Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

The human body can survive a good amount of time without breathing.

 Of course, it requires training and discipline. Training may include exercise in low oxygen environments as well as breathing practice – as strange as that sounds – so that the lungs reach their full potential.

Discipline is mostly of the mental kind. During a breath hold, acidity of blood increases, causing a response in the brain to want to breathe. This may be ignored, and therefore it must be ignored. The body must also be as relaxed as possible because tensing muscles bleed oxygen, and there’s only so much supply of that.

Breathing defined as exhaling carbon dioxide and inhaling more air. 

The longest breath hold was about ten minutes.

There are also involuntary spasms of the diaphragm and the even more involuntary action of thinking. Yet, humanity can push, and push, and push the limit.

In this way, it is the panic, and the forcible intrusion of water into a person’s body, that drowns – not the lack of air.

 Damian’s Father had trained in breath holding, during those years abroad before Batman. He had shared this with his children, and some had learnt before he met them. Damian was one of those: he could hold his breath for five minutes by the age of four and he had much improved in the coming years.

 There is no enjoying or not enjoying survival.. honestly though, he finds it unpleasant, right about the time that his neck starts to spasm. He prefers not to do it.

Yet.

In this life, there are and will be many situations where it is deemed necessary to hold his breath.

So, as always, he endures.

February

The first drawing was done one Saturday morning. Shabbat, as Father would explain, on those rare days he talked about his mother – yet the day had no significant meaning to Damian.. until.

Until that specific day.

Damian felt disgusting. He did every Saturday, yet that day it felt worse, and it stuck to his skin like water. Worse, showering could no longer make him feel clean.

Disgusting felt like an understatement, honestly. He needed to rip his flesh off layer by layer and let the acid run through his intestines until he was pure, and only then could he be correct again. He needed everything gone. He needed.. he needed..

Unbidden, Damian recalled a conversation from years ago, when Father was dead and Grayson had taken over the cowl. He was newly Robin, and he was far out of his element. Grayson took him under his wing and bestowed unto him some memories.

Grayson, when Father first took him in, was not like he was now; he was full of rage and he fled from his group home every night to find his parents' killers, even at his own detriment. He almost died many times. Then Father took him in, and Father aimed to redirect his anger. There's no undoing what was done, only changing what you do now, Father had told a young Grayson, handing him an empty book, This is your own journal, with a lock and key. I ask that you write it in it, daily, whatever you want, only for yourself to read. Pour your anger and grief into it, so that it doesn’t consume you.

Grayson then gave Damian his own notebook. Damian threw it away. Grayson placed another notebook on his desk. He threw that one away also. He threw the next one too, and then the next.

Then, a canvas appeared, alongside a childish set of small paint pots in small connected capsules, a sad plastic brush beside them.

Damian chose art. He had painted Drake's head on a platter, and Father dead, and then Grayson dead. He painted Grayson dead like one of the old servants, with slashed throat in front of him for the crime of spilling a mess, and Father into a skeleton like one he'd spotted abandoned in a ravine. He painted Drake beheaded and crushed and drowned and burned, all for the sin of being good.

None of those paintings were shown to anyone: matter of fact he burned them, a year after he stopped and a two years since Father returned. By that point, he'd learned that art could be so much more, and now drew for many, many reasons.

Though in that moment, he wasn't in the mood to capture a landscape or a feeling. He needed to- to-

His hands grab a pencil and the closest piece of paper, a card: once flipped over he found its a certificate for that term's exams.

Given and signed by her.

He flipped it over and started. The paper was too shiny and thick and the pencil too dull and that only ignited him further.

There, alone in his room (and he checked the lock twice), he hurled every closed scream and every repressed anger onto the paper.

It was a mess.

It was all his.

Once finished, It looked like a child's scribbles. I am a child, why don't I get to be safe He knew realism. He could paint more accurate than a Lexcorp camera, and yet what laid before him could have come out of a kindergarten.

The Tutor on his paper had a scribbled circle head, and a large scribbled rectangle body. Her arms, rather than have defined fingers, ended in points. Dozens of points, like little needles, their tiny microscopic stabs scalding to his skin. He felt it up his back and down his thighs.

He added more. Carved at his mouth and to his teeth with a dull pencil on squeaky thick paper held tightly in a red fist.

Noticing that he was gripping the card too hard, he relaxed his grip as guilt rushed in. He knew he was being violent. Just monstrous little Damian, filled with cruelty once again. To mediate this, he drew some love hearts around her. He drew dozens, splattered around like bile on a school linoleum floor, until the guilt fizzled away and the fury was back, white-hot.

Then, with the tip of the pencil being more wood than anything useful, he mauled the space between the tutor's legs. The paper didn't tear but it was a near thing. He could not erase the memory forever, but in lead and splinters he created a reality where the Tutor could never show it to him or make him touch it. A reality where everyone knew who was the real monster.

By the time he was done, his arm ached, but he felt better.

Considerably better.

"Damian! Breakfast!" Came a rich baritone. Father needed not to yell; his voice always seemed to carry. He was a man who always could command attention and Damian was his faithful Robin.

He slid the drawing under his bed like it was a sin to be hidden from the eyes of God, and went down for breakfast.

That evening, they were scheduled for a gala. A grand ball held on the south side of the Diamond District, half in a mansion and half in several yachts anchored around the pier. Ostensibly it was for charity. Damian knew it was just layers and layers of false faces and lies behind saccharine smiles and bleached white teeth. He knew this life even before he was sent to live with Father; the only difference was the dress and the paparazzi.

Father sat beside him on his left. Drake sat on his right, and Damian was squished to the middle. Father had said it must be this way because he wanted him to have leg room, but Damian knew in truth it was because Father feared them being hit by another car, and of course he took it upon himself to be human shield in such a case. If Father could, he would have sat on both window sides and huddled both him and Drake to the middle seats. This anxiety was fruitless. Damian saw him reinforce these cars. He had held the flashlight. The flashlight could have easily been placed on a stand.

Father had endless idiosyncrasies.

Father adjusted his tie as he smiled down at him and Drake. It was halfway between his real smile – a slight upturn – and his high society smile – bright and symmetrical, perfectly straight ivory teeth and smooth glossy lips. Father was getting in the role.

Damian knew those teeth were all fake. Father got some of them knocked out early in his training and the rest during his early years.

"Chins up, boys," Father said. "We've only got to stay for a few hours — longer than it'll take to show we're here, and shorter than to be accused of leaving early. It'll be over before you know it."

"Ugh."

"Tt."

In this way, Drake and he were just alike.

Father's smile widened at their annoyance, into that fake glamorous one. Damian avoided it by staring out the window and committing every single object into memory. He'd mastered that back when he stumbled with every step.

Pennyworth paused the car, a pitch-black lambo. Damian could already hear the clamouring reporters outside, shouting questions and clicking cameras.

One deep breath, before sliding open the doors.

Father swept out with a stupid vacant grin, waving at cameras. Drake pulled on a studious perfect boy demeanor and followed.

As a child, he wasn't expected to be as much as his brother and Father, yet there was one aspect he loathed.

Greetings.

While Father was off gallivanting between yachts and Drake mingled with other companies, Damian had stayed on land and moved to the snack table to eat tiny glittery food. He could tell it was proper upper class food because it was small and had thin, unnutritious gold flecks on top. Food back at 'Eth Alth'eban was better.

He had eaten two zucchini and feta croutons when a little girl, some years younger than him, also came to the food table and grabbed some rye bread with caviar. They ate in companionable silence.

Then a voice called. "Oh my, is that our little Caroline in love?"

The girl, Caroline, jumped and cringed back, instantly taking two steps away. Damian turned to see a woman with some other socialites looking at him and Caroline in a way that made him distinctly uncomfortable. He recognized the woman who spoke as Mrs Merrill-Dumont. A quick scan of her, the man beside her, and Caroline, suggested a blood relation.

Mrs Merrill and her group simpered at his confusion and Caroline's embarrassment.

"Mother, it's not like that.." Caroline said down to the terrace. It wasn't quite loud enough to be heard, like she knew that raising her voice would gain nothing more than whispering would. Defeat.

Mrs Merrill looked at him, and her smile widened. "Oh, and a Wayne boy too? Well, us Merrill girls have good taste." She laughed. Her husband laughed with her.

Damian felt scatterbrained, but he could at least greet properly. He inclined his head. "Mr and Mrs Merrill-Dumont. A pleasure to meet you–"

.. And he was pulled into a hug, tight against her satin skirts, and it was socially unacceptable to refuse, sp he hugged back and smiled. He didn’t like how her pointy fingers traced along his latissimus dorsi.

"Oh, so polite."

"So handsome, just like his daddy! He'll be a heartbreaker in no time.."

The way they spoke rankled. One person even felt at his upper arm once he was released. Their touch burned. Caroline smiled but he could tell she was similarly uncomfortable as the adults stood around them, and they were bracketed from open air by the adults in front and the table behind.

Caroline's father jokingly pulled her away from him and made a crack about shooting the boys away. He watched those proceedings, and Caroline's mother seems to take this as interest. The assumptions they were making stung. He wanted to go home.

Then, he felt a familiar presence. Tall, and looming, but smothered in glitz and glam and an artificial sway so as to make him seem intoxicated.

Father was here. Probably to make sure he's behaving correctly.

Father has his greetings with the adults, kissing cheeks, giving hugs, and shaking hands. Then, Mrs Merrill turned to Caroline, and pushed her towards Father. "Go on," she whispered. "Greet Mr. Wayne properly."

Caroline still smiled sweetly, but shook her head.

"But Linnie, you love hugs, don't you?"

"Um.."

Father moved. He crouched down and his smile shifted, just the tiniest bit, only noticeable by his family. However, Damian couldn't recognize the tint. Disgust? Fondness?

Father then offered a fist-bump to Caroline. Caroline brightened subtly and knocked her hand against his and – Damian was struck by how young she was, her hand was barely bigger than Father's palm, and Father noticed her discomfort with having to hug him, and he acted accordingly to alleviate it.

Was it her youth, that made father so careful to keep her happy? Because — father trusted the Tutor. He supported every tutoring session every Friday; the Tutor that does that to him.

Damian didn't know what to think.

Mrs Merrill tittered, accepting the change in action. Far be it for anyone to decide that Brucie Wayne as wrong.

"So, what's going on here?" Father asked, once he was stood again. "Something good at the snack table?"

"Just these two lovebirds here–" Mrs Merrill said, as she patted Caroline's head as if she was a small dog. "Standing side by side!" She looked at Damian. "Taking after your daddy, are you?"

Her stare pierced his skin and the way she referred to Father — daddy – just felt disgusting. "Um."

"Oh, who could blame the boy?" Said Mr Dupont. "Our little Caroline's just as lovely as her mother - especially those little buns."

Caroline backed away back to the table and grabbed for whatever was closest – caprese bites with shaved truffle– as everyone burst into polished high society laughter. Damian tried to also go back to eating expensive food and pretending he wasn't there but Father's hand dropped onto his shoulder, grip light yet Damian knew the power hidden underneath. He stilled.

Father shot everyone a winning smile. "Charmed, Mr Merrill. Mrs Merrill. Caroline. Though I'm afraid my son and I ought to leave: it's getting late."

"Oh, must you leave so soon?" Said someone else, another woman. Damian recognized her as Ms Vanderbilt, a researcher from Lexcorp.

"But of course,” Father continued, “If my boy inherits Wayne Industries, he'll need all the sleep he can get!"

"I'm hoping there's something else he inherits too," joked Ms, but with a more lecherous look, down at Father's..

Father still smiled, still sparkled, but was slowly steering them away, taut in a way that showed he would've bolted for the hills if not for social convention. "See you later, everyone!"

"Save yourself for me, Damian!" One of the woman called at their retreating backs, followed by tittering laughs. 

Was Father uncomfortable because of the comments towards him, or towards Damian? He didn't know. He didn't know if he wanted to know.

That night, as Father left to the cave, Damian decided to create another piece. That time it was on a slab of wood, one left by the canvases in the arts room for him, though he didn't know who was the culprit. Father had been with the JLA at the time and Grayson was in space. Pennyworth didn't seem the type to chop wood either.

With a pencil sharpened to a fine point, he sketched out a leering smile on the Tutor's face, one he didn't want to stare at too long, for it imprinted in his memories like a brand, and that calender on the east wall which he stared and stared at, focused as much as he could – yet nothing could've taken him out of that moment or taken the hands off him. There was no escaping reality, and he didn't even know if he wanted to.

He remembered one of the late Joker's plots, one of many, because no amount of time in Arkham would put an end to him: The Joker had tied down Father and covered his face. The Joker then placed several knives and a bone saw on a tray beside them, and offered Father use of a sedative, but never said what he would do with the tools. In the end, Todd had rescued Father before he could make a decision. Father then took two showers and spent the afternoon tucked away in his room. Damian knew the feeling.

Damian didn't like Todd, but he'd be lying if he hadn't imagined Todd bursting in through the classroom wall, tearing that calender In half, and ripping her hands off him. He had imagined that so many times, it became almost a mantra.

Shaking his head to clear it, he placed the light source above the Tutor's face: harsh and bright, maybe sunlight, yet he planned for no subsurface scattering. No line of warm red between the light and the shadow — just a jarring jump between light and dark, as if she wasn’t wearing human skin.

Sketch finished, he stood to collect his paint. Squeezing out the tubes, one by one, was oddly therapeutic. It was a task that couldn't be rushed, and the slow squeeze of the paint calmed his racing mind. He painted with un-blended brush strokes directly onto the wood.

He started with the shadow under her brow, lightening into her eyelid, darkening again with that patronising leer and derisive curl of skin. He paints around what was already done rather than dark-to-light, the portrait spreading on the reddish padouk wood like blood blooming across fabric.

He finished one eye and one eyebrow. He was mixing more skin tone, a more cooler tone, when an agitating presence made itself known by a lazy rap against the door frame.

Todd walked into the art room, red helmet tucked under his arm, head tilted back to take an appreciative sniff of the art room.

Damian got it. The art room had the scent of wood, clay, and paint: earthy and bright — a little overwhelming, but that's what the floor-to-ceiling window and skylight were for. The wind carried in a slight scent of freshly cut grass. This was his favourite room. Still, he turned up his nose up at Todd, on principle, and pointedly bent his head back over his wood panel.

Todd just chuckled and began ambling around the room. He looked over the pottery and drying canvases and – ugh – used his fingernail to scrape off some clay that stuck to the shelf. Doesn’t he know that could crack his nails!?

"Tt."

"Hello to you, brat," Todd said, voice getting louder as he walked closer. Then he got a little louder. "Hey, is that the wood slab?"

Damian huddled his painting closer to himself. "It is not your concern," he snapped and then – Jason stopped, both in approaching and talking.

He didn't expect that. He shouldered on anyway. "Do you bring word from Father, or do you just plan on taking up space?"

Jason raised both hands in surrender. "I do have a reason, you know." He slowly (annoyingly slow) reached into his pocket, grabbed something, and held it out in offering it by the chain. "Here."

Damian took it. By the weight and the sound of it knocking against his nails, it was wood. It was painted a matte black and it had four protrusions from the bottom and a wagging tail and two pointy ears.

It looked like Titus. It was a little Titus keychain. Jason had given him a replica of his loyal dog to hang on his keys.

Jason looked out the window. "I've been giving them to everybody. Black Canary made me."

Interesting. Damian wondered what woodcarver had Todd hired.

He was.. touched. "Thank you, Todd."

Todd shrugged, but he seemed pleased.

The next Friday, Damian realised the true worth of Todd's gift.

The Tutor had brought her son, a boy about a year older than him. The boy was much like his mother. Brunette. Freckled.

Handsy.

Tutor said she didn't want her son doing that, yet she makes no lasting effort to stop him, and she smiles at him, and she smiles back. She called him mommy's boy. She touched him much in the same way she touched Damian. The boy never cried like Damian did. Perhaps Damian shouldn't whine: if he’s okay with it, Damian should be too.

The boy entered the room at the same time the Tutor did.

Damian stared down at his Titus keychain.

The events of that evening were.. not lost, but fuzzy, overlaid by the constant image of the little wooden dog. It never completely took him out of the moment, yet he preferred it to the calendar. It felt warmer. A better warmth than the boy's hand running over his crotch.

That night, he sketched another.

He sketched the classroom.

He started with the little Titus, Titus Junior, and he drew it in his hand. For that, he simply held it in his lap the same way and used that as reference.

He drew the boy's hand on his leg beside that. That was from memory, yet it was just as vivid as reality.

The calendar was placed on the far wall. It had circled and crossed days, counting down to valentine's day. Then–

Though he was using optimal paper and a good quality pencil, he felt irritation rise.

It just wasn't going right. It wasn't feeling right.

Before he knew it, that paper was fluttering in the light grassy breeze from the window and the table was crashing to the opposite wall, and he aimed a punch at the paper and he missed, time and space slipping through his fingers like sand, and he gets a hand full of splinters.

Blood sprays and paint cans crashed down, pouring over the floor and the metallic scent sits heavy in his lungs, air getting harder and harder to breathe.

At the same time, footsteps came thumping down the hall – quiet to an outsider, but deafening to his trained senses — one heaviest from the north and two lighter, one more than the other, from the south.

Father sprinted into the room, already scanning the windows for flying shards. Todd stood in the doorway, with Drake drawing up the rear..

Their alarm was soon replaced with disappointment and weariness, dismissing it as yet another temper tantrum: violence from a violent boy.

That was the first of many.. moments. He could never find the words for it. Fits of something that left him shaking like a hike up Everest. Father never gave him the words either, just sat with him and tried to have him follow some inane activity like box breathing. Father had endless patience for his conniptions.

Father acted like nothing was amiss and everything was normal. It must be, then.

Everything was normal.

As the breath hold goes on and carbon dioxide levels rise, one may feel themselves slip into a meditative state – still with that iron discipline and the burn of starvation, but it becomes normal, and time almost seems to speed up.

"..And you must not run, that would encourage the cattle to give chase. You can't outrun the cows, Father. Though, if you do run and the cattle chase you, run perpendicular to the path of the cows, which will slow them down, and then you can continue because they get tired. However, you must be careful, running or not, not to enter the vicinity of a mother cow with her calf: she will most likely attack you. A cow's bite is not to be feared, but being kicked and trampled will most certainly crush your thoracic vertebrae. A cow weighs around one-thousand-four-hundred pounds and a bull weighs around two-thousand pounds."

Father's small face on the phone screen bobbed up and down. "I will be careful," He agreed. "You should too, please stay-"

"I will remain on the communicators and I will return home if I am wounded, and I will not drive the batmobile unless there's an emergency."

Father chuckled. "Good. And-"

"Is this relevant to tonight's patrolling?"

"No. But-"

"Not relevant. Good night, Father."

Batman wasn't patrolling that night. Father was taking one of his rare breaks, and he was off frolicking with Superman and Wonder Woman somewhere in Kansas. That meant that Robin won't patrol with Batman, no– Robin was to stick with Red Robin or Black Bat, or remain on Comms, or sleep, or whatever he could get through without being caught.

In this case, he was allowed on patrol, in the open, for he'd earned a B grade in chemistry. It took a few dozen messages to convince Father into a call, and even more convincing after, but he got there in the end. So, with Father's agreement on camera, Damian ended the video call - before he saw his Father's reputation further be tarnished by the Alien and the Amazonian acting like fools in the background.

"Seriously," He grumbled to Titus. "Does Father have no self-respect?" His loyal great dane was similarly affronted.

Titus settled down for a nap while Damian went to the cave. There, Todd jerked his head up at him in greeting, Drake ignored him, while Cassandra smiled, a fleeting expression that any ordinary citizen wouldn't have been able to catch, yet as real as they come.

Damian changed in the stall. He always did, yet for that day, he did it for new reasons..

.. Not that he'd accuse the others of doing anything. He wouldn't! He couldn't be so rude to assume that. Yet.

He changed with a careful eye out for the door cracking and an ear out for camera clicking, expecting a woman that wasn't there.

Out there, it was easier to forget everything, cutting through the wind and soaring above twinkling streets. The sun was just setting and although the clouds were thick, red purple and gold still peaked through as long as he looked for it.

It was a quiet night, as quiet as Gotham could get, and Damian could lose himself in the repeating cycle of shooting, swinging, retracting, and aiming of his grapple, and whatever voices floated up from his communicator.

”Hey, those people replaced their succulent again!”

”For real? Isn’t this the sixth time?”

”Seventh. You’d think after the seventh time Batman chased someone past here and that they throw the pot at him, they’d give up. But no.”

”Stubbornness I can admire.”

The most recent time that pot fell off, it had been Damian brushing against it. Clearly Father had been true to his word and kept it secret. Damian smiled.

His good mood did not last. 

"All clear on St. Adens street. Pretender?" 

"Aside for some litter, clear on 6th........ Hey, remember when you fell in the dumpster behind the Batburgers and you begged me to bring you a change before you met up with B?" 

”Red?”

”Yes, Red?” 

"Kill yourself."

Damian winced at the sharpness of Red Robin’s laugh. "Well, if you're gonna be like that, I shoulda’ brought the rainbow batsuit!"

"Five bucks and you don't tell anyone." 

 "Six."

 "Five and I trick B into wearing the rainbow suit."

"Deal!" 

 These nitwits forgot that I was here, Damian thought. He then considered speaking up, but he decided that he was enjoying his solitude.

An hour passed in relative peace. Nothing much more happened than a few graffiti vandals, who he told to be more discreet, and Black Bat buying him some lassi. He also got to pet two cats and one dog, and he had stood on someone's balcony watching as a friendly parrot danced. 

Then.  

 Hood was moving around some rubble from a warehouse that blew the previous day, in search of any DNA samples that could've been there.

Everyone could hear the thumps of bricks and the wobbly clink of jarred rebar and the occasional cough to clear his lungs. That was usual – frequently the incoming and outgoing transmissions were nothing but grunts and punches. Then Hood let out a shriek. His hurried footsteps could be heard, crunching on dust and gravel frantically.

 "Hood!" Shouted Red Robin.

No reply.

 "Hood?!"

 "I'm fine." There was a hint of something in his voice, something that Damian couldn't recognize.

"What happened?" 

".." 

"Hood. Respond." 

"..There was a mouse." 

 "The mouse is why you screamed?"

"Yes. It was a manly scream, by the way." 

 "The mouse is why you screamed," Red Robin repeated, yet amusement coloured his words.

Hood groaned, long and loud, and deliberately annoying, to cover up his embarrassment. "Yes. The mouse ran out from under some rubble, going over my foot, and it startled me. Happy now?" 

 "Very. Who knew something so small could be so scary?"

They let that be the end of the conversation, until Black Bat piped up. 

"That's what she said." 

Damian didn't get it, but the comms exploded with laughter – he had to rip his earpiece out and freeze, holding it in his palm, it was too loud. 

"BB!" Red Robin wheezed. “Where did you learn that?" 

"As if you don't say that every other patrol-" 

 More laughter. Damian didn't get it, and he certainly hadn't heard such a phrase before, and never from Drake.

 Where they hiding things from him? He thought they were a team, and that they were all working together, and -

Upset is not welcome on the face of a Prince, he remembered, from many childhood lessons. So he picked fury. 

  "I do not understand," He snapped, shattering the jovial atmosphere as everyone fell into silence. "I demand you explain at once!"

"Oh," Said Hood, and Damian didn't like that tone. It rankled and made his fingers twitch on his grapple, itching for a batarang. 

"Whoops." 

"Hood. You explain." 

 "Why me?! Drake, you do it. You're the one who always wanted a little brother."

"Cass said it, if anyone, she should-" 

"No explanation. Just - just later." There was a sliding noise, like Hood tried to rub his nose and forgot he was wearing a helmet. "Cassie, you should head to bed for your flight out tomorrow," Said Hood. "Robin, with me." 

Damian grumbled but followed obediently. They'd avoided the question, and he didn't understand.

 Did they think of him as unequal? There is certainly no difference of skill. Damian had trained since he was a baby, his body was perfected even before birth, and his trainers had always been the best of their arts.

 The alternative was worse. Maybe they saw him as unequal not in terms of skill, but in humanity.

He's the only robin who killed in childhood, and had continued to kill even after becoming Robin. He had taken a skill learnt from the Batman, a way to simply knock out a foe, and he'd struck a man full force in the head with it. Much more force than necessary. He had felt everything – of his fingers breaking through the man's skin and skull, of warm, slimy brain matter closing in around his hand. 

It never washed off.

He had wanted to change after that night, but that will always separate him from the others, and maybe they already knew.  

He had wanted rules, had wanted to be good, but does that change that he was never born good? 

 "..always so ungrateful," Snipped his tutor. "All your classmates, especially that girl you sit next to."

 Damian squirmed in his seat. Ms Shrike was having a difficult time, that day. Still, he felt uncomfortable at hearing Ellie being bad-mouthed. She had never assumed anything of him before she talked to him – she was good.

He dared not to speak up, however.  Not after what happened last time.

"You understand of course, sweetie?" Ms Shrike then said, looking to him.  Her left hand rubbed his left shoulder and he stayed carefully still under that slow touch, even as his nerves prickled.

"A boy as smart as you, bound to get a little irritated every now and then."

Damian nodded mutely. 

That, evidently, was the wrong move, even though Damian meant to be right. Ms Shrike's eyebrow twitched and she leaned forward slightly. 

"You don't believe me," she said. 

"I do-" 

 She shot him a look and he quietened down.

"You know how many hours I put into this job?" 

 Rhetorical question. Damian didn't reply. He'd made the mistake of replying before.

 "I drive to work at six AM and I leave at seven every night, not to mention marking your exams much later in the day. I get no time for myself." The hand that Ms Shrike had laid on his arm drifted upwards, caressing his ear and neck, manicured nail tracing the line between the muscle and his throat. Although there were a million things that Damian wanted to do, he stayed carefully still.

 "I barely had time for myself since you kids are takin' all of it," She said. Then, she took on a mischievous look. "I haven't even had time to.. entertain guests."

 An innuendo. One that Damian understood, but hate that he understood, but knew that if he didn't understand, he would fall out of favor with Ms Shrike.

Can’t have that.

 Ms Shrike leaned back in her chair, not even thinking that Damian wouldn't have understood, and that did feel nice. He thought back to his last patrol, of everyone keeping something from him, and he hated that feeling. He was capable. He had already sullied his hands with blood – he did not need protection.

"I haven't had sex in over a year," Ms Shrike bemoaned. "All my time goes to you ungrateful lot." 

 Damian briefly had a bitter thought that there wasn't anything to be grateful for, seeing as she's spent the entirety of their tutoring session on complaining.. but, in a way, she was right, Wasn't she?

"Dry spells like that, they do something to a girl, you know?" 

Damian nodded, diplomatic and smooth – but it felt like a mountain's effort for that one simple movement. It also had the benefit of dislodging her hand.. not that he'd throw away her efforts, after how much she did for him and his class.

 She was right, after all. His class were a rowdy and childish lot, crying over scraped knees and throwing fusses over minor issues. They all owed her, Damian most of all, for he hadn't been kind and gentle at the start. She deserved this, didn't she? And, he did have a suggestion to help her. It was the least he could do, and he genuinely did want her to feel better.

"Perhaps," He ventured, "You may try what helps me."

 Ms Shrike raised an eyebrow, typically a sign of intrigue, sometimes that of judgement.. Damian couldn’t tell. He hoped it was the former, but he wanted to believe in the latter, so he couldn’t get caught unaware. Regardless, he soldiered on.

”Tai chi chʻüan is a martial art originating from China, the earliest documentation being in the Henan province..”

He broke eye contact and stared at that calender. Twenty-eighth. “Energy – it’ll be good for you to try it, for a key aspect of Tai chi is the study of –“

Ms Shrike shifted, and Damian recognized the edge to that movement.

It was judgement. Of course it was judgement, he’s so fucking stupid.

”Now, Damian,” She said, and that hand was back, rubbing his outer arm, pointed thumbnail close enough to his basilic vein that goosebumps raised, yet she ignored that reaction. “We’ve talked about this. The other kids don’t like it when you try to force your interests on them.”

Force? Damian was suggesting. And he thought it was a good suggestion, too, if she’d just listen. “I’m not-!”

”Do not talk back to me,” Ms Shrike retracted her hand and snapped, and Damian shut that line of dialogue down immediately, like iron gates slamming down.

He knew that any more words out his mouth would also be considered backtalk, so he stayed silent, watching. Ms Shrike sighed and leaned away. Her gaze swept the room with a slightly clenched jaw, and her attention being off him should be freeing, but he only felt more and more ill.

Hastily, Damian continued. “But of course, I will be here,” He said, and Ms Shrike stared at him again. “I will, I will support you, ma’am. You can come to me.”

Ms Shrike stared a little longer, then a slow smile spread across his face. “That’s so sweet of you, Damian,” She said. That hand was back, and his skin prickled.

”Don’t call me ma’am, though. That makes me feel too old for you.”

The first thing that Damian did, upon climbing into Drake’s car, was jam his hand into his backpack. He rustled for his blazer with frenzied ferocity and yanked it out so fast that he knocked his elbow against the window, shocking his whole forearm.

Drake looked befuddled and dumb from the driver’s seat. “A little cold there, Damian?”

Damian ignored him. He did not need Drake’s approval, he needed Father’s, and he was being kind, like Father wanted, therefore he must have had it. It should feel good. He felt sick.

Last time he forgoes his blazer again, even if the shoulders agitated him.

Self portraiture dated back to the beginning of mankind. First, it was drawings on cave walls, of an early human capturing their own likeness, making their mark on the world. With the invention of photography, this became more and more widespread.

Photography was more of Drake’s thing. Damian had seen the little stalker shrine back in Drake Manor, and he was far from impressed.

 He could understand the value in using photographs, however, so once returning to his room, he searched his school website for a wide shot, pulling it into an editing program to stretch out the sky upwards until it was big enough for his next art piece.

It was an idea that he had for a while, but that day’s tutor session was the final nudge. 

Once the paper was finish printing, nice and warm to the touch, he raced back to the art room and placed it images-side down. He applied a thin layer of glue to a fitting piece of cardboard, recycled from some of the packages they received in the mail, and carefully pasted the photograph onto it.

 The clouds and the sky looked a little strange from the way he had selected them and dragged them, but he liked it. The blocky colors gave the whole school a ‘sinking’ look.

 He had originally planned to sketch right on it immediately – but the glue wasn’t dry, and so the paper was wet, and so it may tear easily.

Thankfully, he had many glass boards around, so he set the cardboard upright on an easel, and then propped the glass panel up in front of it. 

 Damian used a black ink pen to sketch himself, floating high above the school. He then scrubbed it out and changed the pose, to less like an angel and more like an unsuspecting farm animal being abducted.

He should paint a cow from the Kent farm, next. 

He leaned back and scanned the whole piece over, and found that the glass worked, seeming to add another degree of separation between him and the warped school. He decided to keep it.

So he set another glass panel over that one, careful to line up the edges and relishing in the smooth surface under his fingertips, and painted directly onto it.

There were struggles. He wasn’t happy with the colouring of the photo, it was too bright and too blue, and the little figure that was himself felt too little and too vulnerable there, high in the air.. but overall he was happy with it. The squared off glass contrasted nicely with the cardboard, which still had bits of shipping label on it with the edges rough and untidy, and the smooth glass was a nice feeling on his paintbrush over the canvas fabric.

This was how Drake found him.

An annoying set of footsteps came up from the hall. “Brat,” Drake said. “Dinner. Come down or I’ll eat all the croutons.”

Damian, of course, ignored him and continued. 

Drake sighed. “Damian. Come down.” He stood in the doorway and flickered the lights, but the sun was still high so it didn’t do anything of substance.

 More ignoring. Damian exchanged his brush for another.

”Damian-” Drake cut off with a groan and stomped his ogre-stomping in, and then he finally saw Damian’s art. 

Drake didn’t speak for a long moment. Damian tried to ignore Tim, but sweat was beading in his palm and he even dipped his oil paint brush into his water cup like a buffoon.

 Tim broke his silence just after Damian started worrying that Brown would eat all the croutons. “The color grading’s all off.”

Damian whipped his head around. ”Tt. Must you break my concentration for needless commentary, Drake?” He snapped.

Drake furrowed his stupid eyebrows. “No, that’s not what I meant–“

But there was no more conversation, and so the brothers went down for dinner, bickering as was routine.

 Later that night, the painting was finished and left to dry in a corner of the art room.

 It needed months to dry, after all, but there were still other additions to Damian’s collection under his bed.

 There was a drawing that could be mistaken for a figure study of a woman.

Over it, laid the words M A T U R I T Y, upright letters vertical down the page, the M being at her head and the Y being at her feet. 

There were smudged marks around her chest, looking like little hands before they had been erased. 

A Piece of tracing paper had been stuck on top. The tracing paper was scribbled out, gentle enough not to rip apart the page, but enough to completely hide the image of the woman.

As Damian fell asleep that night, his emotions were a slurry of pleased pride and aching disgust and overwhelming guilt. That was all he felt those days.

 April

Damian was soon getting to needing another box to place his.. special drawings in.

That’s what they were. Special – and not special-good, but special-different, special-important.. and he needed to keep making them. They were about the main thing that helped.

He needed to create, lest he do something more drastic.

The most recent drawing was of himself, and he spent a week on it, carefully rendering every hair and every minute shade, except for the hands, which cut off the wrists abruptly.

Before that there’s.. well, there’s no calling that a figure study, but he had certainly seen it. Not willingly of course, but he couldn’t stop seeing it until he drew it about a dozen times. Photographic memory. He was his father’s son, after all.

He felt like the most disgusting being alive to do that, to draw them, and he had decided that he was – a violent, beastly creature.

There is something to be said about a boy that chose softness – vegetarianism, art, and animal rescue – as soon as he became that age when children start choosing things for themselves, about how he’s incredibly not monstrous.... but he wouldn’t hear it.

 He wouldn’t allow himself to.

Like father, like son.

July

Bristol’s shopping mall was comprised of sprawling sparkling clean marble floors and delicate, sculpted glass lights between every bright and polished store front. Around, there were various restaurants and food stalls with benches, so dine-in customers could people-watch shoppers, and the smell of food wafted out from each restaurant or stall, and Damian’s headache was squeezing around the top of his head like he’d been sentenced to execution by crushing.

 His idiotic brothers and their nattering made it worse, and they even invited fatgirl.

”Big, big bouncy castle, out back!” Brown said. “Tim will love that, won’t he?”

Jason attempted to say something, probably a brainless yes, but Father cut in. ”Absolutely not. We’re here to buy goodpresents for Tim.”

”Okay, Captain Made-Good-Birthday-Presents-For-Tim. What are you getting?”

And so on and so forth. 

Damian didn’t care for their meaningless chatter. He had his own reason for attending, and that reason was done and dusted – packed up neatly and slung over Father’s shoulder, because that morning, Father had decided to wake everyone up and drag them out to shopping, and so Damian took the opportunity to buy himself some folders. Ostensibly for school work, but he knew that by the end of the day, those folders would be under his bed packed full of misery.

However, one flaw in coming was that he couldn’t leave to immediately use him, because Damian only found out in the car that they were going to buy birthday presents, and so he had to stay to watch that clown show.

By that point in the day, suggestions of a new car, a head of cauliflower, a fifteen-by-twenty-five-inch poster of Red Hood, a pair of tropical sandals (toddler-sized), a fish (raw), and now that bouncy castle, had all been suggested and denied, although Father almost didn’t notice the sandals, and they almost got them through checkout.

”..we should get sushi.”

”What? No way blondie. We’re getting pizza.”

”How about we separate for food and then meet at this table?” 

”..”

”Don’t be stupid, Bruce.”

”Yeah, Bruce, don’t be dumb.”

”Whuh, Wha-”

Damian tuned out his Father’s spluttering as he, again, scanned their surroundings. God knows his family weren’t, distracted as they were in picking bad presents.

All the good presents were already wrapped and stored. That whole trip was surely unnecessary.

Then, somebody brushed against Damian’s shoulder, a woman, and the soft fur of her coat ghosted across his cheek, and then reality closed in.

His skin where the cloth touched him prickled, a creeping sense that he told himself was only because he was focused on it. This creeping sense dripped across his skin, down to his body between his legs and on the sides of his body, even while the woman was far away.

 He needed to vomit to get that subtle bitter taste out his mouth. He needed to shower for an hour to scrub and scrub until blood beaded up.

He did neither of those because he was in public, where anyone could see him, and he couldn’t run away and hide.

That was a shame. Each window and door of this place was scorching and prominent in his mind, and yet he could only wish from a distance.

Suddenly, he wondered just how many people were watching him, prying deep under his skin burrowing into his bones and realising that, even after peeling back all his layers, he’s just not enough. Not strong enough to be his mother’s son or his father’s Robin. Disgusting, too – revolting, tainted, spreading death and decay wherever he goes.

There was blood on his hands, and it couldn’t be cleaned off. 

Another person walked by, their arm brushing against his, and Damian felt it even worse.

Then it happened again. 

And again.

Then-

”Damian? Could you help me decide on some patterned socks?”

It wasn’t necessarily a reset, but he felt like his mind had been wiped clean. He registered the half-eaten falafel in front of him, before he looked up to see Father already standing and nodding towards the escalator upwards.

Mutely, Damian stood and followed. The escalator was blissfully empty, and the fourth floor was rather empty and Damian took the opportunity to huddle closer to Father’s side.

 The illusion of safety from being near relatives.

Father did not speak at first, and they both walked almost a full lap around the mall. The shops, Damian noted, did not sell socks, and that should’ve been frustrating, that a fake reason was created to have him follow, but he felt his guard drop with every step. It also helped that Father was breathing rather loudly. Damian knew that he hadn’t gotten injured the previous night, and that Father was usually quite stealthy. Perhaps he was congested. Nonetheless, Damian could copy his breathing and it was quite calming.

”I know what you’re feeling,” Father then said. Damian tilted his head up.

”You do?”

Warm sunny hope almost bloomed, but then father continued. “I know your early years were spent training and training, but you’re going to have to get used to big crowds. Not that- not that I expect you to be happy with crowds, but I hope that, for you, it’ll get easier to manage.”

”Oh.” Damian dropped his head to stare dead ahead. “Why’s that?”

Father adjusted the many bags that were hanging from his shoulders as he thought.

There was a trolley in the trunk. They should have brought it, even whilst Brown called it lame.

”I run Wayne Enterprises currently,” Father said. “Tim did for a period, but I decided to take it back. Do you know why?”

”Because Drake is incompetent?” 

Father snorted grossly and gently knocked Damian’s shoulder, but he was certain he was speaking seriously, not joking. “Don’t talk about your brother that way,” Father softly chided. “Timothy’s run as CEO was great. Better than me, even, but it was never what I wanted.”

He sighed and fiddled with the bags again. His voice was choked in that way it always was whenever he had to reveal that he had empathy. “..But I know that it’s likely for me to go away again, and for CEO to fall to one of you. That’s why I want you all prepared for that eventuality, and one of the things that – that I had estimated that will disturb you is big crowds. Paparazzi crowds, busy bullpens, that sort of thing. We’ll practice. All good things get better with practice and I- I’ll be right behind you.”

After that moving, yet completely missing-the-point, speech, Damian and his Father walked another lap around the topmost floor, before Todd and Brown grew tired and came up with the rest of their food.

They finished eating on a balcony overlooking Bristol city park. It was peaceful, only barely tinted with unease.

Then Father received a phone call, and Damian was irrationally fearing that it was his teacher reporting bad grades again, even though it was a weekend. The call soon ended, and Father returned with furrowed eyebrows. He said that there was an emergency at Wayne Enterprises and had to leave, immediately.

Todd offered his bike and the two were off, leaving Brown to drive them home.

Walking around with Brown and no adult males around was different.

To him, at least. Brown still walked the same and looked around the same.

It was the way they were treated, that changed.

He felt like there was.. a little more staring, certainly not from everyone, but enough to be notable. It was somewhat familiar yet they weren’t directed at him, they were directed at Brown.

He’s sure he heard a whistle, too. Though no one tried any direct interaction until they both left the mall and were in the massive parking lot out back.

There, Brown spun the key ring around her finger as she looked around, squinting into the sea of shiny car roofs.

”We took the BMW,” Damian supplied. It wasn’t clear what Brown was stalling for, so he assumed. Brown replied with a non-committal hum but started walking.

 It was then that someone called out.

”Hey beautiful! Hey!”

Damian glanced at him in the reflection of a tires hubcap. He was an ordinary looking man, sitting in his own car (red honda civic) and leaning out the window. His eyes scanned up and down Brown and passed over Damian entirely, as if dismissing him.

Brown pretended that nothing happened and kept walking. Damian did the same.

”Hey- c’mon baby, talk to me!” The man said again, then exiting his own vehicle and beginning to follow. “I just complimented you. Say thank you. Hey! Say thank you!”

His tone was demanding and arrogant, footsteps quick to catch up – yet he stayed a notable distance away behind. An illusion of respect.

”I’m talking to you, you fat b-”

A fleeting illusion.

Brown spun around on her heel. She aimed a flat, soulless stare right at the man, and clearly he was expecting some other reaction, because he jerked and floundered for half a second.

Thus, they were locked in a stalemate. Damian watched the man grow more and more red, like he was about to explode, before he snapped.

”Whatever, bitch!” He spat. “You aren’t worth my time anyway. Go have fun with your terrorist boytoy anyway, Fuckin’ whore.”

With that, he stomped away. Brown watched his back until he got in his own car, and then she took a sharp left, directly towards the BMW. Notably, she took her hand out of her pocket, which he knew held a blade.

The way they drove out of there was erratic. She went past the speed limit and took several sharp corners and repeated turns, until the red car in the rear view mirror was lost. Damian watched the mirrors anxiously for another ten minutes and another dozen sharp corners, fiddling with one of his folders.

Brown gripped the wheel tightly, staring straight ahead. Her eyes were slightly dilated and she was breathing a little quicker, indicating that adrenaline had been produced when the man had approached them.

Damian got the sense that he should be quiet, because she had experienced a stressful situation, but he didn’t understand what happened. He needed to understand.

”Who was that?” He asked. “Did you know him?”

Brown glanced at him and manually relaxted her hands. “I didn’t know him, no.“

Feeling braver at her non-violent response, Damian continued. ”Then why did he say that to you? Why did you ignore him?”

Brown didn’t respond for a few moments, glancing between him and the road, but eventually she shrugged faintly and nodded.

They were halfway home at that point. Brown flicked on the radio to whatever peppy host was on and turned it down low. “I’ll answer, but you have to save the brattiness for later. Got it?”

”I will,” Damian replied. He was happy that Stephanie was answering him, so he didn’t fight like he would usually to.

”That was sexual harassment,” Brown said, bluntly. “Well, flavored by racism. He was harassing us. It’s specifically ‘catcalling’.”

 “Catcalling,” Damian repeated. He made a note to research that. “That is when he spoke about your body?”

”Yes. And when he continued to yell after we ignored him.”

She was silent, then, letting Damian think. He could recognize that the man’s following them was wrong. He didn’t understand why anything else was wrong, though – that was how his tutor spoke to him, and she wasn’t wrong.

”He complimented you, did he not? What was wrong about what he said initially?”

Left turn. Damian checked the mirrors again, but they were still safe.

”Yes, his words were complimenting, and maybe he did want that – but I didn’t. Few women do. It’s considered common sense, really.”

”So the initial problem was that you did not want a compliment?”

Brown nodded. “Consent over intent,” She said. By that point, they were home.

Thomas had been, that month, staying in the manor, and he came down to help unpack, freeing Damian of his duties early. He took the opportunity to dart to his bedroom and crouch down by his bed, tucking loose sheets into his new folders.

There was a peace to it, shaking all the dust off old loose drawings, picking apart the ones stuck together by blood and tears, and sliding them into individual plastic sheets.

He was still confused about that day’s events, however. It left a fogginess of the mind and an anxious ache in his teeth.

 What happened to Brown was similar to him. Was it? Wasn’t it?

Ms Shrike did say things that he didn’t like. Future plans about how she’d wait for him to grow up, or talks about how fresh and young he was.

He didn’t like those. Brown didn’t like hers, and therefore her Ms Shrike was wrong.

But..

 Ms Shrike had a hard life. He knew what her childhood was like, and her job was so stressful. He had to be grateful for her, it was the least he could do.

Damian chewed on the inside of his cheek.

And, Father entrusted him to Ms Shrike.

No, Damian decided. I must not be selfish. I must not be ungrateful.

What was happening to him was normal.

August

”As long as she’s hot, there ain’t a thing wrong with that.”

As always, the echoing impacts of basketballs against the gymnasium hall hardwood floor was nauseating, in that slow creeping way that made Damian want to cancel all his afternoon activities and hide in his room. Every time, he always thought that it wasn’t so bad and that he could handle it, and then he left every Thursday sixth period ready for patrol to come faster.

Also, at that point, he began every day hoping for it to be over. There wasn’t much to be excited for.

 Luckily, half the gymnasium was under repairs (mutant bat-student creatures due to poisoned school milk the week before, standard stuff), so there was only half the noise. There was only one court available, and the other class was using the outside courts, so Damian’s team were sequestered to a bench against the wall. That was when Damian pushed the conversation over to.. this topic.

It wasn’t going as expected.

”Yeah. As long as she’s hot. Aiden, next time you get raped, invite me yeah?”

As they laughed, Damian took a sip of water to hide that he wasn’t joining in. His team consisted of four boys and four girls, one of the girls being Ellie, his seat neighbor. She at least was brave enough to be outright about not laughing.

Another girl spoke. “I mean, if he really didn’t want it, he can just push her off. Like, there’s no struggling, there’s no way she’s stronger than him.” There was laughter in her voice.

”That’s what I’ve been saying!”

All at once, Damian remembered that mind-numbing fear, that grip on his arms keeping him still coming from within his own mind – and they were right, weren’t they? He’d been trained from the best, genetically engineered to be the best and destined for greatness: yet he could not push off one woman.

Yet.

Was there really anything to push off from? The boys said it right: sex was how one became a man. He didn’t want that He’s lucky, in a sense, because he would certainly seem like a man.

Lucky..

They’d think of him as a coward if they knew he was…. Unwelcome, to his own encounters with their teacher. They’d think of him as pathetic.

The echo of the basketballs took a more fleshy tint, and they suddenly became less and less bearable.

Still, he did not drown out the ongoing conversation. That would be bad. He was trained against it. He listened and logged every single word.

Then, something he dreaded.

”Wayne! What’s on your mind, why’re you being so quiet?” And everyone was looking at him.

He’d like to think that his mouth moved before he could think, but didn’t. Every word that came out of his mouth was thought through with painful awareness, weeks in advance.

”He must be lucky,” Damian had said. “What a lucky victim.”

Ellie no longer went out of her way to speak to him after that.

That afternoon, Damian returned home with several sheets of paper stuffed into his bag.

He wasn’t willing to compile and print them through any of the computers at the Manor, nor was he willing to try any of the school computers, so those papers were printed from a library in New Gotham, the furthest one from the Manor.

Bit of a walk. He’d done worse, though.

Rather than join the snack time that was being held in the west wing sitting room, Damian retreated went to his room. He did not want to risk any snooping, and he knew that it was very likely if he left his bag unattended if he had decided to gorge himself with anyone else.

Once in his room, he ensured that the doors were locked and that there were no bugs in his room – not that he needed to check, those were unconscious securities – and laid out his papers.

They were all case files. Case files of. Cases like his, except they were taken to court.

The results were grim.

He could not stop reading.

He felt rooted to the spot, a bloated corpse sat so long that it melted into the upholstery and had to be pried off; disgusting and rotting, organs out and put on display. The golden square of light from his window skewed, melting down into blues and greys until it was a slant line across the wall, his head ached, and his abandoned plate of dinner outside his door developed flies.

He knew each case file word for word like they were etched into his brain.

It was then that his Father knocked on the door and Damian swiped his sheets into a stack and shoved them back into his school bag, before wiping his face and standing.

Father smiled tiredly when Damian opened the door. Damian didn’t even know why, and that added more fuel to that hot ball of anxiety in his chest.

”It’s late,” He whispered, as if they were a normal family who had such things as a designated quiet hour. “You should get to bed.”

”I have stayed up for longer,” Damian informed.

”That you have. But though I know you’re excited for your mother to visit next week, you must get some rest,”

Damian went to bed. As he pulled back the covers, he noticed blood. It came from his hands, for he had held the papers so tight that his nails dug into his palms.

September

Damian rushed down the stairs.

He’d wanted to get to the safety of his room so much, that he had forgotten to deposit his latest round of drawings into one of his new folders.

He found the folder in the east wing sitting room, right where he left it: closed and cold on the table.

No matter. He slid the newer pieces inside and left it there. His focus had to remain on his task, his original one, that he had before he remembered the folder.

Down the hall he crept, and up red-carpeted stairs to the corner behind Father’s office, shadowy and from a wing that is rarely occupied – perfect for eavesdropping.

Not eavesdropping, really. More.. covert information-gathering.

From his vantage point, he could almost revel in the warmer tint to Father’s voice, which paused as his Mother spoke, starting up after a break in his with her melodic voice, like two birds singing a duet.

The contents of their conversation were significantly less palatable.

”..to you December, at the latest.”

”Thank you. Have you had time to think about my question?”

”Thank you? Beloved, you’re getting soft in your old age.”

 “..”

”Aw. Your pouting face is still cute after all these years. But yes, I have considered.”

A pause, then the clink of a cup being placed back on a saucer.

”Considering his ongoing training and his age, my answer is no.”

”I thought the same. Is Mara fasting?”

”She is: I’ll have to tell her to not mention that when she arrives.”

They spoke a little longer, but that was the long and short of it.. that they said to each other.

Damian just got told no. He’s not sure how he felt about that.

Gotham City, despite the gloom and the oppressive foggy air, sparkled when looked at right. It just so happened that Wayne Manor was at the perfect angle.

The aforementioned glittering lights highlighted Mother’s outline, at the expense of almost shadowing out her face.

In the past, she would’ve offered physical affection, but Damian had kept a careful distance all day, so Damian received none. Instead, Mother stood there as she always did, strong and regal, yet shorter – or rather, Damian had grown taller.

He asked, ”When will I see you again?” 

”At the latest, your fifteenth birthday,” Mother replied, before a small smile graced her face. “Latest: I do hope to meet again sooner.. but with how fast you’re growing, it might be sooner than later!”

She must have been feeling light to be speaking so jovially, no doubt because she just saw Father. Damian continued. “What would be worthy of your visit before my next birthday?”

”If anything happens to you. I’m always watching, my son.”

His tutor’s voice came to him, so close to his ear that he barely kept from any physical reaction.”You’re going to grow up so tall and strong, Damian, I know it. Maybe someday you can replace my husband, haha! Keep getting big and strong, I’ll be watching.”

He wasn’t so eager to meet his Mother again after crawling out of that memory. Or meet anyone, really.

He thought about what he would look like, taller and more muscular, and instantly he was repulsed. Sure, he would be more useful, but otherwise, he didn’t want the benefits of growing up.

Before that night’s patrol, he reached under his bed for a box he’d hastily slid there under the guise of taking a quick last-minute run to the toilet. The box was from one of his presents, but inside was his baklava which he had stashed away rather than ate. That was during everyone laughing at Grayson who had snorted his faluda out his nose, when everybody’s eyes were temporarily off him.

 The expectation had been that he was to eat it and enjoy it. He didn’t, and that made him feel.. better.

Both by not eating it, and also by not having to guess whether he enjoyed it, if he did eat it.

It’s control, and control of one of the base needs of being alive at that. 

He’s glad the street kid that he offered it to enjoyed it, though.

 November

 It wasn’t the first time he’s vomited. Not by a long shot.

Still, it doesn’t get any less unpleasant; the uncontrollable salivating akin to a rabid dog, the acidic burn, the stench – one of the few times he cursed his photographic memory. He spat again and darted up to the sink to rinse his mouth. He had a cup of water with baking soda ready for that exact moment.

The water he spat into the sink swirled red and frothy pink. He knew it wasn’t gingivitis.

There was no time to dwell on that fact, though. He had to finish his drawing.

So, even though he looked bloodless in the bit of his mirror that peeked out underneath the cloth and he felt ready to vomit again, he moved back to the sketch. He made a mental note to fetch another can of baking soda – his fifth that week. It was becoming part of his normal routine.

Just because something’s normal, it doesn’t mean that it’s good.

”Burnside State Museum is opening a new Cretaceous-era exhibit this Saturday. I was.. I was thinking that you and I could go. We could even take your sketchbook, draw some of the fossils?”

Damian hadn’t drawn anything that wasn’t.. Secret in almost a year. 

Him and secrets didn’t have a good track record – he could keep them, but it always burned, like holding hot coal, and he could either drop it, and potentially have someone else hold it, or keep silent and let the flesh melt off.

There was no question. He had to keep holding it.

 Hands held behind his back as he met his Father’s gaze with a neutral expression, Damian replied, “That is acceptable.”

From Father’s disappointed expression, his reply was not acceptable, but he hadn’t been sure why.

Father had caught him in his room, and Damian had been less than graceful as he shoved aside a pile of food wrappers and his stash of even more food, and then there they were: Damian standing in the doorway as Father stood outside as he talked.

Clearly, there was something to get, but he wasn’t getting it.

”Or, alternatively, we could visit the museum’s farm,” Father continued. “There's some alpacas, and a turkey, and I think there’s some cows too.”

An expectant pause. One that Damian did not fill.

”Maybe we could pay for a closer look? Run around with the cows? I heard there’s–”

Tired of this conversation – and tired of everything, really – Damian interrupted. “I need to arrive at the Kent farm at six pm. It is five-twelve.”

Father smiled, it creased the corners of his eyes. Damian usually felt pride when he pulled that expression out of his Father, but all he felt was a deep pit of silence. “I won’t keep you any longer. Have fun, son.”

The visit was acceptable.

Yet, with little guilt or grief, little anything at all, Damian crept out of the farm as midnight began.

He drew a little doodle of him and Jon, holding hands and flying out of school.

If anyone found it, it would seem normal.

January

That disconnect between his emotions and his thoughts extended further, like a stitched wound that kept coming undone, until he could not even bare his friends.

Something about the way they smiled, that carefree innocence, it rankled him, it raked against his skin and stung something behind his nose that he just couldn’t hear them laugh any longer.

So, between rounds of shooting little monsters with a flimsy plastic gun, Damian ducked away.

Popcorn crunched under his shoes on the patterned arcade floor. He walked towards the exit.

Behind him, Colin and Mia handed his gun to a boy and continued.

It took a few moments, but they began to smile and joke around with the new boy. They didn’t need him at all.

Damian never should have came. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and met more paper. More to add to the board.

Honestly, Damian should’ve known what was about to happen when the girls were picked out and moved to a separate room and Mr. Hoxs replaced the female substitute teacher, both teachers sending each other a look..

His thoughts were sluggish those days, and sitting in those plastic seats always itched, so he only realised when the flashcards slide (that no one was listening to) was replaced with YOUR CHANGING BODY and the classroom filled with laughter, that the next hour was going to be hell. For him, it was endless frustration to be taught information that he already knew, and something about the careless of his peers was suffocating.

He already knew that there was a risk of pregnancy. He knew what contraceptives were and – well, he didn’t know that the man was supposed to wear two. But that’s what the powerpoint said, so clearly obviously, it must be true.

It helped that his teacher was one of the more bearable ones in Gotham Academy, and he squashed down the disgust best he could. 

That was quite difficult because the slide started showing male anatomy. But he persevered, and class let out soon.

Some of his classmates have latched onto some specific wording that their teacher had said, and were parroting it up and down the hallway as they left. Damian abruptly slipped from the herd, changed his path to hide in the toilets.

Further up the hallway, he heard where the female half had went.

”Every time you let a man have you, you become more and more dirty..” He heard. That did sound correct (– but it wasn’t a man, so maybe it wasn’t?), so Damian sat just outside to listen. They’d left the door wide open so he could hear everything. Notably, the girls were silent. There was a sound of ripping. ”It’s like tape. You can stick it to one thing fine, but it becomes useless – pardon my crassness – less useful, if you try sticking it onto another thing. Now, who would marry a girl like that?”

 Pause. Rustling fabric – an arm being raised.

”Yes, Alex?”

”What about rape?” Alex said. ”If I get raped, am I still dirty?” 

The teacher chuckled. ”Well Alex, it’s very likely that will happen, but if it does, simply tighten up down there and it can’t happen to you! Which brings me onto my next point: STDs.”

There is a round of gasps and disgust.

”As you can see ladies, this is what sex can do to you. It can be fatal, at times..”

Fatal.

Damian didn’t want to die. He really, really did not want to die. He wished then that he was in that lesson, that he knew what STDs were so he could check for it on himself. 

 Another trip to the library, then.

March

Swathes of flowers had been planted in the nearby parks and the air was alight with pollen.

 Spring.

Spring.. cleaning?

 Damian started asking over breakfast.

Father quirked an eyebrow. “You want to clean up the house before Cassandra returns?”

”Right now is the optimal time to clean the house,” Damian explained. “It is beginning to get warm again, meaning that we can comfortably open the windows while dusting, and we’ll no longer need the fireplace therefore we can clean those out too. Cain’s return is merely a coincidence, but she must participate too.”

”And why’s that?”

”It’s a family activity, Father, and this house is big. Surely you do not expect Pennyworth to do it alone?”

Pennyworth smiled warmly at him. “Quite right, Master Damian. That’s an excellent idea.”

Father tilted his head in concession. “Even Tim?”

”Of course.”

Drake glared over his oatmeal.

Damian continued through Patrol.

”I can’t believe you made me do this,” Red Hood said. “I can’t believe you want to do this.”

”You can keep to your shack in Crime Alley, Hood. But you owe it to Agent A, do you not?”

Red Robin cut in. “He wouldn’t shut up about it. He was messaging me through classes.”

Red Hood whistled. “Fine, since you care so much. You’re telling BB, though.” 

”Black Bat has been informed and she has agreed already.” Deep, shaky breath. Anxiety clung to him like a vice around his throat. “You begin while I am at school.”

”Woah, without your supervision? What if we have to.. clean your room!?” Red Robin snorted. “Sure you don’t want to keep your secrets?”

”It’s more important to clean,” Said Damian. “It’s more important.”

”Do you promise?” Damian repeated. “You will start as soon as possible?”

Damian loomed over his Father. He had shaken him awake after preparing for school. “Drake has already given his word.”

Father cleared his throat and blinked up at him. “I promise. We’ll start from the topmost floor as agreed.” 

”Good. And I will find out if you hadn’t.”

 The bell rung signifying the end of study hall. Damian remained in his seat as the other students left, head down and hands flat on the table.

The teacher packed his things and gave Damian a nod on his way out.

Ansty silence reigned for eleven minutes and fifty seconds, and the door creaking open signified Damian’s cue to drop his gaze from the clock to meet Ms Shrike’s.

”Good Evening, Damian,” She said. “Let’s get started.”

At roughly four – fifteen, Damian hadn’t been paying attention to the time, everything rapidly sped up.

Looking back, he can’t be sure whether it was Father or if it was Todd who broke down the door to the classroom, having sprinted straight from his bedroom and both not even wearing proper running shoes. Later he would know it was Father by his broken toes, but in that moment all he knew is that the hand was ripped off his arm.

And then Damian breathed.