circus boy

That was such a key difference between Dick and Bruce’s interactions with Damian. Dick was not only Damian’s mentor, he was also his confidant. Dick was there to reassure Damian in ways that Bruce wasn’t. He was there to say, “I can tell you’re upset. What’s wrong? I want to help you with it.”

Generally, Bruce’s approach at comfort is not to really ask what’s wrong. It’s not talking about feelings. He’s more of an “actions speak louder than words” kind of person. That’s why he wasn’t able to resolve his issue with Damian earlier. He couldn’t make himself open up in the same way Dick could. 

With a change in morals, the absence of Bruce, the loss of Dick, and the death of Alfred, too much had changed by the time Bruce finally tried to talk about things with Damian. Damian felt abandoned by Bruce at that point. He felt like Bruce didn’t care about him as either a partner or son. He no longer had Alfred to care about him, and he had a brother who didn’t even remember he existed. Bane and KGBeast took away the love and support in Damian’s life, and Bruce’s late attempt to try and fill those holes was rejected. 

That being said, I think Dick would be upset to know how Bruce had been absent in Damian’s life for months on end. He’d sympathize with Damian because he knows what it’s like to be shut out by Bruce. I think he would also feel guilty about this as well. Guilty for the path Damian went down, guilty for not being there, guilty for letting Damian go back to live with Bruce in the first place. 

It reminds me of how he felt guilty over Jason’s death. He felt responsible in some way because he gave Jason his Robin costume. I think he would feel similar in regard to the situation with Damian. Not so much guilty because of the fact that he gave Damian the Robin costume, but more so because Damian was on the right track when he was Dick’s responsibility. Dick was always there to lead Damian by example and was there to praise him for doing good. 

He was even part of Damian’s subconscious and acted like the morally good “angel” on Damian’s shoulder, which showed that Damian kept Dick’s teachings in mind. So, y’know, Dick’s influence went deep. 

Now would Dick be upset by the path Damian has taken? Yeah. Damian had his own prison, wiped villains minds, killed Brother Blood, and he intended to kill KGBeast for shooting Dick in the head. 

Back when Dick and Damian were partners, I think Dick wouldn’t have been totally surprised if Damian had ended up killing someone. He once expressed his fear of needing to get to Damian ASAP because he was worried Damian would kill the Joker. I think he also expressed a bit of surprise that Damian restrained himself from killing people at times. That might factor into how he would react in the present knowing what Damian has done. 

In the past, Dick had to deal with a lot of inner turmoil when he was dating Kory because he was worried she was “reverting” to murdering people like she used to before she lived on Earth. He made it extremely clear that he wasn’t okay with that. (For the record, Dick was being mind controlled at that time, so his reaction to that situation may not be an accurate indicator of his character.)

Dick also had to decide what he was going to do with Jason when Jason was killing people. Dick offered to help him reform on two separate occasions. 

He tried to put aside the terrible things Jason had done because he not only believed that Jason was worth saving, but that he was also capable of change.

I think this is the same approach Dick would take with Damian. He would want to help Damian reform. He would want Damian to choose to be good. He did it before, and yeah, it was hard. But he helped show Damian that he didn’t have to be the killer the League of Assassins raised him to be. That he could choose to be better than the villains and murderers he was surrounded by.