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English
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Published:
2025-08-05
Completed:
2025-08-05
Words:
1,600
Chapters:
2/2
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26
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377
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Look at My—

Summary:

Where Damian feels overlooked in a full house and Bruce realizes and tries to make it right.

Notes:

I'm so Tim Drake-obsessed but I wanted to write a Dami fic so here it is.

(hummed Dear Theodosia and Jireh while writing)

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Chapter 1

Chapter Text

Damian doesn’t need anything.

Not really. Not like that.

Everyone else always needs something.

Tim needs quiet. Jason needs painkillers. Cass needs schematics. Stephanie needs space until she doesn’t. Duke needs a new charger. Alfred needs a break he’ll never take.

And Father—Father moves between them like gravity, pulled wherever the next emergency blooms.

Damian doesn’t mind being quiet.

Jason’s got a stitched-up shoulder and a bruise that’s turning yellow at the edge, so Father spends forty minutes beside him in the medbay after patrol, gloves still on, voice quiet. They don’t talk much, but Jason lets him wrap the gauze, which is its own kind of intimacy. Father says, “Next time, call for backup.” Jason says nothing. Nods once.

Cass is working on a rig. She and Father go over schematics at the kitchen table. Her pen scribbles between lines of silent agreement. Father glances at the time. Orders her takeout before she remembers she hasn’t eaten.

Tim has a migraine. Father lets him sleep in his office. The lights are dimmed. A folded blanket appears from nowhere, tucked under his arm when he stirs.

There’s a Justice League call the next night—mid-sentence, mid-conversation, Father stands, says, “Hold on—this can wait,” and disappears with his comm still chirping. Damian had been describing a new training method. Not critical. Still, he feels the severed thread in his chest like a snapped tether. He finishes the sentence anyway. Alone.

Father doesn’t skip anyone.

Everyone gets something. A word. A touch. A note in the margin of a mission report. Even Duke gets an extra charger cable when his short-circuits—Father leaves it on his desk without a word. Stephanie jokes that she’s jealous. Father buys her a second one, in purple.

Everyone gets something.

A charger. A blanket. A sparring session.

Everyone gets something. And Father? Father moves between them like gravity, pulled wherever the next emergency blooms.

Damian sharpens his swords alone now. It’s simpler.

He mentions a minor strain in his knee. Father nods, says, “Ice it. We’ll reassess tomorrow.” There is no tomorrow.

The hallway outside Damian’s room creaks around three in the morning. Once, it had been Father’s footsteps. Now it’s the house settling. He leaves the door ajar anyway.

There’s a comfort in consistency. In being relied upon to be alright. If Damian is the only one who doesn’t need help, doesn’t ask for it, doesn’t get it—well. Maybe that’s better. Maybe that’s control.

It helps. To be low-maintenance. To make things easier. To be the son who doesn’t cause a scene. Father has enough to deal with.

He watches Father help Cass into her new harness and wonders if it’s always been like this.

He doesn’t ask for sparring. Doesn’t pause in conversation to see if Father is listening. Doesn’t linger in the gym or glance down the hallway after patrol. His tea is steeped with precision, poured in silence. He drinks it in the greenhouse or on the roof. Somewhere high and green and empty.

Sometimes, he watches the sparrows build nests under the eaves. They don’t know they’re being watched. They bring bits of string and bark, and Damian thinks about how much work it is to build something small and warm and strong enough to sleep in.

The door to his room stays closed. Not locked. Not open. Just shut.

No one knocks.

One night, his shoulder pops during a landing. Just slightly. A bad angle off the fire escape, nothing dramatic. He braces it against the wall for a moment. Then resets. Breathes through it.

He doesn’t report the injury.

By morning the ache is manageable. So he manages it.

Cass leaves him a rice cake shaped like a frog. Tim sends him a meme that doesn’t make sense. Jason ruffles his hair without warning and says, “Still short, demon.”

They mean well. Really, they do.

But he still has this faded memory of a time Father stood in his doorway late at night, silent and still. Damian had been pretending to sleep, back turned, breathing slow. Father never came closer. Never touched him. Just stood there a moment, like a sentry. Then left.

He thinks about that now. Wonders what changed. If it’s him. If it’s Father. If maybe the whole house is just too full.

Alfred notices.

“Your tea’s gotten stronger,” he says one morning.

Damian shrugs. “It’s steeped longer.”

“You could let someone else make it.”

“No need.”

One night, he wakes to the sound of Father’s voice—soft, in the hallway. Talking to Steph. Laughing, even. Damian holds his breath. Waits. The footsteps don’t come closer. The light under the door fades.

In the morning, Father is gone again.

A bird hits the glass in the greenhouse. Small, brown, stunned. Damian gathers it in his hands and checks for a broken wing. None. Just shock. He sits with it for a long time.

When it stirs, he whispers, “You’re alright,” and sets it gently on the railing. Watches it fly.

He doesn’t know what makes him leave the door cracked again the next night.

Maybe nothing.

Maybe everything.

Chapter 2

Chapter Text

Bruce is tired.

Tired in the way that doesn’t sleep off.

There are nineteen pings from the Watchtower, fourteen open reports from GCPD, seven encrypted messages from Lucius, and four alerts in the Cave for two chemical trace analyses he ran last week and forgot to review. He has a conference call with the UN in five hours. He’s needed in Prague. In Metropolis. In his own kitchen.

Cass wants help with a rig. Jason needs rewrapping. Tim hasn’t been sleeping again. Stephanie’s texts are increasingly sharp in tone—humor bent into frustration. Duke’s charger shorted out, and somehow that’s his responsibility too.

So he keeps moving. From hallway to mission briefing to rooftops to the manor. Moving is easier than stopping. Stopping is when the list begins again.

He forgets the moment with Damian until it replays later.

Damian had been explaining something in the gym—some new training rhythm he wanted to try. It was structured, methodical. Thought through. Bruce had actually liked the sound of it.

Then the League call came through.

He hadn’t meant to interrupt. Just one step aside to answer, to say, "This can wait."

But the thread snapped. Damian stopped mid-sentence. Bruce didn’t return.

By the time he remembered, it was three days later. Then a week. Then two. Then the rig broke, and Cass needed another consult. Then Jason came in bleeding again.

There’s always something.

He notices the tea first. Bitterer than usual. Damian doesn’t drink sweet, but this is different—too strong, steeped too long. Alfred sets the mug down without comment. Bruce files it away.

The second thing is the shoulder. Slight hitch in his son’s left arm during warmups. Bruce notes it, expects Damian to report it. He doesn’t.

That night, Cass pulls her hits during a light spar. Damian loses. He shouldn’t have. He walks off before Bruce can say anything.

He tells himself he’ll check on him tomorrow.

But tomorrow becomes later. And later becomes next week. Next month.

There’s always something. Fires in Gotham. Crisis alerts. Off-world consults. Missions too sensitive to delegate, emergencies too urgent to decline. He keeps moving, not because he forgets—but because he remembers too much. The cost of delay. The weight of every missed chance. He tells himself Damian’s fine. He’s always fine.

Bruce doesn't completely realize he's messed up until a week ago, and he's ashamed to admit it takes him four days from then to pad up the stairs to Damian's room.

The manor is quiet, wrapped in its late-hour hush. A stair creaks under his heel. A hallway draft pulls at the curtain edge. He passes Tim’s door, Duke's, Cass’s—light off, light on, light off. Then stops.

Damian’s door is cracked. Not much. Just enough to mean something.

Bruce knocks once, even though he doesn’t need to. The door creaks as it opens.

The room is dim. The desk lamp is on, but Damian isn’t at his desk. He’s curled under his blanket on the far side of the bed, back to the door, limbs pulled in tight. Still dressed.

He doesn’t turn when Bruce enters. Doesn’t speak.

Bruce crosses the room and stops beside the bed. Waits.

Damian doesn’t move. But his breathing shifts. A little slower. A little heavier.

"You don't need to fight for my attention," Bruce says quietly.

A beat.

"I didn't think I had to," Damian replies, voice muffled against the pillow.

It lands like a bruise. Not angry. Just honest.

Bruce crouches beside him. Adjusts the blanket. Pulls it gently over his son’s shoulder, where it had slipped.

His fingers brush Damian’s hair back once. Soft. Careful.

He sits on the edge of the bed. "I always check on you too," he says.

Another pause. Damian still doesn’t look at him. But his posture shifts, just slightly—less curled, less rigid.

Bruce glances around the room. On the desk is a mug: tea, gone cold. On the nightstand, a small field guide to North American birds lies facedown, spine cracked. The corner of a bookmark peeks from the middle.

“I saw the bird,” Bruce says, gently. “The one that hit the glass.”

That gets a twitch of movement. Not much. Enough.

“I checked the aviary too,” he adds. “Sparrow’s doing fine.”

He doesn’t say more. Doesn’t press.

Eventually, Damian exhales—one long breath, bone-deep and quiet. His eyes flutter shut.

Bruce stays there until his son's breathing evens out again.

Doesn’t speak.

Just stays.

Notes:

Not the intention, but I think we're averaging a fic a year at this point. Oh well. :)