Mc stuff

Moments stretched like pulled wire. Then the second child arrived, small and quieter. No immediate cry, just a wet gasp, and a blink at the light. For a heartbeat the room froze. Then the tiny chest rose again; air entered new lungs, tentative but sure.

The midwife wiped the infant clean, voice trembling. “Two.”

Ra’s stepped forward, surprise cracking through his composure. “A sign,” he murmured. His gaze sharpened, thinking of futures that no one in that room could see.

Talia ignored him. She reached out both hands. The firstborn was placed in her right arm, the second in her left. For the first time that night, the corners of her mouth lifted.

The attendants bowed, uncertain whether to celebrate or fear what this meant. Two heirs of the Demon Head, that means two branches of a single inheritance.

The louder infant wriggled restlessly, face flushed from the effort of breathing. The quieter one turned its head, eyes unfocused but searching. When their skin brushed, one small hand finding another, their fingers curled together instinctively, knuckles pale against green silk. The movement was so deliberate it made one of the midwives cross herself. The chamber, for a moment, was still.

Outside, the wind shifted. The moonlight poured through the lattice window, silvering the babies’ faces. Their features mirrored, the same dark lashes, and the same curve of mouth. Only their breathing differed: one steady, one trembling.

Ra’s watched them with the faintest trace of awe. “The world will bend around them,” he said. “They are the beginning of something new.”

Talia did not answer. Her gaze had softened, the hardness in her eyes giving way to something maternal, almost frightened. She leaned closer until both infants rested against her chest, their joined hands pressed between them. The scent of incense mixed with milk, blood, and the faint sweetness of her perfume.

The smaller infant stirred, finally letting out a thin cry. The firstborn, as if answering, went still and quiet, head turning toward the sound. Their fingers tightened.

The midwives moved about cleaning linens, speaking in hushed tones. Ra’s departed to make his announcements, his cloak trailing incense smoke. The chants in the outer hall changed from supplication to celebration.

Inside, only the mother and her children remained.

Talia lowered her head until her lips brushed the crown of each tiny skull. “Damian,” she whispered to the louder one. “And you…” she paused, tasting the thought. Whatever name followed was softer still, stolen by the rustle of the brazier.

You, small, shivering, but awake, felt warmth where his skin met yours. Your brother’s hand, even without sight, you clung to it. You didn’t understand the words spoken above you, the weight of legacy settling on shoulders too new to bear it. You only knew the steady beat beside you, and the certainty that you were not alone.

The air cooled and the torches dimmed. In the silence that followed, the League’s fortress might as well have disappeared and the desert as well, because in that time the world was narrowed in sensations and lights that burned your eyes.

You didn’t know it yet, but you were already each other’s world.

The League’s compound woke with the sun, as it always did.

At dawn, the walls glowed beneath the desert light, their shadows stretching long and solemn across the flagstones. The wind carried the smell of sand, metal, and jasmine. Bells chimed in the distance, marking the hour of discipline.

You had learned to walk on these stones before you learned your own reflection. The floor of the training hall was cool under your bare feet, veined marble rubbed smooth by centuries of warriors who’d knelt there before you. The walls were carved with sigils, their grooves deep enough for your small fingers to trace.

Damian learned beside you. As always.

At first, walking had been a shared ordeal: you both staggered like drunk monks, falling into each other, laughing without knowing why. The instructors disapproved of laughter; it was a waste of breath, they said. But Talia had smiled that day, a rare curve hidden behind her gloved hand.

Damian had always been the louder of the two. His cries were sharper, and his gaze burning with too much intensity for such a small body. You, you were quieter and steadier, content to match your steps to his. When he reached for something, you steadied his balance. When you tripped, his little hand would dart down instinctively.

The compound echoed with the rhythm of your lives: the soft scrape of sandals during morning meditation, the drip of water into silver bowls, and the metallic hiss of swords being drawn.

You and Damian were never apart for long. Nap time was spent sharing a single woven blanket, your foreheads pressed together, breaths syncing until even dreams seemed shared. When the tutors came, reciting ancient verses in Arabic, Farsi and Sanskrit, you learned them together. The calligraphy instructor said you wrote like mirror images: one line pressed, the other flowing, the strokes forming a symmetry that was unsettling to look at.

The first time you picked up wooden practice swords, the world changed shape. The instructors had laughed, indulgent, when Talia brought you both to the training yard. Two toddlers, barely walking, holding sticks longer than their arms. But Talia’s expression was unreadable. “Let them learn what the world will demand,” she said.

The air shimmered with heat. Sand crunched under your small feet. Damian had lifted his sword with both hands, stance wobbling but determined. “I am the heir,” he’d declared in a voice still soft with childhood. The words were borrowed from overheard conversations, but he said them with such conviction that the trainers fell silent.

You’d looked at him, at the proud set of his jaw, the way his hair stuck to his forehead with sweat, and something warm bloomed in your chest. You raised your own stick, tilted your head, and smiled. “Yes, my prince,” you said, your tone playful.

He’d blinked at you, lips parting, then grinned quick and bright, the kind of grin he’d later forget how to give. The sparring session lasted all of five minutes. He swung wide, missed, tripped on his own feet, and fell. You dropped your stick immediately, rushing to him before the instructors could react. Dust clung to his cheek; his lower lip trembled.

Before a tear could fall, you brushed the dirt away with your sleeve. “You’re okay,” you whispered. “You’re fine.” It was a tiny phrase, one of those things children say without understanding its weight. But it landed somewhere deep in him.

From that day, Damian never cried when he fell. Not when wooden swords hit, not when stone scraped, not even when blood welled from small cuts. If you were watching, he would always get up.

You learned, too, that love could take the shape of tiny rebellions. When he was scolded for his temper (snapping at a tutor, breaking a practice bow, or refusing to recite mantras) you would speak up before he could. “It was my fault,” you’d say evenly, eyes cast down. The instructors would sigh, dismissing you both. Later, he’d corner you in the corridor, voice fierce with guilt. “Don’t do that again.”

And yet, he never let the next punishment fall on you. He learned how to stand in front of you, how to draw attention away, how to bear the consequences first.

Talia watched from the balcony sometimes, her expression caught between satisfaction and envy. Two children moving together through the training fields like (literally) twin shadows. Balance, she thought. The balance she had never mastered in herself.

In the evenings, when the desert cooled and the wind carried the scent of pomegranates from the orchard, the two of you would sit beneath the carved colonnade. The sky would fade from gold to violet. Damian, still clutching his wooden sword, would rest his head against your shoulder. “One day I’ll be more than just an heir,” he’d murmur, voice thick with sleep. “I’ll make Grandfather proud.”

You’d hum softly, brushing his hair away from his face. “You don’t have to make anyone proud,” you’d whisper, even though you knew he didn’t believe you.

Sometimes you’d fall asleep there, side by side on the cold marble, the moon lightening your faces. The guards who found you never dared to move you. Superstition, perhaps, or simple respect for what you represented.

Years would blur, but those early nights stayed sharp in memory: that tiny heartbeat pressed against your ribs. Before duty hardened him, before the League’s creed carved away his laughter, he was simply Damian. He was just your mirror, your shadow, your brother.

And though you didn’t know it then, every time you reached for his hand after a fall, he was already learning how to give the world back to you.

There were no stars that night, only the sound of the wind pressing against the stone walls. The League compound never slept, there was always movement somewhere, the sound of sandals on stone, the low murmur of guards trading shifts, but that night even them seemed to hesitate.

Discipline was sacred here. Disobedience, even for the blood of the Demon, was a sin to be burned away.

It happened in the training hall. The day had begun like any other: chants before dawn, drills until the sun rose, lessons in languages and anatomy and the ethics of killing. You and Damian had been sparring, sweat dripping onto the marble floor, your small wooden blades clicking. When his form slipped, when his guard dropped and your practice sword tapped his shoulder, the instructor’s staff cracked against the ground.

“Again.”

Damian adjusted his stance. Tried again. Missed again.

The staff struck his knuckles. Not hard enough to break, but hard enough to sting. He did not cry out; he never did. But his jaw locked, and that flicker of anger, the one the tutors feared and his mother recognized, sharpened behind his eyes.

When the instructor lifted the staff a second time, you moved without thinking. Your small hand shot out and caught the wood before it struck. “He understands,” you said, breathless. “He’ll do better.”

The silence that followed was heavier than the blow would have been.

The instructor’s face darkened. “You will learn your place,” he said to Damian first, then turned to you. “And you will learn when to speak.”

Talia had watched from the shadows, expression unreadable. By nightfall, the verdict was delivered: separate punishments. Separate chambers. For the first time since birth, the doors closed between you.

Your chamber was small and dim, lit only by the flicker of a single oil lamp. You could hear the wind through the lattice window, the far-off chant of the sentries. The walls felt closer and colder without him beside you. You traced the floor with your fingers, counting the spaces between the tiles. It was the first night of your life without the sound of his breathing nearby.

Across the hall, Damian sat on his narrow cot, hands trembling in his lap. The instructor had struck them with a switch, a ritual correction, not enough to scar, but the skin was welted and raw. He hid them under the blanket, his pride wounded more deeply than his body. He hated that they shook. He hated that you’d seen.

He could still hear your voice: He understands.

He’d wanted to shout at you, to tell you not to interfere, that he didn’t need saving, but the words had tangled somewhere between his teeth and his pride. Instead, he’d let them separate you, like it was inevitable.

When the lights in the corridor dimmed and the guards changed posts, you slipped out. The air was cold enough to sting. You knew which floorboards creaked, which stones were loose. Barefoot, you crossed the shadowed hall and pushed his door open with the softest touch.

He was awake. He always was.

His eyes met yours from the bed, wide and uncertain for just a second before he looked away. “You shouldn’t be here,” he muttered. His voice was steady, but the words quivered at the edges. “They’ll punish you again.”

You knelt beside him, ignoring the warning. The lamplight revealed his hands, red, swollen, and half-hidden under the blanket. Without a word, you took one and turned it palm up. He flinched, more from shame than pain.

“Don’t,” he said softly. “It’s nothing.”

You didn’t answer. You simply held his hand, your thumb brushing over the welts as if your touch could erase them.

After a while, his shoulders eased. His breathing slowed. He didn’t thank you; that wasn’t how either of you worked. Instead, he whispered: “They think this will make us stronger.”

“Maybe it will,” you said. “But not apart.”

He looked at you then. There was something fragile in his expression, a rare uncertainty that no one else ever saw. “They’ll try to separate us again,” he said. “They always will.”

You leaned your forehead against his, the way you used to as infants when words hadn’t yet existed. “Then we’ll find each other again,” you murmured. “Every time.”

Outside, the wind rose, rattling the shutters like teeth. He flexed his fingers experimentally; they still trembled, but the pain dulled under the weight of your hand.

Talia, passing in the corridor, paused at the faint sound of voices. She didn’t open the door. For a fleeting second, her reflection in the glass seemed softer, almost guilty. She walked on.

Inside, you and Damian sat in silence until the lamp burned low. The punishment had ended; the lesson had not. You learned that night that the world would try to split you into halves, but you also learned that every wall built between you could be crossed.

And in that small, dark chamber, with his trembling hand folded inside yours, the vow was made without ever being spoken:

No matter what they do, we return to each other.

By six, the wooden swords were replaced with steel.

Not sharp enough to kill, at least not immediately, but heavy and cold against the palms. The shift was ceremonial, the way every milestone in the League was. The instructors lined the training courtyard, silent as statues, while Talia watched from above. The twins stood side by side beneath the sun, barefoot on sand that burned hot through the soles.

“From now on,” the master of arms said, “you do not play at war. You become it.”

The desert air shimmered. The scent of oil and dust mixed with sweat, and a faint metallic tang lingered in the mouth like blood that wasn’t there yet.

Damian stepped forward first. Always first. His small frame was straight as a drawn blade, eyes unblinking. He bowed, accepted the sword with both hands, and held it before him as though it were an oath. You followed later, hesitant, the heat stinging your face, and the weapon pulled at your wrists heavy with expectation.

They paired you against each other. Of course they did. Who else could test the heir but the one who shared his blood?

The first strike was supposed to be ceremonial movement, a salute to discipline. Damian made it art. His blade moved fast, perfectly angled, his feet sliding through the sand with ease. The clang of impact rang against your bones. You almost dropped your sword. He didn’t stop; another blow followed, and another.

For a moment, you glimpsed something terrifying in his eyes, not rage or not cruelty, but focus. A hunger for precision. He was made for this, shaped by the very air he breathed. You tried to match him, but hesitation caught your wrist each time. The idea of hurting him sat wrong in your chest.

When your blade finally grazed his arm by accident, you flinched. The hesitation cost you. In a blink, he disarmed you, with his sword’s edge at your shoulder. You froze, breathing hard, sweat dripping into your eyes. The instructor’s voice cut through the silence:

“Mercy is weakness. Again.”

But Damian wasn’t looking at the instructor. He was staring at you, lips pressed thin. You saw the sharp conflict there. His victory looked hollow.

You picked your sword back up. The next round was harsher, but quicker. The instructor barked orders, adjusting your stance with sharp hands. Damian didn’t hold back this time. He struck with the precision they demanded, every movement beautiful and awful in equal measure.

Then it happened: the edge of his sword slipped too far. A shallow line opened on your forearm, bright red against pale skin. You hissed at the sting. The instructor said nothing. Talia, from the balcony, only raised an eyebrow. The lesson continued.

Damian’s grip tightened. He wanted to stop. You saw it in the way his next swing faltered, the way his eyes flicked to the blood and then to your face. But the League didn’t allow hesitation, not even for him. He finished the bout. He won again. And when it was over, his sword hung limp at his side.

You were dismissed, praised for endurance while he was praised for control. Neither of you felt like you’d earned it.

That night, the desert wind crept through the shutters, bringing sand into the corners of the room. You sat on your bedroll, examining the small cut on your arm. It wasn’t deep, barely more than a scratch, but it throbbed in time with your heartbeat.

The door creaked open. Damian stepped in, still in his training clothes. His hair clung damply to his forehead, his eyes shadowed. In his hands, a small porcelain bowl of water and a strip of clean cloth. He didn’t say a word.

You watched him cross the floor, his movements careful, the same precision he’d shown in the ring now turned gentle. He knelt beside you and dipped the cloth into the water. When he took your arm, his fingers were steady, but his jaw was tight. The cloth touched your skin; the sting made you flinch. He froze. His breath caught, and for a second, you thought he’d apologize. But the words never came.

He just kept cleaning, methodically, as if by erasing the blood he could undo the entire day.

You studied his face, the faint tremor at the corner of his mouth, the guilt in the way he refused to look at you directly. When he finished, he wrapped the cloth around the cut with the precision of a surgeon. The knot was small and perfect.

“Thank you,” you said quietly.

He didn’t answer. He sat back, eyes fixed on the floor. The silence between you felt heavier than any punishment.

“You don’t have to prove anything to me,” you murmured finally.

That made him look up. Just for a second. His eyes, so sharp in daylight, were dark with something softer. He didn’t speak. He didn’t have to. He just nodded once, then stood and left the room without a sound.

You watched his shadow stretch across the wall, twin to your own, until it disappeared beyond the door.

The next morning, the sun rose red over the mountains. The air smelled of iron. When the bells rang, Damian was already in the courtyard, sword in hand. He trained harder than anyone else, each strike relentless. Every movement whispered the same silent vow: that he would become stronger, better, worthy of something he couldn’t yet name.

You watched from the shade of the archway, arm bandaged. When he caught your eye between drills, you smiled, not proud of his victory, but of his persistence.

He looked away quickly, but the corner of his mouth lifted, just barely.

The blade between you would never stop being sharp, but you both learned, in your own ways, that it could cut toward understanding as easily as it could toward distance.

And though neither of you could have said it aloud, you knew that every fight you ever had, on the training floor or beyond it, would always end the same way: with his hands shaking and your quiet forgiveness.

The courtyard was a forgotten wound between stone walls. No one went there except for the wind and the occasional lizard slithering between the cracks. You had found it by accident one morning after drills, as it bounced off the passageways of the League’s compound.

You shouldn’t have been there. You knew that. Every step you took away from the training yards was a sin; every moment spent without supervision was an act of defiance. But the silence called to you. It felt… softer here. The air still burned, but it wasn’t full of shouting, or the clang of metal, or the endless sermons about strength.

So, you stayed.

At first, it was just a moment’s reprieve. You sat, back against the wall, tracing the faded grooves in the stone with your fingers. Then one day, you found a patch of dirt near a cracked tile. You dug into it with your hands, curious, until your fingertips brushed against something small and green, struggling to live. A weed, maybe. Or something more stubborn. You didn’t know, and it didn’t matter. You decided it would live.

From that day on, every time you slipped away, you brought something: a cup of leftover water, a handful of sand to level the soil. Even your own breath whispered: grow.

When Damian found you, it was inevitable.

You heard him before you saw him: the quiet scuff of boots, the rhythm of his breathing. He always moved like a shadow.

“You’ll get caught,” he said, standing in the doorway, his silhouette outlined by sunlight and discipline.

You turned, smiling despite the way your heart jumped. “You sound like Mother.”

“I sound like someone who knows the rules,” he corrected, crossing his arms. His hair was slick with sweat from training, his sleeves rolled up, a bruise on his jaw. He was always bruised, always perfect.

You gestured to the small green sprouts trembling in the dirt. “Look.”

He crouched down, tilting his head. “They’ll die in this place,” he said simply, his tone flat, as though stating the weather.

You didn’t flinch. “Then they’ll die trying to live. Like us.”

He looked at you. For all his sharpness, his youth made him unsure.

“They shouldn’t die at all,” he muttered finally, but his voice had lost its edge.

After that, Damian didn’t speak of the courtyard again. He didn’t tell anyone about it and didn’t scold you for returning. He didn’t even follow you the next few times. But one afternoon, when you arrived with your little bowl of water, you noticed something glinting near the plants: a fragment of pottery, placed just so, reflecting sunlight onto the green shoots.

You blinked, kneeling. There was another the next day, and another. Bits of mirror, polished stone, shards of old training tiles, each one positioned with care, forming a ring of light around your little garden.

You never caught him doing it. You didn’t have to.

Over the weeks, the plants grew as thin, wiry things, defying logic and defying the League. And sometimes, between drills, you’d feel Damian’s gaze on you, faintly amused. You said nothing, neither did he.

And years later, when you were older, when Gotham’s skyline replaced the desert, when the nights were cold and filled with sirens, Damian would sometimes look at the city’s scattered lights and remember those shards of pottery, the garden that wasn’t supposed to exist.

The one you built.

The one he kept alive for you.

The day began with the scent of incense and the kind of cold air that clings to the back of your throat and makes even breathing feel like disobedience. The courtyards were empty, the sand still bearing the shallow grooves of the morning drills. Somewhere in the compound, you could hear the echo of blades clashing, a shout, the sharp whistle of Ra’s al Ghul’s staff cutting through the air.

It had been Damian’s lesson.

You hadn’t been allowed to watch, but you heard the outcome whispered by the servants before sunset: He disobeyed. He questioned Ra’s. He failed to kneel when told.

By nightfall, they brought him to the training hall again, but this time not as a student. Damian was on his knees in the center of the room, his arms stretched forward and weighted with iron bars tied at his wrists. His shoulders trembled under the strain, sweat tracing clean lines down his face.

He didn’t look at anyone, not even Ra’s. Especially not him.

The old man’s voice was measured, patient, and cruelly calm.

“An heir who does not obey cannot rule. A blade that does not yield must be broken, or reforged.”

Damian said nothing.

You stood at the edge of the room, still as the shadows. You weren’t meant to be there, no one had called you, but you came anyway. You’d seen punishments before. You’d seen pain before. But never his.

The room emptied slowly after Ra’s was done speaking. The torches sputtered out one by one, until only the last remained, casting your brother in half-light with gold on one side, darkness on the other. He stayed kneeling, unmoving, the iron weights biting into his wrists.

You waited until the guards left.

Then you slipped out of your hiding place, feet bare and careful against the cold stone. The air smelled of sweat and silence. You carried a small flask of water in your hands, and a crust of bread stolen from the kitchen hidden under your tunic.

When you reached him, Damian didn’t raise his head. His breath was shallow, his hair damp against his temples. You knelt beside him, setting the flask down quietly.

“Dami,” you whispered.

His jaw tightened. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“I know.” You reached for his wrist, the leather binding already cutting deep. He flinched, not from you, but from the effort of staying still. “Drink.”

He turned his face away. “Leave it.”

You frowned, heart pounding. “Please.”

A beat of silence. Then he opened his mouth, just enough for a sip. His lips were cracked, the water spilling down his chin. You caught it with your sleeve.

You wanted to tell him it wasn’t fair, that Ra’s was wrong, that he didn’t need to kneel to anyone. But you knew that here, words were useless. So you said the only thing that ever mattered.

“I’m here.”

His hands trembled once, the muscles in his arms quivering from the weight. His eyes finally met yours full of shame, maybe. Or fear.

You smiled at him anyway.

And that’s when you heard the sound: the sharp click of Ra’s’s cane against the floor.

He hadn’t left after all.

The old man’s gaze slid over you like a blade.

“Even now,” he said softly, “you defy me in spirit, if not in name.”

You rose instinctively, stepping between him and Damian. “He’s done enough.”

Ra’s didn’t answer. He simply tilted his head, and a guard stepped forward. The blow came fast, a sharp strike across your back that made the world go white. You stumbled but didn’t fall.

Damian did.

He lunged before the guard could hit you again, snarling, striking wildly, furious. But he was restrained in seconds, a hand at the back of his neck, his wrists twisted behind him.

“Enough,” Ra’s said again, quiet and absolute.

They dragged you both away. You weren’t allowed to speak to him that night, or the next.

But on the third night, when the torches burned out and the halls fell silent, you found your way to his chamber. You didn’t bother with stealth this time, you just went, barefoot and shaking, a half-healed bruise blooming under your ribs.

He was sitting by the window, back straight, eyes reflecting moonlight.

When you touched his shoulder, he didn’t turn. “You shouldn’t—”

“I don’t care.”

The words came out softer than you meant. You sat beside him, your fingers brushing the edge of his bandages. For a long time, neither of you spoke. The only sound was the desert wind outside.

Then, quietly, he broke.

Not loudly, not in the way other children did. Just… a sharp inhale, a tremor through his shoulders, a quiet collapse of all that pride and armor. You pressed your forehead to his, your own tears spilling before you realized they’d started.

“We’ll survive this, Dami,” you whispered. “Together.”

He breathed against your skin, steadying. His voice, when it came, was hoarse but certain.

“I’ll make sure we do.”

And from that night on, no matter how hard the training, or how deep the orders cut, you never doubted that he meant it.

Because even then, even broken and small, Damian Al-Ghul would always keep his promises.

The stars seemed pale while watching from above as if curious about the two shadows slipping through the ruins below.

You and Damian. The twins of the League.

Your footsteps made no sound on the cracked tiles of the old fortress. The moonlight drew a silver line down your blades. You were dressed the same, with black tunic, loose wraps around your arms and ankle, but the differences showed in how you moved.

Damian was precise. His eyes betrayed no doubt, no thought beyond the task. He was smaller than the men he trained with, but his movements carried far more danger.

You were quieter, but not in the same way. Your silence was made of hesitation. You felt the pulse of the world around you even here, in this place of darkness.

You had been given your orders.

“The target will be asleep,” Ra’s had said earlier that day, his tone almost indulgent. “A simple test. Nothing more.”

Nothing more.

But the League never tested without purpose. You had watched the instructors bow when Ra’s spoke, watched your mother’s expression stay calm as she watched you both prepare. Her eyes lingered on you longer, though, as if already sensing something dangerous in your softness.

The man inside the tent had once been an informant for the League. Now he was a liability. You knew nothing else: not his name, not his family, not what betrayal he had committed. Just that he was to die by your hands.

Damian entered first. You followed.

The tent was dim, lit by a single lantern that flickered with every breath of wind. The man slept on a cot, his chest rising and falling, his hair streaked with gray. He didn’t look like a traitor. He looked like someone’s father. Someone tired.

Damian glanced at you once, a signal. You nodded automatically, though your throat felt dry. He moved closer, drawing the blade from his belt with grace.

You waited for the moment. You’d trained for this. You’d killed in simulations with straw dummies, wooden effigies and live animals. You’d been taught to strike the heart and not hesitate.

But when you saw the man’s face, the lines around his mouth and the faint snore that trembled from his throat, your hand froze.

He wasn’t a target anymore. He was alive.

Your grip loosened.

Damian’s eyes flicked toward you, a question, confused. Now, he mouthed. You didn’t move.

The man stirred.

The second stretched. The air trembled.

You stepped back, just one step, and in that instant, Damian moved. A clean and silent motion. The blade met skin, and everything stopped.

There was no scream. Just the sound of fabric shifting, and then nothing at all.

You stood there, staring at the still body. The lantern flickered once, throwing light over the blood pooling under the cot. Damian exhaled, lowering the sword. His hand didn’t shake.

Yours did.

Outside, the wind howled, as if mocking you for your weakness.

He didn’t speak to you as you made your way back. He didn’t even look. His silence was heavier than any reprimand.

You didn’t speak for three days.

He trained longer, almost viciously. You saw the bruises on his arms, the cuts he didn’t bother bandaging. You knew that he was punishing himself, though he’d never admit it. Because it wasn’t you who’d failed, it was him. He’d done what you couldn’t.

On the fourth night, you found him sitting alone in the courtyard. The stars were faint above the League’s compound and he was cleaning his sword again even if it gleamed like glass under the fire.

You sat beside him. Neither of you spoke for a while. The metal rasped against the whetstone.

Finally, you said: “You don’t have to be what they made us.”

He froze mid-motion. The faintest tremor ran through his hands before he set the sword down.

“They didn’t make us,” he said quietly. “They forged us. There’s a difference.”

You turned to him. “There doesn’t have to be.”

For once, he looked young. Not a soldier, not an heir, not a proud lion carrying an empire on his back. Just a boy, sitting under the desert stars, terrified of what was already inside him.

“If not this…” he whispered, eyes distant, “…what am I?”

You wanted to tell him he was your brother, your other half, the one who reached for you before you were even born. But the words felt too fragile for this place.

So instead, you reached for his hand.

His fingers hesitated then curled around yours, slowly. The same way they had in the cradle, in the first breath of your shared life.

And though neither of you said it aloud, you both knew that something in him, in the heir, in the prince, had begun to fracture that night.

The temple roof was cold that night. The desert stretched endlessly below, quiet and merciless beneath the stars. You could hear the faint ringing of metal from distant courtyards where the older assassins still trained by torchlight, but up here, it was just the two of you.

You and Damian.

He’d found the place first: a ledge just below the main dome, where the wind passed softly enough to breathe but not enough to freeze. It wasn’t a secret anymore. It was yours.

You were both small still, too young for the weight of the world you were being shaped to inherit. Your legs dangled over the edge, your feet not touching the tiles below. Damian sat beside you, back straight even now, even when no one was watching.

His hands were wrapped in fresh bandages, faint traces of blood still seeping through. You’d seen him practicing too long again, refusing to stop until his palms split. The healers had scolded him. You hadn’t. You just found him here, and sat down without a word.

You looked up at the stars, they seemed closer here, sharper, like you could reach out and cut your fingers on their edges.

You started humming without meaning to. A quiet tune, half-forgotten, surely something your mother used to sing when you and Damian were still small enough to sleep side by side in the same cradle. You didn’t remember the words.

Damian’s head turned slightly. “What is that?”

You shrugged. “Something Mother used to hum when we were babies.”

He didn’t answer, but his posture eased just a little. The tension in his shoulders softened, his gaze tilting toward the horizon.

Then, out of nowhere, Damian said, “When I’m the heir, you’ll never have to kill again.”

You turned toward him, startled by the certainty in his voice. He was staring straight ahead, his jaw set, his tone almost regal. “I’ll make sure of it,” he continued, quieter now, but steady. “You’ll live somewhere safe. Somewhere far from all of this. I’ll give you everything.”

You blinked at him, warmth creeping into your chest. For a boy raised to command armies, his promises were always small and personal, and somehow, that made them heavier.

“Everything?” you teased gently.

“Yes,” he said, almost defensively. Then, after a pause: “Everything I can.”

You smiled. “You already have.”

He frowned, glancing at you for the first time. “What do you mean?”

“You are my twin,” you said simply.

Damian’s breath caught, a tiny sound, barely there. He looked away immediately, the tips of his ears darkening. “That’s not—” He stopped, unable to finish.

You watched him struggle with it, with the idea that someone could value him for something other than what he could do. That his existence, his loyalty, his love, even when silent, was enough.

The silence stretched, but it wasn’t empty.

You leaned back on your hands, gazing up at the stars again. The tune returned to your throat, softer this time, carried off by the wind. Beside you, Damian sat perfectly still, pretending not to listen, though you could see his hands relax against the stone, his eyes half-closed as if memorizing every note.

Down below, the torches in the courtyards flickered out one by one.

You hummed until your voice grew hoarse. Damian didn’t ask you to stop.

He never would.

Because for all the blades, all the battles and all the centuries of legacy weighing on his back, this was the only sound that ever made him feel like he wasn’t alone.

The announcement came at dawn. You were both summoned to the central hall, the one lined with banners of black silk and blades older than your bloodline. The sound of the summons echoed like a sentence.

Talia al Ghul stood waiting at the end of the long path of torches. Her expression was untouchable, as always. But you could tell from the tension in her shoulders that this was not another mission.

“You will come with me,” she said. “We are leaving Nanda Parbat.”

You felt the words settle in your chest like a slow poison.

Damian straightened beside you, eyes narrowing. “For how long?”

Talia’s gaze lingered on him, soft for only a breath. “For good.”

He went still. So did you.

There was no ceremony, no farewell. Just the quiet order to pack, and the desert wind sighing through the open arches. You could almost hear the League’s in the silence that followed.

You found Damian later in the courtyard, standing beside the small pool where you had once practiced balance drills as children. His reflection was a blur of black tunic and clenched fists.

“She’s serious,” he muttered. “She means to leave him behind.”

“Ra’s?” you asked softly.

Damian’s jaw tightened. “Everything. The League. The legacy. The destiny she swore I’d inherit.”

He looked smaller than you’d ever seen him, like a boy watching his kingdom crumble before he ever got to rule it.

You stepped closer. “Maybe it’s not the end.”

“It is,” he said, voice trembling with something too close to grief. “She’s taking us to the West. To him.”

He spat the last word like venom. You’d heard stories: Bruce Wayne, the father who had refused to claim them until now, the man of the Bat. A symbol, a stranger, a shadow that had haunted every whispered conversation between Talia and the elders.

Part of you should have felt excited by the idea of something different. But all you felt was fear. Fear of losing the only world you knew, the only one you knew.

Damian’s rage filled the silence for both of you. “He doesn’t deserve us. He doesn’t deserve her.”

You placed a hand on his arm. “Maybe he just wants a chance.”

His glare softened, but only slightly. “A chance to do what? Civilize us?”

You didn’t answer. You just looked at him, your twin, the boy who had bled for you, fought for you, vowed to keep you safe even when he didn’t know how.

“Maybe,” you said quietly, “it’s time to rest.”

He turned away, eyes blazing. “I don’t know how.”

The flight was silent. The hum of the engines filled the void where the desert wind used to live. You sat side by side in the private jet, wrapped in heavy cloaks that still smelled faintly of incense and steel.

Talia sat a few rows ahead, reading documents under a dim light. You watched the horizon vanish beneath you, the dunes melting into clouds and the familiar replaced by endless sky.

Damian hadn’t spoken since takeoff. His fists were pressed against his knees, white-knuckled. You could feel the storm brewing inside him, the confusion twisting into something raw.

You reached for his hand.

He flinched at first by habit, but then his fingers found yours, clinging harder than they needed to.

You turned your head to him. His eyes were half-closed and his lashes trembling. For once, he looked his age, still too young.

“Don’t let go,” he whispered.

Your thumb brushed his knuckles. “Never.”

He didn’t look at you, but his breathing steadied. The mechanical noise of the plane wrapped around you both.

Below you, everything you’d ever known disappeared beneath clouds.

You didn’t cry. Neither did he.

You just held on. The last two children of the League, bound by the simple, stubborn promise that whatever waited on the other side of the world, you would face it together.

Gotham smelled wrong.

It was wet and green and alive in a way the desert never was, with damp soil instead of dust and leaves instead of sand that burned. Even the air tasted different: heavy, full of unseen things. Damian had never liked things that breathed without permission.

But Wayne Manor breathed.

Its walls ticked. Every window had the soft shiver of curtains that caught drafts and moved on their own. To Damian, it felt like a trap: too wide, too open, and too loud. To you, though, it was wonder.

He saw it in the way your eyes widened at the chandelier that glittered, in the way you stepped softly over the marble floor, fingers brushing the polished banister as if you were afraid to break it. You whispered: “It’s beautiful.”

Damian only grunted. His boots clicked sharply as he walked beside you, chin lifted, jaw clenched. The perfect heir, as trained. But you saw his fingers twitch. You always saw.

When Alfred appeared at the top of the stairs, Damian froze. The man was nothing like the instructors from the League. He had no armor or blade at his hip, so no visible threat. Just calm eyes and a kind of grace that made Damian more suspicious than comforted.

“Welcome home, young Mistrums.”

You smiled immediately, bright and open, and bowed a little, awkward. “Hello,” you said. “Thank you for having us.”

Alfred’s lips twitched, almost fondly. “It is my pleasure. I’ve prepared rooms for you both. Dinner will be ready shortly.”

“Dinner,” Damian repeated, as if the word itself offended him.

“Yes, Master Damian,” Alfred said mildly. “A meal. You’ll find it much improved from League rations, I imagine.”

You stifled a laugh. Damian shot you a look sharp enough to wound.

Your room was soft. That was the first thing you noticed. The bed sank under your touch, and the sheets smelled faintly of lavender. You pressed your hand to the glass and whispered, “It’s so green... and grey.”

From the hallway, you heard Damian muttering to himself while pacing. When you peeked in, he was standing in the middle of his room, fists tight at his sides, surrounded by too much comfort.

He caught you staring. “It’s all wrong.”

You tilted your head. “It’s just new.”

“They’ll make us weak,” he snapped. “Soft.”

You stepped inside. “Maybe soft isn’t bad.”

He looked at you with the same eyes, but colder, carved by expectation. “It is when softness gets you killed.”

You wanted to argue, but his voice cracked just slightly, and that was enough. You said nothing. You just reached out, placed your hand over his. His knuckles were white, trembling faintly.

Dinner was… strange.

You sat at the long mahogany table, feet barely touching the floor, while Damian glared at the silverware like it was an enemy. Bruce Wayne sat at the head of the table in a tailored suit, watching both of you with an expression Damian couldn’t read.

When Alfred served roasted vegetables and real bread, you looked down at your plate as though it were a treasure. “It smells amazing,” you said.

Damian didn’t answer. He poked the food once with his fork.

“Do you not eat?” Bruce asked finally, voice low but not unkind.

Damian’s head snapped up. “I eat what I need to.”

You nudged him under the table, a silent plea. “We’re not used to meals like this,” you explained gently. “It’s… kind of wonderful.”

Bruce’s gaze softened, just a little. “Then take your time. There’s no rush here.”

Damian’s jaw worked, but he stayed silent. You could almost feel the war happening behind his eyes.

Later, when you thanked Alfred for dinner, Damian stayed back, watching. The warmth between you and the butler unsettled him. It reminded him of the courtyard garden back in the League, the one you’d kept alive against all odds.

Except this time, he didn’t know how to nurture anything.

In the weeks that followed, you adapted quickly.

You learned the kitchen with Alfred, burning your first attempt at pancakes but laughing anyway. You wandered through the garden with Dick, chasing butterflies with the kind of joy Damian hadn’t seen since you were both very small. You even talked to Tim in the library, curious about his gadgets and the glow of the computer screens.

Damian watched from the doorway more often than he joined.

Sometimes you’d catch him there, arms crossed and a scowl carved into his face that didn’t reach his eyes. You’d wave. He’d look away.

But once, when you fell asleep on the couch after reading too long, Damian quietly draped a blanket over you. His hand hovered for a second over your hair before he pulled it back sharply, as if burned.

In the stillness of the manor, he whispered something too soft to hear.

Maybe it was mine.

Maybe it was don’t leave me.

Maybe it was both.

That night, Damian stood at his window, staring at the dark city outside.

He heard footsteps. Yours. Always yours.

“Can’t sleep?” you asked, padding in barefoot, holding a mug of cocoa you’d learned to make from Alfred.

He didn’t answer.

You sat beside him on the window ledge, handing him the mug. “It’s sweet. You’ll hate it.”

He took it anyway. The first sip made him grimace. “Disgusting.”

You laughed quietly. “Then why are you drinking it?”

He didn’t know. Maybe because you had made it. Maybe because it was warm, and he didn’t know what to do with warmth except hold it until it hurt.

You leaned your head on his shoulder. “Do you think we’ll be safe here?” you whispered.

Damian hesitated. Then, very quietly, he said, “If we’re not, I’ll make it safe.”

You smiled against his sleeve. “You always say that.”

He glanced down at you, at your sleepy eyes, your cocoa-stained lip, and your hand curled in his sleeve like you were still afraid he’d vanish.

“Because I always mean it.”

And for the first time since arriving in Gotham, Damian Wayne let himself breathe, too.

The manor was too quiet at night.

The League had always hummed, even in darkness, with the whisper of guards shifting their weight, the drip of condensation from the stone ceilings, the muted breathing in the barracks. Even silence there had purpose. But here… here it was hollow.

No orders.

No footsteps.

No heartbeat but his own.

Damian lay still for a long time, staring up at the ceiling painted with faint moonlight. The clock in the hallway ticked too slow. The shadows on his wall looked wrong. He could hear an owl somewhere in the outside, surely laughing at him.

When he turned onto his side, the bed dipped under his movement. Everything here breathes, he thought bitterly.

He kicked the covers off and stood. The floor was cool beneath his feet.

He paced.

Three steps one way.

Three steps back.

He didn’t even know what he was waiting for. Danger, perhaps. A voice. His mother’s call. Ra’s’ command. Anything that would remind him who he was supposed to be. But nothing came.

Just the creak of wood, the sound of leaves moving outside.

And the ticking.

It began to grate against him. That clock, like it was mocking his restlessness. He pressed his hands to his ears, squeezed his eyes shut. Stop thinking, stop hearing, stop being, but the quiet pressed harder, wrapping around him like water, until he couldn’t tell if he was suffocating or drowning.

He needed noise. He needed you.

Before he could question it, Damian crossed the hall. The old floorboards groaned under his bare feet. The door to your room was cracked open. He could see the faint shape of you beneath the blankets, chest rising and falling steadily.

For a moment, he just stood there, watching. Your hair spilled across the pillow, one arm thrown out like a child’s, unguarded, unafraid.

He hated how fragile it looked.

He hated that it made him feel something softer than fear.

You stirred, eyes fluttering open. “… Dami?”

He froze. “I— couldn’t sleep.”

You blinked blearily, sitting up. “Too quiet?”

He didn’t answer. His silence was enough.

You sighed, not annoyed, just tired in that gentle way you always were with him. “Come here.”

He hesitated. You lifted the blanket in quiet invitation.

He climbed in without another word.

The mattress dipped under his weight. He lay on his back at first, eyes open, every muscle taut. You turned to face the wall, giving him space.

For a while, neither of you spoke. The ticking clock softened, distant again. Damian exhaled slowly, almost soundlessly.

You smiled faintly into the dark. “You can rest now.”

He turned his head toward you, just a shadow beside him, but one he knew better than his own reflection. “Only if you’re near.”

Something in your chest cracked open at that.

You didn’t say anything. You just reached back, searching blindly until your fingers brushed his wrist.

His hand was cold. Yours was not.

After a while, you felt him relax, inch by inch, until the sharpness in him dulled. His breathing softened, synced with yours.

You thought he might have fallen asleep, but then, quietly, he whispered: “Do you think it’ll ever stop feeling strange?”

“What?”

“This,” he said, voice barely audible. “All of this.”

You thought for a long time before answering. “Maybe not right away. But you’ll get used to it.”

He was silent. Then: “What if I don’t want to?”

You smiled sadly into the dark. “Then I’ll get used to it for both of us.”

He didn’t answered, again.

When you woke in the morning, the first sunlight spilling across the room, you found him still there, with the faintest trace of a frown lingering in his sleep.

Even in freedom, Damian Wayne didn’t know how to rest.

But as long as you were there, he was learning.

The first thing you noticed about Bruce Wayne was not his height, or his voice, or even the way his presence seemed to command the room easily; it was his patience.

It unsettled Damian.

In the League, patience was a tactic meant to outlast an enemy, to wait before striking. But Bruce’s patience was different. It wasn’t strategy. It was care, and that, more than anything, made Damian uneasy.

You learned this the first week Bruce began training the two of you.

Mornings started in the gym. Damian preferred the mats: he knew his body and his movements. But Bruce didn’t spar with him like the instructors did. He didn’t move to humiliate, or to bruised him. He was just teaching.

And that, to Damian, felt like insult.

You could see it in the tension in his shoulders. Every correction Bruce gave him landed like a slap. Damian’s eyes would flash, his hands tightening around the practice staff until his knuckles blanched white.

Meanwhile, Bruce worked differently with you.

He taught you to look.

Not at the blade or the body. But at the room.

You had grown up seeing survival in terms of motion, as who struck first and who didn’t fall. But Bruce showed you how to see after. How to observe, to analyze, and more than that, to understand.

And he never raised his voice.

That alone was enough to confuse you both.

It was raining the day Damian snapped.

Training had gone on too long. He had been corrected one too many times, and Bruce, oh calm Bruce, had simply stepped back and said: “You’re not listening, Damian.”

The words were rational, but in them Damian heard: You’re not enough.

He threw down his staff, breath ragged. “Then show me! Stop pretending I’m a child!”

“Because you are one,” Bruce said simply.

The air cracked like thunder.

You’d stood between them before it could escalate, your palm hovering near Damian’s chest. He had stared at Bruce, fury burning behind his eyes, then stormed out into the hallway, the echo of his boots trailing him like a pulse.

Bruce sighed. “He’s not angry at me,” he murmured. “Not really.”

You looked up at him. “I know.”

That evening, you found Damian in the garden, the one Alfred had shown you how to tend. The rain had stopped, but the ground still shimmered with drops of light.

He was sitting on the stone steps, elbows on his knees, scowling at nothing.

You sat beside him without speaking.

He didn’t look at you, just muttered, “He treats me like a child.”

“You are a child,” you said softly, teasing just enough to make him glance your way.

He didn’t smile.

“He’s not testing you, Damian,” you said after a while. “He’s trying to know you.”

Damian’s hands clenched. His eyes darted toward the manor, at all the things he didn’t yet understand.

“Then why does it feel like failure?” he whispered.

You took a slow breath. “Because you’ve never been loved this way before.”

That silenced him.

He looked down at his palms, still faintly red from practice, and then at you, like he was searching your face for proof.

For the first time that day, he didn’t look away. His eyes softened, not much, but enough.

You leaned against the cold stone step, letting your shoulder brush his. Of course he didn’t pull back.

The stars began to appear again, faint through the clouds.

There was the sound of engines, of boots on gravel, of the Batmobile roaring down the drive, and Damian sitting inside it, face half-hidden beneath the new mask that bore the symbol of everything he’d ever wanted.

Robin.

You stood by the door, pretending you weren’t trembling. Alfred was the one who placed a hand on your shoulder, steady and quiet. “They’ll be back before dawn,” he said softly. “Master Damian has waited a long time for this.”

“I know,” you murmured. And you did. You’d seen the way he looked at the cape, the gloves, the way he carried himself when Bruce called him partner. You’d watched pride bloom in him.

But still, it hurt to see him go without you.

You stayed behind in the Cave. You couldn’t fight like them, not yet. Bruce had said your training would come later, that you had other skills, a different place in the field. So you kept busy. You patched torn suits with Alfred. You watched the monitors. You listened to the radio chatter.

At first, it felt like breathing again. Hearing Damian sound alive.

But as the night went on, the tone changed. The static hissed, and the heart monitor spiked. You heard Bruce’s warning: “Robin, fall back—” and Damian’s answering growl, “I’ve got this.”

Then silence.

You didn’t realize how long you’d been standing until Alfred’s voice broke through. “They’re on their way back.”

Your fingers trembled as you reset the medbay. You didn’t breathe again until the Cave filled with the low hum of the Batmobile’s return.

The hatch opened. Bruce stepped out first, composed but weary. And then Damian followed, helmet in one hand, cape torn, a streak of blood across his cheek. He was grinning.

It wasn’t the triumphant grin of a boy who’d won. It was the wild, breathless rush of someone who had survived.

You were already there, hands reaching before you could think. “Damian—”

“I’m fine,” he cut you off, too quickly.

You frowned, scanning him anyway, the bruise forming along his jaw, the torn glove, the scrape along his ribs. “You’re not. You should’ve waited for backup—”

He stiffened. “I had it under control.”

“Bruce said—”

“I had it under control!” His voice cracked through the Cave, sharp as the ring of metal. Even Bruce paused mid-step, looking back. Damian’s chest was rising and falling too fast, his hands clenched at his sides. “You can’t tell me what to do anymore.”

The words landed.

For a moment, the old walls of Nanda Parbat rose around you again, suffocating and filled with echoes of discipline and defiance. But this wasn’t the League. This was home.

You took a slow breath. “I never did,” you said quietly.

Damian froze.

“I just worried.”

Something shifted in his eyes, that split second of realization, guilt flickering behind pride. He exhaled, jaw tightening. “Don’t.”

You tilted your head. “Don’t what?”

“Don’t worry,” he muttered, softer now, eyes dropping to the floor. “You shouldn’t have to.”

You smiled, the kind that reached your eyes but hurt your heart. “You say that like I could stop.”

He didn’t answer. He just stood there, breathing unevenly, and then, without quite meaning to, he reached out. You caught his hand. The leather was rough against your palm, still warm from the night’s fight.

“Next time,” you said quietly, “you come back before I start imagining the worst.”

He huffed, not quite a laugh, not quite a sigh. “Next time, I’ll try.”

“Good.”

And just like that, the silence between you eased.

As Damian went to tend his gear, you stayed where you were, watching him move, the way his shoulders squared even when he limped, or how he glanced at you from the corner of his eye just to make sure you were still there.

Because beneath all the armor, the training, and new legacy, he was still your twin.

Still the boy who once whispered, Don’t let go.

And you, as ever, still answered, Never.

You’d been used to the silence of the manor. It wasn’t a place for loudness, not at first. Not when you arrived, and certainly not when Damian was still learning to inhabit his own name, his own place. But things change. People begin to fill the empty rooms.

It begins with Dick.

He’s a storm of charm, all bright laughter and easy confidence, a kind of warmth that doesn’t wait for permission to exist. You catch him one evening in the kitchen, stealing cookies Alfred just pulled from the oven. He flashes you a grin, mouth half-full, offering one.

“Gotta carbo-load before patrol,” he says through crumbs.

You arch a brow. “You mean you have no self-control.”

He laughs, unbothered. “That too.”

It’s the first time you hear laughter that stays in the manor, not just a short, startled sound. And when Damian storms in ten minutes later, cape dragging a smear of dirt on the marble floor, it’s Dick who nudges him toward you with a wink.

“Your partner-in-worry here has been patching your gear all day,” he teases.

Damian glares at him, muttering something in Arabic that you’re fairly certain isn’t kind, but there’s a faint flush on his cheeks.

Then there’s Tim.

Where Dick is sunlight, Tim is… quiet. You find him in the library more often than not, surrounded by three monitors and an impossible amount of caffeine. At first, he looks up when you enter, tense, as if you’re another variable in his big brain.

“Damian talks about you,” he says one day, without looking away from the screen.

You pause mid-step. “Does he.”

Tim hums. “Mostly insults, but I can tell it’s… affection-adjacent.”

You can’t help the smile that slips out. “That’s high praise, coming from him.”

Tim’s lips twitch. It’s the beginning of something oddly endearing: mutual tolerance that turns into occasional collaboration. He shows you how to calibrate the comms, you bring him tea when he forgets to eat, and slowly, the edges blur.

Even Alfred notices.

You catch him watching sometimes, that knowing look of his. One morning, as you’re fixing a rip in Damian’s gauntlet by the kitchen window, he sets a cup of tea beside you. No words at first. Just the soft clink of porcelain.

“You’ve a steadying presence,” he says at last.

You look up. “I try.”

The words stay with you.

And yet, through it all, Damian remains the axis around which your world turns. Even as he begins to spar with the others, even as he calls Dick Grayson instead of the acrobat, even as he starts to trust, little by little, it’s clear where his center of gravity remains.

He’ll tolerate Dick’s teasing, endure Tim’s sarcasm, even respect Bruce’s silences. But when he’s hurt, it’s still your voice he finds first on comms.

When he’s angry, it’s your calm he seeks.

When he’s triumphant, it’s your approval he glances toward before he lets anyone else praise him.

You see it in the small things. In how he unconsciously drapes his cape near where you sit on the couch, so it brushes your knee, grounding him. In how he mutters “tch” whenever you and Dick share an inside joke, even as he doesn’t leave the room. In how his sharp words soften when directed your way, even when he’s pretending not to care.

One night, during an unusually peaceful evening at the manor, the five of you share dinner together, with Bruce at the head of the table, Alfred serving, Dick chatting animatedly, Tim answering in dry wit, and Damian rolling his eyes.

You sit between Damian and Dick, quietly, smiling when Dick recounts some ludicrous patrol story involving flaming dumpsters and a terrified cat.

Damian scoffs. “Your stories grow more absurd every time you tell them.”

Dick winks. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

You laugh softly, and Damian’s attention flickers to you, like he’s keeping your laughter for later.

The conversation moves on. Alfred brings out dessert. The air feels easier than it used to.

Later, when the night settles and everyone’s scattered (Dick back to Blüdhaven, Tim to his research, Bruce to the cave) Damian lingers in the doorway as you tidy up. His voice is quieter than usual.

“They like you,” he says, tone carefully neutral.

You smile without looking up. “Do you?”

“I always have.”

It’s not dramatic, not the kind of confession meant for big moments.

And when he turns to go, you see it clearly: the boy who once stood alone in his mother’s shadow now surrounded by people who see him, each one helping him become something more than what he was told to be.

And through it all, you remain right where he needs you to be.

Not leading, or following. Just there.

Home.

It wasn’t supposed to be dangerous.

You’d said that exact thing when you left the manor that night, tugging on the comm earpiece, rolling your eyes when Damian fussed over the straps of your vest. “I’m just coordinating with Oracle,” you told him, patient in a way you’d learned from years beside him. “I’ll be behind the line, helping with intel, not on the ground.”

He hadn’t looked convinced. He rarely was.

“I don’t like it,” he’d muttered, arms crossed, the sharpness in his voice doing little to hide the undercurrent of worry. “You shouldn’t be near an active operation. You’re not trained for combat.”

You’d smiled then, not mockingly, but with a softness that he still hadn’t learned to deflect. “I’m not planning on fighting anyone, Damian. I’ll be fine.”

He’d turned away, jaw clenched. “You always say that.”

And then you’d gone.

The mission was supposed to be simple: a weapons drop, intercepted intel, one of Gotham’s mid-tier syndicates moving stolen tech through the Narrows. The kind of job Oracle could manage with her eyes closed. The kind of night where Robin didn’t expect to bleed.

Except Gotham never cared for simplicity.

The first explosion hit two blocks from your van, just enough to scatter the team. Oracle’s voice came through in sharp bursts over the comms, orders crackling with static. Then the gunfire started.

You’d stayed in your seat, fingers moving fast over the keyboard, tracking heat signatures, redirecting patrol routes. But then you’d seen it: a group of civilians caught between alley walls, pinned down by crossfire. And when the comm line cut out, when you couldn’t reach Damian’s frequency, you made the call that would change everything.

You left the van.

“Oracle, I’m moving in to get them,” you said, breath quick through the comms.

Barbara’s voice snapped back instantly: “Negative! Stay out of the open—”

But you didn’t listen. You were already running.

Damian caught the sound of your voice mid-stride, vaulting a fire escape in pursuit of an escaping gunman. At first, it didn’t register. He’d gotten used to your voice crackling through his earpiece. But there was something in your tone this time, as the sound of running.

He froze. “Where are you?”

“Just helping the civvies out of crossfire,” you panted. “I’m fine—”

A gunshot cut through the channel.

Then static.

Damian’s heart stopped.

“What? Answer me!”

He didn’t wait. He didn’t think. He dropped the grappling line and ran, rooftops blurring beneath his boots, the world narrowing into one singular instinct: get to them.

He found you half a block from the van, crouched beside a terrified woman and child, one hand pressed against your side where the blood was already soaking through your vest. You were trying to speak into your comm again, voice shaking but still focused. That same tone, the one that had guided him through every mistake he’d ever made.

When you looked up and saw him, your eyes widened with relief. “You—”

Then you swayed.

Damian caught you before you hit the pavement. His gloves came away red. Too red.

He heard the footsteps, the shooter emerging from the shadows, weapon raised again, and something inside him snapped.

He moved before he thought, before he breathed, before he felt.

It wasn’t training. It was instinct, vengeance. He tore through the distance, disarmed the man, and drove him to the ground with enough force to crack bone. His fists came down again and again, the world nothing but the thud of impact and the roar in his ears.

He didn’t hear Bruce shouting his name until the older man physically pulled him back.

“Damian! Stop!”

He struggled, voice breaking out of him in a snarl. “He shot them! He—”

“Enough!”

Bruce’s tone was the kind that had stopped Damian mid-attack since he was ten. But this time, the command didn’t sink in immediately. It took another second, another pulse of ragged breath, before Damian stopped fighting against his father’s grip.

He looked down. The attacker was unconscious, barely alive.

And then he turned toward you again.

You were lying still, too still. Barbara’s voice barked orders through the comm, medevac coordinates, pressure on the wound. Damian barely registered any of it. He cradled your head in his lap, fingers trembling as he pressed gauze to your side.

“Stay awake,” he said. Not an order, but a plea. “Do you hear me? You don’t get to— you don’t get to do this.”

You tried to smile. It came out faint, shaky. “You’re yelling.”

“I’m not—” His voice broke. “I’m not yelling.”

You closed your eyes.

The hospital was a blur. Sirens, lights, too many hands taking you from his arms. He’d followed the gurney until Alfred physically intercepted him at the ER doors.

“Master Damian,” Alfred said softly, hands steady on his shoulders. “You need to let them work.”

“I can’t—”

“You must.”

He didn’t argue. He just stood there, blood drying on his gloves, watching the doors swing shut behind you.

He didn’t leave your bedside. Not once.

Through the night, through the antiseptic dawn, he sat, and every inch of him a contradiction between soldier and child. Dick tried to talk to him. Tim brought him coffee. Even Bruce hovered once or twice at the doorway. But no one could reach him.

He just kept his eyes on you. The soft rise and fall of your chest under the white sheets. The beeping of the heart monitor.

When Alfred came in to change your IV, Damian asked, quietly, “Will they be okay?”

Alfred paused. “The doctors are optimistic.”

It wasn’t enough.

He stayed anyway.

You woke up near dawn, disoriented, and throat dry. The first thing you saw was him, slumped forward in the chair, cape draped awkwardly over his knees, his head bowed against the side of your bed.

“Damian,” you croaked, voice hoarse.

His head snapped up. The moment his eyes met yours, everything in him seemed to fracture. He leaned forward instantly, hand trembling as it found yours.

“You’re awake,” he breathed, relief and exhaustion tangled.

You smiled faintly. “Told you I’d be fine.”

He didn’t smile back. His grip tightened, like if he let go, you’d vanish again.

“If anything happened to you,” he said quietly, his voice raw, unguarded in a way that broke your heart, “there wouldn’t be a me left.”

You blinked.

“Damian,” you whispered. “There’s always you.”

He shook his head, the movement small.

He lowered his head, forehead resting against your hand, and for a long time, neither of you spoke. The only sound was the steady rhythm of the monitor.

Outside, dawn crept through the blinds.

And Damian, eyes closed, still holding your hand, whispered something you almost didn’t catch.

“Never again.”

You didn’t know if he meant the mission, the fear, or the possibility of losing you.

Maybe all of it.

But when his fingers tightened around yours, the promise felt real enough to make you believe, for a little while, that nothing in Gotham could break your bond.

Not the city.

Not the war.

Not even death.

Gotham never sleeps.

It breathes instead. Even now, years later, Damian can tell what hour it is by the way the city sounds outside his window: sirens at three and quiet at four.

He sits at his desk, the only light a dim lamp pooling gold over the half-finished sketches before him, some new design for the Cave that will never truly be finished. He hasn’t touched the pencil in twenty minutes. His eyes are fixed on the window instead, on the faint reflection that stares back at him.

For a long time, he doesn’t recognize the man looking out of that glass.

Then he does.

And it hurts.

The reflection is his father’s jawline, his mother’s stare, his grandfather’s shadow, but beneath it all, something else lingers. Something he doesn’t deserve but carries anyway.

You.

When he closes his eyes, he can still hear it: the sound of your laughter echoing in the hidden courtyard, where you tried to coax color from the dust.

You’d stolen a handful of seeds from a supply crate meant for the kitchen. “Herbs,” you’d said proudly, palms smudged with dirt. “For flavor.”

He’d scoffed, because that was his role. “They’ll die here,” he told you. “Nothing survives this place.”

You’d only smiled with that small, infuriating smile that still haunts him.

“Then they’ll die trying to live. Like us.”

He hadn’t understood it then. Not really. But later, when the first fragile shoots broke through the sand, he’d found himself bringing bits of sunlight with reflective shards, a broken piece of pottery, anything to catch the light. He’d never said it aloud, but he’d wanted to help them grow. Help you grow.

Now, when he sees the tiny sprigs in Alfred’s greenhouse, when the sun hits the glass just right, he swears he can smell that same desert air, dry, sharp and tinged with the faint sweetness of that moment.

He remembers your hand steadying his blade.

The first time he’d been handed a real sword, he’d gripped it too tight. His instructors had barked corrections, but you hadn’t said a word. You’d simply stepped close, adjusted his wrist, your touch careful and sure.

“Breathe,” you’d whispered.

He hadn’t wanted to, hadn’t needed to, but he’d done it anyway. Because it was you.

And every time he’s drawn a blade since, every mission, every fight, that word lives in his head. Breathe.

You always were the air in his lungs when the world tried to make him stone.

He remembers the night you both disobeyed Ra’s.

You were just children, foolish and defiant, brave in all the wrong ways. He’d knelt for hours, arms trembling under weights designed to break spirit before body. He remembers the ache, the rage, the quiet humiliation. He remembers you sneaking in, your hands shaking as you lifted a cup of water to his lips.

Ra’s had found out. You were punished too.

And for the first time, Damian had cried.

He hadn’t known how to hold grief then. You had simply held him instead.

It’s strange, he thinks, how easily the mind turns pain into happiness.

You bled beside him, you burned under the same lessons, and yet, when he looks back, all he remembers is the softness. The secret smiles shared behind stone walls, the whispers before sleep, the way your presence dulled the edges of his anger.

Talia once told him he was born of war, destined for greatness.

You told him he was enough.

When Bruce came for him, when the desert turned to steel and city light, he’d thought the hardest part would be learning restraint. But it wasn’t. It was learning to live without you.

The manor had too many rooms, too much sound. The ticking clocks unnerved him, the smell of baked bread made his throat ache. He’d watched you adjust, smiling at Alfred, laughing at Dick’s jokes, learning the names of plants in the greenhouse.

You’d belonged here long before he did.

He remembers the night he told you that. You’d been sitting in the garden, Gotham’s night air cool against your skin, and he’d said it, his words wrapped in irritation.

“You fit here,” he muttered. “With them. With him.”

You’d smiled, soft and a little sad. “And you don’t?”

He’d looked away. “I’m not built for this kind of... of places.”

You’d touched his shoulder. “Then build your own kind.”

He’d wanted to argue, but he didn’t. Because he never won arguments with you.

He exhales now, long and slow, eyes flicking toward the edge of his desk, where a single pressed flower rests beneath the glass.

One of the desert plants.

The only one that bloomed.

He’d found it again years later, on one of Talia’s old estates, the courtyard overtaken by dust and ruin. But the flowers had grown wild, hundreds of them, scattered between the stones.

He’d taken one. Brought it back.

It’s the only piece of the League he’s kept willingly.

“People think my father made me better,” he says aloud, voice quiet against the hum of the lamp. “But it was you. Always you.”

He doesn’t talk to ghosts, not really. But tonight, the city outside feels softer. Almost listening.

He lets the silence stretch, heavy but familiar.

“You said we didn’t have to be like them,” he murmurs. “I didn’t believe you. Not then.”

He looks out the window again. Somewhere in the distance, the Bat-Signal cuts through the clouds, a familiar summons, a promise that the work never ends.

He stands, pulling the cowl into place, his reflection splitting into shadow.

“But I try,” he says softly. “Every night, I try.”

He turns toward the window, the city stretching below him like a living thing. The same way you’d looked at the desert once and seen something worth saving.

He still carries your voice in his head, that quiet certainty, that strange, stubborn faith that the world could be kind.

And as he steps into the Gotham dark, he whispers your name as a prayer, a memory stitched into his heart.

We’ll survive this, Dami. Together.

“Always,” he breathes back into the night.

You’re sitting in a little café, one near your college but far enough from the usual rush that it feels like a secret. It’s a quiet place, almost hidden, serving mostly Middle Eastern and Asian dishes, with a scattering of fragrant teas and delicate pastries. 

Hell, they even make you take off your shoes at the entrance, insisting the little place be considered a home you're entering.

Its sign isn’t a name at all but a drawing—two silhouettes mid-dance, hands nearly touching, capturing something wordless: love that moves beyond language. 

Those who are lucky enough to know the place simply call it “The Dancers,” each in their own tongue.

“الراقصون,” Damian says, his accent rounding the word softly.

Or sometimes,

“นักเต้น,”

“நடனக் கலைஞர்கள்,”

“舞者们.”

Each translation sounds like a melody of its own—words carried by smiling mouths, each one a verse of affection for this hidden café.

It’s the last of them, though—the Mandarin—that Damian now struggles with, pen poised above his notebook like a knight facing an impossible foe. He’s so focused that he’s forgotten his tea entirely. It sits before him, long since gone cold, yet he doesn’t even notice. You nearly laugh, biting your sleeve to keep it in; he always stops drinking once it’s at room temperature, yet here he is, utterly lost in a battle of brushstrokes and lines.

Leaning forward slightly, you glance down at his work. One manicured nail taps gently against a character on the page.

“Your rì (日) looks like a yuē (曰), ḥubbī. Close the line,” you say softly. Your Mandarin skills may be far from perfect—certainly nothing that would impress a professor—but they are miles ahead of Damian’s, and that’s enough for now.

“What—?” He blinks, realizing the mistake, his brow somehow furrowing even deeper. “Hmph.”

He corrects the character with a huff, and though he looks more frustrated than before, there’s something endearing about it. For once, Damian Wayne has found something he cannot master in twelve hours, and the sight fills you with a peculiar pride—he’s allowing himself to struggle, and he’s allowing you to see it.

You break off a piece of your biscuit and hold it out to him. Wordlessly, he bites it from your fingers, careful not to let his lips brush your skin. His strokes are still too round, the characters just slightly blurred together, but they’re legible. You tell him as much, trying to sound reassuring.

He glances up from his notebook, meeting your eyes briefly. “Don’t.”

And that’s all the thanks you’ll get for your excellent tutoring—for the next twenty minutes, at least. You correct a few strokes here and there, thinking, perhaps foolishly, that he’s improving.

Until you realize—

“Love, you’re writing from right to left,” you murmur, gently tapping his hand with the back of your pen.

Damian freezes. He looks from his notebook to the open textbook, then exhales through his nose, rubbing his temples as though he’s holding back a groan. The sight makes you smile despite yourself.

You rise and slide around the small table to sit beside him in the long booth. Your coats brush together; the faint scent of his cologne mixes with the tea and cinnamon in the air.

“It’s a hard adjustment,” you say softly. “The writing systems are completely different. Arabic has its own alphabet, and Mandarin is logographic, not phonetic—so be patient with yourself—”

He cuts you off gently, his voice quiet but steady. “Teach me how to write my name.”

He hands you his pen—the good one—and nudges the notebook toward you. You hesitate, mildly exasperated at how easily he gets you to do what he wants. And God, he looks good today. He always looks good, but today there’s something different—a touch of color at last. The dark navy sweater beneath his black trench coat softens him somehow.

“Qamarī?” he murmurs, tapping the page, his head tilted. “Does it not work?”

“No, it—” You stop yourself, the end of the pen resting against your lips as you try to compose your blush. Then, in gentle strokes, you write:

达米安

“That’s how you write ‘Damian,’” you whisper. “Phonetically, at least. And Wayne is spelled like…”

韦恩

He studies the characters in silence, then carefully takes the pen back. Each time he makes even the smallest error, he restarts entirely, stubbornly chasing perfection.

You smile softly, slipping your hand across the page to add another name beside his—

阿尔·古尔

He pauses, eyes flicking toward the new characters. Then it clicks even though he can't read it, “Al-Ghūl?”

You nod, and he continues writing, quietly determined.

Minutes drift by, the sound of scratching ink mingling with the clink of teacups and the whisper of wind outside. Occasionally, you feed him small bites of toast or biscuit, and he accepts them without a word.

“This must be boring for you,” he murmurs at last, just as you brush a stray crumb from his chin. His skin is warm beneath your fingers—perhaps the first time you’ve ever touched his face.

“Not at all,” you reply softly. “Just surprising. You speak so fluently, I assumed—”

“That I could read and write it too?” He lets out a quiet laugh. “I wish. My only Mandarin teacher was my grandfather, and well…”

He trails off, and you don’t press. Instead, you simply nod and point toward another character. “Qīn ài de, that character is supposed to be yīn (因), not kùn (困).”

Damian sighs and, in a show of grand frustration, crosses out the entire line. You roll your eyes fondly and steal a sip of his green tea. It’s far too sweet for your liking—honestly, who adds that much sugar to tea? Whatever expression crosses your face makes him laugh, a quick, quiet sound that breaks the silence like sunlight through a curtain.

“For someone so bitter, I’d appreciate it if you started taking your tea the same way,” you murmur, setting his green tea down and reaching for your own chai. The cup is warm in your hands, steam curling up like ribbons. This café always makes it exactly how you like it—strong, fragrant, the spices swirling together in soft clouds of cinnamon and cardamom.

Damian glances at your cup, his lips curving faintly. “Oh, then I wouldn’t have an ounce of sweetness left in me,” he teases, the corner of his mouth tugging up as he brings his own cup to his lips. The china clinks softly, a sound small and familiar.

“Ah yes,” you reply dryly, your smile betraying you, “because you bless the world with your sweetness every day.”

He chuckles, the sound low and brief, his eyes still on the cup. “When the world deserves it.”

He sets the tea back down, and his tongue flicks out instinctively to catch a stray drop on his lower lip. You wish he’d let you do that.

“Do what?” he asks quietly, lifting his gaze. His voice is calm, but his eyes hold that faint spark of curiosity that always seems to catch you off guard.

Your heart stumbles. Oh. Did you actually say that out loud?

His brow arches slightly as he studies your face, amused by the way your expression shifts—your eyes wide as saucers, your mouth opening and closing, trying and failing to find a proper answer. You look like you’ve just been caught in the middle of a dream.

“Do—what? Wait—no, I—” You stop yourself before you can dig a deeper hole, snapping your gaze down toward the notebook between you. “Stop slacking, Damian. Write your characters.”

He bites the inside of his cheek, a quiet laugh threatening to break free, and decides—for your sake—to let you off easy this time. He straightens in his seat, pen poised again over the paper, and returns to the quiet scratch of ink on parchment.

The café hums softly around you, filled only with the low murmur of the old ceiling fan and the clinking of distant cups. Somewhere behind the counter, a kettle whistles gently. The air smells of roasted coffee, honey, and old wood polished smooth by years of patient hands.

Damian’s handwriting sprawls across the page—firm, sharp, but heavy-handed, like he’s trying to carve the characters instead of writing them. The notebook he’s using is already filled with attempts: crossed-out pages, uneven lines, his steady progress laid bare.

After a few moments, he stops. His fingers flip through the pages, eyes tracing over the lines he’s already written, studying his own imperfections like they’re puzzles to solve. Then he glances up at you again, expression unreadable.

“Teach me how to write your name,” he says.

You blink. The both of you had agreed this lesson would be nothing more than repetitive practice—copying lines from that ragged Mandarin textbook you’d found at a secondhand store with its dog-eared pages and scribbled margin notes. But Damian Wayne never follows plans, and you should’ve known that by now.

You sigh softly but lean forward all the same. Instead of taking the pen from his hand, you reach for the hand itself. Your touch is feather-light—so gentle that for a moment he isn’t sure he’s imagining it.

You’re wearing your thin lace gloves again, the ones that serve no practical purpose in true cold. They barely shield your fingers, but they’re pretty, delicate things. You wear them because it comes from him. Damian remembers buying them for you—quietly, without mention—on a night that smelled of rain and wood smoke. You had found them tucked into your bag weeks later and never said a word, and he never asked. That had been your silent understanding: no questions, no acknowledgements, just knowing.

He can feel the warmth of you even through the fabric, faint and distant but real. The texture of your gloves brushes against his skin, and suddenly he’s painfully aware of the roughness of his own hands—the callouses along his palms, the small scars near his knuckles. He thinks of the small tin of hand cream Kori pressed into his palm earlier that morning, bright and floral, and curses himself for not using it.

His breath catches when you guide his fingers, your voice soft and calm as you show him each stroke. The air between you feels thick with quiet. Your tone flows like water, steady and lilting, every word gentle enough to fall like petals onto the page. Under your touch, his handwriting changes; the harshness softens, his usual sharpness replaced by care. Together, you shape the lines into something that looks—almost—beautiful.

Beneath the table, you allow yourself a small indulgence—your socked feet slipping lightly atop his. The warmth that seeps through his black socks reaches you like a secret, steady and human, something quiet and grounding. You remember how he smiled softly when the old jadda asked the two of you to do so the first time you came.

Now, you can feel the ridge of his ankle bone pressing faintly against the seam of your sock, a soft point of contact that stills your thoughts. The world seems to slow, and your heart settles into an easy rhythm—calm, steady, perfectly in time with him. Not his heart but just his being. 

Damian watches as you lift your hand away slowly, folding both gloved palms into your lap. “That’s how,” you say, your voice a whisper beneath the hum of the café.

He studies the name carefully, tracing it with his eyes. “It’s a bit long,” he murmurs, his tone lighter than before. “And what’s the plus for?”

“Well,” you say, your smile curving quietly, “I didn’t write just my name.”

He blinks, his brow creasing faintly. “No?”

“No.”

You lean back a little, watching him as he tries to decipher the small riddle you’ve left him. He flips a few pages, scanning the characters, piecing together what you’ve done. Then his eyes still.

You’ve written his name beside yours.

He chuckles softly, the sound almost tender. “What? Were you getting lonely?”

“You gave it an entire page to itself,” you reply quickly, pretending to busy yourself with your chai. You take a sip, looking down into the swirl of tea like it could possibly hide your blush. “Of course it would want company.”

Damian’s smile lingers as he studies the page. Your guiding hand has made his strokes gentler than usual, their sharp precision softened at the edges. Arabic and Mandarin couldn’t be more different, and his hands are still learning their rhythm—but together, the two names look strangely at home beside one another.

He drags his thumb over the ink lightly, feeling the faint texture of the dried characters, tracing the little plus sign you’d drawn between them.

You look up, watching his silence stretch. “It’s right,” you murmur softly, as if to reassure him.

Damian hums—a low, familiar sound that rumbles in his chest. It’s his noncommittal answer, the kind you’ve come to understand. It means yes, but also not exactly. It means he’s thinking about something he isn’t ready to say.

Your brow furrows slightly. “Bǎo bèi? Love? What is it?” you ask quietly, the tenderness in your voice almost enough to make him answer.

He doesn’t. He just lowers his gaze again, the pen steady in his hand. For a heartbeat, the world holds still—only the distant sound of rain tapping the café windows and the faint rustle of his coat sleeve against the table.

Then, silently, Damian draws a careful line through his last name. He doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t announce it. He simply crosses it out. And below it—slowly, deliberately, with more care than he’s shown all afternoon—he begins to write your last name instead.

His handwriting wavers; some of the strokes are too curved, others too heavy. But his focus never falters. You can see his lips part slightly as he breathes through each stroke, as though writing itself requires patience enough to steady his pulse.

When he finally looks up, lashes fluttering once before his eyes find yours, the warmth in his gaze steals the air from your lungs.

“I think you’re getting the hang of it,” you manage to whisper, though your voice feels too soft for the moment.

He doesn’t respond—not with words, at least. Just a faint smile, quiet and knowing, as his thumb brushes once more over the names joined together on the page, the faint scent of chai and green tea still hanging between you like something unfinished and sweet.

ᵈⁱᵛⁱᵈᵉʳ ᵇʸ ᶜᵘʳˢᵉᵈ⁻ᶜᵃʳᵐⁱⁿᵉ

“اللمس هو آخر أشكال الأُلفة التي نعرفها” master list ! [this series]

authors note! I hope you enjoy and if you want to be put on a tag list for this fandom/boy comment and I will add you! ദ്ദി˶ｰ̀֊ｰ́ ) my asks are always open for drabbles and just to talk

The lecture hall he walked into was filled with students of various kinds: scholarship students, rich kids, international students and so on; however Damian couldn’t care less, he knew they were looking at him with curiosity which was a given with the Wayne last name.

One student, however, didn’t even bat an eye at him.You kept your head down at the notebook and doodled aimlessly in it, swirling your ballpoint pen in the lined paper. You didn't even look down in shyness, she simply didn't notice him.

Intrigued, Damian walks over and sits next to that student, observing you through his peripheral vision, noting your casual wear, minimal jewellery (a tiny necklace and a random watch) and a bored look on your face.

The doodles on your notebook are of various random things. He focuses on a drawing your doing of a bunny with messy yet harmonic chicken scratch strokes.

When you finally look up, you stare at him, then nod in acknowledgment, “Damian Wayne, right?”

Damian nods in response, “Correct. You are…?”

“(Full name).”

“Hm, never heard of you before,” he remarks mostly to himself, he continues while you raise a brow “you aren’t from here, what are you doing in an institution of high learning such as this?”

You simply scoff and straighten your back “I got here on scholarship,” you huff before muttering under your breath, “let me tell you in a way I know you can understand: أنت مدلّل وأيد! (you are so spoiled/pampered!) I mean come on you’re a grown man.”

That caught him by surprise, he didn’t expect the random person he sat next to to speak to him in such a way and in that language! “Arabic…a difficult language. Impressive—but I speak four.”

“Show off, ما تستحي على وجهك? (Aren't you ashamed?)” You smirk, posing the question to him, you’re practically just testing him now, seeing how far his arrogance can go.

“No, I’m not ashamed, I can acknowledge the fact that I’m more gifted than most.” He points his head up, you just had to scoff and just then the professor entered.

As the professor entered, she instantly started the lecture for the course. Damian looked with interest as you quickly write in that notebook, admiring your handwriting and method of note writing. Despite your dexterity in writing, you didn’t seem rushed, expression bored as he types on his laptop instead.

When the lecture ended, you both picked up your respective bags, packing away both of your things and as your about to leave, "لو سمحت (Excuse me)." he calls to you bluntly, yet weirdly politely.

"You're intelligent, even if I'm far more clever, let us study together."

And then he walked away. You looked around, having to see if anyone saw that, baffled and confused, "Uhhh—Ok?"

He smirked at your response to the unexpected proposal, "We may start our recaps on our lectures on Friday morning. That should be good, no?"

"Alright, but if you run your mouth like a baby goat, I can leave whenever I like."

"Deal."

As you and Damian exit from different ends of the lecture hall, he's already fishing out his phone, searching up any of your social media's.

You intrigued him, he loved that you spoke one of his languages, even if it was to reprimand him—to call him spoiled, pampered or shameless—it hit harder, but he would definitely remember that. No one spoke to him like that in Arabic and to be honest he really liked someone not fearing him out of admiration.

Again, translating arabic phrases to english doesn't work if it's directly translated but I did my best, this is just a short self-indulgent fic as an Arab 😭

if you happen to be sticking around, let me first outline the linguistic issue for you:

yes, akhi does mean “my brother.” that’s really the best and most literal word-for-word translation anyone could possibly give you.

in more grammatical terms, it is the first-person possessive form of the word akh, which, you could probably guess, means “brother”. the -i suffix at the end is what denotes possession and who - in this case, the speaker - is in possession of the object.

another word you might be more familiar with is habibi, which means “my beloved”. habib is the object, the noun form of “beloved” and -i is the possessive suffix, the “my”. and that’s pretty much how the suffix is used - it essentially serves the same function as putting “my” in front of “book” or “cat” or “brother” in English. only, possession is indicated at the end of the given word rather than as a separate predicate. hence why phrases like “his akhi” are a whole mess of grammatically incorrect in both languages, because you’re basically saying “his my brother.”

it is also important to note that while akh and its various forms are sometimes used in colloquial settings when talking about one’s brother, it is a word that comes from and is used primarily in formal Arabic (Modern Standard Arabic), or fus7a. fus7a is used in a number of ways - you'll find it in the news, books, speeches, official documents, formal letters and whatnot and most importantly, in the Qur’an, from which it originates. but it's not used in everyday conversation. while the dialects share many basic similarities with formal Arabic, there are entire grammatical rules, words and conjugations in fus7a that don’t ever get used in colloquial Arabic. as such, akhi takes on several different meanings across the colloquial dialects that diverge from the literal meaning in fus7a. and even if someone is using it to speak about their actual brother, it's a pretty formal way to do so and it does not have the meaning you’re all ascribing to it. if you want an actual term of endearment, you’ll have to dig deeper.

and that's where i'll leave you to do your own research, because i’m not here to give you an Arabic lesson. that’s what WordReference and Reddit threads are for (just be on the lookout for bots).

but do yourself a favor and don’t just rely on those (and definitely do not go to Duolingo, i wouldn't trust AI with George Clooney's birthday, let alone the linguistic structure of an entire language). look up language guides and forums online. there’s actually some really good and reliable stuff out there from native speakers. fuck it, even Urban Dictionary is a better resource than wherever the first of you got the word akhi from - no, really, it actually contains several entries that define how it's used in certain contexts (none of which, you will find, include familial terms of endearment). and there are plenty of other Arab users on this site who have already talked about this and have provided detailed explanations of how it’s used in formal and dialectical Arabic. there are even entire blogs on tumblr that are dedicated to teaching Arabic. if you don't trust the internet, patronize your local library's language section (though they're unfortunately more likely to have books on just Modern Standard Arabic).

i promise you, however unapproachable internet and library databases might seem when it comes to learning languages, it is not as difficult to navigate as you think it is. the information is 100% there if you bother to look for it. and it’s free.

now, why am i making such a big deal out of this?

because if you actually gave a shit about writing Damian as explicitly and meaningfully Arab, you’d recognize that Arabic is not some accessory you can adorn your characters with however you like and hope no one notices you've put it on backwards.

Arabic is a real, living language that is used by real, living people every day.

and listen, i really don’t want to discount the good intentions so many of you have in using this word. i know that a lot of you using it aren’t intentionally using it incorrectly (or at least, i assume that’s the case), that you really just want to acknowledge what DC itself is shit at acknowledging. but i need you to understand that it is not enough. it's not enough to copy + paste from Google Translate and hope for the best.

the first and most important rules of linguistics will tell you that direct, literal translation is a discrepancy in and of itself. for example: if you put the Iliad or, idk, Proust through Google Translate, what came out would be pretty shitty and incoherent. it wouldn't entirely make sense. that’s why translation exists as a profession. to make sense of colloquialisms, grammar and diction that lack cross-language equivalents.

anyway, back to your good intentions: of course it sucks that many of DC’s writers tend to avoid meaningful engagement with the cultural backgrounds of the characters they write, particularly their characters of color.

of course it sucks that they tend fall into harmful stereotypes and tropes that could be avoided with just a little bit of intentional, respectful research. hell, they have the means to hire professional cultural and linguistic consultants if they wanted - they have absolutely no excuse.

and of course it sucks ass that many don’t treat Arab stories with care or compassion, especially considering that the very origins of the al Ghuls as DC villains are deeply rooted in the orientalist demonization of Asians and Arabs. that beyond that, they are also consistently whitewashed by both writers and fans alike. Damian and Talia in particular, when they are portrayed as morally good (and sometimes even when they’re not), tend to be drawn with lighter skin, which is a whole other level of fucked up. not to mention the majority of actors who have portrayed both Talia and Ra’s al Ghul are not Arab and, in fact, the only Arab actor to portray Ra’s al Ghul is Alexander Siddig (shoutout, by the way, to an absolute legend and cinematic treasure).

and before any of you folks crawl your way out of the woodwork to inform me that “actually, white and white-passing Arabs exist, you ignorant, uncultured heathen”, i’m just gonna cut you off at the pass here to let you know that i know. i should fucking hope i’d be aware of my own existence.

in all seriousness, though, wholistic representation of Arabs cannot center only those of us who are light skinned, white or white-passing. to do so stinks of Westerners’ tendency to fetishize, aestheticize and appropriate ethnic cultures while giving less than a rat’s ass about the people they come from, like a kind of cherry picked whitewashing, if you will. like, "it's okay to celebrate and take part in your culture, but if you do it while being dark skinned, you're either primitive and barbaric or some kind of noble savage." obviously, skin color has no bearing on the legitimacy of Arab heritage. but leaving dark skinned Arabs out of the picture erases the real and immense diversity of the Arab world. and it makes representation dependent on proximity to whiteness and palatability to white audiences, which is entirely antithetical to the whole point of representation.

yes, we need representation, too - Arabs are not a monolith. but the fact remains that dark skinned people of color are consistently underrepresented across the board - fans of color on this and other hellsites have been saying this for literal years. and if you don’t believe that’s true of DC comics, i'm sorry, but you haven’t been paying attention.

so, yeah. both the current canon and fanon, in many ways, leave a lot to be desired when it comes to representation. but that is exactly why diving headfirst into the now fandom-wide phenomenon of using akhi in your fanworks doesn’t actually do anything to counteract the harm done. frankly, because many of you have no historical, cultural or linguistic context for this and other words, it often exacerbates and replicates it.

and idk, maybe this all seems a bit over-the-top for a word that literally just means “my brother.” but because so many of you forego background research entirely and just parrot each other, the way you’re using it is harmful. because you’re completely disregarding all of that historical, cultural and linguistic context in favor of portraying what you perceive to be a more accurate Damian. which is especially damaging when many of you show no inclination or desire to examine just how enshrined racism and orientalism are in many canon and fanon portrayals of Damian or how your own headcanons might reinforce the stereotypes that fuel those portrayals.

Arabic is a heavily racialized language in the West. the choice to use it in your works as non-Arab creators is one you make in a world full of stigmatization for people, languages and cultures that do not meet standards of European whiteness. the fact that the maximum level of effort English speakers are barely required to put into including another language in their work is to open the most laughable language resource on the internet and copy + paste is indicative of the imperial system that requires the rest of the world to be multilingual while the majority of those for whom English is their first language hold fluency in only one.

multilingualism is far more common outside of Western centers of imperialism because the system in place is designed to keep it that way. and the West’s xenophobia ensures that we view it as a kind of liability, rather than the strength that it is. and on top of that, the racialization of certain languages further reinforces that xenophobia by wrapping them up in a mess of simultaneous fetishization and denigration. which is how you end up with the expectation that immigrants do the cultural, intellectual and emotional labor of bridging language barriers. in other words, writing something even as innocuous as “Damian missed his akhi” in your fanfiction because you saw someone else do it without doing any research of your own is a privilege of ignorance that native Arabic speakers do not have. i wouldn’t be surprised if more than half of you English speakers using it don’t even know how to pronounce it properly because you’ve never been forced to learn the phonetics, much less the alphabet, of a language that isn’t your own.

again, i understand where it’s coming from. i understand the impulse to expand upon what DC has given us and actually explore Damian’s cultural heritage. i understand the desire to do his Arab roots justice. i wish DC was better at the job they literally gave themselves, too. seriously, i get it.

but by not doing the research necessary to understand what you're putting in your fanworks, you’re just repeating the same irresponsible mistakes that DC’s writers make. and not only is that reductive of the Arab character you’re trying to honor, but from a viewer’s perspective, it’s indicative of a lack of creative integrity. it’s just sloppy writing. it says that you’re not actually committed to creating accurate or compassionate Arab representation with Damian. you just care about making him believably Arab to a primarily non-Arab audience. and continuing to do it even after being informed tells me you don’t actually give a fuck about Arabs or our representation because you don’t respect our language enough to learn how we actually use it.

and i hope i can trust you to know the difference between an honest mistake and willful ignorance, here. i completely understand if this is your first time learning about any of this. but again, all the information you could possibly want is available 24/7 on the very same device you’re using to write your fanfiction and create your fanart. you know, the one you’re using right now to read this post?

if you have the time to write a 100k word fanfic you have more than enough time to learn how the word akhi is actually used.

and if you did your research, you would see that there are so many actual, beautiful terms of endearment you could be using instead. Arabic has no shortage of them - there are so many i couldn’t possibly provide you with a full, comprehensive list of them all. but i will give you a tiny bit:

khayye is a Levantine term usually reserved for a close brother - i could actually see Damian calling Dick this and it means the same thing as akhi, just more affectionate. and of course, there are plenty of other terms in other dialects, but i’m not as familiar with those yet and really, you should do your own research. i also mentioned habibi before, which is a very popular term of affection and it’s often used casually even with strangers as it’s not strictly platonic or romantic, though i personally don’t believe Damian would use it towards his family, at least not frequently or without sarcasm (which is the best way to use it, imo).

and there’s also more poetic ones like 3ayouni (my eyes), hayati (my life), qalbi (my heart, though don’t get it confused with kelbi, iykyk), ruhi (my soul), najmi (my star), nouri (my light), azizi (my treasure/precious one). and hundreds of others that are dialect- and family-specific.

there is so much to work with that y’all have left virtually untouched. don’t be afraid to get creative! that’s what fanfiction is all about, right?

that said, if you do choose to use Arabic in your fan works, remember that language doesn’t exist in a vacuum. use it as a character study. use it to ask those questions DC doesn’t. like:

does Damian speak Arabic?

why does Damian speak Arabic? and what dialect(s) does he speak? because yes, there are regional and national dialects all over the place. don’t limit yourself in your research.

was Arabic the primary language he spoke back in the League? and if it was, how has living in Gotham, a predominantly English-speaking environment, changed his relationship with the language?

does he experience culture shock at all and how has that effected his experience of Gotham?

does he use it around his Gotham family? why or why not? does his Gotham family use it with him? why or why not?

does he have different terms of endearment for each of the people he cares about in his life? do they each have terms of endearment for him?

what does Talia call him? some of DC’s writers have her call him “my heart”, which i have written in romanized Arabic above. you’re welcome.

does he also speak any Chinese dialects? and what role does that play in his life and identity? you don’t have to focus on just his Arab roots. Damian’s heritage is a combination of multiple ethnic backgrounds - do better than DC and find ways to make your work reflect that. as a canonically mixed character, Damian and mixed readers like him deserve to have that respectfully represented. though, as per the main point of this post, please do some conscientious research before using any Chinese dialects.

what’s his favorite Middle Eastern dish? shoutout to that one artist i saw (whose name i can’t remember, i’m so sorry) who drew Damian and Jason sharing a pot of mjaddara, one of my personal favorite easy meals to cook when i’m missing home.

does he read any Arab poetry and who is his favorite poet? does he prefer the classic poets or the modern ones? i personally think he might enjoy Imru’ al-Qays but i’m biased because we had a cat named after him and i kinda like the idea of Damian being a fan of one of the most notoriously sappy and melodramatic romantic poets history has to offer.

has he been able to use Arabic around other Arabic-speaking folks in Gotham? and on that note, where are Gotham’s Arab populations from and what dialects do they speak?

endless avenues to explore!

or, you know, if you truly, madly, deeply do not give a single flying fuck (though if you’ve made it this far into my rant and still don't care, i'm... impressed?): how about you try this nifty thing i like to call not using Arabic in your work at all?

i can’t imagine you’re anywhere near your wits’ end if you’re using Google Translate as your linguistics consultant, but you know what takes even less effort? not using it. which is perfectly fine. you don’t have to delve deeper if you don’t want to. i’m not gonna hunt you down and force you to study Arabic grammar.

but using a language that isn’t your own, especially if English is your first and only language, comes with a responsibility to do it justice. no one is forcing you, dear English speaking fanfic writer/fanartist, to use a language you don’t speak. and i mean that quite literally. the world is already built to save you the inconvenience of having to speak other languages. so if you’re gonna go in, go all in. don’t needlessly embarrass yourself, habibi.

if doing any further research just seems a bit too daunting for you, remember that language isn’t the end-all-be-all of cultural ties. it can be a bridge, a connector, at times a vessel and often a reflection of culture. but culture is more than the language(s) tied to it. people and their relationships to their culture(s) are more than the languages they speak. it’s entirely possible to write meaningful Arab representation without using Arabic.

and let me be so, so clear: language is, for many reasons, a very important part of preserving, nurturing and restoring culture, particularly for the world’s Indigenous and diasporic communities, of which Arabs are a part. but it has also been weaponized against those very same communities by imperial and colonial powers. including a random Arabic word in your fanart or fic, the meaning of which you have only a vague understanding, is not the ultimate signifier of Damian’s Arab heritage some of you seem to think it is. and i know most of you just use it as a cute little nod to his cultural background in your headcanons, but it means nothing without the context behind it, especially the way i see it used with reckless - albeit mostly well-meaning - abandon.

honestly, it’s just really fucking annoying to see so many people constantly misuse your language and be unwilling to correct themselves. kinda feels like you’re losing your mind, sometimes. which is a bit how i feel making this post.

look, i’m not asking you to do college thesis level research on the Arabic language before you make the art you create for zero financial compensation in your own free time. that’s not what this post is about.

but i am asking many of you to examine why you want to have Damian or Talia or whoever speak Arabic in your non-Arabic fanworks in the first place. as non-Arab fans and creators, determine what preconceptions of Arabs you might hold, question why they’re there and where they come from and do your best to learn about how they might influence your portrayal of Arab characters like Damian. if you’re desperate for a jumping off point in that regard, i recommend checking out TV Tropes’s pages on the al Ghuls.

again, language doesn’t exist in a vacuum and it’s irresponsible to treat it like it does. if you want to make meaningful content of Arab characters, i encourage you to go out there and build your creative integrity by doing enough research to at least feel confident that you understand what you're putting in your fanworks.

and, lastly, if you do choose to use Arabic in your work, please use it with respect.

.

anyways here are some resources to start off with for anyone interested: