The horror of being born and raised into a cult that for the next 10 years, grooms you into becoming a killer. That when you're in that age when you should be going to school and making friends, instead you are sent to international assassination missions which you have to complete or else.
And when you ask your mother for the identity of your father, she tells you that only when you beat her in a fight that she'll tell his name to you.
Once you finally beat her, she sends you to a foreign city swarming with crime and tells you to live there with your father and learn from him. But it is then you realize that everything you've learned in the past 10 years is bad and now you need to re-learn and change your ideologies if you want to continue living with your father.
And then like a cosmic joke, you father dies, leaving you with a family that you never really learned to get along and is broken at best.
Your oldest brother takes you in, becoming your guardian. You two keep butting heads and arguing, yet there are also times when you realize how much you've grown to care—love your brother. He and Alfred makes you Robin, giving you a reason to stay and keep on doing good.
The family bonds are fragile at best, but you make do. And in the middle of saving your other brother, you get shot point blank multiple times on the torso and loose the ability to move.
But everything's fine and well because your mother comes back and gives you a metal spine transplant that gives you the ability to move again.
Except everything's not fine, because you quickly realize that she had hidden a secret remote inside your spine which she gives to Deathstroke who uses it to take control of your body to kill your older brother, one of the very few people that actually gave a damn about you.
Your father ends up coming back, and the sudden changes in family dynamics give you a whiplash so hard that you wish your father stayed dead after all.
You're 10 year's old yet again when you find out that your mother has put a bounty on your head and you have to fake your own death to stop her from coming after you.
Only, she doesn't fall for the trick and ends up declaring war on Gotham, razing it to the ground with an overgrown clone she made out of you. Your father is struggling to defend the city, so he asks you to go back to the League because only then your mother would stop—knowing full well what would happen to you if you did go back.
You stay. You tell him that you've done everything—anything he had asked of you. You tell him that you want to stay and fight next to him.
Heretic—that's the name of your clone—traps your father in a box, leaving his associates to defend Gotham. Leaving you and your family to protect the people of the city.
But the clone is strong and deadly. You realize that as you're finally face to face with him, demanding him to look at you so that he would stop going after your beloved older brother.
You realize quickly that you can't take on the monster by yourself with your child body. You start begging your mother to call him off, because you know she is listening from the other side.
She doesn't call him off at the end.
You die only to wake up in Hell, realizing that everything you did to redeem yourself didn't mean anything in the end. That you are the rotten, demonic child everyone said you were.
You stay dead for quite some time before you get ressurected. You are overjoyed at having been given a second chance.
Everything changes, but at the same time... they don't.
You still butt heads with your father. You want to make it right, but you have no idea how to do it. You spend weeks crawling in sewers to find the missing pearls of Martha Wayne to give to your father as a gift, only for him to call you heartless.
You can see him trying to change, to be better. But it's still him who forgets your birthdays.
If there's one person who has stood by your side for all those times, gave you the mantle of Robin, celebrated your birthday with you even if it was just the two of you, gifted you your beloved cat who he thought reminded him of you, it's Alfred Pennyworth.
You think everything will turn out okay despite the broken family you're living in if the old butler is around the keep you company. A father figure that you wished to keep close.
It is when he's killed right in front of your eyes that you realize you're alone now. Tied to a chair and powerless as Alfred's head rolls to his shoulder.
That's when you finally make the decision to leave. Months, you spend away from the manor, living in your own little base. Avoiding everyone might sound like a bad coping mechanism, but its the one that encourages you to stand straight.
Your father finds you, because of course he does. Your brothers are in danger and he needs your help. You argue, again. Your father tells you that despite how much he loves you as his son, sometimes he really does not like you.
It hurts, yet you help him out anyways.
Your relationship does not go back to normal afterwards either. A few months later, you punch your father on the face and quit as Robin.
You travel around by yourself, drowning in misery and grief and self-hatred. For failing to live up to another parent's expectations, for failing to protect the man that had cared for him the most.
Sometimes you hallucinate Alfred. Sometimes you listen to him. Sometimes you ignore him.
You find a secret death tournament and decide to join it so that you can steal some Lazarus water and use it to ressurect Alfred.
You die 2 times, not caring either way. You end up defeating a monster and succeeding to steal the Lazarus water, only for you to have a mental breakdown over it and never use it.
After spending the first 10 years of your life learning that death was nothing but an obstacle that could be overturned with the help of a little magic, it is at 14 you finally realize what death means.
Damian Wayne they will never make me hate you.
