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Birds and Bees	By : defying3reason Category: DC Verse Comics > Batman Views: 2564 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Batman, or any aspect of the broader DC Universe, and I make no money from my fanfiction

Chapter List
- 5
- 6
- 7
Chapter Six
Six Years Later
"So…you speak Arabic?" Tim muttered.
"Nope," Dick answered, also speaking in a low tone of voice.
"Ah." Tim furrowed his brow. "Does Bruce?"
"Modern Standard. I doubt he understands what those guys down there are saying."
"Hm." He worried at his lower lip with his teeth, taking in the information. "But Damian-"
"Understands every word," Dick said with a nod.
The kid was good with languages in a way Dick and Tim weren't. Hell, even Bruce put visible effort into learning a new language or dialect, but not his son. Damian's native language was the Iraqi dialect of Arabic, but by age sixteen he understood all the dialects, and he'd always spoken fluent English without a trace of a Middle Eastern accent (if anything, at times he sounded a bit British).
Tim leaned against the porch railing and glanced downwards at the ground level of the casino. Damian was chatting away with some shady looking businessmen ("Saudis," he'd said with a sneer. "How stereotypical.") while Bruce hung back, occasionally interjecting a monosyllabic presence in the conversation.
"You know, he's making a good show of following what they're saying," Tim observed.
"He's probably getting every ninth word or so. That's why I picked up a romance language. Figure out one and you can get the gist of the others…kind of. Some languages work better than others," Dick said.
"Mm." Tim frowned. "I'm the only one at all bothered by Damian completely running the show on this, aren't I?"
"What makes you say that?" Dick asked.
"Well for starters he invited me for a team up, even though he still hates me-"
"And you've kept the feeling mutual," Dick said quietly, lacking any overt judgment. Tim still felt stung. He did try, even if it was impossible for Dick or Bruce to see it.
"Right, well, yeah, so he invited me. He's the one who caught wind of this well-funded sacrificial cult-"
"It'd have to have been him. He's the one who reads Arabic print newspapers on a regular basis."
"Well he hasn't exactly let us in on the details of the case, and he's not even letting Bruce have a say in tactics. He knows we're all out of our comfort zone and he's keeping it that way." Tim wanted to see how Dick could argue with that. Damian's actions were suspicious; even though Dick was close with the demented little Robin (who was incidentally already taller than Tim), he had to at least see that.
Dick didn't argue though. "Something's definitely up. Usually Damien talks to me more."
Tim finally looked away at the cluster of shady businessmen and the father and son, in favor of taking a covert look at his companion. Dick did look bothered. He decided his point was made, and attempted to be more tactful. "Look, I'm sure he's okay. I just hope we're not here as distractions or cannon fodder so he can serve his own agenda."
Dick nodded, but his expression was vague. From that point on he was conversationally distant.

The next night saw the Bat Family getting personally acquainted with the mountains of Lebanon. The country was pretty much one large mountain range, with settlements and farmland on whatever flat portions one could find, whatever the angle, with cities along the beaches.
Tim was not a fan. Searching the cliffs for whatever villainous headquarters Damian was looking for might take years, even with their gear.
"You know…I could give Superboy a call…maybe he could…could, I dunno, scan the mountains with his supervisions and find the place?"
"These people are aware enough of metas to have made use of lead shielding," Damian snapped. He wasn't even out of breath!
"Well what about speedsters?" Dick asked. "I'm sure Wally could at least shave some time off the mountain hike." Like a normal person, he was short of breath.
"We're not searching blindly. I know where I'm going," Damian said, in a somewhat more polite tone of voice.
"Oh," Dick and Tim said stupidly, because they'd had no idea Damian knew where the cult headquarters was. It was impossible to tell if this was news for Bruce or not; he didn't react in any visible way to Damian's revelation.
Tim shot Dick a significant look and motioned towards Bruce, who was silently trudging after his son. Dick shook his head, and Tim scowled.
He didn't trust the situation. He really didn't like that even Dick didn't seem to trust the situation (Dick being the one human being who'd managed to crack Damian's emotional armor and form a real friendship. The brat had respect for Batman, but his relationship with Dick was founded on actual feelings). Tim wanted to share his concerns with Bruce, and Dick thought it was a bad plan so he'd shot Tim down. So far Tim had kept most of his grumblings to himself.
This was too much though.
"Robin, it might be a good idea to let everyone know important details of your plan. Y'know, like what we're actually doing," He snapped.
Damian sneered at him. "I didn't bring you here to think, Red Robin. Just keep quiet and follow my lead."
"Hey, whoa, hey!" Dick cut in. "That was out of line Robin."
Damian whipped around and glared at Dick and Tim. "We're a little far into the progress of the mission for you to be questioning me, or for me to sugarcoat every little thing. Now, may we continue?"
Bruce tapped Damian's shoulder. "Nightwing's right. Watch how you address people who are here to help you."
"This a 'do as I say not as I do' parenting moment?" Dick joked.
Bruce was not amused. "You're on your own."
They finished the hike to the headquarters in relative silence. Tim had no idea how Damian had figured out where they were going or how to find the place; it was carved into the mountain so naturally that Tim didn't notice it was there until they were walking into a cave tunnel.
There were half a dozen guards stationed just inside, but four Bats was overkill for that.
Mostly, the complex appeared empty.
They passed through a tunnel blatantly hewn from the mountain, which gave way to a cold, modernist architectural style. At that point they bumped into the occasional guard, but every guard was alone and went down without any of them breaking a sweat. Tim was starting to wonder why Damian had chosen to bring him.
He was also wondering why he'd decided to go. These days Tim worked as a reserve crime fighter, and rarely suited up as Red Robin. He was supposed to be in his apartment, working on his masters thesis, preferably cozied up to Tam while she worked on her doctoral thesis. If he could go back in time a week, to when he'd agreed to the team up despite being told that Damian was doing the planning, and smack himself in the face, he would have.
When they got to the main chamber, Tim understood why Damian had brought him.
It was full to bursting with culties, and they were all armed with ritual daggers.
There was a brief moment of stunned shock when all of the cult members stared at the Bats, and then someone charged forward, and the rest followed until a mass of dagger wielding loons pressed in on them from all sides. Tim disarmed and incapacitated as many as possible, trying not to let thoughts of 'is this really necessary' distract him. It seemed to him that if Damian had let anybody else in on the plan, they might have come up with a better one between the four of them.
It took him a few minutes to notice Damian wasn't fighting. "He-hey!" Tim yelled, but Damian continued flipping and pushing through the crowd without disarming anyone.
Tim tried to follow what Damian was doing, but he was also fighting for his life and so unable to keep much of an eye on the obnoxious brat. He did notice though, when Damian vaulted over the heads of the culties, landed on their altar, and disappeared through the solid wall behind it that suddenly let off a burst of violet light. "Whoa! Did you guys...?"
He didn't finish the thought. Bruce had clearly seen what happened, because he was fighting his way to the altar more forcefully than ever, and woe to the cult member who stood in his way.
They managed to take down all the cult members, but it took time, and Damian was still missing. Bruce examined the wall and the altar, a look of cold focus on his face that only Dick and Tim (and Alfred, if he'd been there) could recognize for what it really was: fear.
Dick cautiously approached Bruce, trying to figure out how to lend him strength in a way he'd accept, while Tim started zip stripping the unconscious culties.
Then the wall started glowing again. Bruce and Dick took a step back, and the three of them stared at the wall. Bruce looked like he was about to spring into the wall when Damian stepped out of it and onto the altar.
He was carrying someone wrapped in his detached cape. Tim leaned around a pillar to get a better look at the prone figure. It looked like a young girl, maybe twelve or thirteen, with thick black hair and smooth skin. She was unconscious and naked save for the cape.
Dick seemed to recognize her at least, though his voice sounded unsure when he finally spoke. He was gaping at Damian in amazement. "Is that Lian Harper?"
Damian looked down at the girl's face, then faced Dick with eyes narrowed in determination. "She shouldn't have died. I fixed it." He hopped off the altar and started walking towards the exit. "We're finished here."
"What about the cult?" Tim asked. He toed one of the unconscious men with his boot.
"They're no longer important. I've achieved our objective, now let's go," Damian snapped.
Bruce strode across the room, grabbed Damian by the shoulder and forced him to turn around. "This is not how you treat your colleagues. You owe us an explanation."
Damian returned Bruce's look of steely determination with one of his own. "That may be so father, but I'd prefer to attend to Miss Harper first. I assure you, now that their ritual has been disrupted, the cult members are quite harmless. I took the liberty of sealing them off from the Lazarus pit before I emerged, so they are incapable of carrying out any of their objectives."
"There's a Lazarus pit here?" Tim exploded.
Damian regarded him with cool detachment. "Yes." He turned back to Bruce. "And I despoiled the pit, so that even if they do manage to find a way around my seal it won't do them any good. Now can any further explanations wait?"
"I suppose."
"Good," Dick interrupted. "Let's get to the plane and get back to the States. I gotta tell Roy about this. That's really her?"
"Of course it is. Everything went exactly as I planned it." Damian started walking towards the exit yet again, and the other crime fighters had no choice but to fall in step behind him.
"She was barely six when she died. Shouldn't she be younger?" Dick asked.
"Hey yeah. Every time I've seen someone get res'd, they've always been the same age they were when they died. Even when it takes awhile," Tim put in.
"I told you, Miss Harper's death was a tragedy that shouldn't have occurred. I fixed it. Had she lived, she would be twelve years old. As I've fixed things, she's twelve."
"Robin, that really doesn't explain anything," Dick said, trying to be gentle from the sounds of it.
"I don't know how else to put it."
"This appears to have been a magical resurrection as opposed to a scientific one Nightwing. I'd guess there are different rules," Bruce said, looking just as discomfited by the situation as the rest of them. "And Robin, we have to talk about expressions of grief. Stewing over a death for six years and quietly devoting that time to a resurrection is not psychologically healthy."
Tim managed to keep his skeptical outburst limited to a snort, but Dick, who had a more expressive personality and a different sort of relationship with Bruce, couldn't keep quiet after that. "Really Bruce? Really? You're going to talk down to him over unhealthy expressions of grief? When your grieving is the reason we're all wearing spandex and Kevlar right now?"
Once again, Bruce was not amused. "We're still in the field. Code names only."
"Just let this one go for now. I'll talk to him later," Dick said.
"He is standing right here, and I don't need a lecture or a misguided attempt at 'understanding'. I know what I did and why I did it. She shouldn't have died. I fixed it. Now can we all move on?" Damian ground out.
Lian remained unconscious for most of their walk through the base, but when they were within sight of the exit she began to stir. As one, the Bats came to a halt and Damian knelt, setting Lian's lower body on the ground. He tucked his cape more securely around the girl in defense of her modesty and watched her carefully. Slowly, her large green eyes opened.
For a moment she focused on Damian's face with a dreamlike smile, but then that passed and her eyes widened in terror. "What am I-where am-wh-what is…?" She pulled out of Damian's embrace and threw her hands up over her face, eyes scrunched tight with in expression of abject terror. And then she started screaming.
Damian watched, an expression somewhere between confusion and sorrow on his face. Dick stepped in, and grabbed the girl's shoulders, giving them a little shake. "Lian, calm down! You're okay now!"
She stopped screaming. "Uncle Dick? I thought you were Batman now. Wh-what's going on? Why am I…?" She looked at her hands in amazement. "My fingers got long." She began examining her body, feeling along her torso with her foreign, twelve year old hands. "I'm too big. What happened to me?"
"What do you remember last?" Dick asked.
Lian closed her eyes and concentrated. "Mia was babysitting me. We talked to Daddy. H-he was at the Watchtower so I had to say goodnight with the phone. Then when I went upstairs to brush my teeth the house started shaking. Everything started falling, and I got hit with something, and I was screaming and so was Mia. Then it went dark." She opened her eyes and looked at Dick in confusion. "What happened? Is everyone okay? Where's Mia? Why am I here and why am I big and why am I wearing a cape?"
"It's…a long story. Everyone's fine," Dick said. He paused, obviously trying to think of a way to gently break the truth to the girl.
Damian, as was his habit, put an end to that plan. "You just described the moments before your death. You're alive again, but some time passed. I brought you back."
Lian finally glanced past Dick to stare at Damian. "You got big too," She said in wonder. Then she looked at Bruce and finally at Tim. He met her gaze for a moment, but quickly turned to look at something, anything else. Her eyes looked haunted. He'd seen that sort of confusion and grief too often, and now that costuming wasn't a regular activity for him, he wasn't used to it anymore.
Finally, Lian turned back to Dick. "Where's my dad?"
"He's living in New York. We'll take you to him," Dick promised. Damian scowled at that, but he didn't have a chance to comment. Lian cut him off.
"No. I don't want to see Dad yet. First I want you guys to figure out if this is permanent or if I'm going to die again." She felt along her chest and shoulders with her hands once more, and then looked up at Dick. "This doesn't feel like my body. I want to know that it's real before we get Dad's hopes up. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say he didn't take it very well when I died."
"No, h-he didn't," Dick murmured, and he couldn't hold Lian's gaze as he said it.
She nodded. "Well I don't want to put him through that again. You guys are geniuses. You gotta have a system for checking out this sort of thing."
Damian stepped forward and addressed her while taking a defiant stance. "Excuse me, but I calculated everything down to the last detail. You're fully alive, just as you would have been had Prometheus never made his attack. You'll notice too, that you have a twelve year old's mentality and intellect as opposed to a six year old. You're absolutely fine, and you can feel free to thank me at any moment."
Lian returned his defiant glare with an impressive one of her own. Even though she looked an awful lot like Cheshire, there was definitely some paternal resemblance when she looked that argumentative. "Thank you. But like I said, before we drag Daddy into this I want to know for sure." She turned around and regarded Bruce. "Are there tests you can run for this sort of thing?"
He nodded. "You're far from the first resurrection we've had."
"Alright, I'll hold off on calling Roy," Dick said. He turned to Damian and shrugged, but Damian ignored him, clearly in a pissy mood.
The atmosphere had become unbearably tense. Tim could not wait to be crammed into the tiny batplane with these people for the flight back to Gotham.

Lian was sitting on a cold, metal counter in the Watchtower, wearing sweatshorts and an old t-shirt that didn't remotely fit her. She'd been prodded and watched by just about every spare super scientist or magician that could be called up to investigate, and so far Damian's account of things checked out.
She was back. It was her body, exactly as it would have been if she'd never been killed six years ago.
Zatanna seemed troubled by something though. Once she'd finished examining the tween, she approached Bruce and Damian, who were waiting in another room. "So Robin…how exactly did you learn how to do this? That was some pretty advanced magic."
After six years of crime fighting, during which Damian had presented a nearly flawless record full of achievements some of the older heroes only dreamed about, he'd also managed to pick up some sense of tact. He only felt the urge to roll his eyes, he didn't actually do it.
"I know the magic was advanced. It had to be," He said curtly.
Zatanna arched a brow and looked at him pointedly. "You didn't answer my question."
"Fine…" He didn't want to admit this in front of his father, but she wasn't really leaving him much choice. "I picked up a bit of occultism from the…the maternal side of the family."
"You mean Talia? You let Talia teach you sorcery?" Zatanna asked.
Bruce didn't look as surprised as might be expected. Then again, despite all Damian's achievements, surprising Batman was still something he was shooting for. "That explains the prominence of the Lazarus pit in the ritual."
Damian nodded. "And I spoiled the pit. The cult, and my mother and grandfather, won't ever be able to use it again. I promise you all, this was a win-win."
Zatanna shook her head. "I can't find any evidence, but something feels…off about this resurrection. It might just be some sort of contamination from whatever methods you picked up from your dear old mother. Efficacious though they may be Robin, I really don't recommend using magic you learned from her. Talia and her father can be somewhat short sighted when it comes to the consequences of magical acts."
"You think this bad feeling is residual contamination?" Bruce asked. "You're sure?"
"I think we should keep an eye on Lian Harper. I'm not sure of anything. But I think it's safe to call her father now," Zatanna said. "I did what you asked me to do. I've confirmed her identity. It's her, she's going to stay, and if your son requires anymore tutoring in the magical arts, please ask me. I'd be happy to help."
Bruce nodded, and Zatanna took that as a dismissal. She tipped her top hat and disappeared in a burst of smoke.
Damian waved his arm to dissipate the pungent puffs of smoke. "Her theatricality I could do without."

Meanwhile, once she was free from her magical examinations, Lian started walking around the Watchtower, taking in differences. She found a room with a sofa, a refrigerator, a microwave, and a coffee machine, and went inside to investigate. There were framed pictures of different Justice League lineups along the wall. She started with the oldest and walked down the line, examining each photo and smiling when she saw her grandfather, and then Dinah, and finally her father.
The photo with her father in it must have been taken around the time she died, because he looked exactly as she remembered him. 'I wonder how different he looks now...' Feeling some excitement, she quickly scanned the other pictures, but Red Arrow wasn't in any of them.
Neither was her grandfather, or Dinah, or even Uncle Connor. Lian couldn't help but wonder if Dick had been lying when he'd said everyone was okay. Because six years of Justice League without a single member of her family in it didn't seem like a good sign.
She left the little break room and started wandering along the corridors of the Watchtower again, stopping when she saw Dick leaning on a railing gazing out a massive window at Earth. His expression looked troubled.
Lian walked up to him and leaned against the railing as well, but she watched him instead of the view of space. "Uncle Dick? Can I talk to you for a minute?"
"Sure thing sweetheart. What's up?" He turned to face her, quickly schooling his expression into something easy and pleasant.
And Lian felt a sensation in her stomach that she'd never felt as a six year old. It took her a minute to process that that was a twelve year old girl's response to having a very handsome man smile at you. 'Really? From Uncle Dick? God being older is weird.'
"I was just wondering something..." She mumbled. "You and Daddy...aren't, um, special friends anymore...are you?"
Dick turned back towards the window and shook his head. "We broke up a few years ago."
"Six years?" She guessed.
"I always knew you were going to be a smart kid."
Lian sighed. "It wasn't because of me, was it?"
"It wasn't just because of you. There was a lot going on. Don't worry though, your dad's doing fine now. He did have a hard time when you died, but he's really a lot better now. And he's going to be ecstatic to see you again, I promise."
"Oh, I'm not worried about that," She said with a small frown. "I'm just disappointed. I wanted Daddy to marry you or Auntie Donna. He kind of sucks at dating on his own, and I like it best when he's with one of you. He's not dating Auntie Donna again now, is he?"
Dick made a weird noise in his throat that was something like a squawk. She regarded him with some surprise, but patiently waited for an answer. "Um...your dad's single right now," He finally choked out.
"Oh. Drat. Would you consider dating him again? And maybe settling down at one point? I really don't mind the idea of having two dads at all." Again, she waited him out while he tried to figure out a response, looking more uncomfortable than she'd ever remembered seeing him.
This time, Dick was saved the necessity of answering by Damian stalking up to join them. Even in the absence of a charming smile directed at her, Lian felt the same whooshing sensation in her stomach when she looked at Damian's scowl, and she quickly glanced away as her face reddened.
"There you are. I've been looking everywhere," Damian said. "Zatanna gave us the okay ages ago now. I've been right all along, of course. She's really back."
Dick nodded. "I'll...I'll call Roy then." He looked uncomfortable again, like he wanted to say something but couldn't quite find the words. Instead of telling Lian whatever it was, Dick went off to make the call.
Lian pressed her lips together. "Should I be worried about something?"
"Possibly," Damian answered with his customary brutal honesty.
Lian glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. The boy was definitely cute, but a bit more of an asshole than she remembered. Had he always been that grumpy?
Well, grumpy or not, it didn't really matter. Cautiously, Lian reached over and took Damian's gloved hand in hers, giving it a gentle squeeze. "Thanks for bringing me back Damian. I know I wasn't really showing it earlier, but I am grateful."
When Damian turned to look at her, he had some of that 'little lost boy' look on his face that she remembered from the last time they'd spoken, back when they'd been playing with ponies. She smiled, face lighting up as she saw evidence of the playmate she remembered in the imposing teenager. He looked even more thrown by the smile, but weakly returned it. Lian leaned up on tip toe to kiss his cheek.
Her face felt warm. Lian was sure she was bright red, but it was some consolation that Damian's cheeks were a bit flushed too. Smiling again, she ran off to go wait for her father by the teleporters.
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Birds and Bees