What I find most interesting between Mel and Frank is they both want to befriend someone Mel being new to the Pitt and trying to form a connection with little anyone. Then there’s Langdon who obviously has a pretty solid mentorship/ dynamic with Robby but he obviously wants more such as referring to him and Robby as “friends” but Robby brushes it off saying Frank’s his best resident, and you can obviously notice the change in Frank’s demeanor both literally befriended each other without meaning too and both found exactly what they were looking for in each other.
frank being the one in the relationship trying to keep it professional at work meanwhile mel can’t stop touching him or running her hands through his hair. sometimes she’ll sit at central, unaware she’s biting the bottom of her lip because she thinks watching him put on size large gloves is the hottest anyone has ever looked.
frank can’t stop blushing like teenager with a schoolgirl crush every time he notices it.
"The hitachiin twins are weird!!" "Me when i recommended somebody ouran but forget about the twins" "why are the twins like that" TELL ME YALL HAVE NO MEDIA COMPREHENSION SKILLS WHATSOEVER???
The twins mention MULTIPLE TIMES that the "brotherly love" act is just that. An ACT. Any scenes where the twins are simply interacting outside of their personas they dont act like that. Any time they're putting on that persona its to benefit themselves in one way or another. Drawing in customers at the host club, using it to win the room during the refreshing contest, its an ACT. They know it is, everybody knows it is.
The twins are very close, yes, but theres at least two episodes explaining how in their eyes all they have is each other. Complete Us vs. Them mentality. Nobody viewed them as individuals until the host club, and even then that was mostly Haruhi at first. They are codependent, and they may not be the healthiest depiction of brothers, but their "brotherly love" shtick isnt real and they know it. They didnt act like that before coming up with their role in the host club, and they dont act like that in their personal lives.
a long rant about the culture on the pitt twitter, the early season 2 discourse, and the state of the pitt fandom in general.
it genuinely saddens me that a show like the pitt, one that's so needed right now in a country that's currently quite literally systematically reversing course on every progressive reform that's been made for decades and decades, is being torn to shreds regularly on social media by people who ignore all of the things it's doing right. it's never woke enough, it never addresses everything perfectly, no one can sit down and watch more than one episode before jumping online to complain about all the ways they feel like the show has already fucked up, or complain about the ways they're so sure it will fuck up in the weeks to come.
part of the reason why twitter has become so unbearable to me lately is because there are a few accounts on there that absolutely hate this show. they hate it, they think everyone involved in making it is evil, they take every possible opportunity to speak critically about it, they only amplify negative press, and for some reason they continue watching the show.
whether that's to feel morally superior to the people that enjoy it, to hate "ethically" by having full knowledge of what's happening, or (most likely) because consuming it weekly it gives them additional fuel for their complaints, they keep watching. they insist they want nothing to do with this show and it's constantly disappointing them, but they remain some of the loudest people in the entire fandom.
i have no issue with media i enjoy being criticized, and i don't feel guilty for enjoying the work of quote-unquote problematic artists. the issue for me is when it crosses into the realm of what feels like a hate campaign. some of the accusations i've seen leveled at noah wyle, at john wells, at the writers of this show in general are deeply, incredibly over-the-top.
using tracy ifeachor's departure from the show (something we know absolutely nothing about the circumstances of) to accuse the people making the show of being racist and anti-black; alleging that this show was made so that the people at the top could continue years of abuse of their power (something that quite literally no one has claimed); claiming a behind-the-scenes conspiracy to use women of color in order to get people interested in the show and then systematically write them off...
i'm barely even scratching the surface.
to get into the amount of absolutely baseless and insane claims that have circulated would take weeks, and i've genuinely given up hope of ever being able to dismantle all of them. i saw a tweet yesterday that called noah wyle "the most racist man alive." i've seen quote-unquote "fans" of this show writing practical dissertations that read like they hope the women of color on this set are being mistreated so they have additional evidence for their twitter threads. i've seen people saying they "can't wait for the documentary about all of this to come out", and i read that and think... all of what?
the way the pitt was cast means so much amazing, young, diverse undiscovered talent got to be put in the spotlight (people who don't work in the industry may not realize, but it is unbelievably rare for a show to invest so much faith and time and material in new talent). the writer's room includes several women of color whose skill allow the show to feel like it's actually representative of the demographics of the people that make up the healthcare industry. the pitt was the first production to finalize a union contract with their production assistants, a historically underpaid and overworked on-set position. because of the show's format, it employees the same background actors across the entire season, giving background talent months of consistent paid work. so many people involved in the production have raved about the set feeling non-hierarchical, feeling like being part of a theatre troupe, feeling like a place where they're supported both personally and in the work.
and outside of any of that, there's the work of the show itself. i don't believe any art should be above critique even (and especially) if it's portraying current events and systemic issues, but the pitt has made a measurable impact outside of its viewership. healthcare workers say this show has made it easier for their families to understand the work that they do and the way that it stays with them. people have attested that it's opened up conversations for them about things like end-of-life planning and organ donation (a study by USC found individuals were 27% more likely to seek out information about becoming an organ donor after watching this show, and that the impact was particularly great among black audiences, who are historically overrepresented on transplant lists and underrepresented in terms of donors). noah wyle and his mother joined nurses to speak to congress this summer about mental health support for healthcare workers. some of the protocols that were portrayed during the mass-casualty event in season 1 are now being implemented in actual hospital emergency rooms.
at its heart, this is a show about imperfect people doing their best, made by imperfect people doing their best. i desperately, desperately wish for all of us to recognize that none of us are perfect either. none of us are without bias, none of us are free of mistakes, none of us have always acted in ways we're proud of. i see that reflected in the doctors and nurses and patients on this show, and i wish i could see it reflected more often in this fandom as well.
i've been dogpiled plenty on twitter in the past few months for expressing the above, and i'm not naive enough to think that that's not going to happen here as well. i've been called every name in the book, insulted in turns of phrase i've quite literally never heard before in my life, and sent actual death threats. i'm sure the people that have been harassing me relentlessly for months will have an absolute field day with this post as well, but i am at my core a lawyer's daughter who was raised to argue at the dinner table and i don't want to let the the loudest, meanest people control the experience of being a fan of this show.
i think the pitt is important. i think it's important for television and it's important for hollywood and it has the potential to be important for the country, and i would like to see it continue to succeed, and hopefully find an audience that's less obsessed with turning the entire fandom into a war zone & more open to understanding.
I just want a willxrichie fic where Mikey is not a jealousy asshole!! I want a fic where he gets happy that his friend found someone that loves him back, I want a fic where he and Richie may not get along but care for each other (specially if they are family)!!!
Imagine Mike and Richie spending the whole night up talking abt Will and what he likes bc Mike wants Will to have a good partner and Richie wants to be the good partner, then Mike does the same to Will and he becomes their cupid!!! 🥺
Summary: The Arabic language was truly beautiful—unless you trusted Google Translate
A/N: Damian is lowkey ooc but it's okay
also i was inspired to write this fic after i read this one by @honeybeemelon
credits to @strangergraphics-archive for the divider
When people found out you were Damian Wayne’s best friend, the general reaction was always the same—shock. And honestly? You couldn’t even blame them.
After all, Damian wasn’t exactly known for his warm personality. His closest companions—outside of you—were essentially curated: his father’s best friend’s son (a curated friendship, at best) and the army of animals he kept like a Disney princess with a superiority complex.
So, your friendship with him? It had come as a shock—even to you.
You had first met Damian when you were paired together for a project in ninth grade. To be completely honest, he had intimidated the hell out of you. And how could he not? Damian Wayne was basically Gotham royalty. The heir to a billion-dollar empire, collected from school every day by an actual butler, while you were usually stuck elbow-to-elbow on the public bus, praying it wouldn't break down in Crime Alley.
You never wanted to play into the whole “poor girl/rich guy” trope—it was cliché and unproductive—but in this case… it really was hard not to feel a little out of place. You weren’t poor, by any means, but compared to Damian Wayne, everyone else looked like they belonged in the bargain bin.
He was fluent in more languages than you had taken classes, enrolled in every honors course the school offered, and still managed to outperform everyone without breaking a sweat. Meanwhile, you were practically bleeding caffeine to keep up.
And, of course, as if that wasn’t enough, he was also a gifted artist.
While you were scraping together extra credit and clutching your GPA like a lifeline, Damian spent his free time in the art club, painting actual masterpieces. You weren’t even exaggerating—his work was routinely auctioned off at school charity events for absurd amounts, snapped up by either his family or desperate socialites trying to earn favor with them.
To most people, he was the full package: rich, brilliant, talented, and emotionally unavailable. No wonder they called him Gotham’s Ice Prince.
It wasn’t until you were invited to his house for the first time—just to work on your project—that your opinion of him began to shift.
You hadn’t even realized how tense you were until you stepped inside Wayne Manor, your stomach twisting into actual knots. Everything was so grand and pristine, you were convinced that just existing in the space would get you slapped with a fine. You had no idea where to put your shoes. Should you bow? Curtsy? Sacrifice a limb? There was a chandelier bigger than your bedroom hanging above you. You were deeply concerned about accidentally knocking over a vase that probably cost more than your college tuition.
You clutched your backpack like a life raft and kept your head down as the butler—Alfred, as he informed you—welcomed you inside with a politeness that felt too elegant to be real. You tried not to gape at the chandeliers or the oil paintings that looked too good to just be décor.
Then came the real surprise.
“Aw, look. The brat’s got a friend over.” Someone teased.
You turned in time to see a tall man with a shock of white in his hair ruffle Damian’s meticulously gelled head.
“Don’t touch me, Todd.” Damian hissed, swatting his hand away like an angry cat, leading you away from him and down the hallway.
You froze, unsure whether this was all in good fun or if his brother was genuinely terrorizing him. Though it didn't feel like it, the man before you was a walking double-doored refrigerator so who knows.
But then you caught a glance at Damian and despite being so unreadable all the time, you could tell from his shoulders that he was completely at ease. A sight that was unseen within the school walls. Damian’s expression when Jason teased him was… so normal. Like any other little brother being harassed by an annoying older sibling. Your stomach relaxed a little.
You both quickly got to work, each working silently on your parts individually. You were hunched over your textbooks in the Wayne Manor dining room, trying to make sense of a particularly confusing physics problem when you heard the sound of claws tapping against the polished hardwood floors.
You looked up—and promptly froze.
An enormous Great Dane was trotting toward you, ears perked and tail swaying like a metronome. His tongue lolled happily out of his mouth, and he had that look dogs get when they’ve just seen their favorite person… or someone new they were excited to investigate. Probably both.
You sat up straighter, unsure if you were supposed to run or stay still. Was he friendly? Would moving trigger some ancient predator instinct?
The dog sniffed the air, his giant paws making quiet thuds as he inched closer to you. His head was almost level with your shoulder even while standing on all fours, and you blinked at him like he was some mythological creature summoned from another realm.
“Titus, come.” Damian’s voice cut through the air, firm and low.
Immediately—immediately—the Great Dane turned on his heel and trotted obediently to Damian’s side, sitting neatly next to his leg like he hadn’t just been about to introduce himself by licking your entire face.
Your eyes widened, “He’s… so obedient.”
“I trained him.” Damian said simply, reaching down to scratch behind the dog’s ear.
Of course he did.
You almost scoffed, but managed to hold it back, hiding your exasperation behind a polite smile. Of course he trained him. Of course the dog that looked like it could wrestle a bear was gentle as a lamb because Damian had made it so. Add “dog whisperer” to his ever-growing list of talents.
Animals were supposed to be good judges of character, weren’t they? And clearly, this one adored Damian. It made something twist a little in your chest—not in a bad way, just… surprised. There was so much about him that people didn’t see. So much you hadn’t seen, at first.
You weren’t sure what you had expected, really. If Damian had said he’d hired some world-renowned professional dog trainer from Switzerland, you would’ve nodded and accepted it. Because of course he could afford that. He could afford anything.
You weren’t able to maintain eye contact with him for long. There was something about the way Damian looked at you—sharp but unreadable, like he was constantly trying to figure you out. So your eyes dropped, settling on Titus again, who was still leaning comfortably against Damian’s leg like a living statue.
“Are you afraid of dogs, (L/N)?” Damian asked suddenly.
You looked up, caught off guard by the question—and by the fact that he’d used your last name, which he rarely did unless he was teasing you or… studying you.
“No,” You said quickly, maybe a little too quickly, “Just… surprised, I guess. He’s huge. Like—genuinely massive. That’s not a dog, Damian. That’s a small moose.”
A flicker of amusement crossed his face, brief but noticeable, “He’s gentle.”
The corner of your lips quirked up, eyes still warily watching the massive dog, “I’m not quite sure I believe you.”
Damian didn’t reply right away. Instead, he shifted slightly in his chair and glanced at Titus, who was still comfortably sprawled out beside him. Then he looked back at you, expression unreadable—but there was something suspiciously mischievous in his eyes.
“Just hold your hand out.” He said casually.
You narrowed your eyes, “Why? To make it easier for him to maul me?"
He rolled his eyes, “So he can sniff you properly. You’ll survive.”
Damian rolled his eyes, then leaned slightly toward you, “Just hold your hand out, jaja.”
You tilted your head, “What’s that mean?”
He gave you the smallest smirk, “You big chicken.”
Your jaw dropped in mock offense, “Oh, I see how it is. We’re resorting to slander now.”
“I’m just calling it like I see it.” He gestured toward Titus, “He’s not going to hurt you. Just give him your hand.”
You narrowed your eyes at him suspiciously, but slowly—very slowly—extended your hand toward the dog.
“If Titus bites my fingers off,” You warned, “I hope you know I’m going to demand an exorbitant compensation.”
“Noted.” He said dryly.
You shot him a look but couldn’t help the grin spreading across your face as you began to slowly pet Titus’s soft ears. He let out a satisfied huff, tail giving one happy thump on the hardwood.
“Okay,” You whispered, "I take it back. You're my new best friend and I love you."
It seemed, in hindsight, that Damian had mistaken your flippant claim of Titus being your new best friend for a claim on him as well—because somehow, three years later, you were still very much a part of his life.
You saw each other every day. Whether it was at school, at the Manor, or simply walking home together in silence, there wasn’t a version of your day that didn’t include Damian Wayne. You weren’t just acquaintances anymore, or two students who happened to work well together. You were one of the very few people outside his family who had been granted access to his carefully guarded inner circle.
He was still difficult sometimes—blunt, sharp-tongued, annoyingly perceptive—but he was your closest friend. And you were his.
And somewhere along the line… he stopped being just your friend.
He was still your closest friend, of course. Still the person who reminded you to drink water during all-nighters and walked you to the bus stop after late study sessions, muttering that he didn’t “trust Gotham at night,” even though he was Gotham at night.
But slowly, something shifted.
You started smiling unconsciously whenever his name lit up your phone screen—sometimes even before you opened the message. You’d scroll through old pictures of the two of you in your gallery—not for nostalgia, but for clues. The way he looked at you in some of them, just slightly turned toward you when he thought you weren’t looking. The rare smile tugging at his lips when you were doing something completely mundane, like trying to balance a milk carton on your head in the school cafeteria.
You started noticing the tiny, ridiculous details. What he wore that day. How close he stood. Whether his hand lingered on your shoulder just a second too long in that blurry group photo. Whether you were imagining it.
You spent so much time with him already, but it never felt like enough. You found yourself looking for him even when he was just in the other room—craning your neck in crowded hallways, catching yourself watching the door before he walked through it, heart skipping like you didn’t already know he’d be there.
You were supposed to be used to him by now—his bluntness, his scowls, the way he always smelled faintly of expensive soap and something sharper, something dangerous. But instead, you found yourself more and more aware of him. Of how he’d rest his hand on the small of your back to guide you through a crowd. Of how he’d tilt his head when you were talking, like he was memorizing the sound of your voice.
It was infuriating.
And it was impossible to stop.
It had started months ago—Damian weaving his mother tongue into conversations like it was the most natural thing in the world.
At first, you didn’t think much of it. He was just getting more comfortable around you, and by now, you understood his mannerisms well enough to piece together the meanings from context alone.
He’d once mentioned wanting to teach you Arabic by immersion, and you’d joked about how cool it would be to just wake up one day speaking it fluently thanks to him.
But then… you noticed it.
A word. One he always called you. Always.
You told yourself not to read into it—maybe it was just a phrase he used for everyone. But you’d never heard him say it to anyone else. Not Alfred. Not his brothers. Not even Titus.
So, of course, your brain decided to make it a thing.
The first time, it was so offhand you almost missed it. You’d asked him to repeat himself, and he’d brushed it off—“I said you should dress more warmly.”
The second time, it was in person—soft and absentminded as he handed you a coffee during finals week. Your heart had fluttered.
By the fourth time, your cheeks were heating before he even finished saying it.
You didn’t ask what it meant. You didn’t need to. The way it rolled off his tongue—gentle, warm—made you certain it was something affectionate. My dear. Sweetheart. Something private. Yours.
Until one afternoon.
You were curled up in bed, waiting for Damian to finish patrol so you could call him, when the curiosity finally won. You opened Google Translate.
K-a-l-b-e-e.
Did you mean: kalbi?
You clicked.
And instantly wished you hadn’t.
Kalbi — Arabic: my dog.
You stared at your phone, the word dog burning into your retinas. Maybe it was an expression? Maybe this was like how people call each other “puppy” as a joke? You opened another tab, desperately typing: is my dog a term of endearment in Arabic?
The first article:
No, the Arabic word for "dog," "Kalb" (كلب), is generally not a term of endearment. In Arabic, "Kalb" (كلب) is often used to insult someone's character or intelligence.
Your brain short-circuited. All those times you’d smiled like an idiot? All those moments you’d replayed, convinced they meant something? He’d been calling you a dog.
You flopped onto your back, groaning into your pillow. “I am the world’s biggest idiot.” You mumbled into the fabric.
Two years of friendship. Countless glances, shared coffees, lingering smiles—built on a lie. Or, worse, a mistranslation.
When Damian’s name lit up your phone later that night, you didn’t even get the usual flutter in your chest. Instead, you narrowed your eyes at the screen, turned it face-down, and rolled over.
But sleep didn’t come.
Every instance of Damian calling you a dog replayed in vivid detail, cheeks burning as you tried to ignore the wobble in your bottom lip.
I thought he liked me.
The next day, you did your best to avoid him.
You ducked out of the cafeteria early, took longer routes between classes, and kept your head down whenever you spotted him in the hallway. You didn’t even respond when he showed up to pick you up that morning, letting him wait outside your house for twenty minutes before texting him that you’d conveniently forgotten to mention an early club meeting and had to leave early.
He had hurt your feelings. You weren’t about to let him off that easily.
But Damian Wayne was nothing if not relentless.
You stood at your locker, arms full of books and notes, desperately trying to keep your mind on the upcoming quiz when that familiar, low voice sliced through the noise behind you.
“(Y/N).”
You froze, your fingers tightening around a stack of notebooks. Without turning, you started shifting your things around, rearranging your books so you wouldn’t have to look at him.
“What’s going on with you?” His voice was low and steady, but there was something under the surface—an edge of confusion, maybe frustration.
“Whatever do you mean?” You answered, trying to sound nonchalant.
“You know exactly what I’m talking about. Why are you avoiding me?” Damian’s tone sharpened, demanding the truth.
You shrugged, the words slipping out before you could stop them, “Sorry, Damian. I just can’t come running up to you with my tail wagging every time you call me.”
His brows furrowed. Since when have you called him Damian? He was always Dami to you.
“Did I do something to upset you?” He asked, stepping a little closer. The faint scent of his cologne drifted toward you. It made your breath hitch.
You finally looked at him, frowning and sizing him up. Then, with a perfectly deadpan expression, you said, “Woof.”
With that, you grabbed your books and turned on your heel, leaving Damian standing there, staring at your back with an incredulous expression.
“Did she get a lobotomy?” He muttered to himself, shaking his head.
Damian watched your retreating back for days—each time you pulled away, his frustration grew. Despite his best efforts to wrangle an explanation from you, you remained stubbornly distant. He could hear it in the sharp edge of your voice when you spoke to him, see it in the way your shoulders tensed as you turned and walked away. Something was wrong.
He didn’t like being kept at arm’s length. Especially not by you.
His mind replayed every conversation, every word he’d said or left unsaid, trying desperately to pinpoint the moment he’d crossed an invisible line. Had his sharp tongue cut too deep? Had he accidentally hurt you? The thought of causing you pain gnawed at him more than he cared to admit.
By the fourth day, his patience had run out.
He found you alone beneath the stairwell, where the hallways fell quiet while everyone was in class.
“(Y/N), come on.” He said quietly but firmly, stepping closer, his voice rough with urgency, “How can I make up for what I’ve done if I don’t even know why you’re mad at me?”
For a moment, you said nothing, the silence stretching between you like a chasm.
His normally impassive face betrayed a flicker of something raw—distress, frustration, and maybe even a hint of fear. The crease between his brows deepened as he scrunched his nose, a small but telling sign of how much this affected him.
You almost caved.
He reached out, his hand brushing yours, “Qalbi…”
That single word snapped something inside you.
You jerked your hand away, voice sharp and furious, “What the fuck is wrong with you, Damian?”
His chest tightened, heart pounding painfully. Anxiety flickered across his eyes. Was this rejection? Did you feel uncomfortable with his feelings for him? Was that why you were avoiding him?
“I—I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
You cut him off with a bitter laugh, trying to keep your voice steady despite the turmoil inside.
“Why do you keep calling me that? Are you trying to humiliate me? Is that what this is?”
The hurt in your words struck Damian harder than any blow. For a moment, he was speechless—his usual sharp confidence faltering under the weight of your doubt.
“No,” He said softly, voice almost breaking, “I would never humiliate you.”
He looked so earnest, so genuine that it managed to crack through your certainty, making you question everything you had believed until now.
Damian was your best friend. You supposed you owed him a chance to explain himself.
“Why do you keep calling me that?” You lowered your eyes, voice barely above a whisper, “I thought it was something sweet at first, but when I looked it up I… I dunno. I thought we meant more to each other.”
Damian’s face was stoic for a second, all the thoughts rushing through his brain trying to catch up. His eyes flickered over your face multiple times, trying to understand just what you were saying before the synapse connected and his world suddenly made sense.
His hands found their place on your waist, and you looked up at him in surprise, barely managing to voice out your confusion before he slanted his lips over yours.
Your gasp was muffled by his mouth, tilting your chin up as you kissed him back, eyes fluttering closed.
When Damian pulled away, his lips brushed lightly against yours again before he put barely an inch of distance between you, gazing into your eyes with a deep, passionate gaze that felt like it would light you ablaze.
“Kalbi is a word pronounced from the front of your mouth,” He explained, lips brushing against yours to further emphasize his point, “I would never call you that.”
“Qalbi,” He continued, leaning down to graze his lips along the curve of your throat, making your breath hitch as you clutched his arms to steady yourself, “Comes from deeper in the throat.”
Through the blood thumping in your ears, making every part of your body heat up unbearably, you could tell the difference between the two words.
“It means something entirely different.”
You tried to steady your breath, looking back up, finding yourself frozen when you met his green eyes, “What does it mean?”
He took a slow, careful breath and met your gaze with earnest intensity.
“Qalbi… it means my heart. It’s the most precious thing I could call you.”
You stared at him, stunned by the sincerity radiating from every word, your anger wavering as confusion and something warmer settled in.
Damian’s hand reached out again, tentative but hopeful.
“I’m sorry I didn’t explain sooner. I just… I didn’t know how.”
“I never meant to hurt you,” He whispered, “I was trying to tell you how much you mean to me.”
You looked up, searching his eyes—and found something honest, something vulnerable that made your breath catch.
Slowly, a genuine smile spread across your face.
“Next time,” You murmured, “maybe just say it in English.”
Damian’s grin deepened as he leaned down to kiss you again.
“Perhaps next time you’ll be better versed in Arabic,” He teased, “to tell the difference between two completely different letters.”
A/N: lol i put this at the end cuz i didn't wanna spoil anyways i wrote this fic cuz everytime i see a fic where damian refers to their s/o as qalbi i internally giggle because ik that ppl who are not really familiar with arabic will pronounce it differently and i just loved the idea of a misunderstanding arising from that
To be added to a taglist, please send me an ask! (I might respond to you in comments but I can’t guarantee that I won’t accidentally miss it)
Summary: The Arabic language was truly beautiful—unless you trusted Google Translate
A/N: Damian is lowkey ooc but it's okay
also i was inspired to write this fic after i read this one by @honeybeemelon
credits to @strangergraphics-archive for the divider
When people found out you were Damian Wayne’s best friend, the general reaction was always the same—shock. And honestly? You couldn’t even blame them.
After all, Damian wasn’t exactly known for his warm personality. His closest companions—outside of you—were essentially curated: his father’s best friend’s son (a curated friendship, at best) and the army of animals he kept like a Disney princess with a superiority complex.
So, your friendship with him? It had come as a shock—even to you.
You had first met Damian when you were paired together for a project in ninth grade. To be completely honest, he had intimidated the hell out of you. And how could he not? Damian Wayne was basically Gotham royalty. The heir to a billion-dollar empire, collected from school every day by an actual butler, while you were usually stuck elbow-to-elbow on the public bus, praying it wouldn't break down in Crime Alley.
You never wanted to play into the whole “poor girl/rich guy” trope—it was cliché and unproductive—but in this case… it really was hard not to feel a little out of place. You weren’t poor, by any means, but compared to Damian Wayne, everyone else looked like they belonged in the bargain bin.
He was fluent in more languages than you had taken classes, enrolled in every honors course the school offered, and still managed to outperform everyone without breaking a sweat. Meanwhile, you were practically bleeding caffeine to keep up.
And, of course, as if that wasn’t enough, he was also a gifted artist.
While you were scraping together extra credit and clutching your GPA like a lifeline, Damian spent his free time in the art club, painting actual masterpieces. You weren’t even exaggerating—his work was routinely auctioned off at school charity events for absurd amounts, snapped up by either his family or desperate socialites trying to earn favor with them.
To most people, he was the full package: rich, brilliant, talented, and emotionally unavailable. No wonder they called him Gotham’s Ice Prince.
It wasn’t until you were invited to his house for the first time—just to work on your project—that your opinion of him began to shift.
You hadn’t even realized how tense you were until you stepped inside Wayne Manor, your stomach twisting into actual knots. Everything was so grand and pristine, you were convinced that just existing in the space would get you slapped with a fine. You had no idea where to put your shoes. Should you bow? Curtsy? Sacrifice a limb? There was a chandelier bigger than your bedroom hanging above you. You were deeply concerned about accidentally knocking over a vase that probably cost more than your college tuition.
You clutched your backpack like a life raft and kept your head down as the butler—Alfred, as he informed you—welcomed you inside with a politeness that felt too elegant to be real. You tried not to gape at the chandeliers or the oil paintings that looked too good to just be décor.
Then came the real surprise.
“Aw, look. The brat’s got a friend over.” Someone teased.
You turned in time to see a tall man with a shock of white in his hair ruffle Damian’s meticulously gelled head.
“Don’t touch me, Todd.” Damian hissed, swatting his hand away like an angry cat, leading you away from him and down the hallway.
You froze, unsure whether this was all in good fun or if his brother was genuinely terrorizing him. Though it didn't feel like it, the man before you was a walking double-doored refrigerator so who knows.
But then you caught a glance at Damian and despite being so unreadable all the time, you could tell from his shoulders that he was completely at ease. A sight that was unseen within the school walls. Damian’s expression when Jason teased him was… so normal. Like any other little brother being harassed by an annoying older sibling. Your stomach relaxed a little.
You both quickly got to work, each working silently on your parts individually. You were hunched over your textbooks in the Wayne Manor dining room, trying to make sense of a particularly confusing physics problem when you heard the sound of claws tapping against the polished hardwood floors.
You looked up—and promptly froze.
An enormous Great Dane was trotting toward you, ears perked and tail swaying like a metronome. His tongue lolled happily out of his mouth, and he had that look dogs get when they’ve just seen their favorite person… or someone new they were excited to investigate. Probably both.
You sat up straighter, unsure if you were supposed to run or stay still. Was he friendly? Would moving trigger some ancient predator instinct?
The dog sniffed the air, his giant paws making quiet thuds as he inched closer to you. His head was almost level with your shoulder even while standing on all fours, and you blinked at him like he was some mythological creature summoned from another realm.
“Titus, come.” Damian’s voice cut through the air, firm and low.
Immediately—immediately—the Great Dane turned on his heel and trotted obediently to Damian’s side, sitting neatly next to his leg like he hadn’t just been about to introduce himself by licking your entire face.
Your eyes widened, “He’s… so obedient.”
“I trained him.” Damian said simply, reaching down to scratch behind the dog’s ear.
Of course he did.
You almost scoffed, but managed to hold it back, hiding your exasperation behind a polite smile. Of course he trained him. Of course the dog that looked like it could wrestle a bear was gentle as a lamb because Damian had made it so. Add “dog whisperer” to his ever-growing list of talents.
Animals were supposed to be good judges of character, weren’t they? And clearly, this one adored Damian. It made something twist a little in your chest—not in a bad way, just… surprised. There was so much about him that people didn’t see. So much you hadn’t seen, at first.
You weren’t sure what you had expected, really. If Damian had said he’d hired some world-renowned professional dog trainer from Switzerland, you would’ve nodded and accepted it. Because of course he could afford that. He could afford anything.
You weren’t able to maintain eye contact with him for long. There was something about the way Damian looked at you—sharp but unreadable, like he was constantly trying to figure you out. So your eyes dropped, settling on Titus again, who was still leaning comfortably against Damian’s leg like a living statue.
“Are you afraid of dogs, (L/N)?” Damian asked suddenly.
You looked up, caught off guard by the question—and by the fact that he’d used your last name, which he rarely did unless he was teasing you or… studying you.
“No,” You said quickly, maybe a little too quickly, “Just… surprised, I guess. He’s huge. Like—genuinely massive. That’s not a dog, Damian. That’s a small moose.”
A flicker of amusement crossed his face, brief but noticeable, “He’s gentle.”
The corner of your lips quirked up, eyes still warily watching the massive dog, “I’m not quite sure I believe you.”
Damian didn’t reply right away. Instead, he shifted slightly in his chair and glanced at Titus, who was still comfortably sprawled out beside him. Then he looked back at you, expression unreadable—but there was something suspiciously mischievous in his eyes.
“Just hold your hand out.” He said casually.
You narrowed your eyes, “Why? To make it easier for him to maul me?"
He rolled his eyes, “So he can sniff you properly. You’ll survive.”
Damian rolled his eyes, then leaned slightly toward you, “Just hold your hand out, jaja.”
You tilted your head, “What’s that mean?”
He gave you the smallest smirk, “You big chicken.”
Your jaw dropped in mock offense, “Oh, I see how it is. We’re resorting to slander now.”
“I’m just calling it like I see it.” He gestured toward Titus, “He’s not going to hurt you. Just give him your hand.”
You narrowed your eyes at him suspiciously, but slowly—very slowly—extended your hand toward the dog.
“If Titus bites my fingers off,” You warned, “I hope you know I’m going to demand an exorbitant compensation.”
“Noted.” He said dryly.
You shot him a look but couldn’t help the grin spreading across your face as you began to slowly pet Titus’s soft ears. He let out a satisfied huff, tail giving one happy thump on the hardwood.
“Okay,” You whispered, "I take it back. You're my new best friend and I love you."
It seemed, in hindsight, that Damian had mistaken your flippant claim of Titus being your new best friend for a claim on him as well—because somehow, three years later, you were still very much a part of his life.
You saw each other every day. Whether it was at school, at the Manor, or simply walking home together in silence, there wasn’t a version of your day that didn’t include Damian Wayne. You weren’t just acquaintances anymore, or two students who happened to work well together. You were one of the very few people outside his family who had been granted access to his carefully guarded inner circle.
He was still difficult sometimes—blunt, sharp-tongued, annoyingly perceptive—but he was your closest friend. And you were his.
And somewhere along the line… he stopped being just your friend.
He was still your closest friend, of course. Still the person who reminded you to drink water during all-nighters and walked you to the bus stop after late study sessions, muttering that he didn’t “trust Gotham at night,” even though he was Gotham at night.
But slowly, something shifted.
You started smiling unconsciously whenever his name lit up your phone screen—sometimes even before you opened the message. You’d scroll through old pictures of the two of you in your gallery—not for nostalgia, but for clues. The way he looked at you in some of them, just slightly turned toward you when he thought you weren’t looking. The rare smile tugging at his lips when you were doing something completely mundane, like trying to balance a milk carton on your head in the school cafeteria.
You started noticing the tiny, ridiculous details. What he wore that day. How close he stood. Whether his hand lingered on your shoulder just a second too long in that blurry group photo. Whether you were imagining it.
You spent so much time with him already, but it never felt like enough. You found yourself looking for him even when he was just in the other room—craning your neck in crowded hallways, catching yourself watching the door before he walked through it, heart skipping like you didn’t already know he’d be there.
You were supposed to be used to him by now—his bluntness, his scowls, the way he always smelled faintly of expensive soap and something sharper, something dangerous. But instead, you found yourself more and more aware of him. Of how he’d rest his hand on the small of your back to guide you through a crowd. Of how he’d tilt his head when you were talking, like he was memorizing the sound of your voice.
It was infuriating.
And it was impossible to stop.
It had started months ago—Damian weaving his mother tongue into conversations like it was the most natural thing in the world.
At first, you didn’t think much of it. He was just getting more comfortable around you, and by now, you understood his mannerisms well enough to piece together the meanings from context alone.
He’d once mentioned wanting to teach you Arabic by immersion, and you’d joked about how cool it would be to just wake up one day speaking it fluently thanks to him.
But then… you noticed it.
A word. One he always called you. Always.
You told yourself not to read into it—maybe it was just a phrase he used for everyone. But you’d never heard him say it to anyone else. Not Alfred. Not his brothers. Not even Titus.
So, of course, your brain decided to make it a thing.
The first time, it was so offhand you almost missed it. You’d asked him to repeat himself, and he’d brushed it off—“I said you should dress more warmly.”
The second time, it was in person—soft and absentminded as he handed you a coffee during finals week. Your heart had fluttered.
By the fourth time, your cheeks were heating before he even finished saying it.
You didn’t ask what it meant. You didn’t need to. The way it rolled off his tongue—gentle, warm—made you certain it was something affectionate. My dear. Sweetheart. Something private. Yours.
Until one afternoon.
You were curled up in bed, waiting for Damian to finish patrol so you could call him, when the curiosity finally won. You opened Google Translate.
K-a-l-b-e-e.
Did you mean: kalbi?
You clicked.
And instantly wished you hadn’t.
Kalbi — Arabic: my dog.
You stared at your phone, the word dog burning into your retinas. Maybe it was an expression? Maybe this was like how people call each other “puppy” as a joke? You opened another tab, desperately typing: is my dog a term of endearment in Arabic?
The first article:
No, the Arabic word for "dog," "Kalb" (كلب), is generally not a term of endearment. In Arabic, "Kalb" (كلب) is often used to insult someone's character or intelligence.
Your brain short-circuited. All those times you’d smiled like an idiot? All those moments you’d replayed, convinced they meant something? He’d been calling you a dog.
You flopped onto your back, groaning into your pillow. “I am the world’s biggest idiot.” You mumbled into the fabric.
Two years of friendship. Countless glances, shared coffees, lingering smiles—built on a lie. Or, worse, a mistranslation.
When Damian’s name lit up your phone later that night, you didn’t even get the usual flutter in your chest. Instead, you narrowed your eyes at the screen, turned it face-down, and rolled over.
But sleep didn’t come.
Every instance of Damian calling you a dog replayed in vivid detail, cheeks burning as you tried to ignore the wobble in your bottom lip.
I thought he liked me.
The next day, you did your best to avoid him.
You ducked out of the cafeteria early, took longer routes between classes, and kept your head down whenever you spotted him in the hallway. You didn’t even respond when he showed up to pick you up that morning, letting him wait outside your house for twenty minutes before texting him that you’d conveniently forgotten to mention an early club meeting and had to leave early.
He had hurt your feelings. You weren’t about to let him off that easily.
But Damian Wayne was nothing if not relentless.
You stood at your locker, arms full of books and notes, desperately trying to keep your mind on the upcoming quiz when that familiar, low voice sliced through the noise behind you.
“(Y/N).”
You froze, your fingers tightening around a stack of notebooks. Without turning, you started shifting your things around, rearranging your books so you wouldn’t have to look at him.
“What’s going on with you?” His voice was low and steady, but there was something under the surface—an edge of confusion, maybe frustration.
“Whatever do you mean?” You answered, trying to sound nonchalant.
“You know exactly what I’m talking about. Why are you avoiding me?” Damian’s tone sharpened, demanding the truth.
You shrugged, the words slipping out before you could stop them, “Sorry, Damian. I just can’t come running up to you with my tail wagging every time you call me.”
His brows furrowed. Since when have you called him Damian? He was always Dami to you.
“Did I do something to upset you?” He asked, stepping a little closer. The faint scent of his cologne drifted toward you. It made your breath hitch.
You finally looked at him, frowning and sizing him up. Then, with a perfectly deadpan expression, you said, “Woof.”
With that, you grabbed your books and turned on your heel, leaving Damian standing there, staring at your back with an incredulous expression.
“Did she get a lobotomy?” He muttered to himself, shaking his head.
Damian watched your retreating back for days—each time you pulled away, his frustration grew. Despite his best efforts to wrangle an explanation from you, you remained stubbornly distant. He could hear it in the sharp edge of your voice when you spoke to him, see it in the way your shoulders tensed as you turned and walked away. Something was wrong.
He didn’t like being kept at arm’s length. Especially not by you.
His mind replayed every conversation, every word he’d said or left unsaid, trying desperately to pinpoint the moment he’d crossed an invisible line. Had his sharp tongue cut too deep? Had he accidentally hurt you? The thought of causing you pain gnawed at him more than he cared to admit.
By the fourth day, his patience had run out.
He found you alone beneath the stairwell, where the hallways fell quiet while everyone was in class.
“(Y/N), come on.” He said quietly but firmly, stepping closer, his voice rough with urgency, “How can I make up for what I’ve done if I don’t even know why you’re mad at me?”
For a moment, you said nothing, the silence stretching between you like a chasm.
His normally impassive face betrayed a flicker of something raw—distress, frustration, and maybe even a hint of fear. The crease between his brows deepened as he scrunched his nose, a small but telling sign of how much this affected him.
You almost caved.
He reached out, his hand brushing yours, “Qalbi…”
That single word snapped something inside you.
You jerked your hand away, voice sharp and furious, “What the fuck is wrong with you, Damian?”
His chest tightened, heart pounding painfully. Anxiety flickered across his eyes. Was this rejection? Did you feel uncomfortable with his feelings for him? Was that why you were avoiding him?
“I—I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
You cut him off with a bitter laugh, trying to keep your voice steady despite the turmoil inside.
“Why do you keep calling me that? Are you trying to humiliate me? Is that what this is?”
The hurt in your words struck Damian harder than any blow. For a moment, he was speechless—his usual sharp confidence faltering under the weight of your doubt.
“No,” He said softly, voice almost breaking, “I would never humiliate you.”
He looked so earnest, so genuine that it managed to crack through your certainty, making you question everything you had believed until now.
Damian was your best friend. You supposed you owed him a chance to explain himself.
“Why do you keep calling me that?” You lowered your eyes, voice barely above a whisper, “I thought it was something sweet at first, but when I looked it up I… I dunno. I thought we meant more to each other.”
Damian’s face was stoic for a second, all the thoughts rushing through his brain trying to catch up. His eyes flickered over your face multiple times, trying to understand just what you were saying before the synapse connected and his world suddenly made sense.
His hands found their place on your waist, and you looked up at him in surprise, barely managing to voice out your confusion before he slanted his lips over yours.
Your gasp was muffled by his mouth, tilting your chin up as you kissed him back, eyes fluttering closed.
When Damian pulled away, his lips brushed lightly against yours again before he put barely an inch of distance between you, gazing into your eyes with a deep, passionate gaze that felt like it would light you ablaze.
“Kalbi is a word pronounced from the front of your mouth,” He explained, lips brushing against yours to further emphasize his point, “I would never call you that.”
“Qalbi,” He continued, leaning down to graze his lips along the curve of your throat, making your breath hitch as you clutched his arms to steady yourself, “Comes from deeper in the throat.”
Through the blood thumping in your ears, making every part of your body heat up unbearably, you could tell the difference between the two words.
“It means something entirely different.”
You tried to steady your breath, looking back up, finding yourself frozen when you met his green eyes, “What does it mean?”
He took a slow, careful breath and met your gaze with earnest intensity.
“Qalbi… it means my heart. It’s the most precious thing I could call you.”
You stared at him, stunned by the sincerity radiating from every word, your anger wavering as confusion and something warmer settled in.
Damian’s hand reached out again, tentative but hopeful.
“I’m sorry I didn’t explain sooner. I just… I didn’t know how.”
“I never meant to hurt you,” He whispered, “I was trying to tell you how much you mean to me.”
You looked up, searching his eyes—and found something honest, something vulnerable that made your breath catch.
Slowly, a genuine smile spread across your face.
“Next time,” You murmured, “maybe just say it in English.”
Damian’s grin deepened as he leaned down to kiss you again.
“Perhaps next time you’ll be better versed in Arabic,” He teased, “to tell the difference between two completely different letters.”
A/N: lol i put this at the end cuz i didn't wanna spoil anyways i wrote this fic cuz everytime i see a fic where damian refers to their s/o as qalbi i internally giggle because ik that ppl who are not really familiar with arabic will pronounce it differently and i just loved the idea of a misunderstanding arising from that
To be added to a taglist, please send me an ask! (I might respond to you in comments but I can’t guarantee that I won’t accidentally miss it)
⤷ summary ⋮ You don’t know your boyfriend—beloved as he likes to call himself—is Robin. Then, one night you think you hear a stray cat behind a dumpster.
Turns out it’s the vigilante Robin who collapses into you since he’s so beat up and—wait, why does Robin smell like Damian .ᐣ word cnt. 10.2k
There’s a persistent misconception about Damian—that he refuses to admit when he’s hurt because it would bruise his ego. Maybe that was true once. Maybe when he was small, when he was ten and still soft in places the League tried to carve out of him, when the only time he cried into someone’s shoulder was in dreams he woke from with shame burning his throat. Back then, admitting pain meant inviting more of it. Back then, vulnerability was another word for weakness, and weakness was something punished, not soothed.
But that’s not the boy he is now. Now, admitting hurt feels less like pride and more like treason—like every flinch, every moment of doubt is an insult hurled at his mother, at his grandfather, at every merciless lesson etched into his bones. To even confess inwardly, I’m hurting, feels like reaching into his own chest and dismantling the armor they forced him to wear.
So he doesn’t. Even now, coughing in the cold shadows of Crime Alley, ribs screaming, blood painting the inside of his mouth metallic and warm, he won’t say it. Not to himself. Not even here.
Domain keeps repeating the same line in his head, steady and practiced: I will not blame myself for this.
Damian says it again and again, as if repetition could make it true.
The truth lies beside him in the dust.
She couldn’t have been more than ten. A child.
A child swallowed by Scarecrow’s toxin so completely that terror seemed to pour from her skin. Her eyes were blown wide, glassy, unfocused—staring not at him but through him, as if she were trapped in a nightmare with no way out. Every breath she took came out as a sob, sharp and shallow, like her lungs were too small to carry the fear inside her.
The knife in her hand trembled violently, its metal catching the dim emergency lights in jittery flashes. She swung at him in clumsy, frantic arcs—nothing calculated, nothing trained—just primal, poisoned terror. The air around them was thick with dust, with heat, with the stench of the toxin leaking from the vents. It felt like breathing through wet cloth.
Damian kept his palms open as he approached, voice low, feet steady even as the floor groaned beneath them. The building was dying around them—walls cracking, ceiling shedding plaster in soft, deadly drifts—and every sound felt too loud, too sharp, swallowed too quickly by the narrow hallway.
Damian disarmed her. Of course he did.
Even shaking, even barely able to see through the haze, muscle memory guided him. He caught her wrist, twisted gently, felt the blade slip from her fingers.
But she didn’t stop screaming.
Her hands clawed at him, tiny nails scraping at his suit, her body thrashing with the strength that only terror gives. And her voice—God, her voice—wasn’t a child’s voice anymore. It was raw, hoarse, pleading in a way that hollowed him out from the inside.
She screamed that she didn’t want to be here.
She screamed that she didn’t want to die.
She screamed like he had screamed in the few seconds before the Lazarus Pit swallowed him whole.
He didn’t decide to let her go.
Damian’s fingers simply opened, an old instinct rising through him like cold water.
It took less than seven seconds.
He counted them later, each one a knife to the ribs.
A groan rippled through the ceiling—deep, metallic, sickening—and then the world tore open. A huge industrial fan, rusted through and hanging on by its last bolts, snapped free with a shriek that split the air. Damian saw it fall in slow motion, though he knew it was fast, too fast, impossibly fast.
The impact hit like the building itself exhaled.
Dust exploded outward in a suffocating cloud, swallowing the girl instantly. The shockwave rattled his bones. Debris peppered his boots. The air turned thick, gritty, nearly unbreathable.
And then—silence.
Not real silence, but that awful hollow space where sound should be. Where a child should be crying. Where something living should still be moving.
Damian didn’t scream. His throat locked, muscles tightening until it felt like he was being strangled. His body refused to move, refused to look away, refused to accept the outline half-visible through the settling dust. Something small. Something still.
His heartbeat pounded in his ears so loudly it drowned out the continuing collapse around him.
For a moment, he couldn’t tell if he was breathing at all.
He stayed frozen like that—knees bent, muscles trembling, pupils blown—until hands grabbed him from behind. Strong hands. Familiar hands.
Dick’s voice was somewhere above him, muffled, frantic, breaking.
But Damian didn’t hear the words.
Only the ringing silence.
Only the ghost of her scream.
Only the sound of metal tearing itself loose replaying over and over inside his skull.
Dick dragged him backward, boots scraping through rubble, air thick with dust so dense it felt like drowning upright. The collapsing hallway dimmed behind them, swallowed by smoke and shadows, and Damian still couldn’t breathe. It was like his breathing was admitting she could no longer.
Dick was shouting his name, voice thick with fear, but all Damian heard was the echo of the girl’s last terrified cry—
And the quiet, echoing lie in his own head.
I will not blame myself for this.
He tried to believe it.
Tried.
But the weight in his chest said otherwise, heavy and collapsing inward just like the ceiling above them.
Damian spits into the gritty Gotham dirt, the metallic tang of blood stubborn on his tongue. It clings to the back of his throat like rust, refuses to leave no matter how violently he tries to purge it. The only part of his suit still intact is his mask—everything else is shredded, scorched, torn open by brick, metal, and failure.
Shockingly, his bones are mostly where they should be.
Shockingly, he’s still walking.
Shockingly, he’s alive.
He ran the second he saw his father’s silhouette appear behind Jason—didn’t hesitate, didn’t wait to hear a single word. Instinct. Shame. Horror. Something primal and ugly in his chest pushing him forward until he vaulted through smoke and sirens and kept going.
He’d ripped out every tracker, smashed every comm against rusted metal, even crushed his phone under his heel until it snapped like a bone. Oracle is unmatched—but if Damian Wayne doesn’t want to be found, he won’t be.
And Bruce… Bruce wouldn’t blame him.
That makes it worse.
Because for the first time in a long time, Damian doesn’t know if he deserves that mercy.
Pain crawls up his ribs, sharp and electric. At least four are broken, maybe five. His hands are bleeding—raw, split open, scraped down to something tender beneath the skin. He can’t tell which fingers are sprained or simply refusing to bend after clawing uselessly at the collapsed ceiling fan, trying to lift it, trying to reach her.
His knee throbs with every uneven step; there’s a gash along his temple where dried blood mats his hair to his face. He smells of mud and dust and the stagnant water that poured from burst pipes. He looks like a ghost someone dragged through a warzone.
With what strength remains, Damian drags himself behind a row of dumpsters. The alley swallows him whole—dark, damp, reeking of rot. He folds in on himself, knees pressed tight to his chest, forehead pressed to the space between them. His arms lock around his legs, holding himself small, silent, contained.
His breath shakes.
He bites down on his lower lip hard, so hard, desperate to smother any sound before it escapes.
He feels ridiculous. Weak. Behaving like the kind of frightened child he would have sneered at years ago. A version of himself he vowed he’d killed long before Gotham ever got the chance.
“Hey, baby…”
Your voice floats through his head—soft, sweet, familiar.
Damian freezes.
Oh god.
He’s hallucinating you.
Your voice is so clear he almost looks up, almost answers, almost reaches out for hands that aren’t here. His breath stutters as he presses his face harder into his knees, burying himself deeper into the mud and trash below. Anything to ground himself.
“Hey, it’s okay…”
Your voice again—gentle, coaxing, the same tone you use when you cradle a stray cat to your chest.
His lip splits under his teeth from how hard he’s biting down. The fresh sting distracts him for half a second—and then he tastes new blood. Not from his gums. Not from a cut inside his cheek.
From the force of trying not to cry.
“Baby, look, I got food—hm? Don’t you want some?”
Yes.
Yes, he wants your butter cookies, the chai you brew just for him, the blueberry cupcakes he pretends he doesn’t crave but always eats first. He wants the warmth of your kitchen, the way you hum under your breath, the stupid heart-shaped plate you refuse to throw away.
He wants all of it.
A sound escapes him—small, broken, humiliating. A whimper so soft it shouldn’t have made it past his teeth.
He stiffens immediately, shoulders snapping rigid, breath catching sharply in his throat as if he can choke the sound back in.
He gasps around nothing, around air too cold and too thin, trying desperately—pathetically—to claw his way back to control.
Trying to silence the part of himself that’s still ten years old, terrified, alone in a world that never cared if he lived or died.
Trying to silence the echo of a child’s scream still ringing in his skull.
Then—
It isn’t silent.
Your voice cuts through the alley like a flare in smoke, sharp with shock and disbelief.
“…Robin?”
Damian’s head snaps up so fast his vision blurs. His breath hitches. Your outline wavers at the edge of the dumpster’s shadow—the warm glow of a streetlamp catching your hair, your face, your startled expression.
You’re holding an opened packet of cat food in one hand, clearly mid–stray-feeding session, frozen now as you stare at the wrecked boy crouched in the dirt.
“Hey—are you cosplaying,” you ask, voice tripping over itself, “or are you actually Robin? Wait—never mind—you’re hurt, I should—”
You don’t finish the sentence.
Because Damian’s body moves before thought can catch up, driven by instinct, by exhaustion, by the brutal longing of a boy pushed far past his limits. His knees give out, his ribs seize, his vision flashes white—
—and he collapses into you.
Just folds.
Just falls.
Like a dying star dropping into orbit with the only gravity it trusts.
Your arms are around him before you can think, reflexive, frantic, steady. His mask presses into your shoulder, and his whole frame shakes as he clings to you—really clings, fingers digging into your jacket like he’s terrified you’ll dissolve if he doesn’t hold tight enough.
He smells like mud. Like smoke. Like blood.
But beneath it all—
He smells like your Damian.
“Hey—hey, hey, hey,” you whisper, your mouth close to his ear, your breath brushing his skin in a way that makes his whole body shudder. Your voice is so soft it almost hurts him—soft in that way you only ever use for Damian, the tone you slip into when he’s had a nightmare or when he gets overwhelmed and tries to pretend he isn’t.
You don’t know why you’re using it now.
Your mind doesn’t know.
But your body does.
Some instinct older than logic recognizes him—recognizes the trembling, the shape of him, the warmth, the way his weight fits against you like it belongs there.
“You’re gonna be okay, yeah?” you murmur, supporting his head, brushing mud and blood away from his cheek with your thumb. “You’re not beat up—well, not that badly—ah, fuck, should I call a hospital—?”
“No.”
The word cracks out of him like a snapped bone.
Robin’s voice—strained, hoarse, but absolute.
“No—no hospital.”
He can already feel it: the way his father would then find out right away. He imagines Bruce’s voice, low and sad, telling him that its going to be okay—
He can’t.
He can’t let himself be found yet.
“Okay,” you breathe, adjusting your grip so his head doesn’t loll. “Okay—alright—then not a hospital. I’m a med student but I could try—if you just let me see—”
You don’t finish.
Because Damian’s weight suddenly shifts—his body folding, sagging against you as if his bones just… give up. Not unconscious, not fully, but close enough that panic hits your chest like a hammer.
His breath is still there—ragged, shallow—but there.
“Hey—hey, no, stay with me,” you say quickly, feeling his mask press into the crook of your neck, the heat of his breath dampening your collar. “Don’t do that, don’t—you can’t just—Robin—look at me, come on—”
But he slumps further, his forehead sliding down to your shoulder, fingers twitching weakly at the fabric of your jacket—not gripping anymore, just… searching.
Still conscious, yes.
Still breathing, yes.
But his body is past its limit.
You tighten your arms around him, your chest pressed to his, holding him upright with more strength than you thought you had. His weight is staggering, but you refuse to let him fall.
You maneuver Robin the best you can—one of your arms braced tight around his waist, the other hauling his limp, deadweight arm over your shoulders. He’s heavier than he looks, all coiled muscle and soaked Kevlar, and every time you shift, something inside him makes a sickening crack that turns your stomach.
You don’t ask what part of him that was.
You don’t want to know.
He breathes through his teeth—sharp, controlled, like every inhale is a blade he won’t let touch you.
It hits you then, too vividly: Damian doing the exact same thing when you’d accidentally splashed acid onto the exposed skin of his wrist in chemistry. He’d had gloves on, but a sliver of skin blistered instantly, and he had grit his teeth like this, refusing to let you see the pain.
Maybe that’s why you’re brave enough—stupid enough—to tighten your grip on this boy dressed like Robin and start walking toward your dorm.
You barely get half a block.
“Fuck—” Robin rasps as you turn the corner. His body jerks in your arms. “No—no dorm—”
You freeze, letting him brace himself against the cold brick wall. His mask tips forward, his breath fogging the air between you.
“How—how did you know I was—?”
“You said medical student,” he snaps back through clenched teeth, like the words themselves hurt. “Does that matter—fuck—ah—”
He crumples a little, one bloodied hand flying to his knee as if he’s trying to hold the joint in place. The other hand trembles as he points to the back pocket of his suit pants.
“My wallet—ah—grab my wallet—there’s a motel near here—next to a convenience store—”
You blink at him.
Then your hand slides down his side, firm on his hip, and moves lower.
Damian would have blushed at any other moment. Hell, even half-conscious and drowning in pain, he manages a strangled noise—somewhere between indignation and disbelief—as your palm pats your way across his ass in search of the wallet.
Damian’s not going to say anything to you now.
But God, when he’s out of costume?
He’s going to have a conversation with you about boundaries with strangers.
A very serious one.
Preferably one that doesn't encourage you patting down vigilantes in alleys while they’re bleeding out.
Your fingers brush leather.
“Got it,” you mutter, tugging the wallet free and slipping an arm under his again. “Okay, c’mon, I’ve got you.”
His weight folds into you again, heavier this time, his forehead dropping to your shoulder for a second too long before he forces himself upright with a shaky grunt.
You don’t see his eyes under the mask.
Not really.
But you feel them on you—like he’s memorizing each second you’re holding him up, like something in him recognizes you long before he’ll let himself admit it.
“Let’s go,” you whisper.
And he does.
Because he doesn’t have a choice, you’re the only thing keeping him standing.
Because your voice—your hands around him—have become the only stable thing left in the world that’s collapsing around him twice in one night.
You make it to the motel with Robin huffing out directions in broken fragments, each one puffed through clenched teeth:
“Left.”
“Two blocks straight.”
“Right.”
“…the other right!”
By the time you reach the place, your shoulder is numb from supporting his weight, and your arm around his waist is shaking. You don’t know what you expected—a flickering neon sign, the smell of mold, carpets older than Gotham itself—but the motel is… surprisingly warm. Soft lighting, muted gold against burgundy walls. A little worn, maybe, but clean.
Cozy. Safe, even.
You pause on the threshold, staring at the front desk like it’s an obstacle you never trained for.
“How am I supposed to get us in without someone pointing out a vigilante in a stupid costume—”
“Just go.” Robin’s voice scrapes out of him, roughened by injury and exhaustion. “He’s fourteen. Doesn’t look up from his phone. Kid’ll hand you the key card, and if he doesn’t—” he breaks off in a jagged cough that shakes his whole frame, “we can just—ah—use what you said earlier. Cosplaying. Yeah?”
You stare at him.
Robin sounds like he’s making it up as he goes, but something in his tone—some weary certainty, like he’s done this dance in worse shape—tells you he’s not wrong.
So you tighten your arm around his waist, feeling the heat radiating through his suit, the tremor in his muscles as he tries to stand straighter for your sake. His breath stutters against your neck. He’s so close it’s impossible not to feel every ragged exhale.
And you step inside.
The lobby is quiet, humming faintly with the low buzz of an old heater. A cheap and outdated Christmas garland droops along the front desk, its tinsel reflecting warm yellow light. The receptionist—a teenager with curly hair, hoodie pulled over his head—does not, in fact, look up from his phone.
Robin sags into you a little more, like the warmth is melting whatever fight he had left.
You approach the desk.
“Um—hi. Can I—”
“Keys are on the counter,” the kid mutters without looking up, thumb tapping across the screen. “Cash or card?”
Robin wheezes something at your expression that might be a laugh, or a dying breath. Hard to tell.
You grab the wallet from earlier, sliding a wad of cash forward with your free hand. Your other hand stays locked around Robin’s waist, like you’re afraid he’ll slide to the floor if you loosen your grip even a fraction.
The teen finally glances up.
Sees Robin half-collapsed on you.
Sees the blood on his gloves.
Sees the cracked, battered armor.
Sees you trying to hold up someone clearly too heavy and too hurt.
“Huh. We don’t get a lot of cosplayers—they usually go to the one closer to the convention center” the kid says flatly.
“Yeah,” you answer instantly, praying your voice doesn’t shake. “We—uh—we got a little lost and this was closer.”
The kid blinks once.
Then shrugs. “That’s cool. Dope costume. Nice commit to the bit.”
He hands you the key card and goes right back to his phone.
You’re not sure if relief or disbelief hits you harder.
You adjust him against your side, guiding him toward the hallway. His steps are uneven, heavy, every movement radiating pain he refuses to voice.
The moment the lobby door swings shut behind you, the motel’s warmth settles over you both—thick, quiet, almost grounding.
“See?” he murmurs, voice slurred at the edges. “Told you—my costume is cool.”
His head tilts toward you, just slightly, like the warmth and exhaustion are pulling him in your direction.
And you try not to think about how he smells like smoke and cold rain.
How he feels like someone familiar when he leans into you like that.
How your heart stutters, traitorously, as you whisper—
“Let’s get you somewhere you can lie down.”
Robin nods weakly.
And lets you lead him deeper into the motel’s soft, golden safety—completely trusting you to keep him upright, keep him hidden, keep him alive.
Just like someone else you know would.
You swipe the key card, hear the soft click of the lock, and shoulder the door open. The room is small—queen bed, tiny table, muted brown carpet—but the lights are gentle, not the harsh fluorescent kind, and the air smells faintly of old lavender cleaner. Safe enough. Warm enough.
You drop your bag and guide him inside, your arm still locked firmly around his waist. His steps are clumsy, uneven, and his breath shivers against your shoulder every time he shifts his weight. You get him to the bed and try to ease him down onto the edge—
But he just falls from your grip like he thinks your work here is done.
The mattress dips violently as he flops onto it with all the grace of a sack of bricks. For a single second he tries to force himself upright again—stubborn, one that could rival Damians you think—muscles trembling with the effort.
“No—wait—wait—just—” You place both hands on his shoulders and press gently.
Robin collapses backward instantly, like the moment someone told him he didn’t have to fight gravity, he let go of the idea entirely. His body sinks into the thin motel comforter, armor scraping faintly against the sheets.
He goes very still.
Too still.
His chest rises, falls—shallow, controlled. And he stares straight up, not dazed, not disoriented, not spaced-out.
But fixed.
Eyes locked on the ceiling.
On the ceiling fan.
The cheap metal blades rotate slowly above him, humming with a soft mechanical wobble. A perfectly harmless fan.
But Robin’s gaze is razor-sharp, unblinking, pupils blown wide with something that isn’t shock but something deeper, colder. His breath stutters in a way you don’t like. His fingers clamp just slightly at his sides, the motion so tiny most people wouldn’t have seen it.
You do.
And it hits you—the expression on his face is not blank.
It’s haunted.
You follow his line of sight up to the fan.
“Off?” you ask quietly–moving near the nightstand, thumb hovering near the fan switch–as if even offering the choice might jolt him.
“…doesn’t matter,” he mutters, eyes flicking away from the fan and then back to you, like he’s forcing himself to anchor on anything else. Something kinder.
Silence settles between you for a beat—thick, strained, fragile in a way that makes you feel like moving too suddenly might crack him straight open.
“Is…” you begin, swallowing, “Is there anyone you want to call? I should’ve asked sooner—”
“No—” His voice slices through yours, too sharp for how wrecked it sounds. The word is followed by a jagged cough that forces him to scrunch one eye shut. When he looks back up at you, the edges of his mask tilt with the furrow of his brows. “I’m not going to ask you to patch me up. It’s late. Go home. Thank you for bringing me here—”
He stops suddenly.
Like he stepped off a ledge he didn’t mean to.
There’s something tight in the silence that follows—like he’s biting back a word, choking on it.
Beloved, Damian wants to say. ‘Thank you for bringing me here beloved.’
And even through the mask, you can feel the weight of the stare he pins you with. Like he’s trying to memorize your silhouette in this crappy motel room, the curve of your shoulders in the lamplight, the steadiness you haven’t once offered to anyone but him.
“…You will be rewarded,” he says finally, voice softening in this strange way. His chin tilts toward the nightstand where his wallet sits. “I’ll send some money to your—”
“Can I use your wallet to buy some gauze and disinfectant from the convenience store?” you cut in, tone annoyed and completely ignoring everything he just said.
For a moment he just…stares. Then he lets out a breath that sounds like a sigh of annoyance or might be relief, letting his head fall back against the pillow. The white sheets are already blotched with dull streaks of dried blood and new ones blooming beneath him. He must feel it soaking uncomfortably into the fabric, but he doesn’t flinch.
Mentally, however, your boyfriend behind the mask is smiling. You’re not stubborn, he always insists. You’re adamant. The only force he’s never once been able—or wanted—to fight.
It’s about twenty minutes later when you step back into the room, pushing the door shut with your heel as you kick off your shoes. The motel’s dim yellow light hits you first, then the sight of Robin—still lying exactly where you left him, stiff and watchful in that strange, exhausted way.
“I bought myself hot chocolate with your card,” you announce, voice low but steady, setting the cup on the nightstand. The steam curls upward, sweet and warm, completely out of place beside the blood drying on the gauntlets he seems to have thrown off. You ease onto the corner of the bed near the nightstand, the plastic bag rustling as you place it on the pillow beside you.
Robin huffs—just barely—but it’s enough to sound like him.
“Give me a sip later.”
“No.” You don’t even look at him. “I’m not getting blood on it.”
If Damian were capable of smiling without everything hurting, he would’ve.
Because you always share your drinks with him.
Even when he bites his lip thinking too hard, even when there’s a smear of red on the rim— you never care. No matter how disgusting he jokes that it is, you never care.Not with him.
The warmth in his chest flares sharp and fast, pressing painfully against his bruised ribs. A traitorous little flutter he can’t stop.
You slide closer and slip your arms beneath his armpits, bracing your body as you drag him up the bed so his legs aren’t hanging uselessly off the edge.
“God, what do you eat?” you grunt, struggling under his weight.
“Justice,” Robin mutters, and you’re pretty sure it was meant to be a joke.
“Has anyone ever told you you’re not funny?” you ask, already reaching for a pillow.
He feels your hand slide behind his neck—gentle, so gently—as you lift his head and place it down on the pillow like he’s breakable porcelain. Your touch sends a sting of heat through his skull, unbearable only because he wants more of it.
“My girlfriend,” Damian hears himself say, the words slipping out before he can lock his jaw around them, “She thinks I’m funny.”
You pause, blink, then mumble under your breath, “…some women are just being nice.”
“Speaking from experience?” he shoots back, the corner of his mouth twitching like he might grin if he weren’t bleeding internally.
“Hell no.” You say it with this stupid, proud lilt that makes his ribs ache in a new way. You rummage through the plastic bag, pulling out gauze and alcohol wipes. “My boyfriend is hilarious. Very funny.”
“Yeah?” Robin mutters, his voice thick around pain and exhaustion as he watches you tear open a packet of disinfectant wipes. “Name a joke then. I could use a laugh.”
“Something tells me your ribs couldn’t,” you shoot back, focused on the supplies, fingers steady in a way your pulse isn’t. You're giving him a look now, one that he's only seen you direct at the men who hit on you when the two of you go out together. “Go ask your girlfriend.”
He goes still. Not the physical kind—he’s already barely moving—but the kind that feels like a nerve being struck. A soft, invisible jolt running through him.
Robin shifts, the faintest tensing under your hands.
“Look—” he says, a little too fast, a little too defensive, “I am not hitting on you.”
You don’t look up.
You don’t have to.
You can feel the way the words hit him, like he’s been caught doing something wrong.
You just sigh, not unkindly, not even annoyed—just tired. Focused. Like you always are with everyone you patch up in the hospital you both volunteer in. Even if the only patients you both receive are little kids who get bruises from running around in the halls. He admires it about you, how you focus on them like they are going through heart surgery.
“You’re half-dead on a motel bed,” you say, brushing debris off what’s left of his tunic. “You couldn’t hit on me if you tried.”
He exhales sharply—half an offended huff, half a sound of pain mixed with laughter—because that’s not the point.
Because you don’t know that he’s yours.
Damian doesn’t know what to say now—not when you’re this close, not when your hands are already on him, not when every shallow breath sends a tremor through his fractured ribs. His body keeps betraying him—loosening, sinking into the mattress, warming under your touch as if you’d flipped some instinct older than language.
It’s humiliating.
It’s grounding.
It’s a suffocating comfort.
You pull the small scissors from the first-aid kit and murmur, “Don’t move,” as you cut away the torn, mud-streaked Kevlar shirt. You work carefully with a bit of struggle, sliding the blade under each stubborn seam. Each snip sounds loud in the quiet room, mixing with the rhythmic whir of the ceiling fan he still refuses to look at.
His shoulder pulls tight when you peel back the fabric—his dislocated left side stiffens, trembling slightly. He hates it. Hates needing help. Hates how your fingers graze his skin and his whole body shivers like he’s been rewired.
“Why are you helping me?” Robin asks, voice raw. Damian already knows the answer but part of him needs to hear it anyway—needs the reassurance like a coward.
“…Let’s just say I like Batman,” you mumble, focused, trying to free a stubborn strip of fabric stuck to dried blood at his temple.
Robin’s mouth twitches into the faintest grin he can muster. “More than me?”
You hum as you finally remove the last piece of his top, exposing mottled bruises blooming across his ribs. “Unfortunately his costume is cooler.”
He rolls his eyes even though the motion makes pain crack through his skull. In his head, Damian mirrors it—of course you’d say that. You already told him once that Batman’s silhouette was “peak aesthetic.”
“You like the trunks? My costume is way cooler.”
“I like the cape.” You say it while reaching for the wipes, already cleaning the blood from along his jaw. “It was easy to find a black blanket as a kid and run around pretending I was him.”
Damian has heard that story so many times—your shy laugh, the way you mimed swooping down hallways. Hearing you tell it to Robin—even though it is him—burns in a new way.
“He’d like to hear that,” Robin says, voice softer than he intends.
You’re already sliding your hand behind his shoulder blades, guiding him up the pillow just enough so you can work. His breath stutters at the movement; he clenches his teeth as agony arcs down his side. You catch it—of course you do—and murmur: “Sorry. I’ve got you.”
And he hates how much those words undo him.
“I wanted to dress up as him for Halloween this year too,” you continue, talking more to distract him than anything else. You set an ice pack against his ribs with careful pressure. “But then I can’t force my boyfriend to do a couples costume.”
That’s new. His pulse jumps. Why didn’t you tell him?
Robin starts slowly, “…Couples costume?”
“Mhm…” You pull off one of his gloves—gently, so gently—and begin disinfecting his knuckles one by one. His fingers twitch involuntarily as the antiseptic stings. “I just need an excuse to play dress up with him.”
Damian’s heart drops, catches, and tries to restart all at once.
“What is he, a doll?” Robin asks—not teasing. Real worry threads through his voice, betraying him. God your going to either make the costume practically two threads of fabric or dress him up in the most ridiculous thing possible.
“Might as well be.” You laugh quietly as you check for fractures along his hand. “My Damian is so handsome.”
The room tilts.
His ribs don’t ache for a moment.
It feels dangerously good.
“Bet I’m hotter,” Robin huffs, letting Dick’s bravado slip out because it’s safer than sounding like himself—safer than letting the truth spill and ruin everything.
“Hm… yeah bruised and bloody, just how I like my men.” You roll your eyes and reach for his other glove.
He winces when you lift his left arm to remove it, the dislocated shoulder grinding sharply. You catch the breath he sucks in and immediately soften your touch, guiding his arm down again, supporting the joint with your palm.
“Oh?” Robin asks, staring at the ceiling because looking at you feels impossible and too much. “Sadist?”
“For everyone except him? Yeah.”
And you say it like it’s nothing.
But Damian feels the words slide under his ribs, settle into something tender and too fragile to name.
You brace a hand at the small of his back.
“You need to sit up again.”
He grits his teeth. You help him slowly, carefully, letting him lean against you while you wrap bandages around his ribs—your arms circling him, your breath warm near his ear, your pulse steady against his shoulder.
Too much.
Not enough.
Too much.
Your fingertips brush the edge of the bruise blooming across his sternum. He swallows a sound he refuses to make.
You let him rest against the headboard once he’s secured, then move to his knee—examining the swollen joint, pressing lightly to check if he reacts. He does. You soften again.
Hand on his shin.
Hand at the back of his neck.
Hand steadying his jaw while you clean the last cut.
Your touch is everywhere.
And Damian—Robin—whoever he is right now—cannot breathe around the question pounding in his skull:
How can you care this gently for a stranger when you love him so fiercely?
But when you whisper, “Tilt your head a little more—yeah, just like that,”
he obeys instantly.
Because it’s you.
And because his body has always, always known how to answer to your voice…long before his heart admitted it.
You shift your weight on the mattress, bunchingthe motel’s thin blanket under his ruined knee for a little cushioning before you touch anything. Robin keeps his eyes on the ceiling fan—like he’s daring it to fall—while you cut around the torn fabric of his pants. The knee is already swelling, skin angry and hot beneath your fingers.
“Okay,” you whisper like you’re soothing a spooked animal, “this is gonna hurt. Just—breathe. In and out.”
Damian isn’t breathing at all.
His throat feels clamped shut, like each inhale might betray the way your hands unravel every tight coil inside him.
You press your thumbs lightly around the joint, mapping out what’s broken, what’s salvageable.
Robin’s jaw tightens. A sharp hiss slips out of him—humiliating, involuntary, and it makes him then let out a small curse.
“Damian did the same thing,” you murmur, almost without thinking, focusing on the rhythm of working rather than the vigilante in your hands. “When he sprained his knee last winter. Pretended it didn’t hurt but started swearing in Arabic under his breath.”
His stomach twists.
He remembers.
You carried him to the couch and iced it yourself. He pretended to fall asleep so you wouldn’t see him melt.
“That must be annoying” Robin croaks—because when it comes to him there’s not many other words he can think to use at this moment.
You give a soft laugh at the question, one he didn’t expect you to answer so easily.
“He’s… stubborn. Smart. More dramatic than he thinks he is. You should see the pout he does when I don’t kiss him goodnight.”
Damian wants the ceiling fan to fall on him.
“And he’s soft,” you add, quieter. “Not in the way he thinks weak. Just—soft where it matters.”
His chest aches. Not from broken ribs. Something else, something worse.
You place both your hands gently around his kneecap. “Okay, three, two—”
You don’t even reach one.
You shift it back into place with a clean, practiced motion. Robin chokes on a grunt, fists clenching in the sheets until his knuckles bloom fresh red.
“Good,” you whisper, brushing his shin soothingly. “Good job. That was the worst of it.”
He doesn’t deserve your praise.
But he swallows it down anyway like starving.
You move next to his hands.
There’s dried blood in the lines of his palms, mud caked into the nail beds. His fingers are torn from clawing concrete, little slices across the knuckles where skin split from force.
“Give me your hand,” you say gently.
He hesitates—not for pain, but because letting you touch him feels like sacrilege, like he’s breaking some unspoken rule of who Robin is allowed to be with you.
But he gives it.
You hold his hand like it’s not stained with a child’s blood and a collapsing ceiling.
You clean each finger carefully, wiping dark streaks from the creases, murmuring tiny apologies every time he winces. You wrap the deeper cuts with practiced precision, one slow deliberate motion at a time.
Robin watches you—really watches you—for the first time since the alley.
“You know…” he starts, voice rough, “my girlfriend is probably going to kill me.”
Your hands still just for a second.
“…Oh?”
“She worries too much,” Robin continues, forcing a half-grin he doesn’t feel.
You huff softly, “If Damian came to me like this I’d kill him before I can even think about how to help him.”
“She’s kind,” he says quieter now. “Too kind for me. She pretends she’s annoyed, but she’s… she’s gentle. And loyal. And smarter than I am.”
You laugh at that, still cleaning his fingers, probably thinking he’s hallucinating. “Well—at least you realize it.”
“She tells me I’m handsome sometimes,” he adds faintly, like testing water he already knows the depth of.
Your groan. “God she must be blind.”
Damian stares at you like you’ve stabbed him, his fingers twitch weakly in your hold, like a cat bristling with its last bit of pride.
“She’s not blind,” Robin rasps before he can stop himself.
Your brows lift, just slightly, but you keep cleaning the smear of blood along his ring finger.
“Oh?” you murmur, tone soft but teasing. “She has bad taste then?”
Damian almost chokes.
Robin swallows, tries to keep his voice level. “She says I look… dignified.”
You blink. That is absolutely not the word you expected to describe the mess of the boy in front of you.
“…Dignified?”
“She says I have nice eyes,” he forces out, because if he doesn’t keep talking, he might confess everything—rip the mask off and tell you he needs you more than air. “That they… settle her.”
Your hands pause again.
Not frozen. Not startled.
Just… warm.
The way they always get when someone says something earnest. You stare at his face like you're trying to see his eyes through his mask.
“That’s sweet,” you whisper.
No.
Damian thinks viciously.
It is not sweet. It is humiliating. He sounds like an idiot. A weak, beaten-up idiot bleeding like an idiot.
But your face—God, your face is soft and bright and fond. And it hurts him more than the broken ribs.
You stroke another wipe carefully over the cut on his thumb.
“I tell Damian that,” you mumble, half-distracted by focusing on not hurting him. “About his eyes. Dunno if he believes me, though.”
Robin’s breath stutters.
You continue, unaware of the way he’s gripping the sheets, knuckles trembling.
“He has… pretty eyes,” you admit quietly, because you also have the full capability of screaming this fact from a rooftop. “When he lets me see them.”
Damian feels something in him collapse worse than any ceiling.
“And he gets all shy,” you add, smiling at the bandage you’re smoothing down. “Pretends he isn’t but he does this little inhale—barely there—like he’s holding his breath.”
Robin’s lungs seize because he knows exactly the inhale you mean. The one he's now is trying to bite back.
You move to the next finger.
The room smells like antiseptic and motel detergent and him—blood, sweat, concrete dust. Everything about him is ruined and raw, except the way you touch him, like he’s still something human.
“She tells me I make her feel safe,” Robin says suddenly, voice so low it almost cracks. “Even when I’m a mess.”
Your eyes flick up, meeting the edge of the mask, like you’re searching for something in the shadows behind it.
You want to tell him ‘no shit your Robin–I’d hope she'd feel safe with you’ but…decide against it.
“That’s important,” you whisper. “Someone who makes you feel safe is… everything.”
Robin closes his eyes, because he can’t bear the expression on your face when you say that.
Because he wants to give you safety.
Because he wants to give you everything.
You shift closer—slowly, carefully—bracing one knee on the mattress. The bed dips under your weight, and Robin’s breath stutters like even that tiny movement unsettles him.
Your hand hovers over his collarbone before you touch him, as if giving him a silent warning, as if asking permission even though he already gave it.
“Okay,” you murmur—your voice quieter than the lamp buzz filling the room—“this is going to sting. I’m sorry.”
Robin tenses.
Not at the warning—not at the pain he knows is coming—but at the softness. At the way your voice dips into that low, careful register you only use on Damian when he’s pretending bruises aren’t bruises and fractures aren’t fractures.
Your fingers slip beneath the edge of his torn tunic.
The fabric cracks away from dried blood as you lift it, sticking to him with a wet, sickening tear. Beneath it, his skin is fever-hot. Sweaty. The copper-and-iron smell of blood rises in a thick, metallic wave.
He tries not to hiss.
He fails.
More of his shoulder comes into view—ugly shades of purple and sick yellow blooming across bone and tendon. Scrapes. Punctures. Swollen skin stretched too tight over muscle. He looks… hollowed out. Starved in a way that says he’s been pushing too hard for too long.
You suck in a breath.
“Oh… gods.”
The sound is tiny, strangled, horrified.
Robin’s jaw clenches.
Damian feels something in his chest rupture that has nothing to do with broken ribs.
You tug the tunic lower and reveal the wound.
A diagonal slash, deep and ragged, carved with intention. The edges are swollen, angry, still weeping slow, diluted blood. Dried flakes cling to his skin like rust. A constellation of bruises spread out around it from the impact that caused it.
You freeze for only half a second.
Then your expression steels over.
You grab a disinfectant pad, fingers steady in a way your breathing isn’t.
“Gods…” you mutter, voice tight with emotion and frustration and something painfully close to affection, “…She really is going to kill you. I don't know what I'd do if I found Damian like this.”
Robin bites the inside of his cheek hard—hard enough to taste iron.
Because he knows exactly what you’d do.
How you’d cradle Damian’s face in your hands.
How your voice would crack.
How your eyes would soften.
How your warmth would spread across his skin like a balm.
The antiseptic hits the wound.
It sizzles faintly.
Blood thins under the liquid.
His flesh twitches.
Robin jerks, gasping through clenched teeth, the sound raw and involuntary. His fingers dig into the bedsheets hard enough to leave bloody crescents even through the freshly bandaged fingers.
“Oh—shit, sorry—”
Your apology spills out instantly, warm and breathy.
Your thumb skims the intact edge of his skin, an instinctive, soothing gesture.
“You’re doing so well. Just… breathe. Please? I’m right here.”
He hates the way that unravels him.
Hates how badly he wants to lean into your touch.
You work slowly, delicately, swiping away blood the color of wine left out too long. Each stroke of the pad uncovers more skin, more damage. More truth.
You shift the tunic again, lifting it higher to get a better angle—
And then you go still.
The pad slips a fraction between your fingers.
Your breath stumbles.
Your eyes are locked on something just below the wound.
A tiny beauty mark.
Half-hidden under smeared blood.
A dark little star on the upper swell of his chest.
Robin’s heart convulses against his ribs, too focused on how close you are.
“Oh,” you breathe—barely, barely audible.
A sound more like a gasp than a word.
It’s the beauty mark you’ve kissed a hundred times.
The one your lips find without looking when you curl against Damian’s chest.
The one you once joked was your “navigation point.”
The color drains from your face, then flushes back too fast.
You inhale sharply through your nose, then again, then again—like your body can’t decide if it’s freezing or boiling.
Robin goes rigid beneath you—
not out of fear,
not out of panic,
but because you’re staring at him like he’s naked in a way far deeper than skin.
Your gaze shifts to his shoulder.
Compact muscle, cut too clean for it to be any other boy you've seen.
The exact silhouette you see when Damian stretches and his shirt rides up.
Your eyes flick to his hand.
Split knuckles.
A thin scar along the base of his thumb.
The one you saw on Damian when he handed you a desert a few days ago–your favorite meringue from a local bakery.
Your chest rises with a sharp, trembling inhale.
He breathes again—too shallow on the left, each inhale a contained wince.
Damian breathes like that when he’s sore.
When he’s lying.
When he’s hiding something.
Your pulse hammers so hard the room blurs at the corners.
He shifts—trying to tug his torn tunic back over his chest, as if hiding skin could hide identity. His cheeks blaze under the dark mask, his breaths short and frustrated.
“Tt,” he mutters, voice tight, humiliated, flustered out of his mind. “Stop staring.”
Your blood goes cold.
The sound—
that sharp irritated Tt—
is Damian.
It’s him.
It’s him, it’s him, it’s—
Your hand is still hovering above his chest, suspended like you touched a live wire.
The room feels suffocating now—humid with blood, thick with truth, the small space closing around you like a fist. You can hear your own heartbeat in your ears. You feel dizzy.
He wouldn’t lie like this.
He couldn’t.
He—
Except he could.
He has.
He would.
He did.
And god—now that you’re seeing him—
really seeing him—
you recognize every inch.
Your fingers shake.
He misreads the tremor immediately.
Of course he does.
His jaw clenches hard.
Shoulders curl in.
He twists his face away like he can’t stand the look in your eyes.
“Could you quit staring?” he snaps, voice cracking at the edges. “I get it—I’m bruised to hell and back. Stop looking at me like—”
“God, Damian, you’re beautiful—just shut up.”
Damian tries to pull himself together, though every attempt at composure slips through his fingers the way blood keeps slipping down the slope of his ribs. He looks everywhere except at you — at the cracked ceiling tile above him, at the frayed hem of his glove, at the discarded disinfectant pads turning pink on the sheets. Anywhere his eyes can land that isn’t your face.
Because your face, right now, is too much.
“I should have—” he begins, stopping immediately when the words snag on something sharp in his throat. He swallows, tries again, falters again. “I intended, eventually, to… tell you. Properly. Under different circumstances. Not like this.”
His voice comes uneven, like he’s reciting from a script that dissolved the moment your fingers brushed his chest.
You don’t respond. You don’t even move. You sit there between his knees on the bed, your hands still hovering over the wound, your breath warm on his skin, your eyes fixed on him with a focus that borders on reverence.
And you think — God, you think so much all at once it nearly knocks the air out of you.
You think about how much pain he’s in and how little Damian lets it show, how the tremor in his exhale betrays what his stoic expression refuses to.
You think about the sheer brutality carved across his body—the gash at his collarbone, the bruising blooming like ink over his ribs, the sharp outlines of muscle beneath skin that’s been pushed far past exhaustion—and yet the only thing you feel when you look at him is awe.
He is injured, bloodied, trembling, and somehow still fighting for dignity like it’s a weapon he refuses to set down.
You admire the stubborn courage in that.
You admire the discipline, the resilience, the reckless loyalty that got him into this state in the first place.
Damian is extraordinary in ways no one should be asked to be, and it hits you with a strange, painful clarity: you’ve been falling in love with a boy who carries the world like a shield strapped too tightly to his chest.
And now you’re staring at the chest in question — the familiar shape of it, the beauty mark you’ve seen a hundred times, the rise and fall of a breath you’ve fallen asleep to — and you realize how blind you were not to see him before.
His voice cracks, barely audible. “It was not because I doubted you. You must understand that beloved. The secret is not mine alone. My family—”
He stops, jaw tight, brows screwed together in frustration, as if the explanation refuses to take shape no matter how he tries to force it into one.
And while he flounders for words he has always been terrible at choosing, you can’t look away from him.
Not from the way his mask is smudged with dust and blood.
Not from the split on his lower lip, still slightly purpling, marked by violence he accepted without hesitation because someone needed saving.
Not from the way he trembles when your knee accidentally brushes his thigh, because for all his training, he is still a person who has never learned what to do when someone touches him gently.
You watch him, and your thoughts turn over and over, slow and stunned:
He is so strong.
He is so brilliant.
He is so painfully, catastrophically brave.
And you’re not sure how you ever thought you loved him enough.
He keeps talking, though his voice gets softer, like each sentence tires him more than the last.
“It was never deceit for the sake of deception. I was trying to protect them. Protect you. If anyone learned who I was, who you were connected to—”
His breath hitches. He shakes his head, frustrated, angry with himself. “This is coming out poorly. I never wanted you to feel—”
You don’t let him finish.
Not because you’re angry.
Not because you need more explanation.
But because every word he says is straining him, draining him, unraveling him at the seams, and you can see in the tension of his jaw how badly he’s bracing for your rejection.
And you can’t let him brace for something that isn’t coming.
So you lean down, slow and deliberate, one hand rising to cradle his cheek, the other resting feather-light against his sternum, careful not to jostle the wound.
His eyes widen beneath the mask — a flash of shock, panic, longing, all tangled together so tightly you can’t tell them apart.
You press your mouth to his split lip, soft enough not to hurt him, sure enough that he feels every ounce of what you can’t yet say aloud.
It’s not a hungry kiss or a desperate one.
It’s a promise. A recognition. A quiet, steady I know you and I’m not leaving.
Damian’s breath breaks against your mouth.
Your thumb sweeps the edge of his jaw. His fingers curl weakly into the sheets. His entire body, rigid with dread moments before, sinks under your touch like the truth was a weight he finally no longer has to carry alone.
And when you pull back, just far enough to see him, he looks at you like you’ve undone something inside him he didn’t realize was bound so tightly.
He tries to speak. Fails. Tries again.
Your hands rise slowly, almost reverently, thumbs brushing along the lower edge of his mask as though you’re touching something sacred rather than something made of Kevlar and secrets. You try to be graceful, but the damn thing almost refuses to cooperate; you end up fumbling with it longer than any romantic reveal should allow.
It’s embarrassing.
It’s also exactly enough time for Damian to process the fact that you’re the one taking it off–not his father, not Alfred, not even himself–you, kneeling over him in a cheap motel room with your hands trembling on his skin.
When the mask finally comes free, you hold it between two fingers for a moment before lowering it to the mattress, your eyes lifting to meet him without anything between you for the first time tonight.
Those green eyes–the ones you could never quite put a shade to, the ones that never seemed to exist in any color wheel you checked because of course he's one of a kind–widen just slightly, the pupils blown from exhaustion and adrenaline and something softer he never lets anyone else see.
He looks at you like he’s memorizing the moment one breath at a time.
“…You got my blood on your lip,” he says quietly, voice cracked at the edges. It isn’t judgment or disgust he shows when you calmly drink a shared drink that still had the reminisce of blood from a bitten lip; it’s something closer to awe, as though he finally believes you will never flinch from his blood. From him.
“Yeah,” you murmur, brushing your thumb across the corner of your mouth as if confirming the obvious. “Comes with having a superhero boyfriend.”
His mouth parts, not in arrogance or smugness or that sharp little smirk he pretends is confidence, but in a stunned, reverent wonder that makes his breath hitch. Damian’s brows draw together in a way that looks almost painful — like someone seeing a holy thing up close and being overwhelmed by the fact they’re allowed to touch it.
And then Damian is kissing you.
Not with the careful restraint he usually hides behind, not with the skittish hesitation of earlier, but with a deep, unguarded certainty that pulls you down against the bruised plane of his chest.
Damian’s arms wrap around you with a fierceness that startles you, not because it’s rough, but because it’s desperate — as though he’s afraid you might disappear the moment he loosens his grip.
The kiss isn’t starving, but it isn’t gentle either; it’s the compressed weight of every moment he’s lied to you, every time he’s wanted to tell you the truth, every time he’s held back because he knew he was protecting you. Your lips move against his with a kind of instinctive urgency, your breath mingling with the copper taste of his blood, your bodies pressed so close there’s no room for anything except the fact that he is here, that he is yours, that he is alive.
When Damian finally pulls back, it’s only far enough that the air you get is the air from his mouth, the breath he exhales into yours. His forehead rests against yours, warm and damp, and his hands linger at your waist like he’s not convinced the world won’t tilt without his hold.
“Beloved,” you whisper, the word slipping out of you like a thought made sound, tentative and soft and full of too many questions.
Damian’s eyes drift from your gaze to your lips and back again, as though he can’t decide which one feels safer to look at. “Mhm?” he hums, voice so quiet it trembles.
“…does this mean my future father-in-law is Batman?” you ask, the question falling into the small space between you like a pebble into still water.
Damian releases an exhale that sounds like a soul leaving a body.
Then, without warning, he presses a hand against your sternum — not harsh, just firm — and pushes you gently back until your shoulders meet the headboard. He flops onto his side beside you with all the resignation of a dying Victorian heroine, one arm draped across his eyes as if shielding himself from the absolute catastrophe you’ve just unleashed.
You swear the ceiling fan above the two of you groans in sympathy.
“…am I…allowed to ask you something?” Your voice breaks the quiet, soft enough that Damian almost forgets how tense his muscles still are, your fingers curling around his now-bandaged hand and lifting it to rest against the curve of your chest. The warmth of your skin seeps through the gauze and his gloves, a quiet tether that somehow anchors him to a world that’s been spinning too fast and too violently.
“…I owe you that much.” His voice is low, rough with fatigue and residue of pain, eyes fixed on the fan above like he’s calculating its every movement while ignoring the heat of you against his hand.
“I…don’t want you to answer because you owe me,” you murmur, voice faltering slightly, “I want you to answer because—”
“I want to.” His words are barely above a whisper, but there’s no hesitation, no deflection, no walls. He turns his head, letting the tiniest flicker of vulnerability show, though every fiber of his body screams that he shouldn’t. “I want to tell you everything.”
“…what happened?” You ask softly, tilting your face toward him, letting concern and the ghost of fear you felt when you first found him color every line of your features. The gentleness in your voice is almost a physical presence, something tangible Damian can lean into as he exhales slowly through his teeth.
He starts telling you, carefully choosing each word so that the horror doesn’t spill over into your world. Not the gory details of what he held, not the fragmented cries of someone too young to survive the fear toxin’s grasp, not the irrevocable weight of destruction that still clings to him like smoke. Instead, he tells the story in measured breaths, the pain and the failure coiling tightly beneath the surface, all of it framed in the cold logic of necessity, the mental calculus that saved him from breaking completely.
Through it all, he watches your face. He watches how your brows knit just slightly, how your lips press together to keep the words you don’t speak from slipping out, and how the concern in your eyes softens into something gentler, almost tender, almost mournful. You lean in just a fraction, as if proximity alone could absorb the worst of it.
Every emotion Damian has ever bottled, every fragment of fear, guilt, and self-loathing he thought only existed in the shadows of his own chest, seems to unravel quietly in your presence, like alcohol soaking into dry wood. He can feel it being drunk up by the way your eyes soften, by the subtle tilt of your head, by the way your body radiates safety even in this cramped, fluorescent-lit motel room.
When he finishes, he doesn’t say anything. He just watches as you shift in the sheets, a deliberate, gentle movement that carries no weight but still bridges the distance between you. Your head settles on his good shoulder, the faintest pressure, not leaning into him, just letting him know you’re there. He feels it like a promise.
“Don’t blame yourself for this,” you whisper against his skin, your lips brushing over the slope of his collarbone, warm and soft and steady. The words float there like a shield.
Damian glances down, noticing how a smear of his own blood still clings to your lips, pressing faintly against his chest, a surreal tether to his body and to you at once. “Not my fault,” he says, voice barely audible but firm.
“It never is.” you respond softly.
He closes his eyes, letting the tension in his shoulders and hips dissolve, letting his bloodied fingers curl against the sheets without thought, letting his toes relax.
The taut, defensive lines of his body soften, not because the pain has gone, but because he believes you, because your presence allows him to let go in a way no one else ever could.
Damian feels the steadiness of your heartbeat that he was searching for in that little girl, and everything feels like its going to be okay.
⤷ series masterlist
authors note ᝰ.ᐟ this will most likely be the final addition of this series if you can even call it that. It's just one shots with references to each-other and you can probably tell it was poorly planned so I just want to get it out of the way. Please forgive the plot holes because of the fact and I hope you guys might enjoy other things I write in the future more.
taglist (wont be used after this post): @the-earth-wonders, @neera500, @itzmeme, @brianna-merlim, @gothamshunter, @smiithys, @fanficboysarebae, @thetruecardinalsinner,@shifttoksucks, @sourstrawburry, @erika-simps, @soshirohoshinalover, @augurythirteen, @pantone-12-1310, @jaydennicole, @lucycarlisleswife, @dyanasaur, @fayewebluv, @champagnelovers101, @shun-nie
''You're so blind sweetheart''
''I was just playing along,habibati''
feat. d.wayne x f.reader
wc: 946 words
✶—Masterlist
Your hands were still warm when the artist finally finished the last swirl of henna.
Deep brown paste curled along your palms, weaving across your fingers, wrapping your wrists like delicate vines. The design was intricate, traditional, and stunning — little flowers, drops, constellations of dots, and fine-lined details that looked like they were drawn by a goddess herself.
Diana had insisted you get your henna done for the embassy gala.
You had insisted on hiding one very specific letter in it.
The Arabic د — dāl. Damian’s initial.
Hidden where skin met pulse.
A secret stitched into your bloodstream.
Your mom had only smiled knowingly.
“She’s in love,” she told the henna artist, who nodded as if she could see it in the way you kept giggling and kicking your feet.
By the time you made it back to the Manor, the paste on your hands had dried into rich dark shapes that clung to your skin like lace. You kept staring at your palms, smiling like a girl with a crush and a secret.
You didn’t even hear Damian enter your room.
He appeared silently — like usual — his presence slipping in like shadow, like smoke, like breath.
His voice was low, soft, teasing:
“Habibti.”
You jumped so hard you almost hit the ceiling.
Damian sighed. “You must grow accustomed to my footsteps. I am not trying to assassinate you.”
“You move like you are!” you snapped, pressing a hand to your chest. “My soul left my body—”
Your hand froze.
Damian saw.
And his brows knit.
“You got henna.”
You brightened immediately. “Do you like it?”
He reached for your wrist — carefully, reverently — turning your hand over in his own. His gaze traced every curve and swirl with serious, almost analytical focus.
“It is beautiful,” he murmured. “It suits you.”
You tried not to smile too hard.
He kept looking, eyes sharp.
Studying.
Scanning.
Searching.
Oh no.
You swallowed.
Don’t find it. Don’t find it yet. You’ll combust—
“There is something…” Damian muttered.
He lifted your palm closer to his face.
His frown deepened.
His eyes narrowed.
He tilted your hand toward the light.
You held your breath.
“…wrong with this section,” he said finally, tapping his thumb on the patch of patterns above your pulse. “The symmetry is off. Perhaps the artist—”
“NO!” you yelped, way too fast, way too high-pitched. “Nothing is wrong! It’s perfect! Amazing! Gorgeous! Don’t you have to, like, go sharpen a sword or glare at someone?!”
Damian stared at you.
Suspicious.
Very suspicious.
“…Habibti.”
Your face burned.
“You’re hiding something.”
You squeaked.
He stepped closer, the tip of his nose nearly brushing your cheek as he angled your wrist again. This time, his tone dropped, soft and dangerous in that way only Damian could manage:
“Do you truly think you can hide anything from me?”
Your heartbeat could probably be heard from space.
He traced the inside of your palm with his thumb — slow, deliberate, warm. Goosebumps erupted up your arm.
He found it.
He froze.
Then—
Very slowly—
Damian whispered:
“د.”
You squeezed your eyes shut.
“I can explain—”
But you didn’t get the chance.
Because he lifted your hand.
And pressed his lips to the letter.
It wasn’t quick.
It wasn’t shy.
It was deliberate.
Slow.
A kiss meant to be felt.
Your knees nearly buckled.
Damian didn’t look up. His lips brushed the dried henna again, softer this time, a whisper of devotion.
“Mine,” he murmured against your skin.
“Written on you.”
Your breath caught.
“And me?” you whispered. “Are you… are you going to pretend you didn’t spend five minutes pretending you couldn’t see it?”
His ears went red instantly.
“I was giving you time to confess,” he snapped.
You giggled.
“You couldn’t find it,” you said.
“That is false.”
“You were squinting.”
“I was analyzing the geometry of the design—”
“You put my hand under the lamp!”
“That is called thoroughness, habibti—”
You threw your arms around his neck, laughing as you pressed your forehead to his.
He grumbled, but his hands slid to your waist, pulling you closer.
“Habibti,” he muttered, annoyed but soft, “stop laughing at me.”
“I can’t!” you gasped. “You kissed the henna—!”
“That is what you wanted.”
You froze.
“…what?”
His voice lowered, becoming something warm, something serious, something that could melt bone:
“You wanted people to know you belonged with me.”
A pause.
“And I wanted to honor that.”
Your breath shook.
“You like it?” you whispered.
Damian didn’t answer with words.
He lifted your hand again and kissed the letter a third time — slower, lingering, like a vow.
“You carved my name into your skin,” he said quietly. “Of course I like it.”
Your heart felt too big for your body.
Then—
He suddenly stepped back, looking at you with the most serious expression in the world.
“We are going to take a photo.”
“What—”
“I want you to put your hand on my chest so the henna is visible.”
“Damian—”
“I am updating my lockscreen.”
You blinked.
“Your… lockscreen?”
“Yes,” he said, as if this were obvious. “People must know.”
“Know what?”
He kissed your wrist again.
“That you are mine,” he said softly. “And I am yours.”
Your whole face melted.
You lifted your other hand — the one without henna — and cupped his cheek.
“I love you,” you murmured.
He didn’t blink, didn’t hesitate, didn’t shy away.
“I love you more,” Damian Wayne said, and meant every syllable.
And when you took that picture — your hand on his chest, the د glowing dark over his heart — he stared at it like a treasure he’d kill for.
Which, knowing Damian, he would.
A/N:WE CAN TELL I FINISHED EXAMSSS
🔖 𓂃⋆.˚:: @simpingmyassoff @shootingstargirl2001 , @dreamerwhofell , @gothamwing , @amiratheangel , @virtaideen , @asterwriter221 , @1234ilikecowsthanyoumore , @supahnohvaa , @vivian-555 , @piatosniathenie , @sonyboos , @beanxiv , @animegamerfox , (if you want to be added comment down below!!)
Uuuuhh... can I get a fic with Damian high on meds after having a surgery.... with extra drama in the form of him having a secret relationship, and asking for her(reader) while drugged.... uhh with a side of fluff hold the angst .... that's all thank you
Love ur fics sm, have a great day/night
݁ 𓈒 ཐི 𓉸 𝓗ALF-𝓐WAKE, 𝓦HOLLY 𝓨OURS !!
⏜︵ pairing 𓈒 𓈒 𓈒 damian wayne x fem!reader
꒰ 🦇 ꒱ synopsis 𓈒 𓈒 𓈒 damian gets knocked out during a mission and wakes up post-surgery with enough pain meds in his system to dissolve every wall he’s ever built. you’re supposed to be secret, but he exposes your relationship, obliterated by narcotics and his complete inability to hide how deeply he’s attached to you.
WAYNE MEDICAL WING LIGHTS WERE TOO BRIGHT for someone who’d just stopped being technically unconscious, but damian surfaced like someone annoyed at being dragged from a nap he didn’t consent to, an insult so personal his eyelids twitched before they even opened. the brightness pressed through his skull like it was trying to etch itself directly into his brain. sterile white, the kind that had never once existed in a place he trusted. he cracked his eyes open anyway.
bad choice.
the ceiling came into focus in pieces: harsh tiles, vents humming cold air downward, a hairline crack near the corner he’d catalogued months ago during someone else’s medical emergency. except this time it wasn’t someone else lying flat on their back in a bed built for recovery and compliance. it was him. which meant something had already gone terribly wrong.
the sheets were tucked too tightly, pinning him with all the subtlety of a net trap. the IV line tugged whenever he moved his fingers. his throat tasted dry, surgical dryness, not dehydration, and every breath carried that over-sterile antiseptic scent that hospitals diffused like perfume. it stung in a way memory recognized before consciousness did.
he hated it. he hated it viscerally, instinctively, the way you hate an enemy you’ve fought before.
a chair creaked. dick. of course. no one else sat that way, half-slouched, half-alert, like a golden retriever trying to look responsible. “hey, baby bat,” dick welcomed softly, which was exactly the wrong volume. “back with us?”
damian squinted at him as if being spoken to was rude. his voice, when it came, sounded like someone had replaced his mouth with cement. “why,” he croaked, blinking slowly, “are you here.”
“you had surgery.”
damian paused like the word needed to be decoded. then his eyebrows knit together, slow, offended, gradually outraged. “i didn’t agree to that.”
dick huffed a tired laugh. “yeah, well… it was kind of an emergency. and you were unconscious. and also? you literally signed the consent form before the anesthesia.”
damian stared at him, long and unimpressed. “forged.”
“it wasn’t forged.”
“i do not sign things.”
“you sign things all the time.”
damian shut his eyes briefly, like acknowledging that was beneath him. then he opened them again, narrower, sharper, but the effect was ruined by how unfocused the pupils were, drifting like his thoughts kept hitting walls before reaching their destination. the air was too clean. the lights too white. the smell coiled into his chest and pulled memories he’d rather leave buried, metal tools, cold hands, the way the world looked when he was small and helpless and expected to endure instead of resist. nothing specific, just impressions. sensations. hospitals always woke old ghosts.
his jaw tightened. he wasn’t supposed to be the one in this bed. he didn’t get hurt. not enough to be downed like this. the last patrol replayed in flashes — a blade catching him off-balance, the impact hot, surprising. he remembered the pain, but not falling. not blacking out. that made his stomach twist.
failure. vulnerability. unacceptable.
dick watched him with that older-brother sensitivity that always made damian bristle, like being perceived was an attack. “before you say anything,” dick added, “you did not lose the fight. you didn’t mess up. you got blindsided by a meta with a strength boost and you still managed to take him down. you just… didn’t stay upright afterward.”
damian glared. “i don’t recall being horizontal.”
“because you passed out.”
another glare. this one personal. dick raised his hands. “don’t look at me like that. i didn’t make you lose consciousness.”
damian’s fingers twitched against the sheets. the fabric felt wrong, stiff, overwashed, hospital-issue. the kind meant for patients who stayed still. he hated being still. he shifted slightly, and something tugged sharply at the back of his hand. his gaze snapped downward.
an IV. taped in place. tubing snaked up to a bag overhead, dripping fluid into his bloodstream without permission. his entire expression went cold. “remove it.”
dick inhaled sharply. “damian—”
“remove it.”
“don’t— okay, don’t—” dick took two hurried steps forward as damian’s fingers curled around the line. “don’t you dare pull that out. i mean it. don’t.”
“i am not a lab specimen.”
“you’re not,” dick agreed. “you’re someone who needs fluids and pain meds because you were— what’s the word— oh yeah— stabbed.”
“it was minor.”
“it was internal.”
damian blinked at him, insulted. “i don’t want it.”
“too bad.”
there was tension in damian’s shoulders. that hyper-focused alertness from childhood, when beds were places you recovered because you weren’t allowed to move, not because someone cared. his muscles remembered even when he didn’t think about it. his back never fully pressed to the mattress, his hands never fully relaxed. his breath always came measured, as if steadying itself for violence. the medical wing amplified that tension. the smell. the lights. the machines. everything too reminiscent of control.
he’d been so busy cataloguing exits and shadows and the exact height of the IV stand that he hadn’t even noticed how his own body felt until—
oh.
there it was.
the meds hit him. that soft, warm fog rolling in, blurring everything he tried to focus on. his thoughts glitched, trying to line up in formation and instead tripping over themselves. “grayson,” he said, voice suspicious, “did you put something in my blood?”
dick, who’d been leaning on the side of the bed like a worried parent pretending not to be one, blinked back. “uh—no, bud. you were asleep during the operation, remember? anesthesia? pain meds?”
damian stared at him like dick had just recited a riddle in an unfamiliar dialect. “i was… asleep,” damian repeated. “you let them do that.”
“you needed them to do that.” dick corrected.
damian’s eyes narrowed, though the effect was ruined by how glazed they looked. “i do not need unconsciousness to survive.”
“you do when your insides are trying to become your outsides.” dick muttered.
damian ignored him entirely, still watching him with a narrowing-bandwidth intensity. “you allowed it.”
“you signed the form.”
“forged,” damian said, again, instantly, with the complete confidence of someone who barely remembered what a pen was. “i would not voluntarily be medically compromised.”
“it wasn’t forged,” dick sighed. “you filled it out. you even wrote your full name at the bottom—very neatly, might i add.”
damian frowned like he was conspiring against him. he opened his mouth to deny it… but then a wave of dizziness rolled through him, like someone had tipped the room on its axis. he went still. his eyes went a little wide. “i feel… peculiar.”
“that’s the painkillers.”
“i dislike them.”
“i can tell.”
damian shifted, which was a mistake, his brain lagged behind the movement by a full second, like his consciousness had to sprint to catch up with his body. “my head is—” he paused, searching the ceiling as if the correct vocabulary word was written there. “—float-adjacent.”
“you’re high, dami.”
“i am not—” damian began, then stopped mid-denial, staring at the wall with deep betrayal. “i am.”
“yep.”
“i dislike this.”
“we’ve got that part,” dick said gently. “but you’re safe. and you’re okay. and it’s temporary.”
damian’s eyes tracked dick’s face like it was the only stable object in a shifting landscape. his brow furrowed with an almost childlike confusion. “i… don’t remember agreeing,” he murmured. “or anything. i was… focused. then pain.” he paused, blinked. “…then nothing.”
“that’s normal.”
“…where’s—”
but the name got lost on damian’s tongue.
not forgotten, more like the conveyor belt of his brain jammed halfway through delivering it. he blinked, confused, mouth still slightly open like the word might tumble out if he waited long enough. dick straightened, alert. “where’s who, bud?”
damian stared back at him, unfocused. something flickered behind his eyes, something searching, reaching. but whatever it was refused to surface. his brows knit, annoyed at his own mind for failing him. “…i don’t—” he frowned, as if the thought had slipped between his fingers. “i knew it. i know it. i just… can’t… hold it.”
dick softened. “hey. it’s okay. you’re still coming out of anesthesia.”
damian frowned. the door opened before dick could say anything else, tim walking in first, rubbing his eyes, followed by cass. tim raised his coffee cup. “look who’s conscious.”
cass tipped her head.
damian’s eyes snapped to them—well, halfway. they snapped, stalled, then drifted into their direction like his neurons were buffering. “you are loud,” damian announced.
tim blinked. “we… didn’t say anything.”
“your face is loud.”
tim nodded solemnly. “makes sense.”
cass stepped closer, tracking damian’s micro-movements with an ease that came from years of knowing how to read bodies better than minds. damian tried—tried—to push himself up. his arm trembled. his shoulder lifted a fraction. cass reached out with one finger and pressed it lightly to his sternum. damian went down like gravity had increased selectively on his body alone. his eyes went wide. “that is unfair.”
cass offered a tiny smile. “doctor’s orders.”
“i do not listen to orders.”
“you listened to hers.” tim added dryly.
damian glared at him. or tried to. the effect was softened by the fact his eyelids kept drooping like they were too heavy. “she cheated,” damian muttered.
cass watched the way damian’s eyes refused to work with him and smiled shyly. “you’re high.”
“i am not—” damian started, then hesitated, as if realizing halfway through the lie that he didn’t have the cognitive precision to pull it off. “i am… moderately under the influence.”
“that’s one way to put it.” tim mumbled.
damian’s head tilted back toward dick like his mind was circling back to unfinished business. “i was asking.”
“about who?” dick asked.
damian stared at him again. long, slow, pondering with the full force of a malfunctioning operating system. he opened his mouth, then closed it. frustration etched across his face. “…gone,” he said finally. “i lost it.”
“it’ll come back.”
“i hate this,” damian declared. “i hate hospitals. i hate beds. i hate drugs. i hate this room. i hate—”
“oh boy,” tim breathed. “here we go.”
damian lifted one hand. studied it. flexed his fingers—delayed, clumsy. he stared like his own hand had betrayed him. “my reaction speed is compromised. this is humiliating.”
“don’t worry,” tim said cheerfully. “we’re taking mental notes.”
damian shot him a bleary glare. “i will end you.”
“in your current state?” tim asked. “you couldn’t even end a game of tic-tac-toe.”
“i could,” damian insisted, leaning forward as if to intimidate him, except his torso only made it two inches up before cass’s finger sent him right back down again. damian let out a low, affronted noise. “stop that.” he told her.
she shook her head.
damian’s eyes narrowed, then drifted, then narrowed again as if the glare needed to be reinstalled every few seconds. he sighed, long and dramatic. “i should not be in this bed.”
“you were stabbed,” dick said gently.
“everyone gets stabbed.”
“not in the liver.” tim said, absolutely delighted to be here, absolutely delighted that damian wasn’t at full power to stop him.
damian blinked. “my liver?”
“yes.”
he frowned, deeply betrayed. “i use that.”
“not today you don’t.”
damian ignored him, attention wandering again, circling back toward the hole in his memory like a bee drawn repeatedly to the same window. tim rocked back on his heels, arms crossed, grin already sharpening. “so,” he began casually, “speaking of things you ‘use,’ want to talk about the stuff you were saying while you were unconscious?”
dick’s head snapped toward him. “tim. no.”
tim ignored him completely. “because wow. i didn’t know you had a romantic side. like—it was actually kind of sweet? a little embarrassing? honestly extremely embarrassing.”
damian’s face twisted. “what are you—”
“you kept saying,” tim continued, pitching his voice into a dreamy falsetto, “‘my beloved… come back… come here… where are you…’” he clutched his chest dramatically.
“I did not say that,” damian barked, though it came out slightly slurred, tragically soft, devastatingly unthreatening. “drake is lying.” damian announced to the ceiling, as if the ceiling could issue a rebuttal.
except —- then damian froze, not visibly, internally, like someone had pulled the emergency brake on his thoughts. the hazy warmth in his veins pulsed, rising like heat behind his ears. something in his chest tightened, memory stirring sluggishly but insistently. the drugs softened everything except that. that memory. that wanting.
the warmth in his bloodstream pulsed again, stronger, like a tide he couldn’t fight. he blinked slowly, vision blooming and fading at the edges, and in the middle of that blur, something clear rose to the surface. you.
your face. your voice. your hands brushing the hair off his forehead last week. your breath against his neck in the quiet hours. your laugh that he pretended didn’t undo him. he inhaled sharply, like the thought of you punched through the haze. tim, seeing the shift, took a step back. he knew this was no longer teasing territory, this was damian’s guard dissolving in real time. dick moved a little closer. “damian?”
damian blinked again. confusion, longing, frustration, and beneath all of it, a tenderness so raw it seemed to surprise even him. “where’s…” his voice wobbled, more breath than sound. “(y/n)?”
tim’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline. cass’s head tilted, studying him. damian didn’t notice their reactions—didn’t even register that he’d slipped. the meds made the truth feel natural, inevitable, impossible to contain.
“i want her here.”
dick blinked rapidly. “her?”
“yes, her,” damian muttered like they were stupid for being confused, tone clipped but dreamy, like he was trying to be irritated through marshmallow fog. “she should be here.”
dick tried gently, “who—”
“(y/n).” damian snapped. “the one i— the one who—” he cut himself off, annoyed at how hard the words suddenly were. his tongue felt slow. his brain fuzzed.
everything except the wanting.
“i’d much rather be with her than you guys.”
damian pushed on, voice dipping into something warm and unrestrained and utterly unlike him. “she doesn’t talk so loudly,” he mumbled, glaring at tim for existing. “and she doesn’t hover.” a pointed look at dick. “and she’s gentle.” he added, a little dreamily, glancing at cass.
cass’s eyes softened. dick’s heart did a little somersault. tim opened and closed his mouth like a stunned goldfish. damian continued, because the drugs had him rambling, pouring out affection he’d buried so deep even he forgot it was there. “and she smells nice,” he said, brows furrowing like this was deeply important. “and she holds my hand when i’m hurt. why isn’t she here.”
“d,” dick said softly, “we… didn’t know she existed.”
“that’s not my problem.” damian glared at the wall. “she should be here.” he shifted, trying to sit up, but cass stopped him again. he slumped back instantly, blinking up at her like she’d just used dark magic. “i need to talk to her,” damian insisted. “she’s probably worried.”
damian’s face, already soft from the medication, creased in a way none of them had ever seen. not anger, not annoyance, something else. something gentler. unguarded. dangerously unguarded.
he frowned. a slow, heartbreakingly earnest frown. “…she should be here,” he murmured again, more wounded this time, as if the room’s failure to produce you was a insult.
tim whispered, “we’re in uncharted territory,” like a man narrating a nature documentary about a dangerous, delicate creature.
dick pulled a chair closer. “we’re not keeping her from you,” he said. “no one knew you wanted her here.”
damian scowled. “i always want her here.”
tim choked on a laugh. cass elbowed him. but damian wasn’t done—if anything the words were pouring out faster now, because every thought of you made the meds tug him deeper into that warm, floaty honesty. “she knows how to touch my hair the right way,” he admitted, cheeks flushing faintly. “you don’t just— you have to go with the grain, not against the—” he gestured vaguely at his head, missing by several inches. “she knows. why isn’t she here.”
“she doesn’t know you’re awake.”
“you should have told her,” damian argued, scandalized. “you should have— obviously you should have—” his breath stuttered, foggy frustration ripping through him. “i want her.” he repeated, smaller.
“okay,” dick said. “okay. we’ll get her. just… try to relax.”
damian tried to glare, but it melted halfway into a woozy pout. “i won’t relax until she’s here.”
dick exhaled, long-suffering but soft. “i’ll call her. just—stay in the bed. stay horizontal. stay… not ripping out your IV.”
damian made a grumpy sound that was supposed to be dignified and was absolutely not.
you arrived like someone who had run every red light between your apartment and the wayne medical wing. you hadn’t even finished tying your shoes when the call came—an unfamiliar number flashing on your screen, a clipped voice saying, “hi, uh, this is dick grayson—damian’s brother—please don’t panic, he’s okay, but he’s asking for you and we… think you should come.”
you barely remembered hanging up. or grabbing keys. or the elevator door almost closing on your shoulder. ten minutes, maybe eleven, but it felt like one long breath held in your chest. in those ten minutes, everything in your head spun: damian doesn’t get hurt. damian doesn’t call for anyone. damian doesn’t need.
so what could’ve happened for dick to sound like that? what could’ve happened for damian to ask for you?
the security staff let you through without question—dick must’ve put your name on some list, because no wayne employee is normally that chill about strangers sprinting through sterile hallways with fear in their eyes.
your boots echoed off polished floors. the medical wing always had that cold, expensive, unnecessarily white look—a place built to fix bodies, not calm nerves. you followed the signs, heart hammering, palms damp.
room 3B.
your hand hovered on the handle for half a second—half a breath—because you had no idea what version of damian you’d find on the other side of the door. injured damian? angry damian? scared damian?
you pushed the door open.
damian had not relaxed. if anything, he had stewed, curled miserably in a hospital bed that looked like it was offending his entire lineage by existing. his hair was a mess. his eyes were half-lidded and glassy. a deep, irritable crease sat between his brows.
when you stepped in, the room shifted. dick straightened in his chair, relief flooding him. tim blinked like he couldn’t believe you were a real person. cass smiled at you like she’d expected this all along. but damian—
damian’s eyes snapped open like someone had turned the sun directly toward him. the transformation was instant. his whole face softened and brightened all at once, surprise flickering into recognition, recognition melting into something warm and wreckingly tender. “beloved,” he breathed.
and it was so quiet.
then he tried—immediately, stupidly, disastrously—to sit up. “no—no, no,” dick sputtered, grabbing his shoulder, flattening him instantly.
damian blinked up at him, betrayed for the thirtieth time today.
but then his gaze dragged back to you, heavy, warm, intoxicated—not just by meds but by relief. “you’re here. finally.”
your heart dropped somewhere into your stomach. “of course i came,” you started, glancing wearily at everyone in the room but stepping closer. “you called for me.”
“i needed you,” he said, so matter-of-factly it felt like the room stopped breathing. “i told them. repeatedly. they were slow.”
“hey—”
dick shot tim a glare.
damian reached for you without hesitation, fingers outstretched, messy and uncoordinated but desperate. cass gently caught his wrist to keep him from yanking at his IV. “come here,” damian insisted, eyes locked on yours. “i hate this place. i hate all of them.” he gestured vaguely at his siblings. “i want you.”
your lungs forgot how to work. “dami,” you murmured, stepping to his bedside, taking his free hand carefully—careful because he was loopy, careful because he was fragile, careful because he was looking at you like you were the only real thing in a world made of fog.
he exhaled, shoulders sinking in relief the moment your skin touched his. “yes. that. stay.”
and suddenly you’re the idiot standing in a hospital room surrounded by the waynes. you don’t look at any of them. you can’t. eye contact feels like a trapdoor.
because this is the exact scenario damian spent months avoiding. the one he insisted would “complicate matters” or “invite unnecessary scrutiny” or “destroy our operational advantage,” which was his very dramatic way of saying he didn’t want his family to know he had feelings like a human being.
and now he’s clinging to your wrist like a toddler afraid you’ll evaporate. your voice tries to work but it comes out small. “uh… okay. i’m here. not going anywhere.”
dick makes a soft, amazed sound, like he’s watching a wild animal eat out of someone’s hand for the first time. tim is frozen in place, eyes narrowed like he’s trying to run a facial-recognition scan on the situation. cass just looks deeply entertained. damian doesn’t notice any of it. he’s too busy hauling your hand into his chest like he needs the pressure to stay anchored.
he nudges closer to you on the pillow—well, he attempts to, but he’s so high that the movement is less “smooth shift” and more “gentle toppling.” you catch him before he face-plants, hands awkward around his shoulders, and he… softens. actually softens. melts into your touch like he’s never heard of pride in his life. “don’t leave,” he mutters. “they’re awful. you’re the only tolerable one.”
his siblings watch this happen with the energy of people witnessing a natural disaster in slow motion. your heart does something inconvenient. “i’m not going anywhere,” you say again, softer.
he’s going to regret every single word of this when the pain meds wear off. damian relaxes immediately, head tipping toward you, completely unconcerned that half his family is witnessing this emotional striptease he’ll definitely deny later. then his hand paws clumsily at the air until it finds yours again. he drags it to his chest, then up toward his jaw, nudging, nudging, nudging like a disgruntled cat demanding to be held exactly the right way. you blink down at him. “what are you doing.”
“you know what i’m doing,” he mutters, pushing your palm against his cheek like he’s molding clay. “closer.”
“i am close.”
“not enough.” a pout forms soft lower lip pushed forward in wounded royalty. “you’re supposed to…” he gestures with his other hand, fingers fluttering like he’s trying to summon the word. “kiss me.”
your body goes rigid. “damian. your entire family is three feet away.”
tim chokes on spit. dick makes a strangled noise. cass is already covering her smile with her hand. dick, bless him, claps his hands together. “alright! great time to take a break. we’re gonna… uh… give you two some space.”
“a lot of space,” tim adds, sprinting for the door like the room is on fire.
cass pauses beside the doorway, gives you a thumbs-up, then closes the door behind them. immediately, muffled bickering erupts.
“you didn’t record that?”
“i’m not filming our brother in the hospital!”
“coward.”
“guys, shut up—”
“i can’t believe he said kiss me—”
“cass stop laughing—”
“OH my god—”
you drag a hand down your face. “this is mortifying.”
damian doesn’t care. damian cares zero percent. damian is busy guiding your hand back to his cheek and pressing into it like it’s a heat source keeping him alive. “they’re idiots,” he announces, voice thick with anesthesia and indignation. “loud. insufferable. invasive.” he blinks heavily, lashes brushing your wrist. “i’m glad they’re gone.”
“they’re right outside the door still arguing.”
“they’re always arguing,” he says, sleepy venom coating every syllable. “they argue about toast.”
you try not to smile. “and you don’t?”
“i argue with purpose.” he says this with the gravitas of a dying king. “they argue because they’re incompetent.” his fingers curl around your wrist and he tries to tug you closer again. “come here,” he murmurs, cheeks pink from more than medication. “you’re being difficult.”
“i’m being respectful.” you correct.
he frowns. actually frowns, like you’ve just informed him gravity is optional now. “disgusting.” he sighs like a martyr. “just kiss me.”
his fingers skate clumsily up your wrist, slipping twice before finally hooking behind your hand, dragging it back to his cheek with the determination of a drowning man reaching for a lifeline. his pulse flutters beneath your palm, fluttery in that way that tells you the meds are hitting harder. “i need one,” he murmurs, barely audible. “just—one.”
“damian—”
“please,” he whispers. he looks at you like you’re the single point of focus in a world that’s tilting. pupils blown, cheeks flushed with medication and emotion he can’t register enough to restrain. he’s trying so hard to keep his eyes open, to hold onto you, to stay with you in the haze.
the battle between logic and instinct lasts all of four seconds. maybe less. you lean in, careful, so he can pull back if he wants. he doesn’t. he meets you halfway, or at least tries to, except he misjudges the distance and bumps your chin first, blinking like the world betrayed him again. you soften. cup the side of his face, steady him, then you kiss him.
it’s gentle. warm. barely there at first, just the press of your mouth against his, letting him feel it, understand it. his breath catches, a soft inhale against your lips like he can’t believe he got what he asked for. then the tension melts out of him all at once. his shoulders sag. his hand slides up to clutch weakly at your shirt. he makes this tiny, involuntary sound—half sigh, half relief—like the kiss untied some knot inside him he didn’t know was choking him. he kisses you back clumsily, lazily, chasing the contact with unfocused devotion. the kind of kiss that says i’m not fully here, but what i feel for you is.
when you finally pull back—because he’s still recovering—his eyes remain closed for a moment, like reality hasn’t quite caught up. they open, glazed and adoring in a way he will absolutely deny to the grave. “that,” he murmurs, voice dropping like he’s drifting toward sleep. “better.”
you smooth his hair back gently. “yeah?”
he nods against your hand, eyelids lowering again. “you fixed the… everything.” his lips twitch like he wants to smile but doesn’t have the energy. “kiss me again later.”
you can’t help it. you laugh. “we’ll see.”
he hums—hums, like he’s some exhausted, medicated cat settling into sun-warm sheets instead of a post-surgery assassin with a reputation to maintain. for a few minutes, everything is strangely easy. soft. he drifts in and out, eyes half-lidded, expression mellow in a way that would terrify gotham’s criminal underground. he asks you three questions in a row (“what time is it… why does the ceiling breathe… can you make the bed stop tilting?”), only for his attention to wander halfway through the third answer.
you stroke his hair and he melts like warm wax, that stiffness he always carries dissolving like you’re seeing a piece of him that only exists under anesthesia and around you. “you should rest,” you observe.
“i am resting.” he sounds offended you’d suggest otherwise. “i’m the picture of—” he yawns without warning. “—discipline.”
“sure,” you say, hand smoothing down his cheek. “very disciplined.”
he narrows his eyes, but the effect is ruined by how heavy his eyelids are. “mockery is unbecoming.” he drifts again, fingers twitching once like he wants to pull you even closer but can’t muster the energy. ten more seconds pass before he murmurs, barely audible, “don’t be gone long.”
your chest folds in on itself. “i won’t.”
but you still have to go. he needs his siblings updated. you need to breathe something other than recycled medical-wing air. and—let’s be honest—you need to apologize for walking in and accidentally detonating a family-secret bomb.
you pry his hand gently off your shirt, not easy, because he makes a soft, grumpy noise at the loss, and settle it over his blanket. “i’ll be right back,” you whisper.
he scowls, soft and half-asleep. “you better.”
you slip out. the door clicks shut behind you, and immediately, the hallway noise stops. immediately. like a switch. one second there’s muffled arguing, sharp whispers, annoyed sighs, something that sounds suspiciously like tim saying “that’s not fair, cass, you can’t hit people in a debate—”
and the next? dead silent.
you step fully into the corridor. three faces turn to you at once, frozen mid-conflict like you just walked in on a crime scene. dick stands with his arms out like he was physically separating people. tim looks defensive, hands half-raised, mouth half-open. cass is calmly holding what looks like tim’s hoodie string, like she’s been yanking him back into line.
they all stare. you blink. “…hi,” you say. it comes out small. painfully polite. the kind of greeting you use when you’ve just barged into the batfamily’s private meltdown because your secret boyfriend couldn’t keep quiet on morphine.
dick straightens so fast you actually hear the click of his spine. “hi! hey! um. hi. wow. okay. you—you came out.”
tim elbows him. “of course she came out, she used the door—”
cass smacks the back of his head without looking.
“ow???”
you exhale slowly. “so… um. i guess i should say—sorry? for all of that? he’s… not usually like this.”
three pairs of eyes give you the exact same expression:
oh we know.
you swallow, fingers twisting together because suddenly you’re seventeen again and meeting someone’s parents in a too-small living room where everyone is staring. “right,” you say. “um. so. i’m—” the word lodges in your throat. girlfriend.
technically true. emotionally true. secretly true. publicly, though… this was supposed to come out months from now. carefully. intentionally. maybe after damian finished having a internal breakdown about letting anyone know he had feelings at all. definitely not in a fluorescent hallway with him high on enough pain meds to take down a rhinoceros.
you clear your throat. “i’m… his—”
they all lean in a fraction. like wolves scenting vulnerability.
“—girlfriend.”
silence. not the casual kind. not the “oh okay” kind. no. this is the thick, suffocating, batfamily kind of silence, where shock ricochets between them. you want to die.
“wow,” dick finally says, voice high and bright and absolutely panicked. “so you’re—uh—wow. okay.”
tim takes a step back from you like you’re a rare cryptid. “wait, wait. damian—our damian—has a secret girlfriend and he didn’t tell anyone?”
“it wasn’t—” you rub your face. “it wasn’t my idea to keep it secret.”
every head turns toward the door behind you. the door damian is behind. three simultaneous: “of course it wasn’t.”
you sigh. “he didn’t… want the attention. or the questions. or the—” you gesture vaguely at the cluster of energy in front of you “—this.”
dick nods so hard you’re briefly concerned for him. “yeah. okay. right.”
tim crosses his arms. “he trusts none of us with his personal life. unbelievable.”
cass tilts her head, eyes narrowing thoughtfully. “he likes her,” she says simply.
everyone turns to her, startled by the rare verbal input. she shrugs. “i watch him.”
you’re still mortified.“i’m sorry,” you say again, because apologizing feels easier than existing in this moment.
“no, no,” dick insists. “don’t apologize. we’re just—processing.”
“poorly.” tim adds.
“yes, poorly.”
you glance at the door, then back to them. “he… didn’t mean to tell you. he’s just… really high.
tim snorts. “yeah, we noticed.”
but then—dick softens. visibly. his whole posture loosens. “we’re… glad you’re here. really.”
cass nods once. tim looks like he wants to be annoyed, but deep down, he’s already building a spreadsheet called damian’s girlfriend: things to investigate. you inhale, steadying yourself. this is fine. you’re here. damian’s safe. they’re… intimidating, but also weirdly welcoming in a way. dick takes a half-step toward the door. “he’s probably freaking out that you’re gone.”
you grimace. “…yeah. he’s not subtle right now.”
tim snorts. “understatement of the century.”
you all slip back into the room—well, you walk in, and the batfamily kind of fans in behind you like an unnecessarily dramatic procession—and immediately you’re met with a very specific sound: damian huffing.
he’s upright again, God knows how he managed it with stitches and sedation, blanket bunched around his waist, hair a complete disaster, eyes sharp but unfocused and dark with irritation. he looks like someone who’s been abandoned in a desert for hours, not eight minutes. the second he sees you, everything in him unclenches. the frown softens. the shoulders drop. the tension behind his eyes dissolves like sugar in tea. “finally.”
you take a slow breath. “i was gone for like ten minutes.”
“ten minutes,” he repeats, scandalized. “i could have died.”
dick, behind you, mouths jesus christ into his hands.
you step closer and damian instantly reaches for you, hands out, grabby, zero dignity, all instinct. he looks like he’s two seconds from climbing out of bed and onto you. “i told you,” he mutters, leaning toward you with the gravity of someone confessing state secrets, “i can’t sleep without you.”
your brain stalls. his siblings collectively short-circuit behind you. “you’ve… never said that.”
“i’m saying it now.” he tries to sit up even straighter, immediately winces, then stubbornly ignores the pain. “i hate it when you disappear. it’s—” he squints, trying to find the word in the fog of anesthetic swimming through him, “—unacceptable.”
“unacceptable,” tim echoes under his breath, shaking his head like this is the best day of his life.
damian hears it and snaps—not very effectively, because it’s slurred and soft and deeply non-threatening—“shut up, drake.” then he turns back to you, expression going gentle again so fast it’s whiplash. “come here,” he says, voice lower, sleepy, warm. “please.”
you move without thinking. “better,” he mumbles, leaning into your palm. Leaning. “i hate hospitals.”
“i know you do.”
“they smell like fear and bleach. drake smells like bleach too. it’s suspicious.”
tim throws both hands up. “what—why—what did i even do?!”
damian doesn’t answer, mostly because something else catches his attention. his gaze drifts back toward the IV taped to his hand like he’s just spotted an enemy combatant. “…it’s still there,” he mutters darkly.
you can practically hear dick’s soul leave his body. “damian—”
too late.
damian’s fingers curl, determined and clumsy, reaching for the line like he’s about to solve all his problems via self-sabotage “nope,” you say quickly, sliding your hand over his before he can yank. “don’t start with that.”
he blinks at you, startled. “but it’s in me.”
“yes,” you say calmly, “and it’s supposed to be. if you pull it out, it’s going to hurt, you’ll bleed everywhere, and dr. thompson will throw a fit.”
damian glowers at the IV like it personally betrayed him. “i do not consent to its presence.”
“tough,” you say softly. “leave it.”
and something miraculous happens.
he listens.
he actually stops. his fingers relax under yours, he gives one final deeply offended exhale, then slumps back against the pillow, letting you guide his hand away from the tubing entirely. dick stares at the exchange like he just watched a unicorn descend from the ceiling. “you’ve gotta be kidding me.”
tim narrows his eyes. “yeah, no, I want that in writing. he listened? willingly?”
damian doesn’t even look at them. his attention is fully back on you, as if he’s forgotten anyone else exists. “you’re better at giving orders,” he mumbles, voice slurred and honest.
your eyebrows shoot up. “i didn’t give an order.”
“yes you did,” he insists, even poutier now. “and i liked it.”
tim chokes. you press a hand over damian’s, trying not to laugh. “okay. well. thank you for listening.”
“i listen to you,” he says, like it’s obvious. “you make sense.”
and then—inevitably—damian’s gaze drifts, catches something on the wall-mounted TV across from the bed, and brightens in a way that is actually alarming. “tch. finally,” he mutters. “something decent.” it’s… an anime. some shonen fight scene paused on a commercial break. “they always have commercials on. americans have no discipline.”
“do you—watch that one?”
“i watch everything,” he says, as if this is another well-known fact. “i have criteria.”
“criteria,” tim echoes. “oh this I gotta hear.”
damian lifts a finger dramatically, like he’s addressing a senate hearing. “strong character arcs. accurate sword technique. no filler episodes.” he narrows his eyes like the concept personally offended him. “most of them… disgraceful.”
and then—god help you—he turns his head toward you and says, in a tone so earnest it almost knocks you over: “if i recommended shows to you, you would watch them. properly.”
tim inhales sharply. “are you ASKING her to watch anime with you? publicly? in front of witnesses?”
damian blinks once. twice. “yes?” he says, baffled that this is even a question. “why wouldn’t i? she listens.”
dick puts a hand over his heart. “this is the most emotion he’s displayed since he was born.”
damian ignores him completely because a new thought has struck him, and he must share it immediately or die.
“and she likes animals,” he says. “this matters.”
you look around. “…does it?”
“yes.” he nods, solemn. “people who don’t like animals are not to be trusted. it is… foundational.”
“i mean—true,” you mumble, trying not to laugh.
“she,” he says, pointing at you again, “lets titi sleep on her jacket. on purpose.”
tim freezes. “wait. the demon cat? on their clothes? and—no blood?”
you shrug awkwardly. “she’s actually very sweet—”
“HA,” damian cuts in, triumphant. “i told you.” then, with no transition at all: “titi likes her more than she likes you.”
this is addressed to the entire batfamily.
gasps. outrage. betrayal. you pat damian’s arm, trying to settle him down. he looks up at you instantly—immediate, instinctive. “don’t go again,” he says, like you abandoned him for years instead of stepping outside to apologize to his siblings.
“i’m right here,” you soothe.
he exhales, satisfied. “good. if you leave, they talk. they always talk.” his voice drops to a whisper, conspiratorial. “they gossip.”
“WE DO NOT.”
damian waves a dismissive hand. “yes you do. you gossip like… hens.”
“hens??”
“LOUD hens,” damian corrects, settling further into your side. “and idiotic.”
you choke on a laugh as all three brothers erupt in overlapping offended noises. and you’re just sitting there thinking—
yeah. he is absolutely, utterly, painfully doomed when he sobers up.
Damian showers his girlfriend with gifts because he doesn't know any other way to express affection.
Damian never quite grasped the concept of a “discreet gift.”
When you reached your six-month anniversary, he appeared one morning in the penthouse kitchen with a small black velvet box. Inside was an American Express Centurion card (the black one, of course) with your name embossed in gold.
You blinked.
“This… is a card?”
“It’s yours,” he said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, while pouring coffee. “No limit. Use it whenever you want.”
You twirled it between your fingers, laughing.
“Damian, I spend a maximum of two hundred dollars a month on makeup and Shein dresses…”
“Now you can spend two hundred thousand if you want,” he replied, shrugging. “Or two million. I don’t care.”
It wasn’t an exaggeration. Two weeks later, when you casually mentioned that a lavender Zimmermann dress seemed like “a dream,” you found it hanging in your closet that very night, along with fifteen other floral dresses by designers whose names you couldn’t even pronounce. All in pastel shades that looked like they’d been plucked from your secret Pinterest board.
Then came the house.
One Sunday morning, Damian blindfolded you, put you in the Aston Martin, and drove for forty minutes. When he removed the blindfold, you were standing in front of a French-style villa in the Bristol Hills, surrounded by gardens of lavender and climbing roses.
“Welcome home,” he said simply.
You were speechless.
“What do you mean, ‘welcome home’? We live in the penthouse in Gotham!”
“Now we have two homes,” he replied, shoving his hands in his pockets. “This one’s in your name. Yours alone. If you ever get tired of me, you have somewhere to go.”
You looked at him, your eyes brimming with tears, and hugged him so tightly you almost knocked him to the ground.
"I'll never get tired of you, you idiot."
He smiled against your hair.
"Even better. Because I've already bought the one next door too, in case we want to expand the garden."
You currently live together in the 800-square-meter penthouse that occupies the top two floors of Damian's own house. But on long weekends, you escape to the villa in Bristol. There, you have your own walk-in closet the size of a normal apartment, filled exclusively with floral dresses, pleated skirts, angora cardigans, pearl handbags, and kitten heels in every color of the rainbow. Damian hired a personal stylist who comes every season just to make sure you have "everything cute a sunshine deserves."
He also gave you:
- A pink diamond necklace in the shape of tiny flowers, engraved inside with “My only sunshine” (you wear it all the time, even to sleep).
- A pink Mini Cooper convertible with floral interior to match your dresses (he calls it “Barbie’s car” and pretends to hate it, but he takes you ice cream in it on Sundays).
- An additional credit card (this time a Mastercard Black) that he reloads himself every month with a ridiculously small amount “for your silly whims,” as he puts it. You mostly use it to buy him flowers and leave him little notes in his office.
- A white Pomeranian puppy named Marshmallow, who always wears pastel bows to match yours.
This morning, for example, you woke up and found a Cartier box on your pillow. Inside: pearl and diamond daisy earrings.
You, still with sleep in your eyes and your hair a mess, murmured. “Damian… I already have like seven pairs of daisy earrings.”
“These are 3 carats each,” he replied from the bathroom, shaving. “The others were too small. They didn’t do your face justice.”
You laughed, got out of bed in your strawberry-print cotton nightgown, and threw your arms around his back.
“You know I could still love you even if you didn’t buy me anything, right?”
Damian put down the razor, turned, and pulled you into his arms. He still had shaving cream on one cheek.
“I know,” he said, kissing your nose. “But I like to see you shine. And if that means buying half a Cartier, I’ll do it.”
You wiped his cheek with your thumb and smiled at him in a whisper.
“Well, today my treat is for you to stay home with me all day, without a suit, without meetings, and without saving the world.” Just you, me, and Marshmallow watching Studio Ghibli movies.
Damian sighed as if you were asking him for the greatest sacrifice in the universe, and then smiled that smile only you know.
"Deal, habibti. But only if you let me choose the pajamas."
He chose the pink cotton onesie with bunnies that you jokingly gave him for his birthday. And he spent the whole day in it, cuddling you on the sofa while you, of course, wore a matching onesie, and Marshmallow slept between you.
Because yes, Damian Wayne is capable of buying you the whole world… but what he really wants is for you to never stop being his ray of sunshine.
