Work Text:
The League of Assassins wasn't exactly a warm, welcoming place. He didn't mind it so much at the time, having no interest in human affection past his toddler years, his mother having never taught him the feeling of having that sort of life every day. It was probably best for a boy like Damian, and although his parents loved him, they had their own ways of showing it.
So without realising, he had become accustomed to having no physical contact with anyone. He pushed Dick away when the man tried to hug him, he slid away when Bruce went to pat him on the back for a job well done. He didn’t dislike the touch, he just wasn't used to it. His mother gave him the bare minimum, the last time she touched him being pushing him forwards to meet his father when he first arrived in Gotham.
He loved to spar with his siblings, it was a sort of closeness he was used to and could tolerate without much preparation. However, they all saw him as some kind of murder demon (ouch), and even though he had grown so far since he met them, they refused to let the impression go. They were his family, for gods sake. Shouldn't they give him a second chance? Bruce told him that family loves unconditionally when he said something he shouldn't have to Tim. Alfred taught him that love is quiet, and bubbled underneath the surface for some people, instead of being bright and loud like Dick’s love always was.
Damian had witnessed much more love and loss than the average person. He had blood on his hands from people's husbands and wives whom he killed, witnessing the downfall of his mother’s love for his father. Saw the tenuous love of his grandfather towards him and his mother. Love was beautiful.
His grandfather, his mother, his father, his siblings. None of them were perfect, some of them even considered evil. But they were a part of him forever, they helped to mold the Damian that stood before them today, the kinder, more open version of him that past him would have never seen coming. He inherited his mother’s care. No one ever expected Queen Talia to love a baby boy as much as she did when she gave birth to him.
With time, he had accidentally taught his Gotham family that he did not like to be touched. This was far from the truth. Dick slowly stopped slugging an arm round his shoulders, Jason stopped punching him in the back lightly as a sign of brotherhood. One by one, they all began to keep their distance, and it made Damian lonelier than ever. He knew he was different, he knew his past disallowed him from seeing relationships and family the same way others would.
In the media, or even in his own home, he felt like it was the ‘Wayne brothers, and Damian.’ God damnit, he was Wayne too! He had just as much a right to be here as they did! He may have been forced onto his father by his mother, but his father always said that it didn't make him love Damian any less, and he was so foolish to believe these kind words.
Damian was a monster. A killer. A Demon.
He hated that one the most. He heard Jason talking about him and referring to him with that horrible fucking name. Sure, he was the heir to the Demon’s Head, but he wanted nothing more than to detach from that legacy and have one that helped people. He wanted to be good. No one believed him.
When Duke came to the manor, Damian was described as slightly more cut off than the others. Colder. If he wanted to break from these expectations, he would show Duke that it was absolutely not true. And maybe he did, a bit, high fiving Duke when they were patrolling together, sitting next to Duke during movie nights he rarely got invited to. He wanted to show someone that he wasn't this evil bitch everyone described him to be. He was human, with warm blood and a beating heart.
—
It was a cold Thursday night, the blinds and windows such, his space heater on. Damian was sitting alone, not that this was uncommon, reading a book. The Dark Rise series had always been one of his favourites. He found it in his school’s library, and purchased himself a copy online. He had read it a few times over, and even handmade a bookmark depicting Will and James. He truly enjoyed queer fiction, especially fantasy, and fanart of James online had been his gay awakening, he thinks.
He had begun humming to himself while reading, no particular song. A knock from the door spooked him, however. No one ever came to visit him when he was in his room. He cautiously stood up and checked who had come looking for him. His surprise intensified tenfold when he found Tim Drake standing at his doorway, a smile on his face, hair flopping in front of his eyes.
The man pushed his way into Damian's room, and Damian spluttered a protest, being completely ignored by Tim. Tim hadn’t spoken to him for the next 5 minutes, or even acknowledged his existence, before taking a deep breath and looking Damian in the eyes.
“Hey Dames?” Damian rolled his eyes at the nickname, one Dick had given him when he moved into the manor.
Damian gestured at him to continue, not wanting his usual tone of voice to scare him away from whatever he had to say. Tim huffed and stood up from the bed he had taken residence on and moved towards Damian, grabbing his hand and ragging him down onto the bed next to Tim. He let out an uncharacteristic squeak, much to Tim’s joy, and found himself subconsciously getting comfortable next to the other boy.
“I see it in your eyes, you know.” Tim said as he pulled Damian in for a cuddle, resting the boy’s head in the crook of his neck, wrapping his legs around the older boy’s waist. Tim also grabbed the blanket that Damian had lying over the foot of his bed and draped it across the pair.
“When I hug Dick, or when I lean against Bruce after a rough patrol. I see the jealousy in your eyes.” Tim looks down at Damian’s face, now having flushed red, and chuckles when he sees the boy hide his blush from view, burying himself deeper into Tim.
Damian quickly realises what he is doing and shakes the smile off of his face, much to Tim’s dismay. Damian wasn't going to put up with this as Tim was just messing with his heart, using him as a game to go and tell the others while laughing at his expense. He blinks up at Tim a few times, expression forced into the stone cold neutral he had trained it to be.
“Don’t play with me, Drake.” Damian slowly inches away from the warm body, throwing his legs over the side of the bed and sitting there, still, facing the wall. Tim whines and sits up himself, moving closer to his escapee and wrapping his arms around his waist.
Tim forced his face around, gripping his chin with his index finger and thumb, making Damian look into Tim’s eyes once again.
“Does this make you believe me?” Out of all the things that Tim could have done in that moment,
Damian was not expecting Tim to kiss him. Their lips slotted together perfectly, as if they were made for one another. Tim’s mouth moved with such grace that Damian found it hard to believe that this was the guy he had fought with nonstop all of those years ago. The passion they found in their connection was unmatched. It wasn't like any kiss Damian had experienced before, no youthful fumbling or confusion, just understanding.
It felt like love. A new kind, one that would slowly blossom in his chest until the garden of their relationship flourished. Damian felt the power of a thousand words in the kiss, all left unsaid. None of it needed to be said though, he would have understood the message even had it been given to him in hieroglyphics. A hand curled around his waist and he simply melted into the touch, needing it more now than he had ever before.
He had never craved touch enough for it to affect him this much in the past, but Tim was going to be an addiction he could never get rid of. He pulled himself up into Tim’s lap, adjusting their angle and deepening the kiss. Tim’s lips tasted of coffee and vanilla, Damian not being a true fan of the taste of the caffeinated beverage, but the taste of Tim mixed within made that disgust for it fizzle away. He smelt like flowers, and the minty shower gel Damian knew he used every day, even going as far to keep a bottle in the locker room showers in the cave, never going anywhere for more than 24 hours without it. It was his signature scent, and Damian loved every bit of it.
Eventually, they had to succumb to their human needs and pull away to breathe. Acid green eyes met deep pools of blue, apologies, and thank-yous and I love yous all flowing out of them, almost visibly seeping deep into their skin. A soft, sincere smile broke out of Damian’s face, one that Tim had never seen before. Not even with Jonn, or his pets. This is all he needed in life, the League, their secret identities, everything else going to hell in that singular moment.
It wasn't Red Robin and Robin, it wasn’t Child Assassin and Detective. It was simply Tim and Damian and that was enough. Damiam rested his head atop Tim’s shoulder, calloused hand raking through thick, dark hair.
This is what Damian dreamed of. Not killing an absurd amount of people, not inheriting Wayne Enterprises or the title of Batman. Nothing as superficial as that.
But love.
Love was beautiful, and it had opened Damian to a whole new world of colours he could never have imagined. And it was all thanks to Tim.
All thanks to this snarky, gorgeous specimen in front of him, long black hair covering his eyes, soft pale skin littered with freckles and scars from his past, jawline soft yet also sharp, allowing loose hairs to frame his face like a painting. Damian had seen many ethereal things in his time. He had visited multiple of the wonders of the world. He had seen hope, he had seen light. But nothing could compare to his Timothy.
If Timothy would have him of course. Damian would be nothing short of honoured to call Tim his. But this of course would not be his decision to make, ultimately putting him at the whim of his beloved. Tim seemed to understand the question before it was asked, nodding with a grin before pressing a sweet, chaste kiss onto swollen lips. Damian pulled him back down into a lying position on his bed, curling up into the man with the same adoration he had only earlier on, as Tim first pulled them together.
He was going to stay this time. He wasn’t going to allow his insecurities and fears get the better of him, and he was simply just going to feel. He was over the moon that Tim seemed as enamoured with Damian as Damian was with Tim. He had been jealous, he thinks, of Tim’s relationship with Bernard that had ended a year prior due to ‘conflicts of the heart.’ Damian thought that was a stupid excuse anyway.
This was his to own, this was his to keep. No force on this earth, or any other planet for that matter, was ever going to separate these souls again. Damian did not care what the others thought.