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Scars, so many scars on the little body that Damian possess.
“They are from training, Grayson,” his Robin says. But Dick knows better.
The scars come from abuse, the torture, he faced in his time with his mother. And Dick- Dick is appalled that, within ten years, Damian acquired so many. So many that Dick hasn’t heard all the stories and some of them Damian doesn’t remember getting- because he was to young to even try to remember. And the worst part is that Damian refuses to see them anything more than training mistakes, that they were not his fault that others hurt him. But Dick tells Damian every night, every time he sees one that Damian is not the one at fault, that Damian is an amazing, beautiful child that deserves so much more than the world has to offer.
His face has two, both difficult to see, but Dick does so immediately. One jagged cut on the left side reaching from his ear to his jaw.
“The one on the left was from one of my instructors that got too close and tried to kill me,” Damian explained, in the middle of a night where Dick was still Batman and Damian his Robin, shaking in Dick’s arms after a nightmare, “I was sad because he was one of the few people nice to me. He said I reminded him of his child. Later that year, I discovered Mother forced him to do it for my training. I killed him, I did not know his real name, but he was called Khalil… for he was the friendliest in the League.”
The other is straight down his right eye, cutting through his eyebrow-
“Grandfather did it. To train me to have me get acquainted to feeling pain,” Damian continued into Dick’s chest.
“What they did is not your fault,” Dick said into Damian’s hair.
His left arm held a few, two parallel puncture holes near his wrist-
Damian whispered, in the quiet after a rough night of patrol- neither of them ready to be alone, “I was bitten by a poisonous snake and the antidote was on the other side of a mountain. It was for training.”
Dick wraps his arms around Robin, enclosing his partner in his cape, “That should not have been forced on you.”
In the bend of his right elbow, uncountable needle marks-
“I was regularly injected with varies poisons and drugs, Mother said to grow immunity to them. Too many to count. It was part of my training,” Damian-in a t-shirt and shorts- spoke at the Batcomputer, when he noticed Stephanie looking at his arm for a good minute and a half. He kicked his legs out, and looks just like a regular twelve-year-old, except the words coming out of his mouth.
Dick placed his hand on Damian’s shoulder and retorted, “It should not have been.”
Connecting Damian’s shoulder and elbow on the back of his right arm is a slice that Damian refuses to talk about, no matter how much Dick tries to whittle it out of him. (Damian’s cousin gave it to him, when he was sleeping in his quarters. Damian remembers his resulting actions every time he turns around to get ready for his day.)
His left leg only has one scar, a large burn covering the back of his thigh-
As Damian changed into his suit for patrol with Dick and Bruce, saw their glances towards his legs and went on, “It was part of my torture training,” glanced at Bruce then continued, “Mother said that I was to be subjected to it for multiple weeks.”
Dick left his Nightwing suit to pool around his waist, then pulled the fourteen-year-old into his arms, “She should not have done that. You are amazing just the way you are, Dames.”
His right leg has a matching burn and line down his shin-
“I broke my leg, the medical staff had to do surgery to repair it,” Damian said to Jason. Damian, Dick, and Jason had ducked into a safehouse to wait out a thunderstorm that broke out in the middle of patrol. They had been in the middle of a change when Jason asked about it.
“How did you break your leg?” Dick inquired.
The fifteen-year-old paused for a few minutes- face contorted as if he was trying to remember- then, “I was being tortured by an enemy of the League. She broke my leg, so I broke her spine, then ran to the sea and swam twenty miles to a League ship I knew would pass at the time. They sent me to one of their medical facilities and I finished the mission in a week.” As he spoke the three of them rested on the couch, Dick stretching across the middle and left cushions, Damian sitting on the left on, and Jason walking into the kitchen for a bottle of water.
“They did not deserve your loyalty,” Dick said softly, foot poked at Damian’s thigh.
His neck had one—
Damian threw Dick’s door open, ran into Dick’s arms, and pointed to his neck, “It killed me… I think? Grandfather often put Mother in the Pit if she died during training. I don’t think Mother could stop him if I died. I-I can’t remember it very well… But when I woke up, Mother said I failed my training and had to do it over again. I didn’t remember till I had a nightmare last night.” Damian expounds, as if he had to get if off his chest, then broke down on Dick’s chest.
“You deserved better than that. You deserve more than I have,” Dick said to the sixteen-year-old. Dick threw up that night and every time the light caught Damian’s neck just right, he- he grew green.
His hands had too many to count, burns, cuts and scrapes-
“The only one I remember is the one Mother gave to me,” Damian quietly lets out, tracing his index finger over the small cut on the back of his hand. Dick, Kor’i, and Damian was in the middle of a movie at Dick’s apartment. Kor’i had visited during Damian’s visit- Dick hoped his girlfriend and Damian would get along- which they did, much to Dick’s surprise the first time, so they started monthly movie nights.
Dick removed his arm from around Kor’i’s shoulders, clasped the seventeen-year-old’s hands in his and responded, “I’m sorry she hurt you. But I’m proud you don’t let it rule over you,” then placed kisses on all the scars he could find on the fingers and palms, when Dick was done, he wiped the tears that fall from the younger man’s eyes and the female alien wrapped her arms around Damian’s shoulders.
His chest is blanketed with multiple cuts and burns-
Damian points to a small cut on his right pectoral muscle after Cass brushed her hand across his chest in questioning manner as Dick finished up stitching a knife wound on her forearm, “This is from a training with one of Mother’s guards,” long slice across from his right shoulder to left hip, “Grandfather wanted to know how many people I could take at once, I reached twelve before I passed out,” medium burn across the abdomen, “I was defending Mother from an inflamed log falling on her,” puncture marks on his left shoulder, “I was blindfolded and shot with an arrow, it was supposed to help with my spatial awareness,” then finally the long cut in the middle of his chest, “You remember this one, but the Heretic.”
Cass nodded and grasped his hand, gave it a quick squeeze before she hopped of the gurney in the Batcave. Dick turns towards his twenty-year-old brother and pulled him into his arms, “You are so amazing, Dami, and these marks are just reminders. And I am so proud.”
Damian’s back is covered with bumps, cuts, burns-
Dick rubbed Damian’s back as the twenty-three-year-old retched into the toilet, he could see the scars on Damian’s back and felt them under his palm. When Damian finished, Dick brought a glass of water up to his lips, Damian took a small sip, then spit it into the toilet, then flushed it. “Which one do you want to know about?”
“Any of them, all of them.”
“There are too many whip lashes for me to remember; everytime I passed out Grandfather would tie me to a post and ‘whip the exhaustion out of me’, there is the spinal replacement cut and the Heretic sword exit wound you remember, but I think…” Damian grabbed Dick’s hand moved it to the middle of his back then to the side just a bit, “I got stabbed there by a rogue assassin, had to replace my kidney,” Dick’s hand was guided to the opposite side but up some, “That was… one of Grandfather’s men, I think, I was walking to my next lesson and one of them threw a throwing star at me,” a burn mark on Damian’s right shoulder, “One of my instructors began to burn my clothes, and if I flinched or made a noise, she cut me with her knife.”
Damian dropped Dick’s hand and threw his head back into the toilet to wretch again, and Dick resumed his massage, “You, Damian, are so amazing. Do not let anyone tell you otherwise. You make me so happy for you to be a part of my family.”
When the bathroom door opened, Dick’s head spun till he saw his daughter, “Mar’i what are you doing up, sweetie?” he asked.
Mar’i looked at Damian as he rested his cheek against his arm that was on the toilet seat, “I had to potty, and I was wondering what was going on,” she said, “Is Ekhwah okay?”
Damian smiled at the child, “I will be fine, Qalbi, and I am sorry you can not use your bathroom right now.”
Dick stood up and washed his hands in the sink as Damian was talking, then turned to his daughter, “Why don’t you use Mommy and my bathroom? Come on.” Mar’i nodded and Dick grasped her hand, walked her to the master bedroom.
When he opened the bedroom door, he saw Kor’i was blinking her eyes open and looked around, “Dick? What is happening?”
Dick offered a small smile and opened his mouth to answer but Mar’i spoke first, “Ekhwah is sick and I had to potty. But, Daddy, I have a question,” then with all the seriousness a five-year-old can possess, she asked, “Why does Ekhwah have so many marks?”
Couple of weeks later, Damian finds himself babysitting Mar’i, Kor’i and Dick trusting him to protect and care for their five-year-old daughter while they have a “date night”, she asks him, “Ekhwah, when did you get your scars?” tracing the marks of his arms up and down.
Damian just looks at the small child in his lap- as she was tired playing with her toys and wanted her Uncle D to talk to her, “Well, Qalbi, I got some of them when I was your age. Others I got when I was older.”
“Did your mommy and daddy not kiss them better? ‘Cause my mommy and daddy always kiss my boo-boos till I feel better.”
“No, my mother did not care for kisses and the like, and when I met my father, I was too old for kisses,” Damian explains, much to Mar’i’s surprise.
“Too old for kisses? How old is too old for kisses? I love kisses!” Mar’i exclaims, arms wrapping around Damian’s shoulders, finding comfort in his arms- as if thinking one day she would be refused kisses.
Damian’s heart seizes in his chest, the child’s innocence making him love her even more and he squeezes her to his chest, “I do not think you will ever grow too old for kisses, Qalbi. Your parents will give you kisses and hugs for as long as they can, as long as you let them.”
“Good, I love hugs and kisses. But, Ekhwah, where did your scars come from? They have to have hurt.” Mar’i asks innocently, green eyes wide and tan face scrunching in a pout.
The question causes Damian to stop, collecting his thoughts, then gently saying, “My scars come from my time in the League of Assassins. I was hurt a lot, everyday. My mother said that it was training; but, it was not. It was abuse; do you know what that means?” Damian looks at Mar’i, the small one shaking her head, “Abuse comes in many forms, but mine was mental and physical abuse. My mother- she was not a good person, when I was small, she hit me many times a day, forced me to do things that I did not want to do, and did not let me have my own opinions or thoughts. It is a very serious issue, and not to be treated lightly.”
Damian pauses and gives Mar’i a serious look and tells her, “Mar’i, if anyone—anyone—hurts you on purpose, it is not training or playing. Your mother and father will not hurt you like mine did, but know that if you get hurt by anyone or anything, I will help you. Promise me that if you feel hurt, scared, or angry, you talk to your parents- or me if you want- because I can grantee that we will always care for you.”
Mar’i nods, face serious and voice having a determined tilt, “I promise, Ekhwah, if I feel scared, hurt, or angry, I will tell Mommy, Daddy, or you.”
Damian hears a sniffle from the doorway and swivels his head to see Dick and Kor’i, both having watery eyes, walking into the room. Mar’i gets off Damian’s lap and runs over to her parents giving them hugs, “Mommy! Daddy!” Then she tugs on Dick’s pants, causing him to kneel in front of her, “Ekhwah said that his mommy didn’t like kisses and when he met Grandpa Bruce, he was too old for kisses! But he also said my parents aren’t like his; so, I won’t ever be too old for kisses.”
Dick looks at Damian with inquisitive eyes, which causes Damian roll his eyes and nod. Kor’i looks in between her husband and the person she has grown too love as a son, then tells Mar’i “Mar’i, you need to pick up your toys. It’s almost bedtime.”
Damian and Dick step out of the room and Dick wraps Damian into a hug, “I’m so proud of you, Chikno.”
“Why?”
Dick takes a step back and explains, “You openly acknowledged that your childhood was not training. That is a huge step and you took it. I’m just so happy you can see it now.”
Damian tilts his head to the side then shrugs his shoulders, “I guess.”
Suddenly Mar’i runs into the hall and flies, literally, into Damian’s arms, “Ekhwah! Can you tell me a bedtime story? I want to hear one about Nightwing and Flamebird!”
“Of course, but perhaps your father should join us, he is half of those stories.”
Dick watched as his two kids walk ahead of him, let’s a smile slide across his face, and follows them into Mar’i’s room.