With the addition of House of Hush today, I have finally completed my main series collection for Dick as Batman! I'm still missing some other (more minor) story lines, but very happy with this so far <3
The first time Corruption!Damian is exposed to fear toxin, he thinks he’s been doused in pesticide. He becomes frantic, clawing at his own clothes and skin, trying to get it off before his swarm dies again, made even worse by the fact Damian’s panic brings them all to the surface, right where he doesn’t want them to be.
Dick has to restrain Damian before Damian manages to strip the suit off or jumps in the river (toxic enough to please the Corruption, sure, but pollution is not Damian’s aspect and Damian’s just as vulnerable to it as anyone else; more so with all the tiny wounds on his skin.) Damian demands to know what Dick is doing, says they don’t have time to wait, they’re dying as we speak. Dick tries to reassure Damian, to guide the hallucination until they can get the antidote into Damian, by saying that the poison isn’t that fast acting, that if Damian comes back to the Batcave then they can wash it off.
This has the opposite effect of what Dick wanted, as Damian now becomes convinced they’re going to put him in another Lazarus pit. The confusion turns to screaming (incoherent protests about this being ridiculous, unreasonable, unnecessary,) to accusations (they’re trying to get rid of him, they never wanted a Corruption Avatar, they want Damian gone but he won’t!) to pleas (Damian can’t go back in the pits, they don’t work the same for him, if they put him back in the pits he’ll never come out again—it will kill him, kill all of them, kill his entire swarm, and haven’t they done everything that’s ever been asked of them? His babies are innocent, they don’t deserve this, please, I thought you cared about innocence—)
Dick is very thankful for the magical protections on the batsuit and the autopilot on the batmobile, as Damian’s moths beat about his head in a frenzy and Damian’s caterpillars chew on the batsuit hard enough it’s actually audible. Instead, Dick can focus on remembering all the reasons he’s not going to Hunt down Ra’s al Ghul to rip him open like a cheap sleeping bag, while holding onto his baby brother (who is now begging for a mother who isn’t here to save him again.)
(Dick wishes Bruce never taught him League Dialect. This isn’t something Dick should be hearing, isn’t something Damian wants him to know. This is something Damian should’ve chosen to share because he trusted them not to hurt him like that, not because Damian’s brain was scrambled by Gotham’s local toxins.)
"Are you going to train me or not?" Damian scowled impatiently. He had been given the mantle of Robin, and he had given Grayson a grace period to deal with Drake, but enough was enough. He was this close to taking the cape and taking off into the city alone.
Had his father been here, he would not have left the city this unattended.
Though if his father had been here...
He was restless and angry, and he needed to know that there was a point to all of this. He needed something to do.