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It’s one of those nights.
Violence happens, wherever he is, regardless of what he needs or is supposed to be. Regardless of who he should be; which mask or maskless or no identity at all. It explodes, time and time again, it persists, it devours. And Dick is there — has always been there — to do something about it. He’s there to intervene, to kick and throw punches, to fly, to scream, to make amends, to make war.
Tonight, he happens to be there to get shot in the head.
Bang.
It’s — well, it’s too fast. That’s good. Quick death? Is he — he’s alive. But he was shot. But he is alive. But he was shot, he lets the terror sink in deep for a moment. Shot by a no-name criminal that for some reason was able to sneak up on him like he hasn’t been fighting for his life — and more — since he was a child.
Some reason? Pft. You’re getting old, Grayson , he thinks. Or distracted. There’s too many hostages and Batman and Robin and Red Robin’s safeties to worry about and this is a stupid rookie mistake and his head hurts because he could be in Bludhaven sleeping but he’s not, he’s dead.
No. He’s very much alive, getting dizzy and knocked down to the ground as someone collides with the man who just — who just shot him in the head but didn’t kill him. His right arm is busted from a fight that should’ve been much easier had he been well rested, an agonizing sensation spreading like forest fire. Agonizing, sure, but familiar enough. He uses both of his arms to get up as if they’re simply covered in some scratches from Alfred, The Cat.
“Nightwing!” This is Robin, somewhere.
This is Damian, actually, because he sounds terrified.
(Much later, Damian will argue that he screamed for Dick moments earlier, almost in perfect sync with the gunshot itself. But Dick is hearing it. He’s hearing his baby brother calling from him right there and right now.)
He blinks, the world coming back into focus. Batman, all power and control, is on top of the shooter. Or alleged shooter. He’s not a threat anymore, that’s clear, and Dick takes a moment to analyze the situation. A few steps away, there’s a thick puddle of red on the asphalt; there’s Tim helping a woman to make a tourniquet to stop the blood coming out of a wound on her tight; there’s Red Robin’s fighting staff on the floor.
To the right, a criminal passed out, gun barely out of his grasp.
Dick almost laughs.
“It was very close to you,” Batman grumbles from his left. “We thought —”
“I’m fine,” Dick interrupts. “I’m just slow tonight.”
“Shouldn’t have called you to help.”
He agrees, but he’s not worried about answering Bruce right now. Instead, he makes a thumbs up to Damian as he runs over to them, katana in hand and a certain madness to his usually precise movements.
Despite it all, Dick smiles. But he needs to say something. What comes out is: “I’m A-Okay.”
He is. He really is A-Okay. Although close, it was another gun who was fired, not the one pointed at him, he’s great. The tiredness deep in his bones will be gone after some good sleep. It has happened before. Dick is a fighter, yes, but he’s human and sometimes all the sorrow he has felt over the years makes it almost impossible to move, let alone fight. And he admits it — albeit to himself solely — even if the man who trained him does not.
But, despite him being A-Okay, Damian does not speak to him for the rest of the night.
Dick is off to chase a bird.
He fistbumps Tim. He pats Bruce on the shoulder. He hugs Alfred, who, of course, patched him up, fixed him where he needed the fixing and scolded him where he needed the scolding. He’s not Nightwing anymore; he has showered and changed into Wonder Woman pajamas that Steph once bought Jason as a joke (he loved it, but left behind at the Manor with many of his memories.)
It’s a sad thing that Dick knows when Damian disappears because he is miserable. The others didn’t seem to worry earlier when Robin left the Cave without a word to go upstairs still full dressed like a traffic light even if it’s against the rules — traffic light is as Jason loves to put it; that’s just Damian, sometimes, eerily silent, footsteps always getting away from where you are, right?
(He’s being too hard on them. Especially on Bruce. Dick knows he’ll check on Damian once he puts Batman to rest.)
To Dick, it’s not that simple: most of the times, Damian, once so reserved and arrogant, wants to stay by your side. There’s the I’m-going-to-draw kind of leaving, the I-miss-my-pets kind of leaving, I-think-you-want-me-to-go kind of leaving and a few more that he has grown familiar with. And this is for sure Damian leaving because he thinks it’s dangerous for others to be around him.
Dick wishes the boy wasn’t so hard on himself. But, then again, it’s a family trait.
“I’m coming, kiddo.” He murmurs to the portraits on the walls. “Hold on.”
The way to Damian’s room is something he knows by heart and he hums a soft tone to bright the corridors of the Manor, but, mostly to do something about the sadness that threatens to break free from his chest and drip, drip, drip. When will Damian think of himself with the same love Dick does? Soon, if he allows himself to hope. Today, if he succeeds.
“Can I come in?”
A muffled hmmmmpft reaches his ears through the door. He decides it’s good enough of an agreement, and steps inside. Dick finds the curious image of Robin’s back to him, sitting on the window sill of Damian’s room. He’s facing the outside world that is made of a soft golden sky, the Manor’s gardens stretching far under his green boots and the city’s outline peeking out of the early morning fog.
No one says anything for a while.
“Are you —,” Damian clears his throat. “Were your injuries well taken care of?”
“Alfie is the best,” he says. “But there is something bothering me.”
Damian doesn’t look at him. “I trust that Pennyworth will be glad to be of assistance.”
“Kiddo…”
“Goodbye.”
Dick represses a sigh and crosses the distance between them. He sits by his brother’s side, not a single part touching. Instead of looking at the horizon — or whatever Damian is fixating on —, his eyes gently take in the boy’s tense posture. Damian knows he’s being watched, of course, but his face stays pointedly turned away.
“Mask,” it’s all Dick says.
“It is not wise to remove my mask when I’m in uniform.”
“Wanna look you in the eyes,” he insists. “And you shouldn’t be even dressed like this upstairs. Alfred will have you clean the Cave for a week.”
Damian clicks his tongue, but obeys. Still not looking at Dick, he then jerks his head in the direction of a nearby tree. “Those birds are now aware of my secret identity and it’s your fault.”
“Look at you and your time-inappropriate jokes,” Dick weeps away a fake tear. “So proud.”
“Learned from the best.”
Despite the light teasing, Damian says each phrase as if it’s the last one in the conversation. Dick does what he does best and ignores every evidence that he’s supposed to go away right now, Richard and makes himself comfortable where he is.
Enough small talk.
“Are you mad at me?”
Damian scoffs. “Should I be?”
“There’s no should or shouldn’t when it comes to feeling.”
“I am not angry at you, Richard.” he rests his small hands on his knees, nails digging into the fabric. “I am simply not in the mood.”
“Not in the mood?” He echos. “Conversation mood? Or me mood?”
Damian’s voice softens almost imperceptibly. “You can stay.”
“Thanks. Because I want to.” His fingertips touch Damian’s chin, gently having him turn until Dick is face to face with familiar green eyes. “Any chances you’ll tell me what are you feeling right now?”
“...everything.”
“Everything sure is a lot,” Dick winces. “Is this about tonight’s patrol? You thought I was hurt.”
“I thought you were dead ,“ Damian all but snarls, small frame trembling.
“I’m right here, kiddo.” He takes off one of Robin’s gloves, guiding Damian’s hand to his chest, where his heartbeat is steady. “See? Still alive and kicking.”
“I know,” he whispers, twisting Dick’s shirt into his fist. “But…”
I know, but I’m still scared, the gesture seems to say and Dick recognizes the emotion that has his brother eager to hold Dick in place, here at home. Give up this life and stay safe forever. Dick has lost count of how many times he was too close to saying this to his siblings and even to Bruce himself. If Damian hadn't grown up taught by violence, under Ra’s cruelty and surrounded by the myth of the Dark Knight, if he didn’t need it so desperately, Dick wouldn’t let his brother near Robin’s mantle or any other.
But they’re far too lost.
Damian doesn’t look like he’s ready to accept a hug right now, so Dick settles for talking into the night until he is, words heavy but tone light.
“Sometimes, a patrol is — you can’t describe it.” He gently pries Damian’s hand off him, squeezing it. “You can’t. You can’t put it into any word you’ve learned so far and to feel it means barely getting out alive. And you think: maybe I’ll retire. I’m not old, but I do feel old and maybe I’ll retire. Just for a little while. Just enough for me to learn a word powerful enough to make sense of my experience. And ‘I'll come back. I’ll come back and save the world and never think of retiring again.”
“...but we would not live peacefully as civilians, I believe.”
“We wouldn’t,” Dick smiles sadly. “But sometimes anything seems better than...this.”
“Thinking about leaving this life makes me feel as though I’m letting it win.”
“It?”
“Gotham.”
Damian points vaguely at the rooftops at distance, some barely visible through the morning fog, but Dick feels like they should both be looking at something inside them, something that, even if part of a heart or part of a soul, even if flesh or bones, is still made of skyscrapers and dirty alleys.
A long time ago, Alfred said he wouldn’t be surprised if someday Bruce found out that his cape had become one with Gotham’s long shadows at twilight time. Master Bruce... , he had sighed, you act as though you are a protector, but you do not seem to know how to distinguish yourself from what you are protecting. You won’t find a way to heal if you keep pretending that your pain is pinpointed to a map.
Gotham’s Welcome! sign is alive and well despite some minor acts of vandalism, Bruce hasn’t healed to this day, and so hasn’t Dick, and they both know they won’t, but they’re still trying, aren’t they?
“Not a fair fight, kiddo.” Dick closes his eyes, lost in a time before himself. “Bruce — we never stood a chance against this city.”
“Then why —”
“Why to do anything at all?” He raises an eyebrow. “You know the answer, Damian.”
“No names in the field.”
It’s a perfect imitation of Batman’s voice.
Dick’s Batman. (Damian’s Batman. His first one, at least. Perhaps his favorite one. Perhaps, not. Is it even possible to compare? It’s not the time, he thinks, Grayson, it’s not the time to love Damian so much it hurts, you need to be in one piece to pick up his, all scattered around Alfred’s immaculate, clean floor that sometimes Damian prays on. Although Dick is not sure to whom.)
It’s softer than he intends: “We’re home.”
“But I’m still in my uniform.” Damian’s childish stubbornness to have a valid point almost makes Dick smile. “No names.”
“Whatever you say, Damian.”
He doesn’t put up a fight, doesn’t indulge Dick’s silliness. Not even a mere huff of annoyance or a show of rolling, mocking green eyes. Instead, he lets out a sniffle.
“I do know. I do know why I fight even if I’m not capable of changing everything permanently for better. You, Father and, well, everyone who works with us, allies and associates—”
“And family.”
“...and family. You all taught me the value of making a difference, as small as it may seem.”
Damian then hesitates, biting his lower lip. He stays like this until Dick taps his shoulder and says: “Go on.”
“But sometimes I want to… I spent so much time learning, absorbing, understanding and practicing better values. An entirely new moral code. But sometimes I wish I wasn’t able to think as hard and as unforgivingly as I do. To feel as deeply as I do.”
“You—”
“I wish I wasn’t human,” his voice cracks. “I don’t trust myself to be one. I haven’t even behaved like a human most of my life anyway—”
“Damian,” Dick interrupts. “Breathe. Please.”
“I… Tonight, earlier, I...”
“ Don’t fall for this. You’re not those broken thoughts, you’re not your past, you’re not what anyone wants you to be in the future.” He still is holding Damian’s hand, and he squeezes it. “You’re not what you’ve done with your hands and even if you were — look at me — even if you were, I’ve seen these hands being gentle, being delicate, being strong, being heroic, being loving most of all. Towards people, animals, plants. Towards me .”
A grief-stricken sob bursts out of Damian’s body and Dick is pulling him onto his lap a second before he starts crying. He wraps his arms around him so tightly it looks like he won’t ever let go.
“I’m sorry,” Damian manages to say. “I’m… I’m afraid I’m not making any sense. You really scared me.”
Dick shakes his forehead against Damian’s as if saying, Don’t apologize.
“I get what you mean, kiddo. Not human, huh? I bet Batcow doesn’t have these dilemmas. Lucky.”
“Richard,” Damian snorts, lips twisting at the taste of his tears. “Do not underestimate Batcow’s very rich inner world. You do not know her as well as I do.”
“I don’t. But I like to think I know you. And — behind the spiky hair with too much gel (Dick ruffles it), baby-like cheeks (Dick kisses them), potato nose perfect for booping (yes, Dick boops it) and the bratty attitude (Dick is okay with it) — you’re good. Ten years under the Al Ghul’s guidance didn’t really change that. And I don’t think ten or twenty more would have, either.”
“No,” he shakes his head. “I appreciate the feeling, but don’t do this. You know I’d have grown up to destroy the world.”
“I don’t think so. But there’s really no point thinking so hard about what-ifs.”
“I think I did.”
Dick frowns. “What?”
“I think I destroyed the world today,” Damian hides his face into Dick’s chest, sniffs slowly fading out. “When I heard the gunshot and I thought it was coming from the gun pointed at your head.”
“Hey. Hey. I’m good. I’m here.”
“I killed him. I killed him as Father pinned him to the ground. I killed him when he was being incapacitated. I killed him when Drake called Commissioner Gordon. I killed him when you — you idiot — smiled at me and said you were A-Okay. I killed him when we finally got home. I killed him when Pennyworth said he broke your arm in three different spots. I’m killing him right now.”
“You know you don’t have to do this for me, right?” Dick sighs. “I’d never ask you to.”
“I know. But I can’t make these thoughts stop.”
“And how does it feel?” He asks, not unkindly. “Like revenge?”
“Like suicide. Like I’m killing myself alongside all you've taught me.”
“You’re okay, kiddo.“The thought of someone really hurting you doesn’t exactly make me calm , either.” Dick’s blood boils as he remembers Heretic. “I promise it’s okay to feel what you’re feeling right now. That your fists are the answer. Hell, that your fists should be the answer. I mean, why can’t they be? Why is Bruce’s way the right one for you — us?”
Damian mumbles something that sounds suspiciously like: “I hate it when Todd starts making sense.”
“But in the end, you know why we never take lives,” Dick says. “It’s not set on stone that you’ll lose control someday. Also, we’re here to make sure you stay true to your golden heart, bird. And you know what? Here is not that bad of a nest.”
“You make it accep— okay. Good.”
“So do you,” Dick promises. “It’s an honor to be a part of your family.”
He clears his throat and rests his head on the crook of Dick’s neck. “You’re a very significant part of my life indeed, Richard. I look forward to staying by your side.”
“What’s this?” Dick rolls his eyes fondly. “A business meeting?”
Damian clicks his tongue. “It is not a common procedure to tell your business associates that you love them.”
“That is not what you just told me, smartass.” Dick kisses his hair.
“But is that what you heard me saying?”
“Yeah,” he nods. “At this point, I’m fluent in Damian .”
“Good.”
“I love you too, by the way.”
Dick can feel Damian’s small smile against his skin. “It is not hard to notice.”
They stay hugging like this for a while, until they can hear the others downstairs and everything seems truly awake outside. Dick knows Bruce will soon be here to check on Damian, even if he wishes to be asleep; he knows, too, that he’ll go back to Bludhaven in the evening, and Damian won’t.
“Are you feeling any better?”
Damian gently moves away and Dick misses his warmth instantly, but doesn’t complain when he takes a few steps to the middle of the room. He watches him stretch out and fail to bite down a yawn.
“I am,” he promises, and that’s enough.
This time, when Damian walks away from him to meet his dad, it’s the kind of leaving that promises not to take too long.