Chapter Text
They wait. They wait. They spend a long time waiting.
That’s all there is.
The wait.
It doesn’t matter that they do other things in between. Little, unimportant things to distract themselves. The dining room is cleaned. Unopened presents rounded up and tucked away someplace. For later, hopefully. (For never, maybe.)
Broken wood and glass is carefully swept and disposed of. Ruined decorations are removed with dead expressions.
Not dead. Not dead. Don’t think that. Don’t think it.
The knives are done away with. Locked in a box to be destroyed.
His brother, the one on the opposite end of the knife, washes his hands again and again, until the other, the one who’d said it, drags him away and holds him in place. Holds him, because he himself is too big to be held, holds him, because he cannot hold the other.
They wait.
The waiting tears them apart.
Never has time moved so slowly. Never has breathing hurt this much. The uncertainty, the fear, the not knowing. It makes waiting impossible, except that’s all he can do.
He can’t be there while Alfred, then Leslie, try to keep his brother with them. While they make sure whatever damage Damian did to himself doesn’t end his story too early. This is not how it’s supposed to be. This is not what was supposed to happen.
He swallows around the lump in his throat that chokes him. Tries to suffocate him.
It’s his birthday.
It's Damian's birthday.
It was just supposed to be his birthday.
He wanted to celebrate it. He’d hoped it would bring a smile, even a small one, to the hauntingly blank face of his brother (his kid, his child, his son) that had been so ever present lately. Instead…he doesn’t even know. He can’t begin to fathom it.
What happened…the gorge rises in his throat and he sobs into his hand, silencing the sounds of his anguish as much as he could for the sake of his siblings.
That word. That fucking word.
Branded into his son’s skin, and they don’t know when it happened. How or by who. Damian never told them, never told Richard, and why would he ever think to ask if he’d been tortured lately, in a family of vigilantes and detectives, a manor of a half dozen people or more, Damian should have been safe.
Instead, there’s a word branded into his skin, for who knows how long—how long he’d been suffering, and how much. He doesn't know, and it tears him up inside that Dick has stood by, an unseeing witness to Damian’s pain.
He stands up abruptly, the others in their waiting startle. None of them had made any sudden movements since—well, since. Dick removes himself from the room they're all in, his even measured steps belying the urgency pushing him to go.
They don't ask him where he goes, and he doesn't say, he just goes and goes. Down the hall, down another, through a door. He's barely gotten it closed behind him before he's on his knees and throwing up everything in his stomach. Dick’s finger nails scrabble against cold tile as gags on the bitter acid, stomach churning in an effort to expel his being into once pristine porcelain. It doesn't stop, not even when all he's spitting is clear, mucusy bile, and the tears he'd been keeping in are forced from his eyes.
Raggedly he inhales, chest muscles groan in protest as Dick’s stomach continues to force more up, trying to force the horror in his body out through physical means. He can't stop even as everything in him begs for relief and he pants for air.
Dick doesn't think he deserves it, though, and the fact that Damian just tried to kill himself, that he might still succeed if Alfred and Leslie can’t stabilise him…He gags harder, spitting more bile into the water below him as it continues to pool in his mouth.
Part of him wonders how he'll survive this if Damian doesn’t (and part of him is already making promises to himself, to his demons , that he'll follow Damian—no matter where he goes, no matter if he has to do it himself, and doesn't care if his family never forgives him for it).
The oily feeling of grease, nausea and disgust, has him gagging again even if there’s nothing left but bile. His body is fighting him, his stomach rebelling, and each moment leaves him feeling more and more pathetic.
Still, it doesn’t stop. (And neither does the waiting.)
Failure, Damian knows it intimately. Failure, he acknowledges, is something he cannot escape.
He knows he's failed again when he becomes conscious of his chest moving, of the beeping of a heart monitor in his ear, the stern stiffness of new sheets against exposed skin, and the sour stinging scent of medical disinfectant.
He understands he’s failed to end his existence, to thwart fate and escape his destiny by taking his own life. Damian can’t believe that despite being raised as an assassin he failed to kill himself.
It’s almost amusing how ironic it is.
Almost, but not quite.
“Master Damian?” Alfred asks him. Damian doesn’t startle, even if he failed at registering Alfred’s presence. He’s too tired to loathe his continued existence. He settles for acknowledging that he does still exist, and that he has failed, and will continue to do so in everything he does.
He’s resigned himself to being the demon his family confirmed that he is, and he doesn’t bother with distinguishing now. Father’s family, or his, or not his, it doesn’t matter anymore. He tried to off himself and they saved him. It’s their own fault they’re stuck with a demon because they couldn’t get over themselves enough to let him die, Damian profusely does not care.
“Master Damian?” Alfred asks again, quieter.
Damian contemplates not answering, keeping his eyes closed and pretending to be asleep so that as always, Alfred will go away and Damian will be left alone. It would be better, easier, and unfair. Alfred has put up with Damian for this long, Damian could stand to show him the respect he deserves.
“Alfred.” Damian returns, opening his eyes. Alfred stands at the base of Damian’s hospital bed—not that they were in a hospital; imagine the scandal that would cause for the Wayne name—no, no hospitals for him, no one to see puppet-Damian with all of his stings cut and all his lies exposed on his skin. No one of course, but Alfred.
“My boy.” Alfred says, low and hurting. “What’s happened to you?”
Damian drags himself into a sitting position, ignoring the screaming protest of his self inflicted wound and Alfred’s actual protest. He takes in the hospital gown he wears, registering fully the fact that Alfred most likely has seen every single one of his scars now, and that he stands alone at the base of Damian’s bed.
It speaks volumes. Damian wishes he could break the speaker but—oh wait, he’d already tried.
“I’m sure you can read, Pennyworth.” Demon, demon, demon, demon, demon, writ all over his skin. “I happened. I ignored my true nature and had to have it spelt out for me.”
He smiles and imagines blood pouring from his mouth as easily as the venom which he now spoke with did. Except, that had already happened too.
Alfred recoils and Damian flinches himself. He hadn’t had someone react that way to him in….a while. Not since the last time Drake had been exposed to fear gas. Not since Tim had recovered and spent the following weeks flinching away from Damian like he’d tried (and failed, a recurring theme) to kill him again.
But Damian deserves it, he reminds himself. Their fear and their hate. He’d dreamed of being something he wasn’t, had hoped for just a moment, and been brutally reminded that it wasn’t his place to dream and hope, to hug and be held. He is unworthy of Alfred’s concern, and unworthy of being alive.
Demons deserved to die and Damian had tried, he tried and he failed, and he tries and he fails, and he can’t—
Damian sobs. He cries with everything in him, everything screaming in pain, everything in his soul. He cries as his head pounds like a crowbar is being bashed repeatedly into his skull, he cries until he can’t breath. He cries himself to sleep.
He cries himself into exhaustion with arms wrapped around him and won’t wake until morning comes.
(And so still, the others wait.)
They’re waiting. They’d picked a room with enough space for all of them and stayed there. It’s atypical in a way. Usually when one of them is injured, the others separate. There is crime to be fought, missions to go on, cases to be solved, life to be lived. They all have things to do, and maybe they can stop in for a moment at a time, and maybe they make sure that person is never alone, but they’re never all here.
This is different.
It’s like everything has been put on pause, it’s like time has stopped, like life itself is holding its breath while they wait . It’s never ending.
Until it does.
With his hands held captive by Jason (to stop the shaking and the scratching and the press of sharp nails digging into breakable skin) tucked into the front pocket of Jason’s red hoodie. His chin is hooked over Jason’s shoulder putting Tim in the prime position to keep an eye on the doorway. He keeps silent sentinel watch with Jason as his minder. Steph and Cassandra cuddle (clutch each other, desperately) a couch over. Bruce paces helplessly, back and forth and back and forth. Tim has turned his eyes away from him for his own sanity—whatever remains—-and watches the door instead (he can still hear his footsteps).
Jason is tense, absolutely still, but he holds Tim together as much as himself, and they wait together.
The only one who doesn’t is Dick, who’d gone missing an hour or two before. (Missing, he thinks, like they hadn’t all heard the retching, like Tim hadn’t had to be held in place to be stopped from going to Dick, stopped from apologizing over and over again for something out of his control, but still all his fault).
It had been hours already, hours since it, and Tim had fallen into some sense of complacency thinking it would be hours more. The waiting was indescribable, but seeing Alfred walk under the threshold and go straight for Bruce, realising it was all about to end?
He yearns to be able to keep time on pause, make life hold its breath for just a little longer. He’s not ready (oh god, he’s not ready, he’s not ready, he can’t handle knowing that he kille—) Jason’s arms tighten around him and Tim tries to breath through the panic making his lungs constrict and his thoughts all cloudy.
But Alfred keeps walking, and whatever he says to Bruce, Tim can’t hear. They face away from the four of them, so he only sees when Bruce nods, and when he leaves, and when Alfred turns to face them all, aged beyond his years and the remnants of salty tear tracks staining his face.
Tim clutches blindly at Jason. The only thing he can think is no.
No. No, no, no, nononononononono, he did not kill his little brother. Please no.
“Timmers.” Jason says, just as Bruce comes back with Dick in tow.
They’re all here now, Tim knows what it means. He knows what he’s done—what he failed to do. Tim held the knife that killed his baby brother. Held the knife that took a son from Bruce and Dick, a grandson from Alfred, a brother from Jason, Steph and Cass, and Tim, a friend from Jon, Maya, Collin, and Connor.
“Timmy. Tim. Baby bird, calm down, breathe, we need you to breathe.”
He tries, but he can’t, he can’t remember how, he can’t force his lungs to function that way.
“It’s my fault, it’s my fault, Jason I can’t—” Tim feels his stomach roll and understands why Dick needed to get up and leave. He wishes he could do the same, but Jason has him held tight and the way Tim is right now, he can only struggle in the embrace.
“It’s my fault, I k-k- killed D-Dami-i—”
Firm hands take hold of Tim’s shoulders, they’re gentle but stern. Smaller than Bruce’s but larger than either of the girls’. It takes a moment for Tim to realise it's Alfred holding him, Alfred who is a blurry distorted mess in front of Tim’s eye.
“No, Master Timothy. Your brother is alive.”
Alive. Alive, alive, alive, alivealivealivealivealive, he did not kill his little brother.
Tim sobs even harder.
(Maybe he didn’t kill him, but that doesn't mean he wasn’t at fault. That doesn’t mean he wasn’t holding the knife—)
“Damian is alive.” Alfred repeats.
(Maybe, but that didn’t mean everything was okay. That didn’t mean anything was okay.)
“He’s alive.” Jason echoes Alfred, just in case Tim needed to hear it from more than one person.
He did, but still.
(Tim is not okay. Maybe nothing would ever be okay again.)