nonbinaryash22

[nonbinaryash22]

Chapter 2: The Boy with Too Many Walls

The manor had settled into the soft buzz of late evening — the kind where voices quieted, lights dimmed, and even the most chaotic residents of the Bat Family had begun to wind down. All except one.

Damian stood alone in the training room.

The punching bag swung wildly on its chain, creaking with every impact. His fists were raw, his knuckles red despite the wrappings. He didn't stop. Not even when the sweat ran into his eyes, or when his arms began to tremble. His breath came in tight bursts, angry and shallow.

This wasn't training.

This was purging.

From the hallway, Dick paused. He’d been heading to the kitchen for a glass of water when the sound caught his ear — the heavy, rhythmic thud of frustration disguised as discipline.

He hesitated.

Bruce would say to give the boy space. Jason would probably yell at him to stop acting like a mini demon and talk. Tim would roll his eyes and mutter about "emotional constipation." Cass might just sit in silence beside him until he stopped.

But Dick was different. Dick always stepped in. It was part curse, part instinct. The eldest brother. The peacemaker. The one who still saw Damian as a scared kid under all the arrogance.

He opened the door gently.

The sight didn’t surprise him — Damian, smaller than he liked to admit, fists still flying, jaw tight, eyes darker than usual. In the dim light, he looked like a shadow trying to outrun itself.

“Hey,” Dick said quietly. “You okay?”

“I am training,” Damian barked, without looking back.

Dick stepped in anyway. “You usually train with form. That—” He nodded to the bag, swinging violently. “—isn’t your form.”

Damian’s fist stopped an inch from the bag.

“I don’t require your observation,” he muttered. “Or your pity.”

Dick sat cross-legged on the mat nearby. “Wasn’t offering pity. Was offering company.”

For a moment, Damian didn’t move. Then, reluctantly, he turned. He was still in his black training gear, his hair matted to his forehead, his cheeks flushed from the exertion. He looked thirteen — which, of course, he was — but sometimes Dick forgot, especially when the boy acted like a centuries-old general reincarnated.

“I should not be here,” Damian said finally.

Dick blinked. “The manor?”

Damian looked down, then away. “With all of you.”

There it was.

The part no one liked to talk about.

His birth. His upbringing. The way he was created with purpose but raised without love. Even now, surrounded by family, he often stood just a few steps too far away — as if afraid of letting the warmth in.

“Who told you that?” Dick asked gently.

“No one had to.” Damian's voice was bitter. “Look at me. I am the son of the enemy. The grandson of Ra’s al Ghul. Raised to kill. Engineered to be better than all of you. And yet, I lose to Barbara in Clue.”

Dick tried to hide a smile. “Babs is terrifying with deduction. Even Bruce loses.”

“I threw the game board,” Damian added quietly.

“That, I believe.”

A beat passed. Damian stood in place, jaw clenched. But then, in a whisper so quiet it almost got lost in the hum of the lights, he asked:

“…Do you think Father regrets me?”

The question hurt more than any punch could have.

Dick stood up and crossed the room. He didn’t say anything at first. Just reached out, rested a hand gently on Damian’s head — not ruffling, not teasing — just present.

“No,” he said. “I think he regrets not being there when you were born. I think he regrets what you went through before you ever got here. But regret you? Never.”

Damian didn’t answer.

But he didn’t move away either.

Later, when the rest of the family gathered in the den for board games round two, Damian sat on the arm of the couch nearest Bruce. He didn’t say anything. Just leaned against the backrest and watched the chaos unfold.

Bruce didn’t look at him.

But he did shift his coffee just slightly to the right — leaving a spot open on the table for Damian’s tea.

It was silent, subtle, and unspoken.

But it was enough.

[nonbinaryash22]

Title: “Home Isn’t Quiet”

Chapter 1: The Quiet Before the Storm (or Not So Quiet Actually)

The sun over Gotham didn’t shine often, but today it did — reluctantly, through the clouds, like even it didn’t want to be seen over this city.

Wayne Manor, grand and brooding as always, stood like a monument to contradictions — elegance paired with grief, family with secrets, warmth with cold stone walls. But inside, the chaos was just beginning to brew.

“No, Todd, I said that’s not edible!” Tim’s voice rang out through the cavernous kitchen.

Jason stood at the massive marble island, a grin tugging at his lips as he held up a vaguely charred, unidentifiable… pancake? Blob? It was unclear.

“Then why did Dick say to try it?” Jason asked, only half-defensive. He was shirtless, with a red flannel tied around his waist and his dog-eared copy of How to Not Burn Down a Kitchen: Cooking for Caped Crusaders opened to a suspicious page. “Is this some kind of Robin hazing ritual?”

From behind the fridge door, Damian scoffed loudly. “You’ve never been a real Robin. Obviously, you’re missing the basic survival skills Father drilled into me before I was ten.”

“Kid,” Jason shot back, “you were trained by assassins, not Gordon Ramsay.”

Bruce walked in at that exact moment, already in a dark button-up with his sleeves rolled. He paused. His eyes flicked between the scorched pan on the stove, the flour on the floor, and the slight smell of smoke clinging to the air.

“I was gone for thirty minutes,” he said quietly, as if doing a mental damage report.

���Exactly,” Tim muttered. “You left. Rookie mistake.”

Dick appeared from the hallway, hair still damp from a shower, wearing sweats and a bright blue Gotham Bludhaven Titans hoodie. “Who wants pancakes!” he called cheerily, totally ignoring the destruction.

“Jason ruined breakfast,” Tim deadpanned.

“I improved it,” Jason insisted, tossing a pancake (or attempted one) onto a plate with flair. It hit the counter with a dull thud.

Alfred entered just in time to rescue the manor — and the family — with a tray of real, edible breakfast: soft waffles, perfectly crisped bacon, and a gentle look of long-suffering patience in his eyes.

“Master Jason,” Alfred said mildly, “please do not attempt to poison the household. Especially not before nine in the morning.”

Jason held up his hands. “Fine, fine. But if anyone asks, I was experimenting with explosive batter for field use.”

Damian rolled his eyes and muttered something in Arabic under his breath that only Bruce caught. His father gave him a glance, and the boy instantly stood a little straighter.

Bruce rubbed his temples.

"Is this really the best use of our downtime?" he asked no one in particular.

“Yes,” Dick said brightly, loading up a plate. “Family bonding. You know. The thing therapists keep suggesting you try.”

“Actually, Dr. Leslie said to 'stop pretending you're emotionally invulnerable and sit down to a meal without expecting someone to get stabbed.’” Tim quoted, scrolling through his phone without looking up.

“Hasn’t happened yet,” Damian said smugly, folding his arms.

Barbara entered next, her red hair tied in a ponytail, carrying coffee from the local café — the only way she’d agreed to come back to the manor for the weekend. “Please don’t jinx it, gremlin.”

Steph practically bounced in behind her, dragging Cassandra by the hand and holding up a game box. “Movie night and board game tournament tonight!” she announced. “Winner gets dibs on the Batmobile for a whole day.”

Bruce choked on his coffee.

“You’re not touching the Batmobile,” he said flatly.

“Bet.” Steph winked.

Cass smiled softly and held up a small sign she’d drawn on the back of a napkin: I win. Always. There was a tiny doodle of her driving the Batmobile with sunglasses and hearts around her head.

“Cass is terrifying,” Tim muttered, admiring it.

“We all knew that,” Dick said cheerfully. “It’s why we love her.”

The morning should have been chaotic — and in some ways, it was — but Bruce, for all his reluctance to admit it, let the noise settle into him. The bickering, the teasing, even the burnt pancake… it felt like life. Normal life, or the closest thing their family ever got to it.

No patrols, no alarms, no emergency transmissions or League meetings. Just the Family. A pause in their endless war for Gotham.

It wouldn’t last, of course. Nothing ever did.

But Bruce looked at his children — biological, adopted, found — each so different, so difficult, so his… and allowed himself the rare indulgence of a half-smile.

Later that night…

In the background, The Princess Bride played on the huge living room screen, with Steph and Cass quoting every line while curled up under a galaxy-printed blanket. Tim had already half-passed out with his laptop across his chest. Damian was fuming because he lost the first round of board games to Barbara, and Jason was absolutely cheating in Uno, again.

Dick, watching it all from his spot on the couch, nudged Bruce — who had somehow ended up in the middle of the chaos — with a fond grin.

“See? Not so bad.”

Bruce didn’t respond immediately, just took a sip of his tea.

But then, quietly: “It’s...nice.”

Dick’s smile grew. “You’ll never admit it, but you like having us all here.”

A beat of silence.

“I said it was nice. Don’t push it.”

Dick chuckled. “Too late.”

[nonbinaryash22]

I'm going to be working on a BatFam fanfiction! I hope everyone will like it!