Deleted scenes from Family Crisis

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Here are two deleted scenes (or early drafts) from Family Crisis. The first is Dick finally waking up from his illness after Jack Drake’s death; I swapped the order of events in the final version. The second is an incomplete scene of Dick seeking Bruce after a nightmare, which originally took place after his panic attack in the Batcave, but before he confronted Tarantula. The closest thing to it in the final story is the beginning of Dick’s scene in Chapter 14: Unexpected Visitors.

Merry Christmas!

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‘What, Alfred?’ From Bruce’s arms, Tim stirred. Bruce ran a hand through the boy’s hair.

Astonishingly, Alfred smiled. ‘Master Dick is awake.’

Bruce sat up straight, dislodging Tim, who slid down the couch and awoke with a gasp.

‘Dick’s awake?’ mumbled Tim hoarsely. He rolled sideways off the couch, landing on all fours before scrambling to his feet. ‘Alfred … I gotta …’

‘Right this way,’ Alfred said smoothly, grasping Tim’s arm and helping the boy stumble down the hallway. Bruce followed, in a sort of stupor. It seemed incredible that after so many days had passed and so much had happened, that a piece of good news could come his way. Dick, his firstborn, his guiding light, his conscience and strength.

Dick was sitting up in bed, face still flushed, but at last the bright blue eyes were clear. The moment Alfred and Tim passed the threshold, Tim dashed forwards and threw himself across his brother, arms tight around Dick’s middle and face buried in Dick’s chest.

Dick inhaled sharply, but his arms slowly came up to wrap around Tim. ‘Timmy?’

Tim shook his head, shoulders quivering. Above Tim’s head, Dick met Bruce’s gaze, and he seemed to freeze for a moment before he mouthed, ‘What’s wrong?’

Bruce had no words to answer. Tim’s shoulders shook, and he gripped Dick tighter as he whispered in a voice thick with pent-up stress and grief, ‘Dick, I missed you so much.’

Dick frowned. ‘Tim, what …?’

Alfred touched Bruce’s arm. Bruce allowed himself to be led away from the image of his two boys – one horrified and confused, the other distraught and seeking a comfort only his brother could possibly provide.

It was one of the hardest things he had ever done.

---

Dick jolted awake in the darkness, one leg twisted in the bedcovers, the other exposed to the cooler air of his bedroom. He was at Wayne Manor. He was fine. He was fine.

Except he wasn’t. Except the dream was back, bringing with it thoughts and memories Dick had tried to ignore, to erase from his mind for the last few months. A night so awful he had a nervous breakdown and thought he was going to die. (A breakdown. As Nightwing.) A night that came back to him in flashes, like photographs, of the cracking of a disc and wet rain and a rooftop and the unbearable weight on his body, a body that refused to obey his brain's commands but instead succumbed to ...

He could feel the tears on his face, coming faster now as he desperately tried not to sob. He was an adult. He could take care of himself. But the sobs insisted on growing louder, and he stuffed his face in his pillow to muffle the noise.

He needed to be a good example for Tim. He needed to never again fall apart in front of his little brother, because the only thing worse than thinking Robin had been killed was seeing Robin's face, Tim’s face, when Dick collapsed to the ground and lost his mind. Tim had been angry, but he had also looked more frightened than Dick had ever seen him in his life. And it's my fault again ... it's always my fault ...

He needed ... he needed ... He needed a walk.

Abruptly, Dick shoved the covers off himself and stumbled to his bedroom door, not knowing where he was going but just wanting to be away, to be up and out of that room. He couldn’t be horizontal. He couldn’t lie there with beads of sweat on his forehead and tears on his face, because when he closed his eyes he felt only the rain and the rooftop beneath him.

To his horror, when he looked down the corridor, he discovered he was not alone. Bruce must have heard Dick’s noisy sobs – their bedrooms had always been next to each other. Crap, crap, crap.

His dad stood there, silent, barely visible in the thin streak of moonlight that fell through the window at the end of the corridor, and Dick was suddenly very, very aware of the tear tracks on his cheeks.

‘Bruce,’ he said, choking on the single syllable and hating how he sounded, wanting to die all over again.

Bruce heard the choke and crossed the space between them in the time it took Dick to blink two more tears away. He looked down at Dick – always taller, always more imposing – and said softly, urgently, ‘What’s wrong, Dick?’

Dick burst into a fresh round of sobs, barely aware that Bruce was leading them back to the bedroom – not Dick’s room, but Bruce’s.

‘No,’ he said, knowing he sounded like a child but past the point of caring.