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Thunder rattles outside, and inside, there's a boy, tossing and turning in his sleep. The boy isn't plagued by nightmares tonight, as to be plagued by nightmares, he'd have to actually fall asleep. It could be one, two, three in the morning for all he knows. To look at the clock would wake him up, ground him to a situation he wants to ignore.
He wants to ignore the way the mattress is adjusting to his body for the first time. He wants to ignore how the room, though wide enough to be someone's living room, kitchen, and dining room all at once, feels all too small. And yet at the same time, it's crushingly big. The windows are too large, too easy to look through and kick through. The lamps are too easily breakable and the shards are too easily usable to slit someone's throat with. The walls are so far away and that's making them close in. And the ceiling that he restlessly stares at with irritated eyes, the ceiling is so far away that it feels to be falling towards Damian with each torturously slowly passing second.
He groans, hands fisting the blankets that are too soft than what he's used to. He's used to cold awakenings. Hard beds with no pillows. Being on edge at every moment. Soft pillows and beds, big and trapping with light blankets that felt as heavy as his head that he should be carrying high and light. He's used to the League, their ways of life, their codes and their honor and their punishments that they deal out like candy to small children.
He lays in a bed not in Nanda Parbat, but in Gotham. A shithole, as Wilson would've described it. He's in Bristol, in a manor. Downsizing. In Wayne Manor. A butler is asleep in a room a few doors down. The butler is sarcastic. He likes to talk back and he treats the masters of the house as if they are below him. In the League, his tongue would be sliced and he'd be scalped. Damian's . . . father is down the hall.
A father.
For many years, Damian has spoken his grandfather's title and name more times that he can count. The 'grand' part of that title is more than more than fitting. Grandfather is Ra's al Ghul. One day, he and Damian will rule humanity by that side and humanity will crumble and wither under just one of Grandfather's glares. He will flay them to the bone and they will bow down to him and Damian and the League.
Damian used to believe that the 'father' part of that moniker was true. And yet, after just two months of living with Father, Damian wonders. He shouldn't wonder. He's not supposed to wonder. He's supposed to listen, to trust in Grandfather and the code he has always lived by. But Father challenges the code. He says that kindness isn't a reward and that punishment isn't supposed to be physical and that Damian shouldn't be scaling mountains for training. He says that training shouldn't even be something that Damian is used to but Damian doesn't understand because it's all he knows.
He knows that kindness isn't something for soldiers like Damian. He knows that speaking out of turn earns a cut on your tongue or over a nerve. He knows that beatings aren't cause for concern and rather something to reflect on. He knows that traitors and questioners and foes of the league earn death. He's killed. He knows how to kill. He knows emotions are a burden and a liability and that what an Al Ghul says, goes.
Father says otherwise. Father says kindness is for everyone, especially children and especially Damian. He says that speaking out of turn challenges opinions and facts which is a good thing. He says that beatings and training are something that Damian should've never endured — and he says the last part while he stares at Damian with a gaze that's soft and warm and hideously pitiful.
Damian groans. He thought meeting Father would be a good thing, that it would make Damian stronger. But so far, all it's done is confuse him. He knows he's ten, and he thought he would be treated like that, but now he's being treated with kid gloves that ask how he's doing and other inquisitions that fall into a territory of which Damian is unfamiliar with. He doesn't even think Father is familiar in that territory, considering it's the help who prompts Father to 'comfort' Damian and 'check up on' Damian.
Damian doesn't know how to live in Father's world and Father doesn't know how to step into this new role. Damian would prefer if he could go to sleep, but he's been laying in the same bed for the past five hours and he's not getting anywhere closer to the realm of dreams.
He'd train or spar to calm down, but not only is he a prisoner in his own home — Father would hate it if he used that terminology — but his swords have been taken and hidden. Father says it's for his own good. Damian spat at him and went to wash off his garments of the blood of which was from the man who he had slain in an attempt to help Father on his crusade against crime. Father didn't appreciate it.
Damian finally sits up in bed. He's tired. He's done. He hasn't slept in three nights and while he's able to go seven, this is somehow worse. He swings his legs over the side of the bed. He's wearing a pair of shorts. The pink, faded lines of scars litter his skin. He hops onto the carpet, silent feet against cushioning carpet. Cushioning. As if he needs it.
He looks around the room. Father has offered to hire painters to change the wall color, or to go to some trivial shop to buy trivial things such as posters — Damian isn't involved with pop culture — or paintings — Damian has never explored art — but Damian declines. His placement here is temporary; dependent on his behavior.
He walks toward the door. He heard Father return home a good hour or so ago. He lingered outside of Damian's door. Damian closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep. Pennyworth must be asleep, too.
Damian opens the door to the room. The hallway is darker. Less moonlight shining through. Damian looks from side to side; the coast is clear. He begins his journey down the hallway. The house is empty. He passes a family portrait. He pauses. Father looks happy. Normally, portraits are stoic. And yet the light that is carried not just in the eyes of Damian's paternal grandparents but in their smiles, well, a coil forms in Damian's gut.
He shouldn't be jealous. He traverses the halls of an empty mansion. He is the heir to this. The heir to the company, the only blood son of a billionaire, the successor to a legend. He is the focus of his Father's attention, his son, his only blood. The butler . . . appears to make Father happier than Damian does. He doesn't understand. Damian is blood. Father has no other offspring. Damian is the primary focus.
And yet Damian was forgotten. Left by Mother to a weak father who cannot even slay a rotten man.
Damian enters the kitchen. He's silent and yet it feels as if the marble is echoing his entire being. It's just so empty. The League's base may have been silent, but men filled the rooms, the guard posts, everything. The security system in the manor is so much yet it's invisible and it feels bare. Damian never thought he'd wish for the men at every corner and each turn, but he finds himself wishing as it is.
He swipes a glass, sliding to the sink. He turns the handle. Running water is an upgrade, he assumes. The water fills up. As a challenge, he waits until it is at the brim, waiting, watching until it fills each part of the glass, stopping just at the top. He smirks, using a single finger to flick the water off. He brings the glass to his lips. But he pauses before he drinks, dragging the glass away so it's at arms length.
He sends it high into the sky, catching it in his other hand. The water swishes, but it doesn't spill. Not a single drop. He beams proudly to no one.
"Keep that up and Alfred might lose it." He whips around to see Father. Even with a spin so fast and sharp, the water only spills a few drops. Damian is ten, and half his father's size. Father has trained for long, but Damian has surely trained longer than enough to beat him.
Damian sets the glass down on the counter, raising his chin and shifting his stance to a subtly defensive one. He eyes Father from head to toe. He's hesitant, held-back. Damian's guards raise up and he bows his head. "Father."
Father sighs. "How many times have I told you that we don't need to greet each other like that?"
Damian quickly recedes to a straightened back, panic jumping to his throat. "Of course, Father. I apologize and—"
"You don't have to apologize, Damian." Damian nods, about to apologize again — Father doesn't want that. Right. So what does he want? Father sucks his teeth, a hand flying to cup his forehead. He's frustrated. Because of Damian. Why? "That was . . . too aggressive. I — do you want some cookies to go with your water?"
"'Cookies?'" echoes Damian, watching as his father nudges past him, reaching to the higher cabinets and searching for something.
"Yeah. I used to always drink milk with my cookies, but water can be just as good." Father is light, his voice warm and his movements shaking off the drowsy slumber. He's kind, his hands that throttle criminals gentle in their touch. "Or we can discard the water and I can pour us both glasses of milk and I can—"
"'Cookies.'" Damian watches as Father indeed does pull out a stack of seven cookies, splaying them out on a platter. "That's . . . those are . . . " He trails off, not knowing which direction to go. For an entire day he's been bracing for his punishment. He spent several of those hours on his knees in his room, waiting patiently with his head bowed and the nape of his neck bared to the ceiling.
Father notices his lack of coherence and stops, the plate of cookies next to the open fridge. Damian pauses, wondering if he should drop to his knees now or wait until Father takes them to a different room in the house. His heart races because the cookies may be poisoned but Father insists that no harm will come to Damian but that isn't how things work. It never has been so Damian swallows thickly, trying desperately to see if there's even a path to go on from here.
"Is everything alright?" Father is cautious.
Damian is equally cautious, reigning in each worried facial tick and molding his face into it's usual stoic demeanor. He keeps his hands at his side, going as far as to dare to clasp his hands, resting them over his lap. "I am just . . . I an unaccustomed to, well . . . " He nods towards the cookies, his head trembling too much.
Father breathes in through his nose rather deeply, eyes searching the mask over Damian's. "Let me guess, Ra's al Ghul wasn't a big fan of cookies."
"No, he was not." Nor was he a fan of one-on-one talks that didn't end in a beating. Nor would he be a fan of Damian being so easily given such a generous bedroom without proving himself. Nor would he be a fan of Damian sleeping for so long or speaking without being spoken to. Nor would he be a fan of Father, or at least how Father has turned out.
At least.
Father's hand on the fridge turns white with tension. The veins strain and Damian imagines those hands on a blade, a blade coming down onto Damian and — no. Father has said he wouldn't do that. So what would Damian be faced with? He watches as Father's hands twitch, as his feet twitch, as his face muscles twitch and he opens his mouth to say something but he's at a lost for words. He is angry, Damian can tell, but he can't tell what angered the man.
Father eventually turns around, pouring the milk into a glass. "Alfred used to do this whenever I couldn't sleep. The man hates junk food, and these cookies were the only thing close enough to junk food in the entire manor when I was growing up. Now," Father says as he pours a second glass, "one might think I began to scarf these down like crazy, but I knew," he turns around with the plate of cookies. "that these were special. They were to be saved."
Damian understands. He looks at those cookies. They are special. A gift in the house. No, not a gift, an honor. They are special to Pennyworth, and he passed the tradition down to Father, and now Father is passing it down to Damian. These are more than cookies and milk, this is a reward. Damian is perplexed. Is a reward a softening before a punishment? But punishments are the same in Wayne Manor, are they not? No, this is from Pennyworth. And . . . Pennyworth is kind. It's a tradition — it must be.
Damian nods slowly. "I . . . I understand."
Father nods. "Yes. And — does milk work? I know you poured a glass but you can have water or milk."
"I," Damian hesitates with the new choice. This is quite the odd test. "I am okay with whatever you think would be better."
Father scratches the nape of his neck, the tip of his ears turned red. "Uhm, then, well, milk. Milk was . . . what . . . Alfred did." he trails off into a mutter, grabbing the milk glasses. His eyes dart from side to side, and he nods to himself, almost affirming his own actions. Damian looks at the glass of water. "You can just toss the water in the sink. Be careful with the glass, though. You can leave it in the sink and, uhm, yeah."
Damian does so, gripping the glass with both hands, grimacing when it clinks against the metal. He turns around, astonished to find Father sitting on the floor, already starting on a cookie. It's so small in his hands. Damian blinks down at the sight of a grown man, cross-legged, nibbling childishly on a cookie with a glass of milk to his right. It's a ridiculous sight.
Father feels Damian's stare and looks up, his eyes doing little to hide his amusement. "Are you going to stand there all night or are you going to join me?"
"You are a child," seethes Damian.
Father tilts his head. "You're ten."
"I have been trained by Ra's al Ghul. I have wielded blades crafted from blood. I have brought armies to their knees and—"
"You are a child—"
"I have slaughtered grown men and I can do it to the rapists on the Gotham streets," insists Damian, hardening his glare and trying to show his posture and how perfectly obedient he can be. "If you would just let me—"
Father shakes his head almost sadly. "That is not how we do things, Damian."
"It's how I was taught to do things and it's how I can—"
"You have two minutes before I devour each one of these cookies." Damian stops in his tracks. Father interrupted him, deflected the conversation. How incredibly infuriating. They were talking and Damian was trying to help Father and be useful and—
What in the Hell is Father doing now?
Damian narrows his eyes, glaring furiously, hoping to see that anger reflected in his father. But Father retains his childish tilt of his head and the way he munches on a cookie, dipping it in milk beforehand and maintaining eye contact with Damian as the cookie is slowly erased from existence, the chocolate chips falling onto marble floor.
Damian can't get anywhere with this man.
Damian reluctantly relents, sitting on the floor. He maintains the eye contact they have set up, crossing his legs like Father has done. He watches for any indication he's doing something wrong; this is his first time, after all. He stiffly reaches out for a cookie and the second glass of milk.
"And then I . . . dip it?" Father nods. Damian dips it, submerged the cookie into milk, bringing it out before the tips of his fingers can be wet. He takes a bite. It is . . . pleasant, he assumes. They sit for three minutes in silence.
Father sighs, breaking the silence. "I . . . I realize I have been pushing much of my ways onto you. I don't agree with what you've been taught, and I'm not going to let you out onto the streets of Gotham until you know how things should be done."
Damian narrows his eyes. "I already know how things should be done. I was raised—"
"By Ra's al Ghul and the League, I know, I know," he waves Damian off with a flippant hand. He meets Damian's eyes, and Damian doesn't think he's ever seen a gaze so soft, so loving. It shuts him up. "But you're ten. You shouldn't be killing or fighting. I — you shouldn't have been raised like that. But you were. For ten years. Ten years without kindness or love or normality or — or cookies. My childhood was abnormal, but I had—"
"Pennyworth," finishes Damian.
Father nods. "He's made a huge impact on my life. He was the father I needed. And I want to be yours, but I've never done this before."
"Raised a son?"
"Been a father."
"Oh." Damian's eyes soften, and begin to sting, as does his gut. Damian is not wanted here. He knows he was sprung upon Father in a blink by Mother. He was unplanned. He's a mistake in Father's eyes, he knows that. A disappointment, so to speak. He prohibits Father's activities and a child costs a great sum and, well, it just hurts, Damian thinks, to hear it from Father. Damian's gut is heavy and his throat tightens uncomfortably. He's suddenly not hungry and he wants to go back to bed to just shrivel up and—
Father's eyes widen. "But I want to!" he blurts. "I want to raise you. I want to throw you birthday parties and spar with you if you want. Because you have trained and I'm not ignoring that but — but I want you to have sleepless nights. I want to make you feel safe and — and spoil you and comfort you through long nights with milk and cookies and things like that or something . . . else . . . comforting, I guess."
Oh. "This . . . " Damian stares down at the cookie in his hand and the milk glass in his other, eyes widening and mouth agape. Oh. "This is a comfort?"
Father relaxes into a smile, his shoulders naturally rolling back and he places a hand behind him, leaning backwards. He exhales deeply, and the tension is blown out in that steady stream of air. "Yes, Damian, it is."
"Oh."
Damian pauses, looking at the cookie, looking at the milk. Father is relaxed. Damian tries to mimic that, and it's easy to do so. His lips twitch, pursing to hold back a scowl or a frown or maybe even a smile. Everything about this is so informal. It's calm, quiet, and yet now, with Father here, it feels full. It all feels full. And warm. And soft, like the pillows he has here that he only would've been able to sleep on after months of good behavior at the League.
Everything is different here at Wayne Manor. It's kind and it's giving and it's confusing and it's directionless and it's all Father and Pennyworth smiling and pitying and laughing and hugging. It's odd. It's uncomfortably new, but it's not disheartening. It's difficult to understand and cookies aren't a reward, they're a comfort. Comforts were unseen and unheard of with the League, with Mother. They're so flippantly handed out here.
It's nice.
"May I have another?"
And Father smiles wider.