'Wheel and Blade'

A/N: This is set…vaguely toward the end of Dick's time as Batman. Not too fussed about precision here. 'Vardo' is the Angloromani word for the iconic nineteenth-century style 'gypsy wagon,' with the big wheels and the stovepipe and the fancy woodworking.

Damian was waiting in the penthouse when Dick got there, all expectant expression and confrontational stance. Dick closed the door behind him and let himself be confronted—setting aside the briefcase he still felt ridiculous carrying, folding his own arms, and looking unimpressed. "You didn't get expelled," he announced. This was, unsurprisingly, not greeted with relief.

Damian's scorn mostly just rolled off him these days, but lack of discipline was almost as bad for kids as lack of affection. Batman's voice came out of his mouth with no effort, after all these months. "You'll be spending your two weeks off school doing homework and rewriting your reports on the last three months' worth of patrols until they're up to standard."

"My reports are fine."

They conspicuously lacked detail about anything that hadn't annoyed Robin or been defeated by him in a particularly impressive way. Dick had discussed this with him before. "I'm sure you'll find some way to improve them."

And that was all the stern authority-figure he could manage for the day. Dick broke into the incredulous grin he'd had to repress the whole time he was in Gotham Academy, pulled a long narrow parcel from the briefcase, and tugged the canvas wrapping off with a pronounced clinking sound.

He held the contraband up so Damian could see it was undamaged, and shook his head in something that was either admiration or disbelief. "A sword, really? In your locker?"

"It didn't fit in my desk."

Dick's grin retreated a little. "If this was a scheme to get out of school…" Third suspension this semester, and Dick's apology-please-don't-kick-him-out donations had now totaled an amount exceeding tuition, which meant sending Damian to school had now cost nearly two hundred thousand dollars for the year. That was Batman's entire transportation budget this fiscal year, including all Bruce's Batman Inc. trips and general vehicular maintenance. (Dick had never wanted to need to know facts like that.)

"No," Damian denied flatly. "I just wanted my sword."

The thing had been confiscated at the time of its discovery, and returned to Dick by the very disapproving Head of School when he was called in to confer about Damian's latest suspension. It was very nice, single-edged bright steel, with heavily gilded scrollwork on the hilt and a curved edge like a razor—Dick wasn't an expert, but it was either a well-kept nineteenth century antique or a good reproduction. It was really too heavy for an eleven-year-old, but Damian had more upper body muscle than he had any right to at his age, and could definitely handle it.

"What for?"

Damian shrugged. "Assassins?"

A completely valid concern, admittedly, and Dick was intimately familiar with the frustration of having to survive a fight without looking suspiciously skilled, while also making do with improvised weapons. Unfortunately, using real weapons only made your skills more noticeable.

He set the re-sheathed sword on the glass coffee table with another clink, and gave his brother a wry look. "Secret identities, remember?"

"Robin isn't particularly known as a swordsman."

Dick raised an eyebrow. "So you'd be willing to give up long edged weapons while in uniform to be able to use them publicly?"

Damian's lips pressed together in thought—he had that startled look around his eyes that he sometimes got when you put a decision in his lap without his having to demand it—and then nodded sharply. He wasn't allowed to use swords that often as Robin anyway, and as Dick had hoped, going to school for the past few months had sharpened his idea of 'Damian Wayne' as a person who existed outside the enclosed assassin and vigilante communities he'd always known.

"Okay, then." Dick flung his expensive impressing-administrators suit jacket over the back of the sofa and toed his stupid Italian leather shoes off—under the coffee table because Alfred minded clutter less if it didn't actually get in the way. "But you still can't bring a scimitar to school."

Dark eyes glowered. "I retract my decision, then."

"Because the school doesn't allow it. There is no donation large enough for me to smooth that one over. I could probably fund a new wing without buying you the freedom to carry weapons, and before you ask I'm not trying."

Damian folded his arms and put his nose in the air. "It's part of my cultural heritage."

He'd apparently tried that line on the teacher who caught him, too. "I knew you'd learn something at school," Dick grinned, and Damian scowled. It was true that new manipulation techniques hadn't been quite what he had in mind when he insisted on attendance, but he supposed they were an important part of socialization. Dick flung himself over the armchair sideways and nudged Damian's knee with his toes. "I dunno, Baby Bird. I mean, I'm Romanichal and I don't live in a vardo."

Damian sniffed, and didn't move out of range even though he glowered at the sock-covered foot invading his personal space. "You would if it were practically feasible," he said. (Hah, he knew what a vardo was. Or just figured it out from context. Good kid.)

Dick cocked his head, blinked, thought about it a second. Damian knew him surprisingly well. "You're right," he admitted. Brightened. Why had he never thought of this before? "You know what, forget apartment leases, I'm buying an RV."

Damian looked like he'd bitten a lemon. "You have a million-dollar penthouse, Grayson. I am not living in some sort of…vehicle."

Dick grinned. He'd lived in a trailer as a kid, rolling from city to city, and he'd liked that. "It's more convenient than living on horseback. Plenty of storage space and a roof. You should try it, Dami, Arabs are a traditionally nomadic people too—" He abandoned that line of teasing because it was just etching the frown deeper (horses were probably Dami's least favorite domesticated animal, anyway, not that Dick had ever seen him with camels), and nudged with his toes again. "I don't mean now, and I'm not dragging you anywhere. I've been trying to figure out where to go when Bruce takes Gotham back, and this way I don't have to." He could just keep moving until he found somewhere he had a reason to stay.

The frown only deepened more. "Why would you go?"

Oh boy. He didn't believe for a second that Damian was actually surprised at the idea, but calling him out on that kind of thing was just cruel, especially when why might be a real question. "Two Batmans—Batmen?" Batmen was the plural Bruce had used, and he guessed it was the more grammatically correct, but it made 'Batman' sound like a separate species or something. "Is too many for one city, and really Bruce and I are too much…us for one city. We coordinate well and all, but long-term it just never works out."

Because Dick couldn't deal with Bruce's autocratic management style for more than a few days at a time, and Bruce could never keep up his efforts to be more collaborative and open to Dick's input for more than that either, so longer than a week straight tended to result in explosions. Mostly verbal ones.

Damian was eyeballing him. "You were Batman and Robin for nine years."

"I was out of Gotham a lot for the last couple of those, but yeah. And then I grew up, and it didn't work anymore."

Damian looked dissatisfied, and Dick sat up, his right leg dropping over the end of the chair arm and landing on the floor so he could lean forward. That had maybe been a bad thing to say to his current heir in the birdsuit—Robin meant a lot to Damian. It had meant a lot to all his brothers; Dick had never guessed how heavy the name would grow when he chose it. A weight of tradition built up in just twenty years. "Growing up happens," he said, leaning forward.

His partner gave him a scornful look. "Obviously."

"If you and Bruce start to have problems, you can always come stay with me till things cool off." Considering their similar personalities, he suspected that would happen sooner rather than later, and since Dami hadn't really made any friends with the Titans, he'd rather extend the invitation now than find out later that his littlest brother had stormed off on his own, not realizing he'd be welcome anytime, and wound up ambushed by ninjas without backup.

Sardonic eyebrows. "In your mobile home?"

"I think maybe I'll get one of those little trailers you tow, not the solid-van kind." That way he had the option of driving into hazardous situations without taking his entire home with him. Dick was actually getting kind of excited about this; he hadn't been excited about shopping for housing since his first apartment in Bludhaven.

He flopped backward into the chair again, hooking an elbow over the back and smiling crookedly at the ceiling. Yeah. This could work. He knew there were scads of variations on the trailer-mobile-home-RV-campervan idea available, and it was totally a worthwhile investment. It could get wrecked a little more easily than houses, admittedly, but it also wouldn't have permanent neighbors to put in danger or to start asking awkward questions.

He'd ask Timmy for advice on type and model. He probably hadn't looked into the subject specifically before, but he'd be able to do a comparative overview of fixtures and durability and fuel economy and whatever way faster than Dick, and not get distracted by things like whether a specific product came in a nice shade of blue. Was pushing work off on someone a bad way of making them feel valued? It was Tim, though.

Damian's jaw looked mulish. "So you get to pursue cultural traditions, and I don't." He wasn't letting that one go, wow.

Dick's mouth twitched, and he shrugged. Wondered if Damian listed his maternal ethnicity as 'assassin.' "You're eleven and it's six pounds of steel blade. Not at school."

"Tt."

Dick peered over at the weapon on the coffee table. "That's a talwar, anyway; it's from India. And I'm sorry, little D, but even if you pass yourself off as a Sikh, they're going to restrict you to a 'sword' two inches long."

"It doesn't matter." This declaration was less forlorn than scornful, which meant he was planning to ignore the restriction entirely.

Dick raised his head and curled his upper body up away from the chair arm, so he could look at his brother a little more directly. "Look, as long as no one finds out, I don't care if you take twenty knives to school. So long as you only use them on legitimate threats, and remember that I know you can take any of the other students apart with one hand." He paused. "Bruce might feel differently, mind you." Sharing authority could be a real bitch.

"Tt. So this is a rule I am allowed to break so long as I don't get caught?"

Dick let his stomach muscles relax and flopped back again. "Lotta rules like that." He might have tried harder to deceive Dami about this if he'd still been his primary guardian, even though it would have been a futile effort, but Bruce was alive again, even if largely absent, which lessened the need for Dick to be responsible. Sharing authority was definitely not all bad.

"Most rules."

"Figuring out what rules to break and how is an important skill. Just make sure you're doing it for the right reasons." Dick paused once again. "And you realize that if you do get caught again, you'll be in trouble at home as well as at school."

"I can conceal my weapons."

"I know."

"I'm not incompetent."

"So if the teachers catch you with a bladed weapon, I'm going to assume you were being careless."

"Tt." Damian nodded in acknowledgement. He wouldn't get caught.

Dick wondered if he could get Bruce to really pay attention to a seminar on how to communicate effectively with his youngest. But then, he seemed to be pretty much uninterested in improving his communication skills with people, period, so probably not. They'd get along fine, after he left. They would. Bruce loved Damian, and he was the only real Batman, and serving as his father's Robin had been Damian's dream all along. Dick had done his best as the substitute, but it was time for the real thing to step back in. He was definitely looking forward to having the freedom of Nightwing back.

"I'll talk to the Head about your joining fencing club after your suspension is over," he announced. He could get that arranged before handing things off to Bruce, at least.

Damian looked like he was going to object, probably at the loss of time that could be devoted to real training, and Dick held up his hands for time to say his piece. "It's good cover if you want your civilian identity to be able to use a sword for self-defense without attracting suspicion," was the main point, "and it'll be good practice for kicking butt without giving away any more of your skills than you actually need to win.

"Plus, showing off," he added, because Damian liked that almost as much as he did. "And you get to thrash annoying classmates," he threw in, sweetening the pot.

He didn't know if anyone Damian especially disliked was on the fencing team, but undoubtedly once he joined it he'd develop a low-grade enmity with someone. Fencing tended to attract aggressive diva types. It would do Dami good—petty enmity wasn't the greatest kind of bond, but it was a good start. He might even make friends with his teammates as a result, depending on how all the preteen drama fell out. "And if you start winning competitions on the school's behalf, they'll start to let little things slide because you're valuable for more than tuition, and then we can stop buying them off to not kick you out. Plus you can carry all kinds of things in athletic gear cases."

If they got real body armor made to look like standard fencing equipment, he realized, then Damian could have access to good defensive gear at any time, since hauling his sports kit around would rarely count as abnormal, and wouldn't carry the danger of discovery that a Robin uniform would. Considering the ninjas Talia and Ra's periodically sent his way, that would actually be a huge weight off Dick's mind.

"Fine," Damian allowed, as if doing Dick a great favor. "I'll try it."

Dick smiled. He rolled up onto his knees on the chair arm, stretched across the table, and ruffled his little bird's hair. "That's my boy."

A/N: But Damian's still going to have to rewrite those reports. Dick has a history of responding to extreme stress by picking up his life and moving it elsewhere, which I always figured was partly due to a childhood on the road. He's going to get lonely very quickly if he doesn't snare a traveling companion, though.

Al Ghul ethnicity is a tangled mess of mystery, not helped by all the ninja-film clichés they employ, but Ra's is officially an Arab. I figure, based on elements of his aesthetics and some of his basic assumptions about power, that he was probably born a Persian Arab around the rise of the Saffavids, and later headed east from Khorasan into early Mughal India to further his education. And Talia's mum, a few hundred years later, was most likely Greek.