Chapter Text
A lonesome coo drifted down the hall, the call for comfort weakened through a wooden door separating it from the rest of the wing. Bette chirped several more times, the sound of her wings being enough to rouse Dickie from deep sleep. It took a few seconds for him to recognize that he laid in his own bed at the manor. He had grown so accustomed to sleeping next to Damian that waking up alone felt more like a dream than reality.
Bette flapped around the room erratically and wailed for someone to come play, not unusual in the middle of the night as she slept for a good portion of the day. Dickie rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling, doing his best to ignore the faint pleas.
For the first time in over a month Dickie was truly alone. He heard no other heartbeats in the wing and realized that Bruce had left, even though Damian asked him a dozen times to stay through the night. Dickie froze in terror, questioning the likelihood that something or someone bypassed the security measures on the manor.
Damian decorated his room to be void of hiding places to grant him a stronger sense of safety. Even though he trusted Damian to care for him Dickie couldn’t help but see shadows of his previous tormentors lurking in the dark. The blue button on his bedside table reminded him of an available lifeline but he feared that pressing it would alert an assailant of his location.
Instead Dickie bolted from his bed, managing to squeeze through the thin crack in the closet door. Damian had cleared out the majority of the hiding places in his room as well. The only potential spot was the cramped space beneath his bed frame that he assured Dickie was too small to fit a person.
But he hadn’t thought to ask Dickie to try himself.
Wooden slats pressed into his back, his flexibility limited to the point of barely being able to move. But it offered him relief that no member of The Court of Owls could crawl in after him.
It soothed Dickie enough that he fell dozed off within the hour and slept so deeply that he didn’t hear the bedroom door open.
The next minute passed in the blink of an eye. Dickie barely had time to register who grabbed him before Damian finished shouting at him. In the seconds it took for him to awake fully Dickie’s body had already discerned the best means of escape.
Dickie ran until his heartbeat pounded in his ears.
He soared over short stretches of hardwood to avoid making noise, landing on the patches of rugs that decorated the manor’s floors. Over the course of a month he spent each and every day learning the layout of his new home. Though it evolved into an exciting way to sate his curiosity the original expeditions stemmed from Dickie’s need to find any and every viable exit and places to hide.
Leaving the wing proved difficult due to the security measures taken to keep him in. Though Dickie didn’t understand most aspects of modern technology he overheard Bruce discussing the means in which they could track his movement throughout the home. He assumed that they used the same power to keep careful watch over him as his former Masters.
Dickie didn’t bother to attempt to free himself fully.
Wayne Manor’s size rivaled the marble labyrinths that The Court of Owls subjected him to time and time again, but the east wing had fewer twists and turns.
But just as before the root of his fear came from the likelihood of confrontation during his journey. It allowed him to develop several plans, most allowing him the potential of mobility so that he could switch spots if need be. Dickie approached a bin of markers on one of the hallway tables around the nearest corner, throwing them in every direction to set off the motion sensors. It would make tracking him all the more difficult.
Damian didn’t bother to minimize the sound of his footsteps, the soles of his slippers loud against the hardwood. His speed increased so much that Dickie heard a rug slip out of place during a particularly quick turn.
When Dickie began to investigate his new home Damian had explained that they needed to do their running in secret after Alfred came to the door with a noise complaint. Now, he seemed to abandon that precaution so that the entire manor could likely hear him move about the wing.
Dickie rounded another corner and spotted a closet door open wide enough for him to slip in without having to move it. He knew that Damian would be more likely to investigate closed rooms at first. Dickie ran past his destination, knowing that he had at least thirty seconds before Damian caught up to him.
He pushed himself up enough to grab a doorknob at the end of the hall, opening and closing the door quietly enough to appear sneaky but loud enough that Damian heard it from his position. Then, Dickie slinked back to the closet and climbed to the top of the shelf to wrap himself up in a fitted sheet.
He wedged his green blanket under his head and buried his nose in the fabric for a sense of calm. His stuffed animal still laid tipped over on his bedroom floor where he had dropped it during his rush to shove himself beneath the bed. Though he wanted nothing more than to retrieve it he settled for the scent of Damian’s shampoo and pleaded with his heart to stop pounding.
“Dickie?”
He recognized hesitance in Damian’s voice. Its volume decreased dramatically so that it came as more of a whisper. Dickie lifted his head just enough to see Damian’s shadow pass by the open door.
As expected he approached the newly shut door, but before he walked across the threshold a new voice called out for him. Dickie recognized it to be Bruce’s and he knew then that his worry to press the blue button had been for nothing. His disobedience required punishment, even if his new family had greater patience than his former Masters.
But instead of relief to see his father Dickie saw a different form of tension dominate Damian’s body as the outline of his stilted body strode past the closet once again.
“Are you okay? What’s going on?” Bruce took a few heavy steps forward.
“He was hiding under my bed and I-I didn’t even realize I was shouting until he took off.”
Dickie frowned at the tremor in Damian’s voice. His breath hitched too loudly, too obviously, especially as he spoke to his father. The tension between Damian and Bruce had never been easy to ignore, especially when Dickie spent so much time learning everything he could about his guardian. Damian put on a special voice when he spoke to his father, one that showed no emotional vulnerability, but he now seemed either unwilling or incapable of keeping his words steady.
“He would never hurt anyone.”
Dickie blinked in confusion. He expected their search to be dominated by the fear that he had the intent to attack. Something in him warmed at the idea of Damian believing in him, even after his biggest mistake.
Damian led Bruce to the door he thought he heard open and close. When they entered and constructed a plan Dickie took a deep breath and considered his options. The bedroom he tricked them into entering had enough in it that it would likely take the two of them working together upwards of three minutes to search each nook and cranny, and they seemed to have agreed to split up. With two other rooms in this hall alone he would likely not be found for a while, especially if they disregarded the open closet until the end.
But then came the question of how long Dickie wanted to hide for. In his panic to find cover he hadn’t considered the moves to be made after he darted from view. He couldn’t keep himself crammed on the top of a shelf forever, especially when a group of vigilantes searched high and low for him in a finite space. Given the skills he had witnessed thus far, he couldn’t expect to stay hidden for more than an hour or two.
In the middle of his questioning the closet door swung open. A tall silhouette entered the room and Dickie covered himself fully a mere second before the light flickered on. Its bulb was dimmer than most others in the wing as it had been neglected due to disuse, giving Dickie a slight advantage.
He could smell Damian’s soap as the man shifted through the closet. He removed towels from the shelves and crouched to check beneath them. Dickie shifted a few inches down so that his legs were covered by a thin pillow. Damian’s hand came up to gently pat the shelf, his touch just firm enough to register from beneath the cushion.
Part of him wanted to sit up, to end the game of hide and seek with a short bout of tears and end up pressed against Damian’s side in the big bed. Part of him wanted to lash out and attack before making a real escape out of the creaky window in the bedroom next door.
Instead he remained completely still and held his breath until Damian began to tremor.
“You can fix this. Everything is going to be okay, everything is… it’s going to be fine.”
Dickie shifted enough to catch a glimpse of Damian from beneath his sheet. He had never seen him so visibly distraught, even when Dickie pretended to be asleep to spy on him.
“You’re not your father, you’re not your father,” Damian chanted.
He understood little of interpersonal relationships still, but he knew that something varied in his relationship with Damian and Damian’s relationship with Bruce. Seeing it so clearly affect Damian made Dickie yearn to reach out for him and offer comfort.
As his fingers twitched with indecision Damian sighed and went to continue his search.
Dickie stayed in the same spot as they passed through again, though he felt his resolve crumbling at the way Damian pleaded with him to come out. When he watched Damian’s shadow pass by the closet for the second time he inched towards the edge, stopping himself only when he heard Bruce’s voice alongside him.
“You have to stay level headed.”
“I asked you to stay upstairs. I asked you to check on him .”
“He didn’t press the button.”
“He left the room !”
Damian’s voice spiked enough to be noticeable but not so much that he began yelling once again. Dickie curled in on himself, knowing that he had been wrong to ignore their instructions and avoid alerting Bruce that he woke up. But he hadn’t wanted Bruce , he wanted Damian .
And he wanted to prove that he could be brave, just like Damian told him every day. If he could make it through one night he knew the next wouldn’t be as hard, and that Damian would be proud of him. The thought of that loss alone made his stomach twist uncomfortably.
Dickie heard nearly every conversation if it happened in their wing of the manor, and he knew how much the rest of the family needed him back to help protect Gotham. He felt guilty for keeping one of the best heroes in the city all to himself day in and day out.
Damian missed it too. He never said it outright, but Dickie watched the way his body language shifted when the others came to fill him in on their latest mission or an eventful patrol. They described their missions excitedly as Damian took notes and offered bits and pieces of advice or research of his own.
Late at night he stared longingly in the direction of the window as he poured over case files, but he always put on a smile when he focused his attention on Dickie instead.
Trapped in his own thoughts, Dickie missed the final exchange between Bruce and Damian. The sound of the main door closing caused him to flinch, his skin rustling against the clean smelling sheet that kept him covered. Dickie ventured a glimpse to watch Damian lean against the wall with his face in his hands from just outside of his hiding place.
After a moment he pushed himself back to an upright position and trekked the way back down the hall. Dickie heard him open the bedroom door and trudge inside, pausing only briefly before he entered the closet. The bed creaked with added weight, signifying Damian’s destination.
“Dickie, I know I shouted terrible things. But I didn’t mean what I said. Any of it.”
Dickie frowned, the soft voice more difficult to understand than he expected. Curiosity got the best of him and he descended the shelves, the fitted sheet fluttering to the ground beside him. They had opened the closet door fully when searching the small room so he didn’t need to worry about loud hinges.
He wanted to believe Damian with everything in him. But he kept picturing the glint of the knife, the confusion in his eyes, and the loudest noise he had heard in a month. Despite his hesitation he continued to sneak in Damian’s direction, his blanket wrapped tightly around his shoulders to keep him from shaking.
Dickie paused outside of the bedroom door. He kept himself pressed flat to the wall, eyes searching for the best position to take if someone entered the hallway unexpectedly. The idea of Bruce finding him after hours in hiding sent a shiver down his spine.
“I thought you had been hurt, and I was angry with myself that I didn’t protect you.”
Damian often said things that confused Dickie due to his lack of real world experience. He still had issues in recognizing and labeling his emotions after such a long time rejecting them, but he understood anger. More notably, Dickie understood projecting those feelings onto himself.
“I never should have yelled at you, I know, but I…”
Dickie thought of booming voices in concrete rooms, their volume so high that his ears rang for the remainder of the day. They continued until he reached the verge of tears from discomfort and never showed an ounce of regret after. He expected Damian to continue his screaming for hours on end, but now his voice rose little above a whisper.
“I was afraid that I lost you. I was so afraid, Dickie.”
He remembered all of those weeks ago, just days after they first met, when Damian confided in Dickie that he had fears of his own.
The idea of a Master experiencing fear nearly made him laugh at the time, half convinced that Damian meant it in a silly way. After all, he had nothing to be afraid of. Dickie questioned how someone with so much power and adaptability could experience anything other than complete and total confidence.
But Damian had never been a Master. Damian took care of Dickie so thoroughly that he rarely experienced discomfort. He used funny voices when they played with dolls and read Dickie’s favorite board books to the point of memorization. He provided him with three home cooked meals a day, often allowing Dickie to assist with preparation. He bought him toys to play with in the bath and always kept his head above the water to prevent him from panicking.
Damian spent hours every single day keeping Dickie fed and clean and happy .
At his most frightened Dickie often wished to lash out and attack whatever around him caused pain. He wanted to rip the world apart just for some semblance of control over his life, just so that he didn’t feel so helpless.
The Court spent years corralling him into their perfectly obedient soldier. His anger had been rerouted to keep his proclivity for violence high, but instead of being directed at The Court of Owls he took it out on their enemies.
Dickie struggled to recount much of his time with The Court before he fell into line exactly as they wanted him to. But if he focused hard enough he could still feel flesh between his teeth and skin clogging the space beneath his fingernails. He could still hear the screams that left his tongue coated in blood and the jingling of oversized restraints around his wrists to keep him from attacking further.
Dickie remembered how tense his body became after that when he felt fear creep in, how hard it was to keep himself from ripping apart the person closest to him when he recognized the potential for danger. It mirrored the way that Damian’s body went rigid upon Bruce entering a room, especially when he adorned the Batman uniform.
What Dickie had perceived to be Damian’s anger now warped into all too familiar anxiety.
The duckling night light shone on Damian’s face, the plush removed just seconds prior. His chest shuddered with yet another uneven breath and Dickie listened to the unsteady beat of his heart. He appeared more disheveled than Dickie had ever seen him, even when he bolted awake from his own nightmares.
Dickie couldn’t bear to leave him in so much pain.
He stepped cautiously into the room, too focused on Damian to acknowledge Bette’s familiar plea to play. Though it had woken him up in the first place he felt no desire to chase her around her room. The only thing he wanted now was for everything to go back to how it had been the day before.
For a moment Damian didn’t notice him and Dickie knew he could still escape if he wanted to. But he took another step forward, mimicking the caution that Damian used when approaching him during his lowest moments. He kept his hands upturned to show that he only wanted to help, hopeful that his submission would be accepted.
Finally, Damian looked up to meet his eyes. Dickie stood strong for a beat, one foot back to allow him a swift escape if need be. He froze in shock when he recognized Damian’s red rimmed eyes as a sign of tears, and though he didn’t cry openly Dickie could still recognize the emotion in his gaze.
“I’m sorry,” Damian croaked, “Dickie, I’m so sorry.”
Dickie faltered from the shock of receiving an apology. All this time he had expected to be the one that had ruined it all, but from the way Damian shuddered he realized that his guardian felt just as guilty about their confrontation.
The genuine regret in Damian’s words left him disoriented and confused.
Dickie was the one who had to be sorry for everything he had ever done. He considered it his fault for disobeying instructions, his fault for running away, and his fault for ignoring Damian when he called out to him. He considered it to be his fault for merely existing in the first place, and his fault for not being as brave as he was supposed to be.
The Court of Owls forced Dickie to his knees for every mistake, but Damian crouched on the floor himself.
It broke any of the lingering hesitation. Dickie leapt forward with the full force of his body and crashed into Damian hard enough to send them both tipping over.
Damian varied between holding him as close as possible to examining him for injuries. Dickie still wore his special pair of pajamas; he chose to wear red birds, believing that it would grant him Damian’s superhero bravery for their first night apart.
Damian didn’t ask him where he had been or why he hid for so long, choosing instead to brush the dusty curls from Dickie’s eyes. He brought both hands up to cover the boy’s cheeks and pulled him close to press a kiss to his temple. The gesture was still somewhat foreign, only having come in the dead of the night when Damian felt him stir. He placed his nose flat to the top of Dickie’s head and took a deep breath.
“I never meant to hurt you,” Damian pulled back to meet his eyes, “I made a mistake and I’m going to work to make it up to you, okay?”
Dickie had no idea how to respond to the apology. Instead he flung his arms around Damian’s neck and held him tight enough that he felt the man stutter through a breath as he adjusted to the pressure. It shocked him too deeply to see how Damian fretted over their conversation, his body shaking so slightly that it might have been imperceivable to someone that didn’t know him so well.
“I would never send you away, especially to The Court. I’ll do everything I can to make sure you never see them again,” Damian mumbled into his shoulder.
Dickie nodded, his cheeks scraping against Damian’s neck. Though he had gone less than half a day without physical touch he couldn’t bear to go a second longer without it. The warmth of a body did more to alleviate cold than the highest setting on a heated blanket.
They stayed huddled together on the floor for a long time before Damian tapped a bracelet on his wrist. Dickie still had no idea what it was for, or what it did in general, but he barely had thirty seconds without bone crushing comfort before Damian completed his goal.
Dickie slouched with exhaustion after having been woken halfway through his usual sleep cycle. He experienced a sharp adrenaline crash and relied almost entirely on Damian to keep him upright.
“Think you can make it a few more minutes without falling asleep?” Damian cradled him, “I have something I want to show you.”
Dickie nodded but kept his fingers curled around Damian’s shirt to signify a desire to be held. He didn’t have to worry, however, as Damian kept him close to his chest as they journeyed down the hall. A door disguised as a bookshelf led them down a thin stairwell that Dickie didn’t recognize. He lifted his head to take a curious look around the room and tilted his head to the side when he saw a door framed in the same light that greeted him most mornings through pale white veils.
“I trust you,” Damian whispered.
With Dickie still on his hip he shimmied a key into a series of locks and put his thumb to a glowing surface. The door creaked when it opened automatically, a sudden overload on his senses. Dickie sat up in Damian’s arms and looked with wide eyes at large puffs high above his head.
He recognized them to be clouds but their now reddish hue and pristine white had always been a dull gray when The Court of Owls released him on an assignment. Gaps between them shone a number of colors, from pale pink to deep blue. Something golden rested beneath towering green trees that surrounded a field of dewy grass.
The air smelled so fresh that he breathed as deeply as possible over and over again. A variety of flowers danced in the early morning breeze, spreading their scent across the yard. His nose tickled from a trace of pollen and when he sneezed the sound of a dozen birds flapping their wings roared above them.
“How about I hold your hand and we can explore together,” Damian suggested.
Dickie nodded, still cautious of his new surroundings but so intrigued that he couldn’t stand being so far from the plush green beneath him. Damian tugged off his socks and rolled up his pant legs enough for the dew to touch his skin rather than his clothing. At the first tickle of grass beneath his feet Dickie let out a gasp of surprise.
He scrambled from Damian’s arms but immediately clung to his fingers to prevent their separation. Dickie pulled him around as he excitedly touched everything in sight, constantly discovering new things to poke at.
“It’ll take some time for your eyes to adjust to the sun, but for now I can bring you outside when the sun rises or sets,” Damian grinned.
The idea of coming to this place again excited Dickie to the point of clinging to Damian’s leg in thanks. He recognized the sun from Bruce’s original drawing at the safe house and from various picture books he owned. But the bright yellow circle with squiggly lines looked meager in comparison to the shining star a quarter of the way above the treeline.
Dickie rolled around on the ground, weaving between patches of flowers and birdhouses on high posts. They sang as the sun rose and he jumped in time with their chitters until Damian joined in on the dance beside him. After a few minutes Damian released Dickie’s hand and encouraged him to run around the large yard.
“We’ll have a race,” he smirked.
Dickie took off, preparing to hold himself back. But when he felt the cool breeze on his cheeks and felt soft dirt beneath his feet he couldn’t help but sprint from one end to the other, then back again. He circled the field half a dozen times, pulling out a series of aerial stunts and gymnastics as he did so.
Damian cheered for him from across the yard and stopped trying to keep up. He occasionally ran after Dickie in an attempt to catch him, but every time he came close the boy vaulted off with ease. He had never experienced such freedom in his life, every movement thus far having been restrained in one way or another.
But here, with Damian, he had the opportunity to run until Damian took a seat on the ground to rest.
Dickie invaded his personal space immediately and snuggled into his chest. He wheezed, his throat sore from the constant bursts of laughter as he played. Damian placed a hand on the center of his back and tapped three times while they both caught their breath.
“There’s something I’ve wanted to tell you for some time. And I’ve been…” Damian cleared his throat, “I don’t like to talk about how I feel.”
For a second Dickie thought that Damian had finished his confession due to the long pause in conversation. Finally, their gazes met once again and Damian released a shaky breath.
“I worry all the time that I’m doing everything wrong and will just hurt you in the long run. I never thought that I could care about someone as much as I care about you,” Damian revealed.
Dickie tilted his head to the side once again, at a complete loss. So much of what Damian did improved the quality of his life that he kept waiting for it to be another one of The Court’s tests. But with every passing day he believed more and more that he truly had a home.
“Do you remember the book we read together? The one about families?” Damian held his hand, tapping his fingers three times to Dickie’s palm.
Dickie nodded slowly and returned the gesture.
“And we talked about how a parent is someone that gives their child everything they need to be happy and healthy as they grow,” he continued, “And that they love them more than anything in the whole world?”
Dickie could picture the drawings of adults holding miniature versions of themselves printed on glossy paper. Duke gave him the book but Damian took a few days before he finally read it to him before bed. His voice shook when he reached the page about parents, turning those pagers far quicker than the others.
“Your mom and dad felt that way about you, Dickie, and so do I.”
Damian attempted a wobbly smile, his hand slowly unfurling around Dickie’s as though he expected him to take off at the confession. His anxiety was obvious, even if Dickie hadn’t been able to hear the rapid increase in his heartbeat as he spoke.
“Is that okay?”
Dickie stopped breathing for a beat, focusing intently on the practice he put into perfecting a sign that Duke taught him weeks ago when they read the family book together. Slowly, he lifted a fist with his pinky, index finger, and thumb raised.
“ I love you .”
And when the words caught in Damian’s throat he mirrored the gesture.
The dew on the grass diminished with their rolling around and the rising sun, providing Dickie with yet another new texture to explore. He guided Damian’s hand to the dry patch and then back to the damp blades to exemplify the difference. Damian lifted his hand so that Dickie could count each dew drop on his palm, the familiar game grounding him in an otherwise overwhelming environment.
“It’s getting bright out. We should head inside,” Damian lifted Dickie to his feet, “Race you to the door?”
This time Dickie did hang back, taunting Damian as he fluctuated his speed dramatically depending on their position. He ran circles around him and jumped onto his shoulders, performing every flip and spring he knew on their sprint to the door.
Damian eventually caught him midair and set Dickie on his hip, pressing three quick kisses to the top of his head as they made their way home.