Work Text:
When Damian enters the old warehouse at the edge of the compound, the night has already settled deep. Cicadas chirp peacefully as he slowly pushes at the old heavy door before him, before halting it to a stop and stepping inside. It’s early autumn, the cold breathe of wind brushing lightly against his cheek, and he suppresses a shiver that threatens to go down his spine. He stalks near the walls, careful not to touch them, and makes it to a table. He picks up the can of gasoline, and suddenly, it feels like his hands are on fire. They tingle lightly in phantom pain, and he almost gasps. Almost, that is.
This month was special for him. At least, it was supposed to be. Damian was nearing his ninth birthday, which meant he was getting one year closer to beating his mother, and thus finally meeting his father. He was putting his best effort into training, swinging his swords and throwing his knives like he never has before. He knows as much because he once catches the shadow of his grandfather, looming above him, and while he pretends not to acknowledge the man, Ra’s hums in satisfaction and leaves the compound. He knows as much because it’s the first month in years when he was allowed to go without heading out for a mission this long. A person like him - a weapon, an assassin, - has one purpose, to kill and attack, maim and demolish. So, he knows that this time is special. And yet, tonight mother called for him to come to the old warehouse.
The details given were sparse and little. Damian, of course, didn’t care. Mother’s order was simple enough: to go to the building. To spot the target, already prepared and laid out for him. To get rid of the evidence. Easily enough, Damian slips the lighter out of his pocket, and stalks closer to the center of the room. The place is lit only by a lamp, one so dim and dull that it actually makes his eyes hurt a little. He slips the can behind his back, not yet knowing if he should let his victim know of his plans. His legs move for him, and when the chair finally comes into view, he… stops.
There is a boy tied to the chair, his hair inky black, somewhat like Damian’s own, skin pale and broken, covered in blood. The boy looks to be a teen, about fourteen years old, with his eyes carefully closed and head lowered down. None of that is unusual, of course. What is unusual, however, is that as soon as Damian’s feet come to a stop, once again making the building completely silent, except for labored breaths, the boy shoots up instantly, locking their eyes with a furious, and then confused glare. Not a single noise leaves his lips, nothing escapes with the roll of his tongue. He doesn’t beg, doesn’t scream, doesn’t try to reason. Nothing about his posture screams of desperation or pain, despite the beaten look, and as he stares expectingly at the assassin, he waits.
And Damian, he… shouldn’t care, really. Nothing about the stranger before him is special, neither is about what is happening. And yet, something sparks in him, almost like a twinkle of a pained curiosity, and he winces at himself. His fingers curl on the handle in hesitation, and for reasons unknown to himself, something in Damian’s stomach sits heavy, dropping.
The boy before him is bleeding, his lip swollen, hands and legs tied to the wooden chair. His breathing is heavy, loud enough to ring through the entire room. He should, by all means, look like a corpse in its final moments. He should look pathetic. And yet, the boy keeps his back and head straight as they are locked in eye contact, his pride and stubbornness on display, unafraid of the possible agony and death. His hands hold tight against the bloody rope bonding him, nails gone and fingers broken, half-twisted into bits. Red leaks out of his nose, mouth, from his head and ears, and yet he continues staring completely unaffected. Damian shouldn’t care, really. He has nothing but a job, a mission. He should not be curious, is not allowed to speak to his targets. But as he looks at the boy, he freezes in his tracks. His body refuses to move and he stands still, mind growing louder with nonsense by the second.
“Who are you?” he swiftly fills the room with more tension, while further examining his opponent’s face. It twitches from confused to apathetic, brows narrowing and eyes going limp. The other either isn’t going to dignify him with a response, or is incapable of thinking anymore, Damian decides as he examines the boy’s clothes. It’s a weird mix of color, green, red and yellow plastered all over the mix of armor and casual clothes the boy wears, ripped and stained in all sorts of places. A cape used to be there, also, but is now lying around the floor, shaped like a bird’s wings. It’s yellow, a nonsensical color for a stealth item, but nothing about the stranger makes any sense.
“Robin,” he finally grits out, followed by a scratchy cough. Timothy Drake, the file read. Neither of these names give Damian any more understanding. “Who are you?”
As Drake asks the question, he looks Damian up and down, his eyes roaming around as he wishes. He looks oblivious, almost. As if Damian’s the one who’s being interrogated, tied to a chair. He keeps staring, and not being able to handle the pressure anymore, Damian takes one step forward. Drake doesn’t even flinch.
It’s a small thing, a weird thing. It shouldn’t really matter. But…
But as Damian approaches his target even closer, the latter stays silent still. He freezes, but not like pray, looking up in fear at its predator, and more like an insect, accepting that it will soon be crushed by an unavoidable fate. It looks eerie, the way Drake doesn’t do anything. The way he looks up in acceptance. Damian freezes once again.
“Are you not going to try to escape?” he asks in disbelief, somewhat expecting the other to play a trick, and somewhat completely not. And at that, the teen… cackles, his lips forming a small smile as hitching breaths escape into the coldness of the room. Damian flinches back, preparing for an attack the teen might have been preparing all along.
“No. He’s not coming for me,” Drake replies instead, his hands still tied helplessly behind him, and yet his voice is so powerful and certain that Damian doesn’t dare approach closer again.
It doesn’t make any sense, the way this Robin person acts. He’s been tortured, brought to his knees, and yet he still finds the strength to try and intimidate Damian, to laugh so freely that he almost sounds like a normal person. No one should be this confident, to be bleeding and dying and still fight back. No one should look this free, with their hands and legs bound, bones and hearts broken. But Tim Drake does. He looks so free and unbothered, crimson staining his otherwise completely innocent and clean uniform. No one should look more free right now than Damian, who holds the key to someone’s life, who can choose right now to end Drake’s life and leave ashes behind. And yet. And yet Damian feels like a prisoner as Robin stares at him, wants to drop the lighter and spill the gasoline, to either set himself on fire or the building, but not the other boy.
“Why isn’t he?” he asks in a trembling voice, despite not knowing exactly who that ‘he’ is. Something about the way the boy’s eyes go bleak makes his gut twist. His mother whispers to him from somewhere inside his head that this is wrong. That he’s being lied to. That he should be dead.
“I’m not the first one,” Drake replies bitterly, something burning on the edge of his words. Grief. Hatred. Despair.
“I see,” Damian finishes quietly, and, as he approaches the boy again, he finally reveals the can, carefully twisting the cap open in his shaking arms. The air immediately fills up with acid, the smells of blood and tears vanishing as if they were never there. Robin coughs violently, his body snapping in half, and for a second Damian is afraid he might throw the rest of himself up and die just like that. Instead, he sucks up a deep breath and sits back up.
“What is that? Smells like gasoline.”
It does. It smells like gasoline and burning fire, past and present burning into one another with a passion and Damian feels sick. Words stay stuck in his throat as he makes his way around the chair, behind Drake’s back. He lifts the can and hears the rotten liquid spill, covering everything, everyone around him with disgusting unnatural color. Timothy shakes underneath him, eyes shooting up in subdued panic as he continues not to struggle.
It’s almost ridiculous, how much Drake looks like he has a choice. Like he chooses to be here, to be filled with acid from the tip of his head to toes. It’s all the more ridiculous that as he pours the contents of the can on someone seemingly so innocent, Damian wants to have a choice. He wants to stab Robin’s heart so he’ll go faster, wants to quickly snap his neck. Instead, he pours every last drop down, and as tears start streaming down his face, he doesn’t stop them. Because if he chooses, grandfather would make sure he’d perish beside the boy, blinded by the agony as his skin melts like lava, and then be brought back by the acidic, poisonous green to continue breathing like he was alive.
“I’m sorry,” he mutters in a small voice, as he lights the fire.
The world before him becomes bright and orange, hot and painful, and even if he survives tonight, the nightmares of Drake’s screams will slowly melt him down.