A/N: I am going through a hard time ok. Your regularly scheduled Dick/Wally will return shortly.

The last thing he sees is his father, or rather what he imagines his father to look like at the moment – Damian is fairly certain that his sight has left him. He can feel his father's arms under him, and he can vaguely hear the sound of ragged breathing which he's sure isn't his because his lungs have both been punctured by the blow of the sword.

He wants to say something, but even if he could speak, Damian doesn't know what he would actually say. "I'm sorry, Father," doesn't seem like it would quite cut it. He decides not to dwell on it. His father can think what he will of him, nothing is going to stop Damian from dying and he knows this. The sudden ability that that knowledge grants him to simply not care about anything is a weight off of his shoulders so unbelievably abrupt, it almost jolts him back to awareness. Almost.

Death isn't anything like his mother had told him it would be; an infinite moment at the end of consciousness when time stops and the mind stretches on for eternity. It's more like dreaming, Damian thinks. He is thrust into an environment in which he has little control. Scenes play out before him. Batman is doing a handstand on the edge of a sky scraper and making jokes about the circus. He removes his cowl in a bunker that is not the batcave, and Damian sees Grayson's face instead of his father's, smiling, clasping his shoulder and ruffling his hair. It boils down to images and emotions he's never felt accompanied by smells and voices. Grayson's laughter litters the pictures in his mind like dots on a film reel and it feels like that old cliché, his life flashing before his eyes, except this isn't Damian's life.

He feels confusion just in time to feel warmth, physical warmth. He'd lost the sensation of his body some time ago but this discomfort brings it back to him like a punch to the gut. He reels, feels himself teeter on the edge of a mattress and rolls in the opposite direction with gracefulness that will probably make cringe later. Once he feels the security of a solid bed beneath him he falls back into the dream of flickering images.

[][][]

When Dick comes into the kitchen Damian is missing and Alfred looks pensive, stirring a pot of steel cut oatmeal over the stove.

"Where is he?" There's no point in leaving the hallway. No matter what Alfred says Dick knows he'll have to enter Damian's lair and brave waking him sooner or later, and he'd rather that it be sooner.

Alfred expels a long suffering sigh and says, "He is in his room, Master Dick. I haven't checked on him since I last tried to rouse him and he nearly hit me in my face."

"Jesus," Dick laughs. "Okay, I'll go get him." He turns to leave, but Alfred calls to him.

"I would exercise restraint if I were you, Sir. It's unusual that the young master not be up before the rest of us."

"Right," Dick says.

He knocks first, because Damian would maim him simply on principle for entering unannounced. When there's no response, Dick calls Damian's name, and after half a minute more of silence, Dick enters the room.

The cleanliness of Damian's quarters rivals that of Alfred's, but Dick has seen a shirt on the floor once or twice on the rare occasions that he's been allowed inside. Its void of clutter, a desk against the wall across from his bed with a single sheet of blank paper sprawled across it and a nightstand with a lamp and a candle, nearly burned to the wick. All of Damian's possessions are kept either in the closet with his clothes, buried in the drawers of his desk or in locked boxes beneath his bed.

Damian lays buried beneath a mound of sheets. He doesn't move and Dick approaches him slowly, saying his name in as dulcet a tone as he can manage. There is no change in Damian's state and Dick comes closer, kneeling before the bed and peeling back the covers enough to see Damian's face.

In the dark, it's difficult to tell, but he's sure the sees the sheen of sweat on Damian's forehead and when he puts his hand against it, Damian feels hot to the touch. "Hey, Little D," Dick says, moving his hand to Damian's shoulder to shake him lightly. "You feeling okay?"

Finally, Damian inhales a shuddering breath and his eyelids crack open. He looks up at Dick for a moment – Dick almost swears that Damian is about to cry, the expression on his face is unbelievably pathetic – but then Damian surges forward, eyes scrunched shut, and before Dick can even react, he's covered in sick.

"It's okay." Dick says, looking down at the vomit on his pajamas. "That's fine I was going to take another shower after breakfast anyway. I hate these pants, really."

Damian is leaning over the edge of the bed, panting and shaking, and he spits and says, "Am I dead?"

"Um," Dick puts a hand on Damian's back – the hand that wasn't caught in the crossfire of Damian's barf. "I don't think dead people can throw up." Dick pauses to inspect the damage, aside from him, Damian also managed to get vomit on the floor and a little bit on the edge of his bed. "Well, maybe Jason can, but I think he's a special case."

A high pitched laugh that sounds suspiciously similar to crying comes out of Damian and Dick almost wants to take him to the hospital just for that. "I'm dying," Damian says and breaths in raggedly.

"Hey, you're not dying." Dick pets the hair on Damian's head. It's thick and greasy from sweat. "You've just got a bug. I'm going to go get a thermometer. Then I'm going to take a shower. Alfred will get you some soup in the meantime, okay?" Damian doesn't respond so Dick stresses the word again.

A tiny hand emerges from beneath the blankets and rests on top of Dick's, which is still petting Damian's head. At first Dick thinks this is a comfort seeking gesture, but then Damian's fingers wrap around his wrist and push his hand away. "Do not… touch me, Grayson."

"Awww…." Dick smiles, "That's my little D." He ruffles Damian's hair one last time and then leaves the room.

On his way out, Dick hears a quiet, "-tt-." He mimics the noise and Damian groans loudly behind him and mutters something that sounds very close to, "I'll kill you," but could just have easily been "I'll kiss you."

Dick laughs at the thought goes to his room to change his clothes and find the old mercury thermometer that Alfred is always insisting gives "the better read."