I seen the ask about your thoughts on reverse batfamily and your feelings about Dick being considered Damians dad came up. Which reminded me you don't like it much at the perfect time. I made this post earlier today and want to ask if you can write a post about it yourself? Only if you want and have time though!
https://www.tumblr.com/ughtyrell/818330838409297920/a-scenario-where-everyone-expects-damian-to-side?source=share
"We're leaving the manor for a while, B. We can't keep doing this."
The words ring in Damian's ears. He'd frozen, heart pounding, realising his siblings were leaving him. They'd promised they were family, and now they were leaving him. And then there was a hand on his shoulder, Richard was guiding him out, and his blood ran cold. They weren't leaving him. They intended to make him leave.
And he'd numbly followed, the revelation making his footsteps drag, until they'd stopped in the foyer, next to a pile of suitcases, and Damian had choked, seeing his own among them. The presumptions, the expectations, the demands, they made a fury build in Damian, growing, roiling, hissing, until it finally clawed its way out of him as they negotiated where they would all be staying.
That Timothy would reside with Todd as a temporary measure while his own home was under repairs, though neither of them seemed particularly enthused. That Cassandra would move to live with Barbara. That:
"Damian'll come with me, course."
Damian carefully, deliberately, took a step back, forcing Richard's hand to slip off his shoulder. "No," he says, coldly. "I will not."
They all frown at him. "Where you planning on sleeping then, pipsqueak?"
He doesn't scowl at Todd, but the force of his glare does make his 'brother' do a double take. "In my room. In my home. I am staying with Father."
Richard turns to face him properly, disbelief colouring his face. "Damian—"
"You are not my father, Richard."
More reactions. Raised brows, parted lips. Richard chuckles, and smiles. "I know, Dami. But—"
"Do you? I am no fool, I know you have all made presumptions based on the six months Father was lost in time, but I will take care to remember it is he who I call by that title, not you. He is the one with the right to dictate my life without consulting me, though he would not, unlike you, who did not even inform me you were planning to take me from my home."
The foyer is silent. Damian walks to the pile, and extracts his suitcases. He hears steps before the voice comes, cracking slightly:
"No, Richard!" He whips around, loosening the reins on his mounting rage. "Your reasons for leaving Father are superficial. They do not show his tedium, they show your weakness! Too weak to love someone because it isn't easy."
Richard falters. Seemingly so do the rest of his siblings. Damian continues, his tongue a sharpened knife, his words barbed.
"I know Father does not love 'right'. I know he expresses himself incorrectly, and that it hurts sometimes, to love him, but what does that matter, when I know how much he loves me?" Damian blinks back tears. "When I heard Pennyworth express how blessed we are that I did not inherit his condition, and Father thanked a God that left him forsaken at eight for the same thing?"
Timothy pales some, and Damian swallows.
"It is not easy, but it is not Herculean. It is not Sisyphean. I thought that you were capable of seeing past his pecularities, to his core, that you could see the intention behind his flawed means of expressing it?" Forcing eye contact with Cassandra makes her bite her lip, breaking it to look away from his penetrating gaze.
"Do not penalise me because you do not care to put in extra effort. Do not puppet me because you only care to pick fights, but don't bother to spend time with Father, and wonder why your relationship has collapsed? Do not make me your mouthpiece because you don't accept the ways he reaches out to you as valid methods of trying to initiate a relationship, and always assume the worst of him."
None of them say anything.
"You are my family. I love you all." The words slip from his tongue with a surprising ease, this once. It is in that regard he did indeed take after his father. It is rare such sentiments come easy to his lips, he prefers showcasing them through his actions. "But I will not abandon Father for you. Certainly not until he actually does something that merits such an abandonment."
This time, no one tries to stop him as he retrieves his luggage and walks back down the hall.
He goes upstairs first, and returns them to his room. Not quite stripped bare, but certainly stripped back. He seethes at the audacious behaviour.
Moving through the hallway, he finds other doors ajar, and sees his siblings' rooms similarly barren.
Looking into Richard's room is when he feels a palm slip over his shoulder. He doesn't turn, but doesn't shove off the touch either. "Forgiveness will be earned. Forgetting will not."
"I understand," Cassandra whispers. "I've...been struggling. Frustrated. I should not have agreed with brothers. Dad deserves more."
"No one deserves anything. But I dare say Father has done his best to earn it, no?"
Neither of them say anything more, but he waits for Cassandra to return her own bags, and when she kneels, arms open to him, he allows himself to eek out a small number of tears on her shoulder.
They go downstairs together, and take the longer way to avoid the empty foyer. When Cassandra opens the door, Damian clenches his fists seeing Father kneeling where they left him standing, and he dare say bawling may be the most apt descriptor for what he sees.
Cass' breath hitches, and she runs across the room, dropping to her knees by his side. Father startles, moving away, but she lunges after, pulling him into a hug before he can resist, and two large arms come around her, squeezing her likely to the point of pain, but she doesn't make a sound as apologies are sobbed into the hug, promises to do better that Damian does not bother contradicting, not now, as he taps Father's arm and is welcomed in too. Wet lips shakily press to his head, then to his sister's hair, and Father gasps for air between their heads.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he whispers to himself, or to them, Damian isn't sure, but he hushes them anyway, and the three of them end up in a miserable silence punctuated only by tears from all three of them.
He's not sure how long they remain there, only that his knees hurt, when a hand smooths over his shoulder, running over his back to make its way over to Bruce's arm wrapped around him.
"Mum's taking the car to the garage, we're gonna stay for a little while, B," Duke says, lowering himself to kneel next to them. Damian is seized by an immense gratefulness for him too, even if he isn't sure how he came to know of today's fiasco.
They'll figure it out, Damian decides. Between the four of them, he's sure they will find a way to keep the household afloat.
