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It’s a familiar dream. Leathery wings flutter in his face, blinding him. Something has pinned his arms and he struggles, screams, tears himself free and reaches for help as he falls through empty space, flailing until someone grabs his hand and pulls. Mother.
He knows the feel of her hands, but she's holding on too hard. She's trapped him again. He hates when people touch his hands, he remembers Morgan Ducard and he needs her to let go and he is wild, screaming, tearing his hands out of Talia’s, or Morgan’s, whoever is holding onto him, their fingers cutting into him like claws, like the spiked jaws of a trap intended to catch a wayward predator.
His hands are covered in blood, and they're watching him with eyes full of anticipation, his teachers, expecting something from him, urging him on, hemming him in as he tries to run, figures standing in his path no matter which way he turns until he has no choice but to fight them, tear at them, hit them again and again, again, again—until they're not watching him anymore. Until their eyes are empty.
He has killed them, Morgan Ducard and his mother and the swarm of bats and other bodies he can’t identify, doesn’t want to look at. All of them scattered in pieces around him, blood up to his knees, blood up to his elbows, blood pounding under his skin. He's free, they're dead, but his hands are covered in blood and their empty eyes still watching and he is soaked, soaked and heavy and sticky, everything red red red—
He kicks himself awake, gasping, his throat dry and heart pounding, catching himself as he almost falls off the sofa in Richard’s living room. He hopes he wasn't screaming. He is sweating and he aches. Pennyworth says he is too young to wake up in pain, but the dreams make his bones remember all of the places they've been broken.
He left his medicine and his headphones at home. He wasn't intending to sleep here. He thought, perhaps, that it wouldn't matter either way. Optimistic. Optimistic is another word for unprepared . Unprepared is another word for incompetent. Both of his parents would say so.
He gets up and paces, hugging one arm around his aching ribs, chewing the nails on the other hand. He could go back to Gotham. He can go back to Gotham whenever he likes. He is awake now, he could drive. He could go back, and sleep in his own bed, with his cat, with his dog’s loud snores to keep him distracted.
Richard’s apartment is not good for pacing. The floor space is too constricted. Damian goes into the kitchen instead and climbs onto the counter to take down the box of tea Richard keeps in a high cabinet, a box rarely used by a tall person, kept out of the way. It's earl grey, a flavor he despises—the bergamot tastes like laundry soap, he doesn't understand how Pennyworth manages to enjoy it—but the ritual of measuring out the leaves and heating water makes him feel better.
Richard does not have a pot, and he is forced to make his tea in a saucepan, unstrained. He sits on the edge of the counter in the dark and watches the gentle glow of the electric stovetop until it burns a red ring into his eyes. He breathes slowly, carefully, and listens for the water to start simmering. He flexes his fingers. No one is touching his hands. He can breathe, and no one is touching him. There are no bats. Bats don't swarm like that, anyway. Real bats’ echolocation keeps them from crashing into people the way the bats in his dreams always do. It's a foolish nightmare.
The water begins to hiss gently. He waits for the steam to smell like laundry soap, and pours his tea into a mug over the sink. As he's taking his first soap-flavored sip, getting leaves in his teeth, there's a small sound behind him. Almost nothing—bare foot on linoleum, someone moving through the space who knows exactly how the space is shaped, and avoids creaking floorboards and obstacles on instinct, not through any special effort to hide.
“You know, all my friends think it's weird how I never turn the lights on,” Richard says, sleepy-voiced. “Bruce Wayne can afford the electric bill, can't he? I just tell them I find it restful.”
“I didn't mean to wake you,” Damian apologizes, mentally running through the list of things he might have done wrong. He can't stop thinking he might have screamed in his sleep. His throat is so sore. He did not mean to come here and burden his brother with hysterical, childish problems. He misses what they used to be together, but somehow when they are just Damian and Richard, with no Batman and no Robin, he feels smaller. He knows Richard doesn't think less of him when they are out of uniform. But he thinks less of himself, and it makes him weak.
“You didn't wake me up, I was awake.” Richard takes down a mug for himself, pours tea from the saucepan like it’s natural and requires no explanation. “It's early morning patrol time. Or it would be,” he holds up his mug like he's giving a toast, “If it weren't our night off.”
Damian curls his hands around his own mug, dropping his head to breathe in the steam because he doesn't know what to say. Was I screaming? He can't just ask.
Richard sips his tea and makes a face. “There's leaves in this.”
“That is how tea is made,” Damian says, grateful for the opening.
“Do I need to buy a pot, or something?”
“I believe that is what civilized people do. Although this variety is hardly worth it.”
“Oh, yeah, you keep saying that. So, hey, are you ok? Awake at four in the morning, drinking the tea you can't stop complaining about?”
“Patrol time,” Damian says, half-hearted.
“You're a bad liar.”
Richard is the only person who thinks so. It makes something burn behind Damian's eyelids, and he shuts his eyes to put the fire out.
“The secret is when you're feeling awful you use that snide little al Ghul voice,” Richard tells him. “Man, I hated that voice so much when I first met you. You need to upgrade your deflection script, kiddo.”
His hand touches Damian's shoulder, warm, not grabbing onto him or holding him in place, but just letting him know—Richard is here. This close. So Damian can reach for him, if he wants to.
“Was I screaming?” Damian asks, finally. His voice won't keep steady; it squeaks.
“Just tossing and turning a lot,” Richard says. “You hear any screams from me? Man, I have the worst nightmares in Blüdhaven. Must be the mattress.”
“Father told me he has nightmares too,” Damian says.
“He does. We all do. I dream that I'm falling off of something at least once a week. Sometimes I wake up and I can't shake the feeling that I'm going to lose my balance on the edge of a roof and crack my head open.”
“That would never happen.”
“I sure as hell hope not.” Richard takes another sip of tea and plucks a leaf from his lips, flicks it into the sink. “Sometimes that feeling sticks with me all night, though. Sometimes I just can't shake it.”
Damian turns his mug around in his hands. He does not drink, even though his mouth is dry. He dreams of falling, too, falling and drowning and being trapped and buried and strangled and taken apart, but those aren't the dreams that frighten him. Those aren't the ones that stick.
He has never told father which dreams frighten him the most. He is afraid father would agree with him that these dreams are not just dreams, that part of them is a secret wish Damian still holds in his heart. Maybe he can tell Richard. Maybe Richard knows the secret to not having those dreams anymore.
“You ok?” Richard asks, for the second time.
“Doctor Thompkins gave me medicine,” Damian says. “She says I am anxious. I keep forgetting to take it.”
“Might help.”
“She said she has been trying to get my father to take the same thing for years. I believe she thinks I allowed her to prescribe it to me because she could force me if she had to. She underestimates me because I’m a child.”
Richard laughs softly. “You're underestimating her, and you’re not really answering my question.”
“What question?”
He touches Damian’s shoulder again, soft. “Are you ok?”
“I dreamed that I killed my mother.”
Richard is silent for a second.
“It felt good,” Damian says. He can't make his voice any louder than a whisper. “It felt like the right thing to do.”
“Oh, kid.” Richard puts down his mug, wraps his arm around Damian’s shoulders. The angle is awkward with Damian sitting on the counter and Richard standing on the floor, but Damian leans into the hug all the same. Richard takes his mug, too, freeing Damian's hands to cling to his brother’s shirt, pressing his face into Richard’s shoulder. His shirt smells like bergamot—Pennyworth’s laundry soap. Like home.
“It felt so good, and then I woke up,” Damian says. “I used my bare hands. I killed my mother.”
“It was a dream, kiddo. Just a nightmare.”
“It felt right. ”
“Yeah.” Richard breathes out a sigh, ruffling Damian's hair. “Yeah, those are the really scary ones.”
Does Richard have red-handed dreams? Dreams where he tears people to pieces? Damian can't imagine it. Richard is a good person, he has always been a good person. Where would those dreams come from?
“They're dreams,” Richard says again. “You can't control your dreams. It's not your fault.”
“There was blood under my fingernails. I know what that feels like. I remember. ”
“Hey.” Richard leans away a little, pushes Damian’s sweaty bangs back out of his face. He's trying to make eye contact, but he gives up when Damian won't let him. “Damian, listen. I know. I was in charge of you first, remember? Talia, and then me. I know. Guess what I know.”
Damian shakes his head.
“I know how hard you worked to get away from that,” Richard says. “I know better than anyone. Definitely better than you,” he taps Damian's chest with a finger, “Because you're a Wayne down to the bone, and every Wayne’s middle name is denial. I know, for sure, that every terrible thing you did in the past is a thing that scares you. And I know that that's really hard. And that it makes you a hero.”
Damian closes his eyes. His eyelids are burning again. He bites the inside of his lip and forces his breath to steady.
“Nightmares are designed to scare you,” Richard says. “If you were a bad person, you wouldn't be so scared of a dream like that.”
Damian opens his eyes, fixes his gaze on the spot between Richard’s eyebrows. Close enough to eye contact to show he understands, he is fine, he is not crying. “You can't tell father.”
“I'll keep your secret, but just so you know, I really don't think you need to worry about telling him. He'd understand.”
“No. It's—that's his nightmare too. Me killing someone. He can't know.”
“Oh, kiddo. Maybe he doesn't know you have them, but believe me, he knows exactly what those dreams feel like. Dreams where killing somebody feels better than anything? I bet he has those every night.”
Damian can't think about that right now. He can't make it make sense. All he can do is repeat himself. “He can't know. He can't know that—It isn't just that I killed her, it's—I miss her. My mother. Don’t tell him that either. Don't tell him I told you. I don't—he can't think that—”
He doesn't know what he's saying. His hands are hovering, lost, and he gives up and uses them to hide his face. His shoulders tremble and Richard wraps him again in a hug, holding him close, holding him together. Damian hates crying, always feels like people are watching him even when he cries alone, but somehow having Richard there is better. Richard feels like a shield in a way that darkness and aloneness don't. Richard stands between him and the ghosts.
“Your dad loves you, kiddo. Nothing I tell him is ever going to change that.”
“You don't know that.”
“Actually, I’m an oldest sibling, which means I know everything.”
Damian sniffs and wipes his face on the back of his hand. “Shut up.”
“And you're the youngest, which means you don't know anything.”
“I said shut up. Leave me alone.”
Richard lets him go and picks up his mug of tea again, takes a sip while Damian scrubs his face with the ends of his sleeves. “I promise the only thing I'm telling Bruce is that you miss me . And I'm giving you permission to dream about killing me, if you have to. Don't tell anyone, but I've had dreams about killing Batman. Dreams where it felt great to kill Batman, even. I've dreamed that the Joker had good points. You can't control your dreams.”
“I know,” Damian mumbles. “You said that already.”
“I'll keep saying it until you believe it. Hey, how do you feel about pancakes? I think patrol time just clicked over to breakfast time.”
Damian slides off the counter. His bones don't ache anymore. Some time when he wasn't paying attention, the pain went away.
“I’m telling father you miss me more than I miss you,” he says. “And I will make the pancakes. I don't believe you know how to cook.”
The kitchen is lighter now—the sun is about to come up. When he looks at his hands, they’re dyed blue in the dawn light. But they’re clean.