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The day Dick had a mental breakdown, it shouldn’t have come as a surprise to anyone, really. Sure, without context it could’ve come out of nowhere. One day he was completely fine, running Titan missions, popping by to help out in Gotham, responding to backup calls all over the world as one of the most trusted superheroes—the next, he was sitting on top of the Manor’s roof on a humid summer night while the house bustled underneath, probably trying to find him.
It was just a mug. An ancient 12-year-old hand-made piece of pottery, misshapen but well-loved and well-used. Maybe he wouldn’t have reacted as dramatically if it was some random old souvenir mug that they'd had hundreds of lying around, even if some were used more lovingly than others, but this was Bruce’s mug. This was the mug Jason made from Bruce in the before, the words ‘World’s Best Dad’ painted on it, and it was something Bruce had used regularly—and Dick just broke it.
It had shattered across the kitchen floor with a loud noise, loud enough to probably wake the light sleepers in the house—basically everyone. That would be Bruce, Alfred, Damian. But fuck, Tim just came to visit, and Cass had already moved back years ago, and Duke was part of the family now, Dick was just stuck in another time, another year, another state of the family that he hadn’t yet pieced together with glue and flimsy yet.
They’d all be awake and come to see the mess Dick’s made. They’d see how he ruined everything he touched, they’d see the pathetic state he’s in, they’d see the panic and unprofessionalism unbefitting of someone like him, they’d see him—
Dick broke the mug. Jason made it for Bruce. It was priceless because of that, because that was something Jason made with his own two hands, something he put his heart and soul into for his dad and Dick had just gone and ruined it, his hands poisoning everything he touched. This was permanent—this was the countless number of civilians he couldn’t save, their deaths signalling the end of their lives because the world did not love them the way it loved the heroes who kept coming back. This was Blüdhaven decimated and rotting under the remnants of Chemo, hundreds of thousands gone because Dick took a gamble and failed . This was the rope cut, his mom and dad falling and landing with a sickening crunch of wet flesh and bone.
The shards of the mug lay motionless and Dick was frozen. He couldn’t breath, or maybe he was breathing too much, chest stuttering and hands trembling. When was the last time he breathed? He tried to recall but the memories slipped through his fingers, leaving only the brittle reminders that stuck to his skin and won’t sift out.
Mom and Dad dead, Jason dead, Lilith dead, Donna dead, Roy lying in a hospital bed on a ventilator, Kori’s heartbreak, the shitshow that was the Outsiders, Haly’s burnt down, 36 fucking people and Blockbuster and Tarantula, Steph dead, Blüdhaven a toxic wasteland, Bruce gone, Damian dead, himself helpless against the approaching hand, Spyral—and the world on his shoulders like an Atlas too young.
“Big brother,” Cass said from the doorway and Dick’s face was numb as he moved mechanically to look at her. She was staring at him, probably seeing every weakness in his body as well as he could feel it trembling through him. She stepped forward, hesitant, and Dick realised absently that he was hyperventilating. She looked him over again, then seemed to have read something that had her saying, “I’m going to get Bruce.”
She was gone before Dick had a chance to say anything, but he should’ve. He wanted to shout and beg her to come back, to please don’t tell Bruce, to forget about it—but how could anyone forget about it when Dick had already ruined something like a curse befallen the things he touched.
But Cassandra was getting Bruce and Bruce was going to take one look at him and see inadequate. Breaking was a waste of time, not when Dick was one the most vital leaders of the Titans, not when he had hundreds of contacts relying on him all across the world, not when Bruce and his family needed him to be stronger than anyone else, not when he was a safety net for so many people. Breaking would just lead to disappointment for everyone.
Dick could not let Bruce see him like this so he did one thing he knew best as a Bat—he disappeared. That’s why he was sitting on the rooftop, watching the dark starless sky above him. He’d stopped hyperventilating, dampening the shaking down until he was completely still against the roof shingles, every line of his body pulled taut.
Dick imagined, hysterically, a corrosive discolouring on the spot of the roof he was sitting on, spreading out beneath him like acid, like poison.
Somewhere below, he heard a door opening, then Tim’s voice carrying over. He was checking the garden for Dick, who watched impassively as Tim made his way through the hedges, then cut across the lawn to the swimming pool. He felt like he should open his mouth and shout, tell him where he was, but the thought came and went, not a single muscle in his body moving to react to the subconscious suggestion.
It was hot out. He should tell Tim to stop looking. The night was devoid of wind and the humidity made him feel sticky, and he knew no one wanted to be awake on a night like this when the cicadas filled the silence so utterly. They should go to bed.
Dick lay back until the cool shingles pressed into his back, and he let that coolness seep the uncomfortable warmth from him. He sighed, not content exactly, but more into the stillness of the space around him.
This was good; the height and night had calmed him down so much that he didn’t feel a single hint of the panic that had threatened to drown him earlier. In fact, he couldn’t feel anything at all. It was a peculiar feeling, but Dick didn’t mind. He was no longer panicking, no longer a pathetic image of unprofessionalism. It was just a mug and he got worked up over nothing.
A mug that a teenage Jason had made. He was so small then, and still sometimes when Dick looked at the behemoth of a man he had become, he still saw the small kid in his large frame, the soft youth around his eyes when he was unguarded identical to the same look he had as a kid. Very suddenly, like a flare in the dark, an ache permeated from his chest and through his whole body—because he was so suddenly missing his little brother. The feeling was too big for his chest and it cut through the haze of apathy so sharply it hurt, so jarring that it felt like a solid punch to the torso.
He suddenly missed the nights he caught a young Jason sneaking a cigarette outside the manor on humid summer days like this one, and he was distant in the way you were with the kid you don’t live with, but they talked for an hour about everything and nothing and the cicadas sang a droning song all night, and sometimes they laughed and joked and smacked each other’s arms. He missed, more recently, Jason outside the Hood, still smoking from the window of his shitty ‘safehouse’ that was practically his permanent base, the Gotham skyline crowding them in, the grey expanse a prison rather than a tomorrow. They were closer than they ever were because Dick was a being built from his own guilt and obsession, and Jason did nothing to deter Dick’s persistence because he wanted a brother again just as much as Dick needed to be one.
He missed that one summer night, a week-long camping trip the Old Guard Titans had dragged him out to and Dick was sixteen and young and by all means this was what he should’ve been doing. They’d skinny-dipped and played drinking games with alcohol they were too young to buy, and Wally made up a life where they were all normal teenagers with no secret identities and he made up imaginary cliques and drama and melodramatic plotlines. Roy imagined himself a quarterback, Donna with a school newspaper, Garth as the swim-team sweetheart. They’d joke about Dick getting confessions and being the popular kid with an active social life, and that night they’d promise to go to Prom together. But Dick would never go to prom in highschool, either getting called away for Robin on the day of or just skipping it to hang out with the then Teen Titans, the promise long forgotten under the category of silly things you say to your friends on a drunken night. They stayed up till two when the galaxy was brightest, and Dick had felt the pang of homesickness, longing to travel under an open sky before him.
He missed that as well—following the summer with Haly’s, the caravan travelling on the tail end of summer while the decaying touch of autumn chased them from behind. Travelling under the free sky was magical, the expansive blue space stretching from one horizon to another and reaching even further. He missed sitting on his dad’s shoulders staring straight upwards at the moving mass like a frozen lake hanging upside down above him. He missed being small enough for his mom to cradle him, missed having her larger hands encircle his smaller ones, missed being held like something precious.
He missed Bruce, the before, when he was soft edges and light-hearted teasing that was not charged the way they were these days. Dick couldn’t make a school overnight trip because of Robin business and Bruce had felt so bad that they took a trip to a private beach then camped out under the stars, and Bruce, with his unnecessarily wide array of knowledge, had tried to teach him about the constellations but halfway through, Dick had recalled that John Grayson used to do the same thing as well and he started crying, to which Bruce had panicked at. Dick remembered being rocked by his dad that night, and he recalled every other time Dick was held like that, safe and small and loved in his dad’s arms—when Dick was Robin and he launched himself at Batman, when he was shot by Two-Face then the Joker after, when Bruce came back from being lost in time, when he died and woke up with a racing heart and beaten body as Bruce caught him.
And suddenly the ache was too much to bear. He missed his parents, he missed Haly’s, he missed the teenage years he never had, he missed the Original Titan’s place in his life—he missed what could’ve been if he wasn’t so ruined and broken that a normal life had never occurred to him at all, because to him the option was just an illusion. He missed Jason and the years that were taken from him, he missed a time that had already passed and that he could never go back to, the youth he wasted, but mostly he just missed Bruce. He just wanted his dad.
Dick rolled onto his side, tears rolling down his cheek, his throat closing up. He felt like he swallowed a toad, choking on it. The individual pains—that he could’ve taken, compartmentalising and storing them away so he could look at things objectively the way he was trained to do. Individual pains he was used to, and he was used to suppressing them, usually bursting in an unsatisfying confrontation with Bruce which left him more wired up than before, a mess of ruination that he couldn’t put back together correctly afterwards.
However, this… melancholy – was incapacitating. It pierced through his chest, a javelin thrown from the heavens as an inevitable part of the human experience, and that was where the hurt bloomed from, tight and aching. Never had he felt like this before, like his life was just a bad dream and this pain was the first moment of clarity he’d ever had, a wakeful anguish of the soul.
It was baffling how it took over 20 years for him to break.
And once he did, it felt like it was never going to end. Was this the rest of his life now? Two decades of pain and trauma and repression catching up on him in a moment, and it was never going to leave him. He wanted Bruce, he wanted his dad to come and make it better, but would it ever be better? Would he have been happier growing up normal, without Batman and Robin and Gotham—would he still be subject to this magnitude of pain? The moment he became Bruce’s son, he was guaranteed to suffer for this city, and whoever came after him would too. This life was going to kill him and it already had.
“Dick?” Someone called out, voice directed at the roof—which meant they found him. It didn’t matter though, because he couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, couldn’t think when the pain paralysed him. It was endless, and Dick could not imagine a future without this pain present in everything he did.
Deliberate footsteps made their way across the rooftop, deep and heavy in a way that could only belong to one person, coming to a stop right behind him.
“Dick,” Bruce said, crouching next to him, “what’s wrong?”
Where could he even start? He dropped his heart on the kitchen floor and it had shattered, every barrier he’d built to protect himself from those two decades had been decimated and there was a cavity in his chest that felt rotted and eaten through. The ache sat in his chest, made a home where his heart used to be and burrowed inside the decaying hollow of his body.
Something moved towards Dick in the periphery of his vision and he flinched. Bruce’s hand froze where it was reaching for him. He was pathetic—an adult man crying on a rooftop, flinching from mundane movements when he knew better—he squeezed his eyes shut so he didn’t have to deal with the inevitable disappointment from Bruce. How would Bruce feel if the man he trained to lead the Justice League, the man who was supposed to be the Hero Community’s safety net, the man who was his contingency plan – how would he feel if that man was this weak, this pathetic? If he had a mental breakdown over a mug breaking, how was he supposed to shoulder the stress of the rest of the world? Dick was shaking now, tears still streaming down his face, because Dick knew Bruce. That small involuntary reaction was just as good as a rejection from Dick, and Bruce would back off every time.
“Chum, we should get you inside.”
Dick shook his head frantically, a completely rational feeling of shame arising within him. He had survived so much, had gone through worse things and come out victorious, but this was not something he wanted to beat. It felt impossible, an indomitable hurt that he was never going to get rid of.
“Can I bring you down?” Bruce asked again, and his hands pressed against Dick’s shoulder. The touch was warm, anchoring, and a strangled sound left his throat. Bruce was supposed to leave. That’s what he always did. Why was he – why would he stay?
The sound seemed to alarm Bruce and he effortlessly pulled Dick into his lap like he was nine again. Dick’s cheek pressed on Bruce’s chest, his legs curled up, and he felt small, felt held like all the times Bruce did hold him like this. The embrace was something so natural to Bruce it broke something inside Dick—something that was already crumbling—and he let out a sob.
“Dad,” Dick babbled, “dad, dad—”
“I’m here,” Bruce said and he was. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
“Dad,” Dick did not stop sobbing, fingers coming up to grip the soft material of Bruce’s turtleneck.
“Tell me what’s wrong,” Bruce said, and if Dick was anyone else he would’ve dismissed the pleading tone as a trick of the ear; this was not something Batman did. But Dick knew Bruce better than he knew anyone, knew the way his body moved more than he knew himself. “Tell me and I’ll fix it. Let me make it right.”
I would do anything for you, Bruce did not say, but Dick heard anyway. A reassurance that made the next question easier.
“Do you love me?” Dick asked. It felt juvenile, childish to ask that, like he was an insecure kid who doubted his place in the world. The thing was, Dick knew Bruce loved him. Knew it in the casual shoulder touches, in the absolute trust he would not give anyone else that wasn’t family, knew it in the way he would always share Gotham. But sometimes, there was the niggling doubt that Bruce loved him for the way he was dependable, the way he was useful.
But Bruce, who could not say those words out loud in fear that whatever took his first family away from him would hear and take the second away as well – without hesitation, he said, “More than anything.” Like it was a fact of the universe.
So Dick told him, “It hurts.” Because this man will take the hurt away. This man he trusted with his life will make it better. “It hurts.”
“Where? Were you hurt earlier? Did you see Alfred?”
“It hurts here.” Dick’s hands came to hold his chest, and the tone of voice must have done something to convince Bruce it wasn’t physical.
Bruce’s hand came up to rest on his nape, cradling him gently like Dick was something breakable. Dick always hated it when Bruce treated him like something weak, like he couldn’t be trusted not to get himself and others killed, citing inexperience and irresponsibility and treating him like an amateur. But this was his dad and he was holding him like reverence, like something precious. Here, Dick was not weak, but just something Bruce needed to protect with his life, and it was worth a hundred verbal affirmations.
“What can I do?” Bruce said, desperate. “Let me make it better. Tell me how to make it better.”
“I – I – I can’t,” Dick cried, “I don’t – know .”
“Was it the mug?” Bruce asked. “It’s just a mug, chum.”
“It’s Jason’s mug, the one – that one—” he had to impress the significance of what happened to Bruce, but when he said it like that it just seemed ridiculous. A mug, a singular mug, rendered him to this state. Now it was just embarrassing; Dick hid his face in Bruce’s collar bone.
Bruce continued rocking him like a baby, carding his hands through Dick’s hair.
“I don’t want to do this anymore,” Dick whispered. He had turned 31 this year but he felt so old .
“Do what? You’re never too big for me to carry.”
Dick curled further into Bruce’s large body, something that was always protection-safe-home . He said, “I’m older than my parents will ever be.”
Why did he just think that?
“And you’ll get older still,” Bruce told him.
“But – it’s too hard , B. It’s going to hurt forever ,” he wailed out the last word, a childish complaint, fit for the childish way he felt being held in his dad’s arms
“It’s not, I promise you.” Bruce pressed a kiss to the crown of his head. “I’ll fix this. Whatever you need, tell me. Damian? The Titans? I can get Clark here right now. Anything for you.”
He wanted his parents, he wanted Jason, he wanted to stop hurting, and he wanted his dad. He just cried.
“Dick,” Bruce said helplessly. “I – I’ll get Jason to make a new mug.”
Despite himself, Dick barked out a laugh in between his sobs.
“It’ll say ‘World’s Best Brother’ in blue.”
“Jay’s not gonna do that for me,” Dick said, but he was smiling even as his tears fell.
“I’ll make sure he does.”
“You can’t make him do anything he doesn’t want to do if it kills you.”
“He’ll do it for you,” Bruce reassured him, cradling his cheek so he was looking him in the eyes.
Dick sniffed. “You won’t find him.”
“I’ll use his emergency line.”
“Then he won’t answer it ever again.”
“You’re underestimating what I’d do for you.”
Dick could not take the honesty in Bruce’s piercing blue eyes, because there was no doubt he would do it. It would kill Bruce to not talk to Jason again, but he was willing to do this one thing just to soothe Dick’s imaginary hurts. But Dick couldn’t let him do that.
Dick shook his head, leaning into his dad’s touch. He said, “I miss him.”
Bruce, apparently settled, merely grunted, “Hmm.” He was all out of words but Dick heard, Me too .
“I miss my parents.”
“Hmm.” Me too.
“I want—” he stopped.
“Hmm?” What’s wrong?
“I don’t want to be here anymore.”
Bruce was silent for a moment, petting Dick’s head absently, smoothing his hair down over the crown of his head. The touch lulled him. He said, “I don’t want to ask this.”
Dick stiffened.
Bruce felt it, tightening his hold around him. “Please.”
“You’ll ask anyways,” Dick grumbled, but Bruce had pleaded.
“This isn’t like Blüdhaven, is it?”
Dick closed his eyes. He was so fucking tired.
“Dick.”
“I just want it to stop.”
“I need you – to tell me. Tell me this isn’t like Chemo.”
Dick breathed shakily. He felt fragile, but Bruce’s arms around him were holding all the pieces together. Bruce wouldn’t let him fall. “It’s Chemo.”
A sharp inhale.
“It’s Chemo. And Spyral and Blockbuster and Slade fucking Wilson and Donna and – and Joker and Harvey Dent and Zucco and—”
Arms holding him together, anchoring him to Gotham again. Bruce was never going to let him go.
“Why did you let me be Robin?” Dick gasped, vision blurred again. He couldn’t see the look on Bruce's face, didn’t want to. “Why did you leave and make me Batman? Why did you ruin me?”
Bruce buried his face in Dick’s hair.
“You ruined me,” Dick said, thumping his fist weakly against Bruce’s hard chest. He made no move to get out from under his chin, from under where Bruce curled his whole body around him like he was going to disappear.
“You’re not ruined, Dick,” Bruce said, “You’re perfect.”
“It’s never going to stop hurting.”
“You’ll see a therapist. Take a break from Nightwing—” Dick made a noise of protest, because Bruce was being controlling again, but Bruce continued— “No, listen. If it hurts you this much, then I’m not letting you – Dick, please. From Nightwing, from the Titans, from Batman. We can work out a system for your emergency lines. I’ll tell Tim to hang out with you more, I’ll get Damian a few days off school – I’ll even drag Jason back home if I have to.”
Dick whimpered pitifully, “It won’t get better.”
“It will,” Bruce said, so honest, so convinced it hurt. He cradled Dick’s cheek again, held his face between his calloused palm and his shoulder, looking down at him, and there was nowhere else Dick could turn to but his resolute expression. There was something knowing in his voice when he said, “It will get better. This feeling, Dick? It’s not forever. I promise you this is not forever.”
“How can you promise that?” Dick asked, voice small.
“Because I will make sure it’s not forever. Dick, I will give you Gotham if you ask for it.”
Dick looked into his eyes, searching. This was undeniable truth. This was not Batman choosing the mission, this was Bruce Wayne choosing him . Dick said, “And if I just want my dad?”
Bruce pressed a kiss to his forehead. “Then I will tell you: anything you want.”