Work Text:
Dick Grayson does not like blood.
Bruce has watched the boy stare in sick fascination at his own dislocated limbs, watched him trace curious fingers over deep bruises as they start to purple, but at the sight of anything larger than a papercut, he goes sheet white and screws his eyes shut.
It had been…well, it had been adorable at first. Seeing Dick feel secure enough to act so childish in their line of work had given Bruce hope that despite everything he had exposed this boy to out on Gotham’s street, some of that youthful innocence still remained.
Bruce no longer finds it adorable. Dick is proficient in most basic first aid, but the second Alfred tries to teach him how to stitch an open wound shut, he shakes his head as his face drains of color. He’d passed out once after looking at a cut on his own bicep for too long, and Bruce cannot help but notice that this has now turned into a liability.
Images of his boy bleeding out in some back alley unable to dress his own wounds keep Bruce awake at night until he decides that enough is enough. He’s tried letting Dick treat some of his own smaller cuts and scrapes, but he won’t even go near Bruce if he’s bleeding, so Bruce must resort to more drastic measures.
It takes a few weeks for the opportunity to present itself, but after a bank robbery goes wrong and lands Dick with a nasty gash across his thigh, Bruce sets his plan into motion.
“That’ll need stitches,” he says quietly as he drives back towards Wayne Manor.
Dick is sitting in the passenger seat, forehead pressed against the window of the Batmobile as he ignores both Bruce and the cut dripping blood down his leg. He’s draped the yellow fabric of his cape over the wound so he doesn’t have to look at it, and Bruce is already dreading what is to come.
Alfred waits for them by the med bay, gloved hands clasped behind his back as he watches Bruce carry Dick over to the table. He sets the boy down gently, pulls out a pair of kid-sized latex gloves and a pack of suture, then sighs.
“Those aren’t going to fit you,” Dick giggles when he sees the gloves. “Those ones are my size.”
“I know, chum.” Bruce holds them out. “You’re going to stitch it up.”
Dick goes white. “What?”
“I know both Alfred and I have made you practice on fake skin before. You know how to do it.” Bruce sits down next to him and puts a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll be right here if you need help.”
“I don’t want to.” He’s pouting now, jutting out his lower lip in a way he knows will usually make Bruce fold. It’s rare that Bruce says no to Dick, but worry and fear have wrapped their wicked hands around his heart and squeezed. “Why can’t you just do it?”
“Because I need to know that you can.”
“But you know that already!” Blue eyes brim with tears, and Bruce almost caves. “You just said that you and Alfred have watched me do it before! I don’t want to.”
“Dick,” Bruce says gently. “What happens if you get hurt, and I can’t get to you in time? What if Alfred is away, and I can’t stitch you up myself? I need you to show me that you can do this.”
Tears roll in unison down Dick’s cheeks as he pulls on the gloves. His hands are shaking, and Bruce holds his wrists, feeling his pulse flutter wildly beneath his tan skin. Bruce watches silently as Dick grabs the pack of suture and readies the needle. He holds the needle in one hand as he wipes the cut on his thigh clean, then closes his eyes and shakes in Bruce’s grasp.
“I don’t want to,” he cries. “Please, Bruce, I don’t want to look at it.”
“I’m not letting you back out on patrol until you prove to me that you can do this.” Bruce relents just a little and spares the boy the struggle of injecting himself with the local anesthetic before he places the forceps in Dick’s free hand. “I’m right here, chum. You can do it.”
Alfred stands watch, and Bruce can tell that the butler is going to have many, many words to say to him once Dick has gone to bed, but Bruce cannot find it in himself to care. He’s stitched himself closed more times than he can count; he knows how important basic first aid is in their line of work, and he refuses to fail this boy.
It takes a few moments for Dick to open his eyes, but once he does, he takes a hold of his lip between his teeth and begins. Bruce holds him steady as he pinches the edge of the wound with the forceps and threads the needle through his skin. The first stitch is neater than Bruce had been expecting, and he hums in approval.
“There,” Dick gasps. “I did it.”
“You’re not done.”
The look of utter betrayal on Dick’s face cleaves Bruce’s heart in two, but he dutifully bends his head and begins the second suture.
By the time the wound is closed, Dick’s entire body is trembling as he cries. He finishes the last suture and hurls the forceps and needle across the room. Bruce watches him rip the gloves from his hands so roughly that the latex snaps, and those he throws at Bruce’s head.
“Dick, chum, I-”
“You’re the worst partner ever,” the boy spits as he jumps down from the cot and lands on one leg. Alfred picks him up without a word, and they leave Bruce alone in the Cave.
He bends and picks up the things Dick had thrown, sets down a fresh set of sheets on the cot, and writes up a report on the night’s events. He’s almost finished when Alfred returns.
“That was quite possibly the cruelest thing I have ever seen you do, Master Bruce.” Alfred’s tone is viciously cold, and Bruce chafes under the man’s gaze. “That boy is not even twelve years old. He is allowed to be afraid, and he is allowed to want comfort when he gets injured on your watch.”
“And what happens when we aren’t there to comfort him?” Bruce snaps. “Goddamnit, Alfred, what if he pulls another reckless stunt and goes off on his own? What if he gets hurt, and we aren’t there to help him? Shit, I haven’t slept through the night since the first time he put on that costume because all I can see when I close my eyes is that boy’s corpse rotting in a back alley after he’s died on my watch.”
Bruce blinks away the wetness gathering on his eyelashes. “Alfred, if he dies because I didn’t prepare him well enough, I will never forgive myself.”
A hand comes to rest on his shoulder, and Bruce buries his face in Alfred’s stomach as he tries desperately not to cry.
“You need to go and talk to him,” Alfred says as he strokes back Bruce’s sweat-slick hair. “And you are going to apologize and promise that you will never, never, do something like that again, do you understand me? If you do something like that to that boy again, Master Bruce, I will never forgive you.”
The walk to Dick’s bedroom takes no time at all, and Bruce stalls outside the boy’s door. Drawings are pinned to the wood, and Bruce traces a finger over the pages with a smile on his face. There’s one of Batman and Robin flying over the Gotham skyline, a replication of the Flying Grayson’s poster that hangs above Dick’s bed, and one of Dick standing between Alfred and Bruce with a massive crayon smile stretching across his face.
“Dick?” Bruce asks as he knocks. “May I come in?”
Something thuds against the door, and then Dick yells, “Go away!”
“I brought you ice cream.”
Alfred had nearly lost his mind; it was past midnight, and Dick Grayson without sugar was already more energetic than most children, but Bruce had ignored him and gone to find the sprinkles.
He waits for a moment, and then the door opens just a crack. Dick peers out, and Bruce lowers the bowl so he can inspect the dessert.
“Fine,” Dick grumbles as he kicks the shoes he had thrown out of the way before fully opening the door. He snatches the bowl from Bruce’s hand and stomps over to his bed. He knows better than to eat on the sheets, but he sits down in the middle of his mattress anyway and stares at Bruce, as if daring him to comment on the fact that Bruce is now going to have to clean hot fudge sauce out of Egyptian cotton.
“How is your leg?”
“It hurts.” Dick shovels an enormous spoon of ice cream into his mouth. “The antiseptic wore off halfway through.”
“Why didn’t you say anything? I would have given you more.”
“Would you? Or would you have told me I needed to prove I could do it without it, too?”
Bruce sits down on the edge of the bed. Dick looks at him with careful eyes, but he doesn’t protest when Bruce inches closer.
“You always tell me that one day, you want your own patrol route, your own cases, your own Robin-signal on top of the GCPD.” Bruce swallows the lump in his throat and pushes on. “You’re the best partner I could have ever asked for, chum, but if one day, you’re out on your own and you can’t take care of yourself because I haven't prepared you well enough for what’s out there? Dick, I’d never forgive myself.”
There is no sound except for the scrape of metal against ceramic as Dick digs around in the bowl of ice cream. Bruce doesn’t understand why he enjoys mixing the ice cream around until it has turned to soup, but Dick seems to enjoy it well enough. Once it’s reached Dick’s preferred consistency, he takes a small bite and then sighs.
“I know I have to learn these things.” Dick doesn’t look up as he speaks, just stares at the neat line of stitches on his thigh. “I know, okay, I’m not dumb. But what you did was a gross violation of my boundaries.”
Bruce does not comment on the fact that that last sentence was most certainly one of Alfred’s. Instead, he reaches over, and when Dick doesn’t push him away, he brushes a smudge of ice cream from the boy’s cheek.
“I’m sorry.”
“I know that, too.” Dick leans into Bruce’s touch with a soft hum. “You’re scared, aren’t you? Me being out there scares you.”
“More than anything,” Bruce admits, voice no louder than a whisper. “I wish that you weren’t out there at all.”
Dick stares up at him for a long moment. He pins Bruce to the spot with his gaze, eyebrows furrowed as he thinks. Then, he nods and crawls into Bruce’s lap, spilling melted ice cream over Bruce’s pajama pants.
“The next time I get hurt, I’m going to stitch it,” Dick says with the slightest tremor in his voice. “I’m going to do it once more, just to prove I can, and then you’re going to take me to that fancy restaurant I like where they light the dessert on fire. Then, you’re going to take me to the zoo with Clark and let him take me flying wherever I want. And after that, you’re going to sew me shut for the rest of my life, deal?”
“Deal.”
Years later, Bruce will watch a much older Dick stumble into the Cave alongside his other children. He will watch his son sew their wounds shut, press ice to their bruises, and set broken bones without flinching. His hands do not shake like they had done when he was younger, and Alfred doesn’t even have to lift a finger to help him tend to their wounds.
He does not, however, tend to his own. Even now, in his own suit with gray beginning to shine in his hair, he comes up to Bruce, throws a pack of latex gloves at his face, and sits down in the med bay, waiting for Bruce to come and make good on their deal.