Blank: Extras

Prologue (Scrapped Rewrite)

Good morning everybody! Just wanted to let everyone know that I may leave authors notes or comments about certain sections about my thoughts on it, so look out for comments on certain paragraphs!

CW: downplaying a situation, medical terminology (let me know of any others)

>> 1: Prologue <<

"Because of the trauma he faced his brain is reacting in an abnormal way. The Limbic System-"

Was he supposed to feel something because of this? Bruce looked upset, but he didn't feel like anything was wrong.

He didn't feel anything and that didn't feel wrong.

So why was Bruce so upset? Had he done something wrong?

What was the lady talking about? Why did Bruce bring him to a doctor if he wasn't hurt? Nothing was wrong with him so why did she keep asking him questions about how he felt?

He didn't feel anything . . .

Was he here because he hadn't smiled in a long time? He been wondering why he hadn't laughed in a while. Bruce could make him laugh; Bruce made him feel better.

Was there something wrong with Bruce? Was Bruce concerned because he couldn't make him laugh anymore?

But he didn't feel bad either. He just didn't feel anything. Was that not right? Was this a growing up thing? Was this why Bruce didn't smile a lot?

Nothing was wrong. Dick would know if something was wrong. He'd feel it. His Mami always said that when something was wrong, he'd feel it in his gut.

But he didn't feel anything.

So, nothing was wrong.

He had to tell Bruce that. Bruce didn't look like he knew that nothing was wrong. The lady had to be wrong about something and was making Bruce upset. Dick could fix that, he just had to tell Bruce that nothing was wrong.

"Nothing is wrong with me." His voice sounded hollow, like a recording. Since when had it sounded like that? He hadn't spoken much for the last month for some reason. He just didn't feel the need to, so he didn't.

It did sound different from the lady's and Bruce's voices though.

Bruce looked towards him, only looking more upset because of him. Was that not the thing to say? He told the truth, that should have made Bruce feel better. Something must have been wrong with Bruce.

The woman grabbed his hand and made Dick look how towards her. She looked tired and upset like Bruce, maybe concerned. Was she gonna tell him what was wrong with Bruce? Was it bad?

"Dick," She sighed and rubbed her thumb over his hand. "Do you understand what's going on?"

He didn't. He hadn't been paying attention. He should have been paying attention, it was rude to not listen to people while they talked.

"No."

She sighed, "Dick, do you still feel sad about your parent's deaths?"

"I-" He didn't feel sad anymore. He hadn't even thought about it. He hadn't felt sad about anything in a long time. That was a good thing, right? "-did."

She nodded, looking towards the ground before sighing again. She looked like she was thinking.

Why would she ask about his parents? They didn't affect Bruce. Was Bruce worried about him? Was Dick - what was the word Alfred called it? Mourning? Yeah, was Dick mourning correctly?

"It's your emotions," she said, getting Dick to put his full attention back on her. "About a month ago did you notice that you weren't smiling or laughing as much as you used to?" He nodded.

"It's because of the part of your brain that controls all your emotions isn't functioning properly. Because of your loss and different factors to your emotional health, it shut down, almost like turning off a computer. Do you understand?"

So, it was him. Nothing was wrong with Bruce; his brain was broken.

But the broken brain helped. It made him not feel angry, or sad, or scared. This is probably why he hadn't had any nightmares in such a long time, and why he sounded like a robot when he talked.

"I understand." This could help him be Robin. Batman was always cold and didn't show emotion, but he wasn't as good at it. He'd be able to scare more bad guys now because he wasn't always smiling.

"Will this affect anything else?" Bruce sounded like he was tired, and like he wanted to cry but was keeping it pressed down.

Bruce wasn't supposed to do that. Bruce had told him that not crying when you had to was a bad thing, and that it wasn't good for you.

She let go of his hands and turned back towards Bruce. "In the x-rays they saw oddities in the Parietal Lobe, the part of the brain that controls the senses of pain and touch."

She reached into her pocket and found a pen, then went to whisper in Bruce's ear. Dick couldn't hear them, but Bruce nodded when she backed away.

"Can I see your hand?" Dick put his hand in hers and she rubbed the pen all over the back of his hand.

"Can you feel that?" Of course, he could feel it. Why wouldn't he be able to feel it? He nodded.

Then she lifted the pen up and hit it against the back of his hand. He stared at it, he felt it tap his hand then it went away.

"Did that hurt at all?"

"It didn't." It didn't. Was this a part of the broken brain thing? He could definitely feel pain before.

"So, he can't feel pain either?" She nodded towards, putting her pen back in her pocket.

"The emotional pain of his trauma was becoming too much for the Limbic System and it started to process that pain as actual physical pain. But since it wasn't physical pain his brain started to assume that the Parietal Lobe wasn't functioning correctly. Somehow it shut down all his pain receptors while keeping the sense of touch alive. I've never heard of anything like it if I'm being honest with you."

Bruce sighed and put his head in his hands, Dick had never seen him look so upset before. But nothing was wrong with him, his broken brain was helping him.

"Nothing is wrong with me." Bruce's shoulders fell, Dick still didn't understand why. He was fine, why couldn't Bruce see that he was perfectly fine?

"Bruce, everything is fine."

Why did he still look so defeated?

Everything was fine.

Quick AN and my thoughts on this version:

This version was an earlier one, it was meant to be a flashback to Bruce and Dick first getting any sort of information into what was going on with Dick.

The main problem was somewhat of a lack of research. While the Limbic System and Parietal Systems are real and do function to control emotions and touch and pain reception, I took a lot of liberties saying they just up and shut down. Which I can do because it's fiction, but in the rewrite I did further research and crafted a more realistic reason for both Dick's loss of emotion, and loss of pain.

I also just didn't like opening this way, with a flashback that basically just an exposition dump.

What I did like in this version though, is Dick attempting to figure out what was happening by reading into Bruce's own emotion and the situation. It doesn't happen a lot here but it's something I started to play with further.

ALRIGHTY FOLKS!

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