Double Drabble.
The trust he has earned.
"…will you stay with him, Damian?"
And suddenly the world froze, falling around him in a swirl of incredulity, his mind trying to grasp tendrils of thought as they slipped by, incoherent.
He blinked suddenly filling eyes, breath coming in uneven huffs of disbelief. But there his father still stood, resting one heavy hand on Damian's shoulder and watching him with solemn eyes, awaiting his answer.
Damian swallowed thickly, and his voice, though stiff, was not as steady as he had intended. "Of course, Father."
"Thank you," Bruce replied seriously, giving his shoulder a weighty squeeze and bending to kiss the patient on the forehead before slipping away.
And immediately Damian collapsed, boneless, against the side of the bed, tears streaming helplessly down his cheeks. He had been learning, improving, trying, and he knew his father loved him, and accepted him, and even was proud of him, trusting his ability in the field and his judgment in casework, but…but…
But to be so casually asked to stay with one he had tried to kill, several times, for his father to, without reservation, entrust him with Tim Drake's care…
There, at his brother's bedside in the Batcave medbay, Damian Wayne wept.