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Damian is trapped and he's going to die alone.
This wasn't a completely foreign thought for him, after all, as long as he could remember, Damian had been alone. Though, it's a strange sort of loneliness, one filled with people yet devoid of anything personal.
There was a grandfather — who really wasn't as bad as people seemed to think him of, immortal-villainous tendencies aside — who had played a critical role in Damian's upbringing, as people so often like to point out. That being said, being the Demon Head didn't mean there were very many opportunities to spend time with the man, time that wasn't training with weapons or learning the least-messiest way to gut an animal poacher, anyway.
Then there was a mother in his story to, once upon a time, but it had been a while since he'd seen her, if he ever will again. At a young age Damian had quickly learnt the difference between the mothers in his story books (with no pictures and written in seven different languages) and the mother who shielded him from the worst of the League's training with her own flesh and bones.
She loved him all the same, but perhaps not in the way that others in this cold country of strange half-truths would understand. Damian loves her regardless. He thinks he'll always love her, even if the sentiment would only hurt the both of them more than anything else, later down the line.
He doesn't blame her for keeping him in the League for as long as she did, not when she did more than he probably deserved. Damian was never a normal child to begin with, so it's foolish to imagine what ifs in a scenario that would never be possible under any circumstances — except for the one where father had found him as an infant, or a possibility of if mother had never lied about the baby the two of them were ready to raise together years ago.
Alright, so maybe Damian does entertain the what ifs in his life — but he thinks it's expected in this situation. Don't most people go over their regrets when faced with imminent death?
If he could breathe, Damian might laugh, but he doesn't test it in fear of the collapsed building balancing on top of him.
The night had started out normal, all things considered.
Patrol was one of the fleetingly enjoyable moments in Damian's life at the present moment. It allowed him a sense of familiarity in a new city with a new 'family' — since the objective was not to make friends or to enjoy the sunshine or other ridiculously patronising suggestions from Dick Grayson and Alfred Pennyworth. Patrol was a constant routine, a rehearsed cycle; Fight. Protect civilians. Do not kill. Fight. Watch father's back. Occasionally help whoever else is fighting alongside you. Protect civilians. Do not kill.
Tonight was not any different from the others.
There was a Batman and then there was a Robin, as per usual.
Tim was also parading around Gotham in his own Robin uniform, a solitary title that is still left undecided regardless of whether or not Damians decided to claim it for himself (with father's permission), somewhere around and chattering useless directions in his ear. Vaguely, Damian knew that Spoiler was also around, her laughter and purple silhouette skirting around Batman's line of vision almost mockingly. Father didn't seem too bothered, even a little amused by her antics, and so Damian allowed himself the relaxation of having others around him.
But then, rather quickly, there was no Batman, and no other Robin, and no Spoiler — only Damian.
He was supposed to simply watch the warehouse (a suspected drug lab near the harbour) and report any movements or suspicious personnel moving in and out through the comm lines and await further instructions from Batman. Father was chasing another case, only fifteen or so minutes away, and the others were actively pursuing their own businesses across the city.
Damian just had to sit and wait.
Looking back on it now, Damian supposes this was their attempt — all of them, though perhaps primarily Batman — to keep Damian both out of the way and out of trouble. It's slightly better than being forced to wait in the car or at the cave or stuck under Batman's cape for the entire night, though it certainly doesn't provide anymore freedom or trust. They just wanted him... not to be a nuisance in their constant routine and perfectly rehearsed cycle.
Do not move from your post, father had told him sternly, squeezing Damian into his side in some sort of half-hug and half-reminder, Do not engage. I'll be right back.
And then, the warehouse explodes. Rather dramatically.
Damian hears it all. Every bursting of stone and falling rubble, the debris smacking against concrete and wood and the sound of thick smoke filling the air. He feels almost none of it, aside from the initial blow of impact that sent him flying into the air, the cracking of his ribs against the metal frames of the building.
Then there is blessed quiet, a muffled ringing in his ears. The pressure pushes obnoxiously against his head, reverberating around his eardrums before settling at the base of his neck, and Damian blinks profusely as flashing lights of different colours immediately become darkness. For a moment, Damian thinks he might even hear a familiar lullaby sung in a unfamiliar language alongside the cacophonic ringing, but he's brought back to reality too quickly to try and chase the words.
Suddenly, there is a searing, burning hot pain — only for a moment, rendering his body frozen and ripping a scream from his throat — then, there is nothing.
Damian opens his mouth and closes it again, silent words and screams at the tip of his tongue, though constricted by the lack of air in his lungs. He possesses absolutely no energy to try and vocalise these cries, not that anyone would hear him anyway.
Because once the dust settles, and the ringing begins to quieten — Damian looks up and sees nothing.
I'm buried, he acknowledges rather bitterly, blood and spit in his mouth that are becoming horrid clumps he's too nauseous to swallow. The next thing he notices is the single metal bar that's pinning him down, running straight through the collapsed concrete above him and right into his body.
"Ba… Ba'man…" Damian whispers, because anything louder might send the whole place falling, and there's not enough strength in his chest to be any louder.
Batman can't hear him. There's a crackling in his right ear from the comm, but it's obviously been crushed and damaged from the burst or the fall. That, or Damian's been buried so deeply that the frequency is being interfered with, "Fa…ther…"
There is hope that maybe Oracle can hear him but he can't hear her, so Damian manages to strain his throat, whispering desperately, "Warehouse… explosion. I'm — I can't move."
He stops short at the jolt that is forced out of him, and embarrassingly, he convulses in terror immediately afterwards. They rip themselves out of his nerves and straight into his muscles, pushing him up against the bar in his chest. Damian grits his teeth and wills his body to obey his pleading thoughts, and slowly, he calms. A new realisation has settled in his gut.
He is completely alone. No one can hear him.
The rubble above him shifts dangerously all on its own and Damian holds his breath. It could fall, with anything holding it up, killing him immediately, or the pocket of air will run out, or smoke and wasteful gas will begin to leak in and kill him first — filling his lungs and ripping it all away in the same breath.
Either way, Damian is going to die. Alone.
He closes his eyes and breathes in harshly with his nose, stopping it from reaching his chest too quickly and jostling the metal bar that's embedded close to his lung even further. Or in his chest cavity. He's not quite sure. He can't feel anything. Not even the heat from the fire that is undoubtedly spreading above him.
Damian is so cold, blood icey as it rushes around him. From what he can tell, the pressure of the bar in him has stopped any blood from actually escaping, but there's no telling how long that will hold. It gives him a few more minutes. Not that it would do him any good to be alive for a bit longer only to die in more pain.
Then, someone groans to his left.
Though it must simply be his imagination in these last fleeting moments of life, Damian flinches minutely, rarely startled. If he could keep his eyes open long enough without feeling like they were going to roll out of his head, he'd imagine a mangled heap of muscle and armour sprawled in the space beside him. The stranger curses, once, then twice, their voice formulating into something distantly familiar.
It's only when Damian hears a hiss of someone unlocking their mask, and a faint gust of warm air rush past his hand does he realise who's lying next to him. There's a clatter of plastic and metal, probably caused by the abandoned mask, and Damian is filled with grief once more.
Damian is not as alone as he first thought. It's much worse.
"Oh fuck," the person whispers in all too familiar panic and something grips at Damian's chest, and it's not the bar, "Fuck. I can't see. I can't see."
Open your eyes then, you blundering fool, Damian thinks bitterly, though he's sure he's smiling deliriously at how quickly his life has descended into madness. Just earlier that evening he had been doing his algebra homework, for a school he really didn't think he needed to be attending, and packing his things for the theatre club tomorrow. They were going to be given their scripts for Robin Hood.
The smile begins to slip when Damian hears harsh inhales and exhales, shorter than his own, sounding painful and heavier than the dust caking the air, "Oh god not again. Not again please."
Damian wants to scoff. Don't you think you're being a bit dramatic? You're not the one with an iron bar through your heart.
However, instead of that (since it would take far too much energy), Damian mumbles a barely incomprehensible, "Breathe… slowly…"
The hyperventilating (that's taking up all of their remaining oxygen, Damian notes with exasperation) stops immediately. There's silence, and Damian thinks maybe he was hallucinating the voice until he hears them shuffle closer. With the strength of years of torturous League training for this exact situation, Damian opens his eyes just a slither, moving his head almost imperceptibly to the side.
He sees a gloved hand scramble around beside him, patting the ground as if they'd find him half buried in the asphalt ground. Damian also realises how dark it is. His eyes have adjusted to the darkness well enough, but the same can't be said for the other person buried with him, who seems to have just woken up from the blast.
Damian is slightly jealous he wasn't knocked out, it would have made dying much easier.
"...'odd," Damian gasps as his eyes shut again, unable to keep them open any longer, and he hears the man take a sharp inhale, a miniscule moment of panic and surprise, before he's writhing around on the ground to get to him. There's another sound of pockets fumbling, and then a crack, or two — an emergency glow stick.
There can't be much space, crushed under a collapsed building with seemingly only this pocket of air and a fallen support beam stopping the rest of it from tumbling down on them. The same support beam that has stabbed its way straight through Damian's chest and into the ground below him. The person takes painfully long to get to his side given the circumstances.
"Oh fuck," They hiss once they're close enough, and there are suddenly a pair of hands on him, touching his face with trembling fingers and ghosting over the space on his chest that isn't impaled by the debris, "Oh fuck. Damian! Damian, can you hear me? Shit. Shit."
It dawns on him then — Damian is trapped and he's going to die with Jason Todd.
Somehow, this has become marginally worse than simply dying alone.
"You are… loud…" Damian groans, but it must come out as more painful grunts, because Todd lets out a distressed sort of cry.
"Hey, hey little man, open your eyes, you need to stay awake," Todd tells him with a voice that is too soft to be his own. Damian realises with slight confusion that this is perhaps the only time he and Red Hood have spoken without someone else being present as well, "Fuck. C'mon Damian. Open your eyes man. Please."
If Damian were even a little more coherent, he'd bask in this show of suck weakness for just a few more moments. It wasn't everyday that the infamous Red Hood would be found begging, sounding like he might be crying.
But Damian is so sure he can feel something dark and quiet tugging at his bones, pulling him down into an abyssal void, and he refuses to die with Todd weeping over his corpse like some sort of poorly written play. At least not until Damian manages a dramatically executed monologue. So he opens his eyes with great difficulty, narrowing them once they adjust to the darkness around him again, poorly lit up by the dim yellow glow stick abandoned beside Todd.
But even in the darkness, Todd's scarred and grimey face, covered in blood and soot, is glaring back down at him with unnatural brightness. He's not wearing his domino mask, so Damian is staring into green emeralds cracked with gold, the cusp of a cerulean blue around the pupils. Damian knows for certain he's dying now, since for a split second, the eyes remind him of his grandfather.
Damian takes a moment to wonder how on earth Todd had managed to hurt himself even with that ugly helmet on, before he realises that the blood might be his own.
He assumes as much when a throbbing sensation crushes his ribs, and Damian inhales with a hiss, using all his strength to keep his eyes open and staring up at Todd. Todd doesn't even blink, practically absorbing Damian with his wide eyes — almost scared that if he looked away for even a moment, Damian would slip away.
Faintly, Damian thinks he might. It's easier to focus on staring up at Jason's eyes instead of letting that tugging darkness wrap around his ankles to submerge him entirely. Jason's pupils are blown wide, trying to take in as much light as possible, and Damian's head spins so fast he thinks he might be falling backwards into the ground.
"Hey hey," Jason panics, patting Damian's cheek softly, "Don't do that. Don't sleep. Stay awake. I'm — I'm going to call for help."
"Comm… no signal." Damian gasps, gasping when he feels as though his skin is melting off his bones, a burning sensation and yet he's shivering from the cold, "Father… where is… I'm — I'm —"
Damian is aware he's starting to ramble, not that Jason is particularly listening, since instead, he's scrambling back with one arm to grab his helmet, fiddling with the buttons on the inside cover. Damian wants to get a closer look, since Jason never leaves his helmet around for Damian to inspect, but he can barely move his head to get a gasp of air in.
"Batman." Jason says firmly once the static from his comm fizzles into silence, "Batman come in. It's Red Hood."
"Hood?" Father's familiar voice calls in obvious concern and confusion, and Damian is suddenly filled with the overwhelming urge to cry at the sound of his father's voice. He has no idea why.
"Me and Robin are at the warehouse on the third, left of the harbour. There was a leak in the lab… it…" Todd recites like he's giving a mission debrief, voice trembling only slightly towards the end, "There — there was an explosion. We're buried underground and — and he —"
Jason trails off, eyes burning into Damian's own. His vision is a little fuzzy and the more he tries to look at Todd, the more Damian's world begins to dim around the corners. He doesn't dare close his eyes, not when Jason is staring at him in such petrified horror. Not when father is listening.
Todd seems to have finally understood the severity of the situation they're in. With the adrenaline and initial panic of being buried under a collapsed building (again, Damian thinks with something that might be pity, or perhaps empathy) fading at last, Jason Todd is looking at him in disbelief.
Damian had known he was going to die the moment he saw the metal bar. It seems Jason is only starting to realise the same.
"Red Hood report. What is Robin's status? His comm is offline!" Batman's dark voice speaks quickly, panic nipping at the end of each word, "What's going on?!"
"Robin is pinned down. Straight through his chest. I don't think he —" Jason looks away from Damian's face for a moment, glaring at the wound, "He's not going to make it. Bruce he's not — god fuck. What the fuck were you doing here in the first place, Damian? Fuck!"
Todd is beginning to panic again, and that matched with the unmistakable barking of Batman on the croaking radio is enough to make Damian scoff. He finds that the more and more he listens to his own forthcoming death explained, his fate is settling like hot iron against his skin, branding it painfully.
Damian had always known that he was going to die alone. Whether that be in the League, or in Gotham, or wherever else in the world he found himself in search of purpose.
But he — but Damian really, really doesn't want to die right now.
"Fa…" Damian croaks, throat filled with itchy cotton and glass shards, "Father… please…"
Todd blinks harshly and although he's not crying yet, he looks as though he also has a metal bar through his chest, "Talk to him Bruce."
The comm crackles back to life and immediately there are a handful of other voices speaking quickly and in panic, though father's is the one that Damian hears, "I need to —"
"You need to talk to him," Jason hisses through his teeth, and Damian is momentarily pulled back to the surface when he sees the gold flecks in Todd's eyes glimmer like crystals at the bottom of a dark green lake, "He's going to die and he needs you here."
For the first time that evening, Damian is strangely glad it was Todd who Damian has found himself stuck with. Any of others would have tried their best to comfort him, promise that everything would be alright and that he would survive —
But Damian is not a fool to believe in empty promises, and neither is Todd. Perhaps only those who know death intimately are closer to accepting it.
Which is maybe why father does not prolong the inevitable either with hopeful lies, and as Damian's eyes flutter closed, he hears Todd shuffle closer.
"Damian?" Father asks, "Damian I'm — I'm so sorry."
Father wouldn't lie to him. Damian acknowledges this mercy with acceptance.
Father takes a shuddering breath in, "I love you son. Can you hear me, Damian? I love you and I'm sorry."
Damian opens his eyes once, just to catch the look of anguish on Todd's face, before they shut once more. They're too heavy. Everything is too heavy.
"You're going to be okay," is what father says next, but Damian has a feeling he is not talking about surviving this, "You're going to be okay. Damian, you —"
The comm cuts out with a stammer of incomprehensible words and crackling frequency, before all that's left is Damian's shallow and wheezing breaths to fill the silence. Todd's breathing is so quiet, that Damian almost forgets he's there.
"The first time I died like this, I was really scared," is what Todd says after a few more moments of quiet, and Damian is so detached from everything that Todd sounds like he's speaking from the other side of an empty room, but that can't be right, because Damian then feels the man lay down on the ground beside him. Todd is not close enough to touch him, but the ghost of the space between their arms is enough for Damian to know he's there.
Damian wished he'd move a little closer, just so he knew Todd was real, "I was alone and everything hurt to the point where it became numb. I just wanted — wanted to go home."
Me too, Damian wants to say. Only he's not sure where home is. It doesn't look like the manor exactly, or the palace back at the League — but it smells like mother's perfume, tastes like Alfred's freshly brewed tean, sounds like father's baritone laughter rumbling through the door of a study, like irritating siblings and dogs and cats and —
"I wanted my dad," Todd confesses with a broken voice, like it wasn't something that he had ever admitted before. Never wanted to admit it, perhaps.
Todd breathes in deeply, chasing air that they don't have left to spare, "This time, I'm just… tired. But I'll stay awake for as long as I can, okay? So you try to stay awake for me too."
Damian had known he was going to die immediately. Todd, too, will die, probably, if no one comes to retrieve him soon. Whether that be from the smoke filling their space, slowly, or the air that they're replacing with poison from their own lungs, or simply because once Damian stops breathing — the bar will shift, and the tentative rubble ceiling will collapse.
"You did good, kid," Todd whispers like it's a secret, "No matter what the others say, or what you think, you did good. You were a good Robin."
You did good.
And isn't that enough?
Damian wonders if this is what Jason felt before he died. If this is what he wished someone had said to him.
"You too…" Damian manages with the last push he has, "You did… good…"
Jason reaches out to grab Damian's hand with hurrying fear, like Damian was suddenly going to jump up and run away, and before everything becomes numb, he feels him squeeze.
You did good.
It's quiet after that.
When Damian wakes up, he does so all at once. It's a habit you're taught at the League as soon as you start to sleep alone, unguarded and prone to attacks from jealous trainers or assassins looking for your place at the metaphorical high tables. There is a split moment between waking up and moving to survive, and that is all the difference between waking up alive and being stabbed in your sleep by a maid who had raised you since before you could walk.
Though, when Damian wakes up, he finds he can't move even if he tried.
There's a tumultuous weight against his chest, arms and legs, strapping him down to the bed. Though a simple tug at his limbs proves there's nothing there but the crushing phantom weight of rocks and building foundation, he finds he still can't move.
Damian blinks up at the white tiled ceiling, lights bright enough to make his eyes sting, but not unfamiliar in their purpose. Then, a shadow shifts, and blurry darkness replaces the bright lights above him. Damian blinks through the haze.
Father's face is suddenly in view, brows furrowed and frowning as he gently pushes against Damian's shoulders, urging him back down into the plush white covers of the hospital bed. Damian hadn't even realised he'd begun to pull himself up, though he'd not be able to get very far. He also doesn't notice that his father's mouth is moving until the ringing in his ears begins to subside, and a familiar rumbling tone fills the space instead.
Damian's not sure what sort of painkillers they must have him on, but whatever it is must be strong — since the sound of his father's voice makes his eyes sting, just a little.
"Damian," is all father says once it becomes clear the boy is unable to focus on much else, voice tight and tentative.
"Father," Damian clears his throat, swallowing the sharp sensation, "How?"
How am I alive to see you again?
"Clark," Father tells him with a breaking voice, and Damian blinks in surprise, Superman... "He — he managed to show up in time. We barely made it in time to save you both."
Both.
Damian lets out a long sigh of relief, something unwinding in his chest. It releases his heart enough for it to be almost immediately grappled with sudden fear. It's a ridiculous feeling, and Damian is only all the more embarrassed when the stinging behind his eyes grows painful, vision becoming blurry.
He blinks once, against his better judgement, and feels two warm tears roll down the side of his face and disappear into his hair.
"I thought I died," is all Damian can say when his father's face darkens, something thunderous behind the grey flecks in blue irises at Damian's tears. It's an expression Batman gets before he rushes in to save the day — though, there is very little his father can do now.
"I'm sorry," Father repeats, like it's not the only words that have been playing in Damian's ghostly subconscious for however long he's been asleep, "I'm so sorry."
Father gently wipes Damian's tears with his calloused fingers, and Damian sniffs with a quiver to his bottom lip, "I want my mother."
The corner of father's mouth twitches, "Knowing her, she's probably on her way here right now. I can only imagine the attempts on my life that will follow once she finds out what happened to you and Jason."
Father is joking, but he's never been good at those. Although he's sort of smiling — albeit rather uncomfortably — Damian can see through the false joviality. Though his eyes are soft in a way he only gets when he thinks of mother, though he doesn't seem to realise it for himself.
"It's not your fault, father," Damian whispers.
Father doesn't look surprised, since Bruce Wayne is almost incapable of being caught off guard, but the slightest jump of his palm against Damian's face is the closest he'll get to something that is almost shocking. Whatever he wants to say, he must think better of it, since he simply nods once sharply and goes back to caressing the side of Damian's face with his rough hands.
"Get some sleep, son," Father then says quietly, tone delicate and gentle in a way he so rarely offers outside the comfort of his chambers after a nightmare, "I'll be right here when you wake up. You're going to be okay."
You did good.
There's a shadow of movement outside, a slight scrape against the hospital window — impractical and almost laughable in its messy execution. Whoever was spying on them is clearly not hiding that they're there, or rather, are making sure the people inside know they're out here. Guarding. Checking in.
You did good, too.
Father pretends not to notice the person outside as he leans back in his chair, hand moving away from cupping Damian's face to clasping it around the tinier hand connecting to wires and covered in bandages. He does not once let his eyes flicker to the window, but he makes no move to check who it is, or call them inside.
I wanted my dad.
Damian closes his eyes, imagining someone squeezing his hand. He feels it after a moment.
Those who know death intimately are closer to accepting it.
It's quiet after that.