Chapter Text
The kid hadn't moved in three hours.
The rental car’s dashboard rattled over broken asphalt, cheap plastic vibrating with every crack. Dick kept his focus on the road ahead, stealing glances at the rearview mirror every few minutes.
In the back seat, Damian sat perfectly still. He didn’t fidget or shift. He hadn’t even asked where they were going.
He’d maintained that identical posture since they left- spine straight against the seat back, hands folded on his knees, watching the dark road pass through the windshield. A small, red duffel bag sat on the seat beside him, holding everything he'd been allowed to bring with him.
The only time he’d moved was miles back when they passed a trailer hauling horses. Damian's head turned toward the window, then snapped forward again.
"So, have you ever been to the States before?” he tried. “Outside of a mission, I mean.”
Damian barely even blinked. Dick turned the radio up.
Mile after mile passed, his fingers tapping restlessly against worn leather. "We should cross state lines in about forty minutes.” He pointed to the road side on the left. "Could probably stop for food then. You like burgers?"
Damian's eyes cut to the mirror. "I will eat what I am given."
Jesus. Dick lightened his grip on the wheel. “What about chicken strips? Grilled cheese? If you had to pick one?”
He did not respond. Dick let it drop, wracking his brain for nonverbal tells he might have missed.
“I will eat a grilled cheese if that is what you choose.”
The boy’s voice was unsettlingly devoid of childish inflection. "Great, thank you. Grilled cheese it is then. We’ll see what's open."
He turned back to the road. His half-drank coffee in the cup holder had gone cold; he was running on pure adrenaline now.
The streets stretched empty this late- good for evasion, terrible for paranoia. Any car that appeared stayed visible for miles. He'd clocked a black SUV three exits back. It had exited eventually, but he still sat upright, hands at ten and two.
He’d planned the route before they left: state roads, not the interstate- nothing with cameras. Cash only, burner phone powered down and zipped into the bottom of his bag. If the League was tracking them, they hadn't caught up yet.
In the rearview, Dick met Damian's eyes for half a second before the boy looked away. He had Bruce’s eyes.
Three weeks ago, Talia had called him on a number he hadn’t given her and told him about the boy: ten years old, raised in the League of Assassins since birth, trained as an heir to Ra's al Ghul's empire. That Ra's intended to use him as a weapon, or discard him when he stopped being useful.
Then she’d said the child was hers and Bruce’s.
Dick had thought she was lying. Right up until she'd sent him a photo of a chubby-cheeked boy with Bruce's scowl and Talia's complexion. She said she could not extract him herself- but Dick could.
When Dick pulled the kid out of the base, one hand on his small shoulder steering him into the dark, he’d told him it was a test: an adaptability assessment ordered by Ra’s.
The child had looked at Dick calmly and said “Yes, sir”. He’d collected his packed duffel bag and followed, like being handed off to a stranger in the middle of the night was normal.
It was Talia’s idea. She said it was the only way to get him moving without a fight, without alerting the guards. Damian wasn't ready to hear he was being stolen from his grandfather. They needed to get much farther from the League before Dick could even begin to explain the truth. And every hour Dick let the lie continue, the worse the eventual truth would feel.
Talia had said he was well trained. Dick had processed that as ‘well-behaved kid.’ He was revising that interpretation in real time.
He should have asked more questions. He'd been so focused on whether he could get Damian out alive that he hadn't thought about what came after.
Dick shook his head and set his focus back to the dark stretch of asphalt ahead.
"We're going to stop for the night in about two hours. We’ll find a motel.”
"Understood."
"You should probably sleep."
"I will sleep when we arrive at the designated location."
The boy was still watching the windshield like he was memorizing the road.
"Right," Dick said with a tired exhale. "Sure."
—————
They pulled into a roadside motel long after midnight. The place looked like it was last updated fifty years ago, with it’s old-fashioned sign and bright blue paint. Dick rented a room at the back, then parked the car around the corner of the building, out of sight from the road.
His legs ached climbing the concrete steps, he supposed that's what hours upon hours in a car would do to you. His hands were still unsteady as he turned the key.
The door opened to the smell of cigarettes and musty bedding. Inside, the air was damp and warm, the heating unit rattling against the smoke-stained wall.
Damian stepped inside and dropped his bag. His eyes moved over the window, the lock, the empty space under the bed, the door to the bathroom. He counted on his fingers, nodding once when he reached four, then stood by the wall, feet shoulder-width apart.
Dick swept a hand across the wooden table, leaving a streak in the dust, and dropped the greasy paper bag from the drive thru he had found three exits ago.
Damian looked at the bag, then back to the wall. He made no move toward it.
"You can eat," Dick said, keeping his tone light.
Damian still didn't move.
Dick pushed the bag closer. "Damian. Eat."
The boy gave a short, rigid nod. He stepped to the table and opened the wrappers, eating in silence.
Dropping into the torn chair, Dick unwrapped a burger he wasn’t hungry for. He made himself eat as he watched the road from the window. The blinds cord clicked against the wall as the draft pushed them back and forth.
When Damian finished, he folded the wrappers into careful squares and placed his hands back in his lap.
"You want more?"
"I am adequately full."
Dick sighed and tipped his head back. The orange lightbulb flickered overhead.
"Bathroom's through there," he said, pointing at the narrow hallway. "You can take a shower."
Damian stood and gave another curt nod. "What is the acceptable duration?”
"Uh. What?"
“How long do I have for hygiene maintenance?”
Dick rubbed the back of his neck; his head had started to feel like it had a heartbeat. "There isn't one. Take as long as you want."
Damian stared as if he had responded in a foreign language. "Tt. I would not waste time on unnecessary luxuries."
“Trust me, it won’t be luxurious. Anyways, we have nothing else to do tonight except for sleep. Shower until you’re clean.”
Damian disappeared into the bathroom. The water ran for exactly five minutes.
He emerged wearing the too-big t-shirt Dick had bought at a gas station, water droplets darkening the shoulders where his hair dripped. Dick was sitting on the edge of the bed holding a pair of cuffs. He'd been turning them over for the last five minutes, trying to figure out how to do this.
"I need to make sure you stay put tonight," Dick said softly, holding up the cold metal rings for him to see.
Damian crossed the room and offered his wrists without hesitation. "This is unnecessary. I have been given no directive to move. I will remain where I am put."
Dick knelt to eye level, not liking how easy that was. "Protocol.” A faint scar marked Damian’s left eyebrow. His thumb hovered over the activation button before pressing down. Ten years old or not, he couldn’t risk getting his throat slit.
The cuffs—Wayne tech meant to hold metahumans—swallowed his wrists and slid down to his elbows. Dick pulled up the digital lock and typed in the constriction code. The cuffs beeped with three adjustments before they finally held. Dick’s mouth twitched as the cuffs shrunk to a ten-year-old sized circle.
Damian didn't flinch as the metal clamped down.
He might be League trained, probably capable of killing someone fifteen ways in his sleep, but seeing the heavy restraints dwarf the boy's small arms...
They looked cruel.
Dick also needed the bag of potential weapons out of the room, but more than that, he desperately needed sixty seconds of fresh air. Preferably where a trained killer wasn't watching his every move.
The duffel bag was lighter than he expected when he picked it up. "I'm going to secure this in the car overnight.”
Damian’s nose twitched once. But he didn't speak; he just let Dick carry it out the door, turning off the light on his way.
His breath fogged as he crossed the dimly lit parking lot. He wanted to look through it immediately; he couldn't risk the possibility of hidden weapons. But, of course, Damian was staring at him from the window with an unreadable face. Dick couldn't search the bag in front of him without breaking the simulation cover. That, and standing in an empty parking lot at 2 AM while a ten-year-old assassin watched him rifle through belongings felt like an invitation for disaster.
He’d search through it properly tomorrow when they were safer and he could think straight. Tonight, he just needed to eliminate variables.
The crisp night air reddened his cheeks. The trunk was cold under his hand where he'd closed it. He left his palm there for a second, then took it away. He looked at himself in the side mirror of the car.
When did you become someone who handcuffs children?
He took a deep breath and went back inside.
Dick sank into the armchair by the door and turned on a lamp beside him. He pulled a dog-eared paperback from his bag—an old mystery novel Bruce used to read to him when he couldn’t sleep after patrol—and began to read out loud.
Damian didn't react. He lay perfectly straight on his back, cuffed hands on his stomach, eyes flicking toward the window in regular intervals.
Damian's breathing deepened gradually and the time between window checks lengthened. Dick kept reading until the boy's chest rose and fell evenly.
He set the book down and checked his watch: 3:07 AM.
He should sleep. They had another full day of driving tomorrow. Dick had thought that extracting him from the league would be the hard part. He realized now he was very, very wrong.
Damian's face was slack in sleep, mouth slightly open, dim lamp light making the baby fat on his round cheeks look even softer. For the first time since they'd left the base, he looked ten.
Dick glanced at the metal bed frame, a cheap headboard bolted to the wall.
Just for tonight. To keep him safe.
Before he could talk himself out of it, he pulled the short security chain from his bag and moved silently to the bed. He threaded the chain through the ring on the left cuff with trained silence, then locked the other end around the thick bar of the headboard, muffling the metal with his fingers.
Damian stirred slightly on the pillow, a small “mmpf” slipping past his lips. Dick froze entirely until he shifted his shoulders and settled again.
He retreated back to the chair and sank into the worn cushions. Dick had kicked down doors to crime scenes that looked like this. The despicable kind of people who restrained children in cheap motels were the ones he spent his nights hunting down.
This is not like that, he reminded himself, squeezing the armrest hard enough that the vinyl squeaked. This is a rescue. He wasn’t safe there.
But looking at the image in front of him, a ten-year-old boy in an adult-sized shirt, chained to a rusting bed frame, Dick couldn't convince himself he was really safe here either.
He swallowed down the guilt, set an alarm for seven, and finally closed his eyes.