[Image description: Nightwing and Robin are sitting on a bench in the Batcave. Nightwing is grinning as he ruffles Robin's hair, who is adjusting his boot as he tries to elbow Nightwing away playfully. Other members of the family are scattered around the cave in the background. END ID.]
dickanddamiweek2021, Day 7 - Nicknames / Hidden Injury / "Are you happy?"
i took my liberties and ended up with more of an answer to the prompt,,,,,,but thats a wrap!! (°▽°)/ thank u to the folks @dickanddamiweek for hosting this event i had tons of fun creating and seeing everybody else's works!! 💙💚
Finger Stripes - Dick and Dami Week Day 1 - #JustSiblingThings
BONUS PATROL SCENE UNDER CUT:
Day 1 - #JustSiblingThings for @dickanddamiweek
So I had this idea for a few months now, ever since this outfit of Damian’s in Infinite Frontier was shown. LIKE HE HAS FINGER STRIPES AND YOU WANT ME TO NOT THINK IT’S BECAUSE OF HOW MUCH HE ADMIRES DICK??
This is a liberal take on the Day prompt with the “SiblingThings” being Jason teasing the crap outta Damian but also Dick and Dami just hanging out :’) Finding something to relate to together.
This is just a what if Bruce gets stuck in time for a bit longer. Just enough for Dick to convince himself that, yes, he can be a good parent to Damian. Just enough for Damian to be comfortable with his place, at least, in Dick's heart.
Anyway, when Bruce came back, the did is done. He's kinda too tired to process everything tho and shut off the situation for a while. When he did get his bearings back, he has already seen how happy both were and chose to never bring it up unless Dick and Damian themselves opened up to him. Not that he'll berate them if they do.
The press was on this strange situation for a while but when the stubborn Waynes kept their mouths shut, soon enough they got tired of asking.
They make conspiracy theories instead.
Tim wisely ignored the growing complexity of their family tree, sometimes wondering if, even with his detective skills, he can figure out how to draw it. Since he's way past that education level and only Damian might get such assignments, he stopped worrying over it. His younger bro-- nephew(?) Is a great artist so maybe he can map it out.
The entire batfamily aside from Damian is aware of the competition between Dick and Bruce. While Bruce accepts the whole... Thing. It doesn't mean that he's gonna back down from trying to give Damian affection. Or winning Damian's attention. Not that it should be a competition but somehow, it became just that. Emotions are weird, okay?And even if he was okay, he's still jealous.
The Batfamily sees this, wonders how he'll treat Damian if there was nothing to prove or fight for. Secretly they all agree that, even if it hurts to see the stoic Batman fight for his own flesh and blood's love (or trust even, Dick did god's work gaining that), Damian is doing well with Dick, achieved a lot of personal milestones with Dick and gets the best of what their cold, dark, detached family could offer from Dick. They all secretly wonder aloud, when the comms are off (they are EXTRA careful about this) if he would ever try with Damian if there was no competition at all.
There is still the argument of who Robin should be with during patrols, they all make bets when this happens. So far, Steph has collected 50 dollars from their new gambling game.
Jason finds it amusing and like Tim, stayed out of the drama. He stayed away from the manor really and kept them all away from his life in general. He doesn't really hate them. But "like" is not the right word either. Even then, the cold war between the Bat and his golden child reaches him. He doesn't really complain about this either.
An example of this "war" happens on the Demon's first birthday as Dickie's son which happens to be also Bruce's first time to celebrate the occasion with him. A party is to be thrown and invitations are sent. Jason is pleased to receive an invitation from Dick AND an invitation from Bruce. They are completely different in design but has the same information. He prays for the others who are affiliated with both.
When Kori asks him who Dick's child was and why was she not informed (because of course Dick is just slightly better at managing his life from canon) Jason just told her to attend and meet the baby boy herself. He blesses his family's poor communication skills and imagines all of Dick's friends loosing their shit over "Dick's baby".
Yes, Dick gave Damian the novelisation of Cheese Viking.
This is my entry for Day 1 of Dick and Dami Week for the prompt, “Did you really mean that?”
[ID: A comic featuring Damian Wayne sitting cross legged, holding a book open titled ‘Cheese Viking’. He asks Dick Grayson, “Did you really mean that?” Dick’s hand reaches down to affectionately mess up Damian’s hair, replying “Of course, Lil D! Every single word.” Damian looks annoyed, and attempts to swat away Dick’s hand. Dick’s hand retreats, and Damian looks fondly down at the book, where it is revealed that Dick wrote ‘Lil D, I’m so proud of you. -Big D’ inside the cover page of the book. END ID.]
Dick and Dami Week day 5: Dami Calls Dick “Baba” | First “I love you” | “You’re not my father!” “I am well aware.”
Summary
Talia does not understand how Dick Grayson can throw the word “love” around like it’s free (nor how Damian goes along with it).
Talia almost did not recognize her son.
The way he entered the quaint coffee shop, his backpack slung over his shoulder despite having two straps, was not the Damian she knew. The way he said “what’s up” and engaged in frivolous small-talk with the barista as they concocted his fruity drink was not the Damian she knew. His turtleneck was a carbon copy of Bruce Wayne’s; the Jane Austen book under his arm had Jason Todd’s name written along the spine; the sleeves pushed rather than folded up resembled Timothy Drake. Even the tune he hummed under his breath sounded like something his Kryptonian friend would listen to.
It wasn’t just the inconsequential details. When he sat down, she could tell something fundamentally changed.
“Hello, Mother.”
She cleared her throat. “Hello, Damian. How have you been?”
He folded his hands hesitantly. “I have been well, Mother. And you?”
She followed his eyes, for they were not looking at her. They looked at the scratch on the tabletop and followed the swirling patterned wallpaper behind her. Anywhere but at her. Talia’s first instinct told her he was hiding something.
maybe it's enough (to know that we were here together)
For Dick & Damian Week 2021, day 2: "He's my son!"
I wrote this over the last two hours. Fair warning, it is not proofread. Title from Kina Grannis's "For Now," for fake-deep reasons.
(More warnings: this story strongly features hospitals and difficulty breathing (and poison). Please take care of yourselves and skip it if it will hurt you, especially because of the last year we've all shared <3)
Nightwing woke up with a gasp like it was the first breath he had taken in a long time. He floundered for a moment, instinctively worried he had just surfaced from Gotham’s harbor (it wouldn’t be the first time), but it only took one hard smack of his wrist to recognize the very solid ground beneath himself.
Panting, he leveraged himself to his side to empty his stomach onto the concrete.
Something was wrong. He tried to check his surroundings, but he was only able to make out grey blobs that may have been buildings and wildly swinging lights.
No, they weren’t swinging. That was just his vision.
He squeezed his eyes shut, wishing he could just will vertigo away. It wasn’t a feeling he was used to; growing up swinging from a trapeze conditioned him to enjoy the swoop in his stomach. But right now, he was either on a boat or drugged.
Sirens doppler-ed towards and away from him, somewhere down below. Definitely drugged, then.
He lifted one hand to his pounding head and was happy to find his domino was still in place. So were his gloves. But when he checked, he was missing an Escrima stick and a handful of wingdings. He grappled with his memory, trying to pull up some idea of what could have happened. A fight, obviously. But was he in Gotham? Blüdhaven? Somewhere overseas?
He flipped to his back and stared at the sky, still breathing like he had just run a marathon. Drawing in air was like drinking through a silly straw. Above him, the sky was a mottled green-black, the wind rolling the clouds inland. The motion threatened to make him sick again. He considered the merits of rolling to his side, just in case, when his eyes caught the flicker of a familiar shape against the clouds.
The Batsignal.
So, he was in Gotham. Now that he thought about it, that felt right. He could recall riding in earlier on his bike, the wind whipping through his hair, weaving through wild traffic. But traffic had been going the wrong way? Everybody had been leaving the island. . .
He sat up suddenly. “Robin!”
Sitting up was a bad idea. He pushed through his temporary blindness to wobble to his feet, anyway. “Robin!” he called again.
Damian didn’t answer. He was nowhere to be found.
More sirens rang down below him, passing in the same direction the last set had. Dick scrambled to the edge of the roof to watch the ambulance pass. What he found took his breath away. Cars lined both sides of the road, all headed toward the bridge that led off the island. All empty, abandoned. There didn’t seem to be a soul in sight, except the emergency response vehicles speeding down the clear sidewalks.
Everything snapped into focus, and Dick’s memory returned. Somebody had called the Gotham PD with a thirty-minute warning before releasing an aerosolized drug into the sewer system. Nightwing had sped into town as quickly as he could, and Batman teamed him up with Robin to cover the south quarter, and they had gotten separated—where was Damian?
Dick leapt off the building, shooting his grapnel as he fell to swing into a perfect arc to the ground. His bike wasn’t within eyesight, so it was too far. He took off, running after the ambulance.
Toward the hospital.
-
“Sir, you can’t be here.”
Dick had never seen the hospital so busy. Patients were lined up along the walls and hallways, crammed into the rooms like sardines. The staff actually ran between beds, looking haggard and exhausted already. Dick stood out like a sore thumb in his Nightwing gear, but nobody had the time or energy to move him.
Except the head nurse, behind the desk. “You have to leave,” she said. “We don’t have room.”
“Is Robin here?” Dick asked. He had scanned the pinched faces of the patients he passed on the way back into the ER, but nobody was familiar. He was almost thankful; the victims of the poison were sweating profusely and gagged on their own breath.
“I can’t tell you that,” the nurse said.
“I need to know that he’s okay,” he pleaded, leaning into his palms. They had been planted on the desk for stability, but now they were the only thing grounding him in his panic. “Please.”
All of Gotham was supposed to be evacuated, but there were still so many people too slow, too many people without a way off the island. When the threatened poison hit the city, there were too many people left behind. Nightwing had rushed over from Blüdhaven as fast as he could, but by the time he had joined the rest of the Bats it was too late. Half of Gotham was sick. Dying.
And somewhere in the panic, as noxious steam shot from the sewers and spilled from the vents, he had lost Robin.
The nurse studied his face, her lips pursed. “Robin was admitted two hours ago.”
Dick’s knees nearly buckled with relief (it had nothing to do with his legs feeling like jelly). “Where is he?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“Why not?” Maybe the words were clipped, but he didn’t have time for this.
“No visitors. Hospital rules.”
“He’s just a kid!”
“Then maybe you should have helped him evacuate,” she said, levelling a glare at him that could melt glass. “Instead of encouraging him to run straight into the line of danger.”
Now Dick growled. “You don’t understand what you’re talking about.”
“I think he’s better off here than with you.”
“He’s my son!” Dick slammed his fist on the counter between them, making the nurse jump. He would have time to feel guilty about it later. “If you don’t tell me where he is, I’ll find him myself.”
She opened and closed her mouth a few times, not getting any words out.
“Nightwing!” somebody else called. Dick spun around (too quickly), and another nurse was gesturing quickly behind herself. “I’ll take you to him.”
“Moira—” the head nurse started. But she wasn’t fast enough to catch Dick as he weaved through the maze of gurneys.
The nurse had dark circles under her eyes, and her bun was frayed. “Pediatric wing,” she huffed, already jogging down a wide white hallway. Dick followed, heart racing. “His oxygen was too low. He must have gotten a face-full of the stuff.”
“What does that mean?” Dick asked.
Her face screwed up. “He’s on a ventilator.”
Dick’s heart squeezed in panic at the words. He began to mentally prepare himself for what he would find.
The nurse he was following stopped abruptly, almost making him run into her. She flipped a hand at a set of double doors. “Stairs,” she explained. “You’ll have to go up to the third floor. Room 329.”
Dick didn’t question why she wasn’t coming; she had work to do. He nodded as he pushed through one of the doors. “Thanks.”
By the time he reached the third floor, he could tell that he had been dosed. Maybe not as badly as the other patients there, but three flights of stairs should have been child’s play for him. He arrived to patient hallway sweating and panting too hard, jelly legs making their displeasure felt.
There were doctors and nurses in this wing, too, but they were also scrambling too quickly to give him more than a passing glance. The crammed hallways on this floor were even more disconcerting, because the flushed, moaning faces were those of children.
None of them were the one he was looking for.
He forced himself to slow down, not able to bear the idea of passing Damian’s room and missing him accidentally. When he found room 329, he steeled himself before barreling through the door.
There were two beds crammed inside the small space, made possible only because the beds were child-sized. The smiling clouds painted on the ceiling were a harsh contrast to the dark, noisy machines wound around the beds.
Damian was in one of them.
Dick rushed to his side, sparing barely a glace toward the other child. Damian looked tiny, dwarfed by the size of the gurney and the mouth of the ventilator. His domino was in place, but somebody had flipped the screen over the eyes back, so Dick could see that Damian was asleep. The IV in his elbow connected to several bags, and Dick had no doubt at least one of them was a sedative. They would have to, to put him on the ventilator.
Dick snaked his gloved fingers into Damian’s bare ones and squeezed lightly. Even through the gloves, he could feel the smallest pulse.
He legs threatened to give out beneath him again.
And, well. Then they did.
A passing doctor saw him just as he had sprawled on the floor like a starfish. “Nightwing? What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”
Dick shook his head, gesturing to his chest about the tightness still persisting htere. “Just dizzy.”
The doctor clucked his tongue, reaching out to the chair wedged into the corner. “Think you can get in this chair?”
Dick nodded (a mistake), and with the doctor’s help he was able to slide into the seat. The doctor flit out of the room and returned less than a minute later with a nasal cannula and oxygen tank.
Dick waved it away. “I’m fine.”
The doctor rolled her eyes. “Uh-huh, and I am, too.”
Dick didn’t fight it when she applied it. The steady stream of dry oxygen through his nose was a relief, and his head began to clear again almost immediately. “Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it,” the doctor waved.
Dick stopped her on her way out the door again. “Wait.”
She paused, obviously a little irritated at being interrupted.
Dick blushed in apology. “When will he be taken off the ventilator?” he asked, gesturing toward Damian, in the bed.
The doctor only shrugged. “When he’s ready.” And she left, hustling toward her next patient.
Dick pulled his glove off and ran his free hand through Damian’s hair, brushing back the strays. It was still damp with sweat.
However long Damian was asleep, Dick would be there when he woke up.
