Personal Warfare

The formidable truth

Dicks POV

Rain pounded rhythmically against my body, making me wish I had fully suited up before rushing out into the frigid, Gotham night, hiding under the dark clouds currently enveloping the entirety of the city.

But, finding Bruce was my main priority.

With the frequency of my earpiece tuned in to the GCPD, I managed to track Bruce to Crime alley.

Why was I not surprised?

Even if he was using his anger as a tool to take down baddies, I knew this isn't what he needed to do. It would only make him feel worse in the end.

He needed to be with his son.
With Damian.

Things were difficult for all of us, especially when Damian first came to live at the manor; He was obnoxious, self centered, aggressive and over all I felt like I couldn't let him out of my sight in fear he'd stab the first person that looked at him wrong.

Now though, despite the personal warfare he was fighting both mentally and physically, he had changed. Grown up. He'd become quite the extraordinary young man that I'd always hoped m, but knew he could be.

Of course he was always extraordinary physically and intellectually, the League and Talia made sure of that. I never doubted that he could defend himself and fight better than most grown men and women I knew, but that was in sort of a righteous sense.

His demeanor, while still stoic and hard on the outside, had become softer and more child-like as he grew older. His sarcastic, misunderstandings became simple retorts that he didn't know something.

He no longer became irate when he was proved wrong, or felt insecure about his intelligence, instead finding a way to fix it by learning more or asking questions.

Where he once would gag and scoff at the thought of physical affection, he now embraced it. To an extent. At least with his family and close friends and had learned the satisfaction of valuing things and people instead of degrading their worth compared to his own.

Overall, I was so proud of the man he was becoming. He didn't deserve any of this. He never did.

Now though, thinking of him laying alone in the medbed of the cave, I felt anxious, distressed and a little somber. My heart felt heavy, sullen down with memories of his disturbing accident still playing through my mind on repeat.

All of the family he had around him, all of the love we continued to show him even when it felt impossible to break through his walls and we still just as easily abandoned him when he needed us most.

It made me sick.

I was to blame too. No matter what Jason thought about the matter and the blame he continuously tried to pin on himself, I was the oldest, the protective one. The one that watches out with an Eagle eye over his siblings because I know just how much trouble they can get into.

I should've seen this. I should've noticed Damian's behavior and tried to talk to him, to comfort him, to show him all the love I could because I was the oldest. It's my job.

And Bruce is his father.

I grimaced, shifting my weight slightly as I heaved out, a cold shiver jolting my body as the rain came down a little harder, forming puddles and lakes on the streets below me.

I didn't care how Bruce raised me. At one point I may have, but I was a grown man. He was troubled and so was I, so why should I blame him for the mistakes of his first time parenting. I wasn't exactly child of the year either.

I gave him my own problems and issues. I pissed him off more times than I could count, but he was my father figure and even after all that, I knew he was only trying his best.