Chapter Text
Damian woke up, in pain, groggy, he had a big fight but his instincts urged him to look around.
Looking down to himself he saw that he had no shirt on but he was bandaged up, his torso was covered in probably newly changed bandages considering they were soft and that there wasn't any blood on them, looking to the side he found his phone but he figured he didn't need it considering his surroundings
When he looked around he found himself in a familiar place, his room, not the one in the manor, this one was more familiar, a safe known place where he could relax
And so he did, he figured it wouldn't be much of an issue to keep himself safe or alert if he was here so he went back to sleep
Around another hour later he woke up to the sound of faint crying which immediately set up his alarms, he tried to sit up quickly but the sudden movement shot a jolt of pain through his body, he yelped looking scared down at himself and then at the figure at the edge of the bed, his mom
"Mother" he spoke, startled "what is this?" he was confused mostly because everything hurt but also because it was awfully difficult to sit up being that his legs were somehow weak
"Damian, يا فتى العزيز" (oh dear boy) Talia looked at him with sad and grim eyes
That's when Damian knew it was bad, very very bad
"Mother" he repeated, careful, afraid "what's wrong- what happened?" he tried to go over to her, but he found that he couldn't go over to her, what?
He tried to move, nothing happened, obviously he has experienced paralysis with venoms and techniques but this felt different
"Mother, what is this??" His panic increasingly grew, Talia looked at him, her eyes breaking somehow even more and just went to hug him, she moved almost like a ghost but the weight of her presence stayed within Damian
She stayed quiet, swallowing her words before speaking
"I am so sorry my son"
Damian grew increasingly more agitated "Mother! Please- what is this?"
"Damian we couldn't do anything- we can just hope that the Lazarus pit in you can..." she stopped "i tried everything"
Damian froze, at first he thought someone had gotten hurt--hence the reluctance of his mother to tell him--but once she mentioned the Lazarus in him… the one he had only experienced through his grandfather
He pushed her back harshly and tried to get up but he couldn't he looked down at his legs, he tried to get up from his bed, he couldn't, each movement each time hurt his spine more than the last one
he looked shocked, then grim, Talia looked at him and just scooped him up into her arms again, it was obvious she was guilty she felt like she could've acted faster, if maybe a dip in the pit or a clone bio spine may have solved it she didn't know but Bruce came to her too late, always too late, and now his son was the one that was going to pay for the actions of his father
"… Ummi" he spoke quietly now "What-" he cut himself off "what happened?"
Talia parted to look at him
"Flamingo, he shot you in your spine, it was a... a complete injury in the T12 vertebrae"
Upon hearing that he was shook, he used his arms to move himself and press himself against the bedrest, turning his arms to feel his spine, there he could feel the bandages and a very big gauze in the wound. Quickly removing the small almost paperlike blanket to look at his legs seemingly normal
With a terrified stare he poked
Nothing
harder
Nothing
gripped
Nothing
It was more like a fuzziness that faded into numbness
He looked hopelessly at his mother. fix it he pleaded with his stare fix this
His mother stood up
"I need to go talk with Ras"
There was something behind her eyes but Damian didn't understand what, still he wanted her to stay
"You can call for me, I am not that far away"
He understood, she didn't want to see him like this, either because of hurt or disappointment though he thought that was the latter
After so many emotions in such a short time he was exhausted, it didn’t hurt to go back to sleep, he needed this, he could deal with it later.
“I’d rather not” he thought out loud but still pushed himself to lay back down into the bed
He closed his eyes and went back to sleep.