[b] Gotham City,
Somewhere Beneath the Wayne Estate,
12:22 A.M.[/b]

There was a darkness in the cave complexes beneath Wayne Manor that surpassed even the most shadowed corners of Gotham's streets. By night, it grew deeper still until it was almost tangible, almost alive. It was a heavy, sullen thing that resented being pushed away by the cheerful, insistent hum of artificial lights. It lurked at the edges of these bubbles of illumination, eager to swallow up those who ventured far enough away and make them disappear. It was the sort of darkness that liked to slither into the backs of human minds, settle into a half-forgotten ancestral corner, then start quietly birthing nightmares.

Damian Wayne found it insufficient.

Therefore, he had blindfolded himself with a monogrammed hand towel he'd sneaked from one of the bathrooms and now hung suspended upside down from a stalactite, slowly spinning to ensure the proper degree of impairment. He had a throwing knife in each hand and a target propped up at the opposite side of the cave, or what he had been sure was the opposite side when he'd started to spin.

Eyesight and basic spatial orientation were things that any common human could use to hit a target, so Damian had taken them away. Now he could feel the silken, calligraphic W pressing against his face and the tickle of air currents against his skin as he twisted and swayed. There was an older smell underneath the harsh, lemon-tinged acridity of antiseptic cleanser, something that was part animal, part musty stone and part aerial dampness. Comfortingly cthonic, he'd labelled it. It was the sounds that Damian found were most improved, though. He'd become accustomed to the roosting bats in the cavern roofs, their chatter-shriek and the flap-snap of leather wings. The sound of his heartbeat and breathing were there if he checked, a subtle sussurus over a tiny, steady drumbeat. 

There was something else, constant and pinprick sharp in his ears. The high, quiet electrical whine of the Computer as it monitored the city's sins. The noise shifted subtly as he spun, giving him direction. The flow of air across his face and through his hair gave him timing as he twisted, a point of reference narrowed down further with each heartbeat. He waited until they were all lined up perfectly and threw.

Damian's heart briefly jumped up into his stomach after he picked up the sound of metal blades sinking into the target, but after a moment's consideration he tore the blindfold away in frustration. As Damian had suspected, he'd struck a full centimeter off of the bullseye!

It took a few moments thrashing and flailing, some of which seemed more dramatically angry than was strictly necessary, for the boy to undo the knot at his feet. He tumbled soundlessly to the floor in a neatly executed roll, marched over to the target with a purposeful stride, and began kicking it with all of the considerable vindictive savagery a nine-year-old could manage.

Tantrum thoroughly achieved, Damian plucked the twin throwing knives from the target and walked back over to his starting position. He threw both behind himself without bothering to look back and confirm that they had drilled the center exactly, still too nauseated by his earlier failure to care. the boy crossed over to his father's over-sized chair and hopped up to sit in it cross-legged, brooding in unconscious imitation of its' usual occupant.

Pennyworth couldn't have been right about lack of sleep impacting his training no matter how patronizing his tone. After all, 'bedtime' was not now nor had it ever been a term applicable to Damian himself and his League of Shadows training ensured that a maximum of three hours sleep was all he required to function. More likely that it was Father's fault.

If Father was going to go missing for a month, he could have at least had the decency to give Damian free reign of the city in his absence rather than leave him trapped in a nearly empty headquarters with nothing to do but train endlessly, reflect and sketch the occasional bat. Damian had even begun naming the creatures out of boredom based on minor physical tells or behaviors, but it was hardly diverting enough.

The only other things to do were watch the Computer for alerts or use the internet, and moronic, self-indulgent garbage aside doing so offered Damian only glimpses of a realm that was increasingly deteriorating in his father's absence.

Oh, it wasn't that Damian was worried, of course not! Apart from maybe Damian himself there wasn't a human being yet born capable of killing The Batman. It was just that it would hardly do if half of his inheritance burned to the ground while Father was away on some adventure. Besides, how was Damian supposed to prove his superiority as the Wayne heir sitting here doing nothing?

Damian huffed and spun the chair in place, debating forcing Pennyworth to tell him where he'd hidden the sweets if only to practice his interrogation skills. A multi-colored blur caught his attention as he whirled, and it took considerable effort for his small, light frame to slow the chair down enough to figure out what had caught his attention and why.

It was the Robin costumes, over by one wall underneath transparent casings. Damian got out of the chair and started looking them over, face and hands pressing against them in turn to get a better look. Utterly senseless attire for urban combat and stealth for the most part, but they were traditional. Father undoubtedly kept them there for some unfathomable reason involving nostalgia or symbolism or the like, but they did give Damian an idea.

He wasn't allowed off of the grounds of Wayne Manor alone as Damian Wayne.

But what if he were...someone else?