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It had been a good patrol. For the first time in a while, getting back to the cave and stripping off Viper's mask felt good, and not like just another step in the daily slog.
Selina was laughing with Steph, and Damian was practically vibrating his way through stripping the Robin uniform.
Talia turned to Batman, a teasing smile on her lips, and stopped short, the wind knocked out of her, to be looking at Richard's face under the cowl.
Talia swallowed. Of course, she realized a little hollowly.
Richard, blessedly, didn't notice her stutter. He caught her gaze on him, and one corner of his mouth tilted up, blue eyes light and easy. He'd had a good patrol too.
Talia made herself smile back, nod at him, and he strode off towards the showers, always eager to shed the mantle of the Bat.
Selina wound herself around Talia's back. "What is it, Beautiful?" she asked softly.
"I forgot," Talia admitted. "For just a moment. That he was gone."
"Oh, lovely," Selina sighed softly, leaning even tighter into Talia.
Talia tilted her head to rest her temple against the top of Selina's head and breathed through the renewed grief of Bruce's loss. "Richard isn't okay," she whispered.
"No," Selina agreed. "But he's not hearing me when I tell him so."
Talia nodded slowly.
Then Steph and Damian were coming out of the locker room, bickering about something. Selina shot a look at Talia, the last one still in costume, and shooed them up the stairs before they could notice Talia's disquiet.
Talia almost called her back, and then bit her lip to keep her silence. She shed the scale-mail jacket which was the outermost layer of the costume, and set it on the desk beside her veil. Then she stood, breathing in the quiet cave, until Richard came back from his shower.
Back in his own clothes, sweats and a faded tee, the tired circles under his eyes and the crooked tilt of his default smile were more obvious. That little half-smile fell straight off his face when he saw her still standing there. "Talia?" he asked quietly.
Talia swallowed. "Richard." Then she swallowed against the indignity, and said, more firmly, "Dick."
He didn't bother to hide his surprise. She had never used his chosen name before, and for many long years, it had been one more thing between them, though she suspected, now, particularly with exposure to Damian's similar mannerisms, that he understood that since her return to Gotham she instead had meant it as respect, the unwillingness to refer to him by vulgar slang, rather than disrespect of his choice. Still, it was his choice, and she should've switched to it long ago. "What's wrong?" he asked.
Talia stared at him. She had promised, aloud to Bruce's grave and again in the privacy of her mind as she had watched Alfred and Selina coax them all into the car after the funeral, to look after them, to care for each of her Beloved's children as her own, and she was chagrined, now, to look into Dick's face and realized she had not done so for him nearly as well as she had for the others.
"Talia?" Dick asked, stepping closer to her. She'd been staring in silence at him for too long.
Talia reached out, almost blindly. How long had it been, since she'd drawn a child into her embrace? Since their journey to Gotham, Damian went to Dick for hugs, reaching instead for her hands when he wanted her reassurance. Certainly, it would've been since he was smaller, and the League less hostile to them both.
"T?" Dick asked, sounding bewildered, as he folded easily into her embrace. His arms slipped around her waist, holding her back. They were the same height, she and the man she had been thinking of as more her Beloved's heir than her stepson.
It was only since coming to Gotham again that she had understood how lonely a place heirdom was, when the alternative was being a son.
"What's wrong?" he asked plaintively.
Talia squeezed him tighter. She had promised to take care of him, and here he was, trying to take care of her. "Ibni," she whispered.
She felt him gasp, an understated inhale of surprise. She leaned back slightly to cup his cheeks. "I cannot speak for John Grayson," she told him solemnly. "Though I do not doubt he is proud of his son. I can speak of your other father. And Bruce was proud of you every day of his life, and he was proud of you again today."
"Talia," Dick said, voice cracking hoarsely, helpless and pleading and so fond.
"Dick," she said again, deliberately.
His wet eyes overflowed, but he smiled at her.
"I thought we understood each other," Talia said. "I thought we had come to an understanding."
"Talia," Dick started, eyes widening in what was quickly shaping into alarm.
Talia hushed him. "I turned to the Bat this evening to say something to Bruce that he will never hear," she said.
Dick flinched like he'd taken a hit.
"I do not wish to find things I should have said to you," Talia finished.
Dick swallowed. "T," he said, as deliberate as her usage of his chosen name. Jason called her T, and Tim and Steph had taken it up. Bruce and Selina both did, sometimes, soft and fond. Dick never had, scrupulously polite, full-naming her in respect as she did for him.
"I never thanked you," she said. "For showing me a better path for Damian. And for me," she added. "For welcoming me for Damian's sake when you could not do it for my own. For advocating for me with Bruce, when we had not found each other, not because of me but because of Bruce, and because of Damian."
"That, T-" Dick said, "Don't thank me for being an ass to you," he said.
Talia kissed his forehead. "You were perfectly justified in your dislike, and yet you never let it color your interactions with Damian, or with Bruce when he welcomed me back."
"He loved you," Dick said. "I wasn't going to- to get in the way." His trembling mouth turned into a crooked grin. "This time," he added.
Talia smiled, remembering a small boy with a vicious grin, and a possessive streak a mile wide. It had been strange and infuriating, to be in competition for Bruce not with the women of Gotham, but with a child. "As he loved you," she told the man that boy had grown into. "Because, in part, you are the kind of man who would treat me as you have done, despite all I have done." She cupped his cheeks again. "Let me be grateful."
"You don't need to be," Dick insisted. "I held a grudge a lot longer than I should've." He smiled at her, but still it was a small and crooked thing, not his proper smile. She had realized as his smile had fallen off his face that she hadn't seen his proper smile in weeks. "You've become an excellent member of this family."
And here he was, trying to care for her again. "And you are our heart, Ibni," Talia said quietly, drawing his forehead to hers. "And I am worried about you."
Dick made a strangled noise, probably trying to work out which of those things to react to first.
Selina appeared on cat-quiet feet, tucking herself against their sides. "Let us carry it for you, kitten," she murmured. "We're here for you."
Dick's shoulders drooped.
Selina's metaphor of carrying was the perfect way to convey what Talia hadn't known how to tell him. "It's our turn," she told him, tipping his chin to hold blue eyes which were not nearly reminiscent of Bruce's and hurt all the more for it. "You carried us in the immediate aftermath."
"You carried us all," Selina agreed.
"But we have found our feet again," Talia said, indicating Selina and herself with a tip of her head. "Damian and Steph are as well as they can be, and will continue to get better with time."
"We all will," Selina added.
"But you have not allowed yourself to grieve," Talia told Dick. "And you are stifling under the weight of your hurt. Let us carry it."
Dick folded forwards into her shoulder. "I can't," he whispered.
"You must," Talia disagreed. She didn't mean to cut Selina out of the embrace, but she pulled Dick even closer, tucking his face into her neck as she had when Damian was very small, and stroked his hair.
Selina shifted to rub Dick's back. "Bluebird, it's all right. We're in it together. You can hurt, you can struggle. We'll catch you."
"I can't," Dick repeated hoarsely. "Batman can't fail."
"Horseshit!" Selina snapped. "And fuck Batman in that case, anyway!"
Dick lifted his head, startled by her vehemence.
Talia turned his chin back around to her. "She's right," she said.
This startled him even more than Selina saying it had. Selina had said 'fuck Batman' plenty of times when Bruce had been the one in the cowl, after all.
"Batman's taking the week off," Selina announced.
"What?" Dick said.
"I miss Nightwing," Talia said. "We don't need him any less than we need Batman."
Dick blinked between them in confusion.
"If the cowl is eating you, take it off," Selina said gently, stroking his back again.
Dick burst immediately into exhausted tears.
Talia folded him right back into her chest, and tugged Selina in close too. Selina pressed kisses over his hair, murmuring softly.
Talia only said, "We have you, Ibni," and made it be true.