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Bruce Wayne had never met Mary and John Grayson. He didn’t know what their favourite food had been, what they liked to sing to when they were cleaning up their trailer, what had driven them to wake in the morning and get out of bed. He didn’t know what they had looked like when they were exhausted, when they were terrified, when they were happy. When they been were watching their son.
But, as Bruce crouched in the dark alleyway with an unconscious Nightwing beside him, leaning against him with his head lolling onto Bruce’s shoulder, he could acknowledge that he knew enough about them to know that they wouldn’t want to be reunited with their son so soon. Not when their son was still barely in his twenties. Not when their son was younger than they’d been when they’d died.
Not yet, he told their staring ghosts, conscious of their eyes at his back. You can’t have him yet. His grip tightened, as if holding onto Dick tight enough would prevent him from dying.
Mary and John Grayson had been good parents. They had made sure that Dick was cared for, that he was protected, that he was happy. They’d made sure that he knew he was loved. It was more than Bruce could say for half the parents he knew; it was more than he could say for himself.
Backup would get to them any minute, particularly with Tim’s brand of driving egged on by Damian, but for now Bruce was left with his thoughts, monitoring Nightwing’s heartrate and making sure he didn’t choke on his own vomit. At this rate, though, Bruce doubted there was anything left in Dick's stomach. The serum he’d been injected with was a new one, a street drug going by the name Purple that had taken off like wildfire and spread from Gotham to Bludhaven in a matter of weeks. It’d been why Dick was in Gotham, helping Bruce take down the main suppliers.
Bruce stared at Dick’s chest, rising and falling methodically, if somewhat shallowly. It was more than enough – for a second that night, Bruce had thought he wouldn’t make it. This wouldn’t be the first time he’d held a vigil after a mission gone wrong, waiting for backup to get to them, waiting to see if his child would make it. Despite his best intentions and all the precautions in the world, he knew it wouldn’t be his last. They never got easier, but there was someone coming for them at least.
Bruce could vividly remember the time when it’d just been Alfred waiting for them back at the Batcave, the Manor a hollow husk. He could remember, just barely, a time when he’d been out alone in the field, when his responsibilities for getting himself home in roughly one piece had been restricted to just him and his mission, all about surviving to fight another day. When no one had relied on him to be responsible.
People really did look younger when they were asleep. Even breathing as shallowly as he was, Dick could almost be that teenager with a chip on his shoulder and a temper to match his punches; he could even be that giggling child swinging from the chandelier if Bruce focused hard enough. Bruce absentmindedly brushed away a sweaty strand of hair that fell onto his forehead, frowning when he could feel the heat radiating from Dick’s skin. He was shivering, body shaking almost indecipherably, but Bruce could feel it and it only made him press Dick to his side tighter, cape wrapped around him in an effort to conserve heat.
Throughout the years, he’d wondered, particularly after Robin’s catastrophic run-in with Two-Face, how Mary and John Grayson would feel about him. He wondered that every time he witnessed another first, another milestone. Their ghosts haunted Bruce just as countless others did. They’d joined the silent spectators watching him since the day he’d brought Dick home, judging his every move with their lifeless eyes. Nights like this, when everything was balanced on the edge of a knife, when Bruce could feel Gotham clawing at them with her claws, he could feel their gazes scraping his back.
He wondered whether they’d approve. Because surely no amount of pride made up for the fact that Bruce was responsible for the sheer number of scars that Dick had acquired over the years. And the same could be said about himself, he supposed. There were nights he’d spent hunched over the cot in the Cave’s medbay, vowing to himself that this was it, he wouldn’t put neither the child nor himself through another patrol ever again, when the fear and the worry threatened to tear him raw. When he could remember how easily Jason had died.
But at the end of the day, he hadn’t been the one to create Robin. He’d just increased their chances of surviving it. Maybe that was what Mary and John Grayson saw when they watched him, not the man who had thrust Dick into the bleakest corners of the world, but someone who had made sure a child determined to catch his parents’ killer would be equipped to survive it, and have someplace to come home to afterwards.
The low hum of the Batmobile alerted Bruce, snapping him from whatever train track his mind had been on. He moved his feet under him, trying not to jostle Dick too much, before lifting up his still figure with a grunt. Dick wasn’t as light as he’d once been, and Bruce wasn’t ageing backwards.
The car came to a stop with a loud screech of wheels, and Bruce winced, wondering why none of his sons drove with any of his finesse. At least he still had Cassandra.
The doors flung open and two figures jumped out.
“Do you have what he was injected with?” Tim asked as he moved to Dick’s other side to help Bruce. “Robin, blankets.”
Damian shot a glare at him, having already been partway to the compartment where the shock blankets were kept, but didn’t respond. Instead, he piled into the backseat with Dick as Bruce slid into the driver’s seat.
“Purple, but they tampered with it. I have a sample in my belt. Judging by how quickly he went out, I’d say it has sedatives too.”
Tim muttered something beside him, tapping away on a screen even as he retrieved the vial from Bruce's utility belt. Bruce glanced at the backseat, just once, to check on Dick, because despite knowing that Damian would alert them the second something changed, seeing it for himself helped settle something heavy in his chest.
Damian was staring at the still figure sprawled beside him stonily, but by now Bruce could read between the furrows on his forehead. His son had never been good at watching Dick lie unconscious; there was a hand wrapped around his wrist, observing his heartrate. As Bruce watched, another hand joined it.
Alfred was waiting for them at the Cave, the medbay already prepped. Tim and Bruce carried Dick to the cot, Tim leaving immediately to study the serum Dick had been injected with. Alfred hooked him up to an IV and heart monitor, checked his pupils. They all knew there was nothing to do now but wait for Tim to be done.
Damian stood at the foot of the bed, weight shifting from foot to foot. Bruce wouldn’t have noticed it had he not been looking for the signs of Damian unsure, Damian not knowing what to do.
“Go shower and get changed,” he told his son, placing a hand on his shoulder. “We still have reports to write.”
Dick was breathing shallowly, chest barely moving, face still pale as a—no, not as a corpse. Bruce ignored the pale faces staring him down, elevating the bed so that his head was lifted and knees were bent. Then, not because he didn’t trust Alfred, but because he wanted to see for himself, he lifted Dick’s eyelids to peer at his pupils. Dilated, a consequence of the drugs currently raging through his system.
Bruce stood at his son’s bedside, debating on whether he should stay to monitor him or go and help Tim with the antidote, when something caught at him. Or rather, the absence of something did. Sucking in a breath and ignoring the rush of blood to his ears, Bruce leaned closed to Dick’s face, because Dick wasn’t breathing.
And then there came the sound of a beeping from the heart monitor that jolted through Bruce’s chest and momentarily drove the air away from his lungs. On the bed, Dick looked the same as he had for the past forty minutes, pale and motionless.
Bruce didn’t waste time on shouts of denial, on freezing up and standing there useless. Flattening the bed, he got to work, checking Dick’s airways more out of force of habit than needing to ensure they were clear, and then began administering chest compressions. Dick’s body below his hands was limp and cold.
“Breathe, Dick,” he said, voice rough and grunting with effort. “Breathe, goddamnit!”
Rescue breaths. Bruce tilted Dick’s head back and lifted his chin, mouth falling open. Pinching Dick’s nose shut, he breathed out into his mouth, watching as his chest rose artificially before falling. Doing another rescue breath, Bruce went back to chest compressions, forcing down the flickers of panic that were licking at his heels. Dick would make it through this, because his son was a fighter, and because Bruce would accept nothing else.
He could feel Mary and John Grayson standing behind him, waiting for him to fail so they could fly in and take Dick with them, and he gritted his teeth. Not yet, his mind chanted again, his own heart sinking with each compression. You can’t have him yet. He pushed down the part of him that said, mine.
Batman would growl for as long as he needed to for the ghosts to leave Dick alone.
“Come on, Dick,” Bruce said through gritted teeth. “Breathe.”
And, miraculously, Dick breathed.
It was a tiny thing, not a gasp of air, but it was more than enough. Bruce had rarely felt more drained.
Tim, who’d been standing wide-eyed behind Bruce, walked forward. “Here,” he said, handing him a syringe filled with a clear substance. “I can’t guarantee it won't make things worse, and I'd hoped he'd be more stable when we gave it to him, but…” He trailed off, leaving it’s the best we’ve got unsaid.
That was okay. Bruce was used to unspoken words and flying by the seat of their pants. He just preferred it when he was the one in the cot, not his children. Bruce took the syringe from Tim and administered it. The two of them stood there, Bruce's hand heavy on Tim's shoulder, waiting for Dick’s vitals to stabilise.
It was early in the morning when Dick stirred, still in the Cave. Alfred, after being the recipient of two pairs of overly enlarged eyes, had relented to Tim and Damian staying in the Cave until Dick woke up. In a rare show of…something, the two of them were huddled together, a blanket thrown over their sleeping figures by Bruce.
Bruce himself had begun his vigil in front of the Batcomputer, doing his best to get work done. The sooner they took down this drug ring the better. Crime slept for no one, as he was so fond of saying, but when every second glance had been to the medbay instead of focusing on the documents before him, he’d moved to the empty seat by Dick’s head, and something in his gut had soothed at being able to monitor him properly.
Bruce didn’t know when he’d dozed off - the fact that he'd been up for almost two days at this point didn't help matters - but he was woken by a grunt and wheeze coming from the bed. His eyes flew open, consciousness hitting him instantly, and he was leaning forward in his chair before he knew it.
Dick was struggling to sit up, one hand coming up groggily to paw at the wires connecting him to the various machines surrounding the bed.
“Leave it alone, chum,” Bruce said, voice rough from disuse. He moved Dick’s hand away from the IV line, helping him to sit up.
“B—” Dick coughed harshly, hunching forward a little with the force of it. “What...”
“You don’t remember?” Bruce went over to the tray Alfred had brought down at some point, pouring a glass of water for Dick. “Slow,” he cautioned, when Dick proceeded to try and gulp it down.
“We were on a stake-out,” Dick said, rubbing his eyes with the heel of his hand roughly. Bruce grimaced at the habit he’d tried so hard to work Dick out of. “A fight broke out…infighting we weren’t aware of. We got involved, I got injected with something?” He kept pausing to look at Bruce for confirmation, picking the retelling back up when Bruce nodded. “I… did I throw up in the Batmobile?”
Bruce let out a hnnh at the reminder. “It was due for a thorough cleaning,” he said instead. “How are you feeling?” Dick still looked far paler than Bruce was comfortable with, and his hands were shaking enough to splash water onto the bed before Dick handed it back to Bruce.
Dick gave a wan smile. “Okay,” he said. “I’m alive, right?” At the look he received, he added, “Tired. Sore. My mouth tastes like someone peed in it. The usual aftermath of being the guinea pig for an untested substance.”
Bruce leaned forward and placed the back of his hand against Dick’s forehead. Dick jerked a little in surprise, blinking owlishly up at him. Warmer than normal, but not dangerously high. Bruce could deal with that.
“Sleep,” he said. “I’ll wake you when it’s time for lunch.”
Dick nodded, already moving to lie back down. His eyes were still on Bruce, though, silently asking for him to stay. Bruce moved his chair forward, running his hands through Dick’s hair. The sweat strands had now become greasy strands, but they were still the same as Bruce remembered them being, from countless nights of talking Dick down from nightmares and comforting him through illnesses.
Dick’s breathing evened out a little as Bruce continued stroking his hair. And then, just as his eyelids were about to close, they snapped back open, Dick going absolutely rigid. Bruce opened his mouth to ask what was wrong, but Dick beat him to it.
“Do you have a camera?” he whispered urgently, voice containing more energy than Bruce had expected from him.
Bruce blinked, tilting him head.
“Tim and Damian!” Dick hissed. “Look at them! They’re cuddling! They look so cute! Bruce, c’mon, you gotta take a photo. I won’t show it to anyone, I promise. Except the family.”
Bruce sighed. He could hear Clark laughing at him in the back of his mind, could hear his teasing voice as he told Bruce he was becoming a total softie. He could feel the headache from the yells that would ensue once Damian found out about the existence of the photo.
And then he stood to take a photo of his sons. All the ghosts had left.