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It had seemed like a good idea at the time. Train-surfing. Blindfolded.
“Stay loose. Roll when you hit the train.” Dick knew the route between Gotham and Blüdhaven by sound alone. Heck, he probably knew it just by smell. “What’d I tell you, Robin? Didn’t I tell you it was easy?”
There was a grunt.
“Ten thousand tons of rolling steel and we— Robin?”
Only the foghorn in the distant harbor answered.
“Robin?” Dick ripped off his blindfold. “Tim?”
“Don’t send me back,” Damian was saying, shuriken still in hand, eyes wide.
“You cut Tim’s line?!” Damian had killed him. No. Dick had killed Tim. This all stemmed from choices Dick had made.
“I didn’t mean to!”
If Dick had a grappling hook, a rope, anything. . . But for some reason he wasn’t in uniform. His hands were empty. “Your grapple!”
Bewildered, Damian held it out. Dick put a hand on the hook, but before he could grab the grappling gun itself— “TUNNEL!” he shouted.
Damian wasn’t prepared. Dick had never taken him train surfing. He didn’t know. (There was still so much he didn’t know, so much Dick hadn’t taught him.) The boy and the line zipped away from Dick as the darkness of the tunnel closed around him—
When the trapeze had snapped, it had been as good as silent. What Dick had heard instead had been the cut-off shout. Mom. And then the rippling gasp of the crowd as they realized. . . . Two thuds. Dad, then Mom. Like bags of flour, hitting the floor.
But now he always heard a twang like a guitar string breaking.
“Damian!” Someone so small shouldn’t fall so fast.
Dick only had two hands. He was hanging by his feet, extending down into the Gotham night as far as he could—arms lunging in opposite directions. Both Tim and Damian clawed the sky, trying to reach him. Dick’s shoulders were fire as his tendons stretched beyond their limit. C’mon. Please. Tim’s eyes. Hurt, betrayed, behind his lenses. And Damian’s. Desperate, sorry. Dick didn’t know which was worse.
“Dickie. . . .”
“Mom! Help!” Whatever had been holding his feet gave way like smoke in the wind. He was sliding into the dark.
“Take my hand,” she soothed. “Just like we practiced.”
“I can’t,” he sobbed. He only had two hands. He couldn’t save himself and both of them.
“You can do it!”
When had she ever lied to him? So Dick reached up, but he was already falling too fast. Her fingertips ghosted his.
Falling in the dark. In the cold. It’s a kind of drowning. Air is just thinner water. If it thins enough, for long enough, sometimes, you black out.
This is when he will wake up. And Bruce will be there, light from the hallway spreading out behind him like a cape. “It’s a dream. You’re safe. You’re not there.” Voice steady. Arms anchoring.
But instead, Dick keeps falling, blacking out and jerking back into consciousness. Somewhere below him he hears a scream. Tim? Or Damian?
A spotlight roves the empty seats of the arena. Searching for someone. A small serious boy halfway up the stands eats popcorn. “You should have believed me,” he says. “Bruce would be here already if you had believed me.”
The light moves on. The man isn’t eating popcorn. He sits with arms folded across his chest, unimpressed by the show.
Soon there will be an irreversible thud. And another. It’s too dark to tell how far away the ground is.
Bruce’s jaw twitches. Knowing he deserves Bruce’s disapproval doesn’t make Dick resent it any less.
“I know!” Dick wants to scream. “I’m sorry! But can’t you help me anyway?” But he doesn’t have any breath; he can’t even whisper.
***
A sliver of blue light flickered across Tim’s feet and the hall rug. His hands occupied by a basket of clean laundry and two oatmeal cookies (thanks, Alfred), Tim nudged the door to the TV room open with his foot. The unnatural glow highlighted the casefiles spilled across a laptop on the coffee table. A Dick-Grayson-sized lump stretched across the sofa.
Tim hadn’t spent a lot of time in the penthouse yet. But it had seemed that, since Damian’s arrival, Dick had given up his bachelor habit of falling asleep in front of the television. Until tonight.
The TV volume was low. Enough noise for company but not enough to draw anyone else’s attention.
A twitch. One of Dick’s hands scrabbled silently at the air, and his legs kicked at sofa cushions. Then the hand dropped, and Dick went still.
Tim stepped into the room. “You okay?”
Dick sat up. He stared at Tim for so long that Tim glanced down to make sure his shirt wasn’t on inside-out or something. “You’re alive,” Dick said, flatly.
Nightmares then. “Last I checked,” Tim quipped.
That expression was too brittle to call a smile. Bad nightmares then. Dick glanced at the doorway.
“Alfred and Damian are also alive,” Tim offered.
Dick nodded, elbows resting on his knees. He reached for the remote. “Wanna watch the end of The Return of the Blob That Ate Gotham?”
Tim had actually been on his way to bed, but he set down the laundry basket and slid his legs up under him, leaving a sofa cushion’s space between them. Something in Dick’s posture suggested that he was still half in the land of the dreaming. “If it ate Gotham in the first movie, what does it eat in the second movie?” He offered Dick a cookie.
Dick pushed it back. “At the end of the first movie the government fires nuclear weapons into what is ‘definitely’ not just a bowl of Jell-o, and the Blob spits out the city. The second movie begins with the all the blown-up Jell-o bits reforming.”
“Nuclear weapons? Wow. I’m warning you now: if the second movie is the Blob vs. the government, I’m rooting for the Blob.”
Finally, a real smile.
Dick turned up the volume even though it was an infomercial for cat-shaped beanbags. “Sorry,” he said, “the commercials on this channel are as long as the movie.”
“You’ve been watching this channel a lot,” Tim noted.
“Just this week.”
As far as Tim knew, it wasn’t the anniversary of any particular tragedy. “Did something happen this week?”
Dick’s head jerked away from the screen. “Is that supposed to be funny?”
Shoot. Something did happen. Something bad. Tim wiped oatmeal crumbs off his sweatshirt and racked his brain. Since his “moment of understanding” with Damian, he’d been spending more time at the penthouse, but he still had WE meetings and patrols and research on time travel. What had he missed?
“Yeah,” Dick said, slowly, staring at Tim, “Damian cut your line and you almost died, so. . . .”
Oh. Tim thought they had settled that. “Dick. I wasn’t going to die. I’ve trained. I know—”
“That doesn’t matter!” Dick’s hands were on Tim’s shoulders now, his grip unforgiving. So much for giving him space. “If someone cuts your line, and you aren’t expecting it—and you don’t have a safety net—”
Tremors ran down Dick’s arms and passed through Tim’s shoulders. An electrical current of trauma.
Of course. Tim had been only three years old the night the Flying Graysons’ trapeze had snapped, but the memory had carved itself into Tim’s brain: a channel redirecting his childhood obsessions, and eventually, his life. He could hardly imagine how deeply that moment was cut into Dick’s mind.
Dick yanked his hands away and retreated to the far end of the couch. He rubbed his eyes. “Sorry. Just tired.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“I really don’t. But thanks, big bro.” Dick origami-ed himself around a decorative pillow. “Hey, check out these high-budget effects. . . .”
So Tim pretended to appreciate the gelatin racing down the not-quite-to scale model of Gotham’s main street.
After they had snickered at an extra running into a painted backdrop, Dick murmured, “Please don’t tell Damian.”
Tim thought maybe Damian should know. Actions had consequences, and Damian would probably consider consequences that affected Dick over any others.
But as if reading his thoughts, and without looking away from the screen, Dick put a hand on Tim’s wrist. “Robin already carries a lot of weight. It’s not a kid’s job to worry about the mental state of his guardian.”
Tim shrugged. He’d been worrying over Bruce’s mental state since before he knew him. “Damian’s not fragile—”
“Yeah, he is,” Dick said softly. “He just doesn’t know it. As a kid, I used to be so pissed off when I could tell something was bothering Bruce and he wasn’t telling me about it. But he knew I’d tried to take it on myself—make it my job to make him feel better, you know? It was Bruce’s job to deal with my nightmares, not the other way around.”
“You’re going to use Batman as your model for emotional health?”
Dick laughed and hit Tim’s shoulder with the pillow. “No. But I might borrow from Bruce’s occasional insight into how much a ten-year-old, even an unusually precocious one, should have to deal with.”
“I’m not ten,” Tim pointed out.
“Yeah,” Dick agreed. He was back to holding the pillow like a shield.
“Old nightmares or new ones?” Tim asked finally.
“A fun mix of both,” Dick said, eyes on the TV.
***
Dick hadn’t slept much the night Damian had cut Tim’s line. But afterward—after all the talking and apologies and research and decisions were finished with—he’d slept hard, embracing relief.
So Dick had been surprised, two nights later, when the nightmares started.
He was used to anxiety dreams, even (or especially) ones about falling and failing to catch people. They weren’t pleasant, but he understood that they were his brain’s way of working through buried fears. The garbage disposal of his subconscious.
But these dreams were more like the hyper-vivid nightmares and thrashing night terrors he’d had after his parents’ deaths. And they were constant. Every time he closed his eyes. He didn’t just feel rattled when he woke up; he felt flayed open.
The interrupted sleep was taking a toll. First, the headaches that even Tylenol and caffeine wouldn’t cut. Then Oracle had commented on his curtness last night. And this morning, he’d caught Alfred and Damian sharing a look over breakfast—the same sort of look Dick and Alfred used to share when Bruce was being particularly broody. (“What?” Dick had snapped. Damian had merely raised an eyebrow and said, “You tell me, Grayson.”) Dick could tell he was running a low-grade fever. Not a virus, just his body’s temper tantrum over not getting what it needed. Sleep had never sounded so good and so stomach-turning at the same time.
If Dick didn’t sleep tonight, there was no way he could patrol tomorrow. He’d run across rooftops on automatic tonight. But later, on solid ground, when he had simply glanced down to recheck the zip-ties on a would-be mugger, Dick’s vision had started to black at the edges. What if that had happened while he’d been swinging? He couldn’t do that to Tim or Damian. Or Alfred. Dumb. Just dumb. You should have taken Tim up on his offer to join you for patrol.
But Tim, hunched over his laptop, had looked happily up to his ears in research. Research for Bruce. And Dick had known in his gut that he wouldn’t be pleasant company tonight.
He’d ended up having to cut patrol short. Dick had set the Batmobile on autopilot and had woken up in the tunnel leading up to the Cave, flailing, confused, and drenched in sweat. He hadn’t remembered his dream this time. Just the overwhelming dread and grief. It had been both a relief and a disappointment to find he was alone, slinking into the empty Cave with his tail between his legs.
Scrrch. . . . A whisper of a whisper under the chatter of the TV.
He was becoming less alone by the second.
A rug in the hallway muffled the sound of the penthouse’s 24/7 restless wanderers. And all the door hinges were carefully oiled. But these hall doors sometimes caught on the edges of the rug, making a soft brushing complaint as they were pulled away.
“Alf, you’re not supposed to be up.” (Damian always growled a little to himself when he jerked the doors free. But Alfred made no sound at all. An Alfred silence was not an empty one. Even with his head spinning from lack of sleep, Dick could differentiate.)
Tim jumped.
Dick laughed but kept his eyes closed—Alfred had been the one to teach him what eyes were supposed to be the windows to.
“To thee I do commend my watchful soul, ere I let fall the windows of mine eyes: sleeping and waking, O, defend me still!”
Dick had been nine when an internationally-acclaimed Shakespearean troupe performed Richard III in Gotham—a tour so rare that Alfred hadn’t protested when Bruce had insisted the butler join them.
Alfred still chauffeured (a compromise between Alfred’s sense of duty and Bruce’s). And after the performance, while Bruce and Dick waited for the car, Dick’s opinions on the play spilled out.
“. . .the battle scenes were incredible! I didn’t think you could do that on a stage. But don’t you think. . . .” Dick bit his lip. Alfred had obviously enjoyed the production. He had been nearly glowing by the end of the evening. Also, the tickets were expensive, and Dick still had moments of stress over complaining about things his parents would never have been able to afford. “It wasn’t exactly. . . .”
“Easy to understand?” Bruce leaned down to receive Dick’s whispered confession.
“No, I understood it okay.” Alfred had read through the play with him beforehand. “And I’m sure they did their best . . . but they weren’t as good as Alfred, were they?” Without Alfred’s particular intonations—and occasional flourishes of soapy butterknives—the production had seemed lacking.
Bruce’s lips made that movement Dick could now recognize as an aborted smile. He put his hand on the back of Dick’s neck, warm and approving, and said, “When we get to the car, tell Alfred what you just told me—word for word. You’ll make his month.”
Dick had closed his eyes and leaned into the touch.
“They that stand high have many blasts to shake them, and if they fall, they dash themselves to pieces.”
It’s dark in the theater, and Dick is falling fast. He can hear Alfred’s voice, but he can’t see him anywhere. Something human-sized flaps past him in the black—
Dick opened his eyes with a start. He’d have to risk dreams sometime, but not now.
“I woke far too early,” Alfred admitted. “But you look like a man who has yet to sleep.”
Dick grinned. “Tim’s a bad influence.”
“Hey!”
Alfred crossed the room and put his wrist on Dick’s forehead. It took all of Dick’s strength not to grab Alfred’s hand and hang onto it like a lifeline.
Dick loved heights. He loved jumping from them. Much to Bruce’s consternation.
“The difference between flying and falling is intention,” Dick said.
“I thought the difference was direction,” Bruce responded dryly.
What was the old joke? “I’m not afraid of heights; I’m afraid of falling from them”? Or “it’s not the fall; it’s the sudden stop.”
Thud. Breath. Thud.
He was drifting even with his eyes open. What do you do when your fear is rational? When the thing you are the most afraid of is just one misstep away from the thing you love?
You plan, you hope, and you wait it out. A week had been Dick’s previous record for continuous, sleep-disrupting night terrors. All he had to do now was survive his brain’s contortions. All he needed was to be left alone until he was fit for human company again. “Not sick,” he promised the hand on his forehead.
“Not for lack of trying. Your color is atrocious.” Dick wondered how anyone’s color could be good in the flickering glare of C-list horror movies and late-night infomercials. The hand moved on to Dick’s cheek, briefly, and Dick closed his eyes to keep them from suddenly spilling over.
***
Last time Dick had seen Donna, she’d put her hand on his face, like this. God, he missed Donna.
Indigo had killed her. Instead of stars, she was covered in broken glass.
No, that was wrong.
Donna was alive.
It was Tim who was sparkling with glass. It glinted in his hair as he fell through the window.
Dick can see the trajectory of his swing, the way a pitcher sees how a ball will curve before it even leaves his glove. Physics had become instinct. But. . . .
Centimeters too short.
Impossible. Like a step disappearing from a staircase mid-stride. But Tim keeps falling backward, unconscious. And Dick’s swung too far, overshot too much, to save him now. Dick’s fingers haven’t registered this. They are still reaching forward.
Dick’s fingers dig into Bruce’s bathrobe, as if he can hold on tight enough to retroactively prevent their fall. Stop, some part of his brain says. This is too much. It’s too much pain and anger, not just for him, but for the whole world. It won’t fit anywhere. He is going to grip too tight, cry too hard, scream too loud, and Bruce will have to let go. Instead, the circle of arms grows more solid. “You’re with me now. I’ve got you.”
“I’ve got you—Mommy’s here, little Robin.” Hands on his wrists, swinging him toward the platform.
But somewhere he’s made a mistake—let go too soon or held on too tightly—and now he is falling.
Now that he’s let everyone else fall, who on earth is left catch him?
***
Damian frowned at the empty bed. The covers had been thrown about in a way that might fool Pennyworth, but the pillows still retained a suspicious fluffiness. Grayson hadn’t slept here tonight.
Damian had known this would happen—Grayson could not be left to his own devices. Without a Robin by his side, Batman was obviously overwhelmed. So Grayson had been sneaking back out for a second patrol after he was supposed to be asleep.
How had Pennyworth and Drake not noticed how bleary-eyed or unusually snappish the man had become since Damian’s grounding? Just tonight Drake had asked if Batman needed him on patrol. And surely Drake would be better than nothing. But Grayson had said “no.” And Drake had accepted this.
Damian wasn’t certain what he would do after he confronted Batman. Threaten to tell Pennyworth? Force Grayson to either take Drake with him or rescind Damian’s grounding? Never mind. He’d figure it out once he caught Grayson red-handed, trying to sneak back into the Cave.
But first, Damian pulled up the penthouse monitors on his laptop. He wanted to know who else was awake, which hallways he should avoid.
He was flabbergasted to find everyone gathered in a rarely used TV room. Grayson and Drake were on the sofa, and Pennyworth was attending. Had they all been stealing away to watch schlocky horror films without him? Was this where Grayson had been disappearing to? And was Damian relieved or stung that he hadn’t been invited?
But when Damian crept to the doorway, he saw that Drake wasn’t watching the television; he was watching Grayson. And Pennyworth was blocking Grayson from view, but Damian could see that he had a hand on Richard’s wrist, taking his pulse.
Grayson started, grabbing Pennyworth’s arm and just as quickly releasing it.
“Shouldn’t have closed my eyes,” he joked.
“On the contrary, that is exactly what you should be doing.” Alfred stacked the casefiles on top of the laptop with a sharp tap.
Drake caught Damian’s eye and shrugged with a long-suffering look. As if they shared some understanding of this situation. They did not.
“What is wrong with Grayson?” Damian demanded. “And why have you been keeping it from me?”
“Damian?” Grayson leaned forward and tried to gesture Damian into the room.
Damian folded his arms and stayed where he was.
“Nothing’s wrong. I just couldn’t sleep, and apparently, that’s a crime.”
It should be. For Batman. “You’ve barely touched your bed for at least the past three nights.” Damian presented his evidence with a sweep of his arm and a nod to the jury.
Drake and Pennyworth turned to Grayson, but Damian was irked by the lack of surprise on their faces. What did they know that he did not?
“Is there a new case you are keeping to yourself?” Damian lifted his chin toward the casefiles. “It is irresponsible for you to pursue such things alone.”
Grayson looked far too amused. “Then I guess I’ve been irresponsible for years.”
Alfred cleared his throat.
“No, Dames. I’m not chasing any new cases you need to know about. Cross my heart.”
Damian stomped into the room. “Why are you lying to me?! What are you hiding?” He flung open the case folders. But he recognized them immediately. Nothing that explained Grayson’s recent changes.
“Hey! Hey, now. Why would I lie to you?”
“I don’t know! Why do you keep testing yourself for fear toxin?”
Now, Drake and Pennyworth looked surprised. Good.
“How do you know about that?”
Damian just glared at him. How did he think? Damian had been trained in espionage since before he could pronounce the word.
“Okay, I’m tabling the ‘it’s rude to stalk family members’ conversation ’cause I don’t have the energy. But I ran into an old warehouse that might have been one of Crane’s a few nights back. It’s a normal precaution.”
“But you keep testing yourself?” Drake asked.
Grayson now looked as irritated as Damian felt.
“I suppose you’ve considered that lack of sleep can also make one feel paranoid, Master Dick?”
“I’d love to sleep, but that doesn’t seem to be working out for me right now.”
“Wonderful,” Pennyworth intoned, pulling an orange pill bottle from his bathrobe pocket. “I believe there are some pharmaceutical solutions created for just such—”
***
“No!”
Alfred did not pinch his nose or sigh. That would be as pointless as Master Dick’s sudden crusade against slumber.
Missed hours of rest and bouts of insomnia were expected with unpredictable schedules and busy brains. And a distrust of addictive substances was only prudent with their chosen field. But this was bordering on the ridiculous. Dick had already been dancing along the ragged edge of human limitations. If this sleeplessness had been going on for as long as Alfred suspected, then it was a miracle that Batman’s sleep schedule was the only thing in need of mending. Persistence Alfred respected. Ego and misplaced martyrdom he’d seen quite enough of for one lifetime.
The difficult days when Bruce would swear by “microsleeps” and having trained “to only need three hours of sleep”—until he was down to his last thread of sanity (and unraveling all of Alfred’s)—were never far from Alfred’s memory. That obstinacy had always ended the same way: Bruce had either been forced into rest by a terrifying injury or had finally been drugged by his butler. Alfred was never certain which finale made him feel the most culpable. He had hoped for better from Dick.
He set the pills on the arm of the sofa.
Dick blinked at the bottle, and then at Alfred.
“My boy, at least for one night—”
Dick jerked as though Alfred had gifted him a tarantula. Then he knocked the bottle to the floor.
“Master Richard.”
The movement of Dick’s shoulders said he recognized the rebuke despite its calm tone. But the tightening of the man’s jaw suggested that he was only becoming more entrenched in his stubbornness.
How many times would they tread this ground? (Two bullet wounds in his body, a fever, and run-over by exhaustion, and yet “I’m fine. I gotta get up. I gotta find Barbara and—”) How do we grow smarter but never wiser?
Alfred sank into a chair. “I know you are tired, but so am I. I weary of reminding you of basic care.”
“Then don’t remind me!” Dick snarled. “I didn’t ask you to. I’m not Bruce; I don’t need you to take care of everything or remind me to . . . to fucking breathe!”
“Dick!” Tim sat up, rigid with offense on Alfred’s behalf. “That’s not fair!”
Alfred didn’t move. And Dick didn’t look away. Alfred waited a moment, and finally, when no other words—accusations or apologies—seemed forthcoming, he rose.
Anger was useless here, but Alfred was getting dangerously close to the bottom of the bin on everything else. He needed new insight before he ventured back into this territory. He needed to regroup. He needed fifteen minutes alone with a strong cup of tea.
“Then if my services are not required, you will excuse me.”
But Damian was blocking the path to the doorway. “I’m not allowed to speak to Pennyworth in that way.” The boy lifted his small chin, but his eyes were more calculating than critical. “Or so you said.”
“We’re just worried about you, you a-hole,” Tim muttered.
Dick took a breath and ground his palms against his eyes. He made a sound between a curse and a whimper.
When he looked up again, his face bore same sorrowful, straightforward look he’d had as boy when admitting to some misdeed. “I’m sorry, Alf. I don’t . . . I just—” He cut himself off, brows scrunching together. The boy who had always been so full of words seemed to be scrambling for them now. And that, as much as anything, told Alfred how little he’d been sleeping.
Alfred ignored his knees’ protest and crouched by the sofa in front of Dick, picking up the pill bottle. “Perhaps, this time,” he murmured, “we can skip the regrets and just move straight into improved behavior, hm?” Teasing a little, hoping to unfurrow that brow.
But Dick wrapped his arms around himself and pulled away. “I’m not having nightmares just to annoy everyone!”
Alfred sat back on his heels. “I was unaware you were having nightmares,” he pointed out. “You didn’t say.”
“Because there’s nothing you can do! Sleeping pills make it worse—they give my body something to fight against. So I fall asleep already fighting—and then I have to claw my way awake every time the nightmares start—”
Alfred slipped the pills back into his pocket. “No drugs then,” he agreed. He put his hands on Dick’s knees. “I did not intend to imply that you were in any way at fault for having nightmares. But I hate to see you suffer if there is anything that can be done to ease it.”
Something in Dick’s face crumbled before he leaned so far forward that his forehead was almost touching Alfred’s hands, his expression hidden. “Only time helps. After a week, they’ll fade. I just have to survive till then.” He winced. “I’m going to be a pain to live with till then.” He glanced at Tim and Damian and then back to Alfred. “Sorry.”
“As I recall, this is familiar ground.” Alfred lowered his voice further. This would be an easier conversation without two other pairs of ears in the room. “Was there anything that proved helpful in the past that might be employed now?”
Dick laughed a little and rested his cheek on Alfred’s hand. “I guess letting Ace sleep on my bed is no longer an option.”
Alfred had always dreaded cleaning the drool stains and pawprints in the morning, but if a dog would help, he’d willingly empty an entire pound into the penthouse.
“My head is killing me, Alf,” Dick whispered, so low that Alfred doubted anyone else in the room heard—as if this were a secret on par with the identity of Gotham’s Dark Knight. “I’ve tried all the over-the-counters. Nothing helps.”
Of course it didn’t. There were no substitutes for sleep.
Alfred laid a hand on Dick’s flushed cheek. And when he drew it away, Dick sat up, looking worn and young and lost all at once. But although Dick was staring at him with an entreating expression, a dog did not seem to be what his boy was asking for.
***
“Weight,” Damian declared.
They all stared. Pennyworth stood.
“Dogs provide weight. That can be grounding, even during sleep.” Damian couldn’t imagine why Grayson, of all people, would have nightmares. He didn’t have a backlog of sins to haunt his nights. But the why didn’t matter. Damian knew his own dreams had become better, briefly, after he had acquired Goliath. (Though, first, they had become worse.) Damian had been able to sleep with the small furry body on his chest and insist this was part of “training the beast.”
He did not have a demon-bat to offer Grayson, but “A weighted blanket, Pennyworth?”
Drake tilted his head like something was just now occurring to him.
But Grayson was still staring at Damian. As if Damian was the sad idiot who couldn’t even figure out how to sleep correctly. He looked like he was going to start asking stupid questions. Personal questions.
“Of course, since weighted blankets induce REM sleep, some people experience increased nightmares. But I can’t imagine it would be worse than—.” Damian’s gesture encompassed Grayson, the files, and the woman slowly sinking into jelly on the television.
Grayson rubbed his forehead. “I appreciate the assist, really. But just because I can’t sleep doesn’t mean everyone else shouldn’t.”
“You just need us to leave you alone to be miserable in peace.” Drake nodded sagely. “Too bad.” And before Damian could register what was happening—or protect his Batman—Drake had launched himself at Grayson.
“What the hell, Tim?!” But instead of throwing the other boy to the floor, Grayson wrapped him in a headlock—and just held on.
Drake appeared completely unperturbed by his situation. “Are you telling me I’m not as heavy as Ace?”
Grayson snorted. And then he released the headlock, wrapping his arms around Drake’s chest and burying his face in Drake’s shoulder. And then he didn’t move.
***
Dick wasn’t sure if he could move. He felt like he was clinging to the one rock in the middle a raging sea. If he let go, he’d probably drown.
Tim was facing the wrong way around to fully return the embrace, but he squeezed Dick’s arms. “You could have just said you needed a hug, macho man,” Tim murmured.
“I didn’t know.” Dick sounded shocked, even to his own ears, but still only half as shocked as he felt. He pressed his forehead into Tim’s sweatshirt, and he had no idea if he was trying to hide his embarrassment or absorb Tim’s warmth, his not-dead-ness.
Bruce being gone was a universe-sized blackhole in Dick’s life. But it was also one thousand tiny potholes he tripped over when he least expected to. Dick had lived on his own for years. He’d lived with teammates and girlfriends and dirty bachelor pads. But the groove of need was so deeply worn that the first thing his subconscious craved when it was attacked by night terrors was a hug from Bruce.
Tim was short and still a bit bony under that muscle. This was nothing like hugging Bruce. But it was still, wonderfully, like hugging Tim. Each new person built a separate chamber in his heart. Tim would never fill the void left by Jason. Damian would never make up for the loss of Bruce. But knowing them, loving them, provided a counterbalance to all the losses in Dick’s life. (And made him dread, all the more, the next inescapable grief.)
Tim’s sweatshirt smelled of Alfred’s favorite detergent. Despite setting up his own hideout in Gotham, Tim was bringing laundry back to the penthouse. That knowledge made one of the knots in Dick’s chest unravel. He hadn’t chased Tim off again.
Now, Alfred’s hands were on his shoulders, thumbs carefully pressing the tense muscles Dick had been trying to ignore. A small groan escaped, and Dick decided that he was too tired for embarrassment. There was a sharp ache in relief sometimes. To let go of pain you first had to feel it.
He let his shoulders drop. His eyes prickled. But he could wait to cry until he was alone. Damian looked trepidatious enough as it was.
One of Alfred’s hands moved up to Dick’s scalp. Dick had a vague memory of lying in bed, as a child, and insisting that he was “too excited” to sleep and Alfred patiently rubbing these same crop-circles into his hair. “I’d forgotten,” Alfred murmured. “You were a very tactile child.”
Damian took a step back from the sofa, as if afraid they might forget which children in this house were not very tactile.
And that stopped whatever self-deprecating comment had been on Dick’s tongue. It was already hard enough for Damian to accept vulnerability or physical contact that wasn’t combat.
“I’m okay,” Dick promised him.
“That looks suffocating,” Damian spat. “I can remove Drake if you desire.”
“Oh, can you?” Tim muttered before Dick poked his ribs.
“I’m good. Nobody’s going to touch you if you don’t want to be touched, okay? Your dad wasn’t much of a hugger either. But he was a really good hugger when he chose to be.” And so are you. “And in some ways, that made his hugs more special, you know?”
Damian’s expression did not indicate whether or not he knew.
But gingerly, almost primly, Damian came close and grabbed one of Dick’s hands, placing it on top of his small palm. With his other hand, he patted Dick’s knuckles. (Dick did not laugh, but it was a close call.) “You will sleep, and you will be fine.” An order as much as an assurance. “Come, Pennyworth, I believe I am familiar with the linen closet where weighted blankets are stored.” Another pat and then a quick release.
Alfred brushed the hair off Dick’s forehead, and then Tim’s. “We will return shortly.”
As they disappeared down the hall, Damian offered, “If Grayson does require a dog to sleep, I can attend to it.”
A gentle quiet followed. Dick’s breathing slowed. Tim leaned back. Dick allowed himself to be smooshed into the corner of the sofa. He felt more at ease than he had in weeks.
He was surprised to find he was already crying, silently and completely involuntarily.
After several minutes, Dick croaked out, “In case I didn’t mention it before: I’m glad you’re not dead.” If the dampness on the back of Tim’s hoodie hadn’t given Dick’s tears away, then his watery voice certainly did.
“I got that impression, but thanks.” After another silence, Tim added, “You gonna to be okay?”—his tone so soft that Dick began to grasp the depth of concern behind it.
Dick wiped at his eyes. “Yeah. Didn’t mean to freak out everyone. Not sleeping for days on end kind of messes me up.”
“Unlike other humans who just replace their battery packs and keep going?” Tim pulled a couple crumpled paper napkins from his pocket and passed them to Dick.
Deciding not to examine the napkins too closely, Dick blew his nose. “So you finally admit to not being human?”
“I sleep! Stop telling Alfred I don’t sleep. It’s not going to get him off your back. He knows how to multitask his fussing.”
“Yeah.” Shame washed over Dick so suddenly he had to press his palms into his eyes to halt a fresh wave of tears.
“Hey.” Tim twisted so that he was facing Dick. “Alfred knows you didn’t mean that. Everybody says dumb things when they’re exhausted.”
“I know.” But he also knew better. “I’m sorry I’m so. . . .” (unreliable? weepy? just plain miserable to be around?) “this . . . right now.”
Tim pulled back a little and sat on the edge on the sofa. “Somebody recently told me that ‘if everyone in this family could stop acting like feelings were crimes, half our problems would be solved.’”
“Here I am, weak and vulnerable—” Dick slid down until his head hit the sofa arm, and he flung a hand across his forehead “—and you use my own words as weapons against me?”
“Always,” Tim promised. “I lie in wait for these moments.” Tim prodded his arm. “Why didn’t you let me come on patrol if you were so worn out?”
“I didn’t think it had gotten that bad yet.”
Tim raised one eyebrow and then the other.
“I know. But . . . I kept dreaming about you falling. And I couldn’t catch you. And when I was awake, I knew it was dumb, but. . . .”
. . . if you didn’t come, then I couldn’t fail to catch you when you fell.
Dick shut his eyes.
He opened them again when he felt Tim resettle on the couch so that he was lying between Dick and the rest of the room. Dick lifted his head in surprise.
“I may not be as good a guard dog as Ace, but I’m willing to give it a try.”
Dick made a half-hearted noise of protest, but Tim just slid one of the decorative pillows under his head. “Too late. I’m already comfortable.”
***
When Alfred returned, blanket over his arm and Damian in tow (carrying more blankets), Dick was already asleep. And Tim was on his third, cautious, readjustment. Dick’s right elbow was poking him in the center of his spine.
“That looks supremely uncomfortable, Master Timothy,” Alfred whispered.
If Tim had had an arm free, he would have shrugged. “It’s not that bad. I’ve fallen asleep on a rollercoaster; once I’m out, I won’t notice.”
Tim waited for Damian to make some biting remark, but he just stood near the door and glowered.
Dick didn’t move when Alfred clicked off the TV.
Alfred unfolded the blanket and let it fall over them. The blanket settled slowly. Tim felt like a landscape unexpectedly covered in snow. Actually, it was nice. Maybe he should get a weighted blanket for himself.
Damian still hadn’t moved from the doorway.
Alfred took the rest of the blankets from his arms and waited.
“Should I. . . ?”
Tim had no idea what Damian was asking, but Alfred whispered, “I believe he will sleep now. But if you prefer, I could set up a makeshift mattress for you the near the sofa.”
Damian sucked in a breath through his teeth. “That sounds overcrowded.”
Alfred nodded and cleared off the coffee table. “Then I will see you in whatever passes for morning in this house, Master Damian.”
“Good-night, Pennyworth. Drake.” But Damian continued to hover in the doorway.
“You know he’ll sleep better if he thinks you’re sleeping comfortably,” Tim tried. “You don’t have to stay if you don’t want to.”
Damian breathed out, looking, all at once, like a child up far past his bedtime. “Then my work here is complete.” The authoritative tone was somewhat marred by the yawn that followed.
As he turned, Alfred murmured, “I believe your suggestion about weight has proven invaluable. Thank you.”
“As if I could allow something as simple as sleep deprivation to take down the Batman.”
Damian’s nearly noiseless footsteps quickly faded down the hall, and Tim was finally aware of how tired he was.
Alfred cushioned the coffee table with blankets and pushed it against the sofa. At Tim’s questioning glance, he explained, “That settee makes a narrow perch. I fear you will fall off before morning.”
Tim shook his head, and at the movement, Dick’s arm tightened around him automatically and then relaxed again. “I’m not worried.” Tim shut his eyes. “He won’t let me fall.”