Archive of Our Own

Damian has never categorized his father as an overly happy man. No one would—he’s Batman. Happiness is not part of the persona. He wouldn’t be the Batman at all if he were some happy-go-lucky fool like Dick Grayson. Of course Damian has seen his father smile before, has watched him laugh on the odd occasion, but happy is not a term anyone would ever use to describe Bruce Wayne.

Damian never thought to question that persistent moroseness, just as he doesn’t question Richard’s endless supply of hope or Todd’s teen-angst attitude. It is simply part of them. It makes them who they are.

It is around five in the afternoon that Damian notices he hasn’t seen Father all day. They returned home at the usual time after patrol the night before and went straight to bed, and that was it. That was the last Damian saw of him.

Bruce wasn’t there at breakfast this morning, nor when Damian left for school or when he arrived home hours later. On the average day Damian will see his father puttering around the house in the afternoon, at least to give the appearance of a normal man with normal hobbies before he descends to the cave to do his real work. The only conclusion he can come to is that Father must have been working downstairs all day. He’s a busy man, and Damian is used to his disappearances. Nothing to be concerned about.

Later, however, when Damian is suiting up for the night’s patrol, Batman is nowhere to be found in the cave. His desk chair has not moved from the position he left it in last night.

Instead it is Richard who wears the Batman uniform now. “Hey, kiddo,” he greets Damian with a gentle smile that would otherwise be unnatural to see on his current persona. “I was just about to call Alfred to fetch you. Ready to head out?”

“I thought Father was coming.”

“He’s got other stuff to do tonight, so I’m stepping in for him as vice Batman.” He rubs Damian’s head, messing up his hair. “It’s you and me tonight, Little D. Just like old times.”

Damian is unconvinced by the easygoing act. He knows when he’s being purposely distracted. “Is he sick?”

“Kind of.” There’s a strange look in Richard’s eyes, a sadness that Damian very nearly comments on, but it’s replaced by a grin in an instant. “So, ready to go? I’m itching to get on the streets. It’s been a while since you and I have gotten to team up.” If it were any other situation, Damian would be thrilled to patrol with his favorite brother, but he can’t stop wondering about his father as they leave for the night.

Richard never complains openly about his role as Bruce’s second whenever things go wrong, but Damian knows he resents him a little for it. I’m the spare, Richard will affectionately call it; it’s his job to be a parent when Bruce can’t. When Bruce is out of town or under the weather, it’s Richard’s job to take over his duties in his stead. He shoulders any burden the Bat can’t hold himself.

He’s never once told Damian the unfairness of it all—he would never complain—but Damian knows he’s tired. It’s a terrible job, being the understudy for the most powerful man in their world. Another man would refuse the role altogether, but Richard has always been too selfless for his own good.

The next afternoon, Damian goes downstairs for brunch and finds his father still absent. It’s a Saturday, so it isn’t as though there are any work obligations he would need to leave the house for. And he didn’t patrol overnight, so he can’t be sleeping in.

“Why isn’t Father here yet?” Damian asks the table.

No one wants to answer. His siblings all make covert eye contact with each other as if they are all privy to some secret that Damian hasn’t been invited into. Drake and Duke are suddenly very interested in their food, and Cassandra just shakes her head at Damian.

Alfred is the one who breaks the silence. He leans over to top off the coffee in Drake’s mug. “Master Bruce has a busy weekend ahead of him. He will be taking his meals in his office today so he can get some work done.”

Damian sends Richard a scathing look. “You told me he was sick. So, which one is it?”

Alfred and Richard meet eyes, both wilting at being found out.

Damian slams a fist on the table, making the silverware rattle. “Why does everyone feel the need to keep secrets from me? I’ve killed grown men before. I’ve lived through atrocities most of you can’t even imagine. I don’t need to be coddled!”

“Okay, okay,” Richard says, reaching across the table to lay a hand on Damian’s wrist. “Stand down. We get it. We all know how mature you are. This isn’t about that, and no one is trying to make you feel left out. It’s just…Bruce is having a hard week. It’s best to leave him be for now.”

“What happened to him? Is he all right?” Already Damian can imagine a thousand things that could have incapacitated his father. He could be injured, or sick, or dying, and Damian wouldn’t have even known about it because everyone in this stupid household feels the need to continually treat him like a child.

“Of course he is,” Richard reassures him quickly, as if reading Damian’s mind. “You just need to give it time, okay? He’s not feeling well and he needs his space right now.”

“Yes,” Alfred agrees. “Your father will be back to his old self in a few days. You must simply be patient.”

That isn’t the answer Damian was looking for—it’s not a plan, it’s not something he can do— but he knows better than to bother trying to wheedle anything out of the obstinate twins. If he wants answers, he will have to investigate this matter himself.

Later that day, Damian goes to the master bedroom at the end of the family wing to conduct his investigation. He is fed up with being sheltered away from his own father. If something is wrong with him, Damian deserves to know about it.

It isn’t the anniversary of any tragic event Damian knows of. Martha and Thomas Wayne died in June, and Todd died in April. There were no recent catastrophes that could have sent him into mourning, nor have they run into any suspicious toxins. While Bruce is prone to disappearing for days on end, the alarming part of the situation is the rest of the family's unwillingness to clue Damian into what’s going on. Normally everyone is more than happy to complain freely about their father’s emotional truancy.

Drake is sitting cross-legged on the floor next to Father’s bedroom door typing away on his laptop. He doesn’t look up at Damian. “Hey.”

“What are you doing?” Damian asks. Drake just shrugs. Damian barges past him into the room, and Tim doesn’t make any move to stop him. The lights inside are all off and the curtains are drawn, only the slimmest sliver of sunlight peeking out between. Damian’s eyes, used to navigating pitch darkness by this point, adjust quickly.

Bruce is lying in his bed with the covers pulled up to his chin. He doesn’t move. He doesn’t greet his son.

Tentatively, Damian approaches the bed. “Father?” Upon further inspection, Damian can see his father’s messy hair and unshaven face. He clearly hasn’t showered. He certainly looks sick.

“Father,” Damian says more forcefully. Bruce’s eyes are closed, but Damian knows he isn’t asleep. “It’s been two days. Get up.”

It’s as if he hasn’t spoken. Like he isn’t even here. His father doesn’t move, not even to order Damian to get out. Damian thinks back to their last encounters with any villains who could have caused this, but it’s been weeks since they’ve run into Ivy or Scarecrow. There are no outside forces he can recognize that would have rendered the Batman so… weakened.

“Father,” he snaps. “Get out of bed now.” He starts yanking on the covers, and that finally gets the reaction he’s been waiting for.

Tired blue eyes crack open and focus on Damian in the darkness. “I’m not feeling well, Damian,” Bruce mutters, his voice lifeless. “Leave me alone. Go find Dick if you’re bored.”

“Who did this to you?” Damian demands. Because someone clearly had to have done this to him. Bruce Wayne doesn’t get like this, so lethargic and feeble. It isn’t natural.

Bruce rolls over away from Damian and pulls the comforter back over himself. “Close the door on your way out.”

Bewildered, Damian obeys. He’s never seen his father like this before. It’s completely incompatible with the image of Bruce Wayne that Damian has known until now, and everyone is being so nonchalant about it. Even sick and beaten, Batman never folds like this. Something is deeply, deeply wrong with him.

Damian slams the bedroom door behind him and starts to stomp away when Drake speaks up, stopping him. “He gets like this sometimes. You just have to wait it out.”

Damian turns to face him and crosses his arms. “I’ve never seen him this way.”

“Well, yeah. You were only around for a few months before he…you know.” Died. “He’s been overdue for one.”

“What is it?”

Drake is quiet for a moment as he struggles for the right words. He closes his computer and explains, “He gets into these…episodes, sometimes. It’s not as often now as it used to be when I was Robin. Dick would always come home and pick up the slack when it happened, take up Batman duties for a bit until Bruce was back on his feet.”

“Is it a disease?” Why did no one tell him any of this? Robin is supposed to be Batman’s partner, his right hand, and yet they’ve all left him in the dark. If something is wrong with his father, he has a right to know.

The corner of Drake’s mouth turns up even though there is nothing funny about the subject. “I guess you can call it that. He won’t go to a doctor about it, but it’s a mix of things, I’m pretty sure.”

“Like what?”

“Depression, for one.”

Damian scoffs. “We don’t get depressed.” They have too much on their plates to waste time wallowing in self-pity. Bats are supposed to be stronger than that. There isn’t time in their short, busy lives for depression.

“Everyone does sometimes,” Drake tells him. “Even us. We wouldn’t be here if our lives hadn’t sucked at some point. Bruce especially. He can’t help it.”

“So, what do we do?”

Drake shrugs. He opens his laptop back up. “Just leave him be. Trying to help him only makes things worse, historically. It’s better to leave him alone. He’ll snap out of it eventually.”

“Then why are you here?”

Tim smiles up at him sadly. “It’s my job, isn’t it?”

Once Damian has had time to ponder on it further, Drake’s diagnosis starts to make sense. Damian always knew that his father had mental issues—no man who dresses up in a bat costume and beats up criminals in his free time wouldn’t—but he never considered it in real clinical terms. Yes, Bruce Wayne is depressed often, but he can’t have depression. It’s too human an illness.

But it's obvious that his father isn’t a happy man.

Drake doesn’t talk about what it was like living with Bruce and being his partner during the time after Jason Todd died. Damian has heard snippets of stories from that era. He knows the overview. Bruce shut down after losing his second son. He shut himself off from happiness, from love, from hope for anything to save him from the crushing grief, and it was Robin’s job to keep him alive through it all. Batman needed someone to keep him going, give him something to live for even when living was seemingly impossible.

It’s a terrible burden for a child to bear. Like Richard, Drake would never hold it against Bruce. But it still happened. It was still bad.

And now years later, Drake is still here to fulfill his duty of keeping Bruce afloat even though he isn’t Robin anymore. Damian is. It’s his turn to be the light, but Damian doesn’t know how to do that. He wouldn’t know where to start.

It’s days before Damian sees his father again. Richard manages to convince him to leave the tomb of his bedroom and join the family downstairs for supper. Bruce is still wearing his bathrobe and he hasn’t shaved in days. But he’s here.

He sits at his place at the head of the table, a glassiness in his eyes that Damian has only witnessed a handful of times before. He doesn’t start eating until Tim nudges his hand, and then, when that doesn’t work, physically puts a fork in Bruce’s hand.

Damian can’t watch him like this. It’s like he’s a hollowed-out version of himself.

So, with little else productive to do, Damian turns to research. He spends hours scouring the internet and looking through medical journals that cover the subject of clinical depression. If he can’t fight his father’s demons, he can at least learn what they are.

The symptoms do sound familiar: continuous sadness, irritability, feelings of immense guilt, unusual sleeping patterns, no interest in hobbies or other fun activities—that’s just Batman on a normal Tuesday. Apparently it is often hereditary, which is…concerning.

He pays special attention to the sections regarding how to treat it. “Has Father ever taken antidepressants?” Damian and Drake have spent the past few hours sitting side by side outside Bruce’s bedroom door, Drake finishing up case reports and Damian annotating articles he printed out.

“He tried them once, I think,” Drake answers. “Alfred made him after Bane broke his back. He didn’t like the meds, so he gave up and stopped taking them after a month or two. Said they made his cognition less acute or something.”

“He didn’t try anything else?” Damian presses on. “What about a different type of SSRI, or SNRIs? What does Dr. Thompkins think?”

“Damian,” Drake says with rare gentleness, “I know you’re trying to help, but don’t forget this is Batman we’re talking about. He’s not going to suddenly wise up and start taking his mental health seriously just because we want him to. That’s not Bruce. He’s going to keep being depressed and getting into funks like this, and he’ll keep digging himself out of it. That’s just the way things are.”

But Damian is still not satisfied. How is he supposed to be an adequate Robin if he can’t even fulfill his most crucial duty? Robin is meant to be the light to Batman’s darkness. He’s the one who is supposed to fix Batman when he’s broken, to give him a reason to keep fighting. There’s no point in Damian wearing the suit if he can’t even do that.

That was what made Richard and Damian’s Batman and Robin so different from Batman’s previous partnerships. With Richard Grayson in the cowl, there was no need for a sunshiney Robin because Richard carried that energy all on his own. Damian didn’t need to waste his time with the charade like his predecessors had. He could be himself.

It’s different now that Bruce Wayne is Batman again. With Damian as his Robin, there is no light to balance out his darkness. They are too woefully similar.

If Damian is going to be of any use to his father, he needs to change that. He needs to be the light.

So, Damian shifts the track of his research to web forums on coping methods for clinical depression. It turns out many people with depression rely on daily exercise to release dopamine, but Father clearly isn’t going to be leaving his bed any time soon, even for the lightest of patrols. Movies help, another post says. Craft projects. Spending time with loved ones. Any kind of distractions from the hurricanes raging in their heads.

The next time Damian goes to his father’s bedroom he is prepared with armfuls of stuffed animals and the comforter from his own bed. Ace and Titus trail behind him; they’re not therapy dogs, but they can do the job. Drake insists, “He doesn’t want to be bothered.”

“I’m his Robin,” is all Damian says. He pushes the door open and goes in. He tosses his spoils onto the bed and climbs up beside his father, ignoring his annoyed grunt. Ace makes a spot for himself at Bruce’s head, curling up on top of his pillow like he owns the place. Titus settles at the foot of the mattress, always the dutiful guard.

“Hello, Father,” Damian says.

Bruce grumbles, “What is it, Damian? I’m sleeping.”

“And now you’re not.” Damian settles in against the headboard next to his father, taking his laptop out of the backpack he brought with him. Next he pulls out a plastic Halloween bucket and places it in between them. “I’ve brought my leftover Halloween candy. Lots of Almond Joys.” Their shared favorite.

Bruce sighs, uninterested in the offerings. Not that Damian thought he would be. “I understand what you’re trying to do, son, but I really just want to be alone right now.”

“Fine. I will be alone with you.” Damian pulls up their Netflix account. “Stephanie has been telling me about a show called Stranger Things. I myself find the eighties boring, but you’re old, so I’m sure it will bring back pleasant memories for you.”

He pulls up the first episode and relaxes against the pillows, adjusting the screen so Bruce can see it even from his position half-smushed against his pillow.

He knows it’s unlikely that this will change anything. A television show and some old Halloween candy have no hope of unraveling decades of grief and trauma older than Damian. But for as long as his father is incapacitated, he will at least have his Robin by his side, and perhaps that can be enough.