Every now and then a post crosses my dash that has something like "Bruce Wayne is USING dick Grayson making him RESPONSIBLE for a GROWN MAN's EMOTIONAL STATE" and I like. You know. Don't engage because everyone in the batfandom (and everywhere else) has some amount of issues of one sort or another causing us to have big emotions about not even well written fictional situations. This is probably not a clash of fictional characters but a clash of personal issues.
But I do want to like. Say real quick
"Dick was my light in the darkness and brought back my reason for living" is not a Job Description. It is simply existing and being around. Like, Bruce loves dick being Robin, obviously, but the thing with Robin was that it was where he and Dick actually got to know each other and bond. If Bruce had successfully kept Dick grounded and they bonded over old TV shows and Legos first, he would love Dick just as dearly and Dick would bring back the light just as much.
Dick doesn't give Bruce a reason to keep living because if Bruce dies Dick will immediately be shot in an alleyway trying to stop a mugging without him. Dick provides a reason to keep living as in Bruce has new investment in getting home alive and well each night, even when he's alone. He has a reason to plan his own wellbeing into the future, because he is expected to be there.
If you have no one waiting for you, if your death is all but guaranteed and you have no idea when it will come, why NOT never sleep and go super hard and do things that are borderline impossible? What's it gonna do, kill you?
But if you have someone relying on you to show up, suddenly you have to be like, well, shit, if I stay up 3 nights in a row I won't be coherent for him. If I go super hard I might get hurt and he'll worry. If I take huge risks, I might lose my chance to be there.
Is death still looming over you, dodging your every step? Yes! But you still have no idea when it may come-- but if you're not dead tomorrow, and someone's expecting you to be around, you have to start to make plans about it. If you live until his birthday, you'll have to have some things set up. If you make it until winter, you'll have to figure out a few holidays. If you want to live ten more years, you'll have to go to some doctor's appointments. You'll have to get a few papers signed. You'll have to get a couple tests. You have to try to live as long as possible.
You become the person you yourself needed when you were young. You needed someone. He needs someone, too. And you're what's available, so you make it work.
He doesn't have to do anything but exist.
