Angst Damian Wayne One Shots

Invisible Ink

Damian felt like a ghost drifting through his own life. He moved through the halls of Wayne Manor, his footsteps barely stirring the air, his voice barely above a whisper when he spoke. No one seemed to notice, not really. Bruce's curt instructions echoed more than any real words of comfort, Alfred's questions were polite formalities, and his brothers rarely did more than glance his way. Even at the end of a long night's patrol, he would return to the manor, bleeding and bruised, only to be met with silence.

The worst part wasn't the fights or the missions that went wrong. It was the quiet, the feeling of being unseen, unheard, as if he were only filling a role rather than existing as a person. They didn't see him—no one did. He was a part of the machine, a soldier in Bruce's crusade. His achievements and failures blended together, and his voice was lost in the endless night.

One evening, while aimlessly wandering the vast halls of the manor, he found himself in the dim, dusty corner of the library. There, on a small table near the window, sat a small, elegant bottle with the words Invisible Ink etched across the glass in delicate script. Next to it lay a quill, old and fragile, and an empty notebook with smooth, untouched pages. The sight of the notebook stirred something in Damian, and he sank into the chair, running his fingers along the spine.

The thought came to him quietly, creeping up in his mind. If he wrote in this notebook, the ink would vanish. No one would read his words, no one would know, and he could say anything he wanted, without it leaving a trace. The thought was strangely calming; it felt like he'd found a safe space in the vast emptiness of his world.

Without fully understanding why, he opened the notebook, dipped the quill into the invisible ink, and began to write. The words emerged wet and glistening on the page, only to fade away as they dried, leaving no trace of his thoughts.

"I am here," he wrote, the words forming for a moment before vanishing. It was almost as if he was proving to himself that he existed, that he wasn't just a shadow slipping through the dark halls of Wayne Manor.

He let the ink sink into the page, watching each letter disappear as if it had never been written. But the process felt strangely soothing. Each night, after returning from a mission, he would sit in the library, writing words that no one would ever see.

"I fought hard today. I saved two people."

"I am Damian Wayne."

"I want someone to see me."

Page after page, he left behind traces of himself in words that faded, like his presence did whenever he entered a room. He poured himself into the notebook, capturing fleeting moments and thoughts, frustrations, and small victories. He wrote of nights he spent staring at the Gotham skyline, feeling as if he were staring into a void that stared right back. He wrote of memories he kept locked away, thoughts he couldn't voice aloud.

"If I left, would anyone notice?"

"I wonder if they'd be better off without me."

"Do I matter?"

It became a nightly ritual, a silent confession to a notebook that would never answer back. He would sit alone under the dim lamp in the library, filling page after page, only to watch each one return to blankness. The more he wrote, the deeper his despair settled, as though he were writing himself into nothingness.

Weeks went by, and the emptiness grew heavier, pressing down on him with each passing day. No one noticed the subtle changes in him—the longer silences, the tired look in his eyes, the way he lingered by the windows late at night, staring out into the shadows. He began missing meals, retreating deeper into the solitude of his room or the library, drawing further away from the few connections he had left.