Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

       Damian’s breath came out in short, tight bursts as he darted through the shadows, the sound of his footsteps swallowed by the oppressive Gotham night. His hands clenched at his sides, fingers wrapped tightly around the handle of his daggers, his grip unyielding despite the steady pulse of anger coursing through him. He didn’t know exactly where he was going, nor did he care. The weight of his family’s expectations had become unbearable.

     The Batfam had been treating him like nothing more than a tool—an extension of their war against crime—and no matter how hard he fought to prove himself, they always saw him as a weapon first. His only escape now was the city itself. He didn’t take the front exit, of course. He never did. Damian wasn’t stupid. He’d grabbed his gear before slipping out, the under suit of his Robin costume snug beneath a simple jacket and cargo pants. The fabric, engineered to withstand blows from someone as powerful as Superman, would protect him.

      He’d also tucked away a hand gun—Jason’s, no less—into the waistband of his pants. Jason had left it at the manor some time ago. He didn’t know why he had taken it, Damian’s bare hands were more lethal than any gun could ever be. Maybe it was for protection, maybe it was just a signal that he no longer felt safe there. But he took it.

     Regardless, he wasn’t stupid enough to roam the streets of Gotham without some form of defense. Damian knew how he was viewed. He was the son of Bruce Wayne, the product of Ra’s al Ghul’s bloodline, and one of the deadliest assassins in the world. But all of that didn’t matter. He didn’t want to be a weapon. He never asked for this life. Every conversation with his father, every mission with his brothers and sisters, every time he was told to “control his anger” or “think before acting,” it was the same: they saw him as a tool, a soldier. To them, he was never Damian Wayne. He was always the weapon, always Robin. And that was why he was leaving. He couldn’t do it anymore. He couldn’t stand the suffocating weight of their expectations and the constant reminder that he was born for one purpose: to fight and kill.

     Damian needed out, away from their constant overbearing presence, away from the tight grip they held on him. But as he ran through the grimy streets of Gotham, part of him wondered—where would he go? Do I really have anywhere to go? His mind wandered back to his family. They would search for him. They always did. The Batfam had their own ways of tracking down their missing members, their own systems, their own strategies. Bruce would probably be the most worried. Not worried FOR him, no Damian wasn’t stupid. Bruce would be convinced Damian had gone rogue or something…... Bruce wouldn’t want someone like Damian lose in the street. Wouldn’t want someone who “can’t fallow a simple order” unsupervised.

     Damian knew how to follow orders.

     Orders were all he ever known.

    He let out a sharp breath and picked up his pace, boots slapping against the wet pavement. I don’t care. I don’t need them. His thoughts spiraled in silence until something in the corner of his eye caught his attention.

      A flash of white, nestled in the shadows of a dimly lit alley. His gaze snapped toward it, instincts honing in on the strange object. It was a mask. A small, white bunny mask, painted with streaks of pink splatter across its surface. The paint was messy, like someone had carelessly thrown it on in a frenzy. The mask itself was exaggerated, with long bunny ears stretching upward in a comically large arc. The pink splatter didn’t help its oddness, only made it seem more out of place in the dark alley.

     Damian paused, uncertainty flickering in his chest. What was this? It looked like something out of a child’s fantasy, but it was just… there. Was it left behind? Or was it something meant for him?

     Hah… why not? He snorted softly under his breath. He had nothing left to lose. What was the point of brooding in the cold Gotham night when he could have a little fun for once? He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d allowed himself the luxury of doing something frivolous. Of enjoying the moment, however fleeting. Oh having something just for the sake of amusement, something just because 

     Damian crouched down, his movements fluid as he picked up the mask, the material light in his hands. He inspected it for a moment longer, considering it in the dim light. Then, with a half-hearted shrug, he slipped it over his face, the straps holding it comfortably in place.

     It was absurd, it was childish, but it felt oddly freeing. For a moment, he wasn’t Damian Wayne, the weapon. He was just a kid, wandering Gotham in a silly mask. He stood, letting the mask rest awkwardly on his face, and for the first time in what felt like forever, a small smile tugged at the corner of his lips.

I might as well have some fun. Damian let out a soft laugh.

     It was strange, the way the mask made him feel. It was as if it offered him a temporary reprieve from his life as a weapon, as a reminder that he was still young, still allowed to be more than just the sum of his training.

    he felt like a little kid hiding under the covers. He knew It didn’t actually do anything but…. It felt like it did 

It was just a stupid mask left behind probably something from and old costume that got stained and tossed out

It was stupid.

     He ran a hand through his hair and turned his attention back to the alleyways stretching ahead of him. Gotham’s dark streets beckoned, but for the first time in a long while, it didn’t seem so suffocating.

      Maybe the city would answer his unspoken question after all: Where should he go? But for now, he was content just to be—to disappear into the maze of Gotham’s endless alleys, with nothing more than a silly mask and the knowledge that for one night, he wasn’t a weapon.

He was just Damian.

He could be a little stupid if he wanted to be.

Chapter Text

The manor was eerily quiet, the kind of stillness that weighed heavily on the air, an unsettling silence that clung to the Batfamily. The usual sounds—the shuffle of footsteps, the occasional exchange of words—were absent, leaving only the ticking of the clock, growing louder with each passing minute. Damian hadn’t left his room all morning.

It wasn’t like him to shut himself away like this. They’d had a fight yesterday, things said that shouldn’t have been. Everyone knew that, but no one would admit it—not to his face. No, admitting it would just make him more insufferable, more of a brat. But something about this silence… it was too thick. Too heavy.

“Probably just pouting,” Dick said, trying for his usual light-hearted tone, though it lacked its usual warmth. He leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed as his eyes flicked toward the clock, then back to the door. “We’ll catch him when it’s time for patrol. Probably just sulking.” He shrugged, not quite believing it himself.

Jason, who had been pacing back and forth, slammed his fist against the wall in frustration. “He’s always sulking. It’s what he does. Who cares? Just let him stew in there.” He grabbed his gear, his voice thick with irritation. “He’ll come around. He always does.”

But patrol time came and went, and still, there was no sign of Damian.

Jason was the first to notice the absence, his gaze flicking across the hallway as his fingers drummed impatiently on the grip of his pistols. “Where the hell is he? The little brat…” His voice was low and irritated, but that edge of worry began to creep in. It was too quiet. Too still. He walked past Damian’s door and stopped. The silence was thick in the air. Too thick. Jason stared at the door for a long moment, unease crawling down his spine. “You think he’s just hiding somewhere?”

Dick frowned, his brow furrowing. He stepped forward, knocking lightly on the door. “Damian? You in there?”

No answer.

The silence between them grew deeper, the seconds stretching into something suffocating. Tim exchanged a glance with his brothers. His fingers twitched, almost reaching for his tablet, his tracking systems, his gadgets—but he hesitated. There was something wrong here. A gnawing feeling in his gut, a knot that wouldn’t untangle. “Damian?” Tim’s voice was louder now, sharper with a rising urgency.

Still nothing.

Bruce stood at the back, his jaw tight, his hands at his sides. His posture was rigid, too controlled. The irritation was palpable in the way he held himself, but it was more than that—something about this made him angry. But that anger wasn’t just frustration; it was a calculated, simmering impatience, the kind of anger he reserved for situations that didn’t conform to his expectations. “Damian’s being childish,” he muttered under his breath, stepping forward, his movements terse and deliberate. “We all know he’s probably just throwing a tantrum.”

Without another word, he twisted the doorknob. The door creaked open, slow and deliberate. The room was empty. The bed hadn’t been slept in, and the room was unnervingly tidy—too tidy. There was no sign of Damian. At first, they thought maybe he’d slipped away, pulled one of his disappearing acts to avoid confrontation. But as Jason’s sharp eyes scanned the room, something caught his attention—a small, folded piece of paper sitting neatly on the desk.

Jason reached for it, his fingers slow and deliberate. As he unfolded the note, he frowned, his grip tightening around the paper. The words were short, jagged, like they had been written in haste: I’m not a weapon.

Jason’s knuckles whitened, his face hardening as his eyes tracked the words. His jaw clenched. The anger was now fully present, raw, and dark. He slammed the paper back onto the desk, the sound reverberating through the room. “Dammit…” His voice was a low growl, thick with frustration. His hands balled into fists, a vein in his neck bulging as his temper rose.

Tim stepped forward, his brow furrowing as he reached for the note, his fingers trembling ever so slightly as he traced over the words. His usual calm, analytical demeanor was nowhere to be found. Instead, his gaze was sharp, intent, as though trying to decode something hidden within those five words. His face was unreadable as he examined the note. “This… this isn’t just a tantrum,” he muttered quietly, his voice almost too soft to hear. “Damian’s trying to say something here.” He swallowed, the knot in his stomach tightening. “But what?”

The weight of those words seemed to hang in the air, like a heavy fog. The family fell into an uneasy silence. They all felt it—the pressure that had always been there with Damian, the feeling that he was always something to fix, something to train, something to shape. He was never just allowed to be Damian. And none of them had really seen the cracks forming, the slow, steady unraveling.

“Where did he go?” Tim’s voice cracked through the tension, his fingers moving toward his comms, his mind already jumping into overdrive, calculating possible places Damian could have run off to. Gotham’s alleyways, the shadows where the boy could disappear, were vast and winding. And even then, Tim knew, Damian wasn’t that easy to track. He was too clever, too stubborn, and too angry. “He’s not gone far… right?” But the doubt in his voice betrayed him.

Dick’s posture shifted, shoulders tense, his usual ease gone. He clenched his jaw, swallowing hard. It wasn’t just worry now—it was guilt. A heaviness that sat low in his chest. He took a step back, his movements more calculated now, almost stiff. “I… I didn’t think he’d go this far,” Dick admitted, his voice quieter now. He rubbed the back of his neck, shifting on his feet. “He’s just—” His words faltered. He couldn’t finish it.

Bruce remained silent. His eyes scanned the room, moving from the note to the empty bed, then to his sons. His jaw clenched tighter, the furrow in his brow deepening. There was something sharp in the air now, like the calm before a storm. The tension radiated off him, though he was still, his posture rigid as stone. His thoughts were hidden behind a wall of calm, his chest rising and falling in controlled breaths. But there was something simmering beneath the surface.

“Get your gear,” Bruce said quietly, his voice like a snap. “We’ll find him. And when we do, he’s going to explain himself.” The order was clear, final.

But inside, Bruce’s mind was already churning—not with worry, but with irritation. This wasn’t just some harmless prank or harmless rebellion; this was Damian being dramatic, again. Blowing things out of proportion, again. He could already hear the boy’s clipped voice, the self-righteous tone, the dagger-like glare he always wore when he felt wronged.

‘I’m not a weapon.’

The words grated on Bruce more than they worried him. ‘He knows better than this’, Bruce thought, jaw tight. ‘He knows better than to run off like a child throwing a tantrum.’

This wasn’t a crisis. Not yet. Not to Bruce. It was a problem. A problem that needed to be dealt with.  

Chapter Text

     Tim had the map of Gotham pulled up on his tablet, eyes flicking over coordinates and surveillance grids, fingers flying over the touchscreen. His voice was calm, clipped, analytical. “We need to start at the South Docks and work our way inward. He knows how we operate, so he’ll avoid high-surveillance zones. Most likely sticking to blind spots, dead zones—anywhere we wouldn’t look first.”

   “Of course he is,” Jason growled from where he stood near the window, arms crossed and jaw clenched. “Little bastard would know exactly how to duck under our radar. Maybe if someone hadn’t pushed him in that argument, we wouldn’t be dealing with this now.”

     Dick shot Jason a sharp look. “Really? You think now’s the time to start throwing blame?”

      Jason turned on him, scowl deepening. “Yeah, actually, I do. One of us should have checked on him. You always play peacemaker, right? Where the hell were you?”

“I figured he needed space,” Dick said, quieter now, his tone edging on regret. “He gets like this. I thought he was cooling off.”

Cass stood by the doorway, eyes sharp and unreadable, hands at her sides, perfectly still. She tilted her head. “Too quiet,” she murmured.

     Steph leaned against the far wall, arms folded, chewing her lip. “Ok ok enough with the pointing fingers we can do that later. More importantly, we need to know when he left so we know what are time grain looks like. when was the last time anyone actually saw him?” she asked slowly, eyes darting to each of them in turn.

There was a pause. A long, awful one.

Jason straightened, expression dark. “Wait… what day was that fight?”

Bruce’s brow furrowed, voice like ice. “Two nights ago.”

Steph’s face dropped. “Please tell me that that’s not the last time anyone saw him..”

     Tim’s hand froze on the screen. “… 32 hours and 17 minutes, give or take.” His voice didn’t shake, but his fingers twitched again. His jaw tightened, eyes locked on the screen in front of him. In his head, the words were louder than he dared to speak. How did they miss this? How the hell his HE miss this?!

Cass turned toward Bruce, her voice calm but pointed. “He’s missing.”

     “He’s hiding,” Bruce snapped, arms crossed, standing rigid like a statue carved from stone. “He’s punishing us.”

   “ This is Gotham, when people go missing Cops start looking for a body at the 35 hour mark” Dick snapped giving Bruce a look that could cut a brick in half 

    “He wants a reaction.” Bruce replied stiffening as if readying for a fight 

“Yeah?” Jason barked, stepping forward. Grabbing their attention “Well, B. Guess what. It got one! A Kid going missing tends to do that!” 

Dick sat down heavily on the couch, elbows on knees, rubbing his face. “We didn’t even notice. We just… “ Dick didn’t finish his though as he rubbed his face and forced himself to take deep breaths 

Steph’s voice was quieter now. “We didn’t even knock until patrol.”

Silence 

      Tim stood straighter, pushing down the gnawing guilt in his chest, the static of dread buzzing in his ears. “He’s not dumb enough to get caught, but that doesn’t mean he’s safe. He knows how to stay off the grid. But it’s not perfect. Nothing’s perfect.”

Bruce gave a quiet snort. “He’s trained better than this.”

Tim’s voice was sharp, suddenly cutting through the room. “He’s fourteen, Bruce.”

That shut everyone up for a moment. 

————————————————————

     Damian moved quietly through the alleyways, the shadows hugging him like a second skin. The bunny mask clung to his face, a soft barrier between him and the world. No cameras caught his movement, no footsteps echoed—he didn’t leave anything behind.

      The city around him buzzed in distant hums—cars in the far-off streets, a police siren echoing somewhere beyond the buildings, muffled shouting behind closed doors. But none of it reached him. Not really. He kept his hood up and his steps light, taking side streets and forgotten alleys, staying to the walls like ivy. Gotham had more blind spots than anyone wanted to admit. He knew them all.

     He passed rusted dumpsters and cracked brick walls painted over too many times to remember what the original color had been. A chain-link fence with a hole cut through the bottom. An old playground swallowed by weeds. Someone had left a stuffed bear impaled on the spikes of a wrought iron gate. Damian slowed to glance at it as he passed.

“Hm.” His voice was low, he turned to the bear and gave a salute not the disciplined one he used to give his trainers but still an acknowledgment  “Brutal end, soldier.”

He didn’t smile, but something in his chest loosened.

He walked on. No plan. No destination. Just motion. Just the need to be somewhere else. Anywhere else.

And then he saw it.

      The building was set back at the corner of an alley, mostly hidden behind a taller warehouse and a graffiti-tagged fence. Two stories, narrow, with boards nailed across most of the windows and ivy crawling halfway up the brick. The faded remnants of a painted sign still clung to the rotting wood above the door, illegible except for a curl of cursive and what might have once been a star.

It didn’t look like much. Most wouldn’t even give it a second glance.

But to Damian—it looked empty.

Forgotten.

Perfect.

     He approached slowly, boots silent on the cracked pavement. The door was secured with three old chain locks looped around the handles, rusted shut like they’d been untouched for years. He crouched, ran gloved fingers over them. They weren’t high-end or new by any means, they looked like they had been untouched in at least a decade.They weren’t a warning. They were abandonment. Made for a purpose and then forgotten.

“Tch. You and me both,” he muttered, more to the chains than anything else.

He pulled a set of picks from his belt and got to work. The first lock protested, creaking like it hadn’t moved in a decade. The second fell apart the moment he touched it. The last one was stubborn, but eventually, the groan of metal gave way and the door swung open with a reluctant whine.

He stepped inside, and the scent hit him first—dust, old wood, something faintly sweet like dried glue and paper. The air was still. Heavy with time.

      The front room had shelves along the walls, most of them draped in yellowing sheets. The center table was covered in a chaotic mess of half-empty boxes, tangled string, faded construction paper, and ancient pipe cleaners. On one corner of the table sat a ceramic bowl, cracked down one side and still half-full of glitter. Damian stared at it.

“…Seriously?” There would be glitter in every crevice of this room for the rest of eternity.

      He walked deeper in. His boots crunched lightly on spilled beads and long-dried paint flakes. A shelf to his left held unopened bottles of acrylic, all probably useless by now. On the far side of the room were a few blank canvases stacked haphazardly in a corner, the wood frames warped and splintering.

     He reached out and pulled the sheet off one of the nearby shelves. A cloud of dust poofed into the air, making him cough once—just once—and wave it away. Underneath were old jars of buttons and cracked trays for mixing paint, still stained with dull colors.

He stopped in front of the mirror.

It was tilted, leaning in a corner and spiderwebbed with cracks. It didn’t reflect him properly. Just broken pieces of someone. His mask. His hood. His eyes.

He turned away.

Damian wandered deeper into the space, past a small counter with a broken cash register and into what looked like the back room. There were shelves here, too, and an old stool with one leg shorter than the others. A sink stained with age. An empty coat rack.

He leaned against the wall and slid to the ground with a slow exhale. The floor creaked beneath him, but didn’t protest too much. His knees pulled up, arms draped loosely across them. The bunny mask shifted slightly on his face, still cool against his skin.

He looked around at the forgotten shop, the shadows, the dust, the broken things left behind.

“Yeah,” he said, voice soft and almost tired. “you get it? Don’t you.” Damian said to the shop as a whole while he looked around to room that seemed lost to time.

It was quiet here. Not the weighted silence of the manor, with its long halls and unsaid words. But true quiet. Solitude. He could breathe in it.

He let his head rest back against the wall, mask tilted slightly toward the ceiling.

“…I guess this is home.”

Chapter Text

Damian had fallen asleep leaning on the wall.  He woke up to the sun from the window flashing in his eyes, he glances at his phone to see that it is 8 am. He had slept through the rest of the day and through the night.

He let his his head lean against the cool wall for a few minutes longer before finally standing with a quiet grunt. His joints popped as he straightened, snapping back into proper position, as he looked around the shop again. The silence wasn’t oppressive—it just was. A backdrop to his thoughts.

Time to get started.

The dust was thicker than expected.

Damian pushed aside another warped canvas and gave the shelf behind it a sharp tap. Dust exploded in a quiet puff, catching the light that filtered in from a small crack near the boarded window. He coughed into the crook of his elbow, scowling.

There were old supplies everywhere. Paint jars with caked-over lids, brushes stiff with age, glitter containers still sealed with yellowed tape. He found a pack of modeling clay half-used and long dried, a box of safety scissors, and a single crayon wedged behind a shelf like it had fled some long-forgotten child’s rebellion. He held it up. “Dang what did they have against you?”

He sneezed as yet another cloud of dust billowed from under a shelf. “Ugh. Disgusting,” he muttered, wiping his sleeve across his nose. “Who just leaves all of this anyway

?” He crouched down beside a crate of paints, this one unopened, and starts peeling the label on one. “Then again… this is Gotham. Maybe they got swallowed whole.”

People disappeared all the time here. Sometimes into shadows. Sometimes into rivers. Sometimes into the walls of forgotten places, and no one ever bothered to check.

No one risked joining them.

But Whatever the story, the end was the same.

“…Okay. That’s enough domesticity for one day.”

He stood in the middle of the shop, hands on his hips, he looked over and saw the bunny mask staring out the boarded up window from the table he placed it on. He just stared at it for a minute before grabbing it and outing it on lopsided on the side of his head.

“We are going out,” he said to no one. Maybe to the shop. 

Nothing answered. Not really. But it watched him all the same.

He tugged his hood up again and made his way back out the door, bunny mask snug on his face. The chains he’d unlocked still dangled off the handle like old bones, but he didn’t bother redoing them. If someone came looking, they’d find the door locked and too rusted to care. Or maybe they’d just ignore it like everyone else.

⸻

Outside, Gotham was always a little too loud and a little too quiet at once. Sirens screamed from somewhere uptown. A dog barked with no real anger. Rain had just passed, leaving everything slick and smelling like old metal and rotting brick.

He decides to go out and just kinda exist? do whatever kids do? Whatever that actually is??

what did kids do when they weren’t being trained to kill or patrolling rooftops in bulletproof armor?

He moved through the city with ease, shoulders loose, hands in his pockets. The bunny mask drew a few sideways glances but Gothamites didn’t ask questions. They knew better. If to make a second glance or look at something too long you would either be dragged into it or buried with it. 

People minded their own business, kept their heads down, eyes forward. Anyone who would look too long at a masked kid wandering through the streets of the Narrows would probably end up in the river or learned not to care real fast.

That was just Gotham. 

The bunny mask rested light on his face, barely there. At first, it was nothing—just something he picked up off the ground. A cracked, tossed-aside thing in some alley. A throwaway decision. No orders. No expectations. Just his.

No one would’ve told him to take it. No one in his life would’ve let him take it.

But now… now it was something else. A shield. A way to slip out of the names that clung to him—Wayne, Robin, weapon.

He ran a gloved hand over the edge of it, tracing the smooth line. It wasn’t much. Just plastic and paint. But it was his. Something between him and the rest of the world. Something that didn’t belong to anyone else.

The realization hit him gradually, like cold water seeping into his skin. It wasn’t a sudden jolt, but a slow, process.

Chapter Text

✦ Flashback – A Few Months Ago ✦

Damian sat cross-legged on the floor of his room, paint-stained fingers dragging the brush across the canvas in careful, deliberate strokes. The air smelled like acrylic and something sharper—turpentine maybe, or the bitter metallic tang of frustration he hadn’t managed to scrub from his tongue all day.

School had been unbearable.

The academy, for all its prestigious titles and polished marble halls, was nothing more than a cage for trust-fund infants. Shiny little snobs in training with thousand-dollar shoes and empty minds, sneering down their noses at the “weird Wayne kid.” Their cruelty was boring. Predictable. Transparent.

Their parents had paid for spots at the top of the social food chain, and the teachers bent around that truth like reeds in the wind. Damian had corrected the history instructor twice before noon—only to be reprimanded for being “disruptive.”

Patrol the night before hadn’t been any better.

He had taken down a mugger—efficiently. Brutally, maybe, but the man had a knife and was twice the size of the woman he’d cornered. Damian hadn’t killed him. That should have been enough.

It hadn’t been.

Bruce had backhanded him. Not in the training room. Not with gloves.

No—right there in the cave, jaw tight and eyes like steel,  “your not a child, control yourself.” barked through clenched teeth. Damian hadn’t said anything afterward. He hadn’t let himself. Not a sound. Not a flinch. He’d just turned and left.

Bruce. That’s what he was now.

Not Father. Not Dad.

Just Bruce.

The others were away—missions across state lines. No Tim slipping in to poke at his nerves. No Jason with his pointed comments and lazy insults. No Dick trying to mediate like they were a real family.

Damian was grateful. they always found a way to instigate him in new ways and get him in even more trouble that he already normally was.

And Alfred… Alfred was in England again.

Some cousin. Ailing health. Damian hadn’t asked. No one would have told him anyway. He didn’t want to know if something was actually wrong—if Alfred wouldn’t come back.

Because if Alfred didn’t come back…

He clenched the brush tighter.

He had started the painting that morning. A blur of impulse on canvas, layers spreading and deepening as the hours passed. It was large—almost the full height of his torso—and he’d propped it up against the leg of his desk. Now it stared back at him like a mirror warped by fire.

At its center stood a child—barefoot, skin too pale, too thin, spine bowed as though carrying something invisible. The face was obscured by a mass of stitched cloth, like a bag or a hood sewn shut. There were eye holes, but no eyes. The hands were red, smeared and dripping like the paint hadn’t dried, clawing at their own chest as if trying to dig something out.

Around the child, tall, shadowy figures loomed—impossibly long limbs, faceless and bending at wrong angles. One had fingers that reached down to the child’s shoulder, curling like hooks, the nails cracked and stained. Another held a leash made of barbed wire.

Behind them all, the background was filled with crooked buildings—half temple, half fortress—melting and crumbling into one another like wax. A broken moon hung low in a starless sky, leaking ink across the horizon.

And the ground… the ground beneath the child’s feet was glass.

Cracked.

And underneath it—if one looked closely—were more children.

Curled in fetal positions. Silent. Waiting.

Trapped.

Damian stared at it for a long time.

there was a lot going on in the painting but it worked, in a twisted way

He didn’t cry. He didn’t feel anything loud.

But something in his chest throbbed quietly, like a bruised rib.

He hated that he knew where this had come from.

Hated that it wasn’t just a nightmare or fantasy.

Some parts were influenced by his memories of the League—images etched into him like tattoos. Others were effected by his own view, twisted, diluted, distorted. But still his. Still real.

He wished it weren’t.

Wished he didn’t see pieces of himself in the stitched-eyed child.

Wished he didn’t recognize the leash. Or the shadows.

He touched the edge of the canvas one last time, then rose to his feet, moving with mechanical efficiency toward the loose floorboard beneath his bed.

It creaked faintly as he pried it up.

Inside were five others. Each wrapped in canvas, carefully stored flat to avoid damage. He slid this one in, placing it gently on top, then pressed the board back into place until it looked untouched.

No one would ever see them.

No one would ask.

He brushed the dust from his hands and sat back against the wall, staring blankly at the far corner of the room.

There was no one to tell.

And nothing left to say.

Chapter Text

Late-morning light slanted through the dusty slats of the boarded-up art shop as the door creaked open under Damian’s hand. The hinges groaned, low and long, like the place was just now remembering it had a voice. The door swung shut behind him with a soft thunk, and the stale, sun-stained silence swallowed it whole.

He stood still in the threshold, letting the quiet settle around him like dust. The air inside was warm with the scent of old wood and disuse, edged with something faintly metallic. Somewhere in the back of the studio, a shutter rattled against its frame.

His fingers twitched at his sides. Work to do.

He moved through the dim space, past warped canvases and broken easels, boots kicking up faint ghosts of dust. Back to the shelf he’d picked over yesterday. The cans greeted him with that familiar rattle, and he laid them out in neat rows on the workbench like relics of a different kind of war:

Matte black—heavy in his hand.

Vivid red—half-used, nozzle still clean.

Neon green—brighter than anything in this part of town.

Pale blue—soft, faded, like sky through smoke.

White—nearly full, with the label still clinging.

Pastel yellow—small, perfect for catching light.

Silver metallic—surprisingly intact, with a smooth shake.

“Good soldiers,” he murmured, half to the wall, half to the quiet.

The battered backpack went next. Straps holding, barely. He added the rest of his findings: a roller head, stiff but not dead; the pack of fine-detail brushes, bristles softened overnight; two palette knives, speckled with rust like dried blood; a half-tube of acrylic primer; three chalk sticks—white, pale yellow, lavender; painter’s tape, already curling at the edge.

The primer slipped into the deepest part of the pack. And then, like a final ritual, the bunny mask was lifted, settled on his face. Cool plastic, gentle weight. Vision narrowed. Focus sharpened.

The hood of his sweatshirt went up out of habit. The bunny mask was still on. He didn’t worry about getting recognized —Angel took care of that for him. The bunny mask rode comfortably across the bridge of his nose, the slightly warped plastic a constant, comforting pressure. It had taken on a name without him meaning to. Angel. It just… fit.

He supposed it was better than being seen as Damian Wayne. Gotham’s youngest walking tragedy. His face had been in tabloids since he was ten. Posed in stupid sweaters, standing next to his “father,” blinking under the weight of camera flashes and the cloying perfume of rich socialites with long noses and longer intentions.

Public exhibition, that’s what it was. His face, his name, a brand. People in the upper circles didn’t care about the child behind the name. Just the novelty. The Wayne boy. Look how well-mannered. Look how troubled. Look how sharp his little frown is.

Disgusting. “Seriously, they need to get a hobby and stop being so invested in other people’s kids. Yuck.” 

It was a good thing he had Angel now. The mask drew attention, yes—but not Wayne attention. No one looked twice at a weirdo in a bunny mask. Not in Gotham. That was just Tuesday.

Outside, the world was wet and gray. Rain had come and gone, and now the city glistened like it had just sweat through a fever. Glass crunched beneath his steps. Pigeons scattered like paper in the wind. Somewhere uptown, a siren howled and then cut off like it had run out of breath.

Damian didn’t know where he was going, not exactly. He just walked, eyes scanning, steps light. Some part of him guided him past walls, narrow alley mouths, half-fallen fences. He paused at one and ran white chalk along a crumbling edge, watching how it bit into the brick. Old tags still clung there, faint but proud.

“Not yours,” he told himself. Told the wall. “Not mine to rewrite.” 

The city was full of noise but not much sound. Here in the Narrows, Gotham breathed with its teeth clenched.

Eventually, his feet took him where they were supposed to. He turned a corner, and there it was—a condemned warehouse squatting like a forgotten god. Its side wall faced a ragged lot of weeds and shattered concrete. Untouched. Untagged. All his own.

“Finally,” he said, exhaling. “Took long enough.”

He dropped the bag and crouched, fingers pressing to the brick. Crumbling, but not collapsed. “You’re a stubborn old thing,” he muttered. “You’ll hold.”

He laid the tools out with the precision of ritual. Primer first. Cans in order. Chalk in reach.

“Alright,” he told the wall, tugging his sleeve back. “Let’s see what you have to say.”

The brush spread the primer in slow, even strokes. The brick soaked it up hungrily, greedy for something new. Damian worked quietly. No sound but the whisper of bristles, the drag of paint against grit.

He stepped back when the primer set and stood still, watching. Blank canvas. Open throat. Waiting.

And then—white chalk in hand—he started to draw. The lines were light at first. Loose. A rabbit, upright. Not cartoonish, not cutesy. Just… listening. Ears alert. Paws drawn close. Behind it, wings. Not finished. Not full. Hints of feathers, like memory trying to take shape. Not soft. Not harmless. An angel, yes—but not the kind from stained glass windows. 

At its feet, a bird—tiny, bound in broken chains. Small. Twisted. A robin once, maybe—but its form was broken. Black feathers edged in grime. 

He looked at the wall and huffed, more pleased with himself than he would ever admit. 

Spray cans next. Pale blue over the rabbit’s body—a quiet wash that let the wall breathe through. Neon green snapped out the chains at the bird’s feet. A thin halo of pastel yellow bloomed above the rabbit’s head, not loud, just present. Silver flicked through the wings, catching light. Vivid red—a dangerous, brilliant accent—found its way into the rabbit’s eyes and the bird’s open beak. White sealed the rabbit’s shape, clean and bright against the ruin. 

He didn’t talk while painting. Not much, anyway. His hands moved with certainty, even if the mind wandered.

The paint hissed in reply. He kept going.

He swapped to brushes, filled in the details—black around the rabbit’s eyes, delicate flicks on the bird’s feathers. Chalk again for refinement. Chain links drawn sharper. Wing feathers lengthened, curling like something alive.

The longer he worked, the more the silence settled around him, not heavy, but full. The kind of silence that held its breath in anticipation. The kind that listened.

The bird, wings clipped. Not in flight. Never again. Around its body, shattered chains coiled like dead vines—links painted in neon green that glowed sharply against the decay. Its beak hung slightly open, as if mid-sob, mid-song, or maybe just a gasp that had lasted too long.

And from the rabbit’s mouth—there, painted with precise red and silver strokes—was a chain-link between its teeth.

It was eating the chains.

Not ripping them. Not snapping them in a show of violence. Just calmly, deliberately, chewing through the links that had once bound the fallen robin. Devouring what remained of its cage, one link at a time.

“Free,” he said again, quieter this time. “You’re free now.”

He packed in silence. The brushes. The empty cans. The used tape and cracked chalk. The mask lifted just a little so he could see the sky as he turned.

“I talk more when there’s no one to tell me to shut up,” he said, absently. “Weird.”

A pause. He scratched the edge of the bunny mask.

“I wonder if people would like me better if I was like this more,” he said, flicking off the silver paint that had gotten all ovhand.is left hand. “Then again, probably not. Still me. Just me with better colors.”

He took a step back, hands dropping to his sides.

He peeled the tape away, slow and careful, revealing a clean edge at the bottom. It was done.

The wall breathed with color and story now—no longer blank, no longer forgotten.

He just stood there for a minute, taking in the sight of his work. The thing in the painting didn’t move—but it felt like it should’ve.

He stared.

And the red eyes of the rabbit stared back.

“….Is this what I looked like to them?”