Work Text:
He felt so cold.
There was a thunderstorm outside with heavy rain. The still air, already humid and sticky in his apartment, made Dick's clothes cling to him more than they already had been before. Besides the storm, the only thing Dick could hear was his own uneven and heavy breathing.
It was almost pitch black in his apartment. Almost because just down the hall, past the opened door, was his bedroom illuminated by a bedside lamp and the conjoined bathroom’s light. That and Dick’s phone screen at full brightness, nearly blinding him as he shakily typed in his password. With how foggy and off he felt, Dick was surprised when he was rewarded with his home screen. He sniffled, carefully looking at the icons and their names on his phone. At some point, he’d found what he was looking for: his contact list.
It’s been a long time since he’s been in this position, and while it isn’t the worst Dick’s felt, it’s one of the first times he’s actually considered reaching out to anyone for help. He’d always just braved it alone; he’d be lying down and taking on whatever onslaught of nastiness came his way. This time was different, however, because this time Dick was more scared of being alone than he was of what he knew was coming.
He didn’t know who he was going to call, or more so, who would actually pick up the phone—there were so many bridges burned, especially after his death and stint with Spyral. It was okay though, he wasn’t going to push any of the well-deserved blame off of himself (his guilt wouldn’t let him). Dick tore his gaze from his phone, looking off at his shitty, old carpet that he was picking at with his free hand. He needed to think.
Automatically, all of his siblings were out of the question. Jason and Tim definitely wouldn’t take his calls because they barely answered his texts at the moment. Cassandra was out of the country. Duke was too new to it all and patrolled during the day, and it was so late that it was almost time to consider it early. Of course he could call Damian, only he would never dump his shitty issues onto him; Damian would try to pretend to be cool and collected even if he was worried about Dick, and that would just make Dick feel more like a shitty person than he was.
He wasn’t going to call Barbara, that was just…not going to happen at all. Donna and Wally were a no-go because he couldn’t put this on them either. Everyone else was also a big fucking no-go, because Dick fucked up and was fucked up, and he was the no-go for everyone else.
Dick bit his lip, trying to hold back a sob, and instead managed to let out some inhuman and disgusting noise. He looked up at his ceiling, watching the stagnant fan closely. Parting his lips, Dick took a very shaky and stressed breath; he needed to figure out someone who he could call, who wouldn’t be bothered with his shit, and who could get to him before he really was in an unsafe spot. Every time he tried to think of someone, though, he just came up with a longer list of people he couldn’t call.
Uncle Clark? He’s got to take care of Jon and has a day job. Aunt Di? She’s been off on a mission the past week or so, so he couldn’t ask her. He wouldn’t call any of the other retired Titans either, too worried about making them deal with their ex-leader’s shit that they definitely didn’t sign up to deal with.
He took another second to himself, taking yet another deep breath and trying to think of someone. Dick can’t call Alfred, the older man needed sleep regardless of how much he seemed to just…not… And he didn’t know if he could handle Alfred’s eyes on him if he did come. That might just make him burst into ash. Dick took another hard look at his contacts, swiping up and down quickly as he keened with his lips pulled back.
Dick’s fingers stopped scrolling somewhere in the “B” section, and up at the top of it, was a contact that was just as simple as its divider.
His breath hitched, stuttering. Dick’s eyes were burning from the harsh light and his watery eyes, tears cascading down his face and hitting his hand. A few dropped onto his phone screen, further muddling everything into a mess Dick couldn’t begin to understand. For a few seconds, all Dick could do was cry, his fingers frozen where they were.
Would he pick up if he called? Or was he just as done with his shit like most everyone else was? Would he come if he asked? Would he think Dick was weak?
Dick moved his hand, grabbing the end of his already gross and damp shirt and wiping his phone screen the best he could. All of this while he took deep breaths, trying to calm himself down enough to actually say something instead of just crying.
He pressed on the contact, and then he hit the call button, pressing his phone to his ear.
The line rang for a second. Two seconds. Then for a few more, and right when Dick’s heart had dropped as his body rattled, despaired—
“Dick?”
More tears fell from his eyes, and a pained, guttural whine escaped his throat. Dick looked up at the ceiling in some pathetic rendition of thanks to whatever let his dad pick up the phone. He just needed—he needed—someone to stay with him, or at least he thought he should. And it’s really late, and he knows his dad probably got home from patrol not too long ago and was probably trying to sleep, but maybe…maybe…Dick hiccuped, trying to stop himself from outright sobbing again.
“Dick?” his dad called again, his voice gruff and deep.
He’d probably been asleep then. Fuck, he was the most inconsiderate son ever, and Bruce was going to be mad at him—so mad. He won’t come because Dick woke him up, and if he did, then his dad will get into a car accident because he’s so tired, and it’ll be his fault. Someone was wheezing, their throat full of phlegm. It’s so loud—
“Hey, hey,” his dad soothed, “talk to me, kiddo, what’s wrong?”
But Dick couldn’t answer, he couldn’t breathe, and he felt like his head was going to fall clean off. His face contorted more, and his lip was wobbling; Dick couldn’t make it stop, and where did the lights go—they were just on, just there. It’s dark now, dark and blurry, even if he wipes the salty tears burning his eyes.
“Where are you?”
His thoughts were moving fast, faster than usual and that could only ever be attributed to bad, bad things, and these bad, bad things were coming for him. Coming for him, and they’d take him and fill him and leave nothing of him behind. He’d be gone, long gone, and he just needed—
He needed, he needed, he needed.
And he knew his dad was still talking, but the words weren’t making sense anymore, and he didn’t know what to do. His dad was on the phone. Dick called his dad. He needed someone. All he knew is that he really shouldn’t be alone right now. It was screaming at him to not be alone because if he was they’d come for him.
Dick’s sobs and wheezing were getting closer and closer to some sort of dry heaving. All the mucus in his throat felt sticky and thick, and Dick was sure that if he didn’t vomit and get it out of him, he’d choke and die on it. But that’d be good, so good, so don’t throw up, don’t throw up, don’t throw up.
His foot was tapping incessantly, a poor attempt to stop himself from reacting with his whole body despite his muscles crying for action. Dick needed to yank his hair, and throw his head into the walls and floors—he needed to gouge his eyes out and squish them under his feet. Only some of it or all of it would do.
Oh, God, if the hands came back.
“—stay where you are, okay? Breathe, kiddo—”
And if the hands came back, he’d have to put a bullet in his head. He would.
Now he was coughing, the consequence of choking on nothing. It took a few seconds for him to make it stop, and he was left breathing heavily, unsteadily. He felt like the top of him was floating, leaving the rest of him to rot. Dick closed his eyes.
A mistake.
His mind gave him images of skin on skin and sounds he never thought he’d hear again, and why could he hear her again. If she was here, then the hands were next. They were, they had to be, and he can’t take that again. Not again, he can’t.
It was a split second decision, one he couldn’t possibly regret because what was there to feel bad for. He was doing the right thing, and so Dick took his phone into both his hands and rammed it into his head. Then, he did it again.
“—CLARK—”
Make a dent, make a dent, c’mon make a dent.
—
At some point, he couldn’t feel the pain from hitting himself, so Dick had ditched the phone option completely, throwing it in front of him and pulling his knees up as close as he could get them to his chest. His hands found themselves woven into his hair and he pushed and pulled at it. Breath stuttering now, still clogged and disgusting, Dick keened with his eyes shut tight. He threw his head back against the seat of the couch.
A beat passed, then another, and then a couple more.
Somehow, along the way, Dick had gotten over the first wave of what sounded like a forever deal of his eternal punishment for trying to leave the past behind. He felt wrong, like he was away from himself, and his arms didn’t feel real. His head did, but only barely, and it was a throbbing sort of reminder that he wasn’t yet dead. There was also this immense pressure on his chest, pushing against his attempts to breathe, and it was making him more and more panicked at the idea of not being able to breathe because the pressure was just like—
Shuffling nearby rescued Dick from continuing that vicious reminder, and even without moving his head, Dick knew where it was coming from. With the shuffle had come a very familiar creaking sound of the disjointed flooring outside his apartment door. Not a few seconds after that, his doorknob was jiggling slightly, and Dick focused in on it and away from the ever-increasing feeling of imminent doom and self-assured destruction that was threatening to choke him out.
A second passed, and Dick realized the clinking sound was lockpicks.
That was odd. He could’ve sworn that he’d locked the latch lock as well as the doorknob. Who was here? Could it be her? Did she find him? He thought that moving to a different district would help, but if she did find him then how was he going to get out of this?
There were hands on him, slender and soft, and they were under his shirt, coming up slowly from his waist to his chest. They were unbearably warm, and they were familiar enough that Dick knew it had to be her.
She was here, wasn’t she? She’d gotten out of prison and found him, and she was going to take him again. Maybe this time she’d kill him after she used him. Maybe he’d have to kill himself. Or maybe her. Break B’s rule to save himself, and B would understand that, right? He wouldn’t be mad. He’d understand, and he wouldn’t be mad.
A few more seconds passed, and his door creaked open.
“Dick?”
The door closed shut, lock clicking.
Footsteps came closer, and Dick was resisting the urge to throw up, gulping down the bile as it came. He was frozen, shaking and unable to move like the hands on him were. He felt disgusting, and sticky, and above all else, Dick was scared.
More hands were on him, but this time, they were different. They were warm in a way that her’s weren’t, they were real. They were rough, and they were big. Like before, these hands were familiar, but they were safe hands. Not too soon after that realization, his eyes focused in on the big, messy blob in front of him.
It was Bruce.
He watched lamely as Bruce crouched down to his level on the floor, and he couldn’t find it within himself to flinch or move away when Bruce felt his forehead, checking his temperature. Dick sniffled, lip wobbling all over again the second he realized that he must look just as pathetic and disgusting as he felt. His dad was seeing him like this, and Dick wanted to regret calling him, but he couldn’t find it in himself to say he did.
“What’s wrong? What happened?” Bruce softly asked, his eyebrows knitted together. His eyes were moving across his face and body, and Dick knew he was trying to figure out what happened.
He couldn’t bring himself to say much at all, but for a split second, his mind went elsewhere. “Is the door locked?” he managed out, looking away from Bruce and towards his front door. He sounded just as awful as he thought he would.
Bruce’s face contorted, confused. “Yes, I locked it when I came in.”
Dick’s eyebrows furrowed. He didn’t hear it lock. He thought he would know if the door was locked. But Bruce wouldn’t lie about something like that, unless it was one of the times he would in fact lie to him…
“Are you sure?” he slurred out, glancing at Bruce for a split second before looking back towards the direction of the door.
“Yeah, kiddo.”
Dick bit his lip. “Can you do it again? Just in case?”
For a second, Bruce looked like he might say no or at least try to reassure him that the door was locked—when it totally wasn’t—but his face smoothed over, albeit still with its dreary expression, and he got back on his feet. He listened as Bruce walked over the door and switched the lock. The creaking of the door let Dick know it had opened.
“It’s unlocked,” Bruce called out. More creaking, the latch sounded again. “Now it’s shut and locked.”
Dick’s skin was crawling. Something didn’t feel right, and it was itching at his skin. “Can you do it again?”
Bruce switched the latch again, opening the door up, closing the door, and once again latching it close.
“Again?”
Bruce complied.
“More—can you do it a few more times? It doesn’t…It doesn’t sound right.”
The door’s lock sounded at least eight more times, and Bruce waited for the sound of each motion to end before continuing. At some point, it felt good, and the anxiety he’d been feeling about the door had lessened.
“Is that good, kiddo?” Bruce called to him.
Dick nodded before he realized Bruce wouldn’t be able to see him. “Mm-hm,” he loudly hummed. He thought for a moment or two while he heard Bruce shuffling back over, then, “Can you sit on the couch with me? Please?”
Within his next breath, Bruce stood in front of him yet again with sad, tired eyes, and he nodded, sitting down beside the wall where Dick had been huddled up against. Bruce gently patted the spot next to him. “C’mere,” his dad murmured, “Tell me what’s wrong.”
Instead of getting up however, Dick found himself laying his head on Bruce’s lap. He picked at his fingers, pulling and tearing his abused skin before letting out a pained huff. Dick stretched his arms out over his dad’s lap away from one another, and his dad brought a hand to his back, rubbing soothing circles into his back.
“No more hand privileges,” Dick lamely joked, giving Bruce the best attempt at a smile that he could. It faltered almost immediately. “Bad, bad hands.”
“What’s wrong?” his dad asked, voice quiet and calm. Bruce’s eyes were baring into him, asking to be let in and to see.
It was uncomfortable, so Dick stared straight ahead of himself, not answering. He was too busy thinking—or not thinking, because that was better—and feeling, but he was feeling the circles in his back. After a few more seconds, and after his dad took a couple of breaths (likely getting ready to ask yet again what the hell was wrong with him), Dick shrugged his shoulders, getting a detailed look at Bruce’s sweatpants.
“Didn’t wanna be alone.”
It was quiet for a moment. And then for another.
“I’m here,” Bruce replied, his free hand carefully raking through Dick’s hair. “I’m here, okay? You aren’t alone.”
The corners of Dick’s mouth twitched up, and he imagined what he looked like—all grotesque and disgusting. “I feel alone.”
His dad’s hands stilled.
“I don’t…” Dick shook his head, his chest feeling like a black hole, hoping to suck some sort of good feeling up. “I don’t know what to do anymore.”
It was quiet again, and Dick imagined that if he had a clock he’d be able to hear its steady ticks towards his inevitable doom. A few more of those ticks went by, and the fingers in his hair resumed their comforting grooming.
“Whatever it is…” Bruce started, matching Dick’s quiet volume. “We can figure it out, but I can’t help if I don’t know what’s going on.”
Dick shrugged, lips pulling back as he attempted to restrain his tears—it didn’t work. “Sometimes I get these thoughts,” Dick whispered, staring ahead.
“What thoughts?”
Dick’s head spun, and images were thrown at him.
It was dark outside, sans a few street lights and neon signs that made it out unscathed. There’s blood all over him, and his suit was torn off his body. Above him, a body. And he felt warm—too warm for being exposed like this to the rain. Her hands moved from restraining him to caressessing his chest, pulling down slowly as her weight dropped back down onto him.
He was enveloped in her.
Every movement she made carried with it something that felt so good and so wrong; it left him feeling dizzy. The hands went back up only to come back down scratching, dragging. It got warmer as she leaned down onto him. Her mouth on his, invading and taking everything she could. She moaned, and he screamed no in his head. Without stopping, she sat back up, speeding up her pace.
Lifting, dropping, lifting, dropping, lifting, and dropping.
Dick’s body was shaking again, and he made a sharp clicking noise with his tongue every couple of seconds. He could feel her on him again, but she wasn’t here. “I,” he tried to say, chest hiccuping its breaths, “I—I, um.”
“Shh,” his dad hushed, still combing through his hair. “It’s okay. You’re okay. You’re right here with me, kiddo.”
“I—I, um—something, um, something,” Dick tried to say, his cheeks wet. “Um, something happened…and I—”
The more it went on, the slicker he felt. Every-so-often she would tighten up on him. Why did something so bad feel so good? Why does he feel so good?
His voice dropped back down, but his shaking wouldn’t stop. “She killed him.”
All he could hear was the sirens, and the rain, and her moaning, and the squelching.
“In front of me, she killed him,” Dick said, but that wasn’t what he wanted to say. The thought of saying it made his skin itch and burn and feel like he should claw his eyes out. “I let her.”
“Blockbuster?” Bruce asked.
A gunshot. A body dropping. A few steps back.
“Yes,” Dick cried. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m—”
“It’s not your fault,” Bruce sternly said. But that wasn’t right, and Dick’s eyebrows furrowed.
He could push her off. He could get away. Why wasn’t he? Why was he lying here letting her—
His body jerked. “It is.”
“It isn’t.”
“It is,” Dick sobbed, “It is. I should’ve—”
Should have pushed her off.
“—It isn’t your fault, kiddo. We can’t win every time—”
Get off. Get off. Why wasn’t she getting off? God, help him.
“—And—and then after,” Dick’s voice wobbled. He shook his head in a failed attempt to get the memories and the ghosts of her hands to leave him the hell alone. “After, with the rain—”
He could feel Bruce shift slightly, and Dick figured he was looking towards the storm outside.
Rain hit his face.
His face felt wet. Was that from the rain?
He gargled through his pleads filled with his despair, the rain, and her spit.
Dick could hear his voice before he realized he was still talking, “—all I could feel was her, and it wouldn’t stop—”
God, this won’t stop, he thought as Cat took his hands and placed them on her breasts.
“—It wouldn’t stop, and no one looked for me.”
“No one’s looking,” she cooed, pulling his arm. He stumbled after her, heart pounding. “Let’s get out of here.”
The tremors that rode through his body showed no sign of stopping, and it was a stark reminder to the anticipation he’d felt then. He was so anxious and ready-to-please. It made a wave of nausea pull around him now.
He remembers how pretty she looked—how mature. It made him feel just as mature, and he wasn’t even seventeen yet. His chest felt warm, whether it be from the alcohol or the love he felt for her, he couldn’t tell.
Dick coughed, choking on the phlegm that accompanied his cries. Snot ran down his face, dripping onto his dad’s pants along with his tears and spit. Circles and gentle taps on his back presented themselves, and faintly he heard Bruce say something, but he could only pick up on the last bit of it.
“—in and out, kiddo. Deep breaths.”
He was trying. Dick keened, as his body was racked with more shivering and shaking.
They were at her place—in her room. She pushed him down onto her bed, her eyes glued onto him with a glint of something he could place within them. Her grin had matched his wide one. The air was buzzing with excitement, but that excitement was soured.
“Clothes off, baby.”
Her voice echoed in his mind and whispered into his ear. Dick shuddered, digging his face into his father’s lap to block out the world. He stretched his arms out again, trying to stave off the rising need to scratch at himself. In that moment, Dick became a bit more self-aware, but only for a split second, when he realized he wasn’t wearing much at all.
He was disgusting.
Shirts were thrown to the side, and pants clumsily pushed off to the floor. Her hungry lips were on him, eating away at him before he even knew what this all would mean for him. He wanted more—needed more—and his hands wrapped around her waist, pulling her onto him while her hands held his face in place.
His lips were tingling, almost stinging like they were then from the abuse. Dick let out several puffs of air, wheezing slightly as he tried to catch his breath. It was doomed from the get-go just like he was.
A hand stroked him, and soon after hot heat surrounded him. She let out a breathy puff of air next to his ear, and he kissed and sucked on her neck. They met each other in the middle with him thrusting up as she pushed herself back down. Dick thought he finally understood what the whole sex thing was about now.
It felt good.
Dick knew he was a freak; he was fucked up enough that he felt good while he was getting raped. He knew that happens, that it’s just a matter of biology and that’s just how it worked, and he’d never tell a victim of rape that it wasn’t rape just because they enjoyed it. It begged one question: why couldn’t he say the same to himself?
They’d flipped over some time ago, with him on her now while her legs were spread out beneath him. Her nails dug into his back, pulling at the skin while her back arched. He let out some huffs while he picked up the pace as she squeezed down on him. Dick didn’t need anyone else—not if he had her, and not if they had this.
Once again, Bruce’s rough hands that gently consoled him lured him back out of it all. Dick was reminded of what he’d dragged his tired dad away from to come deal with him and his problems. Then, Dick’s mouth was moving faster than he could think, repeating, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Bruce replied back. This time Dick could hear something break in his dad’s voice. Oh no, was Dick really going to make his dad cry? God, he should kill himself. Get a knife from the kitchen and hammer it into his sick, wrong body until he couldn’t hurt anyone again.
“I shouldn’t have asked you to come,” Dick remorsefully whined. He tried to blink away the tears in his eyes while sitting up to get away—Bruce should go home—but he was pulled back down, and his dad’s arms wrapped around him in a hug.
“I’m glad you called,” Bruce whispered.
It was bright and early, and he’d been so relaxed he didn’t realize she wasn’t in the bed anymore. By the time he did, he’d sat up, finding them over by the lounge chair to the side of the room. Sitting was a man whose face he couldn’t make out, but next to him standing was her.
What was she doing?
The man stood up, and just as she said the man’s name, it wormed its way into Dick’s mouth, on his tongue and on his lips.
“Eddie?” Dick managed out, questioning something he’d thought he’d long since forgotten. His fingers picked at each other, dragging the already sensitive skin, wanting a taste of his ravaged blood.
Before he could succeed, his dad had put his hands into Dick’s, pushing the fingers away. “I’ve got you—”
“—I’ve gotcha,” the man murmured, towering over him with her keeping him steady. The man was mostly clothed, and he was exposed to them. Fingers dove down, pressing into him. He remembers shying away, tilting his head to look at her.
She smiled at him.
The man slapped his ass, scolding him, saying, “the more you squirm, the more it’ll hurt.”
“It hurts,” Dick cried as he squirmed in place, “It hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts—”
It barely lasted a minute before the man’s fingers stopped spreading him and pulled out. And it took even less time before something bigger was taking its place. He tensed up. Dick’s eyes widened as his arms went to push the man off him, but they got caught and held back.
Within the next breath he took, the man forced all of himself into him. He doesn’t think he took another breath after that.
He was gasping for air, coughing and sputtering as he tried to remember how to breathe. His body was shaking violently, and the only thing keeping him from bolting to something sharp were the arms locked tight around him.
“—Deep breaths, kiddo. C’mon, in and out—”
In and out, in and out, and in and out. Dick felt like he was burning alive now, and that maybe he would die here. Alone. Without his family.
Maybe that was better. His family wouldn’t have to see him like this.
And he felt like he was fake—that his skin wasn’t really skin and his feelings weren’t really his feelings. God, he hoped he wasn’t real. Heat rode up from his toes to his ears, and he acidic bile came with it.
And here he was wet, raw, and bloody.
He coughed more, bile rising up alongside the phlegm. It was that paired with his spinning head and rolling stomach that made Dick barely have time to lurch back from his dad and turn to the side, vomiting the very little he’d eaten the day before. The acid ate away at the skin in his mouth, and it reminded him of—
Dick sobbed harder, dry heaving now that there was nothing left as he attempted to apologize to Bruce for having to put up with him and all this mess. “I—I,” he tried to say before coughing harshly. “I’m—”
“Shh-shh, you’re okay, Dick,” his dad crooned, reaching out to pull him back into his arms. “Don’t worry about that. It’s okay, we’ll worry about that later. Just focus on me. Can you do that? Focus on me?”
Dick licked his lips as his eyes followed her undressing, just as hungry as his girlfriend was. He was anticipating this kind of night for a while, both of them had high sex drives, and being fresh from a fight, the two of them were looking for a release.
Dick couldn’t focus on his dad. He couldn’t focus on anything besides the images in his head, the voices in his ears, and the other hands that touched and pulled at him. Instead, he cried more, vision blurring, but it didn’t take away what he wished it did.
She fell backwards onto the bed, her flaming locks of hair sprawling out while she locked her legs around him. A second later, she pulled him towards her, and he placed his hands down on the bed for support. One of her hands played with her breast, but the other one came towards him.
He could feel the ghost of her fingers gliding over his jaw and hear her amused hum. In the next second after, he remembered her saying—
“I’m ready, honey.”
He’d leaned down, planting kisses on her lips, to her cheek, to her neck. One of his hands moved down to guide himself to where she needed him now. He sunk into her, and the tension in his body dissipated. Being here with her was all he ever needed.
He knew he was breathing heavily, but it had to be an improvement from before. His eyes started to dry up too, and Dick thought that maybe he didn’t have many more tears left to cry. Dick scrunched them close, and it took him someplace else. Somewhere he was trying so hard to escape and leave behind.
They’d fucked all night, changing positions every-so-often. At some point, they’d fallen into a giggle fest while taking it slow, exhausted from the fun they’d been having. Dick gazed into her green eyes, and he decided then that he didn’t think he could love anyone else the way he did her.
His eyes opened back up, fixating on Bruce whose eyebrows were furrowed together and his lips moving. Dick’s ears felt like they were stuffed with cotton, and he squinted trying to put together what his dad was saying.
“What?” he asked, and even his own voice felt far away.
His dad frowned, pausing before presumably repeating himself. This time Dick could hear him, but only barely as he said, “You’re at your apartment. With me. Take some deep breaths and tell—”
The masked woman’s hands pulled his shoulder back, forcing him to look at her when he didn’t want to look at anybody anymore. Even with her mask, Dick could tell she was angry, but she also looked as though she was taking delight in all this. Her words flew out of her mouth in an instant, and they left a blow sharper than those she did.
“Do,” Dick started, voice cracking, “Do you think—I mean—with everything…”
“Do I think what, kiddo?” Bruce asked, rubbing those soothing circles back into his back while petting his hair from Dick’s face.
Dick bit his lip, waiting a second as his head spun and the scene rewound and replayed in his head. It was like it was waiting for him. He pulled himself up, his head off his dad’s laps while Bruce’s hands pulled back.
“Am I a—”
“Dick, you slut!”
“—slut?” Dick finished, his lips pulled back as he tried to stop himself from letting out a disgusting, guttural sound. His body was still moving, shivering as he scanned his dad’s face for answers.
Bruce’s face told him nothing but how horrified he was. But at what? At him? The question? His stupid fucking breakdown. And he wasn’t answering. He wasn’t answering, and Dick needed him to. He needed to know. Dick can’t do this anymore if he’s a bad stain on his family; his heart couldn’t take it.
“No, you aren’t,” Bruce replied quickly. Then, a bit quieter and rushed, he asked, “Why would you think that of yourself?”
Because, because, because…
He let out a loud clicking sound, and his fingers twitched at the question.
“So tell me, who was better? Huh? Huh? Huh?”
His dad’s eyes seemed sadder, and Dick didn’t know why. Did he say something? He shook his head and dropped back down. His bones ached, and he can’t remember when he started feeling so tired.
It was an everyday occurrence therefore after.
He was in some dingy motel room, stuck in feeling and not feeling and breathing and not breathing. There wasn’t time here, but at some point she’d come back. She’d come back to this room—their room—sometimes dirty with blood and sometimes pristine in new clothes. Everytime she would come back, it’d be the same.
The door would shut, click locked, and she’d put her things down. He’d be on the bed, naked, cold, and staring at the door. Sometimes, she would groan at the sight of him or berate him for not getting up and cleaning himself. Most times, she’d call him that name, saunter over to him while peeling off her clothes.
Maybe that was all he was good for.
“—are my son. There is nothing you could do that would make me not love you anymore—”
She liked being on top of him; the last time she’d tried to get him to take the lead, he couldn’t, and he can still feel the bruises from the beating she’d given him for it. So there he’d be, staring at the ceiling and at her while she rode him dry, wondering if this was what it meant to lose one’s soul.
“—and I am just so proud of you for calling me. You made the right call, okay?”
Dick hummed, sniffling. His fingers gripped onto his dad’s shirt, and he pulled himself up to look at him better. At this point, he was considerably less shaky, but his arms trembled regardless.
“It doesn’t feel like I did,” he mumbled.
“You did, kiddo. You did,” Bruce affirmed, nodding his head. He pushed the hair back and out of Dicks face before wiping his cheeks off with a hand. “Do you think you’ve calmed down some? Do you think you’re going to get more upset?”
Dick shook his head and sniffled some more, then paused and shrugged his shoulders. “Dunno, I think—” he hiccuped before continuing, “I think so? I, um…I’m sorry…”
“You don’t need to apologize to me. You did nothing wrong.”
This time, he really meant it when he shook his head. “I woke you up,” Dick started, lips wobbling in a frown. “And you came all the way out here, and—and I’m a mess!”
“You aren’t a mess,” Bruce countered, resolved unbroken. He tilted his head to look at Dick head on, and instead of Dick feeling trapped, he felt grounded. “You aren’t broken or a poison, either. Something bad happened, and it can be hard to cope with that. I understand, Dick. I’ve been there, okay? You aren’t alone in this.”
“But you don’t know!” Dick keened, eyes wide. “You don’t know what I—what they—”
“I don’t have to,” Bruce replied, shaking his head. “I don’t have to know in order to understand that it hurts you. Whatever happened, okay? We can figure it out.”
“No, we can’t,” Dick pitifully moaned. “I’ve been like this for years. It just won’t go away out of my head. It’s always there, pressing me.”
“We’ll figure it out. Together. You’ll get through this, okay? And I’ll be here,” Bruce paused for a second, and Dick figured it was to make sure he was following. “I’ll always be here.”
Bruce pulled Dick up into his lap, holding him close in a tight hug. Dick’s arms were just as tight around him. “I love you, kiddo,” Bruce said. “I know I don’t tell you kids this often, but I do. I don’t know what I would do without you all.”
It was quiet for a moment, and for the first time in a long while, Dick was delightfully still and his mind was slow and peaceful. His eyelids were drooping down, and while he was still awake, Dick managed to say one more thing before he fell asleep.
“Will you stay?”
And then the answer: “Yes.”