a Concept™ ~
so, this may just be the brown girl in me projecting, but give me henna artist!damian. like idgaf if this has been done before GIVE ME HENNA ARTIST!DAMIAN
like?? henna is a gorgeous fucking art form and you cANNOT tell me that he’s never been exposed to it before.
i like to imagine that, in between all the horror and trauma that he experienced in the league, there were a few quiet moments where he was able to watch his mother’s servants apply henna to her hands and was just so completely enraptured by it, all the swirls and loops and intricate designs
in gotham, he stumbled upon this little out-of-the-way place tucked in a corner of the city that actually sells high quality henna paste, and even the ingredients to make some of his own
so he discreetly bought as much as he could carry and smuggled it away to his room so that he could have a piece of his old home in his new one
dick definitely noticed but didn’t say anything (yeah, that’s right, you ain’t slick dami) because he so wanted damian to feel more comfortable in gotham and this at least seemed like a 100x more healthy way to do that
damian has filled sketchbooks upon sketchbooks with henna designs
they’re all damian wayne originals and he practices them on himself before he ever shows it to anyone
and he is so particular about the smudging, it bugs him so so SO much if his designs smudge before they dry
he will literally tiptoe around the manner with his hands protectively curled against his chest looking like a little baby golem in order to protect his precious designs
which ofc, always prompts jason to chase him around the manor yelling “C’MON BABY BAT DONT BE LIKE THAT I JUST WANNA HOLD YOUR HAND :)))))”
which then, ofc, prompts damian to retaliate by drawing a dick on jason’s forehead in henna while he’s sleeping bc jason sleeps like the dead
that is to say, he sleeps on his back spread-eagle like a starfish, so dami’s never worried about him waking up or smudging it
it took quite a while for jason to figure out why everyone was laughing at him at dinner time
literally tho, whenever damian’s hands are wet with henna, his siblings pretty much have free reign to harass him
like ofc he’ll give the customary threats of evisceration but they all know he’d never attack them for fear of fucking up his henna design
damian loves putting henna on his siblings hands, it means so much to him whenever they take time out of their days to sit with him and just let him go crazy with his design ideas
surprisingly, this actually started with tim
i mean, can you blame him tho? damian’s hands were already covered in henna and he’d just had a brilliant new design idea, and tim was slumped over sleeping on the couch n his hands were right there so…?
tim wakes up with a henna tattoo going all the way to his elbow and he’s just like
“what the fuck”
he eventually catches on tho, and one time he was actually only pretending to sleep while damian was putting henna on him
he’d never admit it, but he thinks the way damian’s face gets all pinched and focused when he’s working is adorable (which it is, astute observation tim)
there was a period of time where damian would only do henna on cass bc she was the only one who wouldn’t need him to fucking babysit her while waiting for the henna to dry
dick can never sit still long enough for dami to finish the design anyway
barbara cannot keep her hands off a computer long enough for the henna to dry
tim’s a bit better than everyone else but these days he finds the henna application so soothing that he falls asleep everytime and ends up smudging it
jason’s henna privileges got revoked when he purposely smudged it, the asshole
steph always forgets that she has wet henna on her hands and does something stupid like high-five someone before it dries
duke somehow becomes a 100x more clumsy with wet henna on his hands, probably bc he’s trying so hard not to smudge it
he once managed to get henna on the fucking ceiling (he refuses to say how), and damian hasn’t let him near his henna paste since
bruce once choked on “spicy ketchup” so damian’s now convinced that if he puts henna on his father he might actually spontaneously combust
alfred wears gloves.
