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avis-writeshq · 1 year

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DETENTION — Damian Wayne

inspired by ‘detention’ by melanie martinez

a/n: HELLAUURRR!! returning with a damian wayne fic, how typical of me hehehe >:D i actually wrote + worked on this fic for a while now, maybe two months ago? so i'm glad i've been able to post it!! i haven't edited it that much aside from the times i had to reread it to continue writing, so if there are any issues, lmk!!

tw: guns, stalking, kidnapping, s3xual assault, blood, psychopathic tendencies (not by reader or damian), arson, prayer talk, if there’s more lmk!

rating: 16+ for mature themes, coarse language, and mutual pining

wc: 6k

“Morning, Damian!” You smile, waving in greeting as you fell into step beside him. “Did you finish the maths homework?”

He nods, muttering a quiet greeting before fishing his exercise book out of his bag. “Of course I did.” He relishes in the way your eyes lit up as you grabbed the exercise book, quickly turning to the current chapter you were on. “How are you never able to do your homework on time but–”

“– But you’re the one protecting Gotham, yes, Damian, I know.” You roll your eyes as you finish his sentence, having heard the ‘lecture’ one too many times. “I was busy providing sanctum to the sad citizens of Gotham through cheese, garlic, and tomato.”

Damian was well aware of your job at Maria Pizzaria, one of the best pizza places in all of Gotham, and he was happy that you were enjoying your job — even if it did mean you couldn’t do any of your homework for the next day.

“Alright, hurry up and finish your homework,” he says, chuckling at your frantic scribbling. “What time did you sleep last night, anyway?”

You groan, not ceasing your writing as you respond, “you don’t want to know. Ms Sanders decided to give me a one-thousand-word essay to complete, so estimate on that.”

Silence settles between you for a few moments before you snapped the books closed with a grin. “... and done! Thanks, Damian, you’re a lifesaver – literally. Oh! Did you hear about the new student? Her name’s Lilith, I think. I’m surprised you didn’t tell me about it earlier.”

Strangely enough, the name didn’t seem to ring any bells in his head. Maybe this student was incredibly new, but it’s weird that he hasn’t heard about it from his role as vice president.

“I actually wasn’t told about any new students,” Damian remarks as the two of you enter the classroom.

“That’s… weird.” Your brows furrow in confusion. “Did you turn up to all the meetings? Read all the emails?”

“Who do you take me for, of course, I did,” he huffed, taking his usual seat beside you in the centre of the class. “I never heard anything about it.”

You hum, taking in his words with full confidence that he was telling the truth. If there was one thing Damian never did to you, was a lie (aside from when he hid the fact that he was Robin from you – but that was on Bruce’s call, not his).

“Alright class, can I get your attention please!” The teacher claps their hands with a broad smile. “Everyone, we have a new student today! Lilith, why don’t you introduce yourself?”

A girl, mousey looking with dark brown hair with blonde ends, piercing brown eyes, and she looked innocent enough. Just your average high schooler. But her eyes seemed… off. It was almost like she wasn’t all there. At least, it looked like that to you. Nevertheless, you were never one to judge a book by its cover, so you quickly offered to show her around the school.

Lilith, as the girl was named, took the offer happily, saying in her thick Maine accent, “thank you, Damian. Oh, and Y/N.” Which you thought was weird, seeing that neither of you have introduced yourselves yet, but you figured that if she talked to the student council, they must have mentioned the both of you at some point.

“No problem!” You smile, but Damian was unmoving, his eyes narrowing at Lilith and you notice the way his jaw clenches. “Damian…” You hiss under your breath, “welcome the new student.”

He doesn’t say anything, instead choosing to nod in acknowledgment. He moved his seat so that it was almost as if the two of you were sharing a table while Lilith sat in front of you.

“Anyway,” You turn your attention back to Lilith who was staring a bit too hard at Damian for your liking. “I can show you around the school after class. Can I see your timetable?”

“Sure,” Lilith pushes her glasses up, digging into her bag. “Here you go.”

You read through her timetable, humming and nodding at the subject choices. “I have a few classes with you! That’s good, I can show you around then as we head to class. What do you think?”

“Is Damian coming with us?” She asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Uh…” you falter, trying to ignore the small stab in your heart the statement made.

“I’ll be there,” Damian cuts in quickly, and you don’t miss the way he brushes his pinky with yours from under the table.

You notice how her smile widens at his announcement, and you shift awkwardly in your seat. There was one thing you knew for sure –

***

“I don’t like her,” you announce to Damian over the phone, “she seems sketchy.”

“What happened to ‘I never judge a book by its cover’?” Damian snorts, and you hear a page being flicked in the background. “But, I do agree.”

“Maybe she’s just nervous,” you say, more to yourself than to him as you move to sit on your bed. “I mean, she is at a new school. Maybe she just feels awkward about it.”

You can practically hear him nod as he reads his book. Today was one of the rare times he didn’t have a patrol. Instead, Dick decided to take his place, saying that ‘a kid like him needed some down time’ which, to be fair, you couldn’t deny.

“I agree with you,” Damian says before continuing, “give her a few days though to adjust. We can see her true nature then.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” You say, eyes glancing at the digital clock that was glaring at you from your bedside table. “Sorry. You’re probably tired. You go get some sleep – you always sleep past midnight.”

“Coming from you that means nothing,” Damian remarks, and he laughs when he hears you groan in frustration. “Okay, I’m going to bed soon. I just have to change Titus’s litter box and finish the physics homework Mr Daven gave me.”

You grin at his words, “imagine taking physics. And you’re supposed to be the smart one.”

“Why do you think I’m taking physics?”

“Shut up.”

You hang up on the phone a few moments later, falling backwards on your bed with your back against the pillows. What you didn’t know – and who would have thought – were two brown eyes who stared into your window.

***

“I didn’t know you work here.”

A familiar – albeit, annoying – voice enters your ears and you do your best not to cringe. Lilith seemed to be following you everywhere. The mall, your classes, your hangouts with Damian, and now here. At Maria Pizzaria. When you saw her at the doorway, you felt the bile in your stomach begin to rise.

This has been happening for weeks now and you doubted that it was a coincidence. Damian understood your worries, saying that he’ll do a background check on this so-called Lilith Hart-Stone. So far, nothing. He did checks on her family, on her previous schools, on her life in general and it all points to one thing: completely and utterly normal. Even still, you couldn’t shake the uneasiness you felt every time she walked into the room. Damian would do his best to reassure you every time saying that she was ‘harmless’ and that he ‘wouldn’t let her hurt you if it came to it’.

“Aneko can you take her order, please?”

“No problem, do you mind sending this over to table 5?”

You nod, wordlessly taking the margarita and pepperoni pizzas to the table. You feel a sinking feeling in your chest, and you really hope that this ‘bad feeling’ is just you being paranoid.

Your shift continues, long and dragging, throughout the night until 10:30PM sharp. Grabbing your bags and leaving through the back alleyway exit, you make your way to the main street.

“So, you really do work here.”

You flinch, spinning around to meet eye to eye with the one and only Lilith Hart-Stone, the very person you were told not to worry about. Her hair was put into two messy space buns, and an eerie grin stretches across her face. She reminds you of someone – some anime character or something – from the way she’s dressed. It’s nothing too crazy or abnormal: just her school uniform with her skirt rolled up a few times too much so that it rests a couple of inches above her knee. Even still, she looks weird. Scary, even, and you remind yourself to be on your guard.

“What about it?” You ask offhandedly, taking a step back. Bad move.

The twisted look on her face seemed to grow, and you do everything you can to not show fear, but the look on your face must have translated what you were feeling.

“Oh, come no, Y/N. No need to be aggressive.” She giggles, high-pitched and jarring, and it takes everything in you to not cover your ears. “Don’t worry, Y/N. It’ll only hurt for a minute.”

And before you could question it, you feel a harsh blow to the back of your head, and everything fades away into yellows, greys, and blues. The last thing you see before fully slipping into unconsciousness is the evil glint in her brown eyes as she steps toward you.

***

Damian doesn’t see you the next day in school. He waits outside the school gates well into the first period, and when you don’t arrive by the second class, his stomach doesn’t settle. Lilith didn’t come to school either, he notices, and he feels the burning in his chest worsen. Something was wrong – very wrong – and he pulls his phone out to call his father. Bruce answers immediately, knowing full well that Damian never calls during school hours.

“Father, I fear something happened to Y/N.” Damian is running now, away from the school, ignoring one of the teacher’s cries of disapproval. “It might have something to do with Lilith Hart-Stone–”

“Talking about me, are we?”

Damian spins around, his eyes meeting the sinister eyes of the girl he was just enquiring about.

Bruce asks through the phone, “Damian, what is going on?”

But he doesn’t respond. Instead, he focuses on the girl in front of him. The mousey, innocent-looking girl who didn’t seem to pose a threat. But, of course, nothing is ever as it seems.

“What did you do to Y/N?” He demands, eyes narrowing to slits as he slips his phone into his pocket.

“I’m insulted that you’d think I’d do anything to little Y/N.” She smirks. “Not that you’re wrong.”

Damian clenches his jaw, balling his hands at his side, ready to strike. His tone is dangerous as he demands, “What did you do to her?”

“Temper, temper,” she cackles before clicking her fingers, the smirk on her face never fading.

In an instant, two men are at Damian’s side and he twists around to land a sharp punch to one of their faces, and a harsh kick to the other’s torso. The men retaliate accordingly: one aiming for Damian’s head and the other aiming for his side. ‘They’re amateurs,’ Damian scoffs to himself, jumping out of the way and landing a blow on one of their necks, effectively knocking him out. The other man was not happy over the fact that a kid – even if he is almost 18 – knocked his partner out in the time span of five minutes, and aimed for another blow to Damian’s head. But Damian was quicker, and smarter, too. He grips the man’s fat wrist, pulling him down and socking him in the nose.

Easy. Too easy. Something was amiss. Then he feels it. He swings around, just in time to dodge another attempted blow to his head, but not in time to dodge the knee that hit his stomach.

Damian chokes, falling back on impact, his school bag as a cushion. The one who hit him in the stomach takes a hold of Damian’s collar, punching him across the face (finally landing the blow), before pinning him to the floor, face first, while another man pins his legs to the ground. There’s no escape.

Lilith fishes his phone from his pocket, eyes flashing with excitement. Bruce, on the other end, is chanting, “Damian? Damian?” To which she responds with pure malice:

“Damian is a little busy right now. This is Lilith, by the way, but I’ll call you back soon. See you, Batsy!” She hangs up.

“What do you want?” Damian asks from the floor, cheek scraping against the gravel with each word. “Unhand me!”

“I don’t think you’re in the position to be making demands, little bird,” Lilith squeals at her own words before nodding to the men. “You know what to do.”

Damian feels the pressure on his legs leave, and the man who gripped his collar lifts him one more time, and he takes in the smell of chemicals on cloth.

***

The cold air whips Damian’s face as he awakes, his eyes blinking as they adjust to the bright city lights. It is dark now – around 7, Damian figures – and the bright city lights flash in his view. Lilith stands over him, grinning ear to ear. It is only then that he realises the situation he is currently in: wrists chained to a pole on the roof of some skyscraper, and you sat in front of him, seeming to be in the same position.

“So the little bird finally decided to wake up after all.” She shrieks with delight as his eyes open.

Damian grits his teeth as he fights against the metal chains. “What are you trying to do?”

Lilith hums sadistically, playing around with the gun in her hands. “You know what? I’ll amuse you. I’m doing it because I’m in love with you.”

Her words make him sick. His stomach churns and he tries not to gag. She thought that he’d be in love with her too? After all the stunts she’s pulled? What kind of person did she think he is?

“I know, I know… ‘I don’t even know you’ and all that.” She rolls her eyes, flicking her dyed hair over her shoulder. “But what you don’t know, my love, is that I know plenty about you – everything – about you. I know what time you go to sleep, what your hobbies are, how many pets you have, all your brothers, and where you came from. I know the exact route you take to get home, I know your favourite food, your secrets, everything.”

She lets out an almost sad sigh as she says, “I just don’t know how you feel.”

“That’s an oxymoron,” Damian scowls, eyes narrowing to slits, “and I feel disgusted.”

Lilith laughs, and the sound is like nails on a chalkboard. “My naive little bird. I mean… physically.”

She’s close to him now, her face was in front of his and their noses are almost touching. Her free hand tiptoeing up his chest. He pulls away, baring his teeth in retaliation.

She scoffs, “you put me on too low a pedestal, Damian, while you make her out to be an angel. Tell me, Robin, why is that?”

The boy spits back, “Someone like you could never understand.”

She scoffs in surprise. “Don’t tell me… you’re in love with her! Big, bad, Damian Wayne – Robin himself! – is in love with poor, little, Y/N.” Lilith laughs a manic, psychopathic laugh, and Damian suppresses every feeling of wanting to lash out and yell. She continues, “and to think of all the trouble that could happen if this little… scandal came out.”

Damian doesn’t hold back as he tries to lunge at her in anguish, the cold metal chains digging into the flesh of his wrists. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“Oh, but I would,” she smirks mockingly, and Damian watches in horror as she lifts your chin with the barrel of her gun. “Y/N was so nice to me, too… but she’s the one who’s taking you away from me.” Her eyes flash dangerously, “But if I can’t have you, no one can.”

She drops your chin, and Damian sucks in a breath of relief – at least now he had a little time to come up with a plan. His father should be here any minute, but she’s armed and dangerous. She has two hostages, himself and you. There’s a fire escape on his left, but it seems to be barred and chained, preventing any sort of escape. Damian swears silently to himself. He should have seen the signs. He could have prevented all of this but he didn’t. He knows exactly what you would say to him if you heard him – “it’s not your fault” and “you couldn’t have known”.

Lilith chuckles darkly, “you should see your face! Your look of regret…” With a powerful swing, the hilt of her gun made contact with the side of Damian’s face. “Pathetic,” she muttered, and Damian watches as she checks her watch, a sinister smile stretching across her face. “Oh don’t worry. I’ll be back soon. I just have to get your father’s permission to be yours.”

She snorts, “not like it matters! You’ll be mine either way – especially if you value your life.”

His eyes widen, Father. Of course, all his father was doing was buying him some time. He watches as Lilith skips away, swinging the gun haphazardly as she leaves the rooftop. Now was his chance. Pressing a button on his watch, letting out a breath of relief at the feeling of the machine turning on, preparing for usage. Seconds later, he was free from his bonds, and he shook out his wrists, muttering quietly to himself, “thanks, Pennyworth.”

He rushes over to you, shaking your shoulders in an attempt to wake you up. “Come on, Y/N…”

A quiet, almost inaudible, groan squeezes past your lips and Damian’s heart relaxes. He got to work at your bonds, and they gave way relatively easily – the chains that were wrapped around your wrists were rustier than his. You fall forward into his arms, shaking you awake, and you grunt in discomfort.

“Damian…?”

“Y/N…” He lets out a breath of relief, helping you up to your feet as you massage your temples. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” You mumble, clutching your head as you adjusted to the bright city lights. “What’s- what’s going on?”

The boy pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration, his gaze shifting to the barred fire escape. “You remember your friend Lilith?”

Your expression changes with the blink of an eye. “She did this? Are you okay? What did she do to you? Are you hurt?”

“I’m fine,” He says gently, brushing some hair out of your eyes. “But that’s the least of our worries. We have to get out of here.”

“Damian, wait. You have to know what I heard.” You let out a breath, catching his arm. “When she knocked me out, she didn’t do a very good job at it. I went in and out of consciousness and- and I could hear everything.”

“What are you talking about?” Damian demands, holding your arms as he searches your eyes for an answer. “What do you mean?”

“She’s going to set the whole building on fire. She’s going to–” the words get caught in your throat and you shake your head in disbelief. “She’s going to burn us alive. Damian, there are people in here – civilians.”

The vigilante freezes at your words as he processes the severity of the situation. How many people could be in this building right now? There are around fifteen stories, from what he could tell, but it was already past the average working hours. Maybe five on each level? That’s still seventy-five people inside the building. He had no way to contact his father – Lilith and her lackeys decided to take his phone – and from the looks of it, you didn’t have anything on you either.

From down below, he could hear the commotion of police officers with their loud sirens and bright lights. One of them was holding a megaphone, ready to state their claims, while firetrucks and police officers readied themselves if anything were to go wrong.

“We need to get out of here and evacuate everyone,” Damian says, eyes flitting from the locked door and the officers on the ground. “I’m going to jump off the building.”

Your eyes budge out of your head at his words, snapping your head to look at him so quickly you got whiplash. “What do you mean you’re doing to jump off the building?”

“There’s a hose next to the fire escape, we’ll use that. It’s bound by a metal fire reel and you’re going to hold onto it. I’ll scale down to the floor below us and break the glass. Then I’ll open up the fire escape.” He lets out a breath, blue-green eyes looking at you intently. “(Y/N), can you do that?”

“I-” you stammer, head reeling with the fact that you needed to support Damian, an almost 18-year-old who was mostly muscle and reached six foot two last Tuesday. “I- I don’t know, I’ve never–”

“(Y/N).” He says your name in a way you’ve never heard him say it before; with a softness and a kindness that sounded strange coming out of his mouth. “You can do it.”

You exhale, eyes shifting from the ground, to the hose, and finally to him. “Okay.”

He smiles, and you can tell it’s meant to be reassuring, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Okay.”

In moments, he’s attaching the hose to his belt loops and you’re testing the strength of the hose. The thick plastic is enough to give yourself a heart attack – what if itsn’t stable? What if it breaks? What if it unties? – but you have faith in Damian. He’s Robin; he can do this. You can do this.

“On the count of three,” Damian says carefully, standing on top of the balcony wall.

“One…” He tightens his hold on the hose.

“Two…” You widen your stance against the brick safety wall that separates you and the 150 feet fall.

“Three!”

He begins to fall, and on his command, you grip the hose as tightly as possible, your feet digging against the wall. You feel him come to a stop and your heart lurches as you feel the pressure sink into your stomach.

“I’m going to swing now!” You hear him yell and you wonder how his voice doesn’t waver.

“Okay!” You scream back and your grip tighter.

He swings, and you can feel weight of the hose shift with each movement. You’re praying now, you don’t know who’ll hear you, but you’re praying that he’ll be okay.

Once, twice, three times he swings and finally, the fourth time you feel him swing back towards the building you hear a shatter. The glass gave way. He’s in the building.

You’re still gripping onto the hose just in case until you hear him call, “I’m in!”

The adrenaline is still pumping through your body, and you release the makeshift tether, collapsing backwards onto the harsh floor of the rooftop. ‘He’s okay,’ you repeat in your head, trying to calm the quickening pace of your heart. ‘He’ll be here soon. He’s going to evacuate everyone then we’re free. We’ll be okay. We’ll be okay, we’ll be okay, we’ll be okay…’

The rattling of the lock on the fire escape snaps you out of your thoughts and your heart quickens in your chest. ‘Please, please, please…’

Your gaze doesn’t shift from the door, begging to whatever higher entity there is that it’s Damian. And when the red metal door finally swings open so that your eyes meet with blue-green ones, you’ve never felt more relief in your life.

“You’re okay.” You breathe, and you shake as you get back onto your feet, stumbling towards him. “You’re okay, you’re okay…”

He chuckles, reaching out and bringing you closer to his chest. “I’m okay. You did good.” His lips brush against your forehead and you can feel the tears in your eyes begin to fall. “You did really good.”

He pulls away from you, his gaze softening and he cups your face in his hands, swiping his thumbs over your cheeks. “We have to get out of here. I don’t know how long father can stall her for.” He pauses before continuing, “are you okay?”

You nod, head still spinning and heart still pounding in your chest. “I’m okay.”

“Let’s go.”

He doesn’t risk using the elevator, instead choosing to run down each flight of stairs and ordering for everyone to leave before the building to erupts into flames. The loud screams of the workers fill your ears as you continue to go down each floor of the skyscraper, but when you finally get to the lobby, everything seemed to be eerily quiet.

“There’s no one here…” you pant, hands on your knees as try to catch your breath. From the corner of your eye, you can see the civilians running outside and being questioned by the police. Luckily, all were safely escorted outside while you and Damian trailed behind just in case someone was forgotten.

The crashing of a vase makes you whip around behind you, only to be met with the sinister eyes of Lilith herself. She lets out a strangled scream, her hands pulling at her hair as scrunched up her face. Her breaths heavy and her eyes narrowed dangerously into slits, she whips the gun from her belt, pointing at the two of you.

“You!” She screeched, hands trembling. “You little bitch. You always want to make my life miserable!”

Damian pushes you behind him and you know what he’s really trying to say. Get out of here. But you know better than to leave him here by himself.

“Always getting in my way,” Lilith rattles on, glaring at his actions. “Always acting as if you’re better than me. Well jokes on you! This building is going down, and you’re going down with it!”

“Lilith, let’s talk about this…” Damian says slowly, and he side eyes the exit. “You don’t have to do this.”

Another scream of anguish escapes from the girl, and she fires a shot into the air, hitting the ceiling. You jolt at the sound, eyes widening at the hole in the roof.

Damian’s gaze darkens. “Drop the gun, Lilith.”

“I have to do this!” She screeched, hands trembling. “The building is about to catch on fire anyway! Burn in hell!”

“Lilith, you don’t need to do this!” You try, “we can–”

She lets out a laugh at your words. “There is no ‘we’ in this equation! And you’ll never understand because you get everything you want in life! So shut the fuck up!”

The sound of something exploding from the floor above you makes you jump and you feel your heart jolt in your chest. Damian’s hands find yours as another explosion sounds. Bigger this time, and Lilith’s lips stretch to a wide grin. Smoke begins to billow from the doors and so does the fire. Another bang! on your left near the exit, and it promptly lights up with reds and oranges. Waiting area is quick to catch flames and the smoke fills your nose and lungs.

“Ooh, it’s almost done! A few more explosions to go! You know, I thought you were going to be on the roof by the time I was done, so I rigged the whole thing to start at the top floor but…” She trails off, swinging the gun around again before meeting your eyes, “now I can watch you burn.”

Damian scoffs and he pushes you towards the exit. You start running just as he speaks, “Over my dead body.”

Lilith shrugs, lifting the gun and aiming it directly at the Wayne heir. “That could be arranged. But…” the smirk returns. “I’d rather kill her.”

“Wait-”

She doesn’t. Instead, she points the gun at you and fires. You try to move, you try to get out of the way. Your mind is screaming at your legs to do something – anything – to avoid getting shot. Damian is running after you, trying to take the bullet, but it’s too late.

A searing pain burns through your abdomen and you press a hand to where the pain sits. Crimson stains your shirt and you look up. Your head is spinning and a metallic taste settles in your mouth. You stumble backwards, just in time to fall into Damian’s strong arms. A sharp beeping sound starts screaming in your ears along with Lilith’s loud cackling. In a quick movement, he picks you up and starts running out the door, only for the building to erupt in flames seconds later. Black spots line your vision and you see people in dark blue uniform surround you. Damian is yelling something, you can’t make sense of it, before he presses his forehead to yours.

“You’ll be okay,” you hear him whisper, “I’m so sorry.”

You want to ask, ‘what are you sorry for? It wasn’t your fault.’ But as the noise starts and you feel someone take you away from him, the only thing you can do is close your eyes.

***

“Thank you…” you mumble, taking the glass of warm water from Alfred.

He smiles in return, “of course, Miss (Y/N). Let me know if there is anything else you require. I understand it must be difficult to be here.”

Your current situation involves one of the many spare rooms at Wayne Manor after your surgery, and despite how loud the manor usually was on your visits, the area Alfred placed you in was all too quiet. In fact, you would think that the entire family was avoiding you – best friend included.

“It’s okay. Thank you for letting me stay here.”

“It is our pleasure to have you here,” Alfred responds graciously, and you know he isn’t lying. “I’ll have Miss Barbara change your bandages tomorrow if that is alright. Ring the bell if you require any assistance.”

“Thank you, Alfred. And you know you can just call me (Y/N) right?”

He chuckles, shaking his head. “I am aware. However, I believe that calling you Miss (Y/N) is more suitable.”

With that, he bids you adieu, and you’re once again left to your own devices. The silence of the room has you shivering despite the warm cup in your hand. The books you half-finished lay haphazardly on the bedside table, and the tv on the other side of the room deemed itself to be useless when you’ve watched every good Netflix show in the past two and a half weeks.

You glance at the clock; fifteen past one. You would usually be asleep at this time, but it hasn’t always been easy. The pain medications make you drowsy, sure, but the feeling of sleep doesn’t wash over you like it once did. Before Lilith.

The newspaper sits on your bed, the front cover bearing words you so desperately wanted to read. ‘The perpetrator who kidnapped the youngest son of Bruce Wayne alongside local teenage girl pronounced dead in skyscraper fire’. To you, those words released the weight from your shoulders. You didn’t have to be scared anymore. You shouldn’t have to be scared anymore. But you were. No one in the Wayne family, except for Alfred and Barbara, have spoken to you since the incident. To be fair, Dick was in Bludhaven and was probably still caught up in his work to even notice what was going on in Gotham. Jason hasn’t been to the manor in a while doing some sort of undercover mission. Tim was with Stephanie on a mission (to Greece, of all places!) while Cass came and went as she pleased. But out of all of them, you would have at least expected for Damian to show up – even if it was just for a moment.

The quiet creaking of the door lulls you out of your thoughts, and your eyes widen at the sight of the person in front of you.

He doesn’t say anything for a moment. Neither do you. But like everything, the silence must be broken.

“You should be asleep,” Damian says curtly, stepping out of the doorway.

A scoff exits your voice. “You shouldn’t have to wait for me to fall asleep to visit me.”

He flinches at your tone, a tone that you’ve never taken with him, and he closes the door. “I didn’t think you would have wanted to see me.”

Anger replaces your faux disappointment and you shoot him an icy glare. “I was knocked out, kidnapped, almost a victim of arson, shot, and you don’t think I would have wanted to see you?!”

You throw the covers off of you, stumbling as you stepped over to him. “I almost died, Damian, and you didn’t think I wanted to see me best friend?” Your chest aches and you can’t tell if it was from the gunshot or from your heart. “You thought I didn’t want to see the person who went through the same thing as I did?!”

You jab a finger at his chest, tears falling down your face, blurring your vision; you can’t see his reaction. “I saw you jump off the fucking roof! You jumped off the roof and- and-” you swallow the lump in your throat. “You could have died! We could have died and you avoided me! I haven’t seen you in weeks, Damian! You could have been dead for all I know! And the last time I saw you was the second before the doctors took me and-”

He gently brings you into his arms, effectively rendering you speechless with surprise. With his arms wrapped securely around your waist and his nose against your jaw, you wonder if this really is the same Damian you knew before the incident.

“I’m so sorry,” He breathes, pulling away to look you sincerely in the eyes. “This never should have happened, I– (Y/N), I failed you.”

“You didn’t fail me–” he scoffs in protest but you continue, “–you saved me.”

He shakes his head adamantly, squeezing his eyes shut before opening them again. “You shouldn’t have needed saving in the first place. You got hurt out of my own inadequacy and my own misjudgments. You got shot because of my incapabilities and foolishness. None of this should have happened.”

“No.” The word comes out harsher than intended but you speak nonetheless. “Lilith fooled everyone. It’s not your fault she did what she did. And you saved me, Damian. You saved so many people that day. Without you, none of them would have made it out of the building. We wouldn’t be here right now. You got us out of that mess – a mess that you didn’t make.”

He’s quiet for a moment, gently leading you to your bed to sit down and he sits besides you. He dries your tears with his thumbs, cupping your face gently with his palms as he does so.

“You shouldn’t have to look at a failure.”

“Dames, you’re the furthest thing from a failure.” You rest a hand over his, gently stroking the back of his hand with your thumb. “You’re a hero.”

You press your forehead against his and you feel him lean into your touch. “I love you.” He whispers, not an ounce of shame or guilt or embarrassment in his words. “I love you so much.”

You smile, your heart bursting in your chest at his words. “I know. I love you, too.”

reblogs are always appreciated!!

no hate to people who have the name lilith 😭😭

#damian wayne x reader #damian x reader #dc x reader #batfamily #robin x reader #batman x reader #bruce wayne #jason todd #dick grayson #damian wayne #tw arson #tw assault #tw sa mention

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quillandink333 · 3 months

Text

꓄ꋪꍏꌚꀍꎇꀤꋪꏂ

As the red shadows retreated and the lights in the basement flickered back on, Yoongi had taken the shell-shocked Emily into his arms, holding her tight and letting his shoulder shield her eyes. “That’s my girl,” he praised, his tone low and loving and utterly nonchalant. “I’m so proud of you.”

After a long, heavy moment of silent reflection, she mumbled, “For what?”

“What else, dummy? For seeing this through with me. For getting rid of our miserable fucking excuses for parents.” He looked down at her with nothing but an indecipherable grin before pressing a silent kiss to the crown of her head. “You did great.”

Her first instinct was to feel flattered, to accept his sweet nothings without question, but then something about what he’d just said clashed in her head with something else she remembered him saying seven years ago on a night just like this one, in the aftermath of her very first ritual. “But…I didn’t do anything, right? I mean, technically it was the demon who…”

His smile was only accompanied by a warm chuckle as he played with strands of her hair. “Yes, you’re right, I’m sorry,” he dismissively said, and to her guilty conscience it almost sounded like sarcasm. “You’ve done nothing wrong at all, have you? My innocent little butterfly.”

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And yet, there was something the demon had whispered to her during the rite that she couldn’t get out from under her skin. Something about ‘her volitionless puppet over there’ and how she would no doubt go crying to him ‘like a snivelling hypocrite’ after it was all said and done. The sickening sigil he bore on the back of his neck… She was the only human alive who knew about it; he couldn’t see it even when she tried to show him. Wondering in vain about what it could possibly represent had kept her awake at night for the past seven years—it got so bad at one point that she’d started to wonder if it was all just a delusion—but now her main theory had finally been confirmed thanks to the passing jab from her little friend on the other side.

Her next absence seizure was the only thing saving her from spending the rest of her life knowing she’d cursed her brother to be her scapegoat, acting not by free will but by her own deepest, darkest, most shunned desires so that she would never have to dirty her own hands.

“Alright, let’s get these good-for-nothing sacks of flesh filleted and up to the kitchen, yeah?” he said, squeezing her shoulder once before setting to work untying the bleeding bodies from the support post in the middle of the summoning circle.

“We’re eating them?” she inferred while reluctantly following his lead.

“Aren’t we?”

As she yanked their mom free of her candy-coloured restraints, she felt something. It was the slow, shallow expanding and collapsing of her lungs. She and their dad were still breathing.

Emily froze. This changed everything—everything she thought she had done and everything she feared she’d grown capable of. It might’ve relieved some of the weight of her own sins, but it also meant that the sins of her beloved weighed all the heavier. Every ritual she’d held, every sacrifice she’d made, he’d always been the one to dispatch what remained after the souls had been taken.

“Uh… Yeah…”

Thankfully her Oppa didn’t seem to give himself the chance to realise what she just had, wasting no time getting the butchering process underway. Snuffing out the flames of their parents’ lives once and for all.

He hid it well, but in reality Yoongi indeed had noticed the vital signs of life as well before taking his knife to them. He chose not to bring it up, however, as it seemed both unnecessary and counterproductive at this point. Over the past week, he’d watched her make so much progress in her ability to ‘kill’ without remorse through these sacrificial rituals. The main reason he encouraged her to undergo this ‘exposure therapy,’ as he called it, was because he was sure it would help her move on from her guilt of seven years ago. Even so, her grief aside, he couldn’t deny how proud of her he was. With each time she ‘took a life’ he saw more and more of himself shining through in her. If she ever found out she hadn’t actually killed anyone and that the one responsible for the deaths had been him all along, all that progress would be lost and there was no telling how her esteem for him would shift.

To his delight, as he dismembered, disembowelled, and decapitated the soulless creatures, she for once didn’t turn away. She watched quietly the entire time, almost looking like she wanted to offer her help but was holding herself back for some reason. He considered pressing her about it, but decided against it. He was happy enough just to see she could stomach the sight of it all.

“I’ll…go find some trash bags or something to carry them in,” she announced, not waiting for a reply before running upstairs.

Dinner went just about as smoothly as the sacrifice had. There was a home-grown vegetable garden in the backyard, which he used along with some side dishes they found in the fridge to make lettuce wraps. It was a feast fit for royalty, especially compared to their diet consisting of nothing but salt water that they’d been not sustaining off of for the past three months of isolation.

At least the kimchi covered up the smell of blood and gore for the most part.

“So…hypothetically, if we ended up having to go off the census completely after this,” she posed, “could you see us having a little veggie garden like the one here? Like, if we had to live out in the woods away from any supermarkets.”

“Mmh,” he hummed in agreement around a mouthful of their dad’s arm with a side of pickled radish. “I can picture that. We could grow all our own produce and hunt all our own, uh, meat. I can’t imagine growing your own rice could be all that hard, right?”

“Yeah…” Her tone dropped somewhat after his addition, the change too subtle for anyone but him to pick up on.

“Hey, don’t worry.” He let his own tone shift to something a little softer as he gave her a light nudge in the shoulder. “I doubt it’ll actually come to that. We have our money; all we need now are some fake IDs and we’ll be able to live out the rest of our lives as a normal couple.”

She stayed quiet for a few seconds even after his attempt to reassure her, not that her response offended him like it would have their parents on the rare occasion they’d ever felt a need to pacify her. “‘Normal…’” she echoed with an unsmiling scoff. “Yeah, okay.”

“Baby, you trust me, don’t you? Look at me,” he pressed gently and held her by the chin.

Even though the demon’s cruel revelation from earlier was as good as erased from her memory, when her eyes met his, she was still haunted by the gut feeling that something was wrong. Then again, she couldn’t recall a time in her life when that feeling hadn’t followed her everywhere she went.

“Yeah,” she sighed. “I trust you, Oppa.”

Once they’d packed away as much delicious nutrients as they could, Yoongi resumed the process of dealing with the remains while Emily watched timidly from the sidelines. “Uhm… Shouldn’t we be more careful not to make such a mess?” she asked. From the basement to the kitchen, there ran a copious trail of bloody puddles on the floor. “Since that’s how we did it in the apartment—I dunno.”

Her brother kept his gaze lowered. “Don’t worry about that; we won’t be leaving any traces behind this time.” He then clued her in by pulling his cigarette lighter from his pocket and holding it up. She gasped, but gave no reply other than that. “Hey, think you could go look for some propane tanks or something while I take care of this?”

“What?!” Her eyes widened, but she reminded herself how much she trusted him and relaxed to the best of her ability. “But how can we… H-How would that work? I mean, we’d have to light it from pretty close up, right?”

“Eh, we’ll figure it out as we go,” he shrugged. “If they’re too heavy for you, just leave them and tell me where you found them.”

“Okay…” The more she thought about it, she supposed she wouldn’t mind if they burned or suffocated to death at this point as long as they died together. “But what if we get caught inside and we can’t escape, and then someone around here calls the fire department and gets us out alive? They’re gonna know what happened, they’re gonna know what we’ve done… And then we’ll be—”

“Lily. It’s gonna be okay,” he interjected, stroking her cheek and tucking her hair back with a crimson-covered hand. She leaned into his touch. “I promise. Just relax and let Oppa take care of everything, okay? You don’t have to take on anything you can’t handle. Just…try not to overthink.” Like he was one to talk. “Why don’t we get cleaned up and changed now? The fire should do the rest of the work for us, and we can talk about whatever you want while we take our shower.”

Finally, for the first time since yesterday, a smile graced her features. “That sounds nice.”

As an experienced arsonist, he’d worked with propane once or twice before, but the circumstances were different now. Not only were supplies limited, but he had his little sister with him and was thus putting her at risk. Thankfully they both came out of it unscathed. She was resourceful enough to come up with an idea in the shower that would spare them. First he would put one gas tank in the basement and another in the living room, covering his face with a rag while he unsealed the nozzles. Then he would use whatever gunpowder was left in the warden’s pistol to create a fuse running from the porch to the living room.

Having to resist every nerve in her body telling her to run back and stay close to him, in the end, Emily complied with his wish for her to keep out of harm’s way and she waited in the lot where their stolen car was parked. She waited and waited. It seemed never-ending. What if he didn’t make it out? What would she do if she couldn’t follow him? But the moment she spotted smoke rising in the direction from which she had fled, the car door opened behind her and Yoongi climbed into the driver’s seat, making her jump.

“Aww, did I startle you?” he chuckled and placed a quick kiss on the bridge of her precious hooked nose. “Sorry to keep you waiting. You alright?”

“Yeah. Well, I am now,” she stammered, despite her heart still racing beyond reason. “I think…”

“That’s good.” He kissed her once more on the lips for good measure, letting it linger for a moment in the hopes of calming her down. This seemed to work; she gave a deep sigh and leaned into it, her shaky hands coming to rest on his lap until he broke away. “Let’s get out of here.”

The drive, aside from having no end in sight, felt strangely ordinary, like they were going on a regular road trip together and nothing more. Yoongi kept a clear head and a calm disposition as he navigated the deserted highways. It would have worried her if she weren’t aware of his impeccable ability to mask his own inner turmoil.

“Did you make sure our death certificates got destroyed?”

“Yes, and the neighbour’s letter saying that losing us was ‘a blessing in disguise.’” He rolled his eyes.

“And their faces?” she fretted. “What about their fingerprints? Wait, did you leave any of yours anywhere?”

“I was plenty thorough, sis, I promise,” he told her dismissively. “No one will be able to link this back to us, assuming they even bother to do an investigation. The world already thinks we’re dead after that god-forsaken operation they sold us into got burned to high hell.”

“Okay…” She couldn’t fathom that he could be so free of doubt in a situation like this. He didn’t use to be so sure of himself. It was probably for the best, though, considering how riddled with insecurity she tended to be. His self-assurance (or at least his facade of such) was the perfect counterbalance to her self-doubt—one of the infinite reasons she could never afford to be parted from him.

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