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The manor is empty today. It’s a rare sight. Usually, there’s always someone hanging around, determined to bother him. Damian enjoys when the manor is empty. He also enjoys the background chatter a full house brings, even enjoys petty arguments and shouting when things eventually go wrong, but there’s something special about the silence, about the empty halls and the quiet cracks from floorboards, the way a door closing rings out through every room of the house.
He’s outside, right now. He’s installed a canvas in the garden, where he’s sure not to get paint on anything they can’t replace or fix. Painting is the best part of an empty manor. Painting outside is even better.
Damian Wayne enjoys art. It’s one of those traits people don’t expect, something about him people ignore, brush aside. It’s something that sticks out harshly when compared to everything else he is as a person, to everything else people see about him. Damian doesn’t always enjoy the reputation he’s built for himself. Angry, and violent, and merciless. It isn’t exactly false, which is the part that upsets him the most. His hands have been trained to inflict pain, to kill without mercy, to never go down without a fight.
(He remembers his childhood. He remembers it more than people assume. People hear the horrible things he’s endured and see how well he is now and assume he represses it, forgets it, moves past it. But he remembers. He remembers blood on his hands and the feeling of seeing a life slip away from him. Life shouldn’t slip away, but getting rid of his problems, getting rid of evil, feels so right that he doesn’t think about that part until it’s too late and he can’t get rid of the blood anymore.)
He thinks that’s why he enjoys painting, why he enjoys art in general, the act of creating something he can be proud of. It allows him to make without violence, to be angry without causing harm, he expresses disdain in a way that leaves no one bleeding, no one bruised, in a way that doesn’t force his nails into skin until it rips, in a way that doesn’t force him to punch and kick until he hears bones crack. What he’s painting right now is a city landscape, something he saw while on patrol last night. It stuck out to him as being beautiful. He likes being able to recognize when things are beautiful. He knew he had to paint it.
He enjoys seeing beautiful landscapes when he goes on patrol. It's one of his favorite parts, being able to pause for a moment to observe the world around him and commit it to memory. He doesn't get to pause and look around very often, but he cherishes every second where he manages to.
Patrol has been hard, lately. Not complicated, not difficult, hard in a different way. He feels like being Robin is drowning him, sometimes. Not because of the work, or the danger. Not the criminals, not the fact that he had to learn to be softer to be Robin. It was just overwhelming, recently. It felt like he was trying to live up to something that didn’t exist, like he should be proud to hold the title simply for what it was worth. Looking at his sketch, at the pencil lines dancing on white to create a cohesive background resembling a night sky he’s forced to see every single night, he feels proud. Being proud of Robin hasn’t been as easy.
Damian Wayne doesn’t understand what Robin is supposed to be. He knows Robin should represent something, he knows Robin meant so much to the others, that he meant something to Gotham, to Bruce. Drake says he should be hope, Todd had said it should be magic, Grayson had described it as joy and childhood. Damian can’t bring himself to understand. He can’t bring himself to feel these things, to see them when he hears the name Robin, when he puts the suit on. Sometimes he thinks he isn’t very good at being Robin, that he’s a fraud for wearing his suit, if only because he doesn’t know how to do it properly.
(He remembers when he first became Robin. At least, he remembers when he put on the suit, when he held a blade to his brother's throat as if this was something to earn, and now he has the gall to say Robin doesn’t feel right, that Robin isn’t easy. He thinks this is selfish. He thinks he should cling to Robin until his dying breath if only to make it worth it. To make the threats, the anger, feel justified. If this title is everything to him, maybe it makes sense that he was willing to kill for it. And yet, here he is.)
The way the city lights stop the stars from glowing isn’t an easy concept to paint, convoluted ideas that need to be communicated through very careful manipulation of colors and textures. It reminds him of how he feels about the title, he thinks. It reminds him of that confusion, of furrowed eyebrows when someone mentions how much Robin means to them. Being Robin was so important for everyone else, it made them into better people, or honest people, or Robin represented who they were as a whole. It represented more than Damian could ever understand. To him, Robin is just a name. A costume. Bright colors. A sidekick. A title carried on if only because it was important to some. He doesn’t understand why the others see it as a symbol. He doesn’t understand why they all see it differently.
Maybe what pushes him apart is his indifference. He didn’t want to be Robin, not particularly. He didn’t find solace in it, or joy, or some indescribable feeling of belonging. He wanted to make his father proud, he wanted to earn the title because it was destined to be his through blood alone, because he was naive and unaware and thought love had to be earned, when he was younger. But he didn’t beg for it like Drake or create it like Grayson, he didn’t find hope in it like Todd. Robin didn’t mean anything to him beyond being his fathers sidekick. Robin meant that he had earned his place in this family, nothing more.
Unconsciously, as he finishes putting down the rough colors, he adds a speck of red and a speck of black on top of one of the buildings. He smudges it slightly with his finger when he turns his hand to the side to wipe his brush.
A few nights ago, he had gone out on patrol with Drake. They had their issues, their differences, but they usually managed to get along. Damian enjoyed those moments, where Drake could ask stupid questions and Damian managed to only let out a defeated sigh and a mostly cohesive answer instead of anger and harsh words. But even when they got along, they were still different, fundamentally. During a moment of silence, Drake had asked him something and he had been stuck thinking about it ever since. He thinks it might be the reason for his newfound confusion regarding the title.
“What does Robin mean to you?”
Damian had just stared at him blankly. It was the type of subjective question he had never quite learned how to answer. What did Robin mean to him? He didn’t know. Robin was Batman's sidekick, Robin was Bruce's son, Robin arrested criminals but didn’t kill, just like the bat. But that wasn’t a meaning, that was a description, an explanation. A meaning was vague, conceptual. Drake took his silence as an answer, simply turned and nodded as if confusion made sense, as if Damian furrowing his eyebrows and frowning tightly told him everything he needed to know. Damian figured it did. He didn’t know what it meant to Drake, felt the urge to scratch his skin off if only to know what Drake saw when he looked through him.
(He remembers meeting Drake clearly. He also remembers what it felt like to try to kill him. He remembers it as easily as their last patrol. He thinks that’s why he has such a hard time, with Drake. He knows what it would’ve been like to take his life away and yet, Drake stands on rooftops beside him with not a hint of discomfort and asks him stupid questions and only laughs when Damian yells at him. It feels like trust he didn’t earn. Like a relationship he doesn’t deserve. And yet, Drake always forgives.)
Drake always made him feel that way. Exposed, as if his skin was peeling away from his body and his blood wrote out every thought he had on the floor beneath him as he bled out. He thinks he might be spending too much time with Todd and his collection of unnecessarily complicated novels, too.
He spends a few minutes staring at the blocks of color he’s put in place. It’s a vague idea, a concept, of what it’ll look like. Damian doesn’t know why he can paint vague concepts but he can’t assign one to Robin. It should be the same, colors don’t have any more meaning than a name. But he could paint beautiful feelings through shapes and colors, despite being unable to give Robin a value. He thinks Robin should mean something, that he should be able to give the name value. But he can’t figure out how to.
He could’ve told Drake Robin represented the fact that he didn’t need to be violent to help people but that wasn’t true because the Robin Damian had made was violent, no matter how hard he tried to represent that childish joy and hope the others always said Robin should hold. They don’t think he’s a bad Robin, he knows they don’t, he knows they’re proud of all the progress he’s made regardless, but sometimes he feels like that’s the truth.
He isn’t an assassin anymore, he doesn’t hurt to kill but he still hurts no matter how gentle that violence is. A raised fist is still raised, no matter how soft the blow ends up being. He can paint gently, he can draw gently, write, speak to his family without that harsh venom in his voice. But that’s not Robin. That’s who Damian became. Not what he made Robin into.
(Damian doesn’t know if he’s gentle yet. He doesn’t quite feel gentle. He doesn’t know if he ever will, if his hands will ever be able to cradle life in the same way it was able to end it in the past. He doesn’t enjoy hurting people. He knows people think he does, that he finds some sort of sick pleasure in violence. The truth is that it scares him but a lot of things scare him and that doesn’t stop him, and it never has, so his hands keep drawing blood, no matter how much he tries to force them to be soft.)
He could’ve simply repeated the things he’s heard, he could’ve said Robin meant hope and joy and childhood, but Drake would’ve seen right through it. He would’ve stared and told him he was lying. And Damian would’ve denied it through anger but Drake would’ve known better because he always tends to. The Robin Damian created isn’t hope and joy and childhood. Damian isn’t sure how to experience a childhood, isn’t sure how to bring hope, how to make people happy.
He used to look up to Jon for that. Jon was hope and joy and childhood, and he almost taught Damian how to be that too. But Jon isn’t here anymore to teach him because Jon is different now and Damian is still the same, with only slightly gentler hands.
(Damian remembers Jon. Damian keeps remembering Jon. Damian wishes he would just forget. Damian wishes he could forget. He remembers Jon.)
Damian feels like he never learns. Like he never quite tries hard enough to be better. No matter how much progress he supposedly makes, he ends up back at home yelling at Drake for meaningless comments that shouldn’t upset him, scowling for the simple reason that his father told him he did something wrong. He still storms out of the house like a child when things go just a little too wrong.
His hands became softer but he was still the same angry child that he was trained to be. He still held the same disdain and disgust and unreasonable desire to inflict pain onto those he deemed deserved it.
His fingers lightly brush against the paint to check if it’s dry, and they stick slightly where it’s still tacky. He rubs off any residue onto his pants before waiting a few minutes more.
Damian thinks that if he had the choice now, he wouldn’t become Robin. Not because he dislikes it but because he thinks Robin should go to someone who loves the title. To someone who wears it with more than just egotistical pride. Damian is proud to be Robin because it means he earned something. Robin should mean more to someone than that. Robin should be more than something you can earn.
(He doesn’t think he earned Robin. He doesn’t remember feeling accomplished, when that title became his. Only empty, guilty, wrong. He took the name away from someone who loved it and carved away anything meaningful to leave room for whatever keeps going wrong with him. He thinks he wouldn’t become Robin because he never needed to become Robin. He took someone else’s place and pretended to earn something. And now it only serves to make him feel empty. He should’ve left Robin to Drake. He never tells anyone that, though.)
Damian likes working with his father. He liked being Grayson’s Robin. He likes his petty fights with Drake that turn into quiet patrols and the way Todd can’t stay away from working with them for too long. He doesn’t particularly like being Robin, though. He likes the family that came with it, the gentleness he learned, the house, the art he can make, his pets, the cave. But wearing the costume doesn’t make him happy. It doesn’t mean anything to him.
Maybe it means something to him through the things it gave him but that doesn’t feel quite right. Because Robin hadn’t been the one to earn those things, Robin hadn’t been the one to learn how to be better. Damian earned those things, Damian is the one who worked through issues he’d never managed to unravel until now, Damian had been the one to gain a family, to experience love in a way that felt meaningful. Saying that’s what Robin represents feels like taking credit away from himself, like pinning his achievements on a symbol instead of acknowledging that he had been the one to improve so much.
Maybe Robin just doesn’t mean anything to him. Maybe his cruel nature, maybe his anger, his violence, his inability to be gentle enough, happy enough, childish enough, his inability to be enough, had drained Robin of his meaning. Maybe it was his fault that he couldn’t give Robin a meaning because he, Damian, represented the wrong things. Maybe he was just wrong, off, not good enough to carry on this legacy, to be part of this family, maybe he isn’t good enough to be a part of something good. Maybe when he put the suit on, he took away the bright colors and only left a blood red trail sticking to his skin and forcing the costume to cling to him.
(Damian doesn’t remember what it felt like to be childish. Maybe he has nothing to remember. Maybe he should just let go of that metaphor. He knows it doesn’t apply to him.)
He wants to be a good Robin. Truely, really, he wants to make his part of the legacy good. He wants to understand. But Robin isn’t him. Robin is Batman’s sidekick. Robin is a vigilante. Robin keeps the city safe. And Damian is Robin because he wears the suit and the mask and the name. But Robin isn’t Damian. Robin is Tim Drake. Robin is Jason Todd. Robin is Dick Grayson. But Robin isn’t Damian Wayne because for that to be true, Robin would have to hold all of his failures too, and he doesn’t.
He knows the others would disagree, if he told them he was bad at being Robin. Grayson would hug him, no matter how much Damian protests, and he would reassure him. He would say Damian is his Robin, if nothing else, his voice would be gentle in a way he trained it to be, soft and quiet and he would tell him he’s proud. That he thinks Damian is doing his best and that’s all any of them could ask for because Robin doesn’t have to be perfect, he just has to try, and Damian would nod along even if he doesn’t fully agree and he’d lean into the hug even if he doesn’t like being touched and Grayson would hum and smile and only hold him tighter if he tried to let go.
Todd wouldn’t be as soft. He doesn’t do hugs, he doesn’t lower his voice to a gentle whisper only to be more welcoming. He’d shake his head, he’d look disappointed, and his eyes would turn towards Damian in a way that feels almost angry. He’d mutter and grumble and eventually, he’d turn to look at Damian completely, his eyes would meet Damian’s and he’d look less angry, more spiteful, he’d tell Damian he carries on a legacy he doesn’t even understand, and that he shouldn’t even have to, that he is risking his life, but that he’s still Damian, and it would feel more comforting than Grayson’s soft voice, for once.
Drake would stare at him. He’d stare blankly and his eyes would look a bit too empty for a second. And he’d get angry. Drake always got angry when Damian suggested he wasn’t a good fit for Robin. He’d stare and stare and his eyebrows would furrow and he wouldn’t say anything but his eyes would brush over his costume and glaze over and Damian would know better, he’d shut his mouth and look at himself and tell him he didn’t mean it, that it was unimportant, insignificant comments, and Drake would nod but still look so angry.
(Damian loves his brothers. He loves them more than anything. He doesn’t say that, he reluctantly lets Grayson pull him in for hugs and he reads the books Todd recommends and he answers all of Drake's stupid questions. But he doesn’t tell them. He doesn’t know how to. He doesn’t want to learn, really. He thinks they know. He thinks they understand. He thinks he’s made it obvious and he can always see the way Grayson smiles against his hair when they hug and the way Todd’s eyes glance down to worn copies of books he used held tightly in Damian’s hands when he comes over and the way Drake’s shoulders loosen and lower when Damian sighs and answers one of his questions with something surprisingly genuine.)
Damian’s eyes flick away from his painting when he hears a soft meow, and his eyes glance down to see Alfred the cat rubbing his face into his leg. He gives him a soft smile and leans down to brush his hand through his fur. His eyes focus back on his painting and he notices that the blocks of color he’d laid down were finally dry. He takes his time pulling out new colors, and smaller brushes, to properly detail the buildings, the sky, the lights coming in through windows, the same sliver of streets visible between buildings.
He starts by detailing the rooftops of smaller buildings that were visible from where he’d been perched. Jumping from rooftop to rooftop is one of his favorite parts of patrol, because it always shows him the prettiest views. He enjoys a lot of things about being Robin, about patrolling. He doesn’t think he wants to do this forever. He knows he doesn’t want to die Robin. But he can still appreciate some parts, he can still cherish elements that come with the name, things that cannot be separated from the costume.
He’s going to quit, he thinks, eventually. But that doesn’t feel daunting, because the parts of Robin he loves, the parts he holds close to his chest, can be done without the mask. He can still hold his family close to his chest without carrying on a legacy. He will keep being a Wayne, he’ll keep being his father’s son, Grayson’s brother, Todd’s brother, Drake’s brother, no matter how reluctantly. He’ll still get monthly family dinners and he’ll get to spar in the cave and he’ll get movie nights he gets forced to enjoy everytime Dick visits. He won’t lose the things Robin gave him.
Sometimes he worries he will. His eyes focus and he takes his time layering dark colors and feathery grey fog on top of the stars he flicks onto the canvas. It looks like light pollution and smoke and grainy sad skies. Sometimes he worries that being Robin is what gives him value here. The others have all stayed vigilantes, the others have dedicated their lives to making this city better, the others are ready to die for Gotham, die for these ideals, die for their city. Damian doesn’t want to do that.
(Damian remembers the way Drake fought, when he tried to kill him. He also remembers the acceptance in his eyes when he felt his own blood run down his neck. He remembers the way his eyes just glanced down at his costume, and up at Damian, the way he seemed to relax, the way his breathing stayed slow and deep and calm. He remembers the fact that Drake was willing, ready, comfortable, in the idea that he would die Robin. In the idea that he would die for the suit, for the name, for this idea. Those eyes haunt him, sometimes, when Drake seems to relax just a little too much.)
((He also remembers Todd's body, being hauled out of the pit, he remembers his shallow breathing when his mother first brought him home, he remembers the autopsy scars lining his chest and he remembers the dents in his skull and the way smoke made him freeze up and the fact that clocks had to be removed from his room because the ticking would send him in fits of panic that would last hours, of yelling, yelling for someone, a name Damian hadn’t recognized back then but that he was now more than familiar with and he remembers that ripped suit sitting in a glass case in the cave and the way Todd’s eyes always seem to glaze over it as if it isn’t really there, only a dream, a farce, a joke.))
He enjoys keeping people safe. But the way they do it, the violence that is forced onto them in order to keep people safe, he doesn’t want that. He wants to escape it, sometimes, he wants to achieve something else, something different. He always ends up thinking back to his grandfather, then, to his mother too, to his father. They wanted to be doctors, tried to be doctors, his grandfather managed to become one. He thinks that's what he wants.
That doesn’t matter right now, not really. Damian isn’t quitting yet. He doesn’t want to leave, not just yet, because Robin has been the starting point of so many of his achievements, and leaving that behind right now, today, tomorrow, doesn’t feel quite right. He still has things he needs to do, things to improve, and Robin doesn’t represent his achievements but the title is still comforting.
Maybe it has something to do with that irrational fear that being Robin is what makes him important to this family, too, but he tries not to dwell on those thoughts. He knows they’re wrong. He knows they love him because they want to, because they value Damian as a part of this family. And sure, that doesn’t always sound right, but Damian knows it is. Logically. He thinks it is, anyway.
Softly, gently, keeping his hand light, he details the figures, standing on a far away building he’s finished shading. The silhouettes take on a soul of their own, and he finds himself adding new people, besides the red dot and the black smudge. One’s blue, another darker red, one with harsher shapes but the same Robin red, more black. He takes a step back. He knows he belongs in this family. He has to.
So then, Damian is Robin. And Damian’s Robin doesn’t mean anything, but that doesn’t mean he’s bad. It doesn’t mean he’s a bad Robin because he still achieved so much because of Robin, and that gives him value. Not meaning, because Robin isn’t Damian and Damian will not stay Robin or keep his spirit forever, because Damian will change after leaving the suit behind until he no longer has anything to do with it.
But that doesn’t mean Damian hates being Robin, because he doesn’t. Because being Robin is familiar and it’s time with people he loves and it’s keeping people safe and helping people and Damian loves helping people. And Robin is also violence and anger and venom and maybe Damian can learn to live with that too. Because he hasn’t completely grown past the way he was raised and maybe he doesn’t need to, maybe he can keep a part of his mother, a part of his grandfather, and still learn to be gentle.
Damian stares at his painting. It’s unfinished, technically. He doesn’t reach for his paintbrushes. He stares at it. It looks right, like this, unfinished with rough edges, with the colors still sitting in harsh lines that don’t quite meld together correctly. It looks perfect. It looks exactly the way he wanted it to look.
Maybe he’s been thinking about it all wrong. His Robin doesn’t need to be joy or happiness or childhood, because that’s not what Damian is. And Damian is Robin, so his Robin doesn’t need to be things he isn’t. His Robin doesn’t need to be colorful or cheerful. His Robin doesn’t need to last forever. He’s been focused on the wrong thing. It’s a bad habit, being unable to see the bigger picture. It bothers him. He likes the bigger picture, he likes understanding, and yet he always seems stuck on the smallest details, the most insignificant things, pointless differences in phrasing that change nothing, personal opinions that aren’t even relevant.
He thinks back to Drake’s question. What does Robin mean to him. His Robin doesn’t mean anything. But Robin, the name, the title, does. Robin means family. Robin means guilt. Robin means death. Robin means shame. Robin means violence. Robin means bloodshed. Robin means a sword to the throat and sunken eyes and accepting an untimely death. Robin means losing people. Robin means nothing good. Robin means being loved. Robin means being needed. Robin means being wanted. Robin means keeping people safe. Robin means helping. Robin means everything good. Robin means pain. Robin means something.
Maybe his silence was an answer because there is no right answer. Silence was an answer because Robin could be nothing and everything and even silence doesn’t fully explain it and his furrowed eyebrows told Drake everything he needed to know because confusion is an answer, because Robin has no right answer. There is no one way to answer the question and Drake knew that when he asked. He knew that when he asked, when he formulated the question in his head, and that’s why he asked in the first place. Drake knew because he understands Robin more than Damian ever will and Drake is Robin so he knows what Robin is. He knows it better than anyone else.
Robin does mean something to him. He just didn’t understand it until now. Robin means family, to him. His family. Because his family is also filled with grief and guilt and shame, the way Drake’s eyes look through his is guilt, the way Todd glazes over that glass case sitting in the cave with denial is grief, the trained softness of Grayson’s voice and the gentle way his hands wrap around Damian’s body is shame. And his family loves him and he loves them, through every worn book passed between them and reluctantly shared hug and genuine question, and genuine answer. And his family is safe and he keeps them safe and they keep him safe and they help each other where they can, even when there’s nothing to help, even when they’re keeping each other safe from themselves, even when it’s hopeless and useless and painful. And his family is violent and surrounded by death and bloodshed and pain through every dead body Todd leaves on the street for them to find, through every night spent in the cave sewing up cuts and picking out bullets from wounds, to the way blood stains their suits no matter how hard they scrub.
Damian has an answer to Drake’s question now. He can’t wait to see him again. He can’t wait to be able to answer his question. He hopes Drake thinks it’s a good answer. He hopes his shoulders loosen and lower and his breathing comes slow and he nods, when Damian tells him. He hopes it’s an answer that screams love. He hopes that Drake will be able to tell how much time he’s spent thinking about it, how hard he tried to come up with a good answer.
He carefully picks his painting up, holding it up under the sun before bringing it inside. He’ll ask Alfred if there’s somewhere they could hang it up, he thinks. He wants to remember this. He wants to remember what this means.