Who: Dick, Damian and Bruce (until Damian leaves and parent traps these two eldest batpeople) Where: The BATCAVE When: Guys this log was started so long ago, there were like WAY MORE ALIVE characters when this log was started (though, truthfully this could have been started YESTERDAY and it would still be true). Timeline wise, back after Bane made a huge mess and didn't even pick up when he was done. It's like Gotham was my 7th birthday party all over again. Warnings: IDK Batkid schmoop? Seriously that's whats in here. So basically lots of dysfunctional thinky thoughts and tons of heartfelt dialogue. They'll never speak of it again. You shouldn't either. Anything else: I love you guys. Spoiler alert: Dick smiles at the end.
Dick knew Damian pretty well so when he asked him for help with something he was pretty certain he had an ulterior motive. Even if the ulterior motive was wanting to hang around Gotham with him a bit before they went to Bludhaven. Which was possible, Dick found himself not minding sticking around after all. But he was still on guard as he drove his motorcycle up to the house. It wasn’t that he wanted to avoid everyone - he had meant when he said he wanted to see everyone - but even as he put the kickstand down and took his helmet off he paused and stared at the house for what felt like hours.
It wasn’t, and he knew he had to get this over with eventually. And for Damian he would do his best.
The mansion was trashed, the front door still ripped open by Kara and the entire place looted like it was the end of an era. The Batcave, luckily, still had superior security that Bane’s men couldn’t get through and Damian was at least thankful the place hadn’t been burnt down. He didn’t notice that someone who moved to Bludhaven shouldn’t be invested in something like the integrity of the Batcave and instead took to personally repairing what he could because he deep down he knew it was his responsibility. This may not have been his home anymore, he might have lost what the word meant a long time ago, but he was still a Wayne. Damian couldn’t forget how his father swooped in to save him and Todd without so much as a demand from either of them. It wasn’t Selina or Grayson or anyone else storming Blackgate. It was another Wayne.
So, Damian was here. Fixing what he could, closing off the worthless Lazarus Pit. Exploring the cave when he needed a break. The smell of storm washed rocks and stale air reminded him what it felt like to be a Robin. All of that was behind him. It had to be. But, there wasn’t anything wrong with a little nostalgia if no one was paying close enough attention to notice. “Well, the Cave’s security looks like it was rebooted when we all left after Kara.” Damian said from up high somewhere perched on rocks. “The mansion needs a lot of work.” He didn’t sound too worried about that. The mansion wasn’t what really mattered in this family, was it? The little bird swooped down and landed on the Batwing. He was dressed in the typical black shirt and jeans that were basically an out of uniform-uniform for the birds anyway. “And, it looks like the goons are getting swept up. We can go home soon, I think.”
Dick wandered in and looked around, he’d spent his entire life in this cave. There wasn’t a memory he had that didn’t eventually wind up here. This dark and damp underground sanctuary where he’d learned everything he knew. He didn’t like feeling like a stranger here, it made him uncomfortable everywhere. It made him uncomfortable in his skin. He couldn’t stand it. So he pushed it aside and put his helmet on the ground, putting his keys inside of it and his jacket strewn haphazardly next to it.
In about two moves he had pulled himself up and sat next to where Damian was standing. Because if anything, the Batwing was their personal jungle gym. He was sitting on the edge of the contraption his feet dangling and he smiled up at his brother. He didn’t say much for a moment. Part of him worried that he was keeping Damian away from this, he knew Damian didn’t feel the same way he did, and he understood that. But he didn’t know how fair it was to drag him back to Bludhaven. “No rush,” he said just gauging the temperature of the statement. Dick didn’t know if he was chomping at the bit to get back to Bludhaven or just chomping at the bit not to be here. He hated feeling that way, and he didn’t know what to do about it. If it was even possible.
He turned his head and looked over his shoulder before he even heard the noise, signaling that someone else was joining them. And by the sound of the footsteps it was Bruce and he was pretty sure he ought to get out as soon as possible. Preferably before he was asked to leave.
Wayne Manor was gloomier and far less inviting than usual in its current state, but it was still his home, and Bruce had refused to move into one of his penthouses while it was being repaired. During the day, when he wasn’t at work, he was there, overseeing the clean-up process and going through room after room to determine what, if anything, was missing. He knew by now that the mansion itself was merely a building, brick and stone, and he could rebuild it a thousand times over and still not lose the memories it held for him. Today was no different, though he only spent an hour so on the upper floors before descending into the Batcave itself, already aware of Damian’s presence; though he had, incorrectly, presumed he was alone until a moment too late. By the time he heard the second voice, his footsteps had already announced his presence and he wasn’t about to turn heel and leave.
His relationship with Dick was practically non-existent. No matter what problems he had with the others, they all paled in comparison, and Bruce had begun to think that perhaps there was nothing left to salvage. He hadn’t made enough of an effort, he couldn’t be the man Dick remembered, he never knew what to say; the reasons were endless. Due to his timing, he only caught the tail end of their conversation, but he pretended he’d heard nothing at all as he reached the bottom of the stone, wet-slick steps carved into rock and approached the Batwing. “Hello,” he greeted, and while there was a flicker of a smile for Damian, it faltered and vanished when he turned to Dick. In all honesty, he didn’t know what to expect from him; anger, bitterness, even the silent treatment. “How are you, Dick?”
Damian gave Grayson a look that seemed worried. Honestly, most looks he gave Grayson these days had the trademark low forehead grimace that came with the Wayne bloodline and sometimes the littlest Robin felt like he was babysitting his older brother. He knew it was important to make sure Grayson’s wheels didn’t fall off and he didn’t get too annoyed about it most the time. If Damian was anything, after all, it was loyal to the people who treated him well. And, lately that included most of the batfamily. Even his father.
He poked his head up to look at Bruce enter and returned a thin, welcoming smile that in Wayne terms was pretty warm and then stood up as if he were trying to give Grayson and Bruce some space. “He didn’t see as much action as the rest of us.” Damian said, teetering on the Batwing a little before jumping off to perch on a higher cliff. “Maybe next time I can convince him to get locked in Blackgate with Todd instead of me.” He quipped dryly. It didn’t sound cruel or biting, just regular Damian Wayne humor. If that’s what you wanted to call it.
Dick nodded at Bruce, and tried to give Damian a look that conveyed that he was fine, he didn’t feel anywhere near as awful as he had at the beginning. He felt like he had most of himself back and he wondered quite often if the bit of himself that he felt was missing wasn’t because of the Pit; but more because of the hole he had that used to be filled with a family. The problem was Dick didn’t know how to work backwards.
He opened his mouth to answer Bruce’s question, but Damian answered it for him. Humor or otherwise there was endless guilt about not being here as much as he felt he needed to be. He was kept on the other side of the door much more often than he liked. And Bo was rarely helpful enough to check in on his family, it wasn’t a very equal status relationship. His face had fallen a bit, for just a moment, but he straightened up and rolled his eyes, “I’ll start working on a rotating schedule for imprisonment.” He said dryly.
Bruce was rarely transparent. There was a wall between him and the rest of the world, and he chose what slipped through and what remained hidden. His apprehension towards such an encounter, for example, was nowhere to be found in his expression, nor was his concern or anything else that might indicate what he was currently thinking or feeling. He was outwardly calm, but it was feigned; in reality, he was painfully uncertain in situations like these. Dick’s presence made things far more complicated than they would have been had it only been Damian down in the Cave. They might still have their hiccups, but their relationship was far more solid in comparison.
Humor wasn’t as effective a fallback for him as it was for the others, but he tried. “At least you saw some action.” He didn’t blame Dick for not being there, not in a deliberate, conscious way, similar to the manner in which he didn’t blame the others for nearly allowing Gotham to be destroyed in his absence. If a part of him did, well, it wasn’t something he intended to vocalize. “Though I think avoiding imprisonment altogether would be better than a schedule,” he added, but it came out sounding less like a lighthearted quip and more grave than he’d intended. He paused, and silence hung between them for a few moments. “Unless that schedule also factors in escape, either alone or with assistance.”
Damian was a bird at heart, which meant he was happier on a perch than on the ground. It was easier to watch his family interact this way, as if here were giving them the illusion of space while still playing referee if things got bad. Most of him wished that Helena was there because she was a lot better at bringing people together. She’d laugh while everyone else awkwardly stared at each other and move the conversation forward. But, even Helena was having a hard time now. “Todd isn’t big on escaping. He’d want to sit around and complain about how much he hated it first.” Damian said sharply from his cave cliff, voice loud and crisp to simulate him being down there with them. “If you hadn’t shown up, he probably would have been asking Bane for a diary so he could write out his feelings.” The more Damian talked about Todd, the clearer it was to the other members of the Batfamily that he was still having issues with his brother. More so now that apparently he had made friends with Kara.
The little bird caught his own bitter taste in his mouth and it made him feel uncomfortable. The last thing he wanted was a lecture from either of them about Todd. Or worse, some errant looks up at the cave ceiling in unvoiced worry. A moment passed and his voice turned serious. Business like. The little Wayne knew not to ask if another Wayne needed help. The answer would always be no. Instead, he asked for details. “How big of a threat is Arkham City? Grayson and I were planning on returning home if things here are stable, but I don’t like what I’ve heard about this super prison.”
Dick grinned a bit, just a bit, while Damian perched and as for himself he gracefully moved down to the floor of the cave near where he’d been sitting on the Batwing. He looked at Bruce curiously, he looked back up at Damian and mostly just observed the conversation take place. He didn’t have much to add at this point, he was covered and smothered in guilt for not having been here to help earlier. He knew, logically, that it wasn’t his fault - but if his family couldn’t even count on him how long would it be before they didn’t count on him at all? Then again, he was convinced they’d already written him off as some kind of a headcase. Which he couldn’t blame them for, he’d done the same.
“Damian, one thing you should know about moving away,” he said with a very knowing look on his face, this wasn’t his first time - and it was almost comforting knowing that he felt the exact same way he had when he’d left Gotham the first time - before all of this door nonsense - “You never actually stay away, there is always something that needs doing,” it wasn’t bitter, again - it was almost comforting - but it was a fact. He didn’t want to go so far as to offer that he would stay, but he was beginning to think that he was somehow keeping Damian away too and that wasn’t fair. So he was supportive, and would be as supportive as necessary to be sure that Damian was doing exactly what he wanted to do.
Ties between himself and Jason had always been tenuous at best, but recently Bruce had come to an understanding of sorts with the boy. Their issues had by no means been resolved, but the blatant hostility and tension between them seemed to have simmered, though at a cost. He was only vaguely aware of ill feelings between Jason and Damian, but what he lacked in previous knowledge he was certainly making up for now. Even if he wasn’t sure what the core of the problem was, the tone of Damian’s voice made it clear that there was some sort of tension between the two. Perhaps, he thought, it stemmed from Bludhaven; Dick and Damian had left, whereas Jason had been one of the few who remained. He raised his eyebrows, but he didn’t remark on the bitterness or take one side over the other. He simply looked up at him, head tilted to the side, a slight frown tugging at his lips before he tucked it away. Now wasn’t the time to discuss what had gone wrong between the two; he might ask Jason about it later. Perhaps he’d be more forthcoming.
Since Bruce had already known about their plans to return to Bludhaven, he wasn’t surprised. As much as he might want everyone to stay, he would never vocalize that desire, and he didn’t want to be the one to keep either Damian or Dick somewhere they didn’t want to be; hence why he’d accepted Helena’s decision to travel without argument. He began to respond but Dick beat him to it, and he watched the other man with a steady gaze as he spoke. There was a distinct lack of the bitterness he would have expected, and he wondered if Dick was implying that he would stay as well, or simply that he wouldn’t hold Damian back if he wanted to. “Dick is right,” he said. “Something always needs to be done in Gotham. One problem or another always arises. I understand,” he added, “that you two want to return to Bludhaven. I would never begrudge either of you that. You should be wherever is best for you.” He wasn’t going to lecture them on putting Gotham’s needs before their own, and he noticed that Damian had referred to Bludhaven as home. Just because he would never leave didn’t mean they had to feel the same way, and he’d buried the hurt that came with that deep enough that he’d managed to convince himself he believed it. “Arkham City is a problem,” he admitted. “Attempts to stop it have proved unsuccessful. Removing Crane from his position, however, is where I intend to start. Once he’s unseated and his true nature is revealed, he’ll be replaced, ideally with someone far more suitable. We might not be able to stop it, but we can monitor it, put restrictions into place to ensure its existence isn’t abused and used for individual means.” He knew that wasn’t much of an answer, but he wanted the decision to stay, if it was made, to be one they made for themselves, not one he made for them. Commands, not questions, were his style, but in this he would give them a choice.
Damian let the two talk and stayed up in his perch, obscured from view. A moment passed and he shifted his weight, the sound of tiny pebbles falling through the cave below. “I’ll help as much as I can.” The little bird said eventually, his voice echoing over the walls of the cave. “The mansion itself needs work done to it as well. I’ll go make sure my room is intact and then meet you for dinner later, father.” This was Damian’s way of telling the both of them that he was not only forcing them to have an alone time talk, but that he planned to finally spend some time with his father as well without having the buffer of Helena or Dick there to make it less awkward. The time away had made things easier for Damian and while he was still a brat just an inch more mature than he was before.
With the sound of more pebbles hitting the ground, Damian swept off his perch and landed somewhere near Bruce. He gave a sure look to the both of them and then went upstairs.
Dick was pretty sure they’d just been Batfamily Parent-trapped and while he wasn’t having it, and had no interest in entertaining such a thing - he still didn’t move. Part of him wanted to stay here in the awkward silence and dare Bruce to leave first, or vice versa. He didn’t know how long they would be stuck like this. And they were stuck. He didn’t trust him enough to tell him everything he worried about - and in turn he wasn’t exactly on the top of Bruce’s Christmas list of trust either. But he wanted to be. He was pretty convinced that annoyed him more than anything.
“I’ll probably go back to my place in Gotham if its still standing, if you need anything. Or help with anything.” There. That was progress.
Bruce could be shrewdly perceptive on most occasions, but in this case, he was entirely blindsided. He wasn’t expecting Damian to leave the two of them alone, and there was nothing he could do or say to stop him from leaving. Instead he nodded, a tiny smile making an appearance at the mention of dinner, but it faded as he watched him disappear up the stairs and out of sight. Perhaps it was all in his imagination, but he felt as though the atmosphere had suddenly become more awkward, a layer of tension rolled out that hadn’t been there before. He rarely knew the right thing to say, but he’d never felt as much of a failure as he did with Dick with anyone else, except maybe Jason before the bitterness between them had cooled considerably. He couldn’t even pinpoint where, exactly, things had gone wrong. Dick’s death had only strained the ties between them further, but their disconnect had begun even before that. It was a chasm he didn’t know how to cross, one that he had managed to cross with others, though it had taken a great deal of time, effort, and failed attempts to do so.
He was, admittedly, surprised that Dick didn’t intend to go back to Bludhaven even without Damian. “I appreciate that,” he said, finally. “And you know where to find me if you need anything as well.”
Dick gave him a puzzled look, this wasn’t going anywhere. Part of him just wanted to go really. “This is my home too, Bruce, I don’t like seeing it like this,” he was talking about Gotham, he was talking about this house, the cave, everything. And he wasn’t just talking about the physical mess that had been made.
He supposed it was right that he and Bruce had the hardest time working out their issues. It had always been that way. Sure other Robins had come and gone, and with them carried their own problems. But he and Bruce had fallen out more than once. They’d trained each other after all. They’d learned from each other, and scolded each other, and hurt each other. But it had been done. All together. With each other. To each other. And at the same time. It was hard for Dick to be where he was now, knowing Bruce was at the beginning. Dick knew he had so much more to learn and so much more to teach Damian - and he didn’t know if he could do that without Bruce. He’d never known if he could do it without Bruce. When Bruce had died and it had been just the two of them he’d never known what was going to happen. But this seemed almost harder to bear than that.
Even now, after more than a year, Bruce sometimes forgot that he wasn’t the only one who felt a deep-seated, unwavering loyalty to this city. He’d thought Dick no longer wanted to be in Gotham. He’d wondered, at first, if he would ever return from Bludhaven. But now he realized that leaving didn’t mean the place left behind stopped being home, and he nodded. “Of course,” he said. “This is as much your home as mine, or anyone else’s.” It wasn’t clear if he was referring to Gotham as a whole, or the Manor, or perhaps everything all under one generalization, but he didn’t elaborate. His silence stretched on long enough to suggest that nothing else would follow, a lull that would have to be broken by one lest it stretch on forever. But then, suddenly, he spoke, an olive branch offered in one of the few ways he knew how. “I’m glad you’re staying, Dick.”
Dick nodded, actively, not passively, he nodded because this was home for a lot of people. Himself included. And no one wanted to see it like this, and no one wanted to be cast out. Or cast themselves out. Exile, self imposed or otherwise, was not good. “I don’t want to get into a situation where Damian thinks this isn’t home, or that he feels like he has to stay away from this place. Because this is where we all come to recharge our batteries. No matter what has happened.” He said honestly and more honestly than he had said anything in the last months.
The silence hung in the air, and when Bruce spoke again he sighed and looked down at the ground for a long moment. He didn’t look up when he started to speak, and he didn’t know how to stop once the words started coming.
“I didn’t leave because I blamed you for anything that happened to me. It wasn’t anything to do with you, I couldn’t handle it here anymore, Bruce. I’ve got no one. And everyone is just leaning on me, and I’m trying to accept things that make no sense to me. They stole my identity to hurt people and then they killed me - and then the only reason anyone brought me back was because people still needed to count on me. And I feel completely ill equipped and inadequate to be part of anything or to be counted on. Damian is the only thing to make sense to me, but I can’t be a burden on him - he needs to be here with his family. And even if I wasn’t holding him back, he’s got a father already. I can’t be that too, I’m not even any good at it. Even when he was a kid and my Robin - I wanted so bad to do a good job. Like you. You suck at it, but you’re the best in the world. And you will be the best in the world. So, if you ever think you aren’t cut out for it, you are. And I’m just, not a part of that anymore.”
The last thing Bruce wanted was for anyone, Damian or otherwise, to feel as though the Manor or even Gotham itself was someplace they needed to avoid. He suspected Helena had already begun to feel as such, due to her insistence on traveling, and he’d thought that going to Bludhaven meant that Damian and Dick shared a similar sentiment. He had already accepted that he could not, and would not, be the Bruce they all knew and remembered. In reality it was impossible; not all of them came from the same world. But he agreed with what Dick said; he’d never intended to drive anyone away.
He thought, admittedly, that would be it. He thought Dick would take his comment and leave. Expectation settled over him, and so there was something like surprise in his expression, just for a moment, when Dick began to speak. Then it was gone, replaced by impassiveness as he listened. For so long Bruce had felt disconnected from this world, from these people, and for the first time he really saw that Dick was struggling with something similar. Faint guilt stirred when he realized that he could have done more, especially after his death and resurrection. “I doubt anyone would call you a burden, Dick,” he began, carefully. “You don’t need to be his father, and you don’t need to be me. You don’t want to be either,” he added. “I can’t begin to understand what you’ve gone through, and I won’t insult you by pretending I do. But I believe you are as much a part of this as any of us. You’re part of this family.” He paused, then, and finally thought to ask what he likely should have a long time ago. It wasn’t insulting; he honestly wanted to know. “What do you need, Dick? What do you want?”
Dick listened, it was probably the most words they’d spoken to each other since before he’d died. So he was listening, he was paying attention and was surprised to find them not actually disagreeing. Not fighting. And the resentment wasn’t there hanging between them, it made it easier to face it all. “You and me didn’t have it easy, Bruce. We didn’t see eye to eye a lot of the time, we fought and argued and sometimes I thought we’d really screwed it up for ourselves and there was no going back. But there was always going forward, and even when you died and left us and we were so lost. All of us. Even fucking Jason, who was ruining everything. He was just so lost. We all tried to rally, and Damian and I did. We really did. But it was never going to be the same again. Timmy was off looking for you, I was trying to figure out what to do with the instructions you’d given me - and wondering if you knew I’d ignore them in the end. But things were never okay, liveable, and we dealt with it and we grew up even more. But never okay.”
He cleared his throat and kicked at a scuff on the floor of the cave. Bruce’s question was loaded. He didn’t know. He never knew the answer to that question. Dick who was in tune with his emotions, and was basically ruled by them half the time (which explained his problems with women). He cleared his throat again and stood up, his shoulders straightening a bit and nodded once, “I watched my parents die - and it felt like the world was ending. And my world was. Everything I knew about it, everything I knew about anything was gone in that instant. I knew I’d never be happy again, I’d never find peace, and I’d never feel whole. And then there was Bruce Wayne, billionaire. I don’t know how to not have a family. I was miserable without my mom and my dad - but I had you. And as weird as you were,” he said with a bit of a smile. “You were my father too. I’ve known you longer than I knew my own parents, Bruce. I don’t know how not to have a family. And I’ve pushed all of you away - because I can’t get comfortable here. I can’t get comfortable with what happens here. Stephanie, you, Selina, I try all the god damn time with Damian but he’s a little shit so he just stands closer to me. I don’t know how to lose my family. I’ve never had to be alone before.”
There was no doubt that Bruce would have been a very different man if he’d had the family he had now. But he hadn’t, and all that history was something that would never be his. He could hear about it, learn about it, but the simple truth was that he hadn’t experienced it and he never would, not in the same way. With Dick, that history was clearly important. And it was something he lacked. “I don’t know what that’s like,” he admitted. “Until I came here, I didn’t realize I had missed out on anything. I had no basis for comparison before, not like I do now. It hasn’t been easy here either. We’ve gotten worse, then better, then worse again. I’m not sure where we all stand now, to be honest with you.” Maybe it was the result of all of them being thrown together from different worlds and timelines. Maybe they could never find true harmony. They were all pieces to a puzzle that might never be properly completed.
He knew it was a loaded question, what he’d asked, but it was the one that mattered most. When Dick talked about his parents dying and his world ending, he understood. At eight years old he’d felt the same, and he’d accepted hard truths that no child should have to accept. Dick had too. He managed a small smile at his mention of being ‘weird’, because he was fairly sure every Bruce Wayne had that in common. “Family isn’t so easily pushed away, Dick. We’ve all had trouble adjusting here, and I don’t expect it to happen easily or at all. But there is a place for you here. You’re not alone, not if you don’t want to be.” He hesitated. “I know things have been... strained between us. We barely know one another,” because he wasn’t Dick’s Bruce. He wasn’t that man, even if they shared some traits. “But I don’t want it to be that way.”
Dick knew that it had all been far from easy for everyone, he also knew that pushing everyone away wasn’t working for him either. But keeping them close came with a new set of heartache symptoms that he didn’t understand at all. “I don’t want it to be that way either. “I don’t know what to be for anyone - I don’t know what anyone needs. I don’t know what anyone expects. Do you have any idea how frustrating that is?” He had to shake his head a bit and sigh. “Yes, I suppose you do.”
Oh, Bruce knew exactly how he felt. He knew what it was like to be held up to a series of expectations he couldn’t clearly define and couldn’t meet. He knew the feeling of coming up short, of trying and trying and never getting it right because everyone seemed to want something different and he was never enough. “I do,” he agreed. “I wasn’t the right Bruce for anyone here. They all wanted me to be someone different, and I couldn’t do that. It was extremely frustrating. But,” he added, “it’s gotten better, Dick. It took nearly a year for things to change, but they did. The same can happen for you. It won’t always be like this.”
Dick shook his head, “You know Bruce, at home - you died - sort of. Either way you were gone, and we had to learn to live without you. And everyone looked to me like I should automatically know what to do. And I was awesome. But I’ve never been so terrified in my life, and I never want to feel like that again. And for some reason, here, in this place, my hopes were too high for you being ‘back’, but it wasn’t the same thing. And I haven’t wanted to deal with that.”
Dick leaned against another structure at that moment, and reached his hands over his head for a support beam that was up there. He was tempted to just start climbing at that point. He could climb all the way out, this was his home. He’d grown up here. “I grew up climbing these walls, trying to find secret ways out. Now all I want is the secret password to get back in.”
And there it was, again, that disappointment that he wasn’t the right Bruce. He understood that it was difficult. He knew that if some version of his parents appeared here and didn’t know who he was it would be beyond painful, but he couldn’t change who he was and he couldn’t be the man Dick remembered. Once he’d wanted to be that man, but now Bruce didn’t, and all he could do was wait for Dick to learn to adapt just as everyone else had. “I’m sorry,” he said, finally. “If there was something I could do to make it easier, I would.”
He had no answer to fix everything, nor did he have some sort of magic password. “I don’t think there is one.” It was a somber observation, and he sighed afterward. “You’re always welcome here,” he offered, should Dick choose to take the invitation.
Dick shook his head, “You have nothing to be sorry for,” he said almost immediately. “You shouldn’t be sorry, I should be sorry. This isn’t anyone’s fault. Nothing that has happened is anyone else’s fault at all. This is my problem. And my issues. And looking for a better answer than “get used to it” has been useless and alienating to everyone I care about. There’s a reason I’m basically alone. Damian is only around because he feels guilty. And I’m not mad at you, Bruce. Not anymore. And even then I wasn’t actually mad at you. I’m mad at me. Everyone else seems to be doing just fine,” sort-of-all-things-considered, “I’m the problem. It’s why I left. It’s why I still want to be gone. But I don’t know how to be anywhere else. You don’t owe me a fix, you don’t owe me anything. I owe you an apology. And that’s what it comes down to. So I’m sorry. My father would be appalled with the ration of shit I’ve handed you. Both of them would be actually. You didn’t have to let any of us into your life at all. And the fact that you did should prove the man you are. And I shouldn’t be comparison shopping for fathers. I already had the best one there was. In that really dark creepy bat cave kind of way.” And there it was. He smiled.