Dick slumped into the batcave, rubbing a tired hand over his face. Being Batman was exhausting.
As always, Bruce was there to greet him, legs curled up behind him as he hovered anxiously. “Everything alright?" He murmured, and his hands moved to cup Dick’s face, worried. Dick brushed past him with a mumbled fine, ducking under his father’s hands because he didn't want to feel them not make contact.
He dragged himself to the Batdesk, slipping the mask from his head, and got to work typing in the nights report. Bruce moved to his side, taking a gentle seat on the table, and watched him.
The sound of screeching reached their ears, and Dick tried his best not to wince. “Oh fuck you! You little brat!” Tim yelled, and Dick didn't want to know what had started the argument. Their voices increased in volume as they entered the cave, Tim throwing off his suit with simple familiarity, tossing it over to the nearby couch.
“I had it handled!” Damian screeched, and Dick didn't need to turn his head to know the younger Wayne had thrown himself at his older brother, probably biting.
“OW! You fuck-” The distinct sound of a slap followed, the stinging echoes ringing in the air for a moment before the argument continued, neither party addressing their physical wounds, far too preoccupied with their emotional ones.
“They’re going to hurt themselves.” Bruce murmured, heavy with reproach, and Dick could tell by his voice he was probing gently. Trying to get Dick to intervene. Maybe Bruce would have. If he was still here. If anyone but Dick could see him.
“They’re bonding.” Was his reply, even as Damian’s scream was loud enough to shake the house and sent the bats flying. Bruce sent him a disapproving look, such a reflection of Alfred’s, of the ones he’d made when Dick was younger, that it hurt.
“They don’t need my intervention.” Dick tossed at him, because he was tired. And angry. It wasn’t Bruce’s fault. It was always Bruce’s fault. “I’m not their father.”
The words landed right where he wanted them to. Bruce’s face shuttered, closing. Dick sighed. “Bruce-” But his father was gone, disappeared from his side. As though even Dick’s own memory couldn't force him through the confrontation. The apology. Because it hadn't happened when he’d been alive. So why should Dick get that closure now?
The young vigilante sighed, the cape draped around his shoulders suddenly so heavy, and striped out of it, draping it across the chair. “I’m going to bed.” He announced to no one and everyone, moving to the stairs.
Damian and Tim didn't even spare him a glance, locked in their own silent fight. The screams had turned into sobs, into wobbly lips, into glares across the room.
A part of Dick wondered, as it did every night, if they turned to each other with fists and tore into each other so ruthlessly emotionally so that they’d have someone else to turn their anger on. So that they wouldn't blame him for his shortcomings.
As he did every night, Dick ignored the voice, the part of his that sounded so much like Bruce, and left them alone at the bottom of the stairs. Left them to their anger and their brimming hatred and their grief.
Just as he would curl up, alone, in a bed too big for his lithe performer body, with his.
