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When Damian woke that morning, he knew that he was ill. It was the ache deep in his bones and the cotton-like feeling of his usually razor-sharp mind that gave it away. As he got out of bed to start the day, his limbs felt like they were moving through molasses.
It was unpleasant and all he wanted to do was climb under the bed covers and go back to sleep.
But he couldn’t do that, he couldn’t allow himself that weakness. And anyway, as it was Monday he had school to attend as well as his other tasks. A small, selfish part of him didn’t want to find out what his family would do to him if they found out about his illness in fear of their reaction being a negative one (because why would it not be?).
So Damian pressed on, and headed downstairs for breakfast. Even though the mere smell of food made his stomach turn.
He was only halfway through his piece of plain toast (he hadn’t been able to stomach the idea of putting something such as jam on it) when Dick announced that it was time to go off to school.
He abandoned his half-eaten breakfast and stood up. Too fast, he soon learned, as the world spun dizzily and suddenly tilted sharply. Damian felt the air around him rush past his skin before he hit the tiled floor at a frankly awkward angle.
“Ow,” A whine escaped from his lips before he could swallow it back down. Around and above him he heard the sound of voices — they sounded worried, why were they worried? He was still standing! …Right? The voices were consumed by the black that was taking over his vision.
The youngest child in Wayne Manor awoke an indeterminate time later back in his bed. His surroundings made him sit up in worry.
How was he back in bed? Wasn’t he eating breakfast only minutes ago? How much did he miss?
“Woah, careful Dami!” That was his Baba’s voice. What was Baba doing in Gotham on a Monday?
“It’s a public holiday, remember? I only went back to Bludhaven yesterday because they were short-staffed,” Dick explained (he was lying but in his inhabited state, the lie went right over his head).
Damian blinked, the memory of that conversation slowly coming back to him through the cotton that was currently filling his brain.
“And I carried you upstairs after you fainted in the kitchen,” he explained, seemingly reading Damian’s mind again.
“Oh,”
It was a couple of hours later, Damian’s sickness had somehow developed into a full-blown fever. His sickness had shown up so suddenly and unexpectedly that they had to check that Damian wasn’t under the influence of anything: magical, chemical, or otherwise.
The first Sunbird was now surrounded in a fever-induced soup, the thin blanket that was placed across his body felt like he was wrapped in a thick winter doona on a Summer day.
Richard had kept checking on him throughout the day, even as his sickness got worse. It confused Damian to no end.
Why would his Baba waste time on him while he was sick? He was of no use while like this. Richard was only wasting his time and putting his own health at risk by doing this.
But, however much Richard had checked on him, the fear that this one would be the last one because he finally realised the risk that the repeated action was posing to himself remained as strong as it ever was.
It wouldn’t be the first time that Damian would have a parent (or parent-figure in this case) leave him alone to deal with his sickness himself. Leave him alone until he was able to achieve something of value — and simply getting better was not ‘something of value’ no matter what the little voice in his ear (that sounded suspiciously like his Baba) claimed.
That fear and his sickness were what Damian would blame his later actions on. The clock on the bedside table read 5:10 P.M, Richard had been checking on him and had resoaked the damp washcloth on his forehead.
The man had gone to get up and presumably leave Damian. His brain had decided that this was certainly going to be the last time he would do so. Said brain had also decided that this was completely unacceptable.
“Please...stay, don't go!” Damian called out after Richard. He immediately began mentally kicking himself for such a childish request.
Every time that Dick had gone to check on Damian, there was a split second as he walked into the room where the eleven-year-old looked almost scared before the expression disappeared from his face. Not just that but Damian kept trying to subtly reduce the effect that his sickness was currently having on him. It was saddening.
He wouldn’t believe it but it got even worse.
“Please...stay, don't go!” Damian called out after him. They both knew that he meant that he was hoping that Dick did not leave the room and not return for days or possibly hours.
Dick was planning to return, of course, he was, but he hadn’t stayed in Damian’s room because he didn’t want to cramp on his son’s space without being able to first ask him. Now, it seemed that he had made a mistake with that assumption.
Dick turned around and saw Damian’s face. His son looked like he wanted the bed to swallow him whole for such a childish request. He would have laughed had it been a different situation. But it wasn’t a different situation so he did not laugh. Instead, he turned back around and approached Damian’s bed again, to sit on the end of said bed.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he promised. “And I’m sorry for leaving earlier,” Dick added when disbelief bloomed on the eleven-year-old’s face.
When Alfred came up with a mug of chicken soup for the sick vigilante’s dinner and also to locate Dick about an hour later, he found Damian fast asleep while Dick sat on a chair beside the bed. A book, a children’s book that normally Damian hated the butler noticed upon closer inspection, sat open on the younger man’s lap while Dick typed out something on his phone — most likely texting someone given the short periods of lull.