Chapter Text
“Sometimes I wonder if you’re still dead.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Damian sees Dick freeze in his tracks. He stands in the middle of his apartment with a pizza box in his hands and stares at Damian where he sits on the couch.
“As much as I’d like this dream to be real, it’s not, is it?”
It’s his greatest fear. Often he believes that it was too good to be true. That Grayson had never actually died and had returned to him had been mere fantasy. He looks back on the memory of throwing himself wholly into the embrace of his big brother, because nothing else mattered in that moment except the fact that his favourite person had come back to him, his greatest wish granted, and realizes that he very well could have dreamed that whole thing. Not only that, but he’d been foolish enough to actually believe it until recently. Come on, Richard faking his death in order to work undercover for a spy organization? Surely his mind could have come up with something more believable.
“Grayson… am I dead?”
Maybe he never actually woke up from that dream. Maybe he stayed asleep, despite the warnings, and chose to stay with a false Grayson instead of facing a world with no Grayson at all. Or, maybe, he’d never come back to life in the first place, and eternally wondering if he was alive or dead or dreaming is his punishment. After all, if Grayson apparently had not earned a second chance, how could Damian have?
“It was my fault,” Damian whispers shakily, his hands balled into fists at his sides and his eyes downcast, “I was not there to protect you. I was not there to fulfill my duty, and now we all have to live without you.” Not only had he not done anything to deserve his Batman, but he’d failed him in the worst possible way.
He absently registers the sound of the pizza box being discarded onto the coffee table and Grayson’s quick, light footfalls approaching him. Damian is aware that he must not be making sense, jumping between wondering just who is alive and who is dead, and is probably worrying his (maybe not real) brother. He’s ruining movie night.
“My fault,” Damian sobbed suddenly, covering his face with his hands and curling in on himself, and he finds that he can’t seem to stop the flood of pain in his chest and tears to his eyes, “You’re dead and it’s my fault, all my fault…”
Dick falls gracefully to his knees in front of Damian where he sits on the couch, gently prying his hands away from his face and taking them into his own. Dick’s thumbs run soothingly across the knuckles, and Damian can see his brother’s sky blue eyes, wide and worried, looking up at him imploringly. His lips are parted like he wants to say many things and can’t find the words to express a single one. Damian looks away as the tears continue to fall in great globs and splash onto Dick’s sweatpants. He tries valiantly to contain his sobbing, but it’s akin to trying to stop a tropical tidal wave, and he resorts to pulling away, to retreat to where no one can see his weak state. Dick will have none of that, apparently, and tightens his grip marginally to hold him in place.
“And I don't even know if you're real, ” he chokes out, and hears his brother swallow thickly.
“Dami…” Dick decides on, finally. His tongue darts out to wet his lips, and he draws in a shaky breath before continuing, “Dami, no. No. You did nothing wrong, do you hear me? Nothing that happened was your fault. I never want to hear you say that again,” Dick’s voice trembles, and whether it’s out of sorrow or fury, the younger cannot tell, “I… you… Damian, God , have you been blaming yourself this entire time?” He ducks his head, muttering something about ‘typical Waynes’.
Dick is silent for a moment, the only sound in the room is their mingled breaths. They are both too lost in their own speeding thoughts.
“I’m real,” he says suddenly, confidently, again looking up at his brother, “I’m real and alive and here with you.” His thumbs have started their gentle ministrations again, his voice silently begging Damian to look at him.
“ We’re alive.”
Damian lifts his head, trying trying trying to clear his eyes of the tears and get his breathing under control, which somehow makes the tears fall faster and the knot in his chest tighten around his heart. The expression he looks at Grayson with must be especially miserable, he thinks, because his brother’s face suddenly falls from firm and reassuring to impossibly heartbroken, and Damian hates that he can make Dick look that way.
“Oh, kiddo,” Dick coos, and releases one of his hands to reach up and cup Damian’s cheek, soft and chubby with lingering baby fat. He wipes away a tear with his thumb. Damian recalls his subconscious’ conjured Grayson performing a similar gesture when he had fallen for this trap the first time.
Strange, though, that this time he can feel it.
And as much as he hates himself for being so weak, Damian cannot help the sheer relief that floods his system as he slides off the couch and collapses into Dick’s waiting arms, and he realizes all at once that Dick is solid, Dick is real . Damian should have realized it the moment Dick had crouched before him and taken his hands. He feels himself gathered up and pressed flush to a warm chest, feels a soft, lingering kiss on his forehead as he continues to clutch to his brother and weep quietly. Dick’s fingers stroke through his hair, gently teasing out any tangles, before coming to brush flyaways off his temple and tuck them behind his ear. Damian realizes that it’s been a while since his last haircut. He should inform Pennyworth. Once he can manage to stop crying like a child.
He must have said something aloud, because Dick shushes him gently and whispers that long hair is in style anyways, smiling against Damian’s temple and burying his nose into the younger boy’s soft hair. Dick’s arms readjust to tuck him more securely into the embrace on the floor of the living room, and Damian’s hand twists into the soft fabric of Dick’s hoodie; one he had worn to sleep every night after his discovery of his elder brother’s supposed demise.
Finally, Damian feels himself able to draw breath without it getting caught halfway in his throat, and he pulls back from his brother to scrub at his eyes. Dick surreptitiously wipes his sleeve across his own cheek.
“What kind of pizza did you order?” Damian asks eventually.
“Half cheese, half Mediterranean.”
“Adequate.”
“Extra marinara on the side.”
“Well, it seems you are good for something.”
Dick grins at him and ruffles his hair, and Damian squawks indignantly before tucking and rolling out of his brother’s lap and darting for the pizza. It’s still warm, despite the delay, and smells exactly like the kind of food Pennyworth would be mad with Grayson for allowing the both of them to eat.
It’s perfect .
Damian brings the pizza box to the couch and throws himself onto it. He points to The Hunchback of Notre Dame when Dick holds it up in his right hand along with a copy of Lilo and Stitch in his left.
“One day I’ll get you to watch it,” Dick mutters as he pops the chosen disc into the player.
They eat their pizza and watch Esmeralda make a fool out of Frollo, but by the time she manages to come back to the bell tower to visit Quasi, Damian is slumped exhaustedly against Dick’s shoulder. His eyelids are dropping dangerously lower and lower, and he vaguely registers Dick grabbing something off the back of the couch before they are both wrapped in a soft throw fleece. He won't be able to see how Frollo inevitably loses (because yes, Richard, Disney movies are absolutely predictable), but lets himself drift off to sleep anyways, lulled by his brother’s warmth and the soft sound of his breathing.