DC's characters

When Damian has nightmares, sometimes he waits it out in the dark with his eyes trained on the shadows around him. He takes in deep breaths and tries to control his unsteady heart. Then he might take out his sketchpad or he might find Titus and curl up next to him. Usually the dog insists on playing. Damian can't help but oblige the big eyes and wet nose nudging his palm.

Sometimes he leaves his room and wanders the halls and Pennyworth finds him and he knows. He offers Damian something warm to eat and closes all the blinds, turns on all the lights. He pats him on the shoulder and moves around the room, never straying far, doing whatever it is that Pennyworths do.

Sometimes he goes to drag Grayson out of bed to spar with him. He fights until he calms down and lies on the floor, sweat cooling and falls asleep by accident. A good amount of the time, Grayson carries him back to bed. He stopped threatening Grayson with a knife the first few times, and then started again after he found out about the pictures.

Sometimes he even goes to try and scare Drake if he's asleep. He sharpens his knife loudly or pours buckets of ice water on him. It's soothing.

He rarely tries to find Father.

If anything, he avoids his father after these dreams.

He wonders if Father knows.

Father would. He seems to know everything, so how could he have missed the yawns and dark circles under Damian's eyes after a particularly difficult week.

He has never said anything and Damian doesn't want to infringe. It is not comfortable requesting for assistance from Father. It bruises his pride and makes him feel as though Father might think him weak.

But tonight, he leaves his room, buttoning up his nightshirt and tugging out the wrinkles in his clothes. He walks down the halls trying to act as though he has some sort of higher-extremely-important-I-have-no-time-for-you purpose in case anyone chances upon him. And when he arrives in his father's room, he pauses, staring at the carvings in the large door before he turns and leaps out the nearest window, climbing along the building under he reaches the windows of his father's room.

He disarms the alarm and picks the lock as he sneaks inside. The carpet is warm and soft under his bare feet and he moves silently, watching his father's form.

He's huge, Bruce Wayne: The Batman. He takes up all the room wherever he is and more often than not, Damian feels the need to fight him. For attention from the people around them. For his right to exist. But more so, for his, for Father's, attention.

He walks up the bed and leaps up, using the nightstand as a foothold to land on the headboard. Damian sits down, his toes barely grazing the sheets and he watches his father.

His father is amazing. He notices everything. Damian refuses to admit it to his face (he doesn't want to give up his footholds against Father), but he always seems to be a step ahead.

But in all honesty, Damian doubts his father has truly noticed his nightmares. The pale skin and ringed eyes may have registered in his mind subconsciously, but Father probably does not recognize it. He knows the stories of Grayson breaking under the pressure of school, the Titans, and Robin. Grayson had eaten little, slept even less. But Father was too consumed to care for him emotionally when it had made so much more sense, been so much more concrete for him to get results through villains and less wounds and grades. That was how Father showed his love. How he still shows it.

Damian knows his father loves him. He loves him back.

Recalling waking up to his Father's evident love and relief, feels like a shock to his system every time. My Father loves me. He loves me. He brought me back to life. He loves me. Because I'm me.

But now Damian thinks that his Father loves too many things, too many people. His Father may be a large hulking figure of a man, but even he cannot hold that much affection in him for everything.

So perhaps, he should not have been envious of Drake. Because really, it is the city that Father loves. It is Batman and Gotham that he loves. It is the innocents that cannot defend themselves that he loves.

Not in the way that he loves Damian and Grayson and all his other Robins and Batgirls, but it is a love all the same. Like Gotham is his child - a baby. That he cannot speak to, cannot connect with, but one that he loves simply because it is defenseless and it is his to love.

Father shifts in his sleep and the blankets rustle, moving with him.

Damian's eyes draw lines over his figure as memorizes his features. It is a silly reaction he supposes, but Damian often tries to draw Mother, but he cannot quite recall the shape of her eyes or her lips. He recalls her as a mixture of colors that he does not know how to create. Colors of adoration, respect, loyalty, fear and confusion bleeding into each other until they blend into a particularly ugly shade.

What he had believed was love at some time before as well.

He fears that someday he shall forget exactly how it was that Father smiled because he does so, so rarely, especially with Damian. He wants to memorize them all, everyone he values, well enough so that he can conjure them up with his paper and pencil anytime he wishes.

Most times, they change though, so he can never completely reach perfection. Another wrinkle there, another scar. And on the days when Father is sad. His eyes look like they are stolen from another human altogether.

Damian can feel his heartbeat settling at the sound of Father's slow breathing. He breathes quietly through his nose and there's only the sound of crickets and night air mingling with it.

Being around Father is a nervous, frustrating experience and yet he is the only one who Damian feels young and safe around.

For Grayson, he was never someone who Damian wanted to treat him like a child, put him on his lap and wrap his arms around him so that he could pretend that was enough to keep him safe. Like a young son might with his father. (If Damian is honest, being treated as such makes him slightly uncomfortable, but he occasionally enjoys entertaining the idea anyway) Grayson has always been his friend, mentor, and brother, but never his father. Even when Father was gone.

But now, Father is here, and Damian imagines, knows that if he asked Father to wake up and treat him like the distressed child he never wanted to be, Father will.

The thought is enough.

Damian slides off the bed, making the bed sink and conversely rise from the impact.

Father wakes immediately, groaning blearily at the sight of tiny toes and slim ankles.

"Father."

He gets a grunt.

"Father. Let's go on patrol."

"Damian, normally I don't say this, but I want to sleep."

"Well. I don't want to sleep. I want to go on patrol."

There was a louder groan and Bruce nodded, "Five minutes. Cave. We need to have a talk about bedtimes."

"You promised. I shall call Pennyworth if you don't arrive promptly."

Father grunts and Damian leaps off the bed, stealing Father's blanket along the way as he leaves his father to the cold night air from the open window and marches down to the cave. He smirks when Father lets out a resigned groan.

Walking down the hallway, he glares at a yawning Drake who squints at the sight of Damian with the bundle of blankets.

"Wha-"

"I'm going on patrol. Working. Unlike some other shirking freeloaders we are all well aware of."

Looking disgruntled, Drake leaves, muttering to himself. Damian marches down to the laundry room, growls before looking around as he has to leap up to unclip his Robin costume and throws the blanket into the washing machine. Pennyworth should get the idea easily enough.

He takes the shirt, pulls it on. Slides into the tights and tugs on his boots, lacing them neatly.

And when he goes down to the cave and hears Father's yawn and sees his broad back, costume half on, Damian smiles.