Richard Grayson, nine years old, sitting in the center of Bruce's bed after careening through the halls of a haunting old house, terrified of the things playing out in his head. (After that, they'd moved rooms, and Bruce was never too far away, Dick only taking the larger quarters in a more private space once he was older.) It had been a rough night, dawn just breaking. He still felt bloody, even scrubbed raw, somehow more cut open by a child clinging to his hands after a nightmare.
If you were Batman, the night my parents died, could you have saved them?
It had been a breakthrough after nearly a year of taking him in, the hell of grief and therapy, new trauma of discovering Bruce's mad secret. And it was devastating, too. Bruce held his son to his chest and knew he had doomed him to thinking of that question only, for the rest of his life. Knows he thinks of it still, as a cop in Blüdhaven. It's the only thing either of them think of, sometimes. Consumed by it.
The sharks cast shadows, distant sunlight streaming in, mingled with the blue bulbs that do their best to slice away harmful rays. Not content with simply fucking up the seas, humans also continue to burn holes through the protective layer around their own planet. Where do fish have left? Where do any of them have left?
Bruce looks at him. Expression completely open, like someone took knife and delicately flayed him like one of the creatures swimming by, slickly separating meat from bone to expose every detail. I just like you, is all. Thank you for today. Thank you for all of it.
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Richard Grayson, nine years old, sitting in the center of Bruce's bed after careening through the halls of a haunting old house, terrified of the things playing out in his head. (After that, they'd moved rooms, and Bruce was never too far away, Dick only taking the larger quarters in a more private space once he was older.) It had been a rough night, dawn just breaking. He still felt bloody, even scrubbed raw, somehow more cut open by a child clinging to his hands after a nightmare.
If you were Batman, the night my parents died, could you have saved them?
It had been a breakthrough after nearly a year of taking him in, the hell of grief and therapy, new trauma of discovering Bruce's mad secret. And it was devastating, too. Bruce held his son to his chest and knew he had doomed him to thinking of that question only, for the rest of his life. Knows he thinks of it still, as a cop in Blüdhaven. It's the only thing either of them think of, sometimes. Consumed by it.
The sharks cast shadows, distant sunlight streaming in, mingled with the blue bulbs that do their best to slice away harmful rays. Not content with simply fucking up the seas, humans also continue to burn holes through the protective layer around their own planet. Where do fish have left? Where do any of them have left?
Bruce looks at him. Expression completely open, like someone took knife and delicately flayed him like one of the creatures swimming by, slickly separating meat from bone to expose every detail. I just like you, is all. Thank you for today. Thank you for all of it.
"Nothing."