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Once, after Damian returned from death, he asked Richard what it had felt like to watch your partner die. And Richard had looked at him, something deep and painful in his eyes and said:
“It felt like dying, watching you die, Dami. It felt like dying – but maybe worse, because it never seemed to stop.”
Looking at Richard now, at the glazed over eyes, and the pain visible in the strain around his mouth, Damian finally understood.
Because… well, because Richard had just spoken for the very first time after waking up from a medically induced coma, and his words had been: “who are you?”
Damian listened to his own heart break, watched as Father wrinkled his forehead and swore under his breath, observed as Cassandra and Drake took a shocked step back, and heard the squeal of Gordon’s wheelchair when she rolled back in surprise.
The doctor told them that this was normal. That Richard had suffered a TBI. That some complications were to be expected…
But Richard’s memory of them… that wasn’t a complication; that was a disaster.
Damian finally understood the words his older brother had uttered months ago. Richard might not be dead – but Damian would have to live with the consequences of what happened for the rest of his life.
Recovery was a slow process, and Damian would love to claim that he was there for every step along the way. But the truth was… it was simply too painful.
Sometimes, Damian entered Richard’s hospital room at night, hellbent on watching the slow rise and fall of his former partner’s chest. The room would be cast in shadow, the worst of the despair hidden by the darkness. It was a cheap and simple way to ensure that Richard was still breathing, that Richard was still alive.
The visits happening in broad daylight were worse.
Because at night Damian could be Robin, could vanish behind the mask and the shadow and the legacy… during the day, he was simply Damian Wayne, a boy of twelve years of age.
And it was painful beyond measure to stand by and watch Richard struggle.
With what?
Everything.
Damian watched as Richard failed to pronounce his own name, watched as he failed to eat or drink… or even swallow, a discovery that set back his recovery by weeks if not months.
Sometimes Father was by his side, slowly turning into stone. He grew colder and colder each time they saw Richard fail at something he would have done in his sleep once upon a time. More often than not… Damian was alone, however.
Father was obsessed with catching Richard’s attacker, and while the need for revenge burned just as bright inside Damian, it was hard to focus on petty vengeance, when Richard couldn’t even hold eye contact or sit up in the pitiful hospital bed on his own.
The doctors and nurses had warned them. Had told them that Richard would never be the same. That people didn’t just come back from an injury like this… and yet seeing it play out in front of his eyes was different to hearing it from a person whose name Damian had never even bothered to learn.
Those first few weeks after waking up were hard for Richard – but they might have been worse for Damian. Because Richard failed to remember what he had eaten for lunch, while Damian was forced to hear that damned question every time, he entered Richard’s room.
“Who are you?”
Who was Damian Wayne? And who was he in connection to Richard Grayson?
It should be an easy question to answer. Legally they were brothers by adoption. Biologically they were nothing at all. Emotionally… they were Batman and Robin. Partners. A fixed set.
But what were they now? Richard didn’t recall being Nightwing, heck, he couldn’t even remember being Robin – there was no chance in hell he would remember Batman, he would remember Damian and what they had shared.
So, each day after school, Damian stepped through the door of Richard’s hospital room, the smell of bodily waste and antiseptic assaulting his nose, and looked at his brother, looked at what was left of the hero Damian had come to love… and he would have to answer that damned question once more.
“Who are you?”
“Damian Wayne.”
“Your brother.”
“Your partner.”
“Your son.”
Only that last one never left his mouth. Only that last one was Damian’s secret, locked up tight inside his chest.
Those first few weeks of recovery passed.
Richard learned how to talk properly again, even if he still slurred his words whenever he was tired. Richard could walk again, even if he needed help. Richard could sit up on his own again, even if it took ages. Richard could write again, even if neither of them could read what he had tried to ingrain on the cheap hospital paper.
Father visited more often now, as did Cassandra and Drake. Gordon had taken a look at the long recovery ahead of Richard, and asked Father to call her as soon as Richard was well enough to receive PT outside of a hospital. Apparently, she was haunted by these halls… after all of this was over – and it would have to be! It would have to! – Damian might feel quite the same.
The forced silence of the long, white hallways was slowly invading his dreams, the smell of suffering and pain settled deep inside his clothes.
Damian couldn’t wait for all of them to return to the Manor. He couldn’t wait for life to return to what it was supposed to be.
He hadn’t been Robin for weeks now. Richard was simply more important.
Sometimes Damian feared he was the only one who was looking, the only one who saw the concerned glances between the nurses, whenever Richard forgot something again, or the whispers between the doctors when they came for a routine check-in.
It wasn’t hard to guess, what was wrong.
Richard’s body was healing – or his brain was healing enough to use its body again – but his memories? They seemed to be gone.
While his ability to retain new information slowly returned, Richard still blanked whenever you asked him something about before. Before the accident. Before the bullet to his head.
It was infuriating.
And with each day Richard grew stronger, with each day he regained awareness of his surroundings… his confusion grew. He recognized Damian by now, but not as his partner, his brother, his son… but as the kid who regularly visited him.
He no longer asked “Who are you?”, instead a petulant “Why are you here?” escaped those familiar lips whenever Damian returned. Some of Richard’s sprits came back from wherever the brain injury had hidden them and… with them came the mood swings.
The doctors had warned Father that this would happen, and yet it was shocking to see Richard suddenly grow angry or frustrated or desolate. What had started as an empty vessel ready to relearn how to be a functioning human, was quickly turning into an angry toddler frustrated with the world.
Just because Richard mirrored Damian’s own frustration whenever he threw the fork with tasteless hospital food through the room after the fifth failed attempt to raise it to his mouth, didn’t mean that Damian appreciated being hit by something that by all accounts could have been cement.
The better Richard got… the more he realized what was now out of his reach.
He grew angry. Mean.
Damian barely recognized him anymore.
It hurt. It hurt more than the senseless “who are you?”.
Some part of Damian had been sure that Richard’s lack of memory was simply a phase, that he would have to suffer through the pain and at the end… he would get his brother back, his Batman. But now… staring into these eyes full of hatred, Damian realized that that was not the case.
He wouldn’t get Richard back. All he got was this stranger wearing his brother’s skin. All he got was this angry imposter.
After the third glass of water to his face, Damian stopped visiting Richard.
Nobody asked him why.
As far as Damian was aware, Richard never asked anyone about him either.
Damian had been against Batman’s plan to show Richard the video of the incident. It was bad enough that it was haunting Damian’s dreams, but now it would also haunt Richard’s – or Ric as he called himself now.
What a ludicrous name.
But at least… at least… the imposter knew that he was just that. It was no longer Richard it was… Ric… no, it was Grayson, who had stolen Richard’s body.
Damian tried not to think too hard about it as he watched Grayson’s retreating form. He was stumbling, faltering, off balance.
Grayson didn’t even move like Richard anymore.
It was months later; months Damian had spent doing horrible things; months, in which Damian had done his best to forget about Grayson and the partner he had once had.
Damian was in Blüdhaven for some reason or another, probably something to do with a villain he was chasing, when he heard Ri- Grayson’s voice.
It wasn’t directed towards him, the man in question yelling at another guy in some dark alley, but it was enough to pique Damian’s curiosity.
“Who are you?!”
It was an angry sound, but even the anger did little to hide the despair in his older… no, former brother’s voice. Grayson was angry – and lost.
Damian didn’t interfere, simply watched, as Grayson hunted the man, as they fought, fists hitting fists, flesh bruising flesh. There was something ugly in the way Grayson moved, something hurt in the hunch of his shoulders.
The fight wasn’t elegant or pretty to watch… it was an ugly exchange of blows, desperation evident behind each kick or jump or scream. Maybe he should… but before Damian could act, the other man had grabbed Grayson, pushing him onto the ground.
It was a flash, and yet the image burned itself into Damian’s mind.
For a moment shorter than the blink of an eye, Damian had seen the scar on Grayson’s head. The stretch of skin a bullet had pierced, destroying Richard’s life and taking Damian’s right with it.
He stopped.
For a long, long moment, Damian simply stopped.
And then he turned around and ran away.
Damian was no longer Robin.
And who cared?
Father was busy being the Batman, Drake was happy to have this damned mantel back, neither Stephanie nor Cain nor Todd had ever cared for Damian at all… and Richard… Grayson had forgotten him.
A sin Damian would never forgive. A pain he would never fully leave behind.
He was hiding in a broken building in the outskirts of Gotham, feeling not unlike the crumbling cement walls surrounding him, when his phone rang.
He startled.
This phone had been silent for months now, almost a year, and Damian had only taken it with him on his excursion to find righteousness, out of purely sentimental reasons. It was Grayson’s phone. The one the man had carried with him before he chose to leave their family behind.
Damian had stolen it. Or… he had borrowed it.
Should Grayson come and demand it back, Damian would return it to its rightful owner… until then it was safe in the bag Damian carried with him. Next to a picture of Titus and a notebook filled with his most promising sketches, the phone was the only memorabilia Damian had allowed himself.
And now it was ringing, the annoying pop song Grayson had chosen as a ringtone echoing through the kaput building.
Maybe it was Father… but why would he call now? Why would he call this phone at all?
Damian ignored his shaking hands as he reached for the piece of tech, his heart beating fast and painful. What could he expect on the other end of the line? What should he expect? And what should he fear?
His voice was poison, his tongue a knife, when he spit the words, answering the call:
“How did you get this number?”
“Hi Damian… I missed your voice.”
No.
Yes?
No.
It couldn’t be. There was no chance in hell that Damian heard correctly… his mind must be lying, his ears betraying the cause… it couldn’t be.
“Who are you?”
“Was I gone long enough for you to forget how I sound? It’s me, Dames. It’s me, Dick. I remembered. I am coming home.”
“Gray… Ri-Richard?”
“The one and only.”
And suddenly the voice didn’t just come from the phone tightly clutched in his hand. No, Damian could hear an echo… he could hear the voice he had dreamed about, could hear the sound of the person he had missed most… there were footsteps climbing up a set of stairs, there was the crunch of gravel and the presence of another person.
He turned around so fast; his neck twanged in pain. But Damian couldn’t find it in himself to care. Not when his eyes fell on Richard. Not when it was his guardian, his brother, his Batman, standing on the other side of the room.
“Hi, Dames. Did you miss me?”
“Yes. Yes, I did.”
“Well, so did I… I think it is time for us to go home.”
If Damian was crying when Richard hugged him close, only the two of them needed to know.