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Bruce leans on the doorway leading into the kitchen, not yet daring to enter through the threshold as he observes silently. The sight of his two most precious people together warms him more than the sun streaming between the distant trees as it pours into the room through tall windows. He watches the back of Dick’s head where the boy’s perched on the counter stool, animatedly talking to Alfred. He sits on folded knees, pressing his palms to the counter and pushing himself up every once in a while as he chatters in between bites of breakfast.
It’s coming close to a year since Bruce finally brought Dick home, now only a week after the anniversary of the Graysons’ deaths. Dick’s grown more comfortable, gone from calling him Mr. Wayne to Bruce to B, from Sir to Alfred to Alfie. Bruce smiles as he steps in.
Alfred looks up, expression light and content. “Good morning, Master Bruce.”
Dick’s head whips around, a bright and toothy smile pushing up his cheeks. “Morning, B!”
“Morning, Alfred. Morning, Chum.”
Dick stands on the stool as Bruce passes, and Bruce compels his mind to wake up more in anticipation of a sudden tackle hug or leaping somersault or both. But Dick just leans forward like he wants to tell Bruce a secret. Bruce stops and tilts his head a fraction towards Dick, and Dick– pecks his cheek?
Bruce stalls.
Dick hops off the stool and races out of the kitchen. “Gotta grab my bag!”
Bruce blinks. Alfred eyes him with an indiscrete smirk.
“Alfred,” Bruce starts, staring blankly ahead, “is that a European thing?”
Alfred’s smile grows, and he begins clearing away the dish Dick left behind. “No, that is simply Master Dick showing affection.” He glances at Bruce from the side as he turns towards the sink. “Families share kisses in America as well, especially when children are young. Your mother was particularly fond of giving your young self kisses on the forehead.”
Bruce braces a hand on the counter, slumping into it. “Ah, is that so.” His heart rate picks up, and his chest grows uncomfortably tight.
Alfred busies himself at the sink. “For a man who is as well-travelled as you, I’d assume you are familiar with such things.” Bruce can hear Alfred’s raised eyebrow, but his own thoughts are elsewhere.
“Families,” Bruce echoes in a whisper.
“Ah, that’s what this is about.” Alfred shuts off the faucet. “Yes, I do believe he’s imprinted on you.”
Bruce thinks he might cry.
───
Jason hops off Dick’s bike when they pull into the cave, unable to keep the aching grin off his face. Tonight’s been good, really good. The zip of the chili dog still lingers on his tongue, and his muscles thrum with the satisfaction of a good workout. Robin and Nightwing teamed up for a patrol route while Batman took care of a less than savoury case on the other side of the city, adamant Robin couldn’t come along. Jason was peeved for being left out of it, but the memory barely registers anymore.
Batman is still out, but Alfred greets them with warm towels, mugs of tea, and a bowl of nuts for protein. Jason takes his towel gratefully and rubs the lingering mask adhesive from his face.
The whole towel blocks his vision as Alfred speaks. “I don’t suppose you’ll consider staying until morning with the late hour, Master Dick?”
Jason can hear the apprehension under the remorse Dick’s voice always takes on when speaking with Alfred. “Sorry, Al. Donna and Kori are expecting me in New York in the morning. Maybe next time.”
Jason doesn’t really believe that next time will be any time soon, but Dick invited Jason to spend a night in Blüdhaven for the first time this weekend, so he doesn’t really care. At least he won’t have to tiptoe around arguments. Maybe they can invite Alfred over too. Lord knows the old man misses Dick just as much as Bruce refuses to admit to. He scrubs quicker.
“I’ll see ya around, Little Wing.”
Before Jason can remove the towel to dodge the hair ruffle he knows is coming, there’s a hand grabbing his shoulder instead, roughly squashing Jason against the low neckline of Dick’s suit and pressure descends near the top of his head in confusingly not the shape of a hand. His chest tightens even before he registers the quiet “mwah” whispered into his hair, then the heat pulls away.
Jason’s heart drops into his stomach, smile wiped clean off his face. The towel suffocates him, his arms stiff and unmoving. He hardly hears the roar of Dick’s engine as he peels out of the cave over his heart squelching in his stomach, pounding hard enough to throb in his throat until he’s sure he’s going to puke up the squirming organ along with the rising bile.
“Master Jason? Is everything alright?”
Jason flinches, the cool damp air of the cave settling around him, sticky and thick. He’s still breathing through the wet towel. His lungs are heavy with water.
Slowly, he lowers the towel, not quite keeping his breathing steady but not hitching. Alfred’s eyes are full of concern, calculating as they take in his expression. Jason doesn’t know what he looks like. His skin crawls at the attention, which is stupid because this is Alfred. But, that was Dick. That was Dick, a legal adult to Jason’s thirteen, a man supposed to be his brother, who just put his mouth on him, like not even Bruce had during those first four months where Jason kept expecting him to, and he feels stupid for letting another three months go by without worries, but he didn’t expect Dick, and Alfred isn’t saying anything, just looking at Jason like he’s waiting for something, like he’s waiting for Jason to speak, but Jason can’t even breathe, and fuck, he can’t breathe.
Alfred crouches down and sets the tray of mugs and nut bowl on the floor, holding his palms out. “It’s alright, my lad, breathe with me. Everything is going to be alright. Just in, and out. Come on. In, and out.” Jason’s breath hitches as he inhales, though he tries to swallow it down. Alfred continues softly anyway, “Just like that.”
Jason sucks air in hastily through his nose and whistles it out through his teeth. He repeats until his heart is only a regular throb in his chest where it should be and his lungs no longer spasm at each taste of damp oxygen.
“Now, what’s got you so frazzled, my boy?”
Jason inhales sharply, storing the air in his cheeks before deflating and forcing his shoulders down from his ears. “Dick–”
Alfred nods encouragingly.
“Is–” Jason can’t figure out what to say. Alfred saw it, he’s sure, but the old man’s acting so normal. Is Jason just overreacting? He unclenches his own fingers from around the towel to scrub his gloved hand through his hair where the phantom touch still lingers.
Alfred’s eyebrows raise. “Ah. By chance, did Master Dick’s display of affection disconcert you?”
Jason’s brow furrows. That’s certainly one way to put it, he supposes. He shrugs, looking at the stone floor.
Alfred nods. “I see. I assure you Master Dick meant no ill intent. It is simply how he shows affection for his family and close friends.”
Looking back up at Alfred, Jason wrinkles his nose. “He kisses his friends?” Surely Alfred is messing with him.
“On the cheek or head on occasion, yes.” Alfred’s eyes grow sad, and Jason barely hides how he bristles when he recognizes the pity there. “It’s not a rare occurrence among families, though I think Master Dick’s intimate and open upbringing with more than just immediate family might have influenced this behaviour.”
“Oh.” Jason didn’t think– ‘Family and close friends’. Jason has no delusions that he’s as close to Dick as the Titans, but then that means that Dick must truly view Jason as his brother. Warmth blooms in his stomach, filling the vacant space his hammering heart left behind.
He understands Alfred’s look of pity now, what he must have thought, but Jason remembers his mother pulling a blanket over his chest and up to his chin, smoothing back the hair on his forehead, and planting a gentle kiss with a murmur of goodnight and I love you. He didn’t think he’d ever get that again.
“However, Master Dick is very understanding of people’s boundaries, and I’m sure he would respect your choice should you request him to stop.”
“Well, uh–”
“And if that is too uncomfortable, then I would not mind doing it for you, should you so wish.”
“No, that– It’s fine, Alfie.” Jason picks at the fibres of the towel. Jason’s still not sure how he would feel about it in the moment, even knowing Dick actually sees him as a brother, but there’s a chance he could warm up to it. He’s not going to tell Dick to stop.
He thinks of going to Blüdhaven in the next few days, where Dick might try the same thing. His stomach tightens uncomfortably again. Maybe he’ll say he has homework to finish instead. Bruce keeps saying Jason’s allowed to take things at his own pace, to allow himself to adjust to new environments and situations without having to explain himself or lie. He might still lie because he doesn’t know what this boundary even is yet. And Alfred said Dick would stop in an instant if Jason asked, but that’s not really what he wants either. So maybe he’ll take some time, go out in public together first. That might be easier.
───
It’s not rare, per say, for Tim to spend a night at Wayne Manor anymore. In fact, it’s become a much more frequent occurrence for Alfred or Dick to usher Tim off to a bed upstairs after a late patrol, even at Tim’s insistence that the walk home isn’t long at all. There’s a room now that’s been designated as Tim’s, right beside Dick’s ever-open door and across the hall from the door that’s never opened by anyone but Alfred anymore. Even though Dick and Alfred and even Bruce have begun referring to it as Tim’s room, and it’s the same one Tim sleeps in every time he spends the night, it’s not really his. It doesn’t feel like his room.
Instead of the cool grey of his home bedroom, the walls are painted a warm cream that looks brown in the dark. There are no colourful posters pinned up, not his Star Trek print, nor the promotional Drake Industries one, and not the faded Flying Graysons poster that Tim still looks for on the opposite side of the bedroom. A slightly darker rectangle of paint marks its old location, from before he moved the poster because he realized the sun coming from the wide south-west-facing window was bleaching it. This window faces north.
The sheets aren’t the same and smell of a different detergent, the same one Tim smells on Dick’s clothes, which doesn’t quite make sense because Dick washes his clothes at his own apartment, but he must have carried on using some of the same products as Alfred.
Tim’s started to stick some photos on these blank cream walls with little squares of folded tape, but it’s not even near half of the amount that fills the cool grey back home, arranged in a gradient of colours instead of chronological (he puts the dates on the backs), from one corner of the wall to the other. He’s had a lot of free time to rearrange.
Even with the warm paint, this room feels cold—empty even as Tim resides in its space. The desk and bookshelf are bare of any books or trinkets, and the curtains and rug are in the same neutral tone as every other guest room in the house.
He’s an interloper.
Most notably, what distracts his mind the most on these nights in Wayne Manor, is the knowledge that the Cave is below him. Back at home, it’s easier to force his brain away from casework because he doesn’t have direct access to all of the files, but now, the Batcomputer is just a few stories below him. His thoughts keep straying to in-progress cases and uncaught culprits, no matter how much he tries to direct them elsewhere, towards trains much more conducive to falling asleep.
His muscles ache, in a way that speaks of restlessness. Despite the average patrol length, action was down. There was a lot more talking than punching and swinging, which seems to often be the case when Nightwing’s in town. Now, Tim feels the occasional urge to kick his legs out in a violent twitch just to temporarily abate this feeling. Instead, he massages his thumbs down his thigh muscles, then his calf, repeating the actions for the other leg, then moving onto his arms. The restless ache subsides.
Laying on his back, his mind feels even more awake than before, the activity triggering some kind of sensor in his brain that he should be up and moving about. He forces his eyes to stare at the ceiling half-lidded instead of open wide.
His thoughts drift back to that False Facer they apprehended earlier that Tim is sure was part of the meta-gene activation and smuggling operation from last month, but he’s in the custody of the police now, so Tim can’t do anything about it.
He sighs aloud, then holds back a wince at its volume in the quiet room. This house isn’t actually empty. He’s got no idea how thin the walls between this room and Dick’s are, if Dick has even come upstairs yet. He usually spends the night when Tim does if he’s in town, but sometimes arguments start after Tim leaves the Cave, fights they think he doesn’t catch the beginnings of or can’t feel the tension of their aftermaths. Those nights, Dick often goes back to Blüdhaven anyway.
The door cracks open. Tim whips his head towards it, then inwardly curses himself for not pretending to sleep instead when he sees Dick’s silhouette from the distant light of a hallway lamp.
Clearly catching Tim’s open eyes, Dick opens the door further and slips in, leaving it ajar just a crack behind him. “Can’t sleep?” he whispers, perching on the edge of the mattress.
Tim sits up, the duvet and top sheet bunching up in his lap. He runs his fingers through the wrinkles, not looking up at Dick’s face in the dark. He shrugs. “I promise I’m trying. I just–” He wrings the blankets with his clenched fists. “–can’t.”
“I believe you, Tim.” Dick’s amused smile bleeds into his voice. “I just came in to check on you.” His hand enters Tim’s vision before moving up to brush back Tim’s hair, fingers lightly scratching over his scalp above his ear. The hair falls back to hanging over his eyes as soon as Dick’s hand draws away, but a fuzzy warmth spreads through Tim’s chest and his limbs feel less restless.
“Are you headed back to Blüdhaven now?”
Dick shifts on the bed, and Tim still can’t bring himself to look away from his own hands tangled in the blanket as he braces for the fuzzy warmth to leave him at Dick’s inevitable apology.
“No, I was thinking of staying the night.”
Tim looks up then, and Dick watches him with a soft smile.
It grows a little cheeky. “Someone didn’t mention that you’ve got a photography competition tomorrow. I had to learn from Alfred.”
Tim gapes, heat rushing to his face. “It’s not even– There’s nothing to go to. I already submitted the photos, and the results are announced on one of the boards and in e-mails to the top placers.”
“Those winning photos are also put up for viewing though!”
“Yeah, but so what? Don’t even know if I’ll win anyway.”
Dick’s unimpressed frown is visible even in the dark. Then a soft smile takes its place. “I’ll drive you to school tomorrow. Now lay back down. You’ve gotta be up in six hours.”
Tim flops back into his pillows gracelessly, and Dick chuckles as he draws the duvet up to Tim’s neck.
“I know,” Dick whispers. “Trust me, I know, but just humour me for a bit.”
He lifts his hand back to Tim’s hair and combs his fingers through it, starting at his forehead and sweeping back until his hand meets the pillow, then beginning again. Tim tips his head to the side towards Dick, and Dick’s hand moves to brush above his ear and down the side.
Dick begins to hum. He isn’t the best singer, but the wordless melody is soft and sweeps over him like Dick’s hand in his hair.
Minutes pass of the only sound in Tim’s mind being that gentle tune, and soon his eyelids droop heavily, just shy of closed. He likes the song, wants to keep listening before sleep takes it from him, but then the song comes to an end, drawing out in a low note that Dick breaks off of unevenly, seemingly prematurely, like it went beyond his vocal range.
As Dick smoothes back Tim’s hair one last time, resting his hand just above his hairline, the mattress shifts. Dick drops a light kiss to the exposed skin above Tim’s brow, warm breath ghosting over the point of contact as he pulls away again. “Goodnight, Tim,” he whispers.
The mattress shifts again as Dick slips off and out the door, the latch clicking shut behind him, and Tim stares at the closed door through hooded eyes for a long while. The tingle where Dick kissed him goodnight overlays fading memories of his mom bending over him after late plane arrivals, pecking his forehead and whispering apologies to his pillow while Tim pretended to sleep.
He’s almost positive sleep will come harder now, after Dick’s visit, all his drowsy focus centered on that one action. But–
That warmth invades his chest, spreading to the tips of each finger that curls into the soft sheets under him. The room feels more fitting of its brown walls now, inviting instead of foreign. Photos of him and Dick and a select few skyline shots of Gotham decorate the wall above the desk, spiraling out of the centre from a photo of Tim and his parents from four years ago. He can see traces of himself in the room now, in the well-used hamper in the corner, the too thin strips of tape stuck to the edge of the desk, his academy uniform hanging by the closet and his bookbag sitting below it. Maybe two rooms can feel familiar, when even the shadows in the corners hold traces of him, of this new, strange, almost-family.
He’s not sure when his eyes slip all the way closed. Turns out, he does fall asleep soon after all.
───
“Hey, guys. Who’s winning?”
Steph ignores Dick as she guides her kart up the Rainbow Road ramp and through the ring, snagging two item boxes a hair’s breadth in front of Tim. He curses when he doesn’t have enough time to grab the next one over. Steph cackles and tosses a shell behind her. It misses, but she doesn’t expect it to hit. She decides to dangle the second shell behind her in case Tim tries something dirty.
The back couch cushions shift as Dick leans over the back of it between her and Tim. “Ah, not Tim I see.”
Tim shushes him through clenched teeth in a sound more akin to a toddler’s failed race car impression than a hush.
Dick chuckles. “Okay, I get it. I’ll let you guys focus. Come find me when you’re done and we’ll go get ice cream.”
“Sure,” Steph gets out quickly as she finishes her second lap, then lets her shoulders drop their tension in the following few seconds of straight and open road.
In Steph’s peripheral, Dick leans further over the couch, she assumes, to plant a kiss on Tim’s head like she’s sometimes seen him do before.
“Uh huh. Okay,” Tim agrees absently as he leans into the affection, shrinking the space between Steph and himself fractionally.
Steph turns all her attention back onto the game as Tim’s icon inches closer on the minimap, cutting into the bottom corner of her own screen every once in a while.
Then Dick’s head is in her space, and she prepares to dodge any sabotage or cry out righteous insults. Except he swoops in and presses a quick kiss to the bangs against her temple. For a split second, her brain short circuits.
Her kart hits a banana near the edge of the road, and she spins right off the track and into the void.
“Ha!” Tim crows.
“Dick!” Steph cranes her head around to glare at Dick’s retreating form as Lakitu returns her to the track. “This is sabotage!”
───
Cass stares up at the Cave ceiling from where she’s sprawled on her back on the mats. Jason has gone to one of the storage coves to rummage around for blindfolds and earplugs—the next challenge in their ongoing competitive sparring session. She hops onto her feet, not wanting her muscles to get too lax while she waits.
Raising her arms above her head, she stretches out her back as far as it is willing to give, then crosses an arm across her torso and twists her shoulders with it. She switches to the other arm when the sound of Dick’s steady steps descend down to the Cave. She takes a moment to wonder why he’s here instead of at the penthouse with Damian and Alfred, then realizes he probably knew she was here and came to check on her.
She’s faced away from the entrance, and his steps go silent once she assumes he’s spotted her, but she continues lazy stretches. Expecting the attempt at a takedown, with the first brush of fingers over her side, she ducks and whips around, easily grabbing hold of the wrist and shoulder junction of Dick’s outstretched arm, jams her hip into his pelvis, and uses the leverage and her leg strength to toss him over the side and down onto his back.
Dick grunts then laughs breathlessly, smiling up at Cass. “Nice.”
She straightens up and smiles back, absently noticing he’s put on a bit more bulk since taking on the Batman mantle, more evident with the tight-fitting clothes. When he lifts a hand towards her, Cass’ smile turns teasing, and instead of helping him up, she hops over his torso and prances over to the table holding her water bottle.
Dick laughs again. “Whatever happened to good sportsmanship?” he jokes as he gets to his feet behind her.
Cass takes a few measured sips of water then says, “You ambushed me. No mercy.”
Dick snorts and strolls up to stand just behind her, looking over her shoulder and leaning a hand on the table’s edge. His shoulders are loose, body open. He’s directly at her back but not a threat at all.
She looks at him out of the side of her eye. Surprise ripples through his expression as he reads the open notepad laid out on the table. Cass’ eyes flick over to the T-chart written on it, with simple tally marks for each spar won. Cass’ name is written out in her scratchy scrawl in one corner, and there’s a neat J in the other.
When she looks back over at him where he hovers, there’s a slope to his shoulders, like the bags under his eyes couldn’t hold all of the grief alone anymore. It’s been hanging off him since the start of her visit from Hong Kong, and has now overflowed to weigh down his strong frame too instead of just his face. She guesses he wasn’t aware Jason has been here.
A light smile curves up Dick’s lips, and Cass knows at least that it’s genuine as it’s directed at her, even through the rest of the false levity he projects. He whistles appreciatively. “Eight out of ten?”
Before she even confirms her winning streak, his body laces with warmth and affection and pride and a hint of relief, some of the half-buried tension melting away as his shoulder bumps against her back. Cass nods anyway.
The affection crescendos. “Nice! That's amazing, Cass.” His following grin is wider and pushes at his cheeks, but not quite enough to shape his tired eyes into crescents.
Cass smiles back, pleased she can bring him some relief. She knows how much he worries about the safety of the rest of them, especially with a new child to train who is desperate to prove himself and quick to jump into action, and Steph who is skilled but has some of the least experience among them. He’s been pushing himself to the brink again and again so that there is never a moment in which they need backup, a hand, an ear and don’t have it. Dick is aware Cass’ skill outclasses most of the family, and it’s not lost on her that his relief probably comes less from her competency and more from her specific opponents’ two wins against her, even if they’re just the results of playful spars. Dick worries about Jason too. Cass doubts Dick knows he’s still here.
For her, this has all been to spend some time with Jason as he approaches the rest of them more easily now after Bruce’s death. He appreciates the silent camaraderie the two of them have. She does too, even as she sours to think about his past liberal use of lethal force. Pushing him away will only make it worse, so while she’s here, she’s intent to draw him closer, and further from his habits of attacking with lethal means.
Cass still feels unready to stay much longer than her week visit. The house is too big with Dick, Alfred, and Damian moved to the penthouse, and that space is layered with too much grief. As much as she still aches to help all of them through this, Babs taught her how to care for herself, how to put herself first before she puts herself into a position to help others. The man who saved her from her first father and took her in to become her second is gone, and that’s been easier to process on the other side of the world. But she’s here for a week, and she knows she can help, can temporarily at least ease their hurt and maybe their distance. So she will try.
She shakes off those thoughts. Dick’s happy contentment is a pleasant by-product of her bonding efforts with Jason.
“Are you keeping up with ballet in Hong Kong? You looked like you enjoyed it a lot, and you were progressing so quickly before it was like you were born dancing.” His smile, while falsely bright, is still lined with bright love and pride and something more complicated. Cass studies his face over her shoulder for a moment longer. It’s something like longing, reminiscent maybe, but the corners of his eyes spell out a long-standing ache for something other than when Cass was here and dancing regularly. Ah, he’s thinking of the trapeze, she realizes. She doesn’t quite know where her ballet progression fits into his memories, but she doesn’t need to understand.
She shrugs and smiles at him. “On my own,” she confirms.
“Yeah? And you’re okay with that?” It’s a genuine inquiry, no judgement in his tone.
She fiddles with the lid of her water bottle, then sets it back down. “I like dance,” she says, then pauses, trying to find how to convey her feelings into spoken language. Levels mean very little. She feels– indifferent to them. How her old instructors and the world rate her dancing does not matter to her, not yet anyway. Maybe one day it will. Maybe one day she will want her dancing skill to be parallel to her fighting skill, to fall into a pirouette as instinctually as a ready-crouch. Today, she just wants to continue wanting, continue liking, continue loving her family, even if it’s no longer whole. “I fight to… live, to protect. Dance is– not a fight. Dance is for me,” she settles on. She hardly remembers what she started her words with when she finishes, but hopes it all made cohesive sense.
His smile is warm, eyes searching hers with a love not capable of being described in any language but the body. “I think that’s amazing, Cass. I’m really proud of you.”
She does not need to hear him say it to know it is true. It’s nice anyway.
Dick leans in close beside her face, and even as Cass reads the telegraphed action, she’s not sure if she’s entirely comfortable with it, not having received that kind of affection from family even if she’s seen Dick do it before. Except he doesn’t pucker, and she can feel his smile on her skin as he presses his face against her cheek, smile to her cheekbone and chin to her jaw, almost more like a nuzzle than a proper kiss. The floodgates of his love settle into her bones as he says, “Way to go.”
He leans back, but Cass still bursts with warmth. She hopes he can read her affection too as she beams back at him.
Her eyes flicker to the side, past Dick’s shoulder, and she catches sight of Jason stopped at the corner leading to the equipment cove, something sad falling over him like a shroud.
At first glance, it’s resignation– but no. She knows that’s only a surface level emotion that’s easy for someone to blanket themselves with, tucking everything else under their skin, and even easier for people to interpret at face value. Jason leans away on one leg, but his torso twists just slightly towards the both of them. His shoulders slope down, but his fingers twitch and curl and clench and loosen in a self-soothing pattern around the items he holds. His brow lowers, eyes half-hooded as his lips thin—only fractionally, not enough to pale them. It’s longing and some frustration and definitely regret.
Cass glances back at Dick, and she wonders about the last time they talked to each other outside of masks that didn't dissolve into arguments or storming off in a half-futile attempt to stop any. Her heart aches for the both of them.
───
“Grayson!” Damian calls as he drops from the window sill into the messy living room and looks around for the owner. Richard was adamant about keeping work and living spaces separate when they were living in the penthouse, but now that he’s back in his own apartment in Midtown, case files and photos are scattered all over the couch, coffee table, and floor in hardly organized piles when Damian is fully aware this lousy apartment has a spare room for an office space. Hypocrite. (Whether Richard uses that room instead as a bedroom for when Damian spends the night is irrelevant.)
He hears a faucet turn on further into the apartment and deduces that Richard is in the washroom, so he resolves to wait by the door after closing the window. Richard would be less than pleased if he knew Damian came in through the window in civilian attire.
Soon enough, Richard emerges, looking surprised at Damian’s presence like he didn’t hear his shout upon entry.
He blinks once then fixes his face into a smile. “Hey, Dami. You didn’t call, did you? I haven’t been looking at my phone.”
Damian didn’t think to call. He just assumed Richard would be present. What he would have done were Richard not, Damian doesn’t know and doesn’t bother to think about. He crosses his arms and sniffs dismissively. “Why would I need to? You are no longer employed. There’s hardly elsewhere for you to be.”
Richard smirks with a slightly raised eyebrow, the expression he often gets when he acquiesces to Damian’s deflecting but wants Damian to know he sees through him. It’s patronizing and rankles him. Though he does slightly appreciate when Richard leaves it at that.
“What’s got you visiting lil’ ol’ me then? Missing me already?”
“Hardly. You were at the manor two days ago.” Though Damian thinks he didn’t stay nearly long enough for an adequate visit before he was chased off by Drake’s insolent glares.
Richard walks over and wraps an arm over Damian’s shoulders. Damian stiffens on principle, but Richard’s casual physical displays of affection have long since stopped feeling strange and uncomfortable from unfamiliarity.
“Well, I missed you,” Richard announces, like he holds no shame over the fact. “So I think it’s perfectly reasonable for you to have missed me too.”
Damian wonders why Richard hasn’t visited him again then, but doesn’t ask aloud.
Richard leads them over to the couch and shuffles all the papers into a stack to be deposited onto the coffee table, but he sets them on top of a comb and a knocked over lint roller, so the stack lists to the side and spreads over top of the rest of the papers and junk on the table. Truly a hypocrite. He flops back into the cushions and pats the spot beside him, and Damian slowly lowers himself down so as not to seem overly eager.
In a tone entirely too soft for the accusation he makes, Richard asks, “What’s got you down, Dami?”
Damian’s shoulders rise to his ears before he forces them down, body feeling as rigid as stone. “Nothing,” he bites out. “I am not feeling ‘down.’”
Richard hums, clearly not believing him but not out right refuting his claim either. “What have you gotten up to today?”
Damian watches his face in the reflection of the blank television. “Those asinine teachers have nothing of substance to teach, and all my classmates are inferior and act like children.”
“They are children, and so are you.”
“I am nothing like those imbeciles.”
Richard hums again. “What’d you do after school?” Usually Richard would tell him some inane thing about Damian allowing himself to act like the rest of those children (as if Damian would ever want to), but he seems intent on getting to the true cause of Damian’s impromptu visit.
“Titus was in need of a walk, so we did so.” He pauses, then quieter, he says, “Drake was visiting.”
Richard studies the side of his face, but Damian doesn’t look away from the black television screen. Gently, Richard asks, “Was there a fight?”
“He started it,” Damian insists.
“You wanna tell me what happened?”
Damian leans back into the couch, and Richard wraps his arm back over his shoulders, pulling him into his side. Damian has found it easier to be… truthful with Richard, properly parse through his thoughts when they’re not speaking directly face to face. He always looked people in the eye when he lived with his mother, needing to read people’s faces to know what they expected him to say, whether they scorned him openly for being young and superior, silently begrudged their relative positions or him specifically, or already knew their place. At first, not being able to see Richard’s face when he started this tradition left Damian apprehensive, unsure at all times what word might be a misstep, but now it only feels relieving.
Drake ran off almost as soon as Father was gone, leaving Gotham entirely to Batman, Robin, and Brown’s Batgirl, which Damian didn’t mind in the slightest, yet now he comes back regularly as if he has any right at all. Sure, Drake may have done substantial work in bringing Father home, but that doesn’t mean Drake can simply return to the manor from wherever he’s living at any time like it’s his home when he abandoned it. He treats Damian like he’s hardly worth the dirt on his shoe, and Damian is more than used to the treatment from many of his old teachers and his grandfather’s people back at the League, but both Mother and Richard have insisted that Damian is entitled to respect, and he’s more than inclined to believe the two adults that have shown him nothing but patience and honesty, so Damian refuses to stand for it. Worst of all, Drake claims to have been trained by Richard, but he hardly pays the man the respect he deserves either.
Frustration wells up in Damian’s chest. “He’s an insubordinate ingrate,” is all he manages, not entirely sure Richard would understand even if he could articulate all that he feels.
“He’s young, testing the limits of his boundaries, and adjusting to having a younger brother,” Richard counters.
“That interloper is not my brother.”
“His adoption papers and your birth certificate say otherwise. Also, please don’t call him that.”
Damian scowls. “He doesn’t approve of that kind of relational title either. I think that trumps a flimsy piece of paper.”
Richard sighs, and shame bubbles up in Damian’s chest at so clearly burdening him. Damian comes to him about these issues practically every week. They don’t even live together anymore, and Richard is no longer the legal guardian responsible for him as the law dictates he must have. Richard once said that Damian could come to him with anything, but he must be growing weary at this point. Even his mother’s patience wore thin sometimes.
Richard somehow catches Damian’s shift as if he can read his mind. It’s often as unsettling as Cain’s uncanny ability to read someone despite hardly being able to read any alphabet (though Damian supposes that might be why she is so skilled in that regard).
Richard squeezes his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Dami. I wasn’t sighing at you. I was thinking that Tim has been taking some of his anger at me out on you, which is unfair of him, and I’ll try talking to him about it.”
“Tt. That is absurd.” Damian crosses his arms over his chest. He feels smaller like that, already tucked into Richard’s side, but he doesn’t lower his arms again. “You have done nothing to deserve his ire.”
Damian vaguely sees the reflection of Richard opening his mouth to speak, but he doesn’t say anything for several seconds. “I don’t think this is a conversation for today anyway.” He adjusts, and Damian thinks he’s going to pull away, ask Damian to leave, but instead he draws his legs up onto the sofa, turns to face Damian, and bodily drags him into his crisscrossed lap.
“This is undignified,” Damian complains as Richard’s arms wrap around his middle, and Damian’s legs dangle out of his lap, one bent on the sofa and one hanging off the side.
“Well, I think it’s comforting, so let’s say it’s for me, yeah?”
Damian’s face feels hot, and no response comes to mind so he simply lets out another “Tt.”
“When people do things we don’t like or don’t understand, it’s important to try to see things from their point of view.”
“This is pointless,” Damian interrupts.
“Humour me,” Richard asks, a small smile in his voice. “Tim has gone through a lot recently, but he’s also not used to being a big brother. He’s unsure of how to approach you.”
“Ludicrous. He approaches me just fine. He is simply the problem.”
Richard tightens his hold with two quick squeezes around Damian’s ribs. “Come on, Dami. I said you gotta try and look at it differently. It’s a very important skill to learn. It’ll help you help a lot of people.”
Reluctance still remains, but Damian nods eventually.
“Thank you.” Richard’s thumb rubs into his arm, and Damian lets himself lean back a little more, feeling warm and safely enclosed. They’re still not facing each other; it’s easy to listen. “This is hard for me to tell you because I don’t think it’s fair to you to have to think or worry about mine and Bruce’s… disagreements, and I still don’t want you to–”
Something tightens in Damian’s chest at the thought of this being about his father and Richard’s relationship, which has seemed strained by no help of Damian's presence. He immediately crushes that thought because Richard explicitly stated that he does not wish Damian to concern himself with such things, and then feels guilty for dismissing his own emotions like Richard advised him not to do. Confliction tightens in his chest for a different reason now before he realizes he has stopped following along with Richard’s words, and he hastens his mind to catch up.
“–but I also think it’s important to share this experience with you, most especially because I know you look up to me.”
Damian opens his mouth to protest but thinks better of it.
“When Jason first took up the Robin mantle, it was done without my knowledge, and I was– it took me a bit to get used to.” Damian perks up at the chance to hear about a time anyone rarely, if ever, talks about. “I was also young and not managing my emotions the way I probably should have, and while I was upset at Bruce’s actions, I let my emotions make me unreceptive to having Jason as my brother for quite a while. Again, I recognize that I was young, but it was also unfair to Jason.”
Damian thinks for a few moments. The most logical explanation to him for Drake’s actions thus far has been jealousy of Damian’s role as Robin, and while that seems to hold some truth still, Richard is phrasing it a little differently. “You are saying that he isn’t jealous of my superior skill and therefore right to Robin, but simply my holding the title of Robin.”
“Well first, Robin isn’t about superiority or skill. I know we’ve had that conversation, but we can talk about it again sometime if you’d like. Also, I wouldn’t say jealous– More like he wasn’t forewarned and prepared to move on, and I think he would have liked to be given more of a choice in the matter. He’s upset with me that he wasn’t given the choice and time, and that action impedes his perception of you.”
“He needs to grow up.”
Richard releases a half-snort, like he didn’t mean to let it out, and Damian’s chest swells with pride. Richard clears his throat. “I think you both need to give each other another chance, outside of your feelings about the Robin mantle.”
Damian frowns, not pleased with that idea. “That sounds like his problem, not mine.”
“Remember what I said about seeing from their perspective?”
“Yes, I understand,” Damian says begrudgingly.
“I also mean that right now, he might think that there’s no chance you would want to get along either, just like how you think he doesn’t want to. But now that you are able to look from his perspective, it’s important that you try to be the one to reach out first.”
Damian stews with that indirect request and all that would entail for a few moments.
“Do you think you could try that? I’ll still talk to Tim like I promised.”
Damian sighs through his nose, then nods.
There’s a smile in Richard’s voice when he says, “Thank you, Dami. That’s very commendable of you.”
He places a kiss to the crown of Damian’s head, the warm presence at his back and waist feeling like it fully encompasses him now, and it reminds him of his mother. It isn’t the first time Richard has shared affection in this way, but it is the first time that he has when Damian wasn’t already half asleep in bed and too tired to rebuke the action.
His mother did the same thing on occasion. She would come into his room once he had already been instructed into bed to keep up his schedule, and she’d stroke back his hair and peck his forehead, murmuring affections in Arabic or Farsi or League tongue, the first two of which Richard has been learning and has begun to whisper similar endearments into Damian’s hair upon impromptu hugs or during those half-asleep evenings.
It won’t be today, and most likely not tomorrow, but he thinks the next time he sees Drake he can at least remember this conversation. For now, he sinks his full weight back into Richard’s chest and spares another glance at the television screen to peek at Richard’s tired smile pressed into Damian’s hair.
───
The grapple line shoots out of Dick’s escrima, hook unfurling and catching on the lip of the roof of the high-rise apartment two buildings over. As soon as it catches, Dick hops off his perch, holding his escrima like a trapeze bar, just as Jason lands right where he stood a moment before. He hears Jason’s grapple unhook then the click of the trigger as it’s shot out again before the whistling of air fills Dick’s ears as he picks up speed. As soon as the angle of his line drops to about 130 degrees, halfway between horizontal and vertical, he clicks the button to reel in with his thumb.
The line jerks once, then loses all tension. Even without looking up, he knows the line has snapped.
His momentum is still on a path downward, and as Dick hurtles through the air, he’s slightly thankful for the long drop. He wastes no time in releasing the escrima, grabbing for the second clipped at his waist, and whipping it out in front of him. His escrimas have always been harder to aim midair than the grappling guns, and he takes an extra half-second to spot a close enough catching point and line up the trajectory. He clicks the eject button, but it doesn’t push in. Dick jabs his thumb into it harder, raising his aim ever higher as he continues to plummet belly first towards– well, he doesn’t remember if it’s another roof or the street below him.
Suddenly, he’s no longer grateful for the high drop, because there’s no way he can break this fall.
His heart sticks in his throat, digging his thumb into the line eject button so hard the tendons in the finger twinge. Then the button shifts to the side, lines up, and pops in. His arms jerk back as the grapple flies out, but he didn’t compensate for his descent enough, too focused on the button and not enough on the site. It's too short.
Something slams into his side, knocking any air left from his frozen lungs. He expects to go careening through the air at the new trajectory, but a strong arm wraps around him, and Dick scrabbles for hold against Jason’s armour. They’re both sent spinning even as they sail sideways along Jason’s own line.
Then, for the second time in less than five seconds, Dick feels his stomach plummet at the twang of snapping wires. Dick’s may have been faulty, but none of their lines are meant to stop the descent of two grown men dead at a velocity of over 100 feet per second.
Dick doesn’t know where Jason’s momentum has them going. Jason should have a spare grapple, but Dick figures they’re about to hit something when Jason’s other now empty hand pushes down on Dick’s head to tuck it against Jason’s sternum. Dick feels a fraction-of-a-second urge to wrestle against the hold and wrap himself around Jason instead, but then they’re crashing through splintering glass instead of splatting onto unyielding asphalt, and the following impact of floor or wall or furniture has Dick’s skull knocking hard into Jason’s helmet and feeling a crack somewhere else yet unable to register from where. A bounce and then they’re rolling. Rolling and rolling and finally losing momentum, but even when he’s sure they must have stopped, Dick’s head is still rolling, he’s still falling, body plummeting towards concrete even as no wind whistles past his ears.
He’s dying. He’s sure he must be dying. Pain flares in every extremity, every bone, every inch of skin. There’s no way he would have survived that fall, several stories higher than his parents’. He’s dying, and oh god, he’s killed Jason too.
A weight leaves his chest, and the loosened pressure is relieving, but it’s no easier to breathe. Maybe the release was his ribs crumbling away, no longer pressing down on his lungs.
A voice, like a machine, grates at his ears, loud and demanding. Angry or desperate. Then he’s weightless again, but only his torso. He’s slumped back against something, only half sitting up, and his stomach lurches. He heaves, suddenly tilted to the side. Nothing comes up. He heaves again, and it’s not helping him get any air into his lungs. Then bile spurts up his throat and out of his mouth, cutting off any oxygen from making its way down. He tries to cough, but what comes out is another heave. There are two arms around him, tight and unyielding. They bring him back to sitting, leaning back against a solid chest as he struggles to gasp in oxygen.
“Breathe for me, Dickie,” Jason says in his ear, voice unmodulated but still underwater. “I’ve got you. You’re safe. Breathe for me.” Dick can feel the vibrations of Jason’s throat against the back of his head. Jason starts to rub circles into the arms of Dick’s suit.
Dick’s hands scramble up, trying to grasp Jason’s arms. “J–” he chokes, not enough air to push out the name. He gulps in a breath, almost choking on that too, but he keeps trying because he can’t push himself out of Jason’s grip but he needs to know that his little brother’s okay, that his skull isn’t cracked open, bleeding down both their suits while Dick can’t even feel his own fingers.
“Keep breathing,” Jason says, probably going for soft but still too gruff, in pain– and he must be hurt, and fuck, Dick tries to wriggle free even as fire lances up his body because Jason could be dying– he might have just killed his little brother–
“Dickie, hey, settle down. What’s five things you can see?”
“No– I’m not–” He doesn’t need this, he needs to see Jason–
“Humour me, Dickie. Maybe I’m the one having a panic attack. Now, five things you can see.”
He flicks his eyes around. “Desks.” They’re in an empty office, closed at the late hour. They didn’t fall all the way to the ground. Jason must have– must have–
“Four more. Keep breathing.”
“My– my feet, you.” Jason’s legs are bracketing his. They don’t look twisted at any odd angle. No blood seeping below them. “Windows.” Of the high-rise building Dick missed, one shattered from their entry point. Windows this high are meant to be reinforced, durable (though they must be closer to the ground than he realizes from the fall). The speed they must have been going even after Jason dead stopped their descent for a few moments to break through the glass–
Jason gently squeezes his arm where he’s still rubbing circles. Dick blinks and breathes.
“Sky.” It’s as cloudy as it was when he first hooked his grapple onto that roof, certain the line would hold his weight, an unwavering faith in a single object that he’s never devoted to any deity.
“Good. Three things you can hear.” He skips touch, most of their bodies wrapped up in kevlar and compression suits underneath.
“You,” he says again. Jason’s voice sounds stronger now, less in pain, but maybe he’s just getting control over it, putting on a brave face until Dick can get his shit together. “Jason–”
“Two more.”
“Paper. Wind.”
“Two things you can smell.”
“Pollu– B-Blood–” His breath hitches again, trying to twist around to check. “Jason–”
“It’s okay. We’re both okay. Your lip is nicked.”
When Dick runs his tongue over it, he finds that true.
“One thing you can taste.”
“God, I hate that one,” he says breathlessly. “My mouth.” Blood and vomit.
Dick feels Jason’s throat vibrate again as he chuckles. “Yeah, you’ll be okay, Dickie.”
Dick realizes Jason’s been rocking them slightly side to side. “Y-you’re okay?” He goes to twist around again, but Jason holds him tightly.
“I’m okay. Don’t move yet though. Your leg is broken.”
“My–” He looks at it again, bracketed by both of Jason’s. Everything hurts but he finds that the pain radiates from there most of all. Air sticks in his throat.
“Hey, you’re okay. You’re gonna be okay. Few months of physio and you’ll be as good as new.” He pauses, breathes in deeply where his cheek is pressed firmly against the side of Dick’s head, his breath a ruffling whisper in Dick’s hair. “You’re okay.”
When Jason shifts his head, peeling away, Dick is sure he’s going to let go, stand up, walk away, and this unfamiliar, fragile moment will end. But then the warm give of lips rests right above his ear, a rough kiss that Jason pulls away from just as quickly as he gave it, then presses his cheek back to Dick’s hair.
“You’re okay,” he repeats.
Dick swallows down the taste of bile now that his breaths are more even, and he tries to blink away the pain, focusing on the gentler warmth along his back where Jason shields it from the wind whistling in through the window.
Dick sits, feeling the soft wisps of air fluttering in his hair, and lets this warmth, this fleeting, unsteady moment, stand for everything so far unsaid.