Chapter Text
The dream was always the same. It didn’t matter how much therapeutic art he did, or how long he’d meditate to find his centre, the dream would come.
It would always come.
Damian shuddered awake and pushed it out of his mind. The blood and screams. The Bat, always coming after him.
He was startled again when he realized that this wasn’t his room. This wasn’t his Mother’s house nor his Father’s house.
It was Dick Grayson’s bed.
“It’s only temporary I swear.”
The bed was too big. It could fit three people comfortably. Damian sometimes snidely wondered if Grayson ever had the occasion to test that theory. It smelled like Grayson, which wasn’t unpleasant until he smelt the musk underneath the clean smelling laundry soap.
“With the job, I usually stagger in and crash on the couch anyway. You have the bed.”
Grayson was a cop. BPD. The man seemed ridiculously proud of his rookie position. It wasn't surprising, Damian reasoned, Grayson has a hero complex. He thrives on being helpful even at a cost to himself.
That’s why I’m here after all.
Grayson’s kindness… and didn’t that make him seethe just a bit.
That’s why Grayson was taking the late shift, so he could be at home before Damian went to school and until after he went to bed.
In irritation he glanced at the clock. Five A.M. Grayson would be coming in soon. He waited for the sound of the lock unlatching. He allowed himself to relax. He didn’t expect to hear Grayson’s light footsteps in the dark no matter how hard he strained his ear. Grayson was quiet and almost supernaturally light on his feet. He heard the sounds of cereal being chewed, and then the sink, the shower, and the squeak of the couch springs.
Grayson had more energy than usual tonight.
Damian felt satisfied with that.
He resented that he had to be here, he resented the big bed, the small apartment, the circumstances, but he didn’t resent Grayson as much as he led the young man to believe.
He was quite satisfied with him actually, and in his needier moments, possessive of him. Grayson had given him the most stable environment he had ever lived in.
...And Grayson was the only one he had left. There was always a quiet fear that Damian buried deep inside that one day Grayson wouldn’t walk through the door.
His mother had raised him, in that she was his guardian from his birth until the age of nine. The truth was he saw her very rarely. It only made sense, she was an important figure in his Grandfather’s cult. Damian hadn’t known what a cult was until it was smirkingly explained to him by Timothy Drake.
Funny enough, he was raised by his mother to not believe his Grandfather… to a point.
“One day it will be you that will lead our people, son,” She would whisper in his ear.
In her defense, she hadn’t seen his Grandfather’s attempts to sacrifice him as to gain eternal life coming.
He hadn’t either.
Luckily the police had.
He was angry with his mother after that, because she should have seen it coming.
He didn’t visit her in jail; he didn’t even know where her jail was. He didn’t know if this was out of anger, or shame or embarrassment. She didn’t try to contact him, so he left it at that.
Because he wasn’t raised to care.
But then he found himself missing his mother’s neglect when it was replaced by his father’s rules.
Bruce Wayne, a billionaire, hadn’t known he had a son until Damian was dropped on his doorstep and the DNA results came back positive. He had the public persona of a layabout drunken philanthropist, but that didn’t seem to stop him from adopting children left and right.
There was Grayson, Todd and Drake as well as a Cassandra who Damian had never met.
But in all these cases it had been his Father’s choice. Damian was thrust upon him and their personalities clashed.
Damian had expected more neglectful indulgence from what he read in the papers, but it seemed his father wore a façade. He was actually rather grim and determined that if Damian lived under his roof he would abide by his rules. Damian came to especially resent this because his father did things under the cover of night. Sometimes he was gone for days on end. It was obvious it was something devastatingly scandalising or illegal. Damian was still expected to abide though, Pennyworth made sure of that.
One night his father didn’t come back and his body was found three weeks later by a reporter—a friend of his father’s—and that was that for Bruce Wayne.
Damian knew his father a total of three months—in person at least. His mother would tell him stories of what a great man—a leader of men—Bruce Wayne was. He had wanted the man’s approval and acceptance into this odd family he found himself becoming a part of, but he never got it from Bruce Wayne, he wondered if he ever would have.
So there he was, practically orphaned when Dick Grayson showed up.
He had been on the fringes of Damian’s life with his father of course. He visited and smiled and had kind things to say, but Damian wasn’t interested other than the fact that Richard Grayson was a ruler.
...Not in the ruling sense, rather the measuring sense.
When Damian watched the ‘whole family’ during their once a month dinners it became obvious. Grayson would talk, trying to fill the heavy silences. Todd would make snide comments. Drake would play along with Grayson and his father would sit at the head of the table silently. It always felt like there was a conversation going on above his head that Damian wasn’t aware of, but he couldn’t decipher that, so he correctly saw Todd’s jealousy and Drake’s hero worship and how freely Grayson spoke to their father.
Grayson somehow earned that right. While Drake took submission to a whole new level and Todd barely held his resentment, and even Damian felt himself go ridged when his father’s voice took that tone, it seemed Grayson wasn’t affected. He could say anything and sometimes his father would be vehement in response, but he would never reprimand.
Somehow, and Damian still wasn’t quite sure how since Grayson’s sunny disposition clashed the most with Bruce Wayne’s dark and brooding persona, Grayson was the favoured son. Or, if not favoured, then he was the stick by which the rest of them were measured.
It was surprising the family fortune hadn’t been left to the rookie cop, but it wasn’t. It was left to Drake.
And Damian? Damian was left to Grayson.
During the funeral while Todd went slightly insane and Drake refused to acknowledge Bruce Wayne’s death Grayson held them together. He reluctantly took his place as head of the family. Damian had entertained the idea that his father was in some way part of the mob and that’s what did him in.
Damian glanced at the clock. 6:30 A.M.
He wasn’t going back to sleep.
He got out of bed, got dressed and nosily made his way into the living-room/kitchen area. Grayson, one of nature’s light sleepers was instantly awake. He sat straight up and his eyes locked with Damian. He looked tense, ready for an attack, ready to defend himself. When Damian’s face registered he instantly fell back onto the couch with a small moan that might have been a greeting. Within seconds he would be lightly snoring, his instincts registering the sounds Damian made as a friendly.
Damian probably should have wondered about that. It was a daily occurrence. Because of Grayson’s decision to take the couch he was stuck with Damian’s shuffling until 8:45 A.M. at which time Grayson would be forced to wake up again and walk Damian to school (at Grayson’s insistence, not Damian’s). Damian felt no pity for Grayson’s own foolishness. Besides, the Rookie cop would sleep all the day away for his needed six hours and would be fresh and bubbly by 3:15 P.M. when he came to pick Damian up.
He splashed milk into the Crocky Crunch Grayson had laid out for him last night—his way of making breakfast. Damian leaned against the countertop. He chewed his cereal loudly as he studied Grayson’s bent body. He was slightly too long for the couch.
Damian put the bowl in the sink and, as quietly as he could, made his way to the couch. He let himself fall onto Grayson’s legs. Grayson jerked again, but his head didn’t lift. Damian grabbed the remote and turned on early morning cartoons.
He didn’t particularly like early morning cartoons, but he did get a nasty thrill from bugging Grayson.
“What’s on?” Grayson mumbled. His head partly emerged from his blankets. Messy black hair and not much else.
“Spongebob,” Damian answered bluntly. He turned up the volume slightly.
Grayson groaned burying himself under his blankets again.
“You don’t even like Spongebob you brat…”
Damian stuck his headphones into his ears and made himself comfortable on Grayson’s legs. He watched, mildly amused, when the cartoon would sync up with the lyrics.
“Why-yia-ia yeaaaaah, Superman’s Dead!” Patrick sung with a vacant look on his face. Damian switched the song. He only had it on his Ipod to annoy Grayson. It seemed he was a Superman fan and he found the song a bit sacrilegious considering the hero had risen once again.
As the credits began to roll Grayson began to stir. Damian popped the headphones out of his ears and crammed them into his pocket. He slid off the couch.
“’orning,” Grayson yawned. He was still in his uniform’s shirt and a pair of boxers. His longish hair was slightly mussed and patterns from the couch had imprinted itself on his left cheek.
Damian didn’t acknowledge him other than to pass his guardian a bowl of cereal. Grayson’s smile emerged as bright as the morning sun (at least if the morning sun ever showed itself in Bludhaven).
“Thanks.”
His cheerfulness at the bones Damian threw him were irritating and a bit pathetic, but Damian wasn’t foolish. Grayson was a rookie cop with low pay. He was single. He lived in a one room apartment and as much as Damian found his surroundings annoying it was still better than living with Drake in a mansion. If he applied too much pressure Grayson really had no obligation to keep him.
They weren’t even blood related.
Once or twice Damian had tried to get a rise out of Grayson pointing out his father’s obvious favoritism towards Drake. Bruce leaving Drake with the company and basically all of the money (Until Damian found a legal way to get what was rightfully his anyway).
Grayson wasn’t bothered at all by it.
“He’ll do better with the company than I ever could… probably better than Bruce ever could. We don’t need to depend on money to be happy Damian.”
Yeah… Grayson was one of those people.
“How did you sleep?”
It was a casual question, but Damian felt the weight it actually held.
“Fine.” He answered shortly. He forced himself not to think back to the dream. The Bat.
Grayson looked like he was about to say something.
“I’m in no mood for a discussion about feelings Grayson. If you insist on it then I’ll leave without you.”
Grayson took a bite of cereal instead, but he looked uncertain.
Music therapy, art therapy, one on one counselling, group counselling and good old fashion Nyquil did nothing to stop the dreams. Grayson wouldn’t be able to help him.
“You know the neighbourhood’s too dangerous before the sun’s up,” Grayson said moving on to safer subjects.
He did. He had watched Grayson dispatch a thug rather effectively on his second day of school. Funny though. Grayson didn't take him down like a cop would. His fighting style looked like something out of a kung-fu movie. Grayson didn't explain and Damian never asked.
“-Tt-”
“I’m glad we had this talk,” Grayson rolled his eyes. He stood, stretching out and then headed to the master bedroom to grab clothing.
Damian grabbed Grayson's bowl and threw it in the sink. Such a slob.