#scribbles from the swamp
english was a rather strange language to learn, damian thought. grammatical rules were guidelines at most, there weren’t any declensions, and the language was constantly growing, constantly shifting, constantly changing. it left damian feeling small, malleable—as if the world could change him.
monachopsis: the subtle yet persistent feeling of being out of place.
it wasn’t as though pennyworth’s cooking was bad. far from it, damian remembers in the gold-tinged memories of perching proudly beside his mother at a grand dining table, watching her twine her words around the neck of anyone foolish enough to speak up as he dined on europe’s finest delicacies. but those were—those were special occasions. damian grew up on rice and halwa and eggplant, but he can barely remember the last time he’s had them. lasagna makes him nauseous, black beans make him pick at his food, cheese makes him want to spit out his food (then near-beg for forgiveness afterwards). but everybody else in the house? they love it, they love the stuff. and alfred’s pleasure in cooking, all clementine pith and flannel warmth, was undeniable. so damian eats his pasta and he eats his scrambled eggs and he endures the teasing for the amount of spicy sauce he pours on top. he does not think to ask for different food.
aulasy: the sadness that there’s no way to convey a powerful memory to people who weren’t there at the time
more and more, damian has realized his family thinks of his mother as an enemy. and if not an enemy, then an adversary, a contingency to plan for, burnt wax and blood and fruit gone rotten. damian’s tried to explain it to them—the slow walks he used to take with her in the gardens of nanda parbat, her acetone-tipped nails tracing the stems of flowers through the air, her warm hands on damian’s as she gently let him pet one of the al ghul family’s many rescue animals. she was steeped in death, damian knew that, but she also longed for life. she reveled in the great sweep of trees, and she poured her fierce desire protect others, animals or plants or even people, into damian’s very soul. we used to walk in the garden, damian struggled to say, but when father frowned and offered to take him through wayne manor’s grounds, damian shook his head and batted him off. after all, it wasn’t the gardens he was missing.
exulansis: the tendancy to give up trying to talk about an experience because people are unable to relate to it
rumors of brown’s skill with people were greatly exaggerated. at least, that’s the conclusion damian had come to after spending enough time in her presence to make an adequate judgement. out of all of them, she was supposed to be the one most grounded in reality, a foot in both vigilante and civilian worlds, a lighthouse in gotham’s storm. and yet, every time damian attempted to talk to her, she fundamentally misunderstood everything he was trying to say. oh, brown cared, she cared the way ugly callouses thumb the familiar grip of a weapon, she was always willing to listen. but she never quite grasped that grandfather was the one behind most of the plots of the leauge, grandfather was the one who stripped every member down to their bones, grandfather shipped him off to america with nothing but a name and the skills drilled into him. the world was under his thumb, and he couldn’t ever feel free with him still alive, something which brown refused to understand.
liberosis: the desire to care less
there came nights when, without fail, damian would stumble over to a bus station with his monthly ticket gripped tight and take the fourty-five minute ride over to bludhaven. there came nights when, despite his bleary eyes and bruised sides, richard would open his door and pull damian in without a word, holding him tight and pressing a kiss to the top of damian’s head, (exactly the way mother used to do when he would pretend to be asleep and she would pretend to believe him). with every visit, richard had to bend over less and less to do so. she loved me, damian would whisper into richard’s shoulder, wrapped up in blankets with a mug of hot chocolate in his hands. she loved you, richard would reply. but she left me, damian would say, and she did it because it was best for me, but she left me. those were the times when damian felt quite naked, furious splotches on his cheeks and his walls dangerously close to crumbling. because mother had trained him into something deadly and instilled lessons so deep they wouldn’t ever go away and sent him to his father when he wanted her most, but she also wiped away his tears and bandaged his knuckles, brought him sweets from every corner of the world, picked him up and hugged him like he was the light of her life.
(richard, damian would think, understands. richard, damian can imagine, remembers a time when father would laugh with ease and play with his child and throw around the world love like it was infinite. richard has also contemplated, with clench-jawed heartbreak, leaving father behind forever.)
richard would always tug damian a little closer after he had spilled out his soul, leaving nothing but star-speckled milk at the bottom of a cup, and tell him we want to care less, don’t we? it’s easier that way, isn’t it? well, maybe. but it’s so much more painful, so much better to care.
–
only 3 more finals left everyone wish me luck
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Dick Grayson’s skin is made of water. It’s wild and temperamental and flows over fluid muscle like a waterfall in motion. It hides his scars until it does’t, and shows every single one of his imperfections through clear lake-water before crashing over them in a saltwater wave and hiding them with foam. It seeps into other people’s skin, until they’re drenched in him, but they learn not to mind because his reassuring touches are either cold splashing over your forehead on a hot day or boiling water brewed in a hot beverage warming you up from the inside. It’s a river around his family, streaming rivulets fast paced and energetic. It’s a hurricane around his enemies, the water whipping up into a frenzy, then attacking with a single-minded viciousness until the heart of the tempest rips you apart.
Jason Todd’s skin is made of stone. It’s rock hard and unyielding, hiding everything tender inside of him. It’s solid and steady, supportive, until it crumbles, weathered down from the constant erosion around him. It’s brute force, harsh and unrelenting as it beats into anyone who’s ever wronged him, again and again and again. But it’s the type of rock that forms up the old buildings in Gotham, the kind that mean shelter and safety for everyone he’s pledged to protect. It holds his family, maybe not tying them together like the water, but above them, shielding them from damage raining down.
Tim Drake’s skin is made of porcelain. It’s soft and smooth, perfectly in place among the elite he was raised around. It’s almost delicate, the patterns on it imprinted as carefully as paint on china. It’s innocent, in a way, which is why it makes the perfect mask. The fragile ceramic hides a ruthlessness, the likes of which the world has never seen. His viciousness runs cracks through the porcelain, but it’s hidden carefully. It’s held itself together because he knows, his family knows, the world knows that if it shatters, it jagged edges will bleed the world red. There will be no fixing it.
Damian Wayne’s skin is made of diamond. It shows his importance to the world, draped over his body, the image of privilege. In a crowd of glitter and gold, it’s rawness is unmistakable. It’s priceless, but not meant to be in a glass case, for it slices through the dark of Gotham, a harsh beam of light, and cuts through criminals like they were made of paper. It’s honed to perfection, a weapon that puts a fear into the hearts of anyone who sees it. It’s a sword, made out of the rarest of gems, and the person that wields it should count themselves lucky.
“You need a new superhero name.”
Damian brought it up unexpectedly, eyes still trained on the security camera he was dismantling.
“What?” Jon was sifting through the footage, using superspeed to catch every little detail of last night, but at Damian’s voice, he paused the recording and looked up.
Damian was still digging inside the camera, having removed the back panel and a good chunk of wires, and was now sifting through the piece of tech with a pair of tweezers. Nonetheless, he continued the conversation. “A name. You’re not going to be Superboy forever, are you?”
“Um,” Jon could honestly say he’d never thought about it. He’d always been Superboy, ever since he could remember. He wasn’t one to place much thought into birthrights or heritage, not like Damian, but he also wasn’t overlooking the fact that his father was Superman. What exactly did that make him? Superboy was the obvious answer. “I don’t think I can be anything else, Damian.”
“You have an older brother who also goes by Superboy.”
Jon shrugged. “We share.”
“Still. You’re graduating high school in just a few months, Jon. Though it’s surprising to say, you’ve outgrown the title.”
Jon’s lips instantly turned upward in a smirk. “I’ve outgrown the title, huh?”
At that, Damian turned to glare at him. Pointing a finger, he said, “I will taze you. Shut up.”
“Whatever you say, short stack.” Jon chuckled at Damian’s little growl. “But honestly, what else am I supposed to be? Everyone knows me as ‘Superman’s Son.’ I mean, Dad’s name is so bigin the League, I don’t think I’ll ever separate myself from it.” And if he was honest, Jon didn’t know if he wantedto separate himself from it.
Damian hummed. “Not true. Look at Richard.”
“Dick? What about him?”
“Well,” Damian paused to move the tweezers to his other hand, “Richard started out as the first child hero, working under Batman. And unlike the other early proteges, he didn’t simply work as his mentor’s sidekick. He created his own legacy. And then he became Nightwing.”
“But Nightwing was already a thing,” Jon pointed out. “It’s a Kryptonian legend.”
“Yes, but there hasn’t actually been a Nightwing, has there? Even if there was one on Krypton, Richard was the first Nightwing on Earth. You wouldn’t call him a sidekick, would you?”
“What, no!” Jon’s reaction was immediate. “Nightwing’s, like, one of the most well-known guys out there. Literally everyone knows him, and literally everyone trusts him. He’s not a sidekick.”
Damian turned to smile at him. “Some would say he was. Do you understand my point?”
Jon pouted, took a deep breath and let it out. “Yeah. Yeah, I think so. I don’t know, I’m not even sure how to go about doing that.”
“Well, to start off, find a new name.” Damian hunched over the camera even more, suddenly focusing in on something.
“I guess so. You got any ideas?” At Damian’s lack of response, Jon asked again, “Damian?”
Damian straightened, holding up the tweezers. Clasped tightly between the tongs was a miniscule data chip. “Here’sthe footage we’re looking for.”
Jon stared at him, eyes wide. “How did you even know that was there?”
Damian shrugged. “Simple matter of deductive reasoning.”
“Tim told you, didn’t he.”
A pause. Then, “Drake may have mentioned a while back that a certain trafficking ring was hiding the data chips inside the cameras, and that others were catching on to the trick. I simply tested out his theory.” Damian looked physically pained, and Jon laughed.
“Cool. Put it in, I’ll look through the footage.”
Damian handed the chip over, then laced his his fingers together, put his arms above his head to stretch. Jon, still holding the chip, stared at the line of Damian’s muscles. When Damian quirked an eyebrow, Jon quickly cleared his throat and took the old data chip out of the computer, replacing it with the new one. “So, any ideas?”
“For your name? A couple,” Damian said. “Of course, you need to have an idea for what you’re thinking of.”
Jon nodded absently, pressing rewind on the footage. “I’m not sure if I want to separate from the Super name entirely, though.”
“You don’t want to, or are you scared to?”
Jon snorted. “You probably know the answer to that better than I do. I think I got a name, it’s on the side of the truck.” He zoomed into the footage. “Yeah, it looks we were right. The pharmaceutical company’s related somehow. There’s that stupid gremlin looking thing again.’
“The griffin?” Damian asked, peering over his shoulder. He made a contemplative noise, brows furrowed
“Is that what that thing’s called? Looks like a half drowned bird.”
Damian laughed, and batted Jon’s hands aside. “That’s not what an actual griffin looks like. Here.” He pulled up a couple pictures on his phone.
Jon swiped through a couple pictures, eyebrows raised. “Yeah, those are a lot more impressive. What are they though?”
“Mythological creatures from a variety of different places. They have the body of a lion and the wings and head of an eagle. They’re quite majestic.”
Jon squinted his eyes at him. “You’re implying something. I know you’re implying something.”
In response, Damian nodded his head towards the phone.
“What?” Jon asked.
“Griffin! It’s a perfect name.”
Jon raised his eyebrows skeptically. “Oh yeah. Because I’m part cat and part bird. Perfect analogy.”
Damian slapped his hand lightly. “No, you moron. It doesn’t have anything to do with the eagle or the lion.”
“Then?”
“Your dual heritage.” At Jon’s uncomprehensive look, Damian sighed. “You’re half-Kryptonian, half-human. And it shows. When you fight, you’re fierce and unafraid, much like your father. At the same time, though, you’re endlessly curious and inquisitive, like your mother. God knows I’ve been on the end of that far too often.”
“Oh. That, huh. That actually makes sense.”
Damian shrugged. “I’m just saying. It would be a good homage to your roots, and you’re honoring your parents, without being too overt.”
Jon looked down at the phone again. The lion part was strong, muscled, steady. The bird’s head was curved and fierce, wings spread majestically.
“Griffin. You know what? I kinda like it.”
the thing about art is that nobody cares. tim’s got a trigger finger from capturing whatever shots he could, as soon as they happened. he’s got chemical burns on his hands from when he was still learning how to develop film. he’s got boxes of photos, not just of batman and robin, but of gotham. gotham late at night, messy pictures of a smog-filled sunset, grimy alleys, cruel eyed people. gotham in the evening, the chandelier of a gala, the crowds of blurry-faced people, diamonds sparkling on necks and fingers. gotham in the morning, faraway shots of wayne manor gardens, of the forest behind the drakes’ house, of leaves and flowers and trees. and nobody notices them. jack and janet knew about his hobby, of course they did. it certainly cost them enough money. but no one asked to see his pictures. no one asked him why he liked photography. the teachers at school brushed him off when he talked about his hobby, the maid asked him to stop leaving his camera around, and bruce saw him as nothing but a threat with those photos the first few months. so tim stopped asking. stopped telling people about his little hobby, stopped vesting so much time and interest in it, only ever got out his camera when he was feeling sentimental. but he couldn’t always help himself, snapping a quick shot with his phone when he saw something particularly beautiful. pictures littered his phone, and as long as tim had anything to say about it, they’d stay unkown forever. because nobody cared.
the thing about art is that everybody cares. damian’s got fingertips permanently blackened from charcoal pencils, skin rubbed raw from scrubbing paint off his arms. nothing went unnoticed under his grandfather’s watchful eye, however. damian, innocent as he could be, told ra’s it’s just art. ra’s had laughed, then with a tight grip on the back of damian’s neck, led him around the main base of the league. this is art, ra’s had told him. the arc of a blade, the cry of a warrior. the bulge of muscles, the blood of the victorious dripping on the body of the defeated. there is no need to look for beauty beyond that. the next time ra’s caught him with a pencil and paper, he was not so forgiving. damian trembled in the aftermath, fighting to stay quiet as talia harshly set all ten of his broken fingers back in place. she hissed at him to be careful, then threw his paper in the trash. damian learned a lesson that day. his careful depictions of the league base, ink spills of animals, quick drafts of his mother were rushed, hidden, disappear as soon as they’d been set on paper. because his hobby was foolish for someone of his status, unimportant for his eventual role in life. his grandfather’s entire league cares so much about exactly what he does, how he traisn, what he spends his time on. and he cannot afford anything less than his usual hypervigilance to cause misstep, one that would end with a punishment far more brutal than broken fingers.
i love the idea of the entire batfam being hypercompetent. just like. good at stuff.
because yea, they’ve all been trained extensively by a variety of teachers and mentors and various learning experiences. they all have their skills that they’ve honed to perfection for years. but there are just some things that they’re a natural at, things that make the unique, things that give them an edge just enough to rise to the top in a world full of gods and monsters.
yes, damian’s a trained assassin, and has been since birth. yes, damian works hard to keep his skills up. but the weapons training? it comes to him almost naturally. maybe it was something passed down from both bruce and talia, both deadly fighters in their own right. maybe it has something to do with the al ghul bloodline. either way, damian is absolutely deadly with a weapon in his hand. a blade can arc through the air faster than the human eye can see when it’s in his hand. he can work horrible wonders with an unbalanced sword, and turn combat into an art with a balanced one. tiny fingers wrap around the rough handle of a whip with surety, and he can slip batarangs into his palms and up his sleeves without them ever being seen.
tim’s got one of the most analytical minds of any vigilante alive. he’s not a supergenius or anything, and he leaves the higher-order computer skills and tech to barbara. but to him, the world is a puzzle after a puzzle, and tim never fails to solve them. figuring out dick and bruce’s identities. taking apart a grapple gun and fitting the parts together to make a beartrap. knowing exactly what to say and what to do to get bruce to break and bend and let him in. catching patterns in the chemical formulas of crane’s various toxins. reading through the lies that fell from his family’s lips like raindrops from the sky. everything and everyone tim knows are made of jagged pieces, but tim figured out early on how to put them together, step back, and take a look at the bigger picture.
people say cass doesn’t have any people skills, due to the years spent in isolation, spent alone. but the reality is, she has too many. reading people has always come easy, body language is an open book to her. but what many didn’t know was that there was a big difference between reading a book and analyzing it. it’s easy to see the insecurities of each of her brothers. it’s much harder to know exactly what to do or say to let them bring down their walls for just a moment, show their affection and prove their love in the smallest but most important of ways. it’s easy to see the poison of a smirk on a reporter’s lips, to catch the probing gleam of their eyes. it’s much harder to turn the reporter around, chasing their own tail until the story they were searching for in the first place was lost. it’s easy to pinpoint teammates and other heroes’ strengths and weaknesses, to see them play out in the field and plan for them the way every bat did. it’s much harder to make the others aware of their own strengths and weaknesses, and to convince them to put aside their ego and work on bettering themselves. but cass seemed to have a knack for it.
jason may like playing up the role of the blustering, bull-headed wild card of the family. mafia-don-from-movies meets muscled brawn. but he’s got a literary mind at the heart of it all. he’s real good at codes and decryptions, because he’s read about them before. he’s lightning fast a nygma’s riddles, because he’s poured through the books from which riddler gets his inspiration a hundred times over. life and art turn into one in his mind, and overlaying his family’s stubbornness and trust issues with novel style analyzations and character assessments that help him understand their interactions a little better. words float off the page and wind their way inside his head, and some may call him dramatic when he can’t force himself to speak so he uses quotes instead, but never say echolalia wasn’t useful.
each member of their worn out and sewn together family had their niche, their own particular area in which they excelled. but dick was brought up in a world where there was only two protecting gotham, two partners working together to keep an entire city from falling apart. jack of all trades, master of none, but better of master than one, dick always said, eyes twinkling with mischief. because sure, his acrobatic prowess was unchallenged. but he grew up on the road visiting city after city, country after country, and it gave him a head for languages. not even dick is sure how many languages and regional dialects he actually knows. his darling little smile was honed to perfection, and interrogations with him never lasted that long. you could drop him in the middle of nowhere and he’d always find his way to civilization, or you could toss him in the middle of a bustling but unfamiliar city, and he’d always make his way back.
