A/N: I promise in this chapter that Bruce will become more like able. At least I hope so. Also, I apologize if Dick may seem a lil OC.

———

It was two weeks after the attempt that he woke up feeling refreshed, as though he had been under hypnosis for the past three months. He woke up with a smirk at the corner of his mouth, and the sudden need to play with Titus, talk with his father (to give him some viable reason as to why he did what he did), and catch up on his art.

His mind was working five minutes ahead of himself. And as he jogged around the manor with Titus happily prancing beside him, he felt the blooming presence of life. The love for the bright world around him. The green of the bushes was a vivid spring in the previously dark colors. It was refreshing to see the red roses and the pretty pink of the nectar fruits again. Damian directly picked one from the tree and bit into it. It was a great, sour taste, yet also an endearing sweet. A perfect balance to such an extreme taste.

He needed to make some coffee, perhaps add more cream and sugar than necessary because he was craving so after the sweet nectar fruit, and begin on his schoolwork. He hadn't caught up in a while and needed to do so. He knew he was going to go on patrol tonight (the first in two weeks), so he needed to begin stretching and going over certain maneuvers. Although he knew he didn't need to. He was proficient in everything he did, even if it was for the first time.

When he gulped down his coffee with shaking hands, he realized finally that his previous thoughts were unnecessary. Those depressing thoughts that led to him attempting were nothing but that—thoughts. How foolish of him to act on them!

It was really all in his head. He was cured. There was no need for him to try that and worry his family. He was happy now (by his own choice, of course) and didn't need help. This sudden happiness would remain forever and he would prosper to be the amazing man he always knew he could be.

Call him arrogant, but he's simply telling the truth.

"Bruce, there's something wrong with him. I know it," Dick stared firmly. His eyes were wild, desperate.

Bruce grunted. He didn't know how to feel. His son was newly happy. How was he to change that? It only seemed beneficial. Showed that he was moving on from his attempt and finally growing.

"Bruce!" Dick yelled, and the older man almost jumped in shock. "Do you realize how much he's changed in only one night?!?" Dick was screaming, now, and Bruce knew there was no way he could stop Dick when he began. "Do you know what he asked me, Bruce?!" As though Bruce would actually know it. "He asked me if he could join the circus with me!" Dick's tone dropped to a deadly one. "Don't tell me that's Damian just being happy. He would never say that."

Bruce stilled, blinked. Then: "No. He wouldn't."

Dick slapped his forehead. "Fucking duh, Bruce!" And Bruce knew he was frantic in the way he used such vulgarity. "Damian does not just have depression. Get Damian some real fucking help before he does something stupid again. Before I do!"

Dick paced out of the cave, Bruce mulling over his words. He didn't want to believe his son had a severe mental disorder, because that meant he failed as a parent. Was it his fault? Did he push Damian too far? Perhaps Talia did?

So many questions that he couldn't answer.

"Are you on drugs?" Bruce asked a few nights after. After he had caught his son out on the streets of Gotham without his permission.

Dick's tongue lashing had woken Bruce up from being oblivious to his son's sudden mood change, and now that Bruce saw what was truly going on he realized how concerned he should be. Bruce finally saw that the young man, when he wasn't training, was working on art, playing with Titus, or actually talking with his family. Damian was constantly working, not even finishing the tasks he previously set out to do.

That wasn't his son.

Yes, Damian would rather be occupied than lazy, but Damian always finished a task before moving onto something else. When Bruce saw his son's art room, it featured tens of pieces, most of which were only partially painted and a couple done with only pencil sketches. Damian had always prided himself on his art, but his current pieces were messy, half-done. The lines weren't straight, the faces asymmetrical, and the paintbrushes dirtied until they were stiff.

However, Bruce became seriously concerned after the conversation with Dick when he saw Damian's hands shaking, the tremors so slight the average eye would not be able to see it. Bruce's concern grew into something worse when he saw the excessive coffee intake, and the inability to keep one line of conversation at a time.

Bruce recalls weeks where Damian would act like this—so...lit up and active and artsy and more irritable than usual. Until it would crash down and he would be hidden back in his shadows for weeks with no end in sight. Then it would repeat.

"No," Damian snapped back. He was growing inpatient, with all this concern. He was happy now. He didn't need anyone.

"Robin-"

"I need to go help some civilians," he interrupted, his fingers dwindling at his sides. "Unless you want to stop me, Batman," Damian mocked. Then left before Bruce could reply.

Bruce slitted his eyes.

"I think you're going through a manic episode," Bruce told him one night.

Damian scoffed as he did another pull-up. "That's ridiculous, Father," he insisted. "I'm cured."

Bruce stilled, feeling angry yet not knowing why.

"You're what?"

Damian's smirk was arrogant, to say in the most kind manner. "I am cured, Father. I don't desire death anymore. I am more than the boy I used to be. I am now grown-up, past those childish ideals."

Bruce clenched his jaw as he felt tears invade his eyes. He couldn't know why he felt suddenly emotional. Maybe it was due to the fact that he never saw these behaviors before, that he had just blamed it on teenage mood swings.

"I think you're manic, Damian," he repeated.

Damian suddenly turned angry, like a defensive cat looking over her litter. If he had one, his tail would be turned straight up. "I am not deficient, Father," Damian snarked at him.

Bruce pursed his lips, tilting his head up to stop the rising tears. Why had he never considered this?

"I'm taking you to the doctor tomorrow, Damian."

He left the weight room with a screaming, kicking Damian behind him.

Bipolar Disorder.

That's what the psychiatrist told him the next day.

A two-hour session filled to the brim with personal questions that seemed too on-the-nose for him. That he related to. A lot. Too much.

Despite that—the resonance—he didn't want to believe it. It had to be some conspiracy, because there's no way Damian Wayne would have that.

That was not what mother wanted.

So he refused medication. He didn't want something that would only hurt this new, refreshing happiness. He was unstoppable. He needed no one and nothing. Not some useless drugs that would only make him sad again.

Damian was sent upstairs by his father after the appointment. Damian made sure to make a show of stomping.

"Dick?"

"...Yes, Bruce? Did something happen with Dami again?"

"..."

"Bruce!? Please. Please don't say he-"

"Dick."

"Is he okay? Is he alive!?"

"He's hypomanic right now."

"...what?"

"He had bipolar disorder type two. He had a low, now he's at a high after only three months of depression. Doctor Karr said he's rapid cycling and he'll most likely crash within the next week or so."

"..."

"You were right, Dick."

"I'll see you in twenty."

He was prescribed meds two weeks later during his new depressive episode. He couldn't take it anymore. He couldn't take being in that same state at he was before. The same state that made him understand why he wanted to kill himself. They began working within a week.

He felt a bit out of his own body with the medication, but the doctor said that would be a symptom. The medication didn't do much but lessen the voices in his head. The rest would need to be fixed behaviorally.

He tried. He really did. He tried to adjust and play by the rules and obey but he simply couldn't. He thought the medication was supposed to be doing something and it wasn't and that was just so frustrating. It was frustrating that nothing would work with his fucked up brain.

He stopped taking the meds that when that hypomanic episode hit. He didn't believe he needed them anyways.

His father yelled at him, Grayson gave him his trademark look of pity, and Alfred gave him his disappointed one, but Damian didn't care. He didn't care. Because then he would crash back down and this vicious cycle would go again and again and again it was never ending why is it soneverending???

The psychiatrist adjusted his meds. Damian's episode flatlined and hope was on the horizon.

But as Damian looked down at Gotham, the citizens resembling ants in the big picture of life, he was still scared. He has a feeling he'll be scared for a long time. He can't decide if that's a good thing or not.

The disconnection between you and the people you love is what hurts the most.

Batman was silent when he grappled up to the top of the building. It was exactly one year since Damian's attempt, and the whole family was still recovering from the shockwave of a not-okay Damian Wayne. Damian, himself, too. His medication was adjusted at least four times in the single year, and every time he needed an adjustment he felt himself growing more impatient. Perhaps there really was no medication out there to help him?

Currently, he was in a depressive episode.

He could tell by the way his brain told him to jump off the building.

The same building he had almost jumped off of a year ago.

"Robin?" Damian didn't look up, instead kept his eyes glued to the Gothamites passing by to rush to their homes. To their families. It was 8:45, and most civilians had finished work within the last hour or so.

Bruce blinked behind the cowl. "Robin," he repeated with a firmer voice. Damian twitched, and Bruce pulled out his grapple gun incase he needed to make any haste recoveries.

"Yes, Father?" Bruce breathed a bit lighter.

He knew his son was depressed right now. Only one week ago he had finished a hypomanic episode. Bruce had learned to observe the small indications when Damian made a mood switch, from the excessive coffee and training to the sudden urge to communicate more. The way he upheld himself, defended himself.

Why couldn't he see these things beforehand? After the attempt?

"Are you feeling suicidal right now?" Bruce asked lowly, feeling a lump in his throat begin to form. I'm sorry, Damian lied at the tip of his tongue.

Damian closed his eyes. Felt the air rush across his skin as his shoulders finally relaxed after what had felt like years. Felt the presence of his father, somehow reassuring in his time of desperation. In a way that it was never like before. "Yes." Damian's throat clicked.

Bruce clenched his jaw, then slowly creeped towards Damian, as one would when encountering a snippy, venomous serpent. He refused to make a single sound when he finally reached Damian, pulling the boy down from the ledge. Damian breathed a sigh of relief, though he couldn't know why.

Bruce's hands were likely to leave bruises on his son's shoulders, but Damian didn't care. Wanted to be reassured, held by the one person that he felt was against him after his attempt.

"Are you okay, Damian?" Bruce asked, the whispers lost in the wind. He already knew the answer, but didn't want to hear it.

Damian's bottom lip twitched. It was almost imperceptible. "No," he choked out. Because it felt never ending. The toll it was taking on his body, on his mind to experience it—to so quickly switch between two parts of himself he both loathed. He hated it. He hated himself. He hated the world and any god that made him this way. He hated the stardust, the very thing that created him. He hated the man that was holding him just then—hated the way he hurt him at one of the worst points of his life.

"I hate it," Damian whispered into Bruce's shoulder.

Bruce's breathing stuttered. "I'm sorry, Damian," he apologized. And both father and son knew it was not for the way Damian was feeling currently. They both knew it was for the tension that was never broken between the two. The lack of any connection after the attempt. The lack of any form of affection after it. For the way Bruce hurt his son when he was at his most damaged.

Damian didn't reply, but Bruce didn't expect him to.

"Damian!"

Said 17-year-old tried to scoff in his eldest brother's chest. It was the next day. "Yes, Grayson?"

"Happy birthday," Dick whispered in his ear, then sweetly kissed the young man's forehead.

The connection between you and your family is what you love the most.

Damian knew that was true by the way his entire family came over later that afternoon to celebrate his another year being alive.

———

A/N: Thank you so much for reading. I'm so grateful that I was able to share this work with so many people. Thank you! All love!

/ Help is always out there. Love is always out there. Please contact your national suicide hotline if you need to. All love.