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[munnin]

comment_ficTitle: From Edges and Outside
Author: Munnin
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Dick, Tim, Damian, Alfred
Disclaimer: No ownership, no profit and no offence meant. Everyone is of the age of consent in their country and period of history.
Author’s notes: 100% organic. May contain minor flaws and imperfections that beta-treated slash wouldn’t.
Comment_fic prompt:DCU, Current Bat-clan (gen), Tim is barely breathing; Dick is calmly panicking, and Damian, for once, thinks it might be his fault. Cue angst.

Damian watched from the edges, from the outside.

Red Robin was still and deathly pale as Alfred’s hands moved as if on autopilot, cutting the uniform away. The rose and fall of Tim’s chest was barely enough to lift the thin sheets that swathed him.

Dick sat on the edge of the bed, his ungloved fingers resting on Tim’s wrist, feeling to the smaller stir of a pulse. It must be getting slow now, weak and reedy. Even with the cowl pushed back, Dick’s face was a mask, that facade of the calm that exists on the other side of fear. His eyes were flat and dry, too lost to show pain and too hurt to react. Focused on one thing and one thing only – the beat of his brother’s heart.

And I have killed him. Damian thought, distancing himself from this tableau of family pain, a family he no longer had place in, if ever he had. The poison was meant for him and him alone but...but he was too slow to move, too dull to recognise the threat, too cocky to realise...

And now Tim was dying, dying because Damian couldn’t protect himself.

Damian turned slowly towards the stairs. He would pack the few things that were ever truly his and take one of the bikes from the garage. They would never see him again, never think on him. They would morn Tim and forget. Just as it should be.

A hand rested on his shoulder, stilling his flight.

“Go to them.” Alfred said gently, his hands soft with sweat from the latex gloves. “Your brothers need you.”

He meant to keep walking, to leave before the hurt and blame became too much but he turned and saw the look in Dick’s eyes. A single step and he was folded in his mentor’s long arms.

“He protected you because he loves you.” Dick whispered into Damian’s hair as he dragged the youth into a hug. “It’s his way of showing it.”

Damian let Dick guide his hand to Tim’s. As still as he was, Tim’s fingers still tightened around Damian’s in reflex.

So this is what family meant...

Comments

[munnin-odanin.livejournal.com]

missed you too! I spent a lot of time in airports writing in my head so I hope I get a chance to write it all down before it gets away.

Thanks you! I'm so glad you enjoyed it.