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Damian had been trained from birth to endure all forms of torture. Once, when he was five, he’d been forced to break his own hand with a mallet after using the inappropriate conjugation of a verb during his French lesson.
None of that, however, compared to the horrors of being an American middle schooler.
The amount of absolute nonsense that came out of his classmates’ mouths was astonishing. They claimed to be speaking English, but Damian was 99.9% sure the word “skibidi” was not in Webster’s Dictionary. And don’t get him started on “brain rot,” as it was so aptly named.
After suffering through yet another day of being told he had no “rizz,” Damian was desperate for a cup of tea to calm his nerves. As soon as he made it through the Manor’s front door, he made a beeline for the kitchen. Alfred always worked in the gardens after picking Damian and Duke up from school, so the space was blessedly empty. He loved the butler, but the Englishman’s way of making tea left much to be desired. Damian far preferred the traditional Gongfu Cha method of brewing.
Thankfully, Father had gifted him a gaiwan last year for Christmas.
He retrieved his tea set from the cabinet and placed the kettle on the stove. While he waited for his water to boil, he noticed a clear bag of brightly colored gummies on the counter. They were covered in crystallized acids similar to Sour Patch Kids (one of Richard’s favorites). His oldest brother had likely left the candy when he’d come over for dinner the previous evening.
Normally, Damian would refrain from ingesting such things—things full of artificial colors and added chemicals and ungodly amounts of sugar. But it had been a really hard day. And his tea wouldn’t be ready for several minutes…
Okay. Perhaps a couple of pieces would be permissible. Just this once.
After verifying no one was around to witness his lapse in willpower, Damian stuck his hand in the plastic bag, fished two gummies out, and popped them into his mouth. True to his prediction, they were sickeningly sweet and tasted strongly of fake strawberries. There was also a bit of a weird aftertaste. Maybe they’d been approaching their expiration date? No matter. They weren’t good by any means, but they scratched the itch nonetheless.
When the kettle started whistling, Damian returned his focus to making his tea. The gummies quickly faded from his mind.
A little over an hour later, Damian began to feel something was off.
He was currently sitting in the living room working on a sketch of Alfred (the cat, not the butler). His limbs were starting to feel heavy, and it was getting increasingly hard to focus. The charcoal from his pencils kept smudging all over the page, giving the fur a blurred, almost glowing texture. It was kinda pretty…
Whoa… What was happening?
“Uh, Dames? You good?”
He looked up, blinking slowly. Across the room, Duke was staring at him intently. When had he come in? Usually, Damian’s situational awareness was impeccable.
“I feel…unwell,” he admitted. Though, he didn’t necessarily feel bad. Just…weird. Really, really weird.
His brother furrowed his brows. “Dude, your eyes are red.”
Damian grimaced. What did that mean?
“Okay,” Duke said, his voice tense. “Stay right there. I’m getting Bruce and Alfred.”
He sounded worried. Maybe Damian should have been worried, too, but he wasn’t. Instead, he felt oddly relaxed.
Some time later (his internal clock also seemed to be broken, so he wasn’t sure how long), Duke returned with Father, Alfred, and Jason. What his second-oldest brother was doing there, he didn’t know. Maybe he’d been working on a case with Father?
Father knelt in front of him. “Damian, Duke told me you’re feeling sick. Can you tell me what’s going on?”
His father’s words sounded garbled and far away. Damian had to take a few extra moments to decipher what was said. “I am not ill…I just feel…odd.”
“Your eyes are really red,” Father observed, his frown deepening. “Did you run into anything unusual during patrol last night?”
“No, Father,” Damian replied. Then, to his horror, he let out a giggle. Damian al Ghul Wayne did not giggle.
Based on the way his father’s eyes widened, he was equally shocked and appalled.
“Oh, fucking shit,” Jason cursed suddenly. He ran out of the room and came back carrying the clear bag of gummies from the kitchen. “Gremlin, please tell me you didn’t eat any of these.”
Damian giggled again. “Why? Richard says a few pieces of candy once in a while is perfectly acceptable.”
His brother paled. “Ah, fuck.”
Duke looked at Damian and then at Jason. “Oh, dude, were those—?”
“I left ‘em on the counter for like, five minutes!”
Father looked at them. “What are you talking about? What kind of gummies are they?”
Jason rubbed the back of his neck. “Um…cannabis?”
Cannabis?!
“Jason,” Father began, his voice low. “Why on earth would you bring a bag of unlabeled cannabis gummies into my house and then leave them unattended?”
“It’s legal!” his brother defended. “And not that it’s any of your business, but I don’t use it recreationally. I only use it when my hip acts up. You know, the one the Joker shattered with his crowbar? I stopped at the dispensary on my way over here and set them down on the counter next to my keys. How was I supposed to know today would be the one day in history the brat would decide to eat candy?”
“If you got them from a dispensary, then why are they in a ziplock bag?”
“Because Barbara and I split the package.”
Father’s face was severe. “Jason…”
“Don’t ‘Jason’ me. You’re the one who couldn’t wait until tonight to go over the Morton case.”
Alfred stepped in before things could escalate further. “Master Bruce, if I may, it is clear that what transpired was an accident—unfortunate, but an accident nonetheless. So perhaps we should shift our focus back to Master Damian for the time being.”
Everyone was looking at him now.
Normally, Damian would have bristled under all of the attention. But at the moment, his body seemed incapable of producing a stress response. Not even the news that he’d apparently ingested marijuana could stimulate his sympathetic nervous system. How peculiar…
“Damian,” Father began gently. “You’re not in trouble, but I need to know exactly how many gummies you ate. Do you remember?”
Damian blinked a few times. His thoughts were slow, like his brain was wading through the Chocolate Swamp (Richard had taught him how to play Candy Land recently). “Um…two?”
“Shit.”
“How potent are they?” Duke asked.
Jason ran his hand through his hair. “They’re ten milligrams each. I only take half of one usually.”
Duke let out a whistle. “Daaaaaamn. Dami’s gonna be high as fu–”
“Not helpful,” Father snapped. He took a deep breath. “Okay, no one panic. He should be fine, but we’ll need to watch him closely for the next few hours. I don’t want him alone at any point.”
“Yeah, he’s probably gonna get a lot worse before he gets better,” Jason winced.
The nonsense his classmates spouted at him during the school day must have still been fresh on Damian’s mind, because that was the only explanation he had for what came out of his mouth next:
“Well, chat, guess I’m cooked.”
Jason decided that high Damian was the best gift he’d ever received.
Because the situation was technically (though not really) his fault, he volunteered to stay at the Manor and help babysit the Gremlin as he rode through the peak of the gummies’ effects. If nothing else, he was looking forward to getting some good blackmail on the youngest Wayne.
They were hanging out in the sitting room with Bruce and Duke. Damian was curled up on the couch with Alfred the cat and Titus draped over his body. He kept whispering things to them that Jason couldn’t hear.
Then, the boy’s phone started to ring.
“It’s Richard,” he announced, smiling dopily. “He wants to video chat.”
Bruce looked up from his laptop. “Damian, maybe you shouldn’t–”
“Hi, Richard!”
“Hey, Dami! I heard you accidentally ate some of Jason’s special gummies.”
Yeah, because after Damian had uttered the words “chat” and “cooked” in the same sentence, Duke and Jason had run to the Bat-Sibs group chat. Tim, Steph, and Cass were already on their way over. No one wanted to miss this historical event.
Damian nodded, giggling. “I am very intoxicated.”
Dick’s laughter flowed from the speaker. “I can see that, kiddo. Just hang in there, alright? It’ll pass.”
“Richard, I love you,” Damian confessed, petting his phone screen with his other hand. “You’re my favorite person.”
Oh, man, this was golden. Jason should have known that Damian would be overly affectionate when stoned. It was just too perfect.
“Aw, Little D, I love you too,” Dick cooed. “I’m gonna come visit as soon as I get off work, okay?”
Damian’s smile grew wider. “That’s excellent news. I miss you when you’re not here.”
“I miss you too, buddy. My break’s almost over, but I’ll see you tonight, okay?”
“Very well. Goodbye, Richard.”
Duke leaned over and whispered in Jason’s ear. “This is the best day of my life.”
Jason snickered. “Same, bro.”
“I should video chat Jon next,” Damian decided.
That’s when Bruce sprang into action. “Okay, I think I should hang on to your phone until you’re in your right mind.”
Damian pouted—honest to God pouted. “But Father, he’s my best friend, and I want to see him.”
“Trust me, Damian, you’ll thank me tomorrow for stopping you.”
“Bruce just doesn’t want Clark to find out that you’re high as a kite,” Jason pointed out. “He’d never hear the end of it.”
“Are you ashamed of me, Father?” the boy asked, looking like a sad puppy.
Bruce sent Jason a glare before turning back to his youngest. “Of course not, Damian. None of this is your fault. I’m just trying to keep you safe.”
Damian considered his father’s words for a moment. Then, his smile returned. “Thank you, Father. Will you sit with me now? I wish to snuggle.”
Snuggle.
Jason had never heard his youngest brother utter that word before. Then again, there were a lot of things high Damian said and did that sober Damian would never. It was just so beautiful.
Bruce’s face lit up. “Absolutely, kiddo. I’d love to.”
He sat down on the couch next to Damian. The boy carefully moved Alfred and Titus off of him before crawling to his father’s side and laying his head on his lap.
“This is definitely getting sent to the group chat,” Duke muttered, snapping a pic of the scene with his phone.
“Good thinking,” Jason agreed. It was too adorable not to document. Man, Damian was going to hate them in the morning.
But Jason was more than willing to take that chance.
Dinner was quite the interesting affair.
Bruce had tried to get Damian to eat separately, but the boy insisted on eating with the rest of the family. They were in the thick of it now. When Damian tried to walk to the dining room, he had the coordination of a newborn fawn. Bruce had ended up carrying his son to his seat—which, the fact that Damian had even allowed that only showed how intoxicated he was.
“I’m so happy we’re eating as a family,” Damian announced as he dug into his spaghetti. He was wedged between Bruce and Dick, each ready to steady him at a moment’s notice.
“Me too, Dami,” Dick agreed with a smile.
“This is the most relaxed I’ve ever seen the Gremlin,” Tim observed. “Maybe we oughta look into getting him a prescription.”
Bruce looked at him sharply. “Your thirteen-year-old brother will not be ingesting any more marijuana. This was a one-time, irresponsible accident.”
“So was Damian,” Stephanie snickered. Tim laughed and high-fived her. Bruce sent them both a withering glare.
Menaces, the lot of them.
“This spaghetti is the best thing I’ve ever tasted,” Damian decided. “I’m so famished.”
“That would be the munchies kicking in, my little stoner,” Jason pointed out.
Duke pointed his fork at his brother accusingly. “Sounds like the pot’s calling the kettle black.”
Jason looked affronted. “I’m not a stoner! I barely use the stuff. Tell ‘em, Babs.”
Barbara rolled her eyes. “Leave me out of this.”
“Traitor. See if I bring you any next time.”
“Father,” Damian began, looking up at him with wide, red-rimmed eyes, “have you ever tried cannabis?”
The room went dead silent as all eyes shot towards him.
“This ought to be good,” Dick snorted.
Bruce felt his face heat up. He quickly cleared his throat. “Well, um, of course not, Damian. While I do drink the occasional alcoholic beverage, I avoid other mind-altering substances. I need to be sharp at all times.”
Cass stared at him. Then, her eyes widened. She pointed at him with a scandalized gasp. “He’s lying!”
Everyone lost their minds.
Bruce started rubbing his temples, trying to tune out the sound of his children yelling at him. Why on earth had he ever agreed to having so many?
“Enough!” he ordered, causing the table to hush. “Okay, I will only say this once, and then we will all move on. I smoked marijuana one time back in college. We had just finished finals, and Harvey–”
“YOU SMOKED WEED WITH HARVEY DENT?!”
“Please refrain from screaming in my dining room, Miss Brown,” Alfred chastised.
Steph’s shoulders slumped. “Sorry, Alf, my mind is just blown. Did you know about this?”
The butler smirked. “Of course. I distinctly remember Master Bruce calling me that night. It is the sole memory I have of him referring to me as ‘Dad.’ I deduced that he was either intoxicated or had just received some sort of terminal illness diagnosis. When he came home that weekend with his laundry reeking of grass, I received my answer.”
“I know I’ve already said this once, but I’m gonna say it again: this is the best day of my life,” Duke declared.
Jason was almost in tears. “Figures Bruce would be a sappy high. Like father, like son.”
Bruce was going to have to move out of his own home.
A small tug on his sleeve got his attention.
“It’s okay, Father,” his youngest assured in a very loud whisper. “Your past does not define you. You taught me that.”
Bruce felt some of the mortification fade away. He leaned over and kissed his son’s hair. At least one of his children still loved him. “Thank you, Damian.”