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Dick jokes, a lot, about being the only reason Bruce still remembers how to talk to people. About breaking him in for everyone else. He was Robin first, and he was Robin longest, and he’s why Bruce took in the others, he’s why Bruce isn’t dead in a ditch somewhere.
And the jokes are funny! He’s never trying to be passive aggressive, or guilt trip, or whatever else. He and Bruce have spent enough time, now, pointedly not actually looking at each other, pulling words out in painful fits and starts. Dick knows where they stand. They’re good.
But.
Something in him burns, sometimes.
Some tiny part of him, forever twelve and calcified between his ribs, angry and grieving and a child — some part of him sees Damian snap at Bruce, and Bruce take a deep breath and glance briefly to the heavens and then reply firmly but calmly, without a hint of anger, Dick sees that and wants to scream.
When Dick was nine, his parents died. When Dick was nine, he watched his parents die. When Bruce was eight, he watched his parents die, and he never talked to anyone about it, and he never dealt with it, and when the C-PTSD pushed him to a breaking point he decided to dress up as a bat and punch people. And then, when he was twenty-four, he watched Dick watch his parents die.
Dick isn’t angry at Bruce, for taking him in. Giving him a home.
But Bruce wasn’t an adult. Bruce was an up-and-coming vigilante, a detective, an increasingly-only-in-name CEO. Bruce was three parts trauma to one part rage. Dick was nine, his parents were dead, obviously when he realised Bruce was Batman he wanted to join him. Bruce should not have said yes. Bruce should have gotten them both a goddamn therapist.
“Grayson?”
Damian is standing just in front of him, concern furrowing his brow. He’s changed out the uniform. Bruce has sat down at the computer.
“Yeah?”
Damian’s frown deepens. “You were staring at nothing. Did you hit your head? How many fingers?”
“No, I’m fine,” Dick says, “I’m just tired.” Damian waves the fingers he’s holding up pointedly. “Three, you’re holding up three. Really, Dami, I’m fine.”
“Father,” Damian calls, not taking his eyes off Dick, “Grayson may have brain damage.”
“He was fine earlier,” Bruce calls back, also without taking his eyes off the computer. “And I didn’t see him hit his head.”
“He’s always ‘fine’, but if he has severe brain damage and is attempting to hide it he could die–”
Bruce walks over to them, and goes through the standard concussion tests — is Dick tracking, does he flinch at bright light, can he do basic math, etc. Damian watches, intent, and relaxes slightly with each test Dick passes.
Once Bruce is satisfied, he ruffles Dick’s hair and returns to the computer, and Dick smiles and tries not to have feelings about the hair ruffling and says, “See? Really fine, I promise.”
“If you haemorrhage in the night and no one notices until you fail to come down for breakfast, by which point it’s already too late and you die tomorrow in your private room at Gotham General while Alfred holds your hand and we all pretend no one is crying,” Damian says, evenly, “I will not say anything nice at your funeral, and I will side with Father when he says there’s no need for him to return to grief counselling.”
It would be a lot easier to pretend to be fine if Damian was less adept at pushing all his buttons.
Dick lets out a breath. “Okay,” he says, “For that, we’re having hot cocoa, c’mon.” He grabs Damian’s wrist and starts towards the stairs, calling, “Tim says you have a board meeting tomorrow at ten and if you miss it he’s telling the press you and Selina are engaged again!” to Bruce before he shuts the door behind them.
No one else is up, thankfully — Dick is in Gotham to cover for Tim, who’s having a Kon-mandated vacation from Red Robin duties at the penthouse; Duke went to bed a couple hours ago; and Cass followed Jason home for reasons she will hopefully share at some point. It still catches Dick off guard, that Alfred also goes to bed while they’re on patrol now, but once he hit seventy Bruce started to get incredibly paranoid about his health, so now Alfred is the only Wayne reliably getting a decent amount of sleep.
(Just because Duke isn’t as nocturnal as the rest of them does not, of course, make him at all immune to overworking.)
“You are not fine,” Damian huffs, as he sits down at the kitchen table. “You are making hot cocoa.”
Dick uses getting out ingredients and a saucepan to give him time to collect his thoughts. Balancing Damian’s needs against his own energy reserves does make him more sympathetic to Bruce. He would really rather not have this conversation now — it’s nearly three in the morning, he wants to go to bed — but if he doesn’t, Damian will lie awake worrying until sunrise.
“I didn’t hit my head, Dami.”
“Then you are injured emotionally. What did Father do?”
Christ.
Dick has to rest his forehead against a cabinet door for a moment, before he can say, “He didn’t– You assuming he did something is kind of the problem.” Christ, he doesn’t want to get into this. Why did he take up the cowl, why didn’t he just put them both in therapy.
“I don’t understand,” Damian says. “You aren’t injured, nothing else happened on patrol, you were fine before patrol — it’s simple deduction.”
Dick makes himself look at Damian. Thinks about the only other person Damian could decide upset him. Says, “You know when– You know how fucked up B was, at the beginning?”
Damian makes a face. “Is he not ‘fucked up’ now?”
Dick will not shout. He will not.
“…Grayson? I– My apologies. You were saying?”
See, this is the problem.
Because, yeah, Damian has grown a lot the past couple years, and it is mostly because of what Dick taught him. But he’s still a much more mature thirteen than Dick ever was. Fuck, when Dick upset Bruce like this he bolted, so Bruce wouldn’t see him sobbing.
It’s not just that Dick was half Bruce’s kid and half his emotional support orphan, that he hit his teens and needed Bruce to return the favour and Bruce only ever started arguments.
It’s that Dick needed support, and Bruce started arguments. So then Dick started arguments, so then they spent years stuck in a vicious cycle, both of them too stubborn to be the first to change tact and both of them hating it. And when Damian needed support, Dick sat him down and then sat on top of him until he talked, and now Damian and Bruce both know better. And Damian isn’t going to lose any time with his dad to a feedback loop of screaming matches.
Damian stands, pulling Dick’s attention back outside his head. He takes Dick by the wrist, and guides him to a chair. Then he turns to the counter, turns the stove on, and says, “I will make the cocoa. You talk.”
Christ.
“I love you,” Dick says, because he has to. “I– Fuck, I love you so much.”
“I love you too,” Damian replies, only barely stiltedly. Dick has to take several deep breaths.
Once he thinks he can speak without starting to cry, he says, “I, uh. I know I don’t really talk about being Robin — Or, I know I tell a lot of stories and a lot of jokes, but my therapist keeps telling me those are a coping mechanism and they don’t count. And I know I’ve told you Bruce and me had problems. But. Never any details, and.”
He tries to think of a way to say When I was your age our every other conversation ended in a screaming match and I’d already lost count of the times I told Bruce I hated him and sometimes the look on his face was as good as him saying it back that won’t hit Damian like a punch.
After a minute, he closes his eyes and says, in one long rush, “When I was your age, every other conversation I had with Bruce ended in a screaming match, and I’d already lost count of how many times I told him I hated him, and sometimes, the look on his face, he might as well have said it back.” He takes a breath. “And. When you snap at him, he...”
“He counts to ten,” Damian says, quietly.
“I’m not angry at you,” Dick assures him, immediately. Then has no idea what else to say. Damian’s a kid, he shouldn’t have to deal with Dick’s problems, there’s a reason he’s never talked about this before. Fuck, one of his major sticking points with Bruce was Bruce doing exactly this.
Damian’s stirring now, and he lets the silence drag out just a little longer before he says, voice carefully blank, “Grandfather shouts. I– Mother doesn’t like it. It makes her– sad.” He pours in the milk. “I am glad Father doesn’t shout any more. I wish he never had.”
“He wasn’t even thirty,” Dick says, knee-jerk, still unable to not leap to Bruce’s defense. “He didn’t–”
“You were a child.”
“I–” Dick laughs, hollow. “Fuck, I don’t even know why I’m defending him. I brought it up.”
Damian hums, neutrally. Thinks for a moment.
Says, “You had a much more difficult time, as a child under Bruce’s care,” he pours the cocoa into two mugs as he talks, “and while you’re grateful I am not struggling as you did, it still hurts to see.” He hands Dick his mug, the Batman-themed ‘World’s Best Dad’ one Jason got him when he had the cowl. “You are allowed to be hurt. You are allowed to have feelings, and to be affected by your experiences.”
Dick is going to cry.
Dammit, he got so far, but then Damian had to go and use the BatDad mug, and now Dick can’t swallow away the lump in his throat. He sets the mug down, and tugs Damian in close. Damian wraps his arms around Dick’s shoulders. Dick has a brief, surreal moment of surprise when his head is level with Damian’s sternum, instead of the other way round.
After way more minutes than Dick was expecting, Damian says, “The cocoa is not nearly as appetising if allowed to cool.” Dick pulls away, and rubs at his face with his sleeve. Shit, he’s still wearing his Nightwing getup.
The cocoa is good.
When Dick puts his empty mug down, Damian says, as casual as he ever gets, “You are going to talk to your therapist about this.”
Dick nods. Damian narrows his eyes. Dick says, “I am going to talk to my therapist about this.” Damian nods, satisfied, and stands.
“I love you,” he says, matter of fact. “And you got your emotions on my shirt, so you are washing the mugs. Goodnight.”
And then he walks out, leaving Dick to dissolve into a fit of only-slightly-hysterical laughter.