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storm-leviosa-fanfics · 19 hours

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We have finally reached the end! Hope you have enjoyed this wild ride (lol). Massive thanks to @enchantingruinscandy for beta reading this monstrosity.

Chapter 3 - because my life, because my joys, today that starts with you

Damian thought about Ruth and her words and the things she had taught him so hard that he broke his arm. The two were directly correlated, he was sure. One minute, he was debating the merits of her slow and methodical approach to instruction, where one did not move on to the next step until the step before was thoroughly mastered; the next, his heel was hitting a patch of slime on a fire escape and down he went. It was a stupid stupid mistake, one his many years of training should have made easily avoidable, and yet here he was.

He was becoming soft, he thought, when the pain abated enough for thoughts to come in words that weren’t ‘ow’ and unfinished curses.

In any case, he slipped when he should not have, and had a broken arm when he should not have, and all he could tell the rest of Father’s idiots was the truth: he slipped and fell. When Todd stopped cackling like a hyena, he told Damian he’d seen it with his own two eyes. He had, supposedly, resembled a Loony Tunes character slipping on a banana peel. Damian did not know what ‘Loony Tunes’ was and at this point he did not dare ask, but he knew enough that the comparison made him rue the day he left the League behind.

Pennyworth applied a cast after an x-ray revealed no complications to the break. It was an entirely normal greenstick fracture, requiring only gentle manipulation back to straightness and the usual immobilisation. He did not tell Pennyworth or Father about the bruised ribs he was nursing any more than he informed them of his wounded pride. It was not worth their time, or his, to dwell on.

Sleeping was painful, but the pain was a lesson. In future, he would be more careful. This, he had been told more times than he could count.

It did not occur to him that his dressage training would be affected until after he arrived for his lesson. Robin had been out and about for three days after his injury: broken wrist casted and wrapped and carefully hidden under his uniform, the patrol route chosen specifically with his incapacitation in mind. He and Father had faked an argument that half the Bowery must have heard - a strategy stolen shamelessly from Grayson and Drake - before parting ways. Damian had stayed home and Drake had taken over as Father’s partner in (stopping) crime. Nonetheless, he pulled Goliath’s bridle over his noble head, and Ruth immediately noticed the cast.

“No,” She told him, sharply. “We do not ride with injuries; put the tack away.” She seemed upset. Damian did not like the way it felt on the air, the way upset looked on her face. He did as she said. Slowly, the bridle came off, and the saddle, and both were put away on their racks. Then, he joined her on the step. It was not cold yet, but would be soon, and he tried not to think about how he had dressed for exercise, not for sitting and chatting. He would start to shiver, probably, as the sun went down.

“Would you ride Goliath if he was in pain?” she asked, and it was so abrupt, so direct, that Damian actually stopped before he answered.

“Of course not. I would never dream of causing him harm.” It was hard not to take offense at the accusation, veiled and vague as it may be, but Damian tried anyway. He did not want to fight, not over his own stupidity.

“Good. Why should I believe you?” Damian blinked. That was not what he’d expected her to say, and it was not something he was prepared to answer. He paused to think, brain whirring like the batcomputer when it needed an update. He realised he may have misinterpreted the question, and thought some more. By then he had waited too long. “All I have seen so far suggests a willingness to work through pain rather than rest when it is needed. You objected to rest days initially, do you remember? And now I find you trying to train through injury, too. If you ignore your own pain, why should I believe you wouldn’t do the same to Goliath?”

It was a good question. Over the years, Pennyworth had tried tirelessly and fruitlessly to make them all stop hiding injuries, both from himself and from each other in the field. Father was an expert at it; Drake, disgracefully, was even better. Time after time, Pennyworth had prostrated himself before them and begged them to consider the strain it put on them all, to know that someone might be injured but was refusing to say, how they would be less effective if they patrolled while injured, and, to Father alone, what kind of example he was setting to his children, behaving in such an unconscionable way. Damian had never understood it really. To admit to injury was to admit weakness. Injury was a sign of failure, the pain a warning to never make such a mistake again, and the lingering troubles something to be exploited by enemies. Damian only offered up his injuries to be treated when they were severe enough that they could not be hidden, when he could not manage them alone. Such was the way it should be, he had thought. Now, though, he was brought up short by this question, this opposing view of the world, and he had contemplation to do.

If he fought through injury, hid it from the world, derided pain as weakness in himself, would he do the same to others? He could imagine it. He had done it, he realised abruptly. Once upon a time, many months ago, he had seen a child, crying from a sprained wrist and had scoffed, had proclaimed it weak. He had believed that the child did not need help, had refused to comfort them, even when Father had dropped down next to them and offered a hug. Did Damian want to be that kind of person? There was strength in it, the kind that Mother and Grandfather wanted him to have, but weakness too. Father was trusted, Grayson was trusted, because they helped people and cared for them more than words could say, not just because they were proficient fighters or strong or smart. There were plenty of strong and smart fighters in the ranks of heroes. There were fewer who were kind, always, to everyone.

Damian had come to Gotham to learn from Father, and what had he learnt? He had always been a strong fighter, had always been clever, had always been tenacious and stubborn and viciously protective. What had he learnt? Not how to fight better - the lowest ranked assassins would be able to take him on and last more than ten seconds - and not how to solve cases. What had he learnt? How not to kill? He had thought that a weakness before, but not so much now. There was much more skill in knowing when to hold back than when to strike to kill. And Damian had always… struggled with the killing part of his previous role. Mother had known it, and had sent him away before Grandfather could pay close enough attention to find out. Damian, she had always said, had his mother’s brain, calculating and sly, but his father’s heart. He had failed, time and again, when his tests involved making others suffer. He wondered when he had lost that part of himself.

He wanted to be that person his mother had seen: someone both clever and kind.

Not having an answer for Ruth, he stayed silent. Ruth didn’t seem to mind the quiet at all, just let him sit and think and fall apart and bring himself back together. Then, when his quiet was less tumultuous and more for lack of anything to say, she continued.

“There are things you can do that will help you, even if you can’t ride. You can watch videos, old clinics, step-by-step guides. You could come along to one of my clinics - I’m running one next month - and watch from the ground or be my assistant. You could make a freestyle routine from scratch, design the floorplan, pick the music, all of that. Of course, I’d rather you rest, but I know you well enough by now to know you’ll be bored by the end of week two.” She chuckled at that, and Damian let a sliver of a smile form on his face too. She did know him well after all.

He did as she said for a while. He watched a few videos she emailed Pennyworth on his behalf, went to her clinic and watched. They had a very enjoyable discussion afterwards about what he had learnt from watching others, what he might be able to bring to his own practice when he was back in the saddle. She always phrased it like that: when you’re back in the saddle . It was a definitive, not merely a possibility, and that gave Damian a modicum of hope.

By week four, however, he was beyond bored and the clinics and videos had only made matters worse. He wanted to try out all those new ideas now, not in some nebulous future time, wanted to be learning and improving like he had been before. He was afraid of the opposite happening. So, he got on board. It was just for ten minutes, while Father was at work and Pennyworth running errands. Goliath was reluctant, confused, unused to exercise after almost a month off, but Damian was willing to push him. They walked, trotted, circled, spiralled, and it was…fine. It was okay. There was nothing special about it and Damian despaired, in the deepest corners of his mind that no one could see. The magic was gone. He did not know how to get it back.

He did not ride again for a while. The cast came off at the end of week five and, while Damian had been to the stables every day, had seen to Goliath’s care and keeping with all the diligence and love in his heart, he did not try to ride. Better, he thought, to proceed under the assumption that that last ride was a fluke. Once he was properly back, everything would be perfect, then he'd get back on board and prove that assumption correct.

Robin returned to the skies and streets and rooftops of Gotham. On a restricted and careful patrol route, of course - Father was nothing if not protective of his children - but returned nonetheless. He stayed out of trouble, though it irked him to hold back from a fight, but let himself be spotted multiple times, in multiple spots. Let a child see him fly, and waved to them. The most dramatic rescue of his first night back was retrieving a cat from a tree, but that was not so bad. Grayson took him for frozen yoghurt from the shop he liked, and they sat to eat it on the balcony of an office building far too tall to safely have one. He went home with a feeling in his chest that, surprisingly, was not frustration at being so restricted.

The day before Damian’s first lesson in ages saw him lying on his back in Goliath’s field. The afternoon was surprisingly warm, and Damian had brought out his sketchbook but wasn’t using it. Instead, he let the world pass him by and listened to Goliath snuffling nearby. The breeze ruffled his hair and teased the odd seed free from the wild grass. When Titus barked from beyond the treeline, Damian sat up, and it was only this action that let him see what came next.

In a spray of feathers and squawking, a bird flew from the bushes - a pheasant, he thought, with a ringed neck - and Goliath, previously swishing his tail relaxedly in the sun, startled. Across the field he flew, not with his wings, but in a floating, extravagant trot. It was the kind Damian had dreamed of riding, with feet that barely touched the ground and such power that it seemed effortless. And he remembered, then, that it was not just a dream, that he had ridden a trot like that, and that even then it did not have to be in the past tense. He could ride it again, with practice.

The magic was back.

Ruth wouldn’t let him trot. She wouldn’t let him canter. Once he was on Goliath’s back, she explained that, after so long out of work, both he and Goliath would be unfit and unable to perform as they had before. Damian did not tell her that he was just as fit as he had been before the broken arm, that Robin had been on patrol for over a week didn’t she know? He wasn’t so stupid as to reveal their deepest secret over his slighted pride, so he seethed quietly and did as he was told. It wasn’t like they were remotely ready to consider competition yet anyway. He may as well acquiesce. He walked, reacclimated himself with the feel of Goliath’s mouth down the reins, the swing of his movement. He reminded himself how to turn, when to ask for it, how far to twist and how much to squeeze and what angle to tilt his head to see both where he was going and the side of Goliath’s face. They practiced halting: steadying carefully first, gathering Goliath up so he bounced a step or two before stopping, making sure he did not hollow or toss his head, and that he had halted square.

Ruth, in recognition of his frustration, taught him and Goliath rein back, which was hard because Goliath did not like being unable to see where he was going. Twice, Damian had to give in and let him go forwards before Goliath lost all composure and took himself skyward. The third time, however, they managed two steps back. The time after that, five.

They ended the lesson with a promise to practice, and a promise from Ruth that if they did so, she would let them trot and maybe canter next time. It was a hard won victory.

Wiping sweat off his brow, Damian returned to the manor, returned to his dog and his sketchbooks and Robin. It was a perfectly orderly, perfectly Damian kind of life, he thought. A fleeting kind of thought, at first, but then it got stuck. Then Damian realised it was true, and after that it would not leave him alone. He had become himself. At some point, had made a little corner of existence for himself in which almost no part of him belonged to Mother or Grandfather or the League. He did not know how to feel about that. So, he put the thought away in a little box, just like the others said they did, and put the box away somewhere he would not look at it. He had better things to worry about.

Over the next month, Damian practiced with a fervour that he had not had before. Of course, he had always had the enthusiasm, the drive to succeed, but it had been shallow and insubstantial. He had wanted to learn so he could win, so he could be proud and scornful of those who thought they could do better than him. Now he wanted to learn so he could be better. Now he trained for the love of Goliath, not for the taste of victory on his tongue or the adrenaline-fueled thump of his heart in his ears.

Ruth allowed him to trot again, to canter, and they used the intervening period between moving up the paces to practice the minute details of each one. Medium, working and collected trot. Leg yield, shoulder- and quarters-in. Circles and serpentines and loops and all the complicated parts that would come up quickly in tests. It was better to practice these things early, when they had the time, rather than stressing about them if — when — Damian was about to start competing. This was a thought Damian had to carefully poke and prod back into the corners of his brain whenever it resurfaced, until Ruth would allow him to consider competing again.

And allow to him to consider competing, she did. After two months of hard training in which Damian had learnt more about himself and Goliath than he had ever thought there was to know, she asked him if he still wanted to compete. Damian thought to himself long and hard; thought about the training they had been doing, how he enjoyed learning with no strings attached; thought about the taste of victory, still faint on his tongue from riding a perfect ten-metre circle; thought about the thrill of competition, how similar it was to the thrill of being Robin, of fighting the good fight. Did he want to compete?

“Not yet,” he said finally. It was the truth. Ruth’s lips twitched upwards and Damian felt that same fizz that he felt when he beat a level of Cheese Vikings, when he won rooftop tag, when Father put an approving hand on his shoulder after a fight well fought.

“What do you want to work on next, then?” was all she said, but it felt like success. It felt like grasping that final stone on his childhood mountain climb.

They didn’t consider competition again for another month and a half, until the winter season was long over and the summer season well under way. Crime had been ramping up in Gotham - as it often did as the damp, pervasive chill of winter gave way to the equally damp, equally pervasive warmth of spring - and Damian was tired. He told Ruth no, again, but it did not give him the same satisfaction as before. He could feel Gotham sinking into his bones, feel Robin consuming him. He put on the mask at night and put dressage away; sometimes it was hard to bring dressage back out again. Nonetheless, he trained just as hard, and learnt just as much. Goliath was going well — better than he ever had before — and Damian knew that soon he would be ready to show the world that dragon-bats can do dressage just as well as fancy warmbloods and sports horses. Perfectly balanced between energised and amenable, Goliath was almost ready. Damian was not. Damian wanted to sleep.

Damian slept in until 10am every day of Easter break. He felt so much better that he agreed to compete again.

Two weeks later, he thought he had made a mistake. Ruth wanted to take him to venues to have lessons, rather than teach him at home, which meant waking up earlier and going to new places and asking Father or Pennyworth to take time out of their schedule to accompany him and then half the time the lessons went abysmally because either him or Goliath or the both of them were stressed. Ruth told him this would happen. Damian had not believed her. It had not happened before: the last time they had competed, Damian had been calm and Goliath had been tense only for a little while. Now, they could barely trot without spooking at something, and their free walk was near non-existent. Damian was…ashamed? Perhaps? He felt something sour and unpleasant, something that curdled and made him ill to think on. He should be better than this. What were all those months of training for if not to make him better than this? The doubt and frustration and shame coalesced, sat like a rock in his belly. He and Goliath got worse.

Ruth did not enter him into any shows.

What she did instead was offer him a place at one of her clinics, as a rider. Initially, he refused, too embarrassed by the prospect of outside eyes on him while he struggled, but she reiterated that it would help others, not just him, and that there would be more eyes on him at competitions anyway. He refused then on the grounds that Father or Pennyworth would need to accompany him, and they were already doing too much. So she spoke with them without him and got their permission before he could tell them to say no. He was not sure why it was so crucial to him that he not ride in the clinic, but it seemed like a form of impending doom, no matter Ruth’s reassurances that all would be well.

The clinic was on a Saturday. It was not sunny, but no day in Gotham is as sunny as the dawn in the desert. It wasn’t raining either, which was more important. Damian wrapped Goliath’s legs, tossed a fleece over his back to keep out any residual chill in the air and cushion his wings should he bump the walls of the truck while in transport. Ruth came rattling down the driveway and Goliath grew a few inches in height out of stress. Damian ran a hand down his neck, smoothing his fur and soothing his tensed muscles.

Goliath bounded off the truck when they arrived, fur bristled and nostrils flared. It took a fair few minutes of walking before he was calm enough to tack up, and even after that, Damian wasn’t sure how he could possibly be expected to ride Goliath in a way that promoted Ruth and her techniques. Ruth, however, did not seem phased, and beckoned him over to the arena. Beyond the fence were clusters of people in twos or threes. There was a group of six in the far corner who were most likely from the same stables, but they were outliers. All of them had expressions of horror and confusion upon seeing Goliath emerge. It made Damian want to bare his teeth and clench his fists, but he stayed calm. Goliath needed him more than he needed his indignation, however righteous it was. It was not until he reached the middle that he realised Ruth had been speaking.

“Now Damian came to me with Goliath a few months ago. They have had to work harder than most because Goliath is, as you can see, not built for dressage. But they have put the work in, and now they’re ready for the next step. They want to start competing soon, but Goliath is not the bravest, is he Damian?” He started at the direct address, but shook his head obediently.

“No,” he said, as clearly as he could, “He is rather tense at the moment.” At that precise moment, a bird squawked from somewhere in the distance and Goliath spun, then stood stock-still and snorted. The crowd tittered, and Damian’s face burned with shame.

“He is very typical of an inexperienced horse and so perfect for what we are focussing on today,” Ruth told them and Damian started to see some nods.

From there, they went through the process of preparing a horse for competition. Damian understood, finally, why they had been travelling to so many different locations for their lessons recently, why the clinic would do them good. After a while, having followed all of Ruth’s instructions to the letter, Goliath began to relax, and when he did? Well, that was his time to shine. Everything Damian asked for, he gave, and by the end of the session, he was grinning ear to ear. Goliath, too, seemed happy: his tail swinging loosely and his wings no longer half-raised and tight. This had, of course, been the whole point of the clinic—to show people how to make their horses show-ready—but it was still a victory in Damian’s eyes. Now he just needed to carry it forward to real competitions.

There was a show in a month that Damian had seen on the noticeboard in the tack store when Pennyworth had dragged him along. Normally, shopping of all kinds was beneath Damian, but they hadn’t been able to deliver Goliath’s normal bedding and Pennyworth insisted he was not knowledgeable enough to find an alternative without Damian’s assistance. And so he came along and was largely useless while Pennyworth and the manager hashed out the variations between different brands of the same type of bedding and came to an agreement on price that was acceptable even though he was pretty sure stores did not normally negotiate price. The noticeboard was full of various flyers and ads: hunting dogs and barn cats and quadbikes to rake arenas and landscaping and building companies. There were ads for horses—mostly ex-racers—and the occasional outgrown children’s pony. There were ads for instructors and clinics, and there were ads for shows. Most of them were not of any interest to him: equitation and hunter-jumpers and one breed show that was blatantly copying the UK showing crowd, but there was one dressage show. It was on a Saturday, which was convenient because it was a longer drive than he’d like and he’d have Sunday to sleep before school, but it was far more official than the last show he’d attended. Regardless, he kept the date and the schedule in his mind, and waited.

Ruth didn’t bring it up at their lesson, but he didn’t mind. There was a tension between them, now that he knew what she was aiming him at, that hadn’t been there before, but that was also fine. He wasn’t going to mention it if she didn’t. He didn’t want to have to ask. What he wanted was for her to say that he was ready and she thought he should go to this show, not for him to mention it, or for her to ask if he thought he was ready. It seemed like a silly thing really, but he stayed stubbornly silent anyway. He trusted his instincts, and his instincts told him to wait until she said he was ready.

He trusted his instincts, and his instincts told him to leap into the fray when Batman told him to wait, they told him when to swing his katana, or when to throw a batarang, or when to duck out of the way. His instincts had kept him alive this long, and he was grateful to them, and to the training that had honed them. So, when Hatter escaped, and Father told him to stay home, or else, Damian listened to his instincts. He pulled on his Robin uniform, slipped on a mask, and flew.

The fight was not hard, and he kept telling people this, but they didn’t believe him. He had nothing but a split lip and a twisted shoulder, while the alternative was no more Batman, no more Father, and, by association, no more Robin. It had been worth the minor injury, worth the lecture, worth the rush of adrenaline that tilted just on the edge of fear, to ensure the safety of his city and his family. There was no question about it, no need for approval before he dived in, no waiting for confirmation that he was good enough. Robin could act like that, on instinct and with full trust that he could do it. Whatever it may be.

The next week, Ruth asked him if he was ready for a competition. It was not quite what he’d wanted, and he didn’t have an answer ready. He looked at her without expression. It hadn’t been an amazing lesson—not a terrible one either, just a lesson that had not gone well but had not gone badly—and he did not want to seem overconfident. He also did not want to seem like a coward. When he stared at her, Ruth stared back and waited. She was good at that in a way that Damian was not and had never been. He was never anyone’s first choice on a stakeout for a reason.

Of course, he broke first. He shrugged and turned his gaze away.

“That’s a no, then,” she said, with no judgement in her tone. Damian bristled anyway.

“It’s not a no,” he snapped.

“What is it, then?”

And what was he meant to say to that? That it wasn’t a no, but it wasn’t a yes either? That he was waiting for her opinion before committing so he could give the correct answer? That he wanted to be more than ready, so he would win by so much that it would be unmistakable? It was all of these things. It was more than these things.

“I have been here before,” he said, instead of any of those things. “I thought I was ready, and I was not. I did not even realise it until recently. I will not make the same mistake again.” Ruth studied him with her sharp, intelligent eyes.

“You’ve been ready for a while, actually,” she said. “I’ve been waiting to see if you notice, or if you brought it up.” Damian blinked at her for a moment, then leant forward and buried his face in Goliath’s shaggy neck. He was sure his face was burning with embarrassment.

“We are all morons,” he groaned, but it was muffled by his mouthful of hair.

Ruth handled the show entry. Father handed over the money without complaint, as he had for all Damian’s lessons and clinics and transport costs. He sat Damian down and reiterated how proud he was of him, how he’d matured and grown so far. No matter what happened, he had told him, he was proud. On the steps while waiting for Ruth to arrive, he helped Damian tie his stock, and pinned it with a gold hunting pin. It had, supposedly, belonged to Father’s grandfather, before being lost somewhere in the old billiards room that no one entered. The smell of cigarettes and old liquor pervaded long after the room fell out of use at galas. It had no other purpose and so nobody had explored it for as long as Damian had been resident at the manor. Father had been convinced he remembered his grandfather losing a pin in the billiards room before a gala when he was very small, he had explained, and had gone searching for it. It had been found lodged in the gap between a cabinet and the wall panel, a glint of gold against brass hinges. He was glad to give it to Damian now, to pass on this legacy.

Father meant well, but Damian had been carrying the weight of too many legacies for too many years of his short life. He did not want another. The stock felt like a noose around his throat.

By the time they arrived, the last of the low-lying clouds had burnt away. Outside of Gotham, the whole sky was visible, and the air felt crisp and clear. It was warm enough that several people were warming up in shirt-sleeves, but not so warm that they would be permitted to enter the ring in such a state of undress. Damian buttoned up his jacket correctly, and prepared to sweat.

Goliath looked wonderfully handsome, with his tack gleaming and the longest parts of his hair braided. His coat had been brushed smooth and his hooves coated with oil. It had taken the better part of three hours to prepare him for this, but Goliath had enjoyed the pampering, especially when Damian had put on some music. He could only hope that he remained so relaxed now that he had arrived at the showground. Ruth, ever helpful, made her way to the secretary’s tent to collect his number, to be tied around his back, and check his time once more. Meanwhile, he stroked Goliath’s nose and muttered soothing nothings in his ear. Damian had turned into such an insufferable sap, he decided, but he could not deny that it had results: Goliath seemed calm still, where before he would tense up as soon as the door to the truck opened.

By the time they had tacked up, all that relaxation was gone. As he swung a leg over Goliath’s broad back, Damian felt all the coiled, tight muscle beneath him, felt the tremble in his legs and the twitching in his wings, could see the way his ears flicked anxiously and hear how his breaths came in rushed snorts. It was not how he would have liked to start his day, but he had learnt, as everyone eventually did, that one had to work with what one had—and what Damian had was a very stressed Goliath. Thankfully, he was prepared for this eventuality, and immediately began the slow process of calming him down, walking him on a long rein and letting him look around and snort at things he thought were scary.

He had plenty of time. They had planned for this.

Of course, just when Damian thought Goliath was calm enough to begin warming up properly, he spotted something new. Flag? Terrifying. Drain cover? Worst nightmare (and to be fair to poor Goliath, in Gotham, it could be). A darker patch of sand? Portent of doom. For all that they had allowed plenty of time, they could not stay in walk forever. They were running out of time before their test despite their best efforts, and still Goliath felt like a coiled spring beneath him. He had tried so hard all this time to ignore everyone around him, but looking around now, he saw only perfection. There were sleek, shining dressage horses flying across the ring in medium canter, polished ponies halting totally square. Meanwhile, Damian’s snorting, quivering mess of a mount had yet to get out of walk.

He looked over at Ruth worriedly. She did not appear to share his apprehension. Instead, she levelled him with a stare and, when he passed by, said in her usual solid voice, “you’re fine. Do what you need to do.”

It was easier said than done.

Twenty minutes flew by like Robin after a villain’s goons. Damian’s start time arrived, and he had barely managed more than a slow and very tentative trot. Despite this, he found he did not feel unprepared. What he had done felt good. Ruth still appeared calm on the sidelines. Goliath felt as relaxed as he was ever going to get. They were, in spite of all their difficulties and strangeness, ready.

Into the ring they went, and Damian once again heard the mutters of onlookers turn to utter silence. Once again, he felt the judges’ eyes on him and the ripple of unease that emanated from their box. Would they disqualify him before he even tried? Would they demand documentation like the last judges? Would they dare to accept things at face value, and let him compete unquestioned? He walked Goliath around the ring, allowing him to acclimate himself and doing exactly what Ruth had instructed him to. Ignore the judges and the crowd, she had said, just focus on you and Goliath. Damian intended to do just that. If the judges wanted to question him, they could demand it of him themselves. He would do nothing unprompted. As Goliath walked past the judges’ box, Damian nodded politely to them, allowed Goliath to sniff a flower box, then continued. They did not leave to demand anything of him, and a few minutes later the bell rang.

He went down the centre line in a trot that felt good: bouncy and forward and soft. He could feel Goliath’s mouth at the end of his reins, accepting his spongey contact, just like Ruth liked it. At X, he halted, and it was square - even though that had always been a struggle. He picked up the same trot again, and ignored Goliath’s tremulous blowing at a wayward leaf in favour of a rub at the base of his neck. At the top of the arena, Damian turned left, and promptly stopped thinking. Instead, he simply rode.

Half an hour later, having ridden and cooled down and untacked and washed Goliath off and even eaten a light snack with Ruth, Damian made the mistake of wandering vaguely past the secretary’s tent while his class was still on-going. Ruth had warned him on more than one occasion that it did no good to watch other competitors in a class, But Damian’s eye had been drawn to a flash of bright red chestnut, and that was his first mistake. They were moving so gracefully: all exuberant extravagance as they floated across the ground. Damian could not help the flash of jealousy, the inadequacy, that ripped through him. Goliath would never move like that, and in the face of it, Damian could admit to himself that they had never stood a chance.

And then the secretary’s tent had the early scores up—predictably high—and Damian’s fledgling hope dwindled further. Last time they had competed they had just about broken the mid-60s and now they had scores in the 70% bracket to beat? It was untenable, a hopeless dream, like fairy wings and lamp-bound djinn. Dejected, he slumped back to Ruth’s truck, back to Goliath who he loved more than a ribbon but not so much that this would not be a disappointment.

Ruth, as predictable as the high scores, knew immediately that Damian had seen something he shouldn’t have. While he groomed Goliath and offered him yet another bucket he wouldn’t drink from, she prodded gently at his thorny defenses until they gave way. He admitted to his fault, to his lapse in judgement, and she did not hate him for it. She did not even chastise him overmuch, merely sighed and asked if he had gained anything from the experience.

“Sometimes watching others can be beneficial,” she said, in spite of her earlier assertion that doing so would do no good for Damian.

“Goliath and I do not stand a chance,” Damian ground out miserably, “do we?”

Ruth sat, and gestured for him to do the same, although the grass would surely stain his white breeches. He followed her direction regardless. Pennyworth would complain, no doubt, but even he could not argue with Ruth.

“Remind me, Damian, why you wanted to compete again?” she asked, and it would have felt like a sarcastic question if it weren’t coming from her mouth.

“Because I wanted to prove I could,” he replied. “Because I was ready; because I worked hard for it.”

“Did you want to compete because you wanted to win?”

Damian was halfway to saying ‘yes, of course I want to win. There is no point otherwise,’ before he stopped and realised that in all the months of training and preparing and fretting and growing, he had not once thought about winning as a victory. He had not truly thought about anything beyond riding the test itself, beyond doing his and Goliath’s best and seeing a score that reflected that.

“Not really,” he said instead, when his words returned to him, and Ruth nodded as if that was exactly what she had expected him to say. “It would be nice though, wouldn’t it? To get lucky and have someone on our side who appreciates Goliath like we do.” The smile on Ruth’s face was sad as she replied.

“Many riders have said the same over the years,” she told him gently. “And I feel for them, but ultimately they are wrong. In dressage, the only person you’re competing against is yourself. There’s no luck involved, no one you can win over or whose favour you can buy, just your own relationship with your mount, your own skill, your own dedication. And every time, you get a little better, and learn a little more. The other people don’t matter, Damian, they’re doing just the same as you - testing themselves and trying their best.”

The words took a while to sink in, but in the meantime they sat and watched the bustle of the showground, listening to Goliath munch on something indescribable behind them.

“I know that, really,” Damian said finally. “And I want to improve more than I want a blue ribbon, really , but still…” his knees curled up to his chest, and his chin rested upon them, eyes half closed against the glare of the sun.

“It would be nice,” Ruth admitted, “wouldn’t it?” Damian squeezed his eyes tight shut in response.

“I see so much good in Goliath. No one else ever has, even when he was small. I want other people to see it too.”

Ruth asked no more questions of him. She let him sit with his sadness and left only to go to the bathroom. Shortly after lunchtime, Father called to ask how everything was going. Damian was short with him, but not so short as to cause concern. He did not want Father to witness his failure.

In the height of the afternoon, when Damian had, against all propriety, stripped down to his shirtsleeves, there was a call for those in Damian’s morning class to collect scores and ribbons from the secretary’s tent. Damian did not want to see, and dragged his feet about it, first checking on Goliath, then emptying the water he still wouldn’t drink, then brushing some non-existent grime off his saddle. Finally, Ruth bodily grabbed him by the shoulders, turned him in the required direction, and pushed until he started walking himself. She was a traitor of the highest order, he decided, mulishly, and should not be allowed within ten feet of him again.

The results were written in small enough font that he had to get far closer than he’d have liked to see the scoreboard. There were people around who he did not know or wish to know. His maudlin mood from earlier had him looking straight to the bottom of the scoreboard and, when he did not see his name there, his first thought was that it was a mistake. His eyes trailed upwards to the mid-range scores of between sixty-five and sixty-seven percent, and he did not find his name there either. Had his score been missed off entirely? Had he been disqualified without being informed?

Against his better judgement, his eyes drifted further up the board, to the low seventies, the scores on the cusp of lofty goals like championship qualification and national leagues. And there, in black ink on white paper, Damian Wayne, Goliath, fourth place .

In a class of over twenty-five people, all of whom Damian had judged as the kind of dressage snob who won every class they entered, this was inconceivable. And yet after blinking and pinching himself hard on the thigh, the letters did not change. As if in a dream, he passed through the entrance to the tent, and found a sheet bearing his name and his number beneath a white ribbon. He picked it up, and his hands did not tremble. An elderly lady who must have been the secretary looked up when she heard the paper rustle and gave a grim little snort of laughter.

“They liked you a lot. Your guts anyway. Fourth place qualifies you for the local USEF league—that’s what the card is for—so congratulations. If it’s all the same to you, I’d recommend not coming back here next year. We’ve had enough chaos for the foreseeable future, thank you very much.” Damian did not hold it against her. Partially, he supposed, because he was still in shock. He nodded vaguely, still staring at the sheet without really seeing it, and left without saying another word.

The USEF league. He’d show them, too.

#batfam fanfiction #batfam big bang 2023 #damian wayne #goliath dc #fanfiction #fluff and angst #but only light #abusing the usef dressage rulebook for fun and profit #the actual literal name of this file is USEF rules are bullshit #make of that what you will

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