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Since he could remember, his mother had told him stories of his father, of the infamous Dark Knight.
He was a man to be feared and respected. A man his Grandfather wanted to be his successor. Damian wanted to be just like him.
And then disaster struck. He didn’t understand it all for he was too young, but he knew something had happened within the League. Mother sent him away along with the Cain girl, not to his father like he had hoped, but to two men and their hoard of spawn.
He hated it. He hated Todd and Harper. Hated the other children with the exception of Cain. He wanted his mother. To be held in her warm embrace and hear her voice. He wanted to meet his father. His real father, not these substitutes.
And yet, as he spent more time with them, he grew attached.
One night, while he was walking back from the bathroom, he heard hushed whispers. Following the noise, he was surprised to hear it coming from Todd and Harper’s room.
The door was open a crack, just enough for Damian to hear what was being said.
Todd’s voice filtered through, “-doesn’t try to understand!” He sounded frustrated, voice hitching at the end as if he was holding back tears.
“Did you try talking to him?” That was Harper.
Todd gave a wet laugh. It wasn’t his normal, belly laugh that brightened the room. It was humorless, empty. “So many times, Roy. It doesn’t make a difference. Nothing changes. I crossed a line and he can’t get passed that.”
Who were they talking about? Who had upset his Ab–? Damian stopped himself. Todd wasn’t his Abba. Todd was Todd just like Harper was Harper. Nothing more. Bruce Wayne, the Batman, was his Abba and no one else.
“But you stopped-”
“It doesn’t matter! I killed, Roy. That makes me irredeemable in his eyes.”
“Jay. Baby. Listen to me, you were angry and grieving. And I’m not saying who you killed didn’t deserve it, but neither of you were thinking straight. That’s got to count for something.”
“Not in the eyes of Batman. Doesn’t even matter if I was his son once upon a time. All I am now is a lawless vigilante operating in his city without permission. And to add insult to injury tonight, he said that he didn’t even know who I was anymore. What the fuck is that supposed to mean? He’s the one who’s changed. He’s the one I can’t recognize anymore. And I just–” A sob escaped Todd’s lips. “It hurts, Roy. It hurts so much.”
Damian couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He knew Todd was aware of his father and had contact with him in the past, but the man Todd spoke of didn’t line up with what he had been told.
Later, while lying in bed, Damian couldn’t stop thinking about his father and what Todd had said. Did Batman really hate Todd because he killed someone? What about his mother? She's killed lots of people. Did that mean he didn’t like her as well?
Damian shook his head, pushing that thought into the deep recesses of his brain. He didn’t want to think about that right now.
Something he still didn’t understand was why his father didn’t just forgive Todd. Mother had when he had broken that pretty vase. He'd been so scared that mother would yell at him or hit him like he had seen Cain do to his daughter. Instead, she had hugged him and told him it was alright and that she wasn’t angry. Todd and Harper did the same.
But would father? Damian frowned. Of course, he would. Damian was his son. And yet, so was Todd and father refused to forgive him. Did that mean father didn’t forgive at all?
Todd and Harper had taught him that if you loved someone you forgave them. So, father didn’t love Todd? Would he love Damian, even if he did something bad?
That made father sound like a bad man. Except, maybe he was. He had hurt Todd. Todd, who gave him hugs that reminded him of his mother. Todd, who spoke Arabic and read him bedtime stories. That played with him even when Damian knew he’d rather do something else.
Damian turned in bed, pulling the covers over his head. While Bruce Wayne may be his biological father, he wasn’t his Abba. That, Damian decided, belonged to Jason Todd.