Chapter Text
She hears the talks from the other side of the walls, anywhere she is in the manor she hears the words: “Kid”, “Too soon” and “she’s not a kid anymore”. But she is… She wants to be, Dami wants to be the same age as the other kids in her grade, she wants to go back to combing her hair with the softest brush and not worry about anything but the fact that she’s running late for school. She wants to run into the rooms where her family congregates and yell at them and throw a fit, telling them she’s a kid, she’s still a little girl. But she knows the only words that would await her after that are “you’re being childish” and “I’m sorry” and she., for one, is still a kid and second… The last thing she wants is their pity.
Everyone is in the manor, and it’s killing her, too many people, too many people intruding in her life, too much noise and so so much muttering and sushing… Damian wishes they would just tell her to her face, she knows they feign pity and sorry but she knows they think of her a whore… After all, what kind of whore could she be to not only get pregnant before starting her senior year in high school but also not know who the father is, because they all, except Jon, know she doesn’t know, and that kills her. They’re all back from wherever they were before, she loves them all but she wants them gone, Tim and Dick are back, Jason hangs out around the manor… And they… don’t seem to be suffering half as much as her. Damian loves them all, even Tim’s boyfriend, Connor, but she wishes they’d all had come to the manor on other circumstances, every time she walks past any of them she feels like they see through her, like she’s made of glass and they’re tasked with making sure she doesn’t break, even if that’s the thing she wants the most right now. The house that for so long felt as empty as her womb once was is now filled with people, and she just wants them all to disappear.
Her father took on the responsibility of telling Jon, Damian does not think it was out of love for her but another way to make her seem even less like a human, she didn’t even have the opportunity to tell anyone… She’s just been forgotten, Damian Wayne the girl replaced by the mother to be. Bruce and Talia did it together, telling Jon themselves, not wanting the boy to be left alone with their little girl, they know Jon is a good boy, but something this heavy and life changing can always elicit unexpected reactions. They thought Jon would’ve wanted the same thing Damian clearly wanted but had not explicitly expressed, an abortion, some crying and back to normal daily life. But now, having talked to Jon, they have to live with the knowledge that the father didn’t want the same thing as their daughter; Jon was using this, Damian’s worst moment in her life, to set up his dream life, a dream he hadn’t even discussed with his girlfriend.
He started, a smile on his face, not noticing the sorrow in Bruce’s and Talia’s faces : “Mr. Wayne! Ms. Al Ghul! This is absolutely perfect! Gosh, Rao, it’s like Dami knows exactly what I want in life!” Jon’s happiness is blinding in the surrounding gloom and darkness. “I was totally going to wait until Dami finished at least her midterms but clearly Rao had other plans!! Oh how long I’ve wanted this, you don’t even know!” He started rambling, completely ignoring Bruce and Talia trying to get him to stop, and not noticing Damian’s look as she entered the room. The gloom and the way the color on her face had completely disappeared was ignored so Jon could continue to explain his dream, Damian’s face just showed tiredness and disdain.
In his monologue, the three of them understood this: Jon hadn’t wanted anything more than this, a child with Damian. As he put it during the whole ten minute rant: Damian’s child was only the start of their American Dream, white picket fence and poppies included. Damian only rolled her eyes, staying put, not risking being labeled an ‘emotional and sensitive woman’, even if she had no intention of indulging the childishness of her boyfriend… ‘The American Dream’... At her expense? She just huffed, wanting to walk away but the fear of what her family thought of her planting her right in her place, even if only the thought of Jon having thought she would accept that as her future made tears well up in her eyes.
“So, Dami! I know this must be hard for you, I can’t believe you didn’t tell me before, I'm so excited for us!” Jon looked at her like she was the most beautiful woman on earth… and maybe that’s what mattered, not what she felt, clearly, but what others could look at her as. She gives him a small forced smile, she hopes his excitement makes him blind to the clear discomfort on her face. “This… this is part of what I had planned for us… Of course, a bit soon, I didn’t get to ask you to marry me but we won’t need that anymore, I mean… Talia and Bruce are super okay with us getting married so I guess we just started a bit early, even if not for much, you know, I wanted to ask you to marry me during the winter holidays but here we are and… wow, I’m going to be a dad… We’ll get a house, maybe not as big as this one and we could have more children, so this one doesn’t feel alone and–”
And that’s where Damian doesn’t care about being seen in a different light, she forgets all about poise and looking like a proper lady, not that she thinks they’d ever see her as one ever again, and just walks away while Jon is still talking.
Jonathan wants her to be okay with all this ? Jonathan Lane Kent wants her to… Just accept that she’s going to be a mother? He wants her to be happy about this? He wants to talk about more children? He wants an American Dream… that’s what he wants, and because fate put her on his way, fate decided to pull a bad prank on someone who was a little too close to the edge, he’s going to have it. And Damian… Damian will try to do her best to pull through, even if now she just wants to rip her boyfriend apart, wear his skin like an animal pelt over her shoulders… She wants to rip the baby from her insides and bite at it like she just caught big prey. She wants so badly to show them they shouldn’t pity her, she wants them to look at her like she’s human again.
The manor, in all its amplitude, felt smaller than a single room with how many people were constantly looking for her and trying to tend to ‘her’ needs, she knew they wanted to keep an eye on her, Damian was tired of this.
The first week was tiring if not stressing enough to induce vomit: mother wouldn't leave her side, talking about her own pregnancy and how she should start showing Jon she could be a good wife, lest he gets tired of her childish brattyness… It’s at Talia’s words that she really cries for the first time; Damian is not being childish by not wanting to listen to Jon talking about how HE had a dream THEY had to make come true, she’s not being a brat by trying to be left alone… She’s a kid… She wants to keep being a kid and now the only kid in the manor will be whatever is inside her.
Her mother’s words poke a hole in her stomach, conversations about being a great woman and being an Al Ghul, an heiress, have been replaced with Talia telling her not to end up like her, and even if Damian knows her mother and father love her, she can’t help but notice the light leave her mother’s eyes when she mentions how important it is to be able to live happily while still making others happy. It pains her, Talia, a strong woman, reduced to these words because she couldn’t keep Bruce at her side, because she couldn’t show her own father she was worthy of the seat he occupies, even if they loved each other, and because she couldn’t keep her rank in the family because of Damian. This is not the first life Damian has ruined, she ruined Talia’s the moment she was conceived, she ruined her brothers the moment she stepped into the manor and now, not only is she ruining hers, but she’s also making everyone around her miserable. She can tell, even if they hide it behind their ‘pampers’, she can see Bruce’s light go out when he remembers he’s going to have to accept Jon into the family, she can see Richard’s and Jason’s light go out when they look at her and notice that she’s not the girl they saw a week ago, she’s not the girl they’d fuck behind their grandparents graves, lest Bruce notice anything. Damian swears she sees it, she knows Jason and Dick see her and only see a washed up and used whore… she knows she is.
She’s not the same person anyone saw a week ago… and she will never be.
That sentence hangs around her head like a death sentence, because it is for her, the end of something she could never start. And it hangs around in her mind as she wanders around the manor, she has seen these corridors a hundred times over but she can’t help not looking at them differently now. She hasn’t even been here enough to know every single painting on the walls… not enough time to grow up like her brothers were allowed to. She hasn’t even had time enough to not be confused when she sees a door that she doesn't remember being introduced to.
Her mind is reeling, her mother’s words… The looks of pity from everyone else… She finds Martha’s old study, a door she hadn't even had the opportunity to snoop in before, and shuts herself in. Having never felt the arms of her grandmother around her, the warmth of the study feels like a warm hug that will never go away, no matter how much she ruins everything.