"I hate you, and I wish you'd never adopted me! I wish I'd never even met you!" The words – terrible, false, lying words – flew from my mouth before I even knew what I'd said. I didn't mean them. I didn't.
"If that's the case, why are you still here?" His voice was empty, emotionless. It acted like a bucket of cold water thrown over my head, jerking me out of my senseless rage, until I realised that I really didn't mean what I had just said, before I realised that the expression in Bruce's – dad's – eyes before he replied had been, what? Hurt? Wounded? Sad? But it was too late to go back.
"I don't know!" I slammed my hand down on the desk in the cave, hurting myself more than I'd ever let him know. My pain caused a flair in my anger, and at that moment I wanted to lash out, punch something, someone. Instead I pulled my hands back to my side and clenched my fists, bunching my hands so tight into fists that my short nails bored miniature holes into my palms. Bruce's eyes glared at me from behind his cowl, which he hadn't removed since we got back from patrol. Suddenly I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing. No idea what I was doing here.
"Leave, Richard. Go." Once again his words were devoid of passion, devoid of anything. They didn't mean anything. They weren't shouted, or whispered, or even spoken. They just, hung there.
So I fled.
I didn't shout or scream or fight. I had nothing to say. It was only halfway home, screeching down the dark Gotham streets on my bike, that I remembered to breathe, remembered to just think.
By the time I got home I had nothing left. I automatically opened the door, and then closed it behind me, locking it out of habit. I turned on the lights, leaving a bright trail behind me, and mechanically made my way into the kitchen. Eat, watch TV, sleep. The usual routine. I could hide myself in the mundane, the predictable. I could wind myself down into a little spiral and never come up to breathe.
It worked, until I turned on the TV. It was the usual late-night trash; repeats and re-runs and every single episode of Friends you could ever watch. I settled down, turned the volume up as loud as I could bear, and stared sightlessly at the screen.
But I couldn't see the television.
All I could perceive were the scattered fragments of my evening. Of the argument. Of every single argument Bruce and I have ever had.
Enough to number in the thousands.
Slowly my shoulders began to un-tense, and the memories turned from arguments to just anything. Those weird little evenings we'd spent together, father and son. Unbidden, one particular evening sprung into my mind.
There had been popcorn. Homemade, by Alfred.
Alfie always made the best popcorn.
And the movie – I think it was Robin Hood – that doesn't matter. We'd been sitting there, on the sofa. Together, one night after a patrol. Nobody else had been there; it had been a special evening.
I'd fallen asleep half way through, a combination of late patrols and overstress, and Bruce had just left me, sleeping fitfully until the movie ended. And then he'd shifted, stood up, and scooped me off the sofa, gently waking me.
He carried me up to my room, tucked me into bed, and kissed my forehead. And just before he left the room, he switched off the light, whispering into the darkness.
"Goodnight, son." I think it may have been the first time he'd ever called me his son.
I woke up suddenly on the sofa in my apartment. The TV was still on, but the only thing that stuck in my head was the dream. Maybe it had been a real memory, maybe one constructed by my overworked mind.
But it was enough.
I switched off the TV and picked up my mobile. I have Bruce's number on speed dial.
The phone rings for a long time, giving me long enough to wonder if this had been such a good idea. Suddenly, I can hear his voice on the other end.
"Dick?" He sounds old, tired.
The thought of Bruce getting old scares me.
"Richard?" He asks again, and I want to say it all. That I'm sorry. That I forgive him. That everything I've ever said, I didn't mean. That he's the best thing that happened to my life, and if he hadn't taken me in, I'd be nothing. That I love him.
But I can't.
We sit there, maybe five minutes, maybe half an hour, before I hear Bruce shift and say gently,
"I'm going to hang up now." I want to scream at him not to. To talk. To tell him everything.
I just nod, a stupid gesture that he won't pick up from the other end of the phone.
There's a soft click as he hangs up, and I breathe out shakily. But that time sitting in silence, listening to Bruce and just being quiet? It's taught me something.
Bruce knows. He knows exactly what I mean to say, even when I say the opposite. He knows that even when I shout and swear at him that I love him.
Because he's my father.
And I'm his son.