Daminette-56

He knows that it isn’t true. Tim is just as likely as Damian to get sidetracked or wander off. All this feeling is that he misses Tim and that last night’s dream had more of an impact than Bruce thought possible. Maybe Damian would just be better off living with his mother again, even if it hadn’t gone well the last time. Or he could split the time between them. That would solve the issue entirely. He wouldn’t need to choose when both were equally present. 

But it wouldn’t solve it, would it? 

Damian was probably already planning some sort of escape as it was. Bruce didn’t know if it would be to go back to his mother’s side, but it was clear that he was getting close to his wit’s end. It’s gotten to a point where Bruce wonders how much he’d get to see of his youngest son once he heads off for college. 

He has to call it in early. His mind can’t find peace. He messages Dick and Jason to cover for a couple hours, but neither responds. Jason turned on read receipts just to show how disinterested he is in the idea. 

He goes home after sending Damian a short message. He trusts him enough to finish the last hour of their regular patrol. He falls asleep unusually fast, clinging onto the hope that he wouldn’t see Talia haunting his dreams again for at least a week. 

From the looks of it, he may get away with it. 

He watches the characters glide across the stage. For whatever reason, his brain conjured up a ballet for the night. Thankfully, it was one that Bruce had seen before, years ago. He watches the dancers exit stage right, and suddenly Clara was in full view instead of being drowned in a sea of others. 

His heart sinks to his stomach. It’s absurd. Her hair is up in pigtails, long silvery strands flying as she spun with a wide smile across her face. The bows only made it look more infantile on such a grown woman, but Silver danced on, gently curtseying and rising up on her pointe shoes for an effortless arabesque. She bows as she accepts her Christmas gift of a nutcracker, the grandfather holding the boy in his arms. 

Bruce thought such a dream couldn’t get worse, but he recognizes the nutcracker. He held him the same way, years ago in Qurac. Jason, still short and small and so unlike the wall of a man he was today dances across the stage, lifting Silver into the air. Bruce’s heart squeezes at how similar he looks to what Bruce remembers. Red costume with green and yellow trim, hair curled into a middle part that Bruce never was particularly fond of, full of such energy and passion that Bruce struggled to keep up with.

The rest carries on in this fashion. He doesn’t recognize everyone in the production, but he knows the ones lucky enough to have clear faces. Alfred is in the background as the conductor. His parents are the Sugar Plum Fairy and the Cavalier. Harvey is one of the Russians, and Bruce can’t confirm without seeing her face, but he knows that the Rat King is none other than Stephanie. There were so many more; civilians that he just wasn’t fast enough to save. He remembered their faces from the news. 

His pain feels fresh seeing all of them. His shame builds and builds as he recognizes another face. The people he’s failed were in high enough numbers to fill a rather crowded show. And those were just the ones he remembers. He wonders, clutching his chest, just how many more there were. How many families missed their child or parent, how many people missed their best friend or coworker or the neighbor that would always lend a cup of sugar. 

But he can’t look away. Not only would it be a disrespect to their memory, but he waits for Talia to appear somewhere. If she was going to be anywhere, she deserved a place on that stage. He failed her several times over. One of those led to countless deaths at the hands of her sister. 

But she never appears, and the show is now coming to what Bruce believes to be its conclusion. He breathes a little easier knowing that this was only his own mind keeping him accountable. He relaxes his arm. It’ll fade soon. His arm falls onto a comfortable weight in his lap. 

Bruce’s heart drops again. It ‘s a bouquet of flowers; a good size one at that. All were the same flower, a Mexican Marigold. Even in the dim lighting, he can make out their vibrant yellows and oranges. He stares at the semispheres of rippling petals before looking back up to see Stephanie carrying Jason off in their heated battle. 

He can’t hold back any longer, and the tears start. Why is this happening to him?

He thought he had made his peace with this. He couldn’t save everyone. Even Clark wasn’t always able to save everyone. 

But he should have been there. Should’ve been faster, smarter, more considerate. He lost two Robins due to his own inability to be there the way they needed, and now he was going to lose a third though he prayed the loss was less permanent. How many more was he going to lose? 

“Beloved, it’s okay. You aren’t alone.” 

There she is. The cherry on top. He brushes her touch off of him. Why did he have to get stuck with her? Out of the corner of his eye, he sees her, and the betrayal shoots through him red hot. She had no right to witness something so personal. Not anymore. “You need to go.” 

“Not when you are like this. I know that your losses have always hit you hard-” 

He crunches the bouquet in his hand. “If you know that then why would you have kept two of my sons away from me, Talia? What did I ever do to you to deserve that?” 

She doesn’t answer. She didn't even try to touch him again. He looks up at her to see her looking down at her tightly clutched hands. 

“You never even apologized. All of your manipulations and lies and betrayals, not once did you ever say sorry. Then you took the people you know I love most in this world away from me. Why? All of these years, I couldn’t bring myself to ever understand. I would’ve helped you,” he forces himself to say through his cries. “You never let me.” 

Another long pause of silence stretches on. Bruce can’t pay attention to what is going on on stage. Something about seeing Jason so small again felt impossible. 

Small sniffles pull him out of his fog.  “I am more sorry than you will ever know, Bruce. Please just allow me to explain– You don’t need to forgive me, but you’re correct. You should know why.” 

Bruce holds his breath. 

“Hiding Jason’s revival is easier to explain than–” she stoppes, giving him a sideways glance before returning her gaze to her lap. She looks so unsure of herself that Bruce instinctively wants to comfort her, but his emotions are too volatile. It wouldn’t be the first time he left her to soothe her emotions alone. After a moment, she continues, “When one of my father’s people alerted me to Jason, I was shocked. My father was as well. He studied the boy as much as he could, and I was only barely allowed to train him. No matter what I tried, Jason wasn’t getting better. His body was alive, but his brain had suffered too much, I suppose. I don’t know whether it was from the bomb or from the grave…” 

She trails off, and Bruce is grateful. It’s always pained him to think of how Jason must’ve felt at that moment. It took him years to finally tell Bruce the full story; what little of it there was. He had been alone, in the dark without oxygen or food and still persevered. A weaker man would’ve died again, but Jason had never been anything less than exemplary. 

“I didn’t tell you then out of fear of my father and how I knew it would crush you. Grieving once is already hard enough, and he was not the boy you knew. Jason deserved to be remembered for his courage, and I knew I could get him back to that. It broke my heart to see him that way and hear him cry for you… I was torn over what to do all the time. Eventually, I was down to my last resort, but when he came back, he hated you. We had to hide for a number of years after-”

Bruce interrupts. “What about Damian?” 

He glares at her, unable to control his expression enough to hide his wrath. Damian had already been born by that point. Still young, probably not even at Talia’s hip yet. 

“I will get to that part, my love,” she mutters. She wipes her wet eyes. “I spent those years trying to tell him of you and how much you meant to him, but he didn’t listen. He felt abandoned and replaced, but not by my influence, I promise you. I thought as time went on that he’d come back to appreciating you, and that if he returned to Gotham before that, he’d try to kill you. I wanted to spare you the hurt of fighting your son.” 

“Fat load of good that did me,” Bruce snidely returns. That had been a dark time. 

“I know, and I’m sorry.” Talia’s sniffles turn to quiet cries. “With everything else going on, I just saw no need to keep him tethered any longer. My father was no longer of any danger, and Jason had grown into a young man. I knew what he was going to do, but I was too entrenched in my own misery to stop it or warn you. I’m sorry.” 

Bruce can barely hear her through her hands and over the crescendo of the music. The show still hasn’t ended, and at this point, he wasn’t sure it ever would. It feels as if the Nutcracker defeated the Rat King ages ago. When would he just wake up? 

He has to move past that though. He ruminates over her words, and while they were decisions he never would make, he understands. From her cries, it doesn’t seem like it had been a ploy to win back his affections after he had left her yet again. He remembered how she knew Jason from before he passed. What little time they had spent together had endeared her to the boy. 

He reaches out. Just a simple hand on the shoulder is all it was meant to be, but it turns into a hug, awkward with the armrest between them and the flowers in his lap. 

Talia doesn’t return the gesture. Her cries grow stronger. “Did you ever want Damian?” 

Bruce stiffens. His arms lock around her. He couldn’t believe that she just asked him that. “”Of course I wanted Damian. I wanted him then, I want him now, and I wanted him before I ever knew him.” 

“Was it just me you didn’t want then?” 

“I don’t see how that’s relevant to why you kept my son away from me.” He pulls back his touch. She shrinks back, and for a second, Bruce considers telling her the truth. He had wanted her too much. Everything she asked of him eventually turned into a yes. He let her into his home, he made peace with her father, he had married her. He was scared of just how far that would go. And right now, he was scared of where this is going. 

She looks up from her hands and gives Bruce a watery look that almost destroys him. The Waltz of the Flowers just plays louder and louder until she looks away again. “Did you think it was easy for me, Bruce? My father wouldn’t have had it any other way. I had to watch as my beautiful son got warped from a child to an heir while doing everything I could to keep his smile going. I told him stories of you, no matter how painful it was for me. I let him wear your cape and played along as he re-enacted them. You got to be the hero while I was the one who was actually there.” 

“Why didn’t you come to me for help then? If you were so scared of Ra’s-” 

“I wasn’t scared,” she spits back. “I was infuriated. I nearly gave Damian up to avoid it, but my own weak will wouldn’t allow me. Contacting you would have been meaningless considering you would have been just as powerless as I when it came to facing my father. Until he grew older, Damian was safest at my side where I could defend him from the worst.”

A new wave of shame rips through Bruce. He had assumed the worst and best out of her, but she had blown it out of the water. Talia had rather lived under her father’s thumb or given up their child than give him a call. He clenches his jaw. Everything he thought he understood already is false. 

But she has a point. He’s aware of just how vindictive Ra’s could be when slighted. He knows how the man could be even to those who hadn’t done anything to get on his bad side; both of his daughters had seen their fair share of revenge at the hands of the man who was supposed to cherish them both. 

But then why would she have lied to him about miscarrying after their battle with Qayin? 

He asks her so and watches even more of the light leave her eyes. “Because I realized just how much my dream would cost you. You would die to protect me so long as I was carrying your child.” 

“Talia, I would’ve,” Bruce stops and swallows the lump in his throat. For a moment, he worries about another carnation coming up, but he presses on. “I would still die to save you. Not because of our relationship or Damian, but because you’re you. The world wouldn’t be the same without you in it.” 

The theater goes silent. Faint rings of the orchestra’s celesta start, but Talia still doesn’t speak. Bruces watches her clench her fists, mouth opening and closing. His hair stands on end. 

“Don’t lie to me. I know you wouldn’t. You didn’t even call after I said that I lost our child. You left me.” She lifts her face, looking up to meet his gaze. Bruce can see all of the anger, guilt, and grief swimming in her green eyes. “I don’t blame you for it. I felt that you only planned anything long term with me out of obligation. It was unplanned and happened so fast. I didn’t want to anchor you after you already had made it clear that our desires simply couldn’t align.”

He’s spared from having to respond when applause rings out from the invisible audience. He tears his attention away from Talia to see the dancers lining the stage and bowing. Though they’re all smiling wide, Bruce can’t. He clutches the bouquet in his hand. He should have enough flowers for his loved ones to get one each, but they deserved so much more than he could ever give. 

As they leave the stage, Bruce feels like he’s losing them all over again. His parents are the last to exit. His mother blows a kiss before curtseying, and his father nods. They join the others backstage, and Bruce stands. “We need to continue this. First, just let me drop these off.” 

“I don’t think you need to.” He’s stopped by Talia’s hand grabbing his– the one that should be holding the bouquet. “Look.” 

Back on the stage were the dancers, no longer in costume and just as he remembered them at their happiest. Each holds a monumental amount of marigolds and beams back at him. 

He sits back down. He can’t believe it. He should, given that all of this is simply a dream, but it makes him feel lighter to see them cherished. He’s torn out of his stupor by Talia’s soft sniffles and by something being placed in his lap. 

“I think something got lost in translation.” 

He looks down to see a bouquet, golden and amber, sitting in his lap. In his other hand was one as well. He passes that one to Talia, pushing it into her unwilling hands. “You deserve them too. I failed you just as much as everyone else.” 

“No, beloved, it’s the other way around-” 

Bruce wraps her in another hug. “It’s equal. You said it yourself: I made you feel unloved when that could not be farther from the truth. I have hit you unpromptedly. Without meaning to, I spent years pitting you against the only family you had left. In your moments of need, I wasn’t there. I failed you.” 

She relents. She softens in his embrace and eventually returns it as much as she could. “You have never failed anyone, my love. Some tragedies are unavoidable. We’re all still learning how to live, and at times, we make mistakes.” 

“Do you really believe that?”

She nods. “Life is a game where none of us know the rules. You’re doing the best despite that.” 

It’s muscle memory. He’s had the same routine since he was twenty five and first put on the cowl. He can tell by the distinct lack of pain that he doesn’t have any injuries that needed to be redressed, so he moves onto shaving the faint trace of stubble that appeared overnight. That is followed with a quick face wash and aftershave, then it’s just a matter of running a comb through his hair before he could reasonably step out in the main part of the manor where he could be greeted by anyone from Alfred to one of his several children to Lucius needing a quick answer regarding the company. 

Passing through the halls into the kitchen, he encounters none of that. He sees the coffee pot already full, steaming and filling the air with its aroma. It makes Bruce smile. Alfred’s always known him so well. Bruce would probably be dead before long if he didn’t have the older man watching over him. 

Something about that feels wrong. He stares at the pot, looking for an answer. Alfred… Death… Those two went together better than Bruce had likes. 

It’s too early to dwell on those things though. He moves on and grabs a mug from the cabinet. He turns the ceramic over in his hands. It’s so smooth and cold in his hands. It strikes another chord in Bruce. It had been so many years since he last saw it. 

Dick had bought it years ago; something about the design reminded him of one of his old family members at Haly’s. He had been so young then. Still flying around Gotham in a leotard, rain or shine, sun or snow, stopping criminals and wowing civilians with his theatrics. For a year, it was the only mug he’d ever use, but by the time he moved out, it wasn’t ever important enough to come pick up. Later on, Tim had broken it when he put scalding hot chocolate in the freezer to cool it down quickly. The ceramic had been through enough wear and tear that the quick change in temperature just made it shatter. 

But this doesn’t have a crack running through it. It’s as whole, intact, and bright as it had been all those years ago. Bruce sets it down. 

The rest of the kitchen is as it should be. Same countertops, same cabinets with some knobs worn with use while others remained pristine. The only thing off is the digital calendar strung up on the wall beside the fridge. No one would have thought to do that. All of them were aware of each other’s daily schedules, and any changes to the routine were put directly into the group chat. There had never been any need to have something in the kitchen of all places to let everyone know of their comings and goings. 

He inspects it further. Nothing is marked for today, so he scrolls back further. He’s shocked to discover that he had apparently arrived back home last night after being away for a business meeting in Star City. That couldn’t have happened though: he remembered last night in vivid detail. It was a night just like any other, spent patrolling the streets of Gotham and foiling the schemes of common criminals as he tailed a lower level mob enforcer. The west coast city hadn’t crossed his mind even once. 

Bruce raises a hand to his head. Had he managed to celebrate his apparent return so hard that he had blacked out several days worth of memories? That couldn’t be right either. He didn’t have any administrative work that would take him out of town for at least a month. A head injury would be more likely, but he didn’t feel any bumps or scars. Perhaps he had been drugged and is merely hallucinating the existence of the calendar. 

He sighs. The day was already shaping up to be something he’d need to tackle. The work never ends. When one fire gets put out, seven more pop up in its place. Bruce can barely keep up. It’s only the knowledge that he needed to that kept him going some days. 

“Have a lot on your mind, Master Bruce?”

He turns to that voice. It’s been so long since he’s heard that familiar dry inflection.  In the doorway, appearing from the dining quarters is Alfred, not a grey hair out of place and suit pressed. The older man stands dignified as always with a wry smile on his face. 

“Alfred…” he gasps. 

The older man raises a brow. “That is my name sir. I ask that you do not wear it out.” 

A chill runs down Bruce’s spine. Visions come to him: Bane, the raised soil of a fresh grave, the manor erupting and burning until nothing is left that Vandal Savage could use to bloat his ego any further. 

It’s all a dream. Bruce stills and relaxes. Might as well enjoy it. “I suppose I’m still recovering from the jetlag. Let me get a cuppa, and I’ll get out of your hair.” 

Alfred doesn’t respond. Bruce rushes back to the coffee pot where he pours a cup of the brew into Dick’s cup and heads out to explore the rest of the dream. 

Nothing about it is real, but it feels like it is. The cup is warm in his hand, the smell of the coffee fills his nose, and he can feel the wool rug under his feet. Taking a sip, he finds that he could taste it too, bitter and soothing on his tongue. 

Black Mercy isn’t an impossibility, but he could remember falling asleep back at the townhouse he was living in now. The stretching walls of the manor were nothing but a memory now. It could simply be a dream, everything being nonsense conjured up by his active mind while he remained lucid, but he almost never dreamed. And when he did, it was never this calm. 

That eerie easygoingness is only confirmed as he pads into the parlor where he finds Damian, still in pajamas despite being out of his room, with Titus pulling on a rope from his hand. 

“Come on, boy,” Damian laughed. “I know you can do more than that.” 

Titus gives it another good tug, lowering himself onto his front legs as he pulls the rope out of Damian’s hand, sending him flipping onto his back. Damian immediately squats to rub the dog’s belly, his smile wider than Bruce has seen in a while. He giggles as he narrowly avoids Titus’ licking tongue.  “Keep the licking to a minimum, please.” 

Bruce just watches. Other families had this scene of a boy and his dog playing together in the morning, but not his. Never his. Even when Damian was with Titus, the affair was strictly under the guise of ‘training’ despite his obvious adoration of the Great Dane. Titus had to be prepared for whenever he needed to go on a mission, Damian argued. 

He let the boy have his fun. Titus was always rewarded handsomely with treats after, but belly rubs and giggles had never been part of it. At least, not that Bruce is aware of. 

The laughs come to an end, and Damian stops, looking up to give Bruce the same wide grin that he had just been giving Titus. “Good morning.” 

Bruce curtly nods. His grip tightens on the mug. As Damian stands up and hugs him, Bruce is too shocked to do much more than accept it. 

“Sorry that I wasn’t awake by the time you got home. Next time you got to Star City though, could I tag along please? I’d love to see the Grell Museum.” 

“Of course,” Bruce answers. If it was just a dream, there’s no harm in the promise. 

Before he can ask into his current situation, Damian’s grin grows even wider, his eyes smiling in a way that makes Bruce’s chest feel tight. Like this, he looks so much like his mother. All of Damian’s abrasiveness and cold demeanor had come from him, Bruce knows that. Talia had been light and open even in the most tense of situations. 

“Thank you! I hope it isn’t for a while though. Everyone’s missed you around here. How did the trip go? Did Mrs. Ferris agree to the deal?”

There is no ongoing deal between Wayne Enterprises and Ferris Industries. Even if there was, there isn’t any trip for Bruce to speak of, so he pivots, “Nothing to write home about, unfortunately. How have things been here? Have you been behaving for Alfred?” 

Damian scoffs, “Naturally. Mother’s been the one driving him up the wall with all of her plans. I’ve been nothing but an angel.” 

“I’m sure you have, chum,” Bruce can’t help but laugh even if it leaves him with a bitter taste in his mouth that the fake coffee couldn’t wash out. Whether it‘s coming from seeing his son being so open with him or that his subconscious is dreaming of Talia, he didn’t know. “I trust that you kept things under control.” 

“As much as I could, at least.” Damian’s snarky smile shoots another dagger through Bruce’s heart, but it doesn’t matter. None of this is real anyways. “She’s already re-done half of the gardens. You know what she’s like when she has a plan in mind for something.” 

“That I do, Damian,” Bruce responds. “I think I’ll go pay her a visit.” 

And maybe also figure out another piece to what this could be. All signs are pointing to a drug similar to Black Mercy concocting some asinine version of his ‘ideal’ life, but this isn’t quite adding up. If that was the case, he wouldn’t have been able to deduce that it was all fictitious so easily. And his life wouldn’t be so… Mundane. 

It isn’t even a terribly convincing dream considering that the sun was well over his head when he stepped out back into the gardens that his mother had tended to for years before she passed. If this is supposed to be his ideal, it would still be hers. 

Everything about the yards is different from how he remembers. Many of the green spaces have been filled with flower beds and shrubs and manicured fruit trees, many of them Bruce doesn’t have the time to identify. They’re unimportant anyways; probably just amalgamations of vaguely plant shaped bushes. They aren’t what he was looking for. He searches until he finds a familiar flash of dark hair further ahead on the stone path, kneeling underneath a trellis tunnel. 

He approaches cautiously. Who knows what his brain would have in store for him. 

Once she sees him, she jumps up, immediately pressing a kiss to his cheek before looking him over with a smile. “My, you must have been in quite the rush to see me, beloved. Did you sleep well?”

“It was fine.” 

She hums and returns to the ground again to retake her activity. Bruce looks closer as her hands braid the flexible stems of the jasmine through the trellis above them. The breeze blows, leaving the air smelling like the powdery white flowers. The smell clings in an uncomfortable way that leaves Bruce’s hair standing on end. 

He takes in Talia more closely. Something about her is different from the others. There hadn’t been anything wrong per say about Alfred or Damian, aside from the obvious, but Talia seems like she doesn’t belong. She’s in clearer focus with brighter skin and clearer eyes. Her movements were more natural, more life-like. It’s like she’s never been happier than to do something as simple as weaving the jasmine around the wire trellis. Her face is the picture of content. 

Is it his previous intimacy with her that allows her to be more real to his dream self? Or is she in on whatever this was– Bruce doubts she’d ever string him along like this, but it wouldn’t be the first time that someone he had once loved so dearly had betrayed him. It wouldn’t be the first time she had done something like that either.

“I see that the cat got your tongue this morning, my love. What’s bothering you?”

He captures her wrist in the blink of an eye. “Where am I, Talia?” 

Her eyes go wide with pupils dilated so far they swallow up the emerald green. His eyes widen too. She is just as aware as he is. 

He tightens his grip as she struggles to pull away from him. 

“This isn’t how it went here. Please, Bruce…” Hurt flashes on her face. In the blink of an eye, her shock turns to sobs and her struggles to surrender. “We love each other here. We’re able to trust one another. Please. Please stop hurting me.”

Bruce flinches but weakens his grip. “What is all of this? What are you distracting me from?”

Her green eyes meet his at the exact moment as the breeze blows again. The smell isn’t so sweet this time. White petals fly between them before falling at their feet, limp and wilted. She gasps, “No. No no no-”

Bruce feels the ground disappear from beneath him before he sees it. It takes all the air out of his lungs as he tumbles down a pit of darkness that suffocates him more and more as the seconds trickle on.