dami can't (leavethenest) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2013-04-04 06:01:00 |
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Entry tags: | damian wayne, nightwing |
Who: Dick and Damian
Where: Dick's apartment
When: Recently!
What: Big decisions~
Warnings: None
Dick was doing better, he felt almost normal. The only thing really residual was his own emotional way of coping with this problem. It wasn’t so much the Pit as it was good old fashioned Bat Family psychosis setting in. Dick had been Bruce’s first, he’d made a good fair share of his mistakes in raising him, but neither of them were perfect. Dick, miraculously, survived into adulthood and actually came out pretty well adjusted all things considered.
But being tossed into the pit brought forward emotions he didn’t know he’d buried and all he wanted to do was talk to Bruce about them. His Bruce. He’d been trying so hard to make a connection with the Bruce they had, he wanted to, more than anything he wanted to, but they had their plates full. And was it fair to expect him to understand that when Dick said he was okay, that he wasn’t at all okay? He was holding Bruce to an impossible standard, and he knew that. Logically he knew that, but it didn’t do much to make things better. So he talked to Jason, and he talked to Damian and he clung to that as tightly as he could.
Then came the problem of having completely lost himself and trying to rebuild that. Ra’s had taken Nightwing from him in a way that left him feeling cold and vulnerable. Realistically everyone knew that it hadn’t been Nightwing, but if just one person was harmed by that name? What good was it? Nightwing had been his and his alone. All of it from day one had been his mark on the world. And every time he thought about putting the suit back on, blue or red fingerstripes didn’t matter at this point, he got a bad taste in his mouth. He wanted to take it back, but he didn’t know how.
So he’d been thinking, and doing more thinking, and thinking some more. He needed a change, he needed to get out of Gotham for a bit. But he didn’t want to be alone, and there was one other person in the world that he wanted to come with him, the only person he trusted enough to put things right again. And he was ten years old. Sort of.
Damian was on his way over to Dick’s Gotham apartment, and Dick was determined to at least test the waters, he had a Plan - sort of. He’d ordered pizza, and he was helping himself to a beer when Damian walked into the apartment.
Damian was at the end of his rope. The very end. And, it was a wonder that he was still holding on. Dressed like a college kid who ended up on the bad side of a laundromat, he shuffled into Dick’s apartment in tattered jeans, a t-shirt and a sweatshirt that hung open and loose. Urban camouflage with an unlikely slacker spin. His eyes were bloodshot, black bags hanging under them over pale, stretched skin and an expression so sullen he looked like he had been locked in a box for ten years. His most recent conversation with Jason had sucked out the last bit of care from the boy, leaving him a shambling mess who just wanted to get through the day without wanting to throttle someone from the batfamily.
Grayson was the only one who got to see him like this. Stephanie had seen him at some lows before, but an emotional blow like this would get her all worried and fussy in a way that would just irritate him more. Grayson had seen him at his absolute worst and he’d know what to do. Or at least, he’d know what to say. He had to. Without saying hello, Damian unlocked the door, closed it, shuffled to the couch and face planted haphazardly across it. He turned his head and stared towards the opposite wall, eyes wide open. Damian wished he was tired enough to just pass out. He wished he could just recharge with Grayson and go right back to trying to hold the family together.
“I think I’m done being Robin.” He said after a couple seconds, voice mumbled and tired. “I’m done. I’m done.” Damian repeated, curling his arms around him and facing the couch like he was trying to bury himself there. Maybe if he situated himself far enough through the cushions he’d find a portal back to his Gotham. “Selina says I can’t call the shots. Jason says I can’t help. Bruce still doesn’t understand what to do with any of us.” Out of all Damian’s mopes, this quite possibly could have been his best.
Dick watched as Damian faceplanted on his couch with epic style and grace that was only made possible by virtue of being Damian. He smiled in spite of himself and walked over to the living room and sat down on the coffee table in front of where Damian was trying to be swallowed by the couch.
He took a drink of his beer and nodded a bit, “I think you need a break,” he answered honestly. Normally there would be much convincing and trying to set things right but Dick had realized recently that it was up to him to decide what that actually meant. “Recharging your batteries isn’t a wrong thing,” he added.
There was no question that their family was unconventional on it’s best days, but lately it had been off the charts dysfunctional, and Dick didn’t know how to fix it. And, like Damian, thought it was his job. He was the one brought back from the dead for that sole purpose after all. But Dick knew better than anyone that sometimes in order to find a way to harmony, you had to find your own way first. He’d done it, and it had been for the best. Damian was struggling, he was physically ill from it, Dick could tell just by looking at how he carried himself, bags under the kid’s eyes notwithstanding. “I’ve been thinking for a while about what to do with this,” he paused, “mess. And I’ve been thinking maybe I should go back to Bludhaven for a while. Get back to the nitty gritty of it and see if Nightwing is salvageable and hope I’m just being melodramatic.” He didn’t let Damian huff and puff as much as he was sure he wanted to, he just kept talking, “And I’ve been thinking maybe you might want to come with me,” because he wouldn’t go without him. Anything he was doing at this point was for Damian and he wasn’t going to leave him. Not again. Death had been enough.
Damian might have jerked his head back a little in surprise when Dick told him that he needed a break. Taking breaks wasn’t a thing anyone in the batfamily did, especially not Damian. Even if lately he felt like a break was the least he could do for himself. So, he stayed there and listened to Grayson from the comfort of the cushions, making a grunting noise of agreement towards the end. A change of scenery wouldn’t hurt and Bludhaven was notorious for needing heroes just as badly as Gotham. They’d have their hands full and they’d be back working as the team they were always supposed to be. Eventually Damian rolled on his stomach, mouth bunched up on the side of his face in thought. “What’s going to happen if we both leave? Todd is off the rails, Stephanie feels excluded by everyone and I don’t even know where Bruce stands most of the time.” He shrugged, hands up in a small sign of doubt.
“Is it okay to just let them figure it out?” Damian wanted a yes. He wanted a black and white yes, they were allowed to go do what they knew worked and everyone else could screw right off if they couldn’t handle things themselves.
It wasn’t an argument. It was a discussion, a valid one, and that more than anything encouraged Dick to continue down this train of thought. For all he knew they’d talk each other out of it and figure something else out. But it was at this point a valid discussion. “For a long time I wondered what would happen to Bruce, and to Babs, and everyone else if I left Gotham - and then I finally did it, and I realized that everyone was going to be okay. Some of them weren’t happy, and some people understood. I think at the heart of our family they know that we aren’t going anywhere permanently. They’re our family, they don’t want to get rid of us and we don’t want to get rid of them - but more importantly we can’t. And they can’t. But maybe they need to find their way too. Without us trying to come in behind them and fix everything. We can’t fix everything Damian. We can’t and,” he cleared his throat. “It’s killing me to try. But you and me? You and me I get.”
Damian slowly sat back up, running a hand through the back of his hair with a grumpy, thoughtful expression as if he had just woken up from a less than fulfilling nap. “Maybe Bruce would be better off with less of us around.” He said, not all that resentful like he would have been months and months ago. Damian knew his father was trying and he also knew that Gotham was crowded with enough bats already. A little breathing room in a new city could do them all some good. And, really? Damian never had the kind of devotion to Gotham that a lot of its inhabitants did. He could go kick ass somewhere else with Grayson at his side and feel like it was the right thing to do.
He nodded and that was it. Damian had a way of making up his mind suddenly when it really counted. “We come back if they need us, but we don’t take orders from any of them.”
Dick wasn’t sure that Bruce would be better or worse off, but he didn’t think that he would sink either. “I don’t know if I’d put it that way, but I understand what you’re saying. I think maybe we can’t help them until they can help themselves, and we can’t help them until we can help ourselves either. And trust me, it’s not that far to Bludhaven, and they could use a little Dick and Damian. But there is something I had to learn, and something important to remember. If we go, and they fail, or they get hurt, it’s not because we left. It’s not our burden to carry. We don’t make these choices for them, Damian. And they don’t make our choices for us. I didn’t expect Bruce to feel miserable if something happened when I left, it’s not their fault if we fail.”
Damian crossed his arms, tucking his chin down in thought. Grayson was usually right about these kinds of things. Family, failure, slipups and victories. He hadn’t just paved the way as the eldest Robin, Grayson had seen enough of all of it to understand how to survive. But, Damian could never really understand it for himself until he experienced it. The little bird nodded like he’d keep it in mind and try not to get hung up on all of it the same way he did when he got too busy to chase Selina around. This was all part of growing up, right? And, he could do that. Well. Mostly. “We’re not going to fail.” Damian said with a little smirk, looking up to Grayson, all arrogant brat that eight years of door magic couldn’t erase.
Dick assumed that was that, and he felt like a huge weight was already off of his shoulders. Maybe he could do all of this again, maybe he could bring Nightwing back and feel okay about it. Maybe he could find his feet just one more time. He’d done it before, and this had been the way to do it. He smirked right back at his brother, they were clearly just too charming for Gotham. That had to be it. “Hell no we won’t,” he agreed. And he felt good for the first time in months.