Chapter Text
Grayson had been training Damian with escrima sticks for a few months now. Damian was best with his sword, but they all wanted him to have a way to defend himself that was a little more non-lethal. Not that we don’t trust you, Grayson would assure, while Drake snorted in the background and added, but we don’t trust you.
Generally, Father was the only one Damian would suffer to train him, the only one he acknowledged as his better (always with the bitter caveat of for now), but Grayson was increasingly becoming the exception to Damian’s every rule.
Grayson could ruffle his hair, or hug him, and Damian would allow it with just a bit of grumbling, as opposed to the death threats anyone else would receive.
Grayson could order him to eat or go to bed or to do his insufferable and meaningless homework assignments, and Damian would glare at him and tut but do what he said.
So when it was decided that Grayson would be training with him for the new weapons, Damian had barely complained, had only managed a few half-hearted comments about his plans to easily surpass his skill.
Damian didn’t even entirely mean it. Of all of his so-called siblings, Dick Grayson was somehow both the one most and least like him, the only one he actually did think of as a brother. It was Grayson that had been trained almost since birth at a skill, and though the trapeze was a far cry from the weapons Damian had been learning since before his first memories even solidified, it wasn’t that different either. Everything was more dangerous when one was that young, and Grayson had mastered a quadruple flip before he was eight.
Meanwhile Todd and Drake had likely been off coloring or looking at picture books or whatever it was normal ungifted children did at that age.
It was a connection, a mutual understanding, that the others would never have. Both of their childhoods had required perfection—anything less would have meant their deaths.
So Damian admired his father, and respected him as his due, but Dick Grayson was the first one to earn that respect, and the first to show him what actual love was supposed to look like.
It did not matter that Grayson was his opposite in every other way, because that part that connected them was so rare it had tied them to one another irrevocably. Damian cared for Grayson more than he did for anyone else except for Titus and Alfred the cat, and even though it was a dangerous, concerning emotion, it wasn’t something he could undo now that it had been done.
That didn’t mean, of course, that he couldn’t still sometimes hate him too.
“I did not leave my guard open,” he snarled. “You just don’t move like a human.”
Grayson laughed, bright and breathless, spinning one of the escrima sticks in his hand. “I’m not sure if that’s a compliment, but I mean, you won’t always be fighting humans, so…”
It had been a compliment. Drake had mentioned once, off-handedly, that Bruce had tested Dick Grayson multiple times for a meta-gene when he’d been a child. He’d never found evidence of one.
"It was not a compliment,” Damian snapped, watching the motion of Grayson’s hand, the effortless way he managed to keep it spinning while his attention was fully elsewhere.
"These are different than a sword, you have to multitask—and we know you’re good at that, Dami,” Grayson said, appeasingly. “But the whole point is that you can guard both sides, and you’re still only guarding one.”
Damian would, likely, be better suited with a bo staff. It was closest to his current style, and he was used to guarding both sides because his weapon was long enough to reach wherever he needed it to go. The escrima sticks required the target to be closer, required more movement and less brute strength.
But Drake used a bo staff, and Grayson used escrima sticks. The decision on which to choose had hardly been a real choice.
"I have mastery of any weapon I use,” Damian insisted irritably.
“You are proficient in any weapon, you have mastery of the sword,” Grayson corrected. “How well do you think I’d do against you with a sword?”
“You’d be laughable,” Damian told him instantly.
Grayson laughed like it proved his point, instead of being offended like a reasonable person, and nodded. “See? Exactly,” he said. “You’d have to train me, if I wanted to get nearly as good as you.”
Damian's eyes lit up. “I would gladly—“
He was on his back on the mat again before he even knew what had happened, before he had even seen Grayson move. Grayson leaned over and grinned down at him, offering a hand.
“You let your guard down again,” he said.
Damian glared, getting up without help. “You distracted me,” he said petulantly.
"You've got to be able to fight and wise-crack at the same time,” Grayson told him, as he turned away, starting to take off his gloves. “Or what fun is it?”
Damian narrowed his eyes, and then spun one of the escrima sticks, throwing it angrily right at the back of Grayson’s head. Grayson flipped his own stick up to block it, without even bothering to turn around, and Damian fought the urge to stomp his foot.
"We're done for the day, Dami, that’s not very good sportsmanship,” Grayson said, already attempting to peel himself out of his skin-tight suit.
Damian huffed and then stalked past him, hiding his embarrassment with anger. “It’s not like you weren’t going to see it coming,” he snapped. “You always see it coming.”
Because Grayson was always supposed to see it coming.
It wasn't even that bad of a fight, it was just that the number of them was a bit more than they were used to taking on at once, which was why Nightwing was with them in the first place.
It was a new drug operation, and they’d been planning to start distribution within the week. Batman was taking on five men at a time, and Nightwing was spinning through the warehouse like a deadly dancer, taking out anyone stupid enough to get close enough. Robin was out with his escrima sticks for the first time, because he’d learned, at Grayson’s direction, that he wouldn’t be able to—and shouldn’t try—to copy Nightwing’s style exactly, but to make his own.
So he'd begun to learn his own style, and had realized that being closer to the enemy meant he could land hits with more brute strength, until he was nearly as comfortable with these as his sword. He still barely managed to block an attack to his left side, and he’d seen Nightwing catch it with a flush of embarrassment.
“Keep your guard up, Robin,” Nightwing snapped, never as light-hearted in the field as he was in training.
Robin took the man out at his knees, and then spun to glare at his brother. “You keep your guard up,” he snarled back, launching his escrima stick at his head.
But this was not in the safety of the cave, this was not a friendly bout for training, this was the middle of a fight. Nightwing was locked in combat with two other men, he was already defending both sides. Robin was meant to guard his back, not attack it.
So for the first time, Grayson didn’t see it coming.
In that moment, Robin felt the world fall away beneath his feet, horror creeping up on him as all his blood drained down to his feet. The escrima stick hit full force at the back of Nightwing’s head, and the world seemed to pause for just a moment, Robin watching with a hand stretched out, wanting to pull it back.
Then Nightwing crumbled to the ground.
Batman let out an outraged cry, tossing a batarang that glanced off one of Nightwing’s remaining opponents, and then bounced off the other, sending them both to the ground beside the vigilante. Robin started moving, sliding to his knees beside his brother in a panic.
He reached for a pulse, his own heart seemed in a form of status until he felt Grayson’s beating beneath his fingers, and it could restart again. “Nightwing?” he cried desperately. “Nightwing, wake up.”
“Get away from him,” Batman snarled, and he was shoved away, falling back bonelessly as Batman took his place. Batman leaned over Nightwing and framed his face. His hands were shaking. Robin had never seen Batman panicked, he had never seen him like this, like in just that one moment, he didn't know what to do--that something had finally happened he didn't have a plan for.
"I--I--" Robin stuttered, feeling sick. “I — didn’t mean to.”
Batman didn’t even look at him. He reached down and picked up his brother, carrying him carefully to the Batmobile, and then he sped away, leaving Robin alone on the concrete, the drug dealers all tied up or unconscious around him, and the sound of sirens in the distance.