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Damian hated his scent.
He hated his scent more than he had words for, and had ever since he had presented. Not because it was particularly offensive or anything; as a Beta, he had a light, clean, fresh scent, and Richard often told him it was soothing. But still, he hated it. Not for what it was, but because it was a glaring neon sign to everyone he interacted with displaying his personal business.
Because Damian was eleven. And everybody knew there was only one way a child presented before sixteen at the earliest. And no amount of goddamn scent blockers could ever give him back the lightly sweet milky scent of an unpresented pup.
He hated his scent because he fucking despised the pity in every adult's eyes, despised the fact that they were even allowed to know when it was his secret, his darkest most shameful secret that he did his best to keep as permanently buried as possible.
And yet.
And yet it was shoved in his face at every turn by people who knew nothing about it, and should know nothing about it.
He despised the pity, but worse were the 'casually' probing questions. People who thought they were being so sneaky, and who thought it was okay to pry into things they shouldn't even know of just to satisfy their own morbid curiosity.
"Oh wow," they would say, with false oblivious surprise. "I've never met someone who presented so young! You must be very mature for your age. How old were you when you presented?"
Damian had never once believed that a single one of them didn't know exactly what they were asking. Nobody in the goddamn world made it to adulthood thinking somebody could present that early just because they were 'mature for their age'. They just thought he was stupid enough not to hear that they were asking 'Just how little were you when you were raped?' so they could go off and tell their friends or family or mate about this poor tragic little pup they met, and then feel good about themselves for feeling bad for him. As if that did anything.
So whenever they asked, Damian just stared at them, an unamused look of distaste on his face, until they got uncomfortable enough and awkwardly excused themselves from the conversation. He could always see it in their eyes when they realised that he knew that they knew damn well what they were asking, and that was always when they got flustered and shamefaced. Damian enjoyed that part. Not enough that the rest of it was worth it, but if he had to go through it all anyway, at least he had that one little bright spot.
Adults were one thing, but then there were also the children at school. They were...complicated. The problem was that they were just at that age where some of them knew, and some of them didn't, but all of them knew he was different and strange and avoided him. And of course there were all sorts of rumors about why he was like that, ranging from stupidly outlandish to harmless to the truth.
He kept to himself at school. Not that he really had a choice, but he didn't really have any interest in becoming friends with any of these dull children anyway. He wished it was easier to convince himself that the rumors didn't bother him though. Especially since the little troupe of boys who fancied themselves bullies were some of the ones who knew, and who liked to be little shits to Damian about it.
Right now he was in Gym, his least favorite class, and the one he shared with all four of those obnoxious boys. He opened the bathroom stall in the locker room, where he had changed into his gym clothes as he always did. He didn't have too many scars yet, but the one from when he had died was fairly bad and it was better not to raise any questions or start any more rumors.
As the door swung open, instead of stepping out, he came face to face with the four boys who loved to harass him, crowded around the door, blocking his exit. He stared at them, waiting for them to get to the point of what they wanted.
"Why do you always change in there, freak?" The ringleader — Giles — asked. "Bit too late to be trying to hide your body, isn't it?"
Damian just continued to stare at him silently, unimpressed. Over the boy furthest on the left's shoulder, he could see that most of the other boys in the locker room were looking on in vague interest, because of course they were. Children were nosey gossips who liked to watch drama unfold — but not interfere, oh no, no matter what was happening, they never took it upon themselves to do that.
"Bit like using a condom when you're already pregnant, isn't it?" One of the other boys said.
They all laughed. A few of the spectating boys seemed to find that uninspired remark amusing as well. No accounting for taste.
"Yeah," Giles said. "Good thing you're not a girl, isn't it, or that'd probably be you, wouldn't it? Since you're such a slut."
Damian forced himself not to react to the word, but Giles seemed to know he had struck a nerve anyway and gleefully pressed further.
"How little were you when you presented, huh? You were already a Beta when you moved to Gotham last year, so what, couldn't even wait until you were in the double digits to spread your legs for some Alpha?"
Damian felt white hot fury rush through him, and he swore his vision tinted red.
Giles stepped forward, right up into Damian's space. "Too bad you're a Beta. Bet you were hoping you'd be an Omega so you could just be your Alpha's little fuck pet, hanging off their knot 24/7. Is that why you moved here? They didn't want a useless Beta?"
Damian punched him hard in the kidney, immediately grabbing his arm and wrenching him around, pushing him onto the floor on his face with his arm pulled up painfully behind his back. "You don't know anything, you worthless cretin. I am not a pet, and being a Beta is the only good goddamn thing to come out of this."
The other three boys quickly recovered from their shock and descended on Damian.
"Get. Your hands. Off of me." He enunciated slowly as they grabbed at him.
He gave them exactly two seconds to back off, and when they did not, he easily broke away from them, straightening up and quickly incapacitating all three of them, which was laughably easy since they were inexperienced eleven year olds rather than the trained adults he was used to fighting.
He looked down at the four of them dispassionately, and then bent to pick up his clothes, which had been dropped in the tussle.
"Too bad hitting us won't ever change the fact that you're a slut and everybody knows it," Giles spat from the floor.
Damian just took a deep, steadying breath and closed his eyes as he stepped over him, flexing his hand and clenching it into a fist for a moment before releasing it and opening his eyes again, starting to head to his locker, ignoring all the other silent, staring boys. Unfortunately he barely got three steps away before the coach walked into the locker room.
"One more minute, you boys better start heading into the gym— Mr. Wayne, what's this?"
Damian just continued to his locker and shoved his clothes in, locking it and saying nothing.
The coach sighed. "You two, Anderson, Casey, help those four to the nurse's office," he said, gesturing at two boys close to him. "Everybody else, out in the gym; sit down and wait for me. Wayne, my office."
Damian followed him out of the locker room to the cramped little office across from it, and sat down in the folding chair the coach gestured to.
"Want to explain yourself?" The coach asked, leaning back against his desk.
Damian just stared at him silently.
The coach sighed again. "Look kid, I know things are...rough for you, and I don't want to have to write you up for this, but you gotta know I have to. You can't just beat up other kids." He gave him a searching, but sympathetic look. "I can maybe make sure the office cuts you some slack if you tell me what it was about, depending on what it was, though."
Damian stayed silent, his mouth tensing slightly. He fucking hated this stupid fragile treatment, for one, and secondly he didn't want to fucking talk about or even acknowledge what had happened to him ever, and he didn't fucking understand why that was so fucking hard for everyone to understand.
"Right." The coach said tiredly, and turned to his desk, shuffling through his papers. "You never make it easy for yourself, kid."
Maybe he didn't. But when had anything been made easy for Damian?
He'd had to fight his way through life; test after test. Some of them more obvious than others. He had thought he'd understood the routine of the tests his mother and grandfather would put him through, until his sixth birthday, when he had been painfully taught that he could not anticipate them at all, could not expect them to always be in the same bounds. He had never made the mistake of assuming anything could be out of the question for a test again.
He was a tool, a warrior in a class above any other, and that meant he had to be tested not just in direct combat, but in other areas. That meant he had to prove himself. Damian had not been lying when he'd said being a Beta was the only good thing to come from the situation, but he had not always felt that way.
The test had been multi-purpose: Damian had been supposed to defeat five League assassins on his own, and had failed, only taking out four and ultimately being bested by the final one. It was punishment for his failure — although, as Damian had later found out, they had never expected him to succeed.
And they had not wanted him to succeed, because his grandfather had wanted to force him to present, was hoping he would be an Alpha: worthy as an heir, and ready to begin to train his Alpha instincts as well as his body. But he had not been, and for a long time, for that, Damian had felt like it was another failure.
Really, some part of Damian didn't know whether it was better or worse that it was all just another of his grandfather's tests. It had not even been genuinely done to him for anything other than orders, to carry out a test. Honestly, it was kind of darkly amusing how impersonal this most personal of things was made to be.
"Yeah, hi, sending Damian Wayne your way with a write up," the coach said into the phone. "Great, thanks." He hung up and looked back at Damian, handing him the paper. "Take that to the vice principal's office."
Damian nodded and took it, heading out and across the front of the gym, ignoring the stares of the other kids, and left through the side door.
When he got to the vice principal's office, his door was open, and he beckoned Damian in with a smile. "Hello Mr. Wayne, I heard you got yourself into some trouble again."
He held his hand out for the write up sheet, his eyes skating slowly down Damian's legs in his gym shorts.
Damian stepped back behind the desk so the computer monitor was blocking most of his body from the vice principal's view, and the man redirected his gaze to the sheet in his hand.
Fuck, Damian should have just gone ahead and changed back into his regular clothes — this was far from the first time Mr. Booker had been creepy, and not just to Damian either. He should've expected something like this.
"Well, looks like you still need to get a control on that temper of yours. Care to tell me what all this was about?"
Damian was silent.
The phone rang, and Mr. Booker picked it up. "Hello?"
Damian couldn't make out the other side of the conversation.
Mr. Booker sighed. "Of course it was. Okay, thank you. Yep." He hung up and looked back up at Damian. "So, Coach Mathers tells me that a student told him those boys were saying things about you being a Beta. That they were calling you...names. Is that true?"
Fuck, fucking fuck, Damian hated this shit.
He continued staring silently.
The vice principal sighed again. "Alright, I'm gonna call your father and just have you go home early for the day."
"Father will likely be in a meeting and will not pick up, nor will he be able to leave and come get me. Call Richard."
"Your father can't send Mr. Pennyworth?"
"Please just call Richard; he will actually pick up and show up to come get me," Damian reiterated.
"Fine."
Damian knew he couldn't really argue much, as Richard was still on Damian's file as one of his guardians. As his primary guardian, actually. They'd never bothered to change it when father had come back.
Mr. Booker pulled up his file for the number, and typed it into the phone, spinning his chair to the side and leaning back. "Yes, hello Mr. Grayson, this is Mr. Booker, Damian's vice principal," he began, sneakily looking over his desk, around the monitor at Damian's legs again.
Damian sat in one of the chairs in front of the desk, pulling it up so his legs were right against the desk out of view, and folding his hands in his lap.
Mr. Booker looked up at the ceiling in annoyance.
Richard quickly agreed to pick him up, and Mr. Booker sat forward and hung up before grabbing a pad of hall passes and starting to fill one out.
"Go ahead and grab your stuff from the gym and then you can wait in the front office, okay?"
Damian nodded and took the pass, before heading back toward the gym.
The locker room was empty when he got there, so he didn't bother to go into a bathroom stall to change. Which, of course, he regretted a minute later when the children who had helped the bullies to the nurse finally came back in, probably after dawdling around in the halls as long as possible.
He turned at the sound of the door and their footsteps, and they both immediately paled at seeing his scars, zeroing in on the large, deep scar from being skewered. Damian internally cursed himself, turning back to his locker (cursing, too, the fact that this meant they could see his back and that there was the same scar there where it clearly had gone all the way through) and snatching his shirt, pulling it on.
"Oh my— You— Holy shit," one of them — Casey — said, eyes wide and looking sick. "I shouldn't have laughed, I'm sorry."
Damian gave him an annoyed look, yanking his backpack out of his locker and swinging it onto his back. "I do not care," he enunciated slowly. God, he just wanted people to stop fucking talking about this already. But then, on second thought, he added, "But if you actually feel bad you won't tell anybody about it, because it will get back to Giles and his friends and they will not feel bad, they will just twist it into somehow something to make fun of me for."
He knew they assumed the scars were from the rape, but he was not going to disabuse them of that notion, both to not draw suspicion as to what the hell they were from then, and to hopefully keep them quiet because he really didn't need more rumors about himself, especially about having scars.
Anderson nodded, and Casey just uncertainly said, "Okay," still staring at his shirt as if he could see through it to the scars beneath.
Damian closed and locked his locker and walked past both of them, who were still standing stock still, and headed back out and toward the front office.
He had to wait for almost three quarters of an hour before he saw Richard come in the front doors of the school through the window. Richard spotted him and waved through the window, and then opened the door to the front office.
"Hey Little D!" He said with a sunny grin that quickly faded to a softly concerned expression. "How you doing?"
Damian shrugged and looked down.
Richard gave him a sympathetic frown. "We'll talk more in the car, okay?"
Damian nodded.
"Okay habibi." Richard turned to the receptionist and gave her a dazzling smile. "Hello again, Linda! Is that a new lipstick?"
She smiled back at him, flushing slightly. "It is, I thought I'd be a little more adventurous with the colors."
"Well that was a great idea, coral suits you. Oh, this sign out sheet is full, do you have a new one?" He asked, looking over the clipboard and then turning it to her.
Damian stood up and went to go stand by Richard, and Richard reached his hand out halfway toward him as he grabbed the clipboard back with the fresh sign out sheet, and then turned his head to look down at Damian.
Damian gave a small nod, and Richard set his hand in his hair, stroking over it, looking back at the clipboard and starting to fill out the sheet. After a moment, he pulled Damian against him, Damian's cheek pressed to the soft spot between his ribs, still stroking his hand over his hair. "Oh Damian," he murmured in Arabic, "sometimes I just want to bundle you up and hide you away from the rest of the world. I just know those little shits were torturing you."
"I love you, brother," Damian said quietly, switching languages and hoping he remembered correctly, instead of answering. He buried his face against Richard and inhaled his safe scent. It was easier to admit to loving him in less familiar languages — it didn't feel so real, like he wasn't really making himself quite so vulnerable. It always made Richard happy when he actually said it, though, and it made him happy whenever Damian used Romani too. And it felt like the least he could do to try to make Richard happy whenever he could, as much of a burden as Damian was on him.
Richard smiled softly. "I love you, brother." He quickly scribbled his signature and dropped the pen he was using back in the cup. "Okay, let's go," he said, switching back to English. "Bye Linda, see you later!"
"Hopefully not too soon," she said.
Richard gave a sad smile. "Hopefully not." He herded Damian through the door and out to his car, but once they got inside, Richard set his keys in the cupholder and turned to Damian. "You wanna talk about it, habibi?"
"Please, akhi," Damian pleaded. "You know what it was about, I'm so tired of talking about it — everybody is constantly fucking talking about it, trying to make me talk about it. They don't know anything and I don't want them to, and I don't want to think about it!" He gave a frustrated sigh. "It never stops, everything is about this, I can't get away from it, it is just constant, constant reminders."
"Oh, Dami, I'm sorry," Richard said, taking one of Damian's hands to hold between his and stroke his thumb over.
"I just don't want them to know, why is everybody allowed to just know? Grandfather didn't just give me a punishment, he gave me a neverending punishment. Did I deserve this? Just for failing at a task I was designed to fail? All of this?"
"Oh no, no, you could never deserve it; it's fucked up and unfair, and you don't deserve one bit of any of it and you never did."
Damian looked down. "It was the same boys as usual," he muttered after a moment. Okay so he hated being forced to talk about it and he hated thinking about it, but...Richard was safe. And sometimes, sometimes he did just needed to vomit everything out after all. Scream about it until he had nothing left in him. "I always change in the bathroom stalls because I don't want people to see my scars and start rumors about those — father has a hard enough time explaining his scars. They were waiting for me outside the stall and started saying things about how I should not bother to hide my body because it's too late anyway.
"I was able to ignore them for a while, but they kept escalating and started...calling me a slut," he bit out the last part. "Then one of them said that since I was already a Beta when I moved here I must have been such a slut that I couldn't even wait until I was in the double digits to spread my legs for some Alpha." He clenched his hand against Richard's. "And then he said that it must have been such a disappointment when I turned out to be a Beta, and that I must have been hoping to be an Omega so I could be my Alpha's fuck pet, and that I must have had to move here because they didn't want a worthless Beta. That was when I lost control in regards to that one. I only took the others out because they would not take their hands off me."
"Oh Dami," Richard said, his voice wavering and soft, and when Damian looked up, his eyes were glimmering with unshed tears. Richard pulled him into a hug, burying his nose in his neck and deeply breathing in Damian's apparently comforting scent. "I can't believe people can say things like that. That's all complete bullshit, I know you know that, but I'm so sorry you had to listen to it. You don't deserve that; you're not a slut and you'll never be anybody's pet. I'm so glad you're a Beta and hopefully that'll keep you from as much grief as possible. No heats or ruts, and Alphas and Omegas won't be seeking after you specifically because of pheromones — you can just live your life and seek out people on your own terms."
"Yes," Damian said softly. "I just want to be left alone."
Richard rubbed his back. "When you reach sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, it'll get a lot better. You won't be the only one, other people will start presenting and they'll stop paying attention to you, they'll be too busy focusing on their own futures and possible mates and who's gonna present next and what as."
"I hope so."
Richard just patted his back, and they stayed like that, clinging to each other for a long minute.
"I wish I had just trained harder," Damian murmured eventually, face buried in Richard's shoulder, breathing in his scent. Sometimes he wished he could just live permanently in this bubble of rosewater and warm laundry dried out in the wind and the sun, where he knew he was safe and cared for.
"You couldn't have prevented it, Dami. He designed it for you to fail. If you'd been better, then the task would've been six League assassins, or seven instead of five."
"But if my stamina had been better, I could have fought him off better afterward."
Richard sighed against his neck. "Thinking that way only hurts you. You can't change anything. It wasn't your fault, you did the best you could."
Damian made a noncommittal noise and finally pulled back from the embrace. "Whatever," he said dully. "May I scream?"
"Sure, Dami," Richard said, reaching into the back seat for a pillow he kept in the car expressly for this purpose. "Knock yourself out."
Damian took the pillow, setting it on his knees and collapsing forward, burying his face in the plushness that smelled like comfort and safety and security and unconditional love — that smelled like Richard.
He screamed.
He screamed from his chest, from deep, deep inside, only stopping to gasp for air, long past when his throat felt raw and his screams started to crack. He screamed until he felt like he had nothing left inside, until he was hollow and empty, a paper-like cocoon ready to collapse at the slightest poke of a curious finger. His last scream died off, sounding suspiciously like a sob, and then he just sat there, folded in on himself, panting into the pillow, which was now damp (and he was going to assume that was condensation from his breath, not any traitorous leaking from his eyes).
After a couple long minutes, he finally, slowly, sat up and pulled the bottom of his shirt up to wipe off his face.
Condensation could be really messy. Easy to get on the rest of your face.
"Sor—" Damian tried, and then cleared his throat to try again, hoping to actually be intelligible this time. "Sorry," he rasped. "I think this needs to be washed now." He held out the pillow slightly, looking away from Richard.
Richard took it and tossed it back into the back seat. "That's why it has a cover," he replied, unconcerned. "You ready to go home?"
"Can we go to yours?"
"Of course, habibi. I'll just call Alfred and let him know when we get there, okay?"
Damian nodded, and Richard picked up his keys and finally started up the car.
"You feeling any better now?" He asked as he started backing out of the parking space. Not that he particularly needed to be careful or stay in the lines, as he'd parked off in the far corner of the lot — obviously anticipating Damian's screaming — and there weren't any other cars nearby.
Damian thought for a moment. Well, he didn't feel upset anymore, but he did feel intensely, intensely drained, and...fragile. And he really wasn't sure that was any better. "That depends on what you quantify as 'better'," he eventually said.
Richard gave a sympathetic grimace as he pulled out onto the main road. "I'm sorry, habibi. It's just gonna be one of those days I guess, huh?"
Damian made a noncommittal noise and looked out the window, but he laid his hand palm up over the cupholders. An offering.
Richard seemed to catch the movement out of the corner of his eye, and glanced over briefly, before sliding his left hand up to the top of the steering wheel and letting his right hand down to hesitantly rest over Damian's.
Damian laced their fingers together and squeezed his hand, reassuring him that it was fine. Richard squeezed back, and the corner of his mouth tilted up a bit.
Damian thought his little smile still looked so very, very sad, though.
***
Vice Principal Jedidiah Booker leaned back in his chair and tapped the end of his pen against his lips, his thoughts wandering back to the Damian Wayne situation. Or, today's situation, at least.
It was...it was terribly, unfortunately, shitty. The whole thing was just shitty.
He liked the kid, he really did, and not just because he was nice to look at. And, well, he was. Mr. Booker really couldn't be faulted for noticing when it was just...just there in front of him. Was he supposed to look at Michelangelo's David and not immediately notice its beauty, its fine craftsmanship? It was an automatic process, he couldn't help it.
And Damian was...wow. Mr. Booker noticed a fair few kids from time to time, but Damian, Damian was his favorite. He was well-built for a kid, and maybe it should've made him look more adult, but he was just still so tiny and his face was so young, and it only succeeded in making him look more like a kid; a guarded, defensive kid. Which, Mr. Booker supposed, was exactly what he was. Sleekly muscled little limbs, and quiet like a cat, yes, capable of beating the shit out of his fellow peers, definitely, but that couldn't hide that he was still just a little boy. When he deigned to stare you in the face, even with the hard, guarded look behind those eyes, there was never any seeing him as anything but that — vulnerable.
And boy, those eyes were breathtaking too: big and bottle glass green, and fringed with thick, dark lashes any woman would be jealous of. The boy was just breathtaking in general, if Mr. Booker had to be honest; his breath had quite literally been taken away for a moment the first time he met him, when he was wearing those lovely little gym clothes. When he wore those — and bless those short required uniform shorts — his legs looked like they went on for miles. All that smooth, baby-soft skin just begging to be touched—
Not that Mr. Booker ever would, of course. He knew what the kid had gone through, and he'd never actually do anything. A year ago, he would've said it was unfathomable that he'd ever actually touch any child, but… Well then he'd met Damian and...he'd had a very heart-stopping moment of thinking he just might not be able to control himself with this one. But then he'd caught his scent. And his stomach had dropped, and he hadn't known he could be more afraid of himself, more disgusted and ashamed, but he could, there were acres more space, it turned out. He could control himself, he could never put the kid through anything else, not after he'd already been through so much, not when the consequences were staring Mr. Booker right in the goddamn face, even if he'd never planned to take it nearly that far. He couldn't lie to himself and say that just a little bit wouldn't still do the damage, not on top of everything that had already been done.
He'd never actually do anything.
But. He could look.
And if he thought about it sometimes late at night, in the privacy of his own head, with only his shame for company, well, nobody had to know.
But the point still stood that that really wasn't the only reason he had a soft spot for the kid. Damian just...he seemed so...alone. Like he was convinced he had to handle everything by himself, silently. He never defended himself at all after any of the altercations, never even tried to explain, was just prepared to take whatever judgement was handed to him. It was...it tugged at Mr. Booker's heartstrings. It was the little things like that which Mr. Booker thought showed that Damian really did have emotions in there, and he wasn't just angry or cold or whatever like those four troublemakers had tried to spin it in the beginning. Damian was just...worn down. And it ached a little to see. He just had to be so fucking tired.
And so Mr. Booker tried to give him as much slack as he possibly could, give him a break. He made it clear to the teachers that if something happened in their class or on their hallway, they needed to find a kid and make them spill what happened, and then call him up and tell him, so he could actually have a fucking reason to let Damian off the hook not as the aggressor (and so he could punish those shithead little brats for bullying. Not that that seemed to be a deterrent).
Sometimes Mr. Booker thought Damian looked like he wished there hadn't been a call at all, like he just wanted to let whatever may come happen, and Mr. Booker didn't really understand it but he did know the kid did seem relieved every time he got to go home, and he was determined to give him that reprieve he clearly needed.
Shit, it wasn't just sympathy, giving the kid freebies for what he'd been through in the past — Mr. Booker had heard some of the teachers bitch about Damian's absences and imply as much about him (as if Damian wasn't more than smart enough to keep up with the work. He'd seen the kid's grades and standardised test scores). No, it was empathy for what he was going through now. What he was going through now because of that. The kid deserved a rest. He deserved any spot of peace he could get.
***
Richard insisted on having a meeting about the bullying, with Damian, himself, the four main bullies and their parents, and the vice principal, since he always dealt with the aftermath of their altercations and was more familiar with the situation than the principal. According to Richard, it had just gone on too goddamn long and they were only getting worse, and something needed to be done.
In classic insistent Richard fashion, he arranged for it to happen the very next afternoon after school let out, strong-arming the bullies' parents into making it work with their schedules.
Personally, as Damian felt the heat of the other boys' glares on him while their parents started insisting he and Richard leave the room while the boys' transgressions and punishments were discussed (apparently because this was 'not a public shaming'), he thought the only thing this would do was make the bullying even worse.
***
Mrs. Gryffin-Finkelstein was hunting through the supply closet near the front offices for a few things before she started on her grading for the afternoon, when she heard a door open outside, and several voices speaking.
"Alright— yes— Mr. Grayson, Mr. Wayne, if you could just step out for a few minutes," Mr. Booker could be heard saying above crosstalk from several other voices inside his office. "Thank you." The door shut again.
"I hope those parents get to hear exactly what their shithead little kids said. Hear what they raised," a voice that she could only assume was Mr. Grayson said, his voice coming across the hall closer to the supply closet, presumably to lean against the wall across from the vice principal's office while they waited.
"They don't need to know, I don't want them knowing, is it not enough just saying they were being rude?" Damian replied.
His voice sounded croaky and painful, and Mrs. Gryffin-Finkelstein wondered, not for the first time, what had happened. She was a little afraid of the answer, knowing all the bullying he tended to be subject to, and just everything he'd been through in general. The possibility of screaming nightmares, or… He'd shown up to school with his voice wrecked like this several times before (although it may have been more than she knew if he managed to just stay silent like he had in her class today — and wasn't that an alarming thought), but really, she thought there were too many bad possibilities that she wasn't too keen to ruminate on.
"Damian...rude doesn't cover some of the things they said," she heard Mr. Grayson respond. "That doesn't show just how bad it is. And I know you don't want people knowing, but...Dami, habibi...they already know. Not hearing this isn't gonna change that. I'm sorry, it sucks so much and it's not fair, but I know you know that every adult knows just by meeting you."
Mrs. Gryffin-Finkelstein's hand paused on the white board eraser she was grabbing as she listened more intently.
"I don't need them to hear more about it!" Damian said frustratedly. "I don't need fucking anyone thinking about me as someone's pet fucktoy."
Her hand clenched around the eraser in sympathy and righteous anger. Were those Damian's own words, or had one of those boys genuinely called him such a disgusting thing?
"Oh, babe, no, they're not really hearing about it, they're just hearing made up hate and they know it, they know it's not true, just hateful shit made up by immature bullies."
"You said it yourself, these are the people who raised these children to be like this. You don't think they might start thinking the same things?"
"No, no, they're adults, they know better. I think they're just shitty parents, I don't think they're truly hateful."
There was sulky silence for a few moments, before Damian finally said, "Whatever."
Mr. Grayson said something softly to him that Mrs. Gryffin-Finkelstein couldn't quite make out, and after a moment she realised it was because he was speaking French. His voice was tender and soothing and loving, and after a moment, Damian grudgingly responded, also in French.
At this point, Mrs. Gryffin-Finkelstein knew she was fully eavesdropping, and should really probably leave, but she felt kind of stuck now. She'd been standing here too long and she felt like they'd know she'd have been able to hear them, and she didn't want to make them feel like she was purposely invading their privacy. Although now she kind of was.
And, well, the other thing was that it was Damian Wayne, and she couldn't help wanting to listen and get a better scope on this bullying situation and hopefully be able to watch out for him better. She just felt very protective of the poor boy, it was only natural, she didn't know how any adult couldn't, knowing what he'd been through. She still remembered her wife coming home from school last year, where she taught elementary, on Damian's first day and breaking down in tears, telling her that there was a new child in her class and that he had already presented. "He's only ten," she had kept repeating. "He's only ten."
Mrs. Gryffin-Finkelstein had been glad to have Damian in her English class when he'd moved on to middle school, so she could continue keeping an eye on him when her wife couldn't, and she'd grown attached to him in her own way, even as solitary and prickly as he was. He wrote beautifully and had a keen mind, and though he could obviously physically protect himself when he didn't get along well with the other children, from the number of write ups for violence, she still felt innately that he needed to be protected.
She straightened up, adding the eraser to the small pile of supplies in her arms, and settled back against the shelves to listen.
Mr. Grayson broke the silence that had fallen between them. "So, am I, like, completely tripping or were there some serious creep vibes from that vice principal? I, uh, didn't know if I should say anything because I don't wanna alarm you, but I think you'd rather know, and he was…"
"He was checking me out," Damian finished in a dry monotone. "I know."
Mrs. Gryffin-Finkelstein's stomach dropped. Mr. Booker was doing what? Surely she was imagining things, she couldn't have heard that right.
"Okay, um...he's done this before?"
Damian sighed. "Yes. It's not just me, he's creepy to a lot of students. He likes...legs."
Good god. Did all the children feel unsafe around him? Were they afraid to speak up? Did they not think she would take them seriously or report him if they told her?
"Why didn't you say something before?" Mr. Grayson asked.
"Because what can anybody do with that? He's not actually doing anything."
"Damian! I really doubt that's where it stops. That man probably has child porn on his computer!" Mr. Grayson hissed. "I'm getting it looked through. Commish will follow a tip from me and I'll have O look through it first just in case anything's really hidden or encrypted. I mean I doubt it from the look of him, but underestimating people in Gotham gets you up shit creek without a paddle."
Mrs. Gryffin-Finkelstein wasn't sure exactly what he was talking about, except it sounded like he had some sort of connections, and that was a relief.
Right, he was a police officer, wasn't he? She was pretty sure he still lived in Blüdhaven — it seemed like someone would surely want to run a piece about Bruce Wayne's first son returning to Gotham if he had — but the BPD must work with the GCPD sometimes, mustn't they? She hoped he was right about Mr. Booker having incriminating evidence on his computer, in any case, so they could all be rid of his uncomfortable eyes on the children.
"Who actually downloads porn nowadays?" Damian asked.
"You're eleven, you shouldn't know how people access porn!"
"Tt."
"And fifty year old paedophiles download porn still, that's who. But I'm sure O will do a deep comb of his internet history too."
"Hm. Well I guess we will see if he's stupid enough to do more than ogle the students."
"Eugh. Gross sentence." There was silence for a few moments before Mr. Grayson spoke up again. "So, how has school been other than the bullies?"
"Incredibly annoying. All the teachers still constantly allude to it and act frankly idiotic and sympathetic, and then try to make me talk about it which is the opposite of helpful."
"Oh no."
"I just wish they would not all make such a thing about it all the time and treat me so differently and carefully because of it," Damian complained.
"I'm guessing your teachers before didn't blink twice at you being a Beta," Mr. Grayson said wryly.
"What do you think? One of my teachers for a year after it was quite literally him."
"Oh no, habibi." Mr. Grayson sounded heartbroken. "That's so awful. I'm glad it was only a year at least."
"Tt well it could not very well have been longer than that," Damian said boredly. "I killed him on my seventh birthday."
Mrs. Gryffin-Finkelstein shook her head, blinking and trying to process that — surely she hadn't heard that right? That her student, little Damian Wayne, had murdered a man? When he was seven?
And oh god, if it had been a year, then he was only six or about to turn six when he was forced to present. That was...it had already been incredibly monstrous, but that was...she didn't even have a word for that. Christ above, he had been a pup pup, a baby. She was going to be sick.
"Good," Mr. Grayson's voice was grim.
Damian let out a little huff of amusement. "I think you will be able to appreciate the humor of it. It was during the test, of course — he kept telling me, 'I am going to be your punishment again, little one', so I told him that if he wanted my legs wrapped around him again so badly, he could have them. And then I got on his shoulders and snapped his neck."
Mrs. Gryffin-Finkelstein's eyes went wider than ever. So she definitely hadn't heard that wrong. It wasn't like she could really blame the child for killing his rapist, it was just that what seven year old knew how to get the better of a grown man and had the strength and know-how to snap his neck?
Mr. Grayson gave a muffled snort. "Oh god, I shouldn't be laughing at that. I hope his last moments were regret."
"I do not care," Damian said dispassionately. "I only care that he is dead."
"Yes."
"You're not usually so lenient to murder."
"It's in the past, habibi, we can't change it, and it kept you safer. If his life was in my hands this very moment, would I kill him? No. Would I let you? Maybe. I don't know. It doesn't matter, what's done is done."
"Tt no."
"What?"
"Kept me safer? Very funny that you think they didn't just have a replacement waiting behind him. Yes I killed him, but I still failed the test again and I was still punished. Not by him, but there was no shortage of people. I was stronger that year and managed to kill the first one they sent, but…I did not succeed with the second. I did claw his face to shreds and permanently blind him, but...I think he was one of the experiments. He didn't seem to feel pain. He just broke my wrists and dislocated my hip so I would stop squirming, and completed his orders. They ended up disposing of him because he couldn't perform up to standard without working eyes, but it was a hollow victory." Damian's voice sounded utterly flat and dead as he recounted everything.
Mrs. Gryffin-Finkelstein's stomach turned as she wiped at her leaking eyes. She had a lot of fucking questions about what the hell this test was and experiments and where the hell Damian had been living, but that was all superseded by the deep pain in her chest and queasiness in her stomach at hearing the horrific details of what he had actually been through.
Mr. Grayson sniffled and said something tearily in what Mrs. Gryffin-Finkelstein thought was maybe Arabic.
Damian responded in kind.
"Oh habibi. I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry."
"It's okay, it made me motivated enough never to fail a test again."
"No. It's not okay, you didn't deserve that, that's not some sort of motivational tool to use on people to train them."
"Tell that to grandfather." There was a short pause. "Actually, do not. He will use it more simply out of spite."
Mrs. Gryffin-Finkelstein's mind spun in horror. Damian's grandfather had done this to him? He said the man had been 'completing his orders' — did that mean his grandfather had ordered it? That his grandfather had orchestrated whatever these— these fucked up tests were? Just what kind of hellscape had Damian been living in before he'd moved here? Was it some sort of cult? It had to be.
Mr. Grayson sighed slowly. "I'm so sorry, Dami," he mumbled.
"It's not as if you don't understand," Damian replied dully.
"It's not the same, I wasn't a baby. I understand as much as I can, but it's not the same."
Mrs. Gryffin-Finkelstein felt her heart break for him, learning that Mr. Grayson understood at all. Was that part of why Damian had latched onto him — apparently more so than his own father — and seemed so much more at ease around him? Because he had been through something similar?
Damian blew out a breath. "Whatever."
"Can I have...something? Hold your hand or touch your shoulder or is there anything that's okay right now?"
Damian was quiet for a moment. "You can have a hug."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes. I just. Please make it quick. It's not you, you're safe, akhi." There was a pause as they presumably hugged. "It's just…it's the same imbeciles as always. They were leaving the nurse while we were in the office yesterday, and they saw us. And now they keep...saying things. About you. Saying that," he cleared his throat uncomfortably, "since I'm such a slut I must be spreading my legs for you. And that it was obvious with the way I was all over you, when I go berserk over other people touching me."
Mrs. Gryffin-Finkelstein put her hand over her mouth, feeling sicker than ever. She knew that some of the boys had been bullying Damian, but she hadn't known what they were actually saying, and that was just so beyond messed up and triggering to say to someone is his situation.
"Oh jesus christ, that's so fucked up," Mr. Grayson said. "I hate those little shits so fucking much. It's probably wrong to genuinely loathe some fucking eleven year olds, but I do, I genuinely hate them."
"Well so do I."
"Yeah, but you're eleven. Not a grown ass man thinking about throwing hands with children like stealing candy from a fucking baby."
"I am not a child. I'm not like them."
"You grew up too fast, but you're still a child, sweetie. It's just hard to get you to remember sometimes. That's okay though, I'll keep working on it."
"I don't have any use for a childhood."
"Dami, Dami, you do, you just don't realise it yet. It's important to be able to be carefree sometimes. You don't deserve to have the weight of the world on your shoulders from birth."
"I was not meant for that life; I am a tool, the ultimate weapon, I was supposed to be the heir, carefree was never in the cards."
Mrs. Gryffin-Finkelstein blinked. What…the hell? What did that even mean?
Oh yeah, definitely a cult.
"Hey. You are none of those things now."
"No, now I'm a failure."
"You are not. You're a person, you're Damian, and you're a kind, caring, smart young man. You don't take lives anymore, you save them. You're so gentle and loving taking in so many animals, even the injured ones and nursing them back to health. You're not what you used to be. But change isn't failure, and I think this change is for the better. You deserve this, you deserve to get to be a person."
Damian was quiet for a moment. "Yes," he finally said.
They stood in silence for another minute or so before Mrs. Gryffin-Finkelstein heard a door open.
"Mr. Grayson, Mr. Wayne, we're ready for you," came Mr. Booker's voice, and it gave Mrs. Gryffin-Finkelstein shivers. Oh god, how had she never noticed him staring at the children before? But she didn't doubt Mr. Grayson's observations and Damian's report one bit. She really hoped they found incriminating evidence on his computer and he got fired at the very least, and never allowed around children.
The door shut, and Mrs. Gryffin-Finkelstein checked that she had all of the classroom supplies she had come for, and finally exited the closet, heading back toward her classroom. She had quite a lot to think about, but one thing she knew for sure: she and her wife would be taking everything she'd heard to their graves, and not another soul would know.
***
Back in the vice principal's office, Damian and Richard were squishing themselves into what little remaining space there was for them.
"So exactly what action is going to be taken to ensure that this or anything like it never happens again?" Richard demanded.
"I'm sorry," one of the mothers — Mrs. Waltman — spoke up. "I can't take this seriously, where is Mr. Wayne? I don't want to speak to some immature, trumped up 'don't mess with my little brother' bravado, this is a parents meeting and I want to talk seriously among adults."
"Excuse me," Richard said, his voice going cold and sharp. "I am one of Damian's legal guardians, I am an adult, thank you very much, and I have done the most child-rearing out of all three of his guardians. I was solely responsible for him for a year. He is the closest to me, and if anyone should be here, it is me. I am not Bruce, but he is still just as much my child as he is my brother."
"It's okay, brother. She is ignorant," Damian said to him in Arabic.
His voice sounded flat and inexpressive to the others, but it worked to calm Richard down. He knew that although some people did not see it, Richard had a temper and this whole situation had already been keeping him quite tense and close to blowing up as it was. And then adding in that he tended to get defensive about people questioning the legitimacy of his claim as one of Damian's guardians, it was a recipe for boiling over.
Richard let out a breath. "Thank you," he replied, also in Arabic.
"Could you speak English when you're in front of us?" One of the fathers — Damian didn't see who — asked.
"No." Richard snapped, and then, switching back to Arabic, "Did I tell them too much; was that okay?"
"It was okay. Are you okay?"
"I'm okay, are you?"
"Yes, akhi," Damian said, reverting back to English.
"Okay," Richard said to him. And then, to the rest of the room, "So I repeat: what action is being taken to ensure that this or anything like it never happens again?"
"Well," Mr. Booker spoke up. "We've decided that Corey, Dan, and Michael will have three weeks of After School Detention, and Trent, as the main instigator, will have five."
"Is that it?" Richard asked. "I don't care about punishment, that's not a deterrent, I want to know what's going to be done — what are you," he pointed his finger and swept it around the room at all of the parents, "going to do? Are you going to actually sit down and have some real talks with them about this? Because I think it will take several to go over everything and really get the gravity of the situation. Are you going to tell them the reality behind the crap they're spewing? Are you going to tell them just how wrong the things they say are, and why they're wrong, and why it's important that they know they're wrong? Are you going to tell them just how messed up it is that they would say those things and the real world effects saying things like that can have? The harm it can do?"
"Brother," Damian interrupted in Arabic. "I don't think that's a good idea. Knowing how much they are potentially hurting me, how they could trigger me, that's only going to encourage them."
"Shit, you're right. Those fuckers won't feel bad at all, will they." Richard sighed and then switched back to English. "Can I speak to just the parents? I would like the other kids to leave for a moment. Damian can stay."
"Oh, uh, sure, I suppose," Mr. Booker said. "Just wait right outside the door, no wandering off," he said to the boys.
The other boys left.
"Tell them about other real world consequences, other people hearing that sort of talk and internalising it, but don't talk to them at all about how much it might be hurting Damian and what effects it might be having on him. I don't even wanna say this in front of them because it might give them the idea. But right now, they've shown that they can't be trusted not to just take that information and use it to try to hurt Damian more effectively, and that would obviously be the opposite of what we're trying to accomplish. If they press for that information, you need to tell them exactly that: that they've shown themselves not to be trusted not to try to use it to bully him further."
"I really don't like how you're just assuming my kid is some little psychopath who's not gonna feel bad after I talk to him and tell him the reality of the situation," Ms. Giles said.
Richard narrowed his eyes. "They already know exactly the reality — why do you think they're saying the things they're saying? They know the truth, they just don't care. So no, I don't think they're to be trusted until they prove otherwise."
Several of the other parents started talking at once, and there was chaos for a minute before Mr. Booker raised his voice above it all. "Alright, alright! Please, everybody settle down!" Silence fell. "Nobody's calling anybody's kid a psychopath, but from Mr. Grayson's point of view, these children have repeatedly shown a certain pattern of behavior that he thinks makes it unlikely to change. From the rest of your point of view, you believe that once your children fully understand the gravity of the situation, they will feel bad and stop. We will just have to wait and see who's right, but it can't hurt to just err on the side of safety and take Mr. Grayson's advice and not tell your children how their actions may affect Damian. It's better to be a little overly cautious than not enough."
There was some grumbling, but the parents reluctantly agreed.
"Alright, is that it?" Mr. Booker asked. "Do we need to address anything else?"
He was met with silence.
"Okay, everybody have a great evening," he dismissed them.
***
Damian had known deep down that the meeting wouldn't change shit, but maybe a small, foolish part of him had been hoping a little bit. But no, as he had predicted in the realistic part of his mind, it got worse. Those boys didn't learn the gravity of the situation and they sure as hell didn't feel bad after their parents talked to them.
It all came to a head three days later. Once again in Gym, of course.
Damian opened the bathroom stall door to find his way blocked by the four bullies. Again. He suppressed a sigh and waited for them to start in on their bullshit with a look of annoyance.
"Well if it isn't our resident school slut," Giles greeted with a nasty grin. "You know, I was told something very interesting about you today."
Damian just stared at him.
Apparently his lack of response didn't do much to take the wind out of Giles' sails though, as he carried on gleefully. "Turns out, our little whore is tarnished in more ways than one. Aren't you?"
Wait. What the fuck did that mean. What exactly did he mean by that?
The other boys laughed like good little cronies, and Giles' smile widened. "I heard you're apparently all torn up under there; got a big, deep scar that goes all the way through your back, like somebody wanted you dead. Was it because you turned out to be a worthless Beta? Did they decide to get rid of you since you were so useless?" He paused and made a surprised face as if something had just occurred to him. "Or maybe," he said, "you did it to yourself. When you found out being a dirty little slut got you nowhere because you weren't even the right type for it."
Damian could distantly feel himself shaking, and there was a ringing in his ears.
Giles laughed in his face, and the other three joined in. "Not even gonna deny it this time? Have you finally accepted what a dirty, skanky, used little whore you are?"
"The day I accept anything you say," Damian bit out, "is the day they put me in the ground for good, you ignorant ibn al kalb."
"What did you just call me? What the fuck does that mean?"
Damian didn't respond, breathing steadily and trying to calm himself.
"Whatever. How about you let everyone see what a worthless, broken little bitch you are. Go on, show everybody those ugly scars."
Damian didn't move.
"What, are you afraid?"
When Damian still didn't respond, Giles scowled.
"Or can't you show them because maybe you made it up in your constant attempts to get sympathy." He made a mock-sympathetic face. "Oh and it works so well with all the adults, they can't see what a stupid, attention-hungry little slut you are, they always treat you so special." His words drew out as he turned up the sarcastic sympathy even further. "Poor little Damian Wayne, just a defenceless pup who got raped."
Damian punched him in the face.
Giles reeled back, but Damian was already grabbing him by the collar and slamming him up against the opposite wall next to the hand dryers.
"Don't you dare talk about things you know nothing about," Damian snarled.
Giles laughed. He looked at Damian and he fucking laughed. "Oh you don't like that, do you? You don't like me saying that word. What, you don't want to hear that you were raped?"
Damian pulled him back and slammed him hard against the wall, making Giles let out a cough and then gasp in a breath of air. It didn't seem to deter him though, as he smiled wider.
"Well Damian, if it really happened like that, if you're not just the little slut we all know you are, why don't you prove it? Why don't you show us what they did to you?"
"Shut up!" Damian growled. "Shut up!"
Giles laughed again, and then grabbed at Damian's shirt, yanking it up.
Damian didn't exactly process what happened, all he knew was that one second Giles was pulling his clothes away, and the next, he was crumpled facedown on the floor with blood spreading quickly from what was likely a broken nose. And Damian, Damian was still not fully processing that — he registered it distantly, he could see it, but he felt very far away and he could feel that his breathing was unsteady and much too fast.
He leaned against the wall on his forearm as he tried to stop choking on his breaths, closing his eyes and digging the fingers of his free hand into the side of his thigh. That was not enough, though, and he reached up, scrabbling at the collar of his shirt to pull out the necklace Richard had given him, clenching his fist tightly around the smooth stone pendant and running his thumb back and forth and back and forth and back and forth over his knuckles. His breaths were still shaky, but at least they were controlled enough now that he could start to try to count them out.
After two or so minutes — though still feeling panicky and shaken deep inside — Damian was back under control, and he opened his eyes.
Giles hadn't moved and was still groaning on the floor (and upon further inspection, the hand he had grabbed at Damian with was at a rather...not perhaps the angle it should be at), and Damian noted that the other three bullies looked as if they had absolutely no interest whatsoever in messing with him. Well good.
He stepped over to Giles and leaned down. "The last person," he hissed, "who tried to take my clothes off without my permission, I clawed his face off and permanently blinded him. Is that what you want, Giles?"
Giles just let out another pained groan.
"Do not ever fucking touch me."
Damian straightened back up and walked back over to grab his clothes, which he had dropped, and looked at each of the other three bullies in turn for a long moment. They all backed away.
He turned and went to his locker in the silence that had fallen over the locker room, feeling the eyes of all of the other boys on him.
"Is something going on in here?" Came Coach Mathers' voice as he pushed the door open. "Why has nobody come out ye— Holy shi— ah— smokes! Is he okay?" He rushed over to Giles' side. "You conscious, buddy?"
Giles gave another pathetic groan.
"What happened here?" Coach Mathers demanded.
He was met with utter silence.
"Wayne!" He barked, turning his attention to Damian. "Did you have something to do with this?"
Damian simply nodded, face impassive.
"My office. Now."
He went where he was directed, and after a few minutes, Coach Mathers joined him in the room, ignoring him and immediately picking up the phone and dialing.
"Hey Kathleen," he said into it. "I wanted to give you a heads up that I'm sending a student your way that...well, there was a really nasty fight in the locker room and I think he's got a broken wrist and a broken nose at least." There was a pause. "Yes, just the one student. No, trust me, the other one is...completely fine." Another pause. "Yeah I know you don't exactly have the tools for this, just, I don't know, wrap it and ice it or something, he just needs somewhere to wait until his parents can come pick him up and take him to the hospital." He paused again. "Yes, I know, and we all appreciate it, thank you. Alright, I need to talk to the other kid now, I'll let you go."
He hung up and sighed before turning to Damian. "Please tell me there is some sort of explanation. Any sort of explanation."
Damian was silent.
"Listen, we all try our best to be lenient and understanding with you, but you broke bones, kid! The violence just keeps escalating and it has gotten completely out of control!"
He waited for Damian to say something, and when he didn't, he threw up his hands. "I don't understand you! Could you say anything for once? Try to defend yourself? Even just try to explain what the hell happened?"
Damian just stared at him.
"No, of course not," Coach Mathers said, a bit hysterically. He rifled through a binder and pulled out a write up form, hastily scribbling in what little he knew of the situation. "Just take this to the vice principal— the godda— the substitute vice principal or whatever the— just take it." He held it out, and Damian took the sheet, turning and quietly leaving the office.
This time, he preemptively changed back into his regular clothes — in a stall, just in case whoever helped Giles to the nurse was quick. Richard had indeed held to his word and had Mr. Booker investigated, and he had been removed from his post, but Damian still felt unsettled and he had never met this new substitute vice principal who was taking over for the remainder of the year, and he didn't like having his body as exposed as it was in gym clothes. Plus, he would likely just be leaving with Richard anyway, so he may as well go ahead and get dressed.
When he got to the vice principal's office, he opened it to see a stern looking woman behind the desk.
"Knock." Was all she said.
He held out the sheet, assuming that was advice for the future, but apparently not, as she frowned at him.
"No. Go back outside. And knock."
Damian blinked at her. He took the sheet back, left the office, closed the door — what a tedious pantomime — and knocked.
"Come in."
He opened the door. Again.
This time, when he held his write up sheet out, she took it, frowning again as she looked over it. "So this is part of a pattern of common repeat offences. And how many times is this?"
Damian said nothing. He did not know.
"You don't talk?"
"Not when I have nothing to say."
"Not when I have nothing to say…" She waited. "Ma'am," she finally corrected.
Damian assumed she would continue on with the write up, but instead, she looked at him expectantly. Was this another not future correction? Ugh.
"Say it again," she directed.
"Not when I have nothing to say, ma'am," he parroted back dutifully.
"Better. And how about you tell me if you don't know, or whatever the case may be, instead of just not talking, because I don't know what that means."
Damian stared.
"Are you listening to me, young man? I expect a verbal 'yes ma'am'."
Damian let them sit in silence for a moment before finally saying, "Yes ma'am."
"Alright then, now we can have a conversation." She looked back at the sheet. "So you don't know how many times or you just don't want to tell me?"
"I don't know."
She pursed her lips.
"I don't know, ma'am," he corrected. This was extraordinarily tedious.
"Okay so to me that sounds like it must be quite a lot of times, then."
Damian debated how he should answer that. "I don't know. Ma'am." He finally said, belatedly tacking on the honorific.
"How do you not know? Is it a lot or is it not? It's a straightforward question."
"That depends on what is considered 'a lot', ma'am."
She gave him a fed up look. "Listen, I'm not looking for a philosophy debate, I'm just asking a simple question. Is it more than five?"
"Yes ma'am."
"More than ten?"
Damian paused. "I'm not sure, ma'am."
"Okay, well for future reference, that's a lot." Her expression conveyed just as much snark as her tone, which was really saying a lot.
"Yes ma'am."
Her eyes scanned over the page again, and then she looked back up at him. "I thought you were in Gym, why are you not dressed out?"
"Usually I get sent home, ma'am, so it made sense to me to get redressed."
"Oh," she said, with much too much theatrics for Damian's liking. "I see. So you pick a fight, and then you...get let out of class! So then you pick another fight…and then you get let out of class! And then every time you get in a fight...it's like a magic key! All you've gotta do is punch somebody, and you just get to go right home!" She made an exaggeratedly knowing face. "I think I've found the problem," she said slowly.
She sat back and put her hands out incredulously. "They've been sitting here...rewarding your behavior!" She slowly emphasised each of the last three words, overly incredulous. "And they're...wondering why your violence is escalating!" She gave a small huff of laughter. "Well I'm putting a stop to that right now," she said, sitting forward and driving her index finger down against her desk top in emphasis. "What's gonna happen is you're gonna go right back to class. You won't be leaving, you won't be doing In School Suspension, you will be going to your regular classes, since apparently you've been missing all of those. And in place of ISS, you're going to have After School Detention every single day for a whole month. Starting today! And maybe that will make you think next time before you go picking another fight."
Damian just stared at her. Half of him was not surprised, but the other half...what the fuck.
She raised her eyebrows and tilted her head expectantly at him.
"Yes ma'am," he said.
She smiled and sat back again. "Good, I'm glad you understand, and that everybody's on the same page now."
"Yes ma'am."
"Now we," she said brightly, opening up a desk drawer and pulling out a pad of hall passes, "need to get you back to class now, don't we!"
"Yes ma'am."
***
Not long into the next period after Gym (when Damian was trying his hardest to concentrate on history and not imbecillic fucking Giles two rows over, who had apparently been sent back to class while he continued to wait for his parent. The substitute vice principal was fucking brutal about keeping students in classes, apparently not just with Damian, and it was just Damian's luck that Giles' mother must have been stuck at work or something) there was a knock on the classroom door before it opened and Richard stepped in slightly, still in his police uniform, with a bright smile directed toward the teacher.
"Hi, I'm so sorry to interrupt, but could I borrow Damian for just a few minutes?"
Yes. Oh, thank everything, he had needed Richard and his caring support so badly.
Damian caught a whispered exchange of, "Oh shit, is Damian getting arrested?" Followed by, "That's Dick Grayson, idiot." But he wasn't really paying attention to that nor the teacher's response, he was too busy rushing out of his seat as fast as he could get away with without looking like he was rushing, and heading straight to Richard, burying his face against his stomach. He didn't give a fuck about Giles, he didn't care, he didn't care anymore, how could it get worse, how could it fucking get worse than it already was?
He should have known it would really go to hell if anybody saw his scars, because of course nosey, gossipy children couldn't stay quiet about anything for shit. It had been Casey, of course it had been Casey, Damian should have known. He had approached Damian in Gym looking incredibly guilty and apologised, but said that oh he'd just been so sure that if Trent really knew the reality, he'd stop! What a naïve fool. Damian had just given him a flat look that really conveyed all that needed to be said. I fucking told you.
"Oh habibi." Richard's arms came around him — one around his back and one hand cupping the back of his head — and he pulled them back a couple steps into the hallway and shut the door, guiding Damian away from it a little to lean against the wall. He rubbed Damian's back. "Do you wanna talk about it?" He murmured.
Damian just let out a shaky breath, hands gripping tighter where they had come up to clutch the back of Richard's shirt.
"I love you, I love you, I've got you, I'm here," Richard said softly in Arabic, resting his cheek against the top of Damian's head. "You don't have to talk about it, but I'll listen if you want to get it out. You're doing so good, doing so good with everything, I don't care what anyone else says."
Damian let out a semi-hysterical laugh, muffled against Richard. "Nobody else thinks so," he said, turning his head to speak, also in Arabic.
Richard really knew him too well. Nobody else was currently in the hallway, but Damian did not for one moment think that the switch from English was anything but intentional — to put Damian more at ease, make him feel safer, make him feel assured that absolutely nobody but Richard was going to hear.
And a stubborn part of Damian still wanted to hate that it worked, wanted to hate that Richard was so good at this, so good at understanding him, helping him, comforting him. But he didn't really. He couldn't. Richard was allowed to be his one place where he didn't have to keep his defences up, and it was a relief. Richard was the one oasis of safety in the churning, toxic waters of the rest of the world, and shit, keeping his head above water on his own was tiring, it was exhausting, it was draining, and Damian was weary. So Damian welcomed him, he needed to, he didn't know if he could survive without the support; but the longer he had it, the easier it was getting to tell the part of him that called himself a failure for needing it at all to just shut up.
"The new vice principal thinks that I'm the instigator," he told Richard. "And that I 'pick fights to get out of class' and that sending me home is just 'rewarding my behavior'. They all think I'm just escalating my violence."
Richard sighed. "Yeah, I got as much on the phone. I didn't tell her I was going to visit because I thought she might specifically prevent it. But there's nothing saying I can't be a visitor."
"Better than not seeing you at all, brother, but it still is shit. I'm more than advanced enough to keep up with my school work."
"It is shit," Richard agreed. "Especially that you're then forced to have classes right with that piece of shit who's been torturing you literally right after. Couldn't he at least stay with the nurse until his mom can pick him up? Putting you two together is a recipe for disaster, and I really doubt he's getting work done with a broken wrist."
Damian squeezed Richard tighter and shook his head, not understanding any more than Richard did. The substitute vice principle was just… Damian thought he understood now what the fuck Drake had been rambling on about in regards to his Dungeons and Dragons game, with chaotic, neutral, and lawful alignments for characters. Damian hadn't really thought that was realistic, but this woman embodied lawful.
"It was so much worse today," he admitted quietly. "Last time, after I went back to the gym from the office, there was nobody in the locker room so I didn't go into the stall to change. But the boys who helped Giles and his friends to the nurse came back in while I was changing, and...they saw my scars. And they assumed it was from...the...you know. Which I let them, because I didn't want them to question how else I got them, and I also thought that would help keep them quiet.
"They looked really upset and one told me he was sorry for laughing and whatever, and so I told them that if they really felt bad they wouldn't tell anybody, because it would get back to Giles and his friends and they would not feel bad, they would use it against me somehow. They agreed, but they lied. One of them told Giles directly; he said he thought that if he really understood, he would stop — fucking idiot. How do people really not see that he already understands, he's understood all along, he just wants to hurt me anyway. Maybe not anyway, maybe because of it; he said something about how I'm always being treated specially by adults, and called me attention and sympathy-hungry, despite the fact that I never want it brought up and do everything to shut down conversation about it. I can only guess he's jealous of attention or whatever. It's not good attention, I don't know why he would even want it, it fucking sucks."
Damian sighed. "But the reason doesn't matter, I guess. He was predictably thrilled about my scars, and told everyone about them and kept trying to get me to show them. And he kept speculating about how I might have gotten them. That maybe they tried to kill me because I was a 'worthless Beta', or that I stabbed myself because I… I think he said something like I realised when I turned out to be a Beta that being a dirty little slut was all for nothing because I wasn't even made for it."
Richard clutched him closer. "God, I hate him so fucking much," he whispered.
Damian shrugged slightly. "Yeah." He took a deep breath. "I could handle that, though, I could, but then…" He trailed off, and Richard patiently waited until he was ready to continue, allowing him time to brace himself for the next part.
After a few more moments, Richard pulled back and stroked Damian's hair from his forehead, pressing a kiss to it. "Here, darling, come sit down with me." He sat down against the wall, his legs curled to the side, and Damian settled on his lap facing the opposite way, leaning his head on Richard's shoulder and burying his face against his neck.
"Then he started saying," Damian finally continued quietly, gripping Richard's shoulder tightly as Richard's arms squeezed around him, "that maybe the scars weren't real and I made it up for sympathy, and everything I told you about how I'm always after that and attention, and adults fall for it and treat me special because I'm 'poor little Damian Wayne who got—' ...what happened to me. And that made me upset enough to hit him, because he doesn't just get to talk about it, he doesn't just get to say it, he doesn't know anything about it, it is my very private business."
Richard made a sympathetic noise. "Oh Dami, I'm so sorry."
"That's not the worst of it. He then started saying that if it was really...that...if I was not really just a slut, then I had to prove it by showing them what they did to me. I obviously was never going to show my scars — I don't need more people being able to confirm them firsthand, and I don't want people...even if it wasn't a matter of keeping vigilante identities secret, I wouldn't want that awful pity that would come with the assumptions, and people would just think they could picture exactly what happened and I don't want people thinking about it. But. He was very determined to get me to show them, and if I wouldn't, apparently he would, and he pulled my shirt up, and I— I don't know what happened, I just freaked out and…" he stopped trying to explain, trailing off when Richard clearly wasn't listening, just mouthing incredulously, at a loss for words.
"Excuse me, he did WHAT?!" Richard finally demanded, reverting back to English almost at a yell.
Apparently not so lost for words anymore.
"He—" Richard abruptly switched back to Arabic. "I'm sorry, Dami," he said, gently removing him from his lap, "I gotta—" He got to his feet, blowing out a breath of air and running a frantic hand through his hair. "I'm gonna throw hands with an eleven year old! Today is the fucking day!" He tossed his hands out hysterically, his voice still raised and just as hysterical, and then he grabbed the doorknob and opened the door to the classroom.
Damian just watched, peeking around the corner from his spot on the floor, as Richard gave the teacher a slightly manic smile. "I'm so sorry once again, could I borrow him too? For just a minute?" He pointed at Giles.
Giles raised his eyebrows. "I'm not going anywhere with you. Stranger danger!"
Damian saw Richard's eyes blazing as he turned his manic smile on Giles and stalked toward him. "Cute! Because we definitely haven't met before for the exact same reason. But sure," he said, planting his hands with a thump on Giles' desk. "You wanna do this right here in front of everyone? Well I'm more than happy to."
Damian looked to Mrs. Hartley to see if she planned on interfering, but she seemed at a complete loss for what to do or say. Damian thought it was likely that she was conflicted, both because Richard was very charming and had made a good impression in the past, and that — like many white, middle class Americans — she likely had a great deal of respect for and deference to police, regardless of what they were doing. And possibly it helped that Giles was an incredible prick, and he made the teachers' lives hell too, so maybe she wouldn't mind seeing him get knocked down a peg so much, even if a random grown adult yelling (...well, not technically yelling, but threatening...well, not technically that either, but there was an aura of bitching out about the situation, for lack of better terminology) at an eleven year old child was something that generally should probably be stopped.
"Cool," Giles said, trying overly hard to sound bored and unaffected by the situation in Damian's humble opinion.
"You do not EVER try to take someone's clothes off without their permission, you little creep."
"Woah," Giles leaned back. "It was his shirt, he's a dude, I just wanted to see his scars."
"Look at me. I don't care that it was just his shirt. You DON'T have a right to see other people's bodies. You DON'T have a right to touch them. There is a term for that, and that term is sexual harassment — yeah buddy, it is, don't interrupt me," Richard said holding his finger up, when Giles tried to protest. "If you did the exact same things you did today in a place of work, you would be fired. For sexual harassment. You need to start getting yourself and your behavior in line before you get out into the adult world and find yourself completely screwed by it."
Giles got a smarmy little look on his face, which Damian recognised very well as meaning he was about to try to goad Richard with something he was pleased to have thought up, something awful enough to try and make him snap.
"You don't care about my future. You just wanna lecture and sound high and mighty and adult so you can be a white knight for poor little Damian who can't fight his own battles, so he keeps spreading his legs for you."
Richard smiled slowly. Giles really underestimated what it took to make him snap; no, he just made Richard get mean. But in that underhanded way he had, the way where he would drown you with honey and concern at the same time. "And see, this is exactly what I mean. All you know how to do is try to push people's buttons." His voice was practically a beautific croon. "Why, though? Because it gets you attention."
He certainly had Giles' attention now.
"Any kind of attention is good in your book, isn't it? You're just starved to be looked at." Richard continued, and his soft sympathy sounded so sincere as he tilted his head. "The problem is...you don't feel looked at, do you? This kind of attention feels so empty, doesn't it? Because people don't know you, Trent. All they know is this guise, this façade of a bully; all they hear is mean-spirited vitriol about...anyone. People they care about. People who they share the same traits with that you're picking on. Sure, people try to stay on your good side, because they don't want that to be them, but Trent. That's such...fake, empty, temporary attention. They don't really know you, you don't really know them, you don't care about each other. How can you fill the hole your mother leaves because her love doesn't feel big enough, when that's not love, that's not even liking."
Giles was staring into Richard's eyes as if hypnotised, an odd, almost hurt look on his face.
"Maybe you think you can just...eke by with that cold, cardboard imitation affection, but, I really hate to tell you, that well's gonna be drying up soon. See, the thing is, people are gonna start to get real tired of the immaturity of all of this…" Richard paused, as if he really didn't want to say what was coming next, "and they're gonna start to leave." He made a sympathetic face and nodded his head understandingly. "Yeah. The older you get, the more emotional maturity people start gaining, and...well, they really just...don't want anything to do with childish bullies anymore. And with that emotional maturity comes caring a lot less what silly little mean-spirited people think, and it gets so much easier to ignore all those little jabs and barbs that you think are so well engineered to hurt. But the fear doesn't work anymore. It won't keep them close, Trent. Not even those shallow, empty, so-called acquaintances. And you'll be left alone," Richard made a sympathetically pained face, "and lonely. And it's going to hurt. You're not gonna get any of that attention anymore that you need just so badly.
"No matter how wildly you act out to try to grab any of it back...well, I think you've seen your share of people ranting and raving around Gotham — they could be stark naked and waving a flag set aflame, singing opera at the top of their lungs, and I'm sure you've seen how everybody handles it. They just...walk on by. Because that's how it is in the adult world. We just...don't want to get involved with that. We don't have the time or the energy or the want for unnecessary drama.
"The only solution is to go in the other direction. To get close to people. And to do that, you have to learn to let down those mean-spirited walls. And maybe you have to learn who you are first, but that's okay, you will. As long as you try. Because you don't wanna be left all alone, do you? Alone, and hurting, and empty inside, that's just no way to live."
Richard was quiet for a moment. "Yeah, I thought so, bud," he said softly, lightly patting the desk twice, face the picture of empathy. He took a deep breath, and his caring face slowly eased away as his tone changed back to his regular speaking voice. "So. To answer your question — and I'm going to assume it was a question, and not a statement, as you so...interestingly put it — I'm Damian's brother and one of his legal guardians." He leaned in the slightest bit. "Which means I think of him like a son, and I think you know that," he finished, soft, sickly sweet, and with a knowing look.
"In fact," he continued, his voice rising slightly and taking on a bit more of an edge as he leaned back again and finally looked up, away from Giles' eyes, with an overacted thoughtful expression, "I know you know that. Because at our first meeting with the vice principal, about you bullying Damian, the question of the legitimacy of my guardianship over Damian specifically came up. Huh. Funny how that is." He tapped a finger to his lips and looked back down at Giles with a crease between his brows. "You were there," he said, pointing the finger at Giles. "Oh, you know what, your mother was too, so I'm sure she can remind you if you forgot."
Giles was still blinking as if coming out of a trance, and his expression faintly conveyed what the fuck just happened. His eyes focused back on Richard's face, and his expression turned defensive, his defensiveness probably exacerbated by how off-balance Damian thought he still looked to be.
"Well the only thing I remember about that meeting was how buddy-buddy you seemed to be with Mr. Booker, like he always had your back for some particular reason. And we all know how he turned out to be."
Richard laughed, a genuine, gleeful laugh. "Oh I hate to be the one to tell you this, considering what you're implying and how...obviously well constructed that little narrative is," he said sarcastically. "But, funny story, I was actually the one who noticed his creepy ass behavior. At that meeting. And contacted Commissioner Gordon about it and made sure he got properly investigated. Which led to his arrest and obviously his removal from his position here, and hopefully from all proximity to any children for the rest of his life. So. You're welcome."
Giles blinked at him.
"The Commissioner is a kind man, very willing to sit down with civilians, I'm sure he wouldn't mind you asking about the case and who sent in the tip, considering your obvious proximity to it," Richard reassured.
It seemed to take Giles' brain a few moments to catch up. "Wait, what creepy ass behavior, what was he doing at the meeting? I was only out of the room for like five minutes tops."
Richard raised his eyebrows. "It was definitely while you were in the room. You didn't notice the way he was...looking?"
"At me?!" Giles sounded slightly panicked.
"At Damian," Richard said, clearly displeased.
"Oh." Giles relaxed and rolled his eyes. "Damian will say anything for attention."
"I noticed it, you little idiot. He was— It was so uncomfortable. I don't know why you think Damian is an attention-seeker, he hates getting attention and I know you can see that; I know you sure as hell banked on it in the beginning, trying to twist your bullying into his fault before the teachers figured you out. I had to get Damian to tell me that Mr. Booker had checked him out before and that he'd noticed him doing it to other kids too, but he didn't think anything could be done because it was 'just looking'." Richard held up air quotes, and then narrowed his eyes. "It's hardly ever just looking — that's why I contacted the Commissioner and made sure the GCPD did a good comb through his personal computer."
"Well— well—" Giles stuttered, clearly grasping at straws. "You called Damian baby when you came in, that's fucking creepy!"
"Wow, you're really stuck on this, huh?" Richard asked, just a bit of patronising slipping into his tone. "Okay," he apparently decided to continue humoring him. "First of all, parents call their children baby or babe all the time — my mother did — totally not weird or creepy. But second of all, it doesn't even matter, because I didn't call him baby. I called him habibi."
At Giles' blank look, Richard explained. "It's an Arabic endearment, it means like dear or darling, and, yes, it's commonly used between family members, especially from parents to children. Damian's mother used to call him habibi. Bruce has called him habibi. Hell, I'm pretty sure even Jay has called him habibi before."
"So you say. Dear and darling sounds romantic," Giles said stubbornly.
Richard rolled his eyes. "You could google it. It's very easy to fact-check. H-A-B-I-B-I. And once again, even in English, parents call their children those things all the time, so it's really not, but check it when you get out of school; I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to have your phone out in class."
Damian was pretty sure none of this was supposed to be happening during class, and the phone would be the least of their concerns, but perhaps that was just him.
Giles narrowed his eyes. "You've just got a smart answer for everything, don't you?"
Richard huffed out an incredulous laugh. "Yeah, because what you're accusing me of is ridiculous."
"Well then why is he always all over you when he bugs the fuck out when anyone else touches him at all?"
"Do you listen to yourself?" Richard looked at him like he was stupid. "He knows me, he trusts me, he knows I'm safe; I'm a brother and a parental figure, him being comfortable with me isn't surprising. He does not know any of you well enough for that; and you in particular it also isn't surprising that he wouldn't be comfortable with, with the things you've said and done to him."
Giles sat back and rolled his eyes exaggeratedly with a sigh. "Oh right, this again, because it's always this: poor little Damian, we all need to treat him special because he went and got raped. I'm sure he's just so scared," he said mockingly. "Any one of us just trying to get his attention or move him out of the way could do it again."
Damian's fists and jaw clenched.
Richard just watched Giles for a moment. "You know, it's funny," he said quietly, "you actually have no idea what happened to Damian." He let that hang in the air for a moment. "You just like making your little assumptions, like you were there, like you know what happened and how, like you know anything about it. But you don't. You think you can imagine what happened, picture it in your head. But you can't. You have no idea. None. And you're never going to.
"I think you've always known that too, because you speculate about so many different scenarios to Damian's face...trying to goad him into correcting you. Because you're curious. You don't care that you don't have a right to that information, you don't care if you have to hurt people to get it, you just want to sate your curiosity. But Damian's not stupid. And he knows that too. And you're never gonna know. You don't get to. You don't have the right to.
"And you really don't have the right to try to talk about things you clearly don't even slightly understand."
Giles stuck his chin out. "Well he told me he ripped somebody's face off and blinded them, so clearly he is that stupid. Unless he was just making that up for attention like he always does."
Richard's eyes flicked over to Damian for a moment. "Perhaps you should heed that warning then," he said softly. "Because if he felt compelled to tell you about that, I'm pretty sure it was to make you understand the ways he may react if you push him in certain ways, and it's more for your safety than his. The thing about fear responses is that they aren't always controllable, so maybe you should keep that in mind when you're deliberately provoking someone with trauma who I think you're very aware at this point can hurt you severely. Given your present state. That's not a threat, that's a simple reality."
"It's not my fault he's a freak. What kind of middle schooler fights like he spends all his spare time training for it?"
Richard squinted at him. "Oh, gee," he said in an exaggerated deadpan. "I just can't possibly imagine why someone in Damian's position would want to learn to protect himself. I guess it's a mystery we'll never solve."
Richard waited for a moment, and when Giles didn't respond, he continued.
"I hope your mother has a good phone plan, because we're certainly going to be doing a lot of talking for the foreseeable future. Especially if you keep up with your behavior."
Giles gave him a venomous glare. "You're not calling my mom."
Richard looked distinctly unbothered. "Well I could take her out to coffee to talk, but something tells me you'd hate that a lot more."
Giles blinked at him. "Did you just threaten to date my mom?"
Richard gave a light laugh. "Nobody said that. I'll be in touch."
He turned away and headed back toward the door, Giles turning red with a potent mix of anger and embarrassment behind him.
"Yeah, well, maybe you should cover up your mixed scents if you don't want people to know you're fucking," he called after him.
Richard turned back, empathetic face back on in full-force. "Oh, Trent," he said, like Giles had just said something cringeworthy and incredibly sad — about himself though, not about Richard. "I'm so sorry your mother doesn't hug you and you can't tell the clear difference between that and intentional claim marking, or even other intimate scent mixing."
And with that, he turned and left the room, various whispers of, "Damn, he came for your life," "Shut up!" "Dude, Dick Grayson's totally gonna fuck your mom," "I said shut up!" and, "Did Damian seriously rip someone's face off?" "It sounded kinda like Dick Grayson was saying it was true, I dunno, that kid freaks me out," following him.
Damian ducked back around the corner and scooted down the wall a little bit, away from the door, hearing Mrs. Hartley finally attempt to regain control and attention of the class as Richard shut the door, giving him a tired smile.
"I'm sorry, habibi, I think I've taken up too much class time; I don't think I can keep you much longer."
Damian nodded. He didn't like it, but he understood and wouldn't complain. "It's okay, akhi."
Richard sat back down on the floor next to him, back against the wall, and slumped a little to lean his head on Damian's shoulder. "You are so precious to me," he murmured. "More than anything else. I love you unconditionally. You're doing so good."
Damian half thought the affirmations might be more for Richard to reassure himself rather than Damian. To reassure himself of Damian's continued presence. Damian didn't understand it, didn't understand how or why, couldn't see what he possibly brought other than more burdens, but...sometimes it seemed like Richard needed him too.
They sat there in comfortable silence for another minute, before Richard reluctantly shifted away. "Okay, I'm sorry habibi, I gotta let you go. I'll see you later, okay?"
Richard got to his feet, holding out a hand for Damian to grab, and pulled him to his feet.
Damian dawdled for a few moments, and maybe he was a bit obvious, because Richard asked, "Do you want another hug?"
Damian just stepped into his arms instead of answering, wrapping his arms tight around Richard's waist and burying his face against him, inhaling his scent.
Richard squeezed him tightly and curled over him. "I love you," he said again quietly, and pressed a kiss to the top of Damian's head.
And then Damian had to let go. Damian thought it must feel a lot like ripping away a comfort blanket from a toddler, except at least twice as bad.
And then it was back into the fucking classroom for him.
***
Coach Gary Mathers scrubbed at his tired eyes and leaned back in his shitty little folding chair at his shitty little desk in his shitty little office, tipping his head back and giving a small groan. The Wayne kid was killing him. Genuinely killing him, like he thought he had to have found at least triple the grey hairs as usual since meeting the kid.
He just. The kid stressed him the fuck out, but it also...god it hurt to think about his situation. Physically hurt, deep in his chest, watery and achy and tight, and sometimes he just wished he had the power to...create a little...bubble around the kid or something. Just fucking. Keep everyone — because god knows, the kid didn't have any fucking friends — just away. Not able to talk to him, or touch him, or get within three feet of him, maybe not even see him. A frosted glass bubble, that could work.
Yeah, if only. That fucking bubble would reduce Gary's headaches by at least eighty percent.
Yeah so the kid was the source of most of his troubles, and majorly stressed him out, but Gary couldn't help having a soft spot for him anyway. Maybe it was just sympathy, but shit, hadn't the kid been through enough? He just wished the kid would make it easier on himself and explain once in a while. Like maybe when he broke another child's bones would maybe be the time to start doing that. He was a stubborn little fucker though, and if he didn't wanna talk, he wasn't talking.
And okay, Gary was vacillating back and forth between being a little ashamed and feeling that it had been damn reasonable, okay, but that had genuinely pissed him off this time, almost sent him over the goddamn edge, because the kid fucking broke bones, how do you excuse that? Then, of course, the guilt had set in when he'd randomly selected a few boys to hold after class and told them they weren't leaving until they told him exactly what had happened in that locker room.
Catching them by surprise, and not selecting by friend groups or giving them any time to confer already gave a great leg up in making sure he got the real story, and Gary had a great bullshitometer so he was prepared to call these kids out when they started getting shifty. But, to his surprise, though they were silent at first, once one of them finally started talking it was like a dam broke and they all started spilling, corroborating and adding bits to things one of the others said, and all of it...seemed like the truth. And the truth was real fucked up.
God. Kids were...cruel. Kids could be so fucking cruel. Maybe that was just people in general, but fuck, he just didn't understand it. He didn't get how somebody could say those things — and he couldn't kid himself that Giles didn't understand the gravity or the reality of the situation. He knew. He knew alright, he just...enjoyed torturing Wayne. Had to get some sort of sick satisfaction out of it, enough that he kept lining back up for more beatings like he couldn't care less about getting injured yet again.
Of course, as soon as Gary had gotten the full story out of the kids he held back, and sent them on their way with hall passes, he called up the new substitute vice principal to explain the situation. He had noticed that Wayne had been sent back to Gym, which...was odd, since as far as he knew, the kid usually went home. But if things had truly gone south, surely they could always be corrected.
He really hadn't expected to be so wrong.
"Hello ma'am, this is Coach Mathers, I'm calling about Damian Wayne."
"I already dealt with him," Mrs. Holden had snapped back. "He's back in class. He should have returned to your class; did he not show up?"
"No, he was here, I just wanted to clear up some things about the...incident in the locker room. I talked to some of the boys after class to fin—"
"Listen, I'm going to level with you: I don't really care. I don't care how it went down, what I care about is the results; what I care about is that Mr. Wayne is back in class and his violent behavior is no longer being rewarded."
Gary balked. "Rew— What? Wayne wasn't the instigator—"
"He broke multiple bones on another child. I think we're a little past who exactly started it."
"But I don't think you understand, have you met Wayne? You have to know he's already presented, right. This was ab—"
"I don't care if he's a Beta, I treat every child the same regardless of anything else. I don't see race, religion, sexuality, background, class, or past — every child is going to be held to the same standards. That is equality, and I strive to have a fair and equal school. And that means Damian Wayne is not getting any special treatment."
And then she had hung up on him, her word apparently absolutely final.
Gary was just...he was still just...aghast, thinking about the conversation. At the pure callousness. And, and— well maybe that was technically equality, but it wasn't equity, it wasn't just, and it sure as hell wasn't fair.
***
Trent couldn't fucking sleep.
You'd think it'd be all the fucking pain, even with the meds to take the edge off, but no, it wasn't even that. It was...he just couldn't get that stupid shit from earlier out of his head. The things Dick Grayson had said to him — staring into his eyes and talking in that steady, low, soothing voice like a goddamn snake charmer, the fucking creep — it all just kept replaying and replaying and replaying again in his head.
Motherfucker probably did some weird voodoo shit. This was Gotham, you never know around here. And didn't he grow up in the circus? Probably some freak mystic or something taught him that shit while he was still in diapers.
Whatever. Trent didn't need, he didn't care about, he didn't have to listen to that psychobabble bullshit, it was just another fucking trick, and— shit, yeah he's a cop, they teach them to read people for interrogations, right? He didn't know shit, he was just making guesses based off of what little he'd seen and weaving it together to make it look like it held water, making it convincing, giving himself a jumping off point to make his weird little preachy points. Trent didn't need it.
He still couldn't sleep.
You don't feel looked at, do you? This kind of attention feels so empty, doesn't it? Because people don't know you, Trent. His brain provided, a soft susurration.
"God, just shut up, just shut the fuck up," he whispered — to himself, to Dick Grayson, to no one, he didn't know and maybe it didn't matter anymore. Maybe it was all the same in the end.
You don't wanna be left all alone, do you? Alone, and hurting, and empty inside, that's just no way to live.
He squeezed his eyes shut, and let out a small grunt as it pulled at his tender nose. Then, just because he could, he let out a louder scream of frustration. It didn't fucking matter, mom was working the fucking night shift again, who gave a shit? Nobody was around to fucking give a shit. Nobody was ever around to give a shit.
How can you fill the hole your mother leaves because her love doesn't feel big enough, when that's not love, that's not even liking.
***
Dick walked into Damian's school absolutely filled to the fucking brim with determination. He didn't care that that little turd Trent should be "at home resting" with his brand spanking new broken wrist and nose, a couple of brilliant shiners from the nose, and a nasty bruise on his cheek that looked like the blow that made it just might not've been very kind to his teeth; and he didn't give a shit what those parents had had to do to make the fucking time for this meeting — it was fucking happening. Yesterday was too much. Way too fucking much. It had been way too much a long time ago, and now it was just reaching wild, unseen levels.
Dick would not be leaving that room until this shit was resolved once and fucking for all one way or another. He didn't care if he had to get goddamn contracts signed in blood that those boys would never even remotely interact with Damian again, something was happening.
"Mr. Grayson!" Linda greeted him, as he stepped into the front office. "How lovely to see you! Oh, you look upset."
He plastered on a kind smile for her and started to fill out a slot on the visitor sheet. "Well, Damian is still getting bullied badly and we're about to have a meeting, and it's possible I'm out for blood this time." He said it lightly, with a cheerful laugh, and Linda indeed didn't seem at all concerned. She probably should've been. Dick meant it.
"Oh, that's too bad. I hope you're able to work it out," she said sympathetically, pulling open a drawer for a sheet of visitor stickers.
"Oh I'm not leaving until we do." He put the pen back in the cup, and took the sticker she held out for him, sticking it on his shirt. "Have a nice rest of your evening, Linda."
She smiled at him. "You too, Mr. Grayson. You and Damian take care."
As soon as he turned away, the pleasant façade dropped in an instant, and he stalked his way down the hall to the Principal's office.
Damian and the four little shitheads were already waiting inside, and Dick forced on another smile. "Hello Ms. Muñez, nice to formally meet you." He held his hand out, and she gave a single, firm handshake. "I'm Dick Grayson, one of Damian's legal guardians."
"Nice to meet you too. We're just waiting for the other parents to arrive, and then we're going to move this to a conference room, because it's a bit small in here, I think. Mrs. Holden will also be joining us; she wanted a better scope on the situation after her interaction with Damian yesterday."
Oh, more time with that oh-so-charming substitute vice principal. Goody.
Dick nodded.
Over the course of the next fifteen minutes, the other parents slowly trickled in, and then finally Mrs. Holden appeared, completing their group, and Principal Muñez directed them out and down the hall into the guidance office, and into the empty meeting room within.
She shut the door behind the last of the group as everybody started to settle into the rolling chairs around the oblong table, and then she strode over to sit herself beside Mrs. Holden at one end.
"Alright, would anybody like to begin?" She prompted.
Surprisingly, it was none of the children or parents who spoke up, it was Mrs. Holden, and her tone was firm and brusque as she directed her attention right at Damian. "I would. First thing I want to know is if you felt you were victimised, why you didn't explain yourself. The fact that you didn't and only now is this story coming up makes it seem like it's been constructed after the fact."
"He's a psycho who attacked me," Trent butted in, pressing his advantage.
Dick looked over at the little shit. Ugh, smarmy look on his face. "Damian had an uncontrollable fear response due to his PTSD when you deliberately provoked him and subsequently triggered him."
Trent squinted, and then scoffed, looking away, which Dick took to mean he didn't understand what Dick had just said. What were they teaching kids these days? Or what weren't they, he guessed — the kid was eleven, that seemed old enough to know about this sort of thing to him. Then again, maybe Dick had a...fairly different reference of experience growing up.
"When you tried to remove his shirt, that was a trigger," Dick tried to explain. "That caused him to go into fight or flight, which you've probably heard of. Obviously he is prone to the 'fight' side of things. His rational brain and any reasoning was offline, all he knew was that he needed to protect himself."
"Still sounds psycho to me," Trent said obstinately.
"That was uncalled for, and what Mr. Grayson is saying is a well documented and normal phenomenon," Ms. Muñez said. "PTSD is very common, especially in this city, and I think you should think about that before you start making generalisations."
She turned to Mrs. Holden. "I also was informed by Coach Mathers that he had taken several boys aside after class and sat them down to have them explain to him what happened in the locker room. What they said matches what Mr. Grayson says, and I find it difficult to believe they could have coordinated that so quickly. Trent, Michael, Corey, and Dan also have a history of bullying Damian. I don't think there's any real doubt as to who the aggressor was."
Mrs. Holden nodded and looked back at Damian. "Fine, so why didn't you say anything?"
There was a silence.
Mrs. Holden gave Damian a stern look. "So you're back to not talking?"
Damian's lips pressed together briefly, but then he surprised Dick completely by saying, "I don't like to talk about it, ma'am."
"And why is that?" She challenged.
Damian was quiet for a moment before finally responding robotically. "I just don't like to talk about it, ma'am."
What fresh hell was this shit? Oh Dick did not like this at all. Normally he knew Damian wouldn't have said anything because he didn't have an answer to give, or at least not one he was comfortable giving. And the way Damian's tone shifted said a lot about his discomfort and the way being pushed on the subject was forcing him to think about it all, and that he was subsequently shutting down his emotions. And the very un-Damian-like fastidious ma'ams on every response? The idea of her trying to force Damian into a certain shape just because she had the authority to do so was really rubbing Dick the wrong way.
"That's not a response," she said.
"Look," Dick interrupted, and fuck no he was not gonna call her ma'am no matter how hard she glared. "You can't see why he just might not be eager to recount vitriol spewed at him that was designed to play into his trauma? Why he might not want to risk putting those images or ideas about him in other people's heads?"
"I'm saying how are we supposed to do our jobs if he won't tell us what happens!" She defended.
Dick threw his arm out toward Ms. Muñez, referencing her earlier words. "Clearly there are other people to get an account from! These boys like an audience! There's no need to try to force Damian through that, and quite frankly, you can't. I know him and it literally will not matter what you threaten him with, he will not tell you."
"Well you know, he tells you! Why can't he tell an administrator!" She shot right back, sounding at wits end.
Dick looked at her disbelievingly. "How do you think that's at all the same? First of all, I don't make him tell me, he only tells me when he wants to, and he doesn't always tell me, and that's okay. And secondly, the reason he's okay sharing with me is that he feels safe. He knows me, he knows that I know him, he knows I won't judge him and that my opinions of him won't be swayed by anything he tells me, he knows I won't ever reinforce any of that, he knows I will provide understanding and comfort and support. He doesn't know you. You don't really know him. You don't understand. And absolutely forget the rest of it." Dick leaned forward over the table. "You aren't me. He doesn't trust you. And he doesn't have to."
"He still shouldn't be purposely getting in the way of the system. It's obstructing justice, it's making us go on a whole goose chase to try to figure out the facts when he could just tell us so we can deal with it properly."
"Mrs. Holden," Ms. Muñez said quietly, and not unkindly. "Mr. Grayson is right, if there are other sources, I don't see why Damian should have to be the one to tell us if he doesn't want to, and I don't think it's particularly much harder to get the story from them. And he also may be right that there is no real way to make him tell us. I think it would be best to let the issue rest."
Mrs. Holden sat back and pursed her lips, but she didn't look pleased about it.
There was silence for a few moments, before one of the parents nudged their child, who straightened up with a look of trepidation, and nudged the other bully next to him, who in turn nudged the next. All except Trent.
"We, um, or I...wanted to...apologise," the first one — Michael — said. And he did actually sound sincere, if very nervous. He looked sincere too, staring straight at Damian with vulnerable eyes, although Damian was staring rather studiously at the tabletop.
"Yeah, me too," Corey said earnestly. "I'm sorry."
"I am too," Dan said. "Seriously. I...it was messed up, we shouldn't have participated in that."
There was a pregnant pause.
"Yeah, that, same," Trent said, not sounding remotely like he meant it.
Uh huh.
Dick was not a very trusting person when it came to protecting Damian. The boys, minus Trent (which...yeah, he'd get to that), sounded pretty earnest, but Dick didn't want to automatically put weight on that, especially when it seemed a little too good to be true.
"Why should we believe you?" Dick asked flatly. "Tell us what made you suddenly change your minds."
Dan swallowed hard. "It was...it was really clear after what happened how shaken up he was just by that, I mean Trent barely even moved his shirt; it was like he couldn't breathe right for a couple minutes, and that's...that's not a joke."
Michael and Corey were nodding.
"Exactly," Michael said.
"And the…" Corey started hesitantly. "The look in his eyes when Trent tried to lift up his shirt and he freaked out, it was…"
Damian abruptly stood up from the table and headed toward the door.
"Dami, I'm sorry," Dick said in Arabic, turning to look after him. "But this does really need to be done."
"I know, I just don't want to be here. I can't." Damian hastened to the exit, but Mrs. Holden was already standing up.
"Excuse me, where do you think you're going, young man?" She got up from her chair to follow him, and Dick got up to intercept her. "Get back in here."
The door clicked shut behind Damian, and Dick slid in front of it, blocking it. "He can't be in here right now."
Mrs. Holden gave him an unimpressed and very disapproving look. "I don't know about you, but my policy is equality, and if the rest of these boys are sitting in here, then he needs to be as well. I don't do preferential treatment. He may think he can just walk out whenever he feels like it if that's what you let him get away with, but we can't just have the chaos of everybody doing as they please."
Dick looked at her disbelievingly. "Are you joking? You think this is about special treatment? You want to force a child to revisit his trauma and listen to the fact that everybody can see it, everybody just knows when they shouldn't be allowed to, when it should be his choice?"
She balked. "Look, nobody's forcing him to revisit his trauma, they're just recounting what they saw yesterday."
"That's exactly what it is, though," Dick said stubbornly. "Because talking about those things, especially talking about them like that, saying they can see the way he's still affected by his past, very, very much forces him to think about those things. And I think you can imagine why he just might not want to do that."
More than that, he knew Damian couldn't bear the thought of everyone seeing, of having been so vulnerable in front of these people he didn't trust, who didn't deserve to know. It surely only contributed to feeling of unsafety, the fact that there had been cracks in his defences, in the hard walls he kept up.
Mrs. Holden stared at Dick for a long moment, not necessarily looking like she was going to give, before Ms. Muñez cut in. "Mrs. Holden, I think we should just drop it for now and continue on with the meeting."
The substitute vice principal accepted that with as much grace as last time, which was to say grace, but all of it plastic and hammered tightly on, with mutiny roiling not far beneath.
They took their seats again, and Dick turned to Trent. "What about you, Trent? Why have you changed your mind, why should I believe you're sincere?"
Trent's face could only be described as belligerent, and he took his time before answering with a noncommittal shrug and a head jerk at the other boys. "I dunno. That stuff."
Dick narrowed his eyes. "Hmm. Do you think you could give us a bit more?"
Trent glared at him. "What do you want me to say? Because you guys won't let me leave unless I apologise!"
"So...you aren't sincere, and we can't actually trust that you won't just do it again," Dick said slowly.
Trent just squared his jaw and shrugged.
"You don't see anything wrong with any of your actions — in the whole school year or yesterday?" Ms. Muñez prodded. "You don't think maybe Damian didn't do anything to deserve any of that?"
"It's not my fault he's a slut and went out and got himself raped," Trent said petulantly.
Well, if nothing else, the kid had balls. Stupid as shit, but definitely gutsy. Anything to keep all the attention firmly riveted on him, though, Dick supposed.
There was a small silence, and Ms. Giles' jaw actually dropped open a little.
"Trent!" She snapped. "What is wrong with you? I know I didn't raise you to say things like that!"
Trent raised his chin defiantly. "I don't know if you really raised me at all."
She gave him a pissed off, disbelieving look. "What exactly do you want me to do? Let us starve? You wanna be homeless? I have to work to support us, Trent."
"No," Trent mumbled, but it still sounded a little mutinous.
"I'm doing my best. You think I don't try to schedule shifts so I can get as much time with you as possible? This is the real world, life ain't easy!"
Trent just huffed and looked away.
"Now I know you know what those words mean, and I know you know damn well that boy didn't want any of that. You're always talking about him freaking out, you don't think that's proof enough?" His mother pressed.
Trent still didn't respond.
"Trent Roger Giles, I am talking to you, you better look at me."
That got him to meet her eyes.
"Tell me," she said very deliberately, "how exactly it is that you think — in any situation — that a full grown adult taking advantage of a child says anything about that child?"
"You don't know they were taking advantage! For all you know he mighta gone after it himself," Trent defended.
"What'd I just tell you?" His mother demanded. "You see how shook up that boy is, if he wanted it you think he'd be messed up and jumpy about it? Nevermind that a child can't consent anyway, that it's always taking advantage." She gave an angry sigh. "I don't think you're getting this:" she leaned forward, "it could have been you. It could have just as easily been you. Think about that. Think about a grown ass adult coming after you. What exactly do you think is to be made fun of about that situation?"
"It wouldn't ever be me!" Giles protested. "Because I'm not a slut, and I'd fight them off."
"Honey, that boy is half feral," she said sharply, her eyes flashing. "If it happened to him, what makes you think you could do anything?"
Trent just clenched his jaw and said nothing.
"That's what I thought. Now you better mean it this time when you apologise."
Trent jutted his jaw out. "'M not freakin' apologising. He's got all of you just wrapped around his finger just because he plays the poor little victim card and you don't even see it, you just wanna go outta your way to treat him so special."
If looks could kill, Trent would have been dead by his mother's hands in an instant. "I don't even know what else to do with you. You just push and push, and I would tell you that one day you're gonna push the wrong person too far, but look at you — honey, he hospitalised you, and you're still pushing. What is it going to take? Are you trying to die? Because I don't know if you noticed, but this is Gotham, and that typa crap? It gets you in a coffin best case scenario. And more'n likely a closed casket funeral. Worst case, an unmarked grave or the harbor, and they will never find you.
"I don't know why you can't let this go, but I can't afford any more hospital visits. And honey. I would sincerely like you in one piece. I'm genuinely afraid that boy is gonna do you some permanent damage if you keep going like this, and it won't even be his fault. Do you understand what PTSD is?"
"I understand that you're taking his side over your own son!" Trent shot back.
His mother put her hands up in surrender and turned away. "I'm not even gonna entertain this. I'm done. That's not even remotely what this is about, and if you can't see that I'm looking out for you, then I just— I don't know what to tell you. I'm done. Somebody else talk to him because clearly I am just not the one who's gonna get through to him — if anyone is." She closed her eyes, looking exhausted. "I don't know what I'm the one to do, because clearly I messed up somewhere, raising a child who calls rape victims sluts and doesn't even act ashamed about it."
"Well maybe I wouldn't say it if he didn't act like one," Trent snarked.
"That's enough, young man," Mrs. Holden said sternly.
There were a few moments of silence, before Dick took a deep breath. He didn't know if he should say this, wasn't...super comfortable with these people knowing, but...shit, it might be the only way to really get through to the kid.
"You know," he said quietly, and immediately he felt all eyes on him, though he kept his gaze trained on the tabletop, running his fingers aimlessly back and forth a little over it, "I was raped." There was a beat of silence. "Twice."
Dick closed his eyes and took another bracing breath. "I don't really talk about it. Never dealt with it. Never told anyone, actually, except Damian, because he...deserved to know he wasn't alone. A few other people know about the first one because the...other person...told them. But that's it. And people like you, people who say the things you say, people who perpetuate certain stigmas...are a lot of the reason why.
"It's actually kind of funny, you know. Because, after the first one — right when they told my...friends, I guess — the very first thing that happened, the very first reaction anyone had, was to call me a slut. And that...that was really the start of a slippery slope. It, along with some other stuff that was said, made me feel like it was my fault. It was definitely a factor in ending my relationship. My goddamn engagement. The person I was supposed to spend the rest of my life with. But I blamed myself for that too and I pushed it all down and I just never talked about it or dealt with it and tried not to think about it.
"And so...when the second one happened. Well, that's kind of funny too, actually. Because...well a little before it happened, they kissed me when I didn't want it, and my partner at the time (who it happened in front of) told me when I was upset that...I should just be used to it. That I shouldn't be surprised, because that's just what people do to me. And they do, it's far from the first time it's happened — I'm not even sure I could count how many times people have kissed or groped me without my consent. And my partner didn't call me a slut, but that sure fed into those thoughts. Of course it was my fault, it's me, it's not that they're the ones going around kissing people without their consent, oh no, it's clearly that I'm just such a slut I brought it on myself. That's just what people do to me because I'm a goddamn slut and they know it and clearly I'm asking for it even if I'm not asking for it, even when I'm saying no.
"Oh, and, once again, that wasn't the crux of destroying that relationship, but it was the straw that broke the camel's back. So, two for two and this one didn't even have to be a rape. Yet.
"So then the second one happened. And...I ended up in a relationship with them. After they raped me. Almost got married, actually." Dick clicked his tongue. "Marry your rapist: great decisions by Dick, number 438." He sighed. "See, the thing that's funny about this whole situation, though...is that if I had told anyone, literally anyone who I was close and talking to at the time, about what happened, none of the rest of that would've happened. I wouldn't have to live with the...really mixed up feelings, I wouldn't have had that close call. Because I'm positive anyone at all around me would've immediately told me just how incredibly messed up that night was and made me see it and gotten me the hell away from them.
"But I didn't. I didn't say anything to anyone, because I was already primed into that cycle of thoughts from the first one, and the thing with the kiss and the shitty victim blaming of my partner had just reinforced it. I'm a slut. I must have been asking for it. Anything wrong with it must be my fault. If I'm feeling anything bad about it I should probably just shut the hell up. I don't even take me seriously, why would anybody else take me seriously? It's not a big deal. What, I'm complaining now because somebody wanted to have sex with me — oh how horrible — that's stupid. It's just sex, I'm a man, I'm supposed to want it. I must have wanted it. If I feel dirty it has to just be because I'm such a slut.
"And, you know, it doesn't just affect the people you say it directly to either. Everybody in the room, everybody in the hallway, wherever you are, everybody around you is listening and they hear it. And they internalise it just the same. And if that ever happens to them...well, you know the cycle; they already know that people in their position are sluts, so they must be, and so it starts. Or, god forbid, it happens to someone close to them and they regurgitate that at them, just spreading more pain and suffering." Dick finally looked up and met Trent's eyes. "Your actions have real consequences. Horrible, awful, life altering, long reaching consequences."
There was a long silence before Trent finally broke eye contact. He looked uncomfortable, but scoffed with false bravado as he looked around the table. "You really believe that? Come on, he totally just made that up to play the sympathy card just like Damian."
His mother's head whipped over to look at him, and her face looked like she'd never seen him before in her life.
Dick just let out a slow breath, staring down at the tabletop again. "You really think I'd make something like that up, huh," he said quietly, after a moment. "You're in deep, kid. You're in deep."
Trent narrowed his eyes. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"You're deep in denial," Dick said simply. "You don't wanna face the fact that the things you do are objectively...really shitty. And that that might not say great things about you as a person. Nobody wants to be a shitty person. But you don't have to be, you can always just...stop. You love further victimising victims because they seem like easy prey, and I guess I just put a nice little target on my back for you, served up on a silver platter, but the joke is, it was to help you. To try to get through to you. You don't have to keep shooting those targets — they don't have to be targets at all, they can just be people. You can just stop before you dig yourself so deep you end up buried alive."
"I don't need more of your psychoanalysing crap again," Trent bit back. "Maybe you should turn it on yourself and sort out why you're so convinced you're not a slut anymore. I mean, you're not a small guy. Sure, you're not an Alpha, but you totally have muscles, and you're not an Omega — you coulda done something if you wanted to."
And it was kind of funny, honestly. The way Dick had apparently fooled even Trent, the kid who lived to ferret out weak spots, into thinking he really believed that. Because Dick wasn't convinced at all he wasn't a slut, didn't believe any of the shit he implied with his speech, the way he'd used past tense for all of those thoughts, like he was over them.
Like he'd said: he'd never fucking dealt with any of it. And sure, sure he cognitively knew it — shit, he'd just said it, he said similar things to Damian about his situation and meant them. But. When it came to himself…that didn't make it feel true. He could try to rationalise until he was blue in the face, but he still felt deep, deep inside that he was a fucking slut, and more than that, that all of it was completely and utterly his fault. And all he could do was just push it down and push it down and push it down.
"Trent!" Ms. Giles exclaimed. "Shut your mouth! You have no idea how strong the other person was, and I think you're old enough to know that it's not just about that; sometimes it's psychological. A lot of times it's psychological."
Trent was undeterred. "Well that just makes him a pussy."
She leaned toward her son, her voice going low and dangerous. "Don't you ever say something like that again. It does not." She held (rather intensely pissed) eye contact with him for a moment, and then, turned back to Dick. "I am so sorry for his behavior, I don't know what is wrong with him."
Dick held up a hand. "It's fine. I've heard worse." He looked at Trent, and added dryly, "And...you're an eleven year old who doesn't know shit, so...it's not gonna keep me up at night."
And that was true too. Nothing that little brat could say was worse than the things Dick already thought about himself, and Dick was already an expert at running from his own thoughts, pushing them down and locking them away.
The room fell to a tense silence.
The principal finally broke it, after a long minute. "So…Trent. I take it you still aren't agreeable to apologising to Damian in any sincere fashion?"
"No," he grunted.
She sat up straighter and huffed out a heavy breath, as if collecting herself. "Well then, I'm sorry to say, after this meeting and the behavior displayed, I feel as if I have no choice but to pursue expulsion if you start another altercation with Damian." She gave him a hard look. "Understand that this is one chance to get your act together for good. No exceptions. This repeated intentional victimisation of a student, especially surrounding such a sensitive matter, is completely unacceptable, and I cannot allow it to continue in my school."
Mrs. Giles took one look over at her son's defiant face and pinched the bridge of her nose. "No, fuck it, he's gonna do it again, look at him, I'm not even gonna put that kid through that. I'll just go ahead and transfer him." She sighed. "He won't be coming back here, it'll just be...medical rest while we get it sorted I guess. Just. Can you help me with that?"
"Of course, yes," Ms. Muñez said, sitting back. "We can talk in my office."
"Thank you," Ms. Giles sighed.
"Alright, well, if that's everything, then I think we're all good to go. Have a good evening everyone," Ms. Muñez dismissed them all.
"Sorry," Trent's mother said again, looking at Dick.
He just gave her a nod and a small smile, and headed around the table to where Ms. Muñez and Mrs. Holden were standing from their seats.
"Damian won't have to serve the rest of his detentions, will he? Since he didn't do anything wrong?" He asked, making sure to meet Mrs. Holden's eyes as well, since she had been the one to set them.
"No, of course not," Ms. Muñez reassured.
Mrs. Holden pursed her lips, but gave a decisive nod. "I'm glad we managed to sort out the truth of the matter and get everything straightened out."
And Dick thought she really was telling the truth, but oh it was so clear how much she hated being wrong.
Dick gave them both a smile and thanked them (mostly looking at Ms. Muñez) for their help, and then set off to find Damian.
Damian was sitting against the wall to the side on his phone with headphones in, but he looked up and took out one earbud when Dick stopped in front of him. "Akhi. What's the final...consensus?"
Dick held out a hand for Damian to grab, and pulled him to his feet. "Trent is getting transferred to a new school," he said in Arabic, since some of the others were still in the guidance office in hearing range, and it felt a little like gloating to say it in front of them, especially with his rather gleeful tone of voice. "He won't be coming back here, like not even tomorrow; his mother is very done with him."
"Shit, really?" Damian asked, automatically replying in Arabic too, and it made Dick's heart warm to hear actual legitimate wonderment in his voice for once, even if the subject wasn't ideal.
"Yes! And no more detentions for you. Do you wanna go celebrate? Let's go get ice cream." Dick started walking out toward the front entrance, and Damian followed along right beside him.
Damian had a small smile on his face that he looked to be attempting to fight down, but was peeking out nonetheless. "Can I get reese's pieces and oreos?"
"You can get whatever you want, darling. Go wild."
Damian turned his face away a little, but Dick was pretty damn sure he saw the corners of Damian's lips tug up just a little bit more. Yeah. Damian was definitely still a kid in there, and Dick was gonna make damn sure he got to enjoy that while he had it.