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Family dinner had to be Damian's least favorite event he's been forced into attending.
Once every week, the Waynes have a family dinner. Every member that can make it is forced to come.
(This is also a time used to introduce close friends and new partners any one of them have.)
The reason Damian hates it so much is because everyone is always so loud during it.
One time, in the middle of eating Alfred's iconic beef stew, Damian's portion consisted of Seitan instead of beef, Timothy had randomly mentioned his missing spleen.
Everyone had froze, Grayson had even done a spit take.
That was how the “Family Dinner Dramatics” (FDD for short) scoreboard had started.
Basically, the more absurd your secret, the more points you get.
The scores are as follows:
Dick says what?! – 1 point.
Cass is surprised? – 2 points
Bruce lets out a sigh longer than 5 seconds? – 3 points
Alfred drops a dish – 4 points
Bruce does a spit take – 5 points
(Note that points may be changed by debating the referee, Duke.
If more than one listed event happens, then points may be added together.)
Tim's little spill gave him a whopping 11 points.
Currently, Tim is in the lead with 35 points. Followed by Jason, Dick, Cass, Steph, Duke, Bruce himself, Alfred, and lastly Damian.
(Honorable mention to Bernard, for that one time he admitted to knowing superman's identity.
The Waynes still do not know how he knows that, but can't figure out their identities.)
(Little do they know… 😏)
All this to say, Damian doesn't really enjoy how they have made a game that is basically “Who has the most trauma.”
Today though, Damian may just have a secret that will leave the whole family shocked.
———————
The sounds of forks scratching metal, voices yelling, and the whisking of ingredients filled the dining room. 8 people sat around the table, each having their own side conversations.
Dick was debating Duke on whether Spiders were cute or not.
Jason and Tim were tormenting Bruce about how they were better detectives than him.
Stephanie was trying to force Damian into making tiktoks with her.
And Cassandra was feeding Alfred the cat tiny scraps of her stew.
After a couple minutes of this, Steph had given up and started making tiktoks with her and Cass (Sometimes the cat would sneak into the videos).
Damian cleared his throat and everyone went silent. Usually, the clearing of a throat meant something important was going to be shared, but Damain had never done this before. He thought the idea of randomly spilling secrets in front of the whole family was stupid.
“Please note that I'm only doing this because father isn't able to scream at the dinner table anymore.” His voice sounds the same as always, with an undertone of nervousness slipping through.
Damian watched as Dick’s eyes flicked to Father’s. They had a silent conversation over the course of a second.
“Oh?” Grayson’s voice was an invitation for Damian to continue without admitting to being interested in what he would say next.
“Well..” Damian's hesitation seemed to turn Grayson’s barely hidden interest into almost concern, “during my solo patrol two nights ago, I may have…”
Damian's eyes flitted over Brown’s clear and Cass’s hidden interest. He watched as Todd took a sip of “water” from an opaque bottle. Tim seemed to have already known what Damain may say next as he took out his phone to start filming his next words. When their eyes met, Drake just raised his eyebrows. Grayson’s face showed clear concern while father just seemed to be preparing himself for whatever may be said next.
Damian decided to just rip off the bandaid.
“I killed someone.”
Cass’s eyebrows raised and her mouth dropped open, almost like she was trying to find the right words to react with.
Brown and Thomas both let out audible gasps.
Jason spitted it out his “water” and started coughing while staring and Damian like he has never seen him before.
Drake just looked at him approvingly while he made sure to get the reaction of the whole family on camera.
Grayson’s concern immediately turned into alarm as he yelled. “What!?”
Bruce took a sharp inhale of breath and let it out slowly. (When Tim reviewed the video, he found out the sigh was in fact longer than 5 seconds.)
Lastly, you could hear a distinct gasp followed by the shattering of glass coming from the kitchen.
“I know this is an unacceptable action that I took, and I’m willing to take any punishment you would like to give me, Father. I truly am disappointed in how I handled this situation.” Even though his head was down, Damian’s eyes flicked around the whole room and cataloged everyone’s reaction.
“Who did you… kill?” Jason's curiosity had returned tenfold.
Damian was scared to admit it. He didn't know how Jason would react to who he killed.
“The Joker…”
Jason started coughing uncontrollably.
Tim just laughed a single time, took Jason's “water”, and chugged the rest of it. Jason was so absorbed in his coughing fit, he didn't yell at Tim for it.
Dick's eyes just fluttered between Jason and Damian. He didn't know how Kason might react to this.
Everyone else had just frozen, either from shock, or not knowing what to do.
“Are you… mad?” Damian had moved his head to look up at Jason. “I know you wanted Father to kill him…”
By now, Jason had stopped coughing and closed his eyes. He seemed to be trying to process the new information.
“I'm not mad.” It felt like years before those words were uttered.
If anyone else had said that to him with no further explanation, he wouldn't have believed them at all; however, Todd would never lie to him. He's known him long enough to know this.
Damian relaxed into his seat. He was more scared of Jason's reaction than Bruce's. Now that he thought about Bruce.
“And you, father? How mad are you?”
“... Why did you do it?” His voice was quiet. It was almost scaring Damian. He knew father would never yell, hurt, or, God forbid, kick him out of the family, but anyone in the family knows they never want Bruce to be disappointed at them.
He'd never outright say he was disappointed, but he'd walk around and shake his head, sigh, and be slightly more clipped during patrol.
“He was insulting Todd, Drake, and you, father. I'm a Wayne with pride, so I couldn't let him continue saying that.” Damian shook his head as he continued talking, “My league training must have taken over and… I saw red, I guess.”
Damian continued looking down at his food, doing anything to not see the look on his fathers face.
“Fuck.”
…
There was silence as everyone slowly looked up at Bruce.
“Did he just…” Duke trailed off, head looking between everyone in the family. Even though he was the newest, he knew how weird it was for Bruce–BRUCE– to be cursing.
“Was that a good or bad curse,” Jason stage-whispered as he leaned over to Dick.
“Neither? Both? All I know is I’m going to be begging Tim to send me that video.” That comment got him a gare from Bruce and a thumbs up from Tim.
Bruce slowly brings his fingers to his temples and massages them. (Later, Jason will swear he could see grey hairs growing on him at that moment.)
“Father?” The longer the silence from Bruce carries on, the more Damian grows nervous. He’s trying not to show it, but apparently he’s not doing a good enough job because Alfred The Cat patters over to him and jumps onto his lamp and Tim gives him a nod of reassurance.
Damian doesn’t want to lose another family so soon, let alone it being his fault. He doesn't know what he would do if that happened.
“I’m… not mad or disappointed at you Damian. I understand you were trying to protect the family and I will never hold that against you.” Bruce speaks slowly, making sure that nobody misunderstands him. “I know I’m… strict about my ‘No Kill Rule’, but I will never,” he makes sure to turn to Jason, “never stop loving you because you break it.”
Jason looks away from Bruce, but he has a small smile on his face that nobody draws attention to.
“That's… good.” Damian is stilted, not knowing how to react to this confession.
“It seems those therapy sessions have been helping you, Master Bruce.” Alfred, the butler, walks into the room with a water pitcher and refills everyone's drinks. He then places down a different pastry on everyone's plates. “I’m happy you finally realized how stubborn you’ve been, Master Bruce.”
“Okay! That is enough emotional-mushy shit!” Tim jumps up and starts hitting his plastic cup with his spoon. “It seems like this session has turned into a…”
“FDD!” Tim, Duke, Steph, and Cass all say this together. Party streamers, somehow, go off around them and a banner drops down from the ceiling with the letters ‘FDD’ coming off of them.
Duke runs off and comes back with a whiteboard full of everyone’s scores.
“As the official referee for the FDD I will tally up all these points. Damian currently has zero so we are starting with a blank pallet. My favorite!” Duke almost squeals and pulls out a piece off paper and starts checking off boxes in it.
“So! Dick said ‘what’, Cass was surprised, Bruce let out a sigh for the allotted time, Alfred dropped a dish, and we all heard Bruce curse. So that would be a total of 15 points, already in 3rd place and setting a new record for how many points someone gets off of one spill!"
“Oh fuck you!” Tim yells from across the table, only getting help back by Cass. “You stole my lead!”
“Now that we are done with the first points, additional points are a-go! So, I would say 3 points for KILLING THE JOKER?!”
“Ay! That's at least a 5 point move,” Jason yells.
“Good thing you’re not the referee,” Duke responds. “I will be upping that to 4 though. He is getting 2 more points for getting Bruce to say,” he shudders, “emotional stuff. That already ups him to 21 points, almost overtaking Jason. And he gets another 3 for making Tim turn to alcohol to help him and he gets 2 for, somehow, making Steph stay quiet for the whole confession, so he is up to 26 now. That's all I can think of, so…” Duke looks around to see if anyone has any recommendations for more or less points.
“If it helps anything, after I killed him, his goons saw me and all ran up and started saying how much they owed me and how they would do anything to repay me and now I have like… 127 favors I can cash in whenever.”
…
The whole family is silent before a sigh can be heard coming from Bruce for a second time.
“I want you to know that we are not going to be cashing in favors from criminals unless we absolutely need them.”
“Of course, Father. They, however, gave me a number to call.” Damian hands over a piece of paper with a number and slowly turns to Duke. “How many points do I have now?”
Duke seems speechless for a moment before he finally picks up the marker and starts tallying up his points.
“So, Bruce sighed again for another 3 points, and for securing the favor of 127 henchmen..” Duke looks around to try and find answers for anything that is happening right now, “I’d say another 3 at least. I don’t even know anymore.”
Duke seems to be regretting his life choices and slowly starts marking his points until he is up to 32 points, securing him 1st place.
Tim gives his most dramatic gasp as he runs over to the board and falls to his knees before it, “No! My precious 1st place. I have to… get it back!” Tim looks up with a smile and slowly stands up.
“I really didn’t want everyone to find out like this, but, when Bruce was… “dead”, I may have worked with Ra’s al Ghul. You all know this already but… I don’t think I’ve told you how our alliance ended.”
Bruce slowly takes a step back and takes a deep breath. He prepares himself for what he is about to hear.
“Earlier you said you wouldn’t hate any of us for killing people, so I know you will definitely support me when I tell you that I blew up almost all of his bases and killed hundreds of people.”
…
For what must be the hundredth time, the dinner room is filled with silence as everyone tries to process what Tim just said.
Finally, Bruce speaks.
“YOU DID WHAT??!!”