Work Text:
Give me life, give me pain
Give me myself again
—Tori Amos, “Little Earthquakes” (excerpt)
NOW.
Dick was alone. That was how it had begun, and now it was ending. He did not know what had happened, only that he was lying on his side on cold concrete in charcoal darkness. From the persistence of the pain that had settled in his entire body, he sensed he had been immobile for some time. Now, as his consciousness returned and his nerves reconnected, a network of continuously pulsing aches insisted on making itself known. He breathed in frostbitten air and tasted blood on his lips.
The icy inhale sent a shiver through him that transformed his head into a throbbing, sparking mass of agony with every heartbeat that pulsed in his ears. The torment radiated from the left side of his temple and scraped down his spine—a noose of tension that tightened at any thought of movement. But though he could not alleviate the overwhelming suffering, his brain was slowly recapturing awareness, drawing all the information it could from his surroundings, then tentatively delving into the past to seek a way forward.
Where am I? What happened? Who was I with?
The situation was new and yet intensely familiar, sending Dick’s scattered mind tumbling down alleyways of loose memories. He could have been newly Robin, beaten and shattered at the hands of Two-Face and a baseball bat. He could have been twenty-four, a prodigal son confronting the villains of his own past and purpose while every traitorous bone in his body shrieked, you’re not enough, you’re never enough, or he would have chosen you first. He could have been twenty-six—once again grieving, once again Batman, paradoxically defying orders by doing his duty as his father’s son.
Beyond the broken arm, beyond the concussion and lacerations and internal bleeding, the worst part of Two-Face’s triumph was that Batman had seen it all. Even now, so many years later, Dick felt warmth flood his face at the unwanted recollection.
It wasn’t me who killed you, Harvey had told him. It was the Bat.
And yet, Dick would have done anything to be in such a situation again if it meant that Batman was by his side. Painstakingly, he sifted through the most recent fragments of events in his mind. No, he was sure he was right—if he’d been patrolling with anyone else, it wasn’t Bruce.
Who, then?
He remembered those early days of being Batman to Tim’s Robin like he knew his own soul. He’d confronted Two-Face again—worked out the last of those lingering shards of self-doubt in between cleaning up the Manor and drawing Tim further into the fold with every hair ruffle and thought-provoking conversation. But though he still patrolled with Tim occasionally, their dynamic now had a different flavour.
So, he hadn’t been with Tim, either. That just left…
A shooting pain coursed through Dick’s abdomen, so suddenly that he had no breath to cry out. Instead, he curled up as much as he was able, panting through the fire burning his eyes, his joints, his neck and skull and spine and lungs and throat. As hot tears slipped down his mask, a single fear reared its foreign head.
I’m dying, he thought. Even worse, I’m dying alone.
Through the intensity of it all, his training kicked in, and one hand slowly, slowly moved to feel for the emergency button he knew was on the middle of his belt. His gloves felt big, clumsy; he gritted his teeth and kept moving. But when he reached the place he knew it would be, his heart dropped, and a new horror engulfed him.
He wasn’t wearing his belt.
There was another button, he knew—but it was on the underside of his left boot, which he had no hope of moving close enough to touch, even incrementally.
The frigid reality of his situation washed over him. He was alone, in the dark, possibly dying, with no way to call for help or alleviate his symptoms. It was far too painful to keep his eyes open for long, but even if he could, straining them in the darkness yielded no results. There could have been an escape route right next to him, and he would never have seen it.
He thought of Bruce, who had returned to Gotham at long last. And he thought of Damian, who would have to live never knowing what had happened to Dick. To his Batman.
Dick gasped and jerked, the air catching in his lungs. Because Damian had been with him. How could he have forgotten?
THEN.
“It wasn’t your fault, Richard.” The look in Damian’s eyes was far too old and serious for a boy of almost twelve. Dick longed to reach over and pull him into a hug, but there was a cast on Damian’s right arm, bandages on his head and a drip disappearing beneath brown skin. Damian’s Great Dane, Titus, lay on Damian’s other side, his large nose tucked under the boy’s good arm.
Dick shook his head. “I should have been there.”
“I…” Damian looked down, fingers twisting in the bed covers. “I wished you had been. But it wouldn’t have changed my decision. I knew what my mother intended to do to me, and I still disobeyed Father and left the cave. I made my choice.”
“You could have…” The word refused to fall from Dick’s lips as a lump rose to his throat. Hastily, he turned away, pretending to look out the window.
You could have died, Dami, and then what would I have done?
“I’m not dead,” Damian said softly. Dick turned back and saw that Damian had lifted his hand to stroke his dog’s head. “Black Bat arrived in time. You know this, Richard.”
Dick dipped his head. “Yes.”
This is different, he told himself. It had nothing to do with Two-Face or a double-edged choice that had ended with a drowned judge and a beating at the wrong end of a bat. Damian had simply been trying to help Batman and had been drawn into a trap.
“Did… did Bruce say anything to you about Robin?”
Damian frowned. “No. Should he have?”
Dick’s mouth was dry. “What has he said to you?”
“He…” Damian coloured. “He told me to expend my energy on recovering, and not to worry about anything else.”
Dick could still recall every single word Bruce had said to him that first morning, waking up after the battle. After the nightmare.
This was all a terrible error in judgement. Gordon was right. You’re just a boy. What the hell was I thinking? You’re fired. Robin’s finished.
Dick had begged and pleaded, but nothing had had any effect. Only once he’d tenuously carved a new life for himself out of the rubble of Gotham had he been able to reunite with Batman and reclaim what was rightfully his. He hoped that Damian would not have to do the same.
“That’s good to hear, Dami,” he said honestly. “I’ll talk to him.”
“He’s been coming in here,” Damian said.
“He has?”
Damian frowned. “Yes. To read aloud.” He tipped his head at a book on the nightstand. “He is becoming appallingly sentimental.” Despite the casual words, a faint flush travelled up his cheeks—a secret satisfaction, Dick thought, at the attention from his taciturn father.
“There has been too much waiting at bedsides lately, Richard,” Damian continued solemnly, not meeting Dick’s eyes. “It is unacceptable. When I am back in the field, I expect to resume my place at your side at regular intervals. We were the best. No matter what anyone else thinks.”
Swallowing back the lump in his throat, Dick nodded. “Of course. You can count on it.”
NOW.
Someone was calling his name. Dick jerked awake, finding himself still lying on the concrete floor, one arm now twisted and numb beneath him.
“Batman! Batman!”
Dick’s heart gave a painful leap. He’d recognise those strident tones anywhere. He took a deep, shaky breath, tensing until the tremors faded, then called, “Robin!”
There was no acknowledgement, and his heart sank. “Robin! Where—” He gasped at the red heat that lanced through him. Clutching his stomach, he twisted around, straining his eyes and ears for any further exchange. Desperation welled up in his throat. “Robin?”
“Batman…” The call, though indistinct, was closer this time. Dick was sure of it, and it was this more than anything else that gave him the energy to lift his head and breathe through the agony and the helplessness and the rubble. He needed to get up. He needed to find Robin. His Robin.
THEN.
What struck him about the penthouse now was just how empty it was. With Alfred and Damian both living in the Manor again, the halls were eerily quiet. Dick found himself moving about distractedly, alternating between pacing unconscious footsteps (waiting… for what?) and checking the computer in the bunker without really knowing why or what he was doing. There was an itching under his skin. He couldn’t seem to sit still.
A beeping tone made him rush to the desk. Someone was calling him!
There on the screen was the inscrutable green-tinged mask of Oracle. He felt a tiny flash of disappointment, which he immediately quelled. There was nothing wrong with talking to Barbara. Smiling, Dick answered the call.
“Hi, Babs.”
“Hi, Dick. Enjoying the peace and quiet?”
Dick shrugged. “Do you know—weirdly, I miss him.” But there was a pang of guilt there, too, because he could not easily forget the graphic images and stark missive that had summoned him back to Gotham.
She didn’t have to ask who he meant. “It’s not weird,” she said, a small smile gracing her lips. “But does that mean you’re up for a new development down at Dixon Docks? Bonus points: it looks perfect for two people.”
Dick sat up straight, already mentally pulling on the cape and cowl. “Tell me more.”
NOW.
A hand was slapping his face. Dick winced and tried to pull away, but another hand kept him still, then moved to squeeze his own.
“Can you hear me?” a hushed voice asked.
There was a tiny groan, so tight and pained that it took Dick a long moment to realise that it had come from himself. “Y-yeah,” he murmured.
“Good.” The voice was louder now, as if Dick had broken the surface and come up for air. “Open your eyes.”
Weren’t his eyes already open? Dick pushed away the confusion and concentrated. It was like rising out of a deep bog, a quagmire, with nothing anchoring him or cleansing him except the inexorable weight of a small hand in his own, grasping his wrist. Robin was tugging him to shore. To safety.
He opened his eyes, blinking hard against the tendrils of fiery tightness that remained. It was no longer pitch black; he could make out a yellow flashlight beam carefully directed away from his face. Above the flashlight was a familiar blur of red, yellow and green.
“What’s your name?” the blur asked.
“Batman,” Dick breathed.
There was a suffocating pause, and then—
“You’re not Batman!” Robin burst out. The volume sent a spike of pain through Dick’s head, but he would rather have died than admit it. “You’re Nightwing, and you need to focus. Squeeze my hand. Who am I?”
“R-Robin,” Dick gasped out. With all his strength, he lifted a shaking hand to Damian’s cheek. “My Robin. But… Nightwing… I don’t understand…”
“You’re confused,” Damian said sharply. “You don’t know what you’re saying. The original Batman returned months ago. You were there. He asked us to keep being Batman and Robin, and we were, and then you wouldn’t let…” He flushed. “All that matters is that you are no longer Batman. You’re Nightwing. Do you understand?”
Too many words, Dick thought dazedly. Anyone else would have tuned out the strident tones several sentences ago. But Dick was not anyone else, and though his head still ached and his thoughts spun, he knew with utmost certainty that this was Damian, and that Dick could trust his Robin to tell him the truth.
“All right,” he said, finding himself slightly winded despite barely speaking. “I’m Nightwing, and I say it’s time to get out of here. Together.”
Damian was silent, and it was this, more than anything else, that made Dick pause before slowly, excruciatingly attempting to push himself up. “What’s wrong?” he asked. “Talk to me, Dami.”
“It’s Robin,” Damian corrected. “And…” Again, he desisted into silence, punctuated only by his uneven breathing.
A choking, disabling terror rose up in Dick so fast that he couldn’t stop himself from gagging. Instantly, Damian was leaning over him, pushing him into the recovery position. Dick coughed. "I’m all right, Robin. Really.”
“Do you know what happened?”
Dick did not, but if the waves of guilt emanating from Damian weren’t telling enough…
“It wasn’t your fault,” he murmured, grasping at the first response that presented itself to his aching mind. But by the way Damian’s eyes narrowed, it was the wrong choice.
“Don’t patronise me.” Damian looked away, then met Dick’s eyes, and Dick’s heart jolted at the consternation visible in the boy’s face, unmistakable even beyond the green mask and white lenses. “Don’t you remember? You were there.”
Dick took a breath. “Why don’t you remind me? It’s… muddled.” Or non-existent.
Damian took one of Dick’s hands and gently lifted it to Dick’s hair. “You’re not wearing a cowl,” he said. He moved so that Dick could touch the mask on his own face and recognise the outline of the domino. “Do you see now? You’re Nightwing.”
A puzzle piece slid into place, then threatened to dart out of his memory as quickly as it had resurfaced. Desperately, Dick grasped at it and concentrated on nothing else, until at last it sharpened into clarity. An odd sensation from earlier, of feeling for a belt and finding none.
But if all this was the truth—and Dick trusted Damian with his life—then… “Why’d… you call me… Batman?”
“You were my Batman,” Damian explained patiently. “That is all.”
“No… called me Batman. Earlier.” Dick tried to wave his arm and only succeeded in twitching slightly, but he refused to let the growing powerlessness overwhelm him. “I heard. You…” He coughed, tasting blood. “You needed me.”
Damian was quiet for a long moment, while Dick fought to keep his own breathing steady. Had he said something wrong? Then Damian said, abruptly turning away, “Father is coming.”
“Dami…”
“Tt. My name is Robin. It would do you well not to forget.”
“No… I thought…” Dick’s head pounded and his abdomen cried out with every breath, but he forced himself to continue, conscious of Damian’s too-calm expression as he asked, “Are you okay?”
“Tt. I’ve told you already. I’m fine. Stop concerning yourself with my wellbeing. Or do you not trust me to take care of myself?”
Now that was far too perceptive a question, but Damian had never been an ordinary child. “Not… what… I… meant.” Dick wanted to say more, but then, without warning, a debilitating shudder ran through him, making his head fall back, his jaw tighten and his fists clench as tears leaked out from his shut eyelids.
“Nightwing?” Damian’s voice sounded as if it were coming from far away, and yet it was a lifeline, grounding Dick through the ordeal and bringing him home.
“R-Robin,” he breathed, each syllable slicing through him, decimating his throat and tearing the air from his lungs. “Something’s wrong.”
And then he was convulsing, his stomach rebelling, but with no strength to lift his head, bile filled his mouth, triggering uncontrollable retching. Then a pair of small, sturdy arms was around his waist, lifting him up and steadying him. It was not an unfamiliar sensation, and yet…
“Batman?” Dick mumbled. The arms tightened briefly, then reaffirmed their grip. As he blinked, an image broke in. A round face with a domino mask swam into view.
“…so just pay attention,” Damian was admonishing.
At last the tremors dissipated, and Dick was left shaking in Damian’s arms.
“Sorry,” he gasped. “Are you all right?”
“Tt. I am not the one who is incapacitated.”
“You…” With immense difficulty, Dick pushed himself upright, and Damian’s arms retracted. “How do you know… that Batman is coming?”
There was a long, long pause.
Dick’s heart sank. “Robin?”
“I have… attempted,” said Robin, with difficulty, “to obtain a signal. But there has been no response.”
“Then we’re too far underground,” Dick realised, a cold wave rushing over him at the implications. Batman would never have left them without a reply. He closed his eyes. “You’ll need to go for help.”
“No,” Damian snapped. “I’m not leaving you.”
Why now, of all times, did Damian have to make it difficult? “It’s not leaving me. It’s saving me. Please, Robin.”
“Stay alert,” Damian ordered, ignoring him. “Can you stand?”
“I can’t, Dami. You know I can’t.” The numbness was overtaking the pain, while a distant fear grew nearer and nearer. The development of the inevitable.
“I could carry you.”
Damian was strong and stockily built, but he was still only eleven. “I don’t think so, kiddo. Please. I trust you, and I’ll be fine here until you return. You said it yourself.” Damn it, he was growing lightheaded again. “We were… the… best…”
THEN.
Dear Bruce,
I guess it’s time for me to move on. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do if I’m not allowed to help you anymore. Alfred doesn’t need to worry about entertaining me and taking care of you, too. You don’t need a partner. And you don’t need a son.
I’m sorry I failed you. I won’t forget everything you’ve given me. Thanks for teaching me how to be strong.
Dick.
NOW.
Dick blinked awake to see a familiar sight before him. “Thought I… told you… to go,” he mumbled, eyes slipping shut again.
The voice was very close to his ear. “Don’t be foolish, Richard. You are concussed. But now… I have reason to believe there is something else affecting your senses. You need to tell me what’s wrong.”
Damian sounded so disappointed in him. A piercing pain, greater than any that had come before it, cut through Dick’s heart, leaving him gasping. “S-sorry.”
“You don’t even know what you’re apologising for. None of it was your fault. It…” Damian trailed off, though Dick was sure he read self-reproach in the boy’s tone.
But that was wrong, Dick thought. There was nothing for Robin to be sorry for, because hadn’t Dick once done that too? Let his hubris get the better of him and think he could outwit a lawyer at his own game?
“Forget about Two-Face,” he said. “That doesn’t matter anymore. None of it does.”
“Two-Face? Nightwing, what are you talking about?”
Did Damian not realise what had happened? Maybe he had been too injured afterwards to understand what he had done… no, what he had been manipulated into. Dick reached out—at least, he thought his fingers twitched—but Damian’s narrowed his eyes. Regret, Dick thought. Or pity.
“The judge,” Dick murmured. “He fell… oh, Robin, it wasn’t your fault…”
Damian reared back. “You are delirious. There was no judge, and I am uninjured.”
“No… I saw… hit…”
That was enough for Damian to hesitate. “It was a single strike,” he said, a touch more gently. “I would have evaded, had you not distracted me.”
“I’m sorry.”
Damian sighed. “You’re injured, Grayson, and easily confused. You need to rest. But if there’s something else afflicting you, you need to tell me.”
Hazily, Dick cast his mind back to where their journey had begun. A late-night call from Oracle to the bunker beneath the penthouse. An underground room full of wide-eyed children and a nauseating, pervasive defencelessness. A trap that had drawn Robin into its web, spider to fly. A moment of relief when Dick realised that he himself had chosen the intricately booby-trapped entrance, leaving Robin’s path clear. Elation when he heard Robin yell that he had freed all the children, and then ask Dick to meet outside, because their comms were increasingly temperamental this far below the surface. He turned—there was the prick of a dissolvable dart in his neck—then, nothing.
Damn it. His eyes flew open. “Poison,” he whispered.
Damian’s eyes widened. “Are you certain? How? Airborne?”
Dick turned his head, meeting Damian’s piercing gaze as he exposed his neck to the boy, who immediately tilted the flashlight to take a closer look at the site. “Tt. You should have said something before.”
“A… trap…” He could see Robin clear as day, even though he hadn’t been there. It was an age old tale—a forbidden escape from the Batcave, a price on his head, the destruction of youthful hubris. “You need… to go.”
“I won’t leave you.” Damian’s whole face was pinched.
“I’m not asking… you to… abandon me. Just go upstairs and call for help. After all…” He let out a dry laugh that turned into a rough cough. “I’m not going anywhere.”
A gloved touch on his cheek, then his neck. Voices growing louder and louder, sparking electricity into every nerve ending.
“…cave…”
“The bunker is the most suitable…”
“—no time to argue—”
“—don’t think—”
“…right antidote…”
“…closer to Leslie…”
“…could just ask…”
The battling voices faded as Dick slipped into the darkness.
The next time he awoke, he found himself staring up at a familiar ceiling. A low groan left him before he thought; next moment, Bruce was at his bedside.
“Do you know where you are?”
“Bunker,” he gasped out. “I thought… cave?”
“We—Robin and I—agreed that the bunker was the best option,” Bruce corrected. A frown crossed his face, and he leant closer. “You don’t remember.”
“No.”
“Do you know what happened?”
“Two-Face,” he mumbled, that sense of wrongness once again creeping over his skin, scattering his nerves. Bruce looked even more concerned, though few people other than Dick would have been able to tell. His eyebrows were slightly drawn, and there was an intensity in his eyes that Dick had been at the receiving end of far too many times. It had taken him years to fully understand that look—to stop taking worry for anger.
“No, it wasn’t…” Bruce began.
It wasn’t me that killed you. It was the Bat.
“You’re home,” Dick settled for—and wow, he’d missed that soft expression. Bruce gazed at him for a long moment, then nodded.
“Yes. And so are you.”
He was throwing up, his mouth full of vomit and bile and blood. Between the heaving and the tears, he distantly registered Bruce calling his name.
“Dick? Dick! You’re all right, just breathe slowly…”
But he was choking on air, desperately heaving oxygen, and though he was suffocating on it, none was getting through. He tossed his head back, writhing in Bruce’s grip, extremities quivering. “B-B-Bruce…”
Bruce pushed Dick’s head back, clearing his airway as he turned Dick onto his side. “Come on,” he murmured, his voice familiar in its intensity and resolve. Batman was here, and he had Robin’s back. “You’re alive. You can breathe. Take it slow.”
But there was something wrong, Dick realised. The more his chest gradually stopped heaving under Bruce’s firm touch, the more his throat tightened, until he was only drawing in wisps of air. He couldn’t breathe! He couldn’t even tell Bruce what was wrong! Wrenching his hands away from Bruce, he twisted them up to his throat and pulled, scratching the skin there, but unable to open his swollen airway.
“Dick!”
Not even having enough breath to cough, his view dimming, Dick could still see Bruce, wide-eyed and pale above him as he pulled Dick’s hands away from his throat. There was a hoarse, desperate bellow of, “Alfred!”
Then Dick felt a stabbing pain in his gut, a final deadly blow beyond them all, and his world spun away into nothingness.
Someone was squeezing his hand.
“Dick,” a deep voice murmured. “Dick, you need to wake up.”
As Dick rose up out of unconsciousness, he found himself punctuated by a number of sensations that had no discernible cause that he could recall. An aching stomach. A pulsing headache. Pins and needles in his hands and receding from his limbs. The pinch of a needle in one elbow. And, through it all, an indubitable comfort came from the knowledge that he’d been here before, and had survived.
“Dick,” Bruce said again, softly. “Open your eyes.”
The order was impossible to ignore, but Dick’s eyelids felt too heavy to lift. He let out a small groan, and was rewarded by a warm hand on his temple.
“Come on.” Bruce brushed Dick’s fringe off his forehead. The touch was so familiar and yet rare that it sent a wave of embarrassing tears to Dick’s eyes. He needed to wipe them away quickly, or Damian would be sure to notice, and then that would kill any remaining notion in the boy’s mind that Dick was capable of stepping into his father’s shoes. He could not remember the last time he had seen Bruce cry.
But when he obeyed the command and was greeted with Bruce’s red-rimmed eyes and tight, worried expression, he found himself unable to speak.
“Can you hear me?” Bruce asked, and Dick answered by squeezing his hand in return. He longed to reach up and press those worry lines away, the way he had once as a small child. Bruce had been incredibly tolerant of the boy who would clamber into his lap and push tiny fingers into his face, poking the creased face back to normal the first way he knew how.
That had been many years ago.
“B-Bruce,” Dick managed to whisper, the name breaking in half as he lost his breath, the air snatched from his lungs. He was in his own room at the penthouse, but Damian—where was Damian?
Some of his desperation must have shown on his face, for Bruce shushed him, fingers on Dick’s wrist pressing reassuringly. “Damian’s fine,” he murmured.
Dick stilled. “You’re sure?” he asked childishly, and then instantly—irrationally—half expected Bruce to either laugh at or dismiss him.
Bruce did neither. Instead, he raised his head and looked past Dick to the loveseat against the wall. “Look,” he said, softness still in his tone, and moved aside so that Dick could glimpse the boy curled up on the cushions, fast asleep. “He helped synthesise the antidote, and then he refused to leave you alone.”
Damian was here, and he was alive. Not bloodied and helpless on the ground, unable to do anything but wait until someone came and rescued him. But not Dick, because Dick hadn’t been there.
What else had Dick missed?
“You had a nightmare,” Bruce explained. “You were muttering in your sleep.”
Damn it. “What did I say?” he asked, hoping his trepidation wasn’t bleeding into his tone. By his expression, Bruce wasn’t fooled.
“You spoke about Harvey Dent… and about Robin.”
Dick closed his eyes. “Bruce, I’m not still cut up about it, I promise. That was so long ago. I don’t even know why it’s been on my mind lately…”
“I do.”
“You do?” Dick opened his eyes.
Bruce nodded, passing a hand over his face. “Dick… I’ll never forget that night. I thought I’d lost you. And then…”
“You fired me,” Dick said. The words did not come out as coolly as he had intended. Somewhere deep, the scar still ached. Bruce bowed his head.
“We both know I shouldn’t have. And it shouldn’t have taken me this long to apologise—”
“You have apologised.” Many times over. But it was just like Bruce to downplay or disregard all the words he’d said right. “And you’ve never needed to say it. Honestly, Bruce… I understood why you did it years ago. But recently… I think I see what it’s like. From the other side, I mean.” Without meaning to, Dick’s eyes strayed to the slumbering Damian.
Bruce followed his gaze. “Dick,” he said.
Dick inclined his head to show he was listening.
“When I first came back to Gotham and saw how well you two worked together, there was a part of me that was jealous. You have always given affection so easily, Dick, and I—I didn’t know if I could be a good father to him. Didn’t think I had the right to try.”
“Of course you—”
“I’m not done,” Bruce interrupted, holding up a hand, and Dick subsided. “We both know I made a mistake when I told him he would never be my Robin. He’s come enormously far under your tutelage, and I’ve seen how he looks up to you.”
Dick nodded, wondering where this was going.
“However, I…” Bruce faltered. “I know who he prefers, and it’s not me.” A small smile graced his lips at the admission, though Dick was sure it was untrue. “What all of us have… it’s never been a typical family in any way.”
Dick caught his breath. You don’t have to tell me that, he thought, but he knew better than to interrupt Bruce, not when such sentiments were so rarely excavated and transformed into speech. He waited, and presently Bruce spoke again, though haltingly.
“I said the same thing to Tim, some time ago—I don’t want you to feel like you have to stay in Gotham.”
“Please. As if you could make me do anything I didn’t want to do.”
But Bruce did not rise to the bait. “There’s room for both of us, Dick. But I’m Damian’s father. Let me take the hard days, not just the easy ones.”
You’re going about this the wrong way. Dick shook his head. “Bruce… you’re many things, but you’ve never been an older brother. Trust me on this one. Damian knows who his dad is. And so do I.”
Bruce exhaled, and the sound was tinged with both relief and regret. “After Talia and Heretic—after Damian almost died—I couldn’t think of what else to do, except call you.”
“I’m glad you called me,” Dick said firmly, though once again his heart jolted at the reminder of that single shattering phone call, sending him scrambling in the early hours of the morning on the other side of the world.
Bruce shook his head. “It was selfish of me to interrupt your vacation with Tim. But being there for someone, providing a safety net… you’ve always been good at that. And I know it’s my fault for leaning on you too much.”
Dick opened his mouth and found that he had lost his voice. He lifted his hand to his cheek; his face was wet.
“You’re not so bad yourself, you know,” he said, when he could speak. “Besides, I’ve been told a few times lately that I need to reel back a little. Let others take the slack.” Like Black Bat rescuing Damian. “After all, he still survived, even without me being in Gotham.”
Bruce looked slightly disconcerted at the reminder. “Yes,” he said, so softly that Dick almost missed it. “But he might not have. I was there. He should have come to me.”
Dick swallowed. “From what I heard… he did.” Isn’t that what Robin wants? To be at Batman’s side?
“I…” Bruce’s sombre gaze strayed to the slumbering Damian. “I never told you—he found one of my mother’s pearls.”
Dick caught his breath. What?
“I never found them all,” Bruce continued, voice quiet. “He must have trawled the sewers for weeks, but I never knew until he placed it on my desk.”
Dick could picture it—Bruce hunched over the Batcomputer, perhaps, desperate for a shred of evidence that he and Damian could work well together; Damian approaching with ramrod posture that seemingly contradicted his bleeding need to be accepted, to be understood. Both yearning to show they could be Batman and Robin without Dick as a buffer between them. Both taking too long to see their similarities over their differences, until a formative story and a self-imposed mission revealed the proof in the pearl—the gift of time. Dick’s eyes prickled as he felt his heart swell.
“I should have been proud,” Bruce said. “I should have said so. But all I could do was look at him and think how deathly scared I was to… to…”
To lose him.
“You should tell him,” Dick said. “That you trust him.”
Bruce nodded. “I know.”
“And are you sure he’s been asleep this whole time?” Dick raised an eyebrow in Damian’s direction.
“Alfred may have slipped him something,” Bruce said, and Dick heard the smile in his tone.
“Alfred, or you?”
“Does it matter?”
“I guess not.” Now he himself was starting to feel drowsy. He slouched under the covers, and Bruce helped him pull them up. His stomach, though empty, was no longer queasy, and there was a pleasant, soothing sensation settling in his bones. Whatever poison it had been—Bruce and Damian would know—was completely gone.
“Why the bunker?” he asked. Why not the Batcave?
“The medical equipment is the same, but the bunker was closer, and Robin seemed to think you’d feel more at home.” The unsaid question tugged at the corners of Bruce’s lips.
Dick didn’t know if it would ever feel right to operate out of the Batbunker as Nightwing instead of as Batman. But here, in his own bedroom, with his father by his side and Damian sleeping nearby, the penthouse felt warmer than it had in weeks. A yawn ran through him.
“Thanks, Bruce,” he said, eyes drifting shut. “For coming for me.”
Bruce was silent, but then there was the feather-light touch of lips on Dick’s forehead, planting a small kiss that warmed Dick right down to his toes. “Always,” was the murmur from above him, and at last able to relax completely, he let himself drift off.
Dick was no longer alone. That was how it had ended, and now it began again.