This was how it always started.
'Dad, where were you?'
'And what was it tonight, my boy?'
Almost every night, those same questions, that same inquiry. Sometimes it was asked with concern; others, with anger. Sometimes things were not well at all, the signs of hurt more obvious, and there were no words anyone could say. After that only calls to the hospital, or the manor's first-aid kit if Bruce was being particularly stubborn.
Sometimes though, Alfred and the kids were just too tired to ask him anything at all. They saw his hunched form, newly arrived, and they continued waking. It was the same every night. What use would it be anyway? To worry? To nag? Bruce always went back out. Always.
The nights at Wayne Manor were frightful indeed. Not because there was violence at home or shouting matches (although there had been some of those to spare). No, nothing like that; quite the contrary, in fact.
At night, Wayne Manor was eerily silent with the absence of the head of the house. At night, Bruce Wayne always disappeared, and the residents who were left waited with bated breath for his return.
They never knew exactly where he was going—Bruce never said, no matter how much they insisted.
"Oh, just out," he sometimes answered, if they caught him in the act. Or, "There's a great party downtown." But never exactly where these were or when he'd be back.
And sometimes, it was okay. Bruce woke up late in bed; tired and haggard, but all in all okay. And that would be fine, if that were that, but sometimes it was not. And it was times like these that kept the silence at Wayne Manor like a string about to snap.
Because sometimes things weren't fine.
–
Bruce Wayne was a man of many vices, this was abundantly clear and impossible to ignore to those who loved him. He had an array of vices to pick from on any given night and pick them he did do.
Sometimes it was underground fighting rings. Bruce would come back black and blue. His lovely face bruised, and on occasion, there would even be something broken. It was a good night if he confessed to it; a bad one if they had to find out later on by accident.
It had been heartbreaking for a young Dick, —who'd been angry at first, and then eternally grateful and loving afterwards for being taken in,— to realize that his new guardian liked going out at night to get himself beat up.
It was a harrowing thing, Bruce being so willing to help him pursue information on his parents' killer by day, and by night becoming a nameless ghost that did not even inhabit the same space Dick and Alfred did.
Sometimes the young boy had caught him in the middle of leaving—not many times, for Bruce was tremendously sneaky, but a few times.
"Don't go B! Please, please, please," he'd say clinging to his guardian's middle with small arms.
But Bruce only ever smiled sadly and promised to stay with Dick until he fell asleep. Dick always tried to stay awake late into the night, even if he never could. He thought, 'If only I could stay up all night, then maybe Bruce won't go out god knows where.'
Often he imagined his foster father, out of the range of the streetlights and trapped amongst unfriendly eyes— somewhere dark and unpleasant. He tried not to think about his parents too much when his thoughts dwelled on Bruce's nightlife.
But Bruce Wayne would come back; a shiner over his cheek, and limping perhaps, but with a bright grin on his face.
"I won," he'd brag. And little Dick smiled at him and smushed himself against Bruce, not out of shared victory, but out of sheer relief and ecstasy that the man he did not yet call father had returned home.
Once Jason had come along, the boy had feigned nonchalance and had cockily asked to join in on the fights with Bruce. He was from the seediest parts of Gotham, he knew how things like that went; it'd be just like stepping back into his home turf. At least, that's what he'd say to them.
The sheer panic and horror in Bruce's face at the proposition had reassured Dick—if only slightly—that his dad knew his nightly activities were a terrible venom. A disease that was slowly but surely consuming him. It was not something he ever wanted to reach his boys.
"Over my dead body," Bruce had hissed with a fierce conviction Dick had rarely seen. Injustice, Dick would realize later in life, was the common denominator of this slightly terrifying reaction.
It sparked a shouting match at that time about Bruce's hypocrisy. Fresh off the streets, prepubescent Jason had not liked that one bit. But Bruce had gotten his way in the end. It got him what Dick had barely gotten in his time, he noted with barely repressed jealousy. It got Bruce to stay longer at home for a while and become less out and about like a disappearing ghost into the night.
It made their dad hellbent on finding things Jason could love by day and keep him busy and away from the poison of his nightlife.
Jason mellowed out; at least, enough to not to try and follow Bruce at night anyway. That had comforted Dick greatly, who despite his jealousy of Jason, had come to love the new boy quickly and fiercely. Soon, it was like they had always been brothers.
–
"I… cannot help myself," Bruce had once confessed to Dick. He was leaning against the armchair of the main living room, bloody and tired, when his son had asked why he kept going out at night to get himself beaten up. Half angry, half desperate with grief to find a solution to this unsolvable problem.
"Do you… like being hurt?" Dick had asked, unable to make eye contact. He told himself it was out of fear that this sudden honesty would disappear; but in truth, Dick knew it was because he couldn't bear to see the answer revealed on his father's face.
"Not particularly, no." The easy answer had lifted a weight off the boy's chest the size of Wayne Tower.
"So, it's more like a compulsion," Dick continued, eager to understand. But Bruce's only answer after that had been a quiet hum.
The conversation stayed with him. He thought about it again and again, wondering about all of Bruce's little gestures and reactions, what each of his words could mean. It gave him no answers, only more questions, and a few more sleepless nights.
–
From his vices, Bruce did indeed pick. Sometimes it was parties and alcohol. When he returned, he carried with him a strong smell of booze on his breath. But a smile, always a smile on his face for them.
"It's not so bad," a fourteen-year-old Jason had once said when Dick had been so angry at Bruce he'd screamed at him, "You're a fucking alcoholic, you know that? Do you want to come home one day and wake up just to find that you hit one of us?!"
And at his words, 'not so bad', Dick had turned to his little brother in ireful disbelief.
"What?" Jason had scoffed, then quietly exhaled, "Willis always smelled worse."
It had shut Dick right up for a couple of moments.
"That's not the point," the eldest shook his head.
"Come on Dick," Jason had rolled his eyes. "I know the type. Bruce would never do that."
"Oh, so you're okay with this now?" Dick had flapped his arms in the air before getting a punch in the gut from his brother.
He'd had no air left to call after the fading, thundering footsteps.
So, it wasn't as bad as it could be. So Bruce didn't hit them or bring his night problems home. So what? That didn't make any of it better. It just didn't make it any worse than it already was. But Dick let it go, at least in front of Jason that is.
–
Sometimes it was drugs.
Those were the nights, mornings, which Jason dreaded the most. This was the monster lurking beneath his bed. Not the bruises or the broken bones or the sex or the alcohol. But this. This.
Drugs.
This was the monster he knew best. When Bruce came back and Jason could see he was not all there, or not himself a 100%, all Jason could think of was mom, mom, mom. Like a flood inside his brain, a constant toiling bell.
He was so sure Bruce could take on anything and survive. Jason had never seen him fight, but he'd seen him come back victorious. It was a knowledge deep within him that nothing could take this tank of a man down; this party-obsessed, adrenaline junkie, dumb socialite of a man. But this. This is what took his mom away from him. Surely, it could take Bruce too.
The boy oscillated from anger, to fear, to panic in the mornings in which there was nothing but drugs.
Bruce tended to sleep late into the mornings, though he did wake up briefly to have breakfast with his children. Once he saw them and reassured them with his presence, he went back up to his suite and sprawled out on the bed until it was time to wake up for his meetings at Wayne Enterprise.
It was these mornings when Jason knew what had happened just by the slightly absent look on his face, that he would follow Bruce up the stairs and curl into the man's side with an angry frown on his face.
Jason tried hard to keep himself from saying anything at all. He didn't want to sing pleas against deaf ears once more. He didn't want to be the son he'd been to his mother with Bruce. But even then, half asleep with exhaustion and something running through his veins, it was just like Bruce could hear his pleading right out of his brain.
'Stop, stop, stop, stop,' and, 'Mom what can I do to make this better? How can I help, mom?'
Bruce, who Jason had slowly let into his heart, would kiss the crown of his head and say gentle nothings against his hair, sacrificing the little sleep he got in lew of comforting Jason, reassuring him.
"I'm fine Jason, see? I'm alright," he'd say.
And he was. Jason knew, just like with the alcohol, just how much worse it could be. So he was grateful—grateful, but so very scared of the day it would get worse. He was always waiting for the other shoe to drop.
After a couple of minutes Bruce would usher him out gently. "You have school buddy." And reassure him some more. But all day at school the bell would toil inside his head until he was finally back home and the slightly absent look on Bruce's eyes would be gone. Then Jason could finally breathe normally again.
–
They knew when it was sex and women, sometimes with drugs added into the mixture to spice things up —for no vice was ever exclusive from the others. They could tell from his face. There was a ditzy look to him; a little self-conscious, a little abashed. And there was always lipstick stains smeared all over him; his clothes and hair rumpled.
When drugs were added into the equation, he didn't always look so hot. There was something spacy about him, but 'don't worry,' was always right at the tip of his tongue. He looked okay most of the time. The kids knew he was a bit of a sex addict, and that was fine, they knew he was safe –probably, hopefully. But sometimes… sometimes their dad looked rough around the edges, like he wanted to cry maybe. It was concerning enough that on those nights, or mornings, they were too worried about him to hear the newscast lady say, 'Poison Ivy has struck again.'
Dick thought his dad might like some space but Jason always sat smushed right next to his side. When Bruce's shoulders would finally go down and the tension in his back uncoiled a little, Dick draped himself over the armrest and back of the couch, like a cat, around his father's shoulders.
–
There was a night that Dick remembered vividly. The image of it grew blurry around the edges with time, a misty scape printed onto his brain, but the emotions stuck and they did not leave.
He'd been young then, fourteen probably. And that night… That night Bruce hadn't come back.
It was not overly strange, it happened sometimes. The first time it had, Alfred had kindly reassured him of the normality of the occasional occurrence. It hardly made Dick worry more than usual but, well, Bruce would come back like he always did.
Except that was not how it happened. Morning came and went, and then midday, and then the evening. By then, even Alfred couldn't hide his evident worry as it progressively eroded at his composure. The butler tried calling Bruce's phone, again and again, despite knowing the man never answered when he went out at night. But night had already come and gone and come again.
Alfred had already called the police thrice –who had laughed off the call at first for who would worry about the Prince of Gotham not showing up after some very predictable nightly outing? None but James Gordon had taken Alfred seriously when he caught news of the third attempt by the Buttler to report his surrogate son missing.
The grandfather clock was turning to 3:27 am of the next day when Bruce finally showed up. Witching hour. The manor, and its few residents, were in an uproar.
He'd never done that before; even when drugged, Bruce always, always, made sure to be home by morning with an apologetic smile on his face.
Alfred was furious, Dick had never seen him like that before. But his fury didn't last very long.
Bruce looked terrible, he looked dazed, out of it, lost. A little, like he couldn't believe he was finally back home too.
Drugs, the boy had thought ruefully. Already well acquainted with the look his foster dad would get. But it had never quite looked like this.
"B?" Dick was quick to his side, Alfred already busy fretting around the man.
Bruce flinched away from the small hand of the boy and that was somehow more worrisome than anything he'd ever experienced before from Bruce's nightly escapades.
"B?" Dick asked again, voice trembling.
"I didn't know where… I wasn't sure where I was," Bruce muttered.
"Hush now," Alfred told him softly, checking his pulse, subtly brushing his fingertips over Bruce's palm.
There was dark red lipstick on his lips and cheeks and neck and it was more violent than any bruise he had ever beared.
"Master Richard, please go to your room," Alfred asked, voice uncharacteristically unsteady, but Dick had shaken his head, clinging harder to a recoiling Bruce.
Dick wasn't old enough to understand, not fully. Of course, there were things he knew were wrong and horrid, but his young mind had yet to truly understand. Inside him, there was just a sick, twisted feeling in his gut when he looked at Bruce.
"Master Richard, please," Alfred had begged. "He needs space." And pulled the boy from Bruce's arm as gently as he could in his hurry.
Older Dick would think back on this moment and have an odd sense of remembering exactly how Bruce looked and thinking his father had looked young.
"I didn't want to, I swear. I– Alfie… do you believe me?" Bruce had looked pleadingly at his own father for reassurance.
Alfred had not said a thing.
Grown up Dick remembers that night with a special kind of clarity.
Drugs. He thought then and again. It made him sick to understand later in life. He wasn't sure which was more terrible.
–
Bruce Wayne was a man of many vices, this was true, but he was also a devoted and loving father. However, there is only so much hurt the heart of a person can take before they decide enough is enough.
And so that day came for one Richard Grayson, who—old enough and eager to leave the mansion that had given him so much joy but so much nightly grief—began to slowly distance himself from his father.
He was an adult or barely one, but he was responsible enough when it counted. Nineteen was enough to make life-changing decisions he believed.
"I'm taking Jason with me," he told Bruce out of the blue, completely serious and ready to make the statement true.
There was a moment of confusion at first in Bruce's blue eyes, his mind still partly on the Wayne Enterprise documents he was working on.
"Yeah? Where are you guys going?" Bruce said with a fond, smile.
"No- I mean… I'm taking Jason with me and- We aren't coming back. Jason can't stay here anymore," Dick forced the words out, so used already to confronting his father but still sweating with the magnitude of what he was doing.
After a second of Bruce owlishly looking at him he pushed on.
"He can't keep living in this house B, it's too much stress for him. He needs somewhere stable and you can't give him that." And somewhere, somewhere in his words, Dick felt he was not only talking about Jason, but about himself as well. For the smaller boy he'd been, unable to sleep at night because he didn't know when– if his father would return.
"You–" Bruce looked hurt, like his heart was being torn from inside his chest. But all that came out of his mouth afterward was, "Oh."
A moment of silence extended in the space between them.
"Oh? Oh?" Dick repeated dumbly.
Bruce was looking down, like he was holding in his emotions. Like he'd already lost the battle for Jason.
"Excuse me?" Dick asked, outraged. "Is that all you're going to say? 'Oh?' What the fuck is wrong with you Bruce?" Oh god, Dick really hoped his dad wasn't actually going to answer that second question.
"What do you want me to say, Dick?" Bruce's voice was strained.
"Anything! Get angry at the situation! At me! Hell, don't you even care about this?"
"Of course I do!" Then more quietly, "Of course I do Dick. I don't want you to take Jason away. I-" Bruce choked on his words, "I don't want you guys to leave."
Dick was incredulous, he couldn't believe this was how the conversation was progressing.
"I don't believe you," Dick whispered. "What the hell is wrong with you?" He repeated and then he looked past the heartbreak in his dad's eyes, and he understood. He wished he didn't, but he understood what was going on here.
"You– you're not even protesting! It'd be so easy for you to stop me, to put your foot down. There is literally no way I'd be able to do this without sneaking Jason out and- Legally, I have no power. I'd never be able to win a case like this against you, but– I was so ready to fight you on this B. To… I don't know, sneak out with Jason if necessary, but… you're not doing anything about it." Dick swallowed the bile trying to rise up his throat.
He saw Bruce trying to breathe in carefully, trying to stay in control. For such a disheveled man he was always fighting for control.
"You know I'm right," Dick said dryly, heart in his throat. "You know I'm right Bruce. You actually agree. That's why you're not–"
Bruce looked away, uncomfortable with his son's examination.
"You'd be… good for him," his dad said softly, his eyes were a little glassy. Outside the sun shined brightly and the sky was a lovely shade of blue. It was a beautiful day for a city like Gotham.
Dick shook his head, incredulous. No, he wouldn't be a good replacement at all, of that he was aware. He was just a young, stupid man, but he knew it'd be better than having to wonder every night if your father was coming home.
"I- I know you've been looking at apartments, I can-" Bruce stumbled over his words.
Dick's ears were ringing with white noise. "Are you really that eager to get rid of us?" he asked, knowing it wasn't true but unable to help himself.
"Do not put words in my mouth," Bruce frowned, a spark of anger in his voice.
"I'm not putting anything there, you're doing a wonderful job all by yourself," Dick rolled his eyes, doing his best to keep himself under control in the face of this spirling conversation.
Bruce was looking down at his hands, thinking very hard, and trying to come up with something to say. But every idea was worse than the last.
Dick sighed at him, if he had ever been good at something in this family, it was reading his father.
"Tell me what you're thinking," he said tiredly. He did not walk toward Bruce, he did not approach him for as much as Dick wanted to. He does not want to pity his father nor give him compassion, not right now.
After a long while, Bruce finally says, "I want to ask you what I have to do for you to stay." He looked up at his son, intense, cold blue eyes finally meeting Dick's. "But I already know what that would be. And… I want to tell you that I'm going to change- I want to ask you to give me another chance so I can prove to you that I can be better, but-"
Dick closed his eyes for a moment as a pang of grief pulsed in his chest. He breathed in carefully.
"But it would be a lie," Bruce admitted, "It would be a lie and I'm not going to insult your intelligence. I… I want to do what's best for you boys, I always have."
And didn't Dick know that to be true.
"I just-" Bruce swallowed. "I'm not good for you," he said, sounding as if he was admitting to his greatest sin. "I sometimes think-" But then, the man cut himself off, his teeth clicking with the suddenness of the action.
Dick feared what words had been about to leave his father's mouth. He had an inking, for how grieved Bruce looked. Dick laughed humorlessly and shook his head, looking at the window.
"You know what's worse, B? You're not actually a bad dad. You're- you're pretty damn great, to be honest," he chuckled.
"Am I really?" Bruce raised a disbelieving eyebrow. "Right. I'm sure most dads out there doing the bare minimum arrive every night beat up and–"
"Shut up, Bruce. For the love of god, just shut up," Dick cut him off, angry once more and peered right into his eyes. "You– you– gave us a good home when we didn't have one, something stable despite your stupid, fucking, 'night life'. Those few weeks of foster homes? Do you remember that? They were hell to me," he emphasized with feeling. "I… I would've run away eventually. And in this city?" He left the rest of the statement to the imagination. "You took Jason off the streets, you gave him food, a roof over his head –"
"That's nothing special Dick, everyone should–"
"But no one did. You did that." For how much raw emotion Dick was exuding, he still was so far away from Bruce. He should've been up close, poking him in the chest, pushing him, it's what he'd normally do. But he couldn't bring himself to walk any closer to the man, if he did, he feared Bruce might try to comfort him and then… well then Dick might not leave at all.
"You gave him a loving father–" 'You gave us a father' he does not say. "And you're there when it's most important. You teach us how to be better and how to live life despite…"
"Despite my vices you mean?"
"Yeah," Dick laughed again. He didn't find it funny.
"Do as I say–" Bruce's blue eyes were fond amid this quiet despair.
"–not as I do," finished his eldest. "And even then, when you're not beat halfway to death or smashed out of your mind… You are a good man. A very flawed one but… a good one." He took a breath "But it's not enough. Jason can't- We can't handle this anymore. You going out every night, wondering if this will be the one night you don't come back."
"I'm sorry," Bruce said after a while. "For putting you through this, both of you boys. But especially you, Dickie, that you have to step up when I'm lacking. I'm… sorry for not being a better father."
Dick closed his eyes again, unable to bear the sight of his father, giving them up just like that. When he opens them again he's looking out through the window. Anything is better than the sad sight of Bruce's heart breaking and the man doing nothing about it.
"That settles it then," Dick said coldly, "Until you get your shit together, I'm taking Jason with me for a while. He needs to have some normalcy in his life," putting an end to the discussion. He turned around and walked out of Bruce's office, but not before shouting over his shoulder, "Also get a therapist! Your opinion of yourself is shit."
Alone in his office, Bruce Wayne brushed away the few quiet tears that had spilled over and wondered if this was how it ended? And if it did, should he stop? Weren't his children, his precious beloved boys, more important than…
The remembrance of a gunshot echoed inside his mind. Bruce turned, only just to see the broken clock behind him and the time he knew that should go there.
He still does not have an answer to his question.
Abril: I've had this on the back burner for quite a while and decided to post it at last, seeing as it was almost all but finished. Please do tell me what you think, hope it wasn't very confusing a read hehe. And do leave me a comment if you're feeling generous today :D
Thanks SO MUCH to Titanbreaker and a Discord friend for all the help they gave me with this story. Dunno when I'll post the next chapters, please don't hold your breath, I am very sorry. But, you're free to poke me in my Tumblr at the-red-butterfly . you have my permission to harass me there for more chapters if you want XD