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Damian had been making his way down the stairs that led into the Cave with the intention of retrieving his book that he had left on the big meeting table before disappearing back to his room.
He had been benched from patrol and that meant he wasn’t supposed to go into the Cave at all until next Thursday but he really wanted to finish that book and if he was quick, no one would be any wiser. Also, he had been (foolishly) hoping to prolong the inevitable to at least dinner time but now, it might be moved earlier.
He hadn’t known that Father, Richard, and Drake were back from patrol already but they were, the three stood around just in front of the BatComputer, evidently finishing up debrief for that night’s patrol. None of them had seen him yet, he had tread quietly and was still partly covered by shadows. Good.
After the debrief wrapped up, their conversation turned to a different topic: him.
“I’ll go sort Damian out,” That was Father. Pennyworth had evidently informed them about what had happened that afternoon.
Richard protested but he didn’t hear what the acrobat said as he flew back up the stairs and into the manor, making a bee-line for his room. Something cold and restricting settled around his ribs and squeezed with each step he took.
‘Sort him out’ could mean a range of things but to the ten-year-old former assassin, it meant only one thing: punishment.
Bruce had yet to punish him for messing up in the ways Grandfather and Mother had back when he was living in Nanda Prabat but the glass could very well be the straw that broke the camel’s back. It was plausible, he had yet to be punished worse than being benched for a week and both Father and Richard had told him that Bruce would never purposefully hurt him but that didn’t mean anything; that glass was of high personal value to Father and he had gone and smashed it, accident or not.
Somehow, that train of thought brought him right back to thinking about both Grandfather’s and Mother’s punishments and how that word was essentially synonymous with pain.
After all, how could anything be learnt without any pain?
Unfortunately, that train of thought brought up memories he had foolishly hoped to forget. He was back in Nanda Prabat, standing in front of Mother after he spectacularly failed a training exercise that day.
She was so mad, standing in front of him, shouting about how he was expected to be better than this, it was only a simple exercise, one he should have been able to do blindfolded. Mother and Grandfather didn’t tolerate mistakes and there was no such thing as accidents.
Time skipped forward and all he could feel was pain pain pain, it tore throughout his body. The pain of wounds long healed came roaring back as painful as they had been in the moment he had received them. Somewhere along the way, he forgot to continue breathing.
Bruce hadn’t seen Damian as he had his back to the stairs leading up to the manor but he had, the boy had caught the tail-end of their conversation.
He caught the worst part, it seemed.
Alfred had told Bruce of an incident that had happened that afternoon, something that involved one of Bruce’s crystal alcohol glasses and Damian.
“I’ll go sort Damian out,” Bruce declared.
That was terrible wording but the older vigilante didn’t know his youngest son was listening in the shadows. Someone - him most likely - would have to run damage control later.
“Bruce, it was an accident, keep that in mind,” he called after him, weighing up if he should follow Bruce or wait in the Cave with Tim (in the end, he decided to follow Bruce).
When they arrived at Damian’s room, the door is slightly ajar so Bruce pushed it further open and the two cautiously entered the room. At first, there was no sight of the kid but upon closer inspection, he caught sight of spiky black hair, on the opposite side of the room, in the awkward space between Damian’s bed and the wall.
“Damian?” Bruce said - called really.
Yeah, it was looking like he would have to run a lot of damage control after this.
Bruce made his way across the room, to a point where he could see Damian better, Dick trailed behind. The ten-year-old was sitting in the small space - the corner really - between his bed and the wall, he had his legs pulled up to his chest and had his head buried in his knees, his arms securing the strange ball position. He hadn’t visibly reacted to his name being called.
“Damian,” Bruce tried again. “We need to talk,”
This time, the boy did react, violently. Damian jumped, accidentally throwing his head hard against the wall.
Oof. He winced in sympathy for how painful that was, the kid would definitely have a nasty bruise for at least a week after this. Then Damian started talking, not in English.
“I-I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’ll be better!” Damian pleaded, in Arabic. “Please don’t hurt me!”
There was no way Bruce, with his emotional constipation and lack of knowledge of Arabic, could handle this without escalating it any further. He manoeuvred around the older vigilante to kneel down in front of Damian, making sure to keep his distance from the boy.
“Dami?” he asked. “It’s me, it’s Dick,” he tried.
“Dick-“ Bruce started. He turned to face the man.
“No, Bruce, let me handle this,” he told him.
Thankfully, Bruce let him and didn’t try to tell him otherwise or, god forbid, try to do something with Damian. Instead, Bruce quickly signed ‘movie’ and ‘living room’ before he left the room.
That…wasn’t too bad of an idea, actually.
Nevertheless, that was to come, so Dick turned his attention back to Damian.
“You aren’t with the League, you’re safe in the manor,” he told him. “Can you look at me, please?” Dick asked.
Damian didn’t seem to hear him as he kept muttering ‘I’m sorry’ or ‘don’t hurt me’ over and over like a broken record.
It was in that moment that Dick got what he hoped was a good idea. Straightening up again, he left Damian for a moment to go find Gray, Damian’s small robin plush that he had bought for the boy.
(He hadn’t expected the kid to like the toy, let alone actually keep it)
But it might just be the thing to help right now so once Dick had retrieved the small toy, he knelt down in front of Damian again. In that short time, Damian had extracted his head from the ball but he wasn’t exactly looking at Dick. Even though he was looking at his brother, his eyes were glassy and far-away, not really seeing him.
He set the stuffed toy on the floor in front of him. That movement, for whatever reason, got the boy’s attention and Damian shifted his gaze to stare at it.
(He would have to talk to Bruce about this and discuss the afternoon incident with Dami but those could both wait for later.)
After a few minutes, Damian reached out and grabbed the toy before quickly bringing it into his ball, to cradle it against his chest. With a sinking feeling, he realized that the kid had most likely moved that fast and done that because he was expecting the toy to be taken away from him, for Dick to taunt him with it.
It was at that moment that he once again wanted to join Jason in hunting down Ra’s (and by extension, Talia).
But if Damian had reacted to the toy being there then that meant that he wasn’t totally disconnected from reality like he was before and had been in previous episodes. That meant they were getting somewhere and the kid might be able to hear him now…
“Damian? Can I touch you?” he asked, deciding to just go for it.
Moments passed before Damian nodded slowly. It took a bit of manoeuvring but he eventually got to where he was sitting beside Damian, their shoulders just touching. He really wanted to just hug him but past experiences had taught him not to do that straight away, he had to build up to it.
Eventually, Mother’s screaming faded away and the pain pain pain lessened until the point where he was aware of the room he was in and that there was his robin stuffed toy and…Richard? now in front of him.
For an unknown reason, he had the childish desire to hold the toy and surprisingly, he found himself reaching out to grab it. Once the small bird was clutched to his chest, waves of contentment, thankfulness and safety washed over him. Then Richard was speaking to him.
“Damian? Can I touch you?” the man asked.
It was in that moment that he had the foolish want for contact with another person. He should be stronger than this, he shouldn’t be reduced to this mess by a simple sentence that sounded too similar to what Mother had said in the past. But then Richard was sitting next to him so that their shoulders barely touched and he forgot about that train of thought.
The man didn’t seem to be doing anything except just sitting there with him. Eventually and slowly, Richard wrapped his arms around him and pulled him into a hug and he could not deny that it was somewhat enjoyable.
“Richard,” he said, muttered really, not moving in the (high) chance that Richard would end the hug.
“Dami,” Richard returned but then he did what Damian feared he would do: end the hug.
Despite his best efforts, a whine (he refused to accept that it was a whimper) escaped him.
But then Richard was hugging him again?
“Sorry, sorry,” Why was he apologising? He had done nothing wrong? It was he who had done the wrong deed, he had childishly been dismayed at the loss of the hug.
“What happened?” he asked, softly.
“You don’t remember?” Richard asked. “I’m not too sure exactly but you heard Bruce mention the glass incident down in the Cave and it brought back some unpleasant memories,” he said.
“That…is an oversimplification but correct,” he agreed. They sat there for a few more minutes before Richard spoke.
“Hey, Dami? Would you be okay with us moving to a sofa? My legs are starting to go numb,” Richard requested.
“Yes,” he said simply.
As they got up, Richard somehow managed to keep in contact with him the whole time as they left his room for the closest living room.
As he directed them to the nearest living room he could remember, they passed Jason (he hadn’t known his immediate youngest brother was even at the Manor). The eighteen-year-old raised a questioning eyebrow at him. He awkwardly signed ‘bad memories’ without taking his other arm away from where it was wrapped around Damian.
Jason nodded and continued on his way to wherever he was going. Soon enough, they arrived at a living room.
By some confusing feat, he managed to get them both settled on the sofa, turning the TV on as he went. He put on a random Netflix show to act as background noise, neither he nor Damian would be actually watching it.
By the time the next thing had loaded, Damian was looking over at him.
“Hi,” he greeted.
“Richard, I apologise for my earlier gaffe and my momentarily lax of control,” Damian told him.
What?
“Dami, you don’t need to apologise for anything. Your reaction to hearing that Bruce was going to ‘sort you out’ was truly warranted given what you suffered from Talia and Ra’s while in the League,” he told the boy.
“I did not suffer, Mother and Grandfather trained me,” It was obvious that it had come out not sounding as he had intended it to.
“I can’t deny that they trained you but the way they did was wrong, it was utterly brutal for someone so young. Hell, it’s abuse, Dami,” he told him.
In his arms, he felt Damian stiffen at the mention of abuse and that makes him consider for a moment if he had screwed up saying that.
As it turned out, he hadn’t screwed up, not exactly but he learnt it was best not to say that word when Damian was within earshot.
“I-it wasn’t abuse,” Damian tried. “Nothing can be learned without pain,” he added.
What the ever-loving hell?
“What? That’s messed up, there’s a lot that can be learnt without pain,” he tried to reason.
Maybe an explanation was needed?
“You know how not every battle can be fought with a weapon?” Dick asked. He felt Damian nod. “It’s like that, there are many things that can’t be learnt using pain,” he explained.
“What would those ‘things’ be?” Damian asked.
“Those I will have to show you,” he told him. Damian didn’t say anything more, instead, he settled further into his brother’s embrace.
Later that evening, Alfred opened the door to find Bruce’s oldest and youngest son curled up on the sofa of the Manor’s main living room, a random nature documentary playing on the TV. In the quiet way that only the British butler could manage to do, he switched off the TV and draped a blanket over the two.