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"All right second superhero lesson."

Damian bent down and caught one of Lizzie"s wayward boots from where she sat on the hood of the Batmobile. The little girl was kicking her feet, singing a tune to her favorite cartoon. What was that blasted cartoon called? The one with the talking dogs? It would have been cute if it weren"t for the fact that Damian wasn"t keeping his anger in check.

Diana had stopped by earlier and asked both of them to watch her daughter Lizzie while she was out. Jon - that little goody toe shoes- had ditched him to go rescue forty thousand people or whatever from a damaged dam. So, Damian decided to bring pint-sized Wonder Woman with him on patrol out of spite.  He dredged up one of Richard"s old costumes, some knee pads, and a green tutu. And if a picture of the little girl suddenly became his new phone wallpaper, no one would be the wiser.

Soon enough, Wonder Robin and Robin were all ready to go. Lizzie just needed her boots to be tied.

"Bunny ears, bunny ears; playing by a tree," he made a loop with her shoelaces. "Crisscross the tree; trying to catch me. Bunny ears, bunny ears; jumped into a hole," he crossed the two lops and pulled one under the other. "Popped out the other side, beautiful and bold," Damian pulled the knot tight and finished the bow.

Lizzie looked down at her Robin boots with a gummy smile. She was still growing in her big kid teeth. "Who taught you that?"

"My...mother taught me that," Damian ran a hand through his hair. "I assume I learned it the first time, but whenever I tried the maneuver again I failed . I made an error. The bunny did not cross the tree I suppose."

He purposely left out the part where his mother had used rope instead of shoelaces and a man"s neck instead of a shoe. His hands were far too small at the time for the thick rope and he had great difficulty even grasping it. Looking back, he"d been destined to fail. He never would have had the dexterity to properly tie that noose nor the brute strength to kill the traitor before him. It had done more damage to Damian than him, honestly. His hands had been rubbed raw from the twine.

The man had floundered on the ground like a dying fish, chapped lips parting for water, as Damian pulled and pulled and pulled. He hadn"t even gone blue before Grandfather stopped him.

"Enough," the Demon"s Head had said, expression grave. "This is pointless. You have failed."

Damian, who had been barely older than Lizzie at the time, had maintained his composure, nodded a brief yes Grandfather, and quickly lowered his eyes. Grandfather did not appreciate it when a failure looked him in the eyes. One had to earn back his favor in order to have that honor. It was a good thing that the rule was in place. That way he could hide the tears welling up in his eyes.

He hated disappointing his grandfather.

The man strutted out of the room, great robes flapping around him. It was a silent order - follow me.

Damian began to follow, curious as to what his punishment would be when he was stopped by a firm hand on his shoulder. He looked up and saw the long face of his mother. Her hair had been done by the servants today; it was braided nearly down her back, gold strands weaved in effortlessly. Her lips were pulled into a firm line. "No crying," she said sternly, wiping his tears with her thumb. "I am certain you will do better next time, yes?"

Damian resisted the urge to lean into her touch. Sometimes, he wished he had. This was one of the last times she would openly show affection for him, something that often clenched his heart on dark nights.

"Yes, mother."

He had kept that promise. The next time, the man was dead within seconds. However, it most likely had more to do with the punishment his grandfather had given than his mother"s words.

It was certainly one of his most creative punishments.

Damian didn"t like it when his grandfather got creative.

An older Damian shrugged. "So, my grandfather locked me in a box in the desert for a week without any food or water."

Lizzie blinked and then, to his horror, began to cry. Tears fell down her cheeks silently, her face becoming red and blotchy. He shifted. It reminded him far too much of himself at that age.

Not sure what else to do, or how to comfort her, he began to wipe her tears away. "Why are you crying?"

She looked at him like he was stupid. "That"s sad ."

"Oh," he said. She made a motion with her arms to indicate that she wanted to be set down and he was happy to oblige. "Is it? I don"t know. I remember him laughing. He wasn"t sad."

Lizzie looked up at him with worried eyes, fidgeting with her gloved hands. "But if I get my lesson wrong, you — you"re not going to put me in a box in the desert with no food or water and stuff? Right?"

He could see the tears begin to well up in her eyes again." Right?"

Damian crossed his arms, huffed, and began to walk away. Obviously, he wasn"t going to lock her away in the desert. Even back then he wasn"t so much a monster as to lock a child away in the desert. The walls kept his small body pinned in place, the hot air suffocated him, hunger burned his stomach -

It was a horrible experience, one that continues to haunt him to this day. The only reason he had lived was because he had been trained to survive in harsh conditions. He hated to imagine Lizzie in any sort of situation like that.

But, he couldn"t let her know that. "No promises. Now, superhero lesson number three..."

Here are the facts:

1. It was Halloween. Which obviously meant that there had been a massive breakout at Arkham.

2. He had been charged with tracking down Scarecrow.

3. He forgot his rebreather at home.

4. He was currently six feet underground, buried alive.

5. He was painfully, dreadfully claustrophobic.

The worst part about this whole mess was that it wasn"t even his fault. It had been Lizzie"s. When he had been patrolling with her a few weeks ago and they had tracked Killer Croc down into the sewers, the little girl would not shut up about how much it stank. Damian had told her to suck it up - superhero lesson twenty-two stop complaining about the smell in the sewers. It"s a sewer. It"s going to stink - then she asked what a sewer was. Damian told her - it"s where all the city"s waste goes - like POOP? - to which Lizzie had proceeded to flip the fuck out. He had no choice but to hand her his precious rebreather - God have mercy, okay! Okay! Just be careful. They are very difficult to replace. Lizzie had calmed down for a little bit. Until she got mad at him for some inane reason - Crumbs on mac and cheese is disgusting! - and smashed it to pieces.

Hmm, okay, so correction.

1. It was Halloween. Which obviously meant that there had been a massive breakout at Arkham.

2. He had been charged with tracking down Scarecrow.

3. He didn"t have his rebreather because Lizzie had gotten mad at him and used her Amazonian strength to crush it into tiny, little pieces. After which, he went home, gave Lizzie a bath, set the chunks on his desk, and completely forgot about it.

4. He was currently six feet underground, buried alive.

5. He was painfully, dreadfully claustrophobic.

You may ask yourself, how did he end up in a coffin buried six feet underground with no rebreather?

Well, it had all started as most terrible nights did: calm, quiet, and normal. Or at least normally for a Halloween.

Which wasn"t very normal.

It had been all hands on deck. Halloween in Gotham had a certain reputation as the bloodiest, most crime-infested day of the year. Banks hired mercenaries to keep burglars out; the entire GPD was out on the streets, barely managing to keep the peace. It was the one night of the year the crime rates in Gotham went from extremely high to astronomical.

It was a struggle just to keep the streets from erupting into pure anarchy.

Father had requested the help of as many Bats who could manage it, which had been nearly everyone this year, and quartered them all off into their own respective sectors. It was a fool"s dream to stop all crime on Halloween. The least they could do was attempt to keep it contained to the non-civilian areas.

Father had put Batman and Robin in charge of Old Gotham and the Diamond District. They stop armed robberies, wannabe arsonists, neerdowell murders, and dickhead teenagers from stealing candy from children. Overall, it was a good Halloween night.

They had only stopped their crusade once. It had been early into the patrol and a mother and her son had been walking home after buying treats at a local bakery. They had just thrown away their wrappers when a man emerged from the shadows and donned a cheap clown costume. He had whipped out a jagged knife and demanded they empty his pockets. The little boy, who had been wearing a Batman costume, had immediately stepped in front of his mother and screamed:

"No! Go away! I"m Batman!"

Imagine the little boy"s surprise when the real Batman swooped in not a second later and broke the mugger"s jaw.

"Thank you, Batman," the woman had said through deep sobs. She was clutching her son to her chest, afraid of what would happen if she let go.

Father gave a short nod before turning away, ready to go.

But Damian wasn"t ready to go quite yet. He got down to one knee and pulled from his belt a roll of stickers. The boy looked at him curiously from between his mother"s arms. Damian presented him with a black and yellow sticker in the shape of the Batman symbol. "For your bravery, I, Robin, present you with this Medal of Honor. You are now an honorary member of Batman Incorporated," the boy took it with chocolate-smudged hands.

Damian saluted him. "Thank you for your service."

The boy broke into a bright smile.

Damian nodded and swung onto a nearby fire escape, crawling to the roof of the old building. He was half-tempted to follow them home to make sure they made it alright. Father joined him soon enough, quiet, but curious. Damian could feel him staring at him out of the corner of his eye.

Damian despised it when they played this game. " What ?"

Father"s cape fluttered in the wind. "That was very kind of you."

"Oh. Yeah," Damian shifted. He wasn"t used to hearing compliments from his father. Criticism, yes. But very rarely a genuine compliment. He kicked a rock off the ledge. "I don"t like to see kids cry."

Father hummed. "Me either."

Then, Batman shot off his grappling gun and left. Damian didn"t complain, he was used to his father"s flighty behavior when it came to emotions. It wasn"t as if he was much better.

At midnight the yellow beam of the Bat-signal gleamed through the dark sea of clouds like an ominous lighthouse guiding wayward ships. 

It could mean only one thing on a Halloween night: there had been a breakout.

Father sighed. They had just stopped their eighteenth attempted robbery of the night. He unclipped his grappling gun from its holster. "All I ask for is one year where Halloween doesn"t go sideways."

"Maybe when you"re dead," Damian shrugged. "Halloween had been quite calm the year you were missing."

Father hadn"t thought that was very funny.

They were the first to arrive at GPD Headquarters because of their close proximity. They found Gordon smoking in his usual spot, cigarette poised between two casted fingers. He"d broken it a month earlier in a brawl with one of Penguin"s henchmen. In that moment, he seemed ancient. Every wrinkle and gray hair is pronounced. He didn"t even blink when they landed on the roof, simply took a long drag from his cancer stick and exhaled. Father got that way sometimes, lost in time.

"Those things are bad for you, you know," Damian said. It was the usual banter exchanged between them.

To his surprise, Gordon didn"t put it out like he usually did. Instead, he placed it back on his lips and stared up at the sky, as if God were to appear and ease all his woes. "Twenty years to that day."

Father hummed. "Is it now?"

Gordon scoffed. "Don"t play coy with me. You were there. The day we lost our friend. The day our lives changed."

Father stared up at the sky alongside his friend. "Twenty years is a long time."

Gordon laughed dryly. "Damn right, it is. A lot has changed between then and now," he paused. "You know, Batman, I ain"t a believer anymore. Haven"t been since Barbra lost her legs." 

Father ripped his gaze away from the Heavens and looked down at the Hell beneath it. "Me either."

Damian wondered what they were talking about, but didn"t dare prod. He had long given up on attempting to understand the tired colloquialisms and unspoken words shared between Gotham"s shining knights. Though he supposed, tonight, under the moonlight, you could see all the slashes and scuffs in their armor. Perhaps that is what they are speaking of.

”There was a breakout at Arkham."

"I figured," Father said. "How many?"

Gordon raised a brow. "How many you think?"

"All?"

"Yup," Gordon said, taking a long drag from his cigarette. "Gonna be a long night."

Father nodded. "It always is a long night."

The others soon joined them and all talk of Gotham and old memories were soon forgotten. The mood seemed light with them all gathered around the rooftop. The air buzzed with playful chatter and banter. Damian was quick to join in, eager to escape the somber atmosphere his father had been carrying with him all night. He could feel himself relax now that he was around his family. He had forgotten how nice it was to have everyone together. The ghosts that plagued them seemed to shy away from the light they created.

After Oracle hacked into Arkham servers (they had been smart enough to implant trackers into them all this time), everyone was soon assigned their own escapee, even Damian.

Damian looked at his father in surprise. Not only was he working alone, he had been assigned a heavy hitter, Scarecrow. "Are you certain, Batman?"

He placed a heavy hand on his son"s shoulders. "I"m sure, Robin. I trust you," Damian"s lenses widened. "You have your rebreather, right?"

He nodded affirmatively.

(Looking back, this was the moment he should have checked his utility belt for his mask. But, alas, he had been so caught off guard by his father"s attention to care).

"Then, I trust you have it handled."

Damian could barely hide the smile that graced his face. "Thank you, Batman. I"ve got it handled."

Damian could almost swear that Batman was going to smile back when Richard decided to ruin the moment. "Aww!" He gushed, scooping Damian up in his arms as best he could. The kid was even more gangly than Tim. "Look at you! All grown up!"

"Gah!" He attempted to wiggle off Richard"s arms but to no avail. "Unhand me, asshole!"

Richard nuzzled up to him. "Ah, did you guys hear that? He called me an asshole instead of a harlot like a real human boy!"

“Let go -!"

Jason seemed far away. "I remember the first time I flew solo..."

Duke groaned, running his hands down his face. He"d been grouchy all night - he wasn"t used to staying up so late. "Ugh, nobody wants to hear it, Hood."

"I second that," chimed in Timothy. " I died horribly and got brought back to life because my brother"s dead boyfriend punched the universe so hard it changed the literal fabric of time. Whomp, whomp. Eat a bucket of ice cream and go to therapy like a normal person."

"Someone"s feeling a little feisty," Stephanie teased, hitting him in the shoulder.

"He almost killed me, like, twice so I get to be a dick."

Gordon seemed amused. Father looked like he was fighting a migraine. He pinched his brow. "Can we please go and stop the criminals tearing apart our city?"

"Oh, we"re sharing now?" Timothy snorted.

"Robin, please...."

Cassandra tapped Stephanie on the shoulder, a grin on her face. "Race you."

The blonde grinned wickedly - "You"re so on"-  and glided off the building alongside her friend.

Damian wasn"t far behind, already pulling out a small tablet from his belt. The tracker said that Scarecrow was currently hiding out in Arkham County Cemetery, a plot of land outside the power plant. He was quick to summon the R-Cycle and begin the short drive there, already creating plans and back-up plans and back-up plans for his battle with the Scarecrow.

What Damian hadn"t been expecting was to find Scarecrow weeping at the foot of his mother"s grave in the rain. He was still in his Arkham uniform, draped over the angel that adorned her grace. His mask and scythe lay beside him, forgotten. It seemed he wanted to be naked in the judging eyes of her angel. Damian didn"t know why he would want such a thing. He knew a thing or two about where you went to after you die and the only creatures that would be judging Crane would be the crooked, black demons that ruled Hell. Perhaps, he knew that and he was weeping for his damned soul.

Well, if Damian was being honest he couldn"t give a shit. Crane"s wailing was annoying and high-pitched and made him want to drive Birdarang into his ear. Maybe he gassed himself? That would explain why he wasn"t out there right now, destroying the whole city like the bloodthirsty little ingrate he was. And why he hadn"t attacked Damian the second he approached.

Damian stopped just a few feet behind him, opened his mouth, and found he didn"t know what to say. What do you say to a mass murderer with an unhealthy obsession with fear who was weeping at the grave of his mother whom he hated so much he killed in cold blood?

He simply settled for, "What the hell are crying for?"

Jesus H. Christ on a stick. That didn"t come out right.

Crane"s sobbing stopped all at once like the needle being lifted off a record. He seemed frozen, before he whipped around, gnarled teeth barred. His ugly face was streaked with tears. Ugh, Damian was starting to get sick of all the crying people he had to handle today.

"Go away!" Crane hissed. His eyes seemed to be twinged a little more madness than usual. Gassing himself was becoming a higher and higher possibility.

Damian scoffed. "If you escaped just to cry over a dead woman, then you can weep back in your cell at Arkham and cry for her there."

" No ! I ain"t going back!"

Damian pulled out a pair of cuffs. "Look, Crane. It"s late and I"m eager to get out of this rain. So, either we can do this the easy way or we can do this the ha-," he was cut off by a flash of movement. "The hard way. Did you just throw a rock at me?"

"No! No! No!" The man cried. He was pounding his fist into the soft earth, ripping up grass and dirt. " No! No! No! "

He"s finally lost it, Damian thought. Not that he was very sane , to begin with.

Damian clicked his tongue and began to walk towards the crumpled figure of Crane, who was currently throwing a tantrum. Well, good thing Lizzie had given him tons of practice with tantrums. He just had to apply those skills to a forty-seven-year-old schizophrenic psychiatrist.

Damian let him play it out, waiting until his wailing turned into soft hiccups. It would be easier to incapacitate him if he worked himself out. The man didn"t acknowledge his existence as he approached, too wrapped up in the world of his own making. Damian grabbed one of his wrists and snapped the cuff on. Scarecrow didn"t even fight it.

Damian took the other wrist. "Come on, let"s go home, yeah?"

But just as he clamped the other wrist, three things happened in succinct order. First, Crane jumped up, eyes clear, hovering over him. A smile was on his lips, privy to a joke that Damian hadn"t quite got yet. Second, he yanked Damian closer by their joined hands, so close he could smell his rotting breath. Third, he produced a very large syringe from his jacket and swiftly jabbed him in the neck.

Whatever he was that he had injected with was fast, too. He could already feel the substance course through his veins, thick and fast, like sugar. He fought the feeling and lashed out at Crane, hitting him with the solar plexus.

Crane crumpled. " Ooof !"

Damian"s hand flew to the needle, ripping it out. He nearly gagged at the pulling sensation - how big was this stupid needle - and then did what his instincts were screaming at him too. Which broke Crane"s stupid face. And that"s what he did. Even if he wobbled a bit as he did so.

Crane cried out, hands pressed to his face, and stumbled back into his mother"s grave. But what were once howls of pain quickly morphed into great bouts of laughter. He sniffled, clutching the edges of the headstone. "You Robins are so easy to fool! So emotional. So eager to help," he grinned with red teeth, bending down to grab his mask. "Now, that boy before you, he was a smart cookie. Never would have fallen for something like this. Thought himself above fear. Certainly taught him a lesson or two, didn"t I? But you," Scarecrow pulled the mask on, his wolfish smile turning into one of thread and burlap. "I like you. All those children in green tights didn"t know what true fear was before me. I admit, that I did relish in taking away their innocence. Making them understand ."

He took a dangerous step closer. Damian stumbled back, holding his neck. He needed to - he needed to - what was it that he was supposed to do? Some sort of protocol? A haze was clouding his mind; thinking hurt.

"But you have already feasted on Fear"s flesh. didn"t you?" Crane stepped even closer. Damian"s limbs were heavy as lead, weighed down by his bones muscles, and nerves. It felt like his brain was beginning to lose connection with the rest of his body, disconnected. In his attempt to get away from Crame, he twisted his ankle and lurched back, only to be caught by the collar.

The Scarecrow brought them face to face. "Tell me, bird boy, what is that you fear?"

Damian"s tongue felt heavy in the mouth. Still, he fixed his face into the most menacing glare he could make. "F"ck "ou."

Crane shook his head in faux disappointment. "That"s not very nice language. I"m going to have to wash your mouth out with soap for that."

Damian did his best to fight back as Crane dragged him some feet away towards the edge of the hill. Though, it mostly came out as weak stops and half-haphazard punches. Damian soon went limp as l dragged him through the mud. It was as if he watching through the eyes of another person. He was a pretty pathetic sight. He hoped Father couldn"t see this.

They eventually came to a halt near a broke. mausoleum. Crane lifted him up by his hair, painfully, and presented him with a scenic view. In the distance, they could see the outline of Gotham, a forest of skyscrapers and lights. Below them, was the vast expanse of the graveyard below. It was lined with row after row of headstones on the slope, in no particular order. Damian supposed he could appreciate its morbid beauty if it weren"t for the fact that he was fighting to stay awake.

"On second thought, how about I just push you down this hill?" He cackled. “Happy Halloween!”

And with that, he let go of him as if he were a bowling ball. He was a rag doll as tumbled down and down, limbs twisting at odd angles and teeth gnashing. He bites his tongue, copper flooding his mouth. The drug had taken away his ability to tuck and roll like he had been trained to. All he could do was hope he got caught on a headstone.

His bloody mouth filled with copper and grass; he clipped a headstone with his shoulder. Dull pain shot up his neck and his faint scream was so muffled by the earth below.

It supposed was by some small mercy that he eventually veered at just the right angle for him to roll head first into a great headstone. That way he didn"t have to be awake for the next part. He didn"t know it yet, but Scarecrow was far from done with him.

The second his head made contact with the stone, he briefly saw stars. He thought of Nanda Parbat, then of father and of home, and then was engulfed by the black of sweet, sweet unconsciousness.

Damian"s first thought when he woke up was:

Great I"ve gone blind.

Then, he realized how stupid of a thought that was and tore open his eyes, blinking back goop and gunk. Wherever he was, it was pitch-black, which wasn"t really helping disprove his whole blind idea. However, any worry that thought dredged up was quickly washed away by a tidal wave of nausea. He tried to sit up to avoid vomiting all over himself but was stopped when his poor head hit something cold and hard. He groaned, leaned back, and hit his head again. Unable to stop himself, shaking, he promptly puked his colorful Halloween dinner all over his freshly dry-cleaned suit.

Damian groaned and swallowed back globs of bile. Fantastic.

Dully, pain irradiated from his shoulder and temple. He couldn"t really remember how he"d injured himself, but he hoped neither was too damaged. Much more pressing was whatever was currently jabbing into his back. Unable to move much, he simply shuffled around until whatever he laid on was to the side of him.

Any sort of sensation in limbs was lost in the overwhelming sensation of coming back into being. He swam through the nausea and disorientation, attempting to tie himself back together.

Okay.

First things first, what did he remember last? It had been Halloween. They had all eaten dinner together. There had been a little boy in a Batman costume. There had been an escape. He had been put in charge of fetching Scarecrow. He remembered being eager to make his dad proud-

Scarecrow!

It all came back to him with the force of a gut punch from Superman. Scarecrow had gotten dropped on him and manipulated his caring mood. Ugh. This is exactly why he didn"t bother playing nice! Without fail, he always ended up finding himself in whole heaps of trouble. Sometimes he wished he listened to his mother and not that idiot Richard. Kindness is the best policy, his ass. If made it out of this situation, he was going to slip laxatives into that bastard"s coffee. And if he didn"t well then Damian was simply going to haunt him till the end of his days.

So, the second step. Where was he? Then, the third step is escape. Scarecrow was still very much at large. Hopefully, he hadn"t been out very long so he still had time to drag that asshole back to Arkham.

Damian was lying down somewhere, cold and dank. All kinds of smells overwhelmed his sensitive nose. There were the faint scents of blood, mud, petrichor, and earth. Something mildewy and ancient. However, a second scent profile c ompletely overpowered any sort of comfort the previous one brought. It was sickly sweet and sour; something rotting and putrid. Like chicken left in the fridge too long. It was a smell he knew much too intimately for a seventeen-year-old boy. It was the smell of death.

The pieces were slowly falling together and Damian did not like them one bit.

He kicked out with his feet and heard a soft thud; reached out with his arms and barely moved an inch before he met some sort of wall. Something stirs in his stomach. He was in a box. Trapped. With something dead. Vomit rose up his throat once more.

He...did not do well in tight spaces. It was the last after-effect of his Grandfather"s punishments that he couldn"t quite shake. It was pitiful, really. The second he was in a sort of space where it felt like he couldn"t breathe, couldn"t move he was reduced to a sobbing, blubbering mess. Which is why he never mentioned it to his Father or Richard or anybody else.

It was a weakness . In his youth, he"d never said a word about it because he did not trust them. He was scared they"d use it against him. But, as he got older it stemmed from a deep sense of shame. What use was a vigilante that couldn"t handle a crawl space? Gotham was full of them. Yet, over the years, he managed to shake it somewhat. Through lots of meditation and breathing practice, he"d been able to reduce his source of anxiety from small rooms to boxes. Honestly, it was a miracle no one had discovered it.

It wasn"t as if he"d been actively keeping it a secret. He supposed maybe he"d say something if it ever became a liability. People"s lives were far more prévois than his stupid fear. He"d just never been in any sort of situation to constitute its reveal.

Until now.

However...it wouldn"t hurt if he tried to escape before attempting to come his finally, right? What they didn"t know didn"t hurt them. If there wasn"t a way out, then Damian would call them.

Simple as that.

Okay. He could do this. He was Damian Wayne al-Ghul. He was Robin . He would not be bested by a small room.

Damian took a deep, shaky breath and reached for his belt. Relief flooded his aching body the second he felt the Kevlar and metal. Crane hadn"t gotten rid of it; his chances of escape had just gone from minimal to almost certain. Quickly, he wrapped cold fingers around his flashlight and clicked it on.

Above him was some sort of purple cloth padding, behind it was wood he soon discovered. It wasn"t that hard to deduce where he was. His breath quickened.

A coffin. And if the smell was anything to go by, he had been freshly buried six feet underground.

But that wasn"t even the worst part. There was something dead down here.

He wasn"t alone.

He was almost afraid to look. But Damian al-Ghul Wayne was no coward. Hand shaking, he slowly directed the light to shine in the space right next to him.

White teeth and hollow eyes grinned back at him.

Oh God. Oh God. Oh fuck.

This was not happening. No. No. Damian"s lungs seized. It was almost as if someone was strangling him with a garrote, cutting off his airway. 

Walls closing in, unbearable heat, hunger like little knives in his stomach-

His heart raced. It felt like it was going to beat out of my chest. The pain in his head pulsed in tandem with it. Bump- bump - bump. Tears threatened to fall. He was going to die down here, starve. He was going to die all alone again and it wasn"t even going to be quick and easy and -

He needed to get out now . Damian didn"t care if he had to crawl his way out; he was getting the fuck out.

With an animalistic scream, he began to savagely beat the lid of the coffin with as much force as he could manage. Cloth ripped; wood creaked. His lungs took in more air than needed - he was using up too much air he was going to suffocate he didn"t care we wanted out - out - out.

The flashlight slipped out of his wet fingers, flying towards his feet. That did little to stop him. Fists collided with the ceiling; and an elbow was thrown backwards into the corpse beside him. He could feel its hard bones and mushy skin being crushed with every movement. Something split open and fluids sprayed on him.

Damian puked again but did not stop scratching - hitting - and smashing.

Eventually, the wood splintered open with a great crack and Damian began to tear away it with broken fingers. Dirt and mud began to slop through, a little waterfall, but it was coming out too fast. The earth above him was wet, almost liquid. He shouldn"t have known that. It had been raining non-stop all day.

Damian was crying now, tears mixing with mud. The substance was slipping through, slowly filling up his little coffin. He was going right drown - drown - down-

Damian could hear his Grandfather laughing in his ear. Or maybe it was the decaying thing beside him. "Look at you. An animal trapped in a cage. I enjoy watching you squirm."

Damian sobbed. He was going to die -

Mother had forgotten about him. Why else had he been out here for so long? It had to have been days. Months even. He was so, so hungry and his thirst was so unbearable he was tempted to split open his flesh just to wet his dry, bleeding lips. Tears fell down his face and he greedily lapped them up. She had left him out here to die. He wanted his mama so, so bad.

"Mama-!"

"Robin, report."

Damian went very, very still. It was a command, something ingrained in him deeper than any fear of small spaces was. He was a soldier first, yes. He clenched his hands. "Fa-father?

" Code names, " the man scolded, then seemed to readjust his tone. "Robin, what"s your status? You haven"t left the cemetery in over an hour."

Damian laughed, thinking it sounded more like a barely contained sob. "I need help," he whispered. He didn"t care if he sounded childish. He wanted out. Now. "I"m trapped."

"Trapped! What happened?! Robin!" Richard. If there was anybody who could save him it would be him. He wouldn"t abandon him. Not like Mother-

Alone all alone. Maybe...maybe this was a test. Maybe it was up to him to escape -

"Robin, are you okay?" Drake interjected. He seemed to be worried. They had gotten closer over the years but not that close.

"What happened?" Damian could hear the anguish began to sink into his father"s voice. He had wondered over the years if, in the past, he had always been so quick to descend to madness the minute one of them got hurt. In the distance, he could hear the roar of the Batmobile starting. "Where are you? Are you injured? I need specifics - talk to me."

Damian pressed hard into the wounds he"d created on his hands. He felt something crunch . "Scarecrow bested me," the words were difficult to say, but he had to tell the truth if he was going to get out. "I woke up trapped - alone ," his breathing hitched. "Alone...please, I can"t - I can"t -I"m going to die! Starve here in this puddle of fucking mud!" Panic took hold of him. He began to toss and turn, kick in and flailing. He needed out. "Let me out! Let me out! Let me out!"

"Robin!" Yelled Richard. He sounded borderline hysterical himself. "Stop! Remain calm! Freaking out won"t help us. You need to tell us where you are - where you"re trapped!"

"In a fucking coffin!" Damian screamed. He was crying again, body heaving with sobs. " Buried!" He hiccuped. " Please!"

Silence, then a cacophony of sounds. A menagerie of curse words and pleas. It hurt his head.

"Oh God," Richard moaned.

Todd"s harrowed words stuck out to him the most. Even in his state, Damian gets here the grief in them. "Jesus fucking Christ. B."

"I"m trying, Hood!" Snapped Father. "Robin, chum, I"m almost there. You need to remain calm, okay? Ten - eight more minutes, okay?" He paused, no doubt pressing harder on the gas. " Okay ?"

Damian was crying so hard now that he couldn"t breathe. His vision blurred; his head pounded. He gasped - gasped - gasped, but all that came out was dust and mud. He didn"t have enough energy left in him to care that his family was on the other line, listening to him fall apart. He needed out .

" Okay ?! Dick, talk to him!"

"Breathe for me, sweetheart. Please? Can you do that for that for me?" Damian tried, he really did. "Like this, with me: in, one - two - three- four. Out, one - two. You’re doing so well. You can do this, honey. In..."

Damian followed along with his brother’s numbers. His words soothed the creature inside of him clawing for a way out. When he managed to get his breathing steady once more, he closed his eyes and pretended he was anywhere but there. Father was on his way; Richard, too. He was going to be saved. He wasn"t going to die. He wasn"t trapped in that box in the desert. He-

"Robin," that was Tim. "B and Nightwing are two minutes out."

"Okay, okay, okay..."

He took a deep breath. Almost there. He was going to be okay-

Laughter. A deep, resonating like a funeral bell. " Your faith in them is pathetic. You"re going to die here."

Damian"s eyes flew open. "Who said that?!"

"Who said what, baby bat?"

More laughter.

"That voice!"

Teeth clattered. " Right next to you."

Damian felt something touch his ear, slimy and wet. Slowly, he turned his head, half into the mud. It was dark, but his flashlight was still on in the corner, flickering. In a flash, he saw it, the dead thing right next to him. It"s bloated, bruised skin; the clumps of hair attached to its skull; the maggots crawling out of its eye sockets and mouth. Damian knew death and he knew rot, but, at that moment, he felt two years old again, seeing his first corpse.

The corpse"s head rolled. Fat, split lips broke into a giddy grin. " Boo."

Damian couldn"t help it. He screamed.

"Robin!"

Damian flailed. He needed to get away from it. It wasn’t going to kill him. He wasn’t to die again . But, the corpse, wouldn"t let him. Cold, bony hands wrapped themselves around his chest, digging into his suit. It licked a wet stripe up his neck.

He screamed and screamed and screamed. "Let go! Let go! Stop! Let me go!"

Distantly, he heard yelling in his ear, from the comm, but it was drowned out by the horrible voice of the body.

" No,” it wheezed . “You will be down here with me - forever. Even as your skin melts your eyes pop and belly explodes and you become nothing but skin and dust, I will never let it . We will remain."

He continued to struggle, in the mud and the body’s decaying, soup state. But it was fruitless. “No! No! I don"t want to be trapped in a box forever! Please!"

"Yes, be with me. Forever and ever and ever..."

Time passes and Damian stops fighting. He no longer had the energy to fight back. He was so, so tired. He would remain here chained, forever.

He didn"t want to stay with it. But...but...

Thwack.

Damian heard something hit the top of the box. That...wasn"t him. Did the corpse...?

Thwack.

Then, he saw it. Glorious, beautiful light. It shined into his final resting place like the eyes of God. He was so overwhelmed with relief that he’d cry if he had any tears left.

There was one last crunching sound before the lid was thrown open and Damian was exposed to fresh air. Magically, as if the corpse knew it had lost, it let go of its python grip on him. He sat up and gasped for it until his lungs were full - full - full. Out of the corner of their eye, he could see a shadow, looming over him. He ignored the figure and opted to use what little remained of his energy to crawl out of that blasted fucking hole. It was difficult with all the mud, he slipped multiple times, but he did not rest until he was far, far away from that coffin and the corpse.

Distantly, he heard someone curse. "Is that a fucking body?"

Damian collapsed and, finally breathed. It was raining and lapped it up greedily. It hit him all once, the exhaustion. He felt like he could sleep forever...

On second thought, Damian shot up. He’d rather not.

The figure approached him, hands out as if approaching a wounded animal. Damian whined but was too tired to fight back. He pressed himself into a headstone, prepared to be victim to whatever it wanted.

But, then the moon gleamed and hit a familiar cowl. "Son..."

Damian sobbed in relief. “ Dad.”

He crawled up on his hands and knees and dragged himself to his dad. Fortunately, the older man did most of the heavy lifting and quickly scooped him up in his arms. Damian wrapped his fingers around the edges of his armor, relishing the warmth his dad brought. It was a common misconception, that. People look at people and only ever see his cold, hard edges. But, if one were to peel back his armor, they’d see the real person underneath. A flawed, broken father.

They sat there together in the mud and blood and filth. Father kept him cradled in the crook of his arm, not too tight. He frowned and brushed Damian"s crusted hair back. “You hit your head pretty good."

Damian hummed. "Crane," his eyes flew open. He still needed to 

"Crane, he escaped-."

Father shushed him. "We"ll take care of it. Let"s get you home," he picked Damian up, treating him as if he were something precious. Quietly, as if he thought Damian wasn’t conscious enough to hear it, he said, "When did you get so big?"

Damian didn"t respond. Unconsciousness tugged at his vision and all that mattered was that he was here in the arms of his father safe -safe - safe.

The next few hours were a blur. Everyone had stopped what they were doing to come check on him. Father had been beside himself, demanding that they go save the cities you idiots, I can take care of him. Father had refused to let go of him, even as they sped home in the Batmobile. He wanted nothing more than to sleep, but he wasn"t allowed to because of his concussion. But Damian was a good little soldier and he could stay awake for his dad. Just for a little bit. It helped that he sang old songs for him like Alfred would all those years ago.

After that, his memory became patchy at best. It was a flurry of movement and color. At one point he felt himself slip back into a primal state of fear, thrashing and crying, but it was quickly washed away with a slurry of drugs. And then, darkness.

The next time he woke up, Damian was greeted by the dreary grays and whites of the medbay. It smelled of antiseptic and metal. Better than a coffin, he supposed. At least the lights were turned down, no doubt to help his concussion. The heart rate monitor chirped next to him, drowned out by loud snoring.

Damian blinked away the stickiness in his eyes and looked down. Richard was fast asleep, curled up at his bedside. His hair was a rat’s nest and stuck up at all sorts of angles. So much for his precious hair. He looked a mess - last night must have been difficult if he hadn’t bothered to do his twelve-step hair routine.

Damian placed a hand on top of Richard"s. He wasn"t very surprised to find it sporting a white cast. “Richard."

The ex-cop didn"t stir. Odd. "Richard."

Still nothing.

Damian sighed. "Dick?"

Damian saw a smile peak through his arms. It came into full view as he adjusted leaned his head on a propped up his arm. "Knew you"d come around."

Damian clicked his tongue. "That was a very dirty trick."

Dick shrugged. "Desperate times call for desperate measures," he stood up, stretching out his arms and back out. His lifting shirt revealed his own assortment of bandages and bruises. It appeared Damian wasn"t the only one who didn"t have a good night. "How ya feeling, kiddo?"

"Drugged," he said blandly.

Dick nodded and adjusted the morphine monitor next to him. "You got a pretty nasty concussion. Tore your shoulder, too. Broken hand. Fear Toxin. You had a pretty bad attack when you returned to the cave, but B sedated you," so he had been poisoned. That would explain the whole corpse situation. "Had us all worried for a little bit there."

Damian huffed. "I would not die at the hands of someone inferior as Crane."

"That"s not very funny, Dames," Dick sighed. Though he did seem somewhat amused, so Damian did consider it a win. "Hey, can I ask you a question, buddy?"

Damian clicked his tongue. "Depends."

Dick rolled his eyes and settled back into his chair, picking up Damian"s casted hand, tracing the grooves. "Tim, he analyzed the Fear Toxic you had been injected with to make an antidote. It didn"t appear on our machines - which was weird . It meant that either it was a brand new formula or a really, really old one. So, Tim had Bruce look at it and he did recognize it. It was a strand Scarecrow used back in the early days, nearly twenty years ago," Dick took a deep breath and began to gently twist his numb fingers. "It"s different. It doesn"t create a state of fear or hallucinations like his typical formula. It only “activates” when a person is already scared. It aggravates their fear."

Dick paused and looked Damian in the eye. He seemed sad. “Which means you were already scarred long before the hallucinations began."

Damian looked away but did not rip his hand away. Fear crawled its way through the murky clouds surrounding his head. Not quite fear of Dick finding out, but more of him hating him for it.

"Dames?"

Damian clenched his blanket with his good hand.

Dick gently took Damian’s face, forcing him to look at him. "Dames, it"s okay. I promise. You"re safe."

Damian looked at a purpling bruise above his eyebrow "It is not of importance."

"Must be if it"s freaking you out this much."

Damian squeezed his eyes shut. All he could see behind them was the cold purple cloth of the coffin and the steel of the box in the desert before that. When he opened them he saw the worried face of his older brother, his caretaker. But, beneath the worry, he knew, was a lake of love so endless that Damian sometimes didn"t know what else to do but drown. Yet, Dick’s love had never hurt him. It never cut him; never made him bleed. He floated above it, content.

"I...I do not like small spaces."

Richard nodded. "I figured," he moved on from Damian"s hand and began to slowly trace all the little scars up his arms. Damian shivered at his touch. When he was younger, when Dick was his Batman, he would do this often to ground him. Damian had ripped his arm away until those last few precious months. Dick had only ever asked once about one, a deep slash on his back.

Damian had told him the truth. One of his teachers had gotten behind him during a spar and cut him with his sword. Grandfather had refused to dip him into the Pit.

Dick had cried. Damian didn"t know what else to do but lash out and call him a fool for weeping over something so mundane.

But Damian knew better now. He had known all sorts of love over the years. Brotherly love is shared over insults and pranks. Fatherly shared through constant protection and big hugs. Sisterly love in sparring and ballet lessons. Grandfatherly love was shared through clean uniforms and special vegetarian dishes just for him. His Grandfather had attempted to lock his love away in that box all those years ago. But, his heart wasn"t a coffin anymore; it was a house. It is big and spacious and crowded with people. With family .

He didn"t need to be scared anymore.

Damian licked his lips and began to tell his story. "When I was five years old, my mother had attempted to teach me how to tie my shoes..."