Legend

The backstory

I opened my eyes, realizing that I'd fallen asleep waiting for Damian to return. The first edition of "Anti-Intellectualism in American Life," a Pulitzer Prize winner in the 60's, had fallen to the floor. I had picked it up and was checking it for damage when I realized I was not alone. I turned my head and Robin and Batman entered the living room from the dark hallway. I flushed, hoping Bruce hadn't seen that I'd treated the book he'd lent me carelessly.

"I didn't hear the lock open," I said, a half-apology.

"We didn't use the door," Damian said, coming in and sitting beside me. His costume was chilly. "There's a hidden stairwell, an old staircase the maids used to use when the hotel was newly built. It's been blocked off but  not demolished. I use that to come home." Bruce shot him an annoyed glance.

"Your home is the mansion," he said crisply, and Damian rolled his eyes before taking off his domino.

"Has my mother tried to contact you again?" he asked me, putting his arm around me.

"No, not after she approached me in the lobby. I swept the apartment for bugs when I got here and it doesn't look like anybody's been in here." I leaned against his shoulder.

"I'm going to go have a chat with her," Bruce said grimly.

"You know where she is?" Damian asked, and Bruce shook his head.

"Not for certain, but I have a pretty good idea of where she'll be staying." He didn't elaborate. "Tell us if Talia approaches you again," he said to me. "Don't let her touch you or get you alone in a secluded space if you can help it. She'll view you as impediment to be swept aside, and she's not too picky about how she accomplishes that." He nodded at us and disappeared back into the hall. Listening carefully, I heard the whisper of movement and a faint click.

"I'll show you later," Damian promised playing with my hair. "But first, I need to tell you about my mother and her father, where I came from. It's not a nice story," he said warningly, and I nodded.

"So I'm here as a result of an affair Bruce had with Talia. According to my mother, it was quite the passionate fling," he said grimacing, and I repressed a smile. Nobody likes to hear about their parents getting it on.  "But I wasn't created until the end of the affair, when Talia drugged Bruce and, um, manually.... uh, collected his semen." I interpreted this to mean she'd given him a handjob and collected it into a cup. "There was an in-vitro fertilization and the blastocyst was popped into an artificial gestation chamber, from which I was decanted nine months later." He looked a little forlorn. "She said she cleaned up my genes before the fertilization and that she hadn't wanted to ruin her figure with a pregnancy." I scowled. "Dad doesn't know about that part. You're the only other than Mother and Grandfather who does." I touched his cheek gently. "I was raised to be the heir to my grandfather's terrorist organization, the League of Assassins. I was trained in martial arts since I could walk, pretty much. Not surprisingly, in that environment, I was manipulative, malicious, spoiled, violent. I had no idea what social mores were.  When I was ten, Mother gave me a name, told me I was now Damian Wayne, heir to the Wayne fortune and business, son of Batman, which is what I was called until then."

"Ibn al Xu'ffasch?" I asked, stumbling on the name a little, and he nodded. 

"And she brought me to the mansion, rang the bell, and left me on the porch." He shook his head. "Integration with Bruce, Alfred, the others in the Bat family was difficult," he said wearily.

"Bat family?"

"There's Batman, Dick, who was the original Robin, now he goes by Nightwing, Barbara Gordon, she's Batgirl--"