Archive of Our Own ^beta

The night’s patrol ended well over three hours ago. Dick has only been asleep for forty-five minutes. It’s one of the many, many drawbacks of inheriting the Batman mantle, right along with cowl sweat and sore throats. Being the head honcho entails all sorts of extra duties that Dick never had to worry about when he was Nightwing.

Back in Blüdhaven, Dick could simply climb into his apartment through the fire escape window, strip off his sweaty uniform, and pass out on the mattress until noon the next morning. How he longs for those days now.

Being a light sleeper is one of those parts of the job he’s carried with him from the beginning, which is why Dick shocks out of sleep the instant he hears his bedroom door creak. The penthouse’s acoustics aren’t anything like Wayne Manor’s. Every noise has Dick rousing from sleep, so unfamiliar to him. It’s nothing like the home Dick grew up in. Then again, nothing about his life now is as it was.

The intrusion, even whilst half-asleep, prompts no alarm from Dick. Damian has been having troublesome nightmares ever since the encounter with Zsasz and some dead children a few weeks ago. Damian never admits to the dreams, but Dick knows they’ve been hard on him.

While Damian would never confess to it in the light of day, frequent nights he’ll sleep in Dick’s bed when the nightmares get especially persistent. Dick never mentions it in daylight for the sake of preserving Damian’s white-knuckled pride. They’re still working on that.

“Dami?” Dick mumbles, rolling over. “Y’okay?” He reaches out and fumbles for the bedside lamp, flicking the switch on the underside. He squints in the flood of light illuminating the small shape standing in the doorway—a shape that is definitely not Damian.

Dick is suddenly very awake. He bolts upright, staring at the dimly lit figure. “Tim?”

“Hi, Dick,” Tim whispers. He isn’t in uniform for once, instead wearing a pair of sweats and a shirt that Dick recognizes as one of Bruce’s. Dick was wondering where that went.

“Jesus, kid,” Dick exhales, an uncertain mixture of disbelief and bafflement. “What are you doing here?” Tim and Dick are still in a fight of sorts, or are they? Have they made up yet, or is the terrain still cracked? Dick wants so badly to ask, but just having Tim in the same room as him is already more than Dick could have hoped he’d get.

Tim has been AWOL ever since the Black Lantern debacle came, ravaged, and went on its merry way. When the resurrections began, Tim had briefly returned to Gotham at Dick’s request, without a moment’s hesitation. Dick thought at the time that Tim would stick around at least a day or two after so many months abroad, all by himself. It’s what he would have done before.

But by the time Alfred woke up to prepare breakfast the next morning, Tim was already gone—without a note, without a single goodbye. He didn’t even stay for Garth’s funeral.

Dick foolishly thought that he and Tim had come to some unspoken understanding, some middle ground during the battle against their resurrected loved ones, their past regrets and mistakes whirling back to stare them in the face. Dick had hoped it was a start, but clearly it wasn’t. Clearly there’s no backtracking behind the line he crossed when he took Robin away from Tim.

Dick tried to call Tim only once during his search, the day after Tim left Gotham. Straight to voicemail. Sometimes it was all Dick could do to keep from jumping on a plane and heading straight to wherever Tim was to drag him back home by the ear, just so Dick could sleep at night without having to wonder if Tim was safe, or if he was even still alive. Learning that Tim was fighting in Jason’s old Red Robin suit just escalated his fear.

When Dick was Tim’s age, all he wanted was space. He sought to step out of Bruce’s shadow and find his own place in the world, and that’s precisely what he did. It’s what you’re supposed to do when you’re a teenager setting out into the world. Dick has been trying to give Tim that freedom, if nothing else.

That is why the last person Dick expected to see tonight was Tim Drake in the Wayne penthouse, and not trekking across Europe like Dick thought he was.

It’s more habit than anything when Dick does a quick scan, searching for any visible injuries on Tim that would have set him running home for help. There are none that he can see, but he doesn’t disregard the possibility yet. Even in the dim light, Dick can see that Tim’s eyes are bloodshot. He looks thinner than Dick remembers in the weeks they’ve been apart.

Tim still hasn’t answered Dick’s question. “Is everything okay?” Dick tries, fighting to keep his voice neutral.

At first, Tim looks like he’s about to say something. Then he gives up, and instead he wordlessly crosses the floor and climbs into Dick’s bed. Dick goes completely still, like he’s trying not to frighten off a wild deer. Tim’s weight beside him is familiar but ghostly. So much and so little has changed. About both of them. Tim is shaking.

“Hey. Hey, what’s wrong? What happened?” It’s another habit when Dick runs his fingers through Tim’s hair like he used to when Tim was younger. It’s grown out since then, past his ears and halfway down his neck. Dick has kept tabs on Tim’s adventures abroad the best he could, but it’s hard to detect changes beneath the full-body uniform and cowl. Maybe that was why Tim chose it in the first place.

“Can I stay here tonight?” Tim asks, his eyes pleading in the lamplight. “Please?”

Dick doesn’t know if Tim means here at the penthouse or here in Dick’s room. The answer would be yes either way. “Of course you can, kiddo. You don’t even have to ask.”

Dick can’t remember the last time they did this, it’s been so long. Well before Bruce died—more towards Jack Drake’s death, probably. When Bruce took Dick and Tim on that year-long trip around the globe, it wasn’t uncommon for Tim to turn to Dick for comfort when he was plagued by dreams of razor boomerangs and his father’s blood on his hands.

Tim was smaller then, pocket-sized, but he’s grown since then. He’s grown a great deal over these past months alone. Dick wishes he could have been there to see it. How many more scars does Tim have now? How many will Dick never know the story about? He’s had more than enough time to accumulate a new tapestry of pain in the months since the night everything fell apart—since Tim left Gotham, maybe for good, and Dick wasn’t sure how many brothers he had left who still loved him.

Dick pulls the covers back up, tucking them around Tim who’s settled onto the pillow beside Dick’s. They lie facing each other, the glow from the bedside lamp illuminating their faces and casting forlorn shadows on the wall.

Dick should ask where Tim has been all this time, or why he chose now to return. How long has Tim been back in Gotham without telling anyone? Has he been eating enough? When was the last time he slept? Is he okay? Is he okay? Is he okay?

“Do you need to talk?” Dick tries instead, at a loss for how to handle this. It used to be so easy with Tim. Half the time, Dick wouldn’t even have to pry; Tim willingly parceled out every worry, every insecurity, and every fear he had, trusting that Dick would keep them safe. They used to be brothers.

“I miss Bruce.” Tim states it like a fact, which it is. Maybe even a universal one. Bruce is missed. Bruce will always be missed.

Dick’s heart throbs with that familiar ache that resurfaces every time he hears Bruce’s name, or sees his face, or smells his cologne sticking to the fibers of Wayne Manor like his ghost has seared itself into the very walls. “Yeah,” Dick sighs. “Me too.”

“I’m sorry,” Tim says, timidly meeting Dick’s eyes. “For leaving. For all of it.”

“It’s okay, Tim.” Of course Tim knows it’s okay. Of course he knows that there isn’t anything in the world he could do that wouldn’t be okay. As if Dick wouldn’t forgive him for murder.

“I don’t hate you,” Tim continues, like he’s had the words queued up for a long time. “When I—the night I left. The things I said. I didn’t mean them.”

Dick will never stop regretting that night. There were so many better ways he could have handled the situation. He just—he got overwhelmed, desperate. Jason was already a lost cause, and Damian lived on the edge of following him. Dick couldn’t lose Tim too.

That night, Dick told Tim that Bruce wasn’t a god or an immortal legend, which was true. Bruce was just a man, and men die. There was no vestige of Bruce for Tim to rescue. It was supposed to be a comfort at the time—some small reassurance that their lives don’t have to revolve around following Bruce’s lead. That they’re allowed to breathe without him giving them the air.

Unfortunately for himself, Dick knows better than to fall for his own fallacies: Bruce was never just a man to them. Even now, Dick can feel Bruce’s eyes on his back every time he puts on the cowl. Batman is bigger than all of them.

“I’m sorry, too,” Dick says. It’s long overdue. “I thought you wanted space. I didn’t mean to run you off.”

The angle of the lamplight on Tim’s face makes the shadows smudged under his eyes look even darker. “You were doing your best. I was being a dick.” The corner of Tim’s mouth lifts slightly at the pun. “You’re a good Batman. You’re doing better than any of us could.”

Then, because the words have weighed him down like rocks in his throat: “I shouldn’t have given Robin to Damian,” Dick says. “Not without asking.”

He’s run it over in his head a million times. All the ways he could have done it better, could have kept Tim from leaving and kept Damian in check at the same time. It was just so hard picking up all the pieces Bruce left behind. Making Damian Robin was an easy fix—it kept Damian under Dick’s wing, gave him something of his own he could be proud of, and allowed Dick to teach him in a controlled environment. Tim just…he fell through the cracks. Dick didn’t stop to think about how Tim would take the news until it was too late.

When Dick was Tim’s age, all he wanted was to go out and become his own man. He left Gotham and carved himself his own spot in the hero community with the Titans, and in turn, he experienced some of the best years of his life. Leaving Robin for Nightwing was a crucial turning point in Dick’s life—an inevitability that led him to discover who he was and where he was going.

Baby birds all need to leave the nest eventually. Dick just wishes that Tim hadn’t jumped to die and had instead jumped to soar.

“Did it help?” Dick ventures to ask. “Going out there?” He doesn’t ask if Tim found anything. He doesn’t ask if Tim’s impossible mission has borne any fruit. Dick won’t risk losing this tenuous ceasefire.

Tim shrugs, his eyes fixed on an ancient chocolate syrup stain on Dick’s pillowcase. “Learned a lot. Did a lot.” Dick wants so badly to ask what a lot is supposed to mean. He wants to know what prompted Tim to come back. He wants to know if he’s allowed to get used to it, or if he needs to prepare himself for another swift departure. “But I missed home,” Tim says.

A risk: Dick reaches across the uncertainty between them to put his hand on Tim’s shoulder, smiling thinly. “I’m glad you came back.”

“I’m still going to find him, Dick. I haven’t quit.” Tim swallows, meeting Dick’s eyes in the darkness. “I know you think I’m crazy. I should probably be mad at you for it, but I’m sick of losing people. I don’t want to do it anymore.” It’s a punch in the gut Dick knows he deserves.

“I never thought you were crazy,” Dick offers, and it’s mostly the truth. “Not once.”

Tim’s eyes have taken on a glassy sheen. He blinks in an effort to disrupt it. “I think…I think maybe I am crazy? Was. Might still be. I don’t know.” Tim closes his eyes, swallowing thickly. “I’m tired of running, Dick.”

“Yeah. I know.” Dick squeezes Tim’s arm. “I really am glad to see you, Tim. It’s been lonely around here since you left.”

Tim looks doubtful, his brows deprecatingly furrowed. “You have Damian now. You don’t need me.”

The certainty in Tim’s voice breaks Dick’s heart. “I’m allowed to love more than one little brother at a time, you know. It’s not a very exclusive club. Even Jason qualifies sometimes if he’s behaving.”

Tim doesn’t laugh, but he smiles softly. “I really missed you, Dick.”

Dick ruffles Tim’s overgrown hair, presses a kiss to the side of his head. “Missed you too, kiddo.”