This Is Too Cute

This is too cute

Dr Damian works in the NICU when they are understaffed (I think he specialises in Peadatrics and Trauma Surgery normally). He loves holding the babies and helping them thrive.

It makes the little part of his mind that fears he will never be anything other than a killer go quiet. On the bad days, holding something so precious and helping them get a good start in life, let's him sleep without visions of hell dragging him awake. Because the tiny babies need him to be gentle, so he will be.

It takes practice, but he gets good at comforting their families, too. After a stressful night, watching their child lie in a glass box and not being able to soothe them, Dr. Wayne listens to them cry and brings them coffee.

Damian explains everything he does for their baby and lets the parents help wherever possible if only to let them be able to touch their newborn. (No one questions how parents with no insurance never have to pay while under his care or how they leave the hospital with more than enough supplies like food and clothes to last for months.)

But one day, Damian held a baby girl who was struggling to breathe because she was born so early and didn't see anyone watching him. No worried parents or excited aunts and uncles. No one asks him how she is doing or waits on uncomfortable chairs. The baby girl is completely alone, and he realises she doesn't even have a name.

So Damian starts talking to her, telling her about his day, his pets, his siblings. He holds her as she is on oxygen treatment and feeds her when she starts to cry. She stares at him over the bottle, like the kittens he fostered as a child. (The nurses are relieved, apparently she hadn't been eating before then) He falls a little in love when she sleeps in his arms.

When it's time for his shift to end, she wakes up and howls whenever he tries to put her down.

Eventually, he leaves when the little girl cries herself to sleep, and Damians heart breaks, watching her in her little glass box.

He goes home, and after a restless night full of nightmares filled with the sound of crying, calls his father with an idea.

His father is supportive and gets the paperwork ready. His brothers help him set up the nursery. The girls buy all sorts of clothes and toys. Alfred stocks his fridge.

Jon comes over to calm him after he panics for the third time and reassures him he will be an excellent Dad. The Super promises to be there every step of the way. The image gives Damian butterflies that feel suspiciously like hope.

When the baby is well enough, she leaves the hospital with Damian carrying her.

Despite sleeping less now, he has never slept better than when he has Martha Al Ghul Wayne in her crib beside him.

When Martha moves to her own room a few months later, Jon helps keep the nightmares away instead.