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Damian would get up for school but he can’t.
Everything inside of him screams, begs, get up! Because how was he going to earn his father’s love, admiration, and respect if he was stuck curled up on a little ball underneath heavy blankets? No amount of torture training, poison resistance, could assist him with the pain that was shooting through his back. He could feel the skin threatening to pop, but there was little he could do to relieve the pain.
He is blinded by the pain. Spots fill his vision with open eyes or closed. It mattered not. He knew what was happening, he’d been told since he was a child that one day he’d have wings just like his mother, but nothing could prepare him for the pain. His mother was gone. She would not be there to comfort him, or to walk him through what was going on with his body.
Damian bites down hard on his second blanket to avoid his tongue. His hands squeezed at his upper-arms with digging finger-nails, but no amount of pressure could take away what he was feeling.
“Damian?” sounds a voice from the other side of his door, but he does not dare sound back. He didn’t want anyone to see him like this. He just wanted to tuck away his wings when they came out, just like his mother always seemed to do, so no one would see the abominations of his mother’s heritage spring forth from his back.
Damian stays curled. He doesn’t know how long he’d been in bed, but he knew it’d been long enough. He hadn’t appeared for breakfast, didn’t show up to the car for Alfred to take him to school, which meant that someone was bound to come looking for him. He couldn’t focus on the voice that was calling for him which was a rather troubling fact. Damian’s senses were all dim compared to the sharp piercing pain originating from his back. He couldn’t concentrate on anything else - least of all his thoughts. His mind was devoid of anything but repetitive words such as hurts, hurts, hurts and please, please, please.
What he did know was that he didn’t want anyone to see him like this. He’d do anything for his family to leave him alone during this vulnerable time - to allow him a sense of solitude to deal with what was to come - but he knew better. They’d find their way into his room. It didn’t matter what he said, how he begged, or if he stayed silent all together. They’d figure out something was wrong. They always did.
Damian waits with bated breath for the inevitable opening of his door. He hears the jiggle of the handle, listens to it turn, and then feels his soul slip away when the door creaks open. The footsteps belonged to his oldest brother, Dick, the nosiest person in the manor. Damian was even familiar with the sensation of his brother’s increased weight on the bed. He’d visited so many times that Damian knew things that he shouldn’t know about him. He shouldn’t have become so close to a person, he shouldn’t have let them in, because all that would result in was pain, pain, pain.
Fingers grab at the blankets covering Damian. He hears the soft question leave his brother’s lips, but Damian can’t settle it in his mind. He listens to the words but they don't register properly. They completely escape him.
The cold air, leaking from the window outside, hits Damian’s skin like an old-enemy. She caresses with mocking laughter, and gives Damian more reason to curl in himself.
Worry seeps into his brother’s tone. Damian flinches away when he feels a hand on his back, right where the wings were supposed to come in, and he suppresses a pathetic whimper. His brother’s fingers had only flitted across the injury - not completely touching it - but the ache had been enough to bring tears to Damian’s eyes. He squeezes his eyes shut so as to not show a shameful appearance.
There are two voices in the room now. Both are concerned. Worried. Damian does not deserve it.
Damian feels it is an eternity before the voices stop. He is thankful for the silence, but his gratitude is only temporary. Soon hands were on him again, attempting to guide Damian into them as if to carry him, but Damian tugs away disobediently. The hand touches his back again, and this time the cry cannot be suppressed.
Damian is pulled to a sitting position with one hand supporting him on his lower back. It is adjusted twice for the other to pull up his shirt. Damian does not hold back the whimper as the cold penetrates the tender skin of his back, but it wasn’t just the cold that brought about the sad noise. It was his deep sorrow that his brother would have to see such a sight.
“His mother has wings,” a voice flows into his head as if he were floating in the sea.
“Holy crap-”
Damian doesn’t struggle anymore as the shirt is completely pulled off. Two arms wrap around him in a full embrace, tugging him into a warm lap, and promising safety that Damian did not think he should be rewarded. He is vaguely aware that the arms were careful as to not touch his sensitive skin, but they were close enough that the anxious part of Damian’s irrational body began to fester.
Dick huddles over him. He curves over Damian like a bear over her precious cub, and rocks them back and forth slowly.
Then he sings.
“I closed my eyes… drew back the curtains…”
Damian knew in any other circumstance that he’d be growling for Dick to cut it off, insult his singing voice, and then disappear into his room. This time he had no energy to even consider such a thing. He was twitching in Dick’s arms, so overwhelmed by pain that he could not prompt any sort of dialogue. The most that came out of his mouth were tiny mewls as if he were a drenched kitten, abandoned out in the rain, and miserable.
There was something comforting in being held. Damian finds himself appreciating Dick’s added presence more and more, and he even finds the singing a soothing replacement for the endless torment of painful thoughts that burned through his mind. It reminded him of the rare and precious moments he shared with his mother. Sometimes they would share affection in secret places when his grandfather was watching, and she’d smooth a hand over his hair with a reserved, tender, smile.
The song halts for only a second as lips press against the top of his skull. Dick does not cease in his rocking. Damian’s hand grip at the fabric of his shirt, abusing it in his hold. He imagined no iron would be able to fix the shirt after he was done with it.
Damian feels another weight add onto the bed. He doesn’t look at them, but he can tell immediately that it belongs to his father. Dick had an acrobatic physique with packed muscle, but his father was a shredded monster second to no one. He was heavier.
“How long?” Dick whispers over Damian’s head. He picks up the song in a hum instead of continuing the words.
“Might be a couple of days. I wouldn’t know. We might need to contact his mother.”
Damian’s grip tightens as he feels the extra limbs in his back finally pull through the skin. He grits his teeth hard so as to not make a shameful noise, but the panic escapes from his throat in a strangled note. Dick must have noticed the change because he stops rocking, and leans over Damian to inspect his back once more. Damian distantly registers the gasp, but the pain was so hot that it turned his vision white.
The pain lasts only thirty seconds, but it feels like an hour. Damian presses his face into Dick’s chest in an attempt to hide himself, but it does nothing in his favor. Finally, the unbearable ache pops, and Damian almost feels as if he can breathe again. The burn was still there, but now it felt more like he’d accidentally touched the stove instead of putting his hand in a fire without removing it.
Damian slumps against Dick, and his brother takes all of his weight.
“You did good, Damian,” Dick coos.
Damian didn’t know what he was talking about, but the way Dick delivered his sentence made Damian feel like he was right. It was strange how someone could be so convincing by tone alone.
Damian exhales shakily.
It is finished.
Damian is not so eager to show off the new leathery wings that were folded against his back, but he had little choice in the matter when the entire family caught wind of his struggle. Damian was intent on hiding them as much as he could, but he hadn’t been able to hide them completely. His mother knew how to conceal her wings without effort, but Damian was not as advanced at that skill as she was.
They all come to him, one at a time, in different scenarios.
Stephanie was the first to show up with the excuse of checking up on him, even bringing a fruit basket to cement the facade, and the only reason he hadn’t been able to turn away was because he was bed-ridden. Alfred had been supplying him with a daily dose of pain medication, and his father wanted him to recover from the event that had essentially crippled him.
Damian’s back was now extremely sore because of what happened just two days prior. He had a hard time even moving his wings because of it.
When Stephanie saw the wings she was star-struck. She had her own extra limb in the form of a tail, flickering behind her excitedly, never betraying the emotion she displayed on her face.
“Could you fly?” she had asked.
“I don’t know.”
He really didn’t. His mother had never flown, neither had his grandfather, and Damian wasn’t sure the wings were strong enough to even pick him off of the ground.
Stephanie stayed at his bedside for about an hour before disappearing. Damian had hoped she’d be his only visitor, but then Tim popped his head in with the same attempt at Stephanie’s facade. Tim had claimed he didn’t mean to stay long, but when his eyes caught sight of Damian’s wings he ended up pulling himself into the room anyway.
“They look like bat wings,” Tim had observed.
Damian didn’t know. He hadn’t looked in a mirror lately, and he had just assumed his wings would take shape like his mother’s.
“What color are they…?” Damian ended up asking.
Tim squinted his eyes.
“Black?”
Damian didn’t know why he had been confused. It might have something to do with the fact that Tim was often sleep-deprived, like an idiot, because he didn’t know how to take care of his own health.
Tim talked about trivialities as he stayed at Damian’s bedside. At some point he’d even left to retrieve his laptop, and then he’d come back to sit in companionable silence. Damian prefered him that way. He didn’t mind the clack of the keys or the glow of the screen. He was content.
Tim didn’t stay forever. He was gone in the evening to disappear for dinner, and then Cass soon replaced him with a plate meant for Damian.
“Open,” she commanded.
And Damian gave her this look because she was not about to baby him. He’d grown wings, sure, but he hadn’t regressed in age.
The both of them stay in stubborn silence. Cass completely ignored his wings in favor of feeding him the soup that Alfred had concocted in the kitchen, but Damian wasn't not too fond of being spoon-fed. He was capable of eating without assistance.
“Open,” she said again.
“I will not-” Damian had started.
She tricked him. She stuck the spoon in his mouth in the middle of speaking, and Damian makes sure to give her a piece of his mind by spitting out creative curses.
She didn’t seem to mind any of it, though, only closing her eyes as if she’d reach some kind of zen-mode right at his bedside.
Cass finished up, cleaning Damian up with a napkin on his chin, and Damian had little room to get away from her attacking hands.
Damian drifted to sleep sometime later after that, but he woke up when he heard the entrance of his second oldest brother. Jason doesn’t bother with the formalities. He collapsed in the chair that all of Damian’s siblings had sat in at one point during the day, and didn't make any comment on Damian’s wings. He instead asked about his health, looking exhausted while doing so, and when Damian said he was doing just fine Jason grunted in acknowledgment.
“Go back to bed,” Jason ended up saying. “I’ll watch over you while you sleep.”
Damian wasn’t sure if he should be comforted by his statement, but he was drowsy anyways. He does end up sleeping.
And when he woke up again Jason was gone.
Damian has had his wings for about one month before he starts allowing Dick to touch them. Dick was the one who was most fascinated with Damian’s wings, and Damian didn’t know why. He’d asked at some point, and all Dick had ended up telling him was, “They’re beautiful.”
Damian didn’t know how to feel about his wings being ‘beautiful.’ He personally thought they were ugly.
It’s unfair because somehow Dick finds out, after experimenting with messing with Damian’s wings, that he could calm Damian down by stroking the arches. He also figured out that Damian was starting to love when he pressed out the knots in between Damian’s wings, and Damian was not overly-proud with this fact.
But here Damian was anyway - slumped over Dick’s lap - as his oldest brother pressed on his back with his knuckles. He smoothed out the tense spots like he was experienced doing it, but Damian knew for a fact that this routine had only started up a week ago.
Damian wasn’t sure how to handle the fact that his family had immediately become accepting over the growth of two new limbs. Sure, Stephanie had a tail, and sure Barbara had a sharp set of fangs. That was nothing compared to the giant wings that were finally starting to obey Damian’s basic commands. He had thought that his family would have shunned him for the clear inheritance he’d obtained from his mother’s side, but they had all taken it in stride instead.
“You’re just a baby,” Dick coos at him.
Damian grunts unhappily. He’d grown tired of snapping at Dick about his strange addiction of coddling Damian like he was five. Damian had reminded him multiple times that he was not five, he was eight, and there was a big difference between those two ages.
“I don’t know how you get him to do that,” Tim starts from the side of the room. Damian wasn’t looking at him, but he could imagine him sitting off the window-sill in the living room.
“Do what?” Dick asks innocently.
“He hasn’t insulted you once,” Tim points out.
Dick laughs melodiously. Tim says something about how Dick had it easy, and then Dick returns a quip about how he had to be Damian’s favorite brother.
Which wasn’t true. Damian didn’t have a ‘favorite brother.’ He hated everyone equally. There were no exceptions.
Damian feels Dick pull at one of his wings and stretch it out. He hears the awe in his voice, the wonder, and tries to wrap his mind around the fact that Dick didn’t utterly detest his new wings.
“They’re starting to look real healthy,” Dick informs him. He releases the wing and it folds back against Damian’s back. He stops messing with Damian’s back and starts stroking the arches of his wings. Damian involuntarily shivers.
“I think they are horrific,” Damian mumbles.
“Now why would you think that?” his brother returns.
“They are ugly.”
Dick sounds in disagreement. “No. They aren’t. They’re amazing.”
“They are shameful,” Damian corrects.
Dick stops stroking his wings and rests the palm of his hand on the small of Damian’s back. The other starts running through his hair. Dick couldn’t do anything, it seemed, without somehow touching Damian. He just couldn’t keep his hands to himself.
“They’re a part of you,” Dick tells him, “and I love everything about you.”
Damian suddenly feels very hot. His face was on fire.
“They’re not that ugly,” Tim adds, unhelpfully.
Damian could hear the roll of Dick’s eyes in his voice. He states, almost exasperated, “Timmy.”
Tim adjusts his sentence. “They’re not ugly. I think they look fine.”
“Why’d you think they look ugly, anyway?” Dick starts getting down to the deep questions, and Damian hated the deep questions.
“They remind me of my grandfather,” Damian says, not willing to expand. Not willing to pour out his soul.
“Well, kiddo, you’re nothing like your grandfather. These wings are yours. They don’t belong to anyone else,” Dick informs him.
Damian almost sighs in relief when Dick starts pressing at his back again. He enjoyed the sensation far too much than he’d like to admit.
“Do you understand, Damian?”
Damian shifts on Dick’s lap. He tries to stop Dick’s leg from digging into his stomach.
“Do you understand?” Dick tries again when Damian doesn’t answer.
“Yes,” Damian practically spits out.
Dick hums out a, good, before returning his full focus on Damian’s massage. Damian didn’t know why he even wanted to massage him, but he wasn’t about to stop him. He would entertain Dick’s desires.
And it definitely wasn’t because of the fact that he kind of enjoyed it.