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“Where are your crutches?”
The question stopped Damian cold in the hall, an uncomfortable amount of weight on his injured ankle when he froze in place. His answer died on his lips because he didn’t really have a good one, and he knew it; Father wasn’t likely to accept “I don’t like using them” as a suitable answer.
“I…”
He bit his cheek and took a slow breath. His ankle was now screaming and he shifted, minutely, to take more weight off it. Limping through the pain of the fracture had seemed doable when he’d left his room but he was having his doubts.
Irritation and agony and fury at himself all welled up, tangled together like a knotted mess of earbud cord. The only thing holding his tongue was Richard’s voice in his head, urging patience.
I’ve got a temper, too, Dames. I bet you regret losing your cool as much as I do.
“I do not, you imbecile,” he’d hissed back.
He had lied.
C’mon, I think I know you better than that. You know that count to ten thing never works for me? I think about a song, instead. You’re always listening to music, I bet you can find something.
“Damian,” Father said, and his voice was a bit sharper.
Damian sucked in a breath, ordering himself not to snap, and without really deciding to think about it, he could hear Mother singing, from long ago before things had gotten complicated, when it was so easy to please her and to want to please her. Shater, shater, he answered in his head, to every question she didn’t ask anymore: what do we call the child who listens, the child who behaves? He missed it.
He had to answer Father.
Damian pivoted on his good foot and met the man’s gaze, flinching when he saw…worry? It caught him off guard, the gentleness that didn’t match the tone of voice. He’d been expecting annoyance, maybe anger.
“I…” Damian dropped his eyes. “I forgot.”
It was a lie and a horrible one at that. He felt the flush rising in his cheeks, rose-red on his oak brown skin.
“Hn,” Father said, emerging fully from the study, only three strides closing the distance before he crouched in front of Damian. Strong, calloused fingers tipped his chin up. “Forgot, huh. Wouldn’t have anything to do with sore arms?”
Damian blinked in surprise. “You, too?”
“We can wrap them to make it easier, but I never like them, either. You need to stay off that ankle, though.”
“I know,” Damian said sourly. “You needn’t remind me.”
“Needn’t,” Father echoed, standing. He had just a ghost of a smile tugging on the corner of his mouth, but his eyes were smiling. He always smiled more with his eyes than anything else, the little worry lines at the corners curving. “I don’t think you could have been a more perfect grandson if Alfred had custom ordered you.”
Damian couldn’t help it. His mouth fell open into a startled oh and he stared up at Father.
“What…” he trailed off and quick as a flash— Mother had warned him Father could move quickly and Damian still couldn’t quite reconcile it with his size, it always surprised him even if he would have denied it— Father plucked him up by the arms and swung him around so he was riding piggyback.
Piggyback, Brown had called it. A disgusting term. So…childish. So infantile and…
Warm. He hadn’t even noticed how cold he was until he was draped there, Father’s hands tucked around the crook of his knees.
“Needn’t,” Father said again. “Shan’t. Mustn’t. Rather not.”
He was walking down the hall toward the den.
“Are you…mocking me?” Damian asked, prickling all over with faint, offended horror. The idea of it made his stomach hurt in a way he didn’t expect, he didn’t think it would matter to him so much.
“No,” Father rumbled quietly. “I’m not.”
He left it at that, but there was no teasing in his tone. He passed the door to the den and he whistled. Ace and Titus trotted out after them. Damian craned his neck to see them.
“Where are we going?” he asked. The ache in his ankle was subsiding to a dull throb, now that he wasn’t putting weight on it.
“I think we both could use some air,” Father said.
So he had noticed. Damian wondered how much he’d seen, of Damian hobbling outside earlier and then throwing the crutches against the side of the Manor with a scream when the tips kept sinking in the mud and tripping him.
Damian had lied to Richard.
He always regretted losing his temper, the reproach unfurling inside him like a banner soaked in poison and blood— a standard with no honor.
In the front foyer, Father leaned down just enough to put Damian’s hand near the closet knob. “Open that, will you.”
Wordlessly, Damian did.
Father used one foot to nudge two shoes out onto the floor. They were Crocs lined with fake fur. Damian knew from briefly borrowing Richard’s that they were soft and comfortable, but Brown had called them an abomination and a crime against the global history of fashion, and it was maybe one of the few subjects on which he agreed with her.
“Those?” he asked, unable to keep the distaste out of his voice.
“Alfred must have bartered with his own soul,” Father grumbled, but it was more to himself than to Damian. He added, more loudly, “I am a grown man and I’ll wear whatever the hell I want.”
“Tt.” For some reason, Damian found himself smiling.
They slipped out onto the front patio, the sweet early summer air thick with the smell of honeysuckle. The dogs bounded ahead of them down the steps and Father’s loping stride had them on the ground not long after.
“Where to, Pilot?” Father asked and it took Damian a second to realize he was being given the freedom to choose.
“I don’t know,” Damian said, because he didn’t; his attempt earlier had been aimless desperation. “The south?”
Father went that way, his pace quick but not rushed. Damian couldn’t quite imagine him ambling, but this was close— he wasn’t hurrying to anywhere, he just didn’t seem to know how to slow down once he was moving. Everything he did was either quick or still.
The sun warmed his back and Father’s back warmed his chest, and before long he was growing sleepy despite himself. He experimentally rested his chin on Father’s shoulder, to see if he’d be reprimanded or jostled to alertness.
Neither happened. Father’s shirt was soft and the shoulder beneath firm and steady. Damian got drowsier and drowsier and finally, exhaled a soft sigh. The honeysuckle was tickling his nose but now it was joined by the rich, piney smell of aftershave.
Damian fell asleep.
He startled awake at the loss of heat when he was put down, looking around frantically to determine his location— inside, his own bed, the curtains open on the haze of late afternoon.
“How long did we walk?” he asked, yawning and confused.
“An hour,” Father said, tucking the covers around him. “Go back to sleep.”
“It’s midday,” Damian protested, curling into the blankets anyway.
“And you’ll need sleep if you’re going to man the comms tonight, Robin,” Father said, sitting on the edge of the bed. He ran a hand over Damian’s hair, pushing it out of Damian’s eyes.
“I’m not…I’m not banned from…” Damian stuttered, the sleepiness gone.
“No,” Father said. He leaned and kissed his forehead. Damian made a face but otherwise allowed it. “For falling out of a tree? Hardly. I’ll need your help if you’re willing.”
“Yes,” Damian said quickly. “Of course, Father.”
Father’s face did something funny that Damian couldn’t quite decipher.
“What?” Damian demanded, reassured enough to ask questions like that now that he wasn’t losing weeks of Robin time.
“Hm?” Father looked at him, as if surprised to find himself still sitting there, in the room, and not already on the move to the next thing. “Oh. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of you calling me that, is all. Another walk tomorrow? I’ll carry you down to the cave in a bit.”
“I can walk,” Damian said. “I have the crutches.”
“And I can carry you,” Father returned easily. “When I’m home. If you’d like.”
Damian almost snapped out “no,” but he waited a second, he heard the hum of shater, shater inside his head, he thought about how safe and comfortable he’d been on Father’s back. He twisted the edge of the blanket in one hand and nodded.
“I would.”