And This Is Home
Part Two of Three
Note: Here's Part Two! Hope you all enjoy it! The last part will be up next week. And thank you for the sweet reviews, you made my heart all warm and bubbly. And as always, I thank you for reading and hope this chapter brings you many emotions!
Disclaimer: I own nada.
Give me the strength to hold together
Fall down on me
Am I only half the man I want to be?
The more things change
-Curt Smith, This is Christmas
The snow fell upon the city of Gotham, covering it in a thick, white sheet. It covered the ugliness with fake purity. The festive "We Need a Little Christmas" played in the far distance below as Batman hunched over by the edge of the roof, next to the demon-winged statue.
His cape wrapped around him and protected his body from the biting cold.
"First time you called me on the emergency com-link."
Batman tensed and held back any signs of being startled. He hadn't expected him to show. Not after that fight. He immediately got into Bat-mode. "The Joker's on a spree. He killed thirteen men and robbed three banks in the last week."
Without looking, he knew Nightwing ran his hands through his hair. Nightwing exhale exasperated. "When is the Joker not on a spree? Did you really called me all the way out here for this?"
"Dick..." Batman stressed softly. He turned his head to see the slight dropped jaw from his eldest son. Batman knew what strict rule of his own he had broken: no names out in the field.
Nightwing cleared his throat and Batman reminisced about the old night blue stripe of Nightwing's costume now replaced by the red of robin.
"You..." Nightwing placed his hands on his hips. His mouth worked but nothing came out.
"I couldn't think of any other way to get you out here to talk," Batman said.
Nightwing scoffed. "You couldn't just pick up the phone and say, 'I need to talk to you'?"
"Would you have come?"
Nightwing's silence answered him.
Batman gazed back out onto the snow-blanket city. "You need to return home. This is your place."
"My place?" Nightwing growled. "Is that an order?"
Batman closed his eyes. This isn't coming out like he wanted. Why couldn't Nightwing listened like he used to? "Robin," Batman sputtered, "he, I can't, we're..."
"He's your son," Dick said in a drawl. "I'm done playing referee between you two."
Batman went to retort, to state that's not what he meant, couldn't Dick see this was hard for him to do? But sounds of screams pierced the tense conversation.
When he turned, Nightwing disappeared. Dammit.
Batman leapt off the roof. His black cape billowed behind him. He yanked the grapple from his belt, shot it out and it hooked around the fire escape. His feet slammed against the concrete.
He blinked at the unconscious muggers and the crying teenage girls.
Nightwing was gone.
Three hours later, Bruce walked up the stairs toward the foyer of the Wayne Manor out of costume. His body begged for sleep but Wayne Enterprise called for him in two hours.
Even in his half-dead state, he still managed to hear the small clink in the kitchen. His eyes narrowed. Alfred should be out taking Damian to school at this time. Who could be doing the dishes now?
And that's where Bruce found Dick, at the kitchen sink, washing the dishes from breakfast. He'd came home to visit Damian and Alfred. Or maybe he'd came home to check on Damian.
"Alfred will be pleased to know you're working him out of his job," Bruce said.
Dick didn't pause in his scrubbing of one of the tea cups. "You work him hard enough as it is. Besides, it's my mess."
Bruce took in Dick's sweatpants and Gotham college sweater to know those were the spare clothes Dick had left behind. He returned to Gotham with no intention of staying, until Bruce mentioned Damian. Dick really cared about that boy.
Dick set the blue-white tea cup on the drying mat with the other two. "So, you benched Damian because he disobeyed an order," Dick said, his eyes swept over to Bruce's.
And you got Damian's side of the story first before mine.
"Did you even bother to ask why? Oh, wait, with you, there's no excuse."
Bruce sighed and rubbed the side of his temple. Why had he'd never seen this before? "Dick," he started.
"I know," Dick stopped him. "Following orders means we don't get killed." He wiped his hands on the dish rag and turned to Bruce. "Then why the hell do you let us out there?"
"Why did you let Damian when you were Batman?"
Dick lowered his gaze. "Because he needed that, more than anybody at the time."
And that's why I let you out. I knew you would go out there of your own accord. I couldn't let you out alone, especially at that age.
Bruce walked further into the kitchen. "Alfred said you and Damian were the best Dynamic Duo he'd ever seen, better than we were, than what Damian and I are."
Dick's eyebrows furrowed like he disagreed with that statement but didn't say anything.
Bruce swallowed. He needed to do this. If not for Damian, than for Dick, for all that Dick ever did for you. You owe him this. "I did a lot of thinking lately, and I know why now. You two trust each other so wholeheartedly. There's no doubt, no hesitation between you."
Dick smiled sadly. "Bruce, you and Damian can still have that. It's not like we trusted each other overnight, it took time."
"Damian and I are too alike, we demand to earn the other's trust, but someone has to give it first in order for it to be found. It'll take a lot longer than you two."
"It'll happen," Dick reassured. "Trust me."
Always. Bruce walked a bit more and stopped before Dick. "Come back to Gotham."
"I can't..."
"I demand you," Bruce snapped.
"Demand?" Dick scoffed. "I left so you and Damian could build a stronger father-son relationship. I'm not going to be the middleman between you two. If you want it to work, Bruce, you need to make some sacrifices."
"Damian needs you," Bruce said.
Dick groaned and spun around. His hands squeezed the edge of the counter. With that statement, Bruce knew he almost had him. It's the one thing that always convinced Dick. When people needed him, no matter how much it'd hurt him, Dick would help them. That's who he was. He was a better man than anybody. Better than Clark.
"I can only be there for him as an older brother, and a friend, I can't, I'm not..." his real father.
Bruce winced at the unspoken words that echoed loudly in his head. He'd said that, he'd caused that broken look in his son's eyes. How many times had he done that? Out of all his sons, it felt like he hurt Dick the most.
He loved all his sons dearly, even Jason. He was strict and hard because he didn't ever want to have to bury any of them. His fear strained his relationships with them, especially Dick. That boy grew up learning to catch the other person should they fall, how could Dick catch Bruce if Bruce was too afraid to jump?
John Grayson shined through Dick more than Bruce did. Wait. "Maybe that's what Damian needs: two fathers."
Dick's chin touched his shoulder, but he didn't look back. His breath held.
Bruce remembered the broken boy he had brought home, he'd recognized the same lifeless look in Dick's blue eyes as Bruce had when his parents died. He never expected to become like a father to Dick, his only intentions at the time was to help Dick, to save Dick from the darkness within.
In reality, it was truly Dick who saved Bruce. How could Bruce expect Dick to give up what he'd gained from Damian those two years? To destroy the special bond like he'd once had with Dick before Bruce let his fear strain it.
"I've had two fathers in my life. Thomas and Alfred. You had John and me. Perhaps it's only fair for Damian to have me...and you."
Dick's shoulders trembled but stopped as he recollected himself. His gaze slid over to meet Bruce's and Bruce nearly drowned within the heavy sadness. "It's different, Bruce. I lost my dad, and gained you. You lost Thomas, and gained Alfred." He shook his head. "How could Damian lose you when he never really had you?"
And Damian still doesn't have me. I pushed him away because I feared who he'd become.
"I appreciate you trying to make amends, Bruce, but, he calls you Father, not me. I can't step in the way of that."
"You already have."
"He needs you more than me."
Why can't you see how much you've changed Damian? How can I show you? And then Bruce remembered. He motioned with his hands. "Follow me."
Dick reluctantly followed Bruce up the manor stairway and into the main hallway where the bedrooms resided. He hesitated at the base of Damian's door as Bruce entered.
Bruce pulled opened Damian's nightstand drawer next to his bed and pulled loose the false bottom. "Alfred found this, by accident, when cleaning his room once. He felt propelled to show me and you need to see this."
Dick walked into the room when he noticed that it was Damian's sketchbook in Bruce's hands.
"That's personal, Bruce. I can't see that."
"Maybe you do."
He handed the leather-brown sketchbook into Dick's hands.
The lines creased upon Dick's face, conflicted. But Dick sighed and opened it. He took his time staring at each page, admiring it.
Bruce knew he was looking at sketches of Batman and Robin, of the Batmobile, of cats, and dogs, but that's not what Bruce wanted him to see.
When Dick turned one of the pages, he blinked in shock. Glanced up at Bruce and then back at the page. "Eh, Bruce..."
"Keep going," he ordered.
Dick swallowed and flipped to the next, and the next, tears welling up with each page.
Bruce spent hours staring at them, hating Dick for it, and then he came to realized how much he and Dick were alike, how much he couldn't hate Dick for it. The only reason he grew jealous of Dick was because he wished he could be the man his eldest son grew up to be. Dick surpassed him in everything, and wasn't that all Bruce wanted for his kids?
Damian had drawn many pictures of Dick. Sad Dick. Concerned Dick. Smiling Dick. And soon incorporated himself in the pictures. He would draw pictures of them cuddling, of Dick's hugs and Damian's enjoyment of them.
Damian needed Dick, and Dick needed him.
Bruce had to swallow his ego and pride and give his sons what they desperately craved and needed more than anything.
The tears spilled as Dick glanced up at Bruce. "I never wanted to replace you, Bruce. I just, I wanted to..."
Bruce took the sketchbook from Dick's hands and hugged his son. Dick broke into a sob in the crease of Bruce's shoulders, but Bruce held him.
He was angry when he returned, not at Dick but at the unfairness of life. He was granted a biological son, and when he saw the two of them together, he was jealous. Two years and Bruce had immediately seen the effect Dick had on Damian when he first seen them. Damian's my son, Bruce's ego had declared.
But life had been unfair, he'd gotten lost in time. The truth was Dick and Damian would've been the better fit. Bruce and his stubbornness wouldn't have saved Damian from the grasp of his so-called destiny.
Bruce was a father to Damian, an overprotective one as Alfred would call it. He would give Damian the life he deserved, the whole world if he could. He would give Damian understanding, kindness, and love. He'd give Damian hugs to keep the nightmares away, but Bruce knew deep in his heart, because Batman always kept sole control and possession of it, that Bruce would never, ever implicitly trust Damian.
Maybe someday, but not now.
Damian needs someone to trust him. Especially now, and at this age. He was vulnerable to the temptations of the villains, the darkness, and the al Ghuls.
Dick would give him that and more. Hell, he already given Damian everything.
And Damian will give Dick what he desperately needed: wholehearted love.