Chapter Text
It was insane how hectic the last couple of weeks had been between the actual crisis and all of its aftermath, but things were finally beginning to settle down. Enough for Bruce to have a clear idea of what he was planning to do for the foreseeable future.
Now that he had decided came a much harder part… at least it was harder, for him. Sharing those plans and seeing if they would be accepted.
Bruce was watching over Dick, who was supposed to come out of his medically induced coma today. Barbara had been keeping watch on him the last few weeks, but when Bruce asked to be the one there when Dick woke since they had some things to talk about she had conceded. Maybe she had conceded a bit too easily, actually… had something happened between them again…? Well, he would find out soon enough, he supposed.
He couldn't help but watch the rise and fall of Dick’s breathing far too closely, still afraid he was somehow imagining it. It had been a very close call this time, that shot from the son of Luthor from some alternate earth had almost killed his boy, and that Dick had taken the hit for him while shouting to watch out… it was making him feel a lot of conflicting emotions, to say the least.
That he was playing such close attention to his breathing meant that Bruce instantly noticed when it began to accelerate, as Dick let out a slight groan that Bruce recognized as one that he often made when plagued by nightmares. Before he even had time to reach out to him Dick woke up very suddenly, looking around in a panic which was sadly not unusual in their line of work.
“Dick, hey” he quickly said, getting up and putting a hand on his shoulder to make him lie back down, as he was instantly trying to get up “Look at me, you are safe, calm down…”
“Bruce…?” he mumbled after a moment, looking at him with a bit of a squint, probably still trying to focus “But if you're here then… the crisis! What happened? Is it over?”
“Yes, it's over… it’s been over for a while now, actually...” he informed him, noticing Dick looking around the room, realization setting in when he saw all the medical equipment.
“... how long was I out?” he sighed, leaning back down at last.
“About three weeks” he responded as he also sat back in his chair.
“Three weeks? Damn…” he grunted, wincing as he tested trying to move his shoulder “No wonder I feel terrible… getting back in shape it’s going to suck…”
“I am afraid you'll need to do some rehab, and you can probably expect a couple of muscle spasms, but other than that you are fine…” he confirmed. Then he took a deep breath, finally able to take in the sight of his eldest awake again… he had been afraid he wouldn’t get to see it, when he wasn’t sure if the shot had killed him “... you really scared me, chum… I thought I lost you for a moment…”
That confession seemed to take Dick by surprise, and the way that Bruce put a hand on his temple in a moment of self indulgence shocked him even more, since he actually startled for a moment. After a second of doubt passed through his eyes, as if he was considering if he was still dreaming or not, he leaned into the touch with a soft sigh.
“... sorry Bruce…” he apologized, biting his lip and closing his eyes “I just keep messing up lately…”
“You do get shot a bit too much…” he lightly admonished him, as this had been some kind of blast of energy, not a gun, but the sentiment remained. Bruce glanced at Dick’s right leg for a moment, since that wound had barely finished healing up, and he couldn’t help but look at his right shoulder too, even though the gunshot Dick had received in it by the Joker had happened so many years ago… it still was very painful to him.
“Sorry…” Dick repeated “I know it was very risky, but I just… I couldn’t let that hit you, I had to do something!”
“I know you just wanted to help Dick, it's alright…” he tried to reassure him, letting his hand begin to run through the boy's hair, seeing Dick practically melt into the touch.
“No, no it isn’t… everything keeps getting worse, and worse since… since…” he whined, opening his eyes again to look at Bruce guiltily “Since Blockbuster, and Tarantula…”
Bruce had to suppress a sigh, somehow knowing this would come up again. He had been… a bit harsh on Dick when he finally confronted him about it last time, there was just too much happening at the time for him to have a long conversation then. But they had time now… the question was if Dick was ready to confront it, considering the way they had both avoided talking about it for six months.
“Why didn’t you tell me about it after it had just happened, Dick…?” he asked, since he had been wondering that question for all that time as well.
Dick had come to his call when the gangwar started on Gotham, he had clearly been rattled by something, and when Bruce had asked him about it… he had just said he was fine, very unconvincingly, and asked for something to do. Since the gang war was a bit higher priority than what he had thought were just personal issues at the time, he had let it go, but… Bruce had later found out what had happened. But since Stephanie had just died, and Dick had still been recovering from a gunshot wound to the leg, and they were both not in the best state to discuss anything… he had let it go, again. Now he regretted not pressing the issue at the time.
“I… I was afraid to tell you, Bruce… I was… I was so scared of what you would think of me” Dick answered, panic seeping into his tone while he clutched Bruce’s wrist, as if he was afraid he was going to pull away in disgust and couldn’t let him “I didn’t know what to do or how to make up for it, and I wanted to tell you and ask you, but I… I couldn't. Because I didn’t want to… I didn’t want to d-disappoint you…”
The young man was looking at him almost pleadingly, still holding onto his wrist desperately like it was a lifeline, and Bruce couldn’t help but remember a much younger version of the man before him with that same fear in his eyes anytime he made a big mistake. He didn’t think he was that afraid of disappointing him anymore, but… perhaps he should have expected that this was one of the reasons for Dick’s reluctance….
There was something else that bothered him about this whole thing. He couldn’t point to what, but… he was sure it was something about Tarantula. There was something about that girl that Bruce simply didn’t like, that she had murdered someone with a shot to the head probably was part of it, but…. Whenever she saw him around Dick… he looked somehow… perturbed. And it wasn’t just because she had been the one to actually execute the murder either, it was something different… but seeing how crushed Dick seemed just on the murder front Bruce decided he wouldn’t push on that question, yet. He would though, eventually. But for now….
“I am not disappointed in you for that, Dick…” he said, letting the hand Dick had trapped rest against his temple once more while he used the other to caress his cheek. Dick seemed to need his touch right now, judging by the way he still wasn’t letting go of him, so he would indulge in it.
“How can you not be…?” Dick pitifully asked, a choked sound coming out of him “I could have saved him, and I didn’t. I wanted him to die, I really did…. I just… I just wanted everything he was doing to me to stop, so I let him die…! You would have never done that, I failed you…”
“I would be a hypocrite if I was disappointed in you doing something I did myself once…” he commented, and at the incredulous look Dick gave he had to elaborate, much as he would like not to “When… when Jason died, I went after the Joker. I wanted to… I really wanted to end him, for that… I have never wanted to kill him as much as I did that day. Clark stopped me from trying to get direct revenge. But when the Joker and I were both in a helicopter that was going down, both of us shot and about to die… and I could have saved him. I could have picked him up as I jumped off. But I didn’t. I left him there”
He didn’t talk about those days right after Jason’s death. No one asked about it often either, knowing full well that he didn’t want to discuss anything about the whole incident. Clark had never said anything about it to anyone else… Bruce was pretty sure of that, the man just took him to Smallville so they could have a lot of long discussions about life and death and what would take for either of them to take a life.
He suddenly wondered if Jason had known that he tried to take the revenge he had asked for almost immediately upon his death, but that he had failed… or that it hadn’t even been the only time he had tried to take that crazy clown's life. Maybe he should tell him that, whenever he finds him again….
Dick was silent for a moment at hearing that admission, before hesitantly speaking again “But that was… I mean it’s the Joker. Anyone would understand letting him die. I… I have even killed him before, and you resuscitated him! You helped him, even with everything that he has done, with everything he has done to you… I don’t think I could have done that, if Blockbuster could have been brought back… I would have let him rot…”
“You seem to have me on quite a high pedestal, Dick, but I am far from perfect…” he reminded him “You know I have had to be stopped from crossing that line far too many times. You have stopped me many times yourself, when I turned violent after Jason’s death you came to try to stop me from killing anyone…”
“You were… you were still grieving then, Bruce. It was extreme circumstances…” he started to say, but Bruce shook his head.
“That doesn’t change how close I have always been to doing it many other times. Hell, I almost did it during this crisis Dick! After that alternate Luthor shot you and left you like this… I almost killed him for it. I didn’t even know if he killed you or not, but I held a gun to his head and I asked him what he deserved… he was crying, and the only thing that really stopped me was Diana telling me it wasn’t worth it”
Dick was giving him a mixed look now, something between… sadness and awe. Probably sadness about hearing he had come that close to the edge again, when there had been so many times where he had to be stopped before, and awe that him being hurt had been the catalyst for it.
“I stopped, but I wanted him dead at that moment because he hurt you. I have wanted so many villains dead, because of what they do to people I care about…” Bruce confessed “Roland Desmond really did a number on you, Dick… your reaction was… understandable. I can forgive you for that. I already have forgiven you for that… I was far more concerned with how you were letting the guilt crush you”
Dick had let the guilt get to him and had been punishing himself for months. Bruce had recognized what Dick was doing almost immediately, since he had been very painfully familiar with it. It had been the same kind of self destruction, the same level of lack of concern for one’s own life that Bruce had gone through after losing Jason. He hadn’t liked seeing that in someone else at all, and especially someone as full of life as Dick usually was.
“I know that… and that you told me that I wasn't responsible for Blockbusters death in the way that I thought, but I still feel like I am!” Dick exclaimed, frustrated “I even tried to turn myself in and go to jail for it, did you know that? They didn't let me… maybe if I had served time I could have felt less guilty, but I couldn't…”
“I know. I have been keeping track of you all this time” he admitted.
“Right, of course you have, it's you…” he smiled briefly “Then… you must also know what I was doing after that. I just… you know, what I was doing, getting involved with the mob and with Slade… it was all for Bludhaven, to make it safe! I wasn’t… I mean, I wasn’t doing it because I really wanted to, I had a goal. But then… then… Bludhaven was gone, and then the crisis started, I don't even know what was really going on during all that…” he frowned, tilting his head and looking at Bruce with curiosity now “I just remember your crazy satellite and all those alternate earths… how was it all solved anyway?”
“It was… complicated” he responded, which was a very unhelpful answer “But everything's under control now, considering. Brother Eye is down now too, so don't worry about that… he tried to distract me with you, while I was distracting him…”
“With me?” he arched an eyebrow.
“Yes… you were up against Superboy prime, it kept reminding me of the fact you have no powers while he was ungodly powerful… wondering out loud what would happen next…” he explained, remembering the cold computerized voice taunts too clearly. They had chilled his blood, but he couldn’t let it show at that time, he had had work to do.
“Ah, yeah that would do it if he wanted to make you leave it alone” he chuckled sadly “Can't resist coming to rescue me, the boy hostage…”
“I trusted you would be fine” he reassured him, although Dick didn't seem to believe that entirely.
“Oh yeah? Then why did he choose to try to distract you with my wellbeing?”
“...he called you my favorite”
“I don't know if I should feel flattered or offended that a Skynet wannabe thought that I am your favorite…” he scoffed “Besides, it's not true. We all know it's Cass, but I would like to think that I’m close second…”
“It's not a competition” he tried to counter, frowning slightly.
“Sure B, keep telling yourself that…” he laughed drily “At least that satellite was dealt with. What was the deal with that other Superman and Superboy really…? Because the other Luthor’s son was actually evil it seems, which is not that surprising. But those two really just… wanted to impose their reality onto ours? Was that the idea?”
“More or less… that other Superman tried to give me the pitch at first, so I would help him do it” he explained “He told me that his earth used to be so much better than ours, told me about how the Batman of his earth got married to Selina and so many other happier fates for everyone. He said that our earth was… corrupted somehow, and that's why everything is worse. That he would stand by my side and he would make everything better…. Promised me I would never be alone again, that he would give me a chance to start over…”
“...sounds tempting…” Dick said, a horrible sadness in his tone “I would like a do over of a lot of things right now…”
“It does sound tempting… too tempting, isn't it?” he remarked, just now realizing that what had made him realize how insincere their intentions truly were would be a good thing for Dick to know “That's why I got suspicious. It sounded too good… and that idea that all the people of this earth would be replaced with theirs, and that would make them better… it didn't sound right to me. So, I asked a very simple question to know if what he said was really true. Do you know what I asked…?”
Dick shook his head, and looked at Bruce’s soft smile that he directed squarely at him with shock.
“I asked if the Dick Grayson of my earth was a corrupted version of theirs. That other Superman, who said he never lied, said no. And that was all I needed to know, to know our earth was worth saving” he sat back, perhaps a bit too proud of himself for that.
“...you really believe that, Bruce…? That I’m… that I'm good? After… after everything that's happened lately…?” he asked with obvious disbelief.
Disbelief, and also… yearning. Like he needed his good opinion more than anything in the world.
His poor son, who was usually always so confident, so fearless… was crumbling under all the pressure. Blockbuster’s death and everything that had followed it had made him doubt his own self worth, had made him doubt his own morals it seemed. And now he was looking at Bruce like he could make everything better, like he could finally fix it just with a simple affirmation. And he would certainly give it.
“Of course I do, chum…” he put a hand on his shoulder, squeezing reassuringly and looking him in the eyes while he spoke in the most sincere tone he could muster “You are one of the greatest people I have ever known. You were already an amazing person when I took you in, despite all the pain you had just experienced, and I tried my best to help you get through it better than I did. I think the fact that you’ve become such a great man might be my greatest achievement. I’m very proud of you…”
Dick stared at him for what felt like an eternity, his eyes full of pain and doubt, clearly having difficulty believing those words had really just come out of him. But Bruce didn’t have a problem holding his gaze, because he meant everything he just said from the bottom of his heart. Finally Dick sat up, wincing with the effort it must have taken him to do so after weeks unconscious, and hugged Bruce like his life depended on it, practically sprawling over him.
“Ssh… it's alright, chum… you are alright…” Bruce whispered, hugging him back and trying to at least get him back onto the bed, but Dick hanged on tighter, clearly not wanting to let go at all, so he just let him lean on him despite how uncomfortable the posture looked. When Dick started openly sobbing, he tried to rub his back to comfort him too, but it was a bit difficult while he was still basically holding all his weight.
“Bruce… Bruce, I… I am such a mess” he managed to say between sobs, clutching at Bruce’s shirt “I… I can’t believe you still… you still believe in me to such a degree. I don't even believe in myself after all that's happened! But you do? You still…? You are… proud of me…?”
“I have always been proud of you… my son” he added, hoping the little possessive before the title wasn't too much. He still felt a bit… odd, using those kinds of terms with Dick, now that they meant so much more than they used to.
Dick had been his son for far longer than those adoption papers they finally made official declared, but… it had been a rocky road to get there. He had heard Dick dismissively say he wasn’t really his father to so many people over the years when they simply assumed so, so he had tried to limit the use of that term during that time too… but now he had no real reason to hold back.
It seemed to help though, because Dick made a soft wine and nuzzled against his shoulder, as if he was still the little boy that used to sit on his lap and sleep snuggled against him when Bruce had paperwork to finish and he didn’t want to be alone in such a vast empty house.
“Bruce… d-dad…” he stuttered, in a very desperate yet very unsure voice. Maybe Dick suffered from the same problems he did when it came to those familial terms, but that simple word hit Bruce right in the heart. He could swear it skipped a beat at it, at hearing that word without any hint of sarcasm or teasing in it… just plain neediness, a demand for comfort that Bruce was glad to give.
When he managed to recompose himself, and Dick’s sobs had finally calmed down now that his words had gotten through to him, he tried to focus on what he had actually wanted to ask him this whole time, pretty sure he would be receptive to the idea.
“You've had a rough time… but so have we all. That is partly what I wanted to talk about with you. Everything that's been happening lately, and all that happened in the crisis made all of us want to take a step back. I've been talking to Clark and Diana and… we haven’t formally said it, but I think we have all come to the same conclusion that we need to take some time off. I am thinking that around… a year off would be ideal…”
“...what?” Dick interrupted him “Excuse me, did I mishear you? You're taking a whole year off?”
“I am”
“You? A whole year, off?” he repeated.
“Is it truly that unbelievable…?” he sighed.
“Bruce, Alfred can barely get you to take a week off when you break an arm! Hell, I have barely seen you take like… a month off, at most, just because Alfred somehow made you, or… well, when…” he casted his glance down, suddenly uncomfortable “When… Bane broke your back, I guess. Although I didn't actually see a lot of that at the start…. But my point is, you don't take time off! Much less so much time off…”
“...I guess I can't blame you for being a bit skeptical…” he admitted. It was true that usually Alfred had to basically fight him to get him to take time off, even when his body demanded it “I have a hard time… stopping, and taking time for myself…. But it’s not even the first time I've wanted to stop and take a good look at myself Dick, I almost retired after Bane broke my back. When I got back to Gotham, I was… I was considering it…”
“Wait, this was this when you left the crazy Azrael Batman in charge? The one with the insane armor suit and hallucinations? How could you even think that??” he asked, so outraged he actually pulled away and got back on the bed so he could look at Bruce judgmentally.
“I was under the impression that he had it handled”
“Clearly” he rolled his eyes.
“It was the wrong impression, obviously” he added since Dick looked pretty unimpressed at that reply “I had to take the role back, but… you know that, you saw that part. Even then, after I got Jean-Paul to step down… I left you as Batman for a while before I was ready to step back in…”
“Yeah…” he nodded, probably remembering his brief stint as Batman after Bruce had just managed to recover the role “But you came back pretty quick back then, what's so different now that you need a full year…?”
“I want to… take a step back and take a good look at myself” he tried to explain “Rebuild Batman from the foundations, I am going to go back to the places I trained at…”
“I guess you will be speeding through them, if you're going to do it in just a year…” he shook his head, pensive for a moment before nodding determinedly “Alright, I guess I… I can watch over Gotham for you, that's probably why you wanted to talk to me about this right? At least you're asking me first this time! I mean, someone as to while you're away, and it's not like… Bludhaven is there anymore…” he trailed off, obviously still not quite comfortable with the mere idea “How is… everything going there…?”
“It's been rebuilding, like many other places after the crisis” he reassured him, making a mental note to make sure to donate more funds to help there before they left “But no, that's not why I wanted to talk to you about this. I… I want this trip to be different than last time, because… I'm a different man now, than I was then. I’m… I’m not asking you to come as Batman, I’m asking you as Bruce Wayne. Because I want my family to come with me…”
“...oh, OH!” he blinked a couple of times, looking at Bruce like he had grown a second head for a second, before grinning excitedly “I thought this was more like… a Batman thing since you said you were rebuilding it, it’s a family one? You want me to come with you…? A whole year off on family vacation, really?”
“Yes, I want to ask Tim too” he continued “And I want to ask Cass as well, but she's been… proving a bit hard to find. And… and I want to… to ask…”
He couldn’t finish his sentence, but with the context given it didn’t take Dick long to deduce who else would enter in the category of family.
“... do you… want to ask Jason…?” Dick finally asked, a bit tense. Telling Dick about Red Hood’s identity as Jason, somehow returned from the dead, had been… a hard blow to deal considering all he had been going through, but Bruce hadn’t dared keeping it from him. He hadn’t told him what Jason’s ultimate plan had been in the end though, since there hadn’t been any time for it with Bludhaven’s destruction and the crisis so quickly afterwards, but he still knew enough to be wary.
“... yes, I want to ask him to come too…” he confirmed “He is proving hard to find too, but I will soon, and I plan on asking him right away when I do…”
“That's… gonna be complicated…” he grimaced “Are you gonna tell Tim about this idea? Because he was the one that got the worst of it when he came back…”
“I will. Somehow I have a feeling he will say it’s okay, but…” he grunted and Dick hummed in agreement, probably catching on his displeasure at Tim’s probable lack of concern for bringing someone that attacked him along.
“Well… if Jason does come, we would be four against one if he wanted to attack any of us, so it should be fine, probably…?” he tried to argue.
“If he does come…” he underlined with a defeated sigh.
“Are you asking him last because you think he will be the hardest to convince?”
“You know me too well, chum…” he laughed softly, which at least got a grin out of Dick.
“Experience, I suppose” he replied with a small shrug “Still… I can’t believe there would be five of us if they all agree, it's… so many people now… and to think once upon a time this all started with just Batman and Robin…”
Bruce also didn’t understand how there had come to be so many people that he would consider immediate family, when it had all started with the dynamic duo, but there was something else in Dick’s tone at remembering the old days that made him frown. Was that… a bit of wistfulness…?
“... do you miss the days when it was just the two of us, Dick?” he directly asked, making Dick flinch slightly.
“... maybe a bit…” he mumbled, immediately looking guilty at having admitted that “Don't get me wrong! I like the company too, I do. But… I don't know…”
But Bruce did, or at least he could guess. He had experienced the clash that bringing Jason in had brought to the house when Dick found out about it first hand, after all. Dick had been mad that there was a new Robin, obviously, but… he had seemed even more resentful about the adoption. Back then Bruce hadn’t really understood why that had been such a point of conflict, since he had thought Dick didn’t really consider himself to be Bruce’s child or to even want that at all.
But the reality was that Dick had basically been an only child for years, and suddenly having a little brother take up all of his guardians time just as he was out of the house… had bred inevitable jealousy.
Bruce sat on the bed, which thankfully was big enough to easily accommodate the two of them, as he brought a surprised Dick to rest his head on his lap, like he used to often do when he was just a boy. Dick seemed to recognize the gesture pretty fast, because he went without protest, looking up at Bruce with curious eyes as he settled in place.
“You miss having me all to yourself, chum?” he teased, seeing a faint blush appear on Dick’s face before he hid it by getting on his side and embracing Bruce, mumbling against his stomach.
“I'm not a little kid anymore, Bruce…” he complained, but Bruce just hummed, petting his hair distractedly.
“I know, but you are always going to be my kid I'm afraid…. We did sign adoption papers and everything now, you know?” he reminded him, which made Dick glance at him a moment before hiding again.
“I… I still can't get over that finally happening…” he confessed, holding tighter, like he never wanted to let go “I… I wanted it for so long, Bruce, but I… I didn't even know how to ask, by the time I wanted it. And I was just your ward for so long…”
“You were never ‘just’ my ward, Dick…” Bruce tried to argue.
“But I was! I hated it more and more the closer I got to being eighteen” he cut in “It would stop to mean anything then, being your ‘ward’... and I was so afraid that… that I would stop meaning to you too….We were fighting more and more the closer that day came, and… and everything got so messed up between us…. Then you fired me! You fired me, and I… I couldn’t stay. A-and I ran away… first to college, then to the Titans, and just as I thought I was doing fine I found out that you got another kid and you adopted him right away, and gave him my name and my colours like it didn't even cross your mind that you didn’t have the right to give them away!!”
Bruce felt every accusation cut him like a knife, and couldn’t keep silent anymore “Dick I… there's so many things about back then that I regret… I shouldn't have given Robin away, it was… it was not mine to give, it was yours” he agreed, knowing he had tried to explain his reasoning back then but his personal resentment as Dick not even making contact for over a year had gotten in the way, hoping maybe this would finally clear up things “I’m sorry… but you had changed your identity, you had grown beyond Robin… and anytime Clark or anyone who had talked to you about it back then told me that you said Robin would always be linked to Batman, always at the end of ‘Batman and…’, and you wanted to be your own hero. I respected that, and I would have been fine to keep going alone, but… then I found Jason. And… Robin had helped you so much when you were growing up Dick, it helped you grow into who you are now, so when I saw Jason so full of righteous fury… so good, but so angry at the world just as you once had been… I offered it to him without thinking”
Dick looked back up at him, a bit of the familiar fury at this argument in his expression, but… not as much as it used to “I wasn’t… such an angry and reckless kid, was I…?”
“Dick, do I need to remind you that you sneaked out almost every night to try to catch your parents' murderer, who was a mobster, might I add, when you were barely a decade old?” he remarked, at which Dick had to give a slight conceding nod “Catching him calmed you down considerably, but… you were still pretty angry for a while, even after that…”
Most people didn’t seem to believe it nowadays, whenever he said that. They thought that Bruce had seen only his own rage in Jason, which he would not deny had been a big part of it as well, since a lot of Batman came from that anger he had in him at the injustice of it all that had never faded. It felt like Jason’s fury was very similar in nature to his own, and similarly it would never truly disappear. But… if Robin had managed to calm down Dick’s outrageous fury into the occasional slimmer it was nowadays… then it was worth a shot. At least it would help him keep it controlled, just as Bruce had managed his by channeling it into something useful.
“... it started to be fun, being by your side…. We worked so well together, and I… I felt… I felt essential. Like you… actually needed me…” Dick whispered, a small amount of reverence in his voice when remembering those golden days “I loved it, Bruce, I loved being Robin so much…. We were a team, THE team, and then you…!” he pulled away so he could look at Bruce in the eyes, his expression a mix of fury and sadness “You fired me! For getting shot, as if I hadn’t been a hundred times before! How could you fire me like that?!”
“...I really hurt you when I did that, didn't I…?” he said, regretting not realizing this was still an issue so many years later filling him. At the time Bruce had been a bit too overwhelmed by the sheer terror that seeing Dick get shot and almost die before him had given him, and he… may have overreacted. It wasn’t like getting hurt was that unusual in their line of work, and even back then Dick had tried to argue that he wasn’t a child anymore, and would continue fighting crime regardless.
“Of course you did, Bruce. You pushed me away, like all the years we had fought together meant nothing… like I meant nothing…” Dick replied, looking more melancholic than angry now, like these were repeating worries in his head “... it felt like you just did not want me around anymore… so I left…”
“I never meant to make you feel unwelcome Dick, I didn’t think that firing you would affect you so much…” he tried to explain. He thought that maybe Dick would give a try to having a regular life now that he had the chance, not that he would leave the house immediately. He thought Dick knew that Wayne Manor would always be his home, regardless of him being a vigilante or not… but clearly he had been wrong.
“What else was I supposed to think?” he complained “After all those years by our side I… I only had you, Bruce… and I didn't know what to do with myself if I wasn’t useful to you, how could I possibly stay if I wasn't Robin… if you didn’t want me…”
“Dick, no, that wasn’t it at all…” he responded, sighing as he put an arm around his shoulder to get him close again, remembering an earlier time where he had tried to put a stop to Robin out of pure concern that had ended pretty similarly to the one they were talking about “Maybe I should have realized that you would run away if I fired you, even if it was just because I was worried… you did the first time I fired you too, remember? Left me a note and everything…”
It had been just after Harvey had beat Robin with a baseball bat in front of Batman, as some kind of lesson. The boy had almost died from that, and Bruce had suffered through all sorts of judgemental stares from Alfred, Leslie and even Gordon for it. His own guilty conscience made him try to put a stop to it all by firing Dick. Dick hadn’t taken it well. He could barely move with all the wounds and bandages on him but he had tried to reach out to Bruce, had tried to make him change his mind, practically begging to be taken back. Bruce had walked out of the room, and shortly after Dick had run away and only left a note behind.
“I should have realized back then… I should have realized that you felt you needed to be useful to me just to stay” he mused, since as it was the words that had haunted him the most out of that note were ‘And you don’t need a son’, which had repeated in his mind often enough whenever he had contemplated adopting Dick over the years, but that his reaction to feeling he wasn’t helping was to feel he couldn’t stay should have been worrying “You never had to do anything except be yourself to stay, Dick. You were wanted… more than even I realized back then…”
He hadn’t thought he would want a son either, at the start. He had been too focused on his single minded goal of getting rid of crime to contemplate any kind of family life. Dick had changed that, but by the time he realized… it seemed a bit too late to change things between them.
“What did you want, Dick?” Bruce asked, apparently taking Dick aback with the suddenness of it “I never knew, back then. I thought being Robin had helped you, but that you were clearly outgrowing it. I thought you wanted to be your own man, away from me. I thought you wanted to keep that distance that being my ward and not my son brought between us, which is why I never tried to breach it, but I was clearly wrong. What did you really want?”
The young man silently looked at him while he contemplated his answer, while Bruce patiently waited, still holding him close and beginning to rub his shoulder reassuringly. Dick leaned into him even further, if that was possible, clutching at his clothes to keep him from moving away.
“I… just wanted… I wanted to know I mattered to you. I would die for you Bruce, I would do anything for you if you asked, just because you matter to me… and I wanted to know that I mattered to you in the same way. I wanted to be more than your ward, I wanted more than that for years. And… you were right when you said that sometimes I felt Robin would forever be attached to Batman, and in that way I had outgrown it because I wanted to… I wanted to be my own person, yes, because I couldn't handle being in your shadow forever. But I also wanted to… to be part of your family. Sometimes you said things like… t-that I was like a son to you, and… you were already like a father to me, whether I admitted it or not. And whenever you said that kind of thing it always ached, how much I wanted it already…” he confessed, a slight sob escaping him.
“I didn’t know, chum…” he comforted him, feeling guilty at how many times he had said those kinds of phrases without even thinking and hurt his now official son before he made that change.
“T-that's why I was so… that's why I was so jealous of Jason when you took him in and adopted him right away, I hated having to see another kid getting that so easily when I had wanted it for years! It felt… it felt like you replaced me without having even truly taken me in, it was awful, Bruce…”
Bruce nodded, understanding that tension that had immediately been there when Jason had entered the picture. It had been a lot of things at once, between the mantle of Robin being carelessly passed down without consulting him and seeing another child take everything he used to have and what he didn’t get but still wanted… it was no wonder that his two eldest children had never truly gotten along, with all of the obstacles he had unknowingly put between them. He hoped that if Jason did somehow agree to come along on this trip maybe the three of them could all have a long talk about it.
“Which reminds me!” Dick suddenly exclaimed with a furious look in his eyes taking Bruce out of his hopeful thoughts “Tim told me you offered to adopt him and you didn't even tell me either! What's that about?”
“Ah… that's… true” he confirmed, suddenly realizing that maybe he should have at least called Dick to tell him about that “After his father died… I thought it would be easier if I adopted him, since I already… feel like he's family anyway. I didn't think he would be so against the idea that he would hire someone to play a missing uncle to avoid it, though…”
“Seriously…? He didn't tell me about that part…” Dick complained, a bit incredulously. He couldn’t blame him, it was an outlandish plan.
“I thought as much…” he grunted, still trying not to show how much that rejection had stung, deep down “But regarding you, I didn't think you would mind Tim becoming part of our family as well, Dick… you already treat him like he's your brother, and I like he’s my son, so I thought… you wouldn't be against it….”
He didn’t think that Dick would have minded that he took Tim in like that, and since he had been so squarely rejected he hadn’t even bothered to tell him afterwards, but….
“... I’m… not…” he said, far too slowly, like the words had to be pulled out with pliers “I like Tim, and I do love him like he's my brother. But it’s just…!” he growled with frustration “Getting officially adopted by you has… has taken us so long, so much time… and it… it means so much to me Bruce, and to you too I’d like to think. Hell, Ra’s al Ghul even tried to stop it from happening because of how much it meant to us! And Tim, who apparently just rejected you, he just got that offer right away…?”
Bruce decided to not comment on how much that sounded like the jealousy he had just expressed towards Jason’s adoption as well.
“It's different with you, Dick…” he admitted.
“Why is it different?” he asked immediately “Why is it so different with me? I mean I was the first kid you took in, and yet I didn’t get those offers at all for years…. All these other kids get it so quickly…. Am I… am I not…?”
He couldn't bring himself to end his question, his gaze full of pain, and Bruce just knew he wanted to ask if he was not enough.
“That's not it at all, Dick…” he reassured him “You are fearless, full of grace, and probably the most loyal person I have ever met, a loyalty that you have given me endlessly and which I treasure deeply. You are and will always be important to me… I have always needed you, always wanted you. But… I didn't even know what I was doing when I first took you in, I didn't think I would end up with someone I would trust my life with every night for years, but I was glad it happened. I can't imagine my life without you… I don't want to imagine my life without you, I would be miserable, I'm sure of it” he put a hand on his chin to make im look him in the eyes, trying to do it as softly as he could despite how tightly they were still holding to each other “And needing someone isn't about them being useful to you or not. You don't have to prove yourself to me for me to need you by my side, I’m sold, I was from the moment I met you. You are my son, Dick… you were from the moment I took in, even if I didn't realize…”
Dick took a moment to take that heavy declaration in, still sniffing as Bruce wiped his tears “If… if that's all true then why… why did you never adopt me before…?” he asked “Why wait so long…?”
“I… didn't think you wanted to be adopted. I… I still felt like you would reject me when I offered, because… you had parents that loved you, and… I didn’t want you to think I was trying to take your fathers place…”
It’s what they had both agreed on at the start after all. And Bruce had understood that feeling of not wanting new parents too well back then, of jealously guarding the memory of said lost parents from anyone that tried to pry them for him. If he had felt he would be intruding in taking a parental role when the boy was young, he felt that even more strongly when Dick had been a teenager, when they began to drift apart.
“I still love my parents with all my heart Bruce… but that doesn’t mean I can't love you like that too… you… you know that, right?” Dick asked, actually looking a bit… nervous saying that, actually. Did he think Bruce would somehow judge him for not loving his actual parents strongly enough or something…?
“I do now…” he said, deciding not to comment on that. Jason had not had a very good relationship with his own father, so that pressure of stepping where he wasn’t wanted had not been there for Bruce in that case. Becoming Jason’s father, being able to openly treat him like his child in every way had been… it had been amazing. It had made him wonder far more often if he should try to adopt Dick after all, even as strangled as they had been back then, if that was what he had been missing. But then… after what happened… that open affection he had given Jason without thought had been almost crushing “Afterwards there was also… that I was… that I was too afraid of making you part of my family…”
He might have to explain further with other people. But Dick had known that was a concern of his when he offered the adoption, and had even reassured him about it. He understood that part.
“Being part of your family isn't a death sentence, Bruce…” Dick assured him once more, managing to give him an awkward pat on the back despite his current posture on the man’s lap.
“It’s… hard for me, to be able to accept that… after…” he trailed off, the too ingrained images of pearls scattering as bodies fell and blood pooled, and the feeling of a corpse that was too small to have his life cut so soon getting colder in his arms overwhelmed him.
“I know. I… I was afraid too, that I… I might keep losing people I care about…” Dick shared “I was afraid I would lose you too, or… my place with you anyway, when we were fighting all that time. I was still afraid I would never be part of a family either. So when I finally became officially your son I… I felt… I felt like I belonged, truly. At last. After so long… wondering…”
“Did the adoption really settle you so much…?” he asked, honestly surprised a gesture he thought might have been seen as frivolous or symbolic by this point had helped this much.
“God, yes” he laughed, quite loudly “I have spent practically half my life wanting the feeling of security it gave me…”
“I'm sorry… I should have asked sooner if I knew you needed it so much, chum…”
“It’s alright… it’s done now, and that's what matters” he smiled warmly “I'm your son, and you are my dad… nothing is ever going to take that away now, that's all that matters in the end…”
Bruce suddenly wondered if Dick was the only one who had questioned his place at his side this badly when there had been no official ties between them. If he did it, and for all these years, when he had been there the longest… what would Tim or Cass think…? He had wondered if he should offer Tim a more permanent place at his side again now, since… the situation had certainly changed, since the last offer, but… it seemed a bit too soon to ask. But… maybe he was getting overly concerned again…?
… Cassandra wasn't that attached to her birth parents though. She had ran off to try to confirm her mothers identity, but she had known her father her whole life. David Cain was a terrible man that Bruce would have gladly beat ten times harder than he had when he found out what he had done to his own daughter, and did not deserve any familial loyalty. Hell, Cassandra had punched him real good last time she had visited him in prison. If… if Bruce offered her to be… his daughter instead… would she accept…?
It seemed while he was lost in thought the son he currently had in his lap had also been reflecting about their conversation, because he suddenly spoke up.
“Wait, if I am not going to be watching over Gotham while you are gone, and neither is Tim or Cass since they will be coming with us, then who the hell will?” he asked, frowning “You wouldn't let Gotham defenseless like that for so long, you must have some plan…”
“... I do, but I doubt you are gonna like it…” he answered, as he had honestly hoped he didn’t have to tell Dick precisely about it.
“Well, as long as you are not asking Azrael or some other unstable person to do it again…” he began, and at Bruce’s silence frowned and glared at him “... Bruce, please tell me you didn't ask an unstable person to do it”
“...I asked Harvey to take care of Gotham while I'm gone”
“WHAT?” came the immediately outraged shout, as he sat up on the bed, despite the effort it took him to do so “You asked Two-face to take care of Gotham??”
“No, I asked Harvey Dent to take care of Gotham” he remarked, putting emphasis on his old friend's name “He’s cured, as far as all the doctors can tell me, and that I can see…”
Dick just scoffed “You can't be serious about this”
“I am, I've been training him too, just a quick version of things so he can hold the fort while I am out…” he answered, and Dick just groaned “I can understand that this might be… hard for you…”
“You think?” he crossed his arms “When someone almost beats you to death with a baseball bat you tend to grow some grudges…”
“...I haven't forgiven him for that, but that was Two-face Dick, this is Harvey” he insisted “It's different…”
“Yeah, because no other villain has ever relapsed into villainy before…” he tried to argue.
“You didn't know him, before…” he tried to explain “He was my friend, he helped me in my early years as Batman before you were even around, and… I always hoped, despite all evidence to the contrary, that he could come back to himself. And he has. I am giving him a chance to do good, and he has accepted…”
Dick had only known him as the villain he had become, he had never known Harvey Dent back when he had fully been on the side of justice. He had been one of his very few allies at the start, and… and Bruce had always wondered, if maybe if he had shared his secret with him… things would have been different. If he could have saved him, by showing him he was truly on his side. He supposed he would never know, but if Harvey had truly reformed as it seemed… there was no way he wouldn’t give him a chance to prove it.
“...fine, I want it to be noted that I think it's a terrible idea, but fine. If you think your friend is truly back and want to try this, go ahead. If he loses control again I'm sure the police can probably handle Two-face at least, he's not as difficult as Azrael was to take down…” Dick grudgingly accepted.
“Thank you. I know you are still angry…”
“Yes, I am, thank you for noticing…” he grumbled.
“But I appreciate you trusting my judgment… not only on this, but on wanting to bring Jason as well, I know that… it's a bit… selfish of me…”
“Now that, that is really not selfish, Bruce” he shook his head “If he joins us I… I would like us to get along, this time. For real. Be… actual brothers, now that it's official and everything” he laughed “I was… not the best to him, before. I failed him. I want the chance to make it up to him too… if you convince him to come, it won't just be you who is happy…”
Despite their… tense meetings, Dick had suffered Jason’s loss too, Bruce remembered. He had even tried to confront Bruce about it, when he had been at his worst… he had reacted very poorly.
“...I shouldn’t have punched you and yelled at you when you tried to talk about Jason’s death, Dick… I’m sorry” he said, realizing that was another thing he had never apologized for.
“You were angry and lashing out… I did too, when I had just found out, I yelled at Danny’s face and basically kicked him out of the Titans because he was being a jerk about it when he told me about Jason’s death” Dick responded with a shrug, looking suddenly more taciturn “... honestly it hurt me much more that you said I shouldn't come back to the Manor, even though you didn’t really enforce that later…”
“I shouldn’t have said that either, I was just… I wanted… I wanted everyone away…” he apologized once more, cursing his past grieving self for being such an idiot, how could he have said that to Dick? It was a miracle that the boy had come back to try to stop him from going out of control after that “I didn’t want anymore partners, or… or family that I could lose, then…”
“I thought as much, when I looked back at it…” he agreed “But… now Jason is back, somehow. And… and I would like him to be able to come home too, if he wants…”
“...we both want to make amends, uh…?” he laughed “We are too similar sometimes, chum…”
“I guess we are, much as I used to hate it…” he conceded, laughing along.
He really used to hate that, didn't he…? How many times had he heard someone casually compare Dick to him and seen the boy bristle and declare that they were nothing alike during those years they had spent strangled…? Far too many, he was certain. He supposed it was inevitable that they would develop similar traits over the years when they had a similar center, but Dick has resented it. Bruce hadn’t known what to think of them, since their differences were far more obvious to him.
“Oh… wait, I… I asked Barbara to marry me, before I headed off to help with the crisis…” Dick said out of the blue, it was likely that he was just remembering it.
“...and she said yes…?” he asked, cautiously. The relationship between Dick and Barbara… seemed like such a minefield sometimes. A minefield he didn’t want to take a single step on.
“W-well, yeah… yeah she did…” he mumbled, now seemingly nervous “Oh god I am going to have to talk to her about this trip, won't I? She can’t come to whatever weirdo places you trained at in a wheelchair, and she probably doesn't want to leave her post as Oracle anyway! But I can't just leave for a year just after making her my fiance! But I do want to go with you because this is important to you and me, and everyone who comes along, but…”
“You should have a long chat with her before you come on this trip” Bruce interrupted, seeing that Dick was working himself up a bit too much “I imagine… she will probably want to help you during your rehab, you can both discuss it then...”
“Yeah… yeah I guess we could…” he winced.
“... just to clarify, you asked her to marry you just before you headed off to an event in which you could have, and almost, died…?” he remarked, raising an eyebrow that he hoped wasn't too judgemental. But he probably failed because Dick looked very chagrined.
“You make me sound very impulsive when you say it like that…” he complained.
“... need I remind you that there is a bit of a precedent with you trying to hurry into a wedding all of a sudden…?” he brought up, as Dick again looked like a scolded child.
“Aah… ok maybe I was in a bit of a rush with Kory too, but I mean, I loved her and I just wanted… I wanted us to be happy, I thought if we married then it would all be fine and…” he began, but stopped with a sigh “I just… I thought if we got married right away then we could enjoy happiness, even if just for a moment, I thought it was a great idea…”
“Dick you tried to rush through the whole wedding process in a single day”
“Ugh… ok, that wedding was such a disaster Bruce!” he admitted “And not just because it got interrupted at the last second, even before that it was a mess. In retrospect I was very glad you couldn't make it in the end, even if… if it was for such a terrible reason, but…”
That Dick had found out of his broken back when he had called to invite him to his sudden wedding had been… a strange moment “I would have come, if I was physically able. And more importantly if it was something you actually had thought it through and not just speed trough…”
Honestly, he would have been very happy for Dick if he had managed to be happily married after that, even if he hadn't been able to attend. He hadn’t… really seen Dick and Kory interact much, given the circumstances, but from what he had heard… they seemed good for each other. But he didn’t think a rushed wedding, out of some kind of fear of imminent disaster, was the way to go. Which is why his current proposition to Barbara seemed just as badly conceived.
“Oh man, I didn't think this through at all either didn't I…?” Dick said, probably realizing the same thing “Ugh, and I asked her saying I was mature enough for the responsibility now and everything…”
“I imagine you two shall have much to discuss in the coming days…”