Archive of Our Own

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Dick came to in a stark white room. The lights were dimmed, probably to avoid disturbing him, but as he became more and more awake and registered the pounding in his skull, he realised that it was probably to prevent aggravating his headache.

It wasn’t like he’d forgotten what had happened, but more as though it was behind a wall that he wasn’t exactly ready to deal with. Dick glanced down at his body, noting the bandages around his limbs, the pull of what was probably butterfly bandages on his face. His whole body ached.

The door opened, and Clark entered. He was still dressed in his costume, but either he had cleaned this one or there was a spare, because it was perfectly clean.

“Dick,” Clark said, a concerned smile on his face as he stood just inside the door. “You’re awake. How’re you feeling?”

“You got him?” Dick asked instead, fighting to sit up.

At his movement, Clark stepped forward and placed a hand on his arm, the good one. “You need to rest,” he said. “You’ve been through a lot—”

“Bruce?” Dick asked again, a stubborn set to his jaw.

Clark looked at him for a moment, then sighed. “He’s fine,” he told Dick. “J’onn was able to locate the parasite that was inhabiting him. It couldn’t survive outside the host body, not in our atmosphere. We patched him up, though. He hasn’t woken up yet, but he should be soon.”

Dick nodded, finally sinking back into the bad. It was as though all his energy had been sapped by these few actions.

“Is it alright if I stay here with you?” Clark asked softly. “If not, then—”

Dick nodded before Clark could keep going, relieved at not having to be alone in the impersonal hospital wing of the facility. Dick had never had to be here before, as a patient. Normally, it was him keeping Bruce company, as Bruce healed. It was strange, being on this side of the bed.

Bruce woke up to control over his own body, his own actions, and the ability to panic and have his body respond accordingly. The parasite that had inhabited his body had made sure to keep him awake for the entire time it had possessed him, finding pleasure when he thrashed in a dark corner in his own head, unable to do anything.

Right now, Bruce didn’t care about any of the twinges his own body made, the pulling and numbed sensation beneath a pad of gauze that was taped to his chest. He just needed to know what had happened to Dick, how bad his injuries were, if…

Bruce had no idea how they would recover from this – if they would recover. He’d practically assaulted Dick, on multiple occasions, touching him inappropriately and eyeing him, and then torturing him. There was nothing he could do, nothing he could say, that would fix this, because there was absolutely no way that Bruce would ever be able to forgive himself.

There was a knock on the door, and then it opened.

“Bruce,” Clark said from the doorway. “How’re you feeling?”

“Where’s Dick?” Bruce asked instantly, pushing himself up to standing.

“He asked the exact same thing, y’know,” Clark said. Then, at Bruce’s glare, he added, “He’s fine, all things considered. His wounds are healing well. There wasn’t anything too deep, nothing like your stab wound—”

“Did you check him,” Bruce demanded, the words sharp and clipped and the tiniest bit hoarse. “For…” The word dried up in his mouth, but Clark took pity on him.

“We did,” he confirmed. “And no, he wasn’t raped. He only woke up for a little bit, though, so we haven’t had a chance to talk to him about everything yet.”

Bruce gave one sharp nod. Normally, this would be when he walked out of the room to go and see Dick – actually, this was probably the first time since Dick had been introduced to the League that Bruce had woken up in the medical wing alone. But now, he didn’t know what to do. There was no way he’d be allowed near Dick, for starters, and even though the thought of that sent tiny little pinpricks of panic through him, it was a relief to know that there were people here who could, and would, stop him from being alone with Dick ever again.

“Do you want to see him?” Clark asked softly. “He’s asleep now, so you won’t be able to talk to him, but—”

“Why.”

“Why what?” Clark tilted his head, a picture of genuine confusion.

“Why would you let me see him?”

Clark blinked, looking at Bruce for a moment. And then he sighed. “Bruce, it wasn’t your—”

“You don’t know what I did to him, Clark,” Bruce said, sitting back down ungracefully. He buried his face in his hands, the same fingers that had done all this to Dick gripping his hair tight.

“I know that it wasn’t you,” Clark told him firmly. “It was just your body. You have no blame in any of this.”

“I let myself get possessed somehow. And it was my body that did it. I think that’s blame enough. And besides all that, do you think that’s going to matter?” Bruce had to make eye contact with Clark now, had to see the truth in the other man’s eyes. “Every time he looks at me, all he’ll see if what this body did to him. He’s too kind to ever say it, and he’ll probably push himself to be around me just to prove a point to himself and to me, but the fact is that it was me who did it. What about the nightmares? The trauma?”

Clark didn’t say anything, because there was nothing to say to that. But just when Bruce thought he was going to leave the room, Clark stepped inside, and filled a cup from the little water dispenser. He handed it to Bruce, and sat down beside him on the bed.

They must’ve looked quite a sight, Bruce thought, taking a big mouthful from the cool, artificial water. It burned as he swallowed against the massive lump in his throat that’d been building all throughout his outburst. Superman seated next to someone with dirt clogging his veins.

“I’m not saying this is going to be easy,” Clark said quietly. “Or even that you two will even recover all the way, or be the same afterwards. But if Dick wants to try, then it’s not up to you. And you owe it to him to try. If you shut him out after this, that’ll make things even worse.”

“He’s a child, Clark,” Bruce said tiredly. “They don’t always know what’s good for them. And I think after this, the best thing for Dick would be to…”

Clark snorted a little. “To what? Move away? Be forced into a completely new environment where he has to readjust to everything, be away from his parent figure, his home?”

“It was in me for almost a month,” Bruce countered. “That sort of thing doesn’t go away easy. The torture, fine, maybe. But the other things it did. Hiding his clothes. Changing his toiletries. Moving certain things around just enough to make him question himself. The gaslighting. That’s… And not to mention the touching.”

He remembered the thoughts that had run through its head the first time it had seen Dick, the things it had wanted to do to him. There was evil, darkness, things that Bruce knew and was familiar with because he dealt with them every waking minute. But then there were things like the creature that had possessed him, the sort of sick fantasies that it had wanted to inflict upon Dick.

Bruce didn’t know how he could ever touch Dick again without remembering those.

Clark sighed. “I’ll be right back,” he said. “Someone should be in here to check you over. Whoever it is will give you a number to call; a therapist. After all this, after everything you’ve said to me… Bruce, you should see someone. Both of you. Dick’s still a minor, so I can have him go to mandatory sessions. But it won’t fix everything if you don’t go, as well.”

With that, he left the room.

Dick was demanding to see Bruce. Clark was apparently keeping track of his heartbeat, because Dick had only been awake for a little bit before Clark had come in, catching Dick sitting up and removing all the wires from his body.

“Argh,” Clark said good-naturedly. “You can’t escape on my watch. I just told everyone in here how good a patient you are.”

Dick snorted. “Wow, you must’ve been lying right through your teeth. I didn’t know Superman was allowed to do that.”

“It’s really moments like this when I miss the hero worship,” Clark mused even as he took off the heart monitor, turning it off so the beeps wouldn’t bring a battalion of alarmed medical personnel running in. “Alfred told me to tell you to eat your food at school one time, because he thought you’d listen to me.” Even though you didn’t listen to Batman went unsaid.

Dick smiled a little at the memory. “He was sorta right, honestly,” he admitted. And then his eyes widened a little. “Oh, shit.”

“What?” Clark’s arms went to Dick’s shoulders to keep him in place, getting out the whole story before he let Dick go charging off.

“Alfred!” Dick said. “Bruce—well, the parasite—it said that Alfred had to go see his sick mother. I need to talk to Bruce. I need to get back to Earth and call him. It’s been like three weeks!”

“Hey, hey,” Clark said. “You can call him from here. And I’m sure Alfred’s fine. Bruce would’ve said something by now if he wasn’t.”

Dick’s eyes snapped to Clark’s. “Bruce is awake?” Whatever he apparently saw on Clark’s face gave away the answer to that question, because the next thing he said was, “I need to see him.”

Clark scrubbed a hand down his face, wishing, not for the first time since his two charges had woken up, that one of the other League members – someone like Diana, perhaps, or J’onn – had stayed behind from the mission they’d been called away on.

“What?” Dick demanded. “Is something wrong? You said he was okay.”

“He is okay,” Clark said. “Just…”

“He’s blaming himself about all this, right?” Dick said, again finding the answer to his question in Clark’s expression. It was a strange feeling, appearing like an open book around these two, when so many people who knew Clark couldn’t get a read of him. “See, that’s exactly why I need to see him! If he’s left alone too long, he’ll probably start coming up with dumb plans like sending me away someplace or—” Dick’s sentence broke off, and he said a word that had Clark blinking. “Clark, please!”

The next thing Clark knew, he was pushing the wheelchair into Bruce’s room. It’d been the one condition he’d been able to bargain for, and even then, it was either this or being carried in, and they both knew which one was preferrable. It wasn’t as though the soles of Dick’s feet were in any condition to be walked on, either, with how the creature had sliced through them lengthwise and burned them.

Dick was chewing on his fingernail – a substitute for his lower lip, Clark knew. He stopped right outside the door.

“You’re sure?” he asked, quiet enough that only Dick could hear.

Dick nodded, hand immediately going back down to his lap. “Yeah,” he said.

Clark pushed open the door for what felt like the umpteenth time, to see Bruce standing beside the bed, about to put on a shirt. He glanced at them when they came in, probably expecting a nurse or doctor. Clark could hear the way his heart stuttered in his chest when his eyes landed on the figure in the chair.

He could also hear the way Dick’s pulse rose, and how valiantly he tried to calm it back down. Bruce was probably right, Clark thought. It would take some time before Dick would stop associating Bruce’s face with everything the creature had done.

“You supposed to be out of bed yet, B?” Dick said, voice artificially light.

“Are you?” Bruce asked, but there was far more weight behind his words than they let on at first glance.

“I have Clark with me,” Dick said.

“I see that.” With that, Bruce sent a glare towards Clark. Had he been Kryptonian, Clark would have been incinerated by now. Then he turned to Dick. “You shouldn’t be here.”

Dick huffed a little. “I wanted to see if you were okay,” he said, his tone almost painfully earnest.

“If I’m okay? You’re the one who was—” Bruce broke off, shaking his head a little.

“I’m fine,” Dick offered. “You can even ask Clark.”

Clark grimaced. “He’s… doing alright,” he said. “Just need to keep the wounds clean, you know the drill. And he’ll probably have a headache for another few days because of the concussion.”

Bruce alternated between looking over Dick’s figure with a careful eye, and looking away entirely. Clark knew, from the brief conversation they’d had earlier, that it all stemmed from behaviour that Bruce associated with the creature, the things it had made him do to Dick that he was trying so hard not to replicate, no matter how natural it may normally have been to him as well. Regardless of how much he wanted, needed, to go over Dick’s physical condition, he wouldn’t.

“Good,” Bruce rasped. “I’m glad.”

“Are you okay?” Dick asked again His voice was smaller now; he was getting drowsy again from the painkillers Clark had given him another dose of.

There was a furrow in Bruce’s brow, something he did when he was in pain. “Yes,” he said, and then he turned and looked back down at his hands, eyes squeezing shut.

Dick wheeled himself closer, reaching out a hand of his own. Both of his were bandaged around the wrists, the skin chafed raw to the point of bleeding from the thin rope he’d been tied using. Dick placed his hand on Bruce’s, and it was like touching a live wire.

Bruce jumped away and into standing, letting out a hiss and clamping his jaws shut as the movement aggravated the wound in his gut. “Don’t,” he got out, the words forced and self-loathing. “You shouldn’t—it’s better for you, if you don’t.”

Dick pulled his hand away.

If Bruce hadn’t asked Clark to stay with them for a little while, Clark probably would’ve come along anyway, because in the twenty-four hours that Dick and Bruce had been kept at the JLA medical wing, he’d realised that sending these two off to live in the Manor was a terrible idea.

Especially considering they had yet to let Alfred know of any of the events that had taken place, telling him that everything was fine, and that he should return at the end of his cruise.

Clark had his hands full with making sure that Dick was alright, that his wounds were healing well, and that he was doing okay with homework. He’d also taken charge of the kitchen. With all of this, Clark barely had time, beyond the designated hours when he knew Bruce would change the dressings on his wounds, to check up on Bruce.

He carried in two buckets of popcorn into the theatre. Dick was seated right at the centre, with blankets and pillows ready. He knew, without even needing to ask, that this wasn’t somewhere he normally watched movies – Clark had been here before, for movie nights.

He passed one of the buckets over to Dick, and settled the other one in his lap. The movie showing through the projector was something that Clark knew he’d never watched, because horror movies were genuinely terrible.

“Are you sure we shouldn’t be watching the Chucky ones before this one?” he asked sceptically.

Dick looked at him. “They’re all pretty self-explanatory,” he said. “And I think this one’s a prequel to the others.”

“Okay, then.” And maybe Clark had tried that as an excuse to not have to watch any of these, in the hopes that the Manor’s rather extensive collection wouldn’t have it, but Dick didn’t have to know that.

Clark heard footsteps when they were about halfway through the movie, and Dick was laughing at him for not looking during the ‘scary scenes’. His ears automatically went towards the noise, to the faint squeak as the door to the theatre opened. Clark held his breath, wondering if this was finally the moment when Bruce decided he was going to stop ghosting around his own house.

“You wanna watch with us?” Dick said, turning his head around just as Bruce had gotten to the top of the stairs. It was clear that he’d picked up on the door opening when Clark had.

Appearance-wise, there was no visible change, but Clark heard how Bruce’s heartbeat increased the moment Dick spoke.

He’d thought it was just Clark here.

“No, not tonight,” Bruce said, still in that same quiet tone he’d adopted ever since he’d woken up. “I was just checking in.”

Dick didn’t say anything, fixing his gaze resolutely towards the screen, eyes trained in concentration. And suddenly, Clark had to fix this.

He listened until Bruce was just outside the door, and then said to Dick, “I’ll talk to him.”

Dick sighed. “He’s a stubborn ass. Not even Superman can convince him when he’s set his mind to something.”

Clark ruffled his hair slightly as he stood and jogged out of the dark room.

Bruce had headed towards the guest room that he now slept in. It was quite possibly the farthest possible bedroom from the guest room that Dick had taken up. Clark had, at first, chosen one roughly in the middle, but then, upon Bruce’s insistence, he’d moved to another that was closer to Dick’s.

“Bruce,” Clark called.

“Did I…” Bruce trailed off, but Clark knew what he meant. The same words that Bruce had repeated, ever since his possession. Did I frighten him? Is he alright? He isn’t having another anxiety attack, is he?

Clark shook his head. “You aren’t giving him enough credit,” he said. “It’s been hard on him, but it’s made harder by the fact that his,” he changed track when he saw the warning look in Bruce’s eyes, “that you’re avoiding him. He can’t help but blame himself. You know how it is, in victims.”

Bruce looked torn. “He doesn’t know what he wants,” he said with a shake of his head.

Clark crossed his arms. “And how is that line of thinking any different to—”

“It is different,” Bruce said fiercely, with more fire than he’d shown in weeks. “Sometimes, there’s a difference between what an adult knows and what a child knows, and it has nothing to do with powerplays or control.”

Clark rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Just admit that you’re the one who can’t handle facing him,” he said tiredly. That stupid doll was still playing at the forefront of his mind, and the antique doll that stood atop the side table in the hallway wasn’t helping matters.

“I do admit it,” Bruce said through gritted teeth. “And if I thought my presence would be any help in his recovery, then—”

“Then what, Bruce, you’d actually stay in the room with me for longer than the time it takes for you to realise I’m in the room?” Dick said, appearing quite suddenly.

Clark had to hand it to him – he hadn’t even realised Dick was approaching.

Bruce had stilled at the sound of Dick’s voice. “I thought that you wouldn’t want a constant reminder of what had hurt you,” he said, voice stilted and awkward.

Dick snorted. “If that were the case, then you’d listen to me when both me and Clark keep telling you that I do want you there,” he said.

Bruce scrubbed a hand down his face.

“It wasn’t you, and I need you to get over that so I can start getting over it,” Dick said crossly.

Bruce opened his mouth, and then closed it again. He nodded. “Yes, of course,” he said in a rushed voice.

Dick stalked off with a huffed breath, still with a limping gait from the injuries to his soles.

Clark looked at Bruce, who was watching Dick go with an unreadable expression on his face.

“He won’t tell you,” Bruce said, “but he gets nightmares after watching horror movies. Don’t know why he watches so many, or late at night, but…” He shrugged. “Used to stay with me afterwards. Keep an ear out, tonight.”

And then he, too, was gone, disappearing into his new room before Clark could work up a response.

Just as Bruce had promised, Dick’s heartrate started going up about two hours after he’d fallen into sleep. Clark monitored it a little longer, knowing that Dick rarely slept well these days and not wanting to rob him of the few hours that he did get.

And then Dick started talking in his sleep, whispered words under his breath and little pleads, and suddenly Clark had to do something. He was out of bed before he even registered the desire to do so, over into Dick’s room before even a jiffy had passed.

Clark didn’t touch Dick to wake him up. That much he knew not to do. Instead, he said from the other side of the room. “Dick, wake up. Come on, love, wake up.”

He blew a cold wave of air towards him, knowing that the sudden freezing temperature would help jerk him out.

Dick never woke nearly as dramatically as nightmares in Hollywood played out. His eyes snapped open, and he was completely still as he took in his surroundings. Clark could see the moment he recognised his surroundings and noticed Clark there, a flash of disappointment coming over his face before it was quickly covered up.

Clark had made sure to stand in direct light, turning on two lamps. He knew that one of Dick’s nightmares involved bulky shaped men lurking in dark corners.

“Clark,” Dick whispered, sitting up in bed. “Did I wake you?”

This part of the conversation was now mostly just a useless formality, designed purely so they could both sink into something familiar and normal.

“You know me,” Clark said, stepping towards Dick. “Superman never sleeps.”

Dick flinched a little at that, and Clark immediately searched for something else to say.

“This is why horror movies are a bad idea,” he said in as light a tone as he could muster. “I bet you dreamt of that creepy doll in the hallway.”

Dick huffed a small laugh. “It really is creepy, isn’t it,” he said, picking at the covers a little. And then he jerked his head sideways. “Sit?”

Clark complied, sitting at the foot of the bed. “Nightmare, huh,” he said, unsure of what to do now that Dick was awake.

Dick huffed a breath. “Yeah. Should’ve anticipated it, really,” he said.

Clark regarded him. “We can’t always anticipate everything,” he said. “Hot drink?”

Dick hesitated, and then shook his head. “No thanks,” he said. “Think I’ll just try going back to sleep.”

Clark nodded, standing up. “Do you want me to stay here? Read to you, maybe?”

Another little pause, and then another shake of his head as Dick turned over and buried himself beneath the covers.

Clark slipped out quietly, making sure to close the door behind him. His hearing was always turned up higher at night, but not really from any conscious doing of his own. It made it easy in the city to find people in need. Here, so far away from anyone else, the only things that there were for Clark to hear were the inhabitants of the Manor.

He could hear Dick’s heartrate, still not at resting. If he focused farther down the halls, there was another one, which was also not at resting. Clark got out his phone and sent a quick text to Bruce.

Want company? he asked.

The text was opened the moment it had been sent. Clark waited for the five minutes it took for Bruce to respond with no. Despite everything in him wanting to go and knock on Bruce’s door, Clark just sighed and headed back to his own bed, knowing the other man wouldn’t take kindly to Clark barging in anyway.

It took another week of the same for things to change. Clark didn’t know whether it was for the better, but ever since Dick had yelled at Bruce, it looked like Bruce was trying to behave somewhat normally.

He ate breakfast with them, sitting completely silently in the corner. It wasn’t as though Clark and Dick were much louder – Dick’s bad sleep resulted in him being much more tired in the mornings than he normally was, and one could only sustain a conversation with a semi-asleep person for so long.

Bruce sometimes ate lunch with them, on the weekends, or the days when he came back early from work. He didn’t like being there either, Clark noticed, but at this point, it didn’t seem like Bruce liked being anywhere. He never joined them for dinner.

He’d heard him on the phone one day as Clark was passing by the door, however, and it relieved Clark to no end that Bruce was actually contacting that therapist he’d recommended. He knew that it was helping Dick a lot, though he came away from a lot of the sessions with a bone-deep exhaustion.

It was late at night when the sound of something woke Clark up. He sat upright in bed, ears peeled for whatever it was that had stirred him. These days, with how hypervigilant he was at night here, it didn’t really take much.

It was the sound of voices. Even without enhanced hearing, Clark probably would’ve been able to make out the words. Dick and Bruce were loud when they got into a fight.  

Clark was out of the room in an instant, speeding over to the kitchen, where Bruce stood near the barstools and Dick was just inside the doorway. From the bowl of food in front of Bruce, it was clear that he’d come in here for a late supper.

“…like I’m the plague or something,” Dick was yelling.

Actually, it didn’t even seem like this was a two-sided fight, or a fight at all. Clark stood by the doorway, ready to intervene if necessary, but mostly just relieved that this was finally happening.

“Like you’re punishing me for what happened and blaming me for it and I’m sorry but I tried to fight it and fight you and I wasn’t strong enough to and,” Dick’s voice was now all over the place, rising and falling and stuttering with the force of his pent-up emotions, the façade of everything being alright collapsing.

Bruce was frozen in front of him. “I don’t blame you,” he said in a rush. “Dick, no, of course I don’t blame you. For any of it.”

“Then why?” Dick demanded, and this voice was thick, hands clenching and unclenching at his sides.

Bruce ran a hand through his hair agitatedly. “Because of what I did to you,” he said, as though it were obvious.

“You keep saying that but it wasn’t you—”

“It kept me conscious and awake throughout everything,” Bruce countered, and though his voice was stronger than it’d been for weeks, there was still that underlying shame that coloured it. “I could hear its thoughts, its disgusting and depraved thoughts about what it felt about you and wanted to do with you and—” Bruce broke off with a shake of his head, turning around and not looking at Dick.

Dick let out a shaky breath. “So, what, you’re avoiding me because you’re worried you’ll hurt me?”

“Yes,” Bruce said. He collapsed into the nearby armchair, burying his face into his hands. “They’re just running through my head, its words. Every time I look at you—”

“Then you just gotta keep fucking looking until you can hear just yourself,” Dick snapped.

Bruce sighed, and looked up at him. It’s not that simple, went unspoken between the two of them.

“I’m trying,” Bruce said, but it was like the floodgates had opened.

“You think I don’t look at you and see everything it did? That my skin doesn’t crawl whenever I see your hands and your face because the last time you touched me, it was to torture me, and even worse was what you did before that, and you think I don’t think about that every time I walk by the dining table or your bedroom or the living room?” Dick was breathing hard, his words practically incoherent by the time he stopped for oxygen. “I’m trying to move on. You’re not. You’re just avoiding it and being a fucking coward.”

Clark could tell the moment Bruce’s eyes had become wet while Dick had been yelling. Bruce was blinking rapidly now, his face screwed up. “Dick, god, I’m so—”

“Stop apologising,” Dick said, and by now his words were incoherent too. He sniffed loudly a few times, and Clark could hear him taking in a deep breath of air to try and calm himself. “I miss you.”

From where he was standing, Clark could see Bruce’s hands twitching from where they clutched the arms of the chair he was sitting in, a battle of wills to reach out or to stay back. Clark knew, though, that it was unlikely that Bruce would be initiating contact anytime in the near future.

“I miss you too,” Bruce said in a rasping voice, fingers tight and digging into the sides of the armchair.

Clark stepped out of the doorway, knowing now that they were going to be alright. He heard a rustle of clothing behind him, and turning around, saw Dick with his arms wrapped around Bruce’s torso and his face buried in his shoulder, body shaking. Bruce’s hands were hovering above Dick’s body, and as Clark watched, Dick let out a noise of frustration and tugged on Bruce’s arm until Bruce got the idea to reciprocate.