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Dick blinked his eyes once, then twice. He gasped in a horrified breath as his intense anger turned to a shocked realization.
Had Dick been present enough in that moment to look around the Batcave, he would have noticed that Bruce, Jason and Tim were all frozen in place; their mouths agape in shock.
Alfred maintained his tight grip on Dick’s wrist. The wrist which was attached to the young hero’s raised arm. Dick’s open hand was ready to strike the target in front of him, and if not for Alfred’s swift grab of Dick’s wrist mid-swing, Dick would absolutely have made stinging contact with his intended target.
Stood frozen in place directly in front of Dick was an equally shocked Damian. The boy’s young cheeks flushed bright red and his wide emerald eyes welled up with tears as he registered that Dick’s hand had meant to strike him across the face. Damian’s cheek saved from the sting only thanks to the quick intervention by Alfred.
Alfred waited a beat and then slowly released Dick’s wrist in silence.
Dick shakily attempted to apologize his youngest brother,
“Dami, I, I’m so s-“
Damian tore past Dick, as he suddenly bolted towards the cave stairs and up to the manor before anybody could stop him.
Dick dropped his head as his other family members tried to figure out what to say or do to cut through the deafening silence.
Alfred came to the rescue for the second time that night and piped up,
“Sirs, I suggest you all get showered and change into your civilian clothes. I will prepare some tea and snacks in the kitchen.”
Jason and Bruce heeded Alfred’s instructions. Bruce squeezed Dick’s shoulder as he passed and Dick glanced up through his droopy jet black bangs to see Bruce giving him a tight, pitiful and joyless smile before the man headed to the showers.
Tim hesitantly approached Dick with red eyes of his own. The teen hesitated at first but choked out,
“Hey Dick? I’m really sorry,”
Dick reached forward and grabbed onto Tim. He pulled Tim in and gave him a crushing hug, holding onto his younger brother for dear life,
“Don’t you dare apologize, Timmy. None of this is your fault, ok?”
“I know, Dick. It’s been a rough night, and I just don’t want to see you hurting.”
Dick buried his face into Tim’s dark hair, and Tim hugged back extra hard,
“Thanks for saving my life, Big Bird.”
Dick exhaled out a very shaky breath and the thought of how close they had come to losing Tim on patrol that night really sank in,
“Fuck,”
Dick cursed in relief as he replayed the events of the night thus far.
While on patrol, Tim’s grapple line had snapped in mid air as the teen swung towards the tall building the others were already standing on top of. Batman and Red Hood were too far away to intervene and could only watch in helpless horror. Had the incident occurred seconds later, Nightwing would’ve been too far as well.
Dick couldn’t even remember springing into action, but he, as Nightwing, had sprinted to the ledge and thrown himself head first off of the building without a second thought; free falling until he was close enough to grab on to one of Red Robin’s flailing arms. Nightwing was able to shoot out a grapple line just in the nick of time, and thankfully Gotham didn’t have 2 dead heroes splattered on the pavement.
Overall their entire patrol had been fairly uneventful up to that point and so Dick certainly hadn’t been counting on suffering a horrendous panic attack triggered by his PTSD.
Watching Tim’s line snap and nearly losing his brother due to the fall... that triggered Dick in a very bad way.
He didn’t remember setting Tim down afterwards or crumpling up into a ball on the ground with his eyes squeezed shut and hands plastered painfully tight over his ears. His parents’ screams echoed in his head (or were those his own screams?) and all of a sudden he was 8 years old again and kneeling beside them in a pool of their blood.
When he ‘came to’ he found himself in the back of the Batmobile with Batman racing back to the Batcave. He couldn’t comprehend why his brothers were leaning over him in a panic telling him to breathe, or why they were exclaiming to Batman that his lips were turning blue.
Dick remembered Jason pulling off his left glove and the feeling of something very cold in his hand.
Dick slowly locked in to Tim’s breathing pattern thanks to Tim pressing his oldest brother’s hand to his chest. Soon after the grounding techniques used by his brothers, Dick’s flashback turned panic attack began to subside.
As they reached the Batcave, Jason offered to carry Dick out of the Batmobile. Dick felt exhausted and
slightly nauseous but the hero refused the help as he felt steady and recovered enough from the ordeal to manage himself.
Bruce pulled down his cowl and addressed the group,
“What the hell happened out there? How did Red Robin’s line snap?”
“I don’t know, I fuckin’ checked ‘em yesterday and they were all in perfect condition,” Jason replied sounding a little frazzled by the evening’s events,
“Damian handed me mine before we left, ” Tim advised the group.
Dick turned to his youngest brother,
“Dami, did you notice anything wrong with the grapple line at all?”
Damian shifted uncomfortably. Dick picked up on the fact that Damian was hiding something right away. He had come to understand many of Damian’s quirks during his time as the boy’s partner, and the young Robin’s current fidgety stance suggested that he knew more,
“Hey Dames? What’s going on buddy?” Dick kneeled down to face Damian at eye level.
After some hesitant looks around the cave, Damian steeled his worried expression and started speaking slowly,
“....Drake took all of my drawing pencils out of their tin and filled the tin with glitter....when I opened it, the glitter got all over my room,”
“Damian, what are you saying?” Bruce asked sternly,
“Father, I wished to teach Drake that he must not tamper with my belongings,”
Damian answered truthfully to the shock of everyone in the cave.
Dick stood up in disbelief from where he knelt in front of Damian,
“What?” Dick started as he glared at Damian, “What the hell was going through your head? Are you fucking insane?!”
Dick was beginning to lose his cool and he was now starting to shout,
“Tell me you’re joking! Fuck! Tell me you’re not being serious here!”
Jason of all people attempted to intervene as he was somewhat stunned by Dick’s liberal use of the ‘F’ word,
“Dickie, the brat fucked up but everything turned out ok thanks to you. Calm down, there was no harm done,”
“No harm done, Jay?! Tim could have died tonight. For what? Some stupid fucking prank?! I can’t believe this. Of all the stupid, brainless things to do, Damian!”
Dick’s shouting grew louder and more erratic. Jason looked to Bruce to step up and be a parent, but the actual father in the room seemed to be at a loss for words and made no move to intervene.
Tim tried to calm Dick down considering how unusual it was to see Dick like this. Certainly, Dick could have a trigger temper at times, but it was unheard of for his eldest brother to be so uncontrollably angry towards someone else in the family. Especially when that someone was Damian, whom the eldest clearly adored.
Tim chimed in,
“Dick look, it’s ok, really. I should have had my back up grapple anyway, but I forgot it at home, so it’s kind of my fault too...um, yeah, what he did was stupid and he is a total idiot, but he is just a dumb kid, right? B will deal with it later, so c’mon, let it go.”
Dick ran both of his hands through his hair and pulled it at the roots due to the sheer frustration. The tired ache in his mind and body from his earlier panic attack served as a nagging reminder of their ordeal. Plus, old unforgettable memories of his parents falling and the fresh nightmare fodder of Tim falling pulled apart the edges of his last fried nerves.
Damian looked up from the ground and made eye contact with Dick,
“I’m sorry, Richard,”
Damian’s words didn’t reach Dick’s compassionate brain given that Dick’s head was still too full of red hot blinding rage. He couldn’t find any more words to scream out to make himself feel better or to accept what had happened. Dick’s pulse raced, and his emotions reached the point of eruption. Before he even realized what he was doing, his arm swung back, winding up to take his anger, frustration and fear out in a physically violent way.
Luckily, Alfred had come down to the cave and walked over to the group given all of Dick’s escalating shouting. Alfred had moved swiftly when he recognized Dick’s agitation nearing its peak and was able to grab onto the young man’s wrist to stop the trajectory of his hand, thus saving Damian’s cheek from the impending slap.
*****
Dick pulled himself from the memories of the evening, and back to the present. He found himself alone in the cave given that Damian had run off back up to the manor in tears and everybody else had awkwardly dispersed too.
Dick stood in the shower for an extra long time. He let the hot water roll off of him as he braced himself using his hand against the tiled wall.
He couldn’t believe that he had allowed his anger to overtake his senses like that and he found himself thinking of what might have happened had Alfred not intervened.
’Oh God’, he ruminated on the fact that if he would have actually slapped Damian.. it would have been no different than when Bruce had hit him when he was in his teens.
Dick recalled the utter humiliation and deep sense of betrayal he had felt after Bruce had raised a hand to him... both times.
What was worse was the fact that Bruce had never formally apologized or tried to make amends. Dick was the one who chose to put that all in the past for the sake of having his family in his life; and now he was always carefully testing the waters around Bruce and walking on eggshells at the manor to make sure his father wasn’t angry with him.
Although Bruce seemed to have grown and changed since those incidents, and the billionaire would never strike out at his other kids, Dick couldn’t help but feel insecure.
Dick’s heart broke thinking that Damian could start to feel that way about him. That Dick didn’t love him or need him or could discard him without a second thought.
Dick finished up his shower and climbed up the stairs to the manor. His body felt heavier with each step.
Emerging from the cave into the study he found Bruce sitting in an armchair.
“Dick.”
“B. What are you doing in here?” Dick sighed not knowing if he had enough energy to deal with Bruce right now after everything he had already gone through this evening.
“I thought you might want to know that I spoke with Damian and I have benched him for the next month. He has also had his gaming privileges suspended for the next month as well.”
Dick tipped his head back to look up at the ceiling and took a deep breath to collect himself. The exhausted hero’s tired legs forced him to plop down on the floor in front of Bruce’s armchair and he leaned sideways against Bruce’s legs for support feeling like a meek child. Bruce placed his hand on Dick’s head and moved his fingers to massage his son’s scalp. Dick soaked in the comforting touch, using it to ground himself.
“Do you think he’ll forgive me, B?”
Bruce’s fingers stilled and Dick immediately missed the sensation of the movement in his hair,
“Dick. Damian made a very stupid, and near fatal choice which could have cost both you and Tim your lives. Damian understands the severity of what he did and he will understand why you were so upset,”
“But B... I almost hit him,” Dick curled up to Bruce more, “given his past...what if he never trusts or confides in me again?”
Dick raised his head to look up at Bruce, his searching look pleaded for guidance from the older man. Dick was taken aback when he heard Bruce’s voice catch slightly with emotion,
“What about you, chum? Have you forgiven me for everything I have done to you?”
Dick thought about it and replied,
“I.. I think so. I trust you and I understand why you did what you did. But...” Dick stopped unsure if he really wanted to share his vulnerabilities,
“What is it?” Bruce urged softly,
“But, I don’t think I will ever forget what happened. Sometimes when I see you, I miss how things used to be between us. Before things changed, you know? I worry that you won’t need me or want me anymore. I think about the times I cried myself to sleep feeling so alone... and sometimes I still do. I don’t want Damian to feel that way about me or because of me.”
“I understand what you’re saying, chum. I didn’t know all of that and I’m so sorry. I wish I could go back and fix things and that saying sorry could simply be enough. It’s one of my biggest regrets. But if there’s one thing I have learned is that experience teaches slowly, and at the cost of many mistakes. I’m just grateful that you have a big enough heart to try and let me back in after the many terrible mistakes I have made.”
Dick hugged tightly onto Bruce’s legs. Bruce, responded by kneeling down off of his seat and engulfing Dick in a hug. If any tears were spilled in that moment, neither man would ever divulge that to anyone outside of the room.
“I know I don’t say this enough, Dick, but you make me so proud. You saved Tim’s life tonight, and I know you’ll do the right thing with Damian. You’ll do what I should have done with you all those years ago, but never had the courage to do.”
Bruce stood up, and held his hand out to Dick in order to help his son up from the floor,
“I guess there’s no time like the present to try and make things right,” Dick remarked, pushing down the lingering feelings of dread and dizziness,
“Indeed, chum. I’ll walk upstairs with you, I’m going to check in on Tim and make sure he’s doing ok.”
With that, the pair proceeded to their respective targets to have their talks. Bruce to Tim’s room, and Dick to Damian’s room.
Dick found Damian and noticed the boy’s red, puffy eyes. Without a word he charged up to the boy confidently and gathered him up in his arms.
Dick gave Damian everything he wished Bruce would have given him all those years ago. Reassurance that the boy was loved and forgiven for his mistakes while helping to guide Damian to understand the seriousness of his errors in judgement.
As they shared long hugs, tears and exchanged mutual apologies, all fears of grudges and resentment melted away until they were both certain that all was right between them again.