Who: Damian, Jason and Helena Where: Bat mansion When: backdated to before the xmas events What: birds fighting Warnings: talk of depression/self harm, sad stuff
Damian landed at the entrance of Wayne manor in his full Robin gear. It was a dark variation of the suit with a lot more green than red (unlike the other Robins before him) and most people wouldn’t have guessed what the R symbol stood for unless they were very familiar with the normal costumes. He alternated between the sidekick and Talon as he felt needed. Why should he have to decide on an identity if no one was pushing him to? It was easier to accept what he really was and what he had always been, which was a child born of two worlds, two destinies and two different codes of honor. Nights spent feeling more like his mother belonged to the Talon. Nights where he felt like the bat family was actually something real he was Robin.
After speaking with Selina and seeing a couple different members of his brood come to check on him, Damian was feeling like Robin again. Partially out of a need to prove that he would take being Batman’s sidekick seriously again. Partially to show that he was still invested in this family. And, that’s why he was here. Helena was slipping away. Damian had been so angry at her, he was still so angry, but he understood that she needed him more than his anger was justified. In the past when Damian was having a hard time adjusting, Helena was there with the streamers and holiday decorations to make him feel better. The little bird owed her. The little bird loved his big sister too much to let his pride get in the way like it did time and time again.
When Jason appeared, Damian looked relieved to see him and walked over to him immediately. “What was the last thing you said to Hels?” The second of calm was replaced with worry. That high Wayne forehead wrinkling in concern as he glanced back at the mansion. They only had so much time before Helena went through the door again and refused to come back.
Jason was in uniform himself, the limp he'd picked up thanks to a couple bullets on the way out of Arkham City nowhere to be found. Kara's machines had taken care of that nicely, if not sweetly. He was pretty sure Sanctuary wished every time he showed up that it was allowed to fry him. "I told her I agreed with Kara," he said, pulling the helmet off and setting it on the kitchen counter. The bike was out front, settled into the divet where he'd slid it in, kicking up gravel in the drive. "And Kara told her that she wasn't very nice." Helena might be on the verge of doing something really stupid, but he didn't regret anything he'd said, and he didn't blame Kara for anything she had. Helena had been hounding her ever since she showed up. Sure she had her reasons, but the cruelty was due to stop eventually, wasn't it? Maybe Selina was right - he really didn't have a handle on the suicide thing. He'd fought too long and kicked and screamed to live too many times to understand why someone would off themselves voluntarily without some really crazy circumstances to prompt it.
Helena was part of the family, though, and she was as much a sister to him as Damian was a brother. He might not be her biggest fan, but who knew, maybe he'd gotten to know her better at exactly the wrong time. The relief on Damian's face when he arrived clinched it. The last time Jason saw Damian in person, he'd been busy telling him what a shitty fighter he was. All of that was smoothly wiped away by the look on his face. They could argue that point out some other time. "What's your plan?"
Damian crossed his arms over his chest and bowed his head in thought. “She gets pretty touchy.” Said like every Wayne didn’t get touchy about basically everything. “And, I don’t think she knows who’s on her side. So, hang back and wait. If things get out of control or whatever I say to her doesn’t seem to be working, then jump in.” The little bird didn’t know the first thing about dealing with people who were going through emotionally difficult times and he really didn’t know anything about dealing with a suicidal sister. But, he thought that if Helena saw all the people who supported her and wanted her to stay that had to be the best shot they had.
“Don’t say anything about how she’s treated Kara.” Damian warned. “No matter what. We can sort that out later. The most important thing is letting Helena know she’s still part of the family.” The little bird had thrown Helena out before, but he had the habit of throwing everyone out of the family sooner or later. It might have been an empty threat, but it always managed to pack the same punch no matter who he used the tactic on.
There was no questioning that Helena got touchy, that might be the understatement of the year in Jason's opinion, but he nodded all the same. "Honestly, it's better for everybody if I keep my mouth shut unless absolutely necessary." That had been the plan to begin with. Damian knew her better, understood her better, empathized with her better. Jason was crowd control here, and not much more. Maybe, maybe he hoped he would get a better sense of who Helena was if he went into that room, and why everything had torn her down so harshly when the rest of them had lost so much and were still upright. But everybody had their crosses to bear, and he had never really handled loss too well himself.
Damian nodded and while he was surprised that Todd was still sticking around even if it was becoming increasingly clear that this wasn’t going to result in a fight between Wayne children, he was also a little impressed. Taking off his mask, Damian stepped into the mansion and stomped around the entrance way. “Helena!” He called loudly, putting his hands on the sides of his mouth to make his voice echo.
The shout roused her from graveyard stillness and silence in her room. How long had it been? She couldn't have been up here for more than a few minutes, but a glance at the new clock said it had been much longer than what she expected. Shit. "Give me a minute," she mumbled, inaudible for anyone not in her room as she wiped at her face furiously with her fingers. Wet. She needed to wash her face again, rid herself of teary evidence and uncounted hurts.
"I'll be down in a minute!" Helena finally called out the door before she shut it so he wouldn't see if he came up. She didn't want him to see the mirror broken above the sink, or the two full-length ones that had once been on the doors to her closet. They were shards in the carpet now, done after she'd finished her count of the knives in the kitchen. (One was missing now, carbon steel glinting on the smooth porcelain basin of her en-suite sink. Option number two. There was no option three, but she wasn't considering Damian trying to talk her out of anything option number one.) She would listen though, could listen, he deserved that because she cared enough to hear him out, but he'd come to the same conclusion she did. She was sure of that much.
Drawing a ragged breath in, ignoring the knife for the moment, she turned on the faucet and splashed her face with cold water. Careful of the bandage wrapped around her knuckles, she watched the water wash blood off the mirror shards she'd had to remove when she'd slammed her fist into the one above the sink. It cast back a shattered reflection now. Fitting. Another ragged breath in, no chance now of channeling whoever she'd been on that ship. All she had to do was make it through this, make sure Bruce stayed busy with his new gaggle of orphan children and then everything would be okay. She'd make it better. Wiping her face mostly dry on the sleeve of her hoodie, she turned the water off and left her room, making sure to close the door behind her so no one could look in.
Damian felt his chest tighten and part of him was sure she wasn’t actually coming down. The Wayne siblings were known for their tempers that flared, iced and melted at such a rapid pace that anyone who wasn’t directly in their bloodline wouldn’t understand. Damian knew that much. He knew that no matter how many times Grayson insisted that everyone under the house of Bat was family, no one would really understand a Wayne like a Wayne. He motioned for Jason to wait out of sight and then walked towards the stairs. He almost ran up to check on her, hand gripping the bannister so tight it almost shook loose.
The nervousness came out of a simple emotion: guilt. Damian understood anger, he wielded anger like a knife, but he didn’t know guilt and so far only the likes of Jason Todd had really seen it truthfully. He was nervous because part of him knew that one conversation wasn’t going to fix anything and Helena would continue to avoid everyone until she found a way out or found a way to die. “Helena.” Damian said once she started down the stairs to see him. He tried to let go of the bannister. “Can I have a hug?” His fingers pried off one by one and then he took off his belt, rolled up his sleeves and tossed any kind of knife he had on him across the floor to prove that all he wanted was a hug. No stabbing this time.
A look that was nothing like relief crossed her face when he took off his belt, tossed away all weapons. For a brief moment, she was sad that he had until her own guilt kicked in. Damian shouldn't be the one to hurt her. Eventually he'd feel guilty (would he? asked a little voice in the back of her mind), Bruce would be pissed that he had, and she couldn't be the cause of them fighting. Things were supposed to get better, not worse. She had to make sure things were better when she left.
The question caught her off guard. Why did Damian want a hug from her? Didn't he know what she'd done? Hadn't he kicked her out of the family? Called her a waste of Wayne blood? Her eyes stung to remember it, naked knuckles going white on the bannister. A waste of blood, a waste of space, waste of time. Why was he here? Why, why, why? It was a question she finally gave voice to before it was too much to keep standing up, to keep going forward and she crumpled on the stairs, body tilting away from him as if she still expected him to attack her unarmed.
Damian stood stunned, not sure if she had finally lost all her patience with him as he expected everyone to do one day. He knew most people didn’t understand the first time around that anger and screaming and threatening meant he cared, that he was wounded in a way he couldn’t punch back. Most of the time Damian didn’t understand it either until it was too late. But, this was his sister. Or at least, someone that Damian had always believed was his sister. “Hels.” He murmured and then walked up the steps slowly so that he could sit a few stairs under her. His shoulders were stiff and posture radiating how awkward and out of practice he was about this kind of thing.
“I didn’t mean it.” He said quietly with his Wayne brow furrowed and his expression so serious it could rival his father. Damian leaned forward with his back turned to her, elbows on his knees. It was a subtle sign of trust. If she wanted to attack him with his back turned and get in a cheap shot, she could and he wasn’t planning on stopping her. “I don’t want you to go.” His voice was getting softer by the second and the end of the to go was barely audible.
When she saw Damian do the same with others, she knew all of that, that he was flapping his wings and screaming because he was scared, because he cared but that was the logic that came from knowing someone. That same logic was broken and jagged for her, hunks of a glacier torn free to wade off into the sea as icebergs that wrecked ships and lives alike. And now there were so many pieces gone that everything was jumbled and the very notion that Damian could care was foreign. Strange. A ship plunging into ice encrusted waters and for what? What was turning her younger brother so solemn?
She stared at him with eyes gone wide, puddles collecting at the lower lids and shook her head. No. This wasn't right. "Dami," she started, half exasperated and shaking her head again. "Shhh. It's okay. I know you meant it. You don't have to lie to me. It'll be okay. I promise you it's going to be okay. You'll get someone new maybe. Or in a few months you'll get a new me," water spilled as she reached out to him, hoping for him to understand. "And she'll be better and you won't have to remember me at all. You'll forget. It'll be like I never existed." Helena nodded, as if this would make him say yes, that he wanted it too, and gave a little half-cocked smile that shivered off her face with a twitch of muscles that couldn't hold the illusion.
Damian looked up at her in surprise. “You’re talking crazy.” Surprise turned into fear. “It’s easier if you think I’m lying because then you get to be right about everything. But, you’re not.” The little bird’s voice was louder than he intended, almost shrill and he turned sharply so he could face her completely. “I’m not going to forget about you. I don’t want to! I can’t! You’re my sister. We’re blood. Don’t you get that? We’re blood.”
He reached forward and tried to pull her into a hug. Damian didn’t know what to do with someone who was crying and this upset, but hugs had to make her feel better. Or at least show her that he was here for her whether she liked it or not. “Stick around and it’ll get better. We take care of each other. That’s what we’re supposed to do.” The little bird seemed to echo Nightwing almost down to the letter.
Why was he being so shrill? It made her ears hurt, fingers frantically tugging on the cuffs of her hoodie instead of covering her ears. "I'm being honest," she said, tone wobbling like a vase about to go off the stand. Why didn't Damian understand? Why wasn't he being honest? "Damian, you kicked me out of the family, you meant it. You don't have to lie to me. It's okay. I know. It's okay. They all want me gone. They hate me. I need to go."
All the King's horses and all the brother's hugs in the world couldn't make her better. And this semblance of affection when he was lying to her was only worse, made her skin itch like she needed to run back upstairs to her room and maybe she should have kept that knife on her instead. Security. A favored blanket to calm. Knowing it was there though, that was almost as good as she took in a shuddery breath and patted Damian lightly on the shoulder, comforting him rather than returning the hug. "You won't remember once I'm gone. And that's okay. It should be that way. I don't want you to remember this, Dami. Okay, baby bat? Just forget. Okay? I want you to." She whispered, "I want you to."
Damian felt a sudden rage boil over. His jaw tightened and he drew back to give her a look like she had one more chance to get it right. Helena obviously wasn’t taking what he was saying to be true and in that he felt betrayed. People expected him to be nice all the time or not at all, there was no middle ground and they’d never forgive him acting out of line. With a sharp movement of his arm, shoulder snapping away from her, Damian stumbled back down the stairs and looked up at her. “Believe what you want.” The shrill, little bird was gone in favor of something darker. Something hurt in a way that he couldn’t overcome to help Helena.
Damian was trying to be a good little brother. He didn’t even try to hurt her when he came to the mansion. But, he only had so much patience left in him.
“I’m going to remember this forever. How you didn’t bother to get to know any of us. How much of a coward you are.” Damian yelled loud enough that his voice ricocheted off the high ceiling. He turned to leave even though he didn’t have anywhere else to go. This was supposed to be his home, right? But, when did anything feel like home since he came to this Gotham?
Jason had spent the entire conversation near the door, ready to block Helena's exit if she tried to run out and do harm to herself, or stop her before she could take any action to end her own life. But he wasn't just there for Helena. He'd come because he was worried about Damian, and when he saw him finally snap, he at last moved away from the doorway and toward them both. This whole mess was officially doing more harm than good, to both of them, and it was time to cut it off.
"Alright, alright," Jason said. He stepped forward, between Damian and Helena and the door. "You don't mean that and you know it," he told Damian, and he sounded tired as could be. He wasn't equipped for this kind of mess, not to clean it up, not to watch it unfold. "And nobody wants another you, or hates your guts," he told Helena. "They just want you to get better, and no amount of threatening to kill yourself is going to change that. You go through with it? Then they'll hate you. I don't think that's so complicated." Directness seemed to be in order, here, cutting through all the overwrought fighting and accusations both of them were slinging around.
Jason turned to Damian. "You want to go, let's go. But she's not your enemy, and I seem to remember a time when she used to do stuff like decorate the Batcave for Christmas. I wouldn't call that not bothering." He glanced back at her. "Even if it doesn't seem like it anymore."
He pointed, first to Damian, then to Helena. "You need to cut the freaking out at a person who doesn't know what they're saying, and you need to get a really good shrink and stop making everybody else your executioner. Only person who wants you dead is you." He shrugged his shoulders. "That's all there is to it."
Unlike Damian, she hadn't known Jason was there by the door and she froze as soon as she saw him. Did Damian bring him there? She knew better than to believe he came for her, unless it was to make sure that she knew how he hated her. He'd proven as much on the journals, in all the months proceeding this one.
As soon as he began to talk, she began creeping back up the stairs, arms behind her, pushing up on the stairs. "No. no, no," she whispered, head swinging back and forth. She could forgive Damian the cruel things he said, she deserved those, but he didn't deserve Jason's admonishments. "Stop, stop," she uttered, a low hiss of sound, rattling around like the dead leaves of fall.
This wasn't supposed to happen and it was all her fault. Everything she did, everything she said resulted in fighting, or people leaving. She was the kiss of death and Helena knew it. There was only one way to make things better, regardless of what they said and what it made her. "Stop, stop, please just stop," she repeated, louder, eyes panicky wide as she finally found her feet and back pedaled up the stairs as fast as she could go. "Just stop. Stop!" Maybe they'd listen. They had to. If she left, things would be better. If they didn't already hate her, it didn't matter if they hated her then, because she'd be gone, and she wouldn't have to feel it anymore. She wouldn't have to feel anything anymore. And then she was turning, running back up the stairs, away from them and towards her room.
Damian was already heading towards the door. He thought Jason being there would help, but that look on Helena’s face and her screaming for it to stop made it clear to him this was a mistake he couldn’t fix. “Fine! I’ll forget you! I’ll forget all about you!” He screamed back at her, little baby bird face turning bright red and eyes glossed over with the threat of tears. Damian gave a look to Jason that was as close to an apology as he’d ever get and then he turned to rush out the front door.
This was supposed to be his home. That was supposed to be his sister. He was supposed to have a family. But, Damian? Damian felt like he didn’t really have anything. In hours he’d calm down. In days he’d be back at the cave training with his father. In a week he’d be checking up on Jason. But, now? Now he was alone.