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As much as Damian hated to admit it, this whole disaster started with the most absurd of things.
A “yo mom” joke.
Todd and Richard were wrestling on the floor of the dining room, egged on by Drake, Cain and Thomas banging on the table together, chanting, “Fight! Fight! Fight!”. This whole situation was happening, only because Pennyworth had stepped into the front foyer to take an important House Service call. And one thing Damian learned from his time here at the Manor with his huge zoo of a family, was that if Pennyworth was not around for more than five minutes—
He dodged a flying shoe.
Everything turned into chaos. A chaos so powerful that even Father could not stop it.
Damian’s useless father was currently slumped on the table, mashed potatoes on his head, muttering to himself about his poor decisions in adopting so many children. Damian agreed with him.
“GET YOUR FAT ASS OFF ME!” Richard screamed, trying to throw Todd’s bulky weight off him.
Todd clung to his torso, putting his full weight on top of him. “AT LEAST MY ASS ISN’T AS FAT AS YOUR MOM’S.”
Immediately, the room was filled with sharp inhales and gasps. What once had felt like an over-full, busy room, stopped moving. It didn’t sound like anyone was even breathing.
Damian looked around confusedly. What was happening? Why had everyone stopped chanting and banging on the tables?
Richard laughed savagely, an iron edge lacing his words with a tone Damian didn’t quite understand the strength of. “I don’t HAVE a mom, asshole!”
“Ooooh,” Drake hissed through his teeth, somewhere underneath the table. “Low blow, Jason. Low blow.”
“Not cool, dude.” Thomas shook his head disappointedly.
“Wha—” Todd turned to him. “I don’t have a mom either. Hell— I went through two moms!”
Cain clicked her tongue in disapproval. “You insulted first. Bad manners.”
“Wh— hey.”
Richard managed to throw Todd off him and sat up, grinning widely. “Yeah, Jason,” he goaded with a smug expression on his face. “Such bad manners, what would Alfred say?”
Todd huffed and crossed his arms. “Bullies, the whole lot of you.”
“The way I see it,” Drake said. “The only bully here is you, Mr. Orphan-Insulter.”
“I’M AN ORPHAN TOO?!”
“So is everyone here, you’re not special!” Drake rolled his eyes.
“I’m not.”
As soon as he said it, he regretted it. So far, he’d been an observer, holding himself to a higher standard rather than deigning to join the scrum, not even saying a word. But now… All eyes were on Damian.
The mildly outraged silence shifted, now more of a stunned one, matching the looks on the other’s faces.
“Damn,” Thomas whispered. “I forgot about that.”
Damian scowled, crossing his arms. “How could you forget that I have parents? My father is right here.” He pointed at him. “And don’t you consider Father to be your fathers too?”
The father in question had now lifted his head off the table, looking at everyone, pained.
Richard looked at him with a pitiful smile, rubbing the back of his neck. “Not… really. Bruce adopted us, sure, and he is our dad in quite a few ways, but we were talking about our parents. Our biological parents.”
“The people we were originally with before… they died.” Thomas cleared his throat, putting his fork down. The loss for him was fresher than the others, Damian recalled. Cain patted his shoulder in comfort.
Suddenly, Drake started laughing. “Oh my days. Damian—” He wheezed, slapping the table. “Damian is the only one out of— out of all of us who has both his parents. And they actually love him too.” He gasped, clutching his stomach, and fell to the floor, still laughing.
Richard and Cain were stifling smiles too, pointedly looking away from Damian. Richard mumbled Drake’s name, half-scoldingly.
Todd looked like he was an inch away from bursting into laughter like Drake. Thomas had lost the solemnity from before and was covering his mouth too.
Father was just massaging his temple.
Damian frowned. “I don’t get it. What’s so funny about me having parents?”
The room burst into laughter.
Pennyworth, having chosen that moment to end his phone call, returned to the room. “I cannot leave you lot alone for a minute, can I?” He said fondly, sympathetically patting Father on the shoulder as he passed. “Now, who is going to fix this mess? Because I will not—”
The rest of his sentence was lost to the vast cold hallways, as Damian turned tail and ran.
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The cursor blinked up at Damian from the blank white screen.
The first two lines were easy, a simple greeting and asking after her health.
The next part was difficult.
He mused over words for a moment, before deciding on one which he felt sufficiently covered his situation.
Salam, Ummi.
Kaifa haluk? Ana bikhair, but I am faced with a quandary.
Again, he paused. How to best describe his quandary?
Perhaps he should address why he was writing this letter to Mother, she would be concerned if there was no apparent reason. So he wrote,
Upon father’s insistence, I began going to therapy. Something about me “not fitting in well enough” with the others of my age. Regardless, I began going. I have learnt some new breathing techniques, mental self-soothing, other things of the like. The biggest suggestion my therapist, a woman named Dinah, a hero on the League, made, was to write a journal, or a diary. I successfully bargained her down to occasional letters. When I asked to whom I should address the letters, she recommended the person who had been on my mind the most, recently.
And… Ummi…
Damian’s hands shook as he pressed the keys on his keyboard.
I look into people’s windows, transfixed by rose-golden glows, but I know that they are just red herrings for the real mourning going on in their rooms.
Every year, with every anniversary of my siblings’ parents’ deaths, they light a candle and place them in front of a framed photograph. A photograph of their family, their real families. People who are no longer with us and people who raised them as children. They are sad, but never for long because the anniversaries are recorded by all of us and eventually, someone goes to check on them.
I watch as they hug and whisper to each other, even cry on each others’ shoulders, sharing a bond that I can never know. Never feel. Because that trauma is one I have never felt before, and it eats me up from the inside that I cannot be part of that bond.
Damian’s breath hitched.
None of Father’s other children willingly refer to their own biological parents, outside of vague references. However, they are only too happy to make fun of me for having two living biological parents, no matter how little they think of you.
I do not pretend to understand their backwards behaviors, or their odd jokes, which Father simply ignores. But it’s the fact that they know I don’t understand and continue to make me the subject of these jokes that I deplore. Because, Ummi—
Damian swiped a fierce hand across his eyes.
I feel like an outsider. In my own family. Simply because I have one.
How am I supposed to take this? Why am I considered the odd one out? Why can’t I share the same bond with them without experiencing that loss? I don’t want to experience that loss! But I hate feeling like an outsider, I hate it, I HATE IT!
Damian was crying now. Tears welling up in his eyes and not stopping despite his valiant efforts. Damn it, Canary.
Mother… what if… What if Father doesn’t care for me as much as the others because I already have two parents? What if it makes me less worthy of his affections? If he does not grant me the same amount of affection because he knows I have another parent to give me affection, would he be wrong?
But I don’t want to lose Father. Not again. I don’t want to lose you either. I need you both.
But I need to belong in this family too.
I’m more conflicted than I’ve ever been.
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Damian didn’t end up sending the letter. It wouldn’t add anything more to his already fallen reputation if his mommy came to defend him (and knowing his mother, Talia would not keep quiet).
So Damian kept the letter to himself and went on like nothing was bothering him. And he almost managed to get rid of that insecurity from his mind too.
Until one day…
Damian was on his way upstairs to his bedroom, after showering and changing from patrol. He was halfway up the stairs, when he heard a crash of something falling and shattering to the floor.
Immediately, he flew up the stairs to where he heard the sound.
In front of one of the guest bedrooms, he found Drake surrounded by a shattered mess of a coffee mug. He was staring inside the dark room, eyes glazed over, hands trembling vigorously, and a look of fear over his face. His chest moved up and down too rapidly. He took a step back, narrowly avoiding a broken piece of glass, but seemed unaware of their presence.
Timothy was having a panic attack.
One benefit from Canary’s silly therapy sessions was that Damian had been well-trained and well-equipped to handle his own or others’ panic attacks. Wanting to be efficient with the new skill, he had made sure that all the steps of mental health first aid were drilled into his head as well as the steps of physical first aid.
So he took slow and projected steps forward, hands where Timothy could see them. “Timothy,” he called gently. “It’s Damian. Can I touch you?”
Timothy didn’t look his way, eyes still staring straight ahead. But he must have heard him, because his head tilted ever so slightly towards him. “I— I—” the teen stammered.
“It will be alright,” Damian assured, taking another step forward. “I’m here to help.”
“No, no.” Timothy shook his head, taking another jerky step back, narrowly missing another piece of glass. “No, I can’t— I can’t—”
“It’s okay.” Damian moved forward.
Timothy sobbed, hands reaching up and curling into his hair, gripping his locks tightly in an attempt to self-soothe. “D— dad—” he called out hoarsely, tears spilling down his cheeks.
Damian paused. Dad? Never in Damian’s life here in Gotham had he ever heard Drake call Father ‘dad’. In fact, he seemed quite averse to it.
Still, Damian offered, “I can call Father for you if you like, Timothy.”
He sobbed again, fingers yanking at his hair as he crumpled, staggering backwards till he fell. “N— not Bruce,” he whispered. “P— please, I— I need— Don’t— don’t—” He whimpered. “Dad, don’t go.”
Dad. As in Jack Drake. As in Timothy’s real father.
Oh. Damian was way out of his league here.
Hands definitely not shaking, he scrabbled for his phone, and dialled Richard.
It rang four times, each tinny shrill sending a renewed shudder through Timothy’s body, before the older man picked up.
“Damian? You oka—”
“Richard.” Damian spoke calmly, but urgently. “Drake is having a panic attack, and I cannot bring him out of it.”
Muffled thumps and scrapes issued from the connection, before Richard spoke again, now accompanied by the thumping of footsteps. “Where are you?”
“Top of the stairs, at the guest bedrooms. Hurry, I think—” Damian cut himself off without thinking, instinctively hiding his uncertainty of the situation. “It’s about his parents. His father. He keeps asking for his father.” Damian continued, tersely.
Richard swore, and the tempo of his footsteps increased. “I’m nearly there, hand Tim the phone.”
Something clattered in the hall below, and a low voice cursed.
“I can hear your footsteps now,” Damian said, trying to edge towards Timothy while avoiding thrashing limbs. “I thought you were—”
“What’s going on here?” Todd’s sonorous voice boomed up the stairs, not Dick’s. Annoyedly, Damian noted he was using his famous theatre-projection, and it made Timothy shrink even further into himself, if such a thing were even possible.
“Imbecile!” Damian hissed, turning on his heel and gesturing for Todd to shut up. “Drake is having a p–”
Todd, having read the situation in a battle-trained heartbeat, had already started a stream of soft reassurances, and was slowly walking towards Timothy, appearing as small and non-threatening as it were possible to be as a 6’6 vigilante.
As he neared Damian, Richard appeared down the other set of stairs, still dressed in pajamas. “Oh Jay, you’re here. He doesn’t respond well to immediate touch, so if we can get him sitting and fiddling with something, then when he comes back around, we can get B here, he loves his hugs.”
Jason nodded, not breaking his soft rhythm or taking his eyes off the shaking young teenager. “Hey Timmy,” he said gently. “It’s okay. It’s just a flashback from that scare on patrol, you’re here with us, buddy. You’re here with us, it’s okay.”
“We got you, Tim,” Richard said, equally gently, resting a light hand on his shoulder. “We got you. We know how you feel, and we’re here to help.”
Timothy sobbed again, throwing himself into Richard’s arms. Todd joined the hug, both of the older brothers stroking and soothing their younger one.
Damian, now feeling distinctly ineffectual in his panic-attack-fixing endeavours, slunk backwards to lean against the railing.
As three more sets of footsteps emerged from the office entrance to the Cave, Damian sidled even further away, ignoring the tears pricking at his eyes as the flow of gentle reassurances of love and safety increased tenfold, the familiarity and closeness of it all twisting the knife in his heart, further cementing the sinking feeling that screamed, you don’t belong here.
He snuck to his room, and feeling decidedly redundant (and, to be honest, a little despondent), he opened his laptop, pulled up another blank page, and began to write.
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He hated this. Despised it, with vitriol that felt like venom in his chest. He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know how to feel.
Right after Drake’s panic attack, he was surrounded by the entire family in the family room, as they shared their own experiences and laughed it away with jokes only they could understand. Damian could only stand five minutes of it before he slipped away.
No one noticed.
No one noticed.
A week later, it was still the same.
Damian’s head flooded with thoughts and sneers about how he could never have the same bond, the indelible closeness, forged in unspeakable trauma, as Father’s other children. Even Brown—who was not Father’s adopted child and was repulsed by the very mention of the word—could relate with them and laugh with them. No one spared even a glance at Damian, no one checked how he was doing, no one cared.
Because he had both of his parents, right? He had loving, doting parents who cared about him. He had everything the others didn’t so he should just shut up and stop being ungrateful.
God, he was pathetic.
The black cloud of self-hatred and self-doubt hovered over him during patrol, one night, lagging his reactions and weighing down his limbs, making him extra clumsy. In hindsight, he should have seen what happened next, a mile off.
“Robin,” Batman said firmly after the third time Damian forgot to watch his own back in a simple would-be-mugging fight. “If your head is not in the game tonight, you should not be in the field.”
“I’m fine,” Damian snapped. Batman levelled a white-lensed glare, and Damian conceded. “I’ll sit out for a few minutes. I’m fine.”
Batman hesitated, but eventually inclined his head forward in a nod. Then he aimed his grapple gun to take off, leaving Damian to tie up the muggers.
And that’s where everything went pear-shaped.
Because he didn’t see the gun.
Even though the burly mugger’s hands were tied in front of him, his legs were unrestrained. He was writhing around, knocking the black knit cap off his head in his rage. (Bah, thought Damian. How stereotypical) He was cursing up a storm, screaming after the escaped would-be-victim, desperately trying to get to his feet and run, ignorant of the fact that he’d just been stopped by Batman and Robin, and you don’t exactly get away from them, so Damian ignored him.
As Damian turned his attention to the other mugger, pinning his legs with one arm and finishing the knot with a practiced flick, he didn’t see the mugger lurch to his knees, and raise his hands.
In the split millisecond that Damian turned back to the first man, the echoing, deafening, indescribable sound caused him to falter, and slip.
In retrospect, the shot wasn’t even loud.
Not compared to what they see every night.
But Batman staggered, a mere slip in his usual measured, practiced, tirelessly perfected pacing, as the bullet struck him.
It was almost dreamlike, how casually he fell, just a slight misjudgement of depth, kevlar doing absolutely nothing to spread the impact because that tiny spot was the one imperfection, the singular unprotected square inch of such a great man, the gap between belt pouch and the armoured shirt, the only possible spot where a bullet could land, and it did. It landed, and it hit.
Batman fell, soundlessly hitting the dark alley floor.
And for one horrible, disgusting second, Damian thought ‘Maybe now, I can make orphan jokes.’
And then the screaming started.
“Joe! You idiot! You just killed Batman!”
“BATMAN!”
“Robin, what happened?”
“Robin, report!”
“Batman!”
All other sounds were lost to the resounding ringing that swallowed the world, narrowing down everything that ever existed, to the ten paces in front of him, and the indistinct shape, slumped sideways against a wall.
On instinct, Damian’s body went into triage mode.
The two muggers, irrelevant. Secure and too busy yelling at each other to go anywhere.
No witnesses, bar the yelling over comms.
He blinked, and he was at the body there. Two ungauntleted fingers (when had he taken his gloves off?) slipped beneath the neck of the cowl, while he steadily rolled Batman into the recovery position, right side, where the bullet had entered, exposed.
Pulse found (strong, if slow), he set to work pulling off the armour pieces, murmuring apologies and reassurances as he went.
“Baba,” he whispered. “Baba, you’re okay. You’re okay. Anta bikhayr, Baba. An— anta bikhayr. Please.”
Digging his fingernails into the tiny buttons in even tinier crevices that disarmed the defenses, he pried the panels of both the shirt and pants away, until the wound was exposed.
And—
“DAMIAN!”
“Rich—” He blurted out, one hand snapping to his mouth just a second too late to stifle the word.
He violently shook his head, snapping back to the situation at hand, gaze flicking lightning-fast across the wound.
Dark red blood stained the area, already forming a thin line, stretching through the warp and weft of the tightly woven armour plates, dripping on the floor.
The skin surrounding the wound was pale, lifelessly so, shining a sickly white in the gloomy darkness of some unnamable alley, somewhere in a city that didn’t care who bled into it, even if that person had fought for it, bled for it, spilled his blood and forgiven his family for doing the same, for it.
And Gotham’s streets were silent, honking and screaming replaced by the whistle of a bullet and the vacuum-silence that followed in its trail.
Damian shook his head again.
Screaming, not from the man in front of him. Unimportant.
No external shrapnel visible, the wound never touched the floor (Father’s instincts were far too good for that, he scoffed distantly) so less risk of infection. He ran a hand across the corresponding armour at the front, just above the side belt pouch.
No exit wound.
Not good.
A hand touched his shoulder, and he whirled around faster than a blink, a razor-sharp batarang at the intruder’s throat instantly.
It took him a second to register the blue and black of Nightwing, and another to even register he was being asked something.
“—Okay?”
Damian’s hand dropped of its own accord. “No,” He whispered faintly, only just aware of the word over the consuming echo of the gunshot. “Nothing’s okay.”
Because Damian remembered, the split second he saw Richard’s face.
For one second, for just the briefest of instants, he had been excited at the prospect of being allowed to bond more with his brothers.
He turned to the side and vomited.
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Father was going to be okay.
Single bullet, slipped between the armoured panels of the top and the belt, entered in the right side, grazed the hipbone but ricocheted upwards, to lodge between two muscles. No lasting damage, minor surgery needed for extraction, two lots of four stitches, and several days on bedrest.
The prognosis was good.
But Damian felt absolutely horrible.
He sat, perched on a shadowed and rocky ledge above the medical area of the Cave, legs curled up beneath him, as still as the immovable rock face behind him.
He watched as Father’s chest rose and fell softly, without pain or machine to hinder him.
Despite the perfect white bandages wrapped around his torso, only as a precautionary measure, he looked peaceful.
Damian started idly picking at a chunk of gravel by his knee, separating out the individual grains from the larger, central rock.
When he next glanced down, he was surprised by a pair of impossibly blue eyes staring right back up at him.
“Hey, Dami.” Father smiled. “Thought it was you. Though Cass might get mad at you for stealing her spot.”
“If Cain wishes to have her place back, she can fight me for it.” Damian sniffed haughtily. “It provides a superior vantage point over the invalid, with no ingress or egress points other than straight forward, plus it allows for unbroken line of sight to the two main entrances of the cave, and the three sub-entrances.” He dropped down and neared the bed.
“And here I thought it was just comfy.” Father chuckled, shifting to sit up straighter. He hissed through his teeth as he probed around the injured area.
“Careful!” Damian snapped, pushing him back down. “You are injured, you idiot. Lie back down.”
He stared at him, eyes wide and creased in concern.
Damian bit his tongue.
He had never snapped at Father like this before. It had just— slipped. Out of fear. The ball of fear that he was trying so hard to ignore inside, but couldn’t because Father could have died, Father could have died and Damian had the audacity to be happy—even if it was for a brief moment.
He was a horrible son, a horrible brother. No wonder he was repeatedly cast as an outsider, he deserved it. He was horrible, sick.
“Damian…?”
He looked up at the soft call of his name. He blinked his eyes, holding back tears at the face of his father—his father who was alivealivealive. His father who cared for him even now despite being so injured. His father who Damian had taken for granted along with his mother. God, he was so pathetic. His parents didn’t deserve him one bit.
“Son…” Father put a gentle hand on his shoulder, squeezing it lightly. “Are you alright?”
No, no he wasn’t alright. Because he had taken everything for granted and had become the disgusting, ungrateful brat everyone told him that he was. Because he was a horrible son to his parents. Because despite being born into this family, he didn’t belong at all—and not just because he was the only one with blood ties, but because everyone else loved each other and cared for each other and he didn’t. He had wished his parents death, he had— he had—
Father cradled his face in his large, calloused hands, touch gentle as he swiped the stray tear on his cheek as a soft smile spread across his face. “Damian, you know you are my son, right? I’m here for you and you can tell me anyth—”
“I thought I was going to be an orphan and I was happy about it!”
The words bubbled out of his throat like a boiling pot rejecting the too-hot substance inside it. It burned his tongue as it left his mouth and scorched his insides with shame.
Big, fat tears dripped down from his eyes, tracing shameful streaks down his face, still red from where he’d ripped his domino off. “I’m— I’m so, so sorry, Father. I’m so sorry. I don’t d— deserve to be in this f— family. Everyone was— was right. I don’t belong here, I’m an— an outsider.”
His father frowned, brows furrowing in confusion but also worry. One hand twitched, creasing the fabric in a tight grip. “What do you mean?” He asked slowly.
Damian sobbed, his body sagging down with the burden of the past few days all crashing down on him.
“I’ll never be able to belong,” he cried. “I don’t fit in with others b— because I’m not part of their bond. A bond only th— they are able to share as orphans because I— I’m not an orphan. Because I wasn’t chosen by you, I was p— pushed, I just showed up, and came into this family and Ummi left me for you all to d— deal with.” His heart ached with the admission, ached with sorrow for what he knew was about to come.
He glanced upwards, expecting a disgusted, or perturbed look on Father’s’ face. Instead, the man looked utterly heartbroken, arms hanging in the air, stuck where Damian had slipped out from under them.
“Damian.” He said, staring at him like someone had just died. Damian sniffled, and took another step back, fighting the reflex to cringe away from the tenderness his name didn’t deserve.
After all, who wants to keep a son as ungrateful as him around?
“Damian.” Father repeated, voice cracking as his gaze focused on Damian’s face. “I am not the best with emotions, but it breaks my heart that you have been feeling excluded like that. That is something we can talk about, and we can come up with a way to help you not feel unincluded, however.”
And Damian clutched him tightly, like a man holding onto a cliff. Who knew when would be the next time he would get to hug his father before he was cast away? He dearly hoped that he would get to hug his mother too.
Because it didn’t matter whether he would be able to belong in this family or not, he just didn’t want to lose his parents. He wanted his ummi and baba with him. He hated to admit it, but he felt like a kid—he was a kid. And he never, ever, ever wanted to part with his parents.
“Alright,” he heard Father say. “I think it’s time we had a talk. With everyone.”
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“What’s this about, B?” Drake asked, lounging over the back of a couch, oddly catlike. Sprawled out like a starfish below him, Thomas nodded in agreement.
“Wait until the others get here.” Bruce said not unkindly, resting on the couch with one hand over his bandages and the other on Damian’s shoulder and steering him to the empty lounge.
As they waited, the atmosphere grew tense, as if something were brewing. Maybe it was. Damian chewed on the inside of his cheek, and watched as Father walked to stand in front of the fireplace.
Soon, Richard, Cain, Todd and Brown filed into the room, dressed in various post-patrol comfy sweats. Immediately, they picked up on the unspoken aura of the room, and did not resume their boisterous conversation, silently squishing onto the couch already containing Thomas and Drake, limbs settling into place like they belonged there. Like he didn’t.
Once everyone had taken a seat, Father began.
“I know joking over your traumas is one way you bond, but you’ve been joking about a certain other topic lately…”
They looked at each other, confused but interest piqued.
“The orphan jokes.” Father clenched his jaw. “It has to stop.”
“B,” Richard half-laughed. “We know you’re our dad, those jokes are just…”
“Making light out of a bad situation.” Todd offered when Richard trailed off.
Father sighed. “Think about the ramifications of your actions. What happens when you create an inside joke?”
The others looked at each other, at a loss.
“It’s only funny to the ones who are in it.” He turned to Damian, squeezing his shoulder gently. “Not the ones outside it.”
The five others stared at Damian like they’d forgotten he’d existed. Maybe they had. He blushed dark red, resisting the urge to squirm like a child under the attention.
“Oh.” Cain said softly, gesturing at the conglomeration of siblings squished onto the couch, then to Damian on the lounge. “Bad. Not inc– include.” She traced a sad face onto a sequined pillow, then threw it along the couch, where it hit Todd in the face.
“Ow, hey.” Todd held the pillow and stared at it. “Oh.” He glanced at Damian guiltily.
“Oh…” Richard released a long, slow breath.
“You outcasted him,” Father said at an even, but not angry tone. “Maybe not intentionally, but you did nonetheless. You made him feel like an outsider and…” Damian saw his Adam’s apple bob up and down. “And tonight, when I got injured…”
All eyes turned to Damian, this time with pity and shame. Richard had a wet sheen over his eyes, and Damian knew that he was probably severely beating himself up for it.
“I…” Richard whispered, the sheen grower brighter. “I’m so sorry, Dami. We— we didn’t realize. We didn’t exclude you on purpose, if we had known…” He clenched his fists by his sides. “We should have known.”
“You know now.” Father uncrossed his arms. “So what are you going to do now?”
Drake got up first. He neared the couch with him and Father and knelt down in front of him, putting his hands on his shoulders. “I’m going to apologize,” he replied, “And I’m going to give him the biggest hug ever.”
With that, he promptly pulled him into his embrace, squeezing his body tight with all the affection he could muster.
Damian gasped, taken aback.
“Seconded,” Richard said behind him and came to join the hug too.
Damian felt another pair of arms around him, feather light but still strong. “Love you, little brother.”
“Sorry we did that,” Stephanie’s voice mumbled in his ear.
Jason joined them, his bear hug enveloping almost all of them. “Sorry we made you feel like an outsider. I know how much it sucks.”
Damian felt the cursed tears well up in his eyes again. He blinked rapidly to clear them, but the stupid droplets fell anyway.
They broke apart from the hug, still surrounding him.
“You’re our baby bat, kiddo,” Richard smiled. “We don’t want you to be part of the inside jokes and teases. Not because we think you’re an outsider, but because the loss that comes with it is hard. It doesn’t matter whether you’re blood or not, we don’t care about all that.” He brushed a tear from his face.
“Our trauma of losing our parents doesn’t mean that you’re the odd one out,” Jason explained. “It just means that we’re gonna make sure that you don’t experience the hard loss and suffer the same as us.”
“You’re our baby who must be protected at all costs.” Timothy smirked.
Damian smiled through the heavy stone in his chest. “I’m not a baby,” he mumbled.
“You’re our brother,” Richard said, pressing a kiss to his forehead. “That’s all there is.”
Damian glanced at his father—alive, whole, and smiling.
He looked back at his siblings—gathered here just for him.
So maybe he wouldn’t be part of their in-jokes, sucks, but he didn’t want to be. He wanted his family whole and together. With everyone.
And it seemed that they did too.