librarylexicon | Dick's POV of the second scene in Chapter 10 of Family Crisis

Hi! Here’s another old draft from Family Crisis. It’s Dick’s POV of a small part of the second scene (the panic attack) in Chapter 10: Countdown, before I decided to make the first twelve chapters entirely from Bruce’s POV.

Note that because this is an old draft, the contents of the box here differ from what I ended up going with. I wrote this scene (probably the oldest in this story) back in 2019, before Robin 80th Anniversary 100-Page Super Spectacular came out, in which there’s a story where a young Jason mends Bruce’s father’s watch as a birthday gift. Because of this (and also because I thought gifting a watch was a bit cliche), I decided to come up with something else for Bruce to give Dick.

‘Dick, there’s something I’ve wanted to talk to you about for a long time,’ Bruce began, and his steel blue eyes met Dick’s so powerfully that Dick was unable to look away. ‘Sometimes, I wasn’t sure what you would think. But I – dammit –’

Bruce faltered, breaking eye contact. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small wooden box. Dick’s heart thudded and his breath quickened, for he knew what the box contained, though Bruce had never shown him. It was Thomas Wayne’s watch. Even as Dick watched, Bruce took a deep breath and continued. Everything in Dick was quivering with the need to stop his father, yet he couldn’t move – he couldn’t think –

Bruce, you’re making a mistake … you don’t know what I’ve done!

‘I know you’re an adult now, Dick, and I – I know I don't say it often enough –’

The words dissolved into meaningless sounds, and yet they continued – a merciless sentencing, an endless punishment, a decision that resulted in eternal damnation. But how could Bruce know? He had not been there, and yet the scene before Dick’s eyes transformed into a grey, rainy night. A shadow in front of him. A voice that tortured him as it told him, ‘It’s never going to stop.’ A pressure on his shoulders – get off me get off me get off me –

He instinctively pushed at the hands touching him, and amazingly they retracted. The ground beneath him tilted, but someone caught him as he toppled. A distant voice was urging him to do … something, but he couldn’t distinguish words from the ringing in his ears and the sound of the gunshot reverberating in his head – bang, bang, bang …

And then her arms were around him, pinning him to the ground, and he was powerless to shove them off as he told her, ‘No …’

You shouldn’t have shot him.

‘Stop …’

Get off me.

‘I don’t want …’

I’m poisonous.

‘I’m sorry …’

I let Bruce down. I let you down.

He was resting against something solid, but his body refused to cooperate and get him the hell out of there, and the rain mingled with the tears on his cheeks as he gasped for air. How could he have made the same mistake again?

…

A scared teenage voice.

‘What happened? Is it his leg?’

Tim!