Work Text:
“But that's just how the story unfolds
You get another hand soon after you fold
And when your plans unravel in the sand
What would you wish for if you had one chance?
So airplane airplane sorry I'm late
I'm on my way so don't close that gate
If I don't make that then I'll switch my flight and
I'll be right back at it by the end of the night”
Airplanes, B.o.B ft Hayley Williams
-
It was the most terrified he had ever felt.
He felt his heart pounding inside his chest and it’s rhythm drumming persistently inside his head. Bruce started running as soon as his feet touched Nanda Parbat’s ground. The mountain was crumbling in itself, the League was escaping with Ra’s barely holding himself together with Talia’s help, and yet the only thought inside his head was Damian.
There was already too much destruction everywhere, something that he knew his youngest son was at least partially responsible for. The feeling of deja vu kept consuming him, the absolute fear of being too late again making his blood boil even hotter and his body tremble with the intensity of his emotions. Bruce felt like his legs weren’t running at the speed he was ordering them to, but he wouldn’t give up his son for another time - so he just pushed them harder and harder still.
His ears were clouded to everything besides his own running heart, the shots Red Hood was firing didn’t make any noise, neither did the groans and shouts from every Assassin that tried to get on his way and were beaten to the ground by Red Robin. Batgirl’s voice over his commlink, together with Signal’s, didn’t reach his mind at all. Batman’s focus was entirely turned to the one that he had let slip away on his grief, the one that had been the most traumatized of them all with Alfred’s death - and the one that faded away into the background while the family split apart, unnoticed.
When they reached the Pit’s chamber, with huge rocks tumbling down and the green waters bubbling with the fire and chaos destroying it bit by bit, Bruce almost didn’t see the body between all the destruction. When he finally did, Tim’s gasp was a second after his own heart trying to jump through his mouth, yet his son’s reaction to simply go to the other boy was faster than his own.
“Damian, oh my God…” Tim murmured, reaching Damian’s form and kneeling beside him, soaking his own uniform with dark crimson blood while caressing with a trembling hand the dark spiked locks of his brother’s short hair, suddenly too afraid of touching the teenager the wrong way. Damian’s skin was sickly pale, his breathes were obviously labored, his bloodied lips were starting to go distressingly blue and there was cold sweat over his forehead.
Bruce slid to his knees too, reaching his youngest boy with trepidation and gnawing worry. There was too much blood, too many injuries and too little time. Barking orders, Bruce gathered Damian on his arms (his son’s body despairingly pliant like a broken doll), while running urgently and praying , like he never did before, that they had reached him in time.
Their escape was just a second away from being buried by an entire mountain.
However, the fight had only begun.
.
Leslie Thompkins observed his son's vitals with eyes that clearly showed no good news. The tubes and cables keeping his son alive turned it all into a terrifying wait for the worst while hoping for the best. Damian wouldn't live per se - he would exist.
She couldn't do any more than she had already done, it was all in Damian’s hands. His body was prepared to heal, his brain too: the only thing keeping him unconscious seemed to be himself.
Bruce just hoped that Damian would want to come back.
.
He was the primary caretaker.
Bruce took special care to move Damian’s body into different positions to avoid bedsores. He focused in exercising the teenager’s limbs, massaging and stretching them as much as he could trying hard to not let his son’s body fade on itself.
He talked to Damian’s form, about everything and about nothing at all.
He told him how he was an older brother, now. How Bruce’s relationship with Selina resulted on the reason why she wasn’t visiting Damian so much - with Helena being just a few days born and demanding so much attention, it was almost impossible to stay for any time inside Damian’s room.
Sometimes he kept quiet, caressing his son’s black hair that kept growing and growing, and other times he just stared at his face hoping strongly that Damian’s eyes would finally open.
He knew the others were visiting on their own time. He knew about Jason’s reading nights, just like he knew Tim brought Damian his favorite tea as an excuse to talk to him and discuss WE things. He knew Dick remembered everything. He knew how Ric Grayson ‘accidentally’ saw a photograph of Damian Wayne in a coma after being confronted by one Barbara Gordon about his refusal to visit the kid. She had told Bruce her words to the other man, how she thought that even if Dick didn't feel anything for them anymore, his presence could help Damian's memories to keep the kid's brain active and who knows, maybe even help him come back to the surface. The redhead had forced him to see for himself the kid that he could help without the need to feel like a part of the family again, and the image of Damian almost dead and unresponsive on the bed ironically worked as the necessary push for all his memories to come back.
It wasn’t difficult to imagine which memory got triggered hard enough to bring back Dick Grayson: ten year old Damian, bloodied, with a hole on his chest where the Heretic had impaled him with a sword, dead by his own mother's hands; that Damian overlapping blatantly with the one in a coma in the photograph, pale and slack faced, too quiet and unmoving.
His heart tightened, because sometimes he saw it too.
Bruce knew Damian’s friends wanted to see him and eventually he let them visit - even the meta ones. He was at a point that he didn’t care if they were in Gotham after so many years of banning them. So he let them talk to his boy as much as they wanted, how many times they chose to appear at the manor.
For a few times he entertained the idea of asking Raven or Djinn to go into his son’s head and bring him back.
But he just couldn’t do it. He couldn’t ask that of them. In just thinking about it he always was left with a bad taste on his mouth, almost like he was betraying Damian in doing so.
So he never asked anything from any of them, neither from the Justice League. He had to believe in Damian. In Damian’s strength.
He took a leap of faith.
.
And after almost a year, Damian’s eyes opened slowly and slugshly for the first time.
.
Bruce was changing Damian’s position again, just the usual routine: shifting his torso to the side, folding his legs for a bit, taking care of not putting too much pressure on the arm left under his body. He took a few minutes to notice the blinking eyelashes and the twitching of for far too long unmoving fingers.
As soon as he did, he felt his heart almost jump out of his mouth. He froze, staring at his son’s open unfocused green eyes, not believing that what he waited for months to happen was really happening at all.
Damian went back to sleep just a few moments after, and Bruce was still frozen at the same spot, breathing rapidly, with his big and calloused hands trembling almost as much as they did when he found Damian unter a crumbling Nanda Parbat. His voice failed, only air leaving his lips when he tried to call for anyone at the house to call for Dr Leslie.
Almost like she was guided by the heavens, Helena walked in with baby steps, open little arms trying to balance herself, clearly having escaped Selina’s watch for a second enough to her curiosity make her go looking for her Dad. She was gurgling little sounds, not really words yet, and soon after her came in Selina.
And she knew, just after taking a look at him, she knew .
“Oh my God, really?!” She gasped, picking Helena up while staring at Damian. Even if his eyes were closed on that moment, she knew. And Bruce kept breathing too fast , too little , and she immediately returned her attention to him, “Bruce, love, breath for me, in, out, in, out…” She whispered, holding his cheek with the hand not securing Helena to her chest, staring at him with her beautiful eyes and mimicking how to breath .
It took a few moments for his body to obey him. It took even more to his brain to function while inside it he kept yelling ‘ Damian woke up, Damian woke up, Damian woke up ’, but he eventually achieved the goal of centering himself and calling Dr Leslie. And while waiting, after calming himself down, he kissed Helena’s little head whispering his love to the toddler even knowing she didn’t understand a single thing he was saying. He kissed the woman he loved, resting his forehead together with Selina’s, breathing in her scent and presence, before he lost himself on Damian again.
He stood by his son’s side in vigil, through the time it took for Leslie to arrive at the manor and through the time she spent assessing Damian’s responses. He kept holding his son’s bony hand within his own and staring at his closed eyelids just waiting and waiting for him to wake up again, even when the Doctor kept telling him it could take some time for him to resurface a second time.
Yet, even knowing that his recovery would be as hard as had been to save Damian from death and that the family had a long way ahead, Bruce had never felt more alive.
And never more grateful that Damian was too.
.
It took a few weeks to take off all the tubes and cables connected to Damian, exactly the time necessary for him to adapt himself once again to breath and eat without help.
It took a few more days for him to be capable of talking - hoarsely, but talking.
However, Bruce would never, ever forget Damian’s first words after being conscious enough to communicate on his first days awake. Words written paintakely slowly on a tablet, words that shook him to the core and that marvelled Bruce enough for him to stare at his son for minutes with eyes full of tears and a wistful smile on his face.
Father. I am sorry. I missed you.
And then, the most incredible part:
Pennyworth sends his love.