Chapter Text
Golden Child,
Lion Boy;
Tell me what it's like to conquer.
~•~
Despite their differences, Dick really, really tried to spend time at the manor whenever he could.
It wasn’t for Bruce’s benefit, the tension between them lingered even now that Jason was back and mostly avoided killing.
The two oldest were…trying and they could both tell that their father was too. Still, occasionally the two met up to get drunk and bitch about him. It helped.
Either way, it wasn’t for Bruce.
It was for Damian and for Tim.
He could tell that both boys could do with some older sibling loving.
As such, he’d been there when Damian attacked Tim. Jason, protective over the second youngest mostly due to guilt over his own actions and on accounts of having grown fond of him, yelled at Damian and the little boy leaned back as far as he could without losing his posture.
Dick didn’t yell, but he had to admit that he didn’t pay his youngest brother any attention as they worked to get Tim stabilised.
He only tuned back in when Bruce was there.
The man whirled around on Damian and the boy did the same thing again where he subtly leaned back, back ramrod straight and eyes fixed unwaveringly at… Well, at first he thought that the baby assassin was looking at the floor out of shame, but then he realised that his eyes were actually aimed higher, fixed on Bruce’s hands.
Oh.
He thought he was about to get struck.
Dick shouldn’t have been nearly as surprised as he was, he knew that. He had seen that behaviour in Jason. He had seen that behaviour in dozens of kids since then, as Robin and as a police officer.
And really, they all knew that Damian’s childhood couldn’t have been stellar. They didn’t know any details, Damian had spent his time here so far only speaking when spoken to (when it came to Dick, Alfred and Bruce) and snapping back (Cass, Jason and Tim). But still, he had grown up in a murder cult.
They should have known.
Why were they all approaching him like he was some kind of spoiled brat? Because he’d been a prince and they had expected spoiled behaviour? Because they’d seen him dismiss Alfred at first and had just decided that he looked down on everyone?
“Bruce, you’re scaring him,” he interrupted his dad mid-lecture. Bruce was. Dick could see it in the tension curved into Damian’s overly-straight posture and in the slight vacancy of his poison eyes, still fixed on the man’s hands. Fists. Bruce had them balled into fists, the picture perfect representation of a man barely holding it together.
Or at least he’d be from Damian’s perspective.
Dick knew better, of course, knew to look for the deep concern edged into his face and the way he occasionally let his eyes flicker to Tim and the helplessness because he had no idea how to deal with this. How to deal with Damian.
His father, annoyed at being interrupted, turned to Dick. Damian’s eyes too snapped to him, intent and confused.
“Good,” Bruce said. “Maybe then he’ll know better than to attack his brother.”
“You don’t mean that,” Dick said firmly, a warning undertone in his voice. They had talked about this, damn it. They had fought and discussed and talked about it, about this habit of Bruce to throw out things he couldn’t say back to children who didn’t know better.
Apparently, this was Damian’s breaking point. He had endured the lecture in stony (terrified, Dick’s mind supplied) silence, but now he spoke up. “I was only trying to earn your favour by taking out your weakest student.” And then, a bit testily, he added, “and I did.”
Dick winced, but he wasn’t fast enough to stop Bruce from whirling on his youngest son again. Damian flinched, a movement miniscule enough that Dick only caught it because he’d been trained to see the signs.
Bruce was trained too, but that didn’t stop him from snapping. “We don’t do that here, you hear me? You’re not at the league anymore and we. Don’t. Hurt. Our. Family.”
Damian’s eyes grew vacant again, a frustrated tilt to his lips.
“Now go to your room. You’re grounded for a week.”
The boy’s eyes flickered in confusion and Dick would have bet his kidney that Damian had no idea what being grounded meant. “Yes, father,” he said stiffly. Then he bowed, honest to god bowed and left.
Dick shivered.
As soon as Damian was gone, he turned on Bruce.
“What the hell is wrong with you,” he hissed.
“What’s wrong with me?” his father asked, defensively. “You’re the one who-”
“Pointed out that your son was terrified of the huge man with his hands in fists yelling at him?”
“I wasn’t yelling,” Bruce gritted out and he hadn’t been. “He needed to know his behaviour was not alright.”
Dick exploded. “That’s not the point and you know it. He doesn’t understand the rules so you explain it to him, you don’t intimidate him into behaving. How would you know if he is behaving if he doesn’t know what you expect? I bet he doesn’t even know what being grounded means. He’s traumatised, Bruce, he isn’t some kind of villain who just got out of Arkham.”
Bruce had grown quiet in the face of Dick’s tirade.
“He’s a child,” Dick hissed, now almost chest to chest with his father. “Go talk to him,” he demanded.
Bruce took a step back. “Tim-” he started and alright, he had a point. Dick knew that Tim needed reassurance, needed Bruce to be there when he woke up.
“Alright,” he said. “I’ll talk to him.” A pause. Bruce’s shoulders sagging in relief sent another spike of anger through Dick’s system. “But Bruce,” he said coldly. “You better step up. Or I will.”
They’d had that conversation before too.
Before Jason had come back, before Cass had joined them and before Duke had started being around more and more.
When Dick had found out that Tim never spent the night at Wayne manor, even after bad patrols, he’d started digging. It had taken him little under an hour to find out that no, Tim did not have a nanny and no, his parents weren’t home and yes, he could prove a charge of criminal neglect with zero efforts based on the time Tim had collapsed in school with acute appendicitis alone.
He had yelled at Bruce then too. Had demanded how he couldn’t have seen it, couldn’t have seen the signs.
Bruce had looked at him tiredly. ‘I don’t know,’ he’d said tiredly.
‘Well now you do know,’ Dick had pointed out. ‘So you better step up or I will.’
It wasn’t like Dick was eager to adopt one of his younger brothers, he was content enough with Kori and their little child-less life, but he would if he had to.
Because Dick? Dick had had a very different father than Jason. And Jason had had a different father than Tim now did, after Bruce had indeed stepped up and then Cass and hell, even Duke did.
And Dick would be damned if any of his siblings went through this again.
He wouldn’t let him.
The man turned and stormed out of the room to go find Damian.
~•~
Damian’s door was half-open and Dick wasn’t sure if it was a comfort the boy had chosen or if he didn’t think he was allowed privacy.
Regardless, he knocked. “Dami? May I come in?”
“Yes,” his little brother answered in a tone that perfectly conveyed that he didn’t think he had a choice in the matter.
Dick swallowed, allowing himself a brief second to take a deep breath, before fully pushing the door open. Immediately, his eyes found the boy in the middle of the room.
Damian was standing at attention, his whole body straight, muscles tense, eyes fixed blankly ahead.
“What are you doing?” Dick asked, regretting the way he blurted it out when he saw the miniscule flicker of fear on Damian’s face. Tact, he reminded himself.
This was a landmine of a conversation and Dick really, really didn’t want to keep stepping on them, even if he was getting the distant, ugly feeling that every step would detonate a new thing.
“I wasn’t sure which position is appropriate,” Damian explained, voice forcefully even, before he promptly slid to his knees.
It was a practised movement, graceful and and so natural that it had to have been practised over and over again.
Abruptly, Dick felt sick.
His knee-jerk instinct was to pull the boy up and into a hug, reassure him that he didn’t need to kneel, that none of them would hurt him.
He didn’t think that approach would work.
After all, he remembered well how it had gone with Jason. The first time Bruce had told him that he would never hit him, Jason had laughed in his face (and then promptly flinched away). ‘Yeah, right,’ he had spat, Crime Alley strong in his voice. ‘Everyone has a breaking point.’
It had taken months for him to stop outright flinching away from Bruce every time the man made a movement that was a little too sudden.
And Jason had been right, after all.
Everyone had a breaking point.
His little brother had a perfectly straight scar over his throat to match Tim’s and a lifetime of pain whenever he used his voice a little too often to prove that point quite neatly.
Dick knew that it was what Jason couldn’t forgive. Sure, he was on okay terms with Bruce now and came over plenty, even staying for the night occasionally, but Dick knew that he would never forgive or forget that Bruce had promised him he would never hurt him and then had.
In defense of his murderer no less.
So no, Dick didn’t think that simply telling Damian he didn’t need to kneel would do anything other than make the boy think he was a liar.
“Position for what?” he asked instead, because in order to help start the healing process, he first needed to know what was happening.
In order to explain the expectations of the Waynes, he needed to understand what Damian thought they were.
“To wait for my punishment,” Damian replied from his position on the floor.
Dick hummed. “You’ve already been punished though,” he pointed out.
Damian twitched. “Right,” he said.
“Right,” Dick repeated, but without any of the boy’s scathing scepticism. “How about you get up and join me on the bed and I’ll explain to you what being grounded means,” he suggested.
Relief flickered over Damian’s face, there and gone. “Tt,” he made, but he was standing. “Whatever.” Obediently, the boy moved to sit on the bed and Dick hid a smile at the attitude as he joined him.
“Being grounded means that you aren’t allowed to use electronics. You’re allowed to read though,” what else did Damian like doing? His eyes fell on the desk and the neatly arranged sketchbooks. “And draw and write. Any quiet activity that doesn’t involve technology, basically.”
He looked at Damian to check if the boy was following so far. He was staring at Dick intently, so he continued. “You’re allowed to leave the room, but you can’t leave the manor.”
“Am I allowed to leave the manor usually?” Damian asked, before promptly looking at Dick with the slight recoil he was starting to associate with his little brother expecting to be hit.
Alright, he thought, making an internal note. Questions were likely not allowed in the league.
At this point, he might have to start writing these down to give to a therapist once Bruce took him to one.
“Only with permission and depending on where you’re going, a person coming with you,” Dick replied promptly.
Damian ducked his head into a nod.
“I don’t think this rule is important for you right now since you don’t really have any incentive to go anywhere but the garden, which you are allowed to do as long as you stay in sight of the house, but when you start school, being grounded means you aren’t allowed to go over to a friend’s for example.”
“I don’t think that will be a problem,” Damian muttered sardonically.
Right. One problem at a time, they could address that once Damian actually started at Gotham Academy.
Damian looked at him expectantly.
“And that’s it,” Dick replied. “You might also have an earlier bedtime, but Bruce will let you know if you do.”
“That is it,” Damian repeated, pronouncing each word with enough vitriol to set a van on fire.
“Yes,” Dick affirmed.
“But that’s-” Damian started and then stopped.
“You’re allowed to ask questions, you know. Or clarify something.” Damian didn’t reply. “In fact,” Dick continued, “I will be more upset if you do something that hurts you because you didn’t ask than I would be if you asked.” It was perhaps a little unfair of him to phrase it like that and Dick felt guilty, but if it got Damian to ask for an explanation instead of kneeling for hours or self-flagellate or whatever other horrible thing he could come up with to punish himself…well, Dick would take it.
“That seems rather lax,” Damian said carefully. “Does he whip me at the end of it? Is being grounded like a…prolonged waiting period?”
Dick was going to kill some people. He was going to steal one of the guns Jason loved so dearly and he was going to shoot people.
“No,” he said, any sadness and disgust and anger and guilt and grief firmly banned from his voice.
Damian just stared at him.
“There are different approaches to parenting,” Dick explained. Fuck, he was so, so in over his head. How did one even explain that abuse was wrong to someone as conditioned as Damian? “Corporeal punishment is not only morally frowned upon in most place, but it’s also highly illegal. So even if Bruce wanted to hurt you, hurt us, which he very much doesn’t, he would get in trouble for it.”
Damian hesitated. “But why?” he eventually forced out when it was clear that Dick would patiently wait for the question he so clearly wanted to ask.
“Because that’s child abuse and it’s wrong.”
That was the wrong thing to say. Damian’s face shuttered and closed off. “Mother-,” he began stiffly, but Dick interrupted him.
“That’s our opinion,” Dick said quickly. “The opinion of a lot of people. You grew up with people that didn’t share that opinion.”
Damian hesitated again, silence drawing, but he managed to force himself to ask another question. Dick was very proud of him, but he also knew that he needed to stop him lest he push the boy too far too quickly. “Why would your opinion matter more?” He asked it rudely, but Dick wasn’t offended by the tone masking his insecurity.
“Well, first of all,” he said, “because you live here now and for as long as you live here, the Wayne rules for punishment apply to you, not the ones from the league.”
Damian’s eyes widened in understanding for the first time in this conversation and Dick almost cried with relief. He was getting through somewhere, finally. It would take months. He knew that. But it was a start.
“And secondly, there are a lot of scientific studies that prove the detrimental impact of hitting your child. Or forcing them through pain or humiliation.” A pause. “Uhm, detrimental means-”
“I know what detrimental means,” Damian snapped and then did the subtle recoil motion, eyes on Dick’s hands.
He forcefully didn’t lift them from where they were resting on the bed and didn’t react. “Good,” he said lightly. “Your English is excellent. Mine was pretty terrible when I first moved in.”
He saw a spark of interest and for a moment, he thought Damian might ask him about that time, but then he just scoffed. “You do not need to tell me things I know, Richard.”
Dick wrinkled his nose at the use of his full name.
“Alright then. I know new rules are hard and all. So how about, we start with what happened today. Do you understand what you did wrong?”
Damian shrugged, a careless motion that he was pretty sure was a deliberate attempt at provoking Dick. Pushing the lines and all that, find the thing that made him snap.
“I attacked Timothy,” Damian replied.
“Tim,” Dick absently corrected. “He doesn’t like being called Timothy.” Then, he said: “That’s correct, but that was not what I asked. Do you understand why it’s wrong?”
Damian tensed. It wasn’t a dramatic motion, wasn’t even really visible, but his jaw clenched slightly and his hands pressed a bit harder on his legs and his eyes tightened.
Dick waited patiently as Damian fought with himself.
Eventually, the boy shook his head, a sharp, decisive motion. “No.”
“That’s alright,” Dick assured him and Damian looked at him with a startled look he couldn’t quite hide.
Confessing ignorance went on the list too.
“There’s several things at play, I think. May I try and explain it to you?”
Damian nodded jerkily, once again with the little, defiant look of ‘Why are you even asking my permission?’
“Just interrupt me if you don’t understand something or have a follow up question.”
“Yes, Richard,” Damian replied obediently, which Dick was unfortunately pretty sure meant that there was no way in hell that he actually would interrupt.
Oh well. Rome was not built in a day.
“First of all, here, we don’t attack people. You’re allowed to defend yourself, although I will ask you to be mindful to not hurt the other person too much unless the situation demands it.” After a moment, Dick added: “Verbal provocation is also not enough to warrant an attack, alright?” He felt like it needed to be said. Surely if the league was built on infighting, an insult was the same as throwing a metaphorical glove.
Dick didn’t want to risk one of his idiot brothers, or himself, he knew he was part of the problem too, to tease Damian and for him to see it as an attack.
Damian nodded lightly.
“Can you tell me in your own words what you think I just said?” Dick asked, a trick he had picked up at his brief tutoring stint when Bruce had freshly kicked him out. There were only so many times one believed a child when they said they understood the arithmancy Dick had just explained when he was reasonably sure he would not have understood at their age.
A light sneer touched Damian’s lips, but he didn’t argue. “I’m only allowed to fight in self-defense and…sparring?” The last part was added hopefully and Dick nodded.
“We will get over the rules for that once we actually get around to sparring,” he said gently, not wanting to overwhelm the boy with rules.
Damian accepted the verdict wordlessly.
“And insults do not count as a sufficient base to enact self-defense,” Damian concluded.
Dick had to fight a laugh at the phrasing, no full well that it wouldn’t be received in a good manner. Damian would think he was laughing at him and shut down.
“Very good,” Dick said and Damian opened his mouth, before he thought better of it and lowered his eyes. “Did you have a question?”
Damian hesitated, but then looked annoyed at his own hesitance. “So what am I supposed to do when I get insulted?”
Despite himself, Dick was surprised and a little impressed by the question. Of course he had already pegged that Damian was a traumatised child and didn’t lash out because he was malicious, but he had expected for him to hold onto the aggression with both hands, having to be dragged away from it one conversation at a time.
That he was asking this told Dick more than anything that evening that he’d been right. Damian wanted to do good, he just didn’t know how. He wanted to behave, he just had no idea where to start.
“Well, the mature thing would be walking away,” Dick said, more out of obligation to be the adult than anything else. “But I know that can be hard.” He laughed. “Bruce had to drag me away from quite a few shouting matches back in my day.” And fights, but he didn’t think it a good idea to mention those when he had just told Damian he shouldn’t do that. “I would advise you not to escalate it, but you also don’t have to take insults laying down,” he eventually settled on.
Damian nodded sharply, looking satisfied with the response.
“Now, the other thing I think you misunderstood about the situation is the whole hierarchy thing,” Dick said and Damian’s eyes were back to being fixed on his face, unwaveringly. “What do you think Bruce meant when he said we don’t do it that way?”
On one hand, him prompting Damian to participate was the gymnastics coach shining through (habits from his job often carried over into his day to day life). On the other hand, it was because he wanted to get Damian. Wanted to see his view.
“That instead of a merit based hierarchy, it is age based,” Damian replied promptly.
Yes, that was approximately what he’d thought. Once again he cursed out Bruce.
“Which makes me the lowest on the ladder, as the youngest,” he added. “And Timo- Tim my superior.” Damian’s lip curled in bitterness at the prospect. “Although I do not understand why that translates even to the staff,” he added. “Father should not listen to a butler.”
Dick felt a small spark at the correction of Tim’s name and no small amount of amusement at the comments about Alfred.
“Alright, that’s what I thought,” Dick said. “But that’s not how it works. You see, us children, we’re all equally as important. Now, me and Jason,” he said, ignoring Damian’s surprisingly sassy and less surprising unaggressive and shockingly funny mumble of ‘Jason and I’ and continued, “might occasionally watch over you, Tim and Cass, as well as Duke and Steph if they’re here, in which case we expect to be listened to. That doesn’t mean you aren’t allowed to question our orders, but ultimately we might make you go to bed or make you stop video games eventhough you don’t want to.”
Damian looked baffled by the fact that Dick was even explaining him and Jason having to be listened to.
“But otherwise, we are also just Bruce’s kids and your brothers so we’re not your superiors or authority figures.”
Damian hummed. He was starting to look a little overwhelmed, even if he was trying to hide it.
“Us kids, we’re all equals. We might get age related privileges, like how Cass and Tim are allowed to stay up longer than you, but we are equal.”
His little brother looked doubtful, but didn’t argue.
“As for Alfred, Bruce doesn’t have to listen to it, but we all usually do better if we listen to Alfred. I heard you tried being rude to him already and he handled it, right?”
Damian looked slightly like he had swallowed a lemon. “Yes,” he admitted.
Dick smiled lightly. “We’ve all been there,” he assured the boy. “Now, I think you should try to rest. You must be tired. Did B give you a phone?”
Damian nodded, moving to pull it out from under his pillow, careful not to shift it too much, likely because he was hiding something else under it. Knives, if Dick had to guess.
The boy held the device out to him.
Dick quickly saved his number and gave it back.
“You will not take it?” Damian asked stiffly. “On account of my grounding?”
Oh.
Dick smiled and shrugged. “It’s not my job to enforce your punishment. If Bruce thinks you’re not sticking to the rules, he can take it. But also, the rule doesn’t include texting or phone calls. Just no gaming.”
Damian nodded again, sharply, green eyes focused and thoughtful, even if his lids were starting to droop slightly.
“I put my number in there. If you have any questions about the groundings or the rules or anything else and you don’t feel comfortable asking Bruce or Alfred, I want you to ask me, alright?”
“Yes,” Damian replied automatically.
“Perfect. I’m proud of you, Dami.”
The boy blinked, looking achingly young for a moment. Then, a scowl was back on his face. “My name is Damian,” he snapped.
Easily, Dick shrugged. “Alright. I won’t shorten your name again, sorry. Let me know if I ever call you anything else you don’t like. I tend to slip into endearments and not everyone appreciates it.”
Damian looked genuinely taken aback at being taken seriously.
“Good night, Damian.”
“Good night, Richard.”
Dick hesitated. “I don’t like it when people call me Richard,” he said. “I prefer Dick.”
The boy blinked. “But it’s inappropriate for father’s heir,” he pointed out.
“Well, Bruce doesn’t have an heir as we just established. But also, I would like my preference to be respected, just like I respect yours.”
Damian’s scowl deepened, but he thought about it. “Alright. I can see what you mean,” he said reluctantly and Dick beamed at him.
“And if anyone ever doesn’t respect your preferences, let me know, kay?”
He caught the way the boy mouthed ‘kay’ to himself with a look of utter disgust, holding back another laugh. Damian was very prickly.
“Very well,” Damian said eventually. “I find those terms acceptable. Good night, Dick.” He put a slight emphasis on the name.
Dick smiled.
“Good night.”
Quietly, he closed the door.