Work Text:
Damian could still see Dick’s face on his eyelids whenever he tried to rest. He could still see his father, shut away in his office after that pale white look.
Todd didn’t know yet. Brown didn’t know yet. None of Tim’s friends knew yet.
Damian had no doubt they would know soon.
And he looked at the costume still in Tim Drake’s locker, immaculately clean and hung so carefully. Like he knew he wasn’t coming back.
Of course he knew, a voice snarled in the back of Damian’s head. Of course he’d known he wouldn’t use it again.
That bastard had planned to die that night, and it made red cloud Damian’s vision as he ripped the costume out of its place. As he threw it to the floor with a clatter, the cape twisting as it fluttered across the floor.
Of course Drake knew.
He kicked the costume across the room, shouting at it, “I’m glad you’re dead!”
And it felt like he’d spit out an icy cold poison, like somehow saying it had retroactively caused it, and he grabbed the costume, pulling it back in his direction. His eyes stung, one hand fisted up in the leg of the costume, the thick, red material feeling too cold and hot all at once.
“Why?” he asked it, and he wasn’t sure what he was asking.
Why would you do it?
Why hurt Grayson and Father this way?
Why abandon them this way?
Why mess everything up into a throbbing pulp in Damian’s chest?
Why Tim and not Damian? Why Damian and not Tim?
How could Damian still be alive when Tim wasn’t? How could Tim die when Damian had survived? How thin a line was there between Damian’s survival and Tim’s death? How could Damian be so furious with someone who was dead? How could he be so terrible and still be the one that was alive? How could Tim be so selfish and get away with it and not have to be hurt by it in the end?
No, Damian insisted to himself, Tim wasn’t selfish. He wasn’t. He was hurting.
And yet again, that flash of anger came back, because now Grayson was hurting. Father was hurting. Damian was hurting.
What made him angriest, though, was the hollow look in Grayson’s eyes. Like he might, maybe, decide to follow Tim. Like he might decide that he shouldn’t have to hurt so much either. Like someone had taken his soul and stabbed it.
And how could Damian be angry? He shouldn’t be. He knew he shouldn’t be.
He could have done things differently. He could have noticed that something was off as Tim was leaving that night. He could have maybe told him to stay home and watch a movie. He could have blocked the doorway.
The recurring dream played in his head, the one where he leaped off a building and caught Tim. Or the one where he pulled him back from the edge and yelled at him. Or yet again the one where he brought him to Father, and instructed Father to help him.
So many of these dreams seemed to crowd Damian’s head, and exactly zero of them could be true.
He wondered if Todd would suggest the Lazarus pit, or anyone would. He wondered if Father would break out of the study to resurrect another child.
He wondered if he should be the one to do something.
And yet, here he sat, tears dripping down his face unheeded, hands clenched in the costume of a boy who’d killed himself a week ago.
I’m sorry, he thought, still unsure if it was his fault, and, How could you? echoing through his mind as a question that might never be answered.