ALFRED
-two weeks later-
"Oh no, you didn't..." Dick groaned and hid his face in his hands. He was trying to act angry, the scolding, responsible older brother, but Alfred saw right through his act, could practically hear the broad grin.
"Woah, Doctor Zoidberg* over there did it." Jason was enjoying this a little bit too much, while Timothy was rolling his eyes theatrically. "The Devil Spawn and I were there by coincidence."
"That's right, you should have heard Jason's whining. He's a real chicken when it comes down to it."
It could have ended in another argument, but Richard reached over and smacked both of them over the head with a book. Alfred generally disapproved, but Dick's grin was too genuine to interrupt and the boy didn't have the strength to hurt them anyway.
It felt good to see him smile again. Alfred had missed it. He saw it as a turning point – Dick was finally on the mend. After those weeks of sleep and dazed, confused awareness, the boy had finally regained some strength. He had tried to hide it from his little brothers, but the road so far had been painful and frustrating. Bruce had gone beyond his ways to help, but there were things that just had to happen.
Lying in bed for weeks had stunted the boy's muscles. Dick had already lost his muscular build thanks to the exhausting therapy, but the last weeks had been filled with relearning the simplest movements. His medication was slowly taken off, including his pain meds. He had to adapt again to real food, and even if it was just fluids, Dick's stomach needed a long time to adjust. When asked how he felt, he usually plastered a smile on his lips and told them he was 'ok'.. but they had all come too far to believe that.
There was nothing to do, though, and Alfred hated it. Hated to watch without being able to help. If asked, he knew that Dick would reassure him that his presence alone was helping, and even though he probably meant it, it wasn't enough for Alfred. This whole fiasco should never have happened to the boy, who was only slowly beginning to realize the shock waves that were following.
But at least, he was laughing now. With his brothers. Alfred looked fondly at the two middle children he had helped to raise and was again pleasantly reminded that there were Timothy and Jason, sitting there without trying to strangle one another. No, instead they were seated on two chairs they had stolen from the waiting area and keeping their big brother entertained. Jason was balancing on two chair legs and had hauled his own legs over Dick's blanket. Alfred didn't approve, but the gesture was a gentle one, and Dick didn't seem to mind. He was sitting cross-legged on the bed, leaning against the vertical bed head. Alfred knew that Dick was able to sit upright now without getting dizzy or without anything to lean on, but he wasn't taking any chances.
The boys had all come such a long way, and maybe things were finally coming together. Bruce had been shell-shocked by Dick's cancer, more so than the rest of them. Alfred suspected that his former ward had never truly thought of the possibility of losing one of his own to any natural causes. To the butler's enjoyment, the whole thing seemed to have triggered something in Bruce, and the older man was actively trying to engage in conversations with people around him – including, finally!, Jason.
Alfred was still amazed. Part of him had believed that they had lost the troubled boy for good, but somehow Dick had managed to coax him back, to give them all a second chance – because this was what was happening, even if only Alfred and probably Dick saw it that way. Alfred had been livid when Bruce told him about offering the Nightwing title to the boy; hadn't he learned anything from five Robins by now?! The audacity of that man! To try to mould Jason into a copy of Richard again... but to his surprise, Jason had consented, and that was when he got it – Jason had reassessed them, and finally understood that Bruce's only way of showing affection was to prove that he thought Jason capable of following Dick's path.
Jason's way, though, was complicated and provocative, just like everything he did, everything he was. He used guns as Nightwing, visibly proving to Bruce that he was independent and stubborn. It had been the second instance that made Alfred lose hope, but then there had been Timothy. Cool, calm and collected Timothy, who had ended all debate concerning a gun-waving Nightwing with three words: 'Just trust him'. The discussion deflagrated then; there was nothing Bruce could bring up that would negate the fact that Timothy Jackson Drake had just told them that he trusted Jason Todd, former killer with a tendency to attack and humiliate his replacement. Whatever had happened on the day the two of them had decided to go to Europe together, it had forged a bond between them. They weren't exactly friends, they still managed to piss off one another too easily, and there was still so much past burden unexplained... they weren't friends, but they had taken a huge step to be more like brothers: with hard-wired, serious issues between them, that didn't hinder them from cooperating when they needed to.
"Alfred, you did what?!" Dick's voice pulled the old man out of his musing. "Please tell me that that they are lying. You did not feign being a doctor to a poor, innocent woman."
Alfred chuckled in delight. "You never before voiced discomfort about my 'feigning to be a doctor', Master Richard." So they had told him about Amelia now, good.
Dick's eyes went wide, and Jason and Tim laughed. "Oh my God, you really did it!"
Alfred was glad the family was telling Dick as much as they could. With his improving awareness, Dick also began to grasp his situation. It had taken a few days for the boy to work through the fact that he was going to stay alive, then the shock had turned into a well-predicted depression. Suddenly it mattered again that he couldn't walk, was still in (minimal, as Alfred kept telling him) danger of relapse, and needed to pay attention to his kidneys, while being only 23. The boys and Alfred tried their best to cheer him up and distract him, but at the same time didn't want to patronize him even more. It was a balancing act, and Alfred was amazed by how well they were doing so far.
"We haven't told you the best thing so far," Timothy spoke up and pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. "We only managed to convince Amelia with the help of two fabulous actors."
Tim shifted from the chair to the bed next to Dick and held up the display. Alfred had a very good idea what he was showing him, even though the sound that spewed out of the speakers was a terrible amalgam of street noises.
"Sorry for the sound, they were too far away to get their voices recorded..." Tim apologized as if he had read Alfred's mind. "But there'll be a zoom soon and you'll be able to see the one and only Mr. Peter Cox and his son, Thomas, trying to fight for their wife and mother's life."
"You taped it?" Jason groaned, amused. "You're such a stalker, standing in that window and -"
Dick's gasp interrupted him. "Did Damian just hug a stranger? Dude that's – Oh my God. Is he crying?"
Alfred smiled dutifully at their laughter and Jason and Tim's enthusiastic explanations, but inside he wondered how much of this video's implications Dick was able to grasp. He had seen the tape before, and had been surprised at the young Master's acting, too, but deep down he wondered just how much of it had been a real act. Damian had never before been confronted with sickness and natural death, and just like his father he had tried to detach himself. But Dick was the one person that had managed to get close to Damian, and detaching himself from him had meant detaching himself even more from everyone else. Alfred heavily suspected 'Tom's' crying to be very, very real.
Usually, Alfred didn't know what to think about Damian's similarity to his father. As loyal and loving as he was towards his former ward, Bruce's emotional distance had always been a constant source of frustration for the butler, and to see Damian taking the same path was scary and worrisome. Right now, though, Damian and Bruce had both learned something and were beginning to confront their family members in a different way. For a young boy like Damian, this could open up a completely new life.
While Dick had been unconscious or too weak to stay awake for more than a few moments, Damian had a hard time expressing his complicated emotions. In his mind, showing emotions still equalled weakness, and only around Dick was it tolerated.. so what to do with emotions about his elder brother, who couldn't receive them? Bruce had been a light source of comfort; the two of them had begun to talk to each other about things other than just patrol and crime fighting. It was good to see. Still, the biggest help had been Timothy, who had finally developed the nerves to counter Damian's insults and outbursts with angelic patience. Damian still exploded at him, but instead of spewing back insults, Tim let the younger boy work out his frustration and then ignored what had happened completely.
Alfred smiled when he focused his attention to the youngest bird in the room. Tim had taken up the role of a big brother to Damian and a responsible little brother to Jason. He had seen the void Dick had left and stepped up to the role, thus helping Bruce with keeping the family in check and taking the pressure off Dick's shoulders to get better as soon as possible. To Alfred, it seemed as if Tim had grown up in the last three months, finally finding his role in the familial hierarchy. Alfred knew that Dick was bursting with pride.
Speaking of Dick, the eldest bird was yawning pathetically and thus stopped the light banter between his brothers. Alfred glanced at the watch and wondered where Bruce and Damian were; they wanted to meet to have a quick update about those gruesome photos Jason and Barbara had discovered.
"Are you tired?" Tim asked worriedly, immediately sliding back into his chair to give Dick more space on the bed.
"Dickiebird is always tired, Zoidberg."
"Well, you guys are exhausting..." Dick was stretching his legs and snuggled deeper into the blankets, lazily smiling at the other two. "So what else is there to know, apart from stolen bone marrow, fake doctor licences and a crying Damian?"
Tim and Jason answered dutifully, but were more careful now. Dick was getting tired so quickly, and he still needed a lot of sleep. Leslie had taken it upon herself to warn them about underestimating the extent of bodily exhaustion Dick still suffered from. Every muscle stretch was work for him right now, and his body held no energy reserves whatsoever.
Luckily, there was a light knock on the door about ten minutes later. A shock of spiky hair appeared in the doorway, looking sullen and serious at the scene in front of him.
"Father is here now. He wishes to talk to you." There were no greetings as usual when Damian addressed them, but his expression softened the tiniest bit when he focused on Richard, who was waving at him weakly.
"Ah, there is the new prodigy," Jason sneered. "Why don't you give us a sample of your talents?"
"You need to be a lot more specific than that, Todd," was Damian's predictable answer, but his brows furrowed when he saw Tim's cell phone that still lay on Dick's bed. He stepped closer to see the video they had paused at a certain moment when 'Thomas' had been crying.
Alfred thought about stopping the obviously coming disaster, but was admittedly curious about how the proud little ex- assassin would react. Dick chuckled when Damian strode into the room haughtily, and Jason pulled his legs from the bed and stopped rocking on his chair, preparing himself in case of a fight.
When Damian was close enough to recognize his own face and his mouth opened in an audible intake of breath that would surely rain down on them in the form of insults a few seconds later, Timothy grabbed the phone grinningly and stood up quickly.
"Well, I guess we shouldn't keep Bruce waiting..."
"Drake you stupid moron what were you thinking this is unacceptable I won't let you..."
"...you know how he gets, he's so impatient..."
"You are a sorry excuse for a Wayne and Father should have never adop-"
"Stop."
It had been funny a second ago, Dick had been chuckling, but now the sheer seriousness in his voice made all the other occupants in the room freeze. Damian and Timothy shut up immediately, and Alfred's awareness turned exclusively on the patient on the bed.
"Dick, are you alright?"
"Damian, come closer."
Dick was sitting completely upright now, staring ahead at Damian with a shell-shocked expression. Whatever was going on, it was important and apparently scary for the eldest brother. Damian looked worried and uncomfortable as he stepped closer to the bed.
"Grayson, I apologize if we were too loud."
"Stop. Stay right there... Oh, holy shit..."
Damian was now standing right next to Tim, and was obviously at a loss. They all were. Dick's gaze was now switching between Tim and Damian, and Alfred felt how Jason looked at him confusedly. He met the boy's eyes and shrugged inconspicuously.
"You've grown," Dick said finally, and Alfred understood what was going on. He closed his eyes in denial; oh no, this wasn't good, this shouldn't be happening for at least one more week...
"Dickie, you're scaring the shit out of us." Jason's way of asking 'what's wrong'.
"Damian. He grew," Dick repeated, and this time his voice was hollow and defeated by what he knew would come next. "I never saw you two standing next to each other..."
Timothy and Damian were looking at Alfred now for help, the elder of the two probably knowing what Dick had just grasped.
"Richard..." Alfred spoke up and reached over to touch one of his sick grandchild's hands. Dick pulled them away and tore his gaze away from Damian, only to look around in the room exasperated.
"How long was I out?" he asked, looking more scared with each silent second.
"Well," Jason spoke up slowly, carefully, "that depends. What's the last thing you remember?"
Dick looked at him vulnerably, and then furrowed his brow. Alfred knew that Dick still had problems recalling certain instances, and remembering was strenuous. It was the reason why they had wanted to let him gain strength first.
"I think... the bathroom? At the manor?" Alfred closed his eyes again when he remembered that one incident, too. He had hoped against all reason that Dick wouldn't remember how the old butler had failed him the one moment he needed him. "I think I … I vomited blood...?"
"We found you passed out on the tiles," Alfred picked up the trail, glancing shortly at a paling Timothy and stood up to sit next to Dick on the bed. Jason and the others got the hint and left, fled, to give the two of them a moment of privacy. It didn't help to soothe Dick's fear, though. "That was mid- December. It's March now, Dick."
-the next day-
Bruce looked out of the window, his newspaper forgotten in his lap. For anyone who didn't know the billionaire as well as Alfred did, he appeared to be his usual, brooding self... but Alfred knew immediately what was going on.
"Did anything happen while you visited Dick today?" he asked while he poured the tea. Bruce startled and turned towards him, smiling slightly when he realized it was only Alfred.
Without the boys around, Bruce and Alfred's dynamics were different. No need for hyper-vigilance or 'Master Bruce's. The two men knew each other too well by now to retreat into careful courtesies or distrust. It was a bond they shared exclusively – even though they both trusted other people unconditionally, the years had forged a special relationship between them.
"Nothing happened, but I keep worrying about him," Bruce admitted therefore with a sigh, not minding to express emotions in front of his old friend. Alfred knew that his own expression fell immediately to match Bruce's. He worried, too. Constantly.
"He's depressed. It was too early to tell him." Alfred remembered the conversation yesterday painfully well; Richard's disbelieve, anger, helplessness. Although he kept smiling and assured them that he was fine, the revelation had hit Dick hard. His fever had spiked up only a few hours later, and though it didn't rise to dangerous temperatures, it still kept a steady, paralyzing grip on the boy that matched perfectly with his mood.
"He would have to deal with it sooner or later," Bruce soothed. "Barbara has a lead on the photos, but it's messy and she and Jason will have to work solely on that if we want to get them down as soon as possible."
Ah, this was the reason for Bruce's new worries, then. There was a business conference coming up in California he had to attend for at least a week, and Jason and Barbara were busy too. It also meant that Timothy and Damian were entrusted with patrolling Gotham and would have to rest during the days to stay capable of doing so. It was ill timing with Dick bordering on depression right now, since Alfred too would be spread too thin during those days to keep him company over a longer period of time.
"I'm sure Miss Barbara and I will manage to cheer him up while you're gone," the butler said, eyeing his former ward carefully. "Though I dare say that there are other solutions."
Bruce tried hard not to roll his eyes. "That again?"
Alfred never understood Bruce's inability to see the comfort company gave. He had been more than elated when Dick had developed into the complete opposite. "You know he misses his friends. A few new faces would do him good."
DICK
-a few days later-
Dick wasn't even fully awake when he realized that his fever had gone down again. His head swam less, and consciousness seemed easier to gain, faster to grasp. He slowly opened his eyes and stifled a yawn, contemplating at the same time that he had become too familiar with his body's ailments.
He was alone in the room, he noticed immediately, which was quite unusual. The door to his room was left ajar, as if someone had pulled the door shut but let go of the handle too quickly to really close it. A quick look at the clock told him it was early afternoon, and he had company around that time as a rule.
A scrap of memory appeared in front of his inner eye: Bruce had told him he needed to attend to some business conference and Tim and Damian were patrolling Gotham during his absence... That sounded like a reasonable explanation for the empty room, but Dick needed a few more minutes and a lot more mental effort to file that memory scrap into a time frame. Yes, it hadn't been that long ago; he was sure of it now, even though Dick was unable to remember if he had last spoken to Bruce yesterday, the day before yesterday or last week.
He had given up being angry about his lacking sense of time and had settled for frustration instead. Things didn't really make sense to Dick, and the fever episodes and sudden flashbacks weren't helping the least. He had no control over them, and they left him confused and weary.
Leslie had assured him that his inability to remember was normal, that his memory and physical control was coming back soon, and though Dick trusted her... man, he was missingmore than two months!? Suddenly the singing birds in front of his window made sense – or would, if he had noticed that it was them that confused him earlier. Now it made sense that his visitors didn't have to cast off layers of clothes, scarves and caps. He had been so confused about these things, even though he never had been able to put his finger on them and they all had told him not to worry about it.
Alfred had said that he had woken up four weeks ago, and had been able to have a conversation for about three. Dick clung to that number desperately, but at the same time knew that the digits didn't mean anything to him – time was nothing but a slippery, abstract construct when you couldn't even manage to follow the rhythm of day and night...
Dick sighed and shook his head. Damn, he needed to get a grip on himself. Moping around didn't help, and the Dick Grayson he remembered had been a friend of action. The plan was easy: get a grip; to get a grip he had to get out of this hospital that was driving him mad, and to get out of here he had to get better. Easy, no problem. Dick was completely determined to ignore that 'getting better' was more complicated than it sounded, and if he ignored that one, things had to work out.
Of course, Dick knew that ignoring his own condition was dangerously similar to how he had ignored his previous condition, which had almost cost his life. But if he didn't ignore it, he would slip into the depression he knew was looming around each corner. What a dilemma. The phrase 'you survived' still sounded profoundly wrong to him, he was unprepared and too vulnerable to deal with it, but it wasn't like Dick could really concentrate on that right now. 'Cause if he did, he would have to deal with the fact that he was only skin and bones, that there were tubes and needles coming out of his chest and stomach and who knew where else that sometimes ended in disgusting bags the nurses had to empty regularly because that he couldn't walk to the bathroom without help and had needed two weeks just to relearn just how to fucking stand upright without getting dizzy-
Stop.
Dick took a deep breath. The bad feeling was pooling in his stomach again, and Dick kept repeating that he just had to get better and then everything would fall into line on its own. He just had to follow his plan; easy.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
Suddenly he understood why his family insisted on having someone there with him when he woke up, someone who began chatting immediately and kept his mind away from the urinary bag that was cleverly hidden next to his bed.
Dick felt like crying. Company would be really good now.
As if on clue, Dick suddenly heard steps approaching his room. Voices, too. Doctors? Nurses? Wasn't there a distinctly British accent?
The steps stopped suddenly and Dick thought disappointedly that one of his fellow patients in the rooms next to him got some visitors, but then he realized that the voices were still close, just whispering.
Curious, he slowly propped himself up on his elbows and manoeuvred himself step by step into a sitting position. Dick didn't dare to get up on his own (meeting with the hard hospital floor once was enough, thank you), but he managed to shift and crane his neck just so that he saw through the door's cleft.
A pair of large, bright eyes suddenly appeared behind the door, widening when they met with his, and then Dick's flirt with depression was gone so suddenly that it left him light-headed. The door was thrown open and Lian Harper burst into the room, screaming "UNCLE DIIIICK!" and threw herself onto his bed.
She jumped onto his lap with so much energy that it knocked the air out of his lungs, and then had already wrapped her arms around his chest. Dick laughed and hugged her back. Fiercely.
"Woah, Princess," Roy strolled into the room and smiled apologetically. "What did I tell you about behaviour in hospitals?"
"But I didn't ask Uncle Dick if he wore diapers?!"
Dick snorted and Roy blushed. "The other thing, sweetheart. They need to take it easy."
He grabbed Lian under the arms and lifted her onto her feet again, enabling Dick to breathe again. Only a second later Lian had jumped back onto the bed next to Dick and had flung her arms around him again. Roy rolled his eyes and sighed, then simply leaned down and gave Dick a quick hug himself.
"How are you, Short Pants?"
"Better than the last time we met, I guess."
"Duude, you have no idea." Roy was aiming for cheery, but to Dick the bright smile resembled a pained grimace. He realized with a start that he actually had no idea when Roy had seen him last time – two months, holy shit...
"Daddy said you were really sick..." The small arms around him tightened, and Lian's voice turned downright heart-breaking. "He didn't allow me to visit you."
Dick patted her hair lovingly and exchanged a knowing glance with his old friend. A cough from the door drew his attention back to Alfred, who was leaning in the doorframe and supervised the whole scenery with an affectionate smile. He silently motioned for Lian and then to the corridor.
"Hey Alfred," Dick called therefore. "Did you already meet Princess Lian?"
"I don't think I've had the honor so far." Alfred stepped closer and bowed deep to Lian, who was giggling madly. "A princess definitely has the privilege of eating chocolate cake at the hospital cafeteria at this time of day."
Lian's eyes widened when she leaned closer to Dick. "But I'm no real princess, Daddy only calls me that sometimes!"
"Honey, Alfred is British." Dick untangled her arms and pushed her onto her feet gently, "I'm sure he recognizes Princesses when he sees them."
"Most certainly so, your majesty. Would you do an old man the honor and let him guide you to the nearest chocolate cake?"
When they disappeared out of the room, Dick turned to Roy. "So, when exactly was the last time we met? My memory is really shitty right now."
Roy's fake grin wavered slightly, and he made a strange movement with his hand as if waving the question away. It was so un-Roy that is was funny. "That doesn't matter, let's talk about something else! Did you see any hot nurses around here?"
"You're scary when you're not brutally honest," Dick observed with a quiet laugh and settled back into his cushions.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Roy's fake smile vanished and he looked at Dick sulkily.
"Please tell me you're not going to act like nothing's wrong."
"If you insist. Dick, you look like shit."
Dick chuckled. "Better."
"And your hair is funny."
"Okay, that's enough."
"No, seriously. Why the hell is it curly?"
"Shut up, Roy."
"Uhh, sore topic?"
"God, you're annoying."
Instead of a witty comeback, Dick found himself engulfed in strong embrace again. He sighed, touched. Like father, like daughter. And Roy wondered where Lian's behaviour came from...
"We thought you were going to die," his old friend mumbled into his (now curly, goddamnit,) hair.
"Yeah, me too." Dick patted Roy's back weakly.
"Bats wouldn't tell us shit. If it weren't for Timmy, we wouldn't know anything."
Tim? Dick smiled proudly. He hadn't fully grasped the extent of Timmy's involvement in his recovery yet, but he was sure the younger boy had done brilliantly. Finally he lived up to the full potential Dick had always seen in him.
Roy pulled back and started to list the names of the people that had delivered get-well wishes. Sadly, the league was preoccupied with some deep space mission, and the remaining heroes were busy with double shifts for the missing ones. Wally, unfortunately, was somewhere on a spaceship near Oa.
"He'll have a fit when I tell him we were allowed to visit you at last."
"I guess that was Alfred's decision?"
Roy suddenly got up and started to shift through the cupboards with Dick's personal stuff.
"Yeah, he told me you're depressed. Gave me a lecture of dos and don'ts before I could even step close to your room." He pulled out Dick's morning robe, and Dick felt his stomach drop. "You'll be glad to hear that I decided to ignore all the don'ts and reinterpret the dos."
"What are you doing?"
"We need to get you out of this room." Roy grabbed the blanket and flipped it away. Dick crossed his arms over his chest to brace himself for the cold air and to signal defiance.
"That's not a good idea," he said.
The red head's brow furrowed. "Alfred said you could walk."
"A few steps. With my physiotherapist."
But the idea of getting out was intriguing, Dick had to admit, and soon was more compelling than listening to his doctor's orders. The room was beginning to cave in on him, and even the fever and sickness that had distracted him earlier couldn't change that anymore. Roy insisted on walking down the floor to the visitor's area where he had hid two bottles of beer before meeting up with Alfred, and the thought of tasting something else other than water and dissolving pills did it for Dick.
So two minutes later, Dick was standing next to his bed, leaning heavily on his IV pole and regretting ever waking up again. The world was spinning, Dick's stomach churned, and it was really, really cold. He dimly noticed how Roy draped the morning robe across his shoulders, and after a few seconds, the room slowed down.
"Alright, let's go!" Roy piped way too happy and gave Dick a push that made his IV-pole roll into the wrong direction. He hesitated a moment, thinking about that bag that was still attached to the bed frame, but realized that Roy must have used the moments of dizziness to cleverly hook it onto his waistband and had hidden it with the morning robe.
Wow, embarrassing.
"I don't think that's a good idea," Dick mumbled, feeling the blush cover his cheeks. He couldn't bring himself to look at Roy, who had watched each of his movements like a hawk.
"Are you kidding me? Exercise is good for you, you finally have some colour on your face!" Roy linked his arm with Dick's and started to walk, pulling Dick with him. "Trust me, I'm a doctor."
Dick groaned as he tried to keep up without wondering how the colours of the room managed to swirl like they did. "Since when?"
"Oh, don't bother, you won't recall it." Roy patted his back good-naturedly. "You told me you have issues with your memory, don't you remember?"
...idiot.
Dick grinned and finally found his pace. Admittedly, walking down the halls wasn't as bad as he had dreaded it to be; Roy was chattering happily, and the usual foreboding about the next physio session was missing. He was still relieved when they reached the visitor room of the station. Roy guided him to a table and two chairs next to a window, and Dick found the room to be nice and bright, much more comfortable than his own room further down the hall.
Roy was rummaging behind him, pulling the books out of the shelf so he could get to the two bottles. For the first time Dick noticed the wheelchair in the corner that looked suspiciously close to the one Bruce had bought so he wouldn't have to borrow one from the hospital. Maybe Roy wasn't such an idiot, after all.
"So, how are you?" Roy placed one of the bottles in front of Dick and removed the bottle top.
"Fine, thanks."
They clinked their bottles and took a sip. It tasted bitter and exciting, and Dick felt like a teenager who had just taken his first sip of Daddy's super expensive whiskey to impress some girl. He couldn't help but check if a nurse was coming their way.
"Okay, and how are you really?"
Trust his most idiotic, egocentric and prickly buddy to see right through him. Dick averted his gaze to the bottle in his hands, watching how he unconsciously peeled the adhesion label off the glass.
How he felt? Depressed, Alfred said. Dick was inclined to answer with that, but truth be told, he felt like 'depressed' was too much of an advanced state of mind. He doubted he could bring up the energy to feel depressed, or the mental capacities. He felt confused, yes, but as of yet Dick didn't even know what exactly was confusing him, he was just... missing out on things. He was angry about being so weak. He was weak because he was lacking energy. He was lacking energy because he spent it being angry.
But there was no true recipient to his anger, so it didn't make sense. He was confused.
"I don't know," he whispered therefore, never raising his gaze. "I can't make sense out of it."
Roy was quiet for a long time, waiting for Dick to elaborate, but Dick couldn't, because, well... he couldn't make sense out of it.
"You need to give me more than that," the redhead said finally, sighing, serious. "I see that you're behaving different, but I can't analyse it, yet."
"Different?" Dick peeled off a large piece of paper and tore the word 'nonalcoholic' apart. Man, Roy was a clever bastard.
"Dick. Both of us have been in the hospital often enough. We visited each other often enough. You were never embarrassed about urinary catheters or failing to walk a few steps."
Dick winced. Suddenly, he wanted to get back to bed. To pull the blanket over his head and ignore the outside world. "This time it's different."
"How?"
"It feels so.. total." Dick didn't know if it made sense what he was saying, but it felt right. "When I got hurt earlier, I couldn't wait to start training again, to get out of the hospital again, but now? I don't want to get up, or meet with my physiotherapist, or go back home. It feels … wrong. I felt like this when I got chemo."
The last sentence was rushed, and Dick heard Roy sucking in air.
"Ah, I think I get it. You once told us that getting chemo felt like defeat."
Dick nodded. He dimly remembered that conversation. Wally had been there too, and had left the room after that. Defeated, yes. He had seen himself in the mirror last week, when his physiotherapist had allowed him to go to the bathroom alone. Total defeat.
"That's bullshit, Short Pants," Roy interrupted, apparently reading his mind. "People who are defeated by cancer die. You're very alive."
Dick closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. That still was a strange thought. "I think that part hasn't gotten through to me yet."
Roy sighed and took a deep sip of his bottle. "To be fair, we needed a while to get it."
"I'm still checking if I get chemo every time I wake up," Dick confessed suddenly. "The last thing I remember is relapsing, and then suddenly I'm in permanent remission and everything is alright?"
It wasn't the complete truth; relapsing and falling 'asleep' in the manor's bathroom wasn't the last thing he remembered. It was the last thing he could assign timing to. He remembered that someone had been yelling the word 'Dad' in panic. He remembered huge machines next to his bed. Bruce, who begged him to talk with him. Scraps of memories that he assigned to the missing months, but to be honest they could have originated everywhere (or was it everywhen?). His mind hadn't done so great in the weeks before his relapse, and who knew. Jason had said he had almost died, maybe he had seen flashbacks.
Dick tried to remember if he saw a bright light, but instead of white he saw brown. At some point, he must have laid his head on his crossed arms on the wooden table. He blinked two times and saw Roy crouching next to him, looking worried.
Wow, when had that happened?
His mind was full of holes.
"Dick, listen," Roy interrupted him, deadly serious. He even looked a little bit pissed, but Dick didn't think it was directed at him. "There's one thing you never understood. You're human."
"Very sharp, Roy." What the hell...?
"You always tried to ignore it. You and all the other bats. Always pushing harder than everyone else, always trying to be better, faster, stronger. You're human, and sometimes you need to take your time. That's why Alfred called me, because he's the only sane one in your family."
"He called you to tell me I'm human?" An amusing thought, Dick had to smile a little bit. Yes, one of Alfred's recovery-related catch phrases had always been 'take your time', but what did Roy mean with bringing that up?
"You haven't seen anyone outside the family since you woke up, right?" Roy asked, and Dick nodded. Roy's expression darkened further. "So while you should be resting, dealing, your little brothers and your trainer from hell are sitting around you and waiting for you to get up and do somersaults."
That provoked a reaction, and Dick was surprised about it. "Of course they want me to get better!"
"They are just as brainwashed as you are. Dick, you had cancer!"
Roy was getting loud now, and that and Dick's inability to comprehend what he was getting at was making Dick angry. "Don't you think I noticed?!"
"Cancer, Dick! That's not like a broken bone, or a stab wound!"
"I know!"
"You don't just recover from that and go back to back flips!"
"I know!"
"Then stop trying to!" Roy had grabbed Dick's shoulders now and grinned triumphantly. Shit, Dick realized he had played right into his trap. "Stop putting yourself under pressure! Things will come back when you're ready, not when you're beating yourself up because you can't remember!"
They stared at each other for a moment, before Dick looked away and tried to keep the small smile away that was tugging at his lips. The situation was new, but familiar – Dick and Roy were used to being the only humans, used to trying to accomplish things above their possibilities, just to prove that they could. "You didn't need to scream like that."
"Easiest way to get things through that thick, curly-haired head of yours."
"Oh, shut up."
"Come on, let's go back," Roy decided and went to fetch the wheelchair. Dick was glad for that; he didn't feel like walking back, even if it was only a short distance. "I still need to give you Lian's get-well-Teddy."
"Lian's what?"
Roy helped Dick to get into the chair, making Dick realized how exhausted he was.
"Her get-well-Teddy. When I tried to tell her that you were... that you weren't getting better, Lian insisted on giving you her Teddy. But you got chemo and nothing antiseptic was allowed in your room."
Dick hummed an answer. He had seen children who got chemo, who clutched to welded stuffed animals. That was probably the saddest sight he ever saw. Wow, he really must have come close to death's doorstep, he still hadn't completely worked through that.
Roy was right; before he could work through being alive and well again, he needed to work through almost dying. There was no point in rushing.
-tbc-
*Doctor Zoidberg is a fictional (and most awesome) character from the show Futurama. He's an alien doctor who works on earth but has no idea about human anatomy or physiology, and I don't think he's even able to hold a scalpel? Obviously, Jason thought that's a legit comparison to Tim's surgical episodes ;)
