Unpleasant Revelations - DPxDC Ficlet Idea for the Stillborn Au
"Have you met my youngest, Damian, Mr. Masters?"
Its only from twenty years of long, hard experience and practice that Vlad doesn't increase the room temperature from 'borderline uncomfortably cool' to 'unbearably hot' the moment Bruce Wayne pulls his youngest and "only" biological son out in front of him.
He puts only in quotations because twelve year old Damian Wayne looks scarily, uncannily like one Daniel Brown. Jack and Maddie's foster son, second victim of their foolishness, and only other halfa in existence. Second only to him.
It's nauseating how similar they look. From the scowl and terrible glare on the young boy's face, to his brown skin -- which was only a few shades lighter than Daniel's, the shape of his nose, and even the strange winged edge of his eyebrow. Something that Vlad has long since come to find endearing on the child he considered a son of his own. The only difference was that Damian had dark, sharp green eyes.
Daniel's eyes were blue. The same glacier shade as his father's, who stood behind Damian with a proud, oafish smile on his visage.
It was infuriating how similar they look. Vlad might not have rapidly swung the room temperature from one extreme to the other, but he can't stop himself from letting the fury burning within his core from slipping out and raising the temperature up a few degrees.
Because it really only meant one thing.
Damian Wayne and Daniel Brown were related.
Damian Wayne and Daniel Brown were brothers.
Standing in front of him, it was clear as day. He can already picture a phantom image of Daniel standing beside Damian, the same scowl written on his face, the same glare carved into his eyes. The only difference being the dark, exhausted circles beneath them that seemed to be permanently painted onto his skin. The only thing missing being the permanent loneliness and vigilance permeating his being like a scar.
This, if revealed, would be enough to ruin Bruce Wayne's reputation. Or, at the very least, darken it quite a bit. The great philanthropist Bruce Wayne with another secret blood child? One related to his youngest? One that had been put into foster care? Seemingly thrown away?
It would be a firestorm.
One that Vlad is not keen on starting.
It would ruin Bruce Wayne's reputation, yes. But it would hurt Daniel in the process -- the harassment he would face alone might just be enough to break that fragile child completely. That was just not something he could allow. Or, even worse, bring him into his biological father's care and custody -- something Vlad was even less willing to allow.
It's not out of kindness to Wayne that Vlad will keep mum about this.
His grip on his champagne flute tightens, just a bit. He's still aware enough of the world around him to not let it shatter in his hands. His plastered, pleasant smile tightens around the corners, and he forces his focus to slide from Damian to Wayne.
"The resemblance is uncanny, Mister Wayne." He says, slanting his smile to the side slyly. Although he's not talking about the resemblance between Wayne and his son. Rage simmers beneath his skin, burning coal and embers in the core of his chest, nestled between his lungs, as he meets the man's eyes.
Wayne swaggles his head proudly, his ditzy smile widening as he squeezes his son's shoulder affectionately. Bastard, Vlad wants to spit.
He breathes in through his nose, and exhales out through his mouth. The champagne in his hand cools, and stops its unusual bubbling.
The Damian boy scoffs under his breath, his mouth still coiled upward into a scowl. With the revelation of his blood relation to Daniel evident, Vlad's not sure if he should find it endearing or not.
He is not Daniel, so he decides that it's just simply irritating. He decides to ignore it.
"And you said he was your only biological son?" He asks, voice lilting and head tilting. He knows its a suspicious question at worst, insulting at best. But considering Wayne's past proclivities, he can hardly call it an unexpected question.
Damian puffs in great offense, face twisting angrily. It reminds him of Daniel when Vlad insisted that he was wrong about something or other, and for a moment his heart swells, fond.
But this is not his child, and so the feeling quickly crashes and burns, simmering back into rage. This was not Daniel -- this was his replacement. A replacement that Wayne was free to keep.
Wayne chuckles, idiotically, as if he'd said some funny joke. Vlad's other hand, the one gripping his cane -- something he's required ever since he was dispatched from the hospital all those lonely years ago -- tightens instead. He grinds his teeth -- him and Jack Fenton would get along like a house on fire, he hates it.
"I can understand why you'd ask that, Mister Masters," Wayne says, squeezing Damian's shoulder again, "but yes, Damian is my only biological son. Although that doesn't mean I don't love my other children any less."
Bastard.
For all his posturing and flouncing about caring for his city and his children, Vlad never would have thought the Prince of Gotham capable of abandoning one of them.
But, well.
They all have their dark secrets.
And what one man throws away, another man picks up. If Bruce Wayne didn't want the treasure child that was Daniel Brown, then Vlad Masters was more than happy to take him instead.
"I see."
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1 or 34 for the master pls thank u :333!!!!!!!
extremely funny to me how quickly this got away from me alsjfjfkskkdj. i started thinking too hard about okay but Who could bring the master to his knees. the doctor? hey wait remember that time ten had a god complex for a little bit. what if he got worse about that, actually. and then it just kept going-
This is not the Doctor whose arms he died in.
Oh, the face is the same, but the eyes are all wrong. Still ancient, as old as the Master is, but they’ve gone hard like bone. He doesn’t spare a glance around the room at the cowering scientists or the politician that wanted to use the Master, who gave him such easy access to a perfect plan before the Doctor landed his TARDIS on top of the machine and crushed it. Only to one human, the one assigned to hold the Master’s leash.
“Give him to me,” he says. The Master curls his fingers. A step closer, and he’ll let the Doctor taste lightning again.
His assigned guard all but throws the leash at the Doctor. (They’re all terrified. Something’s… wrong, there. Not a misplaced sympathy of his own — let them fear their betters — but it’s the Doctor, it’s how he ignores them, how he holds himself like. He looks every bit a Time Lord.) The Doctor catches it, turns it in his hand, and yanks. The Master feigns a stumble, energy surging through his skin and bones, rattling up dangerously until-
The Doctor pulls harder, knocking him off-balance and to his knees. He twists, but there’s a hand in his hair, painfully dragging his head back until his neck screams in pain. The pinprick of a needle is barely a whisper above it, but the sluggish cold that spreads from the injection spreads no matter how he struggles. The Doctor grips his hair tighter.
“There. You’re stabilized,” the Doctor notes. The Master pants, his limbs growing heavier. “And sedated. You have to be so difficult.” For the first time, the Doctor’s voice falters from the detached tone he’s taken so far. It’s harsh, as thick with accusation as with self-reproach, “I asked you to come with me.” The Master is having a hard time ordering his thoughts. They stretch too far for him to see the whole of them, his sense of time and of himself going numb.
“How?” he lands on, more important than any other question. The Doctor’s grip begins to loosen, letting his head sag forward. His body wants to follow. His vision of the floor he’s kneeling on blurs.
“You were living on borrowed time,” the Doctor says. “I have all of it to work with at my fingertips. When I saw you again…” There’s the absent trail of fingers through his hair. The Master recoils from it instinctively, though that sends him further down, barely holding himself up on his hands. The collar draws tight around his throat when he falls, forcing out a gasp, but it loosens again. “It only took a few decades. I’d have given more to you.” The Master lifts his hand, slowly, and forces it out in front of him. It’s humiliating to crawl, but his limbs can barely keep his weight. He barely moves himself forward a few inches before the collar is a hard barrier against his breath again, and this time, he doesn’t receive any slack. He has to scoot back towards the Doctor.
“You’re going to live,” the Doctor says, without mercy. He steps around the Master, the leash dragging along the floor with a mocking hiss.
“And the rest of you,” the Doctor’s voice grows louder. It becomes a proclamation, a warning. “I won’t hurt you. It’s a stupid and dangerous thing you were doing, but that’s… that’s what you love most, humans. Stupid, dangerous things.” Where’s the sickening fondness, the Master wonders. Where’s the disappointment, even, in his favorite pet species? All he can hear in the Doctor’s voice is carefully controlled anger. “I’m not going to hurt you for putting the whole world in danger,” he repeats, as though he’s reminding himself of that fact, and then, the Master can hear him smile. Regeneration after regeneration, and the Doctor always talks different when he’s smiling. “I don’t have to. If you ever try anything like this again, you won’t have existed in the first place to come up with the idea. I will take you out of this timeline.” He pauses. “Or maybe I’ll just make you kinder. Buy you a coffee on a bad day and change your life forever. You can exist, just not like this.”
He sounds powerful, and worse, he doesn’t sound scared of it. The Master uses the last of his strength to drag himself back up to his knees. The Doctor is surveying the room, memorizing faces, lost in thought about time to tamper with. The Master puts a hand around his own leash. He tries to pull.
All that does is get the Doctor’s attention.
His eyes. The Master is afraid of his eyes.
“Sorry,” the Doctor says, “I’m not going to carry you. You’ll have to crawl.” The Master is searching for anything familiar in him. And what there is, what little there is that he recognizes, is only because of how easily he could have seen it in a mirror instead. “If you pass out, I’ll drag you,” the Doctor offers like a compromise. He turns away from the Master, snaps his fingers, and the doors to the TARDIS burst open.
He takes the Master prisoner. He saves the world. They are both, after all, the Doctor’s alone to decide what to do with.
[whump prompt]
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