ᴄʜᴀʀᴀᴄᴛᴇʀꜱ: Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, Tim Drake & Damian Wayne.
ꜱᴜᴍᴍᴀʀʏ: After a failed mission where you froze on the field, you overhear the Batfamily arguing about you, especially Damian, who calls you weak and claims you don’t belong. Haunted by nightmares of failure and betrayal, you push yourself past your breaking point to prove your worth.
ᴄᴏɴᴛᴇɴᴛ ᴡᴀʀɴɪɴɢ: Emotional abuse/verbal abuse (Damian’s harsh words), nightmares, mentions of self-doubt, anxiety/panic, insomnia and sleep issues, comfort at the end.
ᴡᴏʀᴅꜱ ᴄᴏᴜɴᴛ: ~ 2,1k words
You’ve been in the manor for barely three months when it happens.
It’s late, the manor quiet except for the soft hum of the refrigerator as you linger in the kitchen. You’re supposed to be asleep, the rule was clear: no patrol tonight, you’re grounded until further notice. The last mission ended with you freezing on a rooftop, your breathing ragged, heart thudding so loud you swore everyone else could hear it through the comms. You’d tried to get moving again, tried to find your footing, but by the time you did, Jason had already cleaned up your target and radioed Bruce with a tight, clipped, “Rookie choked.”
So now you hover by the fridge, unable to sleep, needing water or maybe just an excuse to stay out of your room where the walls feel too close. That’s when you hear voices drifting in from the dining room, low and tense. You recognize Bruce instantly, and Dick’s softer tone, followed by the unmistakable harshness of Damian’s.
You know you shouldn’t listen. But your feet won’t move.
“…not ready,” Bruce says. His voice is calm, careful. “It was a mistake sending them on that route alone. That one’s on me.”
“They’re just scared,” Dick counters quickly. “We all were, at first. You remember the first time I almost fell off a roof? It’s part of learning.”
“They froze,” Damian spits. “On the field. Do you understand what that means, Father? They could’ve gotten Jason killed. They’re weak, pathetic. I don’t care what sob story you swallowed when you brought them here, they don’t belong with us.”
“Damian,” Dick warns.
But Damian barrels on. “I’ve worked too hard for this team to watch some charity case get one of us killed.”
You grip the edge of the counter so hard your fingers ache.
“They’re family,” Dick says firmly, almost desperately. “You don’t say that about family.”
“Family,” Damian scoffs. “We all know how that ends in this house.”
You can’t breathe. You back away from the doorway like a ghost, your chest hollow, stomach churning. They were arguing about you. About whether you deserved to be here. Whether you were just a liability.
You think maybe you are.
You’re quieter after that. You say little at breakfast, eat quickly, disappear to the gym or the library, bury yourself in training logs and manuals. When Bruce corrects your form on the mats, you nod without complaint. When Jason teases you about being jumpy, you try to laugh. You try to stay out of Damian’s way entirely.
But it’s never enough.
One night, after a long patrol where you tripped on your landing and nearly took Damian with you, he corners you in the cave while you’re peeling off your gloves, his face twisted in disdain.
“You really are worthless,” he hisses, voice low so only you can hear. “All this training, all Father’s resources wasted on you, and you still can’t land without making a fool of yourself.”
You swallow, words caught in your throat.
“Pathetic,” he says, turning on his heel. “I don’t know why they even bother pretending you’re one of us.”
He’s gone before you can blink, his cape snapping behind him like a blade.
You feel something in your chest crack open and bleed.
After that, the nightmares start. They’re not of Damian’s words, not exactly. They’re worse.
You’re standing on a rooftop, frozen again, legs locked in place. You watch Jason fall in slow motion, blood splattering on the concrete below. You see Bruce’s eyes as he turns from Jason’s broken body to you, filled with cold disappointment.
You try to scream. Nothing comes out.
Another night, you dream of Damian standing over you, sword raised, sneering that you never should’ve worn the mask. You try to run but your boots are stuck to the rooftop, and the sword arcs down—
You wake up gasping, sweat-soaked, the sheets tangled around your legs. You lie there staring at the ceiling, praying the nightmares will stop, but knowing deep down they won’t.
Because you’re still weak. You’re still not enough. And worst of all, maybe they’re right.
Maybe you really don’t belong here.
You try to avoid Damian after that night, but the manor is a cage you can’t escape. Every day you cross paths in the halls or the cave, every day you feel his sharp eyes on you, waiting for you to fail again.
He doesn’t bother hiding his contempt. He sighs when you enter the training room. He rolls his eyes at your questions. He scoffs under his breath when Bruce assigns you simple recon work, muttering that they should send a drone instead, at least it wouldn’t screw things up.
It gets under your skin. You start double-checking every gadget, memorizing every building layout until the lines blur on the page, pushing yourself to exhaustion on the mats and in the cave. Dick notices first, asking if you’re sleeping. You lie. Of course you lie.
Then one evening you’re running drills in the cave long past midnight, hands blistered and arms trembling, when Damian shows up behind you, silent as a shadow.
“You’re wasting your time,” he says coolly. “You can’t fix weakness by practicing longer. Either you have it or you don’t.”
You whirl on him, voice rough with anger you didn’t know was there. “Why do you even care? Go train somewhere else.”
He smirks, tilting his head. “Because you’re an embarrassment to this family. I won’t stand by while you tarnish our name.”
Something in you snaps. “You think I want to be here? You think I asked for any of this?”
“You’re here,” he says, stepping closer, “and every time you stumble, every time you choke, you prove me right: you’re not cut out for this. Father made a mistake saving you.”
You shove past him before he can see your eyes fill with tears.
You think about quitting. You think about running. You think about what Bruce said that night, how bringing you in was a mistake.
But something in you refuses to let go, even as the nightmares get worse. Even as Damian’s words echo in your head.
Because maybe if you stay, if you fight hard enough, one day you’ll prove him wrong.
Or maybe you’ll die trying.
Either way, at least then the voice in your head, the one that sounds like Damian, like your own fear, will finally shut up.
The nightmares come like clockwork, uninvited visitors that drag you back into the darkest moments of your mind. You wake up drenched in sweat, heart pounding like a drum, the echoes of Damian’s voice slicing through the silence of your room.
One night, after a particularly brutal dream where you watched Jason fall again and Bruce turned away from you in disappointment, you don’t bother trying to fall back asleep. Instead, you curl up on the floor beside your bed, trembling and unable to quiet the storm inside your chest.
You don’t even notice when a shadow slips through the doorway until a soft voice breaks the silence.
“You okay?”
You blink up to see Dick, his eyes gentle and concerned. Without waiting for an answer, he kneels down beside you, wrapping you in an arm so warm and steady it feels like a lifeline.
“I heard you moving around. Thought you might need someone.”
You swallow the lump in your throat, voice barely a whisper. “It won’t stop. The nightmares…”
Dick nods knowingly, squeezing your shoulder. “I know. I’ve been there.”
He pulls you into a tight hug, and for the first time in weeks, you let yourself break, tears spilling over as the weight of everything crashes down.
“You’re not alone,” he murmurs. “None of us are. And no matter what Damian says… no matter what you think, you do belong here. We all believe in you.”
His words don’t erase the fear, but they plant a small seed of hope.
Weeks drag on, and the pressure inside you builds like a storm ready to break. Every failure feels heavier, every glance from Damian sharper. You push yourself harder, but it never seems to be enough.
One evening, where you had another grueling patrol where you barely kept up, you slam the door to your room and collapse against it, breath ragged. Your hands tremble as you pull your knees to your chest, and the walls close in tighter than ever.
The weight of everything: the doubt, the fear, Damian’s words, the nightmares crashes down all at once. You’re drowning, and there’s no one to throw you a lifeline.
The phone buzzes beside you. It’s a message from Tim: “Hey. You good? Heard about the patrol. Talk if you want.”
You stare at the screen, fingers shaking, before you tap out a reply: “Not really.”
A soft knock on your door follows moments later. Tim slips inside without waiting for an invitation, settling on the edge of your bed.
“You don’t have to pretend with me,” he says quietly. “I know what it’s like to feel like you’re not enough.”
You bite your lip, voice cracking. “I’m so tired, Tim. I’m scared I’m going to mess up and… and they’ll all regret bringing me here.”
He reaches out, brushing a stray lock of hair from your face. “Nobody regrets it. Least of all me.”
Tim has always been the one who hides his own pain behind a mask of logic and control. Growing up as the Red Robin, he’s carried the weight of responsibility on his shoulders longer than most, constantly feeling the pressure to prove himself, to be perfect, to never slip up. He knows what it’s like to feel like a failure, to fear disappointing the people you care about, to struggle with the fear that you don’t belong.
So when he sees you, someone newer, struggling so openly, overwhelmed by doubt and exhaustion, something inside him resonates. He sees himself reflected in your fear, the same self-doubt, the same heavy burden of “not being enough.” And it hurts him to watch you suffer alone, especially when all you need is a little reassurance.
Tim’s words come from a place of empathy and hard-earned wisdom. He knows firsthand that no one is perfect, that everyone stumbles, and that admitting weakness doesn’t mean you’re broken.
And knowing that, you let yourself lean into that small comfort, the steady presence beside you.
The days that follow are quieter. You still struggle, but the weight feels a little less suffocating now. Tim checks in often, his steady presence a balm for your raw nerves. Dick’s kindness lingers in your mind, and slowly, the nights don’t feel quite as lonely.
After a particularly tough training session, you find yourself wandering the cave alone, trying to steady your breathing. Damian is there as usual, cold and distant, but this time, something in his eyes makes you pause.
Damian grew up in a world of harsh expectations and relentless training. For him, strength isn’t just physical, it’s survival. Weakness means vulnerability, and vulnerability means death. When you first arrived, all he saw was uncertainty and fear mirrored in your eyes, traits he equated with weakness because that’s what he was taught to believe.
He hated the idea of someone who might slow the family down, someone who might put the team at risk. So his words were sharp, meant to push you away before you could disappoint him or worse, become a liability in the field.
But as he watched you struggle, fall, and then get back up again, Damian began to see something else. Not perfection, not flawless skill, but something far more stubborn and real: resilience. You didn’t give up, no matter how hard it was. You fought through your fears and your mistakes.
That resilience challenged everything Damian believed about strength. It unsettled him because if weakness was defined by fear and failure, then maybe strength was defined by how you responded to those things.
He doesn’t know how to say it outright, he’s never been good with words like comfort or encouragement. But admitting that you belong here means admitting that he misjudged you. And that’s a hard truth for someone like Damian.
“I was wrong,” he says abruptly, voice low.
You blink, caught off guard.
“I thought you were weak. I thought you’d just be another burden.”
You don’t say anything, unsure if you heard correctly.
“But I see now… you fight harder than any of us,” he continues, voice almost hesitant. “And maybe… maybe that means you belong here, after all.”
It’s the closest thing to a compliment you’ve heard from him, and your heart twists painfully.
“Don’t expect me to say it again,” he mutters, stepping past you with a faint nod.
You watch him go, a strange mix of hope and pain swirling inside you. Maybe belonging isn’t about being perfect. Maybe it’s about fighting through the cracks, and sometimes, that’s enough.
And for the first time, you think… maybe you’re home.
Insomnia eradicate emotions. Everything is a never-ending cycle. You can see it in someone's eyes when they aren't sleeping. The hollow grasp of cheekbones tighening their dark under eyes chissled into their face is a dead giveaway. Insomnia makes everything such a blur, which the void in itself is void of any saturation. Exhaustion is inevitable and a constant in removing any joy or genuine laughter that even attempts to escape your airways. Eventually metamorphising into the vague hollow husk of a shallow silent soul, only a body remains to drag its feet along through everyday life. Life moves quickly around you, but you are motionless.
