tantalum-cobalt:

For the “alien abduction” square on my hurt/comfort bingo card. Thanks to the anon who suggested Damian getting abducted after a fight with his father and Tim coming to his rescue.

Summary: He thinks it’s probably too much to hope that he’ll wake back up in his bed and this will have all been nothing but a strange dream.

[Read on AO3]

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Damian has been hit with fear gas enough times to know he’s not completely fearless, but he’s proud to say there is a very short list of things that scare him. Waking up dizzy and disorientated, surrounded by bright lights? Ha, basically a monthly occurrence. Trying to move and finding himself restrained from ankles to head? Pfft, he would expect nothing less from any abductor who recognises the R insignia. The creepy, inhuman faces that drift in and out of his field of vision? Weird, but not the worst he’s ever faced with all the gimmicky villains in Gotham.

Knowing that nobody is coming for him because nobody will realise he’s missing? That sends a small shard of fright through his heart. The restraints are tight, whatever they drugged him with seems to have paralysed his muscles, he has no idea where he is or who has taken him. This is a situation he’s not sure he can get out of on his own.

He still refuses to feel guilty about arguing with his father though. He is fifteen years old – more than old enough to patrol by himself, which makes him more than old enough to decide whether he can take on the more dangerous rogues without help. And Poison Ivy is back in Arkham now so what’s the big deal anyway?

Maybe Pennyworth would say storming off had been childish, but Damian prefers to think of it as a strategic retreat. He hadn’t wanted to fight with his father, he’d just wanted him to listen and understand that Damian can take care of himself.

Father hadn’t listened and he hadn’t stopped him leaving. He’d probably been glad that Damian had. And he definitely doesn’t care enough to consider that, after being gone for hours past sunset without showing up in any of his regular patrol spots, maybe Damian is missing. Even if he did, would he bother coming? Or would he just consider this proof that he’s right and Damian can’t take care of himself?

Damian thinks, with a sinking feeling in his stomach, that the latter is more likely.

The creatures – aliens, although not a species he recognises – are silent as they work. Whatever drug they injected Damian with when they took him has numbed his body and as it wears off sensation filters back in. The sharp sting of needles, the cool touch of metallic tools, strangely rubbery fingers poking and prodding. One ghosts over a scar on his abdomen and Damian flinches.

There’s a sudden, high-pitched sound like a screech and then something is being jabbed in his neck. Calm washes over him. Feeling goes away again. Darknesses creeps into every recess of his mind. Damian doesn’t make a conscious decision to close his eyes, but he must because the bright lights and strange creatures vanish. He thinks it’s probably too much to hope that he’ll wake back up in his bed and this will have all been nothing but a strange dream.

–

Hands tugging at his body drag him back into consciousness. He rolls away from them reflexively (wonders, fleetingly, why he’s able to do so) but they pull him back. “Robin.” A voice joins the hands, coaxing him up off the – table? bed? what exactly is he lying on? did he fall asleep in the Cave again?

“Damian.”

He pries his eyes open. A black domino swims in his vision, pale flesh connecting it to the green fingers gently holding the side of his head. Something like relief flickers across the familiar face when Damian blinks at him. It doesn’t make sense, though, because Damian is sure Red Robin isn’t supposed to be here. Anyone else was supposed to come for him but not… why not him?

“Can you walk?” Drake asks. At twenty-one, he hasn’t grown much taller than he’d been at seventeen and Damian towers several inches over him. Damian is bulkier too, even if not by much, and there’s no way the smaller man is going to be able to carry him out of here. He could drag him, maybe (and, more amicable relationship or not, Damian wouldn’t put it past him) but that’s hardly an efficient way to rescue someone from an alien spaceship. Not that they have to do that often, but rescue missions were covered in detail during Robin training.

His muscles are still largely uncooperative, but Damian manages to pry his jaw open and move his lips and tongue enough to say, “Aliens-”

Drake laughs and Damian’s not sure whether it’s the faint buzzing in his ears or the echo of the room, but it sounds a little hysterical. “I know,” he says. “They’ve been dealt with.”

It’s on the tip of Damian’s tongue to ask if he killed them. He frowns. Where did that thought come from? Todd is the exception to the family’s no killing policy, not Drake.

(But Drake is the one with alien kidnapping issues.)

With Drake’s help, they slide him off the table. But as soon as he’s on his feet, his legs collapse and it’s only quick bat-reflexes that have him smushed against his brother’s chest instead of face planting on the floor. They stand there awkwardly for a second longer than is necessary while Drake gets his hands around Damian and hoists him back onto the table.

“Okay, so that’s a no to the walking then,” Drake mutters. He keeps one hand on Damian’s shoulder (Damian isn’t sure why; he’s not going to fall over) and runs the other through his hair. “That’s fine, the others can help, just a slight change in plans…”

Others? Does that mean-?

“Father?” Damian asks hesitantly. He doesn’t want to be told that Father didn’t come looking for him, that he doesn’t care, but he needs to know.

“At home,” Drake replies after the briefest of hesitations. “I brought other backup.”

But who-? Damian frowns, glancing around the room. Glowing white tiles stretching up to a domed ceiling, but no other vigilantes in sight. Drake gives him a crooked grin, somehow more unsettling than Red Robin’s usual intimidate-the-enemy smirk and says, “When in doubt, fight aliens with aliens.”

It’s like just the thought of blue and red summons them because not even a second after Damian’s sluggish brain has processed what his brother means, there’s a blur of colour and a displacement of air and Superboy stands in front of him. Superboys. Both of them. Or Superboy and whatever the clone is calling himself these days.

“Oh thank god, you’re okay!” Jon exclaims. Thirteen years old and still as gratingly positive about life as he had been at ten.

Damian tuts and says “Of course I’m okay” as if Drake didn’t have to pick him up off the floor a minute ago because his limbs have forgotten how they’re supposed to follow the commands his brain gives.

“You’re going to need to carry him,” Drake is saying to Kon-el.

Damian grimaces and opens his mouth to argue that he does not need to be carried, but Kon is already saying, “What about you? You’re not even supposed to be out in the field yet.”

And Damian remembers. Oh. That’s why he’s not supposed to be here. Red Robin sprained his ankle the other day. Maybe that’s why he didn’t try to drag me out of here.

And then- “What are you doing?” he blurts and two pairs of blue-grey eyes refocus back on him. “You’re hurt, you were benched, you shouldn’t be-“

Drake’s face is stony, all hard lines and tight muscles. “Nobody else was coming,” he says and it’s like he’s making an effort not to sound sympathetic or angry about it. “Apparently UFO abduction is a little too far-fetched even for Batman. Not like he works with aliens every damn day.”

The tiny part of Damian that feels warm and fuzzy at his brother being indignant on his behalf is drowned out by the cold, hollow feeling that sweeps through his chest. “He really wasn’t coming,” he says, voice a hoarse whisper. He’d thought his father wouldn’t realise he was taken, that he wouldn’t come for him, but he hadn’t actually thought–

He’s aware of Kon laying a calming hand on Drake’s shoulder and Jon shifting uncomfortably, but the world is blurring and. He scrubs at his eyes, tells himself he’s not going to cry, it’s just the drug making his eyes water, or something in the air of this stupid alien ship.

“Shit,” Drake mutters. And then he’s shifting his weight forward (wincing, but ignoring the pain from his ankle) and pulling Damian into a hug. “I didn’t mean it like that,” he says. “Just- I heard whispers on patrol, about a UFO, and it was near your last known location. It was stupid but nobody had heard from you in awhile so I thought I’d check and-“ And he’d found him. Because he’d bothered to look into the absurd possibility of alien abduction.

Damian pulls back and Drake lets him. “You shared your suspicions with Father?” he asks, even though he knows already that his father would have dismissed them without a second thought. And then he realises it doesn’t matter whether Father believed the possibility because he’ll be faced with the truth when they get home, and then he’ll know how poorly Damian was able to take care of himself alone in Gotham. “He said I am not good enough to take on the more dangerous rogues by myself. What if he’s right? I could not even stop myself from being abducted by second-rate aliens.”

Drake winces, and this time it has nothing to do with pain. “Look, I know Bruce can be a jackass sometimes-“ Kon snorts; Damian sends him a dirty look. “-but even if he was mad at you before, he’ll be happy you’re home safe, I promise.”

His tone and expression are both sincere. Damian bites his lip, reluctant to find out whether that promise will be broken even though he’d been desperate to go home before. When Jon grabs his arm to help him onto his feet, though, he accepts it. He can’t exactly avoid going home when the only other option is remaining on the UFO he was abducted to.

“If your dad isn’t happy,” the superpowered teen says, more like he’s mulling something over than genuinely considering the possibility of Damian’s father being mad at him for being abducted by aliens. “You can come live with me.”

Damian snorts. “That won’t be necessary. Drake is right,” he says, and he tells himself he does believe it. “Father will be glad that I am home.”

His brother squeezes his shoulder. And then they’re lifted up in a blur of light and colour, the alien ship growing distant, the Manor looming ever closer. Damian closes his eyes and repeats like a mantra he’ll be happy he’ll be happy he’ll be happy.

The stop is sudden, jarring, sending him stumbling forward… straight into a broad chest and large arms which wrap around him instantly. “Damian,” his father murmurs against his hair, barely more than a relieved exhalation.

Damian relaxes into the hug. He’s glad to be home.