I think one of the worst parts of Dick moving away is Damian can't tell him little random things anymore??? Like if he learns something cool at school he can't just wait for Dick to come home to tell him, he's got to call him up and hope he answers.... Just, Dick isn't as accessible to him anymore??
Damian comes from a life that started as just being him and his mom, sometimes his grandfather whenever he was around– not that he remembers a lot of when he was that young, but he knows when he starts living with Bruce suddenly he’s not alone anymore. Everything’s much louder, crowded, and he needs to learn to share. It’s not all about him anymore and it’s a struggle for him to adjust, but he does, and he really does love his new family, the company they bring, the fact that he IS surrounded by people who don’t just take care of him because they’re hired too.
And they make time for him. Dick picks him up from preschool and listens to every little detail that Damian wants to tell him, even if it is to complain that he didn’t get to hold the class room hermit crabs that day or it rained so much they couldn’t go outside like they’re supposed to. Dick actually cares and listens and Damian recognizes that.
So when Dick goes to college, it’s a blow to the world that Damian got used to; that Damian was really starting to enjoy. He had a family with brothers and a sister and now one of them is leaving. When Bruce or Jason or Alfred pick him up from school they don’t know that Damian likes to eat his snack that he saved in his lunchbox for the drive home, they don’t know that Damian’s the only one that can bring up Maps, the girl Damian really sort-of likes, or that Dick used to take the long way home so they’d pass the park and Damian could see all the people walking their dogs around.
Damian has to call Dick only on the weekends and only in the afternoon if he wants to talk to him, but even then he’s usually with his friends or trying to study and it’s so hard trying to fill Dick in on everything that happened that week when the rest of the family needs to talk to him too and Damian can’t take up the entire hour or so that they have Dick on the phone with his little details about how Kindergarten is going.
And it sucks.
