Chapter Text
Like every night since the boy came, it was there looming over his bed.
It. The worst It waits for when night sets and the wistful daybreak has long withered into the western front of war. The worst it savors what softness slowly scaling back from the day's endeavors. The worst it croons and coos and cows. It feeds and feasts. It devours devious demon-spawn. It delegates, derides, defends Damian from damned joy, from denied joy, from ill-fated death-doomed mirth meant only for the non-wicked.
He had opened his eyes to the faces crowded around his bed. His mother's voice at the back of his mind asked him what's wrong. It has never been a little boy's voice responding back with an 'I'm alright, Mother.'
He opened his mouth. The void swallowed any sound he could've produced. The faces around his bed, tied only to their necks by string, shuffled closer. They spoke. Damian could not speak back. They leaned in. Damian froze.
Like every night since the boy came, they watched.
Hands. Hands everywhere endlessly enveloped every inch of his skin permanently endowed in crown, cape, and court of blood. He moved to jerk away but the hands endlessly dragged him back into place. He thrashed against the current of hands drawing him back, the River Styx alive in this very room, and he opened his mouth again with the expectation that a scream would tear from his throat the same as his victims of missions long passed. Instead, he was greeted with the metallic iron overflowing in his mouth. He had tried, truly, to claw at them and peel them off. The hands were undeterred. The hands clamped around him. Hands. Hands everywhere, cold and callous and clammy, dragged him into the deep depths.
Voices. Voices whispering, welling with wishes, wandering, waiting filled the empty air. Words of wisdom could not waste away the waifs long gone. Demon child, they said. What do you see in the mirror? Yet like the owners of those voices, with their screams faint in the back of his mind everywhere he went, his own words decayed, dismembered, diminished. Voices thinly veiled with vehement venal venom sounded off in his ears, endless and overlapping. Are you not a man, Demon Child? They asked. Man enough to adorn yourself in blood, but not enough to answer for it, They taunted. They sneered at him. They reviled him. They scorned him.
He opened his mouth, a demand to stop, to cease, to desist, sat at the edge of his lips but the voices did not rest. The voices deepened and intensified. The voices softened and then sharpened and then sat like weights in his head, his heart, his soul. The voices of long lost lives hissed in his ears, softly spoken and barely there, sinking rasps of submerged bodies just scarcely breaking the surface of the waters Damian had dumped them in at the back of his mind. Voices spoke into the endless abyss, asking the same question: Why, Damian?
Even if he could have spoken clearly, the hands that had held him fast to the bed rested above his mouth, over his face. They pulled. They drew him back further into the mattress. The mattress that had begun to feel moist, the mattress that stank of blood and antiseptic, like flesh and smoke and violence only just eased, swallowed him just the same as Kronos had swallowed his children.
He thrashed as the darkness enveloped him, a grunt, a growl, an attempt to demand respect enough to know solitude. All that he was met with, however, was decay. Decay, death, and damnation in the pits of nothing, in the red sea. His assailants fell upon him in the dark, feral hands grabbing and tearing and clawing and ripping his flesh. Apologies bubbled in his throat only to die with his will, with his pride, and in place of any plea he could've pled, any morsel of remorse, the only living thing became his screams. They were raw, primal, undignified, and certainly not what the demon heir should have sounded like. The demon heir does not fear the dead: he relishes the bloodshed, takes pride in his job, he wears this honor everywhere he goes. Perhaps this was proof enough that the title was a lie: there is no demon heir if the demon heir can cry, caterwaul, cower, or connect. There is no demon heir if the demon heir can feel the weight of their crimes crushing them at night like this. There is no demon heir if the demon heir can feel the pressure. There is no demon heir if the demon heir can feel.
When all is said and all is done, Damian was not the demon heir, not Talia Al Ghul's son, never more the esteemed successful boy that would one day inherit the empire Ra's had built. Damian was not even Damian. Damian was not. Damian was, once: but Damian no longer could be.
Not when all he heard were screams.
Like every night since the boy came, Dick lay awake waiting patiently.
It was past midnight. It hadn't started yet.
The worst It was late tonight but he knew it was coming. He closed his eyes and counted to ten, and then he breathed in slowly and tried to remember when nights were quiet.
But they never were.
Nights, as long as he remembered, never could have been quiet. When he was a boy, the screams had been joyful, punctuated by giggles from the children attending the circus. The screams once had been reminders that life could and would certainly be fun sometimes in fleeting moments. Music and lights and grandeur had a funny way of making life look more beautiful than it was. When the night of the finale happened, and the Flying Graysons became stains on the floor of the circus tent, the screams shrilled, sharpened, shattered what little he had left of his childhood. He guessed they quieted down as he got older, somewhat. But always at the back of his mind, he saw them as they were: mangled, motionless, master acrobats rendered nothing more than fleshy ragdolls letting out what he later learned was called the death rattle. He supposed that sometimes, you have to just sit with it, listen, and remind yourself that it's part of the act of life. He supposed you have to keep reminding yourself to perform, to keep the show on no matter what. That's what you do for better or for worse.
Tonight, it was for worse.
His ears perked when he heard the first soft gasp. He looked to the clock on his bedside table, and saw 1:05 in the bright red LED numbering. Lovely. Maybe this would have been progress if the screams had been less frequent. But no, Dick guessed, baby-steps were the key. He could understand. It was the very same reality he lived with, around that same age.
He rolled onto his side, sat up, and listened for the worst It. Several seconds. Then a minute. The worst It sure took its sweet time tonight.
But then there it was blooming from the darkness and taking life.
The moans that teetered on whimpers, his nine-year-old's soft and quick breaths, filled the halls of the mansion they'd been crashing in for the night. Dick was already on his feet by the time the whimpers became withering cries, then strangled bawling. They rose above the sounds of the old mansion settling, barely there and then suddenly cutting through the air. Dick was sure Bruce would have come to check, had he been home, but the fact was that Bruce and Tim were out doing god-knows-what while Damian struggled just for an ounce of sleep on what would've been a school night had it not been spring break.
The screams had already begun by the time Dick made it to Damian's end of the hallway. Bellowing, Damian's voice pierced the air with gutteral desperation, only punctuated by rapid intakes of breath. For a moment, Dick had to pause and think of Bruce.
Had Bruce stood in the hall like this outside Dick's door after the accident? Had Bruce had to listen to him scream his throat raw in his sleep and become a shell the next day? Had Bruce had to listen to Dick's garbled pleas for his mother and father to wake up, for Dick's mother and father to do the greatest trick of all time and rise from the dead twisted pile? Had he had to listen to Dick's cries for his mother to wipe their blood from his hands and from his face and erase the final melody that floated through the air? How did it feel for him, Dick wondered, when Dick begged the empty air to fill the ensuing silence with something other than that goddamn circus music? Had it been this hard for Bruce?
At Damian's door sat the beloved cat that Alfred had gifted to the boy. The cat's paws clawed at the door, a meow punctuating every bloody scream for mercy. Without another thought, of course, Dick tried the door.
It did not budge.
He had assumed that Bruce, or at least Alfred, would have insisted on a 'no locked doors' rule for the time being, considering Damian's…Damian-isms and his concerning tendencies to ruminate on death and violence. Not that he believed in taking away someone's privacy, but there had to be something done to preserve his safety. He guessed that it was what it was.
He looked down at the cat. The cat looked up at him and let out a soft mao.
Dick knew what he had to do.
Besides the obvious ethical implications of what he was about to do, Dick was one who acted for the greater good. Let's be real, Damian couldn't have assumed that no one else in this house knew how to pick a lock, right?
The underworld's call, the nothingness and eternity of torment that awaited him, was cut short.
Damian's eyes blew wide to the sight of his dark room, the smooth ceiling, and a small weight on his chest. He breathed heavily, steeling himself and looking down only to be greeted with big topaz eyes. He swallowed the lump in his throat, staring at the British longhair that sat loafed perfectly upon him. The haze of post-nightmare miasma clouded his vision and his judgement and his very motor skills perfectly honed after years of training enforced from the moment he could walk. He lay paralyzed for a long moment, staring at Alfred the cat who slow-blinked at him and let out a quiet mrrp. If Damian had been any more awake or any more aware, had his body cooperated with him and not locked up like some coward, perhaps he would have reached out to run his hand over Alfred's soft fur. But the only thing Damian could think was, how the hell did the cat get in when his door was supposed to be shut?
A cold dread rushed over him. He turned his head towards the door, only to find it had been ajar. When had the door opened? He looked around his room without getting up. No disturbances. His ears perked, his skin crawled, and he found that the familiar, inherited paranoia had reared its ugly head again, sank its nails into his shoulders and gnawed at his heart and his head and it chewed on and ground his skin up with its teeth.
Intruder. There was an intruder. There was an intruder.
He shifted, only to grimace. The mattress and sheets were damp beneath him. No. No, for the love of god.
Damian's arms lifted to rest around Alfred. He held the cat close to his chest as he slowly sat up, not daring to remove the blanket for fear that the worst shame would be right in his face, and his grimaced again at the wet squelch beneath him, pajama shirt and pants both soaked through and putrid. Perhaps if he moved quickly, he could hide the evidence of his nocturnal mishap. Perhaps if he moved quicker than that, he could find it in himself not to dwell. Perhaps no one had to know—
"Oh, shoot, you're up," a familiar voice broke through the tense silence of his bedroom. "Hey—"
Damian's head whipped toward the door, toward the towering figure that had strolled into his room. Grayson. With…new sheets…
That bitter taste intensified. Damian bowed his head, not bothering to greet the elder man who called himself his brother.
"Hey, Robin," Grayson's voice edged off from the initial half-raucous surprise to the soft-toned childish coo that only ever made Damian's glare harden. "Sorry about this. Alfie wanted in your room."
His large hand reached out to scratch behind the cat's ear. Damian didn't bother to reply or even lift his gaze from the damp stain around him, his face warm and shoulders drooped. Grayson sighed.
"You good?" The circus freak stilled his hand before drawing it back to place the clean sheets off to the side. "Bad dreams again?"
"Shut up." Damian's voice came out strangled, throat raw and burning, and all he could do not to wither away into a puddle of humiliation was keep his attention focused on his cat. His cat, who was perfectly content in his arms, did not seem to mind the attention. Alfred let out a quiet maaooo, in fact, and outstretched his paws to rest on the boy's shoulders.
To Damian's side, Grayson let out a heavy sigh. The boy didn't have to look to see him kneel.
"C'mon, Dami," Grayson sighed, gently sliding a hand over Damian's shoulder, ignoring the damp sweatspots he could feel accumulated on his back. "It's alright. It happens."
"Not to me," Damian snarled. "It doesn't happen to me."
"Hey, no one's immune to nightmares, Little Wing," Grayson forced out a laugh, lips tugging into a smile. "Come on. I'll help you change your sheets."
Damian felt his glare harden, his brows creasing and his face only growing warmer at the acknowledgement that he was not, in fact, immune to nightmares like he thought he could ever have been. Above that, however, his glare grew glassy, hot tears threatening to build and roll down his face in an angry waterfall. Of course he would not let them. He does not cry. What respect can be earned from shedding tears over something so foolish?
He shifted grudgingly, throwing his legs over the side of his bed despite the wetness of his pajamas, and he stood up straight, shoulders tense and squared and that mean glare etched perpetually into his face.
Grayson tutted. Damian grimaced.
"It's alright, Damian," Grayson repeated, resting his large hands on Damian's shoulders. "Why don't you go clean yourself up real quick and take a breather? I'll clean up the mess and get you some clean clothes."
Damian's shoulders, grudgingly, relaxed. He stared at Dick for a long moment in silence.
"F-Fine." Damian regained his bearings after a moment spent processing the casual, lax response to one of Damian's quite rare incidents. It was expected. He should not have been so surprised. However, all the same, he trudged off to the walk-in bathroom whilst actively ignoring the sticky wet feeling of his clothes clinging to his frame. He settled the cat down on the tile floor once alone inside but instead of changing right away, he paused before the bathroom mirror.
It was his mind, he told himself. The specks of blood on his clothes and on his hands and on his face weren't real. This wasn't real. He took another steadying breath before stripping himself of his clothes, hands still shaking, body still threatening to give out, he took another steadying breath before cleaning himself of the sweat and the blood he saw in the mirror, the blood that wouldn't wash off no matter how raw he scrubbed his skin, he took a steadying breath before ignoring the putrid scent of urine and sweat and blood on his lips from the bitten tongue, he took a breath. He took a breath. He took a breath. He took endless breaths to fight back the threat of explosion, to contain the roaring winds of the storm inside him, but he found that no matter how many breaths he took, the storm only intensified. He cleaned himself as immaculate as he could manage, and yet every time he saw his reflection, he saw the reminders, the bloodshed, the antichrist look in his eyes. He took a shaky breath, and he closed his eyes, and he waited for the untethered feeling to go away, for the world instead to swallow his sins whole and spit out the bones. But they never did. The sins were not swallowed or sliced from the skin where it would always stay branded. All he could do was stand, wrapped in a towel, Alfred the cat weaving between his legs and incessantly meowing, and praying that the images his mind conjured of his blood-soaked frame would eventually go away.
When Dick finally knocked on the bathroom door, Damian was not afforded another second before he poked his head in. Whatever he said, Damian was only half-there and half-listening. A folded stack of clothes was gently pushed into his chest, but Damian did not bother to touch them. His hands had lifted to cradle them, but the gesture was empty. The water from the short shower he'd taken, since it was the only logical clean-up method, dripped off the ends of his flattened hair, but it didn't seem to deter Grayson from ruffling it and sending the beads of water flying. It was an old feeling, that unreality setting in, that haunted him. Maybe it was as old as humanity. For a long moment, all he saw were the bodies, one by one laying still before him; all he tasted was the dry air, tight lungs struggling to bring in a full breath; and all he could hear were screams.
"C'mon, lemme help you get dressed, Dami," Grayson crooned in that sickeningly gentle tone, as if he were an imbecile needing to be talked down from the ledge. "I know you're feeling all sorts of stuff…"
"Shut up," Damian hissed. "I'm not an infant that requires an adult's help to get dressed."
"Oh, come on, I used to help Jason with this kind of stuff, too. It's not a big deal," Grayson heaved a heavy sigh, and he knelt down to be at eye height with Damian. It was of course not a strange endeavor: plenty of adults do that when they think they are going to 'get through' to children. "Big brothers do this sometimes when Dad's out."
Damian gave him a deadpan stare. While it was so good to know that that trogolodyte of a man that his own mother had held in such high regard experienced this very same shame, that didn't exactly help his situation. He let out a heavy sigh before pulling on the fresh pair of underwear Dick had given him, then his pants, and then his button up pajama shirt. The act, maybe to some degree, was grounding: a step by step process is always necessary to avert the impending panic breathing down the back of his neck. If it meant covering up the Real Damian underneath, if the coward that lived within him had any say, then this was protection, privacy, pride. His hands, however, trembled with each button he tried to slide through each button hole. The buttons themselves averted their rightful places at every turn, rolling out of his grip or just short of the hem of the hole. After several long seconds of attempting to get the shirt closed, Dick's hands engulfed Damian's. Without a word, he buttoned them up for him.
"You are not my brother," Damian grumbled in a low, raspy, tired voice as he swatted at Dick's relentless hands. "I am the blood son—"
"Yeah, yeah, I know," Dick drew his hands away, not before smoothing out his shirt and taking his towel, and he let out a dry, flat laugh. "We aren't blood brothers, but that doesn't mean I'm not your big bro, now. It's my job to look out for you, too."
The fluffy towel was, without warning, cast over Damian's head, and the playful hands, the blood-less hands, the hands of joy and light and mercy rapidly ran the towel over his head and blotted at the damp mop upon his head. Every drop was soaked up, leaving behind the unkempt tresses in need of a cut.
"I am not—!" Damian protested, only for Dick to gently, carefully, firmly rest the bunched up towel on his mouth.
"Shhh, shush." Dick chided. "Let this happen, Kid."
Ugh. Damian's glower only deepened and he crossed his arms tightly over his chest. By his feet, despite the hazardous conditions of waterdroplets inconsistently dripping from his frame, Alfred the cat pressed against Damian and momentarily took his attention from Dick and his incessant need to coddle. Damian's hands twitched, the tightness of his stance softening just so. Dick drew the towel away, disposing of it in the hamper, and without warning hoisted both Damian and Alfred up into his arms and carted them off to the bed again, which was now clean and orderly. How Dick managed to get it clean so quickly, Damian wasn't certain. Then again, he also didn't really care that much.
The bed sank beneath the both of them as they settled on the edge of it. Dick plopped Alfred back in Damian's lap and Damian automatically drew the animal into his arms again.
A beat of silence passed between them.
The second worst It hung heavy in the air and stifled the already tense atmosphere around them. The second worst It hung heavier with the realization that they may need to explain to Alfred or even to Bruce what was happening. But it was early morning and Alfred was dead asleep and Bruce was still out. That hypothetical conversation could wait until the morning, if ever.
"I know you're not a feelings guy," Dick broke the previously impenetrable silence after a long moment spent trying to find the right angle to address this. "But you can talk to me, Damian."
"I don't need to talk about my feelings." Damian hissed in response, both flustered and final, half-petulant and half-petrified. All it did was make Dick snort.
"You're not fooling me, Kid," Dick answered before wrapping an arm around the boy's shoulders, tucking him close to his side. "I know you don't wanna talk about it and I get it, but it's not gonna get easier if you hold it in."
"Keep talking and I'll cut out your tongue." Damian half-heartedly swatted at Dick's arm, but the elder did not draw away, he only gave his arm a gentle squeeze.
"C'mon, you don't mean that, Little D," Dick said. He gave Damian another little squeeze before his grip loosened some. He was not so feckless as to keep pushing like this. His baby bro deserved better. "But I'm not gonna see you any different if you say you were scared of a bad dream."
Damian bristled, craning his neck to look up at the circus freak, and his nose crinkled. As if he would capitulate to such a ridiculous notion as that.
"I was not." he sneered.
"Then why were you screaming?" Grayson raised a brow, those eyes flickering with mischief, the corner of his mouth upturned in a knowing smirk. "Because it was fun?"
Damian made an attempt to argue, but instead, Alfred the cat reached up to bat at his face. The pads of his small paw landed on Damian's chin, interrupting his train of thought. He looked down at the cat, who stared at him very intently, and he tsked. The cat proceeded to then rest a paw on his mouth and let out a low sound. It would have made Damian relax, maybe even smile a little, if this were any circumstance other than having to stop reeling over a stupid mental image that refused to wash with the tide of time.
His hand found Alfred's paw and he tugged it away from his mouth.
"No," he chided Alfred, who only slow blinked in response. Damian softened and slow blinked back. "Shut up, Grayson."
"You can't keep telling me to shut up, Dames," Dick sighed, running a hand through his hair. "It's not gonna get you anywhere."
The boy beside him let out a huff and didn't bother to take his attention from the cat in his arms. The bed creaked as the older male shifted his body again to properly face Damian, his arm sliding from his shoulders instead to rest a hand on his back. It seemed Damian really was Bruce's blood son: discussing feelings never would be Damian's strong-suit and just a few months from the jump was enough to prove that. This level of emotional constipation was only exacerbated by the life experiences that Dick couldn't possibly fathom living through. Thus he knew, more than ever before, that this was not as simple as asking him how his night was. Dick knew just as well as anyone else in this deeply damaged, deeply dysfunctional (though loving) family that it could never be a simple conversation.
So, when the silence dragged on and withered into a thick vortex of something unspoken, when it became increasingly clear that they were trapped in an unacknowledged cloud of something bitter and raw, Dick simply couldn't tolerate it. It was only quiet for several seconds, maybe a minute, and even so, that was far too long. The quiet—god, the quiet was as bad as the circus music—could not drag on like this.
"Damian," he began quietly, his voice just a low rumble. "I know how you feel."
"You don't know anything, Grayson," The familiar snide voice fired back. "I don't see how you can sit there and pretend as if you can understand what this feels like."
"Well, believe it or not, I was a 9-year-old once, too. With nightmares. And…a whole bunch of other problems." Dick heaved a half-laugh, but when Damian did not smile, Dick's laughter fell through the air and hit the hard ground. He took a deep breath, studying the young boy beside him, the little lion man pretending to be greater than he needed to be, the boy robbed of any semblance of normalcy that could have ever been promised to him. Dick studied this boy and wondered.
Damian did not seem like any 9-year-old he'd ever met before. Not like Jason, or Tim, not like any of the children at the circus who held the light gifted to them at birth still. Damian sat beside him, withered and depleted, heavy bags underneath the eyes that should've shone like stars, eyes that only ever lit up for Alfred the cat, eyes that only ever softened when the lights were low and Titus sat at his feet. It tugged at something within Dick to watch him hunch over so defensively.
"I don't have nightmares," Damian shot back, effectively breaking Dick's train of thought, and he shifted on the bed to cross his legs. "That's ridiculous."
Dick rolled his eyes. That was right, he guessed. These were more than nightmares, every night, leading to the shameful look in his eyes when the morning came, and the rawness and rasp of his voice. These were more than nightmares and they both knew it. He shook his head, tearing his gaze away instead to look at the array of things around Damian's room. Still, somehow, there was no indication in this room that a child resided in it.
"I know you don't," he conceded. "But I'm telling you that I had nights a lot like yours when I was about your age. A lot, actually."
"You did." The incredulous response came quietly concealing disbelief.
"I did," Dick confirmed, leaning back on his palms. "Every night for a while."
Damian beside him fell quiet, even as Dick tore his gaze away from the flat personality-less walls to look at his dear little brother, and he sucked in a quiet breath.
"Every night," he echoed. "It stopped?"
"Yeah," Dick let a smile tug his lips. "It stopped eventually."
… And then started again after Jason.
"Tt. What could you have been having nightmares about?" Damian rumbled, but the intended petulant growl had been betrayed by the soft whine of concern that he'd buried in the recesses of his heart. Of course he wasn't concerned. How stupid.
"Lots of stuff," Dick's smile faltered and fell and he sighed, dragging his hands down his face. This wasn't going as he'd hoped. Perhaps if he tried to distract the boy, it might help loosen him up. A little bit of silliness never hurt. "The usual. I mean…all of B's wards have kinda…seen some stuff, y'know? That's gotta be why you're having bad dreams."
The boy arched a brow, before his eyes narrowed.
" Ward? I am the blood son and the superior robin—"
Interrupting Damian, Dick heaved a dramatic sigh and flopped back on the bed. Feigning disinterest, he stretched out across the mattress as if he owned it and held his breath for the reaction that he knew would come.
Naturally, right on time, it did.
The boy's eyes narrowed immediately, brows ceased, the stress lines around his eyes deepening momentarily. Carefully meaneuvered, Damian managed to get Alfred into the crook of one arm and used the other to smack Dick's leg.
Bingo.
"You trogolodyte," he hissed. Dick only laughed from his chest, that stupid imitation he does of a rich person's laugh. Correction, that stupid impression of Damian's laugh. "We're having a conversation, get up."
"But your bed's soooo comfy," Dick snickered. "Damn, B really gave you one of the best beds in the house. Might have to steal it."
" Steal my bed?" Damian's eyes narrowed, smacking his leg again. "You can't steal my bed!"
"You underestimate me, Little D, I can steal whatever I want. All I have to do is call Selina for help," Dick rolled over onto his side and propped his cheek up with his palm. "Maybe you won't have nightmares if you sleep in another bed."
" Not an option," Damian pushed at Dick's much taller body, grunting in exertion upon realizing that he was no match for this man's will to be stupid. "You're not taking my bed!"
"Mmm, I dunno," Dick drawled. "The odds of bed-stealing are low but never zero."
" Ugh." Damian rolled his eyes, not bothering to indulge him in this stupid little back-and-forth about bed-stealing of all the stupid things . It was ridiculous, this whole night.
"Oh, come on, don't wear the stink face." Dick reached up and poked his cheek.
"I am not," Damian gritted out before he jerked away from his touch. "Wearing a stink face, Grayson."
"You are. You so are," The insufferable oaf grinned at him with that ridiculous grin, eyes bright and shining under the dim light. "You're so annoyed, it's hilarious. Y'know what'll get me to stop?"
" What." Damian managed, only for the circus freak to snatch him back onto the soft bed, earning a heavy 'oof' from Damian and an annoyed mmmrrrOOOOW from Alfred.
"Take a few deep breaths with me," Dick laughed, ruffling Damian's already messy, uncombed hair. "Then I'll stop annoying you."
"I don't need to take deep breaths!" The boy snarled, only for Dick to give him a warning pinch on the ear. " Grayson!"
"Deep breaths," Dick insisted, releasing Damian's ear and keeping an arm loosely wrapped around him. "Come on. You were screaming bloody murder a few minutes ago, you really think you don't need to breathe?"
An ugly thought crossed the boy's mind, ruminating entirely on the word need, and for the briefest shadow of a ghost of a moment, he might have thought to replace the word need with deserve. Did he deserve to breathe the very same air he had cut other people off from?
Damian let out another scoff, ignoring the command for deep breaths, but the bitter bite of his boyish glare eased down into a semi-hardened look, his brows less creased and chubby cheeks less puffed out in a pout. Dick let a victorious feeling settle in his chest upon realizing that he had, to some degree, conceded in the disagreement and he ruffled the mess of hair upon his boy's head.
"Stop that," Damian hissed, half-heartedly swatting at Grayson's hand again. It did nothing. " Uff! You did not answer my question!"
"C'mon, Lil D," Dick clicked his tongue at the petulant, maybe somewhat whiney response from his little brother. "This isn't about me. You can tell me anything, y'know that?"
His hand slid from Damian's hair to instead just rest on his shoulder. The boy clammed up all over again, his weighed down eyes darkened and settling instead on the ceiling. Dick's smile had returned, if only for a moment, and softened into something less impossible, less infuriating, and more incandescent, more intimate. He gave the boy's shoulder a squeeze.
"I'm not here to hurt you, Damian," Dick said after another moment spent in an attempt to ease the air free of Damian's one-sided hostility. "You're safe here. It's alright."
It's pathetic, Damian wanted to argue. He did not squirm away this time from Dick's affections, though. He allowed Dick to, as ridiculous and constricting and bad as it felt, draw him into his side again. For a ghost of a moment, he considered the idea that this was true, that Dick was not just a figment of his mind, not just a body the voices of his slain victims possessed. For a ghost of a moment, he even entertained the thought that Dick was genuine.
"Of course you aren't here to hurt me," Damian wanted to agree. But he remained silent, his fingers shakily dancing through Alfred's fur. "You're too much of a coward, Grayson." That little voice in the back of his head rasped.
"Then why are you here?" Damian asked instead, the wobble of his voice betraying the intention of his stiff frame with squared shoulders and all, keeping all of his attention on the cat, on his round eyes, the softness of his fur, and the tickle of his whiskers each time he mushed his little feline face into Damian.
To that, Grayson remained silent, perhaps because he didn't know what to say or he simply hadn't had the spine to say it. Eventually, the circus freak let out another of his heavy sighs.
"I'm here because…" he trailed off, absentmindedly giving Damian's shoulder a squeeze. "I'm here because I want to help you. I know it's been really rough since you got here. You've been in trouble a lot, the nightmares have been really messing you up and stuff. I know you're angry about…everything," Grayson said. "I will never blame you for that."
Angry. Damian knew anger well: it had molded him. Anger and hatred and pride had taught him everything, had given him his fangs and his claws and his toxins, but to be described as angry simply would not do. It was not the right word. But it was the closest one. That, in and of itself, only drove him further into that rut.
Dick, however, knew anger better than Damian: it had emboldened him. It had picked him up and carried him and held him when nothing else sufficed to quell the lingering pain. His anger raised him better than Bruce ever could have. His anger destroyed foes and got missions done. It gave him his fight, it gave him his leadership, it gave him him. Dick knew anger. How can you not, when it's the one thing besides circumstance binding him and Batman and Jason and Tim and Barbara and Steph and Cass and Duke and now Damian? How can anger be unknown, when Gotham has taken and taken and taken and continues to take? How can you not be angry when even outside of Gotham, no one is safe?
So with this anger buried in his heart, he watched Damian curl up on himself. With this anger he'd put away in hopes of better days, he saw Damian. He saw Damian on that tightrope. He saw him wobbling. He saw.
Damian's silence filled the space, and Dick allowed himself to be silent as well. He didn't know how kids dealt with this stuff. But he knew how he would have liked someone to guide him through it when the monsters haunted him in his dreams, when the adventures as Robin stopped being fun and started being bandages, bloodshed, and bodies, when Jason's frame just as (if not more) mangled as his parents had been carried all the way home for a final goodnight.
"…Fine." Damian relented after a long moment of silence.
"Fine?" Dick echoed.
" Fine," Damian relented with a huff. "I have been… inconvenienced with unpleasant dreams."
Well, that's a start. Dick gently moved his hand to Damian's head and threaded his fingers through his hair in an attempt to get it as it always was. Instead of spiking up, Damian's hair just flopped back in his face.
"About?" Dick pressed.
Damian pressed his lips into a thin line. Then he let out a low growl.
"A lot of things." he grumbled, the bite and backtalk dying away.
"Like what?" Dick pressed further. Damian closed his eyes and ignored the tight, tight squeeze in his chest.
"Things," Damian doubled down. "About the League."
Dick's hand stilled in Damian's hair, but he did not draw away. His mouth twitched. His grip tightened and that old anger simmered, but instead of clenching tight, his hands chose gentleness by instead smoothing down Damian's still-damp hair.
"About the league." Dick echoed.
"Yes." Damian confirmed. The room suddenly felt colder, emptier, bigger, and both boys knew very well that this was not a simple conversation, not anymore. Damian shifted and pushed back against Dick's intense hold.
Dick, however, held fast.
"What did you see?" Dick asked. What didn't Talia protect you from? "What could've scared you so bad?"
"It isn't about what I saw," Damian rumbled, sparing only a moment to gently shush the increasingly agitated cat in his arms. "And I was not—"
"You were," Dick hissed back, only to catch himself. Too far. Too pushy. He sucked in a breath, and he counted to ten before he spoke again, his voice regaining balance. "You were scared. Screaming bloody murder and everything. There isn't any shame in that. Why can't you just admit that you were scared?"
"Of course you would say that, you're the most shameless of any of the heathens under this roof." Damian shot back.
Dick huffed, finally releasing the boy to sit up, drag his hands down his face, and stare at the lifeless bedroom.
"Why is every conversation like pulling teeth with you?" Dick groaned, almost laughing at the absurdity of it all. Then he sighed again, rubbing at his burning eyes. "What am I gonna do with you…"
Damian, now free, sat up as well and scooted back on his freshly cleaned bed. He scoffed to himself, giving Alfred a look as if to ask "Can you believe the audacity of this man?" To which, of course, Alfred blankly stared back only to begin aggressively licking his paws. Figures this cat would be no help.
"…I still want an answer," Damian broke the ensuing silence after a moment. "What kinds of bad dreams could you have been having? How did you make them stop?"
Dick let out a very firm huff of air, and he lowered his hands from his face to instead turn his attention back to the lost boy beside him, the boy who stared up at him with empty, angry green eyes. Right. He did say it stopped. He did say he struggled the same as Damian at his age. Dick counted again in his head, this time to fifteen, before finally sitting up straight. It was time, despite himself, to share this secret. It was time.
"If it's really going to make you feel better," he drawled, his voice nothing more than a dull-double-edged warning. He paused for only a moment to listen for the tell-tale creak of the floorboards and the groan of the door leading to the cave. When nothing came, he continued. "I used to have nightmares about falling."
Damian looked up from Alfred, drawing both legs up on his bed to sit criss-cross applesauce and resting his beloved cat in his lap, and he gave Dick a hardened look. Falling. Falling? That's it?
"Falling." Damian echoed.
"Falling," Dick echoed back, his shoulders slumping. "My parents falling."
Damian's harsh look faded marginally, died away, and reanimated as something else.
"Your parents," Damian began. "They fell?"
"They were acrobats. The world-renowned Flying Graysons," Dick allowed the bitter smile to come back to his face. "Their trick was sabotaged, and they…"
The implication hung in the air, aloft, and neither of the pair seemed to know how to follow up. Damian could have made so many quips about how much of a cop-out it was simply to sabotage their trick. If they had wanted them dead, the killer should have waited. The killer should have put in the work. Damian, had he possessed more details of the attack and less heart, could have critiqued the double-homicide. For now, however, all he can do is take in Dick's expression, worn down by the years of carrying the burden of loss. Damian felt his throat tighten. The niggling voices at the back of his head sneered that Damian ought not to even open his mouth after something like that.
"That must have been…difficult." he conceded.
"It got worse," Dick said with a dry laugh. "The nightmares about my parents eventually went away. But they were just replaced with new ones. Different ones, about different people." The older male made a point to rub his eyes again, in hopes that Damian would not see them become glassy. Not for himself. Not for anything he could feasibly explain. Grief like a ghost worked in funny ways. Grief, unlike a ghost, did not always involve the dead.
"But they went away." Damian said.
"Eventually," Dick promised. "It got worse at first, but it's like a bruise: it gets worse before it gets better. Then they're gone."
A beat. Another beat. Damian scratched lightly along Alfred's back in long even strokes, and he wondered. How long must it last for the phantoms of hard moments long passed to haunt unsuspecting fools? Would his whole life would be him fighting more than his parents' opponents? Would it always be the memories, too, that were trying to kill him just the same as the oddities of Gotham that sat on the outskirts of society? Who would win?
"I only dream about death, too," Damian eventually said, his voice even and matter-of-fact and hushed. "It's always there."
"Death?" Dick asked.
"Death," Damian confirmed, his hands never stilling in the wake of their loving assault on Alfred's back. The cat rumbled out a loud purr and stretched out across Damian's lap. "The dead. Their screams. I hear it every time I close my eyes."
His hands finally stilled and he studied Alfred's sprawled form as he lay blissful and unaware.
"But they're just dreams. They aren't real. I am fine." he insisted, but even he knew that the facade was just that. Dick, the master performer playing the same charade for longer than Damian had been alive, could see it.
"They're not just dreams." Dick rumbled, immediately scooting closer and drawing Damian into his arms again. "If they're making you scream like someone's actively killing you, if they're waking you up at night like this, then they are not just dreams. You don't have to be brave for me, kid. It's alright."
The embrace was all consuming, and it almost startled Alfred awake, had Grayson not taken the time to be mindful of both boy and cat. He held tightly and Damian scarcely believed that he could even breathe for the first ten seconds spent held tightly. It was different than the way he had been held in the past. Vague memories of his mother's embraces flashed before his eyes, the smell of her perfume and the softness of his fingers along his face, the gentle shushes, the secret goodnight kiss. The dreams were not so bad then. At least then, he had not been cast off. At least then, he had still had his mother.
But Mother was not here. Arms thicker, broader, longer than hers embraced him. The collection of floral scents, of cinnamon and citrus, and something sweet were absent. Instead, there was simply empty space taken up by the smell and texture of human skin and the mild laundry detergent Alfred the Butler uses. Perhaps it should have been comforting. Perhaps not. Perhaps Dick already knew that Damian was a killer—it was not hard to gather, after all—and perhaps, strangely, Dick didn't hate him for it. Perhaps it was good that they didn't need to talk about it, if that was the case. Perhaps it meant that it was out of pity that he let the topic go.
Half present and half not, Damian wordlessly leaned into the embrace. He closed his eyes, a silent wish cast to the winds of all that is and ever will be. He couldn't help but recall the night his mother had sent him alone to this unknown place in the middle of nowhere far from all he'd known and all he'd been good for. How the journey itself had not been hard, but the forced distance had. Here, there is no killing. Here, there is no honor, no respect, there is nothing if his purpose sits unfulfilled. There is only the emptiness, everywhere, all the time: if not at school, where the children look at him as if he were an alien, if not at home where he is sure Father watches him with steely distant eyes taking in the accident now living in his home, if not on patrol where the threat of death cannot be met in the same language as his opponent, then it is here. Alone. Inside.
There is nothing. There is nothing here in Gotham, and Mother has forbidden contact for the time being, and all he can do each night is scream to match the endless choir of caterwauls.
Damian took in a slow, unsteady breath. Fear was weakness. Jiddu always said so. Mother always said so. Fear was an inhibitor and right now he was allowing it control. In the back of his mind, he could swear his mother's disappointed sighs were right there, that his mother was looking at him with so much disdain.
Damian exhaled the shaky breath.
"It's okay," Dick murmured above his head, delicately rubbing circles into Damian's back. "I'm here. I've got you."
Damian let out another, shakier breath. His face, neck, and ears felt hot. His lip curled. His eyes—
No. He is not about to cry over something as foolish as his mother and what she would have said if he woke up screaming in the palace like that. That's ridiculous. He is not—
"Hey, hey, hey," Dick's voice maintained its softness, and he ruffled his hair. "Hey, c'mon, Baby Bat. What's with the tears?"
Damian remained silent. Hushed breath—steel yourself—and hastened voice—the cold air in his lungs, and the feeling of Dick's cotton shirt, and Dick's breathing, his voice, his heartbeat—beating heart—
"I am not afraid," came out as just a whisper when finally he could force the words out. "I am…"
There was no fighting anymore and no answer to Dick's question left hanging in the air. The boy, for a shadow of a moment, allowed himself to cry, to feel. Dick, in turn, did not press any further. His own misty eyes boiled over and he took a deep breath, pulled Damian against him again, and just held on tight if only to pull him off the tightrope and into safety.
"It's okay," Dick reassured him. "They're all gone. They can't get to you. Just let it out."
The boy swallowed thickly and squeezed his eyes shut.
"Can you stay?" Damian asked, closing his eyes and his heart and wishing — begging — that perhaps he would have the strength not to look like a complete fool. Dick's chest rumbled with a dry soft chuckle, punctuated by a soft breath, and at the crown of Damian's head, Dick's cheek came to rest. "Just for tonight."
Dick gently raked his fingers against Damian's scalp, rocked him the way Talia might have, and settled him.
"Say less," Dick mumbled, fighting back a yawn, before laying back on the bed and pulling his 9-year-old baby brother with him. "I'll be right here until morning. You gonna be alright to go back to sleep?"
Damian answered only with an affirmative grunt.
Alfred, finally roused, stood from Damian's lap, did a big stretch, glared at the pair, and sauntered up to his special monogrammed pillow that Damian had procured the very same day Alfred the Cat came into his life. Dick reached over to pet the cat, but Alfred swatted at his hand before circling the pillow, kneading the soft surface, and plopping down. Dick rolled his eyes playfully before drawing the blanket around both himself and his little brother, who had finally settled against him, curled up into his side, and closed his eyes for some semblance of peace.
Damian wiped his damp eyes, breathing in the clean scent of the fresh clean sheets Dick had put on his bed. He counted in his mind, trying to will away the chill down his spine at the phantom feel of those goddamn hands trying to drag him down into the depths of the River Styx, and tried to count the things he could hear, taste, smell, feel.
"Grayson."
Dick lifted his head a little, but didn't fight the way his eyes drooped shut.
"Yeah?" he asked.
"Not a word of this to Father." Damian's voice came out smaller than even he expected, but he stood firm on it. Dick hmmed in response.
A tough ask, considering…but Dick was nothing if not a man of his word.
"Not a word," Dick promised, lazily dragging a hand over his chest in a cross motion. "Not until you're ready. Cross my heart."
Damian let out a quiet "tt" and rolled onto his back. It just made Dick snort—this was exactly the same sleep position he's caught Bruce in when he was smaller, seeking Bruce for comfort in the dead of night—but the scrunch of Damian's brow threatening a glare shut him right up.
"Thank you." the boy muttered.
"Any time, Dami." Dick sighed, closing his own eyes.
Except Dick didn't fall asleep. He stayed, as promised, until he was certain that Damian was out again. Once all had settled, and Damian's breath had evened, Dick slung an arm around him and opened his eyes to look at the ceiling. The living tomb of a mansion was finally, at least for tonight, at peace. Though Dick knew he'd probably have to explain to Alfred in the morning just what happened tonight.
His mind wandered. Dreams. The horrible dreams, the memories of them, peeked out from behind the curtain in his mind that he'd shoved them behind just to get through the day. He wondered, for a moment, if Bruce still had his own nightmares or if maybe he was lucky enough not to dream anymore.
Dick took a deep breath, ignoring the vague memories of those dreams—all of the blood, all of the slack jawed, lightless expressions of pierrots laying in bloodied piles. All playing a role they died playing, they reminded him every so often that they were here and not meant to be forgotten. He ticked his jaw at the thought that Damian would have to go through that, too. He watched Damian sleep for several seconds, eyes searching for any sign of distress, and he pondered.
There is no way Bruce didn't know about these dreams. Dick was in and out, occasionally crashing for the night, but he saw and he knew. Bruce, Alfred, and now Duke certainly knew. So it wouldn't be breaking his promise to not mention this incident if someone else already knows, right? Maybe if he waits for Bruce or Alfred or someone to bring it up...
Well, that could wait until morning.
For now, he allowed his eyes to shut and his body to float off to distant lands, arms still wrapped securely around the boy who never cried, never cowered, never shied away from danger.
The pair (plus Alfred the cat) slept peacefully the rest of the night without so much as a gasp or groan of discomfort.