Robin's Egg

Cons-Egg-quences

Boredom.

A word that was annoying as it was dangerous. To some, it meant the dragging of time and for others, it was the lack of mental/physical stimuli. For Damian, it was being banned from patrols for a week because he did something bad. The boy didn't think he had but Bruce thought he did. His siblings didn't care either way on the matter. It wasn't really any of their business. But they were on edge now that Damian was trapped at home 24/7 since school had been canceled for the foreseeable future thanks to the building being rebuilt.

To say that Damian was a little stir-crazy was an understatement.

"This is your fault, you know."

"Silence, Thomas. I am aware of my current situation."

"Ok. Just making sure you are aware because you look like a frustrated cat." Duke shrugged at his little brother who sat on the other end of the couch watching Gotham news. "I don't know what this kid did to you but outing his entire family wasn't cool."

Damian tsked and kept his attention on the TV. The cops were at the Thompson estate dragging out the head of the family, who was still in his pajamas, to an awaiting vehicle at the end of the driveway. The youngest Wayne sipped his tea, leaning back into the cushions with a smug smirk. "I gave the Neanderthal a fair warning. He was the one who refused to take it to heart."

Duke rolled his eyes at the younger's satisfied expression but wasn't surprised by it in the least. "That family will never be able to come back to Gotham. Anyone who is anyone will never want to associate with them again. Don't you feel bad for the mother and sister?"

"No."

"But they were innocent in this? Even Mike didn't perform the bad deeds that the father did. You can't put the sins of the father on the child."

"Mike had his own sins to answer for," Damian growled. The boy may be innocent but he still almost accidentally killed someone. Not that he knew that Danny was in the stone but still. Mike had been warned once for touching the core and now he paid the price. He was just lucky that Damian had taken a step back from the murder side of things, or else there would be a different news story going on right now. If Duke knew that, odds were that he wouldn't be making snide comments about Damian's act of sabotage.

Damian's mood soured with each little comment Duke made. There was no point to it as the damage was already done and Damian had been grounded for it. Why couldn't he be allowed to bask and savor the glory that was his revenge? Not to mention, it was beginning to unsettle the boy with how his adopted brother kept looking at Danny's core that rested under his shirt.

Usually, Duke wouldn't try to sit alone with him. It wasn't as obvious as it had once been but Damian still scared the meta and he often wondered if it was because of the possible futures that he saw or from the stories he heard from the others. Maybe it was a combination of both. Damian felt a little bit of pride that he had that kind of influence on his siblings. So it was rather surprising that Duke was sitting in one of the many family rooms watching the news with him. No one else was there, he was pretty sure. (Cass would have made herself known by now if she had.) He didn't go out of his way to hang out with Damian. There was a reason. That was the only explanation and if the fact he kept looking at the pendant was what Damian thought...

Then Duke was suspicious of Danny's core.

Honestly, this was something that Damian was expecting. He had thought that it would happen a lot sooner (because the ghost teen had already been outed by Jon and his super hearing) but the two hadn't seen each other over the past six months. Duke's eyes were special. He could see things that a normal person couldn't. So what did the meta see when he looked at Danny's core? Did he just see light or were there hints that a person existed within? Duke was still learning his powers and they changed depending on the day. Out of all his siblings, the one who was the most likely to find out about Danny was Duke.