Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It’s like this - a scream, sharp and wild, and the pull of a blade against skin. It’s like this - something choked out and an arm around the waist, yanking him back. It’s like this-

Damian goes out on patrol with Grayson. Damian gets caught in a cloud of fear gas. Damian runs.  

His feet pound against cobble rooftops, against slabs of stone, against air. He launches himself over streets and alleys, heart roaring in his chest, and he does not turn back. (He will not. Cannot. Someone is chasing him, something is after him-) League training takes over his body and mind, terror morphing into stealth and prowess that so many assassins envy. Damian blends into shadows and walls and holds his breath when the shadows talk back. 

At one point, he drops down into an alley, hoping to hide away somewhere small. There’s someone waiting for him in the alley, a cigarette poised between their fingertips - and Damian reacts. Do or die, his body screams, do or die, do or die, do or die-

The body falls and Damian scales the chain link fence separating the alley into two, and then he is gone. 

It’s like this: Dick takes Damian out on patrol with him, despite the fact he’d said Damian was grounded two days ago, and they make plans to meet Stephanie so they can all travel together. Then, Babs starts rattling off a location in their ears: Scarecrow’s out, she says, and he’s planning something.  

Dick and Damian - Batman and Robin - take flight. Fifteen minutes later, Batman and Robin get separated. Twenty minutes later, Robin shoots past Batman, sword drawn, steps silent.  

Steph, who’d shown up somewhere between their arrival and their separation, flocks after Dick, panic in her voice. “He got gassed,” she rushes to say. “Batman-” 

They call in the Birds of Prey to clean up their mess, and Babs swears she’ll track down Scarecrow and send someone after him. Get the kid, says Babs, I’ve got this.

Dick and Steph descend onto the streets of Gotham and-

Fear. Raw fear. It swarms in Dick’s gut and, if he didn’t know better, he’d almost say that he’d gotten gassed, too. He knows that he hadn’t - understands that he’s just terrified for his little brother, who has to be terrified out of his mind, running from some unseen monster or something. Dick wonders what Damian’s the most scared of. 

There’s too may answers. A new one pops up with every thudding step - neither he nor Steph are sure whether they should exaggerate their steps or silence them - and he nearly misses the landing when Ra’s comes to mind. 

So much bad has happened to Damian - there’s no telling what he thinks is happening. 

But, as he drops down into an alley only two minutes after his little brother, he starts to get an idea. 

It’s like this, okay? It’s like - it’s like this. There’s a body on the ground and Steph’s staring at it, and it’s. Oh, God. 

“He’s going to - Robin can’t know about this, B,” Steph says, even though calling Dick ‘B’ still feels really weird considering ‘B’ has always been reserved for. Well. For B. “He’ll be so torn up over it.” 

There’s a civilian body on the ground. It - he’s - in jeans and a tee-shirt. There’s a still-smoldering cigarette beside his opened hand. His eyes are open and unseeing and across his belly is a big, red, angry slash. The insides spill out and Steph bites back the urge to throw up. 

“It’s not his fault,” says Dick - Batman, really, voice cold and steady and promising. “It’s - he’s not in his right mind.” 

“He’s scared.”  

Dick meets her gaze for a second. Steph almost wishes he weren’t wearing the cowl so she could see his eyes - see what he’s really feeling. Is he as scared as she is? Damian thinks someone really, really bad is after him. Someone bad enough that he’s thinking he’s got to kill to survive, again. 

“We have to find him,” she says, suddenly. “We have to - He might-” She flounders for the right words to say, and comes up empty. Instead, she says, “Do you think he’ll try and attack us, if we corner him?” 

“He-” Dick pauses, too. The ache and the worry they’re both feeling is too potent. This is the point where B would send them both back to the cave, saying, You’re too close to this, as if he wasn’t splintering apart too. “He might.” 

It hurts to think that. 

Okay, so. Maybe the screaming and the arms don’t come until later. It’s all a blur - Damian’s desperate to find somewhere safe. He just knows he needs to get away. Whoever’s after him is out to kill, and - and-

It’s childish, maybe. Mother and Grandfather raised him not to fear death, considering he was surrounded by it. The pit, the fighting, the times he’d died himself. 

Death is a family tradition and Damian does not want to follow suit. He is terrified of dying - there’s so much he wants to do. Hug Grayson back, someday, and tell him he loves him. Make amends with Drake, maybe, just because Grayson loves him and Damian wants to try-

Will he have the time to? Someone’s after him and Damian doesn’t know if he can protect himself, this time. He’s weak, just like Grandfather said. 

Weak.

And - a thought, an idea, flitters through his mind. What if the person chasing him isn’t out to kill him, but to return him to the League? It wouldn’t be the first time something came for him. Grandfather is possessive - he wants Damian, needs him, and maybe Damian would find it a little validating to know he was fucking with Grandfather so bad if the idea of him didn’t shake him down to the core. 

Faster, he urges himself, even though there’s a stitch in his side and everything hurts and it’s hard to breathe. Faster, Damian, faster.

“I’ll go in first,” Steph says, and Dick’s heart stops in his chest. “Listen - you’re stronger than me. I’ll keep him distracted, then you run in with the - the antidote, or the tranq, or something. He won’t hurt me. He-” 

“You don’t know that.” The statement makes his voice seem small. Distant. Dick wants to know what his little brother is seeing. Wants to know how to help him. Knows he can’t do or have either. “Spoiler, you could get hurt.”  

“I trust him.” 

So do I, Dick doesn’t say. They both know he does. They both know Steph’s about to make the biggest leap of faith she can possibly do. Damian might not see Steph as Steph - might see her as a threat and might lash out. But - Dick knows that Steph is banking on the fact that she loves Damian and Damian loves her and the fact that she knows how he and the League fight. 

Steph sets a hand on his shoulder. Looks up at him, eyes open and honest. She’s only wearing the purple handkerchief around her lower face and that purple hood of hers, leaving her worried eyes and furrowed brow open to the world. “I’ll be okay, B.”

“He’ll hate himself if he finds out he hurt you.” 

“We have to do something, B, we can’t just - this is better than nothing. It’ll be fine.” 

Fingers and toes and heartstrings crossed. 

Here - this is when it happens. Steph corners Damian up on a roof, where Dick can climb up onto the vents and get Damian from behind. It’s a horrible, horrible thought - but it’s the only idea they have and it’s the only thing they can do.

She holds up her hands and she says, “Robin, it’s okay - it’s me, Spoiler. You’re in Gotham and you’re okay.”

He stares back at her - probably not right at her, though, but she can’t really tell considering he’s wearing his domino mask. Part of her wants to reach out and draw him close, but her mind tells her, No sudden movements, and her heart tells her, he’s scared, Steph, take it easy.

“Robin? Can you hear me?” 

Steph keeps up a steady mantra in her head. A, He won’t hurt me, He won’t hurt me, He won’t hurt me. He wouldn’t; won’t. She believes in him and everything he’s gone through to get to this point. The civilian body - as shitty as it sounds - doesn’t matter. They’ll move past this. Just like Dick said: Damian’s not in his right mind. That death wasn’t his fault. 

Damian doesn’t make a single move. He doesn’t let her know he can hear her; doesn’t let her know he even recognizes her. He just - just lowers his stance a little more, preparing to strike, and Steph wonders what he’s seeing. 

In his nightmare - is she Talia? An assassin? Something else? 

“It’s okay, Robin, I promise. I’m here to help you.” 

She takes a step forward and then it happens. 

Damian lunges at the shadow - the assassin, his Grandfather, Mother, the clone of his Father crawling down the stairs - and screams at the top of his lungs, lashing out with his sword. 

“Back!” he cries. “Do not come any closer or I’ll have your head on a platter-” 

The shadow says something, but Damian can’t make out the words as he falls back. He shrinks into himself before thinking better of it. He’ll only get punished further if Mother realizes what he’d done. (Surviving the test is more important than what happens during it. The minor details will get him hurt, but dying - dying isn’t an option. Damian can’t go through the pit. Not again.) 

Another thought hits him. If he doesn’t kill the shadow, will punishment be worse? 

“I’m giving you the chance to live, ” he snarls, regardless, throwing up walls upon walls upon walls. He breathes and it hurts a little - like there’s something burning his throat. 

He can either kill the shadow or - or what? Let them go free? Let them report back to Grandfather and say, the young lord didn’t have it in him to kill me, sire, do with him what you will.  

That’s not an option. Keeping this shadow alive isn’t an option. Not unless Damian wants to go into the pit. Not unless he wants to be beaten half to death and then pushed over the edge regardless. Not unless-

The shadow edges close again and Damian makes a decision. 

His survival is the most important. 

Dick watches it happen in slow motion. Damian lashes out with his sword and clips Steph’s shoulder, deep enough to draw blood. Steph hisses something out and holds up her hands, placating, and says again, “You’re okay, Robin, I promise you’re okay.” 

Damian doesn’t hear her. Doesn’t listen. He flinches back for a second after her words, leaving Dick wondering what he did hear, before Damian goes stone cold. 

“I’m giving you the chance to live,” he says - snarls, really - as he changes his grip on his sword. 

Something breaks in Dick’s chest. He’d say it was his heart if it wasn’t already shattered. Here’s his little brother - his son - saying, I don’t want to kill you, I won’t if you don’t give me a reason, despite whatever personal hell the toxin’s locked him into. Damian, at his core, isn’t - he’s not a killer. A murderer. He’s a little boy who just wants to help people. 

Dick draws in a breath and drops down onto the ground behind Damian silently. He’s a little surprised that Damian doesn’t register it - that Damian doesn’t whirl around - but he’s not going to comment on it. It helps him out, at the very least. 

“You’re such a good kid,” says Steph, more to herself than anything else. Then, louder, she adds, “C’mon, R, we’re just trying to help you. You don’t have to hurt me and I’m not going to hurt you.” 

Useless, really, but punctuated with another step forward. Dick internally agrees - thinks to himself, he is a good kid. He’s one of the best.

And- 

And then Damian leaps again, but Steph hadn’t been expecting it and Dick hadn’t been expecting it, not after what Damian just said, and the blade catches against Steph’s stomach and knocks her to the ground and then Dick is surging forward, wrapping an arm around Damian’s waist and hauling him up and away. Silence blares through his skull as he - almost mechanically, but efficiently - doses Damian with the antidote and tosses the vial away, reeling back a few steps just to hold his little brother until the nightmare passes. 

He can’t let Damian go. If he does, Damian might run. But - Steph, his mind screams, Steph, Steph, Steph, Steph.

She’s on the ground. On her side. Her hands are limp and her limbs are splayed and her hair fans out around her head like a halo. 

Her eyes are closed, but - Dick swallows down an upcoming sob.  

She’s okay. And Damian’s - Damian’s okay, too. They will be. They have to be. 

But, really, it’s like this. 

Steph knocks her head against the ground as she falls and she knocks herself out, too, and so she doesn’t really get to see Damian come back to himself and she doesn’t really get to see the terror on Dick’s face as he forces Damian’s hand to curl around his cape so he can apply pressure to her stomach. 

She doesn’t get to see how scared Damian is - doesn’t get to see him shut down on himself, either. 

She doesn’t see anything. It’s all inky, and dark, and black. 

And then - then she wakes up, and everything is bright, and white, and light. She lashes out for a handhold, terror racing through her - what a theme that’s been, tonight - and the side of her hand catches against metal. She pulls it back with a wounded sound rising up her throat, confused and panicked, and then a hand’s wrapping around her wrist and keeping her still. 

“Steph,” someone says, and Steph blinks up and over to - to Dick, cowl pulled back and eyes full of concern. “Steph, you’re okay, you’re in the bunker - we’re about to move you to a hospital, okay?” 

She thinks, for a moment, about asking about Damian. Where he is, if he’s okay, what happened.  

Instead, she nods and she closes her eyes and she leans back against the cot. 

She falls back asleep. No one tells her that Damian thinks she’s dead.

Chapter Text

So. Okay. Steph’s in the hospital. It’s not really - it’s not fun, honestly. The doctors keep looking at her like she’s stupid because their cover story is really, really stupid. (She also might be tired. And assuming things. Cut her some slack, okay?) 

But - anyways, Dick told the hospital that she’d gotten mugged and instead of heading to the hospital first, she just went straight home. Which. Okay, Steph wouldn’t do that. That’s Tim’s thing to do. Stephanie, unlike him, normally thinks things through and she decides whether or not the hospital is really worth the trip. Besides, they have Alfred at home. 

Alfred is a world class doctor, or something. He’s good at patching them up and - you know, he kind of helps out with the whole ‘secret identity’ bullshit that they always have to worry about. 

It sucks that she can’t be in the bunker or the cave, right now, but. Apparently someone had to stay with Damian and Alfred couldn’t patch her up by himself, so. At least they’ve put her on some good drugs. She feels a little woozy from them - loose lipped, too, if you couldn’t tell - but that’s okay. She’s not in pain. Fuck pain. 

Steph closes her eyes and leans back a little. She’d inclined the top of the bed so she could sit up, not for any particular reason, and she’s a little grateful that she was so brilliant to do that earlier. Steph feels sapped. Completely, utterly out of energy. It’s a rare thing for her, she jokes. 

Eh. Whatever. Dick says he’s bringing Damian today. That’s good - even if today’s only the first full day she’s spending in the hospital, it still feels like it’s been forever since she actually saw Damian. 

Of course, her last memory of him is him swinging his sword at her gut, but. Beggars can’t be choosers? 

If she has to admit it out loud, then fine. She’s worried. Dick didn’t - he didn’t really say much, about Damian, but he told her that Damian thought she was dead and he told her that he wouldn’t come out of his room no matter how much Dick prodded.

“He’s - he’s mourning,” Dick had said, over the phone that morning. “No matter how many times I say he didn’t kill you, he just shakes his head and says he knows what he saw. Can I bring him to see you?”

She’d said yes - she really wanted to see the brat, too, after the whole shitshow that went down last night. Damian, running terrified from her and Dick; Damian, high on fear gas and seeing things that weren’t there; Damian, killing a civilian because he thought he had to; Damian, thinking she was dead.

If you can’t tell, he’s all she can think about. Damian, Damian, Damian, Damian. She just. Needs to see him. She just really, really needs to see him. 

A knock on the door draws her from that dangerous loop - the, is he okay, oh God, he’s not okay, maybe he is, maybe I’m thinking too much, one - and Steph’s quick to urge whoever it is in. If it’s a doctor, then oh well. If it’s Dick, then she’s saved. Hallelujah. 

As it turns out, it is Dick. He pushes open the door and greets Steph with a soothing smile. “Doctor says you might be able to come home tomorrow,” he says. “You wanna stay with us ‘till you’re all good?” 

Steph gasps; then, she leans forward and whispers faux-conspiratorially, “You mean… like a sleepover?”

With a snort, Dick finally crosses into the room properly. He drops down into the empty chair by Steph’s bedside, sweeping his hair back from his forehead. It falls back down over it, regardless, and he huffs. He tries to blow at it, instead, and fails epicly, if Steph does say so herself. 

“Here,” she says, “let me help.” 

Using one of the hair ties from her wrist, she gets to work combing Dick’s hair back from her fingers so she can tie it up. When she’s finally got it situated just so it’s not sticking up and it’s, instead, just pulled back like it’d been pinned back, she pulls away and shoots him a thumbs up.

“Looking good, princess.” 

“Aww, thanks,” says Dick, patting his head lightly. “Now I’m all ready for the ball!” 

Steph pretends to look Dick over skeptically. His stained hoodie - paint-stained, so she assumes Damian had something to do with it - and his joggers with a hole in the knee. He looks tired. Not like a billionaire would. “Dressed in that?” 

Dick stands and pretends like he’s wearing a large, poofy skirt. “Why, yes, Godmother! Doesn’t it look splendid?”

That’s what breaks her down into laughter, but she’s quick to pull it back when a sharp pang rides through her torso. “Don’t - oh, my God, you dick. Don’t make me laugh.”  

“Sorry.” At least he actually sounds sheepish. “If it’s any consolation, I brought someone with me. He wants to see you.” 

“Does he still think I’m dead?” 

Dick see-saws his hand through the air with a shrug. “Little bit?” he admits. “He - uh. Best way to put it is that he asked if I was just trying to pull a sick joke on him.” Dick shifts his weight to his other foot, whether restlessly or awkwardly Steph can’t tell. “He’s really torn up about this.” 

“At least I know he cares,” Steph says, lightly. “Are you gonna be in here when he comes in?” 

“He wants to see you alone. Do you want me in here?” 

She waves her hand, letting him know it’s okay. She leans back in the bed, again, letting the pillows swallow her up. Hospital pillows blow, but Alfred had the foresight to bring some last night. “Best get this all sorted out, huh?” 

After wishing her well, Dick slips out of the room. It’s silence for a few minutes from there - Steph waiting, stewing in her own apprehension, and Damian probably trying his damndest to prolong the wait for as long as he can. Part of her is tempted to vault out of bed and go to him herself, but considering the fact that it hurts when she laughs, it’s safe to say she’s not moving around without a wheelchair anytime soon. 

So, she waits. She’ll wait for the rest of time, if she has to; Damian can take his time, if he wants. He’ll see her eventually - realize that she’s okay and it’s not his fault. Because it’s not. Steph wishes she knew how to banish that thought completely. 

Damian’s not the one who hurt her. Scarecrow is - inadvertently, sure, but. If he didn’t do his whole fear gas shtick, then everything would be fine. Well. As fine as their lives tend to be, when you factor in their childhood traumas and Bruce’s death and Tim’s… act of rebellion against Dick? Soul searching field trip? Spiteful disappearance? 

Yeah, no. She really doesn’t know what to call it. He’d said something about Bruce before he left, but Steph just attributed that to grief. Was she wrong in doing that? 

Her attention is pulled away when the door finally pushes open, slow as molasses. Damian, his eyes red and his hair wild, peeks around the doorway tentatively, like he’s about to see Stephanie lying flat on her back, eyes shut and blankets drawn to her chest. The contradicting sight - Steph, awake and sitting up near straight, blanket pooling around her - makes him blanch, and he nearly pulls away. 

A plethora of emotions flitter over his face in that split second - uncertainty, then resignation, and what looks like some sort of apprehension that Steph’s certainly sharing with him. Damian schools his expression into something blank and then steps forward, letting the door shut behind him. 

He doesn’t edge closer. He just stands there, hands curling into tight fists at his side; mouth pressed in a straight line; brows slightly furrowed. Steph wants to stand up; to pull him into a hug. 

She doesn’t, in the end. She just gestures for him to come closer, only to be ignored. 

“Hey, Dames,” she says, quietly. “How are you?” 

Steph’s only half-surprised when Damian doesn’t respond. She finds herself at a loss - what does she do? How can she help him? What - what can she say?

“Damian - I’m okay, see? It’s okay. A little scratch can’t stop me.” She swallows, certain everything she’s saying is falling flat. “Do you think you could come over here? Let me give you a hug?” 

He mumbles something. In any other scenario, Steph would be laughing to herself - the self-proclaimed ‘great Damian al Ghul-Wayne’, mumbling? But - this isn’t the time or the situation, and instead she thinks to herself, You’re breaking my heart, just standing there. 

“Tell me what’s going on in that big ol’ head of yours, Dames - if it’s about what happened-” 

And then Damian, the ‘great Damian al Ghul-Wayne’, begins to cry. 

It’s silent and small. His shoulders draw close, like he’s trying to curl up small enough to disappear, and his head bows forward, crystal tears drip-drip-dripping down his face. That’s what hurts the worst - Damian not making a single sound as his shoulders shake, Damian sobbing, Steph not being able to do anything more than sit off to the side and stare.  

“Damian,” she says, again. “Damian, kid-”

What can she say? What can she tell him that will fix all of this? Part of her wants to pull Damian close and just hold him, but she can’t figure out how. There’s not going to be any one magical phrase that draws him in. 

Well - okay. She’ll just have to find the group of magical phrases. That’ll work. 

“Look, Damian, I know it was - okay. It was scary, right? You were scared and you thought I was going to hurt you, right? Or - or that someone else was going to hurt you.” 

Steph bites her lip and Damian just keeps crying. That’s not working, the guessing thing. Part of her had thought she’d get some sort of reaction, if she hit the right guess. She could’ve gone from there, she could’ve - Fuck, thinks Steph. Fuck, fuck, fuck. What would Dick say, in this situation? What has he said already that fell on deaf ears? 

She means to say it to herself - not out loud. But it comes out anyway, in a low whisper: “You’re breaking my heart, here, kid.” 

Damian starts crying louder, at that. It’s like she’s opened a dam with her words - everything spills out and Damian chokes a little on the sound he makes, spitting it out like it’s venomous. 

“I’m okay, kid,” she says, helplessly. She can’t hold him; can’t show him she’s alive. But - she can say this, no matter how inane it is. No matter how little it helps. “It’s okay. It’s not your fault. You were just trying to make sure you were safe and that’s okay.” 

He keeps crying. She keeps talking. 

Eventually, eventually, his tears start to subside. He’s completely cried himself out - hands scrubbing at his eyes like he can erase what just happened. Steph wants - so, so badly - to grab his wrists and let him know that it’s okay, that he’s allowed to cry and be upset and that she wants to cry, too, is that really so bad? 

“I thought-” Damian cuts himself off, voice raw and so very small. “I thought you were dead.”

Softly, Steph repeats, “A little scratch can’t stop me.” 

Damian does a one eighty in response - goes from teary and quiet to bristling and mad. “It wasn’t a scratch, Brown! I could have killed you! I nearly did! And - And that man-”

“Who told you about the man?” Steph asks, a little harshly. “I thought-” 

“No one told me! I had to find it all out for myself when I looked back through the footage. They - They purposefully kept this from me. They knew I was a danger-”

“No - no, no, no, kid, you’re not a danger-” 

“-and they knew that I had nearly killed you. It’s - it’s blasphemous that they even allowed me to be in the same room as you! I could kill you. Right here, right now-” 

“Damian!”

“I could!” 

They both fall silent at the same time, Damian’s chest heaving and Steph’s body aching. She thinks, briefly, about screaming at him - telling him that it’s not his fault, that he’s not dangerous, that she’s not going to do anything to him. This - this whole thing he’s trying to do, with the blaming himself and saying he’d hurt her. It’s a defense. 

“You won’t,” she says, and she has all the conviction of Superman molding her voice into something strong. “I know you, Damian, and I know you won’t hurt me.” 

Damian presses the heels of his hands against his eyes like he’s about to start crying again. “I could.”  

“But you won’t.”  

He doesn’t answer. Doesn’t say a single word. 

Steph opens her arms. “Please. Just let me hug you.” 

And - it’s like this. Of his own violation, Damian surges forward and falls right into her arms. Steph holds him, tight, tight, tight. Neither of them say another word. Damian and Steph - they’re okay. 

They are. 

(And, when Dick opens the door and steps inside, Steph just lifts an arm and gestures him over. She holds Damian and lets Dick hold the two of them and- 

They’re all okay.)