Chapter Text
“Not that I don’t love company—” The man in the blue and black suit flipped easily away from Damian’s strike, grinning and throwing out another quip. “—but usually our guests come in through the front door, not, y’know—” Another effortless dodge. “—interdimensional portals in the Batcave. Considered kinda rude in some dimensions.”
Damian hurled a knife straight at the man’s infuriating grin, only for the man to once again flit himself away from danger in the last split second.
“Most people would consider that rude too, but I’m pretty forgiving. Why don’t we just sit down and talk?”
“Why don’t you die?” Damian snarled, finally baited into the battle of the quips.
The masked man moved like lightning, easily dodging and deflecting almost all of Damian’s blows, but Damian was just as fast. The fight was frustratingly balanced, even with Damian’s superior numbers. Luckily, the man seemed more intent on taking Damian down than dealing with the pesky littles.
That was a welcome change in pace—if Father would feed the boys and restrain from hurting them for more than a day or two at a time, they could be familiar and could’ve actually weighted the fight in Damian’s favor.
As it was, Richard’s attacks were ineffectual, Jason couldn’t hold a weapon, and Timothy was limping and sluggish. Timothy has been giving them his rations again, Damian thought, slowing enough to provoke an attack that left the masked stranger’s back open to Timothy. On a better day, Timothy could’ve landed a vicious strike with his scythe.
Today, the masked man easily turned, dropping one of the electrified escrima, and grabbed the scythe. Richard dove for the escrima and snatched it off the ground, dodging behind Jason, but before Timothy could decide to wrestle for control of his weapon or drop it, the masked man leveraged his hold on the scythe to shove Timothy backwards, sending him stumbling almost into the brutal fight between the Batmen.
Damian leapt at the man to draw his attention, trusting Jason or Richard to get Tim out of—
Father seized Timothy by the arm and pulled him in the way of a brutal punch that landed square on Timothy’s ribcage instead of striking Father. Even with the armor, Damian heard a sickening crack.
Jason cried out, Richard screamed, and Damian stared in horror. Timothy made a horrible strangled gurgling sound and collapsed to the floor at the feet of the Batmen.
The other Batman growled and forced Father backwards, away from Timothy, and Damian surged forward, thoughtlessly trying to push past the masked stranger to assist his brother. His enemy took advantage of the distraction, cracking the escrima to Damian’s neck.
Damian was already falling before the man turned on the electricity. Every muscle in his body seized, and Damian hit the floor of a foreign cave with a crack of his mask against the stone.
Damian gasped and tried to right himself the second the current stopped, but the man straddled him before he could, expertly cuffing Damian’s hands behind his back before Damian could do more than raise his head.
Damian hissed as a substance was injected into his neck right over the burn.
No.
NO.
Before him, out of his reach but straight ahead where he could not look away from, Richard fumbled with the escrima, delight and electricity sparking when he figured out the buttons. Damian didn’t have time to draw in breath before Richard swung the escrima and hit the other Batman in the back of the knee, the least armored joint of the suit.
But Batman’s suit was conductive.
Batman stumbled slightly, more tripping over Richard before quickly changing the direction of the fight. The motion drew the fight away from Richard, but his fool of a brother was following.
Jason surged forward, but Damian’s opponent leapt off Damian and sprinted straight at Richard.
Damian’s blood turned to ice as the man reached Richard and effortlessly snatched the weapon from Richard’s hands. Damian tried to force himself up, but his legs wouldn’t cooperate. The substance must’ve been a poison or a paralytic, leaving Damian helpless to do anything but watch.
The man left Richard unharmed and sprinted after the Batmen just in time for Jason to reach him. Jason wrapped his arms but not his hands around Richard’s chest to hold him, trying to pull the boy back.
Jason, his eyes showing above the mask, turned to Damian in blatant horror. The most injured of them before the fight was now the only one, other than Richard, left standing, and Richard was clearly still trying to join the brawl.
Damian swore in his heart and fought the paralytic. His brothers needed him, and his muscles needed to obey him.
But they didn’t. Even his tongue had turned to ash, barring him from shouting orders to his brothers.
Timothy was unconscious at best, drowning on a collapsed lung at worst. Damian was no help but not seriously injured, but Richard would flee into danger given the freedom. With one brother assuredly alive and nothing Jason could do for Tim, Damian could only hope Jason would make the right call.
Jason released Richard and ran to Timothy’s side, pressing uninjured finger to Timothy’s neck to feel for a pulse. Timothy was frightfully still, but the relief on Jason’s face showed that their brother still lived.
That was the wrong choice.
The brawl had quickly turned against his father with the introduction of the other Batman’s ally. The writing was on the wall, but his father fought on regardless. Damian wondered what kept his father in this dimension—surely no loyalty to them—till Father aimed a strike at the other Batman, revealing the shattered dimensional seeker on his wrist. By the burn marks and shatter pattern, an electrified escrima stick had dealt the blow.
Damian wanted to scream at Richard to fall back, the battle was lost, or at Jason to go grab their youngest brother, but it was too late. The other Batman noticed Richard but turned his back on the boy, facing Father instead. The man in the blue and black suit hadn’t seemed to notice, too focused on attacking Father from behind.
Just as the other Bat’s ally cracked an escrima down hard between the ears on Father’s cowl, Richard drew a small knife and stabbed the other Batman in the back of the leg.
His father had killed children younger than Richard for lesser offenses. He’d made Damian deal the blow more than once.
Richard, his sweet boy, was lost to him.
As the other Batman stumbled with a pained cry, Richard pulled the knife from his flesh and raised his arm to try again.
“No!” Jason screamed, too far to stop Richard from the fatal mistake that had already been made.
The order only distracted Richard long enough for the blue and black man to leap over Father, dart around his own Batman, and snatch Richard up before he could swing again.
Richard screamed and tried to wriggle free, but the man matched his prodigious flexibility and kept his grip on the boy while twisting the knife from Richard’s hand. The man dodged away from the brawl, but the wound dealt to Father’s head had rung the death knell for their side.
The other Batman was victorious in only a few more seconds, bringing Father down but continuing to drive his fist into Father’s face. Damian wanted to turn his face away and stare; he would see both his parents die it seemed, but at least he would see his mother’s killer slain.
Father’s alternate stopped while his father still drew gurgling breath. When the other Batman rolled Father onto his stomach, teeth and blood poured from Father’s parted lips.
The man holding Richard stepped clear, glancing between Jason and Tim, Damian, and Father. Jason had his arms looped under Timothy’s, trying to drag Timothy towards Damian.
For what end? To die together instead of separately?
The strength would’ve left him at that thought if he’d had any left. Yes, it would be better to die together than it would be to die apart. Damian only wished Richard was at his side as well instead of in the grasp of a stranger. Damian would’ve dealt the fatal blow himself if they would let him just to spare his brothers unnecessary suffering.
The other Batman roughly held Father’s hands in place and rid him of his weapons, tossing them well out of reach. Damian’s stomach sank as the other Batman reached for Father’s belt. It would serve Father right to be the one raped for once, but Damian would be sick watching. Waiting for his turn to come at last.
The other Batman held a hand to his ally, demanding something in a voice low enough that Damian could not hear. The man produced another syringe like what he’d injected into Damian and handed it back without losing a grip on a fiercely struggling Richard.
The man patted Richard’s shoulder and said something softly to his brother that made Richard struggle even harder. Damian’s stomach twisted again, and he made another fruitless struggle to rise to his feet.
He had seen the aftermath of his father’s assaults against Richard, but Damian had never seen the act itself. He couldn’t—his father’s rape would make him sick, but watching Richard suffer under a stranger in a strange cave where Damian had no power to even put him back together—
Richard was just a child! Why couldn’t they let him go!
Jason had brought Timothy almost to Damian, but as the man in the mask stepped toward them and the other Batman injected the paralytic into Father’s neck, Jason scrambled out in front of the helpless Timothy and Damian.
The masked man stopped well shy of them, fifteen feet from Jason. His hold on Richard seemed casual, almost a friendly hug from behind, but it must be unyielding. Despite his continued panicked struggling, Richard was slowing and weakening.
It would be cowardly to close his eyes, but Damian wanted nothing more. He couldn’t abandon Jason to a death unobserved, though, certainly not when he was being so brave. It would be the cruelest thing he’d ever done to the boy.
“Okay, kiddo,” the man said, addressing Jason with faux-gentle charm. “Here’s what we’re going to do.”