Chapter Text
“I intended to prove myself by taking out the weakest of your pupils,” Damian explained. He had repeated the sentiment before, once, twice, three times. “It’s how ascension in the rank works.”
“That’s not how that works here, Damian,” his father snapped, clearly at the end of his patience. “Do you understand?”
Damian didn’t, he really didn’t, but he had no wish to worsen his punishment by asking questions that could be interpreted as backtalk, so he pressed his lips together until they were a bloodless line and nodded. Then, remembering his manners, he forced out: “Yes, father.”
“That's not how the hierarchy here works," Bruce added sternly and Damian heard what he didn’t say. ‘Know your place.’
“Yes, father,” he parrotted, chin perfectly raised, shoulder perfectly pulled back, back perfectly straight. If his father wished to strike him now, Damian would not flinch.
“Go to your room,” his father ordered.
Damian was familiar with waiting for his punishment, so he bowed and left the room, but the man was turned away immediately, heading towards where Drake was laying in the medical wing.
Grayson was there too, Damian knew, and Todd who had taken an odd liking to Drake.
The family was there and Damian was making his way up to his room alone.
The boy wasn’t fully sure if ‘go to your room’ was the same as being explicitly instructed to wait for his punishment, but he figured it was similar enough. He hesitated, looking around the room, but then decided that the middle was the best and went to kneel down. His chin was perfectly raised. His shoulders were perfectly rolled back, his back was perfectly straight.
Damian lightly rested his hands on his thighs, open and flat, palms resting down.
Then he waited.
And waited.
The rules of this place were not quite clear to him. Damian wished that they had been explained to him, but he knew an excuse when he saw one and he wasn’t weak enough to need to weasel himself out of well-earned discipline.
What he already knew was this: Damian was the lowest in the hierarchy and he was not to hurt the ones above him.
And this: Damian was to always be respectful to Alfred even if he was a servant.
Knowing only two rules for certain was nerve racking. However, the one he’d learned today was important.
Damian knew his place now.
It was frustrating and infuriating, that he, a prince in his own right, should be demoted in such a manner, but he would bear it. He was an al Ghul. He would bear it.
His chest ached.
His knees ached too, but be was more familiar with that. The sun was dipping outside when blessedly, Damian heard steps.
He’d kneeled for longer before and of course could have stayed like this, but he was looking forward to unfurling his stiff muscles and stretch, even if stretching wouldn’t be very comfortable once the whip marks joined his scars. He was sure that his father could hit very hard.
Still, he hoped that the man, for all his no-hurt policy, would still choose the whip over something like confinement and isolation. Damian hated narrow, dark spaces.
He hated them when they were cold and he hated them more when they were suffocatingly hot and with the way the heat in his room was running, he was sure that his closet would become the latter within minutes of Damian being in it.
Maybe, he’d be allowed water.
“Damian?” a voice rang out and there was a knock. This was not father.
“Yes, Grayson?” the boy asked, confused. Perhaps his father was too busy with Drake and had sent Grayson to deal with him instead.
“It’s time for dinner.”
Damian’s perfect posture twitched slightly and he frowned in confusion. “Dinner?” he asked.
Grayson chuckled. “Yes, you know, dinner? The thing where you have food in the evening.”
Damian’s face contorted into hurt anger. Why was Grayson patronising him? He had thought his father’s oldest to be the nicest, but clearly even he wasn’t above jabs.
“Are you coming or not?” Grayson didn’t sound impatient, exactly and he had made no move to enter uninvited, but Damian knew better than to stop kneeling without explicit permission. The last and only time he’d done so, he’d knelt on rice until his knees were bloodied.
“Father allows this?” he asked carefully.
Grayson paused. “Yes?” he asked, sounding confused and that was all Damian needed to move, getting up. He bit back a groan at the excruciating pain of blood moving back into circulation.
“Coming,” he stated calmly, confidently, even as he rotated his legs, gritting his teeth.
Grayson was waiting when Damian left the room. “Are you alright?” he asked, inquisitive eyes on the ten year old.
Damian lifted his eyes in confusion. What was Grayson asking? If he could withstand waiting? Perhaps he was checking if Damian was going to back out of his punishment. “Fine,” he said stiffly.
Grayson hummed.
Damian wasn’t fully sure why his father wanted him down for dinner. Perhaps the punishment was to be public? His grandfather had certainly preferred that.
The boy reverently kept his eyes down as he entered the dining room and took his seat. He felt eyes on him, his father’s and Todd’s both, but he didn’t fall for the trap and make eye contact. At that point, Damian would just be asking for it.
Alfred placed a plate in front of him, potatoes and vegetables with some kind of cheese crust. It looked nice.
Damian thought that his father had probably ordered Alfred to do this. After all, the butler was the opposite of cruel and Damian, hungry and aching, found it pretty cruel to put good food in front of him, let it go to waste even, when everyone knew he wasn’t allowed to eat it.
His grandfather had enjoyed keeping him in this limbo too, when he’d committed a particularly bad offense. Damian hated waiting for his punishment, hated going back to his room just to kneel again and he especially hated that he wasn’t allowed to do anything without permission.
After all, one needed to redeem themselves first to be able to make those.
Damian had witnessed one of the older kids at the league faint once when he’d had to wait for his punishment for four days. He wasn’t sure what the boy had done, Damian was kept apart from the others, but he had endeavoured to never find out.
Perhaps this was how he found out.
Perhaps hurting Drake was bad enough to warrant it.
“Are you not hungry?” Grayson asked out of nowhere and Damian tensed his muscles to keep from flinching.
It was an unforgivable lapse in composure, but they had either not seen it or were amused enough at his weakness to jeer from afar.
“I am,” Damian replied honestly, because he was.
Not very hungry yet. It hadn’t reached the point where his stomach hurt and he didn’t feel sick. He just felt the need for sustenance. He wished that he was at least allowed to take a sip of water to soothe the emptiness.
“Well then is it not up to your standard?” his father asked cooly.
Damian wished they wouldn’t taunt him like that, but this was father. He would not talk back. “I’m sure Alfred has excelled as always,” he replied instead, voice smooth and compliment genuine. Damian liked Alfred. He was the only one who made his expectations clear and then stuck to it.
‘No, you can’t borrow the knives from the kitchen,’ he’d said. ‘Bring them back by lunch time.’
And Damian had.
Alfred had made it clear that while he did the cleaning and washing, he expected Damian to pick up after himself and leave his basket with dirty clothes outside of his room when it was full.
So Damian did.
“Brat,” Todd muttered under his breath and Damian bit down hard on his tongue so as to not snap back or bristle. He knew his place. He knew his place.
He knew-
His father sighed, sounding disappointed and Damian bit down harder until he tasted blood.
He wasn’t sure what he’d done wrong this time, but his father would surely just add it to his tally.
They were dismissed and Damian made his way back to his room, hungry and aching and knelt.
He really hoped his father would punish him soon.
Perhaps, he was waiting until Drake was out of the infirmary so he could witness it?
Damian lost himself in meditation, mind drawing far away from the pain in his knees.
A knock. Sharp. “Go to bed, Damian,” his father said through the door. “You know you have a bedtime, I expect you to stick to it and not be difficult.”
Damian’s eyes moved to the digital clock next to his bed. It was almost two hours past his bedtime. “Yes, father,” he replied obediently and his father just sighed again, steps moving away.
Relief flooded Damian’s system. So he would not have to kneel the entire night. He was allowed to sleep. That was good.
The boy woke up hours later, disoriented in the dark. He was thirsty, so thirsty it made aggression run through his system. Perhaps he could sneak a couple of mouthfuls? His father never needed to know.
But no. He was an al Ghul, he would not cheat his way out of discipline.
Damian barely slept until Alfred knocked on his door. “Breakfast, young master.”
It was another miserable hour of sitting in front of steaming pancakes.
“He’s just being a difficult little shit because we didn’t let him kill Timmy,” he heard Todd say behind him, but then Damian was out of earshot.
Kneeling was agony. It was worse coming back to it after having had a night’s reprieve and being able to move for breakfast.
Damian bit back small whimpers and instead started listing war strategies in his head. Then he counted, first in Arabic, then Farsi, then Mandarin, then Spanish and lastly English.
His stomach cramped viciously when Alfred put down a plate of pulao with vegetables in front of him.
“Alfred made this especially for you,” his father said, a warning undertone to his voice.
Damian swallowed the bitterness. “Thank you, Alfred,” he said, voice flat and polite as if his heart wasn’t beating with the betrayal. “I appreciate it.”
“Then eat,” his father snapped.
“Bruce,” Grayson started wearily, but that was all the permission Damian had needed.
He forced himself not to inhale the food, taking measured bites. It nearly brought tears to his eyes.
“Oh,” Grayson said.
Damian finished his plate way before anyone else did.
“Would you like seconds, Master Damian?” the butler asked.
Damian dared raise his eyes to search his father’s face, but it was unreadable and he didn’t give permission. “No thank you, Alfred,” he said politely. He was grateful that he’d gotten to eat at all. He hated feeling faint.
It made kneeling after lunch more bearable, but only just.
Chin perfectly raised. Shoulders perfectly rolled back. His back was starting to sag slightly and Damian swallowed around terror and pain.
Only an hour or so passed until his father’s footsteps neared. He sounded annoyed. Finally. Finally, he’d get punished.
“Damian,” his father snapped. “I told you we were going to go shop for a few things for your room today. Come on downstairs, everyone’s waiting.”
Oh yes. His father had told him that two days ago. He’d said that he would remind Damian and Damian had snapped that he didn’t need reminders and that he was perfectly capable of keeping to a schedule. His father’s jaw had clenched and he’d said ‘Alright, have it your way.’
Damian had forgotten during the hours of kneeling, but even if he hadn’t, he would have simply assumed that they weren’t going anymore. Why would they buy anything for Damian right now?
“Coming, father,” he replied, gritting his teeth as he moved. His entire body ached.
Once he made it downstairs, eyes on the floor again, he realised Grayson and Todd were waiting too. He’d assumed that the latter at least would prefer staying with Drake, even if Alfred was still here.
Perhaps, they didn’t trust Damian to behave himself in public so Todd had to keep him in line.
“I’m not a child, father,” Todd mocked quietly. “I’m in no need for reminders.”
Damian’s face burnt.
“That’s enough, Jason,” his father said quietly.
“Why are we still going?” Damian asked. He couldn’t help himself, he just wanted to know how the waiting period here worked, what he was allowed to do.
“Why wouldn’t we?” Grayson asked.
“Probably because he hurt Tim,” Todd replied and finally someone was making sense.
“We don’t keep necessities away,” his father said, sounding chiding. He was speaking to Todd, which Damian found undeserved when he was the only one making sense.
“No, Todd is right,” Damian said eagerly, willing to prove that he knew his place, that he would take his punishment stoically. “I’m waiting.”
There was a silence for a moment and Damian looked up, eyes flickering over their faces, before dropping again.
“Waiting for what?” his father asked eventually.
“My punishment for hurting Drake,” Damian replied obediently, in the tone of someone giving a report.
There was another long pause and Damian took his chance to plead his case.
“I appreciate that I got reprieve from the kneeling and that I was allowed to eat, but I would prefer if you punished me now, father,” he said and then he realised what he’d done. It wasn’t on him to make demands. He wasn’t in charge.
Damian dropped to his knees. His legs screamed in protest. He bowed his head. His eyes burnt with shame. How could he have slipped up so badly? “I apologise, father,” he said, voice blank. “It’s not my place to hurry along my punishment.”
More silence. Damian didn’t dare look up.
“Why are you kneeling, Damian?” his father asked, voice tight in a way the boy hadn’t heard before. He desperately wished he could look up and scan his face, but he knew better.
“So you may strike me if you wish,” Damian replied obediently. His father’s ways of embarrassing him were odd. Making him spell everything out was effective, he supposed, but it was still odd.
Todd made a sound that was just as odd.
“Oh Dami,” Grayson said, voice breaking apart in the middle. Odd.
His father took a step closer and Damian tensed. He would not flinch. He was an al Ghul. He would bear it.
The man crouched. “Damian, look at me.”
Damian’s head snapped up immediately at the order.
His father’s face was not exactly soft, but it was clear that that was what he was going for. “Nobody is going to hit you,” the man said firmly.
Fear threatened to swallow Damian whole. “I understand,” he said, not quite able to hide the tremor in his voice. Weak.
His father narrowed his eyes at him, so he must have caught it. “I’m not sure you do,” he admitted.
“I do,” Damian was quick to reassure him. “Do you have a dedicated room or will it be my closet?”
Todd made the same sound again. He sounded faintly like a wounded animal and when Damian briefly, daringly, looked at him, he saw Lazarus green. His breath hitched.
“Dick, Jason, go check on Tim for me,” Bruce said without looking.
Grayson shuffled for a moment, but then moved to sling an arm around Todd’s shoulder, pulling him towards the batcave.
“Your closet?” the man questioned. “What’s with your closet?”
“For confinement,” Damian said. He was starting to wonder if his father just enjoyed
hearing obvious things.
“Ah,” the man said. “Right, that won’t happen either.”
Damian didn’t understand, but he would rather bite his tongue off than admit that.
“First of all, while I was very mad that you hurt Tim, I understand that you thought this was something to do, so the only thing that will happen is that you will apologise to Tim. I trust you understand that you can not under any circumstance do anything like that again.”
Damian was quick to answer. “Yes, father.”
“Secondly, punishments are not supposed to hurt. If you mess up, there will be consequences like loss of privilege or being grounded, which means not doing fun things with your future classmates, for example. But under no circumstances will you be hurt as a punishment. There will be no withholding of food or water and I will never lock you in anywhere.”
Damian blinked. “But mother said I’m here to become better,” he said, trying his best to not sound like he was trying to argue. He knew that he didn’t quite manage to keep the antagonistic tone out of his voice. “How am I supposed to do that if you refuse to properly discipline me?”
His father’s face tightened. “That is not a proper way to discipline a child.” Damian opened his mouth to refute the claim that he was a child, but his father lifted a hand and he closed his mouth with an audible click. “Or anyone else for that matter.”
Huh.
“What I will do is explain to you why things you did are wrong and guide you to become better. I will train you and I will do my best to make sure you get some normal childhood experiences.”
Damian’s face twisted.
“Now get up,” his father ordered before Damian could argue. He obeyed gladly, hissing softly when he stretched his knees. “There will be no kneeling in his household.”
“Yes, father,” Damian said.
He didn’t understand.
“Now let’s go see if Tim is awake and ready for your apology.”
Slight panic rose in Damian at the prospect, but he followed quietly and waited patiently as his father went in first to quietly talk to Tim.
“Damian,” he called and the boy shuffled in, eyes lowered. He approached the bed. Drake looked a lot better already, staring at Damian with narrow eyes.
“I wanted to apologise, Drake,” Damian said formally. “I misunderstood how the dynamics here work and I would have not hurt you if I’d known. I’m sorry. If there is anything I can offer to make it up, please do let me know.”
Surprise flickered over Drake’s face, but Damian wasn’t sure why.
“I can’t say I forgive you just yet,” Drake replied and Damian nodded. He hadn’t expected him to. “But I will once I’m not bed bound anymore.”
That was far sooner than Damian had expected. Had it been him, he would have held on to resentment for months…maybe years.
“But if you ever attack me again, I will break your arms,” Drake warned.
“Tim,” father admonished, but Damian bowed.
“I understand and accept your terms,” he said formally.
Drake rolled his eyes but didn’t look annoyed.
His father’s other children were distinctly odd.
“Now sit on the cot,” his father instructed.
Damian blinked in confusion, but went to sit down anyway. An order was an order, he didn’t need to understand to follow it.
“May I?” the man asked, gesturing at the bottom of Damian’s pants. The boy wasn’t sure why his father was asking instead of simply doing it, but he nodded anyway. His jeans were rolled up to free both of his knees.
“Fuck,” Todd said.
Damian stiffened, unsure if the swear was meant for him.
“Language,” father said absently.
Grayson hissed slightly and when Damian peered at his three adopted brothers, he saw that Drake had paled slightly.
“You really did a number on yourself, habibi,” the man said neutrally and Damian found himself swallowing hard at the nickname, a shiver running over his frame.
His father didn’t comment, simply spreading some bruise salve on his knees and then wrapping them. It was entirely unnecessary, of course, especially for mere bruises.
“May I hug you?” Grayson asked and Damian nearly jumped out of his skin, having been too focused on the bandages to notice the man approaching.
“Tt,” he said. “If you have nothing better to do.”
“Ah, there he is,” Grayson said, which made no sense since Damian had been here the entire time.
Carefully, Grayson wrapped his arms around Damian, swallowing him whole. With his face against the other’s chest, everything was warm and dark and confined.
Strangely, Damian didn’t feel claustrophobic.
Not one bit.