Archive of Our Own ^beta

Dick sighs, rubbing his face. Tim is gone and Damian is too. His suit is probably being folded carefully so he can sneak back upstairs and barricade himself in his room. Bruce isn't here to fumble trying to coax him out.

Bruce is gone. Tim has hope, but the chances are as slim as anyone else's that Bruce will come back. If Dick wants to keep going he can't wait around for advise and security that isn't available.

Bruce is gone. Gotham needs Batman. Dick knows Batman better than anyone.

Damian is in the streets the next day, slipping out of Dick's notice too often to be safe, harming everyone they come across, even the victims.

"If they didn't want to get hurt," the child insists, "they would move."

"If he didn't want to fall," Dick insists as Bruce wraps him in his cape to help the shaking, "he would have killed someone else."

Dick likes to think he's grown since then, that he learned to value life, all life. That he regrets that push and the way he once beat up another killer, if only because he doesn't want to become that type of monster. (Bruce had saved him both times, him trying to save this kid from becoming a monster is really just paying him back.)

Bruce is gone. Robin needs Batman, not the other way around.

Gotham needs him.

Robin needs him.

Robin... Was Dick, for a very long time. Even after he left. Even after Bruce said I need you and he said like a cage needs it's beast. Even after Dick grew out of always calling Bruce 'B' and spent maybe too much time emulating Clark. Dick was Robin until he thought he was being replaced, and gave it up as a olive branch. A connection, never mind the guilty part of himself that was smug in the fact that they could never be him.

Dick was angry, so Robin was angry. Then Robin was happy, stoic, scrambling. This Robin is angry too. He's scared.

His name is Damian.

"This is pointless! I've studied under the finest tutors in the world. There is no reason for me to be forced into an asylum for children-"

"You're a child, Damian." Dick says tiredly. Bruce is gone. Their family is dead or ignoring him. Clark doesn't have his back. Rogues can tell there's something off about him. He doesn't have time for this.

(Dick remembers Bruce panicking, when they thought he was asleep upstairs instead of hiding in the kitchen hallway, listening to Bruce panic because he's not parent material but has to be there, and Alfred had replied "Just do whatever you think I did right, Master Bruce.")

"I am not," Damian fumes, hand flicking out, and Dick ignores the sting in his arm. Damian doesn't. He's smaller, younger than he usually is. He's just hurt Batman.

A cowl of mistakes and fear and poor life choices is the only thing keeping Damian together. Keeping Dick together.

"We can homeschool," Dick offers, and this time he gets no resistance.

Dick's exhausted. Everything's wrong. Everything's gone. He's a beast, again. But his cage is gone, and that's somehow worse then he ever imagined it could be.

Because his cage was his best friend. His big brother. His... parent, in a way. Bruce wasn't a mom, or a dad, just someone who did everything they were supposed to. Parent-shaped. Parent-loved, no title necessary. Like a parent when no one else stood up to do it.

Dick didn't realize Bruce was his parent until he was parenting Bruce's ten year old son. Because you don't have to be a parent to do all the things a parent is supposed to. Because being a parent doesn't always mean you parent (hadn't he learned that with every new sibling? And now with Damian? He wishes Bruce was here to sigh about his slow uptake.)

Being Damian's, well, Damian's Richard is wild and terrifying and bittersweet in a grieving way he pretends to ignore. It's looking in a mirror of the past, Bruce's shadow following him and his shadow following Damian. It's every scream and fear and kept promise and broken oath and whispered honesty. It's every pinky promise and birthday wish and night that should've had a bedtime. It's every knowing smirk and understanding smile and the action of being tucked under capes and open coats.

Dick thinks, I'm Damian's Bruce.

And he thinks, maybe this is why I'm Batman.

It doesn't start that easy. It doesn't stay simple or clean or happy. But Dick lets Damian be angry (because Bruce trying to fix him hadn't done anything) which eventually turns to trust and humor. Dick allows a dog and a cat and a domino-wearing cow. Dick lets the house go vegetarian, even if he still chooses burgers when they eat out. Dick spends hours and days and weeks trying to explain the world in a way Damian will understand, will empathize with. Will love.

Damian is sharp, brittle. But there's a softness to it all. A type of hope Dick doesn't think he knows he has yet. Something that childhood usually starts with, that he only recently gained back.

There's a sadness, Damian mourns without understanding the point of it. Dick doesn't know how to explain it in a way that won't hurt more, so he lets it be.

Bruce becomes someone he talks to, in his own head. Mostly about Damian.

He's growing.

He scowls just like you.

He smiles like Talia. I'm still not over that.

He smiles now, B! He smiles.

We miss you.

He hasn't injured any victims on patrol for weeks, he's doing so good.

You should be here.

So, we might have a turkey now? His name's Jerry.

I can picture your eye-roll. Dames has killer puppy-eyes, okay!?

Are you laughing at me? Karma, and all that?

Dami almost got shot, and I kinda lost it. I think I get it now, Dad.

"Tightrope!" Dick calls, waving from next to the car. Damian looks up and scowls, marching away from the girl he'd been talking to.

"I assumed Pennyworth would pick me up?"

Dick smiles softly.Yeah, well you're my kid. "Maybe next time, Tightrope. I thought we could go out to ice cream? There's a good vegan place by W. E. according to Steph."

"What is that, Richard?" Damian finally asks. "Why are you referring to me with circus equipment?"

Dick shrugs, starts climbing back into the car. Damian follows. "It's a nickname, I give one to all the people I care about. You were shoved into the ring with no warning, but you're doing really good staying up, you know? It... seemed fitting."

"Oh." They drive in silence for several minutes. "-Should I bestow a nickname upon you as well?"

Dick smiles, reaching to briefly ruffle Damian's hair (he leans into it now, and isn't that something.) "I think you already did; you're the only person who calls me Richard."

"Tt."

They go out, when it's dark. And Batman still isn't Nightwing, but it isn't a burden either. Because Batman has Robin.

And the world might be grey. Everything may have gone wrong and broken, fractured until Dick thought he'd never smile again. Things may never be how they should be.

But, Dick thinks, even if nothing will ever be the same, he has a kid that makes it worth it.