Ahahahaha, long hiatus is long. Welcome to the Batfic.
I wrote this some time ago in response to a prompt on my Tumblr, back when the reboot was only a couple months old. Fix-it fics and fluff resulted from the awesome angst that was Batman and Robin.
Enjoy!
Four years. That's how long it's been since he's seen Grayson, since the man ran off and abandoned him in favor of his stupid circus. Four years of no letters, no photos, no e-mails, not even a damned tweet. It was as if the man had simply dropped off the face of the earth.
In the meantime, Damian had been growing stronger, and taller, and better at crimefighting. His father was…trying. In both senses of the word, really. He was attempting to be a father and unable to let go of the stubborn idea that Damian still needed to be watched constantly. Even after all this time, when Damian had more than proven himself, he still found himself being watched with suspicion by his own father. He simply didn't understand Damian; not the way Grayson had.
Not that the teenager would admit to it, but…he missed the circus boy. He missed the fact that his father actually seemed to be less awkward and stupidly stubborn around Grayson, how that sunny smile could brighten even the gloom of the Batcave.
But Damian refused to let himself wallow in self-pity. That was a weakness, a luxury, the he simply could not afford to acknowledge. So he worked, twenty-two hours a day or more, studying, sparring with his father's machines (why would Father never spar with him, he wondered), and withdrawing further and further into mindless routine. He didn't even notice Pennyworth's worried looks, and simply ignored any requests that he slow down before he killed himself. He was the son of Batman. He could work just as hard as his father. Harder, even.
So it was somewhat of a surprise when sometime in the middle of August he found himself lying flat on the floor of an unused room in the manor with a splitting headache. He'd picked that room in particular for his katas because he could be absolutely sure that he wouldn't be disturbed. Dizzily, he raised himself up on his elbows, groaning. Had someone attacked him? Had he…fallen? A quick glance around confirmed that no one else had disturbed the thickening layers of dust, and no obvious clues had been left. Neither was there anything to indicate that Damian had been knocked unconscious or poisoned, unless the remaining—and growing—wooziness was a sign of that. But it simply felt like exhaustion.
Damian growled, getting to his feet unsteadily. He would not be felled by something that stupid!
The boy swayed. It seemed that he'd finally hit his limit, and his body was refusing to do any more. He considered calling out for Pennyworth, but before he could do so, the room darkened and he felt himself falling again.
He'd lost everything now, hadn't he? Grayson, any chance of having his father accept him or love him or even trust him. Colin. And now the battle against his own body.
Damian lost consciousness too early to hear footsteps thudding up the stairs and someone call his name. He was too late to feel strong arms catch him before his head cracked on the floor and pull him against a lean chest, to hear shouting for his father, for Pennyworth, for anyone.
Dick Grayson had finally come home. He'd expected to find, at worst, Bruce and Damian glaring at each other over midday breakfast or something while Alfred continued to dispense advice and caring like he always did. But not this. Not Alfred completely beside himself with worry for Damian. Not Bruce brooding worse than he had when Jason had returned as a killer in the Cave, completely unable to answer any questions on Damian's health or whereabouts other than he'd been 'keeping up adequately'. Not Damian, training alone in a dusty room until he collapsed from overwork because he'd barely been sleeping.
He'd been heading up the stairs to try and find the teenager when he'd heard a thump from one of the rooms in the east wing. Worried, Dick had hurried through the halls, opening all the doors to try and find Damian. It had taken him nearly ten minutes to get the correct room, one floor up, and had arrived just in time to see the boy try and stand before subsequently fainting.
"Damian! Oh God, Bruce, Alfred, come quick!" He raced into the room, not even bothering to slow down in favor of catching his brother as quickly as possible and pulling him against his chest protectively. His knees hit the floor painfully, but he'd managed to keep Damian's head from cracking open at least. "Damian, are you—" Dick cut off when he saw how the boy's head lolled to the side. Unconscious.
"Shit, Damian…" He pressed his forehead to Damian's, wincing as he felt the burn of fever. The kid was killing himself. "What have you been doing?"
Faintly, he could hear the quick, light tread of Alfred's feet coming up the stairs, followed by Bruce's heavier tread—he must have just come out of the Cave when Dick had called—and head unerringly towards his location. Dick stood, keeping a tight hold on his little brother. Damian was taller, heavier now, but the hollows under his eyes and the alarming paleness of his normally dark skin made him seem incredibly fragile.
"What happened?" Bruce actually looked worried, no, panicked when he saw the state Damian was in. Had he really not noticed? This had to have been going on for months at the very least, if not years.
"He…" Dick's voice broke. "Damian's been working himself to death, that's what happened." His hands were shaking, and he had to tighten his grip on the teen lest he accidentally drop him. "Have you been paying him any attention since I left? He hasn't slept, he's barely eaten, and from what I hear, he's been training almost every spare second he has—alone, I might add, which is not good for him—and you're actually wondering what happened?"
The older man looked taken aback. Dick could see him trying to hide behind his usual Bat-mask, to sort out his thoughts in private. The acrobat was having none of that.
"I'm putting him to bed," he snapped, "and then you and I are going to have a long talk about what I've missed."
The first thing Damian noticed when he woke up was that he felt oddly warm and protected. Awareness slowly returned, bringing with it the realization that someone was wrapped tightly around him, an arm flung across his chest and breathing into his neck as if he—it had to be a he, given the muscular chest—hadn't a care in the world.
The teen's first urge was to stab everything within range, but his knives seemed to be missing. This is itself was very worrisome, considering this person had him nearly pinned and was clinging to him like—
Damian's eyes narrowed.
"Grayson," he hissed. There was only one person who would treat him like a favorite stuffed animal, especially after he'd…
After he'd…
Damian bit back a curse. He'd fainted. He'd actually gone and fainted, in front of Grayson, no less. This was intolerable. Inexcusable.
How was he supposed to prove himself if he succumbed to weakness like this?
How was Grayson going to see him as worth keeping around?
The idiot finally stirred, tightening his hold on Damian. The teenager wriggled uncomfortably.
"Let go of me, Grayson."
"…Dami?" He felt more than saw the eyelids flutter open, long soft lashes brushing his skin, and knew those deep blue eyes were just boring through him even before the man pulled away just enough to look him over. Damian turned his head away; he didn't want to see the pity there. "You're awake. Oh, thank goodness."
"…Yes." Damian tried and failed to keep the tightness out of his voice. "Congratulations. The day has been successfully saved."
He knew Grayson was frowning now. Good. He hoped it hurt.
"Damian…"
"Get out. You have no business treating me as if I were one of your hussies."
Whatever reaction he was expecting, it wasn't a suppressed laugh. Damian turned sharply, surprised to see Grayson looking at him in a combination of pity, amazement, and amusement.
"…What?"
"H-hussies?" Dick covered his mouth, shaking slightly. "Sorry, just…I keep forgetting you use words like that. It's been a while." His face fell as Damian's expression darkened. "Dami, I'm sorry, I know I haven't—"
"Cease your useless prattling." Damian pushed away from Dick, glowering. He didn't want to be reminded that he'd been abandoned. "You have no right to use that nickname."
"Damian…"
"Get out of my bed!" Damian snapped, grabbing his pillow and flinging it at the man's head.
Dick let it hit him square in the face, staring at Damian like he'd been poleaxed.
"Damian, what's wrong?" He reached out, his brow furrowing in concern when Damian flinched away from the touch. "Damian, tell me what's wrong."
"You know precisely what's wrong, Grayson." Damian crossed his arms stubbornly across his chest, glaring at Dick for all he was worth. "You left me here without any warning and no subsequent communication, and—" He cut off, switching his gaze to his feet, barely poking out from under the blankets.
Dick made a soft sound of distress. "And I left you here with Bruce."
"He's impossible to please, Grayson. I've been his Robin for nearly five years, and he still doesn't trust me. He…fears me. What I'm capable of."
"I honestly didn't know he'd be that bad." The acrobat reached out for him, his body radiating worry and…regret? Damian turned his head to look at Dick, brow furrowing in confusion.
"If you're going to say that he was never that bad when he was raising you, I would like to remind you that the circumstances are completely different."
"That's no excuse." Warm, rough fingers brushed over Damian's arm. "I should've checked in on you. I didn't want to butt in, but…he's worse than I remembered. With kids, that is."
"I'm not a child, Grayson."
"No, you're not." Before Damian could protest, Dick pulled him into a loose hug. The teenager grudgingly allowed it, because as loath as he was to admit it, he missed that contact. "I don't think you've ever really had a chance to be a kid."
"Tt. Is that why you and Brown insisted on showing me nauseating cartoon animals every night after lessons?"
"Maaaaybe."
"…How long will you be staying?" The question was soft, uncertain.
For a few moments, Dick remained silent, pressing his chin into the top of Damian's head thoughtfully. The teenager shifted nervously.
"Depends. My business is taken care of for right now with the circus. I don't have to go anywhere, and quite frankly I've got nowhere else to go now that my former teammates are either missing without a trace—on purpose—or doing their own thing. And the rest of the family doesn't need me." He stroked Damian's hair comfortingly. "You, on the other hand, need me. You and Bruce."
Damian tried to pull away half-heartedly. "I don't need you."
"Then you at least need me to tell Bruce to stop being such a stubborn ass for you." Dick refused to let him go, his loose grip suddenly strong as steel. "I can't let this go on, Damian. It's not good for you. You're pushing yourself way too hard because he's too damn stubborn to say 'good job'." He nuzzled Damian's head, mewling concernedly. "And you've been doing more than a good job."
Then teenager froze, emotion welling up in his throat, strangling him. Dick cared. He really did care. Enough to come back. Enough to be here, to stand up to Bruce, to say that what Damian was doing was actually good enough.
He cared enough to show that he was worried if Damian was hurting.
To his eternal mortification, Damian started sniffling, shaking in Dick's arms as he tried to hold back tears.
The acrobat held him close to his chest, petting his back comfortingly. "It's okay. It's okay. I'm here now." I shouldn't have gone in the first place hung between them, clear as a bell. I'm sorry.
It took three hours until Damian gave in to Dick's request to come downstairs. Three hours of alternately biting his lip trying not to cry and threatening Dick's manhood if he ever breathed a word of Damian's weakness to anyone. Each and every time, Dick solemnly promised that he wouldn't tell, abandoning his usual cheer in order to assure Damian that yes, he was sincere.
The teenager kept a bruising grip on Dick's hand as they descended the main staircase. Dick didn't complain; Damian needed physical reassurance, and he would give it.
Bruce was waiting for them in the library. He glanced up from the book he'd been reading when Dick knocked on the door.
"Bruce? He's awake."
The older man nodded, setting the book down. He looked almost nervous. "All right. Bring him in."
Silence reigned in the Wayne family library. Around the three males, bookshelves reared up two stories high, information on nearly everything there was to know.
Everything except what was happening right now. What had been happening for the last five or six years, ever since Damian had set foot on the grounds. Or maybe there was, and Bruce had simply not found it yet despite the fact that everything in the library was painstakingly catalogued by subject.
Either way, Damian had always been a complete mystery to him. He was different, a child that wasn't a child except in the places Bruce couldn't reach, much less understand. And only now, with Damian standing in front of him glaring balefully at the ground, clinging to Dick's hand as if he were a four-year-old, did Bruce think he could begin to see what he'd been missing.
"Damian," Dick said gently, "let's sit down. This is something we've needed to discuss for a long time."
"Tt. This is a subject I'm sure Father would rather avoid. Why are we bothering with this?"
Bruce's heart twisted uncomfortably. "Damian, you're not wrong about that. I would much rather avoid this. But Dick made it very clear that what I've been doing to you since I returned hasn't been fair—"
"You're damn right it hasn't," the teen snapped. "Four years I've tried to live up to your standards. Be honest with me; since Grayson, has anyone lived up to your ideal of what a Robin should be?" He watched his father for a response, chest heaving and dark blue eyes narrowed.
Dick let out a small sound of distress, unsure which Wayne needed a calming touch the most. He stepped towards Damian, hesitated, and retreated.
Bruce frowned. "Every Robin has been different."
"That's not an answer."
The older man was well aware what Damian was really asking: Am I worthy, or have I been wasting my time here? He no longer feared Damian going back to the League of Assassins should he answer wrong. Still, that wasn't the issue anymore, was it?
Several long moments passed, the silence stretching uncomfortably long. Dick shifted his weight from foot to foot, trying his hardest not to say something, anything, that might cost them all something that couldn't be repaired.
At last, Bruce sighed, looking Damian straight in the eyes. "You are a good Robin, Damian. You have been since I've returned." You were Dick's Robin, not mine, and that's why I had so much trouble accepting it. "The ideal of Robin is something each successor creates, and you've taken the legacy and made it your own."
Damian was shaking. Those were the words he'd wanted to hear for so long, and though he thought he'd long convinced himself that he didn't care, the fact that his father was saying those words meant more than either Bruce or Dick could know.
"Damian…?" Bruce approached him hesitantly, grasping Damian by the shoulders. "Are you all right?"
Dick couldn't hold still any longer. He padded over, wrapping his arms around the teen from behind and holding him tightly. Oddly, he didn't say a single word, just buried his face in Damian's neck and held on. For the first time, both of them were completely silent.
Damian finally managed to get his throat to cooperate with him, rasping out two quiet words. "…Thank you." He slumped against Bruce as if even that effort exhausted him, trembling.
Bruce held both of his sons close and whispered, "I'm sorry."
I'm sorry I didn't see. I'm sorry I didn't hear. I'm sorry I didn't pay attention. He meant all of these and more.
And as they clung to him and each other, holding their bodies, their family, as close as they could, the boys assured him without needing to speak that he was forgiven.