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snaileer · 1 year ago

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Practice your Skills - p2

Dick sat in the tensely quiet car trying his best not to fidget. It’s not entirely silent of course, Barbara is talking over the radio to Bruce about the nights oncoming patrol and Bruce is… not contributing to the conversation, but a part of it at the very least.

Maybe it’s just Dick feeling the near purposeful silence coming from Damian in the backseat. He’d been irritated about being the only other one coming to the gala, and sure, they’d had that hiccup with the stabbing attempt, but that was par for the course.

Dick thought he’d handled it well, all sharp pointy things considered.

Clearly not, if the pensive storm of silence emanating from behind him was any key.

“So Damian…” Dick starts, unsure, but hey it’s not like he can expect Bruce to notice, “I just wanted to make sure everything was okay after the gala.”

A pause.

“Everything. Is Fine.” Damian grits out.

Even Bruce perks up at the tone, so something is definitely up.

“Be that as it may…I wanted to make sure you didn’t take my words wrong, I just thought we’d gotten past-“

“It was not you,” Damian snaps.

Dick blinks, sharing a moment of questioning eye contact with Bruce next to him.

Just as he opens his mouth to speak again, Damian interrupts.

“It was Masters.”

Dick quirks an eyebrow, “The guy you tried to stab?”

Damian’s face twists into a sneer, “Yes. Though if he had not tried to restrain me I would not have been so tempted to maim him. The encounter was merely meant to be a practice hit, a….”Damian looks away out the window, “A demonstration.”

“You said that before. A demonstration for who, Damian?”

His face resets into his typical scowl and for a second, Dick thinks that’s all they’ll get, that he’ll leave it there, but Damian turns away from the window to look down at his hands clenched in his lap.

“There was… a boy. With Masters,” Damian finally makes eye contact through the rearview mirror, “We.. interacted during the festivities, demonstrating our shared capabilities to move past other’s defenses.”

Dick squints, blinking repeatedly as he tries to decode Damian’s words, “You guys spent the night…. pretend stabbing people?”

“Tt. It was nothing so juvenile,” Damian scoffs, “We simply found our interests for the evening aligned and shared a demonstration to each other. As I said.”

“Of course,” Dick nods seriously despite the smile on his face, “But why does that have your feathers ruffled, Baby bat?”

Damian takes a deep breath, eyelids flickering closed for a second, and when they made eye contact again, his eyes were softer than Dick had ever seen him.

“He was afraid. After my interaction with Masters, he disappeared. I thought he ran. But he was accepting of my approach just before our departure…” Damian pauses, “He was only afraid in Masters’ presence.”

Dick watches in his peripheral vision as Bruce’s knuckles tighten over the steering wheel.

They’re already on the bridge, it’s too late to take a shorter route directly to the cave. But oh how Dick wishes it wasn’t, this has everything wrong written all over it.

“What was his name?” Dick can feel the Nightwing seep into his voice and tries to control it.

“Daniel Fenton, though he said that it would be Daniel Masters by technicality.”

Bruce taps the speaker button of their radio, keying in Oracle, “Compile information on Vladimir Masters, and any connections to a Daniel, surname alternatively Fenton and Masters both, as well as a timeframe of interaction and all film from tonight’s gala. Both were present,” Bruce orders as they enter Bristol.

“On it,” Oracle’s distorted voice replies. Dick can almost imagine her nod as her face sets and she gets to work.

“Father?”

Dick looks back at Damian, finding him staring intently at Bruce’s gruff profile in the front seat.

“Trusting your instincts is one of the most primary parts of being a detective,” Bruce recites, “I’m trusting your instincts, Damian. If you’re suspicious of Masters, we will follow through.”

Damian’s eyebrows raise slightly, eyes widening, “Oh.”

Any response is cut short by their arrival to the Batcave through a side entrance. Oracle already has the files on the large screen, details still appearing as she works. Clearly Dick is going to need to remind her to sleep tonight.

“Vlad Masters, millionaire packers fan, modest beginnings, lab accident in college, came out of it and immediately began a rise to riches through suspiciously beneficial business deals,” Oracle reads out as she adds more business contracts to the screen, “Sounds like that lab accident was the most beneficial thing, he’s likely an early age meta.”

Bruce hums lowly in agreement, and Dick can already tell his mind is spinning with contingencies and plans.

Oracle continues, “Reconnected with Madeline and Jack Fenton, mutual friends from college now married, and moved to a small town in Illinois to be closer after their reunion. Became mayor of that small town and after the parents left to travel abroad, on Vlad’s funding, and with the sister away for college, he is now guardian of one Daniel Masters nee Fenton, due to one spectacularly expedited name change and a handful of temporary guardianship papers.”

Bruce’s eyes narrow as he stares up at the images on the screen, a young Vlad, some pictures of press reports after his business deals, his mayoral election, and a handful of shots of him standing next to a young black-haired teenager.

Dick catalogs the tenseness of the teenager in every picture, and feels an uncomfortable familiarity to Slade at the look in Vlad’s eyes.

It makes his own shoulders tense with the feeling of being owned. Possessed.

“This sleazebag is the reason Barbie practically confiscated the Batcomputer from me?”

Dick turns to see Jason walk out from their armory storage, everything but his helmet on. Making the sneer he casts at the screen perfectly visible.

“Hood,” Bruce grunts.

“Don’t worry, old man, I’ll be out of here soon, I was running some forensics before O kicked me off,” Jason says as he walks past them with heavy footsteps.

“We have a case,” Bruce says, making Dick roll his eyes. Really? Not a single hint of ‘I’m happy to see you, Jason’?

“What, rich guy taking in a black-haired blue eyed kid? Gee, sounds familiar. Someone stealing your act, B?” Jason looks back as he reaches his motorcycle, “I’ll keep an eye out for any child soldiers in leotards- oh wait,” He casts them a deadpan look before hooking a leg over his bike.

“Hood-“ Dick starts.

“Besides,” Hood snarls, slamming his red helmet on his head, “You wouldn’t like the way I deal with him.”

The retreating roar of his engine is enough to push Dick towards the batcomputer instead of watching Bruce stare longingly down the tunnel.

What he sees paints an increasingly bad picture. One that’s unfortunately pretty close to what they expected.

“B, come look at this,” Dick calls, feeling the weight of his presence approach over his shoulder.

“We don’t have an accurate timeline for their first meeting, but if Daniel’s dip in grades is any indication, Vlad has been around for barely two years, and now he’s Daniel’s guardian? Something’s wrong with that picture Bruce.”

“Hn.”

Dick continues flickering through the compiled history, now more recent, “Traveling away from Daniel’s hometown, homeschooling him, B, this is textbook isolation.”

“Tt, clearly Fenton required my demonstration so he can attempt it himself. If I was thwarted then his own chances of success against Masters are abysmal,”Damian sniffs.

“That’s why we’re here. Get suited up, we’ll add a stakeout to tonight’s patrol,” Bruce says, turning to the suit cases in a way that’s meant to make the bat cape swirl ominously.

Dick glances one last time at the blown up image of Vlad Masters on the screen, his cold eyes seem to loom over them. Even by the same scale, Daniel Fenton looks small next to him.

Determination rises as Dick turns on his heel towards his own suit.

Time to get to work.

—

Danny stares at the dull eggshell white of the hotel suite’s ceiling above his bed. Despite the lights being off, he knows it’s eggshell white and not the beige-blue it appears to be because he spent most of the daylight hours staring at it too.

Danny tries not to think about the fact Vlad is barely a room away.

He tries not to think of the fact that Vlad sent his parents an entire ocean away.

He tries not think of the fact that Vlad has torn him away from the place he’s known all his life, tries not to think of how he’s stuck here, how he’s stuck with Vlad, can’t get away from him, no matter how he tries, tries not to think of the times that he’s not even in control of his own body, trapped in his own mind with his powers tucked away under chains, of the times that Vlad simply makes him act like his perfect son.

Danny snaps his eyes open.

The eggshell white ceiling stares back at him.

He traces the pale light shining across it from the window until a shadow rushes past it.

Immediately, Danny whips his head to the window, raising from the bed with a sense of curiosity.

He stares out of the window into Gotham’s streetlit darkness, and thinks he sees something dipping through the shadows.

Danny again curses Vlad, slamming his fist in irritation at the loss of his night vision. It’s too soon after the taser but he still tries anyways, feeling nothing but the sore tugging of his core in return and the flicker of green eyes in the window.

The hair on his arms prickles.

Just as he’s about to turn away from the window to continue staring aimlessly at the ceiling, a hand clamps down on his shoulder.

“Little Badger,” Vlad’s voice purrs lowly, “Watching the nightlife are we?”

Danny knows better than to shrug off Vlad’s hand, but that doesn’t stop the urge to drive his elbow into the fruit loop’s sternum, “I was just heading to bed,” He says almost robotically. He just wants this interaction to be over.

As he tries to turn away, Vlad’s hand tightens to keep him in place, “Ah ah ah, Daniel, I want to have a conversation with you,” The grip turns painful and Danny grits his teeth, “It’s bad manners to walk away from someone when they’re talking to you.”

Danny lets himself be turned enough to face Vlad, even just to glare at him, “What? Our little talk earlier wasn’t enough for you? You gonna tase me again like you did at the gala?”

Vlad scowl turns into a vicious sneer, “We can have this argument as many times as you need, Daniel. You are mine, I’ve sent your parents on their dream haunted tour of Europe instead of simply killing your imbecilic father, so perhaps instead of fighting me, you should be grateful.”

Danny sighs through clenched teeth, “What did you want, Vlad?”

Vlad hesitates, eyes scanning him for disobedience before speaking, “I have a business meeting tomorrow-“

“And let me guess, you want me to tag along to make you look good?” Danny scowls.

Vlad’s eyes darken in warning, “I’d thought after Chicago you’d desire to stay back,” he pauses to let Danny remember, “Perhaps I was wrong?” He questions with a raised eyebrow.

Danny feels his heart jump a beat, his muscles tense, remembering the sight of Vlad possessing the CEO, forcing the man to hold a gun to his own head, of knowing exactly the feeling of trying to fight your own body- because that moment had been one of the very first times in months Danny had been free from under Vlad, and it was only because Vlad needed to prove a point to Danny, only because Danny had tried to reach out, had tried to help someone else-

And someone else had paid the price.

So instead of snapping back with any number of scathing, cutting insults, Danny swallows his words and simply nods.

“I’ll stay here.”

Vlad smiles, smarmy and smug, “Good choice Daniel,” He lifts his hand away to wave it in the air as he talks, “I’ll have food delivered of course, make sure to keep up with your studies, I’d hate to have a repeat of last time and have to teach your lessons personally."

Danny clenches his fists by his sides, nails digging into his palms, “Of course not.”

“And Daniel?” Vlad says, stopping at the door.

“What, Fruitloop?”

Vlad’s eyes glow deadly red as he expands his aura over the suite room, “Don’t ever embarrass me at a Gala like that again.”

Danny forces himself to meet Vlad’s eyes, “I won’t,” he whispers.

Vlad shuts the door solidly behind him, leaving Danny alone.

For those who wanted a tag:

@justanormalpersin @rain-bitch @i-miss-breathing @marshmelloe @whitewintertiger @flamey-comet @cyber-geist @akikkobara @feral-bunny31 @tkiesai @rootsmudge

Practice Your Skills

“You ever look at someone and wonder how hard it would be to get past their defenses and stab them?”

Damian snapped his head to the side, looking at the young boy now standing beside him.

The boy put his hands up in front of him with a wince, “Not that I ever do that. Totally not, whaaaat???”

Damian huffed and turned back around to watch the gala participants.

“It’s just you kinda looked like you were contemplating the logistics of stabbing Mrs.Halterguild for squeezing your cheeks.”

Damian scowled. Then, after a moment’s beat, “It would not be very difficult. She is nearly blind in her left eye, I would be able to approach without repost.”

The kid hummed, turning back as well before motioning to another group to the far right, “What about Mr. Beckensmith, he’s a retired vet right?”

Damian rolled his eyes and scowled harder, “The man has only seen the battlefield of an office as he bribed his way from being fully enlisted and instead managed to pay for increasingly higher ranks and medals. He is a disgrace.”

The kid cocked his head to the side, looking suspicious for a second and then nodding with concession, “Fair enough, I bet I could get close enough too.”

Damian scoffed.

“What, don’t believe me?”

Damian leveled a doubtful glare at the civilian, making it clear by looking him up and down, “Hardly.”

The other smirked dangerously, “If I can get close enough to poke him and get away without being noticed, will you believe me?”

Damian narrowed his eyes but nodded succinctly and watched as the boy immediately took off, making a few loops around other people before finally backing up to Mr. Beckensmith and poking him on the opposite side as a group moved past.

Damian pursed his lips. Interesting. Certainly better than he would expect from an amateur. And an amateur civilian at that.

When the boy returns to his side Damian brushes off the asks of meaningless praise.

“Come on, I did it, now you have to go poke Mrs. Halterguild without getting caught.”

Damian sneers, “And why would I do that?”

“Because I don’t believe you either, the woman’s old but I bet she sees you and squeezes your cheeks again. Old ladies just have a sixth sense for that stuff you know.”

Damian nearly growls but sets off on his task. He makes sure to stay on her left side, but the woman turns at the last second, forcing Damian to use a passing waiter as cover to remain hidden and finally get close enough to poke her gaudy dress.

Then he sidles back up to the boy on the edges and provides his best ‘I am more capable than you’ scowl. The boy simply laughs and says, “Who’s next?”

They spend the night like that, choosing each other’s targets to attack non-lethally as though they were attempting to stab them, and Damian finds the gala going by in a significantly less tedious manner.

Right up until the boy laughs at him when he chooses a target. Only one bark of laughter escapes, but it is enough for Damian to consider stabbing him as well. If only with a butter knife.

Instead, Damian grinds his teeth and asks, “What is so different about Masters, do you really believe you would be unable to succeed?”

The other gives a breathless chuckle, “I’m pretty sure even you wouldn’t be able to successfully stab Vlad Masters,” The boy’s shoulders sag even as his jaw tightens with irritation, “He sees everything.”

Damian narrows his eyes. Something naws at the back of his brain but currently the critique of his capabilities takes precedence.

“I would be capable of stabbing Masters even without my favored sword,” Damian scowls and stands taller with annoyance.

“Sure you can, man,” At this, the boy quirks a sharp smile, “If you can actually get him, I’ll personally get you a magic sword,” he says with an air of amused indulgence. Like he thinks Damian is some insipid child saying he will find a fairy.

Damian grits his teeth and shakes the other’s hand, then immediately sets off after his target. How dare this civilian question him! He is the Son of the Bat, this is not even a challenge!

Damian growls as his approach is thwarted for the third time by the man turning in his direction and almost spotting him. How dare he! He will not fail!

Just as he reaches to jab the man in the side, already poised to make his escape, Masters whips around and clamps his fingers around Damian’s wrist with a vice grip.

“Really Daniel I thought we were over-“ Masters pauses, looking at Damian critically as he glares at the man’s offending hand, “You are not young Daniel.”

“Remove your hand from my person at once,” Damian growls.

Instead of listening to Damian’s very sensible directions, Masters tightens his grip and twists his arm, most likely in an attempt to hurt him.

“Now why is a child attempting to-“

Damian doesn’t wait to hear the rest of the man’s words, sliding a dagger into his other hand and swinging towards him, until that hand is caught mid-movement as well.

“Heh-Hey there!”

Damian snaps his head to the side just in time to see Grayson take his dagger and slide it into his pocket. He ignores the bark of laughter he hears from across the room.

Masters’ hand disappears from his arm suspiciously fast, “Mr. Wayne, what a pleasure!”

Damian looks over his other shoulder to see his father standing behind him, a thin smile on his face, “Vladimir!”

His father’s figure quickly obscures his vision, putting an arm over Masters’ shoulders in a way that clearly makes him irritated but forces him to follow as he is steered away.

“Dami, I thought we talked about the stabbing at formal events,” Grayson says through a strained smile as he looks over the crowd to make sure no else saw.

“Tt, it was merely a demonstration of my skills, he was in no real danger until he refused to release me. I simply sought to correct that mistake.”

Grayson pinchesthe bridge of his nose, “Demonstration for who, Dames? We all already know your skills.”

“Tt,” Damian scowls and turns away.

Instead of pushing it, Grayson simply sighs heavily, “Just stay out of trouble for the rest of the gala okay? We’re almost done.”

Damian scoffed and waited for Grayson to leave. Once he does, Damian finally looks over to where he had been lingering with the boy.

Gone.

Clearly he’d taken the cowards way out when he’d seen that Damian had been accosted by Masters.

Pitiful.

Damian spends the rest of the night scowling from the wall and looking serendipitously for a head of black hair and blue eyes unrelated to him.

Of course it’s not until they are actively leaving that Damian sees him and immediately splits off of from his family.

He approaches with irritation, preparing to grab the other by the shoulder when suddenly he turns around and blue eyes meet Damian’s green.

“You,” Damian sneers.

“Me,” The other shrugs. He has an amused smile on his face, though it’s strained at the edges.

They stare in silence for a minute, before the other’s smile grows and sharpens once more, “I didn’t expect you to actually try to stab him, y’know,” A slight laugh escapes him, “Not that it was unwelcome by any means, but still, unexpected.”

Damian scowls again, glaring at this foolish civilian.

“Oh, I never introduced myself did I?!”

The boy exclaims and holds out a hand, smile dangerous, “Daniel Fenton. Or if we’re being technical,” a pause as Damian finally returns the gesture and finds his hand trapped, “Daniel Masters, a pleasure to meet you Damian.”

“Hurry up little badger,” A voice says beside them, and Damian notices that it is indeed Vladimir Masters.

The man approaches, placing a heavy hand on Fenton’s shoulder, making the boy go taut, and then they both step into a dark car, leaving Damian on the front steps.

Damian’s anger flares and he shoots a glare directly to the boy getting into the car. It dies the moment they meet eyes and Damian sees the fear hiding in the other’s eyes.

Fear that Damian is all too familiar with.

Fear that reminded Damian of himself. Reminded him of his own eyes when he’d been under his grandfather.

But why did Fenton look like that?

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