Robin one shot part 3!

No Arm No Me?

follow up to dick having his arm taken away, i used this resource down below for how his emotions would be since i dont have personal experience with having anything amputated and i didn't wanna make it purely depressing because losing a limb isn't the be all and end all - this'll be a series of oneshots across the books so this is sad rn but we'll have fun times dw

This is the website i used to make sure i was kinda accurate in the portrayl

https://www.physio-pedia.com/Emotional_and_Psychological_Reactions_to_Amputation 

Also I fucking adore Damian calling Dick Baba so I might be using that more 

When Dick lost his arm, he tried not to show that it was affecting him. He knew that with some new training with a new arm, he'd be able to go back to work and he'd be able to do everything he could before but it was still a part of himself that would be gone. He had no idea if he'd be able to be as good as he had been before, or what new problems it would give him, hell he didn't even know just how long it would be before he could actually get back out there. All from a fire. He knew he shouldn't downplay it like that but he couldn't help it. Out of all the villains he'd been up against and all the torture he'd been through, all it took was a simple fire. He was almost desperate for it to be something more. He'd lost his arm to something simple and avoidable from a fire which felt slightly anti-climatic and somehow so undeserving. Not that he'd had any plans to lose his arm before waking up with it gone but still. There was something uneasy about how such a routine job just took a part of him like that. 

Something that made it worse was the looks he got from his friends and family. He knew they cared deeply about him and if he told them to stop, they would but he couldn't help but hate the way they looked at him. He'd seen it before after particularly bad injuries or times when his mind wasn't completely there. They'd look at him with what he assumed to be their version of empathy but it always came across as pity. They'd stare at him like he was some broken thing that needed fixing. Yes he didn't have an arm but he could do things without it and he'd be able to work too. He'd adapt to it as he adapted to everything in his life that didn't go his way. It was just that when they looked at him like that, he'd question himself more. They'd make him wonder if he could handle this. If he could be Nightwing after losing his arm. If the constant shocks of pain would ever go away. It was why he sort of dreaded going home. 

At the hospital, the nurses wouldn't give him that look because he was lucky in their eyes. He should've died in that fire by their books. What they saw was a lucky guy who could've lost a lot more and they'd seen a lot worse too. He bet they had some real horror stories from working in Gotham. So he didn't dread seeing them. They allowed him to joke around without getting those pity looks on their faces because they understood that's just how some people coped with big changes. They didn't get guilty for not being able to save his arms or for not getting there faster because they recognised they did everything they could. They did what could be done. Maybe at the end of the day, they'd go home and think they could've done better but it wasn't shown on their faces. It could be that they didn't have to work on their own family members and they didn't know him but still, he appreciated their indifference. 

Home would be a different story. They'd help him change the bandages with that look on their face and they'd try not to look at the stump but everyone would catch their eyes on it and then give a silent apology for doing so. He got it. He had no fucking arm now. He didn't need their apologies for staring because even he caught himself just staring at where his arm used to be. That arm held memories for him, every scar on it telling a story and now he could forget those stories because the physical remnant of it wasn't there to remind him. He got why people stared and he got why people were sad but he didn't need to see it all the time. Of course, he didn't tell his family and friends that because he couldn't tell them to hide their own feelings. Everyone he knew already had issues with that so he should be thankful that he could so openly read their emotions in their expressions but he wasn't. He couldn't make himself see the bright side of it.