Learning To Speak Damian

Okay, Dick admitted to himself. Maybe this was a really bad idea.

“Grayson, there is gum stuck to my shoe. And I’m fairly certain that llama was spitting at me.”

Definitely a bad idea.

In his defense, a day at a carnival sounded like the perfect chance for some bonding time with his newest little brother. In the few weeks since they’d become partners, Dick had failed repeatedly to make any sort of meaningful connection with Damian. He and Dick were such opposites in personality, tastes, and interests. They could barely get along on patrol, and Damian ignored him completely when they were back at the apartment.

This evening out was only the latest in a series of miscalculations. Dick was fast running out of ideas for getting through to his newly acquired sibling.

The idea had originally come to him while packing up their belongings at Wayne Manor. He’d accidentally stumbled upon some old family photo albums Alfred had assembled over the years. And right on the front page of one of the earliest albums was a photo of Dick, Alfred, and Bruce standing in front of a ferris wheel. The image had made him wistful for that much simpler time in his life.

For the first while after moving to Wayne Manor, Dick had made a point of avoiding carnivals. Even the booths at the school fair sometimes brought back those horrifying memories.

Enough time had passed, though, that eventually the young boy found himself nostalgic for the big striped tents and lighted rides and shouting vendors. On his birthday one year, Bruce and Alfred had taken him to a nearby traveling circus and they spent the whole day having the time of their lives. Even Alfred had been persuaded to try his hand at the dart throwing.

While it remained rare for Bruce to want to spend a day at an amusement park or carnival, he did so on certain occasions because he knew how much those trips meant to Dick. They were among some of his favorite childhood memories.

In hindsight, though, perhaps Damian wasn’t the sort of boy who would enjoy this sort of outing. He obviously didn’t have the same fond attachment to carnivals that Dick had; maybe that was the difference.

It was after the third or fourth bored sigh that Dick finally decided the day was a waste. Yet another failure to add to the list.

“Okay, Dami, I get the point,” he said, shoulders slumping in defeat. “Let’s head back to the car.”

The younger boy didn’t even try to hide his relief at this statement. “Good. We have more important things to be doing with our time. I need to discuss the bank teller murder with you. I believe I may have discovered a lead last night while looking over the case file.”

Dick rolled his eyes, choosing to take a shortcut down one of the vendor aisles. “It can’t all be about the mission, Damian. Take some time to relax once in a while. Or, better yet, sleep.”

“Tt. Sleep isn’t as important as continuing the mission.”

“Wanting to help people is good. But if you don’t take time to discover who you are without the mask, pretty soon it’ll become you.”

“Like it did with father?”

Dick frowned, but didn’t respond. The truth was, he’d always considered Bruce’s obsessive pursuit of crime-fighting to be one of the man’s biggest failings. He let his ‘mission’ consume him to the point of shutting out everything else that mattered — to a large extent, even his family. He might still be alive right now if he hadn’t.

A man stepped out into the walking path without warning, hauling a large cart of supplies. Dick had to quickly sidestep around the cart to avoid a collision. It was only after he’d got his footing again that he realized he was now alone.

“Damian?” he called, heartbeat automatically speeding up.

“Over here, Grayson,” came the completely unconcerned response.

Spinning around, Dick immediately spotted his missing sidekick, standing in front of one of the game booths.

He forced his panic back down and tried not to focus on how overprotective he’d become of Damian in the short time since arriving in Gotham. It makes sense to be a little extra cautious, he’d reasoned many times. After all, they had no way of knowing if the League of Assassins would allow Damian to remain here now that Bruce was gone. There was every possibility of waking up one morning to find that some of Talia’s minions had taken Damian away in the night. And after Bruce had entrusted the boy to his care, there was no way Dick was going to let that happen.

“This game seems ridiculously simplistic,” Damian commented, continuing to watch the visitors throw knives at the various targets on the back wall. “I could throw better than that by the time I was old enough to walk.”

It still unsettled Dick a little, how difficult it was to tell when Damian was exaggerating or not. Given who his mother was, it really wasn’t out of the question that weapon training had taken priority over basic childcare.

Dick stepped up beside his young charge and joined in spectating. The game itself was simple enough — the players had to throw their unsharpened knives at the special targets on the back wall and get enough points to win. An array of large plush toys lined one wall of the booth, waiting for some lucky contestant to take them home.

Another missed shot had Damian sniffing in disgust. “I could easily do better than that,” he muttered.

Even though they’d only been living together a short time, Dick was quickly learning that Damian had inherited his father’s inability to express his feelings. Very often, when he said one thing, he meant something else entirely. Getting to know Damian was a long series of trial and error to learn what he was really saying underneath all the haughty cynicism.

“You can play a few rounds, if you want,” Dick suggested. “We haven’t used any of the tickets yet, so there’s plenty to spend.”

Damian huffed, but didn’t immediately shoot down the idea, which Dick considered a sign that he was actually considering it.

“Fine,” he said at last. He stepped up to the booth’s counter and slapped one tiny hand on the rough wood surface. “Three of your knives. Now.”

Rolling his eyes, Dick hurried forward and offered the vendor enough tickets to cover Damian’s game. “Sorry. He’s homeschooled.”

Only taking a moment to test the weight of the weapon, Damian pulled back his arm and flicked his wrist forward, launching the knife at the backboard.

It glanced off the edge of a target and clattered to the floor.

Face scrunching in annoyance, Damian quickly picked up his second knife and repeated the maneuver. This one landed on the target, but nowhere near the bullseye.

The final weapon followed a moment later, also missing the intended spot by quite a sizeable gap.

Damian glared at the vendor. “Your weapons are faulty. The balance is all wrong.”

“I can assure you—”

Whatever defense the man had, Damian wasn’t prepared to listen to it. “You are a simple con artist, taking people’s money when you know your game is rigged against them.”

Dick tried to step in before things could escalate. He nodded a silent apology to the vendor and placed a hand on Damian’s shoulder, guiding him out of earshot of the crowd. “Damian—”

“I know,” the boy cut him off. “That wasn’t the ‘civilized’ way of dealing with the situation. If it brings you any comfort, Grayson, I wasn’t planning on harming him. He may be a thief, but I don’t break my promises.”

Dick raised an eyebrow, needing a moment to process that response. He vaguely remembered joking with Damian earlier in the evening about not killing anyone while they were out. Surely he hadn’t thought he was serious?

“Damian,” Dick started.

“It doesn’t matter,” he interrupted again, shooting a glance at the prize wall. “Playing games like this is a waste of time. What purpose would I have for those useless toys anyway?”

Once again taken off guard, Dick didn’t have a chance to respond before Damian had already turned away and stormed off down the vendor alley.

Instead of chasing down his angry ward, Dick turned back to the booth. There was a wide variety of plush toys hanging from the wall as potential prizes. Everything from small beanbags to massive teddy bears. Everything a child could possibly want.

Now that he thought about it, did Damian even own any toys? Or anything that wasn’t used for patrolling or hurting others?

Once again feeling like a total failure in the childcare department, Dick decided to remedy the situation right now. He stepped closer to the booth and watched as a few more contestants tried their hand at the game.

He wasn’t surprised to see that Damian had been right. The game was definitely rigged. The knives were weighted to make them throw better, but the weight was off-balance on all but a few of the weapons, greatly reducing the chance of someone winning. Fortunately, Dick had an advantage that the ten-year-old Damian didn’t — he was patient.

“Two games, please,” Dick requested, setting his tickets on the counter. The man seemed surprised that he’d returned, but didn’t say anything as he passed the blades over to him.

Not surprisingly, the first one went wildly off target. The next two did better, but still fell short of the mark.

“Do you mind if I use the same ones for the second game?” Dick asked. At the man’s questioning look, he shrugged as innocently as possible. “I’m superstitious. It’s bad luck to use a different set after losing.”

Probably tired of dealing with finnicky customers all day, the vendor simply shook his head and handed the knives back to him.

Now that he’d had a chance to test them and knew how they felt to handle, Dick took his time aiming up his throws. He knew the first one was unbalanced enough to go too far left, so he compensated for that. Sure enough, it hit the bullseye. Two more satisfying thunks filled the booth as the other weapons hit the target soon after. Three bullseyes. Not as clean as Bruce would have liked to see, but Dick was more than satisfied with his work.

At least it had accomplished his one real goal here.

“I’ll take the giant red panda,” he told the disgruntled vendor.

It took a few minutes of hunting, but Dick eventually caught up to Damian near the petting zoo. The boy was crouched beside one of the wooden fences, petting a pygmy goat through the bars. It was a surprisingly cute image, considering who was involved. For a brief moment, Damian looked every bit like a normal child.

“Hey, Dami,” he called out.

Retracting his hand, Damian quickly stood and turned around, trying to look nonchalant about the fact he’d just been cuddling a goat. “Yes, Grayson?”

Instead of responding, Dick pulled the giant plush toy from behind his back and presented it to its new owner. Damian’s eyes grew wide as soon as they landed on the prize.

“What- what is this?” he asked, voice small and uncertain.

“Well, he looked so lonely back at the game booth. I think the teddy bears were picking on him. I figured he’d be a lot happier away from them.”

He passed the stuffed creature over to his companion, trying not to smile at the look of shock on Damian’s face.

It took a few moments for the boy to somewhat regain his composure. “Tt. As if I would have a use for such a thing.” He looked back down at the toy before mumbling, “But I appreciate the gesture, Grayson. Perhaps I can find room for it somewhere.”

He was still learning how to read between the lines when it came to interpreting Damian, but he didn’t need to be an expert to understand what the kid was trying not to say out loud. One look at the way Damian was hugging the panda close to his chest was enough to let Dick know he’d made the right decision.

“Come on, Dami,” he said, dropping an arm around the smaller boy’s shoulders. “Let’s head back home. I’m sure Alfred has some hot cocoa waiting for us.”

Later that night, after Dick had finished checking to make sure the apartment’s perimeter alarms had been set (even though Alfred had never once forgotten to set them, it still made him feel better to double check), he peeked into Damian’s room one last time.

The little assassin child was sound asleep, curled around his giant plush toy, hugging it close as if his life depended on it.

Dick shut the bedroom door as quietly as possible and slipped back to his own room.

Maybe the carnival hadn’t been such a bad idea after all. He really needed to remind himself more often that, underneath all the scowls and pretentious speech, Damian was still a ten-year-old child trying to adjust to life in a new country and culture. Maybe he wasn’t all that different from who Dick had been when he first moved into Wayne Manor.

And maybe, like Dick, all he really needed was a family.

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