#sugarbatsy

...was Batman himself.

Because Batman was able to torture Bruce better and more frequently than anyone else. Batman could starve him, keep him up all night, have him end up bruised, battered, bleeding, and still never feel like what he did was good enough.

Always had to be better, had to get up, had to keep going.

Keep trying keep trying, don’t stop even for a second or you’ll let them down. How could you fight the thing that also kept you safe? Fight what was keeping you alive while also locking you off from being close to anyone else? How could you fight something that felt like it was a driving force towards a greater good?

Even if that meant destroying yourself in the process.Because deep down, he felt like he didn’t deserve to have a life. That was why Batman could destroy him.

Because Batman was always ready and willing to tear himself apart, become nothing more than ash in the wind.

Alone, in the dark, unloved, feared.

“This is where I belong.” He told himself as he lurked in the shadows.

Prepared to take another bullet, break another bone, go home cold, tired, and hungry if he came home at all. “Do it for them… do it for them… don’t fail.”

All for the greater good…. right? That’s why Batman was his own worst enemy, because he alone can torture himself and bar himself off from the connection to others he desperately needed and wanted… and still justify it at the end of the day.

Clark can hear Bruce’s breath catch in his throat, a sharp, wordless inhale. Something has him rattled.

“Bruce? What’s—”

“It’s Dick.”

Geez. “Where is he?”

“I don’t know.” Bruce’s voice is fraught with barely-concealed panic. “We were supposed to meet back at the docks forty-five minutes ago. He’s lost his communicator. You can conduct a more efficient search than I can. Help me find him.”

“Of course,” Clark says, already standing up and divesting himself of his jacket. “How do you know he lost his comm?”

Bruce’s answering silence is evasive. Clark can guess what it means.

“You put a tracker on your sidekick?”

“He’s fifteen,” Bruce says tersely.

“I’m not disagreeing with you.” Clark climbs the stairs to the roof. “I’m not all that surprised, actually. And I don’t object to your motives, either. I just—you know, we’ll talk about this some other time. Are you still at the docks?”

“Yes.”

“You’ve checked the warehouses there, obviously.”

“Obviously.”

“Okay. I’ll be there in a minute. Have you called Diana?”

“Not yet.”

“I will.”

“Thank you,” Bruce says quietly, and hangs up.

Clark sets his phone down at the top of the stairwell and steps out onto the rooftop. “Diana.”

She meets him in the street.

“Bruce?” she asks, with concern.

“Dick is missing.”

Diana nods. “You will search from the skies?”

“Yes. But Gotham’s walls are stuffed with lead.”

“I will look where you cannot,” Diana says, understanding. “We will find him.”

—

It takes ten minutes of their combined efforts to locate Dick Grayson in a grimy factory basement and another five to deliver Penguin’s henchmen to the GCPD.

—

Bruce is as still as the gargoyles that populate the city he defends, hunched on the couch with his hands clasped between his knees. He doesn’t look up when Diana and Clark sit down on either side of him.

“Dick is asleep?” Diana asks gently.

Bruce stares into the teacup Clark had placed in front of him on the coffee table and makes no attempt to answer.

Diana has never needed an answer from him. She covers his hands with her own.

“He is very strong,” she says, “for one so young.”

Bruce closes his eyes and breathes deeply.

“And he was unhurt,” Clark adds. “He’ll bounce back in no time.”

“I know,” Bruce says. His voice is like gravel. “I know he is, and he will, because he’s done it before. He’s been through worse. But how often can I—how many times can I expect…” He trails off, and his fingers tense even more beneath Diana’s hands.

He isn’t expecting an answer, either. There is no correct reply or absolute truth that be compelled, here.

“You will speak with him tomorrow,” Diana says. “For now, he is resting—as you should be, too.”

“No,” Bruce says, his eyes following the steam that rises from his teacup. “No. Not right now.”