Here you can find all of my fics posted to tumblr, sorted by fandom!
Batman/Batfamily
Children Shouldn't Gamble With Dead Things (Part 1. Part 2. Part 3.) (12k words) - The newest vigilante on the street, Robin the Boy Wonder, meets Two-Face for the first time. How delighted Two-Face was to see not one but TWO heroes to torment.
Cold (Part 1. Part 2.) (6k words) - Selina isn't good with kids, but someone's gotta look out for the brat if Batman won't.
Crash and Burn (Part 1. Part 2. Part 3.) (10k words) - The Batkids crash land in the mountains. Next on the docket? Survive.
Diagnosis: Hyperpyrexia (Or Something Like That) (3k words) - Granny's X-Pit nearly killed Dick. The Batfamily is reasonably concerned.
everything is as it seems (if what it seems is wrong) (5k words) - Dick and Jason go on a stakeout for some important bonding time.
How Long Can A Good Thing Last? (4k words) - Bruce Wayne is back, which means Batman is back! Damian should be happy. So why isn't he?
I'm Not Crazy (The Voices Told Me So) (Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Part 5. Part 6.) (25k words) - Dick could handle hallucinations, even if it meant watching his little brother die over and over again, every single day. What he can't handle is said hallucination assaulting him in a CVS parking lot.
It's the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine) (10k words) - Blüdhaven explodes. Dick is fine.
It Takes A Village (To Keep Dick Grayson Alive) (3k words) - Dick saves a child from drowning. Things go downhill from there.
Keep Digging Up (4k words) - The tragic life and death of Jason Todd.
Kidnapping, Torture, And Other Brotherly Bonding Activities (4k words) - Tim is kidnapped for the first time as Robin. But at least he's not kidnapped alone! That's a good thing... right?
Loss and Reunion (Part 1. Part 2.) (4k words) - Post-Forever Evil. Jason loses his big brother, and he'll never forgive him for that.
Ode to a Clown (<1k words) - The birth of Gotham City's most feared name: the Joker.
One Way Out (2k words) - Forever Evil arc. Dick gets used as bait. Again.
Sacrifice (4k words) - Post-Forever Evil. Dick is alive. Bruce doesn't want him to be.
Seeing Is (Not) Believing (3k words) - Post-Forever Evil. Even after they're gone, the Crime Syndicate has a way of... lingering.
Strange (2k words) - Jason investigates a man closely linked to his first ever case as Robin.
The First Death of Robin, The Boy Wonder (4k words) - The Joker shoots. Robin falls. Batman is left to pick up the pieces.
The Flight of the Last Flying Grayson (3k words) - Dick's first gala is turning out to be flat-out miserable.
The Guy Who Always Wore Blue (4k words) - There's a stranger that keeps showing up in the mansion. Bruce doesn't seem worried, but Jason is determined to figure out who it is.
The Owl's Test (Barbara's Version. Dick's Version. Jason's Version. Tim's Version.) (8k words) - Gotham Knights Video Game. The Court of Owl's labyrinth from four perspectives.
The Price of Batman (1k words) - Forever Evil arc. Dick is suffering, and Bruce sees every second of it.
This Time (6k words) - Dick and Jason get caught in an explosion. Dick is fine. Jason, not so much.
Trying to Get Along (<1k words) - Dick is having trouble connecting with his little brother.
Unsuitable Home (2k words) - Dick is ripped from his family at the circus and thrown into the merciless hands of the Gotham Youth Center. Better known as juvie.
What Have They Done? (2k words) - The monster plaguing Gotham looks awfully... familiar.
Who Are You When The Curtain Falls? (Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Part 5. Part 6.) (40k words) - Dick Grayson goes missing. A group called the Court of Owls starts killing people. Coincidence?
You Always Hurt The Ones You Love (3k words) - Post-Forever Evil. Dick faked his death. Tim is allowed to be mad.
Your Own Worst Enemy (<1k words) - You were Gotham City's youngest DA. And then you took a face full of acid. You're not handling it well.
You Were My Brother (And Now You're Just A Traitor) (4k words) - The Bats need to stay out of Hood's territory. Unfortunately, Nightwing doesn't seem to understand the concept of space.
Jedi: Fallen Order
Choices and Consequences (2k words) - Cere has her back. For a split second, she has Trilla back. Then the sith shows up, and Cere has to battle a whole new demon.
Kashyyykian Blues (2k words) - BD-1 is having a great time on the forest planet, but his Jedi friend seems to be struggling with the resident spiders.
Trust Only in the Force (2k words) - Cal Kestis was Master Tapal's padawan an hour ago. But now... now the whole universe has flipped upside-down, and Cal has to figure this out on his own. Pre-Fallen Order.
Under the Light of Abafed (4k words) - Greez, Cal, and BD-1 are lost on a desert planet. It doesn't look good.
The Legend of Zelda
Stitches In Time (2k words) - During Ocarina of Time. Malon finds an unfortunate scene outside her home. As usual, it's up to her to save the day.
When Shadow Meets Light (3k words) - During Twilight Princess. Midna tries her best to keep her wolf alive. It's not as easy as it should be.
MacGyver (2016)
Flashlight + Pipe (4k words) - Two secret agents, a pilot, and a terrorist crash their helicopter in the forest... How does the rest of that joke go?
For My Brother (2k words) - Mac isn't breathing. Jack can't accept this. A missing scene from 1x01: The Rising.
Mac + Jack + Mortality (4k words) - Mac and Jack are kidnapped and forced to play their kidnapper's sick game. A take on 3x11: Mac + Fallout + Jack.
Murdoc + Bazooka (3k words) - Mac's stranded in the middle of nowhere. Alone. Or... no, wait. He's got Murdoc to keep him company. He'd rather be alone.
Needles + Nightmares (6k words) - A reboot retelling of the 1985 MacGyver's 1x11: Nightmares.
Oxygen + Carbon + Oxygen (2k words) - Mac escaped prison, but then the ungrateful guy he helped along the way decided to tie him to a chair.
MCU
Beware of Untied Shoelaces (4k words) - Peter isn't freaking out. He's totally normal. And now he's in the fetal position on the floor of a janitor's closet. You know, like totally normal, not freaking out people do.
Coffee of Unspecified Size for Peter Parker (2k words) - Post-No Way Home. Peter misses his friends. His wishes they felt the same.
Not Completely Alone (4k words) - Missing scene from Far From Home. Peter gets hit by a train. But that's the least of his concerns.
Spider-Man (PS4)
At All Costs (2k words) - Harry will keep his friends safe. No matter the cost. Takes place during Spider-Man 2.
Can't Save 'Em All (2k words) - There was a horrible boom, and now Peter won't wake up. A missing scene during the explosion at the award ceremony (Spider-Man 1).
The First of Many Nurse MJ Moments (4k words) - All MJ knows is that she woke up to a scream and now Peter is bleeding out in her yard. Not her favorite alarm clock.
Supernatural
Alone With My Thoughts (And a Cashier Named Todd) (1k words) - After a horrific car crash, Sam is left to deal with his dad's ridiculous plan. Alone. A missing scene from 2x01: In My Time of Dying.
Lost to Time (3k words) - Sam watches Dean slowly slip away. It hurts more than he'll ever admit. Set during 12x11: Regarding Dean.
Uncharted
Cliffs: Slippery When Wet (2k words) - After being stranded on a beach, Nate goes looking for his brother. An alternate version of Chapter 13 of A Thief's End.
Great Things (5k words) - Nate and Sully meet for the first time.
Loyalty Among Thieves (3k words) - Nate thought his day was bad. Then he got hit with one of Talbot's poisoned darts.
Out In The Cold (Part 1. Part 2.) (4k words) - The train scene from Uncharted 2.
Uncharted: A Fool's End (5k words) - If there's one thing Nate and Sam can agree on, it's that this demon Shoreline SUV can go right back to hell.
With Friends Like These (1k words) - Prison wouldn't be half as bad if Nate didn't have to rot there knowing Harry Flynn put him there. Missing scene from Among Thieves.
Four years ago, Jason Todd died. Three years ago, Dick Grayson started having nightmares about it. Two years ago, the nightmares bled into the day time. One year ago, Dick finally got help.
For forty-nine weeks, everything was okay. The therapy was helping. The pain, the fear, the visions had all but faded, and what remained was more than manageable.
Three weeks ago, Dick saw Jason again. And his life has been a nightmare ever since.
Takes place after the appearance of the Red Hood but prior to the identity reveal.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
---
Bruce wakes up slowly and then all at once. His brain, a little addled from the sucker punch (it's been a while since someone got the drop on him like that), is still sharper than most. Sharp enough, anyway, to remember that he just got knocked over the head by some type of clone of his dead son and that said clone wants to steal his currently disoriented and aggressive son from the Cave. From Bruce's protection.
That's all Bruce really needs to remember. He's sprinting before he realizes he even stood up.
There's screaming from the containment cell. Angry, frenetic words barely coherent, if at all. And then there's a much clearer voice shouting, “Dick, stop it! I’m right here! The Joker’s not here!”
Oh god. It's exactly as Bruce feared. Something happened. Dick snapped, reverting back to whatever frenzied, uncharacteristic state led him to attack the Joker.
Jason - not his Jason, but another Jason, and that distinction is imperative - sees Bruce's approach, but rather than attack again, he runs to the cell’s control panel. “Bruce, what's the code to the cell?”
Bruce takes a better look at said cell and, more importantly, its occupant.
Dick is leaning against a wall with one hand and punching with the other. He's not putting a dent in the ballistic glass, but the glass is certainly leaving a dent in him. His hand is swollen and bruised with blood bubbling up on his knuckles. Even so, he doesn't seem to notice, almost robotically attacking the wall, even as his blood smears across it and his bones make audible cracks.
“24-16-81,” Bruce replies, rushing over to the control panel himself. But Jason - other Jason - has input the code before Bruce can do so himself.
“Get out of here, Jay!” Dick yells again, never letting up. If that wall was the Joker, he’d definitely be dead by now.
Jason hits confirm and watches as the cell doesn’t open up like he expects it to. Instead, there’s a soft hissing. He turns to Bruce. “It’s stuck. What’s your backup plan?”
“It’s not stuck,” Bruce replies, and that soft, dismissive tone makes Jason’s jaw tighten.
“Well then what-?”
Thud.
Jason spins around to see Dick collapsed on the floor. He fusses desperately with the panel, but it seems frozen on the green “ACTIVATING” screen.
“It’s definitely stuck!” Jason spits back, trying not to panic.
Bruce, however, looks as calm as ever.
Jason wants to shoot him. In the face. More than once. “What the fuck??” he shrieks. “Help me! He could be fucking dead, and you’re-!”
“He’s not dead,” Bruce insists.
Inside the cell, there’s a loud whoosh of air and then nothing at all. Dick doesn’t flinch, still unresponsive on the ground.
The puzzle pieces click in Jason’s mind, and then anger beyond any anger before swells in his chest. “You gassed him???” He has to hold his wrist to keep from grabbing his gun.
“No,” Bruce counters. “You did.” He takes a step closer, starting to crowd Jason (or the Jason look-alike, perhaps) away from the control panel.
“You gave me the code to gas him!”
“He was a danger to himself already. If you opened the door, he might’ve hurt you too.” Bruce settles the intruder with a glare. “Now, tell me who you really are, because Jason Todd is dead.”
Jason considers clocking Bruce again, if only to escape the question, but then he remembers that he still doesn’t have the code to the cell. He needs Bruce awake if he wants to get Dick out of this. (And he does want to help Dick, because… Well, he really did kill the Joker. He really was going to do it again. He clearly gives a shit about Jason, even if he’s a little unhinged about the whole thing.) There’s really only one option, no matter how much Jason may hate it.
“Talia al Ghul brought me back. Lazarus Pit.”
Bruce looks thoroughly unconvinced. And he is, indeed, thoroughly unconvinced. “I had sensors on the casket. I would have known if she took his body.”
“Yeah, if she had opened the casket. But I busted through it while it was shut. And then, y’know, dug myself out of my own grave.”
And if Bruce was thoroughly unconvinced before (and he was), now he’s entirely unconvinced. “She resurrected you while you were still inside the casket?” He arches an eyebrow, and Jason winces, because things are never good when Bruce decides to use a facial expression other than apathy, anger, or disappointment.
“No. I…” Jason shakes his head, stepping away. “Why are you making me explain myself? I’m fucking here, aren’t I? And I sure as hell wouldn’t be talking to you if I didn’t have to.”
It’s a mystery. Jason Todd, back from the dead, via the Lazarus Pit. Kind of.
It’s possible. Certainly, it’s possible. But Bruce can’t trust someone who can’t explain themself. Especially this guy, who looks like Jason, sounds like Jason, and acts like the complete opposite of Jason. His little boy never held such disdain, wouldn’t hate him with such ferocity.
… right?
Bruce takes a breath and does something he’s never done before: ignores his instincts. (“Danger! Danger! Danger!” they shriek. Bruce shoves them in a mental filing cabinet.) “Why do you hate me, Jason?” he asks softly, allowing himself to feel the pain he’d been suppressing for four years now. “Because I didn’t save you?”
Jason needs a moment to process that Bruce isn’t grilling him anymore. He’s asking patiently, watching with a vulnerability Jason has never seen on the man before. There’s no trick to his question. If anything, he sounds hurt.
“I…” Jason has been working hard to build up the Red Hood persona. He’s been planning his dramatic reveal for weeks. He’s been imagining Bruce’s face when he realizes, when he finally decides that Joker’s victims are far more important than any moral code. He’s furious that this - this pathetic attempt at a jailbreak - is how he actually reveals himself. He gets angry at Dick and then Bruce again, remembering that maybe Dick is the reason he’s here, but Bruce is the reason Dick had to go after the Joker again. Bruce is the reason there’s still a Joker for Dick to kill again.
“You let the Joker live,” Jason says simply, wishing he had a speech prepared. This all could have been so much more dramatic. It would have been beautiful. Poetic, even. “And you brought him back after your favorite son killed him.” He laughs dryly. “Or is the new kid your favorite now? You know, what with Dick breaking your precious ‘no killing’ rule?”
Bruce takes a step forward, but Jason steps back in tandem. With a sigh, Bruce backs off. “You’re mad I didn’t avenge you?”
“No.” Because it’s not that simple, and it never has been. “I’m mad because that fucker is still killing people, and you not only won’t stop him, but you brought him back! I’m mad because somewhere out there, another father lost his son to that bastard. I’m mad because you didn’t let me be the last.”
Bruce considers the boy - the man - in front of him. He’s so much taller than before. He’d always been a little short, what with malnutrition slowing his growth, but now his height rivals Bruce’s. His eyes are the same blue, nose has the same curve to it. The same dark hair frames his face, but there’s a shock of white, right where his bangs used to curl against his forehead. The scar on his left ear, the one on his chin, the one on his right hand - they’re all gone, but those same freckles still dust his skin.
Jason certainly looks the part. He knew the code to get in. No alarms have triggered, alerting Bruce to extradimensional material, so the odds of Jason being from another universe are low. Even the story about Talia lines up; she’d been in Nanda Parabat with her father for months and then dropped off the radar a few weeks ago. The League of Assassins has been abnormally active ever since. Ra’s has made it clear in the past that the Lazarus baths are exclusive to himself, so if Talia put Jason in one… Well, it stands to reason that Talia could be hiding from Ra's’ wrath.
“If you really are Jason” - and Bruce has the sinking feeling that this is true - “you know better than that. I don’t play God.”
“It’s not playing God! It’s doing your damn job! It’s-!” Jason cuts himself off with a wave of the hand. “Forget it. You know I’m not a fake. Open the damn door already.”
“Jason,” Bruce says, and it’s that this-is-an-order-do-not-question-me voice he always did back when Jason was Robin. It makes him straighten his posture and clench his fists on instinct. “Did you ask Dick to kill the Joker?”
If Bruce wasn’t holding Dick hostage, Jason probably would have shot the bastard for that. “No! He wigged out because you clearly did a shit job of helping him process his grief. You know he was hallucinating? He thought I was a goddamn voice in his head, Bruce. Good fucking job.”
Bruce refuses to take the bait, tempting though it might be. “Why were you at Arkham, then?”
“I was stopping him from killing the Joker. You’re welcome, by the way.”
It makes no sense. Jason just went on a huge rant about how the Joker’s death would be beneficial for society. Now he’s claiming to do exactly what he accused Bruce of: saving the Joker.
“Why?”
Jason pushes past Bruce, returning to the control panel. In the cell, Dick seems to have regained some sense of consciousness, but he’s doing a lot more drooling and staring than any conscious person really should be. “Doesn’t matter; your precious clown is alive and well.” Or… maybe not well, but alive, at least. “Now open the door already.”
“He’s dangerous.”
“He’s drooling,” Jason emphasizes.
Bruce reassesses the situation. There really is little risk in checking on Dick now. The biggest concern, really, is that Jason is going to grab him and run off. “66-18-94,” he says, approaching the cell wall.
“What will that do? Fill the cell with water?”
“Just do it,” Bruce hisses.
Jason grumbles. If anything happens other than the cell opening, he’s not going to hold himself back from shooting Bruce this time. Fortunately for all involved parties, one cell wall retreats into the floor. Nothing more, nothing less.
“Dick,” Bruce calls, kneeling beside the boy - man, whatever, he’s just a kid - and taking a better look at his hands. The left hand looks okay, maybe a little scraped up, maybe a little bruised. The right hand, by comparison, looks like an abstract sculpture. Someone's nightmare version of a hand, where the number of fingers is constantly changing and the skin is purple, green, and red. Knuckles are bent out of place. The thumb is missing its nail (a consequence of poor punching technique, which means Dick definitely wasn't with it when he tried to put a fist through the wall).
Dick hums, gaze oh-so slowly drifting to Bruce. “Mm. Hey, B.”
“Okay,” Jason says abruptly, kneeling down beside them. “Good talk, Bruce. We’re leaving now.”
“No!” Bruce doesn’t mean to shout. Or sound so desperate. In fact, he isn’t sure why he spoke at all. “I… Alfred should look at Dick’s hand. And you probably need a few hours of sleep. Adrenaline crash.”
Jason sizes Bruce up, eyes narrowed, glare unwavering. “... hypocrite,” he finally says. Then he nods slowly and stands up again. “Just until his hand is wrapped.”
They’re definitely not leaving that soon. Bruce doesn’t say this, of course, but his thoughts feel like cannon booms. Fortunately, Jason must have his earplugs in. He doesn’t call out the lie or even indicate that he noticed it.
Fine with Bruce.
---
“... Bruce…?” Dick’s voice sounds like rocks in a blender. His throat feels like rocks in a blender in a trash compactor.
“Still here.” It's Bruce's familiar rumble, softer than usual and, as always, gruffer than necessary.
“What… what happened?” Dick sits up slowly, noting the cast on his right hand and the IV in his left.
Bruce sighs, leaning back in his chair. “You don't remember?”
“I… don’t remember what?”
“You dropped off the grid, and a week later, I get news that you’re in Arkham, beating the Joker to death.” Bruce’s face remains unwaveringly stoic. This is his default, but it’s also his way of coping with extreme emotions. Dick gets the sense that this is an I-am-so-angry-I-don’t-know-how-to-process-it expression and not a typical apathetic expression.
Dick’s eyes trail to his hands. Somehow, stoicism is worse than wrath. “I’m sorry. I… I’ve been seeing things. And I’ve been trying to ignore them, but Jason tackled me, and I couldn’t get him to move without talking to him, and it’s just been a nightmare ever since.” The words tumble from his lips like sand in an hourglass.
“Hn.”
“I’m sorry, Bruce. I am.” Dick looks up, frustrated tears stinging his eyes. He just feels so… out of control. He’s always had an acute sense of his body, his actions, every tiny movement and twitch. He had to as an acrobat. That went doubly for vigilante work. But now…
Now he can barely tell truth from reality. How can he react properly if he doesn’t even know where he is, what’s happening?
“I know you are,” Bruce says absently, fingers massaging a temple. “I know. I’m getting you help.”
Dick glances up. There’s a cheap drop-down ceiling above them, crumbling from the force of the air vents. He realizes, suddenly, that they’re not in the Cave. “Where are we?”
Another sigh. Bruce won’t meet Dick’s gaze. “Arkham medical wing.”
“Oh. Oh. So we aren't… I’m still…?”
“You killed the Joker. What should I have done, Dick?”
The air freezes. Time slows to a crawl. Dick’s ears ring. He blinks once, twice. “Wait, I killed him?”
Bruce pinches the bridge of his nose and closes his eyes tightly. He looks almost annoyed to answer the question. (Has Dick asked him the question already?) “He died in the hospital two hours ago. Kidney failure and severe blood loss.”
“Oh.” Dick had assumed that Jason stopped him before he could actually kill the Joker. But he hadn’t, apparently. “Fuck.”
Bruce finally looks at Dick, expression almost bored. “Yeah. ‘Fuck.’”
“I…” Dick doesn’t know what to say. He wants to beg for forgiveness, plead for Bruce to set him free, promise to never kill again, but it’s far too late. He killed. He deserves to be here.
“You can plead insanity. That’s what happened. I hope.”
Dick frowns. “You think I might kill him in my right mind?”
Bruce laughs dryly. It’s robotic and sends chills down Dick’s spine. There is something very wrong here. “These days? Yeah. You already did it once, didn’t you? Why wouldn’t you try again? I was stupid for not reporting you back then.”
“You… what?”
Bruce stands and leans a little too close for Bruce “Personal Space” Wayne. “I should have sent you to Arkham a year ago. At least then the Joker would be alive. At least then, I wouldn’t have to try to explain to Jim Gordon why my former protege, the one who was supposed to be the best, went on a bloodthirsty killing spree. The city doesn’t trust the vigilantes anymore. You ruined everything.”
“Bruce, I… God, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so-”
Then Bruce explodes into confetti and viscera. Blood and glitter paint coat the walls. Gory balloons floats to the ceiling. Dick tries to jump up, but he can’t move, suddenly tied to the bed. He fights and he struggles, and people are grabbing him, trying to hurt him, and he just wants things to go back to normal. He wants Jason to be alive. He wants Bruce to be normal again. He-
“Wake up!”
Dick wakes with a start, accidentally jarring his still-broken hand and cursing softly as a million knives stab his fingers.
“Relax, dude. Take a second.” Tim keeps his hand on Dick’s shoulder, undeterred by the wild look in Dick’s eyes. (God, how long have they looked like that? Wide and bloodshot and darting every which way?) “Breathe slow.”
“I’m sorry, Timmy,” Dick says, eyes unfocused and looking in the exact wrong direction if he’s trying to talk to Tim. “I put you in danger. I let you become Robin.”
Is he hallucinating? Tim can’t be sure. He certainly looks like he’s speaking to a fake Tim.
“Hey, I’m right here.” Tim waves a hand in Dick’s face, and Dick glares at him, leaning away.
“I know where you are,” Dick grouses. He does. He’s just… “Where are we? And… where’s Jason?”
“The Cave,” Tim answers. Then he points just to Dick’s left. “Your grumpy bodyguard won’t let you out of his sight. And wants to pretend I don’t exist, apparently.”
Jason growls, folding his arms and shifting in his seat. “Yeah, you’d know a lot about pretending, wouldn’t you, Robin?”
Tim’s upper lip curls, but he doesn’t grace that with a response.
Dick looks back and forth at the two. “He’s actually there?”
Jason tries to summon some patience, but he ran out of it hours ago. He stretches to reach Dick’s good hand, currently cuffed to the bed railing, and pinches it.
Dick tries to pull away and the cuff bites into his wrist. “Shit,” he mutters. “Yeah, okay, okay. Don’t need to be such an ass about it.”
“Trust me; that was completely necessary.”
“How are you feeling?” Tim asks cautiously, watching Dick with a bizarre mix of sympathy and unease.
“Oh. Um. Hand hurts like hell. Must’a hit something pretty tough.” A spike of panic shoots through Dick’s stomach. He remembers exactly what - or perhaps, who - he hit. Who he… killed? Or was that a dream? Or-?
“A wall,” Jason clarifies. “You looked like an idiot.”
“You mean I didn’t… kill the Joker?”
Jason’s expression sours. He leans back in his chair and looks away.
“No,” Tim assures him. “The Commissioner called a few minutes ago. The Joker lives on.”
“Fuckin’ bitch,” Jason mutters.
“Didn’t you stop Dick from killing him?” Tim accuses, narrowing his eyes.
“Don’t fucking talk to me,” Jason growls.
“Guys, cut it out,” Dick orders, shocking even himself with how sane he sounds. He is most definitely not sane and honestly barely knows what’s happening anymore. He shakes his head and looks over at Tim. “Where’s B?”
“Avoiding Jason, probably,” Tim replies, earning himself a middle finger from Jason and a confused frown from Dick.
“He’s… not glad to see him?” He shoots Jason a pointed look. “He’s not glad to see you?”
“We’re not discussing this.” Jason’s voice leaves no room for argument.
“I need to talk to him,” Dick tells Tim. “Could you find him for me?”
Tim pauses. He really shouldn’t leave Dick with Jason. Bruce made that very clear. Jason has been wanting to leave since he arrived, and apparently, he plans on taking Dick with him. (To do what, Tim’s not sure. For all his bitterness and cursing, he’s weirdly protective of Dick, so probably nothing that would endanger him.)
Dick smiles teasingly at Tim’s hesitation. “You can have my dessert for a week.”
Tim chews his lip. According to Bruce, a single second unsupervised would be enough time for them to run away. Tim seriously doubts that, though. The cuff would take at least fifteen seconds (at least) to unlock, and Jason won’t leave without Dick. “Two weeks.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Dick replies lightly. “Get out of here.”
Jason, of course, saw the entire exchange, and now he’s feeling something akin to heartburn. He’d blame it on the pizza if he got any. But he didn’t, so he’s forced to face the nagging thoughts swirling around in his brain:
Dick and Tim really do act like brothers. How long have they been working together? Longer than I was Robin, probably. The Pretender really took my life: my name, my uniform, my brother-
“Jay,” Dick calls, and there’s something sad about his eyes and the purse of his lips. He looks pretty pathetic in that med bay cot, one hand hidden by finger splints and a blue cast, the other hand dangling from a pair of handcuffs. The circles under his eyes are dark, and his face looks a bit thin.
“Yeah?”
Alone with Dick, Jason feels infinitely more comfortable, even if he’s in the last place he wants to be. Anything is better than sitting next to Tim. He just doesn’t know how to mind his own business, constantly staring, eyes squinting slightly, gears shifting in his brain.
“Are you okay?” Dick asks, oddly sincere. “I know you didn’t want to see B.”
Jason grunts. “I’ll be better once we’re out of here.”
Everything about the Cave makes Jason want to puke. He’s hit with memories of flinging Batarangs at targets and hiding in the giant dinosaur’s mouth to get out of a dentist appointment. He remembers pain, joy, sweat, tears, blood. He remembers some of the happiest years of his life.
And he hates it. He hates being reminded of what he lost.
Dick raises an eyebrow. “You really think he’ll let me leave?”
“Eh, good point. All the more reason to leave now. Think you can slip that cuff off, or do I need to jimmy it?”
“I… think I should stay. We’re not… I don't know how to fix this.”
Jason sighs and folds his arms. Before, he was okay with Dick going to Bruce, but before, Bruce hadn't drugged, kidnapped, and imprisoned his own son. “I don't know. We call a crisis line. Talk to that psychiatrist, Sasha-”
“Sarah.”
“Yeah, her.”
Dick rolls his shoulders and looks away. “Is that enough? I mean, I tried to kill the Joker.”
Jason stands suddenly. “Oh my god. That's what this is about? You don't want help; you want to be punished.”
“I- no! No, I’m saying I’m dangerous.”
Jason narrows his eyes and paces closer. “How many times have you tried to kill me since you lost your mind? Or Bruce? The Pretender?”
“Tim.”
“Potayto-potahto.”
“I didn't know I was punching a wall, Jay!” Dick insists. “If I wasn't locked up, that could've been you!”
“You wouldn't hurt me, and you definitely couldn't have like that. You were dazed. Strong, but slow. Clumsy. Trust me; you don't need that cuff.” He nods at the handcuff digging into Dick’s wrist. “What you need is someone to actually fucking work with you rather than throw you in a cell to rot.”
“Jason, you don't realize how terrifying it is, not knowing where you are or what's happening or even what you're doing. I feel so out of control. At least in a cell-”
“-you can't hurt anyone,” Jason finishes for him. “Yeah, whatever. But you only hurt one person, and he had it coming. You're hardly the danger you say you are. We can work this out, but you getting shivved by your cellmate in Arkham won't fix things. And then who’ll watch Blüdhaven?”
“You’d do it for me, wouldn't you?” Dick is serious, and both of them know it. His puppy dog eyes are the rotten cherry on top of this shit sundae.
“Fuck you,” Jason growls. “No. You’re not a lost cause, and you can’t keep thinking of yourself as one!”
“Dick. Jason.” Bruce says the second name like his tongue is a thousand pounds. It’s barely anything resembling Jason’s name, but they all know who he’s addressing. What he’s trying (and failing, Batman is failing) to say.
“B,” Dick replies, wary at best and terrified at worst. The unspoken question hangs heavily in the air, its leaden hands pressing down on the men’s shoulders, constricting their chests.
Bruce sighs and settles in Tim’s vacated chair. He takes his sweet time studying Dick and Jason. The loss in his eyes, that desperate spark of something that almost was, overpowers any anger or bravado he attempts to wear.
“I smoothed things over with Gordon,” Bruce finally says. “As far as he knows, Clayface broke out of his cell, took on Nightwing’s appearance, and tried to kill the Joker over a disagreement in the cafeteria.”
A morally gray (at best) decision on Bruce’s part. Jason would be proud of the guy if it didn’t send an aching reminder that Bruce will break his moral code for those he truly loves.
“You shouldn’t have done that.” Dick chews the inside of his cheek, brow furrowed. “I thought… I thought you were-”
“Institutionalizing you? Turning you in?” Bruce exhales heavily, avoiding his sons’ eyes. “No. I talked to Leslie and Alfred and… It wouldn’t work.” He looks up at Dick, expression severe. “I need you to be honest with me from now on. Completely. No running away. No covering things up. If you’re seeing people that don’t exist, I need to know.”
“Yeah. Okay.”
Bruce and Jason raise eyebrows in unison. Jason notices and quickly drops the expression, scowling instead. Bruce remains oblivious to this.
“I’m serious,” Bruce presses. “I need to know. How many people are in the room right now? Ghosts included.”
Dick blows out a frustrated puff of breath. “Just you and Jason.” It’s technically true. He sees Bruce and Jason. There’s also a younger Jason dangling from a noose tied to the dinosaur. But it’s still Jason.
“How many of me?” Jason counters.
Dick really doesn’t appreciate the sudden team-up. “Fine. Two, or whatever. I know the kid’s not real.”
“‘s what I thought.”
Cautiously, Bruce reaches over and unlocks the handcuffs. “Leslie is reaching out to some contacts. And I’m sure Dinah would be happy to assist.” He smiles weakly. “We’ll figure this out, okay?”
Dick tips his head in uncertainty. “And I know you won’t change your mind and ship me back to Arkham because…?”
“Because I’ll beat his ass,” Jason promises. He glares at Bruce. “I swear on my grave.”
---
In the next hour, Sarah has been contacted, Dick’s prescription has been updated, and said man is passed out in his old bedroom in the manor, sleep deprivation and antipsychotic side effects making the siren song of a comfortable pillow and blanket far too alluring to ignore. Jason doesn’t leave his side, though Alfred dropped off a small mountain of books for Jason to keep himself entertained. (Alfred also snuck in a hug, and Jason isn’t too macho to say he missed the guy.)
Bruce walks past Dick’s room frequently, pausing just long enough to spot the dark head of hair sticking out from under the sheets. He doesn’t peer close enough to see if Jason is still standing guard. He did it the first time, and Jason kicked him out with a furious, “He’s not going to Arkham, asshole!”
It isn’t until the evening that Bruce dares to check for Jason again. He’s mellowed out a bit, quietly paging through a novel resting on his lap. It’s painfully reminiscent of Jason when he was thirteen, curled up in the library with yet another Austen (collector’s hardbacks; a gift from Alfred for Jason’s birthday) in his hands. He would always hold the book a little too close to his face, and his expression would shift slightly, as if attempting to visualize exactly how each character was emoting.
“Bruce,” Jason says when Bruce lingers in the doorway. He keeps his eyes on the book. “Don’t stare. It’s weird.”
“You’re… still here?” Bruce doesn’t know why he expected Jason to simply disappear after a few hours. He’s clearly not moving until Dick does.
“Don’t flatter yourself,” Jason grunts, gently closing his leather-bound book. “I’m just here to keep you in line.”
A ray of hope peers out from behind Jason’s shadowed threats. Bruce sees it, not because he’s an optimist (something he never has been and never will be) but because he’s an estranged father. He’ll take any opportunity to see Jason again, even if it’s in a negative context.
“Should I ask Alfred to prepare your room? It won’t take long; he’s been keeping it… ready for you, I suppose.”
Jason isn’t sure whether to be confused or flattered. “He thought you buried me alive?”
“No,” Bruce says absently, gaze flickering to the garden beyond the window. “No. He just missed you.”
“And you couldn’t look at my room.” It’s not a guess. Jason knows Bruce well enough to know his chronic inability to deal with his own emotions.
“In a sense,” Bruce settles with, because it’s a less direct way of admitting he cares. The stoic bastard.
“Yeah,” Jason replies with a shrug. “Guess a night on the best mattress money can buy wouldn’t hurt.”
Bruce lingers still, growing awkward and uncertain. “Jason? I’m sorry. About… you know.”
“I know.” Jason opens his book again. He knows Bruce is sorry, but in words only. He isn’t sorry enough to do something about it.
And then, twenty-two seconds later, Bruce is still lingering when he gets words out. Easier words but still plenty important. “Thank you, Jason. For keeping him safe. Even from me.”
“Yeah,” Jason hums, glancing over at the drooling mess in the bed. He kicks his feet up, resting his ankles on Dick’s legs. Dick doesn’t flinch.
“He’s my brother,” Jason says finally. “Guess that still means something to me.”
Four years ago, Jason Todd died. Three years ago, Dick Grayson started having nightmares about it. Two years ago, the nightmares bled into the day time. One year ago, Dick finally got help.
For forty-nine weeks, everything was okay. The therapy was helping. The pain, the fear, the visions had all but faded, and what remained was more than manageable.
Three weeks ago, Dick saw Jason again. And his life has been a nightmare ever since.
Takes place after the appearance of the Red Hood but prior to the identity reveal.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 6
---
“Good morning. Time to get up.”
The world is hazy when Dick opens his eyes. Sound is muted, but the lights are bright enough to burn his retinas, leaving green spots dotting his vision. His head feels like an overused dryer sheet, rumpled and fuzzy and practically falling apart.
“Jase…?” Dick groans, pushing himself up. He can't recall exactly where he was or exactly what he was doing when he fell asleep, but he knows Jason was there. Real Jason, that is, not the kid that is continually blowing up in the corner of his eye.
“No, just Donna. Remember me?”
Dick takes a moment for his eyes to adjust, blinking and massaging his temples. Then he takes a good look at the woman in deep purple scrubs. Her face is framed by dark hair, blue eyes crystalline in the clinical white light. Honestly, Dick is embarrassed that he didn’t recognize her right away.
Donna Troy, previously Wonder Girl, currently Troia. One half of the Wonder Twins. His best friend.
“Oh.” Dick mops his face with a hand. He feels like he’s moving in slow motion. “Donna. What happened?”
Donna frowns before opening the closet and rustling through the clothes inside. “It’s time for group therapy.”
“Group…?” Dick shakes his head. That’s not right. He… He’d been at Jason’s place. They were running from something… someone… and… “Where am I?”
Donna leans back and watches Dick carefully. “We’re in your room, hon.”
This isn’t Dick’s room. His room is back in Blüdhaven. His room doesn’t have shiny tile flooring or medical equipment in the corner.
“No, we’re not.” Dick swings his legs over the side of the bed and drops to the floor. The Gotham U sweats are gone. He’s in his own clothing now. He tugs at the worn BPD t-shirt, wondering how and when he changed clothes. “I live in Blüd. And… what’s going on? Why are you dressed like that?”
Donna hands Dick a stack of fresh clothes. She pouts sympathetically. “Are you feeling alright? You sound a little confused. This is what I always wear,” she promises. Without giving him a moment to reply, she turns to leave. “Better get changed now, or you’ll be late.”
Hesitantly, Dick does so, not because he intends on going to whatever this “group therapy” is, but because he needs more information. Donna is one of his closest allies. There’s no reason to believe the confusion is insidious.
When he’s ready to go, Dick goes to the door. The handle won’t turn, and he knocks on the door. “Hey, uh, Donna?? You locked me in!”
The door clicks open. “The doors always lock,” Donna replies, one eyebrow arched. A man looms over her, watching Dick like he’s a lit stick of dynamite. “Hold out your hands for me, hon?”
Dick frowns but warily obeys.
The handcuffs snap shut around his wrists with a definitive click.
“Wh-What?” Dick shakes his head, ripping his hands back. The man jumps out from behind Donna and grabs Dick by the arm.
“Easy, Roy!” Donna folds her arms in disapproval. “He’s been confused this morning.”
“‘Roy?’” Dick echoes. “Roy Harper?” And damn, but it’s true, even without Roy saying anything. That’s him.
Roy grunts. “Shut up. Keep moving.”
“What’s happening?” Dick insists. “Why are you guys doing this?”
Rather than reply, Roy opens another door and leads Dick inside.
“Ohh,” a woman with a thick New Jersey accent coos. “Looks like Nightwing decided to grace us li’l people with his presence!”
“Ah, can it, Harley,” grouses a man. “Guy’s been, like, unresponsive for two weeks. You seriously think he’s good company?”
There’s a laugh. It’s familiar and cold and makes the hair on Dick’s arms stand on end.
“Hey, there, kiddo!” the Joker croons. “Wanna talk first in therapy today?”
---
“So… ‘Shane,’ was it?”
Jason looks at the pizza guy with all the hatred he can muster up in his cold, dead heart. “You’re in on this?” He squints at the nametag pinned to the kid’s shirt. “‘...Stevie?’”
“You realize you were harboring a fugitive, right? Or…” The boy folds his arms. “Maybe you helped him?”
Jason pulls down his glasses to see the kid better. He’s got a decent enough disguise, but it’s pretty obvious who he’s dealing with now. “Robin, is it? I thought that name was retired, what with the last one’s tragic death. Or is the Bat over him already?”
“I-” Tim takes a step back, trying to place the man’s face. The only remarkable thing about him is the patch of white in his hair. He looks vaguely familiar, but not nearly familiar enough for Tim to recall a name. “There’s only one Robin.”
The man lets out a barking laugh. “‘One Robin.’ You’re funny.”
“Who are you?” Tim demands.
Jason tries his best to keep a lid on his anger. He has plenty of time for revenge against this… pretender. But Dick doesn’t have any time at all. “What’d your boss do with him?”
“What were you doing with him?”
This could go on all night. Jason sighs. “If you must know, I stopped him from attacking the Joker.”
Robin chews his lip and shoves his hands in his pockets. He dips his head, suddenly very interested in the smudged toes of his Converse.
“Yeah. You’re welcome,” Jason says brusquely. “Any other demands, or are you gonna tell me what the fuck your boss did with my-?”
Fuck. He almost did it again.
“-friend?” Jason finishes lamely, suddenly hating his brain with a ferocity only to rival that of a starved tiger released in a petting zoo. Why can’t he for once remember that Dick is barely an ally, much less a brother?
“Justice,” Robin replies, though the tightness of his expression makes Jason think that Batman’s definition of justice varies wildly from Robin’s. It wouldn’t be the first time something like that happened.
In a sudden surge of anger, Jason grabs at Robin’s shirt, but the boy dances away. Baring his teeth, Jason lunges again, backing Robin into the corner and pinning him with an arm to the throat.
Tim struggles, but the guy is built like a brick shithouse. There are a few ways to get out of this - distraction, tasing, a well-placed nerve strike - but Dick’s new friend (or whoever the hell this guy is) seems more chatty when he thinks he’s in control. And interrogations are so much easier when the other guy is talking unprompted.
“Justice,” the man growls, “would be Joker getting his slimy-ass brains splattered across the floor.”
“And yet you say you stopped Nightwing from killing him.” Tim pushes against the man’s arm, just enough to get air. “Why?”
Jason rolls his eyes. He doesn't have to explain himself to anyone, much less this punk. “Did Bats take him to Arkham? GCPD?” He tips his head, studying the kid’s expression. “No. I think he brought him home. Just to confirm that he's batshit before having him committed. Smart. I’d do that too.”
Tim shakes his head. “Who are you?”
But Jason just smiles. “Your worst nightmare, Timmy.” Then he lets the boy go, steals the pizza delivery car, and sets a course for Wayne Manor.
---
All Dick can hear is laughter. It pierces his eardrums and shatters his teeth. It gets so loud that he can feel the laughter. It rattles up his spine, makes his muscles ache. Next, he smells the laughter, rancid and mildewy. It tastes like old eggs and gooey-rotten onions.
Dick is seconds away from seeing the syllables spelled out for him (a permanent HA-HA-HA etched into his brain) when he wakes up.
Before opening his eyes, Dick tries to gather as much information as possible. Soft, silky under his fingers. Sheets. Expensive ones. Lights burning through his eyelids. A damp but very familiar smell, not quite must but not quite fresh air.
“Shit!” Dick jumps to his feet, stumbling off the cot. He looks around, expecting Arkham’s medical wing, but the walls are made of stone. The ceiling is full of stalactites. The Batcomputer is in clear view. This isn't Arkham. He hasn't been committed. (Not yet, anyway.) But there's still a pretty big issue, because as it turns out, Dick isn't just in the Cave. He’s boxed in by a glass cage. A containment cell.
Things start to click. Dick had been asleep when someone snuck into the apartment. They’d tried to talk to him about… something. And then they had a needle, and Dick screamed and fought and…
And now he's here.
“Bruce!” Dick pounds on the glass. “B!”
Bruce, still in full Batman gear, practically materializes in front of him, switching on the cell’s intercom.
“What happened?” Bruce demands, and even the tinny speaker can't soften the harsh rasp of his tone.
“You drugged and kidnapped me!” Dick replies. “What the hell?”
Bruce folds his arms and runs his tongue over his teeth. “And you nearly killed the Joker tonight, went radio silent, and then refused to talk when I found you. If you were anyone else, I would have given you to Gordon already.”
Dick rolls his eyes, finds that rolling his eyes makes his head hurt worse, and settles for a long-suffering sigh instead. “Gee, thanks,” he says in monotone. “Thank you for kidnapping me when I told you to leave me alone. That was really cool of you.”
“Dick, you could be in Arkham right now. I’m trying to protect you!”
“By locking me in a cage.”
Bruce gives up any attempt to rationalize his actions. He believes, well and truly, that his actions were not only warranted but necessary. Whether Dick agrees or not is beyond Bruce’s concern.
“Dick, there are multiple police reports of Nightwing breaking in at Arkham and attacking the Joker. Is it true?”
But Dick has officially lost his patience with this. “B, just let me out!”
“Did you or did you not attack the Joker last night?”
Dick grunts, slamming his fists into the glass. “You don't get it, Bruce!” he hisses.
But Bruce has been through enough of Dick’s unstable behavior over the last few years to understand what's going on. “I thought we were on the same page with the Joker.”
Dick shakes his head frantically, eyes wild. “We are! … or were. I don't…” He pounds the glass again. “Stuff happened,” he insists. “Let me explain it!”
“I am.” Bruce folds his arms. “Tell me what you did last night. Where were you?”
“I’m not insane, Bruce. I’m not.”
Bruce tsks, arms folded so the cape swallows him up. His cowl is down, revealing the fury in his eyes and the (subtle, very subtle) worry line between his eyebrows. “You're avoiding the question.”
“And you’re trying to make me look crazy!”
“You’re doing a fine job of that by yourself.” Bruce takes in Dick’s appearance, so much more disheveled than when he left the manor a week ago. Dark circles shadow his eyes, and his skin is dull, almost waxy. His hair, usually a source of pride for the eldest of his Robins, looks greasy and unkempt. And his clothes are unusual to say the least: a hoodie and sweatpants with the Gotham U logo all over them. They look brand new.
“You have to understand,” Bruce furthers, taking a step closer to the glass. “You went missing a week ago, claiming to return to Blüdhaven despite your coworkers’ accounts to the contrary. There are reports of Nightwing breaking into Arkham and beating the Joker half to death. And now I find you with enough symptoms to qualify as schizophrenic. Right now, I am the only thing keeping you out of Arkham. Gordon has been calling my burner nonstop. The police are looking for me now. I do not want you to look crazy. I just need the truth.”
The truth? The truth is, Dick is a little crazy. Almost. Kind of. Not that he can tell Bruce that. “I’m fine,” he says through grit teeth. “I’m fine.”
Bruce sighs. He should have known that wouldn’t work. Even so, he had to try. “Did you break into Arkham? You need to be honest with me; I’m your only chance right now.”
He’s right. Fuck him, but he’s right. Right now, Dick is trapped in a glass cage and can either give a good enough explanation or land himself in a more permanent cell.
“Yes,” Dick admits, slowly sitting on the cot and pressing the heels of his palms to his forehead. “I broke in. I attacked him.”
Bruce expects the words, but they manage to shock him regardless. Dick has done some questionable things where the Joker is concerned - he did kill him once - but Bruce thought he was over it. He thought it was a one-time, emotion-driven mental break. He’d thought Joker killed Tim, and he lost it.
But now… Why now?
“Why?” Bruce asks quietly.
Dick leans back against the wall and fiddles with his hoodie strings. “I… I saw…” He squints, turning every word over in his mind. He shouldn’t tell Bruce that Jason is back. Jason doesn’t want to see Bruce again, and if Dick lets it slip…
Would he even believe him? Probably not.
“I’ve been seeing Jason,” Dick admits, because that’s a known concern. “Just… way more than usual, and he’s been saying things like-”
“What a little snitch,” Ghost-Boy Jason goads from atop the dinosaur statue. “Gonna tattle about the cigarettes too? Tell Dad about that guy I pushed off a balcony?”
Dick ignores him.
“You want me to leave, don't you? You say you miss me, but then I come around, and all you do is ignore me! What do I have to do to get your attention? Die again? Okay.”
The ghost boy falls back, an invisible crowbar cracking against his cheek. He writhes as bruises and blood appear on him. As his blood tears. As his eyes swell black and his breathing grows wheezy-
“Dick. What are you seeing?”
One cell wall has retracted into the ground, and Bruce is crouched in front of Dick, the worry in his eyes more obvious than a neon road sign.
“Oh. Um.” Dick tries to shift away, but his head smacks against the glass. “Nothing. I didn’t… Nothing.”
It hurts. It’s physically painful to see Dick so disoriented and panicked and guilt-ridden. He wasn’t like this before. He’d always been so… alive. Now, Bruce has seen corpses with more life in them.
“Obviously, it was something,” Bruce insists. “Talk to me so we can fix this.”
“I don’t…” Dick shakes his head. “I can’t go to Arkham. Bruce, please. I’m not crazy!”
“You need help, Dick.” Bruce sits beside Dick on the cot, careful not to crowd him. “Talk to me. Why did you go to Arkham?”
Dick clenches and unclenches his fists. “I’ve been seeing Jason. He wants justice.”
Bruce takes a long, slow breath and wets his lips. “He’s not real. You know that, don’t you?”
“Yes. But…” How does he explain this? How does he explain this without giving Jason’s secret up? “He was real, once. Back before he died. And he still deserves justice.”
“He got justice,” Bruce explains, abnormally patient. “The Joker is locked up.”
Dick’s head snaps up, eyes blazing with fury. “For how long? He always gets out! He doesn’t deserve to live when Jason is in a grave, Bruce! How many more people has he hurt since then? A hundred? A thousand?”
Bruce sighs. He’s fought with these thoughts before, but they’re not productive. They just make things more painful.
“You know the oath,” Bruce replies, voice like hardened steel. “You swore it to me. We both did. To fight against crime and corruption and-”
“Never swerve from the path of righteousness,” Dick finishes flatly. “Yeah. I remember. But what good is righteousness if it lets hundreds of innocents die? We could have prevented their deaths-”
“Through murder.” Bruce stands up quickly and fights against his temper. It’s not very effective. “We don’t get to make that choice, Dick. We can’t play god. You should know that better than anyone.”
Dick snorts. “What, are you asking me to thank you for reviving the Joker?”
“No. I’m asking you to give me a good reason not to turn you in. You’re not making a good case for yourself.”
“I was going to kill the Joker,” Dick admits, “because Jason deserves it.”
“Did ‘Jason’ ask you to?”
“I… kind of.”
Bruce sniffs, leaving the cell. The wall fits back into place, sealing Dick in once again. Dick rushes to the glass and shoulder-checks it. It doesn't budge. “B! B, don’t you send me there! You can’t do that! You can’t-!”
But Bruce is already gone.
---
“Bruce, I’m sorry, but I’m not a psychiatrist. I can refer him to someone, but this is well out of my league.”
Bruce sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. “I know that, Leslie. I just… I’m not sure what to do. I can't turn him in. They’ll have him unmasked and committed before morning.”
There's an affirmative hum over the line. “Most likely. Unless you want the secret out, I’m afraid you’ll have to get someone less ethical than most to do house calls.”
“And there's no alternative to Arkham? They wouldn't put him in an intensive facility somewhere else?”
Leslie sighs heavily. “It's hard to say. His violent history doesn't leave them with many options. With his status as a vigilante, it's very possible that a judge will see it as a major risk to his safety to keep him at Arkham. Or they'll just keep him in solitary, which could be detrimental to any sort of recovery.”
“Right. Well… okay. Okay, thanks, Leslie. I’ll… give it some thought.”
“Please do. And call me if you need anything.”
“Of course.”
As Bruce goes to hang up, another call comes through.
Tim.
Bruce picks up without a second thought. “What have you got?”
“B, the guy with Dick… he's headed your way. Stole the car.”
“What do we know about him?”
“He knows my identity, maybe Dick’s and yours too. I didn't recognize him, though.”
“Dick was unmasked in the apartment. He knows his identity.” Bruce paces in front of the Batcomputer, ignoring the progressively weakening shouts from the containment cell. It's tough to tell if Dick is giving up on screaming into the void or if he's falling into some sort of catatonic state.
“Has Nightwing said anything?”
“We’ll discuss it in the Cave,” Bruce replies sharply. “Penny-One will take a car to your location.”
Bruce hangs up and searches the security feeds. No unwanted visitors so far. If Tim is right, Dick’s accomplice should be around soon. That is, assuming he really does know Bruce Wayne’s secret.
Bruce descends the steps and switches on the containment cell’s intercom. “Dick.”
Dick considers telling Bruce again that he's not crazy, that the Joker was a mistake, that he had a momentary lapse in judgment and simply needs a prescription for antipsychotics. But Bruce has burned him enough today. He’s tired, Baby Jason hasn't shut up once in the past hour, and he knows there's very little he can say to change Bruce’s mind. So instead, Dick remains seated on the floor, forearms resting on his knees. He stares at his bare feet, wishing Bruce would have let him put on his shoes before kidnapping him.
“Who was with you at the apartment?” Bruce asks.
Dick considers telling the truth. In fact, he's dying to tell the truth. But that's a horrible idea, especially right now. “Nobody. Just me.”
Bruce takes a deep breath and steps closer so he's directly in front of Dick. “Someone was at Arkham with you. The voice on the phone call we intercepted to the pizza place wasn't yours. And Tim saw someone else picking up your order.”
“My order? I didn't place an order.”
Bruce sighs and folds his arms. “Andouille and pineapple? You think anyone other than you would order that?”
He's right - damn him, he's right - but it sounds like a bit of conclusion-jumping from the World’s Greatest Detective, so Dick presses the issue. “There are four million people in Gotham. Pretty sure more than one person liking that on their pizza is statistically probable.”
“At four AM, an hour after you assaulted the Joker? Significantly more likely it was you. Now, are you going to continue questioning my methods, or are you going to tell me who was with you?”
“I…” Dick frowns at his hands before looking up at Bruce. His glare pierces his soul. “It was just me.” He's a decent liar on a good day, but there is something seriously wrong with Dick today. Maybe even beyond the fact that he nearly killed Joker.
“Dick,” Bruce grits out, one eyebrow raised. If he's going for the I’m-not-stupid look, he's got it down pat.
“Bruce,” Dick replies, straightening up and upgrading his glare to a scowl.
“Why are you being difficult? If you’re so convinced you're not crazy and you deserve to be set free, why are you lying?”
Dick looks away. Why does Bruce have to make this so difficult?
“I can't tell you, B,” Dick whispers. His words are throaty, eyes shining with hurt, guilt, conflict.
“Try me,” Bruce offers, crouching and then sitting back on his heels. He puts one hand on the glass and waits for Dick to make eye contact.
Dick shrugs, stubbornly staring at the ceiling. “You… You don't get it. You’ll think I’m crazy.”
“I already think you're crazy.”
It hurts to hear that, but Bruce has a point. Dick is already on the fast track to the wrong side of the bars in Arkham. How could this make him sound any more insane?
“I… okay,” Dick sighs. “If you have to know, that was-”
A roaring interrupts him. Bruce jumps up, sprinting to the Batcomputer. There's no warnings, no lights, no alarms. False alarm. Just Tim and Alfred. Out of an abundance of caution, he checks the cameras. And it's a good thing he does.
That car doesn't look like any Bruce owns. That looks like a stolen pizza delivery car.
---
The phrase, “I’d rather die,” in Jason’s professional opinion, is largely overused and generally inaccurate. People will say it about anything and everything. Going to an ex’s baby shower, cutting caffeine out of their diet, asking the soapbox preacher to go more in depth about their purported “end times.” All unpleasant things, but all things that Jason is fairly certain are better than death. And he would know.
So it actually means something when Jason is speeding towards the Batcave and the words, “I’d rather die than see Bruce right now,” pop into his head.
But the thing is, he'd also rather die than let Dick get locked up in Arkham. Especially if Jason is technically the reason he went crazy in the first place.
So, in order from most tolerable to least, Jason would rather die than see Bruce and rather see Bruce than let Dick go to Arkham. By that logic, Jason should either crash the car and let that be the end of it or save Dick and really, really hope Bruce isn't home.
It's a big wish, but it's all Jason has right now. That and a stolen Smart Car with a Luigi’s Pizza logo on the side. (Absently, he wonders what the Boy Wonder had to say to get a pizza guy to hand over the keys. Or who knows? Maybe Batman stopped providing room and board. Maybe Robin has a side gig now.)
The engine squeals with displeasure as Jason pushes the car to its limit. (That limit is 98 miles per hour, which is bound to be a problem if Robin hijacks the Batmobile next.) It doesn't matter how much the car shakes and whines, though. The pedal stays glued to the floor. All that matters is getting Dick away from Bruce before he gets him committed.
When Jason arrives in Bristol, he cuts through yards and dodges security fences until he's found the tertiary entrance to the Batcave, hidden amidst a large patch of rhododendron trees. He takes out a good half of the plants in the process, but the panel in the ground quickly lowers into a ramp. There's a few gates at the entrance: one electric, one an EMP tripwire, and one steel. There's also another detector for the alarm if you break in without approval or idle in the entrance for too long.
How fortunate, then, that Jason knows the code. That is, assuming Bruce hasn't removed his pass phrase from use.
Jason rolls down the window. A pleasant voice chirps out from the great beyond. Jason wonders who spoke the words originally. “You have fifteen seconds to-”
“Fifty-six, spearmint, April, bravo-lima-uniform-echo, bluejay.” The words tumble off his lips in a rush. They all mean something - his fastest time on the obstacle course, his favorite type of gum, his mom's birthday month, his eye color spelled out in the NATO alphabet, and his favorite bird - but he spoke them so many times in the past that all he needs is the first mnemonic before the rest of the words follow on reflex alone.
The gates retract into the walls. “Access granted. Welcome, Robin.”
It's that little dig, that reminder of what he once had, that makes him tear down the driveway, wheels shrieking and engine whining under the red hood. He quickly makes his way to the garage and, knowing the rest of the Cave is ridiculously inaccessible to vehicles, climbs out of the driver's seat.
That's when smoke explodes in his face and only a finely-tuned sense of danger saves him from taking a batarang to the shoulder. He drops behind the car and draws his pistol from his waistband (always concealed carry while answering the door, kids). Then he closes his eyes and lets his other senses take over. He listens for footsteps, for-
Bad idea. The Bat is silent. In an instant, the gun is knocked from Jason’s grip, and he’s hauled to his feet, a gloved hand grabbing the collar of his shirt.
“Who are you?” Bruce demands, and he’s so thrown by the night’s events, so rattled by Dick’s condition, that he feels his voice shake. He covers it with rasp, but the intruder doesn’t seem impressed.
“Don't recognize me, asshole?” the thug spits. “Figures. You're still just as conceited as the day we met.”
Bruce is running through his whole catalog of rogues as he slams the intruder against the car door. He comes up empty and then begins thinking through all of Batman’s contacts in the past twenty years. There’s still nothing, and all he’s left with is another shaky-raspy, “Who are you?”
“That's enough of that,” Jason decides, grabbing the Bat’s elbow and twisting it into a lock, forcing him to let go. This buys him a moment to slip to the side and grab his gun. In the next instant, Batman’s hand twitches the way it always does right before a batarang goes flying. Jason sees this - knows what's coming - and shoots at said hand before sprinting for the steps. He can't be sure if he hit Batman, but he at least bought himself a second or two.
“JAY! JAY, I’M HERE!!”
The voice is coming from deeper in the Cave, probably somewhere around the Batcomputer. Somewhere around the containment cells.
Bruce is an even bigger asshole than Jason remembers.
“Who are you?” Bruce demands, skipping from plan A to plan G. (G for “good plan” and not “gratuitous gadgetry” like Alfred always says.) It takes him half a second to fire the net gun after the intruder who is, presumably, running to the containment cells.
Jason is, in fact, running to the containment cells. Or that’s what he wants to do, but he's quickly hindered by - what the fuck is this? A net? What is this, Looney Tunes?
But it is a net. Carbon fiber, by the feel of it. He searches for the edges of it, but it’s wrapped around him so tightly that he can't move his arms.
“Fuck. Fuck, fuck, f-”
The gloved hand grabs Jason again, seemingly unconcerned that the net is choking him. “Who are you?”
“Let me go, and I’ll take the damn sunglasses off, you freak!”
The Bat doesn't entertain that. “Your name. Now.”
Okay. Okay, Jason can work with this. He can manage this, despite every ounce of hatred in his blood when he looks at the guy.
“Fine. Jason Todd. I’d say it's good to see you again, but… well, you're not being super accommodating here.”
The moment he hears it, Bruce’s veins catch on fire. He drops the intruder to the floor and looms over him. “Do not speak his name. You do not-!”
“Let me go, and I’ll prove it, you jackass!”
This is normally the part where Bruce knocks the thug out and leaves him tied to the top of a flagpole to think about his actions. But he's so insistent that he's Jason. He called Dick his brother over the phone call. He knew how to get into the Cave. He knew where the Cave was to begin with! There's a good chance this is Jason. From another universe or resurrected through black lantern rings or something. There's also a good chance that this alternate universe/zombie Jason is evil and has been tormenting Dick all week. (Is that why he seems so crazy? Did he really think he was talking to Jason?)
Reluctantly, Bruce untangles the net and releases the intruder. “Take off the sunglasses.”
Jason takes a step towards Bruce and slowly does as he's asked. He's only going to get one shot at this.
Bruce knows it's likely, even probable, that the face will resemble the boy he carried out of the ruined warehouse. (The grinning boy with the tire iron poorly hidden behind his back. The groggy boy who fell asleep at the Batcomputer, the one Bruce carried to bed. The little boy that wrapped his arms around Bruce’s neck and refused to let go for hours after the adoption papers went through.) Even so, he has a moment of stupor, breath caught in his throat, heart skipping a beat. This is his boy. This is what Jason would look like if he’d lived long enough to grow taller than Bruce. He may not be Bruce’s Jason, but the resemblance is uncanny. Bruce pulls down the cowl to see him better. He just can't look a-
The lights go out for Bruce as Jason slams the grip of his pistol into the side of Bruce’s head.
“Fuck you, old man,” Jason snarls, unable to look at the face of the man he loved so much. The father he’d needed, the person he would have died for. Every memory of him feels tainted now, x’d out with the knowledge that he cared more about his stupid kill rule than the safety of kids like Jason. He’s complacent and culpable now. Maybe he always has been.
Across the Cave, Dick screams through the glass. Jason clearly made it here, but Bruce is no pushover. He heard some yelling, but it's gone quiet now. He can't tell who won.
“I am just pulling you out of all the fires today, aren't I, Miss Damsel?” Jason jogs over to the control panel and punches in a code.
“I…” Dick can't even think of a good comeback for that. He's so damn over today. Maybe the week. The year? Let's be honest; this nightmare has been his entire life. Just one disaster after the next.
The control panel flashes red. Jason scowls. “I could have sworn…” He tries again. Another red screen.
“Dickie, know the code for this one?”
“47-40-34.”
“Yeah, that's what I tried,” Jason explains. He’d been hoping Bruce just changed the code over the last few years, but it sounds like he changed it once he locked Dick inside.
“Shit,” Dick mutters, pacing the length of the cell and punching the glass half-heartedly. “You’ve got one more try before the whole Cave goes on lockdown.”
“Good. No, that's great. I love it here.”
“Guess I’ll just die for you,” a little ghost whispers from the cot, staring at the floor and kicking his feet impatiently. “I always sacrifice for you guys, don't I?”
Dick thinks he might throw up. “Jay,” he says, taking an extra moment to make sure he's talking to the right Jason. “Get out of here. Now.”
Jason sighs, running a hand through his hair. “Not without you.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“Bruce is going to send you to Arkham. You said it yourself! Don't you dare get all martyr-complex on me.”
“You're killing me,” Baby Jay says pleasantly, ghostly hands tugging on his arm. “You couldn't kill the Joker, and now you can't even save me from Bruce.”
Dick grits his teeth. He needs to just ignore it, ignore it, ignore it-
A hideous cackle fills the Cave. Glass shatters everywhere. Sweat and blood drip down Dick’s back. His ears ring with that awful sound. He thinks there can't possibly be a worse sound than this.
And then he hears the voice.
“Ugh, you know, there's nothing better than a round of clubbing to fix your short game! Isn't that right, Jaybird? HEHEHAH!”
His skin is bone white. Lips blood red. Hair bile green. And his eyes…
His eyes are cruel and cold. There's no soul or humanity behind them. Just the shallow joy of torturing Dick’s little brother. The tiny boy tied to the chair, blood dripping from his nose, his ears, his mouth-
“Get away from him!” Dick shrieks, sprinting for the gangly clown.
“Someone's impatient to die, aren’t they?” The monster creeps towards Dick, and Dick doesn't hold back. Not this time.
His first punch knocks out the Joker's teeth. The second breaks his nose. The third cracks a rib.
“Jay, get out of here!” Dick knees Joker in the stomach and pins him to the wall. “Go, now!”
“Dick, it's not real. It's not-” Jason's voice trails off. He watches Dick wail at the glass, hands bleeding and most likely broken, completely incapable of stopping him from hurting himself.
This is crazy, Jason realizes. This is crazy. Dick hadn't been this unhinged before. Before he saw Jason - the real Jason - he was living his life. Maybe he was a little unhinged, but he wasn't breaking into prison and attempting murder. It occurs to Jason that maybe this is partially his fault. Unintentionally, he threw his brother (fuck, shit, dammit, they're not brothers, are they?) over the edge.
“Dick, listen to me! It's fake!” Jason moves so he's standing in front of Dick.
Dick hits the Joker again. Again. Again. He’s going to do it this time. He's actually going to kill him.
Four years ago, Jason Todd died. Three years ago, Dick Grayson started having nightmares about it. Two years ago, the nightmares bled into the day time. One year ago, Dick finally got help.
For forty-nine weeks, everything was okay. The therapy was helping. The pain, the fear, the visions had all but faded, and what remained was more than manageable.
Three weeks ago, Dick saw Jason again. And his life has been a nightmare ever since.
Takes place after the appearance of the Red Hood but prior to the identity reveal.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 5
Part 6
---
Dick’s phone hasn't stopped buzzing since they escaped Arkham.
“Still Bruce?’” Jason asks. He remembers the rules about names in the field, and he knows he really shouldn’t be name-dropping anyone since Dick is still suited up, but Jason is currently on the opposite side of the city from his apartment, suited up but maskless with no change of clothes, and on the lam, so Bruce’s secrets feel a little moot in comparison.
“No. Barbara this time.”
“Don't answer.” Jason taps Dick’s shoulder and then points down at a street vendor standing beside a wall of Gotham U merch.
“Me or you?”
“I got it,” Jason decides, zipping up his jacket and slipping out from behind the gargoyle. He climbs down the fire escape and digs his wallet out of his pocket, briskly approaching the vendor.
Dick watches from the roof, still a bit numb about all this. Mostly, he’s just trying to remind himself that this isn’t a hallucination. Or, perhaps more accurately, convince himself this isn’t a hallucination. There’s one damning piece of evidence now: the police APB put out for “Nightwing and a white male, 6 feet tall, black hair, last seen wearing a leather jacket and gray pants.” It’s humiliating to think that all this could have been solved if he had actually stopped for a second - had breathed through the anger and used his brain for a single moment - and searched for the police report from the lady at CVS. But he hadn’t, because… well, there’s no good excuse. Insanity, maybe. (Probably. Almost certainly.)
But Dick isn’t crazy. He’s completely fine.
There are other tells that Dick is beginning to pick up on. Cigarette smoke clings to Jason’s clothes, and that was an old habit Bruce helped him kick back in his Robin years. He must have un-kicked the habit after un-dying. There’s also that little half-breath Jason will make if he’s particularly annoyed about something. It’s another minute detail that Dick probably wouldn’t remember well enough to hallucinate.
“Dude. You gotta talk to me, or I’m gonna think your brain’s gone AWOL again.”
Dick blinks. Jason is holding out a set of clothes, eyebrows knit with something eerily close to concern. It's strange how quickly he made it up the fire escape.
“Oh. You’re back.” Dick takes the offering (a hoodie with the Gotham U Nighthawk on it and sweatpants that read “GO HAWKS!” up the leg) and nods in appreciation.
“Yeah, yeah,” Jason grouses, pulling on his own pair of sweats. “Thank B.” He flashes the black credit card he took out with Bruce’s credentials (not that anyone can prove that).
Dick laughs, and it’s strange, because it sounds so… genuine. So nostalgic. Like those occasional Saturdays at the arcade or the rare nights Dick stayed over at the manor. If Jason were to go off the sound alone, he’d say he’s not the only sane person on the roof right now. (But he knows better; Dick should probably be in a psych ward.)
The pair do their best to hide their uniforms under the college gear with mixed success. Jason refuses to abandon his jacket and insists that he can make navy blue sweatpants and old leather work. (He does not make it work.) Dick goes full college student, looking more like a store mannequin than a person. He rips the mask off, shoves it in his pocket, and hopes the police keep looking for “Nightwing and some white guy” and not “two suspicious guys that kind of look like Nightwing and some white guy.”
Dick’s thoughts are interrupted by the tapping of boots against the roof. Little Robin-Jason jumps along the edge of the roof like he's playing hopscotch. His cape is still on fire. “We should get to the subway.”
“We should get to the subway,” Adult-Jason says at the same time. “Unless you can summon the Batmobile?”
“YES!” Robin-Jason shouts, arms raised to the sky in victory. “I wanna drive! Puh-leeeeassssse, Dick? Can I please drive? Dick? Dick?”
“Dick? Are you listening to me?”
Dick coughs and avoids Jason’s eyes. “Yeah. Sorry, I…”
What is he supposed to say?
Fortunately for both of them, Jason doesn’t want to hear whatever excuse Dick has brewing. “Whatever,” he sighs, waving Dick off and leading him down the fire escape. “We’re going to the subway. Did you hear me this time?”
“Yeah,” Dick agrees, and he doesn’t even have the decency to sound annoyed. Like maybe he needed the second reminder, which only serves to terrify Jason further.
“Repeat it back to me,” Jason orders. He hops to the ground and waits patiently for Dick - lagging a story behind - to catch up.
“We’re going to the subway,” Dick repeats, landing in a crouch. He sounds a little more frustrated here, but not enough to be reassuring.
“Right. Just… stick close, okay?”
“Okay, okay, geez, Mom.”
There it is. There's the Nightwing snark. Now Jason can actually think about getting back to his place rather than using all his brain power to worry Dick will walk off a cliff or run off to kill Joker again.
They make their way to the subway station, taking side streets and disappearing into an alley every time a police car passes by. (There have been five squads already; Jason tries not to panic about this.)
Dick’s phone continues to buzz. It’s practically nonstop at this point, and Jason tells Dick to just shut it off (or better yet: toss it down a storm drain). There’s a brief moment where Jason wonders if Dick is even on the same planet as him right now, but then Dick shakes his head.
“I am not buying a new phone after all this,” Dick argues, again sounding rather sane for a man who almost beat a criminal to death thirty minutes ago.
“After everything that happened today? I think losing your phone should be the least of your concerns.” Jason taps his (Bruce’s, whatever) credit card to the kiosk and pushes through the turnstiles. He passes the card through the gap, and Dick takes it, paying his own fare and joining Jason on the other side.
The subway is just shy of a ghost town. The Gotham City Subway is one of the more dangerous forms of public transit in the city, what with all the random bombs rogues liked wiring into the engines and frequent assaults by criminals trying to avoid Batman’s gaze out on the streets. Some people still brave it though, white knuckles around their pepper sprays and 911 already dialed on their phones. The bus really is the safer option, even if that means enduring the nightmare rerouting and schedule changes that come with a city plagued with so much property damage.
“Where are we going?” Dick asks, trailing behind. The ghost boy keeps showing up, sometimes bloody, sometimes missing limbs, sometimes with his head askew and a clearly broken neck. (He looks like Mom and Dad after they fell. If Dick closes his eyes, he can still hear the calliope chugging on. The upbeat, pleasant tune piping through the speakers as blood pools in the sawdust, never stopping, not even when the police show up and the white sheets are thrown over the cold, broken bodies.)
“My place,” Jason replies, climbing the escalator (really, who has time to wait for those things?) and taking a seat at the C train platform. “Wait, do you even remember my apartment? How zonked are you really?”
Honestly, Dick has no gauge. He feels normal, but there's also a dead kid in his peripherals and carnival music ringing in his ears. Unfortunately, that's about as close as he's gotten to normal in the past week.
“Yeah, I remember,” Dick says, and it’s the truth. He definitely remembers their awkward meet-up at CVS, even if he thought it was a hallucination at the time. “Crime Alley. 7th Street.”
Jason nods. He’s surprised but not shocked. The Bats have always had some freaky ability to remember even the most mundane of details. Even hallucinating, Dick didn’t have any trouble memorizing his street and neighborhood.
“What do we do when we get there?” Dick wonders, pulling at the price tag still attached to the back of his hoodie.
Jason is wondering that himself. What will they do? Dick is absolutely cracked and also wanted by the GCPD, and Jason is trying to keep a low profile and interact with as few Bats as possible. (So far, considering he’s hiding from the police with Nightwing, he’s doing a terrible job at both of those things.)
“Wait for things to cool down,” Jason figures. “Get you some help. I’m betting Bruce can pull some strings with Arkham. If you go to him, anyway.” He stretches his arms over his head, sighing as his elbows crack. “I don’t want anything to do with that.”
“Yeah,” Dick hums, declining yet another call from the man himself. “I should probably talk to him, huh?”
Jason shrugs. “I mean, hey, if you’d rather join my team, be my guest.”
“‘Team?’” Dick frowns, tipping his head.
Oh. Right. In his blood lust, Dick must not have realized that the person holding him back from murder was both Jason Todd and the Red Hood. He has no reason to assume that the new crime boss on the street is yours truly.
“Nothing,” Jason insists. “It’s nothing. I was kidding.”
Maybe Dick isn’t as lost as Jason assumed a man who never kills that just attempted murder would be. He crosses his arms and sits back, eyes searching Jason for tells. “Funny joke,” he replies in monotone.
“It’s none of your business,” Jason insists.
“Your business is mine.”
It’s not. This is between Jason and Bruce. No one else. Not even the Joker. Dick can claim to be involved all he wants, but he isn’t a part of this. He won’t be a part of this, because…
Because Jason can’t let Dick be involved. He can’t let Dick get hurt fighting in his personal war.
No, this is between Jason and Bruce. Dick will have to wait courtside on this one.
“Forget it, Dick. It’s not important.”
Dick opens his mouth to object, and then the C train pulls up to the platform.
“C’mon,” Jason grunts, stuffing his hands in his pockets and storming onto the train. “Let’s go.”
---
“-Bruce is tearing the city apart looking for you. We all are. If you’re hearing this, please pick up.”
“Heartwarming,” Jason says sardonically.
“I shouldn’t be here,” Dick reasons, staring at Barbara’s contact photo with the kind of longing that only belongs in bad rom-coms.
“Yeah, probably not,” Jason agrees, pacing past the couch for the fifty-fourth time, posture stiff, arms crossed. “I told you to go to Bruce if that’s what you think is best.” Secretly, this is what Jason is hoping Dick will do. Jason has no clue how to help the guy, be it legally or psychologically. All he has is a rundown apartment and his own treasure trove of mental health problems.
(A secret, second part of Jason hopes Dick doesn’t leave, not because Jason thinks he can help but because he, quite simply, doesn’t want to lose his brother. Especially if he might do something stupid and attempt murder again.)
Dick makes an indecisive hum. “You know something? I think Bruce might take me to Arkham if he finds me.” He doesn’t look away from his phone, even after the screen goes black.
“You…” Jason perches on the edge of the couch, just a breath away from Dick. He rests his elbows on his knees and his chin on interlaced fingers. “Hm. You really think he’d do that to you?”
The phone rings again. Bruce’s contact photo - a zillion-year-old picture of Bruce and little Jason Todd passed out on the couch - pops up, and Dick tosses his phone on the coffee table and sinks into the couch cushions. “You didn’t see him the first time I tried to kill Joker. He lost it. He ran every blood test and brain scan he could think of. He even brought psychics in. He was so convinced that I’d been brainwashed or drugged or something. He knows now that it wasn’t a one-off emotional outburst. Now it’s a pattern of behavior.”
“But you’re his son. You’re the fucking golden boy!”
Dick isn’t sure why, but the words make his chest ache. He sighs. “Not even close, Jase. Especially not after tonight. Bruce has a no-murder tolerance, regardless of whether that murder was successful or not. If I’m a threat to Gotham, he’s going to take me in.”
“You’d die there,” Jason counters, eyes narrowing. “How many of those guys did you get locked up?”
“A lot,” Dick admits, chewing his bottom lip. The thought of being in the same prison as all those Riddlers and Scarecrows he’d had arrested… It twists his stomach in knots. “Doesn’t matter. If I’m a threat, B isn’t gonna hold back. He…” Dick watches the ceiling, arms folded tightly across his chest. “He knows how dangerous I am.”
“And you don't think he'd just keep you locked in the Cave or something?”
Dick shakes his head morosely. “He's not going to compromise on murder. That's his number one.”
Dick is wrong about that. In Jason’s case, anyhow. He let the Joker live even though killing him would save hundreds of lives. Maybe more. Killing him would prevent anyone else from being hurt by the Joker like Jason was. It’s never been about preventing death; it’s always been about having the morally high ground. About not getting his own hands dirty, even if it’s in the best interest of the city he claims to love so much.
Jason shouldn't ask, but curiosity bites at him. “He wouldn’t compromise on murder? Not even for you?” Because even if Bruce wouldn't kill for Jason, surely he'd forgive murder (attempted murder) for Dick. Dick is… perfect. (Or… was perfect, anyway. He's a little batshit at the moment.)
“Especially not for me,” Dick says without a moment's hesitation. “He expects better, and he knows how many people I could hurt if I go off the deep end.”
“So far, I’ve only seen you hurt one person.” And even that is a stretch depending on your definition of “person.” If you ask Jason, the Joker is far more monster than man.
“One too many for Bruce.” Dick rakes his fingers through his hair. It's greasy and honestly pretty disgusting. When was the last time he showered? Before he saw Jason a week ago, so… a week? More?
“You're gross,” Little Jason mutters, popping up from behind the couch and smacking the back of Dick’s head. Dick doesn't feel it, of course, because Little Jason isn't actually there.
Big Jason. Adult Jason. Glaring-at-Dick-like-he’s-being-ignored Jason. He is here.
“Dick, I will not keep playing this game with you.”
Dick sits up straighter and shakes his head. “Play what? What did I do?”
Jason flicks him on the forehead. Real Jason. It stings. “You're spacy, idiot. I asked when you last ate.”
“Oh. Uh…” Dick doesn't remember much of the last week. What day is today? Sunday? “Um… Friday…?”
“Jesus fucking Christ, Dickie,” Jason mutters, pulling out his phone and googling something. “For god's sake, it's Thursday.”
“Oh, I… Maybe I ate a couple days ago?”
“Fat chance,” Jason says dismissively. He holds the phone to his ear and covers the receiver. “Pepperoni or supreme?”
“Andouille and pineapple,” Dick corrects.
“Ugh.” Jason removes his hand. “Yeah, I’ll take two large pizzas, one supreme with extra pepperoni and one with…” He pauses to sigh. “... pineapple and Andouille if you’ve got it.”
“...”
“Oh, you do? Well, thank god for that, huh?”
“...”
“Sorry, my brother is a freak.” Jason pauses just long enough to register the shock of what he just said.
My brother.
For a moment, he had gone back four years. Back to when he and Dick thought of each other as siblings. Back when Dick hated Bruce and Jason loved Bruce and not the inverse. Back when Jason wasn't dead. And it's taking all of Jason’s mental effort to not fall back into that pitfall. To not keep thinking that way. It's just so damn easy to revert back to when Dick was an angsty teen that could be an asshole but was also the coolest person Jason knew. That reverence for his big brother - fuck, they're not brothers, dammit - never really went away.
It doesn't matter what Jason said, though, because Dick’s attention has been spotty all night. The odds that he noticed the Freudian slip are little to none.
No, like always, Jason is the one worrying about these things while Dick is completely oblivious, fighting invisible demons and (reportedly) visions of a young Jason Todd covered in blood and soot.
---
Dick is asleep when the ancient doorbell buzzes through the little one-bedroom apartment. He's so gassed, he doesn't even stir, and Jason has to do a quick pulse check, just to make sure that Boy Paranoid isn't actually dead.
He's not dead. He's just that exhausted. He probably hasn't slept since Jason saw him a week ago.
Regardless, Jason pulls up the hood of his sweatshirt, throws on a pair of sunglasses, and slips out the door. He looks shady as hell, considering how uncommon it is to wear sunglasses at night, but Jason Todd, nameless but no less wanted criminal, can't answer the door two hours after helping a vigilante escape Arkham. The shades stay. At worst, he looks like every dealer on the block.
The pizza delivery guy is standing in the foyer, just outside the locked main entrance. He's also wearing sunglasses, which is more than a little bizarre. Jason has a massive secret to hide behind his shades; what could this kid possibly have?
Jason pushes the door open, sizing the guy up. He’s short, and though the glasses make it tough to tell, he's probably somewhere in his teens. He holds a long blue bag in his right hand and smiles painfully.
“Delivery for Shane?” the kid asks.
“Yeah.” Jason digs a couple twenties from his pocket and passes them over.
There’s a crash from the floor above them. “... fuck, what are you-? SHIT!!! JAY!!!!!”
“Dammit,” Jason mutters, hand finding the grip of his pistol. “Leave the food on the doorstep, and get the hell outta here,” he warns the boy.
“Wait, hold on a sec. Don’t leave. I need you to… um… sign something.” The pizza guy pats his pockets down for a receipt.
“No time,” Jason insists, sprinting up the steps and barging into his apartment.
What little furniture Jason has is overturned and scattered across the floor. Dishes and lightbulbs lie in pieces, tiny shards of glass just waiting to dig into someone's bare foot.
And then Jason sees it, and he curses up a storm. The window is open again. Dick is missing again.
Fuck. He really needs to childproof that.
Four years ago, Jason Todd died. Three years ago, Dick Grayson started having nightmares about it. Two years ago, the nightmares bled into the day time. One year ago, Dick finally got help.
For forty-nine weeks, everything was okay. The therapy was helping. The pain, the fear, the visions had all but faded, and what remained was more than manageable.
Three weeks ago, Dick saw Jason again. And his life has been a nightmare ever since.
Takes place after the appearance of the Red Hood but prior to the identity reveal.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
---
It’s cold, when Dick wakes up. It shouldn’t be cold. He doesn’t remember falling asleep, but he’s fairly certain that he wouldn’t take a nap in the middle of Antarctica. The sheets are cool, and the blankets seem even colder. He can huddle all he wants, but the stiff mattress and smooth foam pillow offer all the heat of an industrial walk-in freezer.
Dick opens his eyes slowly, taking in the speckled drop ceiling and gentle natural light from the window. Things gradually come into focus. The blue curtains, the lamp on the side table, the Flying Graysons poster on the wall. The world is clean and simple, emanating a light gray. Everything spins slightly, the Earth sluggish but persistent in her turn around her axis. Dick reaches up to rub his eyes, but his heart stutters on the attempt.
His arms won’t move. His fingers flex in slow-motion, almost numb to the touch. And his arms just. Won’t. Move.
Dick’s breath catches in his throat. He flails rather uselessly, only lifting his shoulders a few inches off the mattress before he begins to choke on his panic.
“Whoa, hey, Dick, buddy, it’s okay! You’re okay!”
The voice makes Dick pause, not because of its words but because of the person associated with the sound.
“...Tim?” His own voice sounds weak and unused. Or, perhaps, overused. The grittiness is a clear sign of misuse through neglect or abuse either way.
“Yeah, just me, Dick.” Tim’s face swims into focus, his eyes a bit too blue, his features a bit too gaunt. The circles under his eyes look darker than usual, and his hair, likely greasy and unwashed, hides under a beanie. “It’s always just me.” His words are rote, almost careless, like no matter what he says, nothing truly changes. There’s a resignation in his tone that lacks all the life and candor of Tim’s personality.
This isn’t Tim. Not the one Dick knows. This is a boy who has forgotten what hope is. Who can barely hold his head up anymore.
“What’s-?” Dick reaches up towards Tim, but his arm still won’t budge from the mattress. He jolts like a fish on the boardwalk, growls under his breath, and then gives up. “What’s wrong, Timmy?” The words are tricky to navigate, losing their way and catching on his teeth. His tongue, thick and clumsy, is an unwilling participant. His speech is only barely recognizable as that.
But if Tim has trouble translating, he doesn’t say. He looks away, eyes cast in shame. “Nothing, Dick. You’re okay. Everything is okay.”
But everything is not okay, because Tim’s voice sounds wrong, and Dick can't move his arms, and the world just keeps spinning, spinning, spinning-
“-me! It's just me, Dick! It's Tim!”
Oh. Right. He likes Tim. He should probably stop-
If the breath caught in Dick’s throat before, now it's lodged there, choking him out. Just like his hands are choking out Tim.
Dick lets go in a rush, pulling back so violently that he crashes into an IV pole, trips over a power cord, and falls in a heap on the too-white tile. Immediately, someone is restraining him, pulling his arms behind his back, poking him in the leg. He fights back on instinct; he's repaid in well-placed pressure points and a handful of cut-off swears.
When Dick realizes what's happening, he's drooling on the floor, staring up at the frenzied, tear-stained face of Tim Drake. He holds his throat with one hand. Purple hides behind his fingers. Purple in the shape of Dick’s hand.
“It's okay,” Tim assures him, but his voice is brittle, crumbling more with every word. “You thought I was the… You thought I was someone else. It's okay. I’m okay, see?”
Dick doesn't see. He doesn't see that everything is okay, because it isn't. Everything is not okay.
“Timmy, I… I’m sorry, I…” Dick doesn't have the words. He can barely understand what's happening, much less properly express how truly remorseful he is for hurting his…
Brother. For hurting his brother. His brother.
His brother is dead. Isn't dead? Right, he’s not dead, but no one but Dick can see him, and isn't that a shame?
“Jay?” Dick slurs. His brother has to be around here somewhere.
“He's not here, Dick.” Tim sounds tired, eyes dulling. “He's never here.”
“Why? Where-?” He grunts, fighting the restraints for a moment. “Where’d he go?”
Tim sighs heavily. Sits down in a chair as someone - the person holding Dick down - guides Dick back onto the bed. “He's…” Tim stares at his hands.
“Tim,” Dick presses, fighting the urge to bite the man tying his restraints to the bed railings. “Timmy, where is he?”
“He died, Dick,” Tim insists. He finally looks up, and Dick swears it's Jason’s eyes staring back at him. “He died ten years ago.”
“Ten… what? No. No.”
“Mr. Drake?” It’s a new voice. Not one Dick is familiar with. Along with the voice is another figure, just barely present in Dick’s direct line of sight. His peripherals are looking a little shadowy, so he misses the woman’s face entirely.
“Yes?” Tim replies, sitting back. His eyes still watch Dick dutifully. Like he’s worried someone will take him away. Or maybe he’s just concerned that Dick will choke him again.
“I’m afraid your brother’s case is a bit… well, a bit beyond our capabilities. There are… other facilities with more resources. A bit more expertise.”
The woman’s words mean nothing to Dick. They’re all rainfall and static. Colors begin to dance across the room. Tim looks a bit less like himself and a bit more like Batman. The cowl doesn’t fit him right.
“No,” Tim says immediately, calm but firm. “No. He’s not going there.”
“Mr. Drake, you have to understand that we can’t keep him here if he’s violent-”
Brrrrrrrrrzt. Brrrrrrrrzt. Brrrrrrrrzt.
The room fills with bees, crashing through the windows, busting down the door. There are so many of them, it would best be described as a bee-tsunami. The whole room vibrates from their angry hums.
Or… no. It’s just Dick’s leg that is vibrating. And that’s weird, because-
Dick wakes with a start, eyes flying open. He’s on his feet in an instant, first searching for threats before determining his location.
No threats. There’s no one, actually. Just a dark rooftop overlooking the river. Well… it might be a bay, actually. It’s tough to tell from just a glance.
And that’s when Dick realizes it’s his phone that is buzzing and vibrating. Not bees. (How stupid. He really thought his phone was a bee-tsunami-?) Unfortunately, the caller ID makes bile creep up the back of Dick’s throat. In a split-second, questionable decision, he picks up.
“Hello?”
“Where are you?” Bruce's voice is gruff on the other end, biting with some sort of self-escalated frustration. Some little annoyance that, as Bruce ignored it, quickly grew into a world-ending conflict. A mountain/mole hill situation. “Why weren’t you picking up?”
Dick rubs the back of his neck, slowly sitting back down on the roof and checking his watch.
10:45.
He should have been back from the pharmacy hours ago. Where did all that time go?
“Oh, uh, yeah. About that. I…” Dick looks about the area, trying to get some inkling as to where he is. The river/bay/etc. is to the west, and actually…
Dick looks down and remembers exactly where he is and exactly why he chose to be here.
“Urgent business in Blüd,” he lies.
A grunt. It’s hard to tell over the phone if that’s a good grunt or a bad grunt. “And you’ve been ignoring my calls because…?”
“Urgent business in Blüd,” Dick repeats. “There wasn’t really time for a Sunday chat with you, Pops.”
A deeper grunt. Definitely bad, though Dick can’t be sure if it’s because Bruce doesn’t believe him or because Bruce dislikes Dick’s hilarious joke. “Are you safe?”
Aw. The old man cares.
“Yeah, good for now,” Dick replies. “I can’t help with the Vega case anymore, though. I’m gonna be buried for another week or two.”
“I’ll take care of Gotham.” It’s Bruce’s way of telling Dick that it’s all good, that he’s not upset that Dick ran off, that he’ll manage without him. A “don’t worry about it” every once in a while would be nice, but that’s not how Bruce operates.
“Good.”
There’s a pause, and Dick almost hangs up, assuming Bruce already did the same, but then Bruce makes a new sort of grunt, mostly angry, but a little uncertain as well. “Are you alright?”
Dick frowns. “I’m fine. Why?”
“You just… sound different.”
Huh. Dick thought he sounded fine. In fact, he still thinks he sounds fine. “No, I don’t think so.”
“Hn.”
The line goes dead. Bruce isn’t good at the whole “saying goodbye” thing, so he Irish exits each and every phone call like it’s his job, hobby, and life’s calling.
Dick sighs, shoving the phone back in his pocket. He really shouldn’t be up here in his civvies, but no one will see him. He’s sneaky. And no one looks up, anyway.
“Did you know I suffocated?”
Dick jumps to his feet, whipping around to see the little boy with the yellow cape sitting on the eaves, kicking his legs contentedly.
“I thought Batman would save me. Or even you, maybe. But no one ever did.” Blood pours from the boy’s nose and mouth. This doesn’t seem to bother him.
Dick doesn’t pay him any mind. He’s gotten pretty good at ignoring the little ghost boy, especially since the kid doesn’t pin him to the ground or hug him like the older Jason did. It’s so much easier when Dick can’t feel Jason’s hand on his shoulder. This hallucination is visual and auditory, but he doesn’t go beyond that, and Dick feels comfortable ignoring something like that. It’s practically second-nature.
Ghost Jason smiles wide, his teeth stained with red. “Can you sneak me out to the arcade this weekend?” He groans and rolls his eyes. “B is on some sort of cardio kick. We’ve done nothing but wind sprints all week. If I don’t get out of here soon, my legs might fall off.” A sickening schwiiip, and Dick watches as Jason’s legs are brutally torn from his body, leaving behind double sprays of arterial red.
With another sigh, Dick sits down and resumes his post, watching through the window as the Arkham guards make their rounds. It’ll take a while to get their schedules memorized, but Dick has time. As much time as it takes.
---
Jason doesn't sleep that night. He didn’t plan on it - aspiring crime lords keep later schedules than most - but he imagines that if he tried to sleep, he’d stare at the ceiling until morning light trickled past his blinds. There’s too much to think about.
Dick killed the Joker. Bruce brought him back. Dick feels so horrible about Jason’s death that he’s literally having a psychotic break.
Maybe Jason should have gone after Dick. It would be the responsible thing to do. But honestly? Even a mess, Dick is more capable than most people at their best.
Though he’s busy meeting new contacts and setting up a reputation for himself, Jason keeps his ears perked for alerts from his security system. If Dick ran off to tell Bruce that Jason is alive, there’ll be Bats stalking his apartment before dawn.
That, or Bruce will deem Dick insane and ship him off to Arkham. Because that’s the kind of father he is.
But Jason’s alarms never go off. No one tries to break in or even look through the windows. Guess Dick drew the short straw and will be wearing straight jackets for another month or so. Just until Jason makes his grand reveal. Then the Bat will realize that Dick was telling the truth and maybe own up to his mistakes and break Dick out. But until then…
Sorry, Dick. A necessary evil.
For the next week, Jason goes about his days more motivated to get this plan rolling than ever. What greater fuel for Jason’s burning hatred for Bruce than the knowledge that Bruce not only didn’t kill the Joker, not only brought the Joker back after dying, but brought the Joker back because he knew Dick couldn’t handle being a killer.
Bruce will move heaven and earth for his boys. That much is clear. But Jason hasn’t been one of his boys since he died. That is even clearer.
In deciding to save the Joker, Bruce made a choice between Dick and Jason. Save the Joker and spare Dick’s morality or watch the Joker die and rest easy knowing that the Joker can no longer hurt anyone like he hurt Jason. Step in for Dick’s sake or do nothing for Jason’s sake.
And Bruce picked Dick. Over Jason. Over every future victim of that green-haired maniac.
It makes Jason feel sick. The only thing that helps is working on his plan. Meeting contacts. Killing a guy here and there. Intimidating people. Making sure that Batman notices him.
But then Jason gets a job to beat down a mob boss in Arkham, and who is he to refuse a good ol’ rough-’em-up? It’s only as he’s entering Arkham that he realizes something is very, very wrong.
The issues begin with the guard at a side entrance. A guard who is now collapsed on the ground. He’s alive, and he probably won’t need a hospital, but he’ll be plenty sore for the next week.
Jason narrows his eyes and slips through the door. He quickly realizes that the guards by the metal detectors are unconscious too. It’s a conundrum that Jason should probably chalk up to good luck and nothing more. But Jason was a Bat, once. He thinks like a detective, and he just can’t ignore the pull of a good mystery.
Rather than head to the minor leaguers’ cell block, Jason follows the trail of unconscious guards down to the basement, where they keep the big bads of Gotham. This is where Scarecrow, Croc, the Joker live. Most of the time. When they aren’t escaping.
The criminals of the basement aren’t quiet like the other floors. They stare out their windows, goading and mocking any passerbys. And seeing a masked vigilante? One they probably don’t recognize yet?
Oh, the jeers are loud. It’s no wonder whoever’s behind this is knocking out guards. Anyone in a hundred mile radius could hear these guys.
“So who are you supposed to be, Red?” one shouts.
“Nice helmet, idiot!” another yells.
“Looking for your boyfriend?” a third shrieks. “He went that way.”
A fourth chirps in alarm. “Oh, don’t tell me Nightwing is taken!”
Jason frowns, continuing to run down the halls. Dick is taking all these people out? Why? Isn’t he supposed to be… y’know… keeping the guards safe? So they can keep Gotham’s Worst off of the streets?
Curious.
Over the insults and taunting, Jason hears one familiar, spine chilling voice. He’d recognize it anywhere. He could hear it if it was whispering in the middle of a hurricane, if it was ten thousand feet below a raging ocean.
Joker.
“Oh, Wingy, tell me you didn’t beat up all these guards for me? I think I might blush.”
“Say another fucking word, and I’ll make you eat your own spleen before you die!”
Oh shit. That’s definitely Dick, and that is definitely not something Dick should be saying. He’s… God, he sounds so strange. Like he’s trying to imitate Batman, almost. And there’s a tonal shift to it. A weird change in pitch that doesn’t quite fit the words he’s saying.
“That’s not like you, Wing-Ding. What’s the matter? Arguing with the Bat again? That’ll leave anybody on edge. I would know; me and Batsy never have seen eye-to-eye.”
“I killed you once, and Batman was around to save you. I won’t make the same mistake twice.”
Holy shit. Jason speeds up, now full-on sprinting to the Joker’s cell.
When Jason gets there, the door is open. Four guards lie broken on the floor. And the sounds of flesh against flesh is unmistakable.
“This is what you did to Jason, isn’t it??” Dick shouts from inside. “How does it feel??”
Jason bursts into the room, and the scene is as he expected:
The Joker is a limp rag doll. His right eye is purpling, and his lip is split. Nightwing grips the Joker’s collar with one shaky fist and slams his other fist into Joker’s face. Over. And over. And over.
Even behind the mask, Dick’s eyes are crazed, so deep in rage that he barely looks like himself. He's got tunnel vision, with only eyes for the Joker.
He's going to kill him. Again. Dick is going to kill the Joker.
And as much as Jason likes the idea of the Joker dead, he just can’t let it happen.
---
The Joker has to die. But not like this.
Jason wraps his arms around Dick’s, ripping him away from the Joker’s bloody mess of a face.
“Let GO of me!” Dick seethes, squirming and kicking and biting. “Let me GO!”
“Nightwing, you need to chill the fuck out,” Jason orders. He suddenly remembers the helmet. The voice mods. Dick can’t see his face and can’t hear his voice. All he sees is a stranger. All he hears is someone stopping him from his mission.
“Let me GO or I swear to-!”
“It’s Jason!” Jason shouts, letting go and ducking the elbow aimed for his nose. He pulls the latch on his helmet and rips off the mask underneath. “It’s me, Dick.”
Dick turns to square up, fully expecting to see a guard that woke up. What he doesn’t expect to see is Jason. Again. He hasn’t seen Jason in a week. Or… he hasn’t seen this older version of Jason in a week. Child Jason hasn’t left him alone for a second. Even now, he’s broken on the floor, bones eviscerated and organs torn to shreds. Each breath is a wheezy, wet battle. Dick tries to block that little Robin out. “Oh. You’re back.”
“Yeah. It’s me. And I need you to step away from Joker.” Jason carefully places his helmet on the ground and holds up his hands in peace. “Let’s get out of here, Dickie. We can talk about this once the murderer’s cell door is locked tight again.”
“Oh, isn’t this sweet,” the Joker coos from his spot on the floor. “Is that little JT? I thought I killed you for sure there, kiddo! And big brother, here to get revenge for his little bro; how cute.”
A volcano of rage erupts in Dick’s chest. “Shut up!” he hisses, spinning around and slamming his foot onto one of the Joker’s hands. Bones crunch under a choked scream.
“Dick,” Jason insists, making his approach slow and deliberate. “Stop. Let’s go home.”
“Not until we both can,” Dick growls, and isn’t that unfortunate? He’s still really convinced that Jason is a hallucination. That’s… kind of extremely concerning.
“You need to step back,” Jason persists.
Dick doesn’t understand. If Jason doesn’t want him to kill the Joker, then why is he haunting him? Why can’t Dick get a good night’s sleep without seeing that bloody yellow cape, that sunken chest, uneven and unmoving? Doesn’t Jason want this?
No. Dick meant to do this ages ago. The Joker is a threat, no matter how many doors you lock him behind, no matter how many guards sit outside his cell. Sometimes, the only option is to take the scum down yourself.
Dick slams a fist into the Joker’s gut, his face, his throat-
Arms lock around his own, ripping him away.
No.
“Okay, that’s enough!” Jason shouts. It takes everything in him not to let go when Dick fights to get away.
“No, no, no! Please, Jay! Please just-!” Dick wrestles an arm free, but Jason quickly snatches his wrist and twists his arm behind his back. “Jay, I’m doing this for you! Let go!”
“No,” Jason replies, voice raspy. “I can't let you do this.”
And it's stupid, really. Dick wants the Joker dead. Jason wants the Joker dead. There's no reason for Jason to stop him.
… none except the look in Dick’s eyes. He thinks he's here, but he's not. Something broke in him, that day he and Jason spoke. He's been running on fumes and rage ever since. He thinks this is the only way to give Jason peace. He thinks killing the Joker is the only option.
But Dick doesn't kill. That's not something he can fit into his moral code, no matter how hard he tries to make it work. He's already killed once, technically, and look where it got him. He's a fractured man with broken thoughts, living with one foot in the real world and another trapped in spiritual purgatory. And that's for killing someone who was immediately revived.
If Dick kills again, there's no coming back from it.
Truth be told, Jason’s not dead anymore. He doesn't need to be avenged, no matter how desperately he wants to be. The Joker living another few weeks won't kill him.
But killing the Joker right now will kill Dick. Not physically, at least at first, but the person he is at his core will rot away from it until he's nothing but a shell, better off dead.
And Jason can't let that happen. The Joker will die, but Dick isn't going down with him.
“I have to,” Dick insists, because how does Jason not get it? “He killed you, Jay! I can't… I can't…” His breath comes and goes with furious effort.
It’s not right. Jason should be alive, not the Joker. Dick was too weak to stop Bruce from saving the Joker the last time. He shouldn’t have waited so long. He must have forgotten how important Jason was. He must have forgotten that he’s a failed big brother.
The clown starts laughing again, too broken to stand up (Jesus, Dick, you didn’t have to turn both of his legs backwards!) but more than cruel enough to mock them.
Jason sees Dick’s attention drift back to the Joker, muscles tensing again. He grabs Dick’s chin, forcing his brother to look at him, not the horror show on the floor. “Hey. Hey. Look at me. Listen. It's not your fight, Dickie. It’s not your fight.”
There's a poorly stifled sob, a wet gasp, and then Dick stops fighting. Jason gently pulls him to his chest, and Dick buries his face in Jason’s shoulder, shaking and breathing unevenly.
“You're not crazy,” Jason promises. “I’m back for real. And I’m grateful that you killed him, but I can't lose you either.”
“You're… You're a good kid, Jase,” Dick says. “Too good.” Then his heart drops as he makes a horrifying realization: Jason is tangible again. He can feel Jason’s shoulder, his hand, his breath on his scalp. More tactile hallucinations? That… That can’t be good, can it?
“We’re going home now,” Jason replies. It's not a suggestion.
There's a moment of hesitation. A brief, white-knuckled attempt to stay in the Joker’s cell. “Wait-”
“No,” Jason insists, now grabbing Dick under the arm with a steel grip. He pulls him out of the cell, hesitates for a moment himself, and then slams the door shut, cutting off the clown’s wheezing laughter. Jason grabs the keys off the downed guard and locks the door again.
For Dick, the world is hazy. His ears pop from the pressure of the air around him. Jason’s image flickers. But then… so does everything else. He’s not sure why he's here or where here even is. All he knows is that he needs to do something desperately, though for the life of him, he can't remember what.
“Dick?” Jason sizes him up. He looks completely checked-out. “Let's go, okay? Before the guards wake up.”
In truth, they don't have much time at all. Guards are stirring, and backup can be heard rushing through the halls, headed for the basement. Alarms begin to blare, red lights flashing on every wall.
“I don't… What's happening?” The air is tight. No, no, Dick’s chest is tight. Stars are starting to spark in his vision, and oh boy, that's never a good sign, is it?
“We’re leaving,” Jason orders, adrenaline impatiently picking at his muscles. Move, move, move, they scream, but Jason can't leave without Dick. He grabs Dick’s arm again and physically drags him in the opposite direction of the footsteps. “Did you have an exit plan?”
Exit plan? Dick didn't… He didn't really worry about escaping. He just had to get here to do something. Leaving wasn't even a consideration for him. “No,” he mumbles, repeating when Jason screams at him to “talk louder for fuck’s sake!” He seems so real. Like he's actually digging bruises into Dick’s bicep. It's so hard to remember that he's fake.
“No escape plan. But… you're not-?”
“I am real,” Jason says sternly. He makes a quick decision, darting down a side hall to the right. He has no clue if there's an exit, but the sound of guards is getting louder. There's no time to second guess himself. “You are real. And there really is a swarm of trigger-happy security guards on our tails.”
“Oh.” Dick can’t hear himself over the alarms and the pounding of their feet against the chipped cement floor. “That’s bad.”
Jason leads him up a stairwell and back onto the main floor. Unfortunately, this was the wrong move. They round the corner, and there’s a mass of police officers storming towards them. Shit, there must be… what? Twenty? Thirty of them?
“If you can fight,” Jason calls, letting go of Dick and shoulder-checking the closest officer, throwing him into his buddies, “I’d appreciate some help!” He honestly doesn’t know if having Dick on his side would be a benefit right now. On one hand, he’s one of the best-trained fighters in the world and took down at least twenty guards on his own getting in here. On the other hand, he’s a little batshit right now.
Dick doesn’t reply. He doesn’t need to. He just falls in line with Jason, letting his body take over. Sending a quick kick towards the two men charging him, Dick knocks their arms to the side and sends their guns skittering on the tile. He’s a bit uncertain, if only because his head is swimming and he knows Jason isn’t real, which means he has to take out all these guys on his own. But he’s also Nightwing, so he’s done more with less. Not worth worrying over, really.
The pair move together, easily falling back into old routines and patterns that they both practiced with Batman but never together. It’s nostalgic for them both and also slightly painful. Dick mourns what he might have had if Jason lived. Jason mourns what he might have had if Bruce hadn’t brought Joker back.
Regardless, the group of officers is quickly whittled from thirty down to fifteen down to one, who, at this point, is shaking so badly that he can’t keep a steady aim. Jason almost feels bad shooting out his kneecaps.
Almost.
“Jay, did…?” Dick’s mouth goes dry. There are bullet wounds in the officer’s knees, but Jason is holding the gun, not Dick, so…
“Wait.” The breath catches in Dick’s throat. “Jason, you’re… oh, fuck. You’re real? I mean you’re… I’m not making all this up?”
“No way to know for sure,” Jason reasons, “other than staying here and both of us getting arrested. I don’t like that plan. Do you?”
Four years ago, Jason Todd died. Three years ago, Dick Grayson started having nightmares about it. Two years ago, the nightmares bled into the day time. One year ago, Dick finally got help.
For forty-nine weeks, everything was okay. The therapy was helping. The pain, the fear, the visions had all but faded, and what remained was more than manageable.
Three weeks ago, Dick saw Jason again. And his life has been a nightmare ever since.
Takes place after the appearance of the Red Hood but prior to the identity reveal.
Part 1
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
---
Jason Todd is dead. It's a fact that both he and his adoptive family are well-aware of. He died in Ethiopia from smoke inhalation following a brutal kidnapping and torture session with now-international criminal, the Joker, and then a warehouse explosion. He survived the kidnapping. Survived the beating. He even survived the explosion.
Yes, he survived the encounter for a tragically long time. Instead of falling to explosion or crowbar or clown shoe, Jason Todd died in agony, crumpled in the rubble with ash in his lungs and fire in his hair, desperately gasping for breath until his vision went black.
For Jason, these details were once hazy. Once unknown, back when he still had crowbar-related head trauma. But the longer he spends alive, the more comes back to him. Three weeks ago, he finally got a clear picture of the event that led him down this path. Of his mother and the bomb. He could finally see the eyes that matched the hyenic grin haunting his dreams. He finally knew the source of the heinous laughter that had swirled through his nightmares and loomed around dark corners for months. He finally remembered, in crystal-clear, high-def resolution, why Bruce’s failure to kill the Joker hurt him so entirely.
He spent the majority of those weeks on his bathroom floor, switching from hugging the toilet and coughing pathetically to hugging himself, hands occasionally gripping his hair as he stared at nothing.
As for Batman, he determined the specifics of Jason’s death within the hour. It was a tragedy, after all. Bruce’s tragedy. He lost days brooding over just how horrible of a death it must have been. How slow. How painful. If he had ever told Jason about his musings, Jason would’ve confirmed them. It was horrible. It was slow. It was painful.
But Bruce doesn't know Jason is alive again, and Jason isn't in any hurry to change that.
Dick didn’t learn about Jason’s death until months later because he had been in space. And even if he had only been out-of-town rather than out-of-galaxy, Bruce never attempted to call him. Not once. Dick learned after his return by a snot-nosed brat who mentioned, in an off-handed, dismissive comment, that Jason Todd had eaten dirt and had a formal burial months ago. (Dick wishes he knew right away. He wishes he could have found out any other way. But that was how and when he knew, and he doesn’t get to change that.)
So, yes. Everyone - even the government, and Bruce doesn't tell the government anything - knows Jason Todd is dead. The number of people that know Jason is alive again… Well, that fact is a bit more classified. And today, the number increases by one.
Assuming Dick ever emerges from whatever Bat-branded, guilt-ridden nervous breakdown he’s currently in.
“Doing okay, man?” Jason sits beside Dick on the couch and taps him on the leg to get his attention.
“Mmph,” Dick grunts, because truly, genuinely, he thinks he’s finally snapped. He’s on the run from the cops, in dire need of an involuntary hospitalization, and being poked by Halluci-Jason like he thinks this is a game.
It’s not a game. This is Dick’s life.
“Yeah,” Jason sighs. “Guess not.” He’ll admit: he’s feeling a lot more sympathetic to the guy. He may be a jerk for missing his funeral and not always being the most supportive when Jason was alive, but anyone who’s this torn up about a death… hallucinating… muttering about how much they miss the deceased…
Well, it’s hard to believe that they’re faking it. Especially if they almost got arrested for it.
“Can I get you something?” Jason asks hesitantly. His apartment is modest and barely furnished. Half the outlets don’t work, most of the lightbulbs are on their last legs, and something started smelling in the vents last week. But Jason’s still going to try to be a good host. “I… wouldn’t drink the tap water without boiling it or using a serious filter, but I can get you tea? Coffee? I think I’ve got some leftover chicken broth if that’s more your speed?”
Dick doesn’t realize it’s a question at first. But then something clicks in his brain, he blinks, and he glances over at Jason… Not Jason. “You… You can’t make me tea. You’re dead.”
Jason is going to be patient. That is what he tells himself. But what he actually says is:
“How many fucking times do I have to explain this to you? I don’t care what the fuck Serena or Shayla or-”
“Sarah.”
“Thank you. I don’t care what Sarah told you. Do you feel this?” Jason shakes Dick’s shoulder. “Do you hear my fucking voice? Have you ever had a hallucination so fucking real that you believe I’m fake right now?”
For maybe the first time since they’ve arrived at Jason’s apartment, Dick looks at him. Not through him. Not past him. At him, like he actually believes Jason is there. “No,” Dick admits. “I’m… I just think I’ve finally cracked. I… Shit, I’m not supposed to be talking to you.”
“Listen to me,” Jason orders, gripping Dick’s shoulder harder than he needs to. “Talia al Ghul. Remember her?”
Dick frowns. Because, yeah. Obviously, he remembers. How could he forget if his own hallucination is telling him about her? But all he can say is, “Yes.”
“She chucked me in a Lazarus Pit,” Jason explains, words strained with the forced patience that’s been eluding him for the last hour. “I’m back. For real.” He doesn’t go into detail about the waking up in a casket or the digging himself out of his own grave. He doesn’t have a good explanation for that, and this version of Dick Grayson - this guy who’s barely holding it together, if you can even call it that - is not going to believe anything that Jason doesn’t 100% understand and believe himself. The complicated nature of his resurrection can wait until Dick is… normal again.
But that’s not really computing in Dick’s mind. Lazarus Pits aren’t all-powerful. They can revive the recently deceased and no more. How did Talia revive an old corpse? Or did she resurrect him shortly after his death? But why? She barely even knew Jason existed. And how? Bruce wired the casket like it was Fort Knox. He would have known the second an ant walked over the grave, much less if the body was removed. And…
And does Dick really care enough to fight it anymore? So he’s hallucinating. So he’s starting to believe it’s reality. So what? This is…
He just really wants his brother back.
Dick nearly chokes Jason out, hugging him just shy of a second death. But then he realizes that oh, yeah, maybe hallucinations need to breathe too, and he lets up, resting his forehead on Jason’s shoulder.
Jason hugs him back, tentatively at first but then with more intent. He… He supposes he missed Dick. He missed having someone in his corner, even if he could be an angsty asshole at times.
“I miss you, Jay,” Dick murmurs into Jason’s jacket. “I miss you so much.”
Miss, he said. Present tense. He’s still not convinced. Jason will have to take what he can get. “‘s’alright, Dickie,” Jason assures him, giving an awkward pat on the back. “We’re okay.”
“‘m sorry. Shoulda saved you. ‘m so-” His voice cuts off with a sob, and Jason’s grip tightens on Dick’s shoulders.
“It’s okay,” Jason reassures him, though his voice has gone weak, barely holding any comfort at all. He kind of wishes Dick would just shut up. Another part of him needs this, even if every word feels like a twisted dagger in his chest. It’s a confusing swirl of reactions, because Jason thought for sure he’d crave these pleas, this desperation to fix things.
But that’s not true. When Jason first saw Dick today, he wanted revenge. He wanted Dick to feel every ounce of pain that Jason did. There was no reconciling. Forgiveness was never an option. All he wanted was that agony. That realization that he was wrong. That begging for another chance, knowing that it could never happen. That’s what Jason thought he wanted.
But then Dick started apologizing, and all thoughts of revenge fled Jason’s mind. Now, he not only considers forgiveness but craves it. He wants a chance at making things right. He doesn’t like that Dick feels as horrible as he does. He needs Dick to feel this terrible, yes. He needs to know that he was missed. That he was regretted. But he doesn’t bask in it like he thought he would. He just feels sick.
“-see you everywhere now-” Jason doesn’t realize it, but Dick continues speaking. He mumbles a full monologue, explaining every single thing he should have done better. Every moment that he could have been - should have been - a better brother. He talks about how horrific Jason’s death must have been. How no person should have had to endure that, much less a child. Much less Jason. And then he talks about the now. The now, Bruce is a mess. The now, I see you in every window pane, in the corner of my eye, on the inside of my eyelids. The now, another child has gotten involved, all because I wasn’t willing to pull Bruce out of his own misery. The now, I’ve failed you again with Tim.
Jason doesn’t hear any of it. It’s too muffled, and Dick doesn’t actually voice half of what he means to say. It comes out in slurred half-speech, disappearing under a layer of hysteria and worn leather. Not that Dick realizes this.
“Don’t…” Jason laughs, a sorry, confused, broken little thing. He tastes salt and the must of his stuffy apartment. “Don’t do that,” he pleads, fingers absently running through Dick’s hair as he mumbles into Jason’s shoulder. “You’re fine. It’s okay.”
And then, to Jason’s horror, he feels his last ounce of composure leave him, and he grips Dick’s shirt like it’s about to blow away, knuckles white and palms sweating. He rests the side of his face against Dick’s head.
And then he sobs. Disgustingly. Uncontrollably. Without even the slightest buildup. It’s just a flood. He breathes in the smell of Dick’s conditioner, and he just remembers that time. That moment Before, when things were still okay. When everything wasn’t so goddamn complicated. It was just Jason and Bruce and Alfred, with Dick showing up every once in a while to argue with B or to take Jason out on a secret patrol. Jason remembers when he was a kid - still a traumatized kid, but a kid nonetheless - who didn’t know what his own skull cracking sounded like. Who didn’t know what it felt like to beg, scream, plead for help to some merciless aberration of nature with green hair and red lips. Who didn’t know what it was like to know Batman could never save him but still believed - up until the very end - that he would.
Jason remembers that. He envies that kid. And he mourns the loss of that kid’s future. Not even a Lazarus Pit can fix something like this.
And this man… this guy muttering into his sleeve is an eternal reminder of that envy, that loss. As much as Jason hated him sometimes, he’d looked up to Dick. He hated being compared to the first Robin, but as a person… Dick was pretty cool. Always angry at B. Sometimes a little neglectful if he was in enough of a funk. But still someone that Jason admired. Someone that he thought his future might look like.
Then the clown showed up.
“Jay?” Dick finally says clearly, lifting his head and cuing Jason to let go. “Am I crazy?” Dick assumes he must be. There’s no alternative. No other reason that Jason Todd could be sitting beside him on a couch, desperately wiping away tears with his palms.
Jason considers this. “No,” he replies. “Not crazy.”
“Come home.” Dick doesn’t mean to say this, but that’s what he says. It slips out like he actually believes Jason is real, which of course he isn’t. But he’s here, and he smells the same, and he’s still got the same freckles and nose and face shape and-
And Dick can only take so much before he breaks. If this is a dream, then at least he’ll wake up having seen his brother again. If this is a hallucination, then he’s probably already on his way to a psych ward. Maybe Arkham, if he’s hurt people.
… who cares? He has Jason back.
“Dick, I… I can’t do that.”
“So you are a hallucination?” Dick tries to hide the abject sorrow in his tone. It doesn’t work.
“No. How many times do I need to tell you?”
Dick shifts back against the couch, still shoulder-to-shoulder with Jason. “Then why can’t you come home?”
“It’s-” Jason’s breath halts in his throat. He shouldn’t have to explain himself. It’s obvious. He can’t come home because… Well, because he just can’t. “It’s complicated. I… I miss you too, but…”
Dick’s eyes suddenly sober, and he tilts his head, creases his brow, and then sighs. “B. You’re upset with B.”
“More or less.” Jason says, but it’s really more. More, more, more than upset. Fuming. Livid.
...heartbroken.
Dick sees it all in his brother’s eyes. He sees the anger, the regret, the betrayal. And he knows it all too well.
They’re silent for a moment. The seconds tick by like sap oozing down a tree trunk.
“What did he do, Jase?” Dick finally asks, voice quiet but possibly more dangerous than Jason has ever heard it.
“Nothing,” Jason replies, and it’s the complete truth. “He didn’t do anything.”
He doesn’t say certain words. Important words. Words like, He didn’t kill the Joker. Words like, He didn’t let me be his last victim. Words like, He sat by and did nothing.
But Dick hears them. And maybe he is hallucinating a bit, because he hears the words with such clarity that he doesn’t question the speaker (or lack thereof). He just nods resolutely. “You don’t have to talk to him, but I can’t lose you. Not again.”
“You didn’t do anything either.” Jason doesn’t mean to say it, but it slips out anyway.
Dick nods again, rubbing the back of his neck. He doesn’t move away from Jason, and Jason doesn’t move away from Dick. They just sit side-by-side, shoulders touching.
It’s far too long before Dick speaks again. So long, in fact, that Jason forgot what he said to prompt the response.
“I killed him. The Joker.”
“You…?” Jason turns his whole body to look at Dick, pulling his feet up onto the couch and sitting cross-legged. “You didn’t do shit. He’s alive. Don’t fucking lie to me about it!”
But Dick just clenches his jaw, hands closing into fists and then opening again. “He’s alive, yeah. But I… God, I tried, Jay.” He tries to push back a headache, but Jason grabs his wrist, eyes like lasers.
“Explain,” Jason grits out, because he’s not in the mood to be toyed with today. The Golden Boy would never kill.
… but then again… Dick did have a bit of a psychotic break back there. Maybe… Maybe he really did…?
No. Jason can’t get his hopes up like that.
“I beat him to death,” Dick says simply, staring at his hands in his lap. His voice is eerily steady - steadier than even he expects. “He said your name, and I just-” He scrunches his eyes closed. Chews his lip. “I hit him until he stopped breathing. Batman did CPR.”
Dick doesn’t mean to mention Bruce. He doesn’t. He knows that Bruce only did what was best for Dick. After all, the moment Dick realized the Joker wasn’t breathing, he panicked. There was relief, yes, and he was pleased with the result, of course, but he freaked, because he wasn’t a killer. He didn’t kill. And Bruce brought the Joker back because he knew Dick would never forgive himself.
But looking into Jason’s eyes, Dick realizes just how selfish a sentiment that is. How can he live with himself knowing he was the reason the Joker came back? That he was at fault for the suffering of every subsequent victim of the Joker? And all because Bruce was trying to protect Dick’s feelings.
Dick feels nauseous.
“You killed him,” Jason echoes dumbly. “And Bruce brought him back.”
“I’m… God, I’m so…” Sorry sounds so pathetic. So inadequate. Of course he’s sorry, but what good is sorry now? Now that the Joker is still alive, still hurting people? What good is it?
Dick doesn't know. Jason knows even less.
“You killed him,” Jason repeats, because he actually believes him. Somehow, this fits. This makes sense. This half-crazed, barely functioning version of Dick Grayson would snap if the Joker mentioned Jason. He would beat the guy to death with his bare hands. This person on the couch next to him and that impossible standard in pixie boots are two very, very different people.
And yet, somehow, Bruce hasn't changed a bit. The joy of learning of the Joker’s demise cannot be separated from the devastation of realizing that Bruce has once again spurned Jason for the bleached skin and grinning lips of a homicidal maniac. For the man who took Jason away from him.
It's not fair, and life isn't fair, but this hurts worse than possibly anything Jason has been through.
“I love you, Jay,” Dick says, knowing that that may never be enough. “You're my brother. You… You never should have died, least of all because of him.” He can't mask the growl in his throat.
“You let Bruce bring him back?” Jason asks hesitantly, because that's the sticky part. Dick cared enough to kill the Joker but not enough to stop Bruce from saving him? Not enough to track him down and kill him again? It doesn't make sense.
“I…” Dick rubs the back of his neck, looking anywhere but at Jason’s inescapable gaze. “I don't really remember what I did after I… after he died.”
Lame excuse. Both of them know it, but they also both believe it's the truth. Jason thinks Dick would have to be half-mad to break the no-killing rule. Rage-induced amnesia is plausible enough. Dick, on the other hand, has one certainty and one certainty only: he killed the Joker. Everything else that day is a hazy blur. He didn't even learn Bruce resuscitated the Joker until many guilt-ridden days later, benched from patrol and only barely sane enough to absorb the words.
“But you haven't tried to kill him since?”
Dick laughs. It sounds hollow and rickety. “Like someone would actually let me get within fifty miles of the guy.” He coughs, eyes sobering, and shakes his head. “No. No, I’m… I couldn't.”
Jason leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Bat’s still got you under his thumb, huh? You two always did have a weird dynamic. No matter how much you yelled at him and cussed him out, you still followed his lead when it mattered. Good little soldier,” he huffs.
Bile fills Dick’s mouth, and he swallows it back down. “You followed him too, Jay.”
“I was younger and stupid,” Jason counters, shooting Dick a baleful glance. “I figured it out in the end. Sounds like you didn't.”
“Maybe not,” Dick hums. “I’m sorry.”
Jason expects excuses. Defensiveness. Meaningless, lengthy apologies. But he doesn't expect one simple, “I’m sorry.” No follow-up clarification. No explaining away his fault in the offense. It takes him by surprise.
“You…” Jason doesn't finish the thought. There's not much more to say. He scratches his neck, sighs exaggeratedly, and stands up. “I’ll make tea.”
“Jason?” Dick calls, though he doesn't need to. “It's… It's really you, right? I don't need to seek psychiatric help?”
The snort from Jason’s nose is almost insulting. “Oh, I may be real, but I never said you didn't need help, Dickie.” He taps Dick’s forehead and then smoothly dodges as Dick swats at him. “Actually, I believe my exact words were ‘fucked in the head,’ so… you should probably make that appointment.”
“Dick,” Dick grumbles.
“Good job, buddy,” Jason coos patronizingly as he fills the kettle from the sink. “You remembered your name.” He resorts to humor, because that’s easier. It’s easier than facing what Dick did. What Batman did. What Jason’s blood screams for him to do.
“I’m having a mental crisis,” Dick groans, pulling his legs to his chest and burying his face between his knees. “Don’t mock me.” He, too, finds humor a safe haven in this world of clashing grief and relief. He still isn’t certain Jason is real. It’s… It’s simply too good to be true. But he can’t find evidence to the contrary either. Maybe he should check the gravesite? Just in case?
“What was that?” Jason sets the kettle on the stove and holds a hand to his ear in mock attention. “Couldn’t hear you over the brooding.”
Dick mutters something from the other side of the wall, but Jason doesn’t pay him much mind. He can’t. Not really. His mind is buzzing, thoughts zipping across his brain and crashing into his skull. And honestly, Dick is probably experiencing something similar. They’ve both had their own traumas and revelations tonight. It wouldn’t hurt to take a break.
Content with a mild distraction, Jason focuses on the task at hand. He collects his only two mugs from the sink, considering, for a long moment, simply rinsing them out but then wondering what Alfred would think and washing them properly. Next, he goes to the cabinet, pulling out honey and off-brand Lipton. Again, he considers how appalled Alfred would be to know Jason is resorting to generic tea. (“I prefer to dry the leaves myself, Master Jason,” he’d always say in that stuffy tone.)
It doesn’t matter, though. Alfred isn’t here. And even if he was, Jason doesn’t care about his opinion. He doesn’t care about anyone’s opinions.
The water takes longer to boil than usual, or it at least feels that way. Jason doesn’t go back to the living room to wait it out, though. He just watches for steam, doing his best not to think about all the thoughts that are begging to be thought of.
Dick killed the Joker for me- NO.
Bruce brought the Joker back- STOP.
Dick is probably one stubbed toe away from losing his mind, and I’m worried about- NO, NO, NO.
Jason sighs. Forget simple distractions. He needs the whole Gotham Orchestra and a small arsenal of fireworks to keep his mind off this. Unfortunately for him, he has access to neither.
“Hey, Dick?” Jason calls, giving up on watching the kettle do absolutely nothing. “You, uh… You still good?” He passes from the kitchen to the living room, and his heart sinks to his feet.
The couch is empty. The window is open. And Dick Grayson is nowhere to be found.
Four years ago, Jason Todd died. Three years ago, Dick Grayson started having nightmares about it. Two years ago, the nightmares bled into the day time. One year ago, Dick finally got help.
For forty-nine weeks, everything was okay. The therapy was helping. The pain, the fear, the visions had all but faded, and what remained was more than manageable.
Three weeks ago, Dick saw Jason again. And his life has been a nightmare ever since.
Takes place after the appearance of the Red Hood but prior to the identity reveal.
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
---
They see each other at the pharmacy. It's not a planned meet. They don't even know why the other is there. But that's where they see each other: the dilapidated CVS on Elmsworth.
“Uh-” Jason doesn't know what to say. He wants to cover his face. Turn around and run away and pretend that nothing happened. But he also has the worst cold. If he doesn't get some sudafed soon, he’s pretty sure he's gonna die.
“Fuck,” Dick says, earning himself a harsh glare from the mother standing nearby, who now has a small horde of children at her ankles echoing, “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” and pulling each other's hair. Dick doesn't care; he's clearly lost his mind. In fact, he considers, in that very moment, dialing 911 and getting himself admitted.
Maybe, Jason thinks, I can pretend I’m someone else. Yep, nothing to see here, just someone who looks a lot like your dead…
Well. They're not brothers. Dick isn't Bruce’s son. And honestly, Jason doesn't consider himself Bruce's son anymore either. (But maybe they're brothers from those facts alone.)
But it doesn't matter what Jason intended to do, because Dick shakes his head, grabs an economy-sized bottle of extra-strength Tylenol, and breezes right past him. Like he's not even there. (Because for Dick, he absolutely isn't.)
And this… This bothers Jason. More than he’d ever like to admit. Had he truly been so forgettable, taken up such little space in Dick’s mind that he doesn't even have the decency to remember him?? (Well… he had missed his funeral…)
But Dick keeps moving. He’d sprint away, but that's never worked before. He just needs to keep his head down. Block it out. Maybe take his psychiatrist up on that antipsychotic prescription.
“Hey!” Jason shouts after him. “You dick!”
The mother, still rocking an inconsolable infant and ignoring the herd of children who have just learned their new favorite word, looks at him with desperation in her eyes. “Please,” she says, meek but clearly pushed past her limits. “There are kids.”
Jason's face goes red. “Ah, fuck- I mean… That's his… ah, that's his… name…”
The mother does not look convinced.
“Sorry, ma’am.”
And meanwhile, Dick (because yes, of course that's his name; English was his second language, so how could he know that the name from all those 60s shows he learned English from was a modern swear word?) hears Jason’s cry clear as day. And it only serves to terrify him further. He practically sprints to the self-checkout, accidentally scans the Tylenol twice, pays the extra fifteen bucks, and runs out without waiting for the mile-long receipt to print out.
Logically, Dick knows that running won't do anything. Jason is in his head - has been for three years now - and he can't outrun his own mind. But he can damn well try.
And Jason… Jason’s just pissed. First, Dick acts like he’s not even there, and then, he accidentally teaches a poor woman’s children a new curse word, and everything sucks, and it’s Dick’s fault, the absolute dick.
So, in the only reasonable response, Jason sprints after him. It becomes a footrace through the parking lot, with Dick swearing and chucking the Tylenol at Jason’s head and Jason ducking and proceeding to tackle Dick to the ground.
Dick has seen Jason a lot in the last few years. He’s usually still that scrawny fifteen-year-old, sometimes whole and hale and sometimes burnt beyond recognition. More recently, he’s seen a different version of the ghost boy in the yellow cape: a more grown, more adult Jason with a streak of white in his dark hair. He’s always far away, always distant. Never speaks. But he’s there, and Dick hates it every time because he knows Jason never got to grow up. He never got to be the spectre in the corner of Dick’s eye.
But Dick will admit: being tackled by an adult Jason Todd is a completely new type of hallucination for him. It solidifies his decision to call a professional and get some serious medication. He can only imagine what it looks like to the elderly couple pulling into the parking lot, seeing some dude falling on the pavement and flailing around.
Honestly, Dick may not need to call 911. Someone will probably do it for him.
“Quit it!” Jason hisses as Dick attempts to push him off. And it’s interesting, because Dick looks concerned but not… haunted. He’s not shocked to see Jason. He’s nervous, not surprised, like someone going to their hometown and seeing their ex. Not unexpected, but wholly unwelcome all the same.
It only makes Jason angrier.
“I’m not arguing with him,” Dick mutters under his breath. “I’m not talking to him. I will not start talking to-”
“You better fuckin’ well talk to me, you heartless bastard,” Jason seethes. “Do you know who I am?” And he knows the answer already. Why else would Dick have tensed up when he saw him? Why else would he have run out of the store?
But Dick turns his head. Tries to push himself up like Jason doesn’t have a knee on his chest, pinning him down. And something closer to panic sparks in his eyes.
“Why-?” Dick mumbles, swiping at his chest. His eyes widen when his hand hits Jason’s leg. “Oh. Oh, fuck.”
Dick has absolutely lost it. He thought he was fine - thought that the therapy was working and he was doing a decent job taking care of himself for once in his life - but now he realizes just how fucked he is.
Dick’s psychologist explained the types of hallucinations with him a year back. She talked about the kinds he described to her: auditory - hearing voices, catching Jason’s scream and the clunk of a metal crowbar against the boy’s ribs - and visual - seeing things, watching as a decaying child wearing the tattered remains of the Robin costume (Dick’s costume) chokes on his own blood. She described a few other types: smell and touch and the like. The fact that Dick rarely experienced more than one type of hallucination at a time, she had explained, is a positive thing. It makes it easier to differentiate between reality and the misfiring neurons in his brain.
But Dick has to wonder what this means now. Auditory and visual hallucinations, he’s dealt with, but being able to touch a vision? To be tackled by it? This has… never happened before. It’s possible - absolutely it’s possible - but Dick doesn’t know what to do about it.
“It’s not real,” Dick mumbles to himself, trying again and again to sit up, but the weight crushing his chest never feels any less real. He knows it’s fake, so how does he convince his body of that?
“Dude, have you lost it?” Jason wonders. He’s… He’s furious at Dick for the absolute audacity to not care that Jason is alive, but the guy is also talking to himself and staring out at nothing and continually trying to sit up when Jason very clearly won’t let him do that. He’s acting… strangely to say the least.
“I’m not talking to him,” Dick says again.
“Then I’m not moving,” Jason decides.
And it occurs to Dick that, despite what his psychologist advised, perhaps he should play along with the hallucination. Maybe if he can convince the part of his mind pretending to be Jason to get off him, he’ll physically be able to move again.
“Okay, okay, okay,” Dick sighs, hands up in peace. “What do you want?”
Jason stares at Dick. Looks him dead in his cold, unfeeling eyes and comes to an unfortunate conclusion: Dick doesn’t feel a goddamn thing. He doesn’t care that Jason is back. There’s no shock. No relief. Not even anger. Just resignation.
“I want you to give a shit,” Jason growls. “I’m back, and you’re acting like it’s fucking Tuesday!”
“Well… I see you a lot, so…” Dick shrugs as best he can while pinned to the blacktop.
“You’ve known?” Jason roars. “You knew I was back, and you never tried to contact me??”
“I’m… not supposed to talk to you,” Dick says, looking away. “Sarah says it gives credence to a false narrative.”
“What? Who the fuck is Sarah? What the hell are you talking about??”
“She’s-” Dick shakes his head, trying once again to nudge Jason off. But Jason is even less willing to move now. “Doesn’t matter. This was stupid. I shouldn’t’ve tried to…” He stares at a cigarette butt next to his head. “Fuck. I miss him.”
Jason blinks. “Come again?”
“Goddamn it. I should not be-” Dick huffs out a breath. “Fuck, dude. I wish you were real, okay? I wish you were actually here. And apparently, I would rather live in this delusion than have to keep going like… like… Fuck.”
Jason doesn't know what he's talking about. Not even a little.
“Dick, it's Jason.”
Dick buries his face in his hands. “No, you're not.” He wants to scream. He really does. Because it's bad enough convincing yourself that a very real-looking, real-sounding, real-feeling hallucination of your brother is all in your head, but now he has to explain to said hallucination that he's actually dead and just a figment of Dick’s imagination. A misfiring pathway in his brain.
Wait. Fuck. No, he doesn't. He doesn't have to say shit.
“Get off me,” Dick orders, trying to push Halluci-Jason off him.
“If I’m not Jason, then who the fuck do you think I am?”
“You aren't,” Dick hisses. “You're a poorly managed mental illness, okay? Get off me.”
Jason sits back on his heels, letting Dick go. “Huh.” He scratches the back of his head. That's a… new one. He's heard plenty of insults in his life and the one before that, but he's never been called a…
Jason helps Dick sit up. “You're… You are Dick, right? Dick Grayson? I didn't just… tackle some stranger, right?”
Dick digs his fingers in his hair, nails sharp on his scalp. Considering they feel just as real as the fake Jason Todd, it does nothing to ground him. “I should not,” he tells himself. “I’m not going to. I won't.”
Fuck. How is he going to explain this to Sarah?
“You-?” Jason places a gentle hand on Dick’s shoulder. Dick thinks it feels like lava. Jason thinks it feels like his brother isn't eating enough. “Dude, you seriously… You're mentally… fucked. What happened? You couldn't handle being replaced a second time? Did Babs break up with you for good? Or-?”
Dick grabs the collar of Jason’s jacket. The leather is soft in his hand. “YOU DIED!” he shrieks, giving up on any guise of sanity. He's been lying in a parking lot for how long now? If someone's going to call the cops, they already have. “That's what happened! God-fucking-dammit, Jay! You DIED! And ever since, all I see is you! Every-fucking-where! The kids we help on patrol all have your face. Every towel on a clothesline is your cape. Each person I fail to save is you! It's your fucking body cold on the ground, and considering you are just a fucking hallucination, I don't know why you're making me explain it!”
Jason’s stomach drops to his feet. Dick looks at him with the intensity of an Olympic archer going for the gold. His eyes crack and bleed with a hopeless desperation, like he’s still clinging to a hazy fantasy world where Jason never died. His hands shake, expression far beyond grief, beyond desolation.
This is real for him. He really, truly believes Jason is still dead.
Jason almost feels bad. His sudden appearance has made the Golden Boy go crazy? Made him think he's seeing things? It's… pathetic, really.
As if to prove Jason’s point, Dick lets go of the jacket, hugs his own legs, and presses his face to his knees. “Just… please leave me alone. I can't do this anymore.”
He should be mad. Dick had missed Jason’s funeral. He was furious when Bruce replaced him. He resented that Jason was adopted and he wasn't. Jason has no reason to pity this guy who pretended to be his brother.
And yet…
And yet, here he is, pitying him anyway.
“Dick,” Jason says, voice softening to something kinder than his usual bark. “I’m not a-”
There's a siren approaching. Dick stiffens, head shooting up, red eyes panicked as he looks past Jason. (Past Not-Jason, Dick reminds himself. This isn't actually Jason.)
Red and blue lights shine down the road. A middle-aged woman with a bob and a bad hair dye watches Dick from the CVS entrance, a phone against her ear and a comically large pair of sunglasses perched on her nose.
“Shit,” Dick and Jason say in unison. (Well… Dick says it. The hallucination is just another part of him, so it's not like he's saying anything in unison with anyone.)
“Damn,” Jason mutters, wondering how good of a look the woman got of his face. Would she be able to give the cops a description?
Either way, Jason needs to get out. He climbs to his feet and holds out a hand to Dick. But Dick just stares at it. Stares through it.
“C’mon, man,” Jason urges. “You're not going to prison for something as stupid as this.”
But this isn't stupid. This is serious. Dick shakes his head. “I’m crazy, Jay. I’ve been rolling around on the pavement and talking to myself. I could… I could be dangerous, and I don't even… I don't know what's real anymore. Hell, I’m talking to you, and I said I-”
“Fuck that,” Jason interrupts. He grabs Dick’s arms and drags him up. “Come on; we're getting out of here.”
And, arguably inadvisably, Dick lets himself be pulled down an alley and into the depths of the Gotham streets.
You don't call your blood siblings "brother" and "sister." You say that to people who you VIEW as your sibling. So they know that you see them as family. Bio siblings already know they're stuck with you
Who Are You When The Curtain Falls? (Part 6, How To Heal Your Talon)
Talons are made to last. They aren’t alive, after all, which significantly reduces the chance of death by illness or injury and completely nullifies any age-related death. Even cold, a Talon’s greatest weakness, only causes them to hibernate. They may look and feel dead, but they’re plenty capable of reanimating once they thaw out. Truthfully, a Talon goes out one of two ways:
1. Complete and total destruction of the Talon’s body in the heat of battle
Or
2. Being neutralized by the Court when they determine the Talon is no longer worthy of the title
That’s how a Talon is supposed to die.
But that's not how this Talon dies. This Talon dies to become something else. Something more.
And for conspiring against nature, this Talon pays the price.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
---
“Should we-?”
“Keep that cryo-gun ready, Damian,” Tim orders, slowly approaching the expressionless, bloody figure sitting on the floor.
“Hey,” Tim says. “Dick. Gray Son. It's Tim. I’m just gonna sit here, okay?”
But Dick doesn't look at him. Tim can't even tell if he's breathing. (Though that’s not something he does much anymore, is it?)
“What did you say happened again, Jay?”
Jason raises an unamused eyebrow. “He broke out of the cell and stabbed Court Master What’s-Her-Face in the eye. And then tried to kill himself.”
“And he's been like this ever since?”
Jason shrugs. “More or less.”
“Gray Son,” Tim repeats, hating that he even has to use the name. “Can you hear me?”
Dick stares straight ahead. If he heard, he makes no attempt to broadcast this.
“Damian?” Tim calls. “You ready?”
“Just do it,” Damian replies.
Slowly, hesitantly, Tim taps Dick’s hand. He’s prepared to spring backwards and roll out of the way so Damian can use the freeze gun, but Dick doesn’t respond.
Undeterred, Tim prods Dick’s shoulder. “Hey. Gray Son. Dick. Look at me.”
Nothing.
“Okay, maybe…” Tim hates to suggest it - hates to think that it’s even a possibility - but he can’t rule anything out. “Does someone else want to try? Maybe he’ll respond to one of us.”
So they try, passing off the cryo-gun as they take turns trying to get Dick’s attention. It isn’t until Cass that he stands up, and even then, Tim is pretty sure he only did it because Cass dragged him onto his feet.
“You should get some rest,” she offers, slowly guiding him by the hand up the stairs. Tim isn’t sure where she’s taking him, exactly.
“Um, maybe we shouldn’t take him to the Manor?” Tim suggests, and Cass hesitates. Dick stops dead in his tracks, eyes still out-of-focus and unseeing.
Bruce rubs his face wearily. “As long as we keep something up there to… calm him down, I don’t see why not. It might help to see his old bedroom?”
Right. They hadn’t touched Dick’s bedroom since he died. Alfred kept it pristine while he was still alive, dusting every day like he expected Dick to waltz through the door any minute. After that, it was retired. The room went untouched. No one ever went in. It was an unspoken agreement that the bedroom would never be used again. Not under any circumstances. (Though Tim will admit, he thinks it’s because Bruce never stopped looking for Dick. He was holding out hope that he’d find the rightful occupant eventually. And… he was right to, Tim supposes.)
“Come on,” Cass coos, taking Dick’s hand again. He follows her blindly, looking, for the first time since he's returned, just as much like a zombie as he truly is. Is it possible that some aspect of the Court’s control (beyond the Electrum, of course) was keeping him alive? Is he slowly going to break down into a corpse again?
Tim does his best to banish the thought. He’s relatively unsuccessful.
Cass and Tim escort Dick upstairs, while the rest are left to sort out the dead body in the Cave. Barbara doesn't know about it yet, and they don't intend on telling her until it's out of Bruce Wayne’s basement.
As soon as they pass through the grandfather clock, there's a barking and a skittering of nails against the hardwood.
Foolishly, in his heart of hearts, Tim had hoped that the dog jumping on Dick’s legs and scratching his Court-issued boots would finally snap him out of this. Damian had recounted an incident where Haley was pawing at the containment cell, and Dick had spoken softly to her, idly stroking a finger down the glass as if to pet her. And Tim had just thought… well… his ego could take the hit if Dick woke up for the dog and not him.
But it was a silly thing to hope for. Dick just keeps moving, gaze unfocused and stricken. No matter how much Haley yips or nips or bows, tail wagging with the kind of hopeful optimism that only something as pure as a dog can have, Dick doesn't react. He just steps, steps, steps. He trips over her once, and as if sucked of all life, grace, and awareness, he collapses like a rag doll. Haley whimpers and scampers over to lick his face in apology. He doesn't react to that either.
“Easy,” Cass says quietly, taking him under the arm. Tim takes him on the other side, one hand still holding the cryo-gun, and together, they lift him back to his feet. “You okay?”
Dick doesn't reply. (How shocking, Tim thinks dryly.) He just keeps moving forward. They scale the steps with little trouble, Haley following behind Tim with her tail between her legs.
Dick’s bedroom is just as Tim expected: dusty and lined with cobwebs. The bedding is going to need to be changed, and a vacuuming couldn't hurt. Even so, it's familiar, with a few of the mementos Dick kept here during his childhood: the Flying Graysons poster, a second place medal from high school track (second place per Bruce’s request; can't look too physically talented or people might start asking questions), his old stuffed elephant from his circus years. Tim remembers going in here whenever Dick would come by to visit, griping about something Bruce said or talking excitedly about a new gadget he was working on or asking for advice about a cute kid at school. It's familiar. Safe. He wonders if Dick feels the same right now.
“We should get you cleaned up,” Cass suggests. “New clothes, maybe.”
And she's right. He's been in that Talon uniform for god only knows how long, and his face is covered in Rifkin’s blood. The only reason they hadn't offered him clothes earlier was because he threatened to kill them every time they spoke to him.
But as expected, Dick doesn't confirm or deny any ability to clean himself.
“If you swap the bedding,” Tim offers, “I’ll take care of him.”
Cass nods, and very cautiously, Tim takes him by the arm, guiding him to the bathroom.
“Okay, can you…?” Tim gestures to the shower.
Dick stares ahead blankly.
“Yeah, no, guess not,” Tim sighs. He shuts the door behind him and starts searching for some kind of zipper or snap on the Talon suit. It's so tight that there mustbe something.
But there isn't. Almost like it's just another layer of skin. He's going to have to cut it off. Which is just great. He grabs the first aid kit from the closet and pulls out the trauma shears.
“Okay, Dick- Gray Son. I’m going to use these scissors to cut your suit,” Tim explains clearly, holding them out for Dick to see.
But Dick’s eyes don't even track the object, still staring out at the distance.
“Ohh boy,” Tim murmurs. With one hand on Dick’s shoulder, he gently pushes him down to sit on the edge of the tub. Then he slowly (slowly) brings the scissors closer until he's got them pressed against Dick’s wrist. “Still okay?”
Dick doesn't answer. Tim is pretty sure he hasn't been okay for a very long time, but he carries on anyway.
At the agonizing pace of a bloated slug in a tar pit, Tim cuts through the suit, revealing starkly pale skin mapped with black veins and mottled with a concerning assortment of scars, jagged and intersecting and telling of a rather tragic existence. Very few of these look like the scars Dick had when he disappeared. Tim was under the impression that Talons healed completely when they regenerated, but perhaps even with Electrum, scar tissue grows in place of original skin.
Dick is incredibly compliant with everything Tim does, eyes never quite moving from that random point in the distance. It's concerning, but Tim tries not to read too far into it. He's been through a lot. It would be abnormal if he didn't show some sign of stress.
Cass knocks on the door just as Tim has finished wrestling the boots off Dick’s feet. (Kind of like a toddler, honestly. Not uncooperative but not helpful either.)
“Dick?” she calls from outside.
“One minute,” Tim replies. Then he takes Dick under the arm and helps him stand again. He starts the water and nudges Dick into the shower.
“You’ve got it from here, right?” Tim asks him. He doesn't know why he bothers.
Tim dries his hands off on a towel and opens the door a crack, slipping out and leaving it ajar, just in case Dick decides to pass out or something.
“Here,” Cass says, offering a small pile of clothes to Tim.
“He still has clothes here?” Tim wonders, taking the stack.
Cass nods. “He’d visit sometimes. Before.” She gestures to the bathroom. “How is he?”
“The same.” Tim runs a hand through his hair and releases a slow breath. “He won't answer me or even look at me. And he's… he's got way more scars than before.”
“Hm. I’ll let Bruce know.” She nods at the bathroom door. “His room is ready for him.”
“Great, thanks, Cassie. I’m gonna go now. Make sure he hasn't drowned.”
Sneaking back inside, Tim calls out. “Dick? Gray Son? You okay?”
Dick doesn't reply. (Again, what a shock.)
Tim knocks on the wall of the shower so Dick can see him if he can't hear. “Dick, you good, man?”
Taking a quick glance, Tim realizes what the issue is.
“You can't just stand in the water, dude. You gotta use soap.” Tim reaches over to grab a bar, soaking his sleeve in the process. Then he holds it out to Dick. “C’mon. Take it. Please. Trust me; neither of us want me to help you shower.”
There's no response, and Tim is seriously considering his life choices and what led him to this moment when a cold, gray hand takes the soap from him.
“Thank god,” Tim mutters.
The next few minutes pass in silence, with Dick finally, finally using soap and Tim standing guard, the cryo-gun nearly forgotten on the bathroom vanity.
There’s a shred of hope in Tim’s chest when Dick steps out of the shower of his own volition, clean of the blood, sweat, and dirt of the last… well, long time, probably. He takes the clothes silently and puts them on himself, no guiding necessary. He still won’t look at Tim - not unless Tim steps directly into his line of sight, of course - but that will resolve in time, he’s sure.
Dick holds up the t-shirt he was offered, squints, stretches his wings as far as he can in the confined space, and then hands the shirt back to Tim. Which is fair, he supposes, because there’s really no hope of getting a shirt over his wings.
“Cass got your room ready,” Tim explains. “If you want to go see it?”
But whatever cognizance Dick has regained for tasks has not translated to conversation. Tim guides him back to his room and to bed, trying not to worry about that.
“Look familiar?” Tim asks gently. He throws a blanket over his brother. He doesn't know if Talons like blankets, what with their body temperature being basically that of a corpse, but he figures that, at the very least, it might provide some emotional comfort.
“Rest, Dick. You’ve been through a lot today.”
… a lot for the last decade, really.
Dick continues to stare, almost like he can’t close his eyes. And then Tim spots the wetness under his eyes. He spends a long second debating if he should do something about it before Dick turns away from him and curls in on himself, one wing coming up to hide him from the world.
Yeah. Tim should leave him alone for a bit. He turns the lights off and pulls the door shut, trying to ignore the hitched breath behind him.
(He ignores it fine. It’s forgetting it that’s the problem.)
---
The Gray Son deserves to die. It failed the Court, and as such, death is the only acceptable punishment. Unfortunately, the Court is gone, so now it can’t even be disciplined properly. Instead, enemies of the Court have captured it and given it a shower. A bed.
It’s wrong, it’s wrong, it’s wrong. Surely they realize how they’re torturing the Gray Son this way? By denying it the only punishment that would bring it peace? By rewarding it for its complete and utter betrayal?
They must know. And they love it. They’re nothing but smiles and soft voices and gentle touches around the Gray Son. Even the Dog’s affection is starting to feel malicious.
And yes, these aren’t just enemies of the Court. They’re also… important. The Talon can’t explain exactly why. It remembers something about them. Fights and anger but also contentment and affection. It’s a very strange way to feel about sworn enemies, but that’s the best way to describe it.
So, put mildly, the Gray Son is completely lost, its identity, its faith, its purpose twisted and severed. It writhes in its skin like a beetle on its back, desperately scratching the air for relief. Once willing to do anything to feel warm, it suddenly detests the heat. Detests anything touching it, anything near it.
So after Timothy Drake closes the door to let the Gray Son rest, the Talon kicks the blankets off. Rolls onto its feet. Paces, paces, paces. Chokes on a sob. Crashes through the window and flies anywhere but here.
The wind is cold, cutting through the boiling fluff in the Gray Son’s mind. It doesn’t provide clarity so much as it does a physical relief: a tangible reassurance that the cold still exists. There’s still a chance for the Talon to receive justice.
The flight is fast. So brief that it feels the Gray Son simply fell asleep mid-flight and woke up at its destination. Either way, it’s all too easy to soar through a window of the GCPD Headquarters, glass shattering in its wake. It doesn’t waste time, soaring through the building searching for the holding cells.
But the Gray Son finds it quickly. It’s an expert at tracking, after all.
“Hey, what the hell’re-?”
The Gray Son knocks both guards out with a single sweep of its wings and rushes up to the barred cell.
“Talon!” the Orator says, voice colored in shock. “What are you doing here?”
“I failed the Court,” it explains. “I am here to make things right.”
The Orator’s lips curl, looking at the Gray Son as if for the first time. “Free us, Talon, and all is forgiven.”
The Gray Son’s heart leaps in its chest. Such a simple request with such an immeasurable reward! It already has its hands on the padlock, about to tear the bolt from the shackle when there are footsteps from behind.
“Freeze! Step away from the cell with both of your hands up!”
“Talon,” the Orator whispers. “Kill them first.”
Unease ripples the Gray Son’s muscles. It knows what will happen if it doesn’t obey. “Yes, Master.”
The Talon spins, already in motion to kill the officers when it spots the woman leading the charge.
Green eyes… red hair… freckles… glasses… safe… home… familiar-
It hesitates, loyalty to the Court warring with some unnamed emotion linked with this woman twirling through its brain like confetti in a tornado. That hesitation is enough.
One of the officers beside Barbara Gordon fires his gun, and the bullet tears through the Gray Son’s shoulder. It regards this dully, more inconvenienced than anything else.
“What are you doing, Talon??” the Orator shrieks.
Without thinking, the Gray Son tenses, expecting a shock. A fist. A cane. Something.
It never comes.
“Stand down,” Barbara Gordon orders, cautiously approaching the Gray Son.
“Kill her, Talon!!” the Orator demands, voice edging on hysterical.
And still, there is no whip. No cold. Nothing. Why isn’t it being punished for disobeying?
“Dick,” Barbara Gordon says, hands up in peace. “Step away from the cell. I’m going to help you, but you can’t listen to what she says.”
Normally, the Gray Son wouldn’t consider this offer for even a moment. It is loyal to the Court of Owls. But coming from Barbara Gordon, the suggestion is far more tempting. It’s almost not even a consideration. The Gray Son isn’t sure why.
The Gray Son slowly walks away from the cage, ignoring the increasingly furious, increasingly desperate cries of the Orator.
“There you go,” Barbara Gordon encourages softly, leading it out of the containment wing altogether. “It’s okay, Dick.” She brings it to an office and tells it to sit.
It does not.
Then Barbara Gordon says something. “Bruce, I’ve got your runaway bird at the station. I’ll bring him back. Just stay put.”
“... why?” the Gray Son asks.
Barbara Gordon purses her lips and looks at the Gray Son like it's a kicked puppy or a crying child. It has her whole and complete attention. It feels… nice.
“What do you mean?”
The Talon shifts from foot to foot, wings twitching and fluttering before folding against its back. “Why did I disobey the Court when you asked? Or when Jason Todd was in danger?”
“Oh.” Barbara Gordon looks so very tired, but her expression turns hopeful. “You know us, Dick. We’re your family.”
“I have no family.” The response is immediate. Robotic.
“Before the Court,” the woman insists. “We love you, Dick. And you loved us too. I think… I think you still do.”
The Gray Son doesn't know what to do with this information because, quite frankly, there wasn't anything before the Court. But if it's to believe Barbara Gordon (and it does), she was its family a lifetime ago. As were the others that took it from the Nest.
“Can I look at your shoulder?” Barbara Gordon asks suddenly.
The Talon frowns. Why would she need permission? But it nods, and she steps forward, carefully prodding the dark, healed-over bullet wound.
“You heal very quickly,” Barbara Gordon notes. Her fingers flutter to some overlapping scars. “But you scar?”
The Gray Son isn't sure what her point is, so it doesn't reply.
The woman steps back, eyes trailing over the Gray Son’s bare chest and arms. Her lips tug down, something unspoken in her eyes as she meets his gaze again. “You've been through a lot, haven't you?”
The Gray Son looks at its bare feet. “... I was loyal to the Court.”
---
Bruce Wayne doesn’t share his problems with others. He’s highly secretive, and he’s perfectly capable of fixing things on his own. But even he can admit that Dick’s situation is beyond his knowledge and capabilities. He wants to believe that Tim’s suggestion will work. That teaching Dick that disobedience won’t result in punishment will bring him back.
But he also knows what a long shot (a waiting game) it is. And Bruce has contingencies for his contingencies. He doesn’t wait to see if things get better. He plans for when things get worse.
So Bruce goes down the list. He calls in all the psychics he can think of. J’onn, M’gann, Raven, plus some minor leaguers that no one but he’s even aware of. They all seem relatively consistent in their assessment. Whatever turned him into a Talon, it was a major physical and psychological change. If Dick’s true self is still in there (and many claimed he was nowhere to be found in his mind), attempting to draw him out before he’s ready could have devastating effects on his psyche, leaving him permanently scarred, possibly to a degree even worse than he already is.
This is not an acceptable answer. Bruce moves onto magicians. Zatanna doesn’t wait a full minute after getting Bruce’s message before appearing in the Cave. Just like everyone else, she had no clue Dick was back. Unfortunately, also just like everyone else, she doesn’t have optimistic news.
“It’s not magic-related,” Zatanna tells Bruce.
“I figured,” Bruce replies. “But can you fix it with magic?”
Immediately, she shakes her head.
And that just… doesn’t sit right with Bruce. “There’s nothing? You can’t erase his memory of being brainwashed? Or reintroduce his memories from before? I’ve seen you take out gods with a single word. You can’t just tell me you can’t-”
“I can’t,” Zatanna stresses. “The mind is delicate, Bruce. If I removed memories, he wouldn’t suddenly remember who he is. He’d be completely amnesic and would just be confused about why he feels compelled to do whatever he was brainwashed to do. And if I added false memories - because any memory, even a real one, is false if given via magic - it could overload his brain if he starts to gain his real memories back naturally. It’s just not that simple!”
Bruce doesn’t like that answer either. He clenches his jaw and takes a moment to think. Then, voice low, he asks, “Then what can I do?”
Zatanna sighs. “Find a damned good therapist.”
With no psychic or magician capable and willing to help him, Bruce turns to Black Canary, the only mental health professional that he trusts won’t turn Dick into a supervillain. (Why all of Gotham’s psychiatrists and psychologists are evil, Bruce doesn’t know. But he does know he’ll die before he lets any of his family see a Gotham-based practitioner.)
“Thank you, Dinah,” Bruce says for the sixth time. “I can’t tell you how-”
“It’s no problem, Bruce,” Dinah promises. “This is… a new situation for me, but I’m flattered Batman trusts my expertise.”
Bruce doesn’t mention all the Gotham therapists that he would first drop off a building before letting within five hundred feet of his kids. If Dinah thinks that she’s more a “first choice” and not “the only sane one,” more power to her.
“Cass is watching him,” Bruce says, leading Dinah to the med bay.
Dick is seated on the first cot, leaning over to tug a Jenga block from the tower. Cass sits beside it, an impressive number of blocks in her lap. When Dinah enters, though, Dick jumps, wings suddenly unfurling and flapping as if preparing to take off. They knock the Jenga tower over, and Dick jumps again at the crash. Then he stares mournfully at the pile of blocks.
“S’okay,” Cass assures him quietly.
“I’m sorry, Dick,” Dinah says calmly. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
Dick’s gaze darts to his hands, wings still extended but feathers flattened against his skin.
“You might not remember me,” Dinah continues, pulling up a chair and sitting down. “I’m Dinah. We worked together in the past.”
Bruce can’t even pretend to be shocked when Dick shuffles back on the cot, eyes still cast downward, wings curling in slightly as if to hug himself. Cass lays a gentle hand on Dick’s arm, but he pulls away, shaking his head.
“I’m not here to hurt you,” Dinah assures him. “I want to help. Talk to me.”
Something flashes in Dick’s eyes. “What do you want me to say, Master?”
If this surprises Dinah, she doesn’t say, scribbling something on her notepad. “I’m not your master, Dick. I’m Dinah. I’m a friend.”
Dick flinches, shoulders shaking, head low, but then he freezes and looks up. He finally makes eye contact with Dinah, expression befuddled. “Yes, Dinah.”
“Bruce, Cassandra,” Dinah says, looking to both. “Do you mind giving us the room?”
“I mind,” Bruce warns. “You can’t be alone with him.” And then, at Dinah’s confused glance, he continues in a whisper, “He’s dangerous, Dinah. The last time we left him alone, he jumped out the window and tried to break his captors out of jail. And before that, he tried to kill Barbara.”
But Dinah doesn’t back down, expression perfectly neutral. “I’m capable of handling myself, Bruce, thank you.”
There’s a stare-down. Under any other circumstance, Bruce would win that stare-down, but something in Dinah’s gaze is unflinching. A desire to help Dick, perhaps. Some unwritten therapist oath, maybe. She’s not budging.
Bruce sighs. “Cassandra, leave the gun with her.”
“I won’t need it,” Dinah assures Cass as she takes the cryo-gun from her and sets it on the ground, “but thank you.”
So Bruce spends the next hour standing outside the med bay, listening intently for a scream from either party. But Dinah emerges from the med bay at the end of the hour, tells Bruce that she’ll be back Wednesday to speak with Dick again, and that’s the end of that.
---
The change is gradual. As the wheels of justice move the Court of Owls paperwork from her desk to the judge’s, Barbara is left restless and uneasy. She wants to do something. She wants to fix this.
But with nothing in a legal sense that she can do, Barbara tries to focus on the victim. On Dick. She stops by the manor more and more frequently, always bringing Haley. Always holding a grocery bag.
“Hi, Dick,” Barbara greets on her fourth visit. He’s officially been back in the manor for ten days. “How are you feeling?”
Dick shrugs. He’s more responsive than he used to be, but he used to be borderline catatonic, so that’s not saying much.
Haley rushes past Barbara and tackles Dick to the ground.
“Oh my god-” Barbara rushes over, but Dick is already sitting up, gently herding Haley back until she’s sprawled across his legs, licking his arm as he pets her. “Are you alright?”
Dick hesitates, almost like he’s doing a mental assessment of that himself, before nodding.
“How’s the food been?”
Immediately, Dick’s expression sours. Barbara is offered a strong thumbs down.
“Yeah. Bruce isn’t the greatest cook, is he?” Barbara laughs. Just a few years ago, the man was banned from his own kitchen. Of course he isn’t a good cook. “But I guess that’s why you have me.” She pulls a couple boxes of Captain Crunch from the grocery bag and sets them on the coffee table. Dick doesn’t smile much anymore, but when he sees her offering, that’s probably about as close as it gets.
“Just don’t give any to Haley. She doesn’t need the sugar.”
With one hand still scratching Haley’s ear, Dick rips open one of the boxes, pulls the bag open with his teeth, and dumps the cereal directly into his mouth.
“God, Bruce never said he was starving you!” Barbara sighs and gently tugs the box from Dick’s hand. He lets go instantly, shame infecting his posture.
“I’m sorry, Master,” Dick says, voice almost robotic.
“Oh, don’t say that,” Barbara murmurs. “God, don’t say that. I’m just getting you a bowl, okay? I didn’t mean… I’m not your master. I’m your friend.”
This only seems to confuse Dick, and the sad, innocent look on his face makes Barbara want to cry. But she doesn’t, because that’s not helpful right now. Instead, she grabs a bowl from the kitchen and pours the cereal out. Dick is much more hesitant to eat now, only grabbing a piece or two when he thinks Barbara isn’t looking.
It makes her feel gross, like this is somehow her fault.
“Have you been getting along with everyone?” Barbara asks, desperate for some distraction from her mistake.
But obviously, that’s not the best yes or no question. Dick nods, and that’s the end of that topic.
Dick stops petting Haley for a moment, and the dog whines, nudging Dick’s stomach until he resumes the hypnotic motion.
“She really missed you, you know. She loves you.”
“… what’s her name?” Dick’s voice is so low that Barbara has to strain to hear. But she doesn’t dare ask him to repeat himself, because she’s scared that will make him stop talking again.
“That’s Haley,” Barbara explains. “She’s my- your dog, technically. I’ve been taking care of her while you’ve been gone.”
“She’s a good dog,” Dick says softly. “You… took good care of her.” For a moment, Barbara swears she sees the old Dick Grayson in his eyes. That genuine love, undoubting fire. The person who would scale a burning building to save someone he’s never met. The man who would put all his own problems aside if someone else needed help.
The man Barbara fell in love with. The one she never fell out of love with.
“I missed you,” Barbara says suddenly. “I’m… very glad you’re here, Dick.”
Dick stops petting Haley, looking down at his hands. His shoulders hunch.
“I’m… I’m sorry, Dick,” Barbara says, rolling a bit closer. “I didn’t mean to upset you or-”
“Safe,” Dick coos, holding her hand in his. “You’re safe.” He can’t look her in the eye, still so painfully ashamed.
“Yes,” Barbara agrees. “I’ll keep you safe. No matter what.”
---
“I know you’re there, Dick.”
“...”
“Dick.”
Dick peers from around the corner, a soft trill in the back of his throat. One wing stretches into view.
“What are you doing?” Cass asks.
For a long moment, Dick is quiet, staring at the floor, but then he speaks up, voice a shaky, airy version of what it once was. “I was following you.”
Cass nods. “I see that.” She smiles softly and holds out her hand. “Come with me.”
Hesitantly, Dick takes her hand and follows her through the grandfather clock and into the Cave. She takes him to the gym and then to the trapeze.
“You remember this?”
To Cass’s utter shock, Dick nods slowly. “I… yes.”
“We’ll do a set you taught me,” Cass decides, pulling chalk from the bucket at the base of the platform and starting her climb up. “Don’t use your wings.”
“Yes, Cassandra.”
“... it’s Cass. You call me Cass. Or…” Cass chews the inside of her cheek. “Cassie, sometimes,” she murmurs under her breath.
“I’m sorry, Cass,” Dick says sincerely, following her up the ladder. Cass can’t be sure if he’s truly sorry or if he’s scared she’s going to punish him for calling her the wrong thing. (It’s been so hard to tell as of late.)
Cass reaches the top of the platform and pulls one trapeze bar in. “Do you remember the set?”
And to her utter shock, Dick nods again.
“Okay. I’ll start on the other end.”
Just as Dick taught her all those years ago, Cass takes the bar and jumps, legs straight and toes pointed as she rides her own momentum. She lets go a second before she thinks she should, continues the upward swing into a flip, and then lands on the opposite platform.
Dick starts the set. Cass had expected she’d need to teach it to him, but muscle memory kicks in like nobody’s business. He explained to her a lifetime ago that a proper trapeze act should be something that could be timed exactly. Precisely twenty-eight seconds in, Cass grabs the bar and swings towards Dick. Exactly thirty-three seconds in, she lets go, and then at thirty-four-point-five seconds, she grabs Dick’s ankles. Then at thirty-nine seconds, she lets go again, flipping for the opposite platform, and Dick catches Cass’s bar under his knees.
It's familiar. It’s deceptively simple. It takes two incredibly practiced and strong people to pull off.
It’s also the first time Cass has seen Dick smile since the Court.
When the set is finished, they do it again and then one more time. Then they sit together on a platform.
“You and me,” Cass explains, “we’re the same. Assassins. Damian was one too, but… He was a legacy. We were just tools. Never anything more than killers.”
Dick is watching her with wide eyes. Cass can’t tell where his mind is. She keeps talking anyway.
“Our identities were reduced to our kill counts,” Cass says, voicing things that she’s only ever thought in her head before. “We were our achievements, and if we couldn’t achieve, we weren’t anything anymore.”
One of Dick’s wings has extended behind Cass, just shy of wrapping around her like a hug. It feels… protective.
“But you’re not just your kills anymore,” Cass continues. “Neither of us. Bruce took us in because of what we were capable of. He kept us around because of who we are as people. If… If that makes sense.”
Cautiously, Dick ruffles Cass’s hair affectionately. “It does, Cassie.”
---
The Bats don't leave Dick alone. Not only is he a flight risk, but they can't take the chance that he’ll fall back on his programming and try to break Court members out of jail or kill enemies of the Court (i.e. them). The cryo-gun is always present, even if they haven't fired it since Dick broke Bruce’s wrist during the autopsy.
Damian hates it. He hates treating Dick like a threat. He gets it - he does - but this is… Well, this is Dick. Sure, he's a little paler than usual. And yeah, he doesn't really breathe all that much anymore. His body temperature is consistently below 80°F. He’s got these things sticking out of his back that are covered in feathers and give him the capability of flight. And he's been locked away and brainwashed for ten years, but…
But he's still Dick. When Damian tells him stories about saving the world from giant flesh-eating rats imbued with Kryptonian powers or the litter of kittens at the shelter that his coworkers named after Gotham vigilantes, Dick sits and listens, raptly attentive. The feathers of his wings fluff out a bit, head tipped in curiosity. If anyone comes back from patrol injured, Dick will follow them around until they let someone treat them. When Barbara and Haley visit, which is becoming more and more frequent as of late, Dick holds or pets the dog the whole time, following Barbara every time she leaves the room.
That’s not to say Dick is exactly the same. He’s far more timid than before. He rarely speaks. Barely eats or sleeps. He’s jumpier. He - tragically - doesn’t do physical affection all that much anymore, which makes Damian even more jealous that Jason got a hug from Dick for the first time in a decade, and Damian is lucky if he can pat him on the shoulder.
(God, Damian misses Dick’s hugs. They were the warmest. The strongest. He never felt safer than when he was wrapped up in his akhi’s arms.)
Some days, Dick won’t interact at all, staring into the distance and pulling away from anyone who tries to get him to move or speak. Other days, he’ll pick someone to tail like a puppy or simply wander to wherever the most people are and soak in the atmosphere of a healing family. But the worst days are maybe when he still thinks he’s at the Nest with the Court. He won’t speak without permission. He asks for tasks, practically collapsing in on himself if someone doesn’t give him a way to be useful. He flinches if he thinks he’s offended them, ducking his head and shielding his face.
It makes Damian’s chest ache just to get a glimpse of how awful the Court was to his brother. (More than once, Damian has called Barbara in tears, demanding that she push the judges to give the Owls harsher sentences. She doesn’t have that kind of power, and any attempt to would be a gross misuse of her title, but in the moment, Damian never cares. He just wants the people who did this to Dick to suffer.)
Multiple times a week, Dinah Lance comes over to have therapy with Dick. She doesn’t discuss the sessions much beyond a little warning (“Don’t keep him cooped up inside,” she told them last week) or a general progress report (“He’s doing just fine.”)
And Damian will admit, over the course of three weeks, Dick does seem to be getting better. The usual greeting of “Damian Wayne” shortens to “Damian” or (once, but Damian will never forget it) “Dames.” He’ll make a comment on the rare occasion alluding to an event from before the Court. (Last week, he asked where Alfred was. Bruce left the room in a hurry, hand covering his face, and Jason and Damian were left to come up with a lie about the butler visiting his daughter in London.)
And then, the greatest piece of hope stabs Damian between the ribs. He’s on the roof of Wayne Manor, supervising Dick’s nightly flight time, when Dick lands beside him and watches him with curiosity.
“Are you okay?” Dick asks, which is funny for a couple reasons. The first, being that Damian was just about him the same thing, and the second, being that this is the first time Dick has spoken to him without being spoken to first. Since the Court, anyway.
It’s the biggest milestone Damian’s seen, and he nearly pukes in relief. He’s very glad that he doesn’t puke, though, because cleaning vomit off shingles is not nearly as fun as it sounds (and it doesn’t sound fun at all).
Then Damian realizes that Dick is staring at him. He’s taking too long to reply.
“I’m fine,” Damian assures him. “Why?”
“You look… not fine.”
It’s been a very (very, very, very) long time since Damian discussed his feelings with Dick Grayson. So long, in fact, that he forgot how nice it feels to have someone checking in on him. Someone genuinely concerned who can verbalize their concerns without miscommunicating or accidentally insulting him. (Father tries his best, but he’s never been one to talk about his feelings. Or Damian’s feelings. Or anyone’s feelings. That’s always been Dick.)
“I’m…” Damian knows that Dick is different now. Mentally, he’s got his own problems to deal with. The likelihood that he’d actually give good advice isn’t all that great. But Damian has also longed to hear Dick’s concern. Every night that he beat himself up about or mourned the loss of his brother, he was violently reminded of just how much he lost, because Dick wasn’t there to tell him it would be alright. His person - the person he went to when anything went wrong, when he needed an ear to listen or a shoulder to cry on - was gone forever. And he had no one to lament to about it.
So despite the fact that Dick isn’t the same as he was before the Court, Damian feels compelled to tell him everything. Maybe it’s selfish, or maybe he’s still that same little boy, tearing the city apart looking for his big brother. He just wants Dick back.
“I’m worried,” Damian admits. “About you. Before the Court, we were very close. And then I thought I lost you forever. It… God, I never felt so helpless. And now you’re back, and you’re… different.” He’s grateful for the dark, making it difficult to see Dick’s expression, but he knows that Talon supervision is letting Dick see every line of his face. Both watering eyes. The tightness of his jaw. “I love you no matter what you look like or how you act. I just… I miss the you from before, you know?”
Dick hums. The stand in silence for a moment. Damian almost apologizes and tells Dick to go back to what he was doing when Dick takes a step closer.
“Do you want to fly?” Dick offers sheepishly.
“Do I… what?”
“Want to fly?” Dick repeats. “I always feel better up there. You can see all the lights, and it’s calm, and… it’s nice.”
Damian realizes just how much the Dick Grayson of ten years ago would have loved to be able to fly. He expressed a similar sentiment to the person talking to Damian right now. It’s calm up there in the sky. His problems seem to melt away. He feels closest to his parents in the air.
Maybe… Maybe Dick hasn’t changed as much as Damian thought he had.
“Yeah,” Damian agrees. “Let’s fly.”
Even in the dark, Damian can see the mega-watt smile on Dick’s face, which is weird, because he can’t remember the last time Dick so much as smirked, much less beamed. A knot in Damian’s stomach loosens.
Dick wraps one arm around Damian’s waist, holding him close to his chest. It takes everything in him not to sob.
Then, with a beat of his wings, Dick takes him up, up, up. Above the manor, above Bristol. Damian can see Gotham’s bridges from here. He watches tiny cars drive over them and disappear into the city. There aren’t many stars - not with light pollution at the reins - but the moon cuts through the haze, cold and crisp and bright.
Dick flies in slow circles, gliding lazily on the breeze. He doesn’t go half as fast as Damian knows he can. Maybe he’s tired. Or maybe he just wants Damian to have a nice view. To be able to think without worrying about falling.
(Damian isn’t worried about falling. Dick wouldn’t drop him. Not even on accident.)
“You’re right,” Damian calls over the wind. “It’s nice up here.”
“I feel… more connected in the sky. If that makes sense.”
“To your parents?” Damian suggests.
A hum. Dick does a corkscrew, and a laugh bubbles up from Damian’s chest. “Maybe. I don’t remember them. Just my grandfather. But he was terrible, so I killed him.” He does a loop-de-loop.
Damian tries to process this information, but it’s not computing. He didn’t even know Dick still had a grandfather. (Though not anymore, he supposes.)
“What were they like, my parents? Did you know them?”
“I-” Damian blinks. One crisis at a time. “I never met them, but you told me they were very loving and dedicated people. They performed in the circus with you. Trapeze.”
Another hum. Another corkscrew.
“You said your mother loved to dance. And she made the best quiche you’ve ever had. Better than Alfred’s, even. And your father made the worst puns, and you made it a game to try to make worse ones than him.”
The flight speeds up a bit, the wind growing harsher on Damian’s skin. He can’t hear the sniff, but he sees Dick wiping his face. Rubbing his nose.
“... Dick?” Damian shouts over the wind.
Again, Dick ignores him, circling down until they’ve landed safely on the manor’s roof.
“Dick,” Damian repeats. “Are you okay?”
“I miss them,” Dick says, gaze downcast. “I didn’t know I missed them.” Then he laughs around a sob. (It’s a sad little chuckle, but it’s a laugh. Something Damian thought he’d never hear again.) “Sorry. I didn’t make you feel better.”
Damian’s pressing his luck, but with all the other oddities going on today, he figures he can try to do this. He puts a hand on Dick’s shoulder. Then he goes in for a hug, slowly, lightly, just in case Dick feels the need to escape.
But Dick doesn’t try to escape. He hugs back.
“It’s okay, Dick,” Damian whispers into Dick’s hair. “I feel a lot better now.”
---
“Hood, I need a favor.”
This immediately makes Jason’s ears perk up, because Tim doesn’t ask for favors. Not from Jason. And definitely not from the Red Hood.
“That depends. What’s the problem?” Jason asks cooly, grabbing the last thug from an arms bust and dropping him in the Gotham Harbor.
“GoldenEye fled the coop.”
Jason snorts and returns to his bike, swinging one leg over it. “Ha. ‘GoldenEye.’ That’s a good one. You have that one ready in your notes app or something?”
“Hood, please. He’s been having a bad day, and then he jumped out a window trying to escape talking about his feelings with Bruce.”
“I swear, I think he got more relatable after he died. Which makes sense, I guess.”
“Hood.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll find your bird,” Jason assures him. Then he hesitates. “But, ah, in the interest of time, what kind of ‘not good day’ are we having? Like, just jumping out windows or are we back to biting?”
“No biting,” Tim promises. “I think he’s over that, thank god. Just very withdrawn.”
Withdrawn is fine. Withdrawn sucks, but it’s manageable.
“Got it. Talk to you soon.”
It’s not difficult to find Dick. He hasn’t escaped much since being Talon-ified, but his patterns now aren’t so different from before the Court.
“Hey, Dick,” Jason says softly as he approaches Dick’s favorite gargoyle. (They all have favorite gargoyles, and just as Bruce would find his runaway Robins sleeping under the protection of their favored cement terror, Jason finds Dick sitting under the Gotham Public Library’s dragon gargoyle.) “Tim said you’re not feeling so hot?” He sits beside his brother, letting his legs dangle off the side of the building.
Dick doesn’t respond, staring out into the night, but one of his wings stretches to shield Jason from the rain.
“You don’t have to talk,” Jason explains, “but on a scale of one to five, how insufferable is Bruce being today?”
There’s no immediate reply. Dick kicks his legs a little. Sighs. Then he holds up three fingers.
“Right down the middle, huh?” Jason removes his helmet and looks out at the city they all love so much. It’s a bit quieter tonight than usual, or at least it feels that way. It always does after a Gotham Gaslamps game lets out and all the spectators have gone home for the night. The noise makes it easier to notice the silence.
“I’m scared,” Dick says suddenly. “I don’t know what happened to the Court.”
“They’re in jail,” Jason replies. “Or dead.”
Dick seems… perturbed at this. He hiccups. “What am I supposed to do? What… What good is a Talon with no one to serve?”
“You’re not a Talon anymore, buddy.”
There’s a beat. Dick tips his head. Hums. “Then who am I?”
“You’re my brother.” The answer is immediate. Natural. “And Tim’s and Cass’s and Damian’s. You’re Bruce’s son. You’re Dick Grayson, the golden boy.” And then, he huffs on laughter. “GoldenEye.”
“What does it mean? To be a brother and son?”
“You’re already living it, Dickie. That’s…” Jason blows out a slow stream of air. “That’s maybe the best part about you. You don’t have to try. It’s so natural for you to care about people that you just do it.”
“But I’m not doing anything,”Dick stresses. “Everyone is worried about me, and I feel like they miss someone that’s not me. I haven’t helped anyone. I’m not this saint you all talk about.”
It’s the most Jason has heard Dick say in a decade. “You’re not doing anything, huh?” He points a finger upwards, and Dick’s eyes follow the path up to the wing he’s stretched over Jason’s head. The wing blocking out the rain.
“That’s different,” Dick argues immediately. But he doesn’t provide any examples or clarification, and Jason can only assume he has no real argument. “I just… I’m tired of burdening people without giving them anything in return.”
“You haven’t.” And Jason says it so fiercely that he can already see green leaking into the corners of his vision, anger barely held back. “Dick, I don’t think you realize how desperate everyone has been to get you back. You mean the world to us. We’d do anything to keep you around.”
“I just… worry that the person you want back isn’t me. I’m… I don’t remember everything about before but… I know I’m different now.”
Jason smirks. “You think Bruce gives a rat’s ass if you’re different? You think any of us do? Wings or no wings, we miss you, Dickie.” He puts an arm around Dick’s shoulders, just above said wings. Dick sighs contently and leans against Jason, pressing his face into his neck.
“You’re right. You’re right. But can we just… stay out here for a bit? I don’t know why, but I feel safe here.”
“It’s the gargoyle. It’s always been your favorite. You named him Chaz.”
Dick snorts. “That’s a horrible name.”
“Coming from the guy named Dick?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”
---
It’s four months after coming to Wayne Manor that the Bats – his family – show it (no, it’s him, not it) the suit.
“That’s… cool,” the Gray Son (no, shit, it’s Talon) (no, fuck, it’s Dick) says. And it is. It’s black with gold accents, decked out with some high-tech gauntlets and a utility belt. It’s missing a cape like most of the suits Bruce and the others wear. “What’s it for?”
Bruce smiles softly. “It’s for you, if you want to join us.”
“Oh.” Him? Dick? Join the others patrolling Gotham? But he’s… different from before. He doesn’t remember everything about life before the Court, but… he remembers enough. Most importantly, he knows that he didn’t kill before.
“You don’t have to say yes,” Bruce assures him. “You can wait a bit or you don’t have to do it ever. I just want you to know that you…” He settles a heavy hand on Dick’s shoulder. “You’re missed out there. We’d love to have you back.”
“But I killed people,” the Gray- no, Dick – argues. “You don’t like killing.”
“Cass and Damian have killed too.” Bruce’s voice turns soft, like the manor’s impossibly comfy beds after a decade in a freezing, unlined coffin. “Jason too. We’ve all made mistakes in the past, but all that matters is we learned from them and changed.” He tips his head. “Do you still want to kill?”
Dick frowns. “No.”
“Then we don’t have an issue.”
Dick hums. He’d love to join his family. He would. In fact, he would argue he wants it more than anything. He’s just…
“What if I slip up? What if I accidentally kill someone?”
“I’ve trained you for that, and if you’re nervous about it, I’ll train you again. We don’t accidentally kill people. We know our limits, we know the limits of others, and we don’t make that mistake.”
Dick nods. “Yes. Yeah. Okay. Let’s… Let’s do it.” He smiles. “Put me in, Coach.”
Bruce’s smile back is warmer than Dick has ever seen it. “That’s the spirit, chum. That’s the spirit.”
Dick Grayson had two brothers. The first one died five years ago to a homicidal maniac named the Joker. One week ago, Dick thought he lost his second brother to the same monster.
And he snapped.
Things are fine now. Dick's second brother is okay. Dick is okay. But he's been a bit more protective ever since. And now there's a guy in a red helmet stalking his little brother?
Dick won't let it happen. Not ever again.
---
Nightwing is nervous. He’s trying to tell himself he’s not, but that doesn’t make the fact any less true. Honestly, he’s been jumpy for weeks. Ever since the Joker claimed to kill Robin - to kill another Robin - Nightwing has been acutely aware of how low some people will go to hurt the Bat.
The smell of rain rises from the pavement. A cool breeze rustles Nightwing’s hair and numbs his ears. He lands on top of an apartment building and surveys the alleyways below. They’re reasonably quiet, with only a few figures walking past every so often, none of which fit the description he’s looking for. That description, of course, being a leather jacket and a red helmet. The description of the Red Hood. The name alone makes Nightwing’s mouth taste sour.
The Red Hood is the newest old rogue in Gotham. His name had been infamous for years, then fallen into obscurity in the following decade. A lesser-known chapter in Gotham’s history, the Red Hood and his gang had been on the streets for months before Batman showed up. It wasn't until the Red Hood first faced off against the Batman that things went… wrong.
The Red Hood became fixated on Batman and his every move. He began committing bigger, more elaborate, stranger crimes just to draw the Bat’s attention. He dropped buckets of pig’s blood on vegans. He located stolen art, revealed it to the world, and then took it for himself. He created a high-speed apple launcher and shot it at unsuspecting doctors. Anything to raise an eyebrow. Anything to get a laugh.
Anything to be noticed by Batman.
The Red Hood’s last night on Earth also served as the ostentatious intermission of Gotham’s most feared name. Batman chased him down a catwalk at Ace Chemicals, poised a story above large vats of bubbling green swill. The Red Hood slipped. Batman caught him. The Red Hood let go.
Most Gothamites are much more familiar with the story after. The Red Hood died, and the Joker was born, crawling his way out of that acrid chemical bath with bleach-white skin, lime-green hair, and a cherry smile so wide, it nearly tore his face in two.
The Red Hood’s fixation with Batman turned into the Joker's obsession. He lived to play with the Bat. He needed to hold his attention. The Red Hood walked so the Joker could ride a jet ski through shark infested waters, fly off a half pipe, and then zip down the Autobahn without skipping a beat.
Of course, it's hard to remember the walker when there's a multifaceted daredevil stealing the spotlight. The Red Hood fell into obscurity.
Until now, anyway.
Nightwing figured this Red Hood was some disgruntled, one-off Gotham history buff. A minor irritation, maybe a rogue of the week at worst.
And then he started claiming territory. First Crime Alley, then the Bowery, and then there were rumors about the Narrows changing ownership. The Red Hood made rules and expected any criminals in his area to obey. If not…
Well, Nightwing wasn't there. But his sources have grisly reports. A plain gray duffle bag containing eight human heads, sliced off at the base of the neck. Terror stricken expressions frozen into their faces, rigor mortis locking them in their horror forever.
No one disobeyed Red Hood after that.
But a crime lord is a crime lord. Batman has a zero-crime lord tolerance, and Nightwing feels pretty similarly. (The topic isn't all so black-and-white, and he thinks Batman fails to recognize this, but for the moment, they're in agreement.)
Batman had a few encounters with Red Hood. Nightwing met him twice. Robin found the rogue watching him from a distance more than once. Every time, Red Hood would spin a pistol, ram it into his holster, and drag a finger across his throat before disappearing into the shadows.
After hearing about that, Nightwing became significantly more invested in taking the Red Hood down.
And that's how Nightwing finds himself here, dropping down onto the streets of Crime Alley. He's never feared Crime Alley - not like Bruce did - but knowing that the Joker’s namesake is bound to show up any second has him on edge. The Red Hood made it abundantly clear that he doesn't want “any goddamn Bats in my neighborhood!” It's only a matter of time before-
“I heard a rumor about one of Batman's strays wandering around places he knows he shouldn't be in.” From behind, Nightwing hears the sound of a gun safety being removed. “D’you know anything about that?”
Nightwing raises his hands in surrender and slowly turns around. He finds himself face-to-face with exactly the person he wants to see. Leather jacket, dual pistols, crimson helmet glinting with an almost human fury. “Red Hood,” he greets stiffly. “We need to talk.”
“We could,” the rogue agrees. “Or I could just shoot you. Maybe ship you back to Batman as a nice, casket-shaped warning.”
The helmet is impossible to read. Red Hood might be bluffing, but he sounds deadly serious, his body language echoing the notion. Unfortunately, Nightwing can't take that risk. Not tonight.
So instead, he lunges, knocking one pistol from the rogue’s grip and pushing the other hand to the side, the gun going off as it’s directed away from Nightwing’s chest. He pulls an escrima stick off his back and rams it into Red Hood’s side, triggering the taser switch. The electricity sizzles against Red Hood’s jacket, smoke rolling off in tendrils. The insulation of his jacket must be military grade to take that kind of shock without so much as a flinch from the wearer.
“What, no witty remarks?” Red Hood teases, slamming the grip of his gun into the side of Nightwing’s head. The vigilante’s sight goes dark, his knee buckling under his weight. “How disappointing. Speak up, or I’ll feel like I’m beating up a weak Batman knock-off.”
Nightwing blinks furiously, shaking off (or, perhaps more accurately, ignoring) what is almost certainly a fresh concussion. “You mean a copy-Bat.”
“There it is.” Red Hood sounds like he's smiling, but for all Nightwing knows, the rogue doesn't even have lips to smile with.
“So what's your deal?” Nightwing asks, smoothly ducking a punch intended for his face. “Gotham historian? Joker obsessed? Both?”
“I just want you Bats off my territory.” Red Hood fakes a kick to the chest, but Nightwing sees it coming, blocking the real elbow that's aimed at his nose. Done playing, the rogue starts shooting, forcing Nightwing to retreat behind a dumpster.
“Sorry!” Nightwing shouts over the gunfire, grappling up and over Red Hood, kicking the gun from his grip as he passes. “Didn't see your name on it!” He drops down behind the rogue and closes in again.
Jab. Cross. Left hook. Knee.
But Hood keeps up, blocking most and barely flinching at any blows he lands. “Didn't see your name on it either, Dickwing.”
Something about that… Something about how he said the insult… It's odd. Because sure, anyone could call him that. But no one ever has before. It's a bit too far off from a traditional curse. And it's just distracting enough for Nightwing to hesitate. To give Hood the opportunity to pull a spare gun and shoot at point-blank range.
Nightwing hits the pavement like a ton of bricks. He blinks, but all he can see is the frustratingly blurry night sky. The few stars above begin to multiply, and he can't be sure if they're satellites or if he's going into shock.
“Yikes.” Red Hood’s voice is distant and tinny. “That’s gotta sting.”
It doesn't sting, actually. Nightwing can't even be sure where he was hit, because he can't feel much of anything. He's-
No. No, no, never mind. He was hit in the shoulder… chest… something like that. It's starting to burn, steadily getting hotter and angrier by the second. He tries to sit up to take in the damage, but he barely lifts his head before the pain makes his vision and hearing cut out. He comes to a moment later, head heavy against the dirty, crumbling blacktop. Red Hood has entered his line of sight, leering over him.
“Hey, there you are, bud. Sorry about that. Looks like I missed the artery, but I’ma bet that collarbone’s dusted.”
Hood’s assessment is more than Nightwing could deduce. It sounds right too; if there's no arterial bleeding, he probably hit a bone. And a shot that close would shatter any bone in its path.
“Wh- Why were you…” Nightwing coughs, experiences perhaps the worst wave of agony he’s ever felt, and then continues, ignoring the crack in his voice. “You were watching Robin… W-Why?”
Red Hood snorts. “That brat? Kid’s got a death wish putting on the uniform. After the last one? You should know that better’n anyone.”
Nightwing loses time. Red Hood is there. Then he's alone. Then Red Hood is there again.
… no, wait. That's not-
Nightwing’s world dissolves into an unending cycle of fire and stabbing agony.
---
“Tell Bats to stay outta my territory, yeah?”
Nightwing groans, squirming and wincing on the ground. He might not even be conscious anymore. Red Hood peels the mask back enough to see one open eye glaring at him with bleary distaste. The vigilante’s pulse is still strong in his neck, and it doesn't seem like he's going into shock, so Hood leaves him on the pavement and walks away. He’ll either muster the strength to crawl back home or Batman will come pick him up. And then, most importantly, Batman will get the message:
My neighborhood. Keep out.
Red Hood grabs his gun off the ground and strolls down the alley, pushing past a group of men. One nearly crashes into him, waving a half-assed apology as he continues to run down the alley. They snicker and holler at each other, voices melding into the familiar soundscape of a Gotham night.
It really is a nice night tonight. Even with the unwelcome visit. Hood will need to be a bit more careful now - he activated his emergency jammer as soon as he spotted Nightwing, temporarily scrambling any trackers or camera feeds on him - but a Bat sighting is still a Bat sighting. Where there’s one, three more are bound to follow. Minimum.
Screaming interrupts his thoughts. It’s ragged and choked and broken. Nightwing.
Hood stops, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. It’s possible that the bird is just yelling for help. But it’s also possible that-
“Not so funny now, is it, Night-Brite?”
“I’ve spent years in prison thinking about this day!”
“The big, bad Bat won’t save you this time!”
He wants to walk away. With every cell in his body, he wants to keep walking. But then he hears the strangled cries and the unmistakable thud of metal against flesh, and Hood.
Can’t.
Ignore it.
Without another thought, Red Hood is charging back towards the alley, guns drawn. “Who the fuck do you think you are?” he growls, finding exactly what he expected to see:
Three men surrounding Nightwing’s crumpled form. Jeering and kicking and spitting. A metal baseball bat thud, thud, thudding-
“Step away,” Hood warns, closing in on the group. They freeze and look at him, more confused than angry or threatened.
“Yo, Hood, we got a Bat!” the youngest chirps, pointing proudly at Nightwing, who’s now breathing shakily and wheezing out weak pleas. It’s pathetic.
“And I said to step back.” Red Hood continues his approach, guns never wavering from their targets.
“What d’you mean, boss?” the man in a Gotham Knights jersey asks, one eyebrow arched high. “We’re just takin’ care of him for you.”
“Yeah,” the third - the one holding that goddamn baseball bat - agrees. “This asshole put me in jail for five years. Missed my kid’s high school and college graduations.”
“Arnie got his degree?” Football Jersey says in pleased befuddlement.
“Yeah, little smart Alec’s gonna be a lawyer. Then he’ll protect guys like us from guys-” and here he points a vicious finger at Nightwing “-like you!”
Hood runs his tongue along his teeth. “You’re not killing him.”
“What?” the youngest complains. “But you said-”
“I didn’t tell you to do anything,” Hood insists. “Now get outta here before I lose my patience.”
The men glance at each other, come to a silent agreement, and slink back towards the main road.
“This ain’t over, ‘Wing!” one thug shouts, waving the baseball bat threateningly. “I’m gonna make you wish you ain’t never breathed!”
Red Hood stops paying attention to them the moment they stand down. He’s driven by a weird twinge in his chest, a sudden panic rising in his throat. He slides to his knees beside Nightwing, trying to assess the damage.
“Nightwing,” Hood calls, pulling back the mask again, but his eyes are shut, jaw lax. “Wake up.” He taps the vigilante’s face, but he just mumbles under his breath, shivering pathetically.
“The fuck did they do to you?” Hood mutters, one hand checking his pulse and the other searching for unseen injuries. The oozing bullet wound in his chest is now sticky with blood, red rolling down his uniform and smearing up his neck. Nightwing flinches at the slightest touch, the color of his ribs and abdomen no doubt matching the suit that covers them. His breathing is fast and shallow, and Red Hood makes a frustrating diagnosis: shock. You know, the inability to get enough blood to the organs, leading to deteriorating mental status, oxygen deprivation, and… well…
If Red Hood leaves now, Nightwing will die.
Hood sits back on his heels. Years ago, the Bats left him to die. Not long after, they let his murderer run free and found a new Robin. They didn't care about Hood. (Jason. They didn't care about Jason.) The dilemma here should be a non-issue. The Bats didn't care about him, so he shouldn't care about them.
“Shouldn't” being the operative word. Because something in Hood’s gut is nagging, nagging, nagging him. His mouth fills with bile, and he feels lightheaded.
“Nightwing,” Red Hood repeats, hoping above all hope that he'll open his eyes and say something stupid. But the vigilante barely stirs. “Nightwing!” Hood jams his knuckle into Nightwing’s sternum, but there's no reaction. “Dick!
“Fuckin’ dammit,” Red Hood sighs, lugging Nightwing over his shoulder in a fireman's carry and climbing to his feet. The vigilante whines at the movement.
“Shut up,” Hood groans. “This ain’t a picnic for me either.”
True to Hood’s memory, Nightwing doesn't follow instructions for shit. He whimpers with every step, and it's so grating that Hood has to make a concerted effort to keep from dropping him and leaving him to die.
… though Red Hood isn't sure why he can't abandon Nightwing. Yes, he's not Batman. He's not Hood’s true antagonist, but he's still a Bat. He still works with Batman. He still let Hood die and then wouldn't kill the Joker. Just being around Nightwing has Hood’s jaw tense and nerves high.
But seeing him on the ground, bleeding and surrounded by thugs with baseball bats… It brought back emotions Hood hadn't felt for Nightwing in a very long time:
Loyalty. Protectiveness. Worry.
And even now, as obnoxious as Nightwing’s never-ending complaining is, it's leaving Red Hood with a sour taste in his mouth. The way the vigilante hangs bonelessly from his shoulder makes his stomach twist. Even the shallow breathing hurries his pulse a little faster. And though Hood’s conscious self couldn't care less what happened to Nightwing, old sentiment from the past makes it obvious that Hood can't let the vigilante die.
He can't.
Red Hood’s apartment is nearby, barely a block from the alley. He’s eternally grateful for this fact. Nightwing is no lightweight. After a harrowing six flight climb up the fire escape, Hood slides the window open and chucks Nightwing through. While potentially cruel, it can’t be said that Nightwing doesn’t deserve it. He hated his replacement Robin just as much as Hood hates his own.
“Sorry,” Red Hood says flatly, climbing through the window and shutting it tight behind him. “Gimme a second, okay?”
Hood presses the release of his helmet and tugs it off, savoring the cool air against the back of his neck. He keeps his domino mask on - just in case his jammers fail and Nightwing’s mask comes back online - and digs an old towel out of the closet. “Still with me, Dickhead?”
Nightwing doesn’t reply. Hood grabs his first aid kit and kneels by the window. He peels the mask off the vigilante’s face, heart sinking as he sees two stubbornly shut eyes.
And suddenly, it strikes him. He’s not the Red Hood right now, sneering over Nightwing’s dying body. He is instantly and violently robbed of his barriers. No longer the crime lord in a helmet, he’s reminded of how young he still feels. Of how helpless he is.
When he gets down to it, he’s really just Jason Todd, worrying about his stupid big brother.
(Brother? Is he still his brother? Even after everything? Even after-?)
“Dick, wake up!” Jason yells, but words are meaningless, and action is everything. The moment he puts pressure on Dick’s collarbone, the man lets out a strangled scream, eyelids fluttering and body squirming to escape Jason’s hands.
“Ugh- No, no, please, jus’... jus’ let- ARGH!”
“Shut up,” Jason mutters. “Shut up, shut up, shut up.”
Desperate to fix the unfair, ridiculous situation before him, Jason takes stock of the damage. “Okay,” he tells himself under Dick’s god-awful screaming. “GSW to the collarbone, suspected fracture. Moderate bleeding, but if bone fragments cut the artery…”
Priority one determined: get that shoulder stabilized. And fast.
The wound isn’t particularly deep, and it only takes a few squares of gauze to pack it. The real trick is to keep Dick still enough that he doesn’t slice the subclavian artery and bleed out. Jason does his best to secure the wound tightly with bandages and sling the left arm with a towel. It’s not foolproof, but… Well, what other options do they have?
Throughout the process, Dick continues to be unbearable, shrieking and crying and trying to worm away. Jason considers pistol whipping him. As an act of mercy, of course. A few minutes of unconsciousness sounds kinder than whatever the hell this is.
“Hey, can you talk to me?” Jason asks, tapping Dick’s face. “Screaming doesn’t count.”
Clearly, Dick thinks screaming is perfectly acceptable. Jason ignores him again, hacking away at the Nightwing suit with the sharpest knife in his arsenal. God knows those suits are designed to hold up against some pretty intense damage, and nothing short of Jason’s best equipment is leaving a dent. But slowly (too slowly), he manages to cut the suit away, revealing exactly what he was worried about.
“Severe bruising of the chest and abdomen,” Jason notes aloud, just like Alfred taught him all those years ago. “Shallow, rapid breathing. Pulse is… fast, thready. Skin cool and clammy. Mental status is…” He calls to Dick, who continues to whine and ignore him. “... bad. Victim is in shock. Potential broken ribs. Internal bleeding likely.”
Unfortunately, beyond identifying it, Jason doesn’t know much about treating these types of injuries. Broken ribs usually just means being in pain and getting hassled about breathing deeper for weeks on end. Internal bleeding requires surgery. Shock is the only thing Jason knows much of anything about, so he sticks to that.
“Keep breathing for me, Dickie,” Jason murmurs, shoving a couch pillow under his legs and draping a throw blanket over his exposed skin.
Slowly, the screams taper off, and Jason is certain Dick either died or passed out. But then he speaks, proving both false.
“G-get away.” Dick’s glassy eyes dart around the room, and Jason can see him go through the Robin training in his head, identifying threats and forming an escape plan.
“Who’re you?”
The question strikes Jason, but not for the reason he expects. He completely forgot to come up with a plan beyond getting Dick to his apartment. What is he even supposed to say to that?
“Doesn't matter. Stay still.”
Dick squirms worse than before. “Need t’-t’get out.”
“No. You need to shut up and stop moving.” Jason massages his temples, trying to think of a plan. Dick absolutely cannot stay here. He’ll need a real doctor and real medical treatment. A hospital would be the ideal choice for him - he could drop the guy off and never deal with him ever again - but years of “no hospital,” identity protection rhetoric makes him uneasy with that choice. But calling the Bats on Dick’s comm is its own special kind of horrible decision, so that's out too.
But ultimately, the only thing Jason can't do is nothing. He disabled Dick’s tech, after all. It’s not like the Bats can check his biometrics or even call his cell. Even if Dick hit his panic button when the alley thugs attacked him, without trackers, it’ll take the Bats at least an hour or two to figure out his current location. An hour or two that Dick doesn't have.
“Did you tell the Bat what happened?” Jason asks.
Dick’s attention drifts, landing on and straying away from Jason multiple times before finally settling on his right eyebrow. “Wh’s happ’ning?”
Useless.
“Who’re you?”
Jason has no intention of answering, but Dick forms his own conclusions anyway.
“Oh, shit,” he murmurs. “No, no, no, no.” He scrambles to get away, tearing his arm from the sling, and red soaks through the white bandages on his shoulder.
“Stop moving, dammit!” Jason insists. “You're bleeding!”
“No,” Dick whines, smacking Jason’s hands away. “Y’re… Hood… Joker… I don't…” He shakes his head frantically, breathing becoming fast and erratic.
“Stop. I’m not gonna hurtcha,” Jason promises, hands up in peace, but blood-red palms aren't exactly reassuring.
“Gonna… No… Please, I- I can't-” Dick breaks off into weak coughs and desperate gasps for air. His lips have a terrifying tinge of blue to them.
“Dick,” Jason says, putting his hands down but remaining a distance away. “Deep breaths. I’m… I’m not Hood.”
“I can't- I- I can't b-”
“It's Jason!” Jason rips his mask off, not even feeling the sting. “Dick, it's Jason. I’m not gonna let anything happen to you, okay?”
And that gets Dick’s attention. His eyes snap to Jason’s, hazy blue scrutinizing a nervous, swirling green. His breathing stutters, but after a long moment, it deepens, and Dick slumps against the wall. “Goddammit.” He presses his knuckles to his forehead and takes slow, intentional breaths. For a minute, two minutes, almost three minutes, they sit like that, with Dick hiding his face as he regains his composure and Jason watching awkwardly. He tries to speak more than once, only to stop as Dick’s breathing pattern deviates. But then the shock of the panic attack wears off and the weirdness of the silence sinks in, and Jason has no choice but to speak.
“You… uh… You okay?”
Dick sits up suddenly, brow furrowed like he wasn’t expecting Jason to be sitting in front of him. He cracks his knuckles, avoiding Jason’s gaze.
Jason swallows hard. Something about Dick’s behavior - bothered but surprisingly… calm - leaves him uneasy. He almost wishes Dick would resume his panic attack so he’d at least understand what was going on.
Dick stands abruptly, canting slightly and catching himself on the wall.
“Whoa!” Jason shouts, jumping to his feet and reaching out to help. “What’re you-?”
“No.” Dick shakes his head insistently and holds a hand out, stopping Jason from approaching. “Just… Just leave me… Leave me alone.”
“Hey, it’s alright. Everything’s…”
It’s confusing, because Dick is acting like Jason wronged him. If anything, Jason should be the one telling Dick to stay away. Because Dick let Bruce go. He let Bruce carry on with the “no killing” bullshit when the Joker killed someone who was supposed to be Bruce’s son.
So why is Jason the one begging for forgiveness?
“Dick, it’s Jason,” he says again, because maybe Dick misunderstood. He is pretty low on blood. “Jason Todd? Remember me?”
“I…” Dick waves his free hand frantically, like he’s trying to shoo Jason away. “God, not now. I just need to…” He shakes his head and begins to creep along the wall.
“Where are you going?” Jason follows the agonizing pace as Dick trudges from the living room to the kitchen counter. “Hey. Talk to me.”
“No,” Dick replies stubbornly, though he might be talking to the walls, as he seems so averse to speaking with Jason. “Where’s the…?” He groans as he pulls himself up on a stool and slumps against the granite countertop. “Where’d I put the…?” He glances around the kitchen, eyes passing across Jason like he’s not even there. “Damn. Damn, where’d I-?”
“Dick, you’re bleeding,” Jason insists, growing more than irritated with the silent treatment. “We need to put pressure on-”
“I know!” Dick hisses, glassy eyes shooting up to glare daggers at Jason. “I-!” He buries his face in his hands and muffles a sob. “Fuck. I… Where’s the first aid kit?”
Jason raises an eyebrow and tips his head. Dick isn’t all there right now. Could be shock, but maybe it’s more than that. Did he hit his head? Regardless, Jason grabs the first aid kit from the coffee table and sets it down on the counter.
Dick’s head snaps up at the sound. He stares at the first aid kit blankly, blinks, and then frowns harshly, squinting at the kit like it’s a gift-wrapped bomb. He glances up at Jason but quickly looks away, shaking his head and muttering under his breath. Then he grabs a stack of gauze squares and a roll of cling, setting to work on his shoulder.
“You…” Jason runs his tongue along his teeth. “You don’t need to do that. I can help.”
Dick stares at the ceiling, expression so far past tired that he’d make Batman look like a morning person. He shuts his eyes, sighs heavily, and looks over at Jason. “Guess we’re doing this.”
“Doing…?”
“Spare me, Jay,” Dick asks, voice oddly desperate. “We both know why you’re here.”
“I-” Jason blinks, fury bubbling up his throat. “I’m saving your life, you ungrateful bastard! What do you think I’m doing?”
“Jay.” The nickname is strained. Frustrated but almost… gentle. “I don’t want to argue with you. Let’s just… exist for a second. While we can.”
Jason scowls. “The fuck is that supposed to mean? Because I died? Now you wanna pretend you’re glad that I’m back?”
Dick laughs around a sob. “You have no idea how happy that would make me.”
“Think I do,” Jason snarls. “Because you’re showing me right now. I’m back, and you’re being stubborn. You’re acting like you’re invincible. You can take care of yourself. You’re fine. That’s what you think. But take it from me, someone who knows-” He jabs a finger an inch from Dick’s face. “You’re just as mortal as I am. And if you don’t let me wrap your stupid fucking bullet wound, Bruce is gonna have to bury you too.”
Dick’s expression warps from blasé to horrified. He drops the cling wrap, and Jason snatches it before it hits the ground.
“Now stay fucking still, or I’ll shoot you again,” Jason growls, redressing the wound with more force than necessary.
They’re silent for another long minute. Jason is done with the dressing and fussing with the sling when Dick says, voice hollow, “Jase, am I dead?”
“Wh-?” Jason shakes his head, as if trying to rid himself of the mere thought. “Of course not. Why would you think that?”
Dick stares at him, eyebrows so high they disappear under his mussed (yet somehow still stupidly perfect) hair. His jaw drops, and he curls his lip over his teeth. If Jason had to pair the expression with a sentence, he’d say it’d go well with, Are you stupid? But when Jason’s eyes don’t show a hint of enlightenment, Dick’s face crumples up. He looks devastated.
Jason did not shoot Dick to feel bad for him. He shot Dick because the bastard, for all his preachy, brotherhood bullshit, continued to work with Bruce despite Bruce’s obvious lack of concern for Jason’s murder. For Jason’s murderer, still alive and kicking while Jason rotted away in a mahogany box under the garden.
But Dick’s reaction is making it very difficult for Jason to maintain his professionalism. Why does the bastard have to look so goddamn pathetic? Like Jason is the one who abandoned him. What right does he have? How dare he demand reassurance when he sat around and did nothing about the Joker? When he skipped Jason’s funeral? When he took the new “Robin” under his wing?
Anger renewed, his vision a deadly venom green, Jason grits his teeth, grabs Dick’s injured shoulder, and squeezes. Dick shrieks, but he’s too weak to move away.
“You're probably not dead,” Jason argues. “‘less you think being dead hurts this bad. And I think I’d know.”
Dick bats at Jason’s unmoving hand, tears streaking down his face. “Jay,” he gasps. “Jay, buddy, I- I’m sorry. Jay, you’re-”
“What?” Jason demands, letting go and folding his arms. “What am I?”
“Jay.” Dick’s voice cracks. He hunches, good arm shielding his injured shoulder. “Bud, you’re…” He blinks furiously and looks away. “You’re dead, Jay. And I’m… I’m so sorry. You… You didn’t deserve it. Not a second of it. And if I could do anything in the world…” He chews his bottom lip. “I’d take your place.”
The Earth stops spinning. The lamps burn a dangerous emerald hue. Jason’s ears ring. He doesn’t hear another word. Not anything Dick says. Not even what he himself says. But he knows exactly what he means to say, and that’s all that matters to him.
“You left me!” Jason booms. “You abandoned me! You don’t get to just- just act like you cared about me! You hated me! Bruce replaced you, and you were thrilled when I died!”
Dick shakes his head frantically, squeezing his eyes shut tight. “No,” he sobs. “No, Jay, I loved you. You were my brother, and I lost you. I’m- I’m so sorry I failed you.”
Jason freezes. He stops breathing, heart quits beating. All he can hear are those words.
I loved you. I failed you. I’m sorry.
It’s too much. It’s all too much. Jason can’t just… He doesn’t… He doesn’t know how to feel. What to think. Because he’s mad at Dick. He was the closest thing Jason had to a brother, and then… he wasn’t. He abandoned him. But… god. A part of him aches for the person in front of him. He wants his brother so badly, but… but that’s just not how it works. Dick isn’t his brother. Not after everything.
… but even so, Jason mourns the loss of him. He wants nothing more than to stick around. To keep Dick here and see just how much of the brother he remembers is left. To see if maybe they can get past their differences and… and be siblings again. Be family again.
But Dick has been here for nearly an hour, and he has even less blood now than he did when he got to the apartment. He needs medical care. And Jason would stick around to help or at least to talk to Dick afterwards, but that would require a trip to the Batcave. That would require going into enemy territory and letting Batman - letting Bruce - know who he is.
And as much as Jason needs his brother back, he can’t forget Bruce’s offenses so easily. He… He can’t even think about Bruce without green trickling into his vision. Staying with Dick simply isn’t an option, no matter how badly Jason wants to.
“C’mon,” Jason sighs, running his sleeve across his eyes and pulling the helmet on. He tells himself the blurry vision is just his eyes adjusting to the helmet's infrareds. “Let’s get you out of here.”
---
Batman expects the worst when Nightwing requests backup to Crime Alley. He’s been better about asking for help recently, especially compared to when he was a stubborn teenager that hated Batman’s guts, but it’s not the willingness to request backup that concerns Batman.
It’s the fact that Nightwing isn’t supposed to be in Gotham at all.
“Oracle, send the Batmobile to my coordinates,” Batman orders. He doesn’t wait for a reply before giving his next command and stepping off a twenty-story building. “Nightwing, report.”
There’s a long span of silence. Then a gasp. A thump. Heavy breathing cut off as the comm system breaks out into a horrific buzzing.
Batman triggers his grapple gun just before he reaches terminal velocity, slowing his fall and allowing himself to redirect towards the Batmobile waiting below.
“Nightwing went completely dark,” Oracle reports. “Lost his trackers on Matherson Street in Park Row.
“On my way,” Batman says. He’s barely settled in the Batmobile’s driver seat before his lead foot meets the pedal. “Any idea why he was out there?”
“Negative.”
“Any odd behavior recently?”
“Other than the obvious?”
The obvious. Right. Just a week earlier, they’d been led to believe that Robin had been killed by the Joker. Nightwing became… “Unhinged” feels too mild a description.
… homicidal. Nightwing had become homicidal and quite literally killed the Joker. That’s what happened. And Batman had been there soon enough to bring Joker back, thank god. But… Nightwing had been shaken, by both Robin’s mortality and his own moral failings. (He’d been shaken by his ability to forget the most important lesson Batman had taught him in an instant.) He refused to discuss the incident with Batman, though he’d spoken loudly enough to Oracle for others in the Cave to hear. (“I couldn’t,” Nightwing had said. “After Jason, I… I couldn’t let him… I couldn’t let him take anyone else. I wasn’t even sorry. Not during, and… some part of me doesn’t regret it now either. I hate myself for it, but…” Oracle had shushed him, and they stopped the discussion quickly after. Batman still feels sick about it.)
So, needless to say, yes. Nightwing has been less than in control of his emotions recently. And with this “Red Hood” - a previous alias of the Joker, no less - running around Crime Alley, Batman worries that Nightwing has lost it again.
Chewing his lip, Batman changes gears. “Batman to Robin.”
“Go ahead, Batman.”
“Status report.”
Robin sounds almost surprised. “Back at the Cave like you asked, but… Do you want me to help look?” He wants to help. That’s obvious. But he’s torn between desire and duty, as he often is, deferring to Batman’s expertise. Batman will need to enjoy that while he can. His Robins tend to get more independent and headstrong the longer they wear the cape.
“No,” Batman orders. “Stay put.”
“... understood.”
Batman is nearly at the location now, and he slows down so the car’s engine doesn’t scare away every goon in a ten-mile radius. If someone is keeping Nightwing hostage, it wouldn’t do for Batman to announce his arrival. He ditches the car four blocks away from his destination and travels the difference via rooftop. One eye is fixed on the streets below at all times, searching for suspicious figures.
“Oracle, show Batman on scene,” Batman mutters, dropping into a crouch at the edge of the rooftop on the corner of Matherson and Glen. He pulls out his Bat-noculars (blame the first Robin for that nightmare of a name) and checks for Nightwing, but the vigilante is nowhere to be seen. So rather than rush in to provide backup, Batman waits, watches, and strikes.
Swooping down with his cape billowing behind like the leathery wings of his namesake, Batman lands in an alley, startling a group of three. The men shout and reveal their firearms. In thirty-two seconds, fifteen bullets are fired, six new holes are ripped into a “No Loitering” sign, and three men fall, dazed and disarmed, onto the pavement. It’s rookie numbers, really, but Batman intends to do this correctly. Tonight, efficiency can be sacrificed for accuracy, as a few seconds aren’t likely to kill Nightwing. If he couldn’t handle himself, Batman wouldn’t let him set foot in Gotham.
“Nightwing was here,” Batman says factually. “The direction you were moving and your walking speed indicate that you saw him. You can tell me about it now, right here, or you can tell me later, five hundred feet above the ground with a broken jaw.”
One man speaks immediately. Almost proudly. “We roughed ‘im up a little, yeah.” He rests his baseball bat on his shoulder. Batman doesn't miss the shiny red spot on it.
Another man elbows him. “What the hell, Vern? He’ll kill us!”
“The Bat don’t kill,” the first man sneers. “Don’cha, Bats?”
The third man scrambles to his feet, standing between Batman and his friends. “Wait, wait, wait! Let me explain!” He holds up his hands in peace, and Batman nods. “There’s a ban on Bats in Crime Alley, and we found the Night guy on the ground already. So we figured we’d get rid of him, y’know? Finish the job.”
“You’re doing a very bad job of not killing us, man!” one of the other thugs shrieks.
Batman sweeps out his cape, his figure growing larger and more imposing. “Who put out the ban?” he growls.
“The Red Hood. Guy’s in charge now.”
“So, what? You killed Nightwing?”
The man in front of the others shakes his head insistently. “No. No, we didn’t! I swear!”
“Then what happened? You turned him in?” Batman demands, taking a half step closer.
“No! The Red Hood told us to stop,” one of the men on the ground reports. “Then he let us go.”
“So you left Nightwing with the man that wants him dead?” Batman reasons.
The men seem to put two and two together, blood draining from their faces. “Oh,” one says.
“Fuck,” says another.
“Kill them first!” the last shrieks.
Batman grunts, pacing around them. “What do you know about Red Hood? Did he say why he wanted vigilantes out?”
One thug shakes his head. “Just said he didn’t want ‘em in his area. He’s a crime boss, yanno. Bats are bad for business.”
“He’s Batman, you idiot!” another man shouts. “Of course he knows Hood’s a boss!”
“Hey, I’m just answering the question-”
“Did you see what he did with Nightwing? Or hear gunshots?”
“‘s Crime Alley, man. There’s always gunshots.”
Batman grabs the thug’s collar and drags him close. “Answer the question.”
The thug yelps. “No! N-no, we didn’t see anything, I swear! We left right away!”
“Does Red Hood have a base of operations? Or somewhere he keeps prisoners?”
“He's new,” the thug explains hurriedly. “We don't know much about ‘im.”
“Hn.” Batman drops the man, shoving him back a few feet. “If anyone knows anything about Red Hood, now’s your last chance.” For emphasis, Batman flicks out three Batarangs between his fingers. “I don't kill, yes, but I have no problem making you beg me to.”
“He’s, ah, y’see, he's… He runs Crime Alley and the Bowery? And I think he… um… he might like honey mustard on his pretzels? I don't know, but I think everyone likes-”
It's not some smartass comment. The goon is reaching desperately for any piece of knowledge he has on the Red Hood, of which there is nothing of use. Batman sneers and silences the man with a hand.
“Turn around and run,” Batman orders. “Get out of here, because if I find you again-”
They're gone mid-sentence, scattering frantically down alleys. And just like that, Batman is back to square one.
“Oracle, can you access Nightwing’s mask feed?”
“Trying,” Oracle huffs. “It's like he fell into a black hole.”
“Can you see anything at all?”
“Hm. Oh. That's not-”
“What?” Batman’s patience is disintegrating like pencil shavings in a blast furnace.
“I’m getting null feedback from the mask’s bio sensors. Could just be the interference, but-”
A wave of dread crashes over Batman’s head. Wherever Nightwing is, he's not wearing his mask.
“Batman,” a new voice pipes up. “I can help search-”
“Stay put, Robin,” Batman growls. “That's an order.” He doesn't want help. Not if it means putting another one of them (another Robin, another son) in danger. He can't deal with it tonight. Not when they almost lost the new Robin so recently. Not when Nightwing - the original Robin - is nowhere to be seen. Not when the Robin in-between lies cold beside Thomas and Martha Wayne.
It can't happen again.
“Any idea about the cause of the interference, Oracle?”
“Tough to say.”
Batman bites back his frustration. “Don't be vague.”
“Could be a jammer. Or Nightwing buried himself in tin foil.”
He ignores the obvious sarcasm. “So someone took him? Where’s the last point of contact?”
“Twelve yards west of your current location, twenty-four minutes ago.”
“Hn.” Batman checks, just to be safe, but as expected, there’s no one twelve yards west. Just a dark, shiny patch on the blacktop. He dips one finger in the puddle, careful to only graze the surface. “Got a sample for you.”
Oracle is quiet over the other end, no doubt interpreting the data from the electrophoretic fibers of his glove. She tuts into the mic, and it's not on purpose. She's just as stressed as Batman is. “Richard Grayson. Perfect match.”
It's not shocking. Not really. Dick Grayson’s blood at his last known location before going completely offline? It's only logical, really.
Doesn't mean Batman didn't wish it was someone else's blood. There's an awful lot on the ground. More than Batman is comfortable with.
Batman continues to survey the scene. Plenty of bullet casings. Plenty of bullets.
It's Crime Alley, the thug had said. There's always gunshots.
Most of the shells and bullets are old, still slick from the rainstorm the evening before. A fair number are dry, though, scattered about the alley. There’s even an empty clip. But Batman's final count of the dry ammunition isn't great: thirty-five shells, thirty-four bullets. Someone is wandering around with at least an entry-only gunshot wound, possibly more through-and-throughs. And with only one blood sample on scene, that person is almost certainly Nightwing.
With the scene providing very few leads, Batman shifts his attention to the primary suspect.
“Oracle, get me everything you can find about the Red Hood.”
“There's not much,” Oracle admits. “First appearance was five months ago in Park Row. Killed a man recently found not guilty of assaulting his wife.” She continues on, providing a long list of similar offenses.
Right. Hood’s initial crimes had targeted domestic issues, of all things. A sort of vigilante justice that Bruce could almost appreciate. If it weren't for the killing.
It's always about the killing.
“-started claiming territory six weeks ago. Currently controlling crime in Park Row, the Bowery, and the Narrows. Identity unknown. Male, 6’1”, 210-230 pounds. Slightly but consistently favors his left leg; suspected chronic injury or congenital deformity. Right-handed with learned left-handed mastery. Preferred weapons: dual Jericho 941s. Also known to use revolvers, automatic rifles, bazookas, and an unknown bladed weapon.”
“Hn.” Batman grapples to the roofs, scanning for shady figures in the streets. “Keep looking. And… see if Robin can get a bead on him, but under no circumstances does he enter the field.”
“Got it. What about you?”
“I’m going door-to-door.”
And that’s exactly what he does. He finds every crook, thug, and goon in Crime Alley and threatens them with a month in intensive care. He promises to leave criminals with more bones broken than whole. He even tells one particularly smug drug dealer that he’ll leave him eyeless and castrated in a dumpster.
Of course, that’s when Oracle decides to interrupt.
“Batman. Get to the alley on Warner, between the bodega and the smoke shop. Now.”
Batman narrows his eyes, tosses the drug dealer across the room, and dives out the window. He scans the rooftops, counting blocks and identifying the proper intersection.
It’s two blocks over. Batman doesn’t know whether to be embarrassed or horrified at his inability to track someone (one of his own) who’d moved 100 yards.
“What are we looking at?” Batman asks, grappling to the intersection. He can already see the situation, really. A black-and-blue heap collapsed near the mouth of the alley, unmoving. But he needs more information, and he can’t wait the few precious moments it will take for him to drop to the pavement.
“Nightwing’s trackers and mask just came back online. His vitals are… bad. Looks like massive blood loss.”
“Copy.” By the end of her report, he’s at Nightwing’s side, two fingers against the clammy skin under the boy’s jaw. He rams a few knuckles in his sternum too, which earns him a weak grunt. He reaches up and summons the car to idle behind them.
“Nightwing, report.”
The mask obscures Nightwing’s eyes, but he’s verbal enough that Batman doesn’t think it’s worth the identity risk to take off the mask. Visibly, he looks pale. Sweaty. Like crap, really. His shoulder is wrapped in gauze that’s already stained dark red, and his arm is slinged. But what’s really interesting is the large Gotham Guardsmen hoodie thrown over his suit.
“Crime A-Alley,” Nightwing groans. “Status: a-alive but-” He wheezes. “-not good. And… fuck.” His good hand reaches up, grabs Batman’s cowl, and drags him down so they’re eye-to-eye. (Or mask-to-cowl?) “Bruce, Jason’s alive.”
Dread, cold and relentless, coats Batman’s stomach, and he hears his teeth grind from how hard he’s clenching them. “Oracle,” he says. “Have Penny-One prep the med bay.”
“Copy.”
“B-” Nightwing coughs hard, whining as the motion jars his injury. “Bruce, Jay’s alive,” he repeats, like Batman hadn't heard him all too well the first time.
Batman swallows hard and gathers Nightwing in his arms. His knees shake as he takes the few steps from the alley to the car, but it’s not because of Nightwing’s weight. As cautiously as he can, he eases the boy into the backseat and straps him in.
“Stay awake,” Batman orders, tapping Nightwing’s face, but his voice trembles too much to get the severity of the statement across.
“He’s alive,” Nightwing mutters, and Batman realizes that he’d much prefer the trip to the Cave with the kid unconscious. “He… He said so.”
Batman slams the door shut and takes the driver’s seat. He’s speeding to the Batcave before he can get his own seatbelt on.
“Batman, what’s your 9-2?”
“Debrief in the Cave,” Batman insists. And then, as an afterthought, he adds, “Have several units of O-positive prepped in the rapid infuser. And blast the heaters.”
The drive to the Cave should take fifteen minutes. Batman does it in eight.
“Here, sir!” Alfred calls, waving Batman over to the first cot in the med bay. The butler has a series of medical supplies laid out in preparation, and as promised, blood bags hang from a pole, the attached tubing snaking down through the infuser, ready in a moment's notice. Tim is waiting at the ready, looking unsteady but determined to do whatever Alfred asks. Barbara is nowhere in sight. Bruce doesn't have the time to care.
“-alive!” Jay’s-” Cough. “-alive!” Nightwing - no, Alfred peeled off the mask, so it's Dick now - is far more animated than anyone with such little blood in his body should be. But here he is, chattering away about how…
Bruce (because his cowl is down now too) can't even think about it. The whole drive over, Dick was insistent that he saw Jason. That the Joker didn't really kill him. Bruce tried to explain that he was confusing Tim with Jason. Tim is alive. The Joker didn't kill Tim.
But Dick was (and still very much is) certain about who he saw.
“He… He protected me from the - ow - th’ guys with bats. He's here.”
Alfred and Tim ignore Dick’s ramblings, but Bruce has been through too much these last few nights to just block it out. He hears every word Dick says, and every word breaks his heart a little more.
“Jay thinks I… hate him. He said I wanted… wanted him dead.”
“Respectfully, sir,” Alfred interrupts, “if you don't hush up, I won't hesitate to sedate you.”
Dick’s ranting dissolves into mumbling, but Bruce seriously doubts that it’s a response to the scolding so much as the night and his hypovolemia catching up with him.
“Master Tim, grab the surgical kit, if you will?”
Tim blanches but nods all the same.
“Artery?” Bruce asks, unable to see much past Alfred’s gloved hands.
The butler hums his assent. “He was shot in the collarbone, but we're lucky. Bone fragments only recently tore the subclavian artery. I’ll need to fix it surgically, but his odds of survival are promising.”
The fact that Alfred even mentioned survival, implying that death is on the table, leaves Bruce even more worried than before. Arterial bleeds are dangerous (deadly, they're deadly), but they feel so commonplace. All of them have survived that and worse. Alfred voicing the more frequent consequence of bleeding out makes the whole situation infinitely more real.
“Are you injured, Master Bruce?”
Alfred's question catches him off-guard, too busy pensively staring into space. “I… No.”
Alfred raises an eyebrow. “And I should believe you because…?”
“Because you asked me,” Bruce snaps. “There weren't any real fights tonight.”
“Happy to hear it, sir.” Alfred doesn't sound totally convinced, but Tim has returned with the surgical instruments, and Alfred turns away to take a stack of supplies and scrub in at the sink. “Go sit down and drink some water,” he calls behind him, “or I’ll sic the boy on you.”
Tim means well, but he means a bit too well. If Alfred gives him orders to make sure Bruce takes care of himself, he'll never leave Bruce alone. And Bruce needs a moment alone tonight. So he grabs a water bottle and sits without complaint.
---
“Master Bruce.”
Bruce jolts awake, neck and back aching with displeasure. He sits up straight in the office chair he’d dragged from the Batcomputer to the med bay and blinks furiously. “Alfred?”
“The surgery was successful, sir,” Alfred explains, hands clasped behind his back.
“Good. That's… good.” Bruce rubs his face tiredly and glances past Alfred. Dick is lies still and silent on the cot, but even from a distance, it's clear he's no longer dying. Bruce hasn't seen someone so pale - so excessively leeched of blood - in…
Maybe he's never seen it so bad before.
“I expect he has a few transfusions to go, but his vitals are much improved. Dr. Thompkins should be here within the hour to do a more thorough assessment.”
Bruce nods, rising to his feet and glancing around the Cave. Tim is stationed behind the Batcomputer, perched on a folding chair seemingly procured from nowhere at all. (The Wayne manor doesn't have folding chairs, because they never run out of normal chairs.) His brow is furrowed, and he types and clicks in a halting rhythm. Barbara is at Dick’s side, head bowed and arms folded on top of his sheets. Her glasses dig awkwardly into her face, and the drool puddle suggests she passed out a while ago.
Glancing at his phone, Bruce realizes that it's well into the morning now. The surgery must have wrapped up hours ago.
“Thank you, Alfred,” Bruce says, and a moment of silent understanding passes between them. The shared belief that saving the boy - their boy - is both something that doesn't even require a thank you and also something that no thanks could ever repay. He places a gentle hand on Alfred’s shoulder. “Get some sleep. I’ll watch him until Leslie gets here.”
Alfred smiles, and it's warmer than his usual sardonic grin. “Good night, dear boy.”
They part ways, and Bruce motions Tim away from the computer and to Dick’s cot. They sit on the vinyl-padded bench adjacent to the cot, and Tim is immediate to ask questions. To ensure that he's done all he can for Batman. For the mission.
“What is it?” Tim whispers. “I’m looking through Hood’s last known locations, but if you need me to do something else, I can-”
Bruce holds up a hand in peace. “I’m just… glad you're okay.”
Tim blinks, expression devoid of any thought. Then he draws his lips and narrows his eyes. “But I… I wasn't in danger?”
A red scrap of fabric, drenched in Gotham sewer sludge and boasting a black and gold “R” flashes in Bruce's mind. He sees a human skeleton, the flesh ripped from its bones by Killer Croc. He remembers how close they were to losing him. To losing another Robin. Another son.
“I know,” Bruce replies, voice heavy. “But I still like knowing you're safe.”
“... oh.” Tim either thinks Bruce is overbearing or crazy. Bruce can't be sure of which.
There's movement in the corner of Bruce's eye, and he looks over to see Barbara sitting up and frantically swiping at the drool on her face. “Oh. There's an audience now,” she mutters. “How wonderful.”
“Have you found anything new on Hood?”
Barbara shakes her head. “He's brash, but he's smart. I can't figure out where he is or what his deal is. And Dick’s mask didn't have any helpful footage. Cut out when he went offline and turned on shortly before you found him. The only person who knows what happened is Dick. And… maybe Red Hood. Assuming it really was Hood with him.”
“Odds are favorable,” Bruce reports. “But you're right. We need to know for sure.” And he throws away Alfred’s cardinal rule of the med bay and taps Dick’s face.
“Don't wake him up-” Barbara protests. Tim tugs at his arm.
But Bruce pays them no mind. “Chum,” he murmurs. “Eyes open.”
Dick is slow to rouse, wrinkling his nose and cracking one eye to glare up at Bruce. “B…?” he rasps.
“Tim, get him some water.”
Tim hesitates but begrudgingly leaves his brother’s side.
“B, what's-?”
Bruce's voice hardens into Batman's commanding tone. “Nightwing, report.”
There's a grunt of disdain. Barbara. Bruce ignores her.
Dick’s expression, previously groggy and confused, twists into a resolute frown. “I… I went to Crime Alley to confront the Red Hood. He shot me and brought me to an apartment. He treated my injury and…” The focused gaze breaks into nervous fluttering. His eyes turn shiny, and his breathing speeds up. He shakes his head, and Barbara takes his hand, squeezing it reassuringly.
“Shh… Take your time, Dick. We’re not going anywhere.”
Dick seems to calm some, if only marginally. He takes a few seconds more to breathe before continuing. “Hood took off his helmet. He-” The breath is choked from his lungs, and he turns on his side, hiding his face as he coughs and wheezes. Barbara rubs his back, but her eyes are on Bruce, glaring death threats.
“-’m sorry, s-sorry-” Dick mutters frantically between coughs. Tim’s return to the med bay is all too welcome, and Bruce helps Dick sit up so he can drink some water. Half the glass dribbles down his front, but enough gets down his throat to reduce the coughing.
“Dick,” Bruce finally says. “What happened?”
Dick squeezes his eyes shut, nods, and slumps against the wall. “Hood took off his helmet. It was Jason.”
Bruce frowns, folds his arms, and leans back in his chair. “Jason who?”
Dick goes bug-eyed for a moment, the color draining from his face. “Our Jason. Jason Todd.”
“Oh,” Bruce replies, because what is he supposed to say to that? He's got a dead son, a son who nearly died a week ago, and now a son hallucinating the dead one. Bruce really isn't in the mood to dissect Dick’s underlying trauma. “So did you figure out who he really was?”
And Dick cringes, looking like he wants to puke. Then he does just that, lunging over the side of the cot.
“Coulda just said no, dude,” Tim says, grabbing an emesis bag (labeled “Bat Barf Bag,” courtesy of a tradition started by 8-year-old Dick and proudly carried on by every subsequent Robin) and shoving it in Dick’s face. Then he awkwardly pats his brother on the back, expression halfway between disgust and worry.
A sliver of dread runs through Bruce’s stomach. “Barbara, did Alfred say anything about a concussion?”
“No. But he said a broken collarbone is painful enough to warrant some vomit.”
Good old Alfred. Keeping them sane in his sleep.
“It-” Dick gags, coughs, and then pushes himself back onto the cot, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. “You don't get it,” he insists. “It was Jason. Hood is Jason.”
Bruce frowns, pity poking at his chest. Barbara and Tim trade worried glances. “Chum, Jason’s dead. He died six years ago.”
“I-!” Dick’s ears turn red. “I know that! But I’m telling you: it was him. Six years older and everything. He knew who we were. He knew Jason's story. And it was him.”
Barbara’s eyes are watery and broken. Tim’s hand is sealed over his mouth, eyes wide. Bruce steels his expression and chews the inside of his cheek.
“Dick. Don't do this.”
“I’m telling you the truth, dammit!”
“Dick, you're stressed. You lost a lot of blood. And you’ve had Jason on the mind.” He doesn't mention why - doesn't remind him about him snapping and killing the Joker - but Dick knows what he means anyway. “You’ve had hallucinations of him before.”
“This is different, Bruce,” Dick grits out, kneading his forehead with his knuckles. “He's always been a kid. He's never been able to touch me. But he was grown up. He was real.”
Bruce takes a slow, calming breath. “Barbara? Tim? Could you give us the room?”
Barbara’s response is immediate. “No. Absolutely not.” She always assumes the worst of him. She always assumes he’ll miscommunicate his point. It's infuriating.
“B.” Dick’s eyes bore into Bruce’s. “Do you trust me?”
He does. Beyond question, past any Earthly doubt. Bruce trusts him with his life. He trusts him with his other children’s lives, which arguably says much more.
But he doesn't trust Dick right now. Not four hours post-gunshot wound and recovering from severe blood loss. And… And not in his current psychological state. Not a week after he killed the Joker.
So Bruce hesitates to reply, and that's enough for Dick. “After everything? After I devoted my life to your cause? Our cause?”
“I do trust you. But you also understand that you weren't and still aren't mentally fit enough to properly assess your situation.”
“That's not true,” Dick insists. “I know what I saw.”
“Tim, Barbara, please.” Bruce chews his lip. “Give us five minutes.”
Unwilling to disobey Batman twice, Tim jumps up and leaves the med bay, casting one last worried look at Dick before disappearing from sight.
Barbara scowls, unmoving, but Dick pats her hand. “Babs,” he says. “Just a few minutes, okay?”
For a long moment, it seems like Barbara is still intent on remaining, but then she sighs and cusses under her breath. “Five on the dot, Bruce.” And then she’s gone too, and Dick is staring at Bruce with pleading doe eyes.
“Dick, we’ve been through too much these last few years. Last week, you killed the Joker. Honestly, I’ve been considering benching you. So this… whatever this is? You have to understand why I don’t believe you.”
Dick looks away, anger and understanding warring in his eyes. “I get it Bruce. I do. If you told me Jason was alive, I wouldn’t believe you either. But the truth is that I’m not crazy. I did see him. He wasn’t like any hallucination I’ve ever had before. So even if you don’t believe me, you need to accept that I believe it.”
“It was never a question,” Bruce assures him. “You obviously believe it.”
“And you think I’m crazy.”
Again, Bruce hesitates, and Dick makes his conclusions from that.
“I’ll tell you again when I’m healed up,” Dick promises. “I’ll tell you exactly what I’m saying now. It was him.”
“Dick, we thought the Joker killed Tim last week. You killed the Joker last week. You obviously have Jason on the mind. I know what’s possible and what isn’t. He’s dead. Nothing you say will convince me otherwise. All you’ll do is make me more concerned for your mental state.”
“I’m sane. He patched me up. He gave me that hoodie. Why in the hell would Red Hood help me if he wasn’t-?”
“-if he wasn’t Jason?” Bruce raises an eyebrow. “Are you seriously asking me that? Your dead brother is the last person capable of bandaging your gunshot wound.”
“He’s not dead, Bruce. I know he isn’t.”
Bruce sighs, squeezing his eyes shut and pinching the bridge of his nose. “We’re talking in circles, chum. I don’t know how else to explain it to you.”
“I’m not crazy,” Dick says again, but it’s quieter this time. He’s not talking to Bruce. “I’m not crazy.”
“Stay the night,” Bruce offers. “Rest up a bit. You’re confused. We can talk about it once you’re feeling better, okay?”
“I know what I saw,” Dick murmurs, but he’s drifting, eyes fluttering shut.
“I know you did, chum.” Bruce pulls the blanket up and places a kiss on Dick’s forehead. “I know. It’s okay.”
It’s not okay. It may never be again. But Bruce clings to the hope that maybe it will be. Someday.
---
Jason didn’t prepare for this. He knew he’d piss off Bruce and get into a turf war with his child army. He expected to eventually reveal his identity and finally convince Bruce to kill the Joker once and for all. But reconnecting with his sort-of brother was never in the plans. Feeling sympathy, feeling grief for Dick was never something he expected, much less prepared for.
And yet, here he is. Sympathetic. Grieving. It's pathetic.
Jason waits on a fire escape until he sees the dark shadow descend on the alley. It takes everything in him to keep from shooting him right then and there (he’s so distracted, and it would be so easy), but Dick will die if he doesn't get help. And Jason…
He doesn't want Dick to die.
Then, confident Dick was someone else’s problem, Jason disappears into the skyline and returns to his apartment. He's not sure if Batman saw him, but either way, he’ll prioritize Dick’s safety over giving chase.
Or… will he? He's not the perfect father Jason thought he was, after all. He’d rather let the Joker kill people than-
It doesn't matter. Batman doesn't follow him.
It's quiet when Jason returns home. There's blood all over the windowsill, the rug, the wall, the kitchen counter. In some spots, it puddles, forming dark, tacky stains. In others, drops and streaks dry into rust flakes. Jason sighs, shucking his gloves and washing the blood from his hands first. They’re still bright red, a darker maroon under his nails and along his cuticles.
He’ll have to abandon his apartment, he realizes, because Dick saw it, and even half-dead, a Bat’s memory is disturbingly accurate. He might come back. He might tell Bruce.
A chill shoots down Jason’s spine, and he shivers in spite of himself. He can’t let Bruce find him. Not yet.
Jason shuts off the water, dries his hands, and starts packing. He figures he’s got eight hours, give or take, before Dick is actually conscious enough to give away his location. That’s more time than when he’s usually fleeing his current housing situation. More often, it’s a “grab your go bag and sprint out of there” deal. Eight hours feels marathon by comparison. Even if he moves slowly, it should only take him one.
It’s a shame, really, that he has to leave a perfectly good apartment, but the strangest thing is that he’s not angry about it. He’s not brimming with regret like he’d expect. Instead, he feels… calm. Resigned, maybe. There’s no, Fuck you, Dick, now I’m homeless. It’s more like, oh, well, I have to relocate again, I guess.
He’s used to it, Jason decides. That’s why it doesn’t bother him. Because moving is just normal for him now. The fact that he had to give away his location to save Dick has nothing to do with it. It’s an occupational hazard; that’s it.
For the next two weeks, Jason ventures a bit further outside of his neighborhood than usual. He keeps his eyes peeled. Maybe drives through Bristol a time or two out of costume. He’s just doing reconnaissance. He’s just digging up more dirt about Batman.
And if he happens to see Nightwing grappling between buildings or Dick Grayson entering Wayne Manor… Well… He wouldn’t say he’s not relieved.
He’d been gone a while. Yes, he can admit to that. And he hadn't exactly kept in touch, what with cell service being very limited in the outer reaches of space.
But would it have killed Bruce to leave a voicemail? A text? Anything?
---
Dick Grayson is exhausted. His shoulders slump with fatigue. His head keens with the kind of dizzying ache that accompanies hunger and severe dehydration. And his leg.
Oh, his leg. Covered from knee to toe in gaping shrapnel wounds, his leg looks like something you'd find fifty feet away from its owner after a landmine went off. Debris had crushed it too, and Dick has the sneaking suspicion that he has a fibula fracture, maybe worse. Walking is possible with a crutch digging into his arm, but it makes his eyes water and knees weak. All he wants to do is sit.
But since when has Dick Grayson ever gotten what he wanted?
“Donna! I was so worried!”
“Just hold me, Terry. Please.”
“Aw, man! Danny’s still here. Hoped he woulda gotten the hint after we left him behind.”
“Lay off him, Gar.”
The space orb behind them hums in a steady tenor. Its power source crackles and warms the backs of the homecoming heroes. And then it zips away, back to wherever it came from.
“Dick,” a red-haired boy with thick glasses says urgently, rushing to meet him. “You’ll never guess.”
But Dick’s priorities are straight. His teammate is dying. There's no time for whatever the ten-year-old with an attitude problem thinks is important.
“In a minute, Danny,” Dick says, holding up a finger. Then he looks at their resident shape-shifter. “Gar, hurry Vic to STAR Labs. We’ll be over in half an hour.”
“Hey, what happened to the leg?” Danny points, freckled nose wrinkled in disdain. “Y’know, if I’d been with you, I bet this wouldn’t’ve happened.”
Dick sighs and leans heavier on his makeshift crutch. He's starting to lose blood flow to his arm. If he doesn't sit down soon, his hand will fall asleep, and he'll lose his grip and fall. “I’ll tell you later. What's up?”
“Danny,” Terry says sharply, his eyes snapping to the boy's. “Not now.” There's something just below his words. Some unspoken warning. “Let them wash up first.”
It's a nice thought, to get clean. Dick hasn't had a shower in… since he left, actually. Weeks ago. And his suit was torn to pieces in Sparta’s sneak attack a few days ago. The same time his leg got shredded, actually. All he has left are his pants (now torn into uneven capris) and one boot. He would kill for some real clothes right now.
“What's wrong, Terry?” Donna asks, gently pulling away from their hug.
“C’mon,” Danny huffs. “They gotta find out sometime.” He shrugs, turning back to Dick. “It's not that big a deal, anyhow.”
Dick wants to sit down. He wants a shower. He wants a damn shirt.
“Spit it out already. What happened?”
Danny shrugs again. “I’m not positive, but I’m pretty sure Jason Todd is dead.”
Fatigue drains from Dick’s body. The pain of his arm and his leg and his head melts away. His chest grows light and fluttery, muscles revving with energy. One moment, he's stumbling on his bad foot, and the next, he's ditching the crutch, pushing past his fellow Titans to the computer.
“You must be mistaken,” Raven insists.
“Dick, where are you going?” Kory’s voice is clear and insistent. He can't ignore her, even… even when…
“I need to know,” he says, collapsing in an office chair and rolling up to the computer. Danny’s words float through his head.
I’m pretty sure Jason Todd is dead. I’m pretty sure Jason Todd is dead.
The words stick, but they don't get absorbed. They're just words. Syllables, really. How could something so insignificant hurt him? How could they mean something so painfully real?
“I tried calling Wayne’s place, but nobody ever answers.” Danny sounds pouty. Dick can't bother to care.
“Dick, calm down,” Kory urges, one hand on his shoulder. “It could be a mistake.”
“If it is a mistake,” Dick counters, “I’ll calm down then.” He remotes into the Batcomputer’s database and searches the name. His fingers shake so badly that he tries to look up Jaso Toff, Hsson Rood, and Jsin Yodd before he successfully gets the name out. He loses precious seconds because of nerves; Batman would be so disappointed.
The screen pops up, and Dick feels his stomach drop. Jason Todd, clad in the Robin gear, stares out at the group, his name and status listed beside the profile picture.
NAME: JASON PETER TODD
ALIAS: ROBIN
STATUS: UNKNOWN
“See? It says whereabouts unknown. No info. It doesn't make any sense.”
Bile bitters Dick’s tongue. Bruce doesn't omit information like this in his general reports. Not unless…
“Just…” Dick waves a hand in the air, as if shooing the boy away. Of course, the stubborn kid doesn't leave his spot leaning over Dick’s shoulder. “Just shut up a second, Danny. I have the password to bypass Bruce’s censors.” Of course, trying to get the password out correctly takes three times longer than usual. He can't afford to make a mistake and get locked out.
Dick hits the enter key. The screen reloads.
NAME: JASON PETER TODD
ALIAS: ROBIN
STATUS: DECEASED
DATE OF DEATH:
Dick stops reading. He can’t read because he can't see.
“No! No, no, no! No, he can't be- NO!”
His ears are ringing. He screams because it's Jason. It's the kid that was almost his brother. He was-
There's mumbling. Dick leans forward on the desk and digs his fingers into his hair. He feels Kory’s hand, warm on his bare shoulder. Her thumb sweeps back and forth, back and forth. She might be talking, but he's not listening. His heart is pound, pound, pounding, and every muscle has gone shaky, and he's trying so hard not to vomit, and-
A voice cuts through, usually so meek but now booming through Dick’s skull like a gong. “Richard. Do you need my help?”
“No…” Dick breathes, squeezing his eyes shut. His face is wet. He doesn't remember when he started crying. “No! Don't do anything to me, Raven!”
“I think it happened a week or two ago,” Danny muses. He's reaching over Dick’s shoulder now, scrolling through information he’d never been privy to before. “I’m not sure. There's been nothing in the papers. Sorta like some cover-up, and-”
“Danny.” Kory’s voice is soft. “Maybe this isn't the best time.”
Dick tries to breathe, but he's doing a crappy job of it. His vision is fuzzy, and he's starting to shut down. His heart races like it's got somewhere to be.
“Hey, we knew the job was dangerous when we took it!” Danny argues with that smug, self-important tone, like he's an old vet to hero work with forty years’ experience under his belt. But he doesn't. He's ten. He doesn't know anything.
And Dick explodes.
“You stupid little jerk!” Dick jumps up, grabs the front of Danny’s shirt, and pins him against the wall. “I can't believe how idiotic you are! I thought it was just because you were a kid, but you’re really just plain dumb!” Words are spilling from his mouth faster than he can process them. He has no idea what he’s saying. All he knows is that his heart is pumping poison through his body, each beat like a horse’s kick to the chest. That he can’t slow down his breathing. That Jason Todd is dead. That Danny Chase thinks this is some kind of game.
“Hey, let go!” Danny smacks Dick’s arms, but he’s not budging. “What are you doing?”
“Dick-!”
“Stay out of this, Kory!” Dick hisses. “I can’t keep listening to this moron thinking life’s just another statistic. Not when he nearly fell apart when it was his own blood that spilled.” He can feel Kory’s warm hands pulling back on his shoulders. Distantly, he realizes that she absolutely has the power to hold him back, but she doesn't use it. Maybe she thinks Danny deserves it. More likely, she’s scared of what Dick will do if he loses what little control he has left.
“Listen,” Dick warns, so close that their noses are touching. “This is real life. Not some James Bond spy story where the villains get blown away and the good guys always live.”
“Lay off, man,” Danny spits. “Before I use my powers!”
“Dick… c’mon. Step back.” In the end, it’s Donna’s words - Donna’s hands on his arm - that drag him back into the moment. Kory remains at his side, expression somewhere between distraught and heartsick. Joey stands close behind, eyes wide. He’s never seen Dick lose his cool like that, probably.
Slowly, Dick moves back, releasing Danny’s shirt and turning away. Turning towards Donna and Kory and Joey. Raven is there too, he realizes, watching with broken eyes.
“That’s it,” Donna encourages softly. “Let it go.”
“I don’t want to,” Dick says, and he’s not proud to admit just how juvenile and pouty it sounds. “Jason’s dead. That was my costume. I helped train him. I finally had a…”
“I know,” Donna assures him. “I know.”
“Let’s go,” Kory soothes, one hand firmly planted behind his neck, gently guiding him away.
Dick takes one step and slips, his bad leg finally giving out on him. But Kory and Donna are experts. They catch him before he can hit the ground and half-walk, half-drag him to the infirmary.
“He’s just a kid,” Dick murmurs feverishly. “He didn’t do anything wrong.”
“No, he didn’t,” Kory agrees. She speaks with little value to her words, rather relying on the tone of her voice to do the comforting.
The demigod on Dick’s other side takes a different approach. As someone always at the cusp of humanity - believing herself to be one and struggling when she didn’t fit the mold - she knows all about humans. She spent a lifetime trying to be one. “Deep breaths, Dick,” she reminds him.
“Jason is dead,” Dick moans. “I can’t breathe.”
“That wasn’t optional,” Donna corrects. “You can. You will. For me. For Kory.”
And Dick’s head snaps up to see Kory’s beautiful green eyes and dark lashes wet with tears. A stress line creases her forehead.
“Right,” Dick concedes, though his tone makes it clear that he wishes she wasn’t. “Don’t… Don’t take me to the infirmary. I need to get home. I need to find B. I-”
“Later, Dick,” Kory urges. “We can call Bruce, but we need to make sure you’re okay too. That field dressing is not holding up.” She nods to Dick’s leg. The improvised bandages are already spotted with red again. “Just for a little, okay?”
Dick can’t find it in his heart to deny her. And, more than anything else, he’s too drained to argue.
Because Jason was Robin, and now he’s dead. Jason Todd is dead.
---
“Dick?”
Dick startles, spinning around to see Kory five feet behind him. He should have heard her approaching, but he didn't. He can't bother to care.
Kory presses a gentle kiss to his cheek and rubs his shoulder. “Hey.”
“Hey,” he echoes, turning back to the headstone. He holds a cane in his white-knuckled grip.
Kory lays her arm over his shoulders in a side hug. “How long have you been here?” she asks softly.
Dick shrugs, gaze fixated on the cold gray marble. His eyes trace its simple engraving:
JASON TODD
REST IN PEACE
That's all it says. No “beloved son and brother” this or “died a hero” that. Just “rest in peace.” It's so generic. So tragically clinical.
It reeks of Bruce’s handiwork.
“Dick?” Kory’s voice is a bit firmer, a bit louder. “How long have you been here?”
“I don't know,” Dick admits.
“You have not been answering my texts,” she hums. It's not judgmental. She's simply stating a fact.
“Yeah. I know.” His gaze drifts to the fresh grave beside Jason’s. It's nearly identical, with the only difference being the name: Sheila Haywood. Dick looked her up, and he's not sure why she's side-by-side with Jason. She's a doctor with a shady history. Botched surgery, dead patient, escape from Gotham. Most recently, she was working in a refugee camp in Ethiopia. Dick found no marriage records or medical history. Not even an obituary. But the graves are too close and too fresh to be a coincidence.
Kory doesn't reply, turning to give him a full hug. She rubs circles into his back. Dick returns the hug with his free hand, but he keeps his eyes on Jason’s gravestone.
“Bruce never called me,” Dick says suddenly. “To tell me about Jason, I mean. He didn't know I was halfway across the universe, but he didn't even text. Leave a voicemail. Something.” He pulls away, but he hangs onto her hand, squeezing it tighter than usual. She's Tamerranean, so human strength can't harm her, but his grip is still notably aggressive.
“I called Alfred,” Dick continues. “Bruce hasn't slowed down since Jason died. He took a business trip the next day. Batman's been on patrol every night. It's standard operating procedure for him. Death is all in a day's work.”
If it had been Donna standing next to Dick, she would have told him that everyone processes grief differently. If Wally had been there, he would have reminded Dick that Bruce is an emotionally constipated asshole. But Kory is there, and she doesn't understand Earth’s culture well enough to know why Bruce is acting the way he is. Tamerraneans are (or perhaps were) a warrior people, but they weren't heartless. The death of a loved one is tragic, and as a martial society, Tamerraneans understood that more than most. Their grief was open and palpable. It could be felt just by being in the same room as those who lost. Dick’s grief is a bit more complex. He spends far too much time trying to cover up his feelings and not nearly enough time allowing himself to feel them. But even so, his grief is still tangible. Still obviously there. It sounds like Bruce Wayne is an entirely different case altogether.
Yes, Kory has absolutely no idea how abnormal Bruce’s behavior is. She has little point of reference. But Dick has always welcomed candor, so rather than state an opinion or give advice, Kory asks a question.
“This is new for him?”
Dick huffs. “No. He's always been… stoic. But even for him, this is extreme.” He seems to realize why she's asking. “Humans normally have some sort of reaction to… y’know, death and stuff.”
Kory hums.
“I should have been there.”
Kory isn't sure if he means the funeral or the site of Jason's death. And to be honest, Dick isn't sure which one he means either.
Kory drapes both of her arms over Dick and hugs him tightly. “It is not your fault,” she murmurs into his ear. She knows how prone he is to blaming himself for everything. Jason's death is no different.
“Maybe,” Dick whispers back. “I… I started Robin, and then I left. If I hadn't-”
“Jason would still be on the streets,” Kory reasons.
“But he’d be alive.”
“We do not know that.”
Dick turns, breaking the hug and instead taking Kory’s hand. “I didn't stop Bruce when I found out about the new Robin. I should have told him to stop. Or… or gone back to being Robin. As long as it kept Jason safe.”
It breaks Kory’s heart to see Dick this torn up. He hasn't done anything wrong - there was no earthly way for him to predict or prevent this - and she just wishes she could convince him of that. But like his mentor, Dick Grayson is stubborn to the end.
“It is not your fault,” she repeats, because she doesn't know how else to convince him.
“I need to talk to Bruce,” he decides, because it's not fair of him to make Kory hold his emotional baggage when what he really needs is to talk to the person he's actually upset with.
“Do you want me to come with you?”
“No.” Dick doesn't need to think about it before the word is ripped from his lips. He takes a moment, truly processes the question, and replies again, gentler, “No. I should do this alone.”
Kory kisses him softly. “Call me, okay? If you change your mind or afterwards. I am here.”
Dick doesn't take her second offer, smiling wanly. “I love you, Kory.”
“Call me,” Kory presses. Her tone is shaped like that of a desperate stranger after a one-night stand.
“I will.” He means it. She knows where he lives and isn't opposed to breaking down the door if he goes no-contact.
“You will,” she agrees. Because she knows he knows she knows where he lives and she knows that he knows that she isn’t opposed to breaking down the door if he goes no-contact.
It’s simple and beautiful and good. Their relationship just works that way, and they both prefer it as such. With Kory holding more power than she knows what to do with, and with Dick holding power in the knowledge that Kory will never use that power to hurt him. Even if sometimes he deserves it.
---
“I didn’t expect to see you again.” Every ounce of judgment and fear and annoyance is well masked by the Dark Knight. Dick is just too used to his tactics to be fooled by the cool facade.
“I heard about Jason,” Dick says, resting his lips against his interlaced hands. Sitting here, just waiting for Batman to roll up to the Cave, he might look like a Bond villain. Minus the crying, of course, because his damn tear ducts have betrayed him every hour since he returned to Earth. “I’m…”
As much as Bruce’s decision to leave Dick unaware of the entire event - to not even invite him to the goddamn funeral, the bastard - pisses him off, he can’t ignore Bruce’s own feelings. Dick feels the sting of Jason’s death like a hot iron in his gut, but Bruce was the one who took Jason in. He was the one who made him Robin. Hell - he was the one who adopted the kid. (Which is more than can be said of Bruce regarding Dick’s legal status.) And to cover all this up with the night job and the day job?
Well. Bruce has always retreated to Batman when he’s hurting the most, ignoring every aspect of Bruce Wayne’s life. To start attending board meetings and business trips, he really must be sleepless and desperate for distraction. (That, or he’s completely unaffected by the entire thing, which Dick refuses to believe. It’s not true. It can’t be.)
“I’m really sorry, Bruce,” Dick says, jaw tensing and his (stupid, stupid, stupid) eyes watering as he gets out the words.
But as expected, Bruce is deep in Batman mode, refusing to acknowledge any personal loss. Instead, he coldly sticks to objective criticism. Dick’s least favorite part of Batman.
“You weren’t at the funeral. People asked about you.”
Dick chews the inside of his cheek and rests his chin on top of his knuckles. He can’t get bent out of shape so soon into the conversation. Bruce is always at his most abrasive when he’s hurting. Dick can’t permit himself the same liberties if he wants this to be a civil conversation. “I’m sorry,” he says again, as much as he hates to apologize for things beyond his control. “I didn’t know.”
You didn’t tell me, he wants to say, but in an overwhelming show of restraint, he holds it in.
Bruce brushes past him and begins the transition from Dark Knight to playboy billionaire. He shucks off his gloves and fiddles with his utility belt.
“C’mon, Bruce,” Dick says, grabbing his cane and dragging himself onto his feet, despite the whine of his left calf. “Talk to me. I’m here now, so-”
“You were lucky,” Bruce interrupts, voice oddly placid for the tense hunch of his shoulders. “When you didn’t listen to me, your injuries weren’t fatal.” He pauses for a moment. “... though barely, in some cases.”
The reference to the night Harvey Dent beat Dick within an inch of his life is not only unnecessary but also wholly unwelcome. The incident with Two-Face was unfortunate, yes. Dangerous, absolutely. But in comparison to the good he did as Robin? To the good that Robin did for him? For Batman?
Without Robin, Dick may not have lived long enough to get maimed by Two-Face. And it certainly doesn’t compare to the way the Joker brutally beat and then blew up Jason Todd. Dick resents the fact that Bruce even thinks it could.
“Jason wasn’t me,” Dick insists, reminding himself to breathe, take it easy, don’t lose it. Bruce is being an ass because that’s what he does when he’s upset and scared. Dick can’t stoop to his level. Not when what Bruce truly needs is support. “I was an acrobat. I was trained to think quickly before I even met you.”
“What are you saying?” Bruce asks sharply, ripping off the cowl and turning to glare at Dick.
“I’m saying you can’t compare us.” Dick doesn’t match the scowl, but his patient tone is growing thinner and thinner by the second. “I wasn’t lucky; I was prepared.”
“And Jason wasn’t?”
Dick hadn’t realized what he was implying. And now, he’s figured it out. It’s too late for him to back out of this one. Instead, perhaps inadvisably, Dick speaks truthfully. “No. He wasn’t ready.” Heat flushes his face as anger bubbles over the calm mask he’d been clinging to. “He was a kid, and you just let him go out there by himself? You were literally chasing down the Joker - you knew that maniac was out there - and you left Jason alone when-!”
The blow to his cheek comes out of left field. Dick is completely unprepared for the solid fist in his face. It whips his head to the side, teeth vibrating and neck tingling, and knocks him on his ass. The words Bruce yells ring in his ears, and it takes him a long moment, sitting on the floor with one hand cradling his face, to process what he said.
“Don’t you dare blame me for Jason’s death! Don’t you dare!!”
There are a brief, sober five seconds. Dick looks up at his friend, his mentor, his father with betrayal sparking in his eyes. Bruce stares back at his partner, his protege, his Robin with widened eyes and drawn brows.
But then the seconds pass, and Bruce’s cape swells behind him, making him look bigger and more intimidating than ever before. His scowl deepens, and now he’s shouting - he’s ranting - at Dick.
“Why did I think I needed a partner??” he booms. “They slow you down! They make you worry about them rather than doing your job!” He grits his teeth, fists shaking with unspent fury. “He wouldn’t listen. He wanted to do everything his way. He was just like you. In a few months, I would have had to fire him too.” And he glares down in a way that makes Dick feel six inches tall. He wants to run away and hide under his bed. He has trouble remembering anything about this man he so respects except the criticism and the judgment. He forgets the inside jokes, Batman’s little smirk after Robin said something particularly amusing, the strong arms that held him steady in the nightmare-filled years after his parents’ deaths.
“B, I-” He doesn’t know what to say.
“Why are you pretending to be concerned about Jason?” Bruce fumes. “You told me you resented that I adopted him and not you.”
It’s a gross rewrite of history, and Dick can’t help but object. “No, I didn’t! I only asked why. Of course I cared about him! He was my-”
“I don’t want to hear it, Dick,” Bruce grits out. “You’re only making things worse. I suggest you leave.”
Yeah. Dick doesn’t particularly feel like staying anyway. He grabs his cane and moves to stand when Bruce turns with a dramatic swish of his cape and storms up the steps.
“Give your key to Alfred on your way out,” Bruce orders.
And then he’s gone.
The strength leaves Dick’s body. He falls back onto the ground, hugs his good leg, and drops his forehead onto his knee. The tears come by for their hourly routine, and this time, Dick does nothing to stop them.
---
Dick doesn’t give Alfred his key, but not for lack of trying. Alfred refuses to accept it, stating that Wayne Manor is Dick’s home just as much as it is Bruce’s. He’s wrong, of course, in both the legal sense and in the length of time living there, but Dick appreciates that Alfred is being normal about this.
Bruce, on the other hand…
Well, Bruce wishes Dick never existed. As far as Dick can tell, anyway. He’s ignoring Dick’s texts and dodging his calls. He runs different patrol routes than he used to, knowing that Dick is staying in the city and fearing they might cross paths. He changes his password to the Batcomputer and removes Dick’s credentials from any security system or manual override in the Cave. The last time Dick tried to see Alfred, the laser field on the manor’s lawn nearly took him out.
Even so, Dick comes back, if only for Alfred’s sake. He hates being around if he knows Bruce is there. He hates it even more when backyard stun darts hit him in the neck.
So when he finds the glass case in the Cave, it’s the final straw.
It’s a domed glass tube positioned near the Batcomputer and in front of a row of old costumes. A small light at the top reveals a Robin costume. And in front of the case is a plaque that reads two lines:
JASON TODD
A GOOD SOLDIER
Dick doesn’t know if he hates this or the “REST IN PEACE” on the gravestone more.
No, actually, he does. He hates this more. So much more.
Dick doesn’t come back after that. He skips town. Wanders on his own for a while. Eventually, he lands back with the Titans, and he figures everyone is better off that way. He goes full no-contact with Bruce and Alfred. He pours his heart and soul and everything into the Titans, their missions, their hopes and dreams and goals.
Because Dick won’t let Bruce drag him down anymore. He won’t allow himself to be treated like a soldier (won’t condone him treating Jason like a soldier) any longer. From now on, Nightwing works with the Titans. Sometimes, Nightwing works alone. But he’s not working with Batman anymore. Not if he’s just a fatality to him. A casualty of war.
A costume in a glass case and a plaque that memorializes him as a good soldier, an expendable, faceless stranger, united by a common goal.
They weren’t strangers. Bruce was his father. Jason was his brother. They were a family.
Not soldiers. Family.
And until Bruce realizes that, Dick will work with his real friends. His real family. People who see him for who he really is. People who see him as a person, not a statistic.
Sorry, Bruce. Treat your family like soldiers, and they’ll abandon their posts.
