The Boy king and The Dark Knights

XXVIII

VLAD MASTERS, CEO of DALV. Co., figured himself a pretty positive man. He hated very little, as hate impeded his rationality. 

Really, there were only two things Vlad thought he truly hated. Jack Fenton and everything associated with the man was one. The other was Bruce Fucking Wayne’s stupid galas. 

His first problem with them was that they were held in Gotham, and for the past three years or so every time Vlad had set foot in that accursed city he felt his core screaming at him to evacuate. 

His second problem was the frequency of inane crime in that hellscape of a city. Bruce could barely hold a gala without at least one villain attack, and Vlad rather deal with the box ghost than that obnoxious Harley Quinn any day of the week. And despite none of them being criminals (overt criminals at least, Bruces youngest was always followed by the unsettling scent of steel and blood), the Wayne children could be classified as menaces withing their own right. 

Richard (he would not call the man something as vulgar as Dick) would always manage to find some new and extraordinary way to violate the social rules of proper society, from the time with the frogs (age 14), to the time with the pizza duels (age 17), to the time with the swirly straw (age 23). 

When Jason was younger he had always been unsettlingly quiet, only deigning to say anything when literature was discussed, and then getting so passionate that at one point he had called Prince Prospero “a dipshit who only lost his virginity thanks to his money, as his dick was probably as small as his bank account was large.” Vlad hadn’t appreciated the boy’s glare in his direction when he had said this, and the boy was mistaken anyways, as Vlad was saving himself for marriage. Not that it was that impudent brats business. 

Timothy had always been a polite presence in his youth, but as soon as he became Wayne’s ward it seemed as if a switch had flipped. He was still nice of course, but Vlad had spotted him passed out in a broom closet three times, in a nook under the stairs four times, and on one occasion, under a table. Half the time he spotted Wayne’s sleeping ward there was also a madly grinning blonde girl at his side, scribbling all over his face with a dry erase marker. 

Cassandra never talked much, which Vlad could appreciate, but she did stare into his eyes as if she was weighing his soul, and it really shouldn’t have been that unnerving for a man who fought the king of the damned on the regular. Vlad figured it was probably because he was surrounded by people who wouldn’t stop running their mouths, so the silence of the young girl was unsettling. Yes, blaming Jack and Danny for his problems was always easier. 

Damian was the one Vlad found simultaneously the worst and the best. Sure, he had to deal with the boys obvious desire for bloodshed, and the scent of blood that followed him around like it was his natural scent, and pretend to ignore the fact that the boy hid more knives on his person than years he had lived, but at least the youngest Wayne never cared about him enough to threaten him with any of said knives. Dangerous, yes, but at least he was easily ignorable.

And Vlad’s final problem was the man of the hour, Gotham’s favorite scandal himself, the accursed Brucie Wayne. He was probably the most idiotic man Vlad had ever seen, and he had spent extensive periods of time with Jack Fenton. But despite his idiocy, (or maybe because of it) people loved the mans jovial personality. Yet there were times during conversation with the man, times that only Vlad and his heightened awareness picked upon, where the man didn’t seem like an idiot at all. His eyes would sharpen into something cold and metallic that Vlad felt could carve his core open, his body would go rigid in a way that reminded Vlad of a predator hunting his prey, and something unsettling made the hairs on the back of his neck stand at attention.