Chapter Text
Damian sneaks out of the foyer almost as soon as guests started arriving. He made sure to stay long enough for the press to note his presence, but not long enough for them to circle the room towards him. Being around people was too much right now, he fears that he would say something he would regret and cause more trouble for the rest of the family. His feet carry him down the hallway almost automatically.
He stops once his hand touches the handle. Under normal circumstances, the door would be open to him. This room has been his haven so many times between adjusting to the American lifestyle and hiding because his own mind started to bite at him. No one else would dare to enter, even if they were aware of this habit of his. Damian glances at the wood, and he’s never had a particularly strong emotion towards the wooden letters but right now he hates them with every fiber of their being. The red seems to taunt him with the truth of what happened.
Instead of hiding out in the hallway, he enters the room. Slowly he closes the door. His back is turned to the space, wondering what it would look like. He shakes his head and gathers himself, it’s just a room and the situation surrounding it should affect it. Damian turns and then almost wishes he hadn’t. The bed is made but wrinkled in the way that showed someone had laid on it. There’s a half-drunk bottle of water on the nightstand and a phone without a charger cord attached to it. It’s nothing Damian had never seen, but it feels like he’s seeing it for the first time.
He takes half a step forward and hesitates. This is the last place that Todd existed in. His open bookbag is propped against the desk, and papers with long equations were scattered across the top and some places on the floor. He could almost picture Todd working on the homework and then getting frustrated, so he shoved everything to the side to get ready for patrol.
Damian steps away from the desk and instead turns his attention to the other side. The wardrobe’s doors hang open and the closet is only partly closed. Todd's favorite hoodie hangs on the handle. This is the only thing Damian feels comfortable about disturbing, he walks over to it. He glances behind him, as if someone would walk in on him, and then certain he was alone he lifted the fabric to his nose. It smells like spiced apples and a hint of cigarette smoke (he knows Todd tried to hide it, but everyone always knew).
With the hoodie held tight to his chest, he steps over to the open wardrobe and crawls into it. The clothes hang around him and the scent was stronger in here, if he closed his eyes he could almost envision that he was wrapped up in a hug from Todd. It was missing the warmth and he didn’t remember exactly what Todd’s hugs felt like (part of him wished that he had sought out more hugs, Grayson was free with them and Drake would give them unprompted more frequently than Todd). He wasn’t a hugger, but he can see now the comfort that they can give.
Damian pushes himself further back into the wardrobe. The shirts that had “fallen” off their hangers made the bottom slightly more comfortable. He pulls the hoodie closer to his body, part of him wants to wear it but he knows that would make the scent fade sooner and if this was all he would have left of one of his older brothers he was going to hold onto it as much as he could.
Death hadn’t been a part of his life when he was with Mother. He had been trained to kill and had only killed in the test Grandfather gave him, but it had never been a thing that you could connect emotions to. Whenever grandfather’s body started failing, and it was only once in his life, he just entered the pit and came out completely healthy. Damian hadn’t made friends with any of the assassins and he hadn’t been around other kids, he didn’t have many human connections.
He liked them, liked knowing for the most part that he could have a moment of weakness and his family wouldn’t judge him (Todd had told him to use the wardrobe when things became too much). Except he didn’t like how he felt when either Father or Grayson or Todd came back heavily wounded. He only vaguely remembers what it was like after Todd had been beaten by the Joker, part of him was glad he hadn’t opened to them yet.
Todd’s head appeared from under the crawlspace door, “there you are, you had everyone worried.”
“I can handle myself,” Damian mumbled.
“Sure,” Todd shrugged and continued to climb into the crawlspace, “but you disappearing like that freaks everyone else out.”
Damian glared, “there was no threat.”
“Think about what happened to me,” Todd said quietly.
“I haven’t left the grounds,” he said but his gaze drifted to the scars on Todd’s bare arm.
Todd settled in the space but didn’t move towards Damian,“why are you even up here?”
“Drake made accusations,” Damian attempted to mimic Todd’s careless shrug, “so I left.”
“You got in a fight with Tim?” Todd asked surprised, “no, that doesn’t matter.”
“It doesn’t?” Damian looked up.
Todd shrugged again, “you’re safe.”
Damian didn’t respond to the statement. He wonders how much he’s made the other’s worry. It likely wasn’t a lot, but then again everyone’s been jumpy since Todd put the mask back on. Damian kind of hates that he did, because it’s changed the feeling of the house.
“Let’s make a deal?” Todd spoke suddenly.
Damian tilted his head, “tt, what is it?”
“When you get in a fight with Tim, or anyone, and you want to be alone, you can hide out in the wardrobe in my room,” Damian narrows his eyes as Todd holds a finger up, “but you have to tell me that’s where you’ll be.”
“Why must I tell you?” Damian sneers.
“That way someone knows, and B doesn’t lose his mind with worry.”
Damian considered the arrangement. Todd was typically hands-off with emotions until he felt like he absolutely had to get involved. Grayson was always wanting to talk about feelings and he didn’t like Drake enough to even entertain the thought. Father shouldn’t know that he had problems within this arrangement, he wasn’t sure he was going to be able to stay.
“That is agreeable,” Damian said finally.
“Wonderful, but now let’s go show everyone you’re alive, and then you can hide out for the rest of the night.”
Damian wakes with a start. He hears voices from outside of the room.
“Where could he have gone?” Father’s voice sounds strained.
“Probably where he usually goes to hide out,” Drake’s voice replies, “but I don’t know where that is.”
He slowly slides forward. As he suspected the door remains closed. They didn’t think he would have gone in here for comfort. Damian guesses that this room wouldn’t be comfortable for anyone in this household, but him. Even without Todd's presence this place still feels safe, not as much as it did when he could hear Todd bumping outside of the doors.
“Let’s split up, he’s still in the manor,” Grayson’s voice picks up suddenly, “look in tight spaces.”
Damian waits until there are no sounds from outside the door. He grips the hoodie tightly and then decides that this is the one item he can bring with him. Quietly Damian exits the room and listens for the nearest of his siblings. Grayson is still on this floor, so Damian heads towards him.
At the end of the hall, Grayson stands up from the cabinet he had been looking through. Damian clears his throat, and Grayson spins on his heel and rushes him.
“There you are, where did you go?” Grayson pulls him into a tight hug.
Damian doesn’t want to give up his spot yet, “outside on the balcony.”
Grayson pulls back, “we must have just missed you.”
“I thought I heard father calling for me,” Damian shrugs.
The movement draws attention to the hoodie in his hands. Grayson knows who it is without having to ask, but he blessedly remains quiet on that subject.
“Hey, I found him!” Grayson yells and then Damian can make out two sets of pounding footsteps heading towards them.
Grayson leans back in for the hug, and this time Damian savors it. He doesn’t want to forget this feeling.