Chapter Text
"I love you."
If Dick wasn't already crying, he would have burst into tears that instant.
The golden words fell out of his dad's mouth in a feeble whisper, like dust thrown into the wind. Dick could scarcely hear it over the sound of his horrid weeping. He wished Bruce would stop talking, stop acting as though he wasn't going to survive. Dick didn't need a whole damn speech about how much Bruce loved and appreciated him -- he already knew -- Dick just needed Bruce to focus his energy on surviving.
“N, can you hear me? The Batmobile’s been—”
The Batmobile was going to arrive soon. Just a few more minutes and they could rush him to medical. Bruce would survive and Dick would tease him about how sappy he got and he'll hold Bruce to his promise and steal his cookies and-
Bruce's chest wasn't moving.
…
…..?
Bruce wasn't-
Dick removed Bruce’s chest plate and placed his palm flat over his heart.
His breath hitched.
Dick pressed his ear to Bruce's chest.
He held his breath.
The normally easy task felt Herculean. Tears poured down his face in rivets, accompanied by hiccups that wracked his body, making it impossible to be still when Dick just needed one moment to listen.
“N, his vitals—please tell me the suit is malfunctioning,” Babs begged, the whine in her voice incongruent with the altered voice of Oracle.
Dick turned his comm off. He didn’t need any distractions. Dick just needed to listen.
He waited for the ta-thump of Bruce’s soothing heart, its easy rhythm never skipping a beat.
And waited.
And waited.
Nothing.
"Dad?" he said, sounding awfully small. He felt nine again, staring down at his parents from the platform above, uncomprehending of the blood and the bent-out-of-shape bodies and the screams and the snapped wire. Dick could almost feel the heat of the lights illuminating the tent against his skin, could smell the popcorn and caramelised peanuts, and feel the chalky powder stuck between his fingers. The same confused panic that overwhelmed him then bubbled up in his chest and commandeered his body.
Dick pressed shaky fingers to Bruce's neck. He couldn't feel a beat. Dick tried Bruce's wrist instead. Again, no beat. Bruce was still and pale and-
‘His vitals—’ he remembered Babs trying to say.
Dick pulled up Bruce’s vitals on his wrist computer.
“No,” he gasped.
Bruce was dead.
“Nonononononono,” Dick babbled.
He sat up and dragged Bruce from his inclined position against the wall to flat on the ground.
Dick turned his comm back on.
“O, ETA on the Batmobile?” he asked, voice terse with exertion as he pushed against Bruce’s chest to the beat of Stayin’ Alive. “It was supposed to be here already!”
“Two minutes,” Babs reported back, her voice thin with an emotion Dick did not want to name. “It got delayed by an explosion by the docks.”
Dick bit back a curse and continued his resuscitation efforts. “Who’s in it?”
“Hood and BB.”
“Tell them to prepare the defib.”
“He’s already flatlined. You know that’s not how-”
“Prepare the defib!” Dick interrupted. He didn’t need Babs’ logic right now. He needed his dad alive.
Dick pushed harder and felt Bruce’s rib break under his weight.
He flinched and choked on a half-crazed laugh.
Bruce and his fucking fracture-prone ribs. He was so proud of being free of cracked ribs for once in his adult life and Dick just broke one. It happened; one was often too focused on keeping a heart beating to mind their strength during CPR. What was a broken rib or two compared to a beating heart?
Dick continued to press against his dad’s chest.
Bruce wouldn’t make a fuss about the broken ribs; his life was more important.
What happened next was a blur to Dick.
Jason and Cass had rushed in at some point and rolled Bruce onto a stretcher while Dick continued to administer CPR. They tried using the defibrillator on Bruce sometime between the factory and the Batmobile but it had no effect except shocking Bruce’s broken body because-
He’d already flatlined.
How long had it been since Bruce stopped breathing? Stopped pumping blood through his body?
This wasn’t a fucking movie. CPR and defibrillators didn’t revive dead people and how long had Bruce been dead for?
Dick broke a corpse’s ribs. They’ll never heal again.
Bruce was dead.
Dick collapsed against on his dad’s chest and sobbed.
“Dick?” Cass quietly murmured. She might have placed a hand on his shoulder too. Cass must’ve known Bruce was dead the moment she saw him. His baby sister was too observant to have missed it. But she let him carry on anyway, breaking more of Bruce’s ribs and bruising his body in his futile attempt to revive him.
“I broke his fucking ribs. He’s gonna have eternally broken ribs.”
Dick wrapped his arms around Bruce.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Dad. Please. I love you.”
Dick pressed a kiss against Bruce’s forehead just like his dad did to him that morning. How quickly the day had gone from fantastic to a fucking tragedy.
"Dad, I love you," Dick sobbed, begging Bruce to open his eyes and say it back.
Bruce did not.
"I love you," Dick croaked, repeating Bruce's last words.
His last words.
His fucking last words.
And Dick almost missed them because he was crying too loud. Too caught up in his emotions to pay attention to his dad in his final moments.
Dick didn’t think he could ever hear those words again and not think of Bruce. They were his words now. Golden words stained with blood. Dick wondered if Bruce would’ve said them if he knew how painful hearing them would forever be for Dick.
Dick couldn’t imagine him saying anything else though. Bruce was a man built on contradictions but if Dick had to condense him down to one thing, then it was that he was full of love; for Gotham, for humanity, for his family.
“He wanted us to know he loved us. Said being our dad was the best thing he ever did.”
His family broke down around him but all Dick could do was curl around his dad’s body and keep whispering, “I love you.”
It wasn’t a dream.
It wasn’t a fucking dream.
Dick let his guard down. Of course he was stuck in the time loop; his life was full of shitty nightmare scenarios come to life, of course he’d have eventually stumbled into a time loop.
He should’ve expected this. Shouldn’t have dismissed the signs so readily. If he hadn’t—If only Dick had been more vigilant, then Bruce wouldn’t have fallen.
Of all the shitty ways to die, why did Bruce have to fall? Bruce promised—
And Dick couldn’t catch him. He was so close but Bruce slipped through his grasp anyway.
This time, they weren’t surrounded by a screaming crowd, a spotlight revealing his parents in all their gory glory, broken on the sandy ground. This time, it was just Dick and Bruce in a shadowy alleyway. But Dick thought he could hear the screams anyway. He could still hear it even now, despite Bruce calming him down from the fucking panic attack. And who did that anyway? Bruce was dying—why couldn’t he concentrate on himself for once in his goddamn life?
‘I love you.’
It had to be the same last words this time too. Did Bruce seriously commit to ruining those golden words for Dick? How could he hear it again without seeing his dad’s broken, battered body?
“Nightwing? Batman? Someone fucking respond to me,” Babs demanded.
“He’s dead,” Dick croaked, throat dry as if deprived of water for three days. He’d had preferred that to the reality. Reporting it wasn’t easier the second time around. “He’s dead.”
Bruce’s ribs were broken again and Dick wasn’t sure why that upset him more than the fucking pipe in his gut but-
Dad was so happy about his crack-free ribs.
But it was okay. Because Dick knew this time. All he had to do was go to sleep and he’ll wake up, back to that beautiful morning where kisses weren’t bloodied and love wasn’t whispered through mountains of pain.
Bruce could get back his non-fractured ribs.
Dick would make sure of it.
He failed.
He failedfailedfailedfailedfailed—
Jason and Bruce were trapped down there, underneath tonnes of rubble. Out of reach. There was just static on the other end of the comms. Jason’s vitals were heightened but stable and Bruce’s… they couldn’t access them. The only way for that to be possible were if the suit was so damaged that all the sensors broke.
Bruce’s ribs were probably broken again.
Dick hadn’t even learnt anything useful. He even got Cass to help and all they did was run around learning nothing while Bruce and Jason—God, Jason.
It was Ethiopia 2.0 with an extra topping of parental death and survivor’s guilt.
Fuck.
Was it bad that he was glad they couldn’t access their comms? Dick didn’t need to hear Jason’s cries; his nightmares were realistic enough on their own.
The loops were getting worse. Bruce and now Jason.
Would it continue to get worse? If Dick failed again, would he have to watch more of his family die?
Dick needed to sleep. He needed to wake up. He needed his dad.
Dick walked away from his siblings’ desperate rescue efforts and trudged over to the Batmobile. He didn’t have to stay to watch his family break with grief again. Dick could undo all this. He’d make it all right again.
No Ethiopia 2.0. No more parental deaths.
Dick would die in his stead if he had to.
As Dick injected a sedative into himself, he vowed, “I swear I’ll fix things this time.”