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Mornings, Jason has discovered, are the best time to ask Bruce for anything. Usually he’s the only man Jason knows to be actually able to multitask (except maybe Alfred) but before the clock hits 8:30AM, his brain is just about as fast as a sloth stuck in mud.
“B,” Jason starts. “B-man. Dad. Daddy-o. Bruce the Dad Wayne.”
“What do you want, Jason?” Bruce asks in monotone with his eyes still on his tablet where he’s reading the news. Tim snickers into his cup of coffee.
“The circus is in town.”
Jason pushes his phone in front of Bruce’s line of vision. The bright and colorful pop-up ad makes Bruce blink and his focus shifts. Jason already knows he’ll get his way.
“The circus?” Bruce asks.
“Yeah, the Haly’s Circus! It’s in town. Can we go?”
“Could be fun,” Tim says. He’s looking at the ad from an odd angle. “I’ve heard of them. It’s not Cirque du Soleil but apparently they have a pretty solid act. Their trapeze artists are amazing.”
“See? Tim wants to go, too. You can’t say no,” Jason says. “Please, B?”
“Yeah, okay. Sure. See if they have seats on Saturday,” Bruce replies.
“Yes! Thank you!” Jason cheers and takes his phone back from Bruce. “You wanna come, Al?”
“I thank you for asking but I shall stay in to enjoy a quiet evening,” Alfred says.
“Four tickets it is.”
“Four?” Bruce repeats.
“We’re dragging Damian with us, too,” Jason says with confidence that implies Damian has already agreed. “It’s going to be so much fun!”
Jason loves Dick.
The boy is an absolute ball of energy and his awe at new things makes him seem even younger than his 8 years. Jason is only 3 years older than him but Dick is a circus kid who is still naive as to how to live in such a… unmoving… environment that Jason sometimes feels like a wise, old mentor to the boy. Dick’s English is decent but there are a few gaps in his vocabulary and Jason’s absolutely favorite thing is to teach him new words and to learn some of the many languages Dick knows in return. In evenings, the two of them can often be found curled up in an armchair in Dick’s or Jason’s room as Jason quietly reads him The Hobbit or The Little Prince. Besides his moments of grief, that’s the only time of day Dick is silent.
Those moments of grief sometimes last for hours, sometimes just minutes, but they are always sudden. Dick can be laughing one second and then just stop, like he suddenly remembers that he’s not supposed to be happy. Jason hates those moments, mostly because they leave him feeling helpless.
But he loves Dick.
Even now, when the little boy is hanging onto him like a sack of potatoes, giggling as Jason tries to shake him off.
“I win!” Dick declares.
“Win what? I didn’t know we were playing!” Jason argues.
“I win you ,” Dick says as if that makes any sort of sense. To him, it probably does.
“Oh, yeah? What if I do this?” With a quick movement, Jason flips Dick over his shoulder and deposits the boy on the couch. Dick laughs but it turns into shrieks as Jason digs his fingers into his sides. “Still think you won, huh?”
“Stop it!” Dick screams. “Stop it, stop it!”
“What’s going on?”
Jason stops his tickling at the sound of Damian’s voice in the doorway. Dick sits up and moves slightly closer to Jason, his expression a little wary. Of all the people in the Manor, Dick seems to find Damian the most intimidating.
Jason doesn’t blame him - Damian is not exactly known for being soft and cuddly.
“We were just playing,” Jason says.
“Well, you’re being loud.”
“We are kids. Being loud is what we do.”
“Tt.”
Jason pokes his tongue out at Damian and pulls Dick to come with him by his arm. “Don’t worry about him,” he says to Dick. “He’s just a spoilsport.”
“Spoilsport?”
“Someone who ruins fun.”
“Oh.” Dick’s quiet as Jason leads him to the library. Then, he says: “He doesn’t like me.”
“Damian?”
“Yeah.”
“He doesn’t like anyone at first,” Jason says dismissively. “He’ll come around.”
Dick tilts his head. “Come around what?”
“I mean, he’ll like you eventually. Trust me. He just likes to pretend that he’s an assh… jerk. I think it’s because his mom was mean to him.” Jason’s looking around the shelves for a new book for the two of them to read, and misses the horrified look on Dick’s face. “Have you heard of Harry Potter?” he asks. When Dick doesn’t answer, he turns around. “Dick?”
“Moms can be mean?”
“Uh… Well. Yeah?”
For some reason, this seems to be the sort of information that alters Dick’s entire worldview. Something in Jason wants to knock some sense into the boy, hit him with the reality that his mom probably wasn’t perfect either, but the look on Dick’s face stops him.
Perhaps, Jason thinks, the fact that his parents are dead is enough reality for Dick for now.
“I’m sure yours wasn’t,” he says carefully. “And most moms aren’t. I think.”
“Was yours?” Dick asks, his voice thin as if he’s close to tears. “Is that why you live with Bruce?”
“Sort of,” Jason says but doesn’t offer more as an explanation. Dick doesn’t look like he wants to hear more anyway.
Jason decides there and then that maybe Harry Potter is not an ideal thing to read to someone who just lost his parents.
Bruce snaps out of it first.
His own trauma still wants to push through, but his Dad-instincts are stronger and force him back to reality.
“Damian.” His oldest blinks and turns to look at him. “Get the boys out of here.”
“He’s coming down.”
Jason’s voice is timid and tight. Bruce follows his line of sight to see a little 8-year-old Dick Grayson fly down the ladder to the floor where he sprints to his parents, screaming. No one stops him and Bruce’s stomach turns when he sees blood stain Dick’s hands.
“Now, Damian.”
“Come on.” Damian pulls Jason by his arm and pushes Tim towards the exit. He sends Bruce a questioning look to which Bruce says ‘I’ll be right there’ and then Damian leads the younger boys out of the tent.
It’s Bruce who coaxes Dick away from his parents when the paramedics arrive, Bruce who holds him when he’s examined, and Bruce who reluctantly hands him over to the police officers assigned to take him somewhere safe for the night. He’s not sure Dick registers any of it - he is, in fact, quite sure Dick is not aware of anything around him - but he hopes he managed to offer just a bit of comfort to the tiny boy.
He’s shivering when he comes to the car where his boys are already waiting for him. Damian offers to drive but Bruce shakes his head no and sits behind the wheel. He needs to focus on something to keep his thoughts from spiraling back to the alley, and driving is a perfect something.
“What’s gonna happen to him?” Jason asks about half way home.
“I don’t know,” Bruce admits.
“Can we help him?”
“We’ll try.”
It’s Damian who makes that promise to Jason. He sounds calm but Bruce can hear the underlying rage in his tone. Bruce had already made up his mind to follow up with Dick, but he’s not sure the help Damian’s offering is the same he himself has in mind.
They arrive home an hour later to find a light supper and cups of steaming herbal tea in the kitchen. “I saw the news,” is Alfred’s explanation when Bruce comments that this was supposed to be his night off. The boys eat a few bites each and down their tea before Bruce ushers Tim and Jason to bed.
“You okay?” he asks Damian, who doesn’t move when his brothers leave the room.
“It wasn’t an accident.”
Bruce sighs. “The police will…”
“I doubt that.”
Bruce knows he can’t convince Damian otherwise - especially since he has his own doubts about the effectiveness and integrity of Gotham PD. He gives Damian’s shoulder a squeeze, tells him to ‘try to get some sleep’ and then follows Jason and Tim upstairs.
He’s not surprised to find both boys in his bed. Jason’s leaning on the bedrest with his arms crossed, looking angry. Tim, quite wisely, is keeping his distance because Jason looks like he could explode at the slightest prod.
Bruce quickly brushes his teeth and changes into pajamas before slipping into bed between the two boys. Tim shifts closer so they are side to side but Jason doesn’t move and Bruce doesn’t prompt. It’s only when the boy grows tired that he starts to relax, little by little, until he’s tucked under the covers. He still doesn’t move closer to Bruce or Tim.
Despite the night’s events, Tim and Jason both fall asleep rather quickly once the adrenaline drains away. Bruce has a harder time of it and he busies himself with his phone, unwisely looking up news about the incident. At some point, Damian’s head pokes in. He declines Bruce’s offer to join them but leaves both Bruce’s and his own door - directly across the hall from the master bedroom - open.
It wasn’t an accident.
Bruce watches grainy footage of John and Mary Grayson falling and hopes, for Dick’s sake, that it was.
“Whatcha doing?”
Tim jumps. He had not even heard Dick come in.
“‘Whatcha’?” he repeats. The word sounds weird coming from Dick, who still struggles with pronunciation sometimes.
Dick shrugs. “Jason says it.”
Jason also says ‘shit’ and ‘ass’ a lot but apparently, and fortunately, Dick’s brain has convenient holes in it.
“So, whatcha doing?”
Tim chuckles. “I’m writing a report for school.”
“What’s it about?”
“Nothing interesting,” Tim says as he closes his laptop. “Did you need something?”
Dick shrugs. “I’m bored.”
And then he just climbs onto Tim’s lap as if he had done so hundreds of times. Tim blinks as Dick settles comfortably, not sure what to do. He’s used to Dick’s spontaneous hugs by now but this? This is new.
“Can I paint your face?”
“Can you…? What?”
“Alfred got me face paint,” Dick explains and Tim wants to ask why but decides it doesn’t really matter. “I wanna try it. Can I?”
“Uh…” The report is due tomorrow but Dick has his puppy eyes on and Tim finds himself incapable of saying no. “Sure. But we have to do it in the bathroom.”
That’s how Tim ends up sitting on the edge of the bathtub with Dick kneeling on the toilet seat with a paint palette in his hand. The palette is a very basic one with only black, yellow, red, blue, and white but that doesn’t deter Dick’s artistic vision whatsoever.
“You’re going to be a tiger!” Dick declares as he starts smudging a sponge into the yellow paint.
“Oh yeah?” Tim smiles.
“Mm-hm. Stay still.”
The paint feels wet and weird, but Tim does as told and doesn’t move as Dick dabs his face all over. Some of it definitely ends up in Tim’s hair. Once Dick is done with the yellow, he tells Tim ‘We need to let it dry’ before dutifully going to the sink to clean the sponge.
“Now we do the nose and stripes,” Dick says after a few minutes. “How many do you want?”
“You decide,” Tim replies.
“Okay!”
Dick’s tongue sticks out as he concentrates. The brush he uses tickles more than the sponge did, and Tim squirms a little, especially when Dick works around his eyes and the edges of his nose.
It takes a surprisingly long time before Dick declares ‘All done!’ Tim stretches a bit, and gets up to see the result. He blinks as he sees his reflection.
“Dick… Wow! You’re good!”
“Thank you!” Dick says proudly. “Mama taught me. We did our own make-up. At the circus,” he adds. His voice wavers a bit on words ‘Mama’ and ‘circus’, but he doesn’t look like he’s immediately about to burst into tears.
“Well, she certainly taught you well,” Tim says, honestly impressed.
“Yeah, she did,” Dick sighs. Then, without warning, he taps Tim’s shoulder and exclaims: “Catch me!” before dashing off so quickly Tim can barely get out an astounded ‘wha…?’ “You’re a tiger!” Dick giggles, coming to a stop just outside the bathroom. “You gotta catch me!”
“But I…” Tim starts. Then, with an amused shake of his head, he calls out: “Rooaarrr!” which is answered by another giggle and the sound of running.
It’s a good thing Alfred is still treating Dick with extra gentle gloves, or Dick would get a lecture of proper inside manners.
He decides to give Dick about 5 seconds of head start. Before he’s even out of the door, however, he hears Damian: “What do you think you’re doing?” Alarmed, Tim hurries to the hallway, and his heart does a flip when he sees Dick balancing on the banister of the stairs.
“Get down from there!” Damian demands. Dick’s eyes are wide, almost scared, and he hops off the banister with a soft ‘thud’. “What the hell was that? Were you going to jump onto the chandelier or something?”
Dick’s cheeks go pink and Tim guesses that’s exactly what he was going to do. “That’s not safe, Dick,” he says. Damian frowns at the paint on his face but Tim shakes his head minutely to stop him from commenting.
“I’ve done it before,” Dick says with a shrug.
“What?!” Tim exclaims. “When?”
“When I’m alone.”
“You can’t just…!”
“Dick,” Tim interrupts Damian. “The chandelier could easily fall off the ceiling. It’s not meant for acrobatics.”
Dick shrugs. “There’s nothing else I can use.”
His voice is so small and sad that Tim immediately feels the alarm give way to something more heart-breaking. “We’ll build you something. Something safe that can handle whatever acrobatics you want to do.”
“You can’t reward him for breaking the rules!” Damian huffs.
“He didn’t know that hanging off the chandelier was against the rules.”
“Should have been obvious.”
“Maybe to you. Now. But don’t think Jason and I don’t know about you stealing the car when you were 12 when Bruce didn’t specifically forbid it.”
Tim winks at Dick, and the smallest of small smiles appears on the boy’s face. Damian, however, looks like his deepest, darkest secret has been revealed to the world. “Don’t run indoors,” he tells Dick and goes to his own room.
“That is technically a rule, too,” Tim says. Dick pouts. “It’s a good thing we have a big yard. Come on!”
The two of them play tag until dinner time. Tim’s face paint has smudged a bit, but Jason is still impressed enough that he asks Dick to paint his face, too.
When Dick and Jason disappear to the bathroom, Tim starts telling Bruce about his plans to build Dick a gym.
“I will be there tomorrow. This is unacceptable!” Bruce finishes his phone call before hanging up, fighting the urge to throw the phone somewhere far.
“What’s happened?” Damian asks.
“He’s in juvie.”
“Well, it was only a matter of time.”
Bruce frowns. “What?”
“You’re talking about Jason, right? Let me guess, the brat blew up a toilet in school?”
“Don’t call your brother a brat. And no. I’m talking about Dick Grayson.”
Now it’s Damian’s turn to frown. “What did he do?”
“Become an orphan,” Bruce sighs. “He’s done nothing. There’s just no room for him in the group home.”
“So their solution was to send him to juvie?”
“Yes.”
Damian doesn’t say anything for quite a while. Then, he says: “We said we’d try to help him.”
“I’m going down there tomorrow,” Bruce says.
“You’re going to bring him here, aren’t you?”
Bruce pinches the bridge of his nose. “It is starting to look like that, yes.”
“Hm.”
“Hm?”
“We certainly do have the room.”
“But?”
“Nothing. It is not like we can leave him there. If here is the best option, then here it is. Just don’t expect me to be a brother to him.”
Damian’s tone is defiant, but Bruce knows him. He said the same thing about Jason and Tim, too.
“I will be writing a strong worded letter to the social services,” Damian says.
“You do that. I’m going to call Gordon.”
Damian nods stiffly, then leaves Bruce alone with his less than happy thoughts.
‘I’ll get you out of there’ he vows to no one but himself. ‘Don’t you worry, chum. I’ll get you out.’
Bruce doesn’t know how to act around Dick, at first. He’s so different from his other boys.
It had taken a long time for Damian to accept physical affection and even longer for him to initiate it. Bruce knows he’s partially to be blamed for the fact that Damian is still not fond of emotional interactions - he had not known how to handle a 5 year old dropped on his doorstep and admittedly had not addressed Damian’s emotional trauma quickly enough. Focusing on his physical health, making sure the boy ate and slept enough, that he didn’t train too hard and allowed himself to rest, had been much easier.
Tim, on the other hand, was practically starving for touch but did not know it was okay to ask for it. He practically melted when Bruce would ruffle his hair or Alfred patted his shoulder. When he finally allowed himself to be hugged, he didn’t let go for an hour.
Jason had been touched in ways that no little boy should ever be and so it was no surprise when he didn’t allow any sort of physical contact for months, apart from first-aid which was also a challenge. It had been Tim, and eventually also Damian, who had convinced him that Bruce would not harm him, not in any way whatsoever. Little by little, and to everyone’s surprise, Jason’s shell cracked to reveal a joyful little boy, who’d always be a little rough around the edges (he’d bite the fingers off anyone who attempted to come close at the wrong moment). Bruce had learned to both accept and love that quality about his third son.
Dick, however…
Bruce understands Dick’s trauma better than he understands the challenges of Damian, Tim or Jason. What he doesn’t understand at all is the way Dick deals with the trauma.
Dick prefers company to solitude. He gives and accepts hugs without a second thought. The only one he actively seems to be a little wary of is Damian and the oldest isn’t giving him many reasons to change his opinion.
(Bruce can see the little signs that Damian is warming up, though, and it’s happening a lot quicker than with Tim or Jason.)
Even when his grief comes to surface, Dick seeks out someone to sit with, to hold him, or to hold them. It’s so different from how Bruce handled things, from how his older kids handled things, that it makes him wonder if their family is really the best one to help Dick heal.
Then he sees Jason reading to Dick or Tim teaching him how to play video games and he thinks yes, they are.
(Even though he's quite sure The Hobbit doesn’t have so many profanities… As long as Dick doesn’t start repeating them, however, Bruce has decided to maybe let it slide, as Jason does still remember to tell Dick ‘that’s technically a bad word. But he is a shithead.’)
“Can I come with you?”
“No, Jason.”
“What if he’s scared?”
“He probably is.”
“I can help! I’ll tell him he doesn’t have to be!”
“Jason, that’s not…”
“What if he thinks you’re just a big, scary man who will hurt him and runs off? Then we’ll never find him, and he’ll be out there in Gotham all by himself, and he’ll freeze and starve and…”
“Jason,” Bruce cuts the boy off. He puts a heavy hand on Jason’s shoulder. “Breathe. You’re starting to panic.”
“What if , Bruce?”
Bruce pushes Jason’s hair back from his forehead, absently thinking that he needs a haircut. “I’ve talked with him a few times now. He’s probably not completely comfortable with me yet, but I don’t think he’ll run off. If he does, I will catch him. Gently,” he says quickly when Jason opens his mouth. “I won’t let anything happen to him. I promise.”
“You promise , promise?”
“I’ll triple-promise if that makes you feel better.”
“I just…” Jason sighs. “I don’t want him to end up on the streets. It’s not safe and… he should be safe.”
Something cold wraps around Bruce’s windpipe. “Yes. He should.” He gives the shoulder he’s holding a squeeze. “Why don’t you make his room as welcoming as possible while I’m gone? And maybe help Alfred cook? It’ll calm you down and it’ll be a nice surprise for Dick.”
“Yeah. Yeah! I’ll do that!”
With newfound enthusiasm, Jason hurries off. Bruce lets out a breath and puts on his jacket. He’s just about to leave when Tim appears from behind the corner with a brown envelope.
“Here. Just in case you need blackmail material. If they give you any trouble about letting him go.”
Bruce frowns. “What is this?”
“Security camera footage. From the juvenile center.”
“How did you…?”
“Do you want to know?”
Bruce considers for a moment. “No. Not really. But thank you.”
Tim nods. “We’ll be waiting.”
With the envelope securely under his arm, Bruce finally leaves. As he turns the car around on the driveway, he sees Jason and Tim in the window, watching him drive off.
It’s weird that the trust they place in him makes him nervous and confident at the same time.
“Damian. Damian!”
“Hm? What?”
Damian yawns as he slowly wakes up. He can’t have slept more than an hour or two and a glance at the clock confirms as much. “What the hell?”
“Dick’s gone.”
Bruce’s eyes are frantic.
“What do you mean, gone?” Damian asks.
“I went to check on him before bed and his room was empty. I’ve searched through the entire house and he’s not here!”
Damian sits up. “Have you looked at the security footage?”
“Tim’s doing that now.”
“He can’t leave the grounds, Father. He…”
“It’s 2 o’clock in the morning and it’s barely above freezing! It doesn’t matter that he can’t leave the grounds, we still have to find him quickly!”
“I know, I know, I just…”
“Bruce!” Tim rushes into the room with his iPad. “I know which way he went!”
“Dress warmly and find some flashlights. I’ll meet you at the front door. Damian, get up and get ready.”
Bruce follows Tim out of the room, leaving Damian groggy and annoyed behind. Sighing, Damian pushes off his covers and puts on some sweats before going downstairs where Jason is already waiting.
“Don’t start!” Jason says.
Damian blinks. “Start what?”
“I already told Bruce I’m not staying behind!”
Ah. “I don’t really care. Just as long as we don’t have to look for you, too.”
“I can take care of myself!”
“You’re still going to stay with Tim,” Bruce says as he appears in the hallway. “No, Jason, I won’t hear any arguments. It’s bad enough that I have to worry about one of you.”
Jason looks defiant but wisely, keeps his mouth shut.
Tim leads them to the tree line. Dick had probably guessed that he wouldn’t be able to open the gates and thought he could escape the grounds if he walked through the trees, not knowing that the entire estate was circled by a fence.
“Let’s split up. Tim and Jason, you go east. Damian, you go North. I’ll go West. Call out if you find him and bring him back quickly .”
Damian follows the order without question. There’s a nagging urgency in his movements that he doesn’t like because he’s not supposed to care.
He cares about enough people already. One more is just… a distraction.
And yet, when he suddenly hears quiet sniffs, he hurries forward with his heart swelled with relief he doesn’t want to acknowledge. He finds Dick sitting in a crook of some tree’s roots, hugging his knees to his chest and shaking.
“Richard?”
Dick curls up into a tighter ball. There’s a scratch on his knee and his hair is full of twigs and leaves. His little backpack is absolutely filthy.
“Where are you going?” Damian asks him. “You really scared Br… us. You scared us.”
“I want to go back,” Dick says.
“Back?”
“To the circus.”
Damian sighs. “I’m sorry but they left town weeks ago.”
“I’ll find them,” Dick says stubbornly. “I will.”
Damian fights back the urge to snap at him for being an idiot and instead, sits down next to him onto the ground. He immediately feels the damp earth seep into his pants but doesn’t get up. “The circus is a cool place to live, I suppose,” he says.
“Yes.”
“Cooler than the Manor, even.” He doesn’t make it a question, so that Dick wouldn’t have to feel guilty.
“The Manor is cool, too,” Dick says.
“But…?”
“But I don’t belong!” Dick vails. “I make a mess of everything, I want to run everywhere and… and I’m loud!” he lists. “The circus is loud. It’s loud all the time . I can laugh and scream and it doesn’t sound weird. It… it sounds weird. In the Manor. It’s… quiet.”
The manor has not been quiet since the day Bruce brought Tim home, Damian thinks, and it’s been especially loud since Jason was adopted. The Manor was, however, built for a family of 10 plus servants and it only houses 6 people in total so compared to the circus, the Manor is probably empty and quiet.
“I like noise when I sleep,” Dick says.
“We can arrange that,” Damian says. “And for the record, laughing and screaming in the Manor is allowed. It might sound weird to you but you don’t have to hold yourself back. We - we enjoy your energy.”
Dick lifts his head from his knees and frowns in disbelief. “Really?”
“Really.”
“But you always complain when I’m loud.”
“That’s because…” Damian sighs. “That’s because when I was a child, my grandfather… and my mother, to some extent… They had expectations of me. I wasn’t allowed to be loud. To be a kid, really. I sometimes still… Anyway, it's not your fault I’m ‘old and grumpy’ as Jason often says.”
When Dick doesn’t look convinced, Damian changes tactics. “Honestly, Richard… Even if you somehow managed to find the circus, they’d probably send you back.”
“No, they wouldn’t!” Dick exclaims. “They are my friends!”
“Not because they wouldn’t want to keep you but because you’d all get in trouble,” Damian says. “There’s a reason the social workers didn’t think the circus would be the best place for you to grow up without your parents.”
“They’re wrong .”
“Maybe, but that’s not up to us.”
“It’s home.”
“Well, if you give it a chance, the Manor could be your home, too,” Damian says. “The people from the circus might be your friends but we could be… family. If you let us.”
Dick shivers. Damian pulls him closer to his side to share some warmth and Dick doesn’t fight it. “You already are a family,” Dick murmurs. “Why would you want me?”
Damian considers his reply for a moment. Then, he decides that he needs something deeper, more personal than ‘you’re the missing puzzle piece’ or something as abstract as that.
“I was 5 when Father found out I even existed,” he starts. Dick looks up at him with wide eyes. “He went backpacking in Asia when he was 19 and met my mother. The two of them had a… short romance of sorts, until Father came back to America to finish college and mother… well. Mother went back to my grandfather to have me. She had no intention to ever reveal my existence to Father - she only did when grandfather forced me to kill a cat.”
“He…? That’s awful! You love cats!”
“Hm. Yes. I try to focus on the positive, that it forced my mother to realize I wasn’t safe with grandfather. She practically left me on Father’s doorstep with a note ‘congratulations, you’re a Daddy!’. I’ve barely spoken to her since.”
“I didn’t know,” Dick whispers. “Jason… Jason said your mom was mean, but… Damian, I’m sorry.”
“It was a long time ago. My point is, Richard, that even though Father never planned to have me and could have ignored me when I suddenly appeared into his life, he didn’t. He chose to keep me safe and raise me. He chose to bring Jason home even though he found him trying to steal from him. He chose to save Tim from his abusive parents.” Damian leans closer to Dick, whose eyes are now fixed on him. “And he chose not to leave you in the abysmal system that is Gotham’s Foster Care. He didn’t have to. We didn’t have to.”
“So why did you?” Dick asks.
“Because we wanted to,” Damian replies. “We wanted to help, and we want you to stay. We - we are very fond of you.”
Dick blinks several times. “You love me?”
Of course, that’s what he hears.
“Yes,” Damian admits. “We all do. Very much.”
It’s then that Damian realizes that it’s true.
He had thought his heart was at full capacity when Tim had somehow wormed his way in. Then Jason had proved that wrong. And now, Dick had somehow managed to expand it again, in just a few months, even though Damian had vowed that he wouldn’t let anyone in anymore.
To care is to have a weakness .
And yet, Damian cares so, so much.
“Come on, now,” he says gently as he gets up. “You’ll get sick if we don’t get you warmed up soon.”
Dick sniffs but accepts Damian’s hand none-the-less. Damian picks up his little backpack and then, without giving it a second thought, scoops Dick up into his arms. Dick circles his arms around Damian’s neck and leans his cheek against his shoulder. His breath tickles Damian’s neck.
Oh Gods, does Damian love him.
“I found him!” he calls out as they approach the Manor. He hears Bruce’s ‘oh, thank God!’ first and then the grunts of Tim and Jason as they make their way to them through the trees.
“Dickie!” Jason exclaims. His eyes are red. “What were you thinking? You as…”
“I’m sorry,” Dick sniffs and Jason deflates. He leans against Tim, clearly utterly exhausted.
Then Bruce is there, too, and he takes Dick from Damian and hugs the boy close. Damian immediately misses the warmth. “You scared us,” he says, voice shaking.
“I’m sorry,” Dick says again. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t… I thought…”
Dick doesn’t finish the sentence, just buries his face into Bruce’s shoulder and cries. Bruce takes a deep breath, his hand stroking Dick’s back, and turns to walk back to the Manor. Tim coaxes Jason to move, too, and Damian follows with Dick’s back-bag still in his hands.
When inside, Dick is immediately helped into warm pajamas and then wrapped inside a blanket like he's stuffing in a burrito. Bruce then carries him to the main living room where Alfred has set up the fireplace.
“Oh my!” Alfred says when Damian takes Dick’s stuffed elephant out of the soaked back bag. “I think your little friend needs a bath, young sir.”
“You’re going to wash her?”
“Alfred will take good care of her,” Damian says, hearing the slight fear in Dick’s voice. He sees the way Bruce’s eyebrows shoot up and how Jason turns to stare, but ignores them. “She’ll be good as new, trust me.”
“Okay,” Dick says slowly, sinking more deeply into the couch. His little adventure paired with the comfortable clothes and the heat in the room seems to have exhausted him, and his eyelids start to droop. Jason hops onto the couch next to him, and Tim drops into an armchair. Damian hovers, and makes a move to leave, but it’s apparently enough to wake Dick up a bit, because he mumbles: “Damian?”
“Yes?” Damian replies.
“Thank you.”
Damian has to fight to keep his face neutral. It simply wouldn’t do for his three brothers to think he’s soft. “Sure.”
Again, he takes a step to leave but Dick asks him, shyly: “Come here?” and… Well. As long as there is no cuddling, Damian can oblige that much.
Dick cuddles into him as soon as Damian sits down. Two minutes later, his breath evens out and he’s asleep.
“Tea?” Bruce asks him quietly when it’s clear that Jason has nodded off, too.
“I’ll have a coffee,” Tim says from his armchair.
“You’ll have herbal tea and be happy about it,” Damian shoots back. “Thank you, Father.”
Bruce just smiles his soft, almost-smile that shows more in his eyes than mouth. Once he’s gone, Damian tells Tim: “You’ll fit in here, too. If you want.”
When Bruce comes back with three perfectly brewed cups, he finds his sons piled up on the coach, all four of them fast asleep. Quietly as he can, he sets the tray on the coffee table, takes his own cup, and sits onto the armchair Tim previously occupied.
He stays there until the sun starts to seep in through the curtains, keeping watch on what matters to him the most. Their family may be a patchwork stitched together by tragedy, but it seems to Bruce that now their latest patch has finally been stitched in quite firmly.
Now it’s just a matter of not letting them rip apart.
Easy peasy.