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It wasn't until two months after the disaster in the circus, when Bruce finally had his ward - his son - safely situated in the mansion, that he heard about it.
"She's settled." Richard said, looking at where his Daemon was perched above Ceres' head, gently plucking at her ears, while the caracal pretended to try and swat it away.
"What?" Surely he heard wrong. Bruce blinked at Rich- Dick, where he was seated on the bed.
"She's settled." He shrugged, indicating the bird with his head, hugging his knees. "Hasn't changed since that day." He supplied with a small voice.
Bruce slowly nodded, stopping the organization of the boy's clothes and walking to the bed.
"Traumatic events can cause early settling." He said, one hand on Dick's shoulder. Ceres looked at him like she thought he was stupid, which wasn't exactly a new look, and went back to playfully swatting at the bird. "She's beautiful nevertheless." He supplied, carefully drawing Dick into a one-armed hug. Dick smiled shyly at him, tipping his head to rest it on Bruce's shoulder.
"Aisha." He finally said, a smile growing at Bruce's startle. "You can call her Aisha."
Bruce nodded, and after some minutes of serious consideration, tightened his grip on the boy's shoulder.
"I hope Aisha and Ceres get along well." He murmured, smiling at the way Dick beamed at him.
"Are you sure this is a good idea?" He asked, shifting uneasily in place behind Batman. "I mean, I know I always said I wanted to meet them, but what if they don't like me?" Robin thought he may be hyperventilating.
Batman sighed, stopped walking, and crouched in front of his partner. By his side Ceres, already tinted in black paint and body armor, carefully licked the - now red - bird until Aisha stopped hoping around their feet.
"We've already gone through this, Robin." He gently said, or as gentle as the Bat knew how to be. "They will like you. It was Robin who inspired them to be sidekicks in the first place."
"But they are older than me!" He hissed, trying to take deep breaths. Batman took one of Robin's hands and placed it on his chest, so he could feel the elder's steady breathing.
"Alright, let's go through the info once more before we leave the cave. Okay?"
"Uh, yeah, yeah, okay." Dick nodded. He could do this. He had been decorating this info for almost one month now. "Roy Harper was raised by a tribe in..." by the time he recited their names, backstories, abilities and what he could and couldn't tell them, he was a lot calmer, Aisha perched on his shoulder and grooming his hair. He took a deep breath. "Okay, I'm ready."
Batman nods and Ceres huffs, leading the way.
The moment they enter the Watchtower they are greeted by a red blur that turned out to be The Flash, who started to talk with Batman a mile a minute and steer him away from the entrance. Robin was almost panicking again when a yellow blur appeared in front of him.
"Hey! You're Robin, right? Man, I was dying to meet you! I always loved the Flash, but it wasn't until I saw that Batman had a sidekick that-" Kid Flash - he assumed - started to ramble away, waving his hands around for emphasis. At their feet, a Daemon changed from a dog to a bunny to hop around Aisha, talking too fast for any of them to understand.
"Hey, calm down kiddo." Someone behind Kid Flash said, dropping one arm around him to hold him back. Robin looked up, and sure enough, Speedy was there, Peregrine Falcon perched on his shoulder. "Robin, right? I'm Speedy, don't let Kid Flash scare you, he's just kinda slow on the social department."
"Hey!" Kid Flash exclaimed, elbowing Speedy. "Don't pay attention to this jerk, he's just being a pain in the ass because he's older."
Robin laughed, and when Batman came to see how everything was going, he was seated on Speedy's shoulders, holding one sandwich away from KF's hold, Aisha chasing Speedy's Daemon above them and KF's hopping around the furniture.
Dick wasn't sure who disliked his friendship with Wally and Roy more, the Batman or Bruce. (Dick had learned that, even being the same person, sometimes their opinions were very different. He didn't exactly know why.)
But that was more complicated than that. Bruce himself didn't know what exactly to think. He knew that being this close to people who could possibly ruin his life was dangerous. His Batman-senses spiked every time he saw the boys together. On the other hand, in the past years Dick had become an actual son for him, and there was a part of Bruce that cherished the closeness and simple delight he saw in the kids.
At the moment, he didn't know what to do.
The three boys had fallen asleep in the Mansion's entertainment room, the TV still playing the movie they had set to watch. The floor was covered in fluffy covers and pillows and Bruce could count at least three bowls of popcorn buried in the mess. Wally was propped on the couch, his head on the cushions while Dick and Roy were fully on the ground, Roy's back to the couch, his arms firmly locked around Dick to keep him from rolling over. Dick himself was snuggled into the older boy's chest, no signs of any nightly distress on his features.
Bruce looked over the pile of pillows below the window, where Wally's Daemon had flopped on her belly as a puppy beside Roy's falcon. Aisha's gray feathers were barely visible from where she nestled below the falcon's wing.
Bruce really, really hoped Oliver had had the talk with Roy. And that this was just a minor crush and Batman wouldn't have to scare the kid away.
He heard it without meaning to. He and Roy were on a stakeout in Gotham, GA deciding that Roy should learn some "spy-work" from the best. Robin had to enter first, in the smaller building, disable the security systems and hack into the terrorist's database. The Bat was raiding the second, bigger building, causing confusion to give Robin time to work and destroy the group's weapons at the same time. Roy had to keep guard so Robin wouldn't be interrupted.
Robin had finished copying the date and erasing their system, so he carefully rearranged everything to leave no trace of his presence and slipped outside. Roy was crouched on the end of the corridor, apparently discussing with his Daemon.
"Oh shut it, you know Batman wouldn't give us this job if it was useless."
"Yeah, sure. He doesn't trust us, Kate! We should be out there doing something, not here babysitting."
Dick closed the door with much more force than needed. Roy and Kate, apparently, turned at the sound, arrow in place, but their eyes widened when they saw him. Dick - no, Robin - held his head high.
"We can take care of ourselves, you can go help the Bat and meet us later, if you are so bored." He spit out. For some reason, his chest hurt. Aisha chirped unhappily from his shoulder.
"Shit, Dick, I didn't mean-"
"Names, Speedy. We can't use ours or our Daemon's on the field." He hissed, then took a deep breath at the startled - scared - look on Speepy's face. He decided to repay the favor, even if it wasn't intentional and the Bat would kill him. "Me and Aisha are finished. Let's go back." Robin didn't stay to see the reaction, taking off to the other corridor, barely waiting to see if Roy was following.
The warm hand on his nape in the Batmobile, dragging him into the older teen's side on the way back, was enough for Robin to relax and let the fingers slowly massage his sore neck.
They'd be okay.
The first time Dick touched someone else's Daemon, it was weird. It was, somewhat, intentional. (On both parts, of course.)
Bruce was bedridden, his back broken by Bane, and Dick had no idea what to do. Alfred was on vacation and wouldn't be able to come back for two more weeks, so Leslie had given him strict instructions on how to take care of B's injuries. Even then Dick was kind of panicky. He could cook, sure he could, but Bruce needed help to get up, and go to the bathroom, and eat, and do everything, and-
His line of thought was cut by a low hiss. Dick looked down to see Ceres, staring up at him, her ears tilted towards him. By his side, Bruce sighed. Dick gulped.
"I'm sorry." He said, not looking at Bruce but not being able to look away from Ceres.
"For what?" Bruce carefully asked, observing him.
"I suck at... This." He mournfully gestured to the entirety of the medical equipment carefully organized on the bedside table. Bruce chuckled softly.
"There's time to learn, Dick. Besides, it's not the first or last time something like this happens."
"Still!" He exclaimed, standing up and dislocating Aisha from her perch at his shoulder."If I'd been there, I could have done something."
Bruce was about to answer when Ceres jumped on the bed, her tail flickering behind her.
"Then you'd be dead." She stated, with a hint of teeth. "Bane came for us, it was our job to deal with him."
"But we could have helped!" Aisha exclaimed, fluttering around them. Ceres snapped her jaw at the bird, and in a bold movement raised herself on her hind legs and pressed her front paws to Dick's chest. Behind her, Bruce inhaled sharply.
"I'd prefer to die than have anyone hurt you." She hissed, and Dick didn't exactly know what to do, because she looked as if she would break down and cry, if she wasn't, well, Ceres.
It looked like Aisha decided for him and perched herself on Bruce's shoulder and delicately plucked at Bruce's neck bandages.
"We're tired of seeing you get hurt." She whispered, and Ceres meowed pitifully, hurt, and thumped her head on his chest. Dick raised his arms out of reflex, but stopped short of touching her. He looked, a little bit panicked, at Bruce, who just smiled - sadly, a little bit hurt, too - and raised his own hand to where Aisha was.
Dick shuddered at the touch, the phantom sensation of Bruce's finger on Aisha's neck, on his neck. Ceres mewled and lightly touched her nose to his chin. Dick exhaled and ran one hand through her fur.
It was, as he had imagined, very soft and silky. He carefully scratched behind her ears as Bruce ran one finger below Aisha's wings. Both trembled at the touch.
In the end, they ended up calling Selina in the morning and slept together that night, Ceres warm on Dick's back and Aisha nestled on Bruce's carefully cooped hands.
(And if from this day forward Ceres would lick at Dick's shins after patrol or Aisha nest on Bruce's cowl-hair, well, nobody but Alfred was there to see it.)
It wasn't that Dick hated the new Robin. He just wasn't used to there being another robin. He and Aisha had been Robin for almost seven years, and even if the four-month mark of his and Bruce's argument had passed some days ago, he still resented the man.
Of course, he was now Nightwing. He had the team and his own city to take care of, and it wasn't like it was Jason's fault. He didn't even ask to be Robin, specifically. He just wanted to help Bruce on the streets.
Jason was, all in all, a pretty decent person. He was funny and loved chatting with the thugs on the street, even if he didn't replicate the signature crackle that Dick had developed.
His Daemon, not settled yet, loved to take bird shapes when he patrolled with Dick, normally an eagle or vulture, but never something as small as Aisha. Dick knew, by what he observed, that she usually also took bigger forms when on patrol with Bruce, such as a panther or in one memorable occasion, a bear.
Neither he nor Bruce knew her name or her voice, and Dick would be worried if he didn't hear Jason talking with her on several occasions, obviously getting some kind of verbal answer far too low for them to hear.
"C'mon, Little Wing!" He called, jumping from one building to another. Aisha, painted in blue, soared ahead, chirping occasionally to warn them of her position.
"If you quit being a goddamn exhibitionist, maybe I'd get closer!" Robin shouted back, his daemon coiled around his neck as a snake. She's cold he'd said, when questioned. Dick stopped two rooftops over, Aisha fluttering to his shoulder.
"Language!" He said the moment Robin got to his side, pretending to be affronted. His little wing just rolled his eyes while his Daemon hid a snort against Robin's cape.
He regrets it, whatever minor grievances he'd had over Jason. He wishes he could take it all back, wishes he could have just one more moment.
Dick stands, alone and cold, by Jason's grave. There's a tug in his chest, pain and tightness, from where Aisha perches on the farthest tree from them.
She won't get closer, refuses to. She's the one who berated him the most, every single time he brushed Jason off to hang out with his friends, take care of his city. She was insufferable, arguing the kid had nothing to do with his fight with Bruce, had only light and hope on his eyes when he looked at Dick.
Of course, she and Ceres weren't fighting. She could still feel safe under Ceres' paw, was still getting groomed, while Dick only ever got cold glances and shouts.
Aisha had been talking to Jason's daemon, he knew. She didn't get much, just a few words, but it was more than what Ceres got out of the nameless Daemon.
Fuck, they hadn't even know her name.
There was a blank space below Jason's name, and it would never be filled, all because of Dick's stupid fuckin ego.