Chapter Text
It’s been eight days since the fall, and Damian still hasn’t spoken to him.
He hasn’t wanted to push it, especially not with the cast around his arm and brace around his neck, and the concussion aching behind his eyes. Cass has already apologized twice now for slamming him into the side of the building, which just shows how badly she feels about it. Cass is never the type to repeat herself.
He’s assured her he doesn’t blame her in the slightest. It’s a miracle she managed to catch them at all.
But the concussion’s healing, and without the drowsiness dragging at him, there’s a buzzing under his skin that isn’t getting any better. He tells himself it’s just the restlessness that always comes with recovering from an injury.
There’s a lot of places in the manor for a nine-year-old ex-assassin to hide, as it turns out.
It’s Jason who tips him off, and sure enough he finds the boy right where his other brother told him, tucked away in a small foyer off the library. He’s squished himself down into a window seat with one of his sketchbooks, Alfred the cat curled against his feet.
He doesn’t make himself any smaller when Dick pokes his head into the room, but he does go very still, pencil freezing against the paper.
“Hey Dami,” he says quietly from the doorway. Damian doesn’t respond, doesn’t even look at him. “Can we talk?”
After a beat, the pencil starts moving again, carving vicious lines into the paper. “I expect you’ll do so regardless of what I say,” he answers bitterly.
Dick winces, but steps into the room. At least it’s not an outright refusal.
He opts to sit on the floor against the wall perpendicular to the younger boy’s window seat. He has to suppress a groan as he lowers himself to the floor, taking a moment to breathe through the pain as his ribs protest the change in position.
Damian’s hand tightens around his pencil until his knuckles are white.
“What are you drawing?” Dick asks.
He scowls, refusing to meet his eyes. “The tree outside.”
“Ah,” Dick grins fondly. He can’t see the tree from this angle, but he can picture every branch in his head. “Have you tried climbing that one yet? It’s got a branch that ends just a couple feet from the second floor balcony, it’s super convenient. One time I used it to sneak out of a gala, Bruce almost blew a gasket.”
Damian tuts. Dick waits for a long minute, the silence stretching out painfully between them, before it becomes clear that Damian is willing to outstubborn him on this one.
He sighs, leaning back and letting the wall support his weight. “Talk to me, Damian,” he pleads quietly. “It’s okay if you’re angry, you can be angry, or hurt, or scared, but don’t try and bury it. Don’t learn from Bruce on this one.”
At last, Damian looks at him, and his eyes are blazing. “Fine,” he snarls. “You asked me if I could trust you, when you knew I couldn’t. If Cassandra hadn’t caught you, you would have plummeted to your death, and I don’t understand! I don’t understand why you didn’t stand and fight, why you would have allowed yourself to die when I told you we could fight! It was foolish and weak, and I’m - I’m ashamed that you’re my brother! I hate you!” His voice crackles and breaks, and he flings down the pencil hard enough that the lead snaps. Alfred the cat startles, leaping up off his feet and jumping down to groom himself on the floor with a sullen expression.
Dick doesn’t say anything for several long moments. He’s not sure he can. There’s a lump in his throat that feels like it’s the size of a grapefruit, the words so sharp it’s a wonder they haven’t pierced his skin. He swallows, once, twice. Damian is staring at the gouge the pencil made in his sketchbook, blinking furiously. “That’s okay,” he finally murmurs in a hoarse but steady voice. “You can hate me, Dami, that’s okay. I don’t mind if you hate me. You know why?”
Damian has wrapped his arms around himself, fingers clenched into fists against his sides. He doesn’t make a sound, and Dick doesn’t wait for him to. “Because I would do it again, even if you do hate me. Even if I knew for a fact that Cass wasn’t going to catch me, I’d still do it. I love you, Dami,” his voice cracks, and Damian’s eyes squeeze shut like he’s anticipating a blow. “And that’s never going to be a lie.”
His little brother’s face crumples, and he launches himself out of the window seat. For a split second, Dick’s heart clenches, thinking he’s about to run away again, but he doesn’t. He flings himself at the older boy, shoving himself into his chest like it’s the only thing keeping them both from falling.
He buries his face in Dick’s shoulder, and Dick clutches him back as fiercely as he can with one arm, not caring in the slightest that his ribs are screaming at him. “You don’t get it, Grayson,” he says, and the words are easy to understand despite being spoken into his shirt. “It’s my fault.”
Dick’s heart cracks like someone has taken a sledgehammer to it, and he makes a wounded sound. Every one of his instincts begs him to squish the smaller boy as tightly as humanly possible, but he makes himself gently push his little brother back until he can meet his eyes. “It is not your fault,” he says fiercely. “Not even a little bit. I chose to jump, and I am so sorry that I had to lie to you and break your trust to do it, but the truth is I would make the exact same choice again if it meant you were okay, and I wouldn’t regret it even a little bit, just like I don’t regret it this time.”
“Yes, but you chose to do it because of me!” he cries. “If I had been a more sufficient warrior, you would have let me fight, and you wouldn’t have thought you needed to jump just to protect me!”
“Oh, honey,” Dick says, throat aching. “No, honey, I didn’t jump because I didn’t think you could fight. Is that what you’ve been thinking this whole time?” He reaches up to tenderly brush a few strands of dark hair away from his face, and Damian sniffs, scrubbing at his eyes in a gesture that’s heart-rendingly childlike.
“If you believed I could fight, throwing yourself off a roof to get me away would have been irrational,” he answers quietly.
Dick huffs, almost a laugh. “More irrational than turning around and trying to fight five grown men, without any weapons, just to try and defend your trained vigilante of an older brother?”
Damian’s eyes widen slightly, and he looks down. “That was different,” he mumbles. “You’re not as well-trained as I am.”
This time, the laugh is a little more genuine. “You’re not as tall as I am though, so who’s really got the advantage here?” The smaller boy scowls at him. It says a lot that that’s all he does. “It’s not different,” Dick tells him quietly, more solemnly, though there’s still a sad little smile on his lips.
Damian sniffs again. He chews on his lip for a moment, before wrapping his arms around Dick’s neck, more mindful this time of his injuries. “I don’t really hate you, Grayson,” he whispers.
“I know, habibi,” he whispers right back. “I’m sorry I lied, even if I’m not sorry you’re okay.”
Damian lets the hug last for far longer than he normally would, and Dick is content to soak up the affection for as long as it lasts, even if the context still makes him ache. But finally, he shifts in the way Dick knows means the extended contact is becoming overwhelming, and he releases the smaller boy without protest. He gives him a grin, a more natural one, and reaches out to ruffle his hair just to see the familiar annoyance replace some of the fragile uncertainty that lingers in his features. “Why don’t we go see what Alfred’s making for lunch, huh?”
Getting to his feet is a painful ordeal, but it’s worth it for the way Damian shuffles close, staying within arms reach instead of marching imperiously ahead as they head for the kitchen.
They’ve barely reached the end of the hallway when Damian stops, glancing around cautiously before looking up at Dick. “Don’t tell Drake he’s my favorite brother,” he says solemnly. “It wouldn’t be true.”
It takes Dick a moment to remember the way he’d teased him what feels like so long ago, but when he does, he can’t help the warm smile that breaks across his face like the sun coming up.
Damian sniffs, turning back in the direction of their quest before he can say anything sappy in response. “You may tell him I called him the smart one, however. Only because of his role in locating the building we were held in.” Because he got Cassandra there in time, he doesn’t say, and doesn’t need to.
Dick reaches out and hooks an arm loosely around the kid’s shoulders, and Damian lets himself be drawn in close again. “I was planning on it,” he tells him, still beaming. “Trust me.”