Chapter Text
A familiar cool breeze gently ruffled Damian’s hair, and he took a deep breath as he looked over his city from his gargoyle perch. Gotham’s air would never be clean, but it felt like home. The manor had begun to be suffocating, which was by no means Danny’s fault. But the Bats weren’t meant to be caged for long. Maybe one day Danny would be the same and join them on the streets, but that was a long ways away.
“Robbery on the corner of Fifth and Wallace,” Oracle reported. “Robin and Black Bat are closest.”
“On it,” Damian said, leaping. There was no sound from Cassandra, but the telltale whir of a grapple from her end signalled her confirmation. It’s three minutes by grapple, barely a few blocks away, and an easy enough take down. There’s hardly anything for Cassandra to do when she arrives but help with clean-up.
“He’s been so sleepy lately,” Richard murmured. He was patrolling the south end, near Todd’s territory.
“It’s a good thing,” Father assured, understanding immediately as they all had. “Now that his brain has realized he’s no longer in danger, he feels safe enough to be vulnerable. All the healing he couldn’t do before, mentally and physically, is catching up with him. He needs the rest.”
“Sometimes his eyes glaze over,” Damian said as he tied one of the rowdier goons to a lamppost. “Like a PTSD episode.”
“Or dementia,” Todd said, and Damian tensed. The ringing silence from everyone else suggests a similar response. “Not saying he’s got it, but the look is familiar. He might be zoning out or losing time.”
“Who’s going to talk to him?” Drake asked, sounding breathless.
“How about Batman, considering D is his kid,” Todd said dryly, the last statement ringing true despite Danny’s adoption having not been officiated. And Damian couldn’t help but agree, but…
“Of course. Tell me how you expect that conversation will go.” He glanced up at the edge of the building in front of him where the shadow of a larger one cast it in darkness. Cassandra was sitting on the edge, laughing silently in agreement.
“I can be there too,” Richard offered.
“He feels safest with me. I will be the one to talk to him,” Damian decided. The sparkle in Cassandra’s eye told him he made the right choice.
Danny had begun to notice, slowly, that he was having a craving. A very unfamiliar craving, in fact. Not for food, but for knowledge.
Maybe it had something to do with constantly being surrounded by geniuses and nerds. Maybe not. Or maybe Danny just wanted a bit of that confidence back—that he wasn’t a complete and utter dud. That he had some kind of value or intelligence.
He didn’t remember having very good grades in school. But he had to have been good at something, right?
So he set out on a hunt.
Jason’s room was first. Warmly lit, comfortable, academia. He knew Jason liked to read and always spent time in the library, even though his room’s walls were lined with bookshelves all the same. It was the perfect place for someone wanting to learn a thing or two. The guy probably ate encyclopedias for breakfast and enjoyed it.
At least, that’s what he thought.
Turns out half his books were sappy romances. Boring. When he gave up on those and turned toward the more sophisticated-looking books, it took one page to realize everything was going so far over his head that it must’ve grown wings and flown away. That, and the fancy books were likely just romance books in disguise.
Danny went to Damian’s room next. Damian was really smart. He used big words all the time and he knew so many things that he couldn’t help but wonder how the boy’s head wasn’t any bigger. Well, physically bigger. Damian did have a bit of an ego.
But it was okay! If Danny were that smart, he probably would too.
It turned out that Damian was so smart because the only books he had in his room were manuals and combat brochures, neither of which Danny had the energy or patience to sit through. He didn’t really care about Krav Maga techniques or how to sharpen a wakizashi correctly. He wanted…something else, but he wasn’t sure what.
Dick’s room was left just as quickly as he entered it. The only educational thing in Dick’s room was books on mental health, and that was something Danny wasn’t interested in touching with a ten-foot-pole.
Tim’s room was the first to reveal a prize. It was a complete mess, papers scattered haphazardly across his bed and desk and floor, the bookshelf filled with trinkets and half-finished prototypes and a few science-y books that have begun collecting dust. Danny played around with a little makeshift spinny top before peeking at the books.
There was stuff on biochemical makeups, gene splicing, a journal full of notes on cloning (Danny didn’t want to know), a ton of different brand-new books on the biology of varying species like Kryptonians and Atlanteans, and then something caught his eye.
Danny pulled down a book on space, one of those large books with big, shiny paper full of captioned photos and in-depth diagrams of planets and galaxies. Then he curled up on the round navy blue rug by Tim’s desk and began to read.
More time must have passed than he thought. He was halfway through the book on a page about Tamaran when the door opened, but he couldn't draw his eyes away from the pictures.
“Of all the places to spend your time, Drake’s room?” came Damian’s voice, light with teasing.
Danny held up his book to show him as he entered.
Damian hummed as he sat in Tim’s desk chair. “What is that?”
“Space,” Danny said, awed. Speaking wasn't so difficult anymore. They never hurt him for talking. If anything, they got excited.
“Did you enjoy space? Before everything happened?”
Danny went to nod because this affinity felt too natural, but then again…he didn’t really remember, did he? So he just shrugged, his silky black tail wrapping around himself almost defensively.
The younger boy nodded, as though confirming something. He stood poshly, one hand folded behind his back and another offered to Danny where he crouched on the floor. Reluctantly, Danny took it, letting Damian pull him to his feet.
“Shall we go outside? Perhaps to the garden?”
Danny’s ears perked up. They had been spending a lot more time outside lately, and with the cold breeze picking up as September turned to October, Danny’s energy and spirit lifted with it. It was great. It was like reverse seasonal depression!
He pretended not to notice as Damian snagged a jacket from the closet that was definitely Tim’s and threw it on as they headed out of the manor. Danny broke into a run as they reached the back lawn, throwing himself into a tumble as he pounced at a few birds pecking at the grass. His vision tunneled as they took to the air and he crouched, intending to leap.
“Careful!” Damian called, distracting him from the hunt. He flicked his tail playfully, feeling more dog than cat for a second. Damian was such a mother hen. Just like—
His grin disappeared.
“What? What is it?” Damian said as he jogged closer, breath coming out in foggy huffs.
Danny sat up, wrinkling his nose at the feeling of grass sticking to his cheek. He shook his head.
“What’s what?” he asked softly. Another gale of wind rushed between them, whistling in his ears. Damian shivered.
“I think…” the vigilante started. Danny stared at him intently, curious. “Perhaps it is too cold out here. Let’s go back in.” It seemed difficult for him to admit.
Hesitantly, he followed him back inside, confused when Damian lead them to the breakfast area outside the traditional dining room. The thin curtains were drawn back, letting the autumn gray Gotham skies light up the open floor-plan area and the pillow-embellished breakfast nook they slid into.
Damian was tense, so Danny mirrored him, sitting up straight and schooling his expression to match. This seemed important, for whatever reason. It made him nervous. Was something wrong? Was it Danny?
“Dames?” he said timidly, echoing the nickname Dick liked to use.
The other boy leaned forward to brush a bit of dirt off Danny’s shirt. Damian’s nose and cheeks were still pink from the outside chill, though Danny was comfortable as ever. He wanted his friend—brother—to stop beating around the bush, and almost said so.
Immediately, he was ashamed of himself for thinking something like that.
“The others and I have been speaking,” Damian began, fierce green eyes observing the table intensely as he searched for his words. Dread began to fill Danny’s stomach. “We’re afraid that you have been losing time. Is that…something that you are aware of?”
Losing time? “Blacking out?” Danny asked, head tilting.
“Or forgetting things?”
Ah. Panic replaces the dread. “Is that bad?” he asked, fang gnawing at his lip. “I’m sorry. I don’t know how to stop.”
The crease in Damian’s brow eased slightly. “No, no. Well, I suppose it isn’t good, but it is certainly a good thing that you can identify the issue. Are you forgetting everything, or just some things?”
Danny considered it for a moment. “The past. It’s hard…hard to remember. And– during. I don’t like it. I don’t like to think about it.” He pulled his knees to his chest, uncomfortable.
After a long, uncertain pause, Damian reached out and touched Danny’s arm. “I understand. Admittedly, I am not the best at being…comforting. But I can explain some of the science of it to you, if you’d like?”
He peeked over his knees and nodded. He hadn’t considered the science behind it. But maybe that would help, if he could learn.
“Forgetting your past is a side effect of trauma, due to the inhumane conditioning you suffered. It will come back to you when you start feeling safer, though therapy can help the process along.” Damian took a breath. “As for the during, your brain is trying to protect you. It is called dissociative amnesia. You are blocking out the scariest memories so that your suffering is not elongated. Does…that make sense?”
It did, in a way. But it felt too simple. Too easy.
He nodded, fingers digging into his arms.
Suddenly, there was a knock on the doorframe. They looked over and spotted Tim poking his head in.
“Hey, guys,” he said, glancing between them with a faux casual lean against the frame. The teenager smirked when Damian tutted at his presence. “What are we talking about?”
“Important business,” Damian said, dismissing their older brother in the same sentence.
Tim hummed, his smile shrinking minutely. He must have sensed the seriousness of the conversation. “Okay. Dick told me to come tell you he wanted to have a game night tonight. Oh, and Damian, Bruce wants to see you down in the Cave. Nothing bad, so don’t worry.”
“I was not worrying.”
Danny blinked. Now that he was looking, there was definitely tension in Tim's shoulders. Something was happening that they didn’t want to say in front of him.
“As in, right now, demon brat,” Tim continued, raising his eyebrow.
Damian glared, but it softened when he turned to Danny. “We can resume this discussion later. Will you be okay if I leave?”
Danny nodded quickly. He could handle being alone just fine. Didn’t Damian think so?
The other boy slid out of the breakfast nook and headed toward the door. But instead of leaving immediately, he leaned towards Tim and whispered something in his ear before disappearing around the corner.
Tim stayed watching Danny, who was still awkwardly sitting by himself at the table.
In the stretching silence that followed, Tim reached out a hand, just like his younger brother had earlier. “C’mon, Danny. Let’s go find something fun to do.”
Danny approached slowly and slipped his hand into Tim’s, rewarded with one of the older boy’s big smiles.
“Where are we going?” he risked asking as he was led through the manor.
“Damian tells me you like space,” Tim said casually. Danny glanced up to gauge his reaction, hoping there was no concealed anger in his face. But there wasn’t, and Tim revealed no location.
By the time they reached the top floor, Danny’s legs were starting to ache. He didn’t usually do this much walking. All of his playing and wandering was short-lived and followed by long naps in front of the window in his bedroom or hiding in the comfortable darkness of one of his siblings’ closets.
Finally, they stopped in front of an odd, doorless hallway with a dead end. Creepy, Danny thought, and he huddled slightly closer to Tim.
Tim gave him a small pat on the back and stepped forward, pulling on a thin rope that was dangling from the ceiling. A long set of stairs unfolded from a trapdoor connected to the rope. An attic!
“You want to go first, or shall I?” Tim asked, throwing his arm out as though dramatically welcoming Danny into a gala.
“I’ll go,” Danny forced himself to say. It was a chance to prove that he wasn’t a total loser like before. He wasn’t scared of everything. The cage incident was a coincidence.
Hopefully Tim wasn’t taking him up here to murder him.
He climbed the stairs quickly, finding he didn’t need to hold onto the sides because his tail was doing the balancing for him. At least the appendage was useful for something.
At the top was a large expanse of mostly darkness, though surprisingly lacking in dust. Danny couldn’t imagine Alfred was spending a lot of time cleaning the attic, but maybe that was where the old man disappeared to on those occasions he seemingly vanished from the manor. When Tim joined him, he pulled on another string to turn on a lightbulb. With the light, he could see the smooth floorboards and the exposed rafters in the vaulted ceiling.
“Over here,” Tim said, nodding towards an area on the other side of the giant room where there was spare furniture covered in sheets. Danny followed curiously, eyeing the strangely-shaped object slightly taller than him. Tim grabbed at the sheet and flung it off.
Beneath was a shiny black telescope.
Danny froze.
“I know it’s old. Probably needs some readjusting, too, but this should work well enough until Bruce gets you a new one. It’s just that Damian said you were looking through science books, so I figured this thing might find some use after all…Do you like it?” Tim rambled, shooting Danny a nervous look.
Did he like it? Like didn’t even begin to encapsulate the feeling he had.
…A new one?
“I love it,” Danny whispered, and before he could think better of it, he was jumping up and throwing his arms around Tim. Tim caught him with ease, looking shocked. The feeling of the hug was somewhat foreign, but the warmth against his cheek felt good. The human touch was comforting when he wasn't afraid of it.
“Sweet,” Tim said, patting him. Danny could have laughed at his awkwardness. “I’ll get Bruce to help us take it downstairs later and set it up somewhere with a good view.”
Danny pulled back, bouncing on his heels with excitement. “Now?”
This time, Tim laughed. “Tonight. Promise.”
When he calmed down, Tim nudged him over to one of the walls where a thin rolled-up rug was resting, and he undid the thread keeping it together so that it unfolded. He sat down on it criss-crossed and patted the spot next to him, which Danny plopped down on.
The laughter faded and the look Tim gave Danny was much too serious, just like Damian’s before him. What was with everyone today?
“Hey. Are you okay?” Tim asked. “Everyone’s been concerned lately.”
“Why?” Danny asked enthusiastically, frowning. He’d been feeling so much better lately. Calmer. Less weighed down and scared. “I– I don’t understand. Damian said so too.”
He got an empathetic look. “You’ve been through something scary and traumatizing. And sometimes it’s like you’re still back with…the hunters. And other times it’s like it never happened at all. Honestly, we wanted to ask, when you’re comfortable enough, that you consider going to therapy.”
“For what?” Therapy isn’t something he imagined ever going to. Or, well, being allowed to go to. A few months ago and he couldn’t imagine being free to do as he pleased in the first place. But therapy…that’s for people. Free-thinking, unobstructed people. Not for whatever Danny is.
The picture of him sitting upright on a couch in front of a suited adult with a clipboard didn’t compute.
Tim stared at him flatly. “Danny.”
Danny shrunk in on himself, leaning back against the wall. Yeah, it was a dumb question. He knew there was plenty wrong with him.
Tim shuffled until he was sitting with his back against the wall, too, his shoulder lightly brushing Danny’s. They both stared forward at the telescope across from them.
“Just think about it, okay? Talking with someone really helps, even if talking is hard. I mean that literally, too. Cass can start teaching you Sign for when speaking feels like too much.”
Danny nodded. It didn’t sound horrible. Maybe Tim was right. Maybe…therapy could help. He wanted to feel normal again. He hated all this forgetting, even the bad stuff he didn’t want to think about. He knew there were things he’d lost that he really wanted back, even if he couldn’t place exactly what it was.
He’d take some time. Maybe he could convince himself he deserved to get better, too. Just like a person.
Vlad Masters had gotten the Fentons arrested.
Damian scowled. He didn’t trust the man, especially around his brothers, but at least he was doing something good regardless of intention. The trial would be soon; before the end of the month. The date was fast approaching, and the evidence was heavily stacked against them. Good.
He had a few words he’d like to say to them.
The issue was how involved they wanted Danny to be. As a victim, he was a key witness. But he wasn’t in the right headspace to deal with that. Not only that, but they had to figure out how to tell him without anything bad happening.
Damian wandered up the Cave steps in his socks. Family night had been postponed with the news, but no one had left the manor. Locating each of his brothers was always a bit of a scavenger hunt.
He found Richard stretching in his bedroom and barely made it out, a kiss to the forehead his only battle wound from daring to enter his eldest brother’s space.
Drake, he didn’t bother looking for.
At last, he discovered the rest. The scene he walked into as he entered the grand living room was sickeningly sweet—Todd reading on the couch as Cassandra cuddled into him, reading over his shoulder; a fire burning in the giant stone fireplace; Alfred resting in his rocking chair, knitting as Danny played with the ball of yarn on the carpet.
And Damian could be…tactless, sometimes, but even he couldn’t bear to ruin the soft mood of the evening. He slipped in silently and curled up in a loveseat, wrapping up in a blanket and falling asleep within moments.