Disclaimer: Characters and places belong to DCU unless otherwise stated. Plot belongs to MarkTwainTwo (hi!).
Note: Some things differ from canon, I made up some details for the plot. Nothing major yet I think but you might notice discrepancies (& of course the actual things that happen over the course of the story like activities & villain attacks & stuff are obviously done by me.) Just a heads-up.
-/-
Damian
He'd died before, many times. As punishment, as consequence when he was little. Every time, they brought him back with the Lazarus Pits. Every time, they brought him back so quickly that all he had time to do was see the gates to the underworld.
But that was enough. He was never too little when he died, never too innocent, to mistake what he saw for anything other than what it was. No one could mistake that smell of burning flesh, the taste of ash, the sound of screams, the sight of death and fire and pain and the way everything was overrun by prison and demon.
So when he died by the Heretic's blade and stayed that way long enough to go through those gates and see the real Hell on the other side, he wasn't surprised. He slipped from place to place, always always running, always always hiding, always always in pain of his own that never healed but he never once slipped. He survived. He didn't let it hurt him- (right?). He survived Hell and walked out again (He was still wondering why he did that, shouldn't he have just stayed where he belonged?). He survived and walked out of Hell, and never spoke a word of it. That would be bragging (and who would brag about going to Hell?).
They called him demon- the bats and birds and Titans -and he just fought harder and it sparked his anger, but... Well, they weren't exactly wrong, were they? If he wasn't a demon, why would he go to Hell?
And then there was Raven. Literally half-demon. But she was good, wasn't she? No matter what she said, she was always trying to help. What she was born as only mattered if she followed that path. Damian was born grandson of the demon's head, AND Damian was selfish, he was a murderer, he was a liar. She was always being selfless, healing people. She might lie, but she wasn't a liar. She was half-demon, but Damian was the real demon in the tower.
When he'd first come to the tower and Blue Beatle blasted his face, she healed him. In that state, his subconscious couldn't keep all the memories from her, but it could as a reflex pick and choose what to show her. She'd talked to them about those memories to the Titans, once, and he could tell they were unnerved by the way he'd brushed what they thought was horrible away like it was a small nuisance. But how could he be upset about those things when there were things he'd done and gone through that were so much worse?
Then they fought Trigon. He'd killed the demon acting as his grandfather. And he told Raven to come back home with them. She didn't belong here, Damian told her. It wasn't her home.
What he didn't say was that it was his home. He belonged there. He should stay.
But like a coward, he ran away from it and went back to the tower.
And somehow, every single day, it got worse. Trigon, trapped on Raven's forehead, might have threatened her at night.
But he tortured Damian. Perhaps it was from being so close to Raven, and his connection to Hell. But Trigon found his way into Damian's dreams. And he knew- of course he knew -and Damian was sure the only reason he didn't tell Raven was another way to torture him. Phantom pain in his dreams was one thing, but the mind games...
Hell loved mind games. They were everywhere- the labyrinth with his worst fears, the ability to keep running just in front of the fire and pain; and now, Trigon seemed to realize that Damian would feel relief if the titans knew about his time in Hell, instead of thinking that his time dead was another thing for him to boast about and say he was better than them. He wanted to tell them... but something held him back. And it wasn't just Trigon.
So, Damian started sleeping as far away from Raven as possible, and he found it easier to breathe as he slept. But Trigon still found him, unless he up and left the tower.
And...
"What were you doing, Robin?!" Starfire ripped a hand through her hair. "You can't just leave!"
"I can," Damian said.
"But what were you doing?!"
"Leaving you imbeciles for a night," he snarked. "I was afraid such close proximity may be affecting my brain." And well, it wasn't really a lie.
"I'm afraid you're affecting my brain," Jaime muttered.
Nightwing stepped up. "Robin, go to your room."
And Trigon was trying so hard to break into his head even while he was still awake, and it gave him a headache keeping the memories of That Place away, and nobody realized the broken ankle because he hid injuries like that so well but it HURT either way. And Damian yelled that Nightwing couldn't tell him what to do either and spun on his heel and ran and didn't stop. Not for the yells of the people behind him. Not for Superboy, who was repelled with a simple bit of Kryptonite. Not for Raven, who didn't say anything but stared after him.
And when they found him later, and he finally agreed to go back on the pretense of helping with a case (ignoring his ankle, always ignoring his injuries), he decided for his own safety of not being sent back to Mother and then That Place, he wouldn't run away.
Instead, he would stay awake.
He'd done it before.
(But it only got harder, and harder, and Trigon pulled on his head.)
And they started to notice.
(He couldn't tell them. They couldn't notice.)
(But he was almost relieved.)
