Weakness

Title: Weakness
Words: 2,442
Category: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Family
Rating: T for themes
Warnings: Attempted suicide, some verbal abuse/bullying
Summary: After messing up all of the good relationships he'd ever had, Damian becomes suicidal.  Getting a verbal smack-down from Tim pushes him over the edge, so he goes out with the intent of killing himself.  But it seems as if his so-called family refuses to let him die in peace.

A/N: Little bit of backstory (or, a lot, actually)—after Batman and Robin #7 (in which Damian kills Nobody), Bruce and Damian have an explosive argument that ends in Bruce taking Robin away from Damian indefinitely and Damian declaring that Bruce isn't his father.  Damian goes to stay with Dick for a while.  But because Damian's still angry and he doesn't know how to channel it, he ends up constantly insulting Dick and generally being a little bully.  After the whole thing with the Haly's circus and Raya's betrayal, Dick is incredibly stressed out and he comes home to Damian trying to tear down whatever little self-esteem he has left.  Dick just breaks down and starts crying.  He calls Tim and Damian overhears Dick say that he wished he was gone.  Feeling really depressed, Damian goes back to the Manor and shuts himself up in his room for several weeks.  He realizes how depressed his is and that he longs for the cold embrace of death.  Then Tim comes to visit.  Bruce and Alfred are out, and Tim and Damian start fighting.   They insult each other back and forth until Damian finally breaks down crying.  But Tim just keeps going, because he's so angry and Damian hurt Dick and he thinks the kid must never feel sad, so he deserves to feel a bit humiliated.  Eventually, Damian runs out of the room after crying and being insulted by Tim for a good long while.   He decides that he can't handle living anymore, so he runs off to kill himself.

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Damian took a deep, cleansing breath and peered over the edge of the building.  It will be strange, he decided. To fall without having a grapple in hand.

Damian was standing on top of the four-foot-wide concrete barrier, three feet away from the edge of the forty-five story building.  Tears pricked the corner of the ten year-old's eyes.  But he pushed them back.

No, he thought. I have to do this.   He had to.  Because none of them wanted him.  Not his mother, not his grandfather, not Batman, not Grayson, not Brown, not Wilkes, and especially not Drake.  And he never would be wanted.  Because after studying the vigilantes of Gotham for so long, Damian had come to the realization that if one wanted affection, one had to ask for it.  Damian, though, could never, ever ask for it, as that would be admitting weakness.  Being taught firmly by his mother, the child knew that admitting weakness was an offense worthy of death.

So here he was.  Dying.  Because he'd been so weak; so pathetically and undeniably weak.  It had been alright, admitting weakness to himself and allowing himself to be miserable in the confines of his own room.  It seemed like all of the anger that was inside Damian had just faded.  Now it was just depression.  Within the four walls of his room, he'd been honest with himself – he was just a ruthless monster of a child that nobody wanted.  He'd moped about it, but eventually came to accept this fact.  Damian could live with being unloved.

But then… But then… Drake.  Drake had pushed him so far that he'd felt like breaking.  The older teen had just continually insulted him, even when tears began to overflow from the child's eyes.  Even when Damian's sobbing got so bad that he didn't have enough breath to insult back.  Even when Damian had curled up on the floor, cradling his knees to his chest.  Only when Damian ran from the room, still sobbing did Drake stop his insults.  Drake had assumed that his little verbal beat-down of Damian would put the kid in his place.  That it'd force Damian to stop hurting the people around him.  He couldn't have known that it'd have led to this.

Damian just couldn't handle Drake's words when internally, that's exactly how he felt on the inside.  Damian hated himself, more than anything.  And when he started crying, that was just the final straw for the child.  He'd shown weakness in front of his rival.   That was absolutely irreversibly unacceptable.

Drake had probably thought that Damian had run off to nurse his bloody pride back to health.  Perhaps Damian had gone to sulk in his room, or maybe he'd gone to hole himself up in some unused room to cry.  Drake couldn't know that Damian had run off to do… this.   Damian would bet his entire inheritance that neither Bruce nor Alfred nor Tim had even noticed his disappearance.  And his inheritance was a lot.   (But it wasn't like how much money he would eventually have even mattered; he'd give it all away if only…)

But, if Damian was truly looking deep within himself, he wasn't committing suicide just because he'd become weak.

A big part of it was…  No one loved Damian anymore.  And as they say, "You don't know what you have until it's gone."  Damian hadn't realized how starving for affection he was.  Dick didn't want him around, Damian had heard him tell Drake that.  Of course, Drake rubbed it in Damian's face, too.  His father and him still hadn't spoken, or even spared the other a glance since their argument.  Brown and Cain were off in Hong Kong, and never bothered to call anyone aside from Gordon.  And Colin…  He and Damian had a nasty fight right before Colin got placed in a foster home halfway across the country.  Damian certainly didn't know how to go about apologizing and Colin was too busy in his new home to spare a thought for the angry boy he'd once called "best friend."  Damian even missed his mother's warm hand on his shoulder and his grandfather's fond smiles.

Damian had nobody left.  He'd burned all the bridges he'd ever built, leaving him alone on the isolated island that was his own mind.

There was just… nothing.  Damian had nothing to live for; there was nothing in his life worth waking up every morning and dragging himself out of bed for.

Damian sucked in a deep breath to soothe his nerves.  Dying couldn't be all that much worse than training until one passed out from overexertion, right?  He'd done that a couple times.  It wasn't as big of a deal as some people made it out to be.  And, Todd died, and he came out of it fine.  If Todd could do it, so could he.  Though the child didn't want to come out of it fine.  He wanted to die, and stay dead.  Which seemed pretty likely, since his mother and grandfather really didn't care enough to toss him into the Lazarus Pit.

He was just stepping off a building without a grapple.  He'd done that before.  Though, he'd done it with the intent of survival, but that was trivial.  All he had to do was step off the edge, and let himself fall.  Quick.  Easy.  And he'd only feel the pain for a millisecond before his brain matter was splattered all over the pavement.

Finding an eerie calm within him, Damian pulled it to the forefront of his mind and let it overtake him.  He would kill himself, and nobody was going to stop him.  Damian had shifted his weight to his left leg so that he could step forward with his right.

He froze, muscles taught and coiled tighter than a spring when he heard the thud of someone landing on the rooftop behind him.

Damian's eerie calm was shattered when he heard Drake's obnoxious voice.  "You know you were banned from being Robin, demon.   What do you think you're doing out here?"

Damian succumbed to the rising hysteria enveloping his mind.  No, no, Drake was not supposed to be here.  He couldn't jump with that buffoon standing there.  No, the idiot would simply jump after him and catch him.

"And you even came out wearing civilian clothes, how quaint.   Are you even wearing a domino?  Is the idea of secret identities too complex for your ten year-old brain?" Tim taunted.

The boy's eyes stung, but he gritted his teeth and refused to let the tears fall.  He'd already cried in front of Drake once.   It was not happening again.  Couldn't the older teen just leave him alone?

"You little shit, I thought you'd learned your lesson this afternoon.  I told you to stop trying to get a rise out of everyone, to stop ignoring people, and to stop disobeying orders."

Drake seriously needed to leave this very second because Damian absolutely could not handle this.  Damian wanted nothing more to hurl himself of the building but Drake was still there, rubbing salt into his wounds.  Damian was still as frozen as he was when Tim had first arrived.

"I should tell Batman on you.  You're directly disobeying his orders.  You know you're on your last thread with him after you murdered that man.  I bet he'll take Robin away from you permanently this time."

Damian honestly didn't care if Father took Robin from him, because he didn't plan to live long enough to have to deal with it.  In fact—go run and tell Batman, Drake.  When you come back I'll be nothing more than a splatter on the pavement.  Have fun explaining to Father why in the world I could be suicidal.

The ten year-old was on the verge of crying again.  He just wanted the teen to leave so he could kill himself in peace. Was that really so much to ask?

"Are you happy, Damian?" Tim spit his name like a curse.  "You've been such a little shit lately that everyone has stopped loving you."

That was it.  Drake just hit the nail on the head, and Damian just couldn't hold it back anymore.  A single tear slipped out and ran down Damian's face and rolled off and hit the ground.

Drake had begun to say something, but trailed off in confusion at the sight of a drop of water hitting the ground next to the younger's foot.  Damian was…crying?  That didn't make sense.  If he was out here, then that had to mean that Damian had gotten over the things he'd said to him this afternoon.  Or maybe he was up here sulking.  In which case Tim should just…leave.  But Tim could almost feel the purpose radiating off Damian.  Damian was out here to do something, but Tim was confused as to what that was…

Damian couldn't take it anymore.  If Drake didn't leave in the next minute—Damian took an unconscious step forward so that the toe of his shoe hung off the ledge.

Tim watched as Damian took a tiny step forward, closer to the edge of the building.  

And it hit him like a ton of bricks.

The withdrawal, the crying, the despondency…  And paired up with the fact that, as he'd just said, everyone was upset with Damian and completely unwilling to give him the time of day.

Damian was here to jump.  He was here to end his life.

"Damian…" Tim said, breathless with the realization that his rival was suicidal.

He realized that he was a huge part of the reason that Damian was up here.  Just this afternoon, Tim had verbally abused him, insulted the boy without even a hint of mercy; all while Damian was contemplating ending his life.

Tim wanted to throw up.  He had a big hand in this…and… he just-

No.  Tim couldn't start the pity parade yet.  He had to get Damian off that ledge first.  Because if the child did die—Tim would never forgive himself.

"Damian, no," Tim said, voice choked.  "You're here to jump, aren't you?  You can't—You… I… No."

Tim felt so pathetic and useless.   He couldn't even form words when he needed them most.  Tim was the worst possible person for this.  He and Damian hated each other, and now he had to talk the kid down from jumping?  This wasn't happening.  It just wasn't.

"Please don't," Tim begged, not even trying to hide the desperation in his voice.
Damian clenched his fists so hard that his knuckles turned white.  Drake knew now.  He'd never hear the end of it.  Now Father and Grayson and Pennyworth and everyone would know.   They'd know of his depression, of his loneliness, and worst of all, of his weakness.  That thought was unbearable.

"You've had your chance, Drake," Damian spat, tears now a constant stream.

Tim watched in horror as Damian tensed to jump.  It felt like his mind was disconnected from his body as he reached for his grapple.  Everything was moving in slow motion.  Damian pushed off from the ledge and began to fall.  Tim shot his grapple and prayed to some higher power that it his aim was true.  Luckily for him, the grapple swung and wrapped itself around Damian's chest.  The breath whooshed from Damian's lungs as the rope went taut, and he knew he'd have bruises on his chest tomorrow.  The older yanked the grapple, pulling Damian back onto the roof.  Struggling and writhing, Damian tried desperately to get out of the rope around his chest, so he could just run away to die.   Tim closed the distance between them quickly and crushed the boy to his chest.

Tears slipped out from Tim's mask as Damian shook with suppressed sobs.

"You… should've just let me die," Damian said as he tried to get himself out of Drake's hold.  But tears were blurring his vision and several weeks of eating at horribly inadequate intervals had weakened him drastically.  Bruce had forbidden him from even entering the Cave or training.  Damian felt so woefully weak, emotionally and physically.  And he hated it more than he hated himself.

"No, Damian.  This feeling?  Of wanting to die?  It's only temporary.  I promise," Tim reassured, even though he knew it'd do nothing for the boy.  Tim had wished he was dead before; during those bleak times when everyone he loved was dead and Robin had been taken from him.  But he'd moved past that, eventually.  He prayed that Damian would, too.  Because nobody deserved to feel like their life was better off over, not even Damian.  Especially not Damian.

"You're only ten, Damian.  Your eventual death will come.  But it wasn't meant to come by your own hand.  So just… stop.  Please.  Sure, a lot of people are unhappy with you right now, but things will even out eventually."

Damian was still struggling in Tim's tight hug, but now it was more half-hearted.  He just couldn't find the strength to keep fighting Drake.  He would kill himself, but now it was going to be a lot more difficult.  Because that idiot Drake had to go and get involved.

"I'm going to call Bruce now, okay?" Tim said gently.  "He'll take you home."

Damian renewed his struggling madly. No, Father cannot know of this.  He'll never look at me the same way.  He'll never let me be Robin again. The ten year-old's fighting got so out of hand that Tim was forced to nerve strike him.  Damian fell limp in the older boy's arms, glaring up into Tim's domino as tears continued to spill down his cheeks.

Tim sighed sadly before tapping the comm in his ear.

"Bruce."

"No real names in the field," Bruce reprimanded.  Tim ignored it.  He could hear the whoosh of the wind, which meant Batman was on the move, cape flapping behind him.

"I just—I.  I just caught Damian trying to kill himself."  The sound of the wind halted for a moment, which meant Bruce had frozen in shock.  It then returned, louder than ever, which meant Bruce was moving quickly.

"I'm on my way," Bruce grunted.

Tim looked down at the child in his arms.  He brushed Damian's hair off his forehead gently.  Damian growled and would've punched Drake right across the face if the nerve strike had already worn off.  The kid was still shaking from his sobs, but that didn't inhibit him any.

"Everything's going to be okay, Damian.  Everything's going to be okay."

No, Damian thought, fat tears rolling down his cheeks.   It won't be okay.  Because now no one will let me die in peace.

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