Chapter Text
Damian was 10 years old when he went to live with his father, Bruce Wayne. From the time he was born, Damian was told that being a guardian angel was beneath him, and yet his father was said to be one of the best. Bruce and his ward had a mutual understanding of each other. His ward, Sabine Cheng, was quite protective of her daughter, though many people said that was a result of the fact her daughter seemed to have no guardian angel to call her own. Bruce was protective of his own kids, who may not have been his by blood like Damian was, but were beloved to him nonetheless. He was so protective because he was only eight, just having gotten his ward, when his parents suddenly faded. Their wards had been in a terrible accident that his parents hadn’t stopped, they had been with Bruce after all, and their connections hadn’t been severed before their wards’ demise.
Damian couldn’t understand it. He had been taught that angels were powerful beings who had no use being tied to fragile mortals who couldn’t look out for themselves. He had been taught that humans were beneath him, and Bruce and his parents had been used as an example of this to him. They had taught him that if his parents hadn’t been tied to mortals in the first place, Bruce wouldn’t have lost them.
Yet Bruce continued to protect his ward from that day on, even taking in other angels whose parents had faded. Then he nearly lost his son Jason Todd, who’s ward fell into a coma and has yet to awaken. The boy barely survived fading, and for a while, everyone was certain that he had. Until one day he showed back up again. He doesn’t like to talk about what happened.
It had taken Bruce a while to chip away at that toxic conditioning to help Damian see the truth. Bruce would sometimes take Damian with him to show Damian how important being a guardian angel was. Sometimes Dick Grayson would too, seeing as Dick’s ward was Tom Dupain, Sabine’s husband. Usually, Bruce would have his son guard Marinette Dupain-Cheng.
At first, Damian was annoyed and tried to ignore the girl. He didn’t understand what his father was trying to do. However, all that time his father made him spend with the girl had him noticing certain things about her. He noticed she rarely ever missed an opportunity to help someone unless she was physically unable to do anything to help them. She even left a thank you note to him one time after overhearing Sabine and Bruce talking- something that went against the rules for which Bruce didn’t seem to care- about how Damian was looking after Marinette in attempts to teach Damian a lesson.
Damian decided that if he couldn’t understand her now, he would just have to stick around long enough to be able to do just that. He got his chance when Alfred, who kept an eye on Bruce and his kids, offered to have Damian be Marinette’s guardian angel, to which he accepted. It definitely did not have anything to do with the way she would leave snacks out for him, or the way her tongue would peek out between her lips whenever she was really focused on a sketch, nor the way her smile seemed to light up any room. No, he simply required more time with her in order to understand her, that was all.
Damian was astounded that anyone could ever do anything to hurt someone who wouldn’t even hurt a fly. Chloe Bourgeois seemed to make it her life goal to make Marinette miserable. Damian found himself growing irritated as he had to keep his ward safe from the blonde more often than not. However, nothing with this task proved too difficult. At least it hadn’t until she turned thirteen and was given the miraculous of creation.