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Batman doesn’t remove his cowl. He tells himself it’s to protect his identity and therefore the safety of his whole family, but Batman has worked hard for the last three decades to not lie to himself, or at least, to be honest with himself that he is lying. So keeping the cowl on to protect his identity is a falsehood. Right now, he needs the barrier between the real world and himself that the cowl provides. That one step of removal is one of the few things keeping him sane and he’s not about to give it up.
He’s been on both sides of this kind of bed, too many times, and if anything, the experience gets worse every time. Harder to endure. Batman needs all the help he can get.
Nightwing won’t mind, Batman thinks. Nightwing could always read him, cowl or not, and Nightwing is the patient occupying the bed. Batman’s first partner, his oldest child, with so many wires, tubes, bandages that Batman can barely recognize him.
And it's not denial exactly because Batman knows it's really happening, he knows he's awake and this isn't a nightmare - as much as it feels like one - but there's still a pervading numbness. The cowl doing its job after all, maybe.
The last sixteen hours - a quick glance at the clock on the wall with its insistent second hand confirms that it’s been sixteen hours and forty seven minutes, and the fact that Batman has to look at an external chronometer speaks to how off balance he is - since Dick got shot have been one of those stereotypical blurs. He remembers Gordon calling for medical support while Batman jammed his Justice League comm and barked “medical evac code alpha green.” Jessica Cruz was the Green Lantern on duty, and Batman noticed how her blood drained under her glowing green diamond mask, her hand shaking as she extended her ring. Maybe she’d never seen someone shot in the head before. But still alive. Still alive. Despite her reaction, her voice didn’t waver as she slid light under and around Nightwing, wrapping her power around his neck like a cervical collar, supporting him like a backboard. And then they were on their way to the nearest JL medical facility. Dick was rushed to surgery and Batman didn’t see him for eight hours.
Since then, he’s been at his son’s bedside. He can’t even say that he’s waiting for Dick to wake up, since the doctors are keeping him sedated to help control the pressure in his skull, but still, every fiber of his being is on pause until Dick does wake up. Regaining consciousness after a traumatic brain injury isn’t like the movies. There will be no dramatic opening of eyes, but Batman still waits. He reminds himself to expect a jagged line in and out of consciousness, of surfacing and sinking away again, of confusion, over and over. He reviews the Glasgow Coma Scale in his mind, the definition of vegetative state, of minimal consciousness. He reminds himself of the facts so he doesn’t get his hopes up.
Batman traces the tubes and lines and wires with his eyes, looking for a place he can touch without disturbing anything. It's selfish, maybe, but he wants some skin to skin contact. If there's any of Dick left, Batman thinks, he'll feel it. Dick loves touch, craves it. So maybe Bruce isn’t entirely selfish in this one thing - the contact is for Dick, too. Somehow.
Despite Dick’s penchant for bird metaphors, he’d always had cat-like qualities. His grace. His ability to land seemingly impossible falls. His flexibility. The way he’d go boneless when fast asleep surrounded by family. But especially the way he’d push into any kind touch, leaning in the contact.
The truth-telling part of Batman acknowledges that this isn't something people come back from exactly the same. How could it be. Dick had a bullet in his brain, then an operation to remove it. He lost brain matter, cerebrospinal fluid, blood and bone tissue. The pressure in his brain from the swelling is a real danger and can potentially cause even more damage. Batman can’t strategize out of this situation, out-maneuver it, out-punch it. Batman can’t Batman his way through this.
Bruce Wayne can’t parent his way through this.
He knows Dick will be different if - no when - he wakes up - but what is that going to mean? Batman tries to think of Dick who can’t do lightning fast math calculations in his head, who can’t read people the way others read books, who finds no delight in terrible puns. Dick struggling to walk or talk.
Dick unable to fly. What would that Dick Grayson be like, beholden to gravity like every other mere mortal?
Dick’s voice in Batman’s head chimes, “Don’t be such a downer, B.”
Batman shies away from the thought of Dick never waking up at all.
Batman knows more about head injury than the average person - quite a bit more, probably, polymath that he is - and the knowledge is more haunting than comforting. The likelihood of a poor outcome increases the longer Dick is unconscious. Dick is already receiving the best care in the world, in the best Justice League facility money - Bruce Wayne’s money - can buy, with access to alien technology and advanced techniques just not available to civilians. There is nothing else Batman can do besides sit, and wait.
Batman settles into his place at Dick’s side and takes his hand more firmly. Maybe Dick can push into the contact.
Maybe, like a cat, Dick has nine lives.
Batman snorts. That’s the exact kind of stupidly cheesy and optimistic thing Dick would say. He’d say it on patrol and Batman would roll his eyes, knowing that Dick can see it even through the cowl, and Dick would grin, unabashed.
His chest caves in under the weight that Dick might never say such a silly thing like that, leaving behind a hollow, aching place that would be permanent if he couldn’t get Dick back.
Dick could always see under the cowl.
Bruce uses his free hand to push the cowl off his face. Maybe it’s time to meet Dick halfway.
“I’m here, Dick. Whenever you’re ready, son, I’m here.”