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Nightwing rouses just as the Batmobile pulls into the Cave, jerking up in his seat with a gasp for all of half a second before he checks himself. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even look over at Bruce, just fumbles with the safety belt as the car slows to a stop.
He staggers out before Bruce can swoop over to the other side of the car to help him, but he’s not awake enough to take a full step without stumbling. Bruce manages to catch him under his arms before he falls proper, and he heaves them both over to the nearest examining table.
"I’m fine," Dick croaks, trying to shake Bruce off. “Get off, I’m—"
"—Concussed," Bruce snaps. It’s not strictly true, but to ignore one’s injuries is sheer stupidity; never mind that he’s done the same far too often, himself. But Dick tenses up beside him, and Bruce has to force himself to add, in a calmer tone, “And you need stitches."
"I can do them—"
Bruce knows exactly what Dick is about to say — as if learning to treat one’s own injuries hasn’t been an integral part of every Robin’s training, starting with Dick, and certainly something Bruce has done often enough himself — but right now, he is not having any of it.
"We’re already here." Bruce props the younger man such that he’s sitting up off the edge of the table, legs dangling outward. “You may as well let me look."
He tries to ignore the wordless noise of disbelief that his words invoke, and instead busies himself with collecting the necessary supplies from the Cave’s supply cabinets. Disinfectant, cotton pads, bandages, suture needles, thread; usually it’s Alfred who does these things, but Bruce knows the inventory well enough that it doesn’t take him too long.
There’s a deep gash on Nightwing’s right arm, on top of numerous other cuts besides, and his body-clinging costume is mostly in tatters. Batman’s suit hasn’t fared much better, but he’s escaped major injury. It’s ironic, maybe, since he was the one who called Nightwing for help. Through an emergency alert, because that’s the only thing from him that Dick responds to these days. Yet it’s Nightwing left bruised and bloodied at the end of the day, while Bruce is mostly unharmed.
It’s an ugly metaphor for their relationship, when he stops to think about it.
As he returns to the table, standing between Dick’s knees, Bruce discards his cowl and what’s left of his cape. He begins by cleaning the blood and grime off Dick’s arm, an action so familiar to him and straightforward that he doesn’t even have to think about it. Not least because he’s been in this position often, and even more so in the reverse.
Whenever Dick is around, during these situations, there’s usually banter of some kind. The younger man babbling, either coherently or incoherently depending on who is injured and to what extent, while Bruce quietly absorbs his words.
Now–-
Now, it’s just silent. Tense. Not in the same way it might be if one of them was grievously hurt, where the only focus is on medical treatment. This…
This is awkward and uncomfortable; something Bruce has rarely felt around Dick. Not even some few years before, when he began to notice that the boy was a boy no longer — began to notice him in a way that perhaps was not wholly appropriate from mentor to protégé, from adult man to teenager.
It’s never been this broken between them, not even when Dick shed Robin’s wings and left Batman (left Bruce) to become a hero in his own right.
The stillness stretches long and overwrought as Bruce sews up the gash in Dick’s arm, and deals with the leftover minor cuts. He tries to think of something to say to fill it.
Well. He tries to think of how to say what he wants to say (and there’s a lot, anything from "I miss you" to "I’m sorry"), but clarity in that regard remains lacking by the time he’s down to the last laceration.
Once that final cut is taped up, Dick will leave. Injuries or no, with this frosty tension between them… Bruce knows this much.
And he can’t let that happen. He has to keep him here longer, his partner, his occasional lover, his. Bruce has to know these things are still as true for Dick as they are for him, even if they aren’t getting along at the moment.
He stares at the remaining cut on Dick’s left temple, not so much contemplating how to deal with it, as he is contemplating the situation he’s found himself in. The graze extends all the way down to the line of Dick’s jaw, but it’s shallow. Bruce is seized by the sudden, irrational need to mouth it.
Maybe it’s not even that irrational, not really. Dick had always liked teasing him, pointing at little cuts or bruises while asking Bruce in a laughing tone to "kiss it better, boss". Bruce had usually just ignored him, being too intent on whatever task was at hand. But there had been one or two particularly late nights, when they were on breaks between cases, when Dick’s smile seemed particularly soft and inviting. When Bruce had felt… indulgent…
Now, Bruce hesitates for all of a moment before pressing his mouth to one end of the leftover cut, just by the corner of Dick’s red mouth. It’s only the mildest pressure, but Dick flinches away at the touch.
"Bruce," he says warningly, and Bruce can’t do anything but look back up at him. The lenses on Nightwing’s stylised domino mask are turned off, revealing blue eyes that are bright even when narrowed in anger. Bruce’s gaze trails down, past sharp cheekbones, and he sees also that Dick’s lips are pursed in a thin, unyielding line. Even like this, Bruce thinks, Dick is the most handsome thing he has ever seen.
He reaches out to cup Dick’s face, wanting to verbalise that sentiment, and every other emotion that’s running through his head and overwhelming his entire being.
Instead, he finds himself leaning in to kiss Dick properly, keeping it gentle and sweet. Dick makes a strangled sound but he doesn’t pull away; he kisses back, bites back, but only for a few seconds before pushing at Bruce with another wordless noise.
Bruce retreats the barest amount. If he could just show Dick what he’s struggling to put to words—
There’s fire even in the way they stare each other down, now, that attraction and pull that has always kept them connected even when they haven’t seen in each other in days, weeks.
And suddenly they’re kissing again, though it’s more an intense dual of tongues and lips (and teeth, on Dick’s part). Interrupted every so often when Dick says something like "we can’t" or "not again", but after the eighth time that happens, Bruce thinks he understands what he needs to do. What he needs to say, to close this impasse between them.
Dick has always bloomed under praise, after all.
It comes out as a mumble, despite himself. “You’re beautiful, even when you’re angry."
Dick reacts by biting down hard on Bruce’s lip, his fingers curling forcefully into Bruce’s scalp. It’s not painful, but sudden enough that Bruce gasps, just slightly. He’s undeterred, though, and simply draws ragged breaths between kisses, forcing the words out from where they’d rather remain, deep inside of him.
"You’re incredible, Dick. The most beautiful person I know. You—"
"Don’t…" Dick groans, before cutting Bruce off with a particularly savage kiss, sucking hard on his tongue.
"Kindest—" It takes him a long while to break away from the wet heat of Dick’s mouth just to say that, and another few minutes to manage again; he finds himself grabbing Dick’s hips and clinging to them as if holding onto something tangible would keep him from totally losing himself in the way Dick makes his heart race and blood pound (and there might be something profound in the fact that it’s Dick he’s hanging on to, but he can’t let himself think about it any further, not right then). “Bravest—"
"Enough," Dick growls, but he doesn’t pull back from their mingled breaths.
"Most graceful," Bruce tilts his head so that the next nip from Dick’s teeth falls onto his jaw, even as he continues lapping at the younger man’s face. “Loyal, reliable—"
"Stop," Dick gasps, and pushes at Bruce again, more forcefully this time. “Stop, just stop."
Bruce backs off at once, his chest icing over with a fear that’s aggravated by every breath, while Dick heaves and wipes at his own wet, bruised mouth with the back of his hand. Seconds pass, filled with the sounds of both of them desperately gulping air.
"You can’t—" Dick says finally, quietly, before cutting off with a frustrated noise. He thinks for a second before restarting. “You can’t keep trying to emotionally manipulate me into forgiving you, Bruce."
The instinct to protest this rises immediately, and Bruce opens his mouth. But Dick cuts him off. “And I can’t keep allowing you to. Not this time. I need…" Dick looks away, his voice breaking, along with something inside Bruce. “I need some time. And space."
Dick has been hurting. More so than anyone else in the family, maybe, because Dick feels the pain of others far more than he feels any pain inflicted on himself, and that’s exactly how the Joker got to him. The bastard attacked the circus, attacked Dick’s other family away from Bruce and the rest, destroyed Amusement Mile; obliterated everything Dick had invested all his hopes and entire life-savings into –-
The Joker couldn’t have done those things without knowing that Dick Grayson was the man behind Nightwing. And the Joker couldn’t have known that if Bruce hadn’t outed himself to the maniac in Arkham Asylum, all those years ago.
The scumbag had ignored him then, but that clearly hadn’t precluded him from using the information against Batman, anyway. Against one of his greatest weaknesses.
Bruce had been desperate to help Dick — as if he would ever leave any of his family completely penniless, much less — much less this perplexing, gorgeous young man who is second only to Alfred in Bruce’s regard but who drives him to complete and utter madness sometimes.
But Dick has never like accepting Bruce’s help; is under some misguided impression that it would somehow make them less equal. Bruce has yet to make Dick understand that all he wants is to look after— to —
It’s something he can do.
It’s the only way he can show how much he cares, because he can’t say it.
Because how much he cares for Dick is far beyond the scope of words.
But Dick, as always, had refused, told him off angrily, and now Bruce can only die a slow death from the inside. Watching silently from the sidelines while Dick aches and grieves and keeps him firmly out.
Minutes pass, the Cave quiet and dimly-lit around them, and still Bruce can’t make sense of what he needs to do to make this better between them.
"Every time you call," Dick says eventually, breaking the silence. He scrubs at his face before continuing. “Every. Single. Time. I drop everything I’m doing to help you because you’re my—" He inhales sharply, abruptly halting the tumble of words. “Because we’re family, and that’s what you do for family." Dick’s eyes look bright for all of a few seconds before he rapidly blinks it away.
"All for what?" he demands. “To not even get any trust, or respect? Not just for me, but for Barbara, Damian, the rest of them?"
And Bruce is listening, trying to absorb everything Dick is saying, but he has to interject right then because that’s not completely fair. “I’ve told you things," he insists.
"Sure, you let me in a little. Sometimes. Just to shut me up, I guess. And only to lock me out completely, barely minutes later."
Dick shakes his head with a bitter laugh. Before gasping slightly, and pressing his fingers to his eyelids. He’s not concussed, per se, but his head had certainly taken a hard knock earlier. Bruce reaches out to check it, but Dick holds him off.
"Yeah, I always used to try to get you to talk, didn’t I?" he continues, his voice hoarse and harsh, and they’re still close enough that Bruce can see him tremble. The Cave’s dim lighting casts strange shadows on his face, light interchanging with dark. "To open up, even if all that got me was my head bitten off. Or a slap in the face."
Dick rubs the corner of his mouth, where Bruce had hit him not months earlier. Where the broken skin hasn’t totally healed yet. Bruce finds himself flushing darkly at the memory of that incident. To have given Dick scars like this is not something he’s proud of, at all. And he has to live with the reminder of it every time he looks at the younger man.
With a deep, shaky exhale, Dick slides off the examining table. He steps back from Bruce, staring at him with crossed arms and darkened eyes. “Now I realise why you never liked talking much. Because your words? They mean nothing at all."
There was already a divide between them. Now Bruce can feel, as sure as anything, that Dick is slipping even further away from where he can get to him. He curls two fingers over the back of Nightwing’s gauntlet, trying to keep him from retreating even more, but he releases it just as quickly when Dick jerks at the contact.
"No," Dick spits, and Bruce almost backs up at the raw hurt filling his expressive face. “It’s just you so wrapped up in your grief that there’s no room for anything or anyone else. Except for Gotham and Batman."
And as far as grief goes, he doesn’t mean that thing they don’t talk about. That is a sorrow they share in equal measure. This? This is nothing quite so new. Dick has always pointed out Bruce’s inability to move on from the deaths of his parents, noting how unhealthy it was for him to dwell and let it continue festering.
Maybe he’s right. He usually is, when it comes to breaking down Bruce’s psyche. But all Bruce knows is that he doesn’t have anywhere near the resilience or courage that Dick demonstrates every day of his life. In how he never allows his hurts or his pain to hold him back, but uses them to propel himself forward and live.
"I’m not…" Bruce tries, helplessly, to explain. “I only ever wanted to. To protect you from — from me. And the Joker, he realised it. He realised that the way to get to me most was to hurt all of you, especially you. He—"
Bruce never flounders like this. It’s a terrifying feeling, grasping at whatever handholds he can to keep this chasm between them from deepening. He’s been trying, god, and hardest of all with Dick. It’s a strange reversal, because he’s never had to. Dick always understood him, understood and accepted of all of his idiosyncrasies even while occasionally questioning them.
It’s not enough anymore. The constant put-downs are humiliating, to say the least, something Bruce is unused to, but still Dick doesn’t seem to get that Bruce wouldn’t be trying so hard if he didn’t care.
"Tried to break me by breaking you," Bruce forces himself to say. “Barbara’s mother… Raya… Amusement Mile; he wanted to wound me by targeting my family, and I never wanted any of this, for any of—"
"Don’t," Dick says flatly, ending the entire line of conversation with a sharp word. “Just don’t. I’m not in the mood to deal with your emotional baggage right now." He lets out a deep sigh. “Maybe you should give Catwoman a call. I’m sure she’d be happy to help."
He doesn’t quite snarl the last, but his tone is more than a little biting. Bruce is sure it’s not so much jealousy, as it is disapproval. Disapproval of Batman’s appalling weakness when it comes to Gotham’s most infamous cat burglar. Of his inability to put her behind bars, and his many regrettable liaisons with her.
But that’s not the point. Selina doesn’t know Bruce. The masks have always stayed on between them both, never going any further; Selina knows only Batman, and not that well, not yet. And definitely not as intimately as Dick does, never mind the sex.
In all honesty, though, very few do.
"And if not her… I’m sure you’ll find an adequate replacement." Dick’s upper lip curls up in an ugly smirk. “That’s what you do right? Make trade-ins for younger, better models?"
That gets a rise out of Bruce, as it was no doubt intended to do. “That’s not—"
"Not what, Bruce? Not fair? Not true?"
Bruce glares back, trying to keep his breathing even. Dick has always had a way of getting under his skin and provoking him in ways that no one else manages, and now he isn’t sure if wants to hit the boy for his insolence or kiss him senseless just to show him how, for once, he’s completely wrong.
"I didn’t replace you," he grits out. “No one could ever replace you."
More than that…
"You’re the only one I want." His voice cracks, along with something in his rib-cage.
Dick just stares back at him. His brows are furrowed, full red lips pursed, but he isn’t angry. Bruce realises, rather, that his expression is uncomfortably close to pitying. And tempered with a large dose of skepticism.
Dick is hardly the first to look at Bruce like that, but it’s the first time it hurts. And Bruce would know from pain. His chest is wringing and he can’t think of many other things that have ever come close to the deep ache of it.
But Dick’s mouth just twists into a bitter dreg of his usual, beautiful grin. “A month ago, I’d have given anything to hear you say that. Now…" He shrugs. “Maybe it’s all about timing, huh?"
Bruce can’t comprehend how to respond to that. He just looks back at Dick, trying to conceal the despair blooming within him. Locking up his emotions was one of the first things he learned how to do, after his parents’ died, but Dick has always seen through him.
The younger man glances away. “I can’t get into this with you again. Not right now."
The entire spiel hasn’t been much different from a slow-acting poison, killing Bruce cell by aching, screaming cell, but that last line makes his heart stutter with hope.
Not now… is not the same as never.
It’s not much.
But it’s something.
Bruce wants to try reaching out to Dick again, to squeeze his shoulder or grip his arm or just yank him into a suffocating embrace, but he doesn’t want to upset the other man any further than he already has. Instead, his fists clench at his sides, shaking with the effort of keeping still.
"I understand," he forces himself to choke out, past the lump in his throat. “I. I’ll. I’ll wait for you, Dick." Forever almost falls out of his mouth, but he manages to stop it. “As long as you need… I’ll wait."
He stares at Dick intently, trying to show just how much he means it, but Dick doesn’t turn back.
"Goodbye, Bruce."
Bruce can only watch as Dick drags himself to the bikes with an agonising sluggishness. The spare Bat-cycle he chooses has a decent autopilot, at least. But that does little to resolve the worry overwhelming Bruce’s entire being. He stares numbly, not really seeing anything, his mind a complete blank. The roar of the bike as it races out of the Cave barely registers.
And then there’s nothing. Just the occasional screech of bats, punctuated once in a while by the steady drip of stalactites.
Bruce stands solitary in the vast darkness of the cave, looking down at his bloody, calloused hands. He’s all alone, now, but he only has himself to blame.