Chapter Text
He wakes with the boom of thunder.
His cold fingers twitch. He slowly opens his eyes, blinking a few times to rid himself of the dryness. Around him, Damian registers low murmurs, and the shifting of feet. Yet, the main focus of his attention lies in the deep blue irises above him, staring into his mossy green with a gentle gaze.
Damian's senses prod at his brain in a routine of communication. Damian didn't know why, but he was being held. He felt hands carrying him, cradling him, like a precious bundle. Damian felt he was much too big to be held in this way, but he does nothing to verbally prove this fact. His concentration primarily lies in understanding what is happening to him.
He was in a room, this he understood. It had miniscule lighting. His peripheral vision caught the flicker of candle flames, but aside from that, he was surrounded by darkness. The darkness formed an eerie atmosphere. It was chilling. Damian feels much like the emptiness it presents. He is cold. He feels the chill wrap around his bones. He wants to relieve the feeling, but he doesn't know how to do it. He's being held by someone, and he's lacking in understanding for his current situation.
Blue, Damian distantly recalls, is a cold color.
Yet, when he looks up in the older man's eyes, all he can see is infinite warmth.
Damian's fingers twitch again. He blinks up at the stranger, and then tries to speak. It takes him a few tries, what with the dryness of his mouth, but eventually he manages to rasp a question.
"Who are you?"
He hears a stifled gasp in the distance. He's not sure who did it, but he knows it belongs to a woman.
The stranger's warm eyes don't change, but something knowing crosses them. He seems to understand what's happening.
"I'm your father," he replies gently.
"F-ather,"
Damian repeats clumsily. He knows what the word means, but he can't associate it with an experience. Now that he thinks about it, he has zero experiences to draw from. His mind is an empty void. He does not know who he is, aside from his name, and he does not know
what
he is supposed to do.
"That's right," his father hums in agreement. "I'm your father, you're my son, and now you're home."
"Home," Damian says.
His father gives him a blooming smile. Damian is stunned by the sight. It feels so… so important and precious.
"Bruce," Damian heard another voice ring. "You didn't. "
'Bruce' does not answer the voice. He gazes down at Damian lovingly, and then he asks an important question. "Are you hungry, son?"
Damian tries to think about the question seriously. Hungry. He knows what it means. It means eating. It means food. So, to answer, mostly to please, he says, "I think so."
"Bruce, this is sick," he hears a stronger voice say this time, blanketed in an ill tone.
Bruce, once again, ignores the voices. He moves past bodies, and then steps out into the bright hallway. Damian only manages to catch the few appearances of their company. They all look different, with varying bodies and sizes, but one thing stayed the same.
Each of them wore the same horrified expression.
Damian family were a silent bunch. He'd been living in the manor for about three days now, and he'd yet to have an actual conversation with any of them. Damian didn't really understand why, but they seemed to have somewhat of an aversion for him.
It was contradicting. His father had no issues talking to him. In fact, Damian would often find himself in his father's company, listening to stories about himself. According to his father, Damian was once a skilled martial artist, proficient in the art of swordsmanship. His father would show off items, and explain the significance to him. His katana, for instance, was apparently a favored weapon of his. Damian didn't know why he would be good at using the katana, but he didn't bother to ask.
It wasn't good to ask questions.
His father had a habit of shutting down when Damian brought up something. When he'd ask, "Why did I learn swordsmanship?" His father would emotionally withdraw, and cease their companionship for a few hours. Damian was quick to catch on that he should not ask questions like that. His father didn't seem to do well with them.
Regardless, back to the subject at hand, Damian's father was the only one willing to interact with him. His siblings didn't want to be in the same room as him.
Damian didn't quite understand it, but he didn't bother dwelling on it. He was too busy relearning things he'd apparently forgotten.
For example, supposedly, he was an artist.
His father had shown him his art supplies. He'd encouraged Damian to sit down on a stool, and to brush colors across a blank canvas. Damian had done so to make him happy, but his hands had been shaky. He couldn't make straight strokes, not without faltering, and ruining the colors altogether. In fact, the colors themselves didn't seem to be complimentary, always looking wrong in some way or another.
To this, his father simply laid a hand on his shoulder, and offered him a small smile. "You will catch the hang of it when you recover."
Damian hadn't known he was injured.
"How can he-"
"I can't believe Bruce-"
Damian's siblings couldn't look at him. Damian would sit at the dining table, just like the rest of his family, and try to fill his stomach. Everytime he looked up, his siblings would look away into distant corners, or dart their eyes back to their plates. It wasn't any better in passing. Damian might walk past one of his siblings in the hallway, but they would just look straight over him. They would do everything within their power to pretend he doesn't exist.
Damian was beginning to feel he was unwanted.
"Damian," Bruce often engaged over the table, "Were you able to recover your memories?"
"No," Damian would answer.
His father asked the question multiple times throughout the days. On the third time, Damian noted his brother Jason's snort, and tried to understand the meaning behind it.
Jason's behavior confused him. Everyone's behavior, except for that of his father's, confused him. Damian wasn't sure what was going on, but there was something happening that he wasn't aware of. His suspicions only cemented into a surety when, in the process of going to the bathroom, he bumped into Tim.
Damian remembered the contents in Tim's arms pouring out. He remembered bending down to assist him, narrowly brushing fingers against Tim's, and then having his hand slapped away.
Damian had looked up into Tim's startled eyes. Tim seemed surprised with his actions, just as Damian had.
"Um, sorry," Tim quickly apologized, gathering the office supplies off of the floor, "I- um- shouldn't have done that."
Damian had let his hand fall back to his side. He could still feel the sting on his skin.
But, despite this, his brother had talked to him. So, Damian decided he ought to reward Tim, and he smiled.
"It's okay."
Tim seemed further astonished by his reply. He stood, stock still in the hallway, frozen in time.
It took Tim a moment (it seemed like an eternity), but he snapped out of it. Quickly, he made haste, eager to leave. Damian watched his retreating back with a never-ending outpour of curiosity.
"This is your mother," his father hums.
Damian leans over his father's arm, and examines the photo album in his lap. The ball of his palms dig into the leather couch cushions, supporting nearly his entire weight as his eyes trace his mother's face. She was a beautiful woman. She had straight brown hair running down her shoulders like waterfalls, and she had sharp emerald eyes.
Damian likes her smile the most, though, and tries to imagine seeing it in person.
In the photo, Damian's mother hooks her arm around his father's, and looks directly in the camera. Damian spots a sparkling, foaming, beach behind them.
"She's beautiful," Damian comments. Her clothing made her look both classy and picturesque. She wore a high-end green dress, outlined by gold.
"She is," his father agrees. "She passed away some time ago, but I know that if she could see you now, she'd-"
His father's breath hitches. Damian glances upward at him. He is not surprised to see his father return the attention.
Damian blinks up at his father for a silent moment. Then, without much prompting, his father allows the photo album to fall limp in his lap. He cups Damian's cheek with one hand, and then uses the other to tuck a strand of hair behind his ear. Once the strand is returned to its place, out of Damian's eyes, Bruce joins his other hand on Damian's cheeks.
"Damian," his father says, voice wobbling, "You know you're good enough, right? You're perfect."
Damian isn't sure what provoked the subject change but-
"I'm perfect, father? Is that true?"
His father's thumbs run up and down his cheeks.
"You've always been perfect," his father says. "I'm sorry it took me this long to tell you."
Damian's mind draws back to his art. He thinks about how he can't make a good stroke. He thinks about the conflicting colors, and the katana hanging on his wall. He'd tried to replicate what his father had claimed he'd once done, but he'd been unable to do
anything.
Perfect, he was called, but deep down, Damian knows something is off.
"If I'm perfect," Damian begins, "Why do I not feel that way?"
His father gives him a calm smile. He almost seems amused by the question. "Sometimes, we're hard on ourselves, and that can make us feel like we're inadequate. That doesn't mean we are inadequate. It just means we need to work on ourselves, refine ourselves, to achieve a higher-level of perfection."
Damian pinches his brows. He didn't quite understand what his father was telling him. It didn't make a whole lot of sense.
His father finds it funny. He raises a hand to crease the wrinkles between his brows. "None of that, now," he chuckles. "You're only ten. You shouldn't be giving yourself wrinkles. Do you want to end up looking like me?"
Damian digests his father's appearance. He remembers when he'd first woken up in that dark room, and how
warm
his father's eyes had been.
"I don't think I would mind," Damian confesses honestly.
At this, his father adopts some surprise, but it does not last long. His surprise fades back into a big smile.
"You rascal," he laughs.
Damian can't resonate with the boy he sees in the photo gallery on his phone.
There's something wrong with him. He doesn't smile in any of the pictures, and he looks stubbornly grumpy. It didn't matter who he was with. Damian saw him standing next to multiple people with the same expression.
He hadn't been one to express emotions, it seemed.
It must be disconcerting for the rest of his family. Damian can get why they would avoid him. He was acting like a completely different person.
Damian stares at one particular photo in which he is standing side by side by a brown-haired boy. The boy is dressed in a blue shirt, and a scratched pair of jeans. He was beaming happily, arm strung around Damian's shoulder tightly, squinting at the camera with eyes that
smiled.
Damian has a sense of recognition. He knew the smiling boy in the photo. He'd seen him before in his list of contacts.
Without further thought, he exits out of his gallery, and scrolls through his contacts. He brings up the profile picture of a similar looking boy, showing off a cheerful peace sign.
Damian's lips tug downward as he opens up their shared text messages. He is instantly bombarded by hundreds of unread messages he'd yet to check.
12/1/XX
Jon: I can't believe Christmas is almost here. I don't know what to say. I'm supposed to be feeling good, and I'm supposed to be up-beat. I can't manage to do it, though, not since you've disappeared.
12/12/XX
Jon: Your dad came to visit. He started asking my dad a couple of things. Pretty spooky conversation. It was hard not to listen in. I think he's grieving you pretty hard. We all are.
12/13/XX
Jon: Why'd you leave me alone? I don't have anyone else, Damian. I just had you and- who's going to be my best friend now? Who am I going to argue with just for the sake of arguing?
12/14/XX
Jon: Three days in a row. I've made a new record. I haven't texted this number in ages, and yet here I am coping in the most traumatizing way possible. Wish you could answer me. I almost called you to ask for your opinion, but then I remembered that you were gone and… yeah. That was a whole mess. You should've seen the barn. Stared a hole into the wall. Literally.
12/15/XX
Jon: Could you just give me a hint? A sign? Anything? You're watching us from heaven, right? You've got to communicate with me in some way, I know it's possible, whatwith the crap that happens in this world. Magic... demons... Angels aren't unimaginable. (I had a hard time spelling that)
Jon: I didn't want to think that you're dead, but I can't hear your heartbeat anymore. It can only mean one thing. You're not here anymore. Dad kept telling me that I've been in denial, and now I'm beginning to think he's right.
Damian's phone slides out of his hands.
He feels like he'd just found out something he wasn't supposed to know.