Chapter Text
He had been homeless for a year.
Damian might not have been raised on the streets, but he had enough survival training to get by. He traveled cities, hopped on buses with no destination in mind, and washed down his scent in the gutter. Damian didn’t like having to pat himself down with water, but it was the only way to hide his scent. He didn’t exactly carry around a reusable scent patch. It was simply unsanitary to use the same patch over and over again. Patches needed to be changed, just like clothes, and bandages, needed to be changed. Thus, when Damian ran out of his supply, he took to concealing his scent in the traditional way.
Sometimes when he felt the water wasn’t enough, he’d mix dirt into the solution, and cake himself in it. He’d rub the mud all over his neck. It would dry. Damian would be safe for another day. His pack would have less of a chance of finding him. His enemies wouldn’t recognize him. Damian was simply a muddy pup traveling across the country, never stopping, and always moving. The average eye would think him a street rat. Damian is anything but. He’s an assassin on the run. He’s the only biological son of Bruce Wayne. He’s the grandson of the great Ra’s al Ghul. He used to be Robin. Now? Now he’s just an eleven year old trying to get out on his own.
He was exhausted. He’d dodged the CPS multiple times, the police, and his father’s colleagues. It wasn’t easy to be on guard all the time, but Damian didn’t want to risk returning to his ‘pack.’ They might try to pretend he was one of them, but Damian was not so easily deceived. Their prior reaction to his uninvited addition to their ranks had been one of doubt, uncertainty, and reluctance. His mother had dumped him on them without warning, and Damian didn’t give them a good time for it. It’d been hard on his eight-year old brain. The woman who had raised him had deserted him. She couldn’t deal with his temper. She deposited her problem in his father’s lap.
Damian watched as he, single-handedly, almost tore his ‘pack’ apart. His father had been stressed and distant. Tim had been wary, untrusting, and skeptical. Jason was never home. Dick tried to piece things together. He took upon himself another unnecessary emotional load. (It was never his job but he tried anyway)
Damian supposed that pack relations had improved as time passed. Yet, after spending four years with a pack on the mend, it became clear to him. He was the problem. He was holding them back. His father had never asked for him. Tim hadn’t deserved Damian’s aggression. Dick didn’t need another member to look after. The others would be better without having to worry about him. The best solution was to remove himself from the equation.
So, after a few months of careful planning, Damian ran away in the middle of the night.
He spent months traveling to different cities. Hiding his trail. He’d gotten into a good routine. He would find a place to hunker down for the night (camping, if he was out in the country), find food, bust some heads, and then move onward.
Damian’s routine broke when he came across puppy traffickers. He had baited them into kidnapping for the purpose of finding their base. He just didn’t think it’d be in Star City, and he also didn’t think that Arsenal would get involved.
Arsenal, Starfire, and Red Hood.
Damian had been absolutely mortified when he discovered Jason shooting the security detail on the cameras. Damian had been in the middle of freeing his fellow pups, planning out an escape route before enacting his ultimate goal, only to find that Jason’s Outlaw team were about to get to them first.
Damian’s agenda quickly changed. He knew that they would take care of the packless pups. Now, what he knew he ought to do, was escape before his brother could find him.
He avoided them. He took the paths they wouldn’t take. He was just about ready to exit outside until he saw a struggling child in the arms of an angry handler.
It was a no-brainer. Damian involved himself.
Damian tore into the man’s neck with his teeth. His fangs pierced skin in the practice of dominance. The message was clear. Get your hands off the puppy.
The alpha did not submit to him. His will was stronger. He struggled against Damian, and he put up a fight until Damian knocked him unconscious. Suffocation. The good old fashioned way.
Damian’s next focus had been taking care of the whimpering puppy, a few years younger than him, by sending her off in the direction of his brother. He just didn’t anticipate that his brother had witnessed nearly the entire fight, and was standing dumbfounded several feet away in the lobby.
Damian made eye-contact with him.
Many things ran through his mind. Damian, firstly, was ashamed to have been caught. Certainly, he couldn’t control his brother’s appearance, but he should’ve anticipated a possible vigilante intervention. He was, quite frankly, embarrassed for not having considered it.
Secondly, Damian really didn’t want to explain himself, and he also didn’t want to deal with Jason’s inevitable questioning. He just wasn’t ready to handle the emotional load that would come with such a conversation.
Damian knew Jason recognized him. There was no hope of dodging the interrogation that was to be had. The puppy-nappers had been so disgusted with his filthy appearance that they had wiped him down with baby wipes. The only thing available in their possession.
(And, no, they did not inappropriately touch him. They were ‘saving’ him for his supposed buyers. Damian internally laughed at the thought. Even if they had tried anything, they wouldn’t have been able to get very far, not with broken hands.)
Damian’s hair was still grossly greasy, flat on his head, but his face still shared his father’s features. There was no mistaking the spark of recognition in Jason’s eyes. He unmistakably knew who Damian was.
“Damian?” Jason asks.
He takes a step forward. Damian’s hand closes in on the younger pup’s wrist.
The third thing to run through his mind, at that very moment, was that maybe Jason would leave him alone. He was the least likely out of all of them to bring Damian home. He’d been through the ‘running away’ phase before. He also, most definitely, didn’t care. He was just shocked to see Damian. That was all. Why would he bother collecting him?
Whatever. Damian made his decision. To avoid the consequences of his actions, to avoid the emotional conversation to be had, he would pretend to have no memory.
Damian tilts his head.
Carrie Kelly’s acting classes fill his mind. This was a familiar stage for him.
“Sorry?” Damian put on the clueless facade of an amnesiac puppy. “Are you talking to me?”
Jason stares at him. Damian knew that, to cement the amnesiac act, he ought to act differently. He needed to make it convincing. That meant doing something he’d never do.
Damian averts his gaze shyly. He looks down at the ground.
Jason says. “You’re messing with me. Of course I’m talking to you, brat.”
Damian visibly winces at the nickname, making it look like Jason was being hostile instead of calling him out. His eyes shoot back up to Jason, wide, and round. He protectively stands in front of the pup in his care. He makes the caution clear in his expression. “Stay away,” Damian warns. “I don’t know who you are, or what you want with us, but we’re not going back.”
Jason goes mute. The silence makes the atmosphere tense. Damian wonders if he’s doing this right. He worries Jason might just see through his facade.
“What?” Jason strains. “Why would you think-”
Jason shuts his mouth. He pauses.
“Damian?” He tries again.
Damian makes no movement as to suggest he recognized the name. He glances over at the pup hiding behind him, clinging to his shirt, as if Damian might possibly be her instead.
Jason takes another step forward. Damian tenses.
“Pup?” Jason asks weakly.
Damian says, voice high in volume, “Stay away!”
Jason seems to finally understand what Damian was saying. He struggles to communicate, “Wh- What?
No.
I’m- I’m one of the good guys and- do you- do you seriously not recognize me?”
Damian briefly glances down to Jason’s booted feet before glancing back up to his covered head. He doesn’t answer. He keeps a wary face. It seemed to be doing a good job. He guides the pup behind him to take a step back, but he didn’t expect a wall to block them from going back any further. He inwardly swears.
“Lian?”
Arsenal drops down from the vents. He sounded hopeful. He crouches down in front of Jason, temporarily interrupting the tension, and then he holds his arms out. Damian makes a noise in surprise as the pup behind him pushes past him to run into Arsenal’s arms. The child, Roy’s daughter (he now realizes), whines in his arms. Roy crushes her in his embrace. He wraps his arms firmly around her, promising never to let go with action alone. He puts out hoarsely,
“Lian.
Thank God. Thank.
God.”
The sight is a sweet one. It was a reunion between father and daughter.
Jason side-steps. His focus was primarily on Damian. That much was obvious. He holds his hands out in front of him to show that he meant no harm, and takes a couple of careful steps towards him.
“Damian, I know things are scary right now, but we’re not going to hurt you. We’re here to help,” he says. His voice is gentle. Calm. Damian has never heard him speak to him in such a way. It surprises him. “Just focus on my scent. It’ll let you know that I’m telling the truth.”
Damian inwardly groans. This was the perfect opportunity to tell Jason that it was all an act, but he was far too embarrassed to admit he’d been pretending to be a lost pup just to avoid the consequences. His pride was more important. He’d never live it down if Jason found out. Now he had to pretend to be vulnerable.
Damian digs deep down in his puppy instincts. He tries to pull back up the toddler that’d been murdered in his mind a long time ago, and shakes the phantom image for assistance.
“It’ll be okay. You’re safe now,” Jason promises.
Damian watches Jason as he takes a few more, slow, small steps towards him. He reaches underneath his shirt to pull at the patch on his neck, and Damian is hit with the aroma of calming. He stills. It’s hard to ignore. His body struggles against his ego. The toddler he pulled out of his past whimpers in his mind, and goes limp at Jason’s soothing intentions. Damian tries to shake him. He tries to get his senses back, but the scent starts to overpower him. He relaxes. The tension that had built up in his muscles faded.
Damian lets the whimper out of his throat. Jason sweeps in.
He rumbles comfortingly. He collects Damian into his arms. Damian has never seen him like this, maybe it’s because he never allowed him to, but he doesn’t have a hard time ‘pretending’ to melt into his protective embrace. The puppy in him recognizes a guardian out of Jason, and Damian allows the submissive behavior he’d locked up in his mind to reign supreme. Jason’s scent pours out onto him like a waterfall. Damian gets sick over it. It makes him woozy. It takes away all of his energy.
“It’s okay, pup, it’s okay,” Jason whispers. He keeps Damian close to him. He’s crouching, now, too. Just like Arsenal.
Damian is puddy in his hold. His cheek slumps into his shoulder. Damian releases a body-shaking sigh.
Jason plucks him off the ground. He hoists him up into his arms. Damian’s cheek stays on his shoulder.
“We’ll figure this out, I promise,” Jason says. Quietly.
Damian almost feels bad.
Almost.
The rest of the evening is a blur. Jason doesn’t let him go. Damian can’t think straight with Jason’s scent washing over him. It’s relentless. It gives him a never-ending stream of comfort. Damian forgot why he was even pup-napped, he forgets why he was running, because what was the point of it all? He wasn’t supposed to be doing any of those things. He was supposed to leave that to his protector. His pack. His-
Damian snaps back into reality a few hours later. He panics. He’s on Jason’s motorcycle now. They’re going somewhere. He can distantly hear Starfire’s voice echo in Jason’s comm. Jason mumbles something back to her.
Damian stiffens in Jason’s hold. He’s sitting in front of him. There was a helmet over his head (when had that gotten there?), and Damian could feel Jason against his back.
Jason notices his tension. He begins to rumble again. Damian hates it. It makes his heart get all warm, and that wasn’t good. That wasn’t good at all.
Maybe he should’ve just been honest from the get-go. He was digging a pit for himself at this rate. Somehow he’d ended up in Jason’s care without even realizing it, and now they were probably on their way back to Gotham.
Damn it.