Work Text:
“Please Sir, don’t leave me with them, please-“ Bruce hardened his heart to Damian’s despairing pleas, forcing himself to remember that this child wasn’t his son, he had actually chosen to work with a psychopath and serial killer and had helped to kidnap three other boys, the same boys that could have been in another lifetime his brothers.
Damian had been the oldest here. He should have protected these kids, looked at them like family.
Bruce couldn’t wait for the other Superman to show up to gather this Damian, the timer of the portal expressed clearly that he should return to his own universe quickly.
He looked one last time at the teenager crying his eyes out and forced his broken heart to ignore the wrongness of it all.
The bad feeling inside his chest couldn’t be anything other than disappointment and pain.
“You have to repent for your crimes, son.”
He said somberly, observing for only a second the stricken, pale face of this version of his son, the green eyes acquiring a dull light as soon as he said his parting words.
Bruce left.
And left this version of Damian behind.
-
“Where is Damian?” The little Jason asked the day after, hugging the little Dick to his chest protectively while staring at Bruce with nervousness and fear. Timothy was still sleeping in the bed, but the two children wouldn’t leave the bedroom in no uncertain terms.
It was hard to see the three so broken and afraid of him. They wouldn’t trust anyone at all. Dick and Tim had already tried to befriend and comfort them, but they wouldn’t budge.
Bruce felt the tiredness vanish as soon as the memory of the other Damian resurfaced with Jason’s question. The pain was still too great to acknowledge, but the need to protect these three felt overwhelming.
“You don’t have to worry about him any longer. You are all safe.” He answered firmly, not actually wanting to expand on the topic.
Jason’s and Dick’s blue eyes filled with confusion and tears, their mouths shut immediately, but their lips trembling. They were clearly trying to stop themselves from saying anything more.
Maybe in the future they would truly believe his good intentions.
“I will let you boys rest. Alfred will bring food and drinks for you all in a few minutes.”
He left them, ignoring the little voice inside his head murmuring that maybe, he was leaving too many little boys behind.
-
“You left him there.”
Bruce startled, having zoned out after staring at the Bat Computer screen without seeing its contents at all for who knows how long. He turned his chair around and felt breathless staring at the green eyes of his own Damian, still eleven years old and just a child.
It had been hard to look his son in the eye after meeting his counterpart, he couldn’t deny it. It had already been three days since their rescue. Timothy had yet to stay awake, his body too damaged to keep him up for more than a few moments.
Bruce grunted uncomfortably, studying Damian’s body language carefully.
It couldn’t be easy to learn how his counterpart had been an accomplice to the horrors that happened to his brothers of another universe. He had tried to protect his own Damian from the extension of the abuse Timothy, Jason and Dick had suffered by the other Batman’s hands. But it had all been in vain.
His child was too determined.
“Did you investigate how long he had lived with his Father?” Damian asked impassively.
His son had been the only one that, eventually, Jason and Dick allowed free pass in their bedroom. The only one they didn’t protect themselves and Timothy from when one of the family entered what had become their room.
There was a nagging feeling about that, that wouldn’t leave him alone. But he compartmentalized it, feeling himself incapable of really inspecting why his instincts were screaming at him that something wasn’t right with the picture it all created.
“No.” He answered quietly, a bit curious to understand where Damian was going with the conversation.
“Did you ask Todd and Grayson about their relationship with the other me?” His son kept inquiring, frustration and bitterness growing clearly in his face.
Bruce wetted his lips. He knew what would be the reaction to his answer even before giving it.
“No.”
It was instantaneous. Damian’s countenance withered. His crossed arms fell to his sides, his hands closed tightly into fists and opened dejectedly right after, while his shoulders were high up to his ears.
Damian never showed his emotions easily, not the ones that made him feel vulnerable. He had always shown rage as a defensive mechanism. So it was startling to see the despair and resignation his whole figure created after so few words were exchanged.
“I see.” Damian murmured, green eyes dulled.
A flashback of those same eyes filled with tears, dulling with the realization that he was being left behind, came to Bruce’s mind immediately.
“I guess I should not have expected anything different. After all, I am intrinsically bad in every universe.” Damian grinned, a little self depreciative thing that stabbed Bruce deeply with the foreboding feeling that maybe, just maybe, he had messed more things up than he had initially predicted.
“Damian-“ Bruce tried to explain himself. There had been no time to inquire about those details. They had to act fast to save those children, to stop the threat the other Batman represented to their own universe.
But Damian spoke over him, flatly. “Save it. You could not look me in the eye these last days. You know I speak the truth, do not try to deny it.” The smirk on his son’s face felt wrong. “There is no nature versus nurture discussion when it comes to me, after all. My nature overshadows everything else, and it would not be different in any other universe.”
Bruce could only stare as his son left the cave with dejection, a posture so different from his usual prideful one. His words ringed over Bruce’s ears, reverbering and creating a tiny doubt.
But he compartmentalized it all once more.
The alternative was too monstrous to entertain.
-
It took more time than initially predicted for Timothy to regain his strength. Bruce didn’t like to think about the way Timothy had been found by Clark, nor the many wounds and damage done to his tiny body by, objectively speaking, his own hands.
But as soon as the teenager became stronger, if that word could even possibly be used to describe his recovering state, Bruce felt the need to actually talk to the oldest of the three.
His instincts, the same ones he had been silencing since the moment he left the other Damian behind, were screaming bloody murder inside his head.
The guarded way the boy looked in his direction, without really staring at him, still hurt, even when it was pretty much expected to happen.
“I promise, I won’t do a thing. I just want to talk.” He asked humbly, trying to seem not threatening at all.
“Give us a moment.” Timothy’s voice cracked, but his face was set as he asked it to the younger boys loyally posted beside him.
“No way.” Jason hissed quietly to Timothy, his hands trembling behind himself where he held Dick away from Bruce. As the days had passed, Jason had become braver with his opinions, even while clearly terrified.
“It's fine, Jay.” Timothy replied, resting against the headboard of the bed and looking at his younger brothers with fondness. The calm of his voice didn’t betray his own fear, something that was crystal clear by his body language. “Why don’t you go with Dick to Dami’s room?” He asked kindly, his voice cracking briefly on Damian’s nickname.
Jason resisted, clearly conflicted. He knew the real reason Tim was taking both of them out of the room. He bit his lip, staring at his brother worriedly, his suspicions written all over his face.
Bruce clenched his jaw, trying so hard to not simply comfort them all, when he knew it would not be appreciated.
“Go.” Timothy asked quietly, his hand tightening his hold on Jason’s hand in a last convincing effort.
With a reluctance as loud as a blaring horn, the two left.
Bruce hadn’t expected to be alone with Timothy, not after everything they had gone through in their lives, and not after the clear distrust they had for him and his family even after showing repeatedly by their actions and words that they would never hurt them. But now that it had happened, it felt adequate.
His own Damian’s words kept ringing inside his mind repeatedly.
“How are you feeling?” He asked, standing awkwardly by the door.
“Better.” Timothy answered, the nervousness and confusion becoming clearer and clearer on his face. His hands fidgeted over his lap, his eyes appeared to be aiming at Bruce’s chin instead of his eyes.
“I’m glad.” Bruce swallowed, not actually knowing how to navigate the situation at all. He took a couple steps closer, slowly, trying to not appear as big as he actually was, but it didn’t work, and the teenager’s hands fidgeted even faster. Before he could even approach the subject, Tim jumped into it.
“Why won’t you tell us where Damian is?” Timothy asked anxiously, surprising Bruce with the directness and stopping him in his tracks. In truth, Bruce should have expected that at some point, just like what had happened with Jason, Tim’s bravery would show one way or another. “We have the right to know what you have done to him.” The teenager continued, his fingers tightening around each other with too much strength, his knuckles whitening.
Even without wanting it to, the topic ignited Bruce’s defensive mechanisms, his emotions started to lock themselves up as soon as he thought about what the other Damian had done, and without really meaning to, he hardened his features. He regretted it immediately, just as Tim flinched from him even a safe distance away.
He forced himself to relax his posture once more.
He felt wrong footed. Nothing he did seemed right.
He chose to tell the truth.
“We left him with your Justice League.” He forced himself to answer, knowing instinctively that the topic wasn’t sensitive only for himself.
Tim freezed.
“You… what?” The boy asked weakly, his voice cracking at the ‘T’.
Alarms started to blare inside Bruce’s head, but he pushed through- “You won’t have to worry about him hurting you boys any longer.”
Tim’s blue eyes filled with tears instantly, one of his hands went to his mouth, hiding it behind his fingers in shock. “No…No, no, no…” He mumbled, his whole body starting to shake. “No no no no no no-“ He kept going, repeating the single word brokenly while hiding his face in his hands. Even hiding himself, there was no mistaking the tears escaping and cascading his cheeks in despair.
Bruce had expected relief. The wrongness of it all started once more to spread through his chest to his whole body. Slowly, he took one step closer, wanting to comfort this child so badly. But the boy flinched violently, jumping on his feet, his breathing stuttering in a gasp and his voice simply failed in the middle of another no.
It all felt like a disaster in the making.
But somehow, his instincts knew the disaster had already happened.
“I… I will be h-healed in just a c-couple d-days.” Timothy’s mouth trembled over every word, his face still hidden from Bruce’s view. It was like a switch had turned. The boy took a deep breath, visibly hardening himself to what he would say next. “I will be at your service then.”
Nausea hit Bruce hard at the implications. Hate for his counterpart grew exponentially inside his chest.
“I won’t ever want or even expect this kind of service, Tim. I already told you and the boys, you are all safe in this universe. I know my word doesn’t mean much for you yet, but I promise, we will not hurt you here.” Bruce vehemently said, hoping that this broken teenager in front of him would someday believe.
There was an ironic little laugh, disbelief clear in its existence.
For the first time since Bruce rescued him, Timothy’s blue eyes stared directly at his own. The cold fury, mixed between lines of resignation written all over his young face, shook Bruce to the core even before the boy opened his mouth. “Why should I believe you? You showed yourself to be even crueler than my Batman.” Tim’s lips trembled again, his cold and dead eyes seeing through Bruce and staring at memories he couldn’t reach. “You left my brother with the other League, just like our Batman always did, but there is a difference this time. Even if both of you did it to punish Damian, your motives aren’t still the same. And it makes so much sense! You were so much stronger than him, you destroyed him so easily, why should you keep his son, his potential heir, when the Father had already been such a weak man? You only wanted his spoils, the trophies, the little boys he kidnapped to entertain his fantasies. You didn’t want the blood son, especially when you wouldn’t touch him the same way you could us, you left him with those that would make the most of it. But of course, how could it be any different, when your cruelty knows no bounds, after all. Considering you guaranteed that Damian will never see us again, that he will be forever in their hands to use and abuse when you handed him over to those monsters and brought us for yourself in another universe away-” Timothy gasped, breathless, and then he laughed, deranged. Resigned.
Defeated.
“I don’t even care about your promises.” The boy continued tiredly, clearly emotionally exhausted, laughing and crying at the same time. “Its been a week. Dami must have been raped countless times, already. Oh my God...”
Bruce’s mind blue screened. His wide eyes stared at the broken teenager in front of him with shock. Dawning realization started to spread through him, the wrongness from before exploded with a vengeance.
Unbidden, the memory of Damian despairingly pleading Bruce to not be left behind with the League resurfaced inside his mind.
“Please Sir, no, please-”
No.
It couldn’t be.
“What did you say?” Bruce whispered, feeling his mind filling with a despair so strong that it became hard to breathe. “The Justice League…?”
Nonononononono-
Timothy’s dead stare turned to him again. Confusion started to surge in its irises.
“Are you serious right now?” Tim’s fire, which had increasingly died out during his tirade, started to ignite once again. “Are you seriously implying that you did not know any of it?” He gritted his teeth.
“I… I…” Bruce found himself without words, remembering the questions his own Damian had made. His son had been the only one these kids had invited into their circle of trust.
The world he had known was tilting, the truth he had gathered for himself was shattering.
It couldn’t be.
He wouldn’t live with himself if it was really true.
“You cruel fool.” Timothy gasped, too much emotion exploding inside him.
Bruce stared at it all in mounting horror.