Chapter Text
Damian hates the Vampire King's residence. Despite the passage of time, he sees it for what it used to be. Wayne Tower. A reminder of his past, a legacy he will never forget the shadow of, even if Richard would rather him let it go. There were too many memories seeped into the walls. Especially at the penthouse, Richard's main residence and meeting room. The King’s throne room.
He avoids the throne room like the plague. His morals, while looser, will only bend so far. And there are things that happen up there that he cannot unsee, but spends days wishing he could.
…Richard makes a spectacle of feeding. The voyeuristic ways he feeds is cruel. He humiliates his victims, torments them, and only feasts on their blood after they have been thoroughly broken. (He tried to ignore the sick feeling of delight that bubbled up in his head during those times. They weren't his emotions. He tried to ignore the screams. Tried to ignore the instinct in him that demanded him to help, to protect the innocent and less fortunate. The very instinct Richard himself had honed in him, put blood, sweat, and tears into engraving into his being in their time as Batman and Robin, he'd been ordered to ignore now. It was another thing wrong about this new reality he was in.)
Yes, he avoided Richard's areas of the tower. He wished for the familiar weight of his blade, the instinct to fight and protect overwhelming him at times. It's not like the blade would do anything either. The only thing that would work was a stake. He was forbidden from owning them. Not after his… history. The sneer he gave Richard when he gave him the news was only rivaled by the sheer disgust he felt for the perfectly manufactured sympathetic expression on Richard’s face. There was no true remorse and yet he still acted.
The other vampires celebrated Damian's homecoming after so long. Much like Richard, many of the vampires closest to Richard had thought that Damian’s multi-year campaign to try and save humanity and assassinate Grayson was a rebellious phase. That after a time he would return. He hated even more that from what it looked like, he was proving them right. They welcomed him like an old friend returning home, and praised the connection he had with Grayson. The mental bond. They said that having a childe was a celebration, a responsibility.
They called him a prince.
(It was almost violent, the way it gave him flashbacks of the League. He’d been a prince once before all of this. Shedding that title had been the hardest thing he’d done. He didn’t think he’d be able to shed it this time even if he wanted to.)
The mental connection was a lifesaver as much as it was a tether. A chain. Damian Wayne wasn't a prisoner in the Vampire King's palace. He would never be a prisoner ever again. But he still felt like a prisoner. He still felt trapped. It still felt like a chain around his neck. Another reason that he couldn't leave even if he had nothing left for him out there.
(“It’s an honor, you know?” Wonder Woman had murmured to Damian one night, expression soft and eyes glowing red. “It's a sign of care, of love. Try not to blame him too much. This is the only way a vampire could love. Remember that, little warrior.”)
He hated it. He hated Richard. He hated vampires. He hated being-
‘Calm, comfort, it's okay.’ Richard’s projected emotions washed over him from wherever he was in his lair. He hated that. He hated the never-ending buzzing in his head, how it soothed and untied knots in his brain with the slightest of ease. He hated that it helped.
‘Go away, leave me alone, I bite!’ His emotions unknowingly projected back at Richard in a snappy response. He couldn't even help the communication sometimes. It was innate, a second nature, he hated wherever he caught himself doing it. He pointedly ignored the wave of amusement that Richard sent back, making him realize he'd done it again.
Everything about this felt wrong. Everything about him felt wrong.
He briefly thinks about the books he read that talked about feeling alien in your body, and hating it for what it is because it should be different. Because his body used to be right and now it was wrong wrong wrong. Dysmorphia? Dysphoria? One of those.
He wondered if there were other vampires out there like him. That hadn't wanted this. That had been forced. That was ripped away from the comfort of what they knew and thrown into whatever the hell this was. Did they just accept it? Openly grow to accept their new body, new reality, new self. He could never understand how people were able to do that.
Especially considering he was a vampire child. He wouldn't have another birthday. He'd never die. He'd never grow up. Never truly be 16.
(He'd never see his family again.)
He secludes himself away most days, holed up in his own quarters located on a different floor. And if that felt too close, if Richard was too much for him… He left.
He leaves a lot in the beginning.
But with this new mental bond between them opened, between sire and childe, Richard was able to find him anywhere he went. There would be no more hiding. There would be no more escaping. Not truly. That was all but confirmed the first time he left.
The first time he left, he could feel the instant Richard had found out. It was weird and invasive to feel Richard's rising panic in his head. Like a second person, stirring just under his skin. It never stopped. Only growing as time passed. He had to learn to ignore it, and fast. It was tearing down his walls in a way he never wanted. Most days it made him feel sick. The solace and safety of his mind wasn't even his own. But where Damian could only feel sick, Richard felt comfort and happiness from it.
Sometimes, in the early hours of the morning, when Richard would seek him out, the two of them would sit in silence only using the bond to communicate. They shared feelings, emotions, having silent conversation of images conjured in-between the two of them. It would have almost been nice if it didn't make his skin crawl. Richard was trying. In his weird, fucked up way, he was trying.
(It wasn't enough. Damian didn't know if it would ever be enough. Not only did he take his family from him, and took his world. He took his future. Damian had been good once. And Richard had taken that from him just when he was realizing how badly he wanted it. There was just so much that he had done. So much that couldn't ever be undone. How could he forgive that?)
When Richard found him when he had run off the first time, he’d had come at Damian with a viciousness he’d almost forgotten outside of his dreams. Richard’s eyes were wild, and he looked ready for a fight. Damian could feel it, that feral desperation, a man ready to fight an entire army… for him. For him. Just to keep him. Once, long ago, it would have felt comforting. Now, it just twisted that pit in his stomach. Richard didn't just want Damian to come home. He needed to keep him too.
(Like a toy? Or was it more like a pet. Maybe, he was a trophy. …He was too scared to ask.)
When Richard had found Damian not actually running, he felt that feral intensity settle a little into a cool calm. By now, Damian knew it was a lie. He didn't know how Richard could do it, but he could hide his emotions and thoughts very well through the bond. Keep his privacy clamped down unless he got carried away or was intentional with it. He needed to learn that. And he needed to learn it fast.
But Damian had made a point not to hide, even if he wanted to. He was just sitting on top of his favorite building in Gotham. It was one that overlooked most of the Bowery, with gargoyles on it. He had a favorite one, and it wasn’t too badly damaged from everything. He was crouched underneath the gargoyle's wing, hidden in its shadow from the rain that so often coated the city as he watched the desolation of Gotham. But Richard knew of this spot well. It was a spot his family knew to find him at during patrol. It might as well have been right out in the open.
There was a subtle relaxation of Richard’s stance as he approached. A familiarity in which he slid to sit next to Damian.
(He was reminded of Nightwing sitting with him on a quiet night on patrol, quiet admissions that his older brother had once been more than that. Not a teammate. Not a brother. Not a mentor. That he'd wanted to be more. That he would always want it. The regrets, the what-ifs, and what would never be. ‘I may not be your Batman anymore, but you will always, always be my Robin-’)
It was almost. Normal. Well. As normal as Richard was. He’d always been a little strange. But it felt like Before, just for a moment. But when Richard gave Damian a quirk of his lips, his fangs showing at the motion, that vision shattered. He was being foolish to think about that, anyways. He could never go back to before.
Getting led back to Richard's home was a blur, his emotions rattling around in his skull so loudly he was sure Richard could feel it. He didn't pry, though he kept giving Damian a look when he thought he couldn't see it.
He ignored it. When they reached his room, he gave Dick a long, hard look, before shutting the door in his face.
Damian wishes he could say that was the last time that happened. Each time, a small part of him felt like such a coward for running. But even with the shame, he ran quite a bit. For the slightest of reasons, or just because. But without fail, Richard himself would seek him out every time, and lead him back to the tower, to his floor. It was with a note of gentleness that left him feeling sick some nights. It soothed a raw part of him, while making him feel sick at the same time.
But he learned to fill the time with other activities as well, he wasn’t always running. Damian had taken back to the hobbies he'd had before it all went to shit. Drawing, painting, sculpting.. Richard had been ecstatic about the re-emergence of such hobbies. He supplied him with anything he requested and sometimes would have things he didn't even ask for delivered. It helped pass the time, making him feel more normal.
His current project was a time consuming one, actually. It was a painting. He'd been painstakingly working on it for months now. It really was beautiful. It was of his family, painted like the old family paintings that Bruce used to make the family do every two years. Father, with Alfred behind him on one end, hands behind his back. Todd’s hulking form on the other end. Drake, Cain, Thomas, and almost as an afterthought, Brown clustered in the middle, photo bombing a family portrait like she’d always belonged there.
He'd really debated adding Richard. He was the catalyst for it all. He'd killed them. Maybe not all of them personally. But at least three of them he held a direct responsibility for. (Todd screaming for Queen to shoot him. Richard stomping Drake’s skull. …Father’s heart in his hand.)
He ended up adding him in the end, later than all the others. He stood in the back, watching over them all like he used to do for so long. Until he'd become this.
(Or maybe he was always like this, but only he was left to see it.)
He shakes off the thought and the implications that had. He didn’t want to think about it. Back to the painting, and the fact Richard was in it. It was supposed to be a snapshot in time anyways. That’s how he justified it. It was a snapshot in time. Of the family he’d once had. The brothers that were once there. The Father he once had. The role models that had taught him death and bloodshed weren't all he needed to be. That he could be different. That he could be good, make up for who he used to be. They dragged him into it kicking and screaming.
(He never got to thank them for it. For teaching him bloodshed wasn’t everything. …He'd give anything to never have to see blood ever again.)
He'd painted himself too, front and center. Where he would usually be told to stand during family portraits, with Father's hand on his shoulder, Drake on the other side of him. It was practically a finished product after all these months. And it would have been stunning. A painting he would have wanted hung up in his room. It would already be there up if it weren't for one glaring issue.
Everyone but him, Alfred, and Richard didn't have a face.
No matter how hard he thought, and how many times he tried. The faces he painted didn't look right.
When he thought back to his Father, he thought of blue eyes and a hard jaw. But he couldn't seem to recall the specifics. How his nose looked, and if his eyes crinkled when he gave a real smile was foreign to him. When he thought of Todd, he remembered eyes that were bright like coals, fierce and determined. But he couldn’t remember the shade of his eyes. Were they green? Or were they blue? Where were all the scars on his face again? What did they look like? When he thought of Drake, he remembered a quiet strength. A confident and almost sardonic lilt to his smiles, like he was issuing a challenge he knew others could never win. But what exactly did it look like? Where did his bangs fall on his face? The others fell into much the same category. He remembered what it felt like to be besides them. But their faces…
He didn’t know. He couldn’t remember.
The only face he truly remembered was Alfred's, but it was older than he'd intended to paint it, more tired and frail. He'd had to redo it to get rid of some of the wrinkles, and make him look younger. Like how he was before the war. Before it all changed.
Damian stared hard at the faces and felt a wave of helplessness wash over him as the faces on the portrait remained empty and blank. Just skin colored blobs and hair. He always prided himself on his memory. On his abilities. How the mighty have fallen.
He agonizes over the painting for a few more minutes again, before giving up. He can't deal with this right now. If he continues to stare at the glaring image of his continued failure- (His fault, his fault, his fault. He should’ve been stronger, better, he should have saved them. He should’ve done something.)
He needed to stop looking at it. He needed... Out. He needed to get away. Away from the reminders of his mistakes, from all of it. He throws open his window and is climbing out of the room and into the city in mere moments. He knew Grayson had installed a sensor into his window. He’d known as soon as he'd done it. But it was especially easy to tell when Grayson's thoughts immediately projected into his head. Trying to reassure him, trying to coax him back already.
‘Stay, it's okay. Come back! It's okay, come back.’ Grayson's thoughts projected at him like clockwork. He feels a hint of exasperation in it and snarls. It makes his stomach curdle. Good. He hoped it inconvenienced him. He hoped it pissed him off. He hoped Richard would finally decide he wasn’t worth it and let him go.
With that bitter thought, he runs anyway, slipping into the night of the city.