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“Tim, I think it’s time you went to bed.” It was a common routine at this point. Tim refused to sleep until he couldn’t see straight and Dick would gently persuade him to bed. Dick had always been the person Tim listened to the best, it wasn’t a surprise that it became Dick’s job to look after him. Had Dick been less busy with Titans, he was sure it would’ve been the same thing with Jason.
The thought left a strong taste in Dick’s mouth.
“I’m almost done with-” Tim started, but as soon as his eyes met Dick’s he sunk into his seat. “Okay. Okay. Just let me make sure I close out of everything properly.” Tim mumbled as he lifted his hand to the mouse. Dick smiled and pressed a kiss to Tim’s hair.
“Thank you,” Dick said genuinely. Trying to get his family to practice some semblance of healthy habits didn’t always work, but Dick always tried. Was it hypocritical? Absolutely, but he had learned from the best. Aka other hero sidekicks. Roy being the prime example. “Remember, you don’t have to do everything yourself.”
“Says you,” Tim said under his breath, but Dick didn’t let himself linger on it. He couldn’t.
“Sleep well, baby bird. I’ll see you in the morning.” Dick hated promising that, hated staying at the manor overnight, but dammit he would. He would. Hypocritical be damned, Dick could lose a couple of hours of sleep if he meant his little brother got them instead. Tim was technically an adult. He had been emancipated before, but he was 18 now. It was surreal seeing the once little Robin grown up. It had been startling with Jason too, who had been even scrawnier, but Dick hadn’t seen as much of his transition. The point was: Dick would always see Tim as the 13-year-old that had shown up at his apartment one day.
Dick didn’t wait until Tim was fully in bed like he used to, but he did stay long enough to confirm that the boy wasn’t going to go back to work the second the door was closed. Dick always felt a bittersweet feeling when closing one of the manor’s doors with someone behind them. If he sat down with it, he could probably parse out exactly what caused it, but he wasn’t exactly eager to do so.
The whole manor made Dick’s head spin with emotions that felt too close to the surface. A constant bubbling under his skin that he couldn’t soothe until he left. Most of the emotions had been there for years. Dick could clearly remember running off to the Titans when he couldn’t bear the eggshells beneath his feet.
Sometimes Dick wondered why he came back. Sometimes Dick wished he listened and stayed so far away that he would never think of Gotham again. Sometimes.
But that sometimes was always followed up by thinking about the kids, (because they had all been kids when they came to the manor,) and he knew exactly why he stayed. He couldn’t leave them alone. He would never hesitate to answer their calls, to drop by, to pick them up if needed. Because if they couldn’t rely on Dick, who could they rely on?
Dick could trust Bruce as a hero, at least most of the time, but as a father? He had never lived up to that title. Maybe he had gotten close a couple of times, but even then Dick always had to fill in where Bruce fell short.
As long as the kids were as safe as they could be, Dick wouldn’t complain. Couldn’t complain, really.
“Are you staying the night?” Bruce’s voice said from across the hallway. Dick looked up, having been too lost in thought to hear the man approach. It was sloppy, but theoretically Dick didn’t need to be on guard.
“Yes. I have stuff to discuss with Tim tomorrow so it’s just easier if I stay here.” Lying came to Dick as naturally as breathing. A performer at heart, he knew how to get the reactions out of people he wanted. Still, he wasn’t completely lying. It was something to make Dick feel better about lying about Tim in front of his door.
“A case?” Bruce raised his brow as he often did whenever Dick didn’t give him everything he wanted to know at once. It was frustrating how easily Dick could read Bruce. Part of him wondered if Cass ever wished she could stop reading everyone else’s body language like Dick wished he could ignore every single one of Bruce’s tells.
“Not here, B.” Talking about anything suit related while in the domestic part of the manor irked Dick in ways it shouldn’t. Being vigilantes was obviously going to bleed into the other halves of their lives, Dick knew that maybe better than anyone else, but he still wanted to separate them in spirit. It allowed him to hold onto some delusion that the kids had something in their lives that was normal. Surprisingly, Bruce nodded.
“Alright.”
“Alright?” Dick felt stupid getting so suspicious over a simple word, but at the same time, he couldn’t exactly talk himself out of it. It wasn’t like he and Bruce didn’t hold small shit over each other’s heads when they were in a particularly tense phase.
“While it was only for a couple of months, you were Tim’s Batman once. I figure I can trust you two to handle whatever you plan to discuss.” Bruce’s eyes stayed trained on Dick. Dick, for his part, felt a chill run down his spine. No one, not him or Bruce or even Tim, had brought up Dick’s brief stint as Batman when Bruce got his back broken. It was easier to think that Dick had only been Batman when Bruce was lost in the time stream. “Speaking of, I have something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about.” Bruce’s eyes moved from Dick to the wall behind him. That was not a great sign.
“Is this about Damian?” Dick had known a conversation about Damian had been coming for a long time. For as long as Bruce had been back.
“Yes.” The straightforward answer made Dick’s face twist. He didn’t want to have a hyper clinical conversation about the youngest bat. If he was honest, he didn’t want to tell Bruce anything at all. Period. “I am not oblivious, Dick. Even if I wasn’t the detective I was, I would be able to tell that how you treat Damian is different from any other Robin to come before him.”
“He was my Robin. That changes things.” The words were flowing out of Dick’s mouth before he could register how that sounded when they had just mentioned Tim being his Robin as well. It was different, of course it had been different Bruce was recovering not perceived dead, but it was still sloppy once again. Bruce didn’t have to say anything for Dick to know that it was expected that he explained. “Look, you were dead. Or close enough to us, at least.” Bad phrasing, but Dick pressed on. “Was I supposed to just leave Damian without a parental figure?” Too defensive, Bruce tensed.
“And now?” Bruce questioned like it was some interrogation. The aching need to yell was building in Dick’s throat.
“Stop.” Dick clenched his fists and released them multiple times before he sighed. “Stop acting like this is new. Stop acting like Damian is the first kid I took under my wing.” Why couldn’t Dick just tell Bruce what he wanted to hear? Why couldn’t Dick just tell Bruce that of course Damian would always be Bruce’s son first? Even though Bruce hadn’t even fucking wanted Damian at first-
“What do you mean?” Bruce crossed his arms over his chest and god if that didn’t make Dick attack him like a feral dog. He didn’t if only because he knew that he was being a bit unreasonable. Bruce didn’t even know what Dick was getting so worked up over, so it was no wonder the older man got defensive. It was still infuriating, but Dick wasn’t cruel. Not unless he really wanted to be.
“I mean that I’ve always been the parent in this household. I have always been the one to look after everyone else. Emotionally, physically, whatever way they needed. And god I don’t regret it, I love Tim and Dami so fucking much it hurts, but then everyone sits there and acts like you’re their dad. Where were you when Tim had a fever so bad he couldn’t see straight? Where were you when Damian had one of his pieces displayed in an art gallery? Where were you when I raised them!?” Too loud. Too loud. Dick was going to draw attention to them and their argument. God, they were still outside of Tim’s door. The kid slept through loud noises well but that only worked if the boy had managed to fall asleep quickly. What if Tim heard and felt guilty? That was the last thing Dick wanted-
“I…” Bruce looked conflicted and as much as Dick would normally revel in throwing the man off, he was so fucking tired. Dick couldn’t remember a day where he didn’t have something to do.
“Baba?” Damian’s soft voice immediately caused Dick’s attention to snap in the direction he heard it from. Damian was standing outside his door in the clothes Dick knew were designated for nighttime. Dick was wrapping Damian in a tight hug before he could even register what he was doing.
“Oh my baby… I’m sorry you had to hear any of that, baby bat.” Dick murmured against the kid’s hairline. He knew that Damian would normally never allow this much affection in front of anyone, let alone his biological father, but Damian wasn’t pushing away and Dick felt too guilty to let the boy go without reassurances. “I love you, Dami. I promise. I love you more than anything and I love taking care of you.” Resentment be damned, Dick loved being Damian’s baba and Tim’s brother/father whatever.
“Dick, I’m-”
“If the next words are not an apology I will not hesitate to use my training against you, father.” Damian cut off Bruce, leveling a glare at the man over Dick’s shoulder. Dick laughed a little, his hands shaking.
“Dami, it’s okay. I mean, it’s…” It wasn’t fine, but Bruce hadn’t even started the argument. Dick had an inkling about what the man was going to say, but he didn’t know. Dick was normally so careful about not jumping to conclusions. “I understand,” is what Dick settled on. Because he did. Bruce hadn’t been ready to be a father when Dick came into his care and that had screwed up everything that followed. Dick understood that he was an adult and that the younger bats were not the only kids Dick had helped parent. He had always subscribed to the thought that it took a village to raise a child anyhow.
“No, Damian is right.” Bruce’s words shocked Dick out of his thoughts. Bruce made a face and Dick could see him swallow a lump in his throat. “I have always relied on you as a partner, as an equal.” Since you were a child went unsaid, but Dick heard it anyway. “I was at the very least aware that I was relying on you as such. I did not, however, realize that I was relying on you for the wellbeing of your siblings.”
“...Did you really think they just raised themselves?” Dick pushed just a bit more. He couldn’t help. He had gotten an apology, but he had gotten apologies that meant nothing before. He remembered sitting in the passenger seat of the Batmobile and being told that Bruce was sorry for hitting him. Dick had brushed it off then, and he was glad for that. Had he taken the words to heart, he might have been crushed when the apology was forgotten the next time Dick made Bruce just a little too angry. “Or did you really think that you were the one raising them?” Dick wasn’t sure which option was worse.
“I think I underestimated what it meant to be a parent,” Bruce stepped forward. Damian’s grip on Dick’s shirt tightened. “I was under no impression that I raised Tim, but clearly I did not understand the situation fully. Perhaps I still don’t.”
“Obviously you don’t!” Damian hissed out. The kid always had a protective streak with anything pertaining to Dick and while Dick found it sweet, he didn’t want to make Damian feel like he had to turn away from Bruce to protect him. “You’re my blood and I will always regard you as such, but Richard taught me that there is more to family than blood. He… He taught me I can be more than what I was born to be.”
“Dami-”
“I am not done yet,” Damian shot Dick a glare which Dick could only return with a smile. Damian was not the best at expressing himself, but that didn’t mean the boy felt nothing. Dick knew the boy had a heart of gold, just like anyone else who had ever been Robin. “Without Richard, there is no family. Don’t you see that? Don’t you see that without him none of us would be able to stick together?” Damian’s voice shook. “Don’t you see that because of that he has taken on the responsibility of every single one of us? You included, father.”
“Baby bat, it’s okay.” Dick didn’t know why he was repeating that. Didn’t know why he was trying to placate to a man that had already confessed that Damian was right. He didn’t know. “I don’t regret it.” He didn’t. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t.
“It should never have felt like it was your job in the first place.” Bruce sat down on the floor next to them. “An apology will not make up for it, I know that, but I’ll try to be more aware. Try to take on an active role in their lives.”
“No, I…” That was what Dick should’ve wanted, but it wasn’t. He didn’t want Damian to suddenly become Bruce’s son any more than he already was. It was so selfish, but the kid was his. “You don’t get to just clean up your act and act like everything’s fine.”
“You would rather me continue to be an absent father?” Bruce’s voice had an edge to it that made everything bubbling under Dick’s skin finally release.
“I don’t know! I don’t know what I want, okay?” Dick couldn’t look at Bruce. He couldn’t look into those eyes. Not when Dick felt as his chest heaved with each breath. “I want for this conversation to have never happened. I want me to have never opened my mouth. I just want it all to stop.” Dick’s pulse was abnormally high, he could feel it through his shirt. “You can’t take them away. You can’t.” Dick knew how Bruce handled things. He knew that Bruce would try and fix everything by trying to act like Dick had never been forced to be a parent at all. And Dick knew he could not handle that.
“Baba…” Damian’s voice was soft again, one of his hands finding Dick’s cheek that had at some point become tear-stained. A long stretch of silence fell over the hallway. It wasn’t a satisfying silence, but it was better than hearing his own voice reverberate against the walls.
“I really am sorry, Dick.” Bruce tried again, his hand on Dick’s shoulder.
“I know.” And it just made Dick feel worse.
