Part one- 𝑃𝑎𝑟𝑡 𝑡𝑤𝑜 - 𝘗𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘦(𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦)
Three months into living at Wayne Manor, you stopped going to school.
Not officially. You'd wake up, put on your uniform, take your bag, and leave your room at the appropriate time. Alfred would see you in the hallway and nod his usual greeting. "Have a good day at school, Miss."
But instead of getting in the car that would take you to Gotham Academy, you'd slip out a side door and walk. Just walk. Through the gardens, past the gates, into the woods that bordered the property. You'd find a spot—a fallen log, a clear patch of ground—and you'd sit there until it was time to come back.
The school called, presumably. But whatever calls they made went to Bruce's office, and Bruce was too busy to pay attention to automated attendance reports for a daughter he barely remembered he had. The messages piled up, unheard, unread, unimportant.
You'd return to the manor in the afternoon, slip back into your room, and exist in the silence until dinner—which you'd started attending again because the hunger had become unbearable, and your hoarded food had run out.
At dinner, if anyone was even there, they wouldn't ask about your day. Why would they? They never had before.
It was during one of these dinners—Bruce at the head of the table, Damian to his right, you at the far end like an afterthought—that everything began to fracture further.
"Father," Damian said, his voice carrying that particular tone of disdain he reserved for topics he found beneath him, "are you aware that your... daughter has not attended school in two weeks?"
Your fork stopped halfway to your mouth.
Bruce looked up from his tablet, distracted. "What?"
"The truant," Damian clarified, gesturing vaguely in your direction without looking at you. "She's been skipping classes. I've seen her wandering the grounds when she should be at the Academy. It's embarrassing."
Your heart hammered in your chest. Not from fear of punishment—you were used to that. But from the sudden attention, all of it negative, all of it confirming what you'd always known: you were a problem.
Bruce's eyes finally found you, really looked at you for the first time in weeks. His expression shifted through several emotions—surprise, confusion, then something that might have been concern but looked more like annoyance.
Your voice came out small, automatic. "Yes."
"Why?" He set down his tablet, giving you his full attention now, and somehow that was worse than being ignored. "Is something wrong at school?"
Everything was wrong at school. Everything was wrong here. Everything was wrong with you.
But you'd never learned how to say that, so instead you said, "I don't know."
"You don't know?" Bruce's tone sharpened. "You've been skipping school for two weeks and you don't know why?"
Damian scoffed. "Clearly she lacks discipline. Perhaps if she'd been raised properly—"
"Damian," Bruce cut him off, but without much force. He turned back to you. "This is unacceptable. The Academy is one of the best schools in the state. You're lucky to be attending. Many children would—"
He continued talking, something about responsibility and opportunities and expectations, but the words blurred together. You'd heard versions of this speech before, from teachers, from social workers, from your mother when she was sober enough to pretend she cared about your performance in elementary school.
You were ungrateful. You were wasting chances. You were failing to meet basic standards.
You were, fundamentally, a disappointment.
"—starting tomorrow, Alfred will personally ensure you get to school and I'll be checking with your teachers weekly about your attendance and performance. Is that understood?"
"Yes," you repeated, louder.
"Good." He picked up his tablet again, the matter settled in his mind. Problem identified, solution implemented, moving on.
Damian smirked at his plate, satisfied that you'd been put in your place.
And you sat there, food turning to ash in your mouth, and realized that this—this moment of actually being seen—was so much worse than invisibility.
The next morning, Alfred did indeed ensure you got to school. He drove you himself, walked you to the entrance, and informed the front office that Mr. Wayne would be monitoring your attendance personally.
The administrators had fallen over themselves to assure him it wouldn't be a problem, that they'd keep close watch, that they apologized for any confusion.
You'd wanted to sink through the floor.
At school, word spread quickly. Bruce Wayne was paying attention to his new daughter. That made you interesting suddenly, but not in a good way.
"Guess you got in trouble," one of Damian's friends—a girl named Madison with perfect blonde hair and a smile like a knife—said as she passed your locker. "Daddy finally notice you exist?"
You'd kept your head down and gone to class.
But being present physically didn't mean you were present mentally. You'd sat at your desk and stared at the board without processing anything. Teachers called on you and you'd give wrong answers or none at all. You'd fail quizzes you hadn't studied for, turn in homework you'd barely attempted.
Your grades, which had already been struggling, plummeted.
True to his word, Bruce checked in with your teachers. You knew because he called you to his office one evening, face stern, a printed report in front of him.
"Failing," he read from the paper. "Failing, D-minus, failing, incomplete assignments, lack of participation, disruptive—how are you disruptive? You barely speak."
You didn't answer. There was no answer that would satisfy.
"I don't understand," he continued, and he genuinely seemed baffled. "You have every advantage now. A good home, resources, opportunities. What's the problem?"
The problem was that you were broken in ways that good homes and resources couldn't fix. The problem was that you'd spent ten years learning that you didn't matter, and three months in a mansion hadn't unlearned that lesson—it had reinforced it. The problem was that you were drowning and no one could see the water.
But you couldn't say any of that, so you said nothing.
"I'm taking you to a therapist," Bruce decided. "Clearly you need professional help to adjust."
Professional help. Another box checked. Another problem delegated. Another way to avoid actually dealing with you himself.
Dr. Matthews had an office in downtown Gotham, all soft lighting and comfortable furniture and paintings meant to be soothing. She was middle-aged, kind-faced, with gentle eyes that reminded you of Mrs. Henderson, your second-grade teacher.
"You can call me Sarah," she said during the first session. "This is a safe space. Nothing you say here will be shared with your father without your permission unless I believe you're in danger of hurting yourself or others."
You'd nodded, sitting on the edge of the couch, hands clasped in your lap.
"So," she'd started, "why don't you tell me about yourself?"
Where did you even start? With the apartment on Miller Street? With your mother's fists and cigarette burns? With the hunger, the cold, the nights spent in stairwells? With the manor that was supposed to be better but felt like a different cage?
"Okay," Sarah had said patiently. "Let's try something easier. What do you like to do? Any hobbies?"
You'd stared at her. Hobbies. You'd spent your childhood surviving. You didn't have hobbies.
"I read," you'd offered finally, because that was technically true. You read to escape, to disappear into other people's lives, to forget your own.
"That's wonderful. What do you like to read?"
The questions continued, gentle and probing, and you'd answered in monosyllables, giving her nothing real, nothing that mattered. You'd learned long ago that telling the truth only led to more pain.
After six sessions, she'd called Bruce in for a joint meeting.
"Your daughter is exhibiting signs of severe attachment disorder, depression, and complex PTSD," she'd explained while you sat there, exposed, every broken part of you being discussed like you weren't in the room. "Her early childhood trauma has significantly impacted her ability to form healthy relationships and trust others. She needs intensive therapy, possibly medication, and—most importantly—she needs a stable, supportive family environment where she feels safe and valued."
Bruce had nodded seriously, taking it all in. "What do we need to do?"
"Family therapy would be beneficial. Individual attention from you and her siblings. Consistent routines. Patience. She needs to know she matters, that she's not just another responsibility to be managed."
More nodding. "We can do that."
Bruce had attended two family therapy sessions before his schedule became "too complicated." The sessions were rescheduled, then cancelled, then forgotten.
Dick had shown up to one session, spent the hour on his phone dealing with some Titans emergency, and never came back.
Damian had refused outright. "I'm not participating in therapy because Father acquired another broken stray. This is ridiculous."
So the family therapy became just you and Dr. Matthews, which was really just more individual therapy, which wasn't addressing the actual problem.
The problem was that you could talk about your trauma until you were blue in the face, could understand intellectually that your mother's abuse wasn't your fault, could learn coping mechanisms and grounding techniques and all the therapeutic tools in the world.
None of it mattered when you went home to people who still didn't see you.
