Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

i.

Damian wakes up, jack-knifes forwards, and shrieks, eyes manic and wild. His heart pounds, blood rushing to his head, and he wheezes quietly, clutching himself in an awkward imitation of a hug. Inhaling frantically, he holds it for a count of one-two-three-four and repeats it, in and out and in and out, chest shuddering as he fights to calm down. Once he can breathe without nearly devolving into tears, he peeks under his shirt, looks for injuries long healed, and exhales slowly when he finds none. He should have expected night terrors; it was the anniversary of his first death day, after all. When he looks again, the scars are still there, of course, but he’s not dead.

Just reliving it.

Some part of him shrivels up at the reminder, and Damian smooths out his sleep shirt absentmindedly, pretending not to see how his hands shake.

He had dreamed of fire and shrapnel and smoke, his own high pitched scream for his mother ringing in his ears as he had lunged forward, catapulting himself directly in between his parents into the path of the missile, frantic. An explosion, and sharp pain.

( Mother smiling as she pressed the button for the bomb that blew him to bits.

He shouldn’t have asked if there was a way to be with both of them. )

In the dream — well, flashback, really — there had been blood in his eyes, twisted, broken bones, and the sensation of feeling his organs slowly begin to fail as he bled out drop by drop. Then, of being submerged in swirling antibiotic fluid glowing green-bright with the faint tinge of Lazarus pit water where he was picked apart and sewn back together at the pleasure of his mother, like a doll. He had been patched up back to perfection with body parts that were not his and new organs that had been taken, stolen , from his clones or some other poor person, and made as good as — or even better — than new. Finally, of his mother looking down at him and saying, “He mustn’t die.” 

( Like she hadn’t purposefully put him in that position. Like she cared. )

It was, in short, a horrifyingly perfect recollection of that day.

It’s still dark out, and Damian shivers and slips beneath his thick blanket again, rubbing at his eyes tiredly. He sees the thick shade of lipstick his mother always wore at the back of his eyelids as he scrubs at them and snarls, ripping his hands away from his face.

This was already an awful start to an awful day.

As he thinks that, he realizes that this is ridiculous. It hadn’t even been a real proper death, and here he was all torn up and damaged from it. It barely even counted, really; every time he coded he had been promptly resuscitated and held together long enough for the new organs to be transplanted within him. Todd would laugh at him, if he knew. He’s just being stupid.

Turning over in bed, he curls up into a ball and draws his covers in around him tightly, and very pointedly thinks about how being swaddled up, warm and snug in his blanket, is not the same thing as being submerged in Lazarus-fused water.

But as he lies there, he cannot help but feel phantom fluid swirl around him.

i.

His alarm goes off, and he groans. He doesn’t want to get up, or go to school, or do anything at all today. Stumbling out of bed, he nearly trips over Titus and faceplants, but manages to catch himself in time despite the dog lifting his head in confusion. Poor boy. Looks like his morning was starting out roughly as well.

Damian kneels down and sighs fondly, giving him a couple of apology pets and then kisses his forehead. Titus gives him a wet, sleepy lick in return and wags his tail slowly before settling back down into a comfortable ball, slipping easily back into sleep. After giving him one last pat to his scruff, he stands up and stretches a little bit, arms reaching up to the ceiling and trembling ever so faintly with strain.

He’s picking out his outfit for the day when there’s a crisp knock on his door, and to his shame he involuntarily flinches away. Anxiety (over nothing) was already making him high strung and overreactive, and he hadn’t even been up for an hour. Swallowing down the burning feeling in his throat, he strides across the room and whips open the door without hesitation. Pennyworth stands there, totally unruffled, and tucks his hands behind his back fluidly.

“Master Damian, Alfred — the cat,” He adds, eyes twinkling, “has managed to get into your father’s, ah, mancave . I suggest you remove him before he finds out. You know how he hates fur on his suit.”

Pinching his brow ridge tightly, the boy sighs sharply. “Thank you, Pennyworth,” he dutifully says, and turns back into his room to change into something quick before anyone else could get down to the Batcave. The butler lets out an amused huff of air at his youngest charge’s behavior and shuts the door behind him, leaving Damian to the solitude of his room.

...he doesn’t want to change.

Doesn’t want to see the remains of his death that decorate his body, doesn’t want to be reminded of all of his many failures. If he had his way (not that anyone would know why he would want to) he’d stay in bed all day and just breathe and listen to his own heartbeat.

( If Grayson were here, Damian thinks, he’d call it “Self-care.”

The part of his mind that makes him instinctively look for escape routes and memorize katas and the thousands of ways to permanently incapacitate someone —the Al-Ghul part, the evil part — hisses “Weakness,” in reply.

In the end, it really doesn’t matter what he calls it because it’s not going to happen. )

But he has to. So Damian does so anyways.

Inhaling, he allows himself the indulgence of closing his eyes for a moment before working up his courage and stripping down with the efficiency and assurance of a soldier to slip into his new outfit. As soon as he’s covered, his fingertips itch from where they brushed across his skin and he resists the urge to fiddle at his sleeves for comfort. It’s a weakness, one that he should have never developed and one that he was determined to get rid of as soon as possible.

With his hands firmly against his sides, he heads down to the cave.

i.

Drake is there, and Damian kind of wants to vomit.

He’s simply another annoying (awful) reminder of his death — his failure — again.

As he makes his way down the stairs, he realizes how ironic that day truly was. He had tried to kill Drake and failed despite his years of preparation and training, and to top it all off was blown up within 24 hours of the attempt. Perhaps it was fate bringing his penance down upon him for trying to kill precious Timothy Drake-Wayne.

He’s hunched over, busily typing away while sipping on a cup of coffee, and all Damian can think of is the sensation of his fist hitting the side of that bony face and catapulting him off the model T-Rex. His stomach churns because — because he’s been so selfish, so wrapped up in his own pain and trauma that he didn’t even think of how the date also marked his first attempt on the third Robin’s life.

Alfred trots out of the darkness of the cave and meows at him, craning his tiny head to look up while he curls around his feet and purrs. Damian picks him up and hoists him in his arms and pets him (much to the little cat’s enjoyment) and walks up to the Batcomputer. His brother doesn’t even glance at him; the only thing giving away his acknowledgment of his presence is a brief lull in the speed of his typing and the subtle way he clenches his jaw.

He stands there silently and watches as he works away until he notices the faint way Drake’s fingers are trembling and smothers the urge to flinch away.

( That’s his fault. )

He’s shivering, too; the idiot is only dressed in thin sweats in the frigid coldness of the Cave, leaving him vulnerable to illness that would surely kill him due to his lack of a spleen.

Tsking, he stiffly deposits the warm, fluffy happy bundle in his arms into Timothy’s lap despite the way he stiffens at the proximity. Ignoring the indignant squawking he gets in return, Damian turns away sharply and curls his lip into a sneer and let a remark fly loose from his lips. “Your pathetic immune system will be compromised by the temperature down here, you insipid charlatan. World’s Greatest Detective my ass.”

With that, he strides away and doesn’t look back. 

i.

( If he really did die for the way he treated Timothy, then he deserved it. )

i.

Damian emerges from the Cave and wanders into the kitchen, Titus at his heels. There’s a pot of tea on the stove bubbling quietly, most likely left by Pennyworth, and so he (ignoring how his hands shake) pours himself a cup. He adds a spoonful of honey, a cube of sugar, and a slice of lemon while Titus sniffs around the room looking for crumbs, faint snuffling coming from him as he inspects everything that takes his interest. Wrapping his hands around the warm teacup, he lets himself watch his dog’s antics and inhales the faint aroma, curling up a little bit to enjoy the heat radiating from his palms with a tiny smile. 

Eventually the Doberman wanders over and nudges him with his wet nose, meaningfully staring at the backdoor before sitting in front of it and watching him with big, round eyes. 

Ah. Bathroom time. 

Damian drains the remains of his tea and places the cup in the sink before grabbing a hoodie and tugging it on quickly. He opens the door to let him out and steps outside, tucking his hands under his armpits as he goes because Allah, it’s cold . 

The sky is overcast, gray. 

( It’s an eerily similar shade to the one he saw right before the missile hit, and something in his gut twists uncomfortably. ) 

Titus goes about his business, and he hunches over a little bit, staring at the ground in an attempt to ignore how alike the weather is to a year ago. 

And that’s when the first droplet hits his face. 

To his shame, he can’t stop himself from violently recoiling backwards in a stupid attempt to simply get away from the sensation. His chest tightens, but he doesn’t pull up his hood because — because then everything would feel the same. Stormy skies, rain pattering down, the anxious expression on his face; his hood sticking to his hair, wet and damp as he looks towards the distant but approaching screech of something . 

( Distantly, he knows it’s the call of a bird of prey — a hawk, most likely — but in the moment all he can see is the roiling sea and dark clouds and he swears he can see the looming projectile that’s too fucking close, no, no — )

The next thing he knows he’s folded into the crook of a tree branch, shaking and quivering while Titus barks up at him sharply. 

He stays there until it’s completely dark out, body thrumming with adrenaline and terror but still frozen in place. When he finally climbs down the trunk and onto solid ground, his legs give out and he crumples down onto the cold forest floor silently. Titus, loyal Titus, who had stayed nearby the entire time, whines and places his head in his lap, offering comfort the best way that he can for his boy. 

It’s ironic, he thinks, that he’s ending the anniversary of his death in almost the exact same way as last year. 

Cold, alone, and hurting. 

At least he has Titus this time.

Chapter Text

The second time Damian al Ghul-Wayne dies, he dies alone. 

His eldest and youngest brother were there in the room with him, but they were not there. One was crumpled on broken glass after being flung into a weapon’s case, unconscious, and the other pinned beneath the rubble of his desperate attempt to drive the soldiers of the other side away. 

He dies with a sword in his chest and a plea on his lips, with blood in his lungs and a heart broken in more ways than one, another child caught in the crossfire of the hatred and violence of of people with too much power and too little kindness. He does not die a hero; he dies a victim of needless violence and greed, of abuse and lies, of unintended and intended consequences that were not his to suffer. 

His death was not instant. 

It was not gentle. 

It was not kind. 

( It was exactly what he deserved. )

ii. 

When his heart was pierced by that sword, he thought -- Oh.  

He failed . 

ii. 

It’s later when he finds out he can’t sleep with his hands folded over his chest anymore. When he finally is allowed to sleep in his own bed (not in that accursed hospital bed, or curled up on his Baba’s chest or asleep with his siblings staunchly pretending to not hover over him), he tucks his hands into the familiar position and promptly has the worst case of déjà vu mixed with terror in his life . He tries to not think about the reason why , but. He already knows why. 

Damian remembers what it felt like in his coffin.

Not the one he was buried in, no; that one had been torn apart when Ra’s had stolen his body, beautiful oak wood reduced to nothing more than broken, ugly planks and destroyed. He hadn’t even spent very long in it, and his hands hadn’t been crisscrossed over his body; his Father -- and Grayson, most likely -- had chosen to have him buried with them folded in his lap, making him look frozen in the position he died in. After he stole a copy of the funeral footage from Todd, Damian found he looked like he was simply sleeping. All of his scars and wounds had been stitched up and hidden by Tompkins’s talented hand, carefully layered under thick makeup and his funeral clothes. He had very firmly been dead during that time. 

So — no. Not that one. 

The one that flickers into his mind when he tries to think back into that year is the second. It hadn’t really been another coffin; it’d been a sarcophagus, carved to mimic his facial features and folded hands tight over his chest, accurate enough to look like he’d been encapsulated in concrete. Trapped , Damian thinks, trapped .

( Sometimes he wonders how Ra’s had such a perfect replica created so quickly, and bile rises up his throat when he thinks that perhaps there hadn’t needed to be one made. Perhaps there already had been pre-prepared coffins made long ago just for him. It was something his grandfather would do. He’d always been a realist, and with the centuries of experience on his side he was very apt at preparing for the future. It would be logical for him to create sarcophagi in advance for when his daughter’s little experiment died.

It wasn’t like Talia —  the one who had replaced his Ummi, his Mama, the one who had been driven Pit-mad by her sister in a plot for revenge against their father, the one who disowned Damian and replaced him like she could pay a dime a dozen for more — planned on having him live for very long, anyways.

But the thought of dozens of little coffins lined up in advance like his death was inevitable, like it was expected, made foul acid pool at the back of his mouth and sting. )

He never told anyone, though. Not even Todd or Brown. It wasn’t exactly normal, to remember being in your coffin. (And that was saying something considering that what they all shared in common was resurrection from death.)

Todd and Brown remembered waking up in their caskets, yes, but what made Damian different was that he’d been aware before his Father jammed the Omega Shard into his chest and dragged him back to the land of the living.

At the very least Damian knows why it happened. His blood — and not simply because of his al Ghul side — ran with Lazarus water from his previous death. But that fact alone didn’t cause the fragile semi-consciousness that made Damian look at a casket or a grave and think, “I know how it feels to be in there.”

No, it was the pure Pit that his body had been dipped into and the smoky, toxic atmosphere of Apokalips that thrummed with dark magics and Hell that had blurred the lines between life and death before his technical arrival. Even though he hadn’t been in the Pit long enough, it had been enough to trigger something within his bloodstream. He hadn’t been quite dead, but he wasn’t quite alive either. Regardless, he had been much closer to dead than alive. 

Apokalips itself bent the very nature of reality; its almost a weak spot in the fabric of the universe that separates it from the afterlife. The sheer degree of suffering and hate and death was the closest thing to Hell that existed on their mortal plane, so it had been similar enough for his consciousness to almost flicker back and forth between the two realities -- the cold, cloying thickness of clay surrounding him in one moment and then burning chains of Hell wrapping him up from head to toe in the next. Utter claustrophobia and suffocation exchanged for being burnt alive and choked for what felt like hours, but was actually just fractions of milliseconds. His consciousness had flitted across the veil that separated the world of the living and the world of the dead like it wasn’t even there , going back and forth and back again because of his Father. 

And it hurt each time to travel across. 

Such was the punishment for breaking the natural laws of the universe , even if it wasn’t your fault . 

( Someone always needed to be the scapegoat, the whipping boy. And Damian was already quite suited for that role. )

When that sharp Shard had pierced his chest, despite the pain, despite the sensation of the too horribly similar object impaling him, despite the unknowing perpetrator of his torture -- of being dragged back and forth in between the two worlds like a ragdoll -- kneeling in front of him, he had lunged directly into his arms and wept . As he’d shoved his face into the crook of his Baba’s neck with a quivering grin on his face, he’d felt a tear or two escape. But he’d been too caught up in the wonderful sensation of being whole and safe to even consider caring about something as silly as pride . The loss of his pride was nothing compared to that horrible state of being in-between life and death, was nothing to being frozen in place like an ancient Egyptian pharaoh, was nothing compared to actual, legitimate Hell . 

So of course Damian understands why he can’t sleep in that position. 

But he doesn’t tell his Father, or Todd, or even Stephanie. Weakness means death. It was how he got into this situation in the first place, weakness. 

ii. 

He doesn’t say anything about Hell, either. 

ii. 

It’s lunchtime, and all of the students of Gotham Academy flock around the outside tables. Pushing through the crowd, Damian expertly ducks and weaves around the crush of teenagers, emerging relatively unscathed right in front of his usual spot. Colin, Maps and Olive both turn to face him, and the two eagerly wave him over, both bouncing up and down in excitement at his arrival. 

Damian lets out an exasperated (amused) huff and sits down across from Maps, right next to Colin, and props his chin on his hand, raising an eyebrow. She immediately begins to chatter away, and despite Damian doing his best to pay attention to her, his mind drifts away and he remembers what happened the day before the last. 

( As Robin peers over the edge of the highrise, he hears Red Hood in the distance. He can’t make out most of the words due to the high velocity winds, but -- he hears one thing, loud and clear.  

“ — Demon-brat!”

Damian stills on the rooftop he’s perched on. One hand flutters up to his throat and touches it briefly; he can almost feel the white-hot collar tight around his neck, and his pulse echoes in his ears. Jason clambers up behind him, panting a little bit, and after a minute of frigid silence he snorts and says, “Upset that the nickname’s accurate?” 

His head pounds, and everything slips out of focus, high pitched shrieking ringing through his ears in a screeching crescendo, and his fingers clench around a batarang.

Damian wants to throw it at him, wants to draw blood.  

How dare he , he thinks, how dare he. How dare he remind him of Hell, of his own personal torture, and then have the gall to compare him to Them, the real Demons — 

Jaw clenching so hard his teeth hurt, he stuffs the batarang away and pulls out his grapple. His brother begins to say something else, but Damian forces himself to not listen to him so he won’t just attack like a wild (cornered) animal.

 He aims it at a nearby building and fires, leaping off the edge of the roof with all the grace of a flying Grayson, and melts into the night. As he soars away he ignores his brother’s indignant, angry sputtering at being abandoned and resists the urge to go back and beat him black and blue. When he finally claws his way up the side of the new building, his body shakes in rage and terror and bloodlust, and Damian just stands there, taut with tension like a bow string and knows it will take just one more thing for him to snap. 

If Grayson were here, he thinks half hysterically, he’d know what to do.

But he isn’t, his mind whispers, because he’s dead and you’re not. This is your penance for escaping Hell. 

It’s your fault, little Demon. 

You did this.

And that’s what makes Robin dislocate a mugger’s jaw, break another’s ribs, and nearly make another one piss his pants in the span of half an hour. Because it’s true. He’s just as bad as Them, maybe even worse, and he has the cruelty and the blood of dozens and dozens of innocents on his hands to prove it. 

If he had just stayed dead, locked up in Hell, then perhaps — 

Needless to say he was benched when he got home. ) 

Maps snaps him out of his recollection with a simple question. 

“How was your year abroad?”

For a second, Damian is simply — confused. Maps takes in his expression, and repeats the question through a mouthful of food, gesturing wildly with the celery stick in her hand like she’s the conductor of the world’s first musical ensemble that’s made up of chewing sounds and chewing sounds only. He blinks, and tilts his head, dull confusion still seeping through him.

He hasn’t gone on a so-called study abroad; in fact, he’s never even publicly traveled outside the country, and most certainly not for a year.

Shamefully, it takes a little bit for him to realize what she’s (unknowingly) talking about.

She’s talking about the year he spent as a corpse.

( Damian knows that phrasing it that way is a method of dissociation, distancing.

It sounds so much prettier, ‘as a corpse.’ Like he was simply part of a long undercover op, just playing a role to complete the mission. Makes it sound temporary.

But he knows better. He was dead for that year. Not voyaging on a fun little jaunt around the world, not filling a part, not hidden from his mother and Ra’s by his father, and most certainly not safe and protected at the Manor.

Dead. 

In literal Hell .)

Schooling his face, he listens to as she repeats herself yet again and distantly manages to pick out what she’s saying despite the horribly garbled words, just to check. And to his rotten, rotten luck, he had heard her correctly the first time.

The simple statement shouldn’t make panic flare up in his gut, but it does anyway, and Damian can’t stop his hand from spasming nervously in response. Maps’s eyes zero in on the tic, and Damian bites his tongue because she’s a detective, and a smart one at that. Anything he does or says could give him away. 

He leans back, emitting an aura of carelessness and arrogance that he’s mastered years ago and uses the telegraphed move to calm his rabbit-fast heart with a deep breath. Pulling on his acting lessons from Carrie Kelley, he lets a grin unfurl  across his face slowly and drawls, “Tt. Wouldn’t you like to know.” 

A thin elbow jabs him in the ribs, and Damian barely suppresses himself from instinctively breaking Colin’s arm. “Don’t be a prick, Dami,” he chides, and gives an apologetic glance across the table to Maps, coupled by Olive’s agreeing murmur and a kick to his shins that he knows came from her too. 

Unflinchingly (because he can’t back down, he can’t, skittish behavior will lead to him getting exposed — ) he meets Maps’s careful (analyzing) gaze. 

There’s a shadow in her eyes, something deeply concerned and worried for him glinting in the afternoon sunlight, and it reminds him too much of Grayson’s gentle gaze for his liking. They bore into him for what feels like eternity, and she finally, finally breaks their impromptu staring contest in favor of biting into a crisp carrot. Damian relaxes minutely, and is thus totally caught off guard when she leans across the table and whispers something to him. 

“Did it, ah, have to do with your extracurriculars ?” 

From his peripheral vision he can see Olive and Colin perk up slightly, and bites back the extremely creative stream of swears in Farsi, Arabic, and Cantonese that want to burst from his mouth. 

He tilts his head ever so slightly in response, and Maps claps her hands in excitement. “I knew it!” 

To his right, Colin swivels to look at him with a disappointed arch in his eyebrows. “You could have just said that, y’know. We’re your friends.” Damian barely resists the urge to throttle him and shout why that was exactly the reason he didn’t tell them. 

Ignoring the fact that them even knowing his secret identity is dangerous for all of them and himself, they couldn’t handle the full scope of his life. He won’t, can’t, expose them to the horrors he’s gone through (the fact that he’s a monster, a murderer, a literal Demon — ). 

Foolishly, he wants to protect them. Damian knows he can’t — just look at what happened when he tried to protect Richard — but he’ll try. 

( And maybe he doesn’t want the pity that they’ll give him.

He doesn’t deserve it. Doesn’t need it. ) 

But the youngest Wayne doesn’t verbalize it. That will just make them dig deeper and search harder and inevitably get hurt (or find out what an awful person he truly is and hate him for it), and Damian would rather cut them out of his life for their own protection (and his own) than have that happen. 

So, silently, he dips his head again, screws up his face in mock-displeasure and offense in reaction to the chastisement, and lets his eyes drift downward in a mockery of guilt. When he looks up again, they’re all watching him. 

He tts in displeasure, cheeks flushing at the attention, and there’s a moment of silence before they all erupt into roaring laughter. 

It’s worth it, Damian supposes. 

ii. 

Later that day, he visits Grayson. 

Lays a hand on the cool stone, presses his forehead into the cursive words, and hopes that Richard would still love him if he were alive despite his useless sacrifice, despite him leaving behind his Batman, despite going to Hell, and most of all despite the fact that he’s doing exactly what his brother never wanted for him; hiding away his pain and secrets and emotions like Father . 

( He just wants his partner his parent back. ) 

Feeling stupid and childish and dumb, Damian lies down on the grass of the grave and curls up onto his side. 

It’s as close as he can get to him, now. 

Damian — even though he’s still deeply traumatized from his sarcophagus, even though he knows how much his family sacrificed to get him back — finds that he wouldn’t mind being in another coffin again, hands crossed over his chest, if he could just see Richard one more time. 

Chapter Text

Richard John Grayson takes his last, shuddering breath, body convulsing with stress and exhaustion, and dies a martyr for the world to see, to mourn, to miss. 

Out of everything that races through his mind — apologies, wishes, half formed pleas — he dies thinking that he will finally be able to see him again, and almost gratefully gives up the ghost. Millions of people watching do not see the relief that bleeds through his body, only his agony as he succumbs to too much torture and hurt. A select few, the ones that know him best, watch the constant wrinkle in his brow that had been created with the death of Robin smoothes out and wish they had been able to stop him from following in the footsteps of that little boy. 

Dick Grayson-Wayne snaps into consciousness at the Gates to the Afterlife and gasps, a hand clawing frantically at his heart. 

( It’s not beating anymore. ) 

He sucks in a large breath of air — is that even possible? — and crouches, shoving his head between his knees. Despite being dead (which he’s pretty sure he is) he can still somehow have a panic attack which is. Just wonderful, honestly. 

And then Dick hears a voice, or perhaps simply feels a presence, and immediately feels his eyes well up with tears.

Throat tight, he croaks out two titles he has not used in so long; ‘mother’ and ‘father’ in his native language. It feels thick in his mouth; it’s been too long since he’s said those words, regardless of him having kept up his knowledge of the ćhib used in his childhood as best as he could. 

“Hello, my little Robin,” his mom says, pulling him into a sweeping hug, and his father simply wraps the two of them up in his big arms. Dick nestles into the crook of her neck and collarbone, uncaring of how he now has to lean down. “We’ve missed you.” 

It’s good, so good, but — 

Despite the warmth and contentment he feels flowing like honey in his bones, there’s someone else he is desperate to see. His mother reminded him of Damian when she used his nickname (now turned vigilante mantle, but Dick’s grown past that old wound), and he needs to, needs to see him, his own tiny little Robin. 

Dick stands up straight and removes himself from the comforting swoop of her shoulder, and rubs at his eyes for a moment. When he opens them, that atmosphere surrounding them has shifted; they look like he knows what he is about to ask, or perhaps they already do because this is the afterlife, and he can’t help the sudden tension that rushes through him. 

“...where is he? Where’s Damian?” He says lowly, and watches the brightness in their eyes extinguish like a snuffed candle. Panic enfuses him, paradise denied. 

“He’s not here, bud,” His dad murmurs, and Dick — Dick cannot comprehend this. 

Does that mean — “He’s alive? ” Had Ra’s al Ghul somehow managed to exhume his corpse and use the Lazarus pit on his grandchild right beneath their very noses? 

His mother shakes her head, and flattens her lips; he knows that look. It’s her ‘disappointed and angry’ look, and confusion seeps through him. “Then where is he?” 

They don’t respond, and Dick repeats his question. He feels like he’s being trapped in a corner or smothered, like he’s having a head rush because he sat down too long and got up too suddenly. “ Where is he?”  

The two of them exchange a glance and his mom licks her lips and carefully says, “Somewhere… that is not here.” Dick looks at her. 

On a surface level he understands what this means, but. It is incomprehensible, impossible. 

“I don’t believe you,” come the quiet words, and his father watches him, grief palpable in his blue-blue-blue eyes. 

He shakes his head, denying it, denying the truth, and lashes out. 

“This isn’t — Heaven, or Sheol, or the pure lands, or whatever the hell this place is.” Dick presses the palms of his hands into his eyes, trying to ground himself with the familiar pressure, but grits out his next statement with pure conviction. 

“If Damian isn’t here then it can’t be. If he isn’t here I won’t be.” 

His parents exchange a glance, seemingly having an entire silent conversation with just the sparse second of contact and turn to him as one, sadness and warmth playing on the edges of their lips in tandem. A buttery soft light seems to shine from directly behind them, and before Dick can raise a hand to shield his eyes his body starts to tingle all over, uncomfortable and almost painful like pins and needles on his entire body. 

Gravity seems to disappear and light and sound distorts like it’s being pulled toward a black hole, but nothing changes; Dick just stands in place, watching his parents lean on each other. 

Right as the pressure and movement and pure feeling seems to crescendo, ripping Dick apart atom by atom, he feels a jolt of tenderness and affection run through his whole being like a kiss on the forehead. “Go get him,” he hears, “go get your last Flying Grayson, Robin.” 

On Earth, Agent 37 — Grayson — opens his eyes. 

iii.

Goliath dips down towards the ocean, gliding softly while gently tilting on his side to let Damian lean over and brush his fingers over the deep ocean water that skims by. Salt begins to coat his lips from the spray from the contact between him and the sea and his friend’s wings, covering him in a light dew of water. He licks them absentmindedly, and tips fully back into the saddle on the dragon-bat’s back, settling in for a long flight. Glancing over his shoulder, Goliath croons and begins to draw upwards into the sky, shoulders working powerfully as he launches himself higher into the air. 

The sea glitters below both of them, spreading out into the far off horizon, and Damian’s skin prickles, goosebumps rising as he rests his chin on the soft red fur below him, trying to ignore the memories that flash throughout his head. 

Unfortunately, he doesn’t succeed. 

(( Drowning had been — peaceful.

The moments leading up to it — the struggle, the panic, the flailing — hadn’t been, but the physical sensation past a certain point was almost comforting. There was no pain; the lack of oxygen in the brain made everything almost soft and bubbly, dream-like. All that remained was the gentle sensation of being cradled and rocked back and forth by rolling waves, bobbing along with the movement of the water, fluid.

It’d almost been like a hug, like Richard’s or his father’s or Colin’s; warm and safe, protecting him from all harm and perfect. 

Logically, Damian had known this was because of the lack of air getting to his brain — hypoxia setting in — and that he would soon be unable to resist the urge to inhale the water around him. It would be instinct, pure and simple, his body’s natural reaction to insufficient air consumption that would do the final deed and kill him. In a sense, it was deeply ironic; he had managed to survive dozens of death traps, assassins, and an ancient demon cult leader that had a grudge against him specifically and had been about to die because of himself. 

The son of Batman, heir to the League of Assassins (or, he supposed, Mother’s organization Leviathan), the Demon’s Fist, killed by his own pathetic instincts. 

( And maybe he hadn’t been fighting as hard as he could have to get out of the binds trapping him to the crumbled chunk of island deep under the sea; he’d had his razor sharp spike gauntlets, and all it would have really taken would have been some wiggling to cut through them — but. It wasn’t like anyone would have ever known, anyways. 

Either way, the one who would have ultimately killed him would have still been himself. Suicide or natural causes; was there truly even a difference? ) 

Damian had managed to blink open his eyes, vision blurry, and he swears that he saw a malak clothed in white, floating just above him. Something had stirred in his mind at the time, restless ( he knew them, didn’t he) , but before he could have caught the thought it had drifted away. 

He remembers thinking — Oh, right. Dying. He was dying — when he’d opened his lips, precious air bubbling out at his confused expression. 

It hadn’t been the worst way to die. It was downright gentle compared to his last two deaths. 

He knows that had been his last thought before everything had fuzzed away into darkness. 

iii. 

He’d woken up with a start and had promptly began to vomit out sea water, coughing violently while his ribs had ached. The malak — or, well, what he’d thought had been one but was actually just Maya, duh, but the descriptor was still accurate if he was being honest — had rolled him onto his side, recovery position, and frantically pat his back. He remembers that Goliath had sniffled worriedly a couple of meters away, with his big wings hovering hovering protectively over them before Maya had managed to hack out a couple of words. 

“Thank god,” She’d wheezed, “— thank god.” 

After that, Damian had drifted in and out of consciousness while both of them laid flat on their backs, exhausted. The very last thing he’d heard besides the distant rumbling of the island collapsing and the sound of the sea before he’d succumbed into total unconsciousness had been the rasp of his mother’s accent. “Don’t worry, Damian,” she’d murmured, “Mother has you.” ))

( It had been more comforting than he expected. )

But that was then, and this was now. 

He didn’t have any protectorates with him this time — it was just him and Goliath, once again, and with a shuddering exhale he begins to chart a course for Gotham. 

iii

When he sees his other brothers after months and months of solitude and weeks of recovery in Biayla, all he can think of is orange peels, a symbol smeared proudly on golden skin, gentle but malformed hands, the sounds of the earth breaking and shattering and exploding apart —

( Creatures from something worse than even possibly hell bursting from beneath the island, teeth snapping and gnashing and dangerous, his life flashing before his eyes as he tugs at the bonds wrapped around his wrists as his brothers are greedily snapped up and killed for him. )

He knows what he’s reminded of.

Sacrifice.

He’s so tired of that word.

Damian knows they will do the same thing as his brothers under the sea, and chokes back a flood of tears. Weak, weak, he cannot be weak now — so he spits bitter words and cruel nicknames at them, distances himself. Maybe if he can make them hate him (again) then they’ll be safe.

( Safe from him and the destruction he trails behind him like the scarlet cape draped around his shoulders at the start of the Year of Blood. )

And of course the exact opposite of what he’s hoped for happens.

Red Hood and Red Robin, fighting for their lives, surrounded by teenagers (children) wearing his R — Your R is for Redemption, Maya had murmured — as they’re scratched and stabbed and hurt because he, Robin, wasn’t there, and they felt like they had to fill the void left behind or everything would fall apart.

Of course they hadn’t known it already had — with the city being choked by noxious venom, with twisted and complex plots being completed, with the search for the origins of the Lazarus pits, with the Joker taking his Father away from him again, with his family keeping silent about the chaos occurring within Gotham from him — but. Still. It’d been because he was gone. It was his fault.

( He shouldn’t have been allowed to leave.

Damian, despite all of his bravado and trauma and maturity, was fucking twelve.

He shouldn’t have been traveling the world with the clothes on his back, a semi-murderous ally, and the last member of a species that he singlehandedly killed on a nigh-impossible and fatal mission.

And yet. Father and Pennyworth let him go. If the rest of the family had any protests, they’d kept their reservations to themselves.

...assuming that they even knew he was gone, of course. Or cared.

Honestly, it was hilariously, dramatically ironic. All the effort they had put into saving him, resurrecting him was gone as soon as his heart started beating again. The family had scattered like dead leaves in the wind, blown and spread apart easily. But they all still flipped their shit when Damian snuck out to patrol, but oh, him leaving the country by himself to a practically unknown location — other than that it was connected to the League of Assassins — to meet with someone that they didn’t even know for an uncertain amount of time for a reason that they weren’t privy to was just fine.

Damian hadn’t even known about Father’s death — amnesia? He wasn’t sure, he’d only heard that Batman was dead on the news with Maya — or Grayson (who was alive, apparently, as he’d found out during his recovery period and god, he had been too happy to even consider being mad) was beginning to dismantle Spyral, or Alfred losing a hand, or, or, anything. He didn’t even have the full story yet either.

He’d been (and still was) out of the loop. No one told him anything. From what he could tell, no one even tried.

But he had been gone. And that was his fault. It was what had triggered this whole mess.

If they had only reached out, tried to stop him, something  — )

Damian cannot do it again.

He cannot watch the innocents he’s (somehow) inspired die and hurt in front of him (for him, his mind whispers) again.

So he does, instead.

( It’s the most bittersweet thing he’s done. But there’s no regret.

If he could he’d pick himself to be the one to take the fall, every time. )

The owl mask fits perfectly on his face, and Damian withdraws into the back of his mind. He is no longer a person — not a son, nor a brother, nor a friend — he is what he was made to be. 

A weapon. 

iii.

As he should, he manages to take down all of the pretenders and the Reds. All that is left is a scuffed up boy with bruised knuckles and a dangerous glint in his eye, and as soon as they make eye contact from across the street he lurches to his feet, wheezing. His name is Duke, he thinks, and from what Damian can tell he’s the leader of the group. He’s surrounded by the unconscious or wounded bodies of his friends and allies — he knows what Damian (Talon) — can do, and yet he steps forward, challenging him. Stupidly stubborn and idiotic, just like Grayson and Maya, and that stings . Cocking his fists and gritting his teeth, Damian lunges forward to take him down, but the boy blocks and dodges, calling out to him all the while, and he realizes his tactic differs from the others’. 

He’s trying to get through to him with words, and to Damian’s shame he can’t help but snap back angrily at each comment thrown his way. When he insinuates that he’s doing this because it’s easier than dealing with the fallout, he snarls. 

“I’m just making the same sacrifice Batman did. What he had to do. I made my choice!”

That’s not the real reason why. 

No, he wants to scream, no. This is not because of what Batman (Bruce, Father) did. That hurts, yes, burns hot and sharp against his throat, but he’s done it before, and he knows he’ll do it again. Batman never dies.

He is not doing this because of him.

But they don’t know that. They don’t know that Damian walks on the corpses of his siblings, buoyed up by their deaths.

It’s for the brothers with sparkling eyes, sticky hands, and wide smiles he does this for. For his siblings, copies, clones — the ones who leapt willingly into the jaws of death. The ones who are dead because of him.

The ones whose sacrifices he practically mocked when he’d stopped struggling to get free and given up. 

( He can’t — won’t — have more blood on his hands. )

“Batman sacrificed everything he had. He sacrificed you. And you’re doing the same damn thing.” Duke Thomas — Robin, he reminds himself, Robin — yells, nose broken and lip bloodied, and Damian physically feels his heartbeat thud in his ears.

He snarls (shrieks) the first thing that comes to mind, voice agonized and breaking; “You don’t know me! ”

Duke — Robin — swipes away the scarlet dripping down his face with the back of his dirtied hand, panting as he clutches at his nunchaku, and stands across from him, chest heaving.

“Kid,” He says, “— I don’t think you know you.”

Everything stills, and Damian clicks his jaw shut, lets himself sink into that headspace where everything becomes blurry except for the movement of his body (because he’s a weapon, that’s all he’s ever been good for), and tries to tune out the teen exchanging blows with him.

( It doesn’t work. )

Duke burrows, claws, tears his way under his skin, rips his carefully structured defenses into shreds and exposes his vulnerability with an easiness and speed that makes Damian feel queasy. This teenager — this child — of whom he has never interacted with — has stripped him to the quick, destroyed him. He’s fallen so far, he thinks distantly.

The new Robin’s words ring hollowly in his ears, rattle around the emptiness in his chest, sink into the gaping hole of where his heart once was, and continue to come one after another like a series of brutally efficient strikes.

“You just want to run from it,” “You want to ignore your responsibilities and the people who follow you. Who were inspired by you. Just like your dad did. It’s the right thing to do — be like him, be alone, suffer alone. I see it. It’s what I’d do, make that same sacrifice.” “Give up on family.” “But here’s the thing. There’s a difference between you and me.”

“I’m not Robin. You are.” 

Damian wants to scream himself hoarse that he has it all wrong. He had been shouldering his responsibilities and consequences and deaths for months , now, and he hadn’t been the one to give up on his family first. They had. He’d clung so tightly to family that he ended up killing himself and his siblings, the perfect murder-suicide all set up and achieved. 

( He doesn’t count himself as a victim because he’d miraculously — torturously — come back. Again. )

But, Allah, he’s tired. Numb and burnt out, and trying to explain that all would be making himself vulnerable and open and he’d probably just be dragged alongside them all anyway. 

And Duke had somehow hit him where it counted, making him remember his cowardice as he let himself die at the bottom of the ocean. His disrespect to what his brothers had given up for him. His impudence to do what the other members of his family had done to him; giving up or running away or being silent after they’d done their fill of heroing, of bringing him back to life. Of doing the easy part and stopping. 

He swallows down the hurt and pride and anger in his throat, and blinks away the tears that burn in his eyes. Damian is not like them, never has, never will be. He’ll keep his drowning to himself and be better than them and not give up . 

R is for Redemption, he repeats to himself. 

Maybe he can redeem himself, yet. 

iii.

“...The Court’s not going to be happy.” 

“Man, fuck the Court.” 

iii.

When everything has settled and returned to some semblance of normalcy (because Bruce being gone was not new to Damian, not really), he and Duke go to the movies. 

He wears his Robin uniform just because, and all he gets is some weird looks. He can’t tell if he enjoys the lack of respect and the further anonymity or not. 

( At least it gives him an advantage now because everyone will underestimate him. 

He’s become one in a crowd of dozens of Robins despite the majority disappearing off of the streets, cheapened. 

...next time one of the Reds complains about being ‘replaced’ he’ll point out that they didn’t have dozens and dozens of children masquerading as them. 

And that they let it happen. 

And didn’t tell him. ) 

They’re watching the credits at the end of the movie when Duke places his cheek on his hand and looks at him. He manages to ignore it for several minutes until the scorching gaze breaks his resolve, and he self-consciously snaps. “What?” 

Duke looks at him placidly, something like amusement glittering in the very back of his eyes before he says, “What were you doing, anyways? I mean, after you left Gotham.” 

His voice is light and airy, curious, and Damian can’t tell if he’s imaging the layer or seriousness or not. He childishly says the first thing that comes to mind, defensiveness making his tongue loose. 

“Mind your business.” 

Duke snorts. “Whatever you say, dude.” 

As he very pointedly slouches away — not pouting — he tries to ignore the dark thoughts and memories that begin to bubble up in his mind and fails. 

Damian’s pulled from his brooding by a piece of popcorn flicked his way, and he threateningly pops the lid off of the soda cup and holds up the still half full beverage, tipping it in his friend’s direction, and savors the shriek and half-scramble away he gets in return. 

iii. 

( Later that night, after he’s broken into one of Todd’s safehouses because he has nowhere else to go, he feels like his lungs are full of seawater again because his chest is so tight. 

Duke was the only one who asked . )