Healing yourself is connected with healing others.
~Yoko Ono
Chapter Fourteen
Ra's was completely expecting the Detective to come bashing through the door at any moment. He had been since he had landed back home with Talia. One did not simply attack the Detective's family and not expect such a confrontation. He had received one after Jason had started his rampage in Gotham, and one after this was imminent.
He stepped out into his gardens. It had been a few weeks since Timothy was placed into a coma. He had his informants keeping him updated on his condition, but there had been no change, other than Timothy moving locations to his father's home.
Ra's admired the work that his gardeners had done. Each bloom was brightly colored and trimmed to perfection. He leaned down to sniff a rose. A dark shadow passed across his back. Such darkness shouldn't be in such a beautiful place.
"Detective? May I offer my sincerest condolences at the mishap for your son," he said standing back up.
"I don't accept."
Ra's held back a sigh and turned to face the Detective. The last time he'd been angry at what he'd done, but this time he was fuming.
"It is inconsiderate to decline someone's sympathy. I understand that you are in pain, but that does not mean you can be rude to a host."
"Talia almost killed two of my sons. Forgive me if I'm not too eager to please," he growled.
"Why do you come to me? It's my daughter that you are having a quarrel with."
The Detective tilted his head and narrowed his eyes at Ra's.
"You're her father. I wanted to make sure that you weren't going to interfere with our discussions."
This time Ra's did sigh.
"Detective. I am as distraught about this situation about this as you are. My daughter went behind my back against my better wishes. I would not with dare to interfere between two lovers over children."
Bruce didn't say anything. He looked once around at Ra's garden and turned around. He walked out of the room, with no effort to disappear as he normally would have. Ra's partially wondered if the theatrical flair had gone out of him. He wondered if that was what happened when someone you love as your own blood was nearly ripped from your life violently with no meaning.
Ra's turned around and walked further down the path in the gardens. He would not get in between Talia and the Detective. Whatever they hashed out Ra's would stay out. But when it came to his grandson and his brothers, which was another story. Not a hair would be harmed on them. It would be that last thing he could give as a grandfather.
Talia wasn't doing much in her room. Not since she'd been grounded. In a sense. A grown woman and her father had locked her in her wing of their compound. She leaned against the railing overlooking the vast open desert. The wind picked up her brown hair and flipped her hair across her face. She held on to a glass of wine. Well, an empty glass of wine.
"Talia."
Against every training, instinct, and image she held herself to, Talia was startled. The wine glass slipped out of her hand and shattered upon the floor.
"Beloved." She turned around slowly.
"You killed my son."
Talia stood her ground. He was in one of his moods.
"As I recall, Timothy is only in a coma. Still very much breathing." She was pushing buttons and knew this quite well.
"With the assistance of a machine. Tell me Talia, what type of existence is that, eternal darkness, not yet dead, but not still living. It's not. He left us each personal messages in case something happened to him. But I wasn't referring to Tim. I was talking about Damian."
So this is what this encounter was about.
"And what of it? Timothy managed to resurrect him in my father's Lazarus pit. It seems that any business that you had with me is concluded." Talia turned to look back over the desert again.
Bruce gripped her arms and forced her to look at him. His eyes narrowed and they stared each other down for a tense few minutes. Then Bruce reached up and pulled back the mask to reveal the bright blue eyes that were shared by his son.
"Talia, if you come near my sons again," he growled.
"You'll kill me? Beloved, we both know that your moral code is too strong for such a thing to happen. You would die yourself before taking a life."
The eyes that looked at her weren't the cold eyes that were attributed to the Batman. Nor were they the eyes that the public saw while he was being the famous playboy of Gotham. These eyes were halfway in between. Determined, passionate, concerned. The look of a father willing to go to the ends of the earth for his children.
He truly loved every one of those boys. Even the girl. He would do anything for them even if no blood was shared in their veins. That's what separated him from the rest of the so called heroes. While they had their families, they were blood. Bruce had taken in those who the world had turned their backs upon and made them a home. They would be there for each other until the end of time for each other.
Tears filled her eyes. Her son had left her for a sense of belonging, of home. She couldn't be able to give that to Damian. She had tried, but her sights for his future had clouded the boy that he was. She did love her son. She did.
This was for the best.
Talia gripped Bruce's hands and took them off of her shoulders. She stepped back and looked out at the setting sun.
"Leave me."
"Talia." His voice was wary of this development. She could feel him reach out for her.
"Leave. Your sons will be untouched."
"Talia," he tried again.
"Don't make me tell you again. The guards will be coming soon. Go back home to your family and your city."
Her Beloved seemed to catch what she was saying. He gently rested a hand on her shoulder.
"He still loves you, you know."
And like that his hand was withdrawn and he was gone. Her guards came in a few seconds later. She let them alone to clean up the shattered glass on the floor.
Maybe someday he would forgive her for what she'd done. Maybe someday she'd be able to forgive herself for what she'd done. But this was the best for her son. Maybe one day she could accept that.
It had been two months since they moved him into his room in the manor with no change in Tim's condition. Not that bringing him home would magically wake him to be among the living again. But they hoped that the familiar environment would help with the healing process. But there was no improvement that could be seen.
His eighteenth birthday came and gone. No one really celebrated. They all acknowledged the date, but no party was held. What was the point of a party when the guest of honor wasn't even aware that it was his birthday?
What ended up happening was they all took time out of their day and went up to his room to be with him on his day. No one knew the others were doing it, and yet they all knew.
Barbara went in and gave his a kiss on the forehead as his present. She talked about how she was cleaning through the Clock Tower and she found one of his portable games that he used to play. She laughed at the thought of him sneaking it behind Batman's back on patrols.
"We were happier then, weren't we?" She asked.
She left the game on his side table before leaving again to plan for various things. The Birds needed leadership and her wedding needed planning and try as Dick might, he was more of a hindrance than a help.
Dick came in some time after Barbara. He wore the dumbest party hat that he could find and came prepared with one for Tim. He tried to wrestle it onto Tim's head, but the oxygen tubes kept getting in the way, so he settled for resting it on Tim's head. He didn't talk much, which it itself was unusual for him, but was becoming more of a routine when he came to Tim. He moved the hat to Tim's dresser when he left.
Steph just sat and held his hand for an hour. She didn't say much either. "Happy Birthday Dork Wonder," she said before leaving.
Jason swung by and shoved a generic card in his underwear drawer and muttered a happy birthday.
Damian looked into the room and didn't even go in. His feet couldn't go in there.
Bruce and Alfred came in late at night and talked with him. They talked about what was going on in the world with the Justice League, and the Teen Titans. They talked about Wayne Enterprises and the upcoming deal that they were working one. They talked about the baseball game that they were planning on talking the entire family too without burning down the entire stadium. It was nearly the next day when they decided to get some sleep for themselves.
"Do you think he'll be awake for his next birthday, Alfred?" Bruce asked watching his son.
"It's hard to say sir. One can only hope and pray."
Then life went on.
It was another month after Tim's birthday when Damian had had enough of being cooped in the manor. He demanded that he return to patrolling the streets.
"No!" Was his father's answer. Every time.
Damian had had enough. He needed to out there again. And he was going to do something about it.
He waited for his father to go out on patrol for the evening before he snuck down and grabbed his robin costume out of storage.
The city's night air filled his lungs and he felt at home. The night air whipped through his hair, reminding him he needed a haircut. It was getting much too long. It was nearly as long as Jason's now and that wouldn't do. He had gotten rid of the white streak the moment that the bandage had come off of his head. He landed on a rooftop.
"Hey, you can't do that!" He heard someone shout.
He looked over at where the shouting was coming from. A bad guy was roughing up one of the regular prostitutes in the area and someone walking by decided that they were going to intervene. She was walking towards the two engaged in a tussle, fists clenched. She couldn't have been much older than him.
What the hell is she doing? She's gonna get herself killed, Damian thought to himself.
"Back off little girl if you know what's best for you."
The curly haired girl didn't stray from her path.
Damian didn't move until the mugger had turned his attention from the prostitute that had previously been holding his attention. The mugger swung a punch that she ducked under before giving her a kick to the stomach. Saving a prostitute was one thing, preventing innocents who didn't know when to keep their meddling hands out of other people's business is another thing.
Damian dropped down and swept his feet from underneath the guy. He landed with a hard thump on the ground and stared up at Robin. His mouth dropped.
"But you're dead. I saw it on the TV."
"You were mistaken." Damian gave a swift kick to the head and the guy was knocked out.
Damian hauled the guy to the emergency fire escape and cuffed him to it securely. He barely stepped back when he was given a hug from behind. He froze and looked to see the curly haired girl hugging him.
"What the hell?"
"You're not dead!" She exclaimed.
Damian had to bit his tongue. Didn't he just say that to the bad guy he took out? Was this girl dumb in the head or something? He pushed himself free from her embrace.
"What were you thinking? Are you stupid? You could have gotten yourself hurt," he scolded.
Her face changed quickly. That happiness that she was expressing changed to disbelief to anger quickly.
"I could've taken care of myself! And I'm not stupid! I thought that I could help that lady out! Do some good," she yelled back at him.
"Go home," he ordered.
She glared right into his face. Her nose scrunched up and the smallest portion of him thought it was cute. He squashed that thought.
"Home is where you should be also."
Damian froze. He had hoped that he wouldn't have run into his father. Slowly he turned around to face Batman.
"My presence would be better here on the streets than locked in the house as I have been for the past months," He said, trying to keep his voice from yelling.
"We will not be having this discussion right now. Go back to the cave. That's an order. We will discuss this later. Batgirl, make sure that the young lady gets home safely."
Damian whirled around to see the familiar purple suit standing next to the girl. He would need to start training harder if Brown was able to sneak up on him so easily. He glanced back to his father to see that he wasn't there.
"Dammit," Damian muttered.
"Alright let's get you home Nell."
"You remembered." She gave a bright smile to Brown beside her.
Brown gave her a smile in return. "Let's get you home."
Nell nodded and looked back at Robin for a moment. She darted over quick and gave a small kiss on the cheek.
"Good luck with your dad," She said as she led Batgirl out onto the main street. Brown gave a small wave to Damian as she was led away.
Damian stood there for a moment before following his father's orders and returned to the cave. He was not surprised to see his father and Alfred looking down at him.
"What the HELL were you thinking Damian?!" Bruce yelled, pulling back his cowl.
Damian tried to bite his lip to prevent anything that would get him into a larger amount of trouble.
"I thought that I had told you that you were not going to go out as Robin again."
"Two hundred thirty two times," Damian muttered.
"What?"
"Two hundred thirty two times! That's how many times you've told me no! At first I thought that it was because you hadn't talked to my mother yet! But then you went and talked to her, something that I would have liked to be A PART OF, and I thought that maybe we could get back to some form of normalcy! But you still said no! I've been driving myself mad knowing that you are out there without me to watch your back! You don't understand that Batman needs ROBIN!" Damian yelled finally letting go of everything he'd been bottling up for a while.
When his lips stopped moving he stood still and stared. He listened to just what he said. Wasn't that what Drake had said when he first come to his father?
"It's not that simple Damian. The world saw Robin die. He can't just appear suddenly again."
Damian stood as tall as he could. He had grown a few inches in the past few months. They weren't sure if it was just a growth spurt, or the pit had some effect on his physiology. He was nearly as tall as Drake would be.
"Then you understand."
"Of course I understand. But you've been out of the field for months; you can't just go back out without reconditioning yourself. And I'm not saying yes. But can we just work on that before running around in tights again."
Damian scoffed. "They are not tights, Father. You know very well that they are not tights."
Bruce smiled inside. He wasn't okay with this. Not one bit. This was one of his baby boys. He needed to make sure that they were safe. But if he was going to sneak out again, then how was that going to keep him safe?
It was two weeks before Robin was standing by his side on the roof of the police station.
Dick was sitting beside Tim's bed. He was dressed in a tux with a bright blue bow tie. The sun was beginning to set outside.
"Hey buddy. So I got married today. Everything went well, at least no criminals attempted to take over the world anyway. Roy and Jason had some fun with the punch. That almost turned out badly. Wally took care of it quickly. But it was beautiful. Babs was beautiful. She walked to me Tim. I knew that she was receiving therapy on her spine and had regained some feeling in her legs. I guess I underestimated how much."
Dick stopped talking for a moment. He fingered his wedding band. A habit he was quickly picking up.
"I wish you could've been there buddy. We're still not whole without you here."
Dick stood up and left the room. He closed the door behind and leaned against it. He took a deep breath and allowed the tears he'd been holding back since that morning to roll down his face. He stayed in that position until his name was called.
"Dick?" Barbara rolled into view. The day had been long and physically exhausting for her. "Dick. I thought you'd be here. Are you ready?"
Finally Dick wiped his eyes.
"Yeah, I was just saying goodbye."
Babs snorted. "We'll be back in a few weeks Hunk Wonder. You can never stay away."
Dick gave a smile and began to push his wife, his wife, out to their car.
A pair of cool blue eyes watched the whole ordeal.
A/N: So this chapter jumped a bunch of time. In the future I may write more in depth a few one-shots of things that happened over this period of time, but that would be for a future date. I hope that each little bit made sense, but especially the bit with Talia.