Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

I.

Bruce first noticed the inconsistency shortly before Dick had taken his first flight as Robin. He’d been running blood tests, not for the first time, making sure everything was okay and alright and maybe searching for a reason to keep him inside and benched for a little while longer.

It was then that he noticed the inconsistency.

A surface-level blood test – like the one Dick had been subjected to shortly after his family’s murder – would never have picked something like this up. Nor would the similar test Bruce had taken when Dick had fallen into his care. He hadn’t been investigating anything then. Just assessing. Compiling. But now he was actively searching for things that could pose a problem.

And the problem was this.

Dick wasn’t human. Close, but no dice.

There were similarities. A lot of them. Closer to human than any other living relatives. Closer than bonobos or chimpanzees or gorillas or even Atlanteans. If Bruce wasn’t staring at the evidence in front of his face – if he hadn’t gone actively searching for every single thing that could possibly affect Dick while he was in the field – he never would have guessed.

It wasn’t like he had a meta-gene. That would have been a much simpler explanation. Something that would have pinged in Bruce’s first blood test. He was a completely separate if closely intermingled, species. Separated from humans much, much later than anything else, if he had to guess.

Dick was just like any other child his age to the naked eye. He aged the same, had the same mannerisms, the same growth patterns, hit the same milestones. He was just a kid, a kid that Bruce had found he cared about very, very much. And hell, he was tentatively friends with aliens and Atlanteans and Amazons. So maybe he… he could…

He could hear Dick’s laughter echoing from somewhere near the uneven bars, a platform down.

This was a conversation they’d have to have at some point, and more testing would need to be done. He didn’t even know if Dick knew. If his parents had known. But all that could come later.

“Bruce!” Dick called, voice alight with laughter, “Bruce, check it out! Check out what I can do!”

And so Bruce did.

II.

“You need to understand,” Haly said, from his place behind his desk, “that Dick really is just like any other kid.”

Bruce pursed his lips. Tilted his head minutely to the side. “You don’t need to worry about me kicking him out. He’s always going to have a place with me. But I have no idea about how to raise… somebody like this. I don’t even know where to start.”

Jack sighed. Paused. Sucked in a breath, “Mr Wayne-“

“Bruce.”

“Bruce,” he sighed again, “Bruce. Kids like him… people like him… it’s going to be tough. He’ll need things, eventually, that it’ll be impossible for you to provide. Even if it seems that you have all the money in the world to play around with.”

“There must be something I can do to help him. I can’t just… let him go out and… with people like… people who would take advantage of somebody like…”

“No. No, you shouldn’t. And if all goes well, you won’t need to worry about things like that until other kids his age are thinking about things like that as well.”

Bruce felt his chest loosen at that. The fears of somebody coming lurking – or, perhaps worse, his kid searching for something, or somebody, like that – lessened, but did not completely disappear.

“What can I do, then? Surely he needs to… eat somehow.” Eat didn’t feel like the right word. Dick had described it as a kind of hunger but had seemed unsure himself when he’d been trying to explain it to Bruce. He still ate food – normal, human food – and enjoyed it a great deal. Bruce didn’t think he’d met anybody who could wax poetic about food like Dick could.

“It’s kinda like…” Dick had said, biting his lip, “ya ever been like… hungry before? Starvin’? And there is that little thing in your… don’t know the English word. Burtică. And it’s telling ya you need to eat somethin’ like… you want sarma, you need sarma, and nothing else is… good. It’s kinda like that but its… outside?” he looked up at Bruce from his place on the bed, eyes big and watery, but not all that upset.

Jack smiled, bittersweet, “surely you’ve noticed he’s a tactile little boy. Keep giving him hugs, ruffling his hair, being close-by. For now, until he gets older, he’ll be able to subside off of that.”

The sour feeling re-emerged in his stomach. He felt his face scrunch up. “And when he gets older? You can’t expect me to… not with…”

“Oh goodness no,” Jack shook his head, “that’s… no, Mr Wayne.”

“Bruce.” He corrected again, “but what about… if what you said about… his attraction… if that’s true then… could he accidentally… could I accidentally…”

“No, no. If he… if he views you as family, you won’t need to worry about it. Family isn’t… it isn’t on his diet plan, so to speak. People like him… they don’t do that. At least, not because of what they are. Just like us humans in that way, I suppose.”

There was silence for several seconds. Bruce wiped his hand over his face.

“Thank you, Jack.”

Jack Haly stuck out his hand, “always willing to help, Bruce.”

III.

The first time Dick came home noticeably ruffled, Bruce didn’t exactly know what to say. He’d been late home – with a text to say he’d been studying at a friend’s house – and it was nearing close to dinner by the time Dick had made his way in through the front door. His ward – son, really, in every way that mattered – was just past his 16^th birthday now, Bruce had honestly been expecting this sort of thing for a while, but it was just…

This was his kid. And he was anxious. He’d walked into the main foyer, school bag slung over his shoulder, his hair ruffled and his shirt ever so slightly untucked and Bruce just.

He just…

He worried.  

Dick turned to him with a bright grin, like nothing was different. There was lipstick smeared at the corner of his mouth, but that at least looked like it had tried to be rubbed off. Bruce could make out bruising on his neck, the stiff collar from his school shirt just not quite covering it.

“Hey B!” he chirped, running up to him to give him a warm hug, “how was your day?”

Bruce smiled warmly back, “Boring meeting after boring meeting, kiddo.” God, his kid was getting big. He swore it was just yesterday when Dick was barely up to his waist. Now he was only a few inches shy of Bruce himself. Had it really been seven years since he’d first come home?

Dick’s grin softened but was no less warm. The smell of dinner was beginning to twist its way through the hallways and into the foyer. Bruce could swear he could hear Alfred humming from the kitchen. He tightened his arms around his kid, breathing in the scent of his shampoo and god why on Earth was he growing up so fast.

Dick pulled away, flicking his fringe out of his eyes. He needed a haircut, Bruce thought dimly.

“Can you put this in the library for me while I get ready for dinner?” Dick asked, handing Bruce his backpack. He took it, a little numbly. ‘Getting ready for dinner’? Dick was normally so insistent on food. Bruce had had to physically move him in the past to get him washed up before he sat at the table. It had been one of the few things they’d fought about when Dick first moved in.

Dick was already halfway up the staircase and pulling off his tie before Bruce found his voice.

“Dick?”

“Yeah?”

“Be… be careful, okay?”

Dick’s face twisted a little in an emotion that he’d never seen on his son’s face before, but it settled on something positive.

“Yeah. Yeah of course I will.”

IV.

Dick had been beating the stuffing out of a punching bag for the past two hours. He’d gone through four bottles of water and didn’t look like he had any intention of stopping.

“Dick we need to talk about this.”

“Talk about what, Bruce?” Dick let out a particularly hard hit. The bag swung dangerously on its chain.

“You know what about.”

“Oh yeah, of course I do, how could I forget,” He kicked the bag as hard as he could and there was a distinct creaking sound as the bag protested, “yeah, let’s talk, Bruce, about you being a controlling, obsessive, invading arsehole.”

“Dick, I was worried, I…”

Dick stopped hitting the bad, suddenly terrifyingly still.

“Worried, huh?” he whispered, “worried?”

“Richard-“

“Worried!?” he howled, rounding on him, “Is that what we’re calling it? You’re being a control-freak! You never let me do anything! You’re treating me like I’m a fucking child. Well, newsflash Bruce, I’m not some scared little kid anymore!”

“You’re going to get yourself hurt!”
“No! I’m not! I know what I’m doing!”

“No, you don’t!”

“It’s not like I’m some clueless fucking kid, Bruce!” Dick yelled, “I know exactly what I’m doing! This isn’t something unexpected, you know what I am, you should keep in your business and out of mine!”

“This type of promiscuity isn’t-“

“Promiscuity?! I’m a fucking incubus! In order to live I need to eat and in order to eat I have sex and this is my goddamn life, and you are getting in the way of it!”

“There are better ways to go about this sort of thing, Dick, and you’re being stupid and reckless. I didn’t train you like this. You don’t disappear off the face of the goddamn Earth with no warning just to go be involved with somebody!”

Dick’s face darkened, “okay, first of all, you have no right, or need, to know exactly where I am every fucking second of every fucking day. I turned off my phone for an hour, and suddenly you have half the hero community off looking for me! It’s stifling Bruce! And secondly, me fucking somebody is none of your business. I don’t police what you eat.”

“Three different people in five days is concerning. You need to be more careful. You’re going to get hurt.”

“I have literally never felt better in my entire life,” he slung a towel around his shoulders, “I spent my whole childhood passively starving and, okay, you did your best there, I’ll give you that. There wasn’t much you could do for me. But now I’m finally feeling full and I’m not constantly reaching for something that I couldn’t get to. Don’t you get that, Bruce? I finally feel like I’m alive and now you’re telling me to slow down because you can’t deal with the fact that I’m having sex,” he turned on his heel and started his way up the stairs, “well surprise Bruce, I’m nearly a goddamn adult. Get over yourself.”

V.

Dick looked… terrible. For lack of better word. The thing about his son, Bruce had noticed, is that he always looked alright. It was a perk, or more probably, an evolutionary advantage of his to be pretty and desirable in near every circumstance. He was classically attractive in a way that was fairly obvious to anybody who looked at him, with dark hair and bright eyes and a jawline to cut glass.

Today, though, he looked rough.

His skin was a shade off of perfect, and his hair looked less artfully ruffled and more like unwashed bed-head. His smile wasn’t as gleaming and there were bags under his eyes.

Dick pulled himself out of the hug he’d greeted Bruce with and smiled at him tiredly.

“Hey B,” he rasped, “what are you doing here?”

“I…” I was worried. You stopped answering phone calls. I heard you got a new apartment and I wanted to see you. To make sure you were okay. I missed you. I’m sorry about what happened. You look tired. Are you alright? Do you want to come home? “I was in the area and thought I’d come say hello.”

Dick stepped aside and let Bruce enter the new apartment, “in the area, huh?” he said, closing the door.

Bruce cleared his throat. Dick brushed past him and ducked into the kitchen.

“I haven’t got much. Cereal. Milk. Bread…” he said, digging in his cupboards, “ah! Coffee! I knew I had some in here.”

“That… that’d be wonderful. Thank you.”

Making his way to a cheap looking dining set, Bruce gingerly sat down in the questionable, wobbly chair and looked around the apartment.

It was… lonely. That was the word. Impersonal. No boxes ready to be unpacked. No posters or pictures up on the walls. The walls themselves were painted in drab greys and eggshell and the furniture looked used, but not warmly worn.

It was the exact opposite type of place Dick Grayson would have chosen to live in. He lived for colour and movement and mess.

A mug was placed on the table in front of him, and Dick pulled out and sat in the chair opposite, clutching a glass of water. He was drumming one hand on the tabletop.

“So,” Dick said, eyebrow raised, “what really brings you here?” he delicately took a sip.

Bruce followed suit. It was good coffee. Dick often joked about his culinary expertise, but he was good at it when he really wanted to be.

“I ran into your brother last night on patrol.”

Dick’s eyebrow raised even further “Jason? And you two didn’t claw each other’s eyes out?”

Bruce hummed deep in his throat, “He told me you didn’t look well. A bad flu, he said.”

“Snitch.” the glass thunked heavily on the table. Some of the water sloshed out over the brim.

“I’m guessing you don’t have the flu,” he said, searching for his son’s eyes.

Dick shrugged.

“Dick… when did you… when did you last eat anything?”

Dick shrugged again.

“That’s not a good answer, chum.”

“What do you want me to say, Bruce?” and god he sounded tired. He sounded really tired. like he hadn’t slept in days.

“Why haven’t you been eating?”

Dick tried for a cheeky smirk, but it came out looking broken and forced.

“You asking your kid why they haven’t been going out and getting it on? That’s kinda weird, B.”

“I’m asking,” Bruce replied, “why you aren’t taking care of yourself.”

“None of your business.”

“Maybe it isn’t. But I have a right to be concerned if my child isn’t healthy, especially at their own hand.”

Dick’s knuckles were white against his glass and he stared down into his lap.

“I…” he swallowed, “I shouldn’t even… a mission didn’t go to plan and… I shouldn’t even be upset, but Bruce it…”

Bruce reached over to place his hand on his son’s arm. Dick’s skin, sickly as it was, was still warm under his hand. Dick smiled painfully at him.

“I was just… I hadn’t eaten properly for… maybe a week? It’d been a long week, I just hadn’t had the time… and I was just… tired. Finished a mission. I couldn’t… I was pretty out of it. The girl I was… I dunno, working with? She got handsy. Maybe she got a little more than handsy. It’s stupid. I felt less hungry afterward,” Dick’s mouth twisted in that way it had when he’d been a kid and he’d been trying to stop crying, “I mean, I got… I got off, I suppose, so… and she liked it and… and if anybody’s asking for something like that, it’s literally somebody like me. It’s my job to be attractive, right? That’s my purpose, when it boils down to it, to look good?”

Bruce had felt murderous before. Many times. More times than he’d care to count. But he could count on one hand how many times he’d felt so horrified that he was worried that he’d be sick.

“It’s just,” Dick sucked in a breath. His head snapped up to meet Bruce’s eyes, and shit he looked eight years old again, just like how he had when they’d met for the first time. Those blue eyes looking right through him like he wasn’t there and the tears running down his cheeks. “It’s just that I felt so sick afterward like I’d eaten something bad. And the idea of eating anything else ever again makes me want to throw up,” he hiccupped out a sob.

Bruce stood up, hot coffee abandoned on the table, rounded it in two swift steps and swept his son into his arms. Dick let out a wet gasp and went stiff for possibly the longest second of Bruce’s life, before collapsing into him, gripping him tight and breaking down with a heart-wrenching wail.

Chapter Text

VI.

Nightwing and Batman worked well together. Very well. It was a partnership forged by years of being at each other’s backs and learning each other’s limits day after day after day. It was something that Bruce sometimes forgot, how well they clicked, especially after so long of not actively working with each other. He’d had many Robins – all of which he worked well with and learnt to trust with his life – but Dick was the first of his partners and had known him the longest. He trusted Dick nearly as much as he trusted Alfred.

Even with all that history, it was a rare instance that Batman joined Nightwing in Blüdhaven. Dick was understandably a little territorial in regard to his city. It was one of the things that Bruce could attribute to his influence on Dick’s life. It was certainly not something that Dick had learnt from his parents. But his son had been working a gun smuggling case for several weeks now and had finally traced their movements back to a warehouse on Blüdhaven’s main docks. It had been a large operation, and Dick had asked for Bruce as backup in case something went wrong. He’d had every faith in his son but had also been very happy to lend a hand if it meant more time with him, especially when said son had looked happy to let him.

He hadn’t seen Dick for a while now. A couple texts here and there, a few tearful phone calls, but that was about it. Alfred had come down to Blüdhaven several times to visit, but Wayne Enterprises and a small, but concerning, breakout at Arkham had confined him to Gotham, and Dick had been picking up more and more shifts at the BPD. So when he joined Nightwing on a rooftop overlooking the docks, he made sure to assess the situation.

He looked… alright. Better than he had for the past few weeks. He knew Dick still hadn’t been eating but he also knew that Alfred had sent a few dozen care packages down, filled to the brim with homecooked meals. The man had even come down himself on several occasions in order to either bring them to him personally or cook for him in person. Alfred had been near unreadable when he returned to the manor but had made comment that “It had slipped my mind just how much Master Dick ate when he was a boy,” and that had rocked Bruce to his core, because Dick hadn’t been so attached to food since he was a teenager.

His hair was shinier than he had been last time he saw him. Fuller, too. His skin looked a little less pale, and he looked less hollow in his cheeks. Not at his healthiest, but better than he had three weeks ago.

“I’m fine, B,” Dick said, not taking his eyes off of the warehouse. He was perched on a cooling unit, looking down at his prey with a pair of binoculars.

He grunted.

“No, really, I… I’m alright. Still not great, but I’m okay,” he abandoned his vigil, looking down at Batman with a tight smile, “I’m getting there.”

Nightwing jumped down from the unit, padding over to the edge of the building, still hidden in the shadow of the higher, adjacent rooftop.

“I’ve been here for about four hours now. From what I can see, they switch out guards every half hour. I’ve started seeing repeats, so I don’t think they have any more than a dozen men down there tonight.”

Batman nodded once, gliding over to stand next to Nightwing. His son leaned into his body’s warmth like he had when he’d been a child, if more subdued. Bruce hummed, deep in his chest.

“So,” he said, “what’s the plan?”

Nightwing grinned brightly at him and slung an arm around his shoulder.

VII.

Dick didn’t visit Gotham as much as Bruce would have liked. He came to the cave, sometimes, to use the computer, or stock up on equipment, but most of the time, he’d be in and out within an hour or two, maybe with a quick hug as a greeting and goodbye. Nightwing sometimes joined them – that is, the rest of the family – on missions if they needed help and patrolled with them on a semi-frequent basis. He loved spending time with his siblings and – as much as a couple of them loathed to admit it – they liked spending time with him too.

But Dick didn’t visit Gotham. Nightwing did. And Bruce missed his son.

After he’d visited Blüdhaven last – the smugglers having been swiftly dealt with and thrown in prison – and now past the mess of Arkham escapees and problems at work, he’d made an effort to go to Blüdhaven a couple times a week, even if only for a little while.

He even did it without Alfred needing to glare down his nose at him.

Dick looked better than he had that first night. His apartment did too. It was a little more lived in, and as he clicked open the door – spare key in hand – he could smell fresh paint in the air. The windows were thrown open, the questionable kitchen table looked like it had been attempted to be fixed, and there was a familiar poster – carefully, and lovingly framed – hanging on the wall.

Dick still didn’t look quite like Dick, but he still looked better.

Although less than they had on the rooftop, his cheeks still had a hollow to them. There were dark circles under his eyes. When he stood up, he’d sway, sometimes, like he was dizzy, and his skin, though less pale, still didn’t have the cinnamon glow that he’d managed to keep even under the smog-filled skies of both Gotham and Blüdhaven.

It was rather clear to Bruce that he still hadn’t been eating anything past what Alfred was bringing him, and, different from when he was a child, was suffering from some sort of deficiency because of it.

Dick was asleep on the couch when he got there, a thick blanket – one Bruce remembered had been draped over the couch in the family lounge at the manor only a couple days ago – was lazily thrown over him.

Fighting the urge to tuck him in – he’d certainly wake up – Bruce opened the fridge, very carefully began reading the instructions Alfred had taped to the top of the Tupperware and set about warming up dinner, and cooking some of the raw ingredients that Alfred had brought along.

It was a hodgepodge meal, clearly made by somebody who didn’t really have much of a clue what they were doing, but it was edible, if unorthodox.

After setting two plates of lasagne, rice, and roasted vegetables on the table, Bruce gently shook his son awake.

Dick’s eyes snapped open, and he was reaching for what Bruce assumed was some sort of weapon before his eyes caught up with his brain.

“B?” he croaked, “when’d you get here?” he sat up, drawing the blanket up with him.

“Thirty or so minutes ago,” Bruce said ruffling his son’s hair. Dick scowled up at him, and tried to flatten it out, “you looked exhausted, so I let you sleep, and made dinner.”

Dick’s ears perked up, and he took in a deep breath as his head swivelled to look at the kitchen table. His stomach rumbled.

Bruce chose, very deliberately, not to comment.

His son stood, blanket now pulled up over his shoulders, and gripped the side of the couch for support. His eyes unfocused for a couple seconds, and he swayed, before shaking his head and stretching his arms above his head.

He was skinnier than he had been, even a week ago. Bruce felt his stomach sour, and he fought down the rage that was bubbling just under his skin.

Dick practically fell into his kitchen chair, picked up his fork, and started to eat. He was a few bites in before he paused and looked at Bruce, cheeks full, a little guiltily.

“Food is there to be eaten, chum, you don’t need to wait for me,” Bruce said, mouth twitching in a smile. Dick, no further permission needed, continued to inhale his meal. By the time Bruce had sat down and started on his own plate, Dick had stood up, made his way to the counter, and loaded up a significantly fuller plate of seconds. By the time Bruce had finished, he’d finished thirds, and his eyes had begun to droop again.

“Thanks, B,” he said standing up and pulling the blanket taut again across his shoulders.

“You should head off to bed,” Bruce reached for Dick’s plate – scraped completely clean – and set it in the dishwasher.

“That sounds like a good plan,” Dick agreed, making his way over to Bruce and leaning in for a hug, “thanks for coming over, Bruce,” he yawned, snuggling into his shoulder.

Bruce ruffled his hair and smiled at the groan that followed.

VIII.

Nightwing soared past Batman, slamming his foot directly into the face of the thug that had been about to clobber Bruce across the head with a 2x4. There was a distinct crack, as his nose shattered, a high-pitched scream, and a loud thunk as the wood, and his body, hit the ground. Reaching out, he grabbed Nightwing’s arm and swung him directly into the chest of another thug before knocking out the still shrieking thug on the ground, where he joined the growing pile of unconscious bodies strewn across the floor. Nightwing’s current problem stopped making noise a second later, and the warehouse was silent again.

Dick clapped a hand onto his shoulder with a wide, sparkling grin.

“Not bad, old man,” he teased, “though I’m not sure I’m pleased at being used á la hammer throw.”

Batman grunted in response and Nightwing laughed, throwing his head back. Bruce rolled his eyes, pleased at his son’s mirth.

He made his way to the group of folding chairs and cardboard boxes that acted as the groups base of operations and opened up the beat-up laptop that sat there. He could hear Dick whistling some jaunty tune as he began to tie up each of the unconscious bodies.

“You…” Bruce started. The whistling stopped, punctuated by a questioning hum, “you seem happy today.”

Bruce could feel the awkward twist his son’s lips without having to look at him. He plucked a USB from his utility belt and plugged it in, beginning to download off files. He could hear the zip! of the zip-ties.

“Ah, well, you know,” his son said, “met a guy while I was getting coffee. We went and got lunch together.”

Bruce paused. Looked over his shoulder. Dick was deliberately not looking at him. For the first time that night, he noticed the healthy flush of his son's cheeks. He felt relief seep into every single pore, tinged with a little frustration. Dick didn’t need to be so awkward with him. But god Dick was eating he didn’t think he’d been this happy for a very, very long time. He turned back to the work in front of him. The laptop had almost finished uploading.

“Very good.”

There was a moment of complete silence before Nightwing snorted and burst into hysterical giggles and the sound of zip-tying continued.

Batman allowed his mouth to twitch into a smile.