i kinda debated putting out a sequel because I quite liked how the first ended up but I ended up finishing it so why waste over 2000 words eh?

Bruce never thought he'd see the day that Dick could sit in the library without his shoulders hiked to his ears with tension and his eyes flicking for every exit. He wanted to feel some sort of pride but he knew he didn't do half the work he should've done to achieve this. He didn't deserve the grace he'd been provided. Even so, he knew he would have to ask about the letter eventually. It played on his mind too much to ignore and file away with all the other things they didn't address. 

There was also the selfish side of wanting to prove he wouldn't get mad or be disappointed when they spoke about it. He knew he wasn't a good father to Dick and the changes he made to parent the others were something he never got the benefit of but he had hoped that his first son could still come to him when something bad happened. Perhaps that was naive of him.

There was never a good time to bring it up but he guessed there never would be. It wasn't a topic that slotted into a good spot so he picked a day in order to force himself to face it. When the arbitrary day he picked came around, he made good on his decision.

Damian had, as he so often did, stolen Dick the moment he walked in the door for their usual chat together. He wasn't sure what they talked about but he knew for the rest of the week, his son would be happier so he did his best not to trespass on it. He hated to cut it short, especially when he saw Damian was showing his elusive sketchbook that even he wasn't allowed to glance at but today was the day. 

"Dick, can we talk?" he began. The acrobat looked up from the graphite drawing he'd been taking in with a quirked eyebrow.

"What about?"

"I'd rather it be a private conversation."

"Oh, sure I guess. You mind Lil D?"

"I need to finish this piece anyway. Take all the time you need," Damian replied agreeably. He quickly closed his sketchbook and made his way back to his room although he passed a suspicious glance to his father as he walked away. 

"I think it would be best to have this conversation without prying ears," Bruce continued. The downside to living in a house full of detectives was that it was impossible to have a one-on-one conversation without someone overhearing out of interest. 

"We could go to your room?" Dick suggested. He nodded quickly. He probably should've thought of a place to talk about the letter beforehand but he was already trying to plan his conversation so he didn't come across the wrong way. 

When they got to Bruce's bedroom, he directed his ward to the armchairs by the fireplace. They'd been a staple of the room since he was a kid and he never had the heart to get rid of them. Maybe if his parents had lived longer, his father would take him here to have uncomfortable talks in private. Perhaps they'd share a whiskey someday as the fireplace bathed the room in an orange glow. He would never know and he doubted alcohol would be good for either of them now. He took the chair he often found his father sitting in and Dick took the one across from him with an apprehensive expression. 

"Is something wrong?" he asked.

"You're not in trouble."

"So there is something wrong."

"More so concerning."

"I'm not going on any more secret missions," Dick stated defensively, his hands on the armrest primed for a quick getaway. 

"This isn't about work." The acrobat hummed and relaxed slightly. Only slightly. Bruce did his best not to show how guilty that made him. "When I collected your things after our... arrangement."

"The Spyral mission?" He nodded. He hoped that his inability to name what happened wouldn't set the wrong tone.

"When I collected your things, I found the letter you had in the black box."

"Did you read it?" 

"I did." Dick nodded thoughtfully and sank into the chair further though he couldn't be sure if that was from him easing into what was to come or trying to push himself far away from it. "I thought it would be addressed to someone. I didn't intend to read all of it." The acrobat didn't say anything so he continued. "I did end up reading it all."

"I assumed as much," Dick replied with a slight smirk. "What about it?"

"What do you mean?"

"What part did you want to talk about?"

"All of it preferably but I'm to understand whatever happened, it was traumatic for you."

"I kinda forgot about it. The letter that is. I just wrote it all down one night and stuffed it in there," he explained.

Dick ran a hand through his hair stressfully. He must've aged ten years in less than a minute when he was reminded of it. He looked exhausted although these days he never looked well rested. Bruce had been avoidant of difficult conversations that wouldn't provide a better outcome for a mission for years and even now, he could feel the draw of saying they didn't need to talk about it today. He could convince himself that they pushed it off for Dick's benefit but that would be a lie. It would be so he didn't have to watch his son fidget uncomfortably and struggle to find the right phrasing. 

"Would it help if I asked the questions?" he asked instead.

"Yeah, I think so," Dick answered. 

"Who is it about? Is it someone we know?" He'd found some comfort in knowing it was nobody who had a big part of their lives since this person was dead. He could guess it was someone involved with the Blockbuster case and he could assume it was one person but it felt better to ask. 

"Sorta. You met her briefly. Catalina Flores." Tarantula his mind supplemented. He met so many one-off vigilantes that she never struck out as anything worth his time. He'd helped her once, maybe twice, but he never gave her a second thought. Maybe he should've. 

"What did she do?"

"What didn't she do?" he muttered to himself. "She manipulated me, pissed that I didn't take her on at first. Wormed herself into my life. She- she took advantage of me."

The words Bruce had always known were coming hit him like a fright train. He felt himself hold his breath and clench his teeth. He knew. The worst part was knowing yet still being floored by hearing the words finally be spoken. He'd spent so long thinking about how he'd train his expressions so they couldn't be misinterpreted and then when the time came to it, he was struggling to remain calm. It was only seeing Dick stare at him like a man on death row desperately waiting to hear his sentence had been overturned otherwise he'd be in the chair tomorrow. 

"I'm so sorry," Bruce said. He wasn't sure how long he'd been silent for. Even a second could be too long. 

"I never talked about what really happened. Everyone knew I was going through shit mentally and I guess the after-effects of what she did just got lumped into everything," he began, rubbing his arms as a form of self-soothing. "I wasn't well."

"I know."

"Nobody could help me. I was in so deep and I knew everyone was trying to help but with her in my ear and Blockbuster in the other, it felt like I couldn't leave even though I could've."

"You don't need to explain yourself on that front," Bruce assured him. 

"When she killed Blockbuster, I think that's when I broke," he continued, either not hearing what his mentor had said or not wanting to pause to acknowledge it. "I could've stopped her and I knew I should've. He kept insisting that he would kill everyone I knew and I didn't know how to get out of it and she was already pointing the gun." His eyes glazed over. 

When he was younger, Bruce would find him with the same look and assume he was day dreaming. Now he feared just how much he'd refused to recognise. 

"She killed him and I went to the roof. I was catatonic but I still said no," he insisted. He looked so desperate to be listened to, not just heard, and Bruce aimed to convey his acceptance fast.

"It wouldn't matter if you didn't. Nothing other than a yes is consent." The acrobat hummed. It was then that Bruce realised he wasn't convincing anyone other than himself. What was left of his already shattered heart broke apart further.

"We ran away together. Felt like a blur. I was about to marry her before you called me back. Came to my senses eventually and brought her to justice the way I should've done with Blockbuster. Next, I hear she broke out of prison." He took in a shaky breath. 

"Was that when you wrote the letter?"

"No," he answered. "I spent the night in my flat, walking around and checking everything that was locked over and over. I had the news on, police radio, pretty much anything that would have news on her. It rained again." He tilted his head slightly. "Then she died. I thought that would put me right. I'd used my prescription of Xanax and Valium every day, to the point where I couldn't get it refilled without getting myself blacklisted so I was hoping I'd be fine knowing she was gone for good."

Bruce almost said that he should've come to him but stopped. That wouldn't do anything constructive and the past couldn't change. He couldn't assure Dick that he wouldn't have thought the same as any pharmacist noticing prescriptions were being used too fast. In all honesty, he didn't know Dick had any prescriptions in terms of mental health although he wasn't surprised. They were all on some sort of concoction to get through the day. Maybe because it was so normal for them, he'd forgotten not everyone was doing the same.

"It didn't stop though because now I was pretty much the only person who knew her for what she was. I wrote the letter in the middle of the night. I think I'd spent the day in the shower. Scrubbing. Got out, nearly fainted because the water was so warm, and then wrote it. Shoved it in the envelope and put it in the box. Sorta helped."

Dick sniffed harshly and blinked a few times. The glazed look faded but there was still the lingering wetness from unshed tears. He glanced at Bruce and then placed his gaze on the floor. 

"Am I the first person you've told?"

"The full story? Yeah."

"I'm so sorry," he repeated. He thought in the moment he would be inspired to make a big speech that would somehow make up for everything he'd done wrong. All he could do was apologise. He wanted to get to the nitty gritty of all he was sorry for but at the end of the day, all he could say was sorry.

"Not like you didn't do anything. You called me back to Gotham, that helped knock some sense into me." He rubbed his eye with the palm of his hand, practically digging the tears out. It was too harsh. Bruce knew he could be too harsh with himself. "I stopped thinking about it after a bit. Didn't forget but I stopped thinking about it." He sat up a bit. "I'm sorry you saw that. I don't think I actually meant for it to be read."

"I'm glad I did," Bruce replied then cringed at how it sounded.

"I know what you meant," the younger soothed with a slight smile. A shadow of his real one. When was the last time he showed the real one? "Feels weird to acknowledge it. Haven't even said her name in years."

"I didn't intend to drag up trauma. I just needed to know. I'm sorry."

"Don't be. You care in your weird way."

"I don't want it to be weird," Bruce muttered. "I want to be a good father to you."

"That time's gone, B."

"Has it?" he asked, similar to a child finding out Santa wasn't real.

"Maybe. I don't know. I can't go through Spyral again. I can't sit on the phone, hoping you'll listen to the voicemail of me begging to come home. I know you lost your memory and everything but you didn't have any sort of backup. It's so unlike you." Dick shrugged. "I don't want to have to write a eulogy for you one day and have something like that letter come out."

"Is there a chance for me to change that?"

"Maybe. Lotta work."

"I don't want you to ever feel like you can't tell me about your life again."

"Don't feel too special, I never told anyone. The other times, there was never a chance to."

"Other times?"

"Not today," he stated firmly. "Someday. I don't know."

It wasn't the resolution Bruce wanted but he supposed he had to right to get what he wanted under the circumstances. He'd failed his son in so many ways, half of which he never thought he'd be capable of when he first fostered him. He wondered if it was better to go to square one. 

"Do you want a hug?" Bruce asked.

"You don't have to do that."

"I want to. You're my son-"

"Am I?" Before the billionaire realised, he was out of his seat and knelt on one knee in front of the man. The man he'd seen grow into someone he was proud to know and put through far too much. 

"Dick, I'm so sorry. I could spend days apologising for everything individually and I would if it meant you slept even a little easier at night. Most of all, I'm sorry that in return for your trust, I've only pushed to a point no man should go to. Not by their own father's hand at the very least."

"I wish you said this when I quit. Things would've been a lot different."

"Benefit of hindsight." Dick chuckled darkly.

"Yeah, hindsight is a bitch." He stood up and opened up his arms.

"Do you want that hug?" He didn't get a verbal response but when his arms were filled and he felt someone hold onto him like his life depended on it, he'd got his answer. He folded his arms around Dick and held him close. He brought his hand to the back of his head and gently petted the curls there as he would've done when Dick was little. It was strange to feel like both too much time and too little time had passed since they were young. 

"I missed you."

"When?"

"Been too long to remember. Just know that at some point you stopped saying sorry and I stopped expecting you to."

"I'll put things right. As right as I can."

"I hope so. I think it'll kill me if you don't try again."