Archive of Our Own

“Robin. With me.” Batman's voice books no argument. He turns, cape kicking around his boots, and Zetas back from the cave, clearly believing Robin would follow right behind him.

But Robin doesn’t follow directly behind him.

He lingers in the presence of his team, swallowing down a sudden swell of nausea. He’s in so much trouble.  

Wally claps him on the back. "Dude," he hisses. “He’s going to murder you.” 

"Shut up," Robin tells him, pulling away. 

The rest of his team is still milling around, most of them looking nervously between Robin and the zeta tube. 

“Are you going to be alright?” M’gann asks. 

She looks a little anxious, so Robin offers her a thin smile. The last thing he wants to do is go back to the cave, where a pissed off Batman will be waiting with one of his famous lectures. But Bruce would never hurt him, and he doesn’t want M’gann or the rest of his team worrying about him. “I’ll be fine.” 

Kaldur steps between him and Wally. He gives Robin’s shoulder a gentle squeeze and Robin can’t help but lean into it a little. “Still,” Kaldur says. “I’m sorry that you’ll take the…brunt of the disappointment, from our latest mission.”

Artemis snorts. “He is responsible for the brunt of the blame.”

“I got the intel!” 

“You almost died,” Conner corrects. 

“But also,” Robin says. “I got the intel.” 

Artemis crosses her arms. “You got us grounded.” 

Robin opens his mouth to defend himself but closes it when Kaldur cuts in. “What I believe Artemis is trying to say is that we would prefer you remain unharmed over any successful mission.”

“I’m trying to say if Batman murders him he deserves it.”

M’gann looks nervous again. “Are you really going to be okay, Robin?”

Robin nods. “Yeah,” he says. “It’ll be fine. I should just…I should get going.” 

They all turn to reluctantly look in the direction of the Zeta tube. It doesn’t normally look this formidable, but Robin needs to stop putting off leaving—the longer it takes to head back to the cave, the more disappointed Bruce will be. 

Wally is probably thinking along a similar vein. “Good luck,” he says, thankfully genuine. “We’ll see you tomorrow.” 

“If you survive,” Artemis adds. 

Robin sticks his tongue out at her as he stalks into the Zeta, goodbyes from his friends replaced by the roaring of instantaneous travel and the monotone announcement of his arrival at the Batcave.

Bruce is waiting. His hair is wet from one of his two-minute showers and he wears sweats where he sits in front of the Batcomputer, frowning at where Robin has frozen in front of the zeta machine, stomach folded into kinks. “Shower, change,” Bruce orders. “And then we need to talk.” 

There’s not much Robin can say to that. He nods and droops into a shower stall, cranking the water so it’s blistering hot and steaming up. It stings against the skin that was facing the explosion, but loosens the cold still clinging to his lungs. The grime and sweat and vigilantism washes away in minutes. Dick stays under the spray for much longer. Finally, Alfred is knocking on the door, threatening to cut the hot water.

“Be right out!” Dick calls, because without the heat the water in the cave is colder than the sunless stone its pipes run through. 

He’s still toweling off his hair when he emerges, but the cave is empty. Dick pulls himself upstairs. Bruce is waiting at the table, even though dinner was hours ago. Alfred has put out some cold roast-beef sandwiches and vegetables but has left them alone. Dick introduces himself to the room by letting the towel fall around his shoulders and sliding into the chair across from Bruce. He bites into a carrot. 

“Dick,” Bruce says. Even without the voice modulator, there’s some of Batman’s growl there. “Are you alright?” 

Dick nods. There’s bruises lining his right thigh and upper torso from the concussive force of the explosion slamming him into the wall. The flames have singed his hair, leaving an unpleasant burning smell, and splotches of his skin are rosy pink like he’s been left in the sun. “Fine.” 

“No injuries?” Bruce presses. 

Dick sighs and chews up another carrot. “I’m fine.” 

“Good,” Bruce says. Then, he sits forward, eyebrows knitted, elbows propped on the table and hands curled together in a patented disappointed parent look. He’s probably emulating a sitcom TV dad because Alfred tends to focus more on his wording when he’s upset, not his body. “I’m glad you’re okay— this time— but what you did was dangerous. If you were a second slower…”

“I know,” Dick says, and eats another carrot, gaze fixed on the otherwise empty plate Alfred put out—probably on the off-chance Dick wouldn’t eat from the serving dish. He should know better by now. 

“Dick,” Bruce says firmly. “Look at me?”

Dick does a half glance up. 

“I know you were trying to help, to finish the mission. But in the circumstances, you knew that the building was about to explode. You knew that it was time to get out, and you chose not to. You put yourself at risk, you put your team at risk—”

“I didn’t!” 

“You did,” Bruce says. “Wally went in after you. As fast as he is, he’s not invulnerable. You both could have been injured, or worse.”

Dick goes quiet, because Bruce has a point. Wally did go in after him…this time. But what if it were M’gann or Kaldur who were the closest? Would they have gone into the flames to collect him? Even with the risk? He knows they would have. 

“You know our line of work is dangerous," Bruce presses. "It’s your responsibility to mitigate those risks whenever possible. We could have gotten that information from other sources, without risking you or the team.” 

“I was close,” Dick says weakly. “I just…I needed two seconds.” 

“You didn’t have two seconds.”

Things are quiet for a moment. Dick stews in it uncomfortably. He stops eating carrots, the apprehension and regret lining his stomach are a nauseating mix. 

Finally, he can’t take it.

“I’m sorry,” Dick says, forcing himself to look Bruce in the eye because he knows Bruce thinks eye-contact is important. Probably one of the parenting books that he read when Dick first moved in with him—a twenty-something billionaire with zero experience around, much less raising, children. Dick’s caught a couple of them cropping up around his nightstand, bookmark moving around, these last couple of months. Welcome to teenagers Bruce. “I should have left sooner. I didn’t want Wally or the others to get hurt.” Bruce’s frown tightens and Dick hurries to tack on, “Or myself. It was reckless.” 

“Thank you for apologizing,” Bruce says. “But you’re still grounded. No patrol for the rest of the week, no missions with the team. You can use your electronics for schoolwork only. You can use any extra time to write an essay about the importance of safeguarding yourself as Robin.” 

Dick groans. The essay thing is a newer form of punishment Bruce has been toying with. He’s sure Dinah recommended it, and it sucks. No wonder Roy went AWOL.

“And Dick,” Bruce says, standing up and coming around to the other side of the table. He kneels down, even though Dick is getting too tall for that to put them on the same level. “I care about you. I couldn’t forgive myself if anything happened to you—keep that in mind, okay?”

Dick is still a little queasy and shaky and a little embarrassed—but Bruce is saying that he cares about Dick, and that’s the closest thing Dick’s gotten to an ‘I love you’ outside of mortal moments. Bruce’s hair is still damp but the rest of him looks warm and his sweats look soft. Dick is on a team of his own, and thirteen, and he knows people his age pull away from their parents…but Dick wants to do the opposite with Bruce. 

So Dick does. 

He surges forward, the dining chair squeaking back with a commotion. And Bruce catches him. 

Dick was right—Bruce’s arms are warm around him and the sweatshirt over his shoulder is soft against Dick’s cheek. He nuzzles there, damp hair curling somewhere near his ear. He smells like the lavender scented shampoo Alfred stocks in the cave’s shower room. 

“I’m sorry,” Dick says. “Really, I’m sorry Bruce, I’m really sorry—”

Bruce shushes him. “I know, chum.” His hands press wide circle’s over Dick’s back. Soothing ones. If Dick’s turned stomach could get with the program, he’d be comfortable enough to fall asleep—it’s late enough for it. But it wouldn’t be fair to Bruce—Dick’s too old to be carted up to bed after late night patrols. 

Of course, Dick’s too old to be hanging onto Bruce like a toddler let out of corner time. At least he’s not crying—even if the misery catching in his throat makes it a close thing. 

“Shh,” Bruce says, when Dick shudders with the strength it takes to withhold a sob. “Shh.” 

Dick relaxes further, becoming a limp weight that breathes in lavender and presses its face into a soft shoulder. Bruce isn’t one for hugs. But he’s here, hugging Dick because that’s what Dick wants, what he needs, and Dick plans to hold tight for all night if Bruce will let him. 

“Thank you,” Dick mumbles. “I care about you too, Bruce.”

Bruce holds him tighter.

Dick is wearing blue and black and leaking blood and stained with dirt. 

He curses as he steps away from the last of the hired thugs. There’s a bullet graze through his thigh and bruising up and down his limbs and festering behind the kevlar encasing his torso. Blood leaks from the cut on the back of his head, and his eyesight is foggy, but his thoughts are dripping. There’s a kind of queasy clicking noise from his bad knee when he shuffles across the quiet of the parking lot to plant a hand on a red-covered shoulder. 

“Robin?” Dick says, the shoulder under his hand moving up and down with rapid breaths. Robin is better off than Dick—he made sure Robin would be better off when it became clear they had waltzed into an ambush—but still hurt. There’s a cut through his left eyebrow and he’s cradling one of his hands close to the mud and rust smeared over his uniform. “Talk to me, buddy.” 

Jason nods, breathing labored. Dick tugs on his shoulder gently until the kid is facing him. His gaze jumps around, landing on the piles of bodies around them. “I’m okay.” 

Dick sighs with relief. The sight of that lucky hit—one of the henchmen grazing Jason’s forehead with a baseball bat of all things—had been terrifying. For a second, Bruce’s voice had run through his mind. 

“Dick,” 

Quiet. 

“Dick, look at me.” 

Dick turning sharply, tone cold. “What?”

“Look out for your brother.” A second thought. “Please.” 

Dick shaking his head. An eye roll. “We’ll be fine.” 

Jason looking between the two of them nervously, curling into Alfred’s side, torn between excitement to spend the night out with Nightwing and uncertainty at the tension between Bruce and the closest thing he’d ever had to an older brother…

Dick shakes his head. For a second, when that bat first connected, Dick had thought, maybe, he wouldn’t keep his word, but now, Jason is breathing and running warm and grinning a little anxiously up at Dick, still flushed and shaking a little as the adrenaline runs its course. He’s okay. 

And Dick, shaky on his feet, decides to keep him that way. 

“I think that’s enough for the night,” Dick says. His hand moves from Jason’s shoulder to card through his hair, resting on the back of his neck. It says something that Jason doesn’t pull away. “Let’s head back to the cave.” 

Jason wrinkles his nose, disappointment clouding his face, but follows him to the borrowed Batmobile without argument. He pauses, staring at the vehicle head-on. 

“Can I drive?”

Like Dick ever says yes. “No.” 

They climb in. Dick’s body pinches and pains on the ride back, but so do Jason’s eyebrows. He bites his lip as he turns to Dick nervously. “We’re…we can do this again, right?”

Dick doesn’t want to tell him it’ll probably be a while before Bruce trusts Dick to safeguard Robin. “We’ll hang out soon,” he says. Jason settles a little at the promise, and Dick refuses to feel guilty. They can still meet up as civilians. 

Bruce is back when they pull into the cave. He’s wearing his suit but the cowl is pulled down to display a worried gaze and anxiously tousled hair. 

“Jason,” Bruce says urgently, rushing forward to help Jason out of the Batmobile, zeroing in on the split on Jason’s eyebrow. 

“I’m fine, B,” Jason says. 

“Infirmary,” Bruce says, all urgent, ushering him across the cave. Dick closes the Batmobile door behind them and follows the two to where Alfred is turning back sheets on a medical cot and pulling a cart with suture supplies closer. 

Bruce lifts Jason onto the bed himself, a little unnecessarily, but Dick understands. His hand itches with the urge to grab hold of Jason’s shoulder, to wipe away the blood. He comes around behind the berth and hovers close but Bruce hovers closer as Alfred inspects the wound, cleans it, and stitches it up. Alfred takes a look at his fingers too, wrapping two together but deeming Jason otherwise whole. 

“All done, Master Jason,” Alfred says, squeezing Jason’s knee.

Jason doesn’t have to be told twice. He hops down from the table. “Thanks, Alf.” 

“Hold on,” Bruce says. “Are you injured anywhere else?”

Jason shakes his head. “I’m fine,” he insists. “Dick protected me.”

Dick…kind of wishes he’d left him out of it. Bruce glances over, acknowledging Dick’s presence finally, his face cold. 

“Bruce?” Jason says, a little confused, a little questioning. 

Bruce looks away from Dick to pull Jason into a very tight hug. Usually, Jason would wiggle out of it, but tonight, he just kind of sags into the hold with acceptance. For a second, Dick feels phantom softness against his cheek. He smells lavender. He feels warmth. 

But the moment is brief—Dick isn’t held against that shoulder now—Jason is. And that’s for the best. Jason needs that hug. God knows he hasn’t had enough of them. 

Finally, Jason starts to shift, and Bruce pulls back. 

Alfred steps in. “Upstairs, Master Jason,” he says, grabbing hold of his upper arm to lead him there.

Jason glances between the three of them. “I still have to shower—”

“You’ll clean up in the manor tonight.” 

Dick nods at Jason when he looks at him, pasting a smile and wink into place that has Jason rolling his eyes but submitting to Alfred tugging him away.

“See you later,” Jason offers. 

“You bet,” Dick says. 

And then Jason and Alfred are gone, and Bruce is sitting on that medical cot with bone-deep weariness. Dick runs the toe of his uninjured foot against the ground, unwilling to break the silence. 

“Are you hurt?” Bruce asks, finally. 

Dick thinks about telling him about the wound on his thigh, but with the bed between them Bruce can’t see the staining of the blood. “No.” 

Bruce nods. “Good,” he says. And then that frown and those eyebrows cross his face. He wears the disappointed parent look from years before, but this time, it doesn’t make Dick nervous. It makes him angry. “I asked you to look out for him tonight.” 

Dick’s hands ball up. “I did.” 

“He’s hurt.” 

“It’s a scratch,” Dick says. 

Bruce’s head turns to him so fast it startles Dick, and he forces himself not to react. “It’s a head wound.” 

“It happens!” 

Bruce ducks his head into a hand that scrubs roughly over his eyes. He growls a little as he looks back at Dick. “He’s a child, Dick,” he says. “You were the adult tonight, it was your job to case that parking lot before the bust. You should have been aware of your surroundings. You should have protected him.” 

Dick clenches his teeth. There wasn’t any sign that tonight would have gone so wrong—but Bruce has a point. It was Dick’s job to look out for Jason tonight. And he didn’t. Jason got hurt, and that’s Dick’s fault, and he feels like crap about it—about everything. But for some reason, right or not, hearing it from Bruce has his temper flaring.

It would be so easy to fight with Bruce right now. It would be so easy to yell, to turn things into another blow out, instead of Bruce lecturing him again—like Bruce has any right to talk to Dick about keeping kids safe when he’s the one who put Jason into that Robin costume— Dick’s costume. 

But Dick is tired and hurt and shaking and he’s not up for the fight tonight. So he meets Bruce’s eyes instead—sincerity. 

“I’m sorry,” he grits out. 

“It’s not about being sorry,” Bruce says. “It’s about you recognizing what could have happened—he could have gotten hurt. Or worse.”

Dick sees that baseball bat swinging again. His stomach flips. He feels a little hot and trembles a little. The wound on his thigh is aching and his body feels like the Batmobile ran over it. He wants to clean up and go to bed, but Dick knows there’s no way he’s staying at the manor tonight, and he still needs to head back to Blud.

“I’ve got a long way home,” Dick says suddenly. “I’m sorry Jason got hurt.” 

Dick crosses the cave quickly, jumping onto his bike. His teeth are clenched tight and his vision is still slightly blurry. He almost misses putting his leg over the bike and for a second, he considers staying the night. But then Bruce is standing and coming closer with that damn look on his face, and Dick turns the key instead. 

“Dick,” Bruce says. 

“Goodnight, Bruce.” 

The bike roars and Dick is leaving the cave, cold and bleeding. 

Dick uses the lavender soap that night.

“Supes!” Dick cries, bounding into Conner’s arms. 

Conner feels the shift in his momentum and he knows what to do. In a practiced move that Kaldur told them many times to take out of the living area and into the training room, Conner swings him around so Dick’s holding a handstand on his arm and then dipping into some approximation of a piggyback. In a fight, this would be the point where Conner took off, launching them out of the thick of it. 

But here? Alone at the mountain, Dick just clings to his back like a monkey, huffing amusedly at the thought for how much Conner would hate it. 

“Let’s spar,” Dick says. 

If he holds Conner a little tighter than usual, well, that’s just okay. 

It’s been weeks since Dick came back from that off-world mission. It’s been weeks since he stumbled across that newspaper and came skidding into the cave. It’s been weeks since he left with his cheek throbbing and his stomach scraped raw from grief and fear and rage. It’s been weeks since Alfred held him as he cried on his knees and Bruce stared at the cold tea on the table feet away. 

There’s no cold tea now, just hot, burning anger. 

“That’s enough,” Dick says, grabbing hold of Batman’s arm. “You’re going to kill him, B.” 

Dick’s grasp isn’t enough to stop Batman’s punch, but it’s enough to redirect it. The brick beside the thief’s head crumbles as Batman’s armored glove bashes into it. The thief whimpers, sobbing, Batman’s hold around his throat the only thing keeping him upright. 

“Get out of here,” Dick tells him, pulling Batman away. 

The thief crawls, then runs. Batman stays still until he ducks out of the lit mouth of the alleyway, and then he turns to Dick, glaring from behind his cowl. 

“Nightwing,” he says, voice grating.

“That was too far,” Dick tells him. “He stole a purse.” 

“He’s a criminal,” Batman says, pulling out his grapple gun. 

Dick crosses his arms. “So put him in jail.” 

“Go back to Blud,” Batman says, pointing the gun. 

“B, wait,” Dick says, stepping in front of the gun. 

“Move.” 

“You went too far tonight,” Dick says. “You’ve been going too far. Agent A called me…if this is about…”

“Do not,” Batman growls, stepping around Dick, shooting the gun, and grappling away. 

Dick is left alone in the alleyway. He calls it a night, heading back to his apartment. There are pictures on his fridge—Babs and he as teenagers on a Gotham Academy trip, whole, not paralyzed. Jason hefted over his head and laughing as Dick went to chuck him into a pool—happy, alive . 

In bed, Dick wraps his arms around himself and presses his face against the softness of the pillow case and when the misery chokes up his throat he cries. 

“Do you have a second?” Dick asks, crawling through the window.

Wally sits up in bed, rubbing his eyes. He takes one look at Dick and pulls the covers back on the other side. “C’mere, Rob. Let’s watch a movie.” 

At some point Dick tips to the side and rests his head on Wally’s shoulder, but it’s not the first time that’s happened and it’s far from the last. Wally isn’t big and all encompassing like Bruce, but he’s there. 

Dick doesn’t allow himself to go to sleep—he just presses into Wally’s side. Wally doesn’t say anything when he starts to cry. He just holds him closer.

“I’ve got to get home,” Tim says, wrapping gauze around the cut on his forearm. Dick swoops in to take it from him, winding the gauze around himself. “My parents are coming back tonight.”

Dick bites down the things he could say about that…it’s a little strange, that every couple of months Tim becomes pretty pushy about getting home on time, before his parents get worried. But what about the other nights? Part of him wants to voice his suspicions about the vacations the Drake’s take, but Tim always gives the right answer, and Dick can’t help but feel he might be turning as paranoid as Bruce. 

“Let’s get you wrapped up first,” Dick says instead. “And, here, let me take a look at that ankle too.” 

Tim rolls the pant leg up obediently and lets Dick probe around. “Not even a sprain,” Dick says, straightening up.

“I told you I was okay,” Tim points out. “And it’s getting kind of late…” 

“I know,” Dick tells him. “I’m just worried…you took a couple of hits today.” 

“You said it yourself, it's not even a sprain.” 

“I know,” Dick says again. He ruffles the kid’s hair. “I know, Timmy.” 

Tim ducks back. “Dick,” he complains.

“Sorry,” Dick says. “Just…c’mere for a second.” 

Dick places a hand on Tim’s shoulder and the other around his neck and tugs the kid into his side for a quick, tight hug, because Tim’s gaze might keep jumping toward the stairway, but it also keeps returning to Dick. And there’s something there in that look. Hesitation and something hopeful. It’s a different look than the one Jason had, all hesitation and fear. But it ends the same, with tugging a Robin against him carefully, slowly, and gently. 

He’s wearing a muscle shirt and his shoulder isn’t soft like cotton. The shampoo he used at that woman’s apartment yesterday evening was rose, not lavender. He’s far from Bruce, but Bruce isn’t here pulling Tim into a hug—he’s still out on patrol, clearing his head. 

So Dick pulls Tim in and holds him tight and ruffles his head and says “Good job tonight, Kiddo,” before sending Tim back home—because someone should. 

Hours pass, the Batmobile slips into the cave, quiet because Bruce doesn’t squeal her tires and he grimaces on the occasions that Dick does. He catches sight of Dick almost immediately, and frowns at the sight. “What’s wrong?”

Dick shakes his head. “Nothing.” 

Bruce comes closer to where Dick is sitting at the Batcomputer. One of his hands goes to rest on Dick’s forehead, feeling for a temperature, but Dick pulls back. “I’m not sick,” he says. 

“But something’s wrong,” Bruce says. 

“I’m just tired,” Dick says. It’s a cop-out.

Bruce eyes him, but it has been a few nights since Dick got decent sleep, and the shadows under his eyes work in his favor. Bruce seems to believe him, at least. 

“Do you…” Bruce looks hesitant. “Do you want to spend the night at the manor?”

Dick freezes. Sitting in the chair with Bruce standing, towering over him, he feels like he’s nine years old again, bruised up and bleeding after making a mistake after patrol. He almost expects Bruce to lecture him, for Alfred to wrap him up in numbing gel and stitches and medical tape, and then Bruce would gather him into his arms like something precious, and it would be warm and so, so easy to lean into his side—

“Dick?” 

But Dick isn’t nine, hurt, or in trouble. And Bruce isn’t offering him a lecture or a hug. He is offering him something though. Staying over at the manor. 

It’s been years since Dick’s stayed over without being injured. But things have been…better, between him and Bruce lately. Dick’s made an effort, especially after Tim. He’s given up on the idea of keeping the kid out of his old colors—their third Robin is here to stay—and the best Dick can do is be there for him. Be a good brother. A better brother than he was for Jason. 

And part of being a better brother for Tim includes getting along with Bruce. 

Bruce seems to get that. He’s been better about the lecturing, about inviting Dick for dinner, offering him help with things other than money.

Maybe this is another step in the right direction.

“Yeah,” Dick says finally. “Okay.” 

Something soft enters Bruce’s eyes at the acceptance and he must move without thinking, because one of his hands reaches out for…something. Maybe to pull Dick into a hug, to ruffle his hair. Whatever it is, Bruce’s hand hovers awkwardly between them, before he settles for reaching out and grasping Dicks shoulder. His hand is all warmth and pressure and it isn’t a hug and it isn’t what Dick’s mind is telling him comes next, but it is something. 

Dick’ll take it. 

Bruce helps him to his feet and they head upstairs together. Bruce walks him right to the door of his bedroom, even though it’s out of the way of his own room. “Sleep well,” Bruce says, outside. 

Dick nods. “Thanks.” 

“Hey, Boy-Crazy,” Artemis says, pulling Dick into a hug. Dick freezes and then reciprocates, wrapping his arms around her. It feels like missing a step on the stairs when he realizes his go around around her shoulders, not her waist now. When did he get taller than her?

Dick’s missed her, and he’s content to cling for as long as she’ll put up with it, even if his arms are higher now. 

It’s just…sometimes it’s nice to be in the hug

“I’ve got her,” Batman says. He lifts Stephanie into his arms. Her blond hair is matted and bloody and stained with mud. She curls in a little, head tilted against his shoulder in a kind of shameless, soft affection different from the brash side hugs and high fives and grins that she wears when conscious. Batman holds her closer. 

Dick’s knee is doing that clicking thing and his nose has been broken and aches even though he reset it earlier in the fight. His arms are limp at his sides and his legs are tired and complain at each step Dick takes to reach Tim’s side. 

“I’ve got him,” Dick says, and pulls Tim up. 

“I’m fine,” Tim says, fighting him weakly. But he goes green at the effort and settles down. 

Dick shakes his head. “Agent A’ll be the judge of that.”

Hours later, they’re back at the cave. The kids are in bed, both staying the night, and Alfred is upstairs checking in on both. Bruce and Dick are both working on typing up a case report. Dick finishes and goes to stand. 

But he forgot about the knee. 

The pained noise that he bites down on is loud in the quiet of the cave, and the sound of Bruce’s typing cuts out. 

“Dick?” he asks, turning in his chair. 

Dick is bent over, one hand on his leg. “I’m okay.” 

But Bruce is walking over, wrapping an arm around his waist and leading him to a cot, not pulling back until Dick is sat down. “What’s wrong? Is it your knee again?”

There’s really no point in hiding it. Dick nods. 

Bruce grimaces—there’s not much they can do for it. “I’ll grab you ice and meds.” 

“Thanks.”

Soon, Dick is medicated, knee propped up with ice on it. 

“You can sleep here,” Bruce says. It’s not much of a question.

“Okay,” Dick says, tired and letting Bruce guide his head back to rest on a pillow. One of his hands cards through Dick’s hair, which is very nice. Dick has to keep himself from reaching up, grabbing hold of his wrist, holding him for just a second more. 

Because Dick isn’t one of the kids upstairs. 

He shouldn’t need to cling to Bruce. 

He’ll be fine.

“You feel…different,” M’gann says.

Dick’s been pretending for a while now, and it’s easy to paste the smile into place, even if he knows M’gann will pick up on the rest of it. “I’m fine,” he says. “But I’ve got a couple of hours—you wanna make some brownies for the kids?”

M’gann looks unsure, but nods. If she notices how often their knuckles brush or how close Dick stands as they navigate the kitchen, she doesn’t say anything. If anything, she just moves closer.

Dick looks at himself in the mirror. His eyes are shadowed, his skin paler than it’s ever been. He flips the cowl over his face. He hasn’t worn one since he was eleven and dressed up as Batman for Halloween. 

He looks like Batman. And he doesn’t. 

Dick comes out of the shower room and Alfred’s lips tighten and Tim frowns. Dick doesn’t look at either. 

“Let’s go Robin,” Dick says, voice already modulated as they get into the Batmobile.

The patrol is hard. Dick keeps getting ready to jump into acrobatics, only to freeze, forcing himself to take hits to his kevlar instead of dodging them. Batman doesn’t dodge. Batman defends. 

“Good job,” Dick says at the end of the night, reaching over to pull Tim into a sideways hug. He’s sure this patrol was hard for the kid too. 

Dick just wishes his Batman was here to do the same for him. 

Roy finds him. He shows up at Dick’s apartment, pounding on the door until Dick answers, skin gray and sweats rumpled and a defeated slump to his shoulders. 

“Aw, kid,” he says, and wastes no time to pull Dick against his shoulder. 

“Wrong,” Cass says. 

Dick glances at his sister. She’s wearing one of Bruce’s sweatshirts, large and overflowing on her frame, and a pair of pink fuzzy slippers that Tim got her for her birthday. Her appearance would look harmless if Dick didn’t know his sister and that look in her eye. She’s come for answers, or blood, and she’ll get one. 

“I’m fine,” Dick says. 

“No.” 

“Really, Cassie,” Dick says. “I’m whole.” 

He holds his arms out, showing her both uninjured limbs with a winning smile. 

“No,” Cass says again. “Not body. Big Brother hurt here.” 

She taps her own head, and then her chest. 

Dick sighs. “I know you’re worried,” Dick tells her. “But really, I’m fine. And I promise, I’ll tell you if I need anything, okay?”

“Liar,” Cass says. She points at him. “Wrong. Fix it.” 

Dick stares at her for a moment before sighing. “Okay,” he says. “Come here.” 

And then Cass lets him pull her into a hug that feels warm and soft. Dick pulls away too soon—he doesn’t want his little sister worrying about him. It’s not her job. 

“Thank you,” Dick tells her. “Now get some sleep, okay? You’ve got a long plane ride tomorrow.” 

Dick scrubs a hand over his face, pressing into his eyes. Jason’s back. 

“Kal,” Dick says into his phone. “Can we…get lunch or something?” 

“What’s this about, Dick?” Kaldur asks. “I’m busy with League business this weekend but if it’s an emergency—”

“No,” Dick says. Of course Kaldur would be busy—he shouldn’t have asked. He tries to keep his voice steady. “No it’s…it’s okay. Just been a while, you know?”

Kaldur is quiet for a second. 

“How’s dinner sound? Tonight?” 

For a long time, things are hard again. Tim starts to rankle under Bruce, and Dick’s, overprotective hovering, always lingering at his sides as they slip by crime alley, or stepping between Hood and he when Jason’s patrols overlap with theirs. Dick twists and turns at night. Old haunts bleed into his dreams—the imagined twist of ragdoll limps and singed hair and Jason’s open eyes, the cold maw of a closing coffin. Except now there’s poisonous green and bloody birds in towers too. 

Dick gets less and less sleep. Sometimes, he falls into whatever medical berth is closest at the cave, and can almost imagine the trailing of gentle fingers dissolving the glue on his mask, pulling blankets over his uniform, running through the grime of his hair. Those nights, he sleeps better. 

But they get through it. They always do. 

Things with Jason get better—they reach the point where he’s no longer trying to murder Tim, which Dick considers a huge improvement. Most of the time, he cusses Dick out when he shows up at his apartment unaccounted for, but sometimes he’ll accept an invite out to breakfast or lunch. Especially if Alfred will be there.

Things are okay. 

And then Dick stumbles across a kid on patrol with a familiar furrow between his eyes and hate and arrogance etched into the fighting stance he falls into. 

Damian, he introduces himself as. 

After, Dick drags the boy back to the cave, bound and bleeding—there’s only so much pulling of punches that can happen when an assassin is whipping a goddamn katana at your throat, kid or not. He leans on the railing as Bruce talks with Damian, eventually sending him with Alfred to his new room, his new home. 

Bruce turns to him, eyes hard. “He’s hurt.” 

Dick sleeps in Blud.

Artemis essentially kidnaps him, dragging him from his bed in the middle of the night, barely giving him time to find a shirt and wallet before she has him down the street and eating midnight pizza. “I heard,” she says. 

Dick sighs. “I cannot even tell you.” 

They devour a large pepperoni between each other and Artemi ruffles his hair as she leaves. “Stay traught,” she tells him. “You did fine with the others.”

“The others never tried to kill me.” 

“Tim cooked you breakfast that one time,” she reminds him. 

Dick laughs and feels a little better the next time he stops at the manor. 

Bruce dies. Bruce fucking dies. 

Dick can barely stand as Tim falls against his chest and wails. He breaks into Jason’s apartment and tells his baby brother to sit down in a shaky voice. He calls Cass—tells her to come home. Steph curls right into his arms when she hears. Damian is angry, angrier than Dick has ever seen him. He knocks on Dick’s door at night. 

Dick brushes away tears and kisses foreheads and holds weeping kids. 

Nightwing pulls on a darker pelt, eared-cowl, and thinks sorry Timmy, as he makes choices and mistakes and tries to drag his family through this dark, gummed-up mess of grief and disaster and pain. 

Some nights, he wraps himself up in Bruce’s cape, smells lavender, squeezes his arms around himself until his nails dig divots and blood. Dick sobs, he screams into balled up fabric, and thrashes in the throes of regret and fear and rage and gasps on sharp, stolen inhales until his vision grows foggy and knives claw into his chest, and panic pulls him into sleep. 

He wants his Dad. 

“Dickie,” Wally says. “God, Dick.” 

They’re all there, the whole team—Dick’s first. He wraps his arms around Wally’s waist and lets Kaldur rub his back and Conner pat his ankle. Roy has Dick’s head in his lap. M’gann kisses his cheek and Artemis softly, carefully, catches the tears falling down his face.

“Sorry,” Dick tells him as he shakes. 

They all say quiet, gentle things that he can’t pick apart, but that feel nice anyway. 

“Tim,” Dick pleads. “It’s enough. It’s enough, kiddo.” 

“You don’t understand!” Tim shouts. “He’s alive Dick! He’s okay! Why won’t any of you believe me?!” 

Dick grabs his shoulders and tries to pull him in to settle. But Tim isn’t Robin anymore, and he doesn’t curl into place. He yanks himself free with fire in his gaze and hands shaking from exhaustion and caffeine and pure frustration. 

“Whatever, Dick,” Tim says, stalking away. “I’ll do this alone.” 

Dick stands alone in the middle of the room for over a minute, staring at where his little brother disappeared, hurting and alone, not accepting Dick’s hug, his help. It’s the same. It’s the same thing—Dick’s done something wrong. The kids shouldn’t feel like this, alone. Dick needs to do better for them. 

It’s the quiet patter of footsteps at the doorway that breaks Dick out of these thoughts. He glances back. 

“Dames,” Dick says. Damian’s scowl is affixed, but Dick’s gotten much better at reading his Robin. “C’mere, buddy.” 

For a second, Dick thinks Damian will refuse. The moments he accepts Dick’s attention without complaint are few and far between. But it’s a testament to how miserable he is that he drags himself into Dick’s arms. Dick kneels down to wrap him up, smoothing his hair down. 

“Richard?” Damian mumbles. “What Drake was saying…” 

Even with his vocabulary, Damian can’t seem to find the words for his question. Dick sighs and kisses the crown of his head. “Things will be okay.” 

He rocks them back and forth for as long as Damian will allow.

Dick drops Damian at the cave with bruises under kevlar. His body is broken and burning from injury after injury—too many patrols playing a part that he isn’t used to. Dick’s never put his body against blows the way Batman does. It hurts. 

His muscles ache. His bones crack. His skin splits. Alfred waits with meds and gauze every night, and something very sad in his eyes. Dick tries not to meet them as soft, weathered fingers tape him back together. 

“Master Dick,” Alfred says at one point, voice low as Damian closes the door to upstairs behind him. “This is becoming…I am concerned. You’re unwell.” 

Dick wipes at the drying blood on his face, wincing at the click of his shoulder. Alfred massages his knee. “I’m sorry,” he mumbles. 

Alfred pats his leg and settles him back into the cot. “There’s no apology needed,” Alfred mumbles. “Just…I care very much about you. It would break my heart if…” 

Dick doesn’t make him finish. He pulls himself up again and winds two arms around Alfred’s neck and he doesn’t smell like cave-lavender, but lemon polish is just as well. 

Alfred isn’t one for hugs, but he carried Dick to bed more than once as a child, and it’s a familiar place, to settle into the crook of his neck. 

“Love you Alfie,” Dick says. 

Alfred pats his back. 

Dick is holding himself up with split muscles and shredded skin and bruised bone. He staggers until the brick wall of the alleyway is at his back and uses it to stabilize himself as half-a-dozen thugs close in. For a moment, Dick regrets benching Damian tonight, but tomorrow’s test is important, and there isn’t a chance in hell Dick won’t put Damian’s well-being over Robin. 

Dick will be fine…this will just be messy. 

He punches and kicks and whirls—it’s been years since he fought consistently with a cape, but it’s like riding a bike. His breath comes quick, his chest screams and burns. His knee clicks. 

And then come the gunshots. 

Hood drops to his side, stowing his gun as the thugs roll on the ground, rubber bullets overwhelming them. Together, they bind the men. 

“What the fuck was that,” Hood says after, both standing on a neighboring rooftop. 

“Leave it,” Dick grunts. 

Hood plants a hand on his hip. “You looked like a fucking idiot, flailing around. That’s not how Batman fights.” 

Dick bites back something heated and vicious. He’s too tired to deal with Jason’s lip tonight. “Thanks for the help,” he says instead, and turns to leave. 

Hood grabs his shoulder. “Seriously, N,” he says. “You need a break.” 

Dick should probably reprimand him, remind him that he’s Batman now. But Dick doesn’t want to remind himself. “I’m okay Little Wing,” he says. “Promise.” 

Dick hacks on smoke and drags himself closer to the open window, the little girl in his arms gulps through his rebreather, tear’s tracking lines through the soot on her face. He readjusts to hold the cape protectively around the bare skin her pajamas do little to cover. 

Around them, wooden supports crumble and fall. Flames and heat lick and wires spark. Gray smoke and fire eat up his world and lap at his skin. Their time is running out—Dick throws himself and the girl out of the window, stories up, and barely has the time to get a good hook with the grapple. They fly through the air, wind whipping, the little girl wailing, and when they connect with the window Dick turns so it’s his back that slams and breaks through the ice, keeping the girl pressed against himself protectively. 

They lay on the ground for a moment, Dick groaning. His back screams. He has to claw himself up. 

“Let’s go find your mom,” he manages to say quietly.

Harley’s mallet still packs a punch. Dick staggers sideways, shoulder bent awkwardly, feet skidding for a foothold on the slick, waxed floor of the abandoned bowling center. 

Harley squeals in amusement. “Too slow Boy-Original!” 

Dick wrenches his socket into place against the wall and picks himself up for the fight to continue. The trade kicks and punches and Dick cheats a little—Harley knows it’s him, and it’s only them. He flips, once, twice, kicks off and lands an undercut that has her sprawling. 

Tim drops in as he’s binding her, still groaning. 

“What’s wrong?” Tim asks immediately, picking up on the tentative way Dick moves. 

“Just a fight, kiddo,” Dick tells him. 

He ruffles Tim's hair. 

Dick drags Ivy to Arkham, skin aching from hives and mind muddled by a mouthful of pollen. It’s only Robin jumping in at his side that keeps him upright. 

“Batman,” Robin says, concerned. 

Dick nods. “Okay,” he gasps. “I’m okay, buddy.”

“Dick,” Steph says, tone dripping with disbelief. It jerks him out of his stupor. Dick looks over at where she’s rummaging through the fridge, following her gaze to his own elbow…which sits in a container of Alfred’s jam. 

“Dammit,” Dick mumbles. 

Dick falls through the wall, hip slamming against brick and cracking ominously. He rolls over with a cry and barely avoids the furious slash of an ax aimed at his hand.

Dick slogs through the mud and rain, dragging the unconscious form of one of Two-Face’s thugs from the flooding water. 

Dick dodges a punch to the nose. He’s kicked in the back of his leg, wrenching his knee. 

Dick ignores the pain in his wrist as he carries Tim to bed. 

Dick steps out of the shower—he falls.

Dick pauses in the hallway, glancing up at Bruce’s portrait on the wall, and doesn’t move for a very long time. 

Tim was right, Bruce is back.

He rests a hand on Dick’s shoulder and squeezes and for a dangerous second Dick thinks his knees will give out, and then he’s stepping aside so Damian can curl into his father’s arms. The mix of feelings Dick has at the sight is so painful and happy that his eyes grow damp and his chest tight. He shakes. 

“Don’t do that again,” Dick mumbles to Bruce at one point. 

Bruce looks at him, and something in his voice must give away how it’s been, because Bruce’s gaze scrutinizes him. His hand comes up to squeeze Dick’s nape. “I’m sorry, chum,” he mumbles. 

Dick nods. 

“Dick,” Kaldur says. “A moment?” 

Dick raises an eyebrow but follows him into one of the Justice League’s empty conference rooms. “What’s up, Kal?”

Kaldur pauses, the same way he does before speeches, before addressing teams. Like he’s gathering his thoughts. Dick frowns. Immediately, his demeanor becomes more serious. “What’s wrong?”

“Do not be alarmed,” Kaldur cautions, reaching out to rest a hand on Dick’s shoulder, squeezing the same way he did when he had to keep Dick from disappearing on team missions, or hold him back from jumping into whatever mischief Wally had dived head-first into. The seriousness of the grip work as well as it always did. Dick forces himself to relax. “I just wanted to speak with you, about your behavior these last few months.”

Dick’s gaze drops to his toes. “You know things were hard,” he mumbles. 

“I know,” Kaldur says. “I’m still so sorry for the pain you had to go through, with losing Batman.”

“I didn’t though,” Dick says.

“It is similar enough,” Kaldur insists. “You grieved him, and that is not something I would have wanted for you.” 

“Kaldur what's this about?” Dick presses. 

Kaldur sighs. “I…a couple of us, the team, have become worried. About you. You walk away from fights with more bruises, you’re always tired, you’ve lost weight—”

“I’m getting old,” Dick says.

“You’re in your twenties.” 

Dick crosses his arms. “...Okay. Okay, I know things haven’t been great. But it’ll be better, now that B’s back…things will be okay.” 

“Dick,” Kaldur says gently. “I…I do not think that will be the case.” 

Dick stares at him. 

“I know you, and the ‘Bats’ are less comfortable with some things. With conversations,” Kaldur says. “But I believe…I believe it’s time for things to be said.” 

Dick is quiet. 

“The others,” Kaldur continues. “Think similarly.” 

Dick is quiet for longer. Finally, he scrubs a hand over the nape of his neck. He nods. “I’ll think about it.”

Kaldur pulls him into a hug before they leave the conference room.

Dick thinks about what Kaldur said, but the moment never seems to come up. The family gets over Bruce's death the same way they get through every hurdle, wading through it without acknowledgement. The conversation becomes less important—things will be fine, Dick decides. If it works, don’t fix it, right?

Before long, it’s been months. Bruce is back to patrolling as Batman, Damian dodging his footsteps. Dick splits his time between Blud and Gotham, but more balanced. He doesn’t feel torn apart by two cities. He doesn’t feel torn apart by the family. He has time to sleep, to eat, to breathe. 

He’s in a better mood, when he interrupts the gun deal. 

And then it all goes so wrong. 

Dick activates his panic button as the building starts to collapse. The bottom floors are unreachable, the windows boarded up. The only direction he can take is up, toward the roof. If Dick can make it in time he can grapple to an adjacent building. It’ll be close, but it’s the only option he has. 

Dick tears his way through hallways and stairwells. Everyone is loud on the coms but he doesn’t spare the breath to answer. He dodges a chunk of falling ceiling, dives for the railing as stairs give away beneath him. The access door to the roof is in view overhead, unreachable. 

Dick has to pull back, leaping from two-inch bars of metal belted to the walls, wincing as they groan ominously. His knee almost gives out—freshly injured by the furious cracking of the butt of a gun against its side. He bites down on a cry as he leaps up, hands outstretched for the door’s threshold—

His fingertips snag it. 

For a moment, Dick dangles, the collapsing stairwell giving way to a multiple story drop hovering below his feet. He grits his teeth. He’s a circus brat, changing his grip and dragging himself up is in his blood. His training. In a moment, Dick has clawed his way up to the point where he can reach the doorknob and throw himself out the door. 

Behind him, the door falls. Dick leaps into motion, sprinting toward the building’s edge as pain grips his knee and threatens to take his legs out from under him. His gait shudders and his fingers scrape against the grapple gun—

The roof gives out. 

Dick falls. 

Wreckage is swallowing him, something hitting his head so his vision blinks red and black and white and blurs and then the weightless feeling he loves swoops through his stomach, but this time is different, because Dick doesn’t have the strength or time to point the grapple. This time is different because Dick is going to fall and it’s going to be just like his parents—

Something dark, and big, slams into his side. 

A primal piece of his brain rears with survival instinct, telling Dick to fight in the throes of danger and confusion, to throw off the strange weight that’s slammed, blindingly strong, against his side, and grips around his waist. But other instincts, softer instincts, whisper long-learned things. And Dick listens. 

His arms wrap around the solid blackness, his head drops to rest into the crook of neck and shoulder. His body curls into a smaller form to take the imminent slamming that comes with a rough grapple landing. 

And then it comes. 

They twist over each other, he and the blur, rolling with momentum until they come to a stop in scattered debris, shards of splintered wood and cracked glass beneath them. Dick groans. For a moment, his world is white pain. He blinks it away. 

And then he sees him. 

Batman. 

Bruce is still at Dick’s side—Dick has subconsciously curled in somewhere near his chest. One of Bruce's arms is half sprawled over him, hard, unrelenting grip relaxed. He’s close enough for Dick to smell through his gasping inhales—smoke and iron. Batman recovers from their landing first. 

He sits up, lensed-gaze crawling over Dick, head to toe. “Are you okay?” he asks urgently. 

Dick swallows thickly. The adrenaline is starting the recede, and his muscles feel thick and soupy, his thoughts slow like draining molasses. “Y-yeah.”

“Report,” Batman orders, but Dick must have hit his head harder than he thought—he can barely organize the million little hurts and scrapes and tell them apart from the real injuries. He blinks slowly.  

Batman’s expression twists with something he doesn’t direct toward Nightwing often. Concern. “Nightwing,” Batman says, harsher. “Report.” 

He takes initiative himself too, hands running up and down Dick's chest, searching for damage to the kevlar, crawling over his head, fingers probing through his hair for wounds. He finds the blood, and then the knot, and his hands jump away when Dick groans. 

“Head,” Dick says. 

“We have to get you back to the cave,” Batman grunts. “Can you walk?”

Dick thinks about it. “Yeah.” 

He finds his toes, his feet. He manages to bend his knees and pull himself into a seat position, even as the ground tilts and the sky dips. Vertigo and nausea wiggle into his stomach, comb through his brain. Spit coagulates in the hollows of his mouth, salty. 

“B,” Dick warns, and then he’s tilting sideways to throw up. 

It’s been too long since he ate—stomach acid burns in his throat as he spits it out onto the concrete. He reaches with a trembling hand to pull back his hair, long enough for a cut, but some strands escape. 

And then there are bigger, steadier hands instead. Gloved hands. Bruce. 

He holds Dick’s hair with one hand, the other curling around his back to keep him from falling over into his own sick. Dick spits again when he’s finished, grimacing. He knows this is the part where he pulls away, finds his feet, forces himself at least to the Batmobile so Bruce can bring him home. He knows this role, he’s played this role. 

Dick doesn’t pull away. 

The moment drags, and then, hesitantly, Batman starts to run comforting circles on his back. “Nightwing,” he mumbles, all question. And it’s….god it’s the tone. It’s the tone he uses, the same one he reserved for waking Dick from nightmares of his parents' deaths those first years at the manor. The tone from staying at Dick’s bedside as he slogged his way through a vicious flu. It’s the tone he used when he held Dick’s hand as Alfred poured antiseptic over his scraped knees and wrapped ace bandages up his legs. It’s the tone that shushed him as he cried and soft hands dragged him against a large, lavender scented chest for comfort. It’s been so long.

Dick bursts into tears. 

“B,” Dick cries, dropping into his chest, shoulder shaking. 

For an awful, awful moment, Dick realizes he’s made a mistake. He’s not twelve anymore—the kid who crawled into Batman’s lap is gone, grown up. He shouldn’t be doing this, he shouldn’t need this. 

And then Bruce’s arms fold him in closer. “Shh,” he murmurs. “It’s okay.” 

Dick cries harder, he’s desperate, dragging himself onto Bruce to wrap winding limbs around him. He doesn’t want to let go. Everything hurts, inside and out, and he wants…he wants… 

“Dad,” Dick says. “Dad, help.” 

Bruce makes a choked noise and then he’s everywhere, brushing Dick’s hair, careful of the wound. Patting his back. Rocking his weight back and forth. Kissing his forehead. Murmuring sweet words in his ears. “I’ve got you chum,” Bruce says. “Whatever you need, I’m right here.” 

“You weren’t,” Dick accuses, voice shaky. His hands clutch at Bruce’s cape even as the older man drags it around him, like he did when Dick was Robin and cold. “You died.” 

“I didn’t,” Bruce reminds him patiently. 

“I had to be…I wasn’t you,” Dick says. “I tried so hard Bruce, but it was too much. I wasn’t good enough—I’m not good enough. I hurt Tim. I couldn’t keep Damian safe. I couldn't protect Gotham—”

“You did so well, Dick,” Bruce interrupts. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there, but I’m so proud of you. I’ve always been so proud of you.” 

Dick slumps in his hold, arms giving, as years of built-up grief and pain slough off of him. He cries. 

Bruce lets him. At one point, he reaches up to activate his comm, canceling something. Dick doesn’t know how long they sit there, Bruce holding him close as Dick gasps for breath against the choking of misery. Now that he’s spiraled into it, he can’t dig himself out of the crying. He clutches Bruce closer. 

At some point, Bruce shifts. Dick, thinking he’s about to be shoved away, finds a grip on his cape. But arms just slip under his knees and back and lift with a grunt. It’s been years since Dick was held in Bruce’s arms—he’s too big, he’s been too big. “Bruce,” he says. “Bruce.” 

But Bruce just shushes him and goes on carrying him to the car. 

He climbs in the back with Dick, still letting him slump into his side, and has the Batmobile set to auto, driving them back to the cave. 

At some point, with the heat blasting, the cape wound around him as a familiar, weighted blanket, and Bruce’s kevlar-covered chest rising and falling against his ear, his cries peter out. Bruce pulls off his gloves, his cowl. 

“Sleep, Dickie,” he says.

Dick dozes. 

Arriving at the cave is a blur.

Bruce shakes him awake, and then Alfred is there, checking vitals and injuries. At one point the butler seizes beneath Dick’s arm and starts to pull him toward the shower. Dick glances wildly over his shoulders in Bruce’s direction. “Alfred—” he says urgently, knowing he’s being unreasonable. 

But Bruce gets up anyway, moving lightning fast to pull Dick back into his arms. It’s a little less this time, without Dick yanking himself closer like their lives depend on it. But it’s enough to ease the tightness that seizes his chest. 

Bruce says something to Alfred over Dick’s shoulder, and then Alfred is running a comforting hand up and down Dick’s arm and leaving the cave. 

Bruce holds him for a little while longer before pulling back again, keeping his hands on Dick’s shoulders, keeping him upright as his knee threatens again. 

“Dick,” Bruce says. “I’ll be right outside—I’m not leaving, chum. I promise.” 

Dick pins his gaze somewhere near his collarbones—he’s well aware of how needy he’s being. It’s not right—Bruce has things to do. He shouldn’t be catering to Dick. It’s not like buildings don’t collapse left and right. It’s not like they don’t have near-death incidents bi-weekly. Dick has a concussion—a bad one maybe, but it’s not like he hasn’t had those before. He should be fine. He should be able to handle this without Bruce holding his hand like he’s nine years old again. He has handled this. 

So why can’t he?

“Dick,” Bruce prompts. One of his fingers rubs up and down his neck. “Are you alright?” 

Dick nods. He’s being ridiculous. He goes to pull away, ignoring the panic. Bruce stops him before he can enter the stall. “I’ll be right here.”

Dick clears his throat. “Okay.” 

And when both of them exit their individual stalls, clad in sweats, the blood and grime washed away, Bruce is right there to wind an arm around Dick’s waist and keep him from staggering on his injured knee. He tows them both to the medical cots in the corner of the cave, depositing Dick so carefully. 

“It’s okay,” Bruce says, when one of Dick’s hands clutches his sleeves. “I’m here, chum.” 

“I know,” Dick says, voice rough with exhaustion. His eyes flutter close. “Sorry.” 

Bruce pulls the blankets up, one hand brushing through Dick’s hair. “I’m sorry,” Bruce says firmly. “I’ll tell you again, when you’re awake. But this is my fault, Dick. I promise, this will never happen again.” 

Dick takes a deep breath—lavender—and lets it drag him into sleep. 

It’s Cass who finds them in the morning. 

Dick’s been awake for a bit, but Bruce is still asleep, on arm thrown protectively over Dick’s back. Cass looks between them, eyes narrowed, before smiling. 

“Better,” she whispers.

Dick nods, snagging one of her hands to pull her against him for a quick cuddle. She settles in happily. They have a long way to go—it’s time Dick takes Kaldur’s advice. It’s time he has that conversation. But right now…things have at least taken a step forward. He pulls the blankets up to Cass’s chin and flicks her nose affectionately. “Better.”