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The air in the Crucible was not air at all; it was manufactured, filtered, and heavy with the scent of ozone and disinfectant, a cold, metallic reek that scraped the back of Damian’s throat. They had been breathing it for ten years.

He moved silently across the cold, polished floor of the cell block, a shadow passing through shadows. His brother, Harry, was already awake, curled tight against the wall in the position that offered the most comprehensive view of the surveillance lens—a useless habit forged from years of knowing they were watched, even when they weren't.

Harry was nine. Damian was twelve. They were blood, born of the same brutal purpose, but they had always felt more like two halves of a single, damaged organism. Damian, lean and sharp, a coiled wire of lethal precision; Harry, small and surprisingly sturdy, a quiet repository of strange, nervous energy the Masters called his Aura.

Tonight was the night.

Damian reached the thin cot, sinking onto the edge. The movement was imperceptible, yet Harry’s eyes, too large and deep green in the gloom, snapped open instantly. They were wide with an old, familiar fear, but beneath it was the fierce, absolute trust that Damian lived for.

“It is time,” Damian whispered, the words barely disturbing the stillness of the reinforced metal room.

Harry didn't flinch. He never flinched at Damian’s words, only at sudden noises or the sound of the Master’s approach. He just nodded, a slight, almost imperceptible dip of his chin. His body language was already shifting, moving from defensive curl to ready tension.

“The main generator cycle is delayed by seventeen seconds tonight,” Damian continued, running a thumb over the scarred skin of Harry’s inner wrist, a silent inventory of damage. “The eastern vent access will be cold for thirty-five seconds past the shift change. I marked the pressure plate failure point on the schematic three cycles ago. We move through the ventilation system, down the defunct maintenance shaft to the primary sewage tunnel, then out through the coastal runoff gate.”

He spoke in rapid, clipped Arabic, the language of their training, the one the general staff didn't bother to translate from the English that dominated the facility’s comms. It was their secret tongue, a private world woven from shared trauma.

Harry didn't ask if it would work, or what happened if it didn't. He never did. He only ever asked the essential questions, the ones pertaining to his role.

“The field,” Harry whispered back, his voice scratchy and unused, a sound Damian rarely heard, “Do I hold the internal mechanisms or the outer shell?”

The question twisted the knot of ice in Damian’s stomach. Harry’s ability—the Aura—was a passive kinetic manipulation field. He could not throw fire or crush concrete, but he could make a lock mechanism seize, he could slow a bullet’s trajectory by millimeters, or, most critically, he could anchor a door closed against immense pressure for a few precious seconds. The effort drained him, left him shaking and sick for days.

“The outer shell,” Damian said, meeting the green gaze unflinchingly. “The locking mechanisms on the inner ring of the maintenance shaft are redundant. The shell is weaker. Hold it long enough for me to weld the seams. Four seconds. No more.”

Four seconds. That was the distance between life and recapture.

Harry swallowed, his throat bobbing. The fear was a living thing in his eyes now, bright and liquid, but his hand found Damian's, his small fingers wrapping around the thick bone of Damian's wrist. The touch was the only thing that felt real in this metallic tomb.

“I will be right behind you,” Damian swore, the oath thick and heavy.

“I know,” Harry breathed.

The seventeen-second delay stretched into an eternity. When the lights finally flickered, dropping the main corridor into a deep, buzzing twilight, Damian moved.

The escape was a ballet of silent, calculated violence. Damian was a ghost, a blur of motion honed to perfection. The guard outside their cell, dull-witted and predictable, was neutralized before his jaw could even drop. Damian moved through the corridor, accessing the vent hatch, cutting the reinforced screws with a tool fashioned from a broken surgical instrument. He didn't look back until they were inside the cramped, dust-caked shaft.

Harry slid in after him, efficient and tiny. The air here was marginally better—stale, but smelling of the outside world, of ancient dust and rust and a faint, hopeful trace of salt air.

They crawled for what felt like hours, the metal groaning occasionally under their weight, the sound swallowed by the massive, rumbling infrastructure of the facility. Damian led, his focus absolute: the schematic was burned into his memory, every turn, every dead end, every sensor cluster he had to bypass manually. Harry followed, close enough to feel Damian’s heels nudge his forehead, a constant, comforting weight.

They reached the defunct maintenance shaft, a terrifyingly steep vertical drop. Damian secured the improvised nylon rope, a collection of woven medical restraints stolen over months.

“Go first,” Damian instructed. “Keep your feet against the wall, don’t touch the center supports. Too much static.”

Harry nodded, his eyes glowing faintly in the dark. He was already drawing on his power, the faint shimmer of his Aura wrapping around him like a thin, protective film. It was the only warning Damian got before the entire facility’s alarm system shrieked into life.

Red alert. Sector Gamma lockdown. Containment breach at Cell 7-Delta.

The sound was a physical blow. The silence was gone, replaced by a deafening, strobe-lit panic.

“They anticipated the generator delay,” Damian hissed, hauling Harry up by his collar and shoving him toward the opening. “Go! Now!”

Harry didn't hesitate. He dropped into the shaft, the rope burning through Damian’s grip as the boy descended with unnatural speed.

Damian followed, his blood roaring in his ears, his mind already recalculating. The main gates would seal in forty seconds. The secondary exits would lock down in sixty. The Crucible was not a prison; it was a cage designed by paranoia, and now the mechanism was snapping shut.

They landed hard in the sewage tunnel, the air here rank and suffocating, thick with methane and the black, oily discharge of industrial waste. It was freedom, relatively speaking.

“Run,” Damian ordered, pushing Harry forward.

They ran, splashing through the tepid, foul water. The distant clatter of boots, too many boots, echoed from the corridor behind them. The Masters had already deployed their elite security team—The Talons. Fast. Merciless.

They hit the reinforced steel door of the coastal runoff gate. The timer on Damian's stolen wrist-mounted chronometer read 00:00:15.

Damian slammed his palm against the hidden sensor panel—the one he’d sabotaged weeks ago. The door groaned, the locking bars retracting with agonizing slowness.

Clang. Clang.

They were still ten feet from the escape route when the Talons rounded the corner. Ten massive, armoured figures, their heads obscured by night-vision helmets.

“Halt! Do not engage the kinetic subject. Capture both targets!” the lead Talon commanded over a static-laced comm.

The chronometer showed 00:00:04 remaining on the gate lockdown sequence. The door was only half-open, a gap wide enough for a child to slip through, but not wide enough for Damian to safely enter and then turn to defend it.

Damian drew the garrote wire from his sleeve, a deadly reflex. He was faster, smarter, but there were ten of them, and his brother was a liability in a direct fight.

“Harry, through the gate, now!” Damian snarled, already lunging at the lead Talon, aiming for the neck joint.

Harry didn't move. He stood, his feet braced in the sludge, his head tilting up to look at his older brother. The fear was gone, replaced by a glassy, terrifying serenity.

“No,” Harry said, his voice surprisingly firm, cutting through the panicked comm chatter and the thunder of their own desperate breathing.

Damian paused, the wire inches from the Talon’s throat. “What? Harry, don’t be a fool! Go!”

“They will follow you,” Harry insisted, the faintest blue-white shimmer beginning to radiate from his skin, a visible manifestation of the Aura. The light was faint, but it was enough to momentarily dazzle the night-vision lenses of the Talons. “They only need one of us to stop the pursuit. They need me more. My bloodline is pure. You are replaceable.”

The callous truth of the Master’s doctrine—repeated since birth—sliced through Damian’s rage. Harry was the key to their most recent, most horrific project. Damian was merely the disposable older guard.

“I won’t leave you,” Damian gritted out, the words ripped from his chest.

The Talons recovered quickly. Three of them peeled off toward the half-open gate.

Harry didn't argue. He raised his hands, small palms facing the oncoming rush of the armed guards. The blue-white shimmer intensified, growing brighter, stronger, until it pulsed violently.

An explosion of energy, not physical, but temporal.

The Talons closest to him stumbled, their movements slowing as if wading through heavy syrup. The ambient sound warped, the shriek of the alarm dropping several octaves into a low, sickening bass hum.

“I am the anchor,” Harry whispered, his face screwed up in impossible strain, a bead of blood tracking from his nostril. “You are the escape. Run, Dami. Don’t look back. I will find you. I promise.”

He thrust his hand forward, a monumental effort. The heavy, reinforced steel gate, which had been grinding closed, suddenly slammed back open with impossible speed, clearing the entire entryway. The force of his action threw him backward, crashing hard into the sewage pipe, the Aura collapsing instantly, leaving him gasping and vulnerable.

“Damian!” he screamed, the name raw, terrified, and absolute.

Damian knew, in that split second, that if he turned back, they would both die. Harry had bought him four seconds of absolute, undeniable freedom, a clean escape route, and a massive confusion among the enemy.

Four seconds.

He launched himself through the gap, not even looking at his brother, the betrayal a cold, nauseating sickness that threatened to paralyze him.

“I am coming back for you!” he yelled, the promise lost in the sudden, echoing burst of sound as the Talons hit Harry.

Then he was through, slamming into the rough, coastal air, the taste of salt and fear on his tongue. He ran until the sickening clang of the Crucible’s final, heavy lockdown echoed behind him, a sound that sealed his brother in and left him, irrevocably, alone.

Five years.

Five years was 1,826 days, or 43,824 hours, or 2,629,440 minutes, give or take the leap year. Damian had counted every one of them. He had spent the first year running, the second year learning to live outside the metal box, the third year integrating into a new, impossibly chaotic family—the Wayne family, a concept as foreign and absurd as sunlight. He had spent the last two years planning.

The guilt was not a passive emotion; it was an organ in his body, a second, failing heart that pumped icy regret through his veins. Harry’s face—that final, serene, blood-streaked mask of sacrifice—was his shadow, his constant companion.

He sat now in the shadowed corner of the Wayne Manor library, the leather-bound volumes around him smelling of old paper and wealth. He was eighteen, a graduate of the most rigorous prep schools, an accomplished artist, and, secretly, the vigilante Robin—a weapon repurposed. But his primary purpose remained unfulfilled.

“You’re still staring at the North Atlantic projection, habibi,” a voice cut through the silence.

Dick Grayson, his eldest adoptive brother, perched on the arm of a nearby chair, sipping Earl Grey tea that smelled far too civilised for the current conversation.

Damian didn’t look up from the three-dimensional holographic map projected onto the antique mahogany table. The map detailed the deep-sea geological anomalies off the coast of Greenland, specifically, the one that matched the heat signature spike he’d uncovered in a leaked server log three months ago.

“The term is al-habibi, and I am reviewing my logistics,” Damian corrected automatically, his gaze fixed on the faint, pulsing red dot beneath the frigid waves. “The structure is too large, too deep, and too regular to be natural.”

“It’s a black site, Damian. We know it. You’ve known it for two years. But every time you get close, they shift the acoustic shielding or shut down the primary surface access.” Dick set down his cup, his voice dropping to the low, earnest register that always grated on Damian's nerves. “You can’t go in alone. Not this time.”

“I do not require a babysitter,” Damian snapped, his fingers tightening on the controls. “I require the schematics for the structural weaknesses of the Argo submersible.”

“I’m not a babysitter. I’m family,” Dick countered, the simple statement landing with the force of a punch. “And I know what this is about. It's Harry, isn't it? You’ve got a hit.”

Damian closed his eyes, a flicker of pain crossing his stoic features. He had never told anyone the full truth of the escape, only that he’d broken out of a facility and that his younger brother had been left behind. The Masters were known only as 'The Covenant,' an extremist, highly funded offshoot of the League of Assassins, dedicated to eugenics and human weaponisation.

“I found a personnel manifest from three weeks ago,” Damian finally admitted, his voice rough. “An internal transfer memo. Subject designation: Anchor.”

Dick’s playful demeanor vanished. His face went utterly blank, then grim. “Anchor. That’s… that’s his designation from the Covenant, isn’t it?”

Damian nodded, the action heavy. “They never used names, only designations. I was Blade. Harry was Anchor. The field manipulator. They moved him from the Gamma Sector containment facility—the one I escaped—to the deep-sea research outpost. It means they are preparing the final phase of whatever monstrous procedure they intended.”

“The deep-sea site is Ra’s al Ghul territory, but even he keeps that one quiet,” Dick murmured, rubbing his temples. “It’s secure. If they moved him there, they’re not keeping him alive for long-term study. It’s for deployment or disposal.”

“Then I have less time than I planned,” Damian said, rising smoothly, the map dissolving into a cloud of shimmering blue light. “The Argo schematics, Grayson. Now.”

“Damian, wait,” Dick said, standing up, his tone pleading. “Let us help. Let Bruce help. You can’t face this trauma—your trauma—alone. We’re better when we work together. We’ll form a team. We’ll get him out.”

Damian paused, his back to Dick. He felt the familiar pull of the Bat-Family—the strange, protective warmth of Bruce’s silent understanding, Alfred’s comforting presence, Tim’s hyper-efficient planning. But the guilt was too loud. This was his debt. His failure.

“No,” Damian said, his voice flat and hard. “This is mine. He bought my freedom with his safety. I will purchase his with my life, if necessary. The Talons who cornered us—they were mine. The Masters who trained us—mine. You do not understand the internal language, the security protocols, the silences that betray them. I go alone.”

Dick sighed, a long, weary sound, but he knew the futility of arguing with Damian when the boy was this focused. “Fine. You go alone. But I will provide the technical support. Tim can cover the satellite imaging. Alfred will have a Medevac chopper ready. You won’t be truly alone, Dami. We’ll be your eyes and ears.”

Damian didn’t respond, didn't thank him. He didn’t have the emotional capacity for gratitude. He just nodded once, sharply, and walked out, already running through the final plan, measuring the depths of the icy ocean, the thickness of the steel walls, and the distance between him and the brother he had left behind five years ago.

The Covenant outpost was a concrete tumour grafted onto the side of a massive, submerged trench. It was three miles down, shrouded in perpetual darkness, visible only by the spectral glow of its own exhaust vents and the brief, blinding beam of the Argo’s running lights.

Damian piloted the submersible, a highly modified prototype Bruce had used for deep-sea salvage. He felt the crushing pressure of the water outside, a physical manifestation of the pressure in his chest.

Harry is here. Harry is here. The mantra was a drumbeat, synchronised with the rhythmic creak of the submersible’s hull.

He docked the Argo silently, attaching magnetic clamps to the forgotten loading dock on the outpost’s lowest level, a sector that Tim’s thermal imaging had identified as defunct. He bypassed the airlock security with a combination of high-frequency pulses and a forgotten override code from his training days. The Masters were paranoid, but they were also arrogant. They recycled everything.

The airlock hissed open. The interior was dry, cold, and silent. Damian emerged in full Robin gear, the suit streamlined and weighted for deep-sea combat, his utility belt stocked with tools tailored to breaching the Covenant’s defenses.

He moved through the facility, a black, efficient predator in a maze of gray concrete. The halls were wider here, cleaner, and filled with a more sophisticated, humming energy. He avoided cameras, slipped past armed patrols, and disabled pressure sensors.

After an hour of tense infiltration, he found the central data hub. He accessed the server, feeding a tailored virus—coded by Tim—into the system. The internal manifest flickered onto his screen.

Subject: Anchor (H. P.). Status: Active. Location: Research Bay Delta-9. Purpose: Final integration and deployment preparation.

Delta-9. The designation sent a chill straight to his bones. Delta was the isolation ward, the place reserved for subjects deemed too volatile or too broken for standard observation.

He found the bay after another twenty minutes of navigation, led by the rhythmic thump-thump of heavy machinery audible even through the thick walls. The door was made of triple-layered titanium alloy. No lock-picking, no electronic override would work.

Damian placed a shaped charge—a thin, black disc of polymer explosive—and retreated, keying the detonator.

The blast was muffled but concussive. The titanium door crumpled inwards like wet foil. Alarms blared instantly, the sound shrill and frantic.

Damian charged into the room, heart pounding.

It was a vast, circular chamber, dominated by a massive, complex machine that pulsed with that same sickly blue-white light he remembered from five years ago. Wires as thick as his arm snaked out of the apparatus, connecting to a central column of gleaming, unfamiliar metal.

And in the very centre, strapped into a chair that was half surgical table, half throne, was Harry.

Damian froze. The image was a punch to the gut, stealing his breath and blurring his vision.

Harry was older now, almost fifteen, but he looked barely a decade. His limbs were thin, almost skeletal. His face was pale, his cheekbones sharp, and his hair, once black and slightly unruly, was shaved close to the scalp, exposing a network of faint, glowing metallic threads that seemed to be woven directly into his skin, disappearing beneath the bandages around his wrists and ankles. His eyes were closed, his head lolling.

The blue-white light pulsed from the metallic threads. It was the Aura, but amplified, weaponized, contained.

“Harry,” Damian whispered, the name catching in his throat, hoarse and useless.

A voice, cold and amused, cut through the clamor of the alarms. “Subject Anchor. A magnificent piece of bio-engineering. You should be proud, little Blade.”

Dr. Silas, one of the original Masters, stood to the side, flanked by two armed Talons. He was a small man with a neat white beard and eyes that held the chilling disinterest of a scientist viewing a specimen.

“You,” Damian snarled, pulling a razor-sharp batarang from his belt.

“Me,” Silas agreed pleasantly. “You grew up well, Damian. A shame your loyalty is so misplaced. The Covenant offered you the world. Instead, you chose… Gotham’s eccentricities.” He gestured to Harry with a wave of his hand. “The boy, however, finally understands true duty. He is no longer just a kinetic manipulator. He is an Anchor. A weaponized stabilizer for temporal and spatial flux. A true living singularity.”

Damian ignored him, his focus on the straps around Harry’s chest and wrists. “Release him.”

“Impossible. The containment field keeps him stable. Without it, the pressure alone would scatter his molecular structure. Five years of constant forced containment, Damian. It changes a person. It breaks them.” Silas clicked a device on his wrist. “But he is still useful. Anchor, wake up.”

Harry’s eyes fluttered open. They were the same impossible green, but deadened, unfocused, and ringed with dark circles. He saw Damian. No flicker of recognition, just a mechanical turning of the head.

The brainwashing. The conditioning. Damian felt a new, colder fury rise up.

“Anchor, new directive. Neutralize threat Blade,” Silas commanded.

Harry’s body remained still, strapped to the chair, but the blue-white light surrounding him flared, brilliant and aggressive. It coalesced into a dense, shimmering field. The air around Damian grew thick and heavy, like trying to move through liquid cement.

Damian couldn't move. He was trapped, pinned by the crushing weight of his brother's amplified power. This wasn't the four-second struggle in the sewer pipe; this was absolute, paralyzing control.

“Do you see, Damian? He is obedient. He is ours,” Silas crowed triumphantly.

Damian forced his gaze to Harry's face. He could see the strain, the tremor in the boy’s jaw, even as the eyes remained blank. Harry’s power was crushing him, but it was also killing his brother.

I am coming back for you. The promise echoed in the silent space between them.

Damian dropped his weapons, the loud clatter a desperate gamble. He raised his hands slowly, a gesture of surrender.

“Harry,” he said, his voice stripped of the Robin professionalism, raw and human. He spoke the old language, the language of their hidden world. “Al-habibi. Habbibi. It is I. Damian.”

The Talons shifted nervously. Silas frowned, annoyed. “The subject does not respond to archaic dialect. Anchor, destroy him.”

The pressure increased, grinding Damian’s teeth. He gasped, his lungs straining against the invisible weight.

“You promised,” Damian whispered, the tears blurring his vision, the first tears he had shed in over a decade. “You promised you would find me. I am here. I am the escape. You are the anchor. Let us go home, my brother. Remember the salt air. Remember the dark. Remember the promise.”

He saw it then. A microscopic twitch in Harry’s left eye. A momentary, horrific flash of sanity that broke the glassy exterior.

Trauma versus Love. Conditioning versus Blood.

The blue-white field faltered.

Silas noticed it immediately. “Anchor! What are you doing? Full power, now!”

Harry’s lips parted, a dry, cracked line. He couldn’t speak, but his eyes, suddenly, fearfully, focused. He saw Damian, not as Blade, but as Dami. His escape.

The shimmering field around Damian didn't vanish, but it shifted. Instead of crushing Damian, the kinetic force suddenly surged outward, slamming the two Talons into the far wall with enough G-force to shatter their armour. They hit the concrete, unconscious, the sound sickeningly loud.

“Disobedient little monster!” Silas shrieked, fumbling for a sidearm.

Damian didn’t wait. The moment the pressure released, he moved, a flash of black and green. He launched a smoke pellet at Silas, blinding the Master, then sprinted toward Harry’s chair.

“I am sorry, brother. It ends now,” Damian muttered, his hands flying over the metallic threads connected to Harry’s scalp, severing the conductors one by one with a surgical blade, the wires hissing and sparking.

Harry cried out, a thin, choked sound of pure agony, the blue-white light dissolving into chaos. The machine shrieked, the entire bay plunging into darkness as the kinetic feedback overloaded the generator.

“We are free,” Damian whispered, unbuckling the final restraint, lifting his brother’s feather-light body into his arms.

He ran, the alarms screaming, the Talons regrouping, Silas shouting incoherent commands into the comms. He ran back the way he came, Harry heavy and still in his arms, the metallic threads sparking and pulling at Damian’s suit, the sound of boots gaining ground behind them.

He reached the Argo airlock. He sealed the door just as a volley of rounds impacted the hull, the metal groaning a final protest. He threw Harry onto the command couch, stripping off his own utility belt and strapping himself in.

“Initiate emergency ascent,” Damian commanded into the comm-link.

“Initiating, Dami! Hold tight! They’re sending a submersible after you!” Tim’s anxious voice crackled in his ear.

The Argo shot up, fighting the deep-sea pressure, shaking violently. Damian ignored the stress on the hull, ignored the depth warnings flashing red. He focused only on the pale, still face of his little brother.

He unzipped his own reinforced jacket and wrapped it carefully around Harry. Harry was shaking, shivering violently, his skin ice cold to the touch.

“Harry. Look at me. We are out. We are free,” Damian urged, tapping Harry’s cheek lightly.

Harry’s eyes opened, but they were swimming with tears now, a mix of pain, terror, and a tiny, fragile spark of recognition.

“You… came,” Harry whispered, his voice thin as glass.

The simplicity of the statement—the wonder in it—shattered the last of Damian’s composure. He pulled his brother close, hugging him fiercely, ignoring the way Harry’s body trembled and spasmed.

“I promised, habibi,” Damian murmured into the thin, shaved hair. “I promised. We are going home.”

Home was the Batcave.

It was vast, damp, and smelled of ozone, motor oil, and old stone. It was everything the Crucible was not—wild, uncontrolled, and, critically, safe.

The moments following their ascent were a blur. Tim and Dick met the Argo at the harbour. Alfred, pale with worry, was waiting in the medical bay of the Cave. Damian had refused to let anyone touch Harry until they were in the sterile environment of the med-bay.

Alfred Pennyworth moved with a quiet, devastating efficiency. He saw the trauma in the way the boy’s body barely registered his own presence, a terrifying stillness that spoke of learned helplessness. He saw the exhaustion etched into Damian's normally implacable face.

“Severe malnutrition, dehydration, and extensive scarring from the bio-implants,” Alfred announced after a preliminary scan, his voice tight with controlled emotion. He kept his hands gentle, movements slow and predictable, never once breaching Harry’s line of sight without warning. “I cannot remove these metallic threads, Master Damian. They appear integrated with the nervous system. Any attempt to cut them without specialized equipment will risk permanent neural damage.”

Damian stood by the examination table, still in his Robin gear, smeared with ocean brine and Covenant oil. He felt hollowed out, the years of guilt momentarily replaced by a cold, practical fear.

“They are stabilizers,” Damian explained, watching as Alfred administered a careful IV. “They anchor his Aura. Without them, the kinetic energy is unstable, possibly volatile. But they also funnel his power into the Covenant’s machinery. They are the means of control.”

Bruce, silent and formidable, stood beside him, his massive hand resting lightly on Damian’s shoulder—a rare, non-verbal expression of support.

Bruce watched his youngest son, Damian, stripped of his usual arrogance, standing vigil over the frail boy on the table. The sight was painful, a visceral reminder of the trauma he hadn't protected Damian from, now doubled by the suffering of the brother Damian had protected. Bruce felt a terrifying sense of obligation; this was not just another rescue. This was family reclaiming a piece of its fragmented soul.

I will call Lucius Fox, Bruce thought, his voice a low rumble when he spoke. “He has the proprietary magnetic resonance imaging tools that can isolate the field generators in the wires. We will remove them. But first, he needs to stabilize.”

For the next twenty-four hours, Damian did not leave Harry’s side. He shed the Robin suit, sitting in a thin t-shirt and sweats, the metallic scent of the Crucible clinging to his skin. He held Harry’s hand, the boy drifting in and out of a medically induced sleep.

Alfred brought a steady stream of liquids, protein shakes, and gentle, low-fat broths, the scent of which was overwhelmingly good and non-industrial. Harry was too quiet, even when awake. His gaze would drift over the sophisticated medical equipment, then fix on Damian’s face with a painful intensity. He hadn't asked where they were, or who these strange, kind people were. He only cared about Damian.

In a brief moment of lucidity, Harry’s hand tightened around Damian’s.

“Did you run far?” Harry asked, the question making Damian’s stomach clench.

“Across an ocean, habibi. Into a mountain cave,” Damian replied, trying for lightness, for the normalcy they had never known.

Harry smiled, a brief, ghost of a thing that twisted Damian’s heart. “Good.”

The next day, Lucius Fox arrived with a team and a highly specialized medical laser array. The removal procedure took five agonizing hours. Damian refused to leave the room, holding Harry’s hand, whispering their old escape routes, their survival mantras, the names they had given each other in the dark.

When the last metallic thread was severed, pulled away like a strand of parasitic silver, the blue-white light that had haunted Harry for five years vanished completely. Harry was simply—still.

Recovery was slow, brutal, and long.

The physical injuries healed first: the malnutrition was treated, the scars faded into thin, silver lines. But the psychological damage was deep. Harry had the mannerisms of a highly trained weapon that had been left on standby for half a decade. He ate precisely, slept rigidly, and spoke only when spoken to. The world outside the Crucible was too loud, too bright, too free.

Damian took on the role of his primary caretaker. It was a silent, unacknowledged duty, one that he carried with the same deadly focus he applied to his vigilantism.

Harry was moved upstairs to a quiet bedroom. On the third morning in the Manor, Harry was wandering through the enormous, confusing corridors when he stumbled upon the main kitchen. The sheer size and warmth of the room—all shining copper and the rich aroma of baking bread—made him pause, overwhelmed.

Alfred was at the centre counter, kneading dough for scones. He sensed Harry instantly, turning with a soft, non-threatening smile.

“Good morning, Master Harry. Did you sleep well?” Alfred’s voice was warm, like the oven.

Harry nodded, rigid. “Yes, sir. Thank you for the routine. It is... helpful.”

Alfred chuckled, a gentle sound. “A pleasure. Perhaps you’d like to try your hand at shaping these? It’s wonderfully distracting.”

Harry’s hands were hesitant, muscle memory only used to surgical tools and garrote wire. But Alfred showed him the movements, slow and simple. The soft, yielding dough beneath his fingers felt impossibly kind.

Then, Alfred’s arm bumped a cooling rack balanced on the edge of the counter. It clattered, the sound sharp and sudden in the quiet kitchen.

Harry’s body instantly seized. He didn't jump or scream; he simply locked up, eyes wide, breath catching in his throat, bracing for the inevitable punishment that always followed a mistake in the Crucible. His body was a taught wire, waiting for the electric shock or the strike.

Alfred didn’t react to the noise or Harry’s reaction. He just stopped what he was doing, looked at the scattered wire rack, and gave a long, philosophical sigh.

“Oh, bother. clumsy old thing, aren’t I?” Alfred murmured, his voice utterly devoid of anger or disappointment. He bent down slowly, methodically picking up the rack. “No matter, Master Harry. Such little errors are simply the spice of life. Nothing a good cup of tea can't fix.”

Harry stared, his breathing returning in shaky bursts. He watched Alfred. The Master hadn't shouted. The Master hadn't hit him. The Master had apologized to himself for the mistake. The world hadn't ended.

When Alfred returned, Harry was still staring at the spot where the rack had fallen.

“Are you quite alright, my dear?” Alfred asked, gently placing a small bowl of sugar near Harry.

Harry swallowed, his throat dry. “I… when a mistake is made, there is a penalty. To correct the error. Is there... nothing I must do?”

Alfred smiled, a heartbreakingly gentle expression. He took Harry's cold, dough-dusted hands in his own. “The only penalty for a mistake here is learning from it, Harry. And correcting it if possible. The consequence of the dropped rack is merely a minute delay in our tea time. To correct that error, we simply continue with kindness.”

Harry blinked, processing the alien concept. He looked down at the soft dough. He took a tiny piece and rolled it perfectly into a small, delicate rosebud—an old, forgotten skill from a childhood before the Crucible. He pressed it into Alfred’s palm.

“A correction,” Harry whispered, his eyes shining with pure sincerity. “For the delay. I apologize for my distress.”

Alfred’s control nearly broke. He looked at the tiny, perfect dough rose, then at the earnest, bruised soul of the boy. The purity of his nature, untainted, Alfred thought, a profound love settling in his heart.

“Thank you, my dear boy,” Alfred said, his voice thick with emotion. He placed the dough rose carefully on the baking sheet. “It is perfect. And your distress is always understood. Never apologized for."

Damian’s insistence on being Harry’s non-stop shadow began to strain his relationship with Bruce. Damian felt that only his hyper-vigilance could protect Harry, yet Bruce knew that true healing required trust and space.

Two months into recovery, Bruce found Harry in the enormous, rarely used study. Harry wasn't reading, but was simply sitting in a massive leather armchair, curled up small, listening to the muffled crackle of the fireplace. Damian was, predictably, standing guard near the door, arms crossed, stiff as a sentinel.

Bruce walked in, not toward Harry, but toward the imposing mahogany desk. He settled into the chair, opening a heavy, financial ledger. He didn't speak to Harry, or even look at him. He simply existed.

Harry, who always processed threat through silent observation, studied Bruce. He noted the careful, steady rhythm of the pen, the heavy material of the suit jacket, the absolute stillness that was far more potent than Damian’s rigid tension. Bruce wasn't guarding Harry; Bruce was simply being.

After twenty minutes of silence, Harry spoke, his voice soft, almost lost in the vast room.

“The Masters… they said control was peace,” Harry mused, looking into the fire.

Bruce kept writing, not breaking his rhythm, yet every fibre of his attention was tuned to the boy.

“Control is a lie,” Bruce replied, his voice low and gravelly, the sound of years spent fighting for something he could never fully grasp. “Peace is acceptance. Of the chaos. Of the inevitability of error.”

Harry considered this. “I find I am too heavy now. The house is too light. I do not fit the physics.”

Damian’s knuckles whitened at the door, but Bruce gave a near-imperceptible shake of his head—a silent order to stand down.

Bruce closed the ledger, setting the pen down carefully. He turned to Harry, his eyes, often masked, holding a depth of shared understanding.

“You don’t have to fit, Harry. That is the luxury of freedom,” Bruce said. “Damian felt too heavy when he first came here. He was a perfect weapon in a world that only asked him to be a son. That mismatch is painful. But here, you are not defined by the weight of your past. You are defined by the kindness you still possess, despite everything.”

Harry looked at Bruce, those deep, green eyes searching for the hidden trap, the consequence of such blatant emotional honesty. He found none. Just a man sitting in the dark, offering a piece of his own broken soul as proof that survival was possible.

“I only know how to be an anchor,” Harry whispered, a small, sad admission.

Bruce rose slowly and walked to the fireplace. He picked up a heavy, old, wooden ship model—a fragile thing Dick had built years ago. He handed it to Harry.

“The anchor only matters when it holds something worthwhile,” Bruce said, looking not at the ship, but at Harry. “You held Damian. You anchored his future. You anchored us. We are your ship now, Harry. You get to rest.”

The warmth of the unspoken acceptance, the knowledge that Bruce saw his deepest self and found it worthy, washed over Harry. He held the fragile ship model, the smooth wood surprisingly warm. He realized that this man, who was strong enough to face the worst of the world, was quietly giving Harry permission to be weak.

Damian watched from the door, his throat tight. He saw the shift in Harry’s posture, the relaxation in his hands. It was a level of healing Damian's vigilance could not achieve. He understood then: his brothers and father were not threats to Harry’s safety; they were necessary scaffolding for Harry’s reconstruction. He lowered his defensive posture, allowing the family’s collective warmth to finally touch him, too.

As the months continued, Dick and Tim found their own quiet, meaningful ways to build trust, often with Damian's silent, watchful permission.

Dick, ever the champion of normalcy, decided to introduce movie night. He found Harry curled rigidly on the sofa, Damian a stiff wall beside him, as a classic superhero movie began. When a sudden, loud explosion rattled the speakers, Harry flinched violently, pulling his knees up to his chest, his eyes wide and unfocused.

The action was immediate and synchronized. Dick, on the opposite end, didn't check the volume. Instead, he gently placed his hand on the top of Harry's head and started humming, a low, vibrant, soothing sound—an old circus lullaby.

At the same time, Tim, sitting on the floor, didn't pause the film, which would have drawn unwanted attention to Harry. He instantly pulled a spare blanket off the armrest and draped it over Harry's legs, settling the weight across his thighs, a gentle pressure that spoke of presence without demand.

Harry felt the weight, the vibration of the humming, and the immediate, non-verbal understanding of the two older brothers. No one asked if he was okay. No one made him talk. They simply adjusted the environment to make it safe.

The fear subsided, replaced by a deep, physical sensation of being sheltered. Harry leaned his head back against the cushion, the humming turning the terrifying explosion into a dull, manageable thrum.

“The music is pleasant,” Harry murmured to Dick, his voice soft.

Dick smiled, continuing to hum. “Glad you think so, pal. It’s got a good rhythm. Helps stabilize the background noise.”

Tim shifted on the floor, reaching back to hand Harry a warm, freshly microwaved marshmallow from a nearby bowl. Harry took it, the soft, sticky sweetness a shocking contrast to the trauma. He realized they weren't just protecting him; they were actively teaching him how to exist outside of survival mode.

As weeks turned into months, the Bat-Family’s collective protective instinct solidified. They had all, individually, witnessed the horror Harry carried and the impossible purity of his gentle nature. Damian's overprotective stance, once viewed as merely controlling, was now understood and adopted by all.

Dick, ever the playful one, invented 'Protocol Harry' for any family gathering.

"Harry, your dessert is served with exactly two blueberries, perfectly centred," Dick announced one night, sliding a small bowl of ice cream to Harry's spot at the table with exaggerated care. "We checked the molecular stability of the sugar crystals to ensure peak comfort."

Tim, in on the joke, added, "I ran simulations. Any more than three blueberries destabilizes his perceived safety zone. Dami's parameters were highly accurate."

Damian only grunted, but a tiny, almost invisible upturn of his lips acknowledged the compliance. He reached out and subtly shifted Harry’s fork—one of his few remaining personal habits. Harry, meanwhile, just smiled faintly, a genuine, easy expression.

“Thank you, all of you,” Harry said quietly, looking at each of them. “I appreciate the tedium.”

“It’s not tedious, habibi,” Damian murmured, his voice softer now, almost a purr. “It is necessary. And you are worth the precision.”

Harry, warm and secure in the circle of their collective care, didn't resist the overprotection. He leaned into it. He knew the world was loud and terrifying, but now, he had four enormous, powerful people (and Alfred, the most powerful of all) who created a soft, predictable pocket of grace just for him. He was the anchor, still, but now he was anchored by love, not metal.

He took the small bowl of ice cream and pushed one of the two blueberries toward Damian.

“Sharing is also helpful for stability,” Harry announced, meeting his brother’s surprised gaze with eyes that were now clear, vibrant, and utterly kind. “You should have one.”

Damian stared at the blueberry, then at Harry’s open, earnest expression. He knew Harry was testing the waters of shared, non-transactional kindness. Damian picked up the berry and ate it. It tasted like pure, unconditional love.

“It is accepted,” Damian conceded, and the entire table breathed a collective, silent sigh of satisfaction.

A year passed.

Harry’s Aura, the terrifying kinetic field, was gone, but the threads of his existence, once weaponized, were now being woven into the fabric of the Wayne family. He was a quiet presence, an island of serenity in their chaos, constantly tending to the small acts of kindness that defined him.

One winter evening, the Batcave was quiet. Dick and Tim were out on patrol, and Bruce was upstairs, ostensibly resting. Damian was working on his katana maintenance in the medical bay, the metallic scent of sharpening steel oddly comforting.

Harry wandered in, wearing one of Dick's ridiculously oversized college hoodies and soft, woolen socks. He stopped near the end of the table, watching the focused, rhythmic movement of Damian’s hands.

“What were they going to do with the Anchor?” Harry asked, breaking the silence. It was the first time he had asked about his designation in months, using the term not with fear, but academic detachment.

Damian stopped, his movements halting instantly. He looked at Harry, his expression calm, accepting of the necessary darkness of the question.

“The Covenant was developing a long-range kinetic bomb,” Damian explained, putting down the whetstone. “They needed a human component—a living capacitor—to stabilize the temporal flux field required for the distance. Your Aura was unique. You were the only known subject who could anchor the spatial coordinates reliably without fracturing the time-space continuum. They were going to deploy you remotely, then detonate the field to create an EMP that would effectively erase a city from the timeline.”

Harry processed the horror with a disconcerting lack of visible emotion. He’d learned to compartmentalize the worst truths of his past. He only nodded slowly.

“You saved more than just me,” Harry said quietly, his voice full of the quiet earnestness that was his signature. “You saved Gotham, or Metropolis. Perhaps the entire eastern seaboard.”

“I saved my brother,” Damian corrected, standing up and walking around the table. He stood directly in front of Harry, meeting his gaze evenly. “The cities are secondary. You are primary.”

Harry smiled, a real, full smile this time, the kind that made the green of his eyes light up and erased the sharpness from his face. He looked, finally, like a teenager, not a prisoner.

“I am happy I was useful for something other than anchoring their darkness,” Harry admitted.

“You are useful for being here,” Damian said, reaching out and gently tugging the hood down from Harry’s head, smoothing the soft, black hair that was finally starting to grow out.

He leaned in, and did something he would never have done a year ago: he placed a careful, feather-light kiss on Harry’s forehead, just above where the final metallic thread had been pulled out.

It was not a passionate kiss, or even a parental one. It was a soldier’s promise, a brother’s absolute commitment. I see you. You are real. You are safe.

Harry’s eyes closed, and he sighed, a deep, satisfied sound of pure, unadulterated relief. He leaned into the warmth, the strange, complicated comfort of his brother’s body. He knew, with an absolute certainty that outweighed five years of torture, that he was finally, truly, free.

“I think I’m going to draw now,” Harry murmured into Damian’s t-shirt. “I want to draw the ocean. But the outside part. The bright part.”

“I will set up the easel,” Damian replied, his voice soft, his arms wrapping around his little brother, holding him steady and close. He felt the light, even weight of Harry’s body against him, solid and free. The cold knot of guilt, the ice in his heart, was finally gone, replaced by the simple, absolute warmth of having his brother—his anchor, his habibi, his conscience—back in the light.

He was home.

The last image: Damian sitting beside the easel, a whetstone abandoned on the table, watching Harry meticulously sketch the impossible, vibrant blue of the North Atlantic surface, a world away from the dark abyss they had escaped. Harry used a bright, almost painful yellow for the sun reflecting off the water, a stark contrast to the blue-white light that had once been his whole world.