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Published:
2021-05-17
Updated:
2021-06-02
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3,018
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2/?
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EMPTY

Summary:

Damian Wayne was empty, he hadn't realized it until he started noticing the diffrence between him and his 'family'.
So he did everything to be full, so he could be loved by them, he needed their love more than anything... He just didn't know the consequences.

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Chapter 1: Ch.1 He thought

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Damian Wayne was empty. He never noticed it until he met his father, Bruce Wayne.

 

He didn’t notice it at first, but after a lot of thinking, he came to the conclusion that he was empty. I wouldn't say he was devoid of emotions, but he just didn’t understand them.
When he first came to the Wayne Manor he noticed some differences between him and his brothers, they always seemed to get along in a weird way, they were always fighting, but they cared for each other (even if it was almost impossible to see in the case of Drake and Todd). So he thought if he was always rude and fought with them they would care for him too, but it didn’t work, maybe with Grayson but Grayson is the golden boy, of course he would want to be around the little brother that was broken, so he could fix him, and Drake and Todd hated him or just didn’t care for his existence. So he decided stick around Grayson, but something about the first Robin made Damian’s skin crawl.

 

His smile, the smile of Richard Grayson, a smile that would make the sun feel ashamed of its shine. When Damian saw Grayson’s smiles he wanted to beg for his older brother to stop, but of course he wouldn’t do that, Damian Wayne isn’t a selfish brat like everyone thinks, Damian simply didn’t understand why he felt like that, so He thought that maybe if he started smiling as his older brother did, he wouldn’t feel the way he felt towards his brother, because he didn’t want to hate the smile of the person that he loved, so one day after he finished his shower, he stopped in front of his full-body mirror and looked at his scarred body.

 

Feeling self-conscious about his body was something common for him, seeing fat in places that you could see just bones, but this time he stopped in front of the mirror and tried to smile just like Grayson did, he thought it would be easy since the former Robin did it all the time, turns out it was a lot harder than he thought.

 

So he searched on YouTube: “Videos to make you smile” He watched thousands of them… but he didn’t smile he couldn't find a purpose to.

He searched on the internet why people smiled. “Humans actually smile for many different reasons. Sometimes we do smile simply because we are happy, but we also smile for social reasons and to put people at ease, as well as to show more complex emotions, such as resignation.” This was what he read in the first site he clicked.

 

The person who wrote this certainly did not have any problems with smiling or feeling happiness, because if they did understand how hard it was to feel the way he did they wouldn’t put simply in that phrase, but after his research, he found out that he couldn’t smile because he wasn’t happy, but, how to be happy, what was the recipe?

 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Later that night at the dinner table, Drake told a joke, everyone laughed, even Bruce gave a smirk, everyone but Damian, Tim noticed it, but only snorted thinking that the ‘Demon Spawn’ was just being his bratty self.
After that Damian left the table quietly, and went to his room, did his usual routine, that was: Throwing up his food, silently apologizing for wasting Alfred’s delicious vegetarian food, being self conscious about himself and his scars and sometimes he would add some to his collection. You know just healthy stuff. But the focus here is what he noticed after that dinner, he finally noticed why Grayson’s smiles bugged him so much, why he couldn’t understand Drake’s jokes, or why since he met his family something started to churn inside him.

 

He now understood that when his mother whipped him it wasn’t for love, or when his grandfather punished him it wasn’t for the best, it was because he was a failure. And the reason he didn't fit in his ‘family’ was because they were full, believe it or not, they were full of life (Even if Jason wouldn’t agree), they were a happy family (as happy a family with so much baggage could be), and Damian wasn’t happy he never understood what being happy stood for, he never understood how to feel.

 

Getting to this conclusion Damian understood that he couldn’t be part of the family, his family was a happy dysfunctional family, and Damian must be dysfunctional but he wasn’t happy.
His final conclusion was that he was

 

E
M
P
T
Y

 

Empty, simply as that.

 

After that night he started training more and more ad eating less and less, because He thought that if he filled his emptiness with training he could be part of the family, he thought that if he was skinnier his family would think he was worth their attention and love, because Damian was craving for someone to see him, someone to hear his screams, but if he was empty no one would see or hear him.

Sleep was something he never got along with, just like Drake, but at this point Damian was winning the coffee maniac. He thought that no one was seeing his empty chair at the dinner table, He thought they wouldn’t see it because he was too empty to be noticed.

 

But… he was very wrong, his brothers were really worried, at first Tim and Jason pretended like they didn’t care, Dick of course was worried since the beginning of... well, everything.

 

His father was worried sick, just didn't know how to approach the child,his child, so he decided it would be better if he left the job for his sons, even if it was his job as a father to do it.

 

And there was Alfred, also known as the grandfather of the Wayne household, he was everything a grandfather should be, not a grandfather that would punish, but give advices, not a grandfather that would do things that shouldn’t be done to a child, things that shouldn’t be said out loud, but a grandfather that would bake the best cookies in the world and give comfort after a nightmare.
Damian didn’t notice that he was already part of the family.
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The three brothers tried everything they could to talk with their youngest, but everytime they tried to approach him, it was like he wasn’t seeing or hearing them, and it made them even more worried, but they were the vigilantes of Gotham City, they wouldn’t give up.

 

Unfortunately it seemed the world just wanted them to give up, Damian would be alone a whole week, and it was pretty obvious that he wasn’t in the right mind state to stay alone. But Bruce had an important meeting in London and Alfred was going with him because his niece was sick, Dick had an important case in Blüdhaven, Tim had a school trip, and Jason had to help Roy with… stuff. So yeah, a kid mentally ill is going to be alone at a manor, everything is going to be peachy,

 

A week later NOTHING was peachy.

Notes:

A/N: Heyy, this chapter didn’t have any dialogue so I think it gets more tiring to read, but don’t worry next chapter I’m going to do more talking between the characters.
Thanks for reading, and please leave Kudos and a comment!
Good rest of day/afternoon/night of reading fanfictions!

Chapter 2: Ch.2 Brothers

Summary:

Brother feelings about Damian.

Notes:

Sorry I took so long to uptade, I wasn't liking my writing so I wrote the second chapter all over again. And I ended up getting lazy and just reading, hehe.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Ch.2

 

Dick Grayson was a good brother, he was there to all his little siblings, either to help or annoy, Dick Grayson was a good brother, of course he learned from the best, his mentor, Alfred Pennyworth, Bruce may be the one who thought him how to fight, how to make justice, but the social awkward detective wasn’t really good with relationships.

Bruce Wayne really was a lost cause for everyone, everyone but Alfred Pennyworth, The immortal butler would never give up of his son, not now not ever.

 

So that’s where Dick Grayson learned all his ‘tricks’, of course he would never even get near to master the butler techniques, but he did his best, and doing his best seemed to please everyone around him, but it didn’t mean he never did nothing to improve himself, that’s why he’s known as the ‘Golden Boy’. Dick Grayson was a good son too, he always tried to do his best so Bruce and Batman (sometimes it was really difficult seeing the difference).

 

He first felt like he wasn’t a son, but just a tool, the thought always made him sad, but after sometime, he became Bruce Wayne’s first son, it really made him happy, it made him happy because he could help the man more, not just as Robin, but as his son, because he could help Alfred with his duty of making Bruce Wayne happy.

 


When he first met Damian, he saw a little Bruce Wayne, a Bruce Wayne he could help from the almost beginning, even if he was ten years late, he still could do some changes, he still could be helpful, but what he failed to notice and what probably everyone failed to notice, was that Damian Al’Gul Wayne was nothing like Bruce Wayne, they could be alike in the stubbornness, but they weren’t alike in the way of thinking, at least not anymore. But the thing that made them completely different was there Bruce Wayne even after he lost his parents and himself had Alfred Pennyworth, and Damian Al’Gul never had someone, so you could say the difference was that one had Alfred Pennyworth and the other one didn't.

 

So when Dick tried to approach to Damian like he did with Bruce, the kid seemed to just shut himself even more, and Dick couldn’t seem to understand what went on Damian’s mind, the little bat was mystery that he couldn’t understand, and he felt ashamed because he was son of the best detective in the world, he was supposed to understand a ten year old kid, but he knew Damian wasn’t just a ten year old kid, just as he knew Damian wasn’t okay, and it killed him knowing he couldn’t do anything to help his youngest brother, he was able to help Tim and Jason, and the two of them were really complicated, but Damian wasn’t complicated, Damian was complexe. And because he couldn’t help his little brother he felt like he was a bad brother.

 

At that moment Dick Grayson thought he was a bad brother, the moment he looked at the pale boy lying passed out in bed, he felt like a bad brother, that fervish boy couldn’t be the Damian he knew, that fragile boy couldn’t be Damian, where was he? Where he was that he didn’t see Damian getting so small, that boy didn’t look like he was sleeping peacefully, that boy looked like he was dead, looked like he had died in a very painful way. That boy couldn’t be his little brother.

 

Right now Dick Grayson felt like a bad brother.


Tim Drake was not a really good brother, he knew that, and didn’t mind that at all, he didn't make any effort to be a good brother, but he tried a little for Dick and Jason, but really didn’t try for Damian, why would he? The kid tried to kill him the first time they met, the kid was an assassin, the kid was a brat, the kid would go to hell and the satan would give his throne.

 

Tim didn’t make any effort to get along with Damian, but that doesn’t mean he didn't care,well, he used not to care, he actually thought he didn’t care, that was until Damian...died. Damian died, and he felt like something was ripped away from him, he wasn’t there when Jason died, he didn’t know how the loss of someone he should protect felt like, of course when Bruce was thought dead he felt like he needed to do something, because he used to be Robin, and Robin protected Batman. But when Damian died, he felt something else, that little brat was his little brother, an older brother is supposed to take care of the youngest, and Tim wasn’t there, he wasn’t there to stop The Heretic from stabbing Damian in the heart, he wasn’t there the times Damian was probably crying way too silently in his room, he wasn’t there after Damian had a nightmare, he wasn’t there when Damian needed help with his English homework,

He wasn’t there
He wasn’t there
He wasn’t there

HE WASN’T THERE

But he was at Damian’s funeral, he was there when Dick’s tears didn’t seem to have an end, he was there to watch Bruce’s sleepless nights trying to find a way to bring Damian back, he was there to see Jason turning to killing, he was there to see Alfred going Damian’s door to wake him up and ended up remembering that there was no longer anyone to wake up in that room.

 

He was there to see everything falling apart.

 

And he promised himself that, if Damian one day came back, he would be there, he would be there to help Damian with everything he could, he would be an older brother, a good older brother.

 

That proved to be harder than he thought, Damian, seemed to just get further and further away from his grasp. And before he noticed, not even Dick could get close enough to Damian, and as much as he wanted to do something,

He couldn’t
He couldn’t
He couldn’t

 

HE COULDN’T.

 

He in the end, couldn't be a good older brother.

--
He knew he shouldn’t have gone to the school trip, he knew, but he ended up being his group leader, how? That’s a really good question, he was quiet while his group of friends were discussing the trip, and he was spacing out thinking about Damian and how he wanted to drink a really bitter coffee,and than he discovered that he was the group’s leader, he was going to protest, but the bell rang and he was left alone trying to understand what had happened.

 


Everything just got better when he discovered everyone in the manor had something to do, really, what were the odds that would happen.
But everything was fine, really, it was fine, Damian wasn’t going to die in one week, Bruce said he wasn’t allowed to patrol and that the girls and Duke could take care of everything, so everything was fine, really fine, so fine that when he came back he didn’t almost cry when he saw how pale his little brother was, so fine that right now they were rushing Damian to the hospital because of his high fever.

 

So, yeah, everything was fine.

 


Jason Todd, wasn’t a good brother,he definitely wasn’t, he had tried to kill all of his brothers, he wasn’t sorry for that, he really wasn’t, he even thought it was funny. (That's not true)

 

But he was the only one allowed to do that, he was the only one who could kill his brothers, if anyone tried to kill them, they would be dead, and if one of his brothers wanted to kill themselves, he wouldn’t let that happen, ever. Because he was the only one allowed to do that, and no he’s not being childish.

 

But Jason Todd knew he had good brothers, some better than others, actually he knew Dick was the only good brother he had (and Duke, but he didn’t have much contact with him), but he knew Tim and Damian wouldn’t let him die, at least he knew Tim wouldn’t, he wasn’t sure about the Demon Brat. But even when he came to the manor and was a violet street rat that swore vengence to the entire world, Dick was a good brother, an annoying good brother, but a good brother.

 

Jason didn’t really understand how Dick was such a good brother being an only child and living with Bruce, Bruce was scary, he would never admit that, but he was afraid of the man.
He didn’t know why, he just was, maybe he was afraid that Bruce’s standards were too high for him to reach, he was afraid of those cold blue eyes that seemed to look right through you, he was afraid that one day he wouldn’t be able to be the Robin Batman needed.

 

He really was scared of the man.

 

But at some point, he stopped being scared.He wasn’t scared anymore because of those rare smiles Bruce gave him when he was proud, he wasn’t scared anymore because of the light kisses on the forehead after a nightmare, he wasn’t scared anymore because the man wasn’t just Batman, the man was his father, a father he never had.
.

.

.
And then, Jason Todd died.

He died, and came back to life.
He came back to life with a flaming rage.
Rage from The Batman, rage from Bruce Wayne, rage from his father.

 

But the moment he met a little boy with big green eyes, that were filled with so much pain, it seemed that all that anger he felt went away.
All he could focus on was that boy, that boy that was covered in blood, with a sword too heavy for him, that boy who didn’t have ever seen life, just death. He wanted to be the life that boy had never seen… Just like Bruce was for him.

 

But he lost the boy, and with that, all his rage came back.
--
Jason thought he would never see the boy with green eyes again, he didn't know the boy’s name, so it made everything even more difficult, so he just gave up.

 

But then, he met Damian. At first, he didn’t notice, but one day, the kid looked up at him, with those same big green eyes, filled with pain, eyes which weren’t used to the sight of life, just death.

He decided to say nothing, but after that, he started acting more like a brother, he knew the kid needed one.

And right now he knew more than ever, because his little brother was having a seizure in his arms, and he didn’t know what to do, all he could do was scream to Dick drive faster.

Notes:

A/N: Yes it's possible to have a seizure bwcause of a high fever, or because of the temperature rising too fast.
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6443a2.htm <---- Check this link for more information.

And next chapter I PROMISE I will try to put some dialogue.
Please leave comments I really appreciate them!!

Notes:

A/N: Heyy, this chapter didn’t have any dialogue so I think it gets more tiring to read, but don’t worry next chapter I’m going to do more talking between the characters
Thanks for reading, please leave a comment!
Good rest of day/afternoon/night of reading fanfictions!