Chapter Text
For as long as the Grandson of the Demons Head could remember, he'd been protecting a child.
The child was small. He was young, quiet, and frequently frightened. Damian al Ghul did not see himself as any of these things. But since he'd first met the child, he knew he had to protect him from everyone else. He had no idea how or why, but this child was his sole responsibility. His reason for existing. The child's safety always came first. It was his top priority, even before being the perfect heir.
The child rarely spoke. He wanted little from the world. And most of what he wanted was not safe to have. He could not provide the child's requests without endangering him.
The shame of not being able to provide for the child built up over time. But that was nothing due to the shame of not being able to protect him. Of not being able to shove the child back fast enough to take a blow, to receive a punishment in his place. He learns very quickly the outside world is not safe for the child, and to keep him in the background.
It was easier to protect the child this way. The child was in Damian's head, after all.
Since it wasn't safe enough for the child to be in the outside world, the inside one grew. Not that Damian could explore it, but he’d been told it looks like the gardens in the eastern courtyard he used to run around in as a toddler with his Mother. He was too busy to confirm it, busy exceeding expectations in every aspect of his training. He needed to be this, to protect the child.
When Damian al Ghul killed his first man, he was praised for his brutality and efficiency. He received the next two days off from training as a reward. He walks away with his head held high, and shows no remorse. Even Grandfather is pleased with him, and that's a feat in itself. But that night in the privacy of his room, he vomits the celebratory dinner he shared with mother into his toilet and tries to forget the look on the man's face as he dies. He tries to forget how his mind struggles to wrap itself around the thought that he's being made into a killer. And he tries to understand why he feels bad at all. There’s a war inside of his head and it is not pleasant.
He has a horrible headache and fogginess that persists for the next week. He ignores it stubbornly and continues his training, persisting through bouts of confusion as best he can. He only makes two mistakes from it and thankfully, the punishments were not harsh. At the end of the week his headache fades. And with it, the confusing back and forth he felt for killing the man lessens a considerable amount.
It takes three days after the headache stops to realize there’s a new person in his head. And even then, it is the child that points it out. A new responsibility, another weight on his shoulders. He has to protect and keep this one from the outside world as well. This becomes clear when he meets this new part.
The new person is… emotional. And very difficult to handle. He is every unfair thought screaming at the world. His polar opposite. Everything that Damian cannot be. This new person often cries and says that he doesn't want to do this. That he doesn't want to be a killer. Those words would get him punished should this new person ever take the body. However, he never tries to. Instead he just watches. He watches and cries because this is not who he wants to be.
Damian cannot regret his path, but secretly, he too wonders what it would be like to not be a weapon. He envies this new part for being able to express emotions about it. Damian cannot afford such things.
However there seems to be a limit to what this new part can handle, as he becomes quiet once Damian is forced to kill several animals in an attepmt to help him become a more efficient killer. But Damian knows this new person is still there, still watching. Sometimes, as he falls asleep at night he can even hear them crying.
Its soon after he had to kill those animals, that there's another part. Damian al Ghul decides at this point there's too many parts to call them “other hims”. He calls the child Habibi. It was the term of endearment his mother used for him as a toddler after all and it seemed fitting for the sweet child. The child is quite delighted by the name and quickly agrees to it.
He calls the one that gets quiet and cries, One. And this new one he names Two. He can't afford to think too hard about names, other than acknowledging that they need one and that they are to be protected. That he needs to keep them safe. Two finds his name detestable and informs Damian as such. But Two refuses to choose another name, also referring to himself as Damian. And that will not do. He's Damian.
Meanwhile, One doesn't reply, but he wasn't expecting him to. They weren’t names he would assign to them forever, but things are too busy for him. It's not as if this life that he lives is one he can afford to dwell on small inconveniences like picking and choosing names that sound pleasant.
Damian is forced to move on with his life as quickly as the Demon’s Head dictates. Each new training exercise leaves his body more battered, each kill to his teachers that display his mastery over the art is like an ouroboros. He suffers, grows strong enough to overcome it, he wins. And then suffers once more. And those little voices in him scream over it.
But his teachers, his mother, and his Grandfather are all so pleased with him. Praise and excellence is everything that is demanded of him. And he craves it like nothing else. To be perfect, to be what is expected. To be as lethal as is required. It is his sole drive in his training. For a pleased expression on Mother’s face. A nod of recognition on Grandfather's face. A barked out line of praise from a teacher. It's all he wants.
As he grows older, it becomes harder and harder to be patient with the others in his head. He almost can’t be mad at the child though. It is not his fault for being so weak and defenseless. He is too weak for this life, he’s safer tucked away in his head, and the child’s dismay at being dismissed isn’t truly an issue at the end of the day. He’s only a child after all. He didn’t know any better.
The other two parts though. That is where most of his ire lay. They are both weak and choose to hold onto what makes them weak. What with One crying over the blood on their hands, or the Two’s simmering fury for him and his harm of animals. He truly doesn't understand that as time passes… They’re just animals?
And with One, it's not like he is the one ending a life. Damian is doing it. But that’s part of a never-ending cycle with One, and he's long since given up on reasoning with that part. It's part of what helps him name One something other than a number.
In his studies he comes to learn about an interesting Greek story of a man who cheated death, and evaded punishment from the gods one too many times and was given quite a creative punishment in the Fields of Asphodel. He was forced to continuously push a boulder up a hill, and cursed never to succeed. Sisypus seemed an apt name enough for a boy that never stopped crying over an issue that would never be resolved. Sisyphus didn’t seem to mind the name, but it was hard to truly tell between all the tears.
Given all the loud and pretentious arguments that Damian has been forced to have with Two, he’d given up on naming this part. It seemed to be a good call as he seemed to refuse to take any suggestions to change his name and detested the numerical placeholder.
Damian didn’t know what the boy wanted from him and exasperatedly started to refer to him as Dames, and himself as Al Ghul, just to differentiate from each other internally. It would work for now. And since he’d done so, the annoying boy had been less argumentative, so there was an incentive to it.
He had no idea why Dames made it so hard. Didn’t he know Damian was trying to keep them alive? To keep them perfect? Did he not remember the last time he’d failed them all? And the punishments that were given to him? And the sacrifices he had to make to ensure everyone in his head didn’t have to suffer like that again?
Sometimes, he wants to throw Dames out there into the body. To see how quickly he’d smarten up in the faces of his teachers and the punishments his grandfather would bestow upon them. But even at his angriest, thinking about it makes this pit in his stomach clench in what might be fear.
No, not even if Dames was a handful, he wouldn’t. He couldn't. This was his responsibility alone.
He would protect them all despite it all. He would be the best. He would be perfect.