Chapter Text
i.
Damian wakes up, jack-knifes forwards, and shrieks, eyes manic and wild. His heart pounds, blood rushing to his head, and he wheezes quietly, clutching himself in an awkward imitation of a hug. Inhaling frantically, he holds it for a count of one-two-three-four and repeats it, in and out and in and out, chest shuddering as he fights to calm down. Once he can breathe without nearly devolving into tears, he peeks under his shirt, looks for injuries long healed, and exhales slowly when he finds none. He should have expected night terrors; it was the anniversary of his first death day, after all. When he looks again, the scars are still there, of course, but he’s not dead.
Just reliving it.
Some part of him shrivels up at the reminder, and Damian smooths out his sleep shirt absentmindedly, pretending not to see how his hands shake.
He had dreamed of fire and shrapnel and smoke, his own high pitched scream for his mother ringing in his ears as he had lunged forward, catapulting himself directly in between his parents into the path of the missile, frantic. An explosion, and sharp pain.
( Mother smiling as she pressed the button for the bomb that blew him to bits.
He shouldn’t have asked if there was a way to be with both of them. )
In the dream — well, flashback, really — there had been blood in his eyes, twisted, broken bones, and the sensation of feeling his organs slowly begin to fail as he bled out drop by drop. Then, of being submerged in swirling antibiotic fluid glowing green-bright with the faint tinge of Lazarus pit water where he was picked apart and sewn back together at the pleasure of his mother, like a doll. He had been patched up back to perfection with body parts that were not his and new organs that had been taken,
stolen
, from his clones or some other poor person, and made as good as — or even better — than new. Finally, of his mother looking down at him and saying, “He mustn’t die.”
( Like she hadn’t purposefully put him in that position. Like she cared. )
It was, in short, a horrifyingly perfect recollection of that day.
It’s still dark out, and Damian shivers and slips beneath his thick blanket again, rubbing at his eyes tiredly. He sees the thick shade of lipstick his mother always wore at the back of his eyelids as he scrubs at them and snarls, ripping his hands away from his face.
This was already an awful start to an awful day.
As he thinks that, he realizes that this is ridiculous. It hadn’t even been a real proper death, and here he was all torn up and damaged from it. It barely even counted, really; every time he coded he had been promptly resuscitated and held together long enough for the new organs to be transplanted within him. Todd would laugh at him, if he knew. He’s just being stupid.
Turning over in bed, he curls up into a ball and draws his covers in around him tightly, and very pointedly thinks about how being swaddled up, warm and snug in his blanket, is not the same thing as being submerged in Lazarus-fused water.
But as he lies there, he cannot help but feel phantom fluid swirl around him.
i.
His alarm goes off, and he groans. He doesn’t want to get up, or go to school, or do anything at all today. Stumbling out of bed, he nearly trips over Titus and faceplants, but manages to catch himself in time despite the dog lifting his head in confusion. Poor boy. Looks like his morning was starting out roughly as well.
Damian kneels down and sighs fondly, giving him a couple of apology pets and then kisses his forehead. Titus gives him a wet, sleepy lick in return and wags his tail slowly before settling back down into a comfortable ball, slipping easily back into sleep. After giving him one last pat to his scruff, he stands up and stretches a little bit, arms reaching up to the ceiling and trembling ever so faintly with strain.
He’s picking out his outfit for the day when there’s a crisp knock on his door, and to his shame he involuntarily flinches away. Anxiety (over nothing) was already making him high strung and overreactive, and he hadn’t even been up for an hour. Swallowing down the burning feeling in his throat, he strides across the room and whips open the door without hesitation. Pennyworth stands there, totally unruffled, and tucks his hands behind his back fluidly.
“Master Damian, Alfred — the cat,” He adds, eyes twinkling, “has managed to get into your father’s, ah,
mancave
. I suggest you remove him before he finds out. You know how he hates fur on his suit.”
Pinching his brow ridge tightly, the boy sighs sharply. “Thank you, Pennyworth,” he dutifully says, and turns back into his room to change into something quick before anyone else could get down to the Batcave. The butler lets out an amused huff of air at his youngest charge’s behavior and shuts the door behind him, leaving Damian to the solitude of his room.
...he doesn’t want to change.
Doesn’t want to see the remains of his death that decorate his body, doesn’t want to be reminded of all of his many failures. If he had his way (not that anyone would know why he would want to) he’d stay in bed all day and just breathe and listen to his own heartbeat.
( If Grayson were here, Damian thinks, he’d call it “Self-care.”
The part of his mind that makes him instinctively look for escape routes and memorize katas and the thousands of ways to permanently incapacitate someone —the Al-Ghul part, the
evil
part — hisses “Weakness,” in reply.
In the end, it really doesn’t matter what he calls it because it’s not going to happen. )
But he has to. So Damian does so anyways.
Inhaling, he allows himself the indulgence of closing his eyes for a moment before working up his courage and stripping down with the efficiency and assurance of a soldier to slip into his new outfit. As soon as he’s covered, his fingertips itch from where they brushed across his skin and he resists the urge to fiddle at his sleeves for comfort. It’s a weakness, one that he should have never developed and one that he was determined to get rid of as soon as possible.
With his hands firmly against his sides, he heads down to the cave.
i.
Drake is there, and Damian kind of wants to vomit.
He’s simply another annoying (awful) reminder of his death — his
failure
— again.
As he makes his way down the stairs, he realizes how ironic that day truly was. He had tried to kill Drake and failed despite his years of preparation and training, and to top it all off was blown up within 24 hours of the attempt. Perhaps it was fate bringing his penance down upon him for trying to kill precious Timothy Drake-Wayne.
He’s hunched over, busily typing away while sipping on a cup of coffee, and all Damian can think of is the sensation of his fist hitting the side of that bony face and catapulting him off the model T-Rex. His stomach churns because — because he’s been so selfish, so wrapped up in his own pain and trauma that he didn’t even think of how the date also marked his first attempt on the third Robin’s life.
Alfred trots out of the darkness of the cave and meows at him, craning his tiny head to look up while he curls around his feet and purrs. Damian picks him up and hoists him in his arms and pets him (much to the little cat’s enjoyment) and walks up to the Batcomputer. His brother doesn’t even glance at him; the only thing giving away his acknowledgment of his presence is a brief lull in the speed of his typing and the subtle way he clenches his jaw.
He stands there silently and watches as he works away until he notices the faint way Drake’s fingers are trembling and smothers the urge to flinch away.
( That’s his fault. )
He’s shivering, too; the idiot is only dressed in thin sweats in the frigid coldness of the Cave, leaving him vulnerable to illness that would surely kill him due to his lack of a spleen.
Tsking, he stiffly deposits the warm, fluffy happy bundle in his arms into Timothy’s lap despite the way he stiffens at the proximity. Ignoring the indignant squawking he gets in return, Damian turns away sharply and curls his lip into a sneer and let a remark fly loose from his lips. “Your pathetic immune system will be compromised by the temperature down here, you insipid charlatan. World’s Greatest Detective my ass.”
With that, he strides away and doesn’t look back.
i.
( If he really did die for the way he treated Timothy, then he deserved it. )
i.
Damian emerges from the Cave and wanders into the kitchen, Titus at his heels. There’s a pot of tea on the stove bubbling quietly, most likely left by Pennyworth, and so he (ignoring how his hands shake) pours himself a cup. He adds a spoonful of honey, a cube of sugar, and a slice of lemon while Titus sniffs around the room looking for crumbs, faint snuffling coming from him as he inspects everything that takes his interest. Wrapping his hands around the warm teacup, he lets himself watch his dog’s antics and inhales the faint aroma, curling up a little bit to enjoy the heat radiating from his palms with a tiny smile.
Eventually the Doberman wanders over and nudges him with his wet nose, meaningfully staring at the backdoor before sitting in front of it and watching him with big, round eyes.
Ah. Bathroom time.
Damian drains the remains of his tea and places the cup in the sink before grabbing a hoodie and tugging it on quickly. He opens the door to let him out and steps outside, tucking his hands under his armpits as he goes because Allah, it’s cold .
The sky is overcast, gray.
( It’s an eerily similar shade to the one he saw right before the missile hit, and something in his gut twists uncomfortably. )
Titus goes about his business, and he hunches over a little bit, staring at the ground in an attempt to ignore how alike the weather is to a year ago.
And that’s when the first droplet hits his face.
To his shame, he can’t stop himself from violently recoiling backwards in a stupid attempt to simply get away from the sensation. His chest tightens, but he doesn’t pull up his hood because — because then everything would feel the same. Stormy skies, rain pattering down, the anxious expression on his face; his hood sticking to his hair, wet and damp as he looks towards the distant but approaching screech of something .
( Distantly, he knows it’s the call of a bird of prey — a hawk, most likely — but in the moment all he can see is the roiling sea and dark clouds and he swears he can see the looming projectile that’s too fucking close, no, no — )
The next thing he knows he’s folded into the crook of a tree branch, shaking and quivering while Titus barks up at him sharply.
He stays there until it’s completely dark out, body thrumming with adrenaline and terror but still frozen in place. When he finally climbs down the trunk and onto solid ground, his legs give out and he crumples down onto the cold forest floor silently. Titus, loyal Titus, who had stayed nearby the entire time, whines and places his head in his lap, offering comfort the best way that he can for his boy.
It’s ironic, he thinks, that he’s ending the anniversary of his death in almost the exact same way as last year.
Cold, alone, and hurting.
At least he has Titus this time.