Chapter Text
Damian.
Damian arrived on Bruce's doorstep not longer than five weeks ago, and already, he was feeling an unfamiliar pang of homesickness. It was the longest he'd ever been away from Ahki.
Still, he was trying to get his footing in the sprawling Manor.
Wayne Manor wasn’t what he expected. He’d prepared for something colder—stiff, over-decorated, impersonal. His grandfather had called it a mausoleum; his mother spoke of it like a relic. But the truth was… Wayne Manor felt alive.
It was more colorful than Ahki had described. More than just a place for show or a fallback safehouse—it had a heartbeat. There was always sound, even in the silence. Distant laughter echoing from another wing. The screeches of his family sparring. Damian watched them sometimes, always from a distance. He told himself it was to observe their mistakes, to avoid making the same ones. But deep down, he knew it was more than that.
The Manor had a rhythm. A kind of warmth. Not threatening—just… unfamiliar.
After a month, certain things became routine. Alfred greeted him every morning with that same calm voice, offering eggs and tea whether Damian accepted or not. Grayson texted him more than any human reasonably should, usually with memes he didn’t understand, or pestering him to come along to the movies.
But Ahki—a stable part of his life, someone he looked up to even if he’d never say it aloud—wasn’t here. And no one really talked about that.
From Ahki’s stories, Damian knew he had once lived in this Manor. That much had always been clear. So when Damian arrived, he made it his mission to find Ahki’s old room—despite Ahki’s clear instructions not to.
Damian called it proof. If the stories were real, if the room was real, then so was everything Ahki had ever told him.
The first few nights, he wandered the halls. He told himself it was tactical—memorizing floorplans, assessing exits, identifying weak points. But each time he passed the room at the end of the hall—the one that stayed locked—his pace slowed.
Suspicion grew. And one day, curiosity won.
He snuck in. For a family of vigilantes, their lock systems were disappointingly average.
Inside was a room frozen in time. Not dusty, not decayed—just untouched. Preserved. A snapshot of a life paused mid-step.
Ahki’s old clothes. Books. Photos. One of him and Grayson, blurry but smiling. One of him eating a burger with way too much ketchup. One—Damian stared at it for longer than he meant to—of Ahki in casual clothes, sitting with Father, the two of them sharing ice cream.
That one, he took.
He shook his head to clear his thoughts. Footsteps echoed faintly from the hallway. Time to disappear. Damian climbed out the window, landed silently, and reentered the Manor through the main doors to avoid suspicion.
Tucked under his jacket was the photo—warm, worn, and his now.
Mother and Ahki had told him not to share Ahki’s return. Not yet. Not with them. But Damian had decided: if someone asked, he would tell the truth.
And maybe, someday, this house would feel whole again.