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English
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Part 13 of I Can't Get Enough Damian Dragon Fics
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Published:
2021-10-27
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1,169
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1/1
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Aftermath

Summary:

The aftermath of Damian's accidental rescue attempt.

Work Text:

Bruce wakes with a weight on his hand.

His head is pounding. There’s something wrapped around his head. He can feel it press around his skull. He’s not too happy to be awake, not when it meant dealing with head pain, but he was coherent enough to make the correct assumptions. He’d been captured with his sons when they were investigating a trafficking ring. He’d most likely suffered trauma to the head. That’s why he had his head bandaged up. They escaped. He was clued in by the fact that he was in the pack nest.

Bruce grunts. He tries to sit up, gritting his teeth while doing so, but he doesn’t get very far. There’s something weighing down on his stomach. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense until Bruce looks in that direction. What he’d imagined to be some kind of restricting binds ended up being an entire body bent over his stomach. Bruce stares for a couple of seconds as he tries to register the sight. His youngest, Damian, was snoozing over him in human form. Bruce had never seen Damian sleep in human form, let alone feel comfortable enough to shift in the manor.

Bruce’s hand floats to his son’s back. He places it in the middle where he then begins to, despite feeling completely out of it, rub in circles. He releases a heavy exhale. His head hurts with the release of his breath, but Bruce tries not to focus too much on the pain.

It was easier said than done. 

Bruce rubs his son’s back mindlessly as he tries to think over the events that had landed him in the nest. Bed-ridden. He was eager to find out how they had managed to escape. Bruce wasn’t comfortable knowing that his children had most likely fought their way out, without him, probably lugging him around as extra weight. He wanted to read the report pronto.

He tries to think about how they might have managed to get out of their cuffs, but then Damian kicks up in a sleepy purr. Bruce mentally pauses to compute the sound. It’s a reassuring one. It was pouring out of Damian generously. Bruce can feel the rumble through his stomach. 

“Oh geez,” he hears.

Bruce looks up to see Dick step into the room. He had a bottle of pain meds, and a glass of water in his hands.

“I’m sorry,” Dick apologizes, “We tried to keep him out of the nest. Didn’t want him bothering you. I don’t know how he ended up getting in here.”

“It’s fine,” Bruce grunts, shifting in place. He pats Damian’s back for his own comfort. He looks Dick in the eye. “What happened?”

Dick climbs into the nest. He balances the cup of water in his hand while he does so, careful not to spill it all over the cushions. When he’s close enough, he offers it to Bruce, and Bruce stops rubbing Damian’s back to accept it.

Dick opens the pain meds. He pours out two pills.

“Tim was held hostage,” Dick recounts, “We were forced to surrender before Elton Rice could put a bullet through his brain.”

Bruce stays silent. The scene flashes through his mind. He remembers how frightened he’d felt. Bruce didn’t want to see Tim have a gun held to his head ever again. Not if he could help it. 

“He was fine,” Dick says, “We were cuffed to a couple of pipes in a separate room while they tried to figure out what they were going to do with us. Damian-”

Bruce furrows his brows. 

“-showed up-”

“Wait-”

“Jason asked him to grab his belt that’d been hanging on the wall out of reach-”

“Hold on-”

“Damian grabbed the belt, and then he pulled it off the hook. he followed Jason’s instructions perfectly and-”

“Dick,” Bruce snaps. He ignores the offering of pills. “What do you mean Damian showed up?”

“We were surprised, too,” Dick says. “Damian ended up dropping in from the ceiling. He’d been looking for us all over Gotham before he found us.”

“What about Alfred? I thought Damian was with him?”

“He was,” Dick says, “but he ran away. Alfred couldn’t follow him.”

Bruce stares at Dick. He lets his son push the pills into his other hand.

He reluctantly pops the offering into his mouth, and then downs the glass of water in just a few gulps. He wipes his lips with the back of his hand when he’s done, settling the cup on the cushions underneath them, and then he looks at Damian who’d slid down to his lap. He’d finished purring, a sound that Bruce found himself missing, but that wasn’t Bruce’s main focus. He couldn’t help but imagine his baby running around in Gotham, the most dangerous city on the planet, searching for them. 

“Injuries?” Bruce demands.

“Cut to the back,” Dick answers his brood father.

Bruce doesn’t even think about it. He pulls up his son’s shirt. His eyes land on a bandaid.

“It wasn’t that big,” Dick says. “We treated it before anything could happen.”

Bruce frowns. 

Damian begins to rouse when Bruce rubs a thumb over the small wound. Bruce would have felt regretful, but he was too interested in questioning his hatchling’s decision making skills. 

Damian hums tiredly. He struggles to pull himself up in Bruce’s lap, seemingly unaware of his surroundings, and takes his time to wake. He rubs at his eyes with a small yawn, bumping his head into his father’s chest, before freezing entirely. He blinks in confusion.

Bruce watches as Damian’s eyes fly up to his face. Damian’s features are still frozen in confusion as he considers his father, but after a moment of observation Bruce watches a shy smile span across his lips. Damian leans forward to snuggle himself into his father’s chest. He wraps his arms around Bruce’s stomach. 

Bruce settles a hand on his back again. 

“Damian,” he greets, quietly.

“Father,” he whispers, happily.

Bruce feels his heart squeeze. He almost forgets his question.

Damian withdraws. He lifts his face, craning his neck, to press a clumsy kiss on Bruce’s jaw. 

Bruce, in an aggressive fit of love, can’t hold himself back. He returns the gesture by pressing a firm kiss to his hair. His hand moves from Damian’s back to his neck. He rubs his thumb over the skin there, softly brushing it across, and erupting in a pleased rumble. 

“And, as you can see, he’s fine,” Dick voices. 

Bruce decides that his question can wait for a later date. He holds out an arm open in a wordless request, and Dick understands the meaning quickly. His eldest son closes the distance between them. Bruce wraps his arm around his shoulders, and tucks him against his side.

“Is Tim okay?” He murmurs in Dick’s hair as he nuzzles his nose there.

“He’s fine. He only has a few bumps. Nothing bad,” Dick purrs.

Bruce’s instinct is to purr in return.

He doesn’t fight it.