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If anyone were to ask Dick what he loves, above all else, he’d say his family. Above all else, Dick loves circus music, flashing lights, the smell of peanuts and popcorn, and The Flying Graysons . It’s a distant memory now, and sometimes Dick hates himself for not remembering every crease in his father’s eyes and every curve of his mother’s face. It was so long ago when he last saw them, and sometimes they blur around the edges, and Dick hates himself a little.
Above all else, Dick loves his family. It was a fact of life. Above all else, Dick Grayson loved the way Jason’s eyes lit up when he talked about classic literature. He loved the way Tim had the same dialect and mannerisms of a sixty-year-old man. He loved how Damian would pretend to hate them all but would secretly check in on them.
Dick loves his family, the dead and the living.
He’s grateful Bruce took him in under his wing, or rather, under his cape. Dick is willing to admit that Bruce was not a perfect father. He made irresponsible decisions and was emotionally closed off. Alfred wasn’t a full-time butler, there’s no way Bruce would have as many kids as he does now. Dick is grateful that the good can outweigh the bad, especially now that Bruce is putting so much effort into fatherhood.
Things were rough when Jason first came back, considering he attacked Tim several occasions, became a mercenary, and was intent on ruining Batman’s life. They had settled things now, after a lot of tears, awkward conversations, physical altercations, blood, hospitals, and more tears...the point is, although it was a battle, they persevered.
Now, Bruce is hellbent on maintaining his family. Which is why every Sunday, they have dinner.
Tim and Damian reside in the manor full-time, Jason is in-and-out, and Dick is only there on the weekends, but every Sunday they are all there. Alfred, as always, is at the door to greet him with a warm smile, “Good evening, Master Dick. Welcome home.”
“Good evening, Alfred.”
Dick steps into the manor -- home – and hangs his jacket on the coat rack. Alfred used to offer to take it, but Dick declined every time, and after a few years, Alfred gave up.
The manor is quiet and still, the same way it was when Dick first arrived all those years ago. It was a stark change in scenery, going from circus lights and constant noise to an echoey manor. It unsettles Dick sometimes, but he learns to remedy that by filling the silence.
“Tim? Damian? Bruce?” Dick calls out into the abyss. He doesn’t bother calling for Jason, because he knows he wouldn’t show up this early.
Immediately footsteps are lightly tapping against the stairs. The pitter-patter of the feet is swift and quiet, and Dick recognizes them as Damian’s almost instantly. Sure enough, only a few seconds after Dick made this deduction, Damian appeared at the foot of the stairs with his charming scowl stuck to his face.
He glares at Dick and folds his arm. Dick doesn’t take the kid all that seriously considering the fact Damian still has baby fat and is wearing Jason’s old hoodie. Instead of being threatened by the glower, Dick walks over and hugs the kid tight. Damian never hugs back, but he never makes a move to break the hug.
“Did you miss me? Was Batsy boring you while I was gone?” Dick asked as he pulled away.
Damian, for all his rage and his insistence that he hates them, has never once said a bad thing about Bruce. Jason tries to fish it out of him every time he sees him, and Dick tries every now and then, but the boy won’t break.
Damian does not seem like he thinks he owes his oldest brother a response, so he just stares unamused.
“Come on, tell me how you’ve been,” Dick puts his arm around Damian’s shoulder to guide him into the living room instead of the foyer, “I didn’t come all the way from Blüdhaven to have you glare daggers at me.”
Damian follows Dick into the living room and does not move out from under Dick’s arm. This is great news for Dick, because it means the kid is in a good mood. Good things don’t last forever, though, because eventually Damian slides away from Dick and perches on the armchair while Dick sits on the sofa.
“I have been well,” Damian states, “Academically, I am still top of my class, and my training is improving, Father says.”
This is almost exactly what Damian tells him every Sunday.
Dick worries about Damian, a lot, more so than he should. He thinks it's because he was legally responsible for the kid for a year, but it also might just be because this is his chance at being a good older brother. He fumbled the ball with Jason so hard that Jason literally died, and then by the time Tim came along, Dick was still mourning. He likes to think that he did better by Tim than he did Jason. He does better with all of them now.
Damian was a complicated kid, which makes sense because everyone in this house was complicated. Dick just worries that’s all. Damian doesn’t have many friends his age, and he struggles socially which Dick thinks is unfair because the kid is so sweet when he’s comfortable. It just takes so much before Damian is willing to show any sign of vulnerability or compassion, that it hinders his social skills.
Dick doesn’t think Damian will ever be a social butterfly, but he does hope that one of these days, Damian will realize that caring is not a weakness, but a strength.
“Do you want to hear something insane?”
Damian looks weary and hesitant, “alright.”
“I went to the store the other day to pick up some groceries, and this time I kept telling myself that I was going to stick to the list, but then you’ll never believe what I saw,” Dick pauses for dramatic effect, “ketchup flavored chips-”
“Ew!” Damian scrunches his nose.
“I’m not done Dami --- ketchup-flavored chips and sloppy joe chips. Who is thinking of these?” Dick rambles, “Anyway obviously I had to buy them. The sloppy joe chips were bad , like seriously bad, like ‘I’d rather drink Gotham Bay water’ bad.”
Damian frowns, “sloppy joe?”
Oh, yeah, of course, Damian Al Ghul Wayne wouldn’t know what a sloppy joe was. No time for sloppy joes when you must train to be an assassin. Dick would offer to make his little brother one, but he can already tell Damian would hate it just on principle.
“Uhm, it’s like a meatloaf sandwich, I guess, but better,” Dick explains, hoping Damian has had meatloaf before. He can tell from the look in Damian’s eyes that both “sloppy joe” and “meatloaf” are meals that he’s never tried before and has little desire to.
“When I was a kid, I remember eating sloppy joes like all the time, and do you want to know why?”
Damian pauses for a minute, trying to come up with a genuine guess before he says, “Because you don’t value your health?”
“Haha,” Dick says flatly before continuing his story enthusiastically, “No, it was because I thought the name “joe” was so cool. I wanted to be named Joe, it’s just such a powerful masculine name, y’know?”
“Dick is a masculine name.”
Dick shrugs, “Joe is just better. I even had a teddy bear named Joe.”
Dick remembers that bear. He had to leave it behind when he came to live with Bruce. Bruce obviously would have let him keep it, but Dick couldn’t stand looking at the thing without crying. His mother got him that bear. He regrets not taking the teddy bear.
Something flashes in Damian’s eyes and he looks at his older brothers incredulously, “You named it?”
Dick frowns, “uhm...yes.”
Damian pauses for a second before laughing (or maybe scoffing – Dick can’t tell), “You are so strange.”
Okay.
Dick can see why some people might think he’s strange. People think he’s strange because he makes too much eye contact and insists on looking inside the toaster before using it. He’s not offended by it, but this is a normal, mundane thing.
“People name their stuffed animals --most people I think,” he tries to defend his honor.
“Why give a name to a lifeless object?” Damian protests, “It’s pointless.”
Dick rolls his eyes, “Okay, fine, you didn’t name your stuffed animals because you’re too cool for that, but let it be known that a lot of kids name their stuffed animals – it's not some weird trait of mine.”
Damian shifts a little, no longer perching, but sitting in the chair, “I never had any.”
Oh.
Dick...could have guessed that.
Sometimes he forgets Damian’s upbringing was so abnormal. Still, Dick would’ve liked to think the League of Assassins could have let that little boy keep a toy around.
It makes Dick’s stomach twist a little, but he remembers this is the family’s one night to just be a family, so he decides to drop it. He can forget that fact for a night.
“Oh, that makes sense,” Dick says with a sense of casualty he is not experiencing.
And it does make sense that Damian’s never had a stuffed animal, but that doesn’t mean it’s right. It wasn’t like not owning a teddy bear was a tragic experience. It’s not the biggest deal ever; Damian missed out on a universal childhood experience. Damian doesn’t seem to care.
They sit in silence for a minute.
“Do...you want a stuffed animal?” Dick asks earnestly.
Damian takes visible offense to that, and Dick realizes his mistake the second the words fall out of his stupid mouth.
Damian glares at Dick like he’s the scum on the bottom of his shoe before leaving the room without a goodbye.
Dick, alone in the living room now, thinks above all else, he loves his family.
He should have known Damian, the boy who insists that he does not need any coddling, would take offense to the mere idea of owning a childish object like a teddy bear – Damian, who wouldn’t dare to indulge himself in anything fun for the first year and a Dick knew him. He’s so hellbent on being older than he is.
He considers going after Damian, to ask more questions, to apologize for any offense taken or given, and to have a real actual conversation, but he does not do any of that, because his phone chimes with a message from Alfred, informing him that food was on the table.
Dinner was strange.
Dick was so distracted that he forgot to talk, which raised concern and irritation at the table. Dick honestly was going to drop the stuffed animal thing, but it was rolling around his mind over and over and he could not get it out of his head regardless of how many times he tried.
Dick being overly quiet meant that everyone wanted to be overly quiet, which Dick didn’t think was fair. He never tried to stop the lapses of silence at the table.
They didn’t eat the entire meal in silence, Bruce made sure to ask every individual child how their life had been and if they had any interesting developments. Tim and Jason exchanged a short bickering session that Dick quickly cut off. He wasn’t too far in his own head to allow Tim and Jason to start fighting at the table.
Usually, the family would stay at the table even after their food was gone, and they would just talk for hours. Sometimes they’d abandon post at the table and head to one of the several living rooms to watch a movie together, but Dick had other plans tonight. The second everyone’s plates were cleared, he stood up.
The family eventually dispersed but were still out and about the common areas rather than in personal bedrooms or offices.
Dick decides he cannot take this a minute longer. He goes to the foyer and slips his jacket off the coat hook. He was only going out for a minute, but he didn’t want to catch a cold in the autumn air.
As he shrugs the thick jacket over his shoulder, he hears a sharp voice too close to his ear; “Master Dick.”
The ‘Master Dick’ in question jumps at Alfred’s voice. They really ought to put a bell on this guy. It’s bad enough to deal with Tim and Bruce jump scaring him.
“Alfred!”
“Apologies, it was not my intention to scare you,” Alfred says in that stupid professional voice of his, but Dick sees the amused glimmer in his eyes. He’s not sorry. “I was just hoping to inquire where you might be heading to. You haven’t said any farewells.”
Dick can get past everyone, but Alfred it seems.
“I’ll be back, Alfred, it’s just a quick errand,” Dick responds.
“Hm.”
Alfred stares at him for a little. Dick feels a bead of sweat drip down his neck.
It takes only seconds before he breaks. “Okay, I’m going to a toy store.”
Whatever Alfred was expecting Dick to say, this was not it.
“That’s quite peculiar,” he settles on saying, “Have a safe drive, Master Dick.”
Dick lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. Finally, he slips out of the manor and into the cold night air. Luckily for him, almost every place in Gotham was open 24/7, so he’d be able to locate and purchase a teddy bear in no time.
He’s going to get Damian a teddy bear.
Damian’s twelve; he doesn’t need a teddy bear, nor does he want one. Dick has accepted that. However, he’s also accepted that he just needs to do this for his own peace of mind. So, he drives into the city, dead set on getting a little stuffed bear.
“Where were you?”
Dick freezes as he steps through the front door of the Wayne Manor, with a fuzzy brown teddy bear held to his chest.
Bruce is sitting in the foyer with a frown, a cup of coffee, and his right leg propped up on his left.
“Uhm.”
Bruce stares at him, unblinking, waiting for his oldest son to say anything other than “uhm.”
“I went out.”
Bruce looks down at the bear in Dick’s arms and then back up at Dick. He sighs one of those, long, weary, impossibly drawn-out sighs. Dick weakly smiles hoping it will help.
Bruce shakes his head, “I don’t- okay, do what you need to do, Dick. Whatever it is you’re doing...”
Dick pumps a fist in the air, “Thank you, B! You’re the best!”
He doesn’t even take the jacket off, he goes straight towards the stairs hoping to get to Damian’s room before the kid falls asleep. He knows that it’s late and Damian has school in the morning, so time is of the essence.
He makes it up four stairs before Bruce calls out; “Son?”
Dick pauses on the stairs and turns back to stare at his dad.
“Don’t leave without saying goodbye,” Bruce grumbles, but it’s loud enough for Dick to hear, “it’s rude.”
Dick winces, “Sorry, old man.”
Then, he runs up the stairs. Alfred would scold him if he were here.
There are many rooms in the manor, but Dick’s old room, Jason’s old room, Tim’s room, and Damian’s room are all in the same hallway. Damian’s is the farthest one down on the right – Dick knows because he helped Damian move all his things in.
He knocks softly on the door, hoping Damian is still awake.
The door opens, revealing Damian, who has a scowl and flannel pajamas on. The kid takes one good look at Dick, who is hiding the bear behind his back, before he says, “No.”
“What? I didn’t say anything,” Dick says indignantly.
“You have an unsettling smile; you’re up to something,” Damian states – he isn’t wrong.
He tries to close the door, but Dick uses his free arm to block it. Damian glowers and does not put up much of a fight. He must be tired.
Dick steps into the dark, gloomy bedroom and makes sure to keep the bear tucked behind his back as he does so. Damian peers around, trying to get a look at it, but it doesn’t matter how fast he is because Dick is twice his size.
“I have a surprise.”
“Gun?”
“W hat?! No!”
Damian shrugs and yawns. He goes and sits on the bed.
Dick pulls the bear out from behind him and Damian looks all that much more awake. He jumps up from the bed and puffs up his chest, making him seem bigger. It was almost like a gun would’ve been a better surprise.
“Are you mocking me? What is this!”
Dick urgently shakes his head, “of course not, I wouldn’t do that,” he promises.
“I am not a kid.”
He is a kid, but Dick knows that is not what Damian wants to hear.
“I never said you were. You don’t have to sleep with the teddy bear or name it or even like it. You can shove it under your bed or...decapitate it, do whatever with it,” Dick says calmly, “I got this bear for you for my own ease of mind.”
Damian looks at the bear like it’s a bug.
“Okay, I will accept this gift for you...ease of mind,” Damian slowly takes the bear from Dick’s hand, as if it might bite him.
Dick smiles, “Thank you.”
Damian holds the bear from its arm. Its fuzzy body dangles in the air.
Dick can’t believe he accepted the gift. He honestly was expecting to get kicked out way sooner.
“I’ve got to go now, and you’ve got school, so,” Dick gestures lamely towards the door, “goodnight, love you.”
Damian rolls his eyes “Yeah, whatever.”
He’s smiling a little – Dick can tell.
He leaves the room, shutting the door gently behind him. Above all else – Dick loved his family.