Work Text:
Tap, tap, tap.
Damian's shoes tapped against the hard floor as he made his way to gym class, it wasn't exactly his favorite..
It wasn't that he didn't enjoy training in general, he was supposed to after all, however that didn't seem to be what this was, they played games in that class, as if that could be considered "physical education". It was such an odd concept to him, but at this point he had by now learned not to mention it.
Either way he needed to get changed for gym class to pass, so at the moment he was making his way there.
Eventually, once in the locker room Damian made his way to his locker, pulling his uniform out, and changing into the shorts and T-shirt.
Eventually other students floated in from their own classes, talking amongst themselves, laughing and playing with their friends, something Damian did not have, something Damian didn't want.
Totally.
Absolutely, not.
It didn't matter if he did anyway, Damian was not only Robin but also heir to the league of assassins, he could not have friends, it was unfitting to an heir, and son of Batman.
Either way, once his teacher made it to the locker room they all began filtering into the actual gym, though Damian noticed something quite quickly, people were staring at him.
His classmates were staring at his limbs, more specifically the scars that littered them.
Damian could not understand exactly why at first, before something seemed to click not long after.
The other children didn't have those marks, they weren't covered in long since healed injuries, their skin held little to no scarring.
And he wasn't entirely sure he liked the difference between himself and everyone else.
It wasn't.. fun seeing how he differed in that regard, he'd never really thought about it before, mostly because everyone in his family held scars, though not a lot of them were ever very visible in public.
Perhaps this was why.
Yeah, maybe that was it, there's something wrong with having scars, other people aren't supposed to see them, maybe they think they're gross, maybe all of those scars are just so telling of Damian's faults, telling of everything that he could not stop from happening.
Damian didn't like that feeling, the feeling of everyone's eyes all over him, judging his scars, judging his weaknesses.
Eventually, halfway through whatever dumb game they were supposed to be playing Damian asked to go to the bathroom, luckily the teacher agreed, so he took a trip around the school, walking to the farthest bathroom and entering.
Once in the bathroom he stepped into a stall, locking the door, he let himself flop against the wall, hiding away in the corner, he wasn't even entirely sure what he was hiding from, maybe it was the eyes that felt like they were still on him, he wasn't entirely sure.
Every now and again he peeked out of the bathroom to glance at the clock in the hallway, checking the time, once it was close enough to the end, he started walking back to the gym, finding his class in the downstairs hallway on their way back to the locker room.
Damian lingered a bit, waiting until the bell rang, until everyone was gone, to change out of his gym uniform.
He tried to keep his eyes up towards the ceiling as he changed, not wanting to look at the scars any longer.
It wasn't the first time he'd seen his scars, but it was the first time with warm weather since he'd come to this school, the first time since a jacket of some kind hadn't been covering his arms.
And the first time since the sweatpants had been replaced with their shorts counterpart.
He hated the feeling of those eyes on him, he wanted to swaddle himself in clothing once more, he wanted to cover himself completely and never leave the clothes.
But he couldn't do that, he just had to keep on moving with his day.
Coming home from school Damian swiftly entered, staying away from anyone who would greet him, he snatched a box of bandaids, retreating to his room.
He moved to sit down on his bed, pulling his pant legs up along with his sleeves, plastering sticky bandages all over his limbs to block out the scars.
The bandaids seemed to make everything feel just a little bit better, until they didn't.
He felt better about his scars until he held his arms in front of him, looking over his work, his arms were almost completely covered in medical supplies in Damian's attempt to hide the scars.
It only served as a bitter reminder as to how much of his skin was covered in that stupid scar tissue. It almost made him wish he could be someone else.
Have someone else's arms, someone else's legs, someone else's body.
It only felt good for a few seconds until he saw how they looked like that, covered in plasters.
And suddenly he wasn't just upset anymore, now he was angry and frustrated, god why couldn't he just get rid of these horrible little marks, they were all white and purple, some of them looked like bruises, some of them still felt like it, some of them he could remember exactly how and why he had them.
Frustrated at being unable to cover them up he punched his legs, fists coming down hard against his skin, hitting over and over again, it didn't necessarily make him feel better, but it made some of the frustration go away.
But eventually frustration morphed into sorrow and resignment.
Walking around throughout the next day the bandaids made him feel slightly better after all, maybe it wasn't all that bad of a solution, even if he was a bit frustrated with it.
.
.
.
Damian stepped down the stairs and past his family in the kitchen, the boy was dressed and ready for school, the bandaids on his limbs wouldn't be visible, which he was honestly kind of glad for, but a couple on his face would, one over the bridge of his nose, and one under his chin, no one mentioned it but he could see their eyes wandering to the bandaids.
Eventually he made it out of the door to start on his way to school, driven by Alfred.
And then conversation started.
"Soooo... what's with the bandaids?"
Dick had finally asked, letting the question float out to his siblings ears.
Tim shrugged, responding idly.
"He had scars there didn't he? Maybe they're sore or something."
Tim tried to apply a reason as to why Damian would have those, because they all knew he had scars there, and it would be an extremely odd coincidence for Damian to be injured in those exact same spots.
Eventually Steph spoke up, sat on the counter stuffing a piece of toast in her mouth, her words were muffled at first, incomprehensive.
Tim snorted nudging her playfully.
"No one understood anything you just said."
She nudged him back.
"I said, maybe he's trying to hide scars he won't be able to explain without bringing up his secret identity."
She repeated, the others seemed to understand that, it was a good explanation, and probably the correct one.
All of them believed it well enough.
Except Jason.
He had been standing on the other side of the table, next to Dick, sipping tea as he listened to them speak. He stayed quiet, he had nothing he wanted to say.
Well...
Okay maybe that wasn't entirely true, he had so many things he wanted to say, but nothing he would, not in front of them.
He knew those reasons weren't correct, the kid was insecure about his scars, Jason could tell.
He recognized that look, the slight shame that pooled in his eyes when theirs lingered on the spots too long.
He noticed the way he shifted, the way he held himself, hiding them from people who already knew what was under them, and exactly why.
Maybe in a way it was a cover up as Steph had said, but it was not for his identity, it was a cover up for the shame that his beneath those bandages, a shame alike to what Jason once held, to what he still, in a sense holds.
So, later that day when Bruce is in the bat cave alone, Jason steps in.
"Heya B."
Jason greeted almost sweetly, ruffling the man's hair even when covered by the cowl. Odd.
"What did you do?"
Bruce asked, Jason could almost imagine the man raising an eyebrow at him under the costume.
"Didn't do anything."
Jason shot back, looking rather unimpressed.
"So sorry, what do you want?"
Bruce rephrased, Jason rolled his eyes, shoving the man's chair, even if he knew it would do absolutely nothing.
"Nothing, old man."
Jason frowned.
"..."
There was a moment of silence between the two.
"Damian's wearing bandaids."
He eventually said, now Bruce looked over once more, seeming genuinely interested.
"And you care enough about it to tell me?"
He checked, Jason nodded.
"You think he's injured too badly?"
"Well no, it's just..."
Jason wasn't sure what to say after that, what should he say? How should he go about explaining this?
Should he?
"Nevermind, just thought you'd wanna know, is all."
He fibbed easily, avoiding explaining to Bruce, he didn't exactly look like he believed Jason, but also didn't say anything thankfully, he nodded accepting the answer even if he clearly knew it wasn't the truth, at least not the whole truth.
.
.
.
A couple days had gone by and Damian continued to cover those marks, everyone just kept assuming that it was to hide his identity, scars that he could not explain while doing so.
And Damian had been happy to play along with that idea, probably also unsure of how to explain, much like Jason.
Now Jason could admit that he was wrong about this, if he was.
But he was not, he had a horrible sinking feeling that he was entirely correct about this, no matter how much he wished he wasn't.
So one day he eventually decided to just be upfront with the kid about it, but it wasn't like it was something he could just say in front of everyone, as teasing as Jason could be, he didn't really want to say something like that to the kid in front of everyone, that would be uncomfortable for everyone, including him.
So he made his way down to the bat cave once more, it was dark and time for patrol, Jason walked straight up to Bruce at the bat computer.
"Hey, old man."
Jason got the man's attention, Bruce glanced at him much like he had the first time.
"Yes Jason?"
"I want the kid with me on patrol."
Jason stated bluntly, unafraid to demand things from Bruce, who seemed vaguely confused at the moment, though Jason supposed it was for a good reason.
"You do?"
Bruce seemed almost dumbfounded, but seemingly picked up that something was going on.
"Yeah, I do. Y'know, just thinking, maybe in some way, you're semi-correct, I should start trying to get along with everyone here, there's a separation between us that I don't want."
Oh, feelings were always a good way to distract Bruce, and it seemed to be working, Jason knew what to say to get the man to ignore the lying in favor for focussing on his sorrowful son.
"Okay, yeah that's okay, I can do that, Damian will be with you tonight."
Bruce agreed, nodding, Jason nodded back, the old man was far too easy to convince, not that Jason was complaining, but Bruce really should work on that, at least when it came to anyone but Jason, Jason wasn't really planning on giving up on his privileges just yet.
...
Soooo,
Maybe Jason should have warned Damian first, but it was honestly much funnier to see his face when he had been told out of the blue that he would be paired with Jason rather than Bruce today.
Like seriously, it was pretty funny, though the glare he got from the kid was a bit funnier.
However he couldn't focus on the fun for too long, he still had to talk about those scars, and now was his chance, the two were walking through crime alley.
"Hey, Robin."
Jason spoke after a moment, glancing at the kid, Damian glared in his direction.
"What do you want, Hood."
Oh he was still mad about the whole patrol thing, yeah Jason's fault, oops.
"You're still wearing those bandaids in costume."
He pointed out, Damian paused for a moment, subtly, almost subconsciously, he shifted to hide the bandaids as much as he could from Jason's view.
"I forgot to take them off."
Damian had excused, Jason frowned behind his helmet.
"No you didn't."
Jason replied simply, and Damian clammed up for a moment, not seeming very keen on speaking to Jason at the moment, or really any moment, but spoke up eventually.
"How would you know that?"
It sounded like more of a biting statement, an argument more than an actual question.
The way it was said didn't exactly surprise Jason, he had somewhat expected Damian to get defensive.
Actually really expected it, he's kinda surprised it hasn't gone worse than this so far.
"Because, I know you have scars there, I know the look you have when people look at them."
Jason answered regardless of how little of a question it actually was, Damian scowled, opening his mouth to speak once more but Jason didn't let him just yet, instead he added onto his statement.
"And I know you, more specifically that you don't just forget things like that."
Damian was silent once more, looking rather uncomfortable with the way the conversation was going.
So Jason decided to speak once more before Damian got too upset and decided to just run away.
"I have scars like that, those raised ones you do, even the little ones that you can't see as well, I've got tons of 'em."
"So?"
It sounded somewhat bitter.
"So, I also used to be a little disgusted with them."
At that Damian just stopped walking altogether, Jason stopped with him.
"I thought they were horrible reminders of how weak I had been, of things that I had failed to avoid, that how you feel?"
Jason glanced at Damian, who at this point was just staring at the ground, hood pulled so Jason couldn't see his face, but Jason could at least see the little nod in response to his question.
"And y'know something, Robin?"
Jason didn't wait for an answer before continuing on.
"I was wrong."
The words floated through the air, settling on Damian's shoulders as the boy took in all that Jason was saying.
Jason pulled up his sleeves, showing the scars that laced his arms.
"I have all of these, not because I failed, but because I lived."
He said, before pointing to his own chest.
"I have a scar here from my autopsy from when I died, but I am still here."
Damian seemed to be listening at least a little bit, his hands fisted in his cape, Jason pushed the boy's hood back and away from his face, before tugging the bandaids away from his face, his touch uncharacteristically gentle, it surprised even Jason himself.
"You have these,"
He ran his thumb over the scars softly, Damian made a face at his face being touched, his nose crinkling slightly, Jason huffed in amusement at the reaction.
"Because you are still here, these scars are proof that you are still here, and that, is something to be proud of."
Damian still seemed rather quiet but nodded.
Jason ruffled his hair.
"C'mon, patrol's not gonna finish itself."
Jason kept walking now, with a light slap to Damian's back, Damian scowling at his older brother once more, though with less heat than usual.
"Jerk."
Was the only halfhearted huffed word Damian murmured as they started walking once more.
"Demon."
Jason smirked as he responded, Damian lightly bumped him with his arm.
"Thanks.."
Jason bumped him back lightly.
"Don't mention it. Seriously I will never live it down in this house."
Damian snorted at that, and the two finished with their patrol, the night and following days feeling...just the slightest bit lighter after that.