#grayson 12

Damian, his dead brother.

Damian, his Robin. 

Damian, his kid.

“You’re alive?” he says incredulously, heart beating a rhythm of hope in his chest, creeping up into his throat.

“You’re alive?” Damian says, tone matching Dick’s, and before Dick can respond, Damian is flipping across the gap, leaping the railing, and throwing himself into Dick’s arms.

Dick catches him, of course. Dick will always catch him.

“I missed you,” Damian says, voice filled with relief and sorrow and pain, cheek pressing to Dick’s, and after everything, after everyone else and their reactions, Damian’s admission is just—

It’s too much, and Dick breaks.

His chest hitches on a sob, and he sinks to the ground in a slow-motion collapse, tears streaming suddenly down his cheeks. He’s done, he’s spent, and his emotions are seeping out of him faster than he can rein them in. Damian is abruptly tense in his arms, calling his name in increasing worry, hands tightening in Dick’s jacket, but Dick just grips him as tight as he can, holds him as close as possible to his chest, reveling in the beating heart beneath his hands, the warmth of Damian’s skin, and the steady rise and fall of his chest against Dick’s.

He’s alive he’s alive he’s alive.

He buries his face in Damian’s hair as he shudders through the sobs wrenching from his chest, hand tangled in the hair at the nape of Damian’s neck. Damian seems to realize that he needs this, needs this release, needs to hold close the brother who died for him— Don’t you ever fucking do that again, do you hear me?— and he winds his arms around Dick’s neck and grips back just as tightly, burying his face in his shoulder. Dick thinks he may feel tears seep through his jacket, but he can’t tell for sure.

He’d never tell anyway.

“I missed you,” Damian whispers again as his sobs subside, and Dick grips him tighter in response. He pulls back just enough to press a kiss to Damian’s hair, and rests his cheek against his head, rocking them back and forth.

“I know, kiddo,” Dick rasps, settling more comfortably against the railing next to them.

“Me too,” he says, arms not loosening their grip on his boy.