Chapter Text
Damian comes back to consciousness slowly. Sounds, feelings trickle in.
A voice reading out loud. “...she stopped and asked, ‘Have you seen my papa go by?’ ‘M-m-m,’ said Pippi. ‘How did he look? Did he have blue eyes?’ ‘Yes,’ said the girl. ‘Medium large, not too tall and not too short?’ ‘Yes,’ said the girl. ‘Black hat and black shoes?’ ‘Yes exactly,’ said the girl eagerly. ‘No, that one we haven’t seen,’ said Pippi decidedly...”
Softness at his back and body warmth on either side –
Softness at his back?
Damian is in a bed. Batman had come into the holding cell and now Damian is in a bed. He stiffens all at once, before his brain catches up, before he can stop himself, and the reading voice pauses.
Before Damian can do more than draw in a quick, terrified breath, though, another voice speaks, closer than the first.
“Dami?” That’s Tim’s voice. Hoarse, like he’s been crying, but unmistakably Tim.
Tim had been upstairs.
No, Tim had been brought down – by Superman – from another universe –
Damian’s eyes fly open.
Tim is lying next to him on one side of the (huge) bed. He’s levered himself up on one arm and is looking down at Damian, wide-eyed.. A thick white bandage peeks out from under his shirt – a new shirt, Damian registers, one he hasn’t seen before.
His eyes flick around the room. Jason is sitting in a chair by the bed, a copy of Pippi Longstocking held open on his lap and his mouth spreading into a tired, relieved smile. Damian’s scan for injuries is automatic. Jason looks whole, unhurt, not curled over his ribs, not trying to hide anything straight-backed overcompensation. Damian exhales.
He glances to the other side of the bed, where he feels the warmth of another body.
Dickie is curled up next to him, fast asleep.
“Dickie –” Damian breathes. “Tim, Jay, what –”
“You dissociated,” Tim says quietly, doing that thing where he lists facts, as if that will make horrible things somehow better. Damian gets it. He does it too. “Bruce – this Bruce – brought you up here and put you in bed and didn’t touch you, but you were still – you were still –”
The door opens and Richard Grayson’s head pops in.
Damian sits bolt upright. “Please,” he says quickly, desperately, trying to lever himself out the bed without touching either Tim or Dickie. “I’m sorry, I know I’m not allowed to be with them, I won’t do it again. Allow me to take the punishment, it is not their fault –”
“Dami, wait,” Tim says, trying to pull him back to the bed, but Damian’s eyes are fixed on Richard Grayson’s face, which is pulling into something very tense.
“I understand the rules,” he says, needing Grayson to know this, needing Grayson to know that he can follow orders. “I won’t break them again. I will prove my worth and my loyalty to you, I swear –”
“Damian, wait,” Grayson says, echoing Tim, and now Damian does fall silent. Tim’s hand is still on his arm. Damian hates himself for leaning into the comfort that it gives him. It’s just that it might be the last time –
“We made a mistake,” Grayson says, and Damian realizes he has lowered himself down until he is sitting on the floor, just outside the doorway. It puts him lower than Damian, Tim, and Dickie on the bed, even lower than Jason in the chair. Damian knows it’s a tactic. He can’t fault its effectiveness. “Bruce and Clark and I, we – we thought that you were working with your Batman, your father, of your own free will. We didn’t realize...” He trails off, looking pained.
“We didn’t realize you were a victim yourself.”
“I wasn’t,” Damian says quickly. This is a dangerous line of thinking. Sure, Batman hurt him too, disciplined him, passed him around the Justice League so that they could discipline him – but Damian himself has done so much harm, killed so many people, hurt his brothers over and over again. If these new owners start thinking he was a victim, then realize their mistake, they will be furious. They will punish him, perhaps punish his brothers for misleading them. He has to clear this up now. “I did everything he told me to. I hurt people. I hurt my brothers.”
“They’ve told us you did what you could to protect them,” Grayson says gently. In the chair, Jason is nodding urgently. Tim squeezes Damian’s shoulder, once. “They told us you tried to escape with Tim, once and that you were both violently raped when you were caught. They told us that wasn’t the only time.” Grayson’s eyes are wet.
Damian knows he shouldn’t contradict an adult, shouldn’t contradict Grayson, but he still shakes his head. This is too important. “I had a choice each time and I chose to kill or torture, whatever he wanted.” Whatever he wanted. Damian had hated himself for following his father’s orders.
He had still done it all.
“That’s not a choice, Damian.” Grayson’s voice is low, steady, sure. But it had been a choice, they had all been choices. Hadn’t they?
Damian is having trouble breathing again.
“In for four, hold for seven,” Tim tells him quietly. “Out for eight.” Damian follows his words, falling easily into the breathing exercise.
Batman had taught them that breathing exercise. Damian’s breath stutters.
But Grayson is patient. He does not yell, and he does not tear Damian out of the bed, and he does not climb into the bed and teach Damian, Dickie, and Tim a lesson. He simply sits, quiet and still, until Damian’s body is back under control. Then he smiles, a slow, sad thing.
“Get some rest,” he says gently. “We’ll call you for dinner in a few hours. You’re safe here,” he says, meeting Damian’s eyes. “I’m so sorry we made such a mistake before. It was inexcusable for us to act without all the information, but you have my word: no one will hurt you ever again.”
Damian doesn’t believe that, obviously. How could he?
That’s okay though, he thinks as he lies back down. Dickie’s head is pillowed into his shoulder and Tim’s arm is pressed up against his own and Jason’s voice only shakes a little as he goes back to reading out loud. As long as he is with his brothers, Damian thinks, he can get through whatever these new people will want from him, whatever they ask of him. As long as he is with his brothers, he can get through anything.