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Damian Wayne peers up at the… thing… clutching Father’s hand like it belongs to him. He peers up at the thing that matches Damian to a perfect T, the thing that resembles him so closely that no one even realized that that wasn’t Damian.
The thing isn’t one of Mother’s clones, far from it. From Damian’s time trapped in it’s shadow, (literally trapped in it’s shadow), he’s deduced that it’s not human. There's, possibly, a chance it’s just a meta that can control shadows, but Damian refuses to give it life. He refuses to connect the thing to human kind. Not when it’s stuck Damian in a bleary cage he has no hopes of escaping. Not when it’s assuming Damian’s own place in his own family. He’s literally been reduced to but a shadow of his former self, stuck watching this thing take over his life and sway his family into loving it instead.
Damian’s been replaced by the one thing Father loathes, and Father hasn’t even noticed.
Well, replace is a strong word. Drake has been replaced by Damian, Todd by Drake, and Grayson by Todd long before Damian came into the equation. Perhaps this is just the universe telling him it’s his turn to be replaced, he thinks, perhaps it’s just letting Damian know that it’s his turn to fade back into the shadows. (Again. Literally.) But, this time, Damian can’t find his own light like his brothers had done. No. He’s stuck watching.
He’s unable to interact with anything other than the thing that took over his identity. No one even spares a glance at the shadows cast on to the floor, no one looks at the real Damian. There’s no reason too. They don’t even suspect that Damian’s gone.
Which, honestly. How had they not realized Damian was gone, or something like that? The Thing- (with a capital T)- didn’t even act like Damian did, as he pulled Damian along like a puppet. Every movement the Thing did, Damian had to follow. (He wasn’t in control of his own body in this stupid cage! It was infuriating, especially when he knew that his family was right there! Not even a foot in front of him!)
This Damian- this Thing- acted like the Damian that everyone wanted.
Maybe that was why the family hadn’t noticed. They didn’t care too.
Damian had two theories about that, two that he’d pulled together during restless nights. Shadows didn’t eat or sleep, they only watched, after all.
The first was likely. His family was paranoid to a fault. They probably noticed that Damian was gone and they just didn’t want the real Damian back. Why would they? He’s crude and he fights back at everything. Father was at wits end with him a good chunk of the time. Drake was always halfway to defenestrating him, and Todd just plain old didn’t like him. (He’d once admitted that Damian reminded him too much of himself. Damian didn’t want that to be the answer.) They were happy with this better Damian.
They were happy without him.
Two, of course, was born out of the childish need to be loved. Maybe the family simply hadn’t noticed that Damian was gone. (That, also, dredged up insecurities Damian would rather keep under lock and key, though.) His theory gave the chance of the family finding out, of the family saving him from this terrible prison. But- It was childish. A stupid thought- an idiotic theory.
Damian knew he had to face the facts. The family preferred this polite, nice Damian to him.
And, fine, polite he was. Not only when he acted before the family, but the sole fact that he left a candle on when he retired to sleep was enough to prove it. Without light, when cast into dark in it’s absolute form, Damian went completely blind. Deaf. Defenseless. All of his senses were torn from him, the air in his lungs snatched away to leave him to suffocate for eternity. He knew it was because, in the absence of light, shadows didn’t exist. That meant- technically- in this state, without light, Damian didn’t really exist either.
On top of that, the Thing spoke to him, in the late hours of the night. It gave Damian something to anchor himself on. If he was subjected to this without being able to speak to someone else, (it had been two weeks, after all), he’d probably go stir crazy or something. He’d die, he’d probably break. Sure, it wasn’t like he hadn’t ever been in complete solitude before, but at least then, he’d been in control of his own body.
Here, nothing was Damian’s. Not his name, not his body. Nothing.
When him and the Thing spoke, the conversations were light. Small talk. They were about hobbies, about what Damian liked. Out of spite, Damian forced in little lies. He hoped they’d allow the Thing to slip up, allow the Thing to mess up in front of Father or Grayson and tip them off to the fact that things weren’t right.
(Sure, Damian had a dog. His name was Titus, and Damian loved him loads. However, no, he’d never had a dog named Cindy before Titus, and no, he didn’t have a cat named Mittens while he lived with Mother. Grayson knew that.)
But, right.
Damian peers up at the Thing. They were in the zoo, on a case. Everyone in Damian’s family knew that Damian didn’t like the zoo. It was the equivalent of animal prison. This Damian, though, had muttered, “They’re protected here. This place is safer for all parties involved,” when Father had explained that they were to meet Zatanna there. Please, like Damian would ever say that! How could his family really be so blind as to not see?!
To not realize?!
He shifts his gaze to the side, eyes landing on Grayson. He’s got both of his hands stuffed in his pocket, face holding a wistful smile. Damian knows why it’s there- it’s not because he’s happy per say. He might be happy that ‘Damian’ and Father are finally getting along, but Damian knows he really just wishes that it were him holding Damian’s hand.
(Damian, honestly, is grown enough to admit to himself that he wishes it were him holding onto Grayson’s hand.)
The only reason he finds himself being able to interpret that is because, over these past weeks, he’s become oddly good at deciphering emotions. He can read lips and pair them with the watered down sounds of people talking- (shadows also don’t hear well, apparently. They’re not very good at anything, when sentient, like Damian. Though, he realizes, maybe it’s just because Damian’s a real boy)- but that’s not always enough. That doesn’t always get the full point across.
And, hey. Reading emotions is a very good skill to have.
The case that the three- four, including Zatanna, five if Damian’s counting himself- isn’t something that Damian really caught on too. He was busy… not exactly sulking. Sulking isn’t really the word for it. He was busy… being upset, or something. He was busy- busy. Thinking. His mind was occupied.
Regardless.
Damian’s not sure what the case is about. He just knows that the Thing said they should meet Zatanna in civilian clothes. Father agreed. Now they’re at the zoo.
Frustratingly enough, Damian understands that Zatanna is his last resort. She’s the only person left that Damian knows that can help him. The Thing is most likely born of magic and Zatanna’s element is magic. If Father and Grayson are too stupid to figure out something’s wrong, Zatanna’s got to be able to tell that something’s wrong.
The closer they get to her, the tighter of a hold on Damian’s limbs the Thing gets. It’s worried. It’s worried that it’s plan will fall apart at the seems if Damian acts one hair out of line.
So Damian does what all rich boys do.
He does what he does best.
He disobeys.
The moment that he knows that Zatanna is in hearing distance, Damian howls like a wounded dog. The Thing glances at the ground- at it’s shadow, at Damian- and Damian’s limbs go tense all over again. Damian tries to steal a glimpse of Zatanna, but he can’t seem to move his head. He draws in a deep breath and screams, forcing every shitty thought that’s crossed his brain to make it loud and alarming enough that she’s got to sense it. The Thing flinches at this one- did it really not think that Damian was at least going to try?
Once he runs out of breath in his lungs, he turns to hurried pleas for help and frenzied explanations. He only stops when Father comes to a halt, right before Zatanna. The Thing swings with the momentum, playfully pulling at Father’s hand.
A sharp jolt zooms through Damian’s head, letting him know that the smart thing to do is to stop talking before things get worse. (Worse is no light. Worse is suffocating in the void. Worse is being stripped of everything and knowing that it’s wrong.) Damian, naturally, doesn’t listen.
He pulls at his limbs. He cries when they don’t move.
“Did you have to bring your kid?” Zatanna asks, voice sharp and choppy. She’s annoyed. She also sounds like she’s drowning, so Damian strains his ears to hear her better. Damian can’t move his head enough to get a clear look at her face. He stares up at the sky instead and he breathes. “Send him over there, or something. We’ve got important- adult- stuff to talk about.”
Father does without a word. Damian knows, because suddenly he sees the green telltale sign of tree leaves.
No.
“She can’t hear you,” the Thing sneers, stalling before the tree’s shadow. “No one can. You’ll be trapped there forever, you know. They won’t ever come for you. They like me better.”
Damian gasps out, “You sound like a five year old trying to take over the swing set,” and then he’s plunged into darkness.
He can’t see anything, even though he knows his eyes are open and wide. He can’t breathe. Shadows don’t need air, so Damian isn’t supplied with it. (At least he knows he won’t die. He’ll just sit, stand, remain here and gasp until he realizes it’s better to try not to breathe at all.) There’s no sound- though Damian swears he hears static in the back of his mind. He feels like there’s a thousand pins and needles stabbing into his body.
It’s unbearable. All of it.
(He screams, and doesn’t feel bad, because he knows no one can hear him.)
As he dies, burns, exists in this hell space, Damian thinks. He thinks about patrols with Grayson- (his favorite patrols)- and with Father, nights by Drake’s side as he sits with Todd and him under the stars, drinking in their free existence and their Robin woes. He thinks about Mother, thinks about watching stupid Disney movies with his family, thinks about Pennyworth and his home-cooked meals and he wishes he could taste because his tongue tastes like ash.
He thinks about how he got in this stupid predicament, too.
It’s Damian’s fault, he knows this. Father, Grayson and he had been checking out a building down in Blüdhaven. (Damian no longer remembers the specifics, it’s not like he got to stick around long enough to see it.) When they’d come to a fork in the road, a hallway that lead both directions, they’d split up. Batman and Robin went right. Nightwing went left.
Damian wishes he’d gone left.
Father had told Damian to go ahead and scout out the room ahead, at one point. Damian, having been used to Grayson’s Batman before Father’s, took it as being allowed to engage in combat with the goons in the room. He’d thought Batman had been right behind him.
He was wrong.
And now he’s here.
Suffocating in an inky abyss while his family talks of casework, while the Thing that holds his body captive.
And then his body is suddenly thrust back into the light. He takes a deep breath as if it’s his last. He fills his lungs near desperately, crying when his limbs are pulled around by the Thing. The hold is loose, though, enough so that he can twist his head and drink in his surroundings. The tree’s shadow is far enough now that it doesn’t pose a threat. Zatanna stands at the opposite side of the tree, face twisted up in something like rage.
“You think you’re sneaky?” she yells, fist wrapped around the collar of the Thing’s shirt. “You might’ve had them fooled- those idiots- but I’m a magician, you little brat!” Had Damian been standing, his knees would have gone weak. She knows. Zatanna knows! “How Bruce didn’t figure it out- that paranoid asshole- I have no idea-”
“Right?” Damian breathes out. He sounds like he’s about to cry.
Shadows can’t cry, though. Neither can Damian. Not right now, at least.
“Unhand me!” the Thing wails, in Damian’s voie. He’s not dropping the act, not yet. Grayson rushes over to the tree with a panicked look, and Damian’s pretty sure that Grayson’s buying what the Thing is selling. “Grayson- Tell her to let me go!”
“He had you fooled too, didn’t he?” Zatanna barks out, before Grayson can say a word. “Jesus, you’re useless. That’s not Damian!”
Grayson’s face goes pale. This is the most action that Damian’s cared enough to pay attention too since this whole thing started. “Can we explain later?” he calls, hoping Zatanna can still hear him. “I’d really like my body ba-”
“Shut up!” the Thing snarls, suddenly. It kicks at Zatanna’s arm, but she holds steady. It’s hold on Damian sharpens. He lets out a cry as his body snaps into place. “Grayson, please!”
Instead, Father storms up. “What the hell is going on?!” he barks. “Let Damian go, Zatanna.”
“This isn’t Damian!” she repeats. “Have you really not noticed that some kind of shadow demon’s been in possession of your son’s body for the past-”
“Two weeks,” Damian supplies. He’s so happy to have someone else to talk to, rather than just the Thing. Even if it’s Zatanna of all people. “Please, can you just reverse this whole thing? Now?”
“-two weeks?” Then, more to Damian than his father or his brother, “I can’t undo the magic on him- only the demon can do that himself.”
The Thing bares its teeth and tries to kick at her again. “And I won’t! I finally had something good, and you just had to go ruin it! They were happy with me! Happier with me! All the brat knew how to do was piss them off- at least I was the son they wanted!” Damian swallows, hard. If he could move his hands, he’d clench them into fists. “And you know it’s true! If it wasn’t, they’d have figured it out a long, long time ago! But they didn’t! They wanted me!”
Then Grayson does something that Damian never expected.
He gets right up into the Thing’s face- Damian’s face, technically- and bares his own teeth. He only says five words. Five words, in a low, low tone that sends shivers through Damian’s body. His face is twisted, pulled tight in a way that Damian’s never seen on Grayson’s face. (Or, maybe- Maybe he’s seen it once. In a moment of red fury, in a haze of anger that bled from his brother’s body like steam. He’d been furious then, so upset that Damian had cowered. He hadn’t even been mad at Damian, though. He’d been mad for him.)
Somehow, those five words are all they need.
“Give me back my son,” he says, hisses, growls, orders. He shouts, he commands like a god that hides up in the heavens, he booms like Zeus and his thunderbolt, he pleads.
And the Thing does.
Damian’s shoes sink into the cool grass. His shoes. The sun beats down on his face and he can feel the warmth radiating down onto him. A billion sounds rush at him all at once, a trillion smells hit his nose and everything suddenly seems brighter.
Damian loves it.
He rushes to pull off his shoes, not even noticing that Grayson’s face is still too close to his, not noticing that Zatanna’s hand is still wrapped around his shirt. She eases out of the hold, but Grayson doesn’t withdraw. Damian doesn’t care. He throws his shoes onto the ground, along with his socks, and laughs as the grass envelope his feet. The grass is cold. Still slightly wet. The soil is soft beneath his toes. He drops down to press his hands into it, too, even going as far as to rest his forehead onto it.
“That was easy,” he hears Zatanna say.
He doesn’t care.
He collapses onto the soil and rolls onto his back, throwing his arms wide. The sun has never been so welcoming. Neither has the sounds of people, now that they don’t sound like they’re drowning. It’s a drastic change of scenery, despite the fact that he was just staring at it, and he should probably be having some other reaction other than rolling around on the ground like a dog, but.
Again. Damian doesn’t really care. He can deal with Father and Grayson and all of those stupid emotions after he gets sick of everything. (To be honest, though, Damian doesn’t think he’ll get sick of all of this anytime soon.)
“Shit, Little D,” Grayson says, pulling Damian out of his bliss. Then he’s there, lying down right beside Damian. He reaches out an arm and Damian rolls right into the sideways embrace. “We’re such big idiots. I’m sorry that we didn’t notice- for two whole weeks. That’s- That’s really terrible of us.”
Damian’s hand worms it’s way down into Grayson’s.
“That’s okay,” he whispers, and he draws in a deep, deep breath. He can nearly taste the soil, can smell the candy in the air, hear the people bustle around as their children cheer. “This is so much better than being a shadow.”
“I bet.”
They both know that Damian’s it’s okay is void. It’s just an excuse to postpone the inevitable conversation. Damian’s glad that they are postponing it, though. He’s glad that Grayson’s letting it slide for now.
Father crouches down, after what feels like an eternity. He finds a place on Damian’s other side. He doesn’t say a word.
That’s okay.
They’ll deal with it later.
Later turns out to be an entire week.
Damian spends it rushing through the manor, running his hands over everything he can get them on. It annoys Pennyworth to no end, especially when Damian leaves fingerprints all over the windows when he presses his face against the glass. The glass is always cool, no matter the time or the weather.
Grayson tries to talk to him, throughout it. Father doesn’t dare approach the topic.
Damian also spends the week alternating between leaving a candle on when he’s sleeping and sitting in the dark. When he leaves the candle on, he grows paranoid that he’ll hear a voice, one that asks him his favorite color in childish tones. When he casts himself in darkness, he freezes, imagining that he won’t be able to breathe when he tries, imagining that when the lights turn on he’ll be back in the ground, watching.
He always finds his way into Grayson’s bed, curling up into his brother’s side. Grayson leaves on a nightlight. Always. It helps. He helps.
It helps more when he doesn’t ask Damian what being a shadow was like.
So, yeah. Later turns out to be an entire week, because once a week passes, Grayson drags Father and Damian to the dining table and forces them to sit down. Pennyworth dishes out a meal but doesn’t stick around to eat it with them.
“So, Damian,” Grayson starts, hands folded perfectly on the table. His lips are pressed into a thin line. He looks like the counselor at Damian’s school. And the principal. (Every meeting with the two of them is stupid. They do nothing but rat him out to Father, even when it’s not his fault.) Damian bets that, beneath the table, his ankles are crossed. The look is ruined by his crumpled up blue shirt. It’s got a toothpaste stain by the corner. “ We think that it’s time we talked about what happened- with the- uh- shadow thing.”
“Okay,” Damian says, very carefully. “What is there to talk about?”
(For some reason, it’s times like these when Damian remembers that English was never his first language. It’s times like these when he’s painfully aware that, when he lets it slip, he doesn’t have an american accent. Or a British one.)
Grayson, of course he does, stands and makes his way to Damian’s seat. He abandons his meal, crouches down and gives Damian his open palms. He wants Damian to give him his hands. Damian, for some reason, obliges. (He obliged because it’s touch, and after being a shadow, touch is near addicting.)
“We didn’t realize you were- We failed to notice that some demon had taken your place in our family. And- That’s really, really shitty of us to do. I got so caught up in the fact that you were actually getting along with Bruce and I let my own insecurities get in the way of realizing that it wasn’t you-”
“Insecurities?” Damian asks.
“I think we’ve talked about this before.”
After Pyg. And Simon Hurt. After Shawn. After Damian’s own insecurities nearly cost them- her- their lives. (He remembers the coffin vividly. He remembers slamming his forehead against it, pretending like he knew how to breathe normally.)
“We have.”
Grayson rubs his thumb over the back of Damian’s hand. “I just want you to know that I’m sorry. I know that there’s not really anything I can say to make it better, but. I love you, Damian. I’m here for when you want to talk about what happened. I know that something did while you were- were a- shadow. I know there’s a reason you can’t sleep at night lately. We don’t have to talk about it now, but if I hadn’t ever said anything…”
“I never would have either.”
“Exactly,” he says, and he gives Damian a smile.
And then, in sync, they both look over to Bruce.
Father clears his throat awkwardly. “Well, I- Dick had come into my study, a day or so after that demon possessed you.” (It wasn't possession, Damian wants to say. He doesn't, though.) “He came in and explained to me that, possibly, there was something off about you. I dismissed it simply as skepticism. I thought he was worrying for nothing. Besides, you’d come with me on patrol and work normally.”
“He was jealous,” Dick whispers. Damian bites his lip to stifle a laugh. Father being jealous- it's kind of sad, to think about it. “Because you were finally attached to him instead of me.”
Yeah. That's sad.
“There’s not much to say, chum, but- I-” Oh boy. “I- apologize for not noticing when I should have.”
“Thank you, Father.”
And that’s that.
At least, that’s that, until three days later, when Damian can’t sleep.
He’s curled up beside Grayson again, just like he has been for the past week. He knows Grayson’s not sleeping, just as Grayson knows he’s not sleeping either. Neither of them make any move to speak, though. Grayson just lays on his back, staring up at the dark ceiling. Damian lays with his head on Grayson’s outstretched forearm and shoulder, knees barely ghosting against his brother’s ribs.
Then, something possesses him to speak.
“At night- The Thing would keep a candle on. So I could still see everything.” He pauses. Grayson shifts, just enough to let Damian know he’s listening. “When there wasn’t any light, it’s like- it’s like I was stripped of my senses. I couldn’t see, I couldn’t hear- Even with light, everything was muted.” His hands curl into fists. He knows his eyes are going blurry, but he doesn’t stop. He’s like a broken dam. Once a few drops get through the cracks, the whole thing soon follows. “You sounded like you were drowning when you spoke. Every sound did.”
And that’s where it starts.
Damian talks through the next hour, telling Grayson of feeling like he’s suffocating, telling him of watching Father and Grayson get along with the seemingly better Damian. He tells about his stupid theories, of the lies he told the thing, of wishing that he were there with the family instead of that Thing in his place.
“When you all were at the zoo and it was holding Father’s hand,” he says, drawing to a close. He knows Grayson wants to say so much, but he’s not quite done yet, “you looked sad. It’s because you wished you were in Father’s place, wasn’t it?”
He looks up at his brother for the first time since they laid down. Grayson’s eyes, in the dim night light’s light, are glassy. “It always is, Dames,” he says. “It always is.”
And that’s that.