If Damian could pinpoint a guilty party, he would.
But the truth was that: there was no one to blame for this. Everyone and no one at all was at fault.
Perhaps Damian should've have asked more questions, perhaps Talia should have been more assertive, perhaps Bruce and Dick could have been more conscious.
The truth was...that he felt loss. And yet at the same times he was overcome with a sense of pride.
What was exactly the blood that ran through his veins?
Religion had been banned in the League, so much so that it was punished with public execution. But every know and then, when he had nothing but his mama's company, he would hear the whispers of his father's Jewish traditions. How he laid down rocks on his parents tombstones every summer, how he and his cousins hadn't celebrated Hannukah together in years. Those little things brought Damian the pieces of the puzzle his baba was...
His first language was Arabic, gulf dialect espefically. He still remembered how he couldn't pronounced certain words which turned into punishment from the part of his grandfather, how his siblings mocked his formal demeanor without thinking "Hey, maybe this isn't his first language" and how those things he could never verbalize to the involved people.
He was ten years old when he saw his eye shape on his maternal grandmother's eyes for the first time.
Damian would absolutely prefer that he didn't had an identity crisis every two years
His mandarin was...Alright, at best. It did caused Cass and Jason to laugh, but not out of malice but about how adorable he sounded when he couldn't pronounced the alphabet.
Sometimes he would look at himself in the mirror, trying to find the factions of every person in his family that came before him, as if he could be the perfect mix and not just...who he was.
Because what if who he was wasn't enough?
Did he had a responsibility to keep his father's traditions alive? Did he needed to speak up at every interview of galas about his heritage? Could he ever be just...Damian?
What if at the attempt to honor every side of him? He ended up failing them?
He hated not having a straight answer.
He hated that because of this or that he didn't felt like he belonged to a specific group.
But most of all...he loathed that feeling of dread on his chest that wouldn't go away.
It was a dark and cold night when he entered his room and saw his Robin tunic waiting for him in his bed.
He didn't knew how it happened, he would have said he was possessed by the way his body moved independently from his brain.
He had sew before, but this project requested for the gentle hand of a seamster. So he drew in his sketchbook exactly how he wanted it to look and passed the flimsy page under Alfred's bedroom door alongside a note.
Next thing he did was to search in his paternal grandmother for jewelery, he found a pretty transparent jewelry box with the Star of David engraved in it. That's where he found the earrings that said "Bruce" in Hebrew. He took one.
And lastly he lastly he took Goliath and went to 'Eth Alth'eban an entered for the first time to Melissandre's chambers when he retrieved a spear, a Fangtian ji from the Song Dynasty.
When he came back to the Manor, his father was furious for him leaving, but before he could open his mouth Alfred interrupted him by coughing into his fist and announcing his attire was ready.
The old man barely showed him the box before Damian grabbed it and went to his room, locking the door behind him although that didn't make him feel any less the curious looks his Father and Grandfather shoot at him.
He took some last arrangements that were only his, like the fact that he ditched the domino mask and just straight up put spray paint over the eye-zone of his face, and went out of the room to confront both men.
He was now in front of both men, wearing a red tunic that reached his hips, with a yellow utility belt and a yellow wrap over his shoulder and neck. Behind him he had his maternal grandmother's spear and in his left ear there was Martha's old earring. He had kept his green gloves and boots.
Damian smiled at himself, feeling good in his own skin.