It was Dick's fault. All of it. His fault that Damian was Robin. His fault that Damian had been there in the first place.
His fault that Damian was dead. Dick was sure of that, no matter how he thought about it, and it was all he could think about, over and over again, played on a loop in his head— his fault his fault his fault, it was his fault, and it was awful and consuming, and it made it hard to breathe. It was three seconds: crashing into broken glass while his vision spun out of control and Damian's voice yelled behind him.
"Leave him alone! Look at me!"
And when he woke up, Damian was gone. Dick wasn't sure those three seconds were over, really, because he still felt like he was crashing, shattering into broken pieces on the floor. Falling. It was always falling, wasn't it?
Three seconds. Before that, they were fine. It was funny how he never saw it coming; when near-death experience happened every day, they didn't seem real. Dick had lost count of all the times he could have died, but he never did. Instead, there were costumed villains and ridiculous death traps and odds that shouldn't be survivable but always were. Superheroes didn't really die.
Except they did, and Dick had known that for years— since Jason was murdered, since Barbara lost her legs, since Bruce disappeared, since Stephanie and Flash and Superman and all of the others, and Dick definitely knew. He knew how it ended.
And he let a ten year old into the field. How could he have done that?
Because it was Damian— that was the answer. Because Damian had been abandoned and desperate, ten kinds of angry and a hundred kinds of deadly, and he needed someone, and Dick had chosen to be that person. He'd done the right thing, hadn't he? Before this week, he'd been sure that he had.
Just thinking about Damian, Dick felt the familiar rush of pride. It twisted into searing pain that stabbed into his chest. The loop began again: Damian curled against his dog in a stack of open files, Damian asleep on Dick's couch in a puddle of sunlight, Damian on the Tower rooftop, smiling, trailing his sword behind him. Damian in the lobby while the city burned behind him. Crashing. Broken glass.
"Leave him alone! Look at me!"
Two years ago, Damian wouldn't have cared if Dick lived or died. For him to legitimately give his life now to save Dick's— that was incredible. Damian was incredible, and Dick loved him, and he was dead. That was the end of it. Yes, Damian had been happier as Robin, but it had killed him. How could that be worth it?
Dick ran a hand through his hair, shoving away the sound of crunching glass beneath his boots, smoke in the air, Damian lying on the ground in a pool of spreading blood. Bruce, falling to pieces in front of him.
Dick didn't want to think about Bruce either. It made him angry. He was almost ashamed of that.
Bruce would be at home now, mourning, maybe setting up another memorial case in his cave, under his house, for his son. Didn't he know that Damian was just as much Dick's as he was Bruce's? Didn't he remember the way he'd acted at the beginning? Dick knew that wasn't fair— he shouldn't be thinking that, Bruce loved Damian too, of course he was distraught— but all the same… Dick remembered every time Bruce shoved Damian away. He knew what it felt like to chase Bruce's approval, Bruce's love, Bruce's unattainable example until you would do anything, anything at all to feel accepted. Damian had it much harder than anybody else in that particular regard.
It wasn't Bruce's fault that Damian was dead (Dick's fault, that was his responsibility, he was sure of that), but…
Damian. Just… Damian. Dick's brother. His Robin. The little kid that sketched wildflowers in his notebooks and talked to the birds that landed on his windowsill. Dick wasn't supposed to know about the birds, but he did. He knew Damian.
He loved Damian.
Damian was dead.
It was too much. Dick could feel the pain of it pressing down on his heart, the confused mess of anger, guilt, and grief crawling into his head and screaming— an echoing, wordless scream on a backdrop of breaking glass. He buckled underneath it, half-sobbing as tried desperately to breathe.
"Leave him alone! Look at me!"
No. No. He couldn't do this, he couldn't— He couldn't think straight. Dick pushed himself off the floor, pacing frantically across his bedroom with his arms wrapped around his head. He couldn't— He needed to—
"Shit," he whispered. It was the first thing he could remember saying in a long time, maybe days. Shit, he had to—
He fumbled through his dresser drawer and came up with his phone, swiping away the missed calls without reading them. He didn't care. He had already decided who he wanted to talk to.
Wally picked up on the second ring. Hell, he'd probably been expecting the call. This was getting to be a tradition.
"Dick?"
"Hey." Dick was surprised to hear that his own voice was relatively calm. He hadn't thought he was capable of that.
"Hey. I heard what happened."
Dick nodded, briefly pulling away from the phone, biting at his lip. It made sense. News spread quickly in the superhero community. It wasn't like Bruce was hiding.
"Right." He took a deep breath. "Do you remember when I found out that Jason was dead?"
"Yeah."
"I wasn't there when he died."
"You couldn't have known…"
"Yeah." That was an old conversation. They didn't need to have it again. Dick took another breath, getting to the point. "I was there this time."
"Oh God, Dick, I'm so sorry—"
"We were fighting together, and then… I hit my head, and when I woke up—" Dick decided he didn't want to finish that sentence, so he trailed away instead. "He was protecting me. I heard it before I passed out."
"That doesn't make it your fault."
"It does."
"That's what you always think."
"This time I'm right." Dick paused for a few seconds, trying to put his thoughts in order, trying to find the words to tell Wally about the screaming in his head, to describe the glass breaking, to explain about Damian. Defend him, maybe. Most people hated Damian.
"I…" Whatever that sentence was supposed to be, Dick couldn't finish it. Damian. Damian was supposed to visit next week. There was a reminder set in Dick's phone. It would go off in a few days, even though Damian wasn't coming anymore, and…
"Are you okay?"
Dick almost laughed at that one. "No." He wasn't. He didn't think he ever would be, not after this. "I blamed Bruce after Jason died."
"I remember."
"He let a kid into the field. Jason was his responsibility."
"I think I see where this is going."
"I still didn't understand why he couldn't move on after… after all those years. I thought it was just Bruce. He never lets go."
"I don't think he ever came back from that."
"Yeah." He hadn't. "I think he's still punishing himself. Because it was his fault, and he thinks he deserves to feel it."
"Dick…"
"I didn't understand."
"Dick."
Dick leaned against his bedroom wall, sliding back down to the floor, still clutching his phone to his ear. He buried his face in his knees.
"I get it now."