’s left causes him to whip his head back around. Both he and Timothy have to jerk their chairs backwards out of the line of fire just as Jason hunches over in his seat and vomits onto the ground. Stephanie just stands there, gawking.
“Oh my,” Pennyworth says mildly, upturning a bowl of oranges from the table and shoving the empty receptacle into Jason’s hands just in time to catch the next round. “This seems to be turning into quite the memorable occasion after all.”
Father’s jaw is tight as he surveys his three vomiting children with the same calculating gaze he uses for any mission.
“Cave. Now,” he orders, in a full Batman gravel. “Everyone who patrolled last night, until we can determine what kind of biowarfare we’re dealing with.”
“But it was a stakeout,” Timothy protests, a hint of desperation slipping into his voice, like he’s trying to convince himself as much as Father. “There was only, like, four minutes of action!”
“Hey guys, sorry I’m late, I was—”
Duke only has one foot into the kitchen when he halts, blinking, at the utter chaos unfolding before him. Cassandra heaves into the sink again, triggering another retch from Jason into the fruit bowl. Richard remains hunched over the trash can, moaning miserably.
“Uh, on second thought,” Duke says, hooking a thumb over his shoulder, “I think I’m just gonna head back out…”
“No one is going anywhere,” Batman orders. “Full quarantine procedures, effective immediately.”
“Okay, but I literally just walked in the door, so—”
“Ravi Kumar!” Damian blurts.
All heads turn to face him, with expressions varying from ‘mildly confused’ to ‘utterly scandalized,’ but Damian is not about to back down. Not when his family’s lives may very well be on the line.
Father’s eyes narrow. “Explain.”
“Ravi Kumar, the convenience store manager at the Gas-N-Sip on 17th and Belleview, provided Richard with a complimentary sports drink last night during patrol.” Damian rattles off the report, just as his training dictates. “The taste was…unpleasant. I now suspect it had been poisoned.”
(Which would also explain why Damian alone remains unaffected; his training as a child involved building up a tolerance to a vast array of biological and chemical toxins.)
“Dami,” Richard groans irritably, “it wasn’t poisoned.”
“Yeah, Ravi wouldn’t do that,” Timothy agrees.
“He’s so nice,” Stephanie adds dreamily. “He gave out entire boxes of free ice cream bars once when the store’s freezer case went out.”
“He paid for my Hot Fries that time I lost my wallet,” Duke throws in.
“Ugh.” Jason spits into the bowl, then shudders a little. “That drink did taste like ass, though.”
“Bad,” Cassandra rasps from over by the sink. “Very bad.”
Father’s eyes narrow. “Why do you all know what Dick’s drink tasted like?”
(There’s a beat of silence between them more damning than any confession.)
Father’s eyebrow creeps towards his hairline. “You all sampled a potentially contaminated beverage?”
“I didn’t,” Timothy pipes up, like the traitor he is. Damian shoots him a glare.
Father runs a hand over his face. “Where’s the bottle? We’ll run a full tox screen.”
(More silence ensues.)
“Please tell me,” Father says, in a tone of deadly calm, “that I have trained you all better than to leave samples of your own DNA littered about the city for anyone to collect.”
Richard looks utterly offended. “I would never litter.”
“Then where’s the bottle?”
There’s a beat, then, “...In a dumpster.”
“A dumpster.” Father turns to look at each member of last night’s mission in turn. “And not one of you saw anything wrong with this?”
Timothy appears suddenly very interested in staring at a particular tile on the kitchen floor. Damian finds one of his own to examine.
“Tell me”—Father rounds on Duke and Stephanie now, who both immediately wince—“that someone in this family is still following proper biomarker disposal protocol, outlined in slide 239 of the ‘Identity Safeguarding Best Practices’ presentation I gave last October.”
“Well, I could say it…” Stephanie mutters out of the corner of her mouth while Duke gives a nervous little chuckle.
“Are, uh– are we still doing that?”
“Are we still—” Father cuts himself off, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Yes, Duke. Yes, we are still doing that.”
“Ah.” Duke rubs a hand at the back of his neck sheepishly. “I thought it was like, a month-long initiative.”
“Like that thing about restocking the first aid kits after every use,” Stephanie adds helpfully.
Father closes his eyes and takes a long, steady breath, like he is counting to ten.
“We will be discussing this matter at length,” he says evenly. “In the meanwhile, Signal and Spoiler are to suit up immediately and take the bikes downtown to retrieve the bottle—as well as any other items containing traces of our actual genetic materials—and deliver them to the cave for testing.”
“You got it, boss,” Duke declares, tossing a salute over his shoulder as he hurries out of the kitchen, Stephanie hot on his heels. They both look relieved to be out of there.
“As for the rest of you…” Batman turns towards his remaining children. “Cave. Now.”
“Uh… B?” Richard lifts his head shakily from the trash can, swallowing hard. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. There’s only one bathroom down there.”
“We have plenty of bat buckets.”
“No, you don’t understand.” Richard locks gazes with Father, a haunted, vacant look in his eyes. “I’m telling you, in about an hour, we are going to need more than one bathroom.”
Jason covers his face with his hands. “Fuuuck…”
Somehow, they all end up in the east ballroom.
As it’s part of the public wing of the Manor, there are multiple restrooms just off the main hall, two of which are currently occupied by Jason and Cassandra (whose retches echo melodically through the cavernous space). Richard’s digestive system seems to have mostly emptied itself out by now, and he lies curled up on one of the antique settees Timothy and Damian dragged in from an adjacent parlor, an afghan spread across his pathetically shivering frame and a black bucket with a silver bat symbol on it positioned on the floor beside his head.
“This is absurd,” Damian complains. He’s sitting on the edge of the raised platform overlooking the dance floor, arms crossed over his chest and feet dangling over the side. “I am not ill.”
“Yeah, same,” Timothy agrees. He’s standing on the complete farthest corner of the ballroom from Richard, slathering his arms up to the elbows with a value-sized bottle of hand sanitizer. “And I’d kind of like to keep it that way.”
“You were both potentially exposed,” Father interjects over the room’s seldom-used intercom system. He’s down in the cave, testing samples gathered by Spoiler and Signal. “Until we can determine the source of your siblings’ sudden illness, we cannot risk further contamination of the Manor. The ballroom is large enough for you to separate yourselves accordingly.”
“You let Duke and Steph leave,” Timothy complains, which is true. After completing their recon mission, the two had evacuated to one of the Bat’s plethora of safe houses (where according to family group chat updates, they are indulging a sudden inexplicable urge to rewatch ‘The Exorcist’).
“And Pennyworth,” Damian adds. The butler has since donned a Bat-Hazmat suit and taken to bleaching the entirety of the first floor, just as Richard said he would.
“That is because none of them consumed potentially toxic materials in the past twenty-four hours.”
“For the last time, I didn’t drink any!”
With a deep sigh, Damian flops down onto his back across the stage, staring up at the glittering chandelier overhead. “My skills would be far better utilized tracking down Kumar.”
“Oh let it go, Dami,” Richard groans from his couch. His arm is draped across his eyes. “It wasn’t Ravi.”
“Stop defending that man simply because he provides you with free refreshments! All evidence points to Kumar’s deception!”
“It does not,” Richard grumbles, flipping over to lie on his side. “Especially since I was already feeling kinda off before I ever drank that melon crap...”
“Wait,” Timothy says, and Damian sits up to stare at his eldest brother in disbelief. “So you were already sick on patrol?”
“Not sick-sick.” Richard flaps a hand dismissively. “My stomach was just kind of bothering me.”
“Is that why you spent thirty minutes at the convenience store?” Damian demands.
Richard’s cheeks redden. “Look, all I know is it wasn’t Ravi, okay? He’s a good guy—that’s why he gave me the drink in the first place! He said I looked like I could use some…rehydration, so he tossed in a freebie from the new product bin. That's it.”
“So, to clarify”—Father’s voice is icy—“while knowingly ill, you drank directly from a bottle, then passed that same bottle around to all of your siblings, half of whom are now exhibiting the exact same symptoms?”
Richard frowns. “Well when you put it like that…”
The door to one of the restrooms swings open and Jason shuffles out, looking thoroughly haggard and several shades paler.
“I hate you,” he announces, giving Richard a withering look. “So much.”
“Hey, you’re the one who wanted a sip!”
“I wouldn’t have if you’d told us you’d just been shitting your brains out, patient zero!”
More bickering ensues, until at last Father’s voice cuts over the commotion.
“The analysis is complete. The bottle residue and samples we collected all tested positive for norovirus RNA—or, as it’s more commonly known, stomach flu.”
“Jesus take the wheel…” Timothy says under his breath, ducking his head and tapping his fingers to his forehead, chest, and each shoulder in the sign of the cross.
Damian rolls his eyes. “Aren’t you Jewish, Drake.”
“I am an immunocompromised agnostic who just sat through a four-hour stakeout with three people who are now puking their guts up,” he bites back. “I will take anyone who’s listening.”
Richard gives a weak snort. “So this is a literal Hail Mary?”
Timothy glares back. “You can shut up.”
Father clears his throat. “Uh, given that transmission of norovirus can occur from as few as ten infectious particles and the incubation period ranges anywhere from twelve to forty-eight hours, anyone not yet exhibiting symptoms should move to an alternative quarantine location, as outlined in my ‘Infectious Disease Containment Strategies’ powerpoint, slide 57.”
Timothy throws his arms up, letting out a bitter scoff. “Oh sure, now that you’ve locked us all in a room together for a few more hours, you wanna try to give us a fighting chance?”
If Father picks up on the sarcasm, he does not show it.
“Yes,” he says simply. “I think that would be best.”
“Of course you do.” Rolling his eyes, Timothy grabs his laptop and stomps back out into the hall. “Stupid fricken’ cooties…”
Predictably, Drake is the next to fall.
It happens quietly, without any of that morning’s theatrics. One moment he is sitting in the east wing den (AKA, their alternative quarantine location), taking out his frustrations with the day via violent first-person shooter games on the PS5, and the next he’s standing up and moving stiffly and silently out of the room.
Damian—who’s been camped out on a beanbag chair with his noise-canceling headphones blasting Mozart—decides that the grotesque-looking zombie on the game’s pause screen might be interesting to draw, so he sets aside his half-finished sketch of a dragon in flight and flips to a blank page of his sketchbook.
Twenty minutes later, the sketch is complete and Timothy has yet to return.
Damian finds him in one of the hallway bathrooms. The door is shut and the interior exhaust fan is humming in a clear attempt to cover the sounds of his retching. It’s almost successful.
(Almost.)
“Drake?” Damian calls from just outside the door.
“Go away,” comes the haggard sounding reply. “M’fine.”
The next several minutes of muffled retching sounds indicate what Damian has known since the day they first met; his brother is a compulsive liar.
Damian tries the handle and to his surprise finds it unlocked. He opens the door slowly, trusting that even an incapacitated Drake would manage a cry of protest if he were indecent.
(Luckily for Damian, the pale figure knelt in front of the toilet with his forehead resting against the rim is still fully clothed.)
Damian wrinkles his nose. “That is highly unsanitary.”
Timothy doesn’t bother to lift his head, but he does manage to lift one specific finger. Damian rolls his eyes in return.
“If you’re here to gloat about your superior immune system,” Timothy mutters, reaching up a hand to slap blindly at the toilet tank until he hits the flusher, “I’m really not in the mood.”
“It would be a waste of breath to state the obvious.” Damian flips on the faucet and fills a clean glass with water. He holds it out to Timothy, who only stares back with a blank expression, making no effort whatsoever to take it from him.
Damian feels himself bristling under the look. “What,” he demands.
“Why are you here?”
The question catches Damian off-guard. It was curiosity that initially pulled him from the den, but that had been resolved before he’d ever opened the door. There isn’t really any precedent for him being here now.
Timothy continues to stare at him blankly, so Damian finally spits out, “The others are occupied.” That part at least is irrefutable. The Manor’s ancient walls do little to muffle the sounds of swearing siblings, hurried footsteps, and slamming doors. “The duty of ensuring you did not aspirate on your own fluids fell to me.”
“Thoughtful of you,” Timothy says flatly.
“Tt.”
More vomiting soon commences, this round violent enough that Timothy’s entire body spasms with each gag. Damian’s own gut aches a little in sympathy; he’s been that ill exactly once in his life, and it is not a pleasant memory.
By the time the episode has subsided, Timothy is panting, his forehead glistening with beads of sweat. He tears off a few sheets of toilet paper to wipe his mouth, then slumps back against the wall, chest heaving.
“I will fetch Father,” Damian says.
“No, don’t,” Timothy mutters, leaning his head back against the wall. “He’s busy with the actual invalids. I can handle myself.”
Damian scoffs. “Hardly.”
Timothy cracks one eyelid open. “I’ve had a lot of practice. My folks weren’t really the back-rubbing type.”
They’re both quiet for a moment.
Wincing, Timothy shifts around a little on the hard ground. “This one time, I got really sick a couple days before they were supposed to leave for one of their digs,” he says, folding his arms around his middle. “I had a fever of 103 and I couldn’t stop puking. They were both really worried. At first I thought it was for me—like, that they might have to take me to the hospital or something—but then I realized they just didn’t wanna catch anything right before their big trip.”
He huffs out a short, bitter laugh. “They ended up changing their flight so they could jet out early. I woke up to a ‘get well soon!’ card and a bottle of Pepto-Bismol on my nightstand.”
Damian stares at him. “That’s appalling, Drake.”
He gives a listless shrug. “Yeah, well…”
There’s another stretch of silence between them.
“Mother sat with me once.”
Damian is surprised to hear the words come out of his mouth. He hadn’t really decided to say them. “The first time I was poisoned.”
Timothy looks confused. “You mean, like… food poisoning?”
“No. It was one of Grandfather’s.” The memory is fuzzy and far away, and Damian can only call fragments of it to mind at a time. “He ordered one of the servants to slip it into my drink when I was not looking. It was a test of my vigilance, designed to keep me from growing too comfortable, letting my guard down.” He swallows, his throat feeling suddenly dry. “I…did not pass.”
If possible, Timothy’s gone a shade paler. “How old were you?”
Damian thinks for a moment. “Seven, I believe? Perhaps six.”
More memories come flooding back to him now. The way his muscles had twitched and seized, how his insides had burned and he’d struggled to draw in breath. It’d felt like eons before the League physician was finally ordered to administer the antidote.
“I couldn’t move for days,” he admits. “Mother would sneak into the infirmary sometimes and… sit with me. She thought perhaps the servant had miscalculated the dosage, because of how ill I was, but he hadn’t. The toxin was doing exactly as it was intended. Teaching me a lesson.
“When Grandfather found out, he whipped her for it.”
Now it is Timothy’s turn to stare.
“Shit, kid,” he breathes out after a moment, his expression haunted. “You win.”
Damian rolls his eyes. “Tt. It’s not a competition.”
“Sure,” Timothy says.
Another awkward few moments pass before Damian lowers himself down to sit cross-legged on the floor, his back resting against the cabinet below the sink. Timothy eyes him warily for a moment, then sighs and leans his head back against the wall again, letting his eyes drift closed.
For precisely four minutes, no one says a word.
Then there’s a sound—a low, ominous gurgle—and Timothy’s eyes are snapping back open, his expression one of alarm.
“Leave,” he orders, pushing off the wall as he scrambles to his feet, fingers fumbling for his belt buckle. “Get out, go.”
(He needn’t have worried. Damian’s already halfway down the hall.)
By nine the next morning, Timothy is on an IV.
His condition has deteriorated rapidly—unsurprising, seeing as he’s been vomiting at least twice an hour around the clock since Damian first discovered him. Pennyworth has had to administer multiple doses of Zofran, which seems to lessen the nausea mainly by inducing unconsciousness. He’s been transferred to a bed in the east wing guest suite with the others (now repurposed into a makeshift infirmary, so as to contaminate as few rooms as possible), and appears thoroughly miserable.
By noon, Jason has joined him.
“Jay,” Father says with the exasperated sigh of a man who’s spent most of the night changing bucket liners and fetching more ginger ale, “you need to drink something. Fluids are not optional.”
“Jus’ leave me alone…” Jason half-rasps, half-groans. Apart from a single insulated cup of ice chips that he’s been sucking on at the rate of one per hour, liquid has not touched his lips since the previous morning. He’s managed in this way to keep the vomiting to a minimum, but the cracked lips, sallow skin, and constant dry heaves make Damian think his method cannot possibly be preferable to the alternative. “I already let you put a freakin’ needle in me. Now let me die in peace.”
“Seriously, Jay,” Richard croaks from the sofa in the suite’s little sitting area, looking only marginally less like death warmed over. “I know you hate throwing up, but you gotta drink something. My abs hurt just looking at you.”
“Screw you,” Jason croaks back. “I’m not taking health advice from Typhoid Mary.”
“Typhoid Mary was only a carrier,” Timothy mutters tiredly. He’s sitting up against the headboard with a bat bucket clutched to his chest, breathing shallowly through his slightly open mouth. “She never…”—he swallows hard—“developed any symptoms. That’s the whole point. Dick’s just…” —he pauses again— “your run-of-the-mill superspreader.”
“Look, I said I was sorry, guys! What else do you want?”
“I want to be able to trust a fart again!”
Damian rolls his eyes at his siblings’ dramatics. At Father’s insistence, he’s decked out in full PPE while he helps to deliver the next round of crackers and jello cups to the invalids (even though he’s fairly certain by this point that his mother’s genetic engineering has rendered him immune to this particular malady).
His brothers are still bickering when Cassandra reenters the guest suite. She’s dressed in a tank top and athletic shorts and looks tired, but infinitely better than any of the rest of them.
“How are you feeling, sweetheart?” Father asks sympathetically. Cassandra has barely made an appearance since the brunch disaster, having locked herself in one of the east wing bathrooms more or less the entire night. The cot that Father brought up from the cave for her remains untouched.
She shrugs. “Fine.” Retrieving her sweatshirt from where she left it draped across a chair back earlier, she turns to leave again.
Father frowns. “Where are you going?”
“Cave,” she says simply. “Training.”
His frown deepens. “Cass, you can’t train today. You’re sick. You need to rest.”
“No?” Cassandra tilts her head to the side, her expression one of genuine confusion. “I was sick yesterday. Today I am fine.”
“It’s a forty-eight hour bug,” Richard points out, and as if to emphasize this, Timothy starts vomiting again.
“For you, yes. For me, I know…”—she flaps a hand, searching for the right word to convey her meaning—“...tricks,” she finally settles on.
“Tricks?” Jason perks up. “What tricks?”
Her words are grave. “To get the bad out fast.”
“That’s a thing?” Jason looks utterly scandalized. “What the hell? Why isn’t anyone teaching me tricks!”
(Damian, who knows exactly the kind of self-detoxification methods that are taught in the League, can only shudder.)
Cassandra reaches over and flicks Jason between the eyes.
“Drink,” she tells him. “Don’t be dumb.”
And with those final words of wisdom, she’s gone.
Richard is the next to leave their little sick bay.
By seven that evening, the virus has mostly run its course and he’s well enough to handle the drive back to Bludhaven, where he plans to finish recuperating in time to make his next shift the following day. Timothy and Jason both salute his departure with double middle fingers.
The next morning Jason is gone as well. He’d perked up considerably since taking Cassandra’s advice about fluids to heart, and the very second he became capable of withstanding the twenty minute motorcycle ride to his apartment without passing out or making a pitstop, he’d left them all in his dust.
It takes Timothy an extra day to get back on his feet, and then another one after that before he can really be called anything close to ‘recovered.’ Still, even he makes it through his bout of norovirus more or less intact.
That just leaves Damian.
Four days after his siblings all began dropping like flies, a dull ache starts forming right around the center of his abdomen.
Sympathy pains, he tells himself, recalling with a grimace the colorful commentary he’s born witness to over the past week. It’s enough to make him pick at the bowl of oatmeal Pennyworth gives him that morning, his appetite having dropped somewhere into the negative digits. Luckily, the butler is too occupied on his cleaning rampage prior to Duke’s scheduled return that afternoon to take any notice. Damian is able to pass the rest of his bowlful off to Titus, who scarfs it down happily.
It’s just a stomachache; nothing he can’t handle.
The nausea really doesn’t start up until that evening, and even so, Damian is able to keep it mostly at bay by sipping lemon seltzer water and moving as little as possible.
Damian makes it through the night without incident, only to wake the next morning feeling worse than ever. Still, he is determined not to succumb to the same fate as his siblings. Slowly, he drags himself out of bed and dresses before making his way downstairs. Titus is waiting for him by the backdoor, tail wagging in anticipation of his usual morning run. Barely suppressing a groan, Damian clips his leash on. A brisk walk around the grounds will have to suffice for today.
(Or, maybe just a regular walk.)
In the end, it’s a rabbit that does him in.
Titus has one leg in the air, relieving himself against an oak tree, when he spots the tiny creature in the bushes. He lunges, pulling Damian—who is admittedly zoning out a little—right after him. Damian yanks back on the leash, shouting for the Great Dane to ‘leave it!’ and then the two are spinning in circles, Titus barking and snapping and the rabbit darting across the lawn like a madman.
It’s more than Damian’s queasy state can handle. He’s half-tangled in the leash when he drops to his knees on the ground and starts bringing up what little food he’d managed to get down the day before.
He’s still hunched over on the ground when he hears someone coming up behind him. A heavy, calloused hand rests on his shoulder before someone kneels down beside him on the grass.
“I was hoping you’d managed to dodge this one,” Father says with a sigh. “Ah well, at least we’ve gotten plenty of practice by now.”
Damian’s cheeks burn as Father lifts him onto his hip like a child and carries him back to the house.
He’s never felt more humiliated.
Over the next forty-eight hours, Damian does surprisingly little vomiting, and mercifully manages to avoid the other symptom that noro is known for entirely.
It’s just the abdominal pain that’s still plaguing him. It’s a constant six, at times creeping up to a seven or even an eight if he moves too sharply. Damian is amazed that his siblings—who’d complained incessantly about every other gruesome aspect of this disease—hardly mentioned the one that’s been taking all of Damian’s willpower to keep himself from doubling over about.
Not that he’s advertised this, by any means. To the contrary, he’s resumed normal activities as much as possible and has been doing everything in his power to convince the others that this virus is behind him.
That’s how he ends up accepting Duke’s offer of a spar that afternoon.
It’s a mistake.
All it takes is one misplaced kick—barely delivered at half-power—and Damian’s side explodes with white hot pain. His knees give out and he drops to the ground, gasping, moaning, writhing.
“Damian!” Duke’s eyes go wide as saucers. He drops down beside Damian on the mat, face stricken. “Oh my god, what happened? Where are you hurt? Oh fuck, where’s— BRUCE! ALFRED!”
There’s more shouting, and then multiple sets of footsteps are racing down the stairs.
“What happened?”
“I don’t know! I swear, I barely touched him!”
Damian’s ears are ringing and his vision keeps going in and out. He feels more than sees bodies coming up beside him, urgent hands forcing him to uncurl, checking him over for signs of injury. When they reach his lower right side, Damian can’t hold back the choked-off cry that escapes.
“Call Leslie,” Father orders. “Tell her to prep the OR.”
Several hours, a good bit of morphine, and an emergency appendectomy later, Damian is sitting up in a hospital bed at Park Row Clinic sucking on ice chips and feeling awfully smug for someone who’s just lost an entire organ.
“Man, I was scared I’d gained some new meta powers for a minute there,” Duke admits, shaking his head slowly. “Like, supersonic organ-crushing roundhouse kicks or something.”
Dr. Thompkins gives an amused huff. “No need to worry there. His appendix was so inflamed by that point that a light breeze probably could have ruptured it. Your foot just happened to be the catalyst.”
Visible relief washes over Duke’s face. According to the others, he’d been a wreck all throughout Damian’s surgery.
“I still don’t get it,” Richard—who upon learning of Damian’s condition, had immediately driven back from Bludhaven—says, looking thoughtful. “How did a stomach bug cause Dami’s appendix to rupture?”
“It didn’t. Appendicitis caused his appendix to rupture. As far as I can tell, Damian never had noro.”
The corners of Damian’s lips twitch upwards as he pops another piece of ice into his mouth. Sure, a vestigial organ may have spontaneously decided to attempt his murder earlier, but that’s not what’s important here.
The important thing is that at the end of the day, the score stands as follows:
Damian: 1, Cooties: 0.