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Richard hadn’t been shot this time. No. This time it had been a laughably foolish hit to the head.
Damian clenched his hands into fists to keep from trembling.
He knew the drill. Richard didn’t want anything to do with the vigilante life. Anything to do with the family. Damian wouldn’t be selfish. Damian wouldn’t make the man feel guilty. He wouldn’t cry, he wouldn’t beg, he wouldn’t yell - because that’s what he really wanted to do. He wanted to yell until his throat was painfully hoarse because Richard-Dick-Grayson-Ric whatever had promised never again. He’d promised - not until he was alone. The second was alone he was going to scream.
He was going to sob.
The Batmobile rolled to a stop and Damian didn’t even glance at Richard as he stepped into the cave, slamming the door behind him and stalking toward medical.
He was going to stay while Richard was checked over and then he was going to train until he couldn’t stand.
He sat down on a cot in the far corner, watching as Father guided Richard to the medbay. Even from a distance, Damian could tell that the man was fine. Perhaps better than fine now that he had forgotten Damian. Damian swallowed the lump in his throat.
His muscles twitched and he dug his fingertips into his knees to ground himself with a frown. He- This- The trembling was untypical of him. He needed to get ahold of himself. He wasn’t a child. He certainly wasn’t weak. He inhaled shakily through his nose.
Breathing techniques. He knew them from the League. He knew them from Father. In for four counts. Hold for four counts-
He exhaled at three.
His heart was pounding dizzyingly fast. Loud enough that he worried someone else might hear it. His shoulders tensed, hiking up to his ears.
In for four. Hold for-
A bump to the head. That was all it had taken for Damian to be cast aside like something worthless.
He didn’t exhale. He kept holding his breath. The pressure in his chest distracted him from the hollowness that threatened to consume him. It was an emptiness, a loss, like grief only there was no grave to cry at.
He gasped. Lips parting, gulping in air until his throat spasmed and his teeth chattered. He needed- He needed to compose himself. Stop, he wanted to yell at his shivering muscles, stop, please stop before Father sees and Richard- Richard-
Damian had left his sketchbook in his room at Richard’s apartment. His- his room- he had a room and his stuff was there. His favorite tea sat on the kitchen counter, and Richard was going to move it-
He wanted, he needed, the- tea, the lemon tea, the warmth it brought to his chest, the soothing smell. He wanted arms wrapping around him, juvenile humor, and ridiculous nicknames that made him scowl and feel soft at the same time.
Even with his blurry vision, he tried to focus on the back of Richard’s head. Father was wrapping the wound and Damian blinked away ever replenishing tears. He had to see. He had to memorize. To pretend for a couple more seconds that everything was normal. That he hadn’t had his last patrol milkshake or ridiculous movie night or long-suffering Just Dance contest with his older brother.
‘What’s up with the gremlin?’
Guilt, panic, and shame threatened to overwhelm him. They were noticing. He wasn’t supposed to make a scene- He wasn’t supposed to-
Someone was talking but he couldn’t hear them over the sound of ringing in his ears.
All he could feel was fear. It dwarfed him, made him feel small, made him tremble, made his heart hurt. He felt like he was splintering. Like he was being pulled apart. Like he was seconds away from cracking directly down the middle.
Something brushed his shoulder and Richard turned and Damian gasped. He squeezed his eyes shut. He couldn’t face the look of pity on his older brother’s face. He- He needed to leave. To go somewhere those familiar eyes weren’t looking at him with total incomprehension.
He stumbled to his feet and the world tilted, floor rising to smack against his palms. He heard something clatter, someone shout, and then hands were on his shoulders, restraining him, pulling him against a strong chest.
The touch burned and Damian pressed closer to it, clutching at the Nightwing suit desperately. He needed to let go. He needed to compose himself. To slow his heart rate because he felt dizzy. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t do anything but shake, and clutch, and make himself smaller.
His mouth opened and oh, he was going to do it. He was going to beg and cry and Father was going to be disappointed and Richard was going to feel guilty for forgetting even though it wasn’t his fault and was Drake watching?
‘I hate you,’ the words tore from his chest, all vitriol and fury, ‘you are a liar, Richard,’ the arms around him stiffened, drawing back. Damian clutched him tighter partly out of necessity and partly out of spite. Damian wanted to hurt him, to make him feel a fraction of the pain splitting him in half.
‘It would be easier if it had killed you-’
He held his breath.
The fury was melting into something raw and wounded. He’d exhale and he wouldn’t be able to stop, words would spill, he’d bare his heart, and Richard would still walk away after all of it. He’d be left alone with those thoughts he couldn’t stop, that loneliness that clawed at his chest, that jagged ice in his veins.
He exhaled. Gasping. Gulping down air. People were talking to Richard, to him, voices fast and strained, but he couldn’t care less.
‘I didn’t mean it,’ his cheeks were wet, his eyes hurt, and the words were shredding his throat, forced out between gasps, ‘please, Richard. You promised not again. I will not allow it. I will- Grayson- Richard, please remember me.’
He could feel the humiliation somewhere distant. It was waiting for him. It would eat him alive when his mind cleared and he wasn’t hyperventilating.
The arms around him tightened and words that he didn’t want to hear - fake promises, pitiful reassurances, barely even a ghost of his real brother - fell into his hair.
‘You know me. Remember,’ he felt lightheaded, heart beating too fast for his body to keep up, world fading at the edges, ‘you can’t do this again. You have to remember.’
The arms around him tightened to discomfort and even further but he didn’t care. He pushed closer, feeling Richard’s shouting, voice broken and hoarse, reverberate in his chest. The hold tightened, and Damian hugged back, nails digging into his palms, breaking the skin. Richard was breathing fast, chest heaving, muscles trembling.
And then there were hands on his shoulders, yelling, someone trying to rip him away. He shook his head, twisting his arms tighter around Richard’s neck and managing a vehement no amongst the choked sounds leaving his throat.
He could hear people shouting, something about heart rate and fear and Dick, let go, but Damian couldn’t let go. He couldn’t breathe and he couldn’t move and he couldn’t let go because then it all ended. Richard would leave and start a different life and be happy without-
Clarity split his thoughts like light streaming through open blinds and he took a breath. It stilled his thoughts long enough to manage a quiet apology and a near-silent,
‘I have to let go.’
Admitting it made vomit burn his throat. It hurt but not as badly as the hands tearing him away. He was carried somewhere as he choked at the loss of warmth. Someone tilted him back onto something, held him down, exposed his forearm, and injected something - anesthetic or whatever Father deemed fit to solve his embarrassing outburst - into his arm.
He could hear someone shouting, a distant no, no, no, repeated like a litany and it might’ve been him but he didn’t think he could form words through the hoarse, painful gasps. He was sobbing, choking on the sounds leaving his throat, crying in a way that he never had in front of anyone.
The voices faded, someone mumbled something, something tumbled to the ground, and someone retched but it drifted beyond his comprehension. He was being dragged down, deeper and deeper, like he was drowning.
A hand brushed through his hair. A soothing voice. Familiar.
‘I don’t want to do it again,’ he fought to make his lips move. He couldn’t be alone again. He couldn’t.
‘Drake,’ he gasped out, ‘I-’
‘Sleep, Dami.’
The words broke through his syrupy thoughts and his panic spiked impossibly higher. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t think-
‘Please stay.’
Damian didn’t know if he would.
Damian didn’t know if anyone would anymore.
He let the heaviness drag him down.
Not that he had a choice.
‘I understand that you dealt with losing Dick on your own, Damian. But I want you to know that if you ever feel that way again you don’t have to be alone.’
Father’s words replayed in his head as he hesitated outside of Richard’s bedroom door.
He understood the sentiment and he knew that a lot had changed since Richard regained his memories, that he had a lot more to fall back on (even if he didn’t need it), but he couldn’t shake the anxiety. Crane’s toxin had made him feel like he’d been picked up and plunged back in time, forced to relive Richard’s amnesia with no changed perspective and no steadily constructed relationships but all of the additional memories. It was humiliating and embarrassing. Like he’d regressed to a former version of himself.
Of course, when he’d woken and been informed that he had, in fact, been compromised - Drake had glanced up from his laptop, wrapped the blanket he’d procured around himself tighter, and shifted in his bedside seat before speaking about Scarecrow in a voice so soft that Damian had scowled - he’d shaken off the shame and embarrassment. His reaction had been normal, beyond his control, and it didn’t warrant scrutinizing. Father had made it clear long ago that any response to Crane’s toxin would not be construed as weakness.
He’d reiterated it tonight as he’d checked Damian’s vitals, and wrapped him into a quick embrace.
‘You did well to keep control of yourself as long as you did, son. I understand that you didn’t know but next time if you do-’
Damian had cut him off with an eye-roll and a distinctly unimpressed-
‘Let you know. Yes, I am aware of the protocol.’
And then he’d left to find Richard.
Father had sent the man away. Forced him to bed after he’d had an anxiety attack induced by Damian’s fear toxin delusions (and that made Damian’s stomach squirm uncomfortably). He’d gone under the promise that Father would send Damian to him as soon as he was able.
Damian scowled at the bedroom door. As if he wouldn’t have gone anyway.
He shifted and twisted his hands together, trying to ignore the painful lump in his throat.
He wasn’t nervous.
He didn’t hesitate.
He didn’t hesitate.
He knocked on the door.
There was movement, a small groan, and then stillness. Damian’s heart pattered in his chest. He wondered if the silence meant he should enter or turn aro-
‘Damian?’
The metal door handle was cold against his palm as he pushed down on it. Richard sat cross-legged on the bed, face pale, eyes red, and lips raised in what Damian presumed was supposed to be a smile.
He met Damian’s eyes for a long second. And then he folded to the side and vomited.
Damian stiffened. That was not the response he’d expected. Nor was it a… good response. When he spoke the words came out small,
‘I shall go and fetch Pennyworth.’
‘No,’ Richard jerked back into a seated position, using his palm to wipe his hair from his forehead, ‘it’s not you. Sorry, I know how that must’ve looked but it’s been happening all night. Alfred even got me a bowl,’ he smiled weakly and Damian felt his shoulders inch toward his ears.
Was that supposed to make him feel better? Damian’s exposure to fear toxin had been so dramatic that Richard had… felt guilty? Pity? Was that what this was? Damian folded his arms tight across his chest.
He wavered when Richard shifted to pat the mattress beside him, face scrunching up. Ridiculous. Completely, utterly ridiculous.
He muttered the word under his breath as he stalked forward and threw himself down onto the mattress, lying on his front and folding his arms beneath his head.
There was a chuckle and Damian turned his head to face away from Richard with a scowl.
‘What was that?’
‘I said you are an imbecile,’ his sweater muffled his voice.
Richard laughed again, a bright sound, something more genuine than the smiles he’d offered before. It made Damian relax a little. Even if it was pity-
‘I don’t pity you y’know?’ Richard shifted, lying down on the bed and staring up at the ceiling, close enough that the crown of his head brushed against Damian’s, ‘sure, I feel a little bit guilty and I hate that you had to go through that but that’s how I feel about most things in your life and without those you wouldn’t be you so-’ Damian felt him shrug, movement shaking the bed, ‘I’m mostly just sad about the lost time. Scared I could lose it again. It’s selfish really.’
Damian swallowed.
‘Ridiculous. You know that Crane’s toxin can conjure the most inane and baseless scenarios. No one is to blame for it. You are behaving like a drama queen. As always.’
He carefully didn’t mention how this one was a little less baseless than perhaps ghosts or monsters but he presumed Richard followed that line of thought because when he laughed a second time it sounded strangled.
‘Damian,’ Richard paused, breathing quietly for a long moment, ‘if I ever forget you again. I still want you in my life. If not as Robin then just as Damian, okay?’
Damian opened his mouth to protest, even as his heart was pounding in his too-tight chest, because last time Richard had stated in no uncertain terms that-
‘Shush. Whatever you’re gonna say about what I want or respecting my wishes or life being better without you is weak. You know I have papers at home that say otherwise.’
Damian closed his mouth and something painful settled at the base of his throat. He could tell that Richard wanted to say more. To ask him something. To make him promise-
‘You can ask,’ he forced out, trying to sound unimpressed.
There was a soft chuckle.
‘I won’t put that pressure on you, kiddo.’
‘You want me to promise that if it happens again I will force my way into your life and make it infinitely better. Exactly like last time?’
‘Is that a joke?’ Richard laughed and Damian’s lips twitched upward, ‘you and I remember last time very differently.’
There was something fond in his voice that made Damian’s cheeks feel warm. For a moment, he was glad that he couldn’t see him. Seeing the softness in his voice replicated in his facial expression would be… a lot.
Damian picked at a loose thread in the covers.
‘Whose weekend is it? Gotham or Blud?’ Richard asked after a moment.
He was changing the subject. It didn’t matter. Damian had already made the promise in his head. He wouldn’t let Richard live a life without him if that wasn’t what he wanted. It was ridiculous that they should both fear the same thing and do nothing about it. So, should it ever happen, he would do enough for both of them.
‘You know full well that it is Father’s weekend.’
There was a loud groan, ‘yeah, I know. I was asking because I wanted you to lie.’
Damian rolled his eyes, heart pattering in his chest as he stared hard at the light blue wall.
‘I’m sure Father would make an exception.’
‘Yeah?’ Richard paused, voice quiet. Damian wondered briefly if Richard had picked out the color for his room when Father had first taken him in. It was ugly enough to match his tastes.
‘What do you say we sleep this off, head to Bludhaven and spend your night off-’
Damian groaned.
‘-we both need a night off patrol,’ A finger flicked at his ear and Damian batted it away with a scoff, ‘and we can order food and play that new game I bought? The one with the islands and light things?’
Damian turned to face the ceiling, folding his arms and frowning up at the long-faded glow-in-the-dark stickers. Not for the first time, he was very grateful that he had been allowed to decorate his own room at the apartment.
‘Light things? Is that what you intend to call stars now?’ Damian’s voice softened, ‘but yes, I would be amenable.’
There was a pause, Richard’s hair brushing his as he moved because the man could not stay still. And then.
‘Amenable, huh? Someone’s feeling enthusiastic today.’
Damian groaned.
‘You are impossible, Richard.’
‘Impossibly handsome. Impossibly charming. Impossibly-’
‘You can stop quoting gossip magazines. It’s unbecoming.’
‘How do you know what they say about me in gossip magazines?’ Richard exaggerated a gasp, ‘are you secretly interested in celebrities? Do you read all about Gotham’s stars? No, wait, light things-’
Damian suppressed a smile.
‘You’re annoying.’
When Richard spoke, Damian could hear the laughter in his voice and he felt his own face stretch into a grin.
‘Annoyingly handsome-’
Damian smacked him right in the stomach.