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Bruce sat at the desk in the gloomy confines of his study, elbows propped on the dark walnut top, hands steepled in front of his face. He’d been awake for fifty-three hours, and now, as the wall clock loudly ticked away the final moments of the afternoon, a dull ache began to throb at his temples. He eyed a cup of freshly brewed tea sitting untouched beside him, then shifted his gaze back to the boy.
Damian sat opposite him, cross-legged in the armchair, with his boots carelessly scuffing the delicate antique leather. He was gawking at Bruce in disbelief.
“You want me to start therapy, Father?”
“Yes.”
“What have I done wrong now?”
“Nothing.” Bruce met the boy’s stare. He paused, trying to choose his words carefully. “You had a difficult start in life. Your experiences at the League—the things you had to see and… do—they hurt you.”
He watched as Damian gripped the armrests, his body tensing, coiling for a fight. Why did the boy always have to fight him on everything—
“I was raised to be a warrior!” Damian’s chin jerked up.
“Yes.” Bruce set his hands down, keeping them from tightening into fists. He wanted to beat Ra’s to a pulp, put him back together, and beat him to a pulp again. “That is precisely the problem.”
“Oh?” Damian scoffed. “So now this is my punishment?”
Bruce took a deep breath, trying to keep his voice even. "Damian, this isn't a punishment. Therapy is there to help you.”
“I don’t need help!” Damian’s voice climbed. “I’ve been doing fine my whole life. I am fine!”
“You’re not fine, Damian.” Bruce rubbed the bridge of his nose. The psych evaluation report he had received two days ago sat heavy on his mind. It had been a difficult read. Attachment disorder, post-traumatic stress, anxiety—the list went on. The boy needed professional help, child trauma specialists, a stable and safe environment. He wasn’t even sure he could provide the latter. The thought scared him.
The last two days were a blur of research, phone calls, confidentiality agreements and bank transfers—only the best specialists in the field would do. He wasn’t there during the first ten years of the child’s life—something he would never forgive himself for—but he had to do right by the boy now. If he could only make him listen.
“You wear a tough shell,” Bruce started in a measured voice, “but you’re still a child. A child who’s been through things no child should ever have to face. Therapy—“
Damian jumped to his feet on the armchair, fists balled at his sides. “I am not a child! Grandfather says—“
Bruce slapped his palms flat against the wooden top. “Damian, you are ten!” He shut his eyes for a moment, trying to regain composure, then carried on, “I am your father. And as your father, I have to make decisions that you might not like. Therapy is non-negotiable.”
Damian gave him a seething look. “A biological accident doesn’t make you my father!” he spat.
The words hung between them.
Bruce rose from his chair, his full height looming over Damian. The boy was still standing on the seat with his fists clenched, but his eyes had dropped to the floor.
“There is a place in Switzerland,” Bruce said, his voice dropping to a growl, “a very private facility, run by an old professor friend of mine. Doctors there know far more than I do about children and trauma. You’ll start therapy tomorrow, or you’ll be on a plane to Switzerland before you know it, so help me!”
Angry red blotches were starting to bloom across Damian’s cheeks, he was practically vibrating with fury. “You can’t make me!”
“Try me.” Bruce pulled out his phone and hit dial, keeping his eyes firmly locked on Damian. “Spencer? Get the jet ready for six-thirty tomorrow. Geneva airport.” He hung up without waiting for a reply.
Damian’s face twisted, his mouth parted. He gaped at Bruce for a moment, then lunged off the armchair and bolted towards the door. It slammed shut behind him with such force that the sound reverberated through the Manor, echoing down the hallways.
Bruce slammed his fist into the desk. The teacup jumped and the tea spilled out onto the polished wood in angry splotches.
He took a long breath, then sank back into his chair and dropped his head in his hands. What was he going to do with the boy? Maybe Damian was right. Maybe biological ties weren’t enough to make a man a father, or a boy his son.
Damian had come into his life only two months ago, a whirlwind of stubbornness, arrogance, and anger. The boy was quick to lash out and trusted no one. Every conversation they had turned into an argument. But it wasn’t the arguments that kept Bruce awake during the scarce morning hours he had allowed himself for sleep—it was the violent outbursts. Damian wasn’t just angry. He was dangerous, lethal.
Could he ever become the father Damian needed him to be? If he was honest with himself, he didn’t know. And if he was truly honest, he was terrified. But the boy was his responsibility now.
Bruce reached for the teacup and took a sip of what was left of the tea. It was cold and stale, the bergamot notes turning sour in his mouth.
He set the cup down with a hollow thud and picked up his phone again. His thumb hovered over the screen for a moment, before he pulled up his messages and texted the pilots to cancel the jet.
Lac Léman Rehabilitation Center was a nuclear option, the last resort, the one he wasn’t willing to try, not yet. Making the call in front of Damian was a rash, impulsive decision, one he regretted almost instantly. All it did was make Damian’s walls go up even higher and undermine whatever little trust they had managed to build between them in this past month, during their nightly patrols.
He needed to fix this.
Bruce leaned back in his chair, massaging his temples against the growing headache. A family photo, framed on the wall, caught his eye. An eight-year-old Bruce, dressed in a blue jumper, hair combed neatly to the side, his mother in a summer dress, smiling warmly into the camera, his father in a sharp suit, hand resting protectively on Bruce’s shoulder, and Ace, his faithful German Shepherd, sitting patiently at his feet.
An idea formed in his mind. A dog. Yes, that was it! He would buy Damian a dog. And maybe a horse too. But definitely a dog first. Animals were supposed to help form healthy emotional bonds. Service dogs were successfully used to help manage PTSD symptoms in veterans. He’d read up several studies on it.
He would talk to Damian about starting therapy again in the morning, when tempers had cooled. In the meantime, he had a plan he could follow through on.
He opened his laptop, pulling up different dog breeders and assistance dogs sites, and settled into his research.
***
His wakefulness was approaching the sixty-hour mark by the time a call from Alfred came through the comms. By then he had already stopped three robberies, one assault and one attempted kidnapping. He had managed to finalise the arrangements about the dog and forced down a meal before heading out on patrol, but even he had to admit that his energy levels were getting somewhat depleted.
And of course Damian would choose this night to abscond again.
It took them three hours to find him. Which was three hours too long. Barbara combed through the surveillance footage, while Bruce and Dick scouted the locations around the city. The boy had taken out the trackers and seemingly avoided every camera along the way.
By the time Bruce landed on the roof of the half-built hotel tower on the outskirts of the city, the yellow Gotham moon had already begun its descent. The pre-dawn silence was broken only by the distant barking of stray dogs and the screech of the wind whipping through the skeletal structures of the abandoned construction site.
Damian stood on the roof, facing away towards the distant city lights, his black cape flapping, hood pulled up. He half-turned when the muted stomp of the Batman’s boots resonated through the rooftop.
“What are you doing here?” Bruce demanded.
“Getting some air.” Damian’s voice was cold, face unreadable, half-hidden in the shadow of his hood.
“Well, you’ve had your air. We are going home now.” Bruce strode towards the boy.
“No!”
Bruce stopped. “No?” He took a breath and tried to keep the mounting frustration out of his voice. “Is this about—“
“You want to get rid of me!” Damian whipped around to face Bruce, his arms folded, chin up. “Discard me like some broken thing, lock me away in a mental asylum!” His voice pitched higher.
“It’s not a mental asylum and I’m not—“
“You gave up on me!”
“Robin, please!” Bruce squeezed the bridge of his nose guard. The headache was in full swing now. “I’m not having this discussion here. Let’s go home. We’ll talk in the morning, once we have both calmed dow—“
“Calmed down?!” Damian’s mouth twisted in a snarl, hands balled into fists. “I’d rather go back to the League—“
"That's enough!" Bruce growled. "You are not going back to the League!" He closed the remaining distance in two swift strides and grabbed Damian’s wrist, yanking him close and locking him in a firm grip before lifting him off the ground.
The boy struggled against his side, legs kicking. “You can’t stop me!”
“I can and I will.” Bruce tightened his hold and pulled out the grapple gun, aiming it at the neighbouring tower. His finger curled around the trigger, but before he could fire it, he felt a sharp twist and Damian wrenched himself free from his grasp.
The boy dropped and rolled away. In an instant he was back on his feet, lunging at Bruce with a high kick, his foot swinging up in a perfect arc. “Then fight me!”
Bruce sidestepped, pivoting out of the way with a practised ease, feeling a rush or air against his jaw, as Damian’s boot missed him by mere inches. The boy landed on the roof floor behind him with a hard stomp, immediately launching himself into a backflip. The cape flapped. Bruce braced to block another high kick. Damian twisted his body mid-air landing in front of him and Bruce felt a sweeping kick connecting with his shin. The impact reverberated through his leg, he wobbled, but managed to keep his balance and deflected yet another vicious kick aimed at his jaw. “Robin, stop it!” he growled.
“Why won’t you fight me?!” Damian’s voice cracked as he coiled for another attack. “Let me prove to you—”
“You don’t need to prove anything to me.” Bruce dodged another blow.
The wind whipped their capes and the rough concrete of the roof floor growled under their boots, as the flurry of kicks and punches continued. Bruce blocked and dodged, hoping that if he didn't engage, the boy's steam would run out soon.
A curved knife flashed in Damian’s hand. The knife that Bruce was very sure he had locked in the impenetrable armour safe back at the Cave, together with the katana and all the other knives the boy came with.
Damian lunged.
The blade sliced through the air, narrowly missing the exposed part of Bruce’s face, as he swivelled out of the way. “Robin, you are letting your anger dictate your actions.”
Damian lunged again. Bruce blocked. The blade skirted across his gauntlet with a grating schrrkk and ripped through the kevlar, leaving a sizable gash at his elbow. A thin line of blood oozed through. This was not a practice fight. Bruce had seen it before. It was like a switch had gone off. The boy was in full-on League mode, his face blank, movements too fast, too calculated for someone so young.
Damian pulled back, arm poised for another strike.
This time, Bruce caught his wrist. “Drop it!” He tightened the grip, applying the pressure to the nerve points. Damian gritted his teeth, his fingers were shaking, but he didn’t drop it. Bruce pressed harder. “I said, drop it! Now!”
The boy would rather have his arm broken than step down. He pushed a smidge harder, just in the exact spot where the nerve points crossed in the wrist. Damian gasped and his fingers unclenched involuntarily. The blade slipped from his hand and clattered on the concrete. Bruce kicked it away.
Damian was panting.
“Are you done now?” Bruce asked.
Without warning, the boy pivoted and Bruce felt the jarring force of the heel slamming into his shin. Pain shot up his leg, and he stumbled, his balance faltering as he dropped to one knee. Damian yanked his wrist free. So, not done then. The next blow landed at Bruce’s lower back with agony-inducing precision. Bruce swayed forward and ended up face-first on the concrete. The cape hissed above him, and he flipped over just in time to see the treaded sole of the boot descending towards his head, Robin’s body uncoiling in mid-air, mouth twisted into a snarl.
On instinct, Bruce crossed his arms to block the stomp. The boot connected with his arm guards, sending shockwaves through his bones. He surged up, and the force of it sent Damian hurtling backwards. Bruce watched in horror as the boy's small body slammed into the metal railing, then slid down. He lay curled on his side, wheezing.
“Goddammit!” Bruce scrambled back to his feet. “Robin? Are you okay?”
Damian groaned and pushed himself onto his hands and knees with a pained grimace, spitting out a mouthful of blood.
Bruce took a step towards the boy.
Before he could get any closer Damian’s body unfurled. He let out a raw, almost feral scream and sprang into the air.
That was enough. Bruce lunged up and caught him mid-air, arresting Damian’s momentum. They came down hard. He groaned as his back took the brunt of the impact. Before the boy could do anything, he rolled over, restraining him with his own weight.
Damian thrashed under him, wheezing. Bruce eased off him a little and flipped him over to his stomach, catching his flailing wrists and pinning them behind his back. “Stop struggling!”
“Let go of me! Let go!” Damian slammed his forehead into the roof floor in frustration.
“You need to calm down,” Bruce growled. “I don’t want to tranq you, but I will if I have to.”
Damian hissed, his body jerked one more time under Bruce’s weight, before he finally stilled and laid there, panting.
"Are you done?" Bruce asked, using his Batman voice. Damian didn’t respond, and Bruce took the silence as a yes. "We’re going to get up now."
Bruce eased off Damian, moving onto one knee before rising and pulling the boy up with him. His back complained. He adjusted his grip, still holding Damian’s wrists crossed behind his back, but pulling them up just enough to force him onto his tiptoes. It wasn’t high enough to cause serious pain, but it kept Damian’s weight forward, preventing him from launching into any kicks.
Bruce patted him down, extracting two more knives and tucking them away safely. He couldn’t fail to notice the way the boy flinched, when he prodded around his right side.
“Does that hurt?”
Damian stayed silent, but the answer was obvious from the way his breath hitched as Bruce’s fingers slowly pushed in, feeling his ribs. From what he could tell, nothing seemed to move in a way it shouldn’t, thank god. Most likely—a crack, rather than a broken rib. A bruise if he was lucky.
“Are you hurt anywhere else?”
Damian remained silent, his head down.
“Damian…” Bruce sighed.
It was clear that he was not going to get anything out of the boy now. They’d do the x-rays and a full check up back at the Cave. The Batmobile was waiting below, engine roaring, ready to go. Bruce slowly lowered Damian’s wrists, so he could swap holds. In one swift move, he released Damian’s hands, pulled him close, and trapped his arms between them. His free hand reached for the grappling gun.
“We are going home,” Bruce said and fired the line.
The grapple whirred across and hooked securely onto the nearby building. He tightened his grip around the boy and leapt off the roof. His stomach dropped in a moment of weightlessness before the gravity returned as the line went taut and pulled them forward through the night air with a familiar swoosh.
A body contorted sharply against his side. A blade gleamed callously, caught in the moonlight.
Where did he—was all Bruce managed to think before the blade met the line, slicing it cleanly apart.
The arrested momentum sent them slamming hard into the side of the building. They bounced off the wall and tumbled down another story.
Bruce let go of the grappling gun and managed to hook his fingers onto a ledge at the very last moment. A sharp pain ripped through his shoulder.
They hung there for a brief moment. There was no purchase for his feet. The ledge was too far out from the wall. He glanced down to see the gaping construction pit far below them.
A stabbing pain flared between his ribs, right where a weak point in the armour was. He looked just as Damian twisted the knife inside the wound with a precise, brutal motion. The metal tip scraped against the bone, sending a blinding wave of agony through his body. The suddenness of it forced Bruce to loosen his grip, and before he could do anything—
Damian was falling.
Damian was falling and there was nothing to stop him.
Bruce let go of the ledge.
The air whistled past him, as he angled his body. Below, Robin’s cape flapped wildly, his limbs flailing as he plummeted towards the jumbled mess of the sharp steel rods and concrete blocks at the bottom of the construction pit.
Bruce desperately threw out his arm. Reached. The fabric slipped through his fingers. Again. He caught the wrist and yanked the boy towards himself, violently, flipping them in the air, caging his body around Damian’s—
Then it all came to a brutal, crashing stop.
***
Concrete dust was floating in the air, shimmering in the moonlight like glitter.
The world above him stretched away. Towering structures cut sharply into the star-lit sky. A skeletal claw of the construction crane loomed over, high and unreachable.
His mouth tasted of copper and chalk.
Bruce took a breath.
It caught half way. Stopped by a sharp, stabbing pain. Someone was squeezing his lungs from the inside. No matter how hard he tried to suck the air in, there was not enough room in his chest for it to go in.
He dug deep into his meditation training, overriding the body’s panicked response that screamed need more oxygen now and forcing his breath to slow down. Taking one steady shallow breath after the other.
The next thought that formed in his mind was simply Damian. There was a gaping, phantom sensation of the boy’s weight against his chest.
“R-Ro…bin?” he gasped, the sound dissolving into a wet whisper.
No reply came and he had to swallow down a fresh wave of panic.
Methodically, he ran a self-assessment checklist, tensing the muscles in his body, his limbs, checking for response. His left arm barely moved, a sharp grinding pain radiated from the left shoulder. He moved onto his legs, tensing and shifting them slightly.
Pain exploded in his thigh.
His neck protested as he craned it to look down on himself.
A six foot ribbed steel bar was impaling his left thigh. The rusty metal pierced straight through his flesh and muscle. Next to it, a splintered white edge of his femur bone protruded grotesquely through the torn skin. Worst of all, the blood was spraying out of the wound at an alarming rate.
A ruptured femoral artery.
He had two minutes of consciousness left. Maximum. He’d bleed out in five.
Bruce hit the distress button on his suit with his good hand and reached to press his fingers into the wound, ignoring the agony. He needed to find the artery, needed to pinch it, to stop the bleeding. The wound was a slippery mess and he couldn’t feel anything through the gloves. There was nothing left to do, but to press his fingers in as hard as he could. It cut off the spray, but blood was still pooling rapidly around his fingers.
The voices came up buzzing in his ear.
He ignored them. There was a tourniquet and a haemostatic dressing in his belt, but he couldn’t let go of the wound to get it.
“R-Robin!” he tried again.
There was a movement in his peripheral vision. He twisted his neck to see a small figure extricating itself from the rubble to his side.
Damian pulled himself to his knees. His cape was gone and a layer of dust clang to him, turning his face and hair stone-grey.
Bruce felt a wave of relief.
“Are you… alright?” He coughed out.
The boy swung on his knees unsteadily. His right hand was hanging limp at an unnatural angle. The wrist was already beginning to swell. He looked dazed.
“Robin, report!” Bruce forced out his Batman voice.
The boy snapped his head towards the sound of it, then turned over to where the metal rod protruded from his thigh.
“I need you… to focus…” Bruce rasped, as the bloody bubbles formed at the corners of his mouth. Blood was still pooling around Bruce’s fingers and he could already feel darkness ebbing at the corners of his consciousness.
He saw the moment when Damian’s training finally kicked in. The boy crawled forward and crouched over Bruce’s legs, reaching into his utility belt and pulling out a black nylon strap. He worked it open with one hand and tried to thread the tourniquet under the mangled leg.
Bruce couldn’t stop the groan as the rod shifted inside the wound, sending a blinding jolt of agony up his leg.
Damian didn’t look up. He had finally managed to pull the end of the tourniquet up the other side and around the thigh and was now struggling one-handedly with the buckle. The strap slipped through his fingers again and again. He huffed in frustration and leaned over. Blood sprayed in his face as he bit into the tourniquet end with his teeth and pulled. The tourniquet dug into the flesh and finally—finally—the bleeding stopped.
When Damian pulled up, his ashen face was smeared with blood. It dripped down his chin.
The buzzing of the voices in Bruce’s ear grew more insistent. In the distance, a motorcycle rumbled.
The last things Bruce registered before the darkness took him were Damian’s bloody mouth and the yellow eye of the moon glaring at him accusingly from above.
***
The light was too bright. The beeping—too loud. The voices above—too insistent.
“—aster Bruce—“
“—had two bags on the way—“
“—needs another line—“
“—aster Bruce, can you hear me? Can you squeeze my hand—“
Bruce blinked into the light.
“Can you squeeze my hand?” the voice said again. And Bruce did as he was told.
The light pulled away and Bruce stared into the blurriness above him, until it eventually solidified into the Cave’s rocky ceiling. A familiar face pulled into view.
Alfred squeezed his hand back and clicked off the penlight. “How are you feeling?”
Bruce parted his lips to speak, but nothing came out. His tongue felt glued to the roof of his mouth. A vile, gritty taste of concrete lingered.
“W-water,” he croaked, voice muffled by the oxygen mask he hadn’t realised he was wearing.
"I don’t think so, Master Bruce. You are going to need surgery. I’m afraid your injuries are beyond my capabilities."
"How bad?"
"Broken left femur, tibia, and fibula; collapsed lung—I have put the chest tube in, so you should breathe a little easier now—dislocated shoulder, suspected spinal injury—Does that hurt?” he pushed his fingers firmly into Bruce’s stomach, and Bruce groaned, “—internal bleeding.”
“Damian?” asked Bruce.
"He’s alright. A broken wrist and he’s a little shaken, but he’s fine," filled in another voice and Bruce followed it. Dick’s domino was off, his blue eyes wide, the Nightwing suit smeared with blood.
Pain suddenly exploded in his thigh as his mangled leg was jostled, and Bruce couldn’t hold in a scream.
“Hold his leg, Alf!”
Bruce looked down on himself. A tangle of tubing and wires sprawled in and out of his body. The piece of metal was still lodged in his thigh, but it was cut off short now. The wound around it was packed with the blood-soaked dressings. A second tourniquet was tied above the first one.
“Hang on! Gotta get the boot off,” said Dick and pulled again. Alfred held the leg at the knee. It hurt just as much, but Bruce gritted his teeth and didn’t scream this time.
“Okay, that’s it. That’s it. All done,” said Dick. He stepped closer and picked the heavy-duty shears. “I need to cut you out of the suit.”
The metal struggled against the kevlar with a loud shrrkk, as Dick stuck the shears through the hole in Bruce’s sleeve. Then the reinforced fabric gave in and Dick ripped the rest of the sleeve off his shoulder.
"Damian! Where—”
"He’s fine," Dick reassured, his hands still working on the suit. "I’ve stabilised the wrist. I’ll drive him to the hospital to get x-rays and put on a cast after we finish with you. I need to finish cutting the Batsuit off. The air ambulance will be here in three. Alfred will go with you."
"I need to see him!“ Bruce tried to push himself up on his good elbow. The IV needle tugged painfully at his arm.
“Master Bruce!”
“Whoa, lie down!”
Two sets of hands pushed him down firmly.
“He’s nearly ripped the IV out!”
"I need to see him!” Bruce insisted. “Dick, I need… I need to!” He pulled the oxygen mask off, coughing.
“Fine, fine. Here. Would you please lie still!”
A moment later, Damian was pulled into view. The boy was still in his blood-soaked suit, hair still ashen with dust, but the blood was cleaned off his face. Only a few stubborn traces remained stuck in the corners of his tightly pressed lips.
His right arm was in a sling. The other—pressed at his side with a tightly clenched fist.
Bruce reached out for the boy's uninjured hand. He wrapped his palm around Damian’s and felt how the boy forced himself to uncurl his trembling fingers, surrendering, bracing for… something. Pain? Punishment? Bruce felt his chest clenching. Damian’s hand was cold. And small. So small against his own. The boy didn’t look at him, but his shoulders stiffened.
Bruce brought Damian’s hand to his lips and pressed three small kisses to the boy’s bony knuckles. Damian looked up, startled, his green eyes wide and raw.
"Master Bruce, if you want to keep that leg, we need to go now!" urged Alfred as he started pushing the gurney towards the elevator. Damian’s hand slipped out and he was left behind.
Another hand reached for his oxygen mask and Bruce grabbed at it. "Dick... Promise. Promise you will take care—“ he coughed, “—of him. If—“
“Stop talking, B,” Dick said, and Bruce felt the mask being snapped back on, the cool rush of the oxygen tickling his nostrils. “You’re gonna be fine. The air ambulance is here.”
“Promise,” Bruce mumbled through the plastic.
Dick’s jaw tightened. He nodded. "Of course I will. B, you know I will."
Bruce suddenly felt the darkness that had been kept away at the edges of his consciousness start to envelop him again. The room seemed to drift away.
“Blood pressure is dropping,” said Alfred somewhere far above him. The monitors began screaming.
Bruce let go of Dick’s hand. He wanted to tell Dick that he loved him, but by now he’d expended every last ounce of his strength. So he just blinked into Dick’s anxious eyes as the gurney was rushed towards the elevator and hoped that Dick knew.
***
It was late afternoon. The last rays of the Gotham’s low winter sun crept through the tall windows of the Wayne Manor library, casting pale patches on the polished parquet floor and igniting a few small specks of dust floating around his wheelchair.
Bruce sat by the window in what was now his makeshift study. The walnut desk had been moved here from upstairs, together with a few file cabinets that were now perched between the reaching bookshelves. They had to relocate his bedroom downstairs as well.
He had five surgeries. They had to shock him in the helicopter on the way to the hospital. A surgeon had to be flown from London to operate on his thigh. Dick had to keep it all together while he was in the hospital—donning the Batman suit, looking after WE. Looking after Damian. He didn’t know how Dick managed it all, but every time he came to visit Bruce at the hospital, the shadows under his eyes grew darker.
A knock on the door pulled him out of his thoughts.
The door creaked open and Dick let himself in without waiting for a reply. Damian was hovering behind him, and behind Damian, a large, awkwardly lanky shadow of a Great Dane. The pup was nine months old now. He arrived four weeks ago, while Bruce was still in the hospital.
Dick gave Bruce a meaningful stare as he pulled Damian in front of him.
The silent conversation passed between them. They had been through this before. Go gentle on him. Dick had told him that the boy had been almost catatonic after the accident. He wouldn’t eat and it was two days before Dick managed to coax him into talking again. Two long, dark days when they didn’t know if Bruce would pull through and Alfred stayed at the hospital at Bruce’s side.
But they were making progress now. Building trust.
Bruce nodded, and Dick gave Damian a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder, before turning to leave. “Come, Titus,” he called softly. The dog, who had been glued to Damian’s side, hesitated for a moment, glancing between Dick and Damian with his big brown eyes, before finally following Dick out. His long black tail gently swished behind him as the door closed.
Damian, dressed in a too-big black hoodie, stood by the door, where Dick left him, his shoulders tense and his back rigid, arms straight against his thighs.
His hand was out of the cast, but he still held it a little gingerly.
“Father,” he acknowledged after a few awkward moments. “You wished to see me?”
“I did.” Bruce spun the wheelchair away from the window to face into the room.
Dick brought Damian to see Bruce in the hospital a few times, but Bruce was too out of it on the pain meds to have a serious conversation, and later, when they started weaning him off, he was irritable and short-tempered. He was relieved that Damian didn’t have any serious injuries, but they barely exchanged more than a few words.
“How is your arm?”
“It has healed adequately. Physiotherapy is required, but the doctors informed me that it should return to its full function.”
“I’m glad.”
An awkward pause settled. Bruce watched Damian shift from one foot to the other a few times.
He had played this conversation in his head a hundred times, but now the words didn’t come.
“That night…” Bruce started hesitantly and Damian immediately bristled in response, his hands clenching into tight fists by his sides. “I should have—your anger—“ Bruce stopped himself. It was coming out all wrong again. He sighed and racked his fingers through his hair.
He tried again. “Our enemies are not the criminals or the villains, our enemy is in here,” he tapped at his temple with two fingers, “in our minds. Our greatest enemy is our own anger. It burns inside us, and the more we feed it, the more it controls us. And in the end, it hurts us more than it hurts anyone else.”
Damian didn’t respond, his face unreadable, eyes fixed on the floor.
Bruce continued. “You have to understand your enemy in order to fight it. You have to learn how to control it. You have to see anger for what it is—a dark cloud that obstructs our minds.
“I am not saying it’s easy,” Bruce said, his voice softening. “It’s not. It’s the hardest thing you’ll ever do. But if you don’t… It will consume you.”
He saw Damian’s hands twitch at his sides.
“A mind clouded by anger can never find peace, can never be happy.” Bruce paused for a moment before continuing. “I want you to be happy, Damian.”
Damian’s fists were still clenched, but something in his face wavered. “The anger—do you… do you ever struggle with it, Father?”
“Every single day.”
For the first time through their conversation Damian looked up, his eyes owlish.
Bruce carried on, “There is a place—“
“Yes, a mental asylum in Switzerland, you told me about it. I am to be sent away then.” Damian’s face turned stony once again, but there was no bite in his voice, only a weary resignation.
“No, no.” Bruce shook his head. “This is a monastery in the Himalayas.”
“A monastery?”
Bruce nodded. “I stayed there years ago, when I was lost, troubled. And the monks there helped me in the ways that proved very—“
“I don’t need any help,” Damian muttered, but the words felt empty, fading into near whisper at the end. His shoulders slumped.
“I will take you there,” Bruce continued, ignoring it. “We will go together.” He knew it was going to be a while yet before he could undertake a trek, but with every passing day he felt stronger, could manage a few more steps at his physio sessions. “I believe they can help you too,” he finished softly.
Damian opened his mouth to speak, but instead his bottom lip trembled and he clamped his mouth shut, pressing his lips into a tight line. He blinked rapidly.
Bruce sighed and opened his arms. “Come here.”
The boy froze. For a moment Bruce thought that he would not move, but he held his arms open, offering. Waiting.
Then with a small shift in his shoulders Damian took a tentative step forward, then another, moving slowly, as if walking through water. His eyes were fixed on the floor, hands clenched at his sides.
When he was within reach, Bruce caught the boy’s hand, gently pulling him into his lap. It was awkward in the wheelchair and his injured thigh screamed from the sudden pressure, but he didn’t care. He wrapped his arms around the small body.
Damian didn’t fight it, but he didn’t yield either. Bruce could feel how stiff the boy was, every muscle taut like a bowstring, ready to snap at a moment's notice. And yet for the first time, his son had come to him for comfort, had allowed this closeness, even if he didn’t know how to receive it.
“I didn’t mean for this to happen,” Damian said in a small voice. His body was trembling.
Bruce hugged him tighter. “I know.”
“Sometimes I don’t even know who I am.” Damian fought for breath. “It’s like someone else is in my body.” He took another shaky breath. Then turned his head and hid his face into Bruce’s chest.
“You are my son, and I love you. I am not giving up on you.”
Bruce pressed a kiss to the top of Damian's head, nuzzling into his unruly bangs. The hair smelled faintly of chamomile. All Bruce could think was mine and home. He wanted to keep him in his arms and never let him go. Protect him from all the sorrows of the world. He had to fight the urge to squeeze Damian into his chest with all his strength.
Damian clung to Bruce, his shoulders shook with each ragged breath. And Bruce held him through it, rubbing soothing circles on his back. The fabric of Damian’s hoody felt soft under his palm. He was waiting for the dampness of the tears to seep through his shirt, but none came.
When the sobs subsided a little and the shaking stopped, Bruce drew away a little and gently hooked Damian’s chin up to look at him. Damian’s eyes were red and wide and liquid, his lashes damp, but his flushed cheeks were dry. Not a single tear had been allowed to escape.
He didn’t want to know what kind of punishments the League had for crying. Angry tears burned at his own eyes and he let them slide.
Damian’s brows knitted together. “Father, are you crying?”
Bruce gave him a small smile. “It’s going to be a few months before I can travel.”
Damian nodded.
“In the meantime, you’ll be starting therapy on Monday.” Before Damian could object, Bruce pressed the boy’s face back into his chest, silencing him, and kissed the top of his head. “It’s going to be alright, son.”