Without Hope

Damian and Ra's

Damian didn’t like his grandfather. His evil, super villain, mastermind grandfather. When he was young, and lived with his evil, super villain, mastermind mother, and he had been trained to be a ninja, and the heir to the Al Ghuls.   He was just at the ripe age of three, when trained to climb a mountain. One of his instructors, the one that he had grown to hate more every passing day, poked his little toddler feet whenever he was about to fall.

Only one person had been kind to him, had stitched his wounds, and had listened to his rants. She was his nanny, someone who would take the place of his mother, Talia. When he was four years old, Ra’s had her killed, right in front of him. The betrayal he saw in her dead, glazed-over eyes almost drove Damian past the edge of his sanity. Fortunately, his mother gave him to father.

Damian hated when his father forbade him to participate in some missions.  Once he figured out that those missions were the ones in which Ra’s appeared, Damian was furious. To have his own father think that he couldn’t handle his grandfather?!
Now, when Batman called him, telling him that they would be regrouping in the Al Ghouls place to determine what happened to Grayson, Damian could feel the pit of doubt and fear start growing. A few months ago, he would have been prideful and happy that father had admitted that he needed his help to defeat his grandfather. Apparently, something inside of him had changed. His heart told him that he was in fact, scared of the thought of his grandfather. His mind, on the other hand, told him that there was nothing to be afraid of.

Damian’s wandering thoughts were interrupted when Drake nudged him on his shoulder. When had he gotten behind him?! Damian almost let out an unmanly shriek, but stopped himself from doing so.

“What do you want, Red Robin?!” He hissed, over the wind howling in his ears. Yes, the two were grappling above Gotham’s streets.

“Are you okay?” Drake’s annoyingly pity-filled voice was lost in the wind, but Damian’s sharp hearing picked up the sound.

“Yes I am! Now go take your useless pity somewhere else, Drake!” Damian would not stand for the lesser being, Drake, actually being worried about him. He applied more force in his legs than necessary, causing him to swing even faster and further than Drake. In no time at all, he was standing on the nicely paved roof of the Wayne Manor.
Scrambling down, and slipping into the open window that led to his room (Damian always left his windows open), he hefted his hidden swords under the pillow on his bed and ran to the dining room.

“Pennyworth!” He crowed, while twisting the clock’s hands to 9:00, the time of his father’s parent’s death. “Fatgirls coming!”

When the great grandfather clock started moving, Damian used to his small build to squeeze into the cave. He always liked arriving first in the Batcave. While other family members used the garage door to enter, Damian chose to come through any open window. Pennyworth and Drake had long since remembered to keep at least one of the glass panes slid up.

“Hey!” The infuriating voice of the Flash was heard, and Damian quickly slid into the ‘Cave and closed the clock in Wally’s face. He ignored the shouts of protests.

He scrambled onto the big leather chair that was seated in front of the great Batcomputer, and cracked his knuckles. Damian then proceeded to wait for Drake. This was his favorite part.

“Drake. Two minutes worse than last time. You should work on that.” He smirked, while peeling the mask slowly off his face, making a big show of turning the chair around, so that he was facing Drake.

Drake sighed and ungracefully plopped himself down on his own seat.
“You know, one day someone will see Robin swinging onto the Wayne Manor, and into Damian’s room. Then you’ll see why we all use the garage.” He massaged his temples while closing his eyes tightly. Damian was truly was a devil child.

“Yeah right. Don’t you remember that I was trained to be a ninja? Regular people can’t see ninjas. They’re all idiots anyways. They wouldn’t be able to piece it all together.” Damian turned himself around and fiddled with the Batcomputer’s buttons, turning on the great monitor.

Drake scoffed. “I found out. And I was a ‘regular person’.” He turned around too, and pulled up a holographic keyboard. He started to type, fingers flying over the keyboard as if he were showing off to Damian, rubbing in the fact that Damian could not type.

“Tt.” With that, the conversation was over, the ‘Cave silent except for the occasional squeaks of bats.

The bright screen flashed on Damian’s face while he scrolled down all the previous reports of all the missions that Batman and Robin had fought.
Tim was typing the report of the evidence both of them had found in Dick’s apartment. The report would be documented and saved later. No one liked writing reports of their previous actions. Though they were a ‘fun bedtime story’, the reports were required to have full details, and specifications. Even the great Batman hated spending hours on the activity. Damian would fight with him, and eventually they established that he would write the long reports. Tim eventually gave in when Dick got Damian to admit that he was not good at typing.

Damian trailed one finger on the holograph, lazily flicking the screen. His eyes were slowly closing, though he was taught not to go to sleep. He had pulled so many all-nighters over the years, that even concealer could not cover the multiple bags that hung dark and low under his eyes.  They flew open when someone’s communicator started to bleep.

Through the corner of his eye, Damian saw Drake pick up the black gadget that was attached to his belt.

“Hello?” Damian zoomed in onto the conversation, choosing to ignore the records that shone brightly in front of him. He continued to flick at the screen, but did not pay attention to the words that were being shown. Through one flick of his finger, Damian failed to notice the small words written in Cambria font, a label that read, ‘William Cobb, The Unsolved Mystery’.

“Oh, Stephanie. You’re here? Already? Okay. Yup. See ya. Bye.” Tim shut off the communicator, and the ‘Cave was returned back to the lulling sounds of squawking bats.

Damian turned his attention back to the reports, starting off where he had flicked off. He doubted that the records would help him, or Grayson, but Father had demanded them. He didn’t know that his sloppy work had just cost someone’s life.