Chapter Text
Dick’s phone was vibrating on the table across the room. It was on the edge of the table, and would fall off soon if Dick didn’t get up and take care of it. The phone would fall off and shatter, the screen broken, and Dick would need to get his phone repaired and that would involve traveling outside of his apartment. Dick needs his phone. It would be really annoying to get it fixed. Dick needs to get off this bed that he’s been laying on for hours, waiting for… something…
And the incoming call ends.
Oh.
And it starts again.
Dick peels himself up off the bed, moving towards the table with a phone on it, defeat set in his very bones. He gathers his blanket as a cape, like… like a fake Batman. A Batman costume. Dick never thought his life would go back to this. The phone… the phone is ringing… and Dick needs to answer it, or at least stop his phone from falling. But it might be Tim or Jason, who only just started talking to Dick again, and their relationships have all been rocky from the start, and Dick can’t risk it breaking more.
It might be Damian. Damian, who is still in Gotham, with a new pet cat (named Alfred, for some reason), who Dick hasn’t seen in the months following Bruce’s return. Because Damian didn’t need him anymore. Bruce didn’t want him there, they would always butt heads. They tried, briefly, co-parenting. It didn’t work.
It might, horrifically, be Bruce. Bruce who would notice how long he’s been “missing” from patrols, from Blüdhaven. No one has seen him for a week. Dick can’t handle a call with Bruce, he might genuinely collapse.
…
It’s not Bruce, it’s Damian. Dick ponders which one is worse and immediately feels sick to his stomach with guilt. He can’t even fake-dad/brother right. He picks up the phone, sliding across the screen to answer the call. “This is your friendly neighborhood Nightwing speaking!” Dick says enthusiastically, his voice imbued with fake positivity.
Damian makes his weird throat noise. “ RIchard, you mustn't threaten your secret identity in this way, someone could have stolen my phone and you would be found out! ” Dick wants to see Damian’s face right now. See if his bab- if Damian’s face is as red as it used to get, when he was embarrassed over showing any emotion. Maybe Damian would even hide in Dick’s cape like he had done exactly one time. But Dick wasn’t there, and it was Dick’s fault. “ Richard, listen, I have a request that is of the utmost importance. I need information. ” Dick could feel his eyebrow raising, but remained silent, wordless. The best way to get Damian to get on with something (and doesn’t that phrase just sour Dick’s stomach, why would he try to shorten time with this boy?) was to wait him out. “ ... Father doesn’t speak the right kind of Arabi .”
Dick had forgotten about that. That, yes, Bruce had learned some League dialect, but mostly knew Arabic from the business world, working as CEO of Wayne Enterprises.
“Do you need help with translating something, bud?” Bud was a new nickname. It wasn’t Lovebug, or Tiny D (Damian hated that one), Baby Bat. It was so informal yet so disconnected. How many people have been called bud today? How many people got called Baby Bat? “Did you forget a word in English?”
“ I didn’t forget a word in English. English is the inferior language in comparison with Arabi. No poetry within the language -” Dick is suddenly a kid again, hearing Talia argue with Bruce during a brief stint while they tried arguing/flirting during their battles, “- words in English don’t even make any sense. Are you listening, Richard?! You’ve stopped replying! You must listen to what I say! This is important! But anyways, Richard, I will forgive you for your misstep given that you swear you won’t repeat this to anyone !” Dick swears on the Super Secret Robin Promise, satisfying Damian.
“ What is the English word for nazif al'anf? Father does not know any words that are useful! He just keeps saying aldarayib and it makes no sense !” And this is the most Bruce thing he’s ever heard. Dick does not understand the second word, but when Damian was his Robin, Damian thought it was important for Dick to know the word for every injury in Arabic, along with a few other words that Damian would grunt out when it was too early for even Alfred to speak English.
Nazif al’anf.
Oh God, Damian has gotten to him.
“Damian, bud, you can’t laugh.”
“ Richard? ” Damian sounds confused, and maybe upset, and maybe something else. A preemptive laugh.
“I don’t remember what language this is in, but in some language that means liú bíxiě.” Dick walks over to his desk, scanning case files to try to remember what languages had been required of him this week, there was a total of 27. “Tim would know, I can cal-”
“ Absolutely not! I will not allow for Drake to humiliate me- ”
“- Tim might be nicer to you if you stop calling him Dra-”
“- His name is DRAGON why would I call him Timothy . Oh hello Drake, how are you? Apologies, Richard, Drake has stepped in -”
“Ask him if he knows what liú bíxiě means! Ask him if he knows what liú bíxiě menas!” Dick can hear Damian and Tim arguing over the phone until Damian chases Tim off. Dick didn’t even know Tim had returned to the manor. He’s so out of the loop, it’s a wonder any of them even consider him family anymore.
“ He said it means hanadji. Is that the English word ?” Dick grimaces, putting the phone on speaker, opening Google Translate, something that they had actually used while Bruce was… gone. Dick scrunches his nose, confused.
“Why are you trying to find the word for nose bleed?” Dick heard Damian mutter a few things to himself.
“ Are you sure the word is nose bleed?” Dick can perfectly visualize Damian scrunching his nose, a habit he picked up while living with Dick. “ Father and I are texting right now, I need the word. ”
“... can you expand on why you need the word?”
“ Blood is in my nose. ”
“Accurate.” Dick nods, confused and concerned.
“... but not right now.” Dick takes a deep breath in and then sighs.
“Is the blood out of your nose?”
“ Yes, obviously , Richard. Why would I be asking for the word for… nose bleed if the blood was in my nose? ” Dick pinched the bridge of his nose, taking a deep breath in.
“Why do you need to text Bruce about a nose bleed?” Dick asks, exasperated, maybe exhausted.
“ Well, Richard, I simply was hoping to… avoid going to school today. ” And that was right, Damian had just started going to elementary school. Dick and Alfred had tried, school wise, with Damian. It was just- Dick couldn’t trust Damian back then, couldn’t trust him to make the right decisions, to be nonviolent and in the background. Dick’s stomach curdles even more. How could he have looked at a child who had just been abandoned in a new country and then had their only relative die and assume that the kid would constantly be violent. Though Damian didn’t have the best start, and it was violent at the beginning, Damian was just a kid, even if he wouldn’t admit it. “ Mother said I was the smartest boy in the world, and she only made me talk to tutors. Why can’t father just do what you did and have Pennyworth aid me in my studies? ” Heat rises in Dick’s chest, a sinking feeling about something being revealed soon.
“For starters, Damian, you have to remember that not everything that happened in the League can be translated perfectly to Gotham, and some of it shouldn’t have happened at all,” Dick feels like a cassette tape, this has been said so many times, in so many ways,”For seconders-“
“ That’s not a real word, Richard! No one says for seconders -“
“How would you know that? You didn’t know the word for noseble-“
“ Well I am perfectly aware that for seconders isn’t an actual phrase! Just as I know that no one says whelmed , Richard! It was a very cruel joke for you to play when I had just came to this country-“
“Get traught, Dami-“ Dick’s phone beeps and he pulls it back to see that Damian had hung up on him. Oh. Maybe he was being to much. Dick had enjoyed chatting on the phone more than he thought he would, but now it’s been fifteen minutes and he’s just standing in front of his desk and Damian hung up probably because he’s annoyed with him. Everyone gets annoyed eventually.
Then his phone starts to ring with a video call, caller: DAMIAN <3, Dick slides his finger again, picking up the call to see Damian standing over the lit stove, a set of files in his hands. There’s blood on his face, crusted and old, likely from his earlier nosebleed. There’s a secondary texture to his face, cakey, like someone had applied foundation or concealer and it didn’t lay down just right. Dick’s eyebrows furrow, Damian had been benched from patrol this past week due to him getting into a small altercation at school on last Monday. It meant that Damian couldn’t come work on cases with him. Dick opens him mouth to speak but Damian gets there first. “ I am going to set these on fire unless you admit that you were very cruel to me when I first arrived in Gotham! ” Damian’s voice still has the robotic twinge to it from the phone call, despite Dick being able to see everything so clearly, so reminiscent of when they first started cohabiting the Wayne properties.
“Did you get into a fight? Like, yesterday?” Dick brings his phone closer to his face, trying to see better. There’s a purple-ish tone to Damian’s jaw.
“ We fight people every night!” Dick continues to frown.
“B told me you had been benched- is this why you don’t want to go to school? Is someone hurting you?” Dick takes a quick screenshot of the call to text Bruce over with later. Damian scrunches his nose (again) and turns his camera off. “Squirt,-“
“ I am not a chil- “
“I hate to be the one to break it to you, but I figured out peak a boo years ago. I do still remember what you look like even though I’m not looking right at you.” Dick takes the chance to message Jason, who recently took Damian on a motorcycle ride, and is therefore the current favorite brother.
>>Me: did dami mention smth happening at school yesterday?
>>jaybird: one of his friends said they knew more birds than him, he won
>>Me: oh got
>>Me: god*
>>jaybird: he’s not helping the allegations
>>Me: don’t say that!
“ And now Todd is messaging me. Congratulations Richard, your files are on fire. ”
“Dami, buddy, you have to know I have electronic backups.” Damian’s camera flips back on, showing a confused face.
“ Of course I know that, I would never risk the mission over your pettiness. ” Dick raises an eyebrow.
“Dami, baby, that is so not your shade.” Damian touches where he applied the concealer, now suddenly visible in comparison with his typical skin tone. “Jason says you didn’t mention anything about getting in a fight.”
“Todd is a snitch, and snitches get stitches-“, “Absolutely not, we’re not doing that-“, “‘Tis a joke, Richard. Pennyworth asked me to stop stabbing my quote unquote siblings as it adds more laundry to his list of chores.” Dick rolls his eyes, grabbing his keys off the wall.
“I’m coming to Gotham, be there in 20 minutes, okay?” Damian sighs over the phone before hanging up.