Chapter Text
Duke woke up to a hot, wet towel dabbing at his forehead. “Hello?” He said, pulling his eyelids open with no small amount of dismay.
It was Bruce, again. He stared down at Duke, pale face made almost blue by the light of the tv. Damian was gone, but it was clear no one had turned off the documentaries.
“Your fever rose,” Bruce whispered hoarsely. The bruise on his neck really was blue, a deep, troubling color. No wonder he was having trouble speaking.
Duke closed his eyes again. “Can I have some ice cream? But hot. Like from the microwave. So I don’t get cold.” He asked, mostly as a way to get Bruce to leave. None of the others ever had this problem.
He could swear he heard Bruce raise an eyebrow at the microwave part, but from the rustling of his clothes, the ruse worked. The door shut softly behind Bruce.
Duke reopened his eyes.
Bruce was definitely gone.
Duke swung his legs over the edge of his head, muzzily ignoring the way he swayed a bit to the left. He needed to get out, away from that suffocating, intense man.
His bathroom window stood over an obvious gutter on the opposite side of the corner of the house. He opened the window there, then stumbled over to his bed and hid underneath as he heard the creak outside his room (Duke had loosened the board a few weeks ago, after Jason had snuck in one too many times). He pulled his feet beneath a second before the door swung open.
“Duke?” He heard Bruce call. The bowl dropped to the ground, circling upon its bottom rim noisily, as the older man rushed to the windows, and then to the bathroom when a particularly cold gust blew through.
Duke rolled out the other side as soon as Bruce passed through the doorway. He had tried to shadow-walk under the bed, but the effort made him woozy, and a taste of mold entered his mouth. So he crawled, sneaking through the door instead. To get to somewhere Bruce would never follow. He just needed to be alone.
—
Despite his best efforts, Bruce found him in the pantry an hour later, just as Duke was once again drifting off to sleep, under a blanket he snagged from the laundry room dryer as he passed. Just as the door was creaking open, Duke realized his foot was still out from behind the giant sack of potatoes he had hid behind, and drew it away too quickly.
Bruce had to have seen the movement, because next thing Duke knew, he was getting pulled out by said foot.
The man looked half-crazed, and was still holding a bowl of what Duke had to assume was melted ice cream. “Why-” he cleared his throat painfully. “Why did you do that?”
Duke kicked out to loosen the man’s grip and drew his foot under the blanket. “I don’t know.”
“Why did you do that.” It was less of a question and more of a threat now.
“I don’t know.”
Bruce sat down, blocking the doorway.
Duke cracked open the one eye that Bruce could not see from this angle and wondered if the jar of pickles within reach of his hand would be enough to brain Bruce. Ultimately, he decided, it wasn’t worth it.
—<
It became a test of wills. Bruce continued to sit there, in Duke’s way. Duke slept, occasionally waking up to blow his nose or wish he had a drink and groaning when he saw the man was still there.
Eventually, the burn in his throat got to be too much. Between it and the pain meds wearing off, Duke was not going to back to sleep.
He sat up and stared at Bruce.
Bruce resolutely stared at the back of a can of beans.
“Can I have some water?” Duke squinted his eyes.
The man squinted back for a second, then handed Duke his water bottle. “Why did you do that?” He said just as Duke was taking a sip.
Duke held his gaze and drank the rest of the bottle. With a particularly exaggerated sigh of satisfaction, he crumpled it for longer than necessary. “I don’t know.”
“Alright.” Bruce went back to reading the can of beans. He squinted at an apparently suspicious ingredient list. “Lies.”
Suddenly, Duke felt quite hot, clashing horribly with the aching chills that still lingered from his fever. “Why are you here?” He spat. “It has to be patrol time.”
A long silence. Then, grudgingly, “Can’t tonight.”
“Why? You seem fine.” Duke started uncrinkling the bottle, some evil, smug corner of his heart causing him to smirk when Bruce jumped at an especially obnoxious crackle.
“Early meeting tomorrow.” Bruce’s grip tightened on the can, causing a particularly wet CLOINK as it dented. “Sionis was involved. He’s trying to go legitimate, despite-” Bruce coughed and massaged his throat. “Despite the ties to the drug case. Bruce Wayne … could talk to him.”
Duke’s chest tightened. “You think … he traded that information about Steph, for something he needs? And that’s what lead to me being … captured?”
“Hrn.”
“Huh.” Duke’s mouth felt dry again. Bruce was fucking babying him again. And his voice … it was a bad idea to go out when you couldn’t talk above a whisper. Duke did that. No one else. “Can I have some more?”
Bruce nodded and grabbed the water bottle, sitting up so he could go fill it in the kitchen.
Duke tried to melt into the shadows again. Nothing happened except that mold taste in his mouth, like burnt Cheerios. It spread down his throat too, making him cough painfully to try and get it out.
Then he saw the glowing. His throat, painfully full, like something was getting further and further wedged into his air pipe. The shadows in the pantry near his head rushed away as the power in his throat grew.
He was choking on his own hard light.
Duke scrambled to his feet, stomping and slapping at every little thing to gather attention. He did not know if Bruce would be able to help him get it out, but he needed every bit of help he could get.
He slammed into the edge of the counter, neck throbbing and face flushed as the blood ran rapid in his face and the breath stayed stuffed down his lungs.
Bruce whirled, sink still running as he rushed to Duke’s side. His eyes betrayed his shock at the light - it was even brighter now as Duke felt his vision begin to disappear at the edges amongst his panic.
Strong and sure, he drew Duke into his arms and attempted to force it out of his throat as the room became brighter and brighter.
The room was nearly featureless in the brilliance of it all before Duke felt something in his throat give. With a final, desperate cough as his vision swam, the ball of light popped out, and Duke threw up behind it.
Bruce moved aside, drawing Duke close and away from the light and the vomit. “It’s done, Duke,” he said soothingly as his rough hands scratched at Duke’s back through his shirt. “You’re just having some delayed stress responses.” The man’s eyes were clenched to protect his vision from the still-blazing light.
Duke turned to Bruce, throat in immense pain. “It’s … never .. over.” He croaked, tears welling from his wide-open eyes. “I just …” he hacked a smaller piece of light out of his mouth and spat it away. “Keep … fffucking it up.”
Bruce squeezed him harder, like he was trying to push more blockages out of his throats, like he could push the pain out of Duke. “It’s part of being alive, and especially of being young.” Bruce started sinking to his knees, and Duke followed, until he was half-cradled in the man’s arms and on his knees. “You did everything you could.”
“That’s … not enough.”
Duke thought he heard the man choke a little. “It has to be.”
“I know …” another disgusting, hacking cough, with less light this time. “Know you wouldn’t let the others fuck up like this.”
Bruce’s grip tightened painfully.
Duke gasped.
Hurriedly, Bruce let go. “That was my mistake.”
There was a long pause.
“I was twenty-four when Dick came to this family.”
Another long pause.
“So?”
“Meaning, I was even more selfish, mean and stupid than I am now.”
Duke snorted and then winced with pain. “Don’t … make me laugh … old man.”
Bruce grunts with amusement. “I’ve been a father for twenty-one years. My eldest son is thirty.” They sit for a moment. “It took me losing several children to come to terms with the fact that not only do I need to provide for them, to train them physically - but to also help them emotionally.” He clears his throat.
“I SHOULD be fffine. No one else f-freaks like this.” Duke swung his arm out to gesture at the light, then realized that Bruce’s eyes were still closed.
“They did. Still do. They just do it … differently.”
Duke wished he could be normal, for once. “I don’t know how to stop feeling this way.” He paused, then, “or how to make this … hard light go away.”
He feels Bruce shrug. “Everyone has to figure out their own way.” He hums tunelessly for a bit, and stops suddenly. “Do not copy my way.”
Duke snorts again. “Too late.”
“Hrn.”
Bruce carried Duke up to his room, returning him to the sweet comfort of the shadows, and grabbed him some more water as he made some phone calls. When he returned, Duke was fighting sleep with a hot compress on his throat.
“Clark moved the light. We will study it in the lab together, maybe figure out if there’s a diet or lifestyle change to prevent it.”
Duke groaned. “Just as long as I don’t have to give up ice cream.”
“I will cross my fingers.” Bruce proclaimed solemnly. “In the meantime, I would like you to start seeing Dr. Dinah Lance. I am … aware of my own mental health deficiencies, and how my actions may have fostered similar issues in my children and protégé’s.”
Duke screwed up his face.
“You don’t have to start with anything … impactful right away. Dick said he usually talks about his day first - it helps him build trust. Then what really bothers him that day comes out. Additionally, It would do me, as well as Damian, a great favor if you could take that first step.”
“Well, if it’s to encourage Damian.”
“Indeed.”
“Forsooth.”
Bruce’s lips ticked upwards. “Get some sleep, Tink.” He closed the door.
Duke full on laughed despite the pain. “Goodnight, asshole.”
He thought he heard a snicker in the hall.