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Damian Al Ghul-Wayne is not good. He is not pure like his siblings. His hands are stained from the blood of many; they are impure to the bone. Under the skin, down to the muscles, and the bone, he is impure. A tainted being, if you will, not a child. Never a child.
A child is something he never was, never can be. A child is someone who can laugh without fear coursing through you, a child is something who didn’t learn to kill by the age of ten. A child is not him. He likes to think of himself as a being more than a person. A demon is too ironic for him, any other supernatural creature just wouldn’t fit so he’s simply a thing. And a horrid one at that,
All too suddenly he is shaken from his thoughts—sitting on the roof of the manor might not bode well for him. His skin, however impure, is cold to the touch. He doesn’t show it, of course, but still now that he’s given the option he’d rather not sit out in the cold. It could rain, It always did seem to be raining in Gotham, didn’t it? Maybe snow, if lucky.
Still, he doesn’t move from his spot above the roof—he hears it unlock, he hears the sounds of feet coming to the edge of the window, and feels the wind shift as Cain pushes herself onto the roof, intentionally, he knows.
“Damian.” She says, calm as ever, she shouldn’t be looking at him. Someone as pure as her shouldn’t be anywhere near him.
“Damian,” she says with more force causing him to snap his head to her.
“Hi baby bat—you with me?” She's using the nickname intentionally, knowing that if he was, he would say something about the nickname. There was no snarky comment, or any complaints, in fact, the only sign that he has heard her was that he was facing her.
“I’m going to help you get inside, okay?”
Still no response. She reached a hand out to him when he suddenly physically recoiled. He shoves himself to the edge of the nearest pilar furthering himself away from her.
“don’t” and god does he sound rough. His voice was low, and he seems to not have spoken in a while. (for all Cass knew, he hadn’t at all)
“Don’t,” he says again, his eyes are wide, they search across her face as if looking for something, and once he makes eye contact they flick away again. His shoulders are still tense and he’s refusing to look at her again.
“Don’t what? I need a little more information here, ” she signs
He lets out a breath, meeting her eyes once more.
“Don’t touch me it’ll-“ he pauses, shakes his head, and simply says again “Don’t touch me.”
She nods, then says aloud “Okay, okay. That’s alright, I won't touch you.”
She reaches for her phone and clicks on Jason’s contact, she knows he’s under the window now. She sends a text to him saying that he might need to come up here or grab Dick to get him down by force.
“What happened?” She asks, after setting the phone back into her pant pocket.
He shakes his head.
“You’re not meant to be near me,” he snarls. She’s quick to send another text saying to get Dick.
“Oh? Why?” She signs she had two assumptions already, one being that he was talking about her—meaning that she wasn’t meant to be here—or that something else was going on.
He shakes his head.
“You’ll be infected” he says with venom laced in his tone.
“What? Are you sick?” She keeps pressing.
“No!” He shouts, causing her to flinch slightly, his shoulders sag slightly a noticeable difference from his tense shoulders, “no,” he says much softer, he turns so that his legs are dangling off of the edge of the manor. Something about it makes her gut lurch.
Then a step is heard. Hush talking followed right after it, and Damian snaps his head to the window below them. He turns to her,
“You didn’t” he whispers
She’s nods,
“They don’t have to touch you if you go down on your own, but you have to come down.” she signs
He mulls over that for a moment, frowning. He nods slowly.
“I’ll go down on my own.”
She nods and stands to let him go first, he stands after her-his legs are shaking, she notes- and takes a step towards where she is.
He grabs onto the side of the manor with little difficulty and swings down into the room and Cass follows. In the room Jason is sitting on a chair near the door, eyebrows raised. Distantly he remembers a different Jason, the one from the league.
Dick stands awkwardly in the middle of the room clearly wanting to run over to Damian and check him over like an overbearing mom. Tim sits on his bed, just staring at him,
Damian scowls.
He opens his mouth to tell them to leave before he can even get a word out before Jason’s talking.
“Not happening.” He says
Damian curses his older brother's ability to read him so well, all of this is wrong. So so utterly wrong. He shouldn’t be here—he shouldn’t be near them. There’s an itch under his skin that makes him want to rip his skin apart just to get rid of it. He groans in frustration and feels stupidly like a child. He feels bile rise in his throat. When he’s not. Nor has he ever been. Then, without warning, he turns back to the window. Cass isn’t blocking it and lets him walk over.
He coughs and sounds like he’s hacking up a lung, he thinks he’s trying not to throw up
“You sure you aren’t sick?” She asks
She sees Jason raise his eyebrows even more.
“yes” he gets out
“Then what did you mean by infected?” She signs. Damian stiffens,
“Nothing-“
“Bull,” Jason says immediately after, he stands from his seat, crossing his arms and leaning against the wall.
“I’m fine.” He shakes his head “It was just a rough night,”
Tim stands then, gesturing to his bed. Trying to get him to sit, saying that he isn’t getting out of this one. That’s not right, no one should be near this room. They all need to leave,
“You have to leave,” he says, and it comes out more like begging than he means it to. Jason shifts from his place on the wall stepping forward to him and grabbing his wrist. The look on his face flashes with pure fear before he starts tugging against his hold,
“You three-out, I’ll grab you later,” he says to them, hand still on Damian’s wrist which with every pull seems to be more frantic than the last. They shuffle out sending a glance their way before leaving completely.
“Just let go-“ Damian almost shouts. Jason doesn’t.
“Jason!” He says again, this time much closer to a yell.
“Why?” He asks.
“Because it’s wrong! You’re not meant too-I’m not…” he falters off.
“You’re not what?” He says. Still keeping a tight hold on the boy's wrist.
“pure” he grinds out “You-all of you- don’t get to touch something like me.” He says
Jason frowns immediately, tugging on his arms and pulling Damian into a hug, (he ignores the way his little brother's body is so tense before it completely crumbles into his hold,)
“something?” he practically growls “You aren’t a something, Damian. You’re a fucking person—you’re not impure, and I’m perfectly fine and touching you, aren’t I?” He pauses, taking a breath “I don’t know if this is some shit that Talia said to you but that doesn’t matter”
“That’s not what I mean!” He says shoving against his arms “I mean I’m not fucking worth it! I mean that I’m not worthy—and-“ he’s cut off
“Damian Al Ghul-fucking-Wayne.”
Damian pauses,
Jason bends down to look him dead in the eye
”You take that back right now.”
“It’s true.” He says back, he bits at his lip and his hands shake
“No, it’s fucking not! Listen, I don’t know what made you think like this but if it was the killing doesn’t that make me impure too?”
“No!” Damian shouts immediately
“Then why are you?” Jason says and it takes him a second to realize that he had said it in Arabic.
“ I just am,” he says, responding back in Arabic “You have atoned, as has Cain,”
“That’s saying that you haven’t.”
Damian nods, whether to agree or just confirm he doesn’t know but something about it makes his blood boil
“Then we’ll make you believe that you have.” Jason picks him up—despite his protests—he shouts down the hall
“Meet in the movie room fuckers!”
(If later when Alfred was checking around the house and he found them all cuddling with Damian then he would say nothing about it,)