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Bruce makes his way through the chaotic scene. All around, people are lying on gurneys, slumped in chairs, sitting on the floor leaning against walls. Some have visibly broken bones or gauze pressed to bleeding wounds as temporary triage while they wait to see a doctor. His eyes sweep over every face, looking for a familiar one, but not finding it.
He waits, outwardly patient but inwardly deeply disquieted, to speak to the nurse at the desk while newly arrived walking-wounded are entered into the system and others like him ask frantic questions. When he finally gets to the front of the line, he sees that the name tag on her pink scrubs says ‘Theresa’.
She looks harried as she types rapidly, focused intently on her computer screen. “Name and nature of your injury?” she asks without looking up.
“Good morning, Theresa. I’m not injured, but I understand my son is here?”
She looks up and opens her mouth to answer but before she can—
“Bruce!”
Stephanie is moving quickly down the hall toward him. Bruce leaves the line without further comment, heading her way and meeting her in the middle. He lightly grips her arms and scans for injuries. She’s slightly disheveled, whisps of her blonde hair have pulled free of her ponytail, but she looks unhurt. “What’s going on? I got a call that Tim is here.”
She’s nodding when she says, “He’s okay. He’s back with the doctor now. He’s got a broken ankle, but he’ll be alright.”
“Thank God,” Bruce breathes out in relief, the tight band that had been constricting his chest loosening significantly. “What happened?” As he asks, he maneuvers them aside, out of the way of the medical staff and into a quieter corner.
“Tim was in Bludhaven last night helping Dick with a case and someone stole his bike,” she pauses, and Bruce knows it’s for dramatic effect, a suppressed grin denoting that she’s never going to let Tim live that down. “Dick was driving him home on his bike this morning and we were all going meet at Second Breakfast and they were on the Gotham Bridge when—”
"Wait,” Bruce interrupts. “Dick is here, too?” His chest constricts again, tighter than before. Two of his sons have been hurt?
Bruce had been in his office earlier this morning when it sounded like every fire truck in the city was wailing down the streets. He’d asked his PA to find out what was going on and she’d reported back that a semi had drifted across lanes on the Gotham Bridge, flipped, and careened into oncoming traffic, causing a massive pile-up in both directions. He’d turned on the television at one point to see the helicopter footage; it was a mess with possibly over 100 vehicles involved. There were already several known deaths and dozens of injured motorists.
An hour later, his phone rang and his heart staccatoed in his chest when he saw the caller ID. “This is Bruce Wayne,” he said, barely keeping his voice even.
A woman on the other end of the line said, “Mr. Wayne, this is Gotham General Hospital, we have you listed as emergency medical contact for Timothy Drake?”
Bruce nearly choked on the “Yes,” that he managed to get out. “Tim is my son.”
“Mr. Wayne, I’m calling to let you know that he’s been injured in an accident and is here at Gotham General.”
“Is he, is he alright?”
“I’m sorry, sir, I don’t have that information. I was just asked to notify you and ask you to come to the hospital if you are able.”
“I’ll be right there,” he’d said, and disconnected the call before she could respond.
He’d grabbed his tablet and raced to the parking garage; he was at the hospital fifteen minutes later.
Bruce’s heart pounds in his chest. “They didn’t tell me about Dick when they called. Only Tim.”
“Bruce, they’re okay. They weren’t badly hurt,” Stephanie reassures him. “Dick called me from the scene to let me know they’d been in the accident and Tim was hurt and they were on their way here.”
“So you’ve seen them both and you’re sure they’re okay?”
She nods. “Well, I’ve seen Tim. Like I said, he’s back with the doctor right now. Besides the broken ankle he has some scrapes and contusions. But he had his helmet on and didn’t hit his head. He’s okay.”
“Where's Dick?”
“Tim said Dick was out here somewhere—” She cranes her neck around to the right and then left. “I guess he must be back with them, too.”
“So, you didn’t actually see him?”
“No,” she says hesitantly, “but Tim said Dick was only banged up a little like him, said he was mobile and not bleeding.”
“Hn.” Bruce knows too well that mobile and not bleeding didn’t necessarily equate to ‘okay’. His eyes continue scanning the crowded waiting area, hoping to see the familiar black hair.
“I can show you where Tim is.”
“Yes, please,” Bruce answers, following close on her heels. If he can see Tim, he can at least put half of his concerns to rest. Walking quickly down the hall, Stephanie expertly pulls her hair free of the tie and creates a new, tamed ponytail as they weave through the mass of casualties and people waiting or looking for injured loved ones.
She leads them into a small, curtained area where Bruce finally sets eyes on Tim. The left leg of his pants has been cut from ankle to hip and he has a boot around his foot and up to his knee. There’s an IV port in his right hand. His eyes are closed.
“Hey kiddo, how’re you doing?” Bruce asks, resting his hand gently on Tim’s shoulder.
His eyelid flutter and then open. “Hey B. I’m fine.” The words are slow out of his mouth and his eyes are glassy from whatever drugs they’ve given him.
“Hn.”
“Hey, where’s Dick?” Tim asks, looking at Stephanie and then back at Bruce. “’S he okay?”
“He’s in with the doctors now,” Stephanie tells him.
Tim nods and his eyes drift closed. “He told me to stick it, but I didn’t.”
“What?” Bruce asks, not able to make sense of that. “Tim, what are you saying?”
Tim huffs. “…couldn’t stick it,” he mumbles, then slips into sleep.
Bruce turns to Stephanie. “What’s he talking about?”
“I don’t know,” she says. There’s a small crease between her eyes. “I think they’ve given him some pretty heavy hitting painkillers.”
“Hn.”
A nurse pulls back the curtain. “Oh. Are you Mr. Drake’s family?”
“I’m his father,” Bruce says.
“Good.” She seems to do a double take; it happens sometimes when people recognize Bruce or find him familiar for a reason they can’t quite place. She moves over to remove the IV port from Tim’s hand. “The orthopedic surgeon has taken a look at the x-rays and it’s a clean break, so he won’t need surgery. He can go whenever he wakes up. He’ll need to come back in the next day or two to have an actual cast put on. There’s too much swelling to do it now.”
“We’ll take him to our personal physician for that,” Bruce says.
Nodding, she hands him some papers to sign and a small bag with a pill bottle. “That’s fine. No weight on the leg. The pills are for pain, one every four hours, as needed. If you stop in the pharmacy downstairs, they can give you some crutches.”
The Cave is outfitted with all sizes of crutches, so they’ll be fine. “Thank you,” Bruce says. She looks exhausted and it’s only 10:00am. “I appreciate all you’ve done for him.”
She gives him a tired smile. “You’re welcome.” She turns to leave.
“Oh, one more thing?” Bruce says, and she turns back. He looks at her nametag. “Siobhan, I understand my other son is also here. Can you tell me where I can find him?”
She furrows her brow. “I don’t remember another ‘Drake’ on the list.”
“No,” he says. “His name is Dick Grayson. Or possibly he’d be registered under Richard Grayson.”
Her eyes go wide, finally putting the pieces together. “Oh. You’re Bruce Wayne.” Her face flushes a bit.
Bruce gives her a tight smile. “Right now, I’m just a dad looking for his son.”
“Um, I, I don’t remember seeing his name on the list, I would have remembered that one, I think. But I’ll check registration.”
“Please.” He glances at Stephanie.
“Go,” she says. “I’ll wait ‘til he wakes up and get him home.”
Bruce lowers his voice. “My car and driver are in the parking garage. I’ll have him pick you up out front. He’ll take you to the Manor,” he says, with no room for argument.
Stephanie rolls her eyes. “Yes, mama bear,” she says.
Bruce grunts. He’s not going to apologize for wanting to have his kids close. It’s somehow different, this. Every time they put on their costumes and head out into the night, each one of them knows that it could be the night that they don’t make it home. Or that they receive an injury that means they’ll never don the costume again. But this…a random accident on the highway, simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time...it’s disconcerting in a way that injuries in their vigilante work never are.
He follows Siobhan who suggests he waits in the chairs while she tries to sort it out. He stands instead, hovering near the medical station, close enough but not so close as to be a nuisance. He texts his driver as she starts typing but before she can finish, a doctor pops his head out of a curtain and calls for her. There’s clear urgency to his beckoning and she goes without hesitation, leaving Bruce frustrated, but grudgingly understanding. There’s no one else at the station though so Bruce waits impatiently, constantly scanning the waiting room and hallways, looking and listening for Dick. He tries Dick’s phone for the tenth time and again it goes straight to voicemail.
Fifteen minutes later she returns, seems about to head down the hall when she sees him. “Oh, sorry about that.”
“I certainly understand,” he says as patiently as he is able.
She ducks behind the terminal again. Her fingers clack on the keys for a moment then her eyes scan the screen as she clicks the mouse a maddening number of times. Her face slowly grows more perplexed and the band around Bruce chest ratchets tighter again. After several nerve-wracking minutes, she bites her lip, then looks up. “I’m sorry, Mr. Wayne, I’m not seeing his name on any of our lists.”
“Thank you,” he manages, though the words catch in his throat and come out rough. He makes a round through the waiting room again hoping to catch sight of Dick. When he doesn’t, he heads back to the cubicles. Tugging the curtain aside, he sees Stephanie helping Tim into a wheelchair. An attendant is standing by to wheel him out.
Bruce puts a hand on Tim’s shoulder. “How’re you feeling, Tim?”
“I’m fine, B. Just hobbled for a little while.” He gives Bruce a loopy smile.
Bruce looks between the two of them. “They can’t find any record of Dick in the system. Are you sure he was here? Maybe they took him to a different hospital.”
Tim is shaking his head before he can even finish. “No, he rode in the ambulance with me.”
“Are you positive?”
Tim looks up, still groggy, but clearer eyed than before. “He was with me the whole time until they brought me back here.”
“Did he seem hurt?”
“He was moving a little stiffly, but he said he was okay.”
He turns to Stephanie. “And you didn’t see him.”
She shakes her head slowly. “No, but when he called me, he definitely said they were on their way here. I got here about twenty minutes later and when I asked about them, they took me to see Tim.”
“I’ve tried to call him, but it appears his phone is off.”
Tim nods. “It got smashed in the accident. He had to use mine to call Steph.”
“Hn. Alright, I’ll find him. Just, get Tim home,” he says to Stephanie. “And you,” he says to Tim, “will stay off your leg.”
“It’s broken, B, so, yeah, I think I’ll stay off it.”
There’s only one explanation that Bruce can come up with. Well, that’s not accurate. With the lives they lead, he could come up with any number of explanations for Dick’s disappearance, but in these circumstances, one of them rises to the top. He finds the nurse again. “Excuse me, Siobhan. I’ve confirmed that my son Dick came here by ambulance and was waiting to be seen by a doctor. I’m concerned that perhaps he lost consciousness before he could give his name and be entered into the system.” He pulls out his phone and quickly sifts through his photos to find a recent one of Dick. “Here’s what he looks like. Could you possibly look in the treatment rooms and maybe the surgeries to see if he’s there but unconscious?”
She looks around the still-crowded waiting room. “I’ll…yes, I’ll check. But patients are scattered all over the hospital and the surgery suites are up four levels. It’s going to take a little while.”
“I completely understand,” he says quickly. “I’ll be over there.” He gestures toward the waiting area.
With little to do but wait, Bruce needs to occupy his mind. He finds an empty spot of wall to lean against and turns on the tablet. He starts with local news channels and newspaper sites, skimming through photos and video. These prove useless since they’re mostly armature video they’ve gotten hold of and they’re constantly moving, zooming in on irrelevant things, and never showing him what he wants. But the bridge is 100% covered by CCTV cameras, so he logs into the Cave’s servers in order to access them. The quality of the feed isn’t great, but he should still be able to get a look at how Tim and Dick were involved and, though a lesser concern right now, if Batman is needed to deal with an intentional act.
It takes several long minutes of searching before he finds what he’s looking for: Dick, on his vintage Triumph, Tim tucked in behind him, both unaware of the bedlam up ahead of them. Just seconds before Dick’s bike hits the bridge, a tire on the semi blew out and started the devastating sequence of events. He’s able to splice together different CCTV angles and follow his sons’ progression toward the inevitable. He can see the exact moment that Dick realizes something is amiss—his body shifts a tiny fraction and his head bobs up. One second elapses on the timecode before Dick turns his head a couple degrees. He must be saying something to Tim because Tim also shifts. Dick’s bike begins to slow, and for a moment, it looks as though they’ll avoid disaster. But only for a moment.
Bruce can see it the way he knows Dick must have. A black Toyota Camry is hit on the side by a fishtailing pickup, and it spins, abruptly changing its trajectory. There’s a rapidly closing gap in Dick’s path. He has three options: continue on at speed, speed up, or slow down. If he continue on at speed, the Camry will smash them both into the pickup; if he speeds up, the front of Dick’s bike could slip through the gap, but the Camry will smash the back end—and most certainly Tim—into the now-reversed pickup; if he slows down, with the way the Camry is spinning, it’ll have the same outcome as continuing at speed.
Not surprisingly, though, Dick finds a fourth option. On the CCTV feed, Dick turns his head, giving warning to his brother, then he squeezes the brakes hard and the bike abruptly stops. Dick leans over the handlebars where the front tire has stopped. The back wheel acts as a catapult and Tim is ejected from the bike and flies through the air. And there it is: Tim spins and flips in the air over the top of two vehicles, a fair copy of Dick’s double twisting flip. It’s surprisingly gracefully given the circumstances, but it’s also a little off kilter—probably because of the weight of helmet—so when he lands behind a white SUV, he crumples to the ground out of sight. He didn’t stick the landing, Bruce thinks.
Bruce backs up the video because he had been too focused on Tim to get a good look at what happened to Dick. Again, he sees the gap Dick saw, sees Dick turn to warn Tim, and again sees him hit the brakes and curl over the handlebars. This time Bruce sucks in a breath as he watches the Camry hit the front of Dick’s bike instead of the back, brutally pushing Dick into the pickup beside him. His body is slammed into the side panel of the truck, causing his torso to fold sideways over the top rail of the vehicle. Only his bike, which has pinned him momentarily, prevents him from landing entirely in the bed of the pickup. When gravity catches up with the motorcycle and it falls over, Dick slides to the ground, lying on his side in a twisted heap, terrifyingly still.
Bruce holds his breath until he sees his son roll slowly onto his back and reach one hand up to unsnap his helmet and tug it from his head. He continues to lie still for several seconds and Bruce squints to try to see if there are any visible injuries. The footage is black and white and too grainy to get a good look, but it appears that there’s a little bit of blood on his chin. His pants look more like rags than clothes. When he finally sits up, he’s definitely guarding his right side. As he gets to his feet, he staggers for a second, steadies himself on the pickup, then immediately limps toward where Tim had landed. Dick’s gait is unsteady, and he leans a hand on the stalled cars as he passes them. As he weaves through the wrecked vehicles, Dick briefly stops at two cars and checks on the people inside. His reactions lead Bruce to believe none of them are seriously injured. Eventually Dick disappears behind the same SUV Tim did.
Bruce can’t see what’s happening behind the vehicle, but every now and then he sees Dick’s head bob up or down. It feels like an eternity before paramedics arrive and Tim is loaded onto a stretcher. He sees one of the medics say something to Dick who waves him off and gestures to Tim, and then they all move out of frame. He reminds himself that Tim said Dick was with him here at Gotham General. But he also knows his eldest well and can imagine his thought process upon seeing a waiting room overflowing with injured people.
“Mr. Wayne?”
Bruce is so engrossed in the video feed that he startles before looking up to see Siobhan. Her expression is serious, nervous, even. Bruce stands quickly, chest tightening. “Yes.”
“I’m sorry. Mr. Wayne, I looked in all of the treatment rooms and overflow rooms and surgeries and I didn’t see anyone who might be your son. Are you absolutely sure he was brought here?” She looks concerned.
“Yes, my son Tim said Dick arrived with him in the ambulance.”
“Are you sure he hasn’t maybe gone home? Or possibly down to the cafeteria?”
Bruce gives her the best smile he can muster. “I haven’t checked the cafeteria; that’s a good idea. Thank you.”
Siobhan smiles. “I bet you’ll find him down there,” she says, obviously trying to sound optimistic. “He probably just got hungry waiting for his brother.”
“Probably,” Bruce agrees. “Yes, I’ll go check down there. Will you page me if he turns up?”
“Of course.” She walks briskly away and is intercepted almost immediately by what looks like another concerned family member.
Bruce looks up and down the teaming hallway. The elevators that would take him to the cafeteria are down a short stub of corridor to the right. Bruce heads left. He knows his son. Dick would never leave an overflowing triage of wounded people to go get something to eat. It’s far more likely that he’d be helping people in the waiting room as best he could until he collapsed from malnutrition.
He pulls out his phone as he walks. The call is picked up on the first ring. “Alfred. Have Tim and Stephanie arrived yet?”
“Yes. I’ve secured Master Timothy in his room with strict instructions not to get out of bed. Have you received word about Master Dick yet?”
“No.” Bruce rubs his forehead. “So he hasn’t shown up there?”
“I’m afraid not.”
It’s beginning to be difficult to breathe against the band around his chest. “Call me immediately if you hear from him,” he says, more harshly than he means but his worry often exhibits in the form of anger.
Alfred, of all people, knows this and so only says, “You, as well.”
Bruce clicks off without saying goodbye.
He works his way up every hallway and down again, peeking in rooms when no one is looking. His progress down one of the last side corridors on the floor is stopped by a set of double doors with a sign that reads, Restricted: Hospital Staff Only. The security mechanism on the wall tells him that he’ll need a badge to get through them. He tugs on them anyway only to have what he knows confirmed. He pulls out his phone and feigns deep interest in the screen and only has to wait a few moments before a man in scrubs waves his badge quickly in front of the mechanism and darts through the automatically opened doors. He doesn’t pay any attention to Bruce or notice him slip through the door behind him before they can close again.
Bruce walks with purpose because people question you less when you do, though he’s not above throwing the Wayne name around in these circumstances if necessary. The Martha Wayne Foundation has given millions to the hospital, and he’ll use that fact if he has to. He’s not proud of it but he’d do much worse to find his son and make sure he’s okay. It’s not an issue though because for once he gets lucky—he doesn’t encounter any hospital staff at all.
Most of the doors have room numbers but no indication of what’s behind them. He checks each door, but they all require a keycard to gain access. Unless Dick took a keycard from someone—which Bruce highly doubts—it’s unlikely he’s behind one of these doors. There appear to be few places Dick could be down this corridor but Bruce continues on. He’s heading for the stairs at the far end of the hall when he comes to a set of bathrooms tucked into a recess in the hall.
Before he even pushes open the Men’s Room door, he hears the retching and once inside it’s immediately evident that the noise is coming from the last stall. Crossing quickly, he finds Dick leaning over the toilet, vomiting. Relief and fear clash inside him: Dick is here and alive, but Dick is obviously not okay. Besides the uncontrolled heaving, his pants are torn, and Bruce can see that his legs are cut, swollen, and badly bruised. Based on how hard the Camry hit him and how hard he’d hit the pickup, in turn, Bruce won’t be surprised if one or both of his legs have fractures.
Bruce squats down as close as he can get and waits. After another moment when he mostly dry heaves, Dick shifts and sits on the floor with his back against the wall and his eyes closed, panting shallowly. He’s pale and sweating, and his right arm is held close to his trembling body. Bruce doesn’t see any large amounts of blood, but he hadn’t expected to based on the CCTV footage. It also doesn’t necessarily reassure him.
“Dick,” he says quietly, putting a light hand on his shoulder.
Dick’s eyes flutter open. “Bruce,” he rasps. After a second, his brows furrow. “What’re you doing here?”
“I’ve been looking for you, chum.”
“Oh.” He blinks a couple of times and then his eyes fall shut again. “Sorry. Do y' need something?”
“I need you to come back out so you can be seen by a doctor.”
Dick lifts his left hand a few inches in a half-wave of dismissal. “’m fine. I’m just…I’m just waiting to make sure Tim is okay.”
“Tim went home an hour ago.”
His eyes open at that. “He did?”
“Hn.”
“’S he okay?”
“Okay enough. Out of action for a bit but otherwise fine. I think you may have a concussion, chum.”
Dick hums and nods a little. “Possibly. Feel kinda sick like that.”
Bruce reaches out lifts one of Dick’s eyelids, then the other. His pupils seem fine, equal sized anyway. “Does your head hurt?”
“Not s’ much. Had m’ helmet on,” he slurs.
Bruce’s eyes skate along his son’s body, looking for any obvious injuries. “Where does it hurt?” When he doesn’t answer, Bruce very gently squeezes his shoulder. “Dick.”
Dick opens his eyes, wincing. “B?” he says after a beat. His brows furrow again. “What’re y' doing here?”
Fear washes over Bruce and he quickly reaches out to touch Dick’s forehead; it’s cool and clammy. “I’ve been looking for you,” he tells him again. He presses two fingers lightly against Dick’s neck. His pulse is weak and fast.
“You have?”
“Mm hm,” Bruce confirms as he carefully takes Dick’s left hand and presses lightly on his fingertips. “Dick,” he says, thinking about the moment on the CCTV feed when Dick was slammed from his bike into the pickup. When he doesn’t answer, Bruce says more loudly, “Dick. Chum.”
Dick’s eyes flutter open briefly.
“Dick,” Bruce says with urgency, “does your abdomen hurt? Are you in pain?”
Dick flutters his left hand again in the smallest possibly gesture, like lifting it all the way up is beyond his ability. “Kinda hurts to breathe. Bruised ribs.” He scowls.
Bruce reaches out and tugs Dick’s shirt up to find the right side of his torso covered in one enormous bruise.
A massive surge of adrenaline hits Bruce and his heart rate skyrockets. “We need to go,” Bruce says, leaning in to maneuver Dick out of the stall.
‘What’re y’ doing?” he murmurs.
“Dick, we need to get you to the emergency room.” It’s hard to negotiate the small space but Bruce takes as much care as he’s able.
“’m okay,” he slurs. “I can wait for a while.” Which is no doubt what he’s told any medical professional who ask him in the last few hours.
As he’s leaning closer in, he sees Dick’s lips starting to take on a blue tinge. “No, you can’t wait, Dick,” Bruce says as he abandons his effort to be gentle. Without further hesitation, he reaches down and scoops up Dick into his arms and backs out of the stall as he stands. Dick yells, a harsh, bitten-off thing which resolves into a groan that sounds more like a wounded animal than his son. He tries to fight Bruce a little—blind, instinctive resistance to pain—but he’s weaker than one of Damian’s kittens.
It’s awkward, navigating out of the small bathroom with nearly 200 pounds of muscles in his arms but he manages it without too much difficulty. Moving swiftly down the empty hall, this time he curses his bad luck that he doesn’t encounter any medical staff. When he gets to the locked double doors, he bursts through them into the Emergency Department waiting room.
“I need help, please!” he calls, moving toward an empty gurney lined up against the wall.
A nurse startles when she sees him coming from the restricted area but meets him at the gurney.
“He’s hypovolemic,” Bruce says. “Might be in hypovolemic shock. He needs oxygen and fluids. Now!”
“Are you a doctor?” she asks, staring.
Bruce ignores the question. “He’s pale, breathing shallowly, his skin is clammy and he’s sweating. His pulse is fast but weak and he’s disoriented and confused. And his fingers.” He picks up Dick’s left hand and presses on Dick’s fingertip. “Slow capillary refill.” When she hesitates, Bruce says, low and quiet and as close to his Batman growl as he ever gets when not in costume, “Look at his lips.”
That seems to put her in gear. “Right,” she says, already moving. “Help me bring him this way.” She pushes the gurney from the side and Bruce pushes from the bottom. They move down the corridor and around a corner before she snaps a curtain back to reveal a small cubicle, not unlike the one Tim had been in. Another nurse has followed them in and together, they transfer Dick to the larger examination bed. As soon as Dick is settled, the nurse slams her hand against a red button on the wall and starts working an oxygen mask onto his face. Seconds later, more medical personnel descend on the small space and start taking his vitals.
Dick reaches up and weakly tries to push the mask away.
The nurse easily deflects him. “You need to keep this on.” She turns to Bruce. “What’s his name?”
“Dick,” he says.
“Dick? Can you understand me? You need to leave the mask on your face for now.”
When the doctor rushes in, the nurse brings him up to speed and he starts barking orders. Bruce takes two quick steps back, giving them all room to work. In less than ten minutes, they’re wheeling the mobile bed away down the hall toward the elevators and the surgery suites.
Bruce stumbles into the waiting room and someone stands up, touches his elbow and urges him into their vacated chair. He can’t imagine what he looks like for someone to do that, but he just accepts it with a mumbled ‘thanks’ and for the first time all morning, Bruce sits. He drops his head into his hands and tries to employ some mediation techniques in an effort to stop the shaking.
The next time he looks up, it’s because someone is nudging a tall takeaway coffee into his hand. He sits back and blinks.
“Jason,” he breathes out. Of all the people he might have expected, Jason is the last. He drops heavily into the empty chair next to Bruce. Much of the waiting room has cleared out and Bruce looks around then down at his watch. It’s been over an hour since they wheeled Dick away. “What’re you doing here?”
“Alfie called me. Said dickface was missing.”
Alfred. He needs to call and update him. Bruce rubs his eyes with two fingers and his thumb. “Which still doesn’t explain why you’re here.”
A flicker of…something flashes across Jason's face, but then he spreads his hands and with an insincere smile says, “I’m the search and rescue party. But since you’re just sitting here, I’m guessing you already found him.”
Bruce nods.
“How bad?” Jason asks, sounding more curious than worried.
Bruce closes his eyes for a long moment. “Internal bleeding. Hypovolemic shock.”
Beside him, Jason lets out a long, low whistle and for a single, irrational second, Bruce wants to reach into his mouth and rip out his tongue so he can never whistle again. Peripherally, he sees his second son take a long sip off his own coffee cup.
“Where’d you find him?” he asks eventually.
“Throwing up in a staff bathroom.” Bruce sets down the coffee and returns to his previous posture, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, head in his hands.
Jason snorts. “Such a dickface thing to do.”
“Jason,” Bruce says without moving from his folded position, “Thank you for responding to Alfred’s request for assistance, but there’s nothing left to be done now, so you can leave.” He lets out a shuddering breath. He loves Jason with every fiber of his being, but his mind is too consumed with fear and concern about Dick at the moment to get into a sniping war with his second son. If Jason stays and continues with his usual M.O., Bruce will end up saying something he regrets. It’s the pattern they’ve fallen into since Jason returned and each time it happens, it sets their relationship back months.
It’s quiet for a moment until Jason stands. Bruce watches his boots as he walks past and then hears him continue out of the waiting room and down the hall. Another shaky breath works its way out of Bruce, and he sits back, both relieved and bereft at Jason’s departure.
Agitated now and feeling guilty on top of it, Bruce picks up the tablet again. He watches the CCTV footage on repeat, watches Dick get slammed into the pickup over and over and over. He looks for alternatives but from his perspective, he can’t see anything Dick could have done that might have resulted in a better outcome for him or Tim. He’d had a split second to react and done the best he could with it.
He’s watched it about 30 times when a hand appears and tugs the tablet from his hands, replacing it with something wrapped in paper. A fresh cup of coffee is set on the table next to him.
“Stop torturing yourself, old man. The same thing is going to happen no matter how many times you watch it.”
Bruce blinks and looks up to see Jason, who has returned to the next chair and is unwrapping a fat bagel sandwich with a lot of veggies. He takes an enormous bite and some of the vegetables escape and fall into his lap. He scoops them up, tips his head back and drops them into his open mouth. Bruce looks down at the package in his hand and slowly unwraps it. A whole-wheat bagel with plain cream cheese. His breath catches in his chest for a moment, remembering the countless mornings he watched a young Jason shovel sticky sweet pancakes or waffles into his mouth while he himself chewed on the simple wheat bagel with a thin schmear of cream cheese that Alfred had placed in front of him.
He’s not hungry, his stomach is in turmoil, but he says, “Thank you,” and takes a small bite.
“I called Alfred and filled him in,” Jason tells him before taking another bite of his sandwich.
“Thank you," Bruce says again.
They sit in silence for a few minutes, Bruce forcing himself to eat until he’s finished about a quarter of his bagel and then sets it aside. He sees Jason’s eye track the motion.
“It doesn’t get easier.” Bruce murmurs.
Jason swallows a mouthful and then says, “What doesn’t?”
Turning his head, Bruce looks at the man beside him who he loves so fiercely. “Seeing one of you like that. Hurt. Bleeding. Possibly dying.” There’s a long pause before he adds, quietly, “Actually dying.”
Jason sighs and crumples the last small amount of his sandwich in its wrapping, sets it aside. “Bruce—" It isn’t sharp or angry, it’s almost…gentle.
Bruce picks up the coffee that Jason brought him and takes off the lid. “I know that our…nighttime occupations make all of this more likely, and I despise that but accepted it a long time ago because there’s a greater good to consider. But this,” he stares into the dark liquid, “this is so much worse—when the random chance of the universe reaches out and threatens to take one of you, and nothing I can do or could have done will change it.”
“Bullshit,” says Jason forcefully and several people turn to look at them.
Jason’s outburst is unexpected, but Bruce’s only reaction is to raise a single eyebrow.
Jason turns in his seat and leans in close to Bruce, pitching his voice low. “I watched that CCTV feed, too. If Dick wasn’t as good as he is—” He glances around the waiting room. “If you had picked up a few orphaned kids and just raised them like normal kids, if you hadn’t trained them, Tim and Dick would probably be dead now. Yeah, random shitty things happen, and sometimes they happen to us. But we have a hell of lot better chance of surviving them because you taught us how to think on our feet and react in the moment. How not to get killed.”
My training didn’t keep you from getting killed Bruce thinks, but he doesn’t want to throw fuel on Jason’s eternally burning fire, so he just says, “Hn.”
“Sixteen people have already been reported dead from that accident,” Jason continues. “If Dick was just some regular guy, the body count would be 18 right now.”
“Could still be 17,” Bruce murmurs, staring down the hall toward where Dick had disappeared. He leans forward into his meditative pose again. “I may not have found him in time.”
Jason doesn’t have anything to say to that, but a moment later, Bruce feels a warm hand on his back, rubbing lightly. It’s only Bruce’s long training at controlling his reactions that keep him from flinching in surprise. He must look very bad for Jason to do such an uncharacteristic thing. Except perhaps it isn’t entirely uncharacteristic. Jason was always an empathetic child, and Bruce has done this for all of his kids at one time or another, when they were younger and always when out of costume. Usually at the end of a very bad day. He can only hope he gave his children half as much comfort then as Jason’s hand is giving him now.
“He’ll be alright,” Jason says, quietly, with none of his usual sharpness or sarcasm. “He’s too stubborn to die.”
Bruce thinks, if only being stubborn could negate three hours of unchecked internal bleeding. But it can’t, so he puts his mental energy into telling himself that Dick is going to die so that when someone comes to tell him another son has died, he’ll be prepared.
Beside him, Jason stands up and an instant later he hears, “Mr. Wayne?”
Bruce looks up. A man in green scrubs is approaching. It’s been four hours since they took Dick through the doors at the end of the corridor.
He quickly gets to his feet, his heart racing. “Yes, I’m Bruce Wayne.”
He smiles tiredly. “I’m Carl, I’m a surgical nurse and was assisting in your son’s surgery.”
“How is he?”
“They’re just finishing up now. The doctor went in laparoscopically to identify the source of the bleeding. He had a grade-four liver laceration which was causing the blood loss, but the doctor was able to repair the damage. It’s a good thing you found him when you did and recognized what was going on. He was in class-four blood-loss territory, which is pretty severe. But once we restored fluids he stabilized, and he did very well throughout the procedure. They’ll be bringing him to recovery shortly and after we find a room for him, you’ll be able to see him. The doctors expect a full recovery.”
Bruce closes his eyes in relief. “Thank you so much,” he tells him.
“You’re welcome. It’ll probably be a couple more hours before he’s in a room. If you’d like to leave, we can call you and let you know his room number when he’s settled.”
“No, no, I’ll stay here. Thank you.”
Watching him walk away, Bruce’s chest releases and he becomes suddenly lightheaded. His knees buckle but before he can fall, a strong grip is on his arm and Jason eases him down into the chair.
“Hey. Hey, Bruce. It’s okay. He’s gonna be okay. He just said it. Relax.”
“Yes. Yes, sorry. I, I don’t know what came over me.” His hands are shaking and he forms them into tight fists to try to make it stop.
“It’s called relief,” Jason says, and sits down beside him again.
“Yes. Sorry. And thank you.”
Jason quietly hums in acknowledgement.
When he doesn’t actually say anything, Bruce looks at him, but Jason is drinking the last of his cup and staring out the window. Slowly, in a manner that’s very obvious and that Jason absolutely sees coming, Bruce reaches up and wraps his hand around the back of Jason’s neck, squeezing lightly.
“Thank you, Jason, for coming and…staying.”
Jason doesn’t say anything for a long time, and when he does, it’s, “Jesus Christ, old man, when did you get so maudlin?” It’s said with a slight sneer but not nearly as much as usual. He stands up and tosses his empty cup into the waste bin in the corner. “I’mma go get more coffee.”
Dick blinks awake and has that immediate unsettling awareness that comes along with the knowledge that something’s gone terribly wrong. The telltale signs are there: a combination of dull ache and numbness enveloping his body, the tug of the IV line in his hand, the annoying pulse oximeter on his finger, the understanding that he’s in a hospital and not the Cave. The exhaustion so thick he can hardly think through it. As the immediate sensations subside, he takes in the cartoon animals that are etched along the top of the wall. That’s new.
“The only room available was on the pediatric floor,” a voice says from beside him, apparently reading his mind.
Dick turns to see Bruce, watching him with a flat expression and looking as exhausted as Dick feels. Across the room, Jason is sleeping on the small couch, his long legs draped over an arm. That’s new, too. Dick scrunches up his face, trying to remember why he’s in the hospital.
Bruce reads his mind again. “There was a pile-up on the bridge. You and Tim were on your bike.”
Dick nods. “I remember now,” he rasps. It had happened so quickly that all Dick was able to do was give Tim a half-second heads-up that he was about to be airborne. Panic ripples through him as the thoughts come together in his mind.
Bruce is standing now, with the ubiquitous hospital cup and straw inches from his mouth, but Dick shakes his head.
“Tim…”
Bruce sighs. “Broken ankle. A few bruises. He’ll be fine.” He moves the straw closer. “Drink,” he orders. The word is sharp and gruff.
Dick watches Bruce as he takes a few sips of water, but Bruce won’t meet his eye. He pushes the straw out of his mouth. “You’re angry.”
Bruce says nothing as he returns the cup to the bedside table.
“I’m sorry,” Dick says. “I know it was my fault.” His voice is thin and he tries to give it more force. “I tried to give Tim a heads-up and minimize damage, but—”
“Dick,” Bruce interrupts, firmly and with a little heat.
Dick snaps his mouth shut.
“You did well on the bridge. As well as anyone could have. I’m not angry about that.”
Dick’s mind blanks. “Then what…?”
Bruce pushes out an angry breath. “You refused medical treatment when you arrived at the hospital.”
Dick scoffs. “I didn’t refuse medical treatment, Bruce. I just wanted to make sure Tim was seen—”
Bruce raises his voice when he says, “Your brother had a broken ankle. In addition to your own fractured tibia, you suffered a liver laceration and nearly bled to death in a toilet stall!”
Across the small room, Jason has roused and is watching them warily, no doubt remembering his early days at the Manor.
Dick rolls his eyes at what has to be Bruce’s hyperbole. “Bruce—”
“No, Dick. Do not downplay this. You lost 40% of your blood volume. Hiding away in a staff bathroom instead of staying to be seen by medical professionals was monumentally stupid. I raised you to be smarter than that.”
Dick clenches his jaw. “Right,” he says tightly. “Got it. I screwed up. Thanks for setting me straight on that.”
“Don’t do it again,” Bruce snaps, then pivots and storms out of the room.
Dick sighs and ignores Jason who is sitting up now. The room is silent except for the small clicking of machines. He closes his eyes and drifts off.
When Dick opens his eyes again, he can tell by the change in the light coming through the window that some hours have passed. Bruce is still gone but Jason is now sitting next to him instead.
“Why’re you here?” he asks. It’s barely more than a whisper.
“Love you, too, dickface.”
Dick grins as best he can. “You realize you just made my point for me, right?”
Jason shrugs. “Bruce went to go get Damian because the little brat threatened to drive himself if someone didn’t bring him to see you. Alf is with Tim getting his cast on and Stephanie is at class or something.”
Dick rolls his eyes. “I don’t need a babysitter. You can leave.”
Jason mumbles something but Dick is distracted looking for the morphine dispenser because the dull ache that woke him has turned into more of an insistent stabbing in his gut. “What?” he asks.
“Bruce made me stay so I could call him in case you started circling the drain.”
Dick huffs out a laugh. “Bruce can’t make you do anything.”
Jason is quiet for a moment then crosses his arms. “He asked me to stay, alright?”
Dick’s brows reach upward. “And since when do you do what he asks?”
Jason stares at Dick, something unfamiliar—something uncomfortable—in his expression. “He was pretty fucked up, thinking you might die.”
Dick's too tired to control his impulse to say the obvious. “Imagine what he’d be like if one of his kids actually did die.”
There’s a loaded silence in the room before Jason says, “Fuck you,” but there’s no heat behind it.
Dick smiles. “Love you, too, Jaybird,” he says, depressing the plunger on the blessed morphine pump. It’s only a handful of seconds before sleep is tugging him down.
Dick drifts into awareness again and feels a warm hand scritching his head. Bruce is beside him, seemingly lost in thought. Dick shifts his arm and Bruce’s eyes snap to his and the warm hand disappears, drops to Bruce’s side.
“I apologize,” Bruce says.
“Uh. What?”
Bruce clears his throat. “I apologize,” he repeats. “I was worried and…scared, and I didn’t handle it very well.”
Dick just blinks because he can count on one hand the number of times Bruce has apologized to him. He’s somehow sure that he has Jason to thank for whatever this is.
“I just… I need you to value your own life as much as you value others’.”
Dick snorts and the motion sends a burning jolt though his middle. “Pot/kettle,” he gasps.
“Yes, well.” Bruce clears his throat again. “Can we pretend I wasn’t an ass earlier?”
With a fond smile, Dick says, “Sure.” There’s not much Dick won’t do for Bruce if he asks.
“Thank you.”
“And?” Dick asks, because he knows Bruce and knows when the man is building up to something.
“And…with a lacerated liver, your recovery will be long and slow, and would you possibly consider coming to stay at the Manor?” he asks, then rushes to add, “Just for a while.”
It’s kind of the last thing Dick wants to do, but Jason’s words from earlier—He was pretty fucked up, thinking you might die—ring in his mind, so instead of getting his back up and starting another fight with Bruce, he says, “Yeah, that’d be nice, I think.”