Imagine a Dick Grayson x reader where Bruce accidentally walks in on them
YES, MY LOVE? ( Dick grayson! )
summary: Dick has a broken leg, a beautiful girlfriend, and a nice bed in a house where no one is around, so why shouldn't he enjoy his moment in the spotlight?
pairing: Dick Grayson x fem!reader
cw: smut ( p in v), get caught.
open request - Dick masterlist
The manor was completely silent. Everything was wrapped in soft shadows, with the moon filtering through the hallway's enormous windows and the night breeze caressing the heavy curtains.
You'd received a message from Dick during the day asking you to come to the mansion to keep him company while he rested. He was tired of sitting alone, staring at the ceiling, counting nonexistent cracks, and complaining about "the sad temporary death of his nightlife." So why would you say no to your poor boyfriend with a broken leg?
You crossed the entrance without making a sound, went straight up to his room, and when you opened the door you found him lying on the bed, with an open book on his chest, the cast resting on several pillows and the face of a dramatic martyr.
"As far as I can see, you're alive, darling. How lucky you are." You said from the doorway, taking off your jacket.
"Barely. You don't know what it was like to watch three documentaries in a row about antique furniture restoration. I'm about to ask Alfred if I can rearrange the bookcase by color."
You approached, giggling, and carefully climbed onto the bed, lying down beside him. "So you need me to keep you from leaving your life as a security guard and becoming a decorator?"
"Exactly. My righteous soul is in danger," he replied, turning slightly toward you with that soft smile that seemed innocent as he rested his head on your chest. "And besides... I missed you."
You stroked his jaw, and he closed his eyes for a second, as if that simple gesture was what he truly needed to heal. Your lips found his in a slow, leisurely kiss, until you felt his hands clutch your waist with a mischievous smile until you pulled away. "I missed you too, Dickie."
He groaned faintly, as if hearing that nickname weakened him more than any wound on the battlefield. "Don't call me that if you're not going to stay all night," he said, hiding his smile in your collarbone, his voice vibrating against your skin.
"I have to go to college tomorrow" you sighed, your fingers playing with his hair.
Dick pulled away just to look at you, his brow furrowed slightly and his expression a mixture of Greek tragedy and subtle emotional blackmail.
"You can skip it. For a noble cause. You can say your boyfriend is slowly dying of boredom and needs constant company to survive."
You laughed softly as he gently pulled you towards him again, cradling you against his chest. "You're very persuasive for someone who's immobilized in one leg."
“I’m using the only thing I have left: my charm,” he replied in a deep voice, kissing the top of your head. “Don’t leave me tonight, i beg you, im young, vulnerable and horny”
You rolled your eyes, but clung to him with the same need. Dick had that dangerous ability to persuade; the way he touched you made you dizzy, the way each touch felt as natural as breathing. At some point, between laughter, soft kisses, and wordless promises, you both ended up under the sheets, sharing the warmth of a moment that seemed eternal. You couldn't help but think the force he used while he tried to move with his leg in a cast was ridiculous, but even that was adorable in its clumsiness. And you couldn't help but help him settle in while he gently pulled you on top of him, as if nothing could hurt him more tonight than the distance between you.
"Dick, are you sure there's no one here?"
"Trust me," he replied with absolute certainty, running a hand down your back. "We have the mansion to ourselves. It's a blessing from the universe. As if Gotham were saying: Today, Dickie, today is your turn to be happy."
You kissed him again, deeper this time. Your fingers tangled in his hair as he caressed your waist, his breathing mingling with yours. Your legs were on either side of his hips, the heat between you slowly rising like a tide. His hands, firm but gentle, gripped your waist, slowly guiding you to continue grinding his clothed cock, which you could feel growing at the friction of your panties.
"You look beautiful," he murmured, his voice husky from the closeness, while his fingers went up just below your shirt, trying to remove it and let him see your songs moving to your rhythm.
Your smile curved at the sight of him so exhausted. You slowly lowered your torso until his lips found yours again. The kiss was hungrier, deeper. Your hands moved up to his already ready cock, feeling his muscles tense beneath your fingers.
"You're killing me," he murmured through gritted teeth, his smile barely trembling as he felt his cock sink into your wetness. "What a beautiful way to die."
"sure no one's there, right?" you whispered against his ear, a playful smile on your lips. "I don't want them to see me riding on your cock."
"I told you..." Dick whispered, smiling against your neck as he held you against him, not wanting you to move yet, both of you in his bed, sharing the warmth under the sheets. "No one's home. Alfred's in the cave, and Bruce left tonight. He never comes around."
His lips moved down your collarbone, and you chuckled, stroking his messy hair. His leg was in a cast, yes, but that hadn't stopped him from moving his hips toward you with that signature "I've been through worse, this isn't going to slow me down" look.
His hips found a rhythm of their own, slow but determined, grinding against you with clear purpose. That smile of his settled on his face.
"Look, I'm hurt, huh?" he murmured against your skin. "You could show me some mercy."
"More mercy than this?" you replied, unable to stop yourself from laughing softly, your voice barely trembling from everything you were feeling. "I'm riding you with my tits in your face. I can't do much more..."
Dick's laugh was drowned in a deep sigh. His fingers gripped your waist tightly, as if he needed to anchor himself to you so he wouldn't lose his mind.
The room, once silent save for broken whispers, was now filled with rapid breathing, wet thuds, and the creaking of the bed as the heat grew between you. It was a moment suspended in time, so intimate that it hurt to think it might end soon.
Dick's lips found yours in a hungry, almost desperate kiss, while his body, still limited, surrendered completely to what you allowed him to do. "Keep squeezing my cock baby, I'm gonna cum, shit," he murmured, his voice breaking, his forehead resting against yours.
Your hips began to move with more urgency, as if each touch sought to satisfy all the pent up needs of all those days of waiting. Dick looked at you as if you were all he needed to stay whole, as if the pain in his leg were just background noise compared to the comfort of having you like this, so close, so devoted. His fingers trembled slightly against your skin, but they didn't stop clinging to you, guiding you, seeking more of that connection that seemed to envelop them completely.
"Don't stop," he murmured, his voice hoarse, against your neck. "Please... don't stop."
"Dick, are you awake?" Bruce's deep voice cut off abruptly.
Both of you froze in that instant even though you had both had the best orgasm since you started dating, still feeling his thick threads of cum filling your soaked pussy, your first reaction was to cover yourself with the sheet up to your head, leaving Dick with his head resting against your chest, letting out an exhausted grunt.
Bruce didn't move for a couple of long seconds. "...You should be resting," he said at last, in that serious, dry tone he used when he was suppressing the urge to lecture.
"I was resting," Dick replied without lifting his head from your breasts, still hidden in the sheets.
"And no lock on the door."
"Whose fault is that?"
Bruce took a deep breath through his nose, as if he were doing mental yoga to keep from setting the mansion on fire. "Finish ruining the bed," he said, turning toward the hallway. "But we'll talk tomorrow."
Clic.
The door closed firmly.
Silence.
Dick stood there, leaning against you, completely motionless.
sypnosis: Dick Grayson, your vigilante boyfriend’s sex drive is high, but you know the perfect way to make it higher.
warnings: Big Dick!Nightwing, Breeding kink, pent up frustration, Hate sex, Unprotected sex, Fingering, Whiny!Dick, male moaning.
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Dick Grayson had always been a whirlwind of energy, the kind that pulled you into his orbit whether you wanted it or not.
As Nightwing, he danced through the shadows of Gotham with effortless grace, but around you, his girlfriend of nearly a year, he transformed into something far more personal—a cocky, touchy force of infatuation that made your heart race and your skin tingle.
You'd met him during one of his patrols, caught in the chaos of a street brawl, and from that moment, his blue eyes had locked onto you like you were the only light in the dark city.
Your dark hair, the curve of your hips, the way you bit your lip when you laughed—it all consumed him, turning him into a man who couldn't keep his hands or his desires to himself.
Your relationship had sparked slowly, but Dick's hunger ignited instantly. He was whiny about it, always pushing with that smug grin, his touches lingering like promises. You played it cool, denying him with a firmness that only seemed to stoke his fire, leaving him frustrated and you secretly thrilled by the tension building between you.
It started on your first real date at a cozy Italian spot hidden from Gotham's grit. Dick's arm draped over your chair, his fingers tracing lazy patterns on your bare shoulder, sending shivers down your spine. The candlelight flickered across his sharp jawline as he leaned in close, his breath warm against your ear. "You look so damn good tonight," he whispered, voice rough with want. "Makes me want to ditch this place and get you alone. Feel you under me."
You felt the heat rise in your cheeks, sipping your wine to steady yourself. "We're in public, Dick. Cool it."
He pouted, those full lips curving into a playful frown, his eyes pleading as he shifted closer. "Come on, just a taste? In the alley out back? I've been hard thinking about your mouth all day." His hand slipped lower, brushing the swell of your breast through your thin blouse, bold and unapologetic.
You swatted him away, a laugh bubbling up despite the spark in your core. "No, behave yourself."
But Dick never really behaved. As you left the restaurant, his arm snaked around your waist, pulling your body flush against his side. At a stoplight, he buried his face in the crook of your neck, lips grazing your skin. "Pull over now, and I'd have you pinned to that wall, skirt up, fucking you quick and deep before anyone notices."
"No," you said, voice steady even as your pulse quickened. "You're impossible."
"Insatiable," he whined back, revving his motorcycle as you sped into the night, his body heat seeping through your clothes, his mind clearly elsewhere—on you, bent and begging.
The teasing became a rhythm, one that pulsed through every moment you shared. A week later, curled up on your couch for a movie marathon, your legs stretched across his lap. His strong hands kneaded your thighs, starting innocent but sliding higher, fingertips teasing the edge of your shorts. You could feel him hardening beneath you, the thick ridge pressing up. "Please," he groaned, voice low and needy, guiding your hand to feel his erection. "Right here on this couch. I need to be inside you. The screen's just noise—your moans would be better."
You pulled your hand back, crossing your arms over your chest. "Not every hangout turns into sex, Dick. Have some patience."
He flopped against the cushions with a dramatic sigh, raking fingers through his tousled hair. "Patience? You're driving me crazy. I can barely focus with you so close." That cocky smile flashed as he tugged you onto his chest, your heart thudding against his.
"One deep kiss? For me?"
It turned into several, his tongue hot and insistent against yours, but you broke away before his hands could wander too far, leaving him whining into your shoulder about how cruel you were being.
Public spots were where his boldness shone brightest, turning everyday outings into charged games. On a sunny afternoon at the Blüdhaven boardwalk, the ocean breeze tangling your hair, Dick intertwined his fingers with yours. But soon, his other hand rested on your hip, thumb dipping under your tank top to stroke the soft skin of your waist. The salty air mixed with his cologne, intoxicating as he nodded toward the Ferris wheel's colorful lights. "Private car up there—no one would know. I'd have you bouncing on my cock, the whole city spinning below us."
You rolled your eyes, but the warmth pooling low in your belly betrayed you. "Ridiculous. Absolutely no."
He dragged you toward the line anyway, pressing his chest to your back, his arousal nudging your ass through his jeans. A soft, desperate whine escaped him as he rocked subtly. "Feel what you do to me? That's your fault. Let me fix it."
You elbowed him gently, suppressing a shiver. "Control it, Grayson. We're not animals."
He didn't control much that day. Stolen kisses in the dim arcade, where his hand squeezed your ass amid the flashing games; a grope in the bustling crowd around a juggler, his fingers digging in possessively; whispers during a sticky cotton candy moment, his lips at your ear promising how he'd lick the sweetness off your thighs if you'd just say yes.
Every denial from you only amped his infatuation, his touches growing more insistent, his whines more playful yet edged with real need.
Even Wayne Manor wasn't safe from his advances. During a quiet family evening, with Bruce buried in his study and Alfred in the kitchen, Dick lured you to the library with talk of his childhood comics.
Instead, he had you backed against the towering bookshelves, his mouth hot on your neck, sucking marks that made your breath hitch. His hands roamed your sides, bunching your shirt, grinding his hardness against your thigh. "God, I've craved this all week," he murmured, voice thick. "Let me drop to my knees, taste how wet you are for me. Right here, between these shelves."
You gasped, shoving at his broad chest. "Dick, not in your family's house! No way. I know for a fact Bruce has hidden cameras.”
He whined, forehead dropping to your shoulder, his breath ragged. "Why do you do this to me? I'm aching so bad it hurts." His eyes lifted, burning with that arrogant certainty—he'd break you down, eventually.
Months blurred into this intoxicating push-pull. Dick's obsession deepened; his texts during patrols buzzed your phone nonstop—shirtless gym pics with captions like 'Wish you were here, riding me instead' or 'Door's unlocked. Come let me fuck you senseless.' You'd fire back teasing rejections, keeping the edge sharp. In every brief touch, he sought more: fingers lingering on your lower back during goodbyes, lips brushing your temple in crowded elevators, his body always gravitating toward yours like a magnet.
One starlit night at a Gotham rooftop gathering, the skyline twinkling like diamonds, Dick cornered you near the ledge. The bass from the party below thrummed through the air, but up here, it was just you two, the wind whispering secrets. He pressed you against the cool metal railing, hands firm on your hips, drawing your core against the solid line of his cock. "Dance with me," he said, but his body moved with a different rhythm, hips rolling suggestively as his mouth captured yours in a searing kiss, tongue delving deep.
You pulled back, breathless, the city lights reflecting in his dilated pupils. "Not here—anyone could look up."
"Let them watch," he rasped, cocky edge sharpening as he nipped your earlobe, fingers slipping under your dress to trace your inner thigh. "I want to hike this up, slide into you under the stars. Please, I'm begging."
"Not today," you managed, though your voice wavered, body leaning into him despite your words.
He whined softly, wrapping you in a tight embrace, his heart pounding against yours. "You're killing me slowly. The best kind of torture."
The tension simmered until it boiled over on that one electric night. Dick had been out with Batman, hunting an arms dealer through Gotham's labyrinthine alleys. The stakeout demanded focus—the shipment could arm half the underworld—but your image haunted him.
Perched on a jagged gargoyle, Bruce's gravelly instructions fading to static, Dick's mind wandered to you: the sway of your ass in those tight pants that morning, the floral hint of your scent as you kissed him farewell. His cock stiffened in the confines of his suit, throbbing uncomfortably as he pictured you spread on your bed, legs wide, taking every inch of him until you shattered.
He shifted, gaze slipping just long enough for the van to vanish into the fog. Back in the Batcave, the failure hung heavy, Bruce's fury erupting like a storm.
"Richard! What the fuck was that?" Bruce's voice boomed, his imposing frame looming as he stripped off his cowl, eyes like white-hot coals.
"Distracted," you heard Dick mutter later in your mind's replay, but in the moment, you'd been home, oblivious.
Bruce didn't let up. "Distracted? This is Gotham—people die when you lose focus. If you can't lock it down, you're benched."
The reprimand sliced deep, igniting the frustration Dick had bottled for months. His erection hadn't fully faded, now twisted with anger and raw lust. He tore out of the cave, motorcycle roaring through the streets to your building, the wind whipping his unresolved need into a frenzy.
You were on your balcony, your private sanctuary high above the urban sprawl. Potted herbs swayed gently in the breeze, string lights casting a warm, golden haze over the space. Wrapped in a thin robe, you reclined in a cushioned chair, tea steaming in your hands, letting the day's stress melt away. The city's distant hum was a lullaby—until a shadow leaped from the fire escape, landing with predatory silence.
Dick stood there in his Nightwing suit, the black and blue material clinging to every ridge of muscle, his domino mask shadowing his fierce gaze. His chest rose and fell rapidly, a storm brewing in his stance.
"Dick?" You set your cup aside, rising slowly, worry knotting your stomach. "What happened out there?"
No words—just action. He closed the distance in a blur, hands clamping your arms as he hauled you up, crushing your body to his. His kiss was savage, lips bruising yours, tongue invading with desperate force as he maneuvered you toward the railing. The taste of him—sweat and adrenaline—flooded your senses, his gloved fingers digging into your skin.
You gasped against his mouth, hands pressing his shoulders. "Dick—slow down, talk to me."
"No talking," he snarled, voice gravelly with pent-up fury and hunger. His hands ripped your robe open, the fabric parting to bare your naked form beneath. Cool air pebbled your nipples as he cupped your breasts, squeezing roughly, thumbs circling the peaks until they ached. "You've teased me endlessly. Not tonight, tomorrow, not yet—every damn time. I'm taking what's mine now."
Your protest died in another brutal kiss, his teeth grazing your lip, drawing a sharp sting that made you whimper. Through the reinforced suit, you felt him—his cock, enormous and rigid, grinding against your stomach like a promise of ruin. Dick was huge, the kind of size that bordered on overwhelming, and in your heated whispers before, he'd confessed how it turned him on, knowing he'd stretch you to your limits.
He whirled you around, bending you over the railing so your torso dangled precariously, the night breeze kissing your exposed skin. Gotham stretched out below, a glittering web of secrets. "Look down there," he commanded, fisting your hair to arch your neck, forcing your eyes to the abyss. "The whole city's watching. And I'm going to fuck you where they can see—claim you loud and hard."
"Dick, wait—we can't—" Your words fractured as his gloved fingers plunged between your thighs, finding your folds slick with unexpected arousal. He groaned, a deep, throaty sound vibrating through you, as he shoved two fingers inside, thrusting without mercy, knuckles deep.
"So wet for me already," he moaned, the whine creeping back into his tone as he curled his digits, stroking that sensitive ridge that buckled your knees. "All those nos, but your pussy's dripping. Begging for my touch. Take these fingers—get ready for what's next."
You clutched the railing, knuckles white, a moan slipping free as he added a third finger, twisting and spreading to accommodate his girth. The stretch burned sweetly, his pace unyielding, free hand yanking down his suit's zipper.
His cock sprang free—heavy, veined, the head flushed and leaking. Thick as your wrist, nine inches pulsing with need, he fisted it once, a loud moan escaping. "Ahh, fuck... look at this monster. All because of you. Been dreaming of breeding you, filling that tight hole until you're overflowing."
The breeding fantasy tumbled out, primal and unchecked—he wanted to pump you full, watch his seed take root, mark you irrevocably as his. His fingers slid out with a obscene squelch, and he notched his tip at your entrance, the broad head parting you.
"Dick—condom, at least—Bruce would kill us!" you panted, but he surged forward, embedding half his length in a single, ruthless drive.
"No protection," he grunted, moaning long and low as your walls fluttered around him. "Raw. Gonna breed this pussy deep. Make it mine." He inched further, splitting you open, the fullness bordering on too much. "Shit, you're gripping me like a vice. So small against my big cock—take every inch, feel how I stretch you."
You cried out, the size consuming you, a delicious ache blooming as he sheathed fully, balls pressed to your ass. No pause, he withdrew slightly and slammed back, setting a brutal rhythm, hips pistoning with the force of his frustration.
Each thrust punched a moan from him—whiny at the edges, then raw and animalistic. "Oh god, yes... ahh, your pussy’s sucking me in. Milk me, baby, Ngh! just like that."
He railed you mercilessly, Batman's scolding fueling the frenzy, hands bruising your hips as he yanked you back to meet him. The railing groaned under the assault, city lights smearing in your teary vision. "Gonna flood you," he panted, moans escalating. "Breed you full—pump this womb until you're carrying me."
The words ignited something in you, your body betraying your earlier hesitations, pushing back to take him deeper. His massive cock battered your depths, the size kink alive in every drag, every stretch that made you feel utterly possessed.
Dick's thrusts stuttered, his whines turning frantic. "Fuck—close, so close... ahh, take my cum!" He buried deep, cock throbbing as he erupted, thick spurts coating your insides. He rocked through it, moaning with each pulse. "Yes... filling you up, breeding you good... so much seed for my girl."
He didn't withdraw. Instead, he pulled out just enough for cum to trickle down your thighs, then dropped to his knees behind you. His tongue lashed your clit, sucking greedily, fingers diving back in to push his release deeper, fucking it into you with wet, insistent strokes.
"Dick—oh fuck—" you whimpered, fingers tangling in his hair, the mask rough against your skin.
He rose, eyes blazing through the mask. "Not done. Need to ruin you more." With acrobatic ease, he scooped you up, carrying you to the lounge chair and laying you out like an offering. He peeled off the upper suit, exposing his sculpted torso—abs rippling, chest heaving, then ditched the bottoms entirely. Bare save for the mask, his cock already swelling again, he straddled you.
"Open wide," he demanded, and you parted your legs, thighs trembling. He thrust home, slick with his own cum, moaning as he filled you anew. "Still so damn tight around me. Love how my huge dick owns this pussy."
This round started measured but rough, his weight pinning you, one hand trapping your wrists overhead while the other pinched your nipple, rolling it harshly. He ground deep, circling his hips to stir you, moans spilling freely—breathy, needy. "You... ahh, perfect. Gonna breed you again, flood you until it sticks. Feel me throbbing? All for knocking you up."
The dirty talk shattered you, orgasm ripping through as your walls clamped down, milking him. He chased it with a shattered moan, hips jerking. "Ahhhh.. cumming—yes, take every drop!" Hot jets mixed with the first load, his body shuddering atop yours.
Still buried, he flipped your positions, you sat on top of him now, his hands kneading your ass as he urged you to move. "Ride me hard. Show me you want this breeding."
Exhausted but fired up, you rolled your hips, his cock spearing new depths, brushing spots that made stars burst behind your eyes. Beneath you, Dick whined, that cocky facade cracked into pure vulnerability. "Fuck, yes—grind on my thick cock. Squeeze me tighter."
The night dissolved into a blur of rounds, bodies slick and entangled. Back against the wall, your legs hooked over his arms as he pounded upward, fingers in your pussy first to stretch, then his cock claiming you raw, moans echoing his obsession with your tightness, his size, the urge to breed. By the third, your muscles quivered, but he flipped you onto all fours on the chair, entering from behind with a guttural groan. "One more load—ahh, shit, you're made for this. Taking my big dick like a champ."
He fingered your clit through your climax, then thrust deep, moaning hoarsely as he came again, seed spilling over. The fourth blurred into the fifth—on the floor now, with you beneath him, his pace slowing to deep, grinding rolls, whines softening to pleas. "Please... let me fill you one last time. Need to breed you completely…"
You nodded, spent and sated, and he drove in lazily but profoundly, voice breaking on your name, as his final release pulsed weakly, plugging you full.
Collapsed together on the balcony's cool tiles, his softening cock still sheathed inside, Dick's softer side emerged. He nuzzled your neck, lips tender now. "Sorry if I was too rough," he murmured, breath evening out. "But I can't stop wanting you. Love you too much."
You traced his jaw, feeling the stubble beneath the mask's edge, a smile curving your lips. "I know. And maybe... I won't say no next time."
His eyes sparkled, cock giving a faint twitch. "Yeah? Promise me that."
For now, you stayed tangled, the city a silent witness to your surrender, the air thick with the scent of sex and possibility.
🪼Summary: Dick's wife decided to get back at him by spending his money.
🪼: English is not my first language. Dick and his wife are between 31 and 32 years old. Dick is totally in love with his wife. Something not too short, but not too long, but cute anyway.
I hope you like it (:
Fighting with Dick was always difficult, especially when a conversation stopped being small and turned into something far too big for the both of us. I still don’t know how a simple “I wish you spent more time at home, you’ve been distant” turned into raised voices.
Maybe it was because I didn’t say it exactly like that. Maybe I let more hurt slip out than I should have. But who could blame me? I was upset. My husband didn’t seem as present anymore, we were drifting apart, and I hated the feeling of losing him little by little. Being away from Dick was almost unbearable, because when I got home after a day that was only slightly exhausting, all I wanted was to run into his arms and feel safe there, in the embrace that had always been my place.
But how could I do that when Dick seemed to care more about the city — and his secret vigilante identity — than about his own personal life?
“Okay, you’re very upset,” Dick said calmly. “Let’s take a break, please?” His eyes held a silent request, almost a plea.
That hurt more than it calmed me. Because I didn’t want a break. I wanted to be understood.
“I’m trying to get closer to you, and you’re saying I’m being crazy?” I replied, my voice trembling with someone who was already far too tired.
I know I was exaggerating a little. Maybe more than a little.
“No, love… that’s not it.” His shoulders dropped, as if he were giving up. “You know what? I’ll sleep on the couch. I think you need some time to think.”
He grabbed a pillow and a blanket and walked toward the door.
“Richard, don’t do this,” I asked, irritation mixed with something that almost sounded like fear.
“Don’t be mad at me, my love.” And then he went to the living room.
I didn’t follow him. My pride spoke louder.
Even so, sleeping away from him was a silent torture. The bed felt too big, too cold. All I could think about was how I wished he had stayed. When I started the argument, it was only about wanting more presence. And in the end, he had chosen the couch instead of me.
That hurt.
I was angry, yes. But beneath the anger there was longing. The urge to yell at him, to push him away, to ask him to hold me, kiss me, and tell me he still loved me. Because I missed him, even while we were in the same house.
When I woke up, Dick was still asleep. I took a shower and made his coffee because, despite everything, I still cared. Even upset, even hurt. But I didn’t say goodbye. I didn’t give him a kiss. I left in silence, knowing that would hurt too.
Maybe it was immature. Maybe it was just spite. But in that moment, it was all I could manage.
Dick Grayson was going to feel the weight of not having slept with me in our bed that night.
It didn’t take long for my phone to vibrate.
“Wow, my love. Not even a goodbye? Not even a kiss? ):”
I smiled against my will. Dick had always known how to break down my defenses with so little. Even so, I decided not to give in that easily.
I spent the day out, and when I looked for my card inside my wallet, I found his.
My smile came instantly.
I never liked spending my husband’s money. I always felt strange, as if it somehow diminished what we were. As if someone might think I was with him only because he was a millionaire. Dick, on the other hand, always insisted that I buy whatever I wanted, as many bags as I wanted, as many shoes as I felt like having.
Well… maybe it was finally time to do exactly what he insisted on.
⸻
Dick was organizing the paperwork he needed to review when he received a call from his secretary. It was strange. Brayan never called, he usually just sent a message with the day’s agenda.
The alert came immediately. Dick answered with his heart beating a little faster, trying to imagine what could have happened.
“Sir… I think we have a problem,” Brayan said, his voice low, filled with nervousness.
“What happened, Brayan?” Dick leaned back in his chair, running a hand through his hair, already worried.
“Sir, I think your card may have been cloned. Or hacked, I’m not entirely sure… but a purchase of five hundred thousand dollars was just made on it.” Brayan almost whispered the last part, as if it were a dangerous secret.
Dick stayed silent for a few seconds. Thought. And then, suddenly, it clicked — and he laughed.
“Sir… I just told you your card may have been cloned, and you’re laughing?” Brayan asked, clearly confused.
“Brayan,” Dick said, an easy smile in his voice, “it’s just my wife throwing a little tantrum.”
There was a brief pause on the other end of the line.
“Let her buy whatever she wants. The price doesn’t matter.”
“Okay, sir,” Brayan replied, still not fully understanding, before ending the call.
Dick hung up the phone still smiling. If that was her way of releasing her frustration, he would accept it. Deep down, it was just another sign that she still cared. And to him, that was worth more than any number on a bank statement.
Dick picked up his phone again and dialed his wife’s number, a small smile already on his face.
“Yes?” she murmured when she answered.
“Having fun with my card, my love?” Dick asked in a playful tone, as if that were the easiest way to reach her right now.
“Yes, actually. Your card is very useful,” she replied. “I think I should use it more often.”
“Yes, you should.” Dick didn’t mind the faint tone of stubbornness still present in her voice. Strangely, it reassured him.
She hummed in agreement and then added, “I think I just saw a very beautiful Chanel bag.”
“Buy it.” He paused briefly, leaning back in his chair. “Buy a very beautiful dress too. And shoes.” Dick bit his lip, already imagining it. “I’m taking you out to dinner tonight. You deserve an apology.”
“I deserve more than an apology, Richard.”
“Yes, my love. You do,” he answered without hesitation. “And I’ll give you everything you deserve.” Dick smiled. “Now go finish spending your husband’s money. I’m working precisely to make more money for you to spend.”
He fell silent for a few seconds, his eyes naturally landing on the photo of the two of them on his desk — arms wrapped around each other, smiling, as if the world were simple in that frozen moment.
“I love you,” he said in a whisper, low, almost too intimate to say out loud.
“I love you too, Grayson.” There was a small pause. “Bye. I’m going to finish spending your money.” And then she hung up.
Dick just laughed, shaking his head slightly.
He didn’t care.
She could bankrupt him — which was almost impossible — and it still wouldn’t matter. Because in the end, no amount of money was worth more than that smile on the other end of the line.
Dick Grayson was hopelessly in love with his wife to care about anything else.
Dick finds you in his sweatpants and sweater and knows what kind of night it’s going to be.
“Hi, pretty girl.” He coos, coming right up behind you where you’re standing over a tray of cookies.
Your eyes are low and a little red behind your glasses as you look up at Dick, but you’re still gorgeous.
You give him a slow smile, “I made cookies to do asmr.”
He just nods, sitting you up on the counter. “Did you have dinner first?”
You nod, “Damien brought subs that Alfred made.”
Dick might’ve known. “And is Damien the reason for your hazy eyes, princess?”
You still, a cookie halfway to your lips. “I’m not ratting on anyone.”
Dick laughs, kissing your forehead as you take a bite of your cookie.
The warm chocolate stains your top lip, a puddle of dark chocolate begging to be kissed off.
He doesn’t deny himself for long, his lips coming to yours so quickly your only reaction is to blink. It goes from an innocent peck, to a full blown make out in less than a second; your cookie forgotten when you tangle your fingers in his hair.
“The cookie’s good,” Dick murmurs as he pulls away making you laugh.
“Should I make some bread?” You ask suddenly and he frowns, kissing your cheek and then your neck as a means of distraction when you carry on. “We have enough flour and milk.”
“Or,” Dick starts smoothly, nosing along your collarbone. “We can go lay down and watch a movie so I don’t have to take you to Alfred for burn cream again.”
You whine, a pout making his heart falter.
“No pouting princess,” he kisses you again. “C’mon, we’ll make a snack plate and everything.”
By we, he actually meant himself, because Dick arranges the entire board while you swing your legs on the counter and start and change multiple conversations.
Jason Todd ◞ Dick Grayson ◞ Tim Drake ◞ Bruce Wayne ◞ Damian Wayne ◞ Barbara Gordon ◞ Cassandra Cain ◞ Stephanie Brown ◞ Terry McGinnis ◞ Kate Kane
SUPERFAMILY
Clark Kent ◞ Conner Kent ◞ Jon Kent ◞ Lois Lane ◞ Kara Zor-El
TEEN TITANS
Roy Harper ◞ Dick Grayson ◞ Donna Troy ◞ Raven ◞ Koriand’r ◞ Rose Wilson ◞ Victor Stone ◞ Garfield Logan ◞ Wally West ◞
JUSTICE LEAGUE
Bruce Wayne ◞ Clark Kent ◞ Diana Prince ◞ Dinah Lance ◞ Michael Carter ◞ Oliver Queen ◞ Helena Bertinelli ◞ Zatanna Zatara ◞ Barry Allen ◞ Victor Stone
request kungpaochicken15 how would the batfam react if they had a partner, but dies (up to your interpretation on how), and then, a person who comes to their earth looks like them (multiverse shenanigans) and they actually experienced the inverse (so like, their batfam partner dies in their world). like the vibe is angst and I will love you in every universe type thing. am I making sense??
content dick grayson x gn!reader, multiverse!reader, hurt/comfort, angst, major character death, grief, traumatic loss, survivor's grief, blood/injiry, bittersweet ending,
word count 6.5k
author's note i used 'they' instead of 'you' in the first half on purpose it was meant to be like poetic of you going from 'them' to 'you' from dick's pov shows the relationship progressing but i fear it is a tad confusing and looks stupid but im too lazy to change it
masterlist | dick masterlist
The last thing you ever said to Dick Grayson was, “I’ve got you.”
It was such an ordinary promise between the two of you that neither of you thought to treat it like a goodbye.
You had said it while stitching a cut beneath his ribs, your fingers steady despite the blood warming your knuckles. You had said it at three in the morning when nightmares dragged him from sleep and left him staring at the ceiling as though the shadows might remember every person he had failed to save. You had said it when he burned dinner, when Bruce called, when Blüdhaven flooded, when the circus came to town and Dick spent an hour sitting silently in the car before deciding he was ready to go inside.
I’ve got you.
Sometimes the words meant I will catch you. Sometimes they meant I will stay.
On the night you died, they meant both.
The sky over Blüdhaven had split open at 11:42 p.m.
There had been no warning. One moment, Dick was balancing on the edge of an apartment building, arguing through his comm with Barbara about whether a hot dog technically qualified as a post-patrol meal. The next, lightning had lanced across a cloudless sky in colours that lightning had no right to possess—violet, silver, a blinding blue that seemed to reach behind Dick’s eyes and scrape at the inside of his skull.
Every window within six blocks shattered simultaneously.
The sound rolled through the city like an avalanche of bells.
Dick had thrown himself from the roof before the first scream reached him.
You were already there.
He found you in the centre of the street beneath the impossible wound in the sky, helping a woman pull two children from an overturned car. Your face was streaked with soot. One sleeve of your jacket had been torn away, and blood ran in a thin line from your hairline to your jaw.
Dick landed beside you. “You’re hurt.”
“So romantic,” you said breathlessly. “Hello to you too.”
Above you, the fracture widened.
The darkness inside it did not resemble the night. It had depth where there should have been distance, an endless corridor crowded with brief flashes of unfamiliar worlds. Dick saw a Gotham where the skyline burned red. A city beneath the sea. A figure wearing Batman’s cowl who was too small to be Bruce. Himself, perhaps, older and grey at the temples, turning toward something beyond the tear.
Then the images vanished in another detonation of light.
The shock wave threw Dick into the side of a parked car. His shoulder struck metal hard enough to dent it. Before his body had finished falling, you were beside him, your hands moving over his chest and neck.
“Dick. Look at me.”
“I’m fine.”
“You just got thrown through a Toyota.”
“It was a Honda.”
You laughed, ragged with fear.
He wanted to kiss you. It was a ridiculous thought with the city screaming around you, but it arrived with perfect clarity. He wanted to take your face between his hands, kiss the cut on your temple and the soot from your mouth, and bring you home.
You would shower together because you always did after the bad nights. You would complain about his shampoo. He would insist yours smelled like a fancy haunted forest. You would climb into bed, and Dick would rest his head over your heart, listening to the soft proof of you until morning.
There was a future waiting for him. There had always been a future waiting for him where you were concerned.
Then Barbara’s voice sharpened in his ear. “Nightwing, the energy is converging on your position. You need to move. Now.”
Dick looked up.
The fracture was collapsing.
Not closing. Collapsing. Every streetlight curved toward it. Glass lifted from the pavement. Cars shifted sideways, tyres squealing against asphalt as the force at the centre of the tear dragged everything inward.
Dick grabbed your wrist. “Run.”
You ran.
For three seconds, you ran together.
Then the road beneath Dick’s feet disappeared.
It did not crack or buckle. One instant, there was asphalt beneath him, and the next there was nothing except white-blue light and a pull so violent it wrenched his hand from yours.
Dick knew how to fall. Falling was the first language his body had ever learned.
He twisted in midair, reached for the grappling line at his hip and fired toward the nearest building. The hook caught the corner of a roof, but the fracture pulled harder. His shoulder screamed as the line snapped taut. The mechanism groaned beneath his palm.
Below him, the street had become a storm of wreckage. Metal, glass and concrete spiralled upward into the opening.
“Dick!”
He found you through the chaos.
You had anchored yourself to a fire escape, one arm looped through the railing. Your free hand was extended toward him.
Too far.
The cable in Dick’s grip began to tear.
“Stay there!” he shouted. “Do not let go!”
Your eyes met his.
He saw the exact moment you understood.
Not the danger. You had understood that from the beginning.
You understood the distance. You understood that the cable would break before the fracture closed. You understood there was nothing close enough for him to reach, nothing strong enough to bear the force, no time for Barbara or Bruce or anyone else to find another answer.
Dick watched terror move through your face.
Then he watched love swallow it whole.
“No,” he said.
You released the railing.
“No. No, don’t—”
You flew toward him.
For one impossible moment, Dick thought you had miscalculated. That the fracture would take you both, that he would spend his last seconds holding you and screaming into the light.
Then you collided with him.
Your arms locked around his chest. Your momentum swung his body sideways, close enough to the jagged remains of a balcony that Dick could see the individual splinters in the broken stone.
You reached past him.
Your grappling hook fired.
It struck the balcony’s support beam and held.
Dick’s line broke.
Yours did not.
The fracture pulled you apart.
His fingers closed around your wrist. Your hand clamped around his. The muscles in Dick’s shoulder tore beneath the strain, but he held on. He held on with everything he had ever learned, every impossible act of balance and strength his parents had written into his bones.
Your grip began to slip.
“No,” Dick gasped. “No, no, no. Hold on to me.”
Your face was inches from his. Tears streamed sideways from the corners of your eyes, caught by the wind and carried into the light.
“I’ve got you,” you said.
Then you let go.
Dick screamed your name.
Your hand vanished from his.
You were pulled into the fracture so quickly that there was no falling body, no final arc, nothing his mind could follow. There was only the impression of your face illuminated in blue-white light and the shape of your mouth forming something he could not hear.
The fracture snapped shut. Every object suspended above the street crashed down.
Silence followed.
For one heartbeat, perhaps two, the whole city seemed to pause.
Dick hung from your grappling line, staring at an empty sky.
Barbara was shouting in his ear. People were crying below him. Sirens rose in the distance, one after another, but every sound reached him as though filtered through deep water.
The sky was whole again.
You were gone.
They never found a body.
Bruce called that a reason to continue searching. Dick called it cruelty.
For thirteen days, the Justice League scanned every energy signature left behind by the fracture. Zatanna performed spells that made the air taste of copper and thunderstorms. Barry ran calculations faster than any computer could process them. Clark listened to the atmosphere for a heartbeat he had only heard a handful of times.
Nothing. There was no trail to follow. No world to identify. No proof that you had landed somewhere else, and no proof that you had not been torn apart between realities.
Dick participated in every search. He reviewed every scrap of data. He watched the footage until individual pixels burned themselves into his dreams. He stood in the Cave with his arms crossed over his chest while Bruce explained temporal decay rates and dimensional displacement as though the correct sequence of numbers might turn back time.
On the fourteenth day, Dick broke the main computer.
He did it with one punch.
The screen fractured beneath his fist, and the Cave filled with a soft electronic whine. Blood ran over Dick’s knuckles and down his wrist.
Bruce did not reprimand him.
That made Dick angrier.
“Say it,” Dick demanded.
Bruce stood across from him, still and shadowed beneath the enormous clock.
“Say they’re dead.”
Bruce’s mouth tightened. “You want me to lie to you?”
“I want you to stop giving me hope like it’s a life-support machine.”
“There are variables we don’t understand.”
“They’re dead.”
“We cannot confirm that.”
Dick laughed. The sound was ugly. It did not belong to him.
“You’re really going to do this? You’re going to keep saying we don’t know until I rot waiting for them?”
Bruce stepped closer.
Dick backed away.
That stopped Bruce more effectively than any shouted command could have.
Dick looked down at his bleeding hand. You would have taken it immediately, exasperated and gentle, cleaning the cuts while informing him that billionaire technology was expensive and punching it was, in your professional opinion, extremely dramatic.
You had always liked him dramatic. You had liked him angry too, although you rarely said so. You had loved every inconvenient, contradictory piece of him—not because you were blind to his fractures, but because you had mapped them so carefully that you knew where to place your hands without making them worse.
“I can’t do this,” Dick whispered.
Bruce’s voice softened. “You do not have to do it alone.”
Dick looked at him then. “That isn’t the same thing.”
Bruce had no answer.
No one did.
Grief rearranged Dick’s life without asking permission.
Your mug remained beside the sink for three months because Dick could not decide whether washing it would be an act of devotion or betrayal. Your shoes stayed by the door. Your side of the wardrobe remained crowded with clothes that still held a trace of your detergent, although the scent faded every time he opened it to breathe you in.
There were parts of you everywhere.
Your handwriting on the grocery list attached to the fridge. Your bookmark halfway through a novel on the bedside table. A voice note you had sent while he was on patrol, complaining about a neighbour’s dog and then stopping halfway through because you had become distracted by a song playing somewhere in the background.
Dick listened to the message every night.
At the end, you said, “Come home safe, okay? I love you.”
He never played the automatic silence that followed. He always stopped the recording immediately after the word you, preserving the illusion that your voice had not ended.
The family visited in shifts. No one admitted there was a schedule, which meant there definitely was one.
Barbara brought food and sat with him without trying to fill every silence. Jason repaired the window latch you had complained about for nearly a year, muttering that Dick had apparently never heard of a screwdriver. Tim helped organise the dimensional research into files that Dick pretended he no longer read. Damian appeared every Thursday evening with Titus and acted as though the dog had independently demanded a walk through Blüdhaven.
Bruce came less often. Dick suspected that Bruce understood his presence made grief feel like a mission, and some wounds could not survive being treated as problems to solve.
There were days Dick managed almost convincingly.
He returned to patrol. He joked with criminals. He flirted with paramedics. He somersaulted between rooftops and let the city wind rush through his hair, pretending the exhilaration still reached the places it once had.
Then he would return to an empty apartment and forget how to breathe.
Six months after your death, he finally washed your mug.
He sat on the kitchen floor afterwards and sobbed until his ribs hurt.
A year passed. Then another.
People stopped lowering their voices when they said your name.
Dick hated them for it. He hated himself more for occasionally going hours without thinking of you.
The first time he laughed without guilt arriving immediately afterwards, he almost called you. The movement was so instinctive that he had already pulled his phone from his pocket before he remembered.
He stared at your contact photograph. You were laughing in it. Dick could no longer remember what he had said to make you laugh, and the realisation hollowed him out with surgical precision.
He had believed grief meant remembering too much.
No one had warned him it also meant forgetting.
The sky split open again two years, seven months and eleven days after it took you.
Dick was in Gotham when the alarms began.
Every screen in the Cave flashed with the same warning: dimensional energy, atmospheric distortion, convergence point over Bristol Township.
For one second, Dick could not move.
Then he was running.
He reached the manor grounds before Bruce.
The fracture hovered above the eastern lawn, smaller than the one in Blüdhaven but unmistakably the same. Violet lightning crawled over the clouds. Wind bent the trees toward the tear, stripping leaves from branches and carrying them upward in a spiralling column.
Dick stood beneath it with his escrima sticks clenched in both hands.
His heart battered against his ribs.
He had imagined this moment in a thousand forms. He had imagined you falling through the sky into his arms. He had imagined finding you injured but alive, furious that it had taken him so long. He had imagined you unchanged. Older. Scarred. Forgetful. He had imagined kneeling in the wet grass and holding you until every missing year disappeared beneath the pressure of his embrace.
A figure dropped from the fracture.
Dick moved before he could think.
He threw one stick aside, fired his grappling line and launched himself upward. He caught the falling person around the waist. Their momentum wrenched at his shoulders, but Dick twisted, pulled them against his chest and guided them toward the lawn.
They hit the ground together.
The fracture flickered.
Then it sealed with a low thunderclap.
Dick rolled to absorb the impact, ending on his back with the stranger held above him.
For a moment, neither of them breathed.
Then they lifted their head.
Dick’s entire world stopped.
Your face stared down at him.
Not similar. Not close.
Yours. The same curve of your mouth. The same line between your brows when you were confused. The tiny mark near your chin Dick had kissed so often he could have found it blindfolded.
Even your eyes were the same.
But the expression inside them was not.
You had once looked at Dick as though he were sunlight breaking through stained glass.
This person looked at him as if they had seen a ghost crawl from its grave.
Their hand rose shakily toward his face. “Dick?”
His name broke in their mouth.
Dick could not answer.
The stranger made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob, and then they collapsed against him, arms wrapping around his neck with desperate, bruising strength.
Dick’s body reacted before his mind did.
His hand came up to cradle the back of their head.
The gesture was automatic. Familiar.
Wrong.
The stranger trembled against him.
“You’re alive,” they whispered. “Oh, my God. You’re alive.”
Dick stared past their shoulder at the empty sky.
His fingers loosened.
The stranger felt it. They pulled away just enough to look at him, and something in their face shattered when they saw his expression.
“You’re not mine,” Dick said.
The words came out colder than he intended.
The stranger recoiled as though struck.
Bruce landed beside them, cape settling around him.
Dick barely noticed. He was still staring at your face.
The face of someone who was not you.
“No,” the stranger said quietly. “I don’t think I am.”
Their molecular structure matched yours. Their fingerprints matched yours. Their DNA was yours down to the smallest measurable sequence, except for faint traces of dimensional radiation threaded through every cell.
They had your memories until the realities diverged. They remembered being raised in the same place, meeting many of the same people, choosing the same favourite films and carrying the same scar on their knee from an accident during childhood.
They remembered meeting Dick Grayson. Their Dick Grayson.
The differences began there.
In their world, Blüdhaven had never suffered the fracture that killed you. Instead, three years later, an experimental device built by a version of the Justice League had destabilised during an attack.
Their Dick had died shutting it down. The explosion had thrown them between worlds.
One Earth had lost you. Another had lost him. And the universe, with all the sensitivity of a knife, had decided to introduce the survivors.
They sat opposite each other in the Cave’s medical bay.
The alternate version of you wore borrowed clothes and held a cup of tea Alfred had made. Both hands remained wrapped around it, although the liquid had long since stopped steaming.
Dick could not stop watching them.
Every movement hurt. They rubbed their thumb along the side of the cup exactly as you had. They tilted their head when listening. When Alfred asked whether they needed anything, they smiled with your mouth and said, “A functioning grasp of reality would be great, but I imagine you’re fresh out.”
Jason went rigid.
Tim looked at Dick.
No one laughed.
The stranger’s smile disappeared.
“Sorry,” they murmured. “He always laughed at that kind of thing.”
Dick’s chest tightened. “Your Dick?”
They looked down. “Yeah.”
The word carried years inside it.
Bruce stood beside the computer, speaking in the controlled tone he used when every possible answer was dangerous. “We will attempt to identify your Earth and create a stable route home.”
The stranger nodded. “What happens if you can’t?”
Silence settled through the Cave.
Dick saw their grip tighten around the cup.
“We’ll figure it out,” he said.
Everyone looked at him.
The stranger looked last.
For one heartbeat, hope transformed their face into something so achingly familiar that Dick wanted to run.
Instead, he stood. “You can use one of the manor’s guest rooms.”
“Dick,” Bruce cautioned.
“What? Are you planning to put them in containment?”
“No.”
“Good.”
Dick turned to leave.
“Wait.”
Their voice stopped him at the doorway.
When Dick looked back, they were staring at him with an expression he could not read.
“Did they—” They swallowed. “The version of me from here. Did they know you loved them?”
Dick felt the question enter his body like a blade sliding between his ribs. “Yes.”
Their shoulders sagged with something resembling relief.
“Good,” they whispered. “Mine knew too.”
Their name was the same as yours.
Dick avoided using it. He referred to them as you when speaking directly to them and not at all when speaking to anyone else. It was cowardly, but grief had stripped away his patience for pretending otherwise.
They remained at the manor while Bruce, Tim and the League searched for their Earth. Days became weeks. The dimensional signature embedded in their cells did not correspond to any world currently mapped within the multiverse, and every attempt to open a route collapsed within seconds.
Dick kept his distance.
At least, he tried to. The universe conspired against him in small, vicious ways.
They could not sleep in the manor, so Dick encountered them one night sitting on the kitchen counter at three in the morning, eating cereal directly from the box. You had done the same thing whenever insomnia followed you out of bed.
They hated the same tea. They laughed at Jason’s insults and understood Damian’s affection when it arrived disguised as criticism. They knew Alfred’s birthday and the hidden cupboard where he kept the good biscuits.
But there were differences, too.
Small ones at first.
They drank coffee without sugar. You had claimed unsweetened coffee tasted like “burnt existential dread.” They had a thin scar across their left palm from an injury you had never received. Their hair had been cut differently before the explosion, although it was growing out now. They knew how to play the piano, which you never had.
They looked like you. They were not you.
The distinction should have made everything easier.
It did not.
One night, Dick found them in the trophy room.
They stood beneath the glass case containing his old Nightwing suit, staring at the blue emblem across the chest.
“My Dick wore red,” they said without turning.
Dick stopped in the doorway. “Nightwing’s colours?”
“Yeah. Red bird across the chest.” A fragile smile touched their mouth. “He said blue made him look too approachable.”
“That doesn’t sound like me.”
“No.” Their smile faded. “He was a little angrier than you.”
“You’ve known me for three weeks.”
“I knew him for nine years.”
The response was sharper than anything they had said to Dick before.
He flinched.
They closed their eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need to apologise.”
“I keep doing that. Comparing you.”
“I do it too.”
They turned.
The room was dark except for the light illuminating the suit, painting half their face in electric blue.
“Do you?”
Dick laughed quietly, without humour. “Every time you enter a room.”
Pain moved across their expression.
He hated himself for causing it, even if it was true.
“They died saving me,” Dick said.
Their breath caught.
He had not spoken to them about your death. He had not told the story in years. The words had calcified inside him, too sharp to remove without tearing something vital.
“There was a dimensional fracture,” he continued. “I was being pulled into it. They could have stayed anchored. They would have survived.”
“But they let go.”
Dick nodded. “They got a line around us. Then the fracture started pulling them away.” His throat tightened. “I held their hand.”
The alternate you stared at him.
“I couldn’t keep them.”
“You were not supposed to.”
The certainty in their voice startled him.
“What?”
“They weren’t asking you to.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do.”
Anger flared hot and immediate through Dick’s grief. “You are not them.”
“I know.”
“Then stop speaking for them.”
“I’m not.”
They stepped closer. Their hands remained at their sides, as though they were afraid any sudden movement might send Dick fleeing.
“I’m speaking as someone who loved you,” they said. “A version of you. Someone who made the same choice.”
Dick’s anger vanished.
The room seemed to narrow around them.
“How did he die?”
They looked past Dick toward the dark windows. “The machine was collapsing. There were civilians trapped in the building. I stayed behind to get them out, and he went to shut down the core.” Their voice thinned. “He knew it was going to explode.”
Dick could picture it. He hated how easily he could picture it.
“He locked the door behind him,” they continued. “I kept trying to open it. I was screaming at him, and he put his hand against the glass.”
Their eyes glistened.
Dick knew what came next before they said it.
“He smiled at me.”
Of course he had. A performance offered in the last terrible moment. A final attempt to soften death for the person left behind.
Dick had smiled through broken bones and gunshot wounds. He had made jokes with blood in his mouth. He had spent his whole life turning pain into something lighter so no one else would have to carry its full weight.
“What did he say?” Dick asked.
They wiped impatiently at their cheek.
“He said, ‘I’ve got you.’”
The room tilted.
Dick closed his eyes.
For years, he had wondered what you had mouthed before the fracture took you. He had replayed the moment frame by frame, trying to read the shape of your lips.
Perhaps there had never been any mystery. Perhaps love made the same promise everywhere.
When Dick opened his eyes, they were crying.
He crossed the distance between them before he could reconsider.
His arms wrapped around their shoulders.
They froze.
Then they held him.
It was not the same. Their body fit differently against his. Their grip was tighter than yours had been, as though loss had taught them anything held gently might disappear. Their cheek rested against another place on his shoulder.
Dick noticed every difference.
He also noticed the same quiet sound they made when trying not to sob.
He held them while they grieved a man with his face. They held him while he grieved a person wearing theirs.
Neither pretended it was enough.
For that night, it was something.
After that, you became friends.
The word you inadequate, but it was safer than every alternative.
Dick took them to Blüdhaven.
It began because the manor had grown oppressive, crowded with familiar rooms belonging to a life that was not yours. Dick understood the need to escape other people’s sympathy, so he offered you his spare room.
He had moved apartments after your death. He claimed it was because the previous building had developed structural issues. Barbara knew better. So did Jason. Neither challenged him.
The new place contained fewer ghosts.
Not none. Never none.
The alternate you stood inside the doorway with a bag over one shoulder and glanced around at the bright windows, the mismatched furniture and the ridiculous chandelier Dick had rescued from an estate sale.
“My Dick would have hated this.”
Dick dropped your second bag. “Excuse me?”
“The chandelier. He hated fancy light fixtures.”
“He sounds tasteless.”
“He owned seven nearly identical black jackets.”
“A tragedy.”
“One had red stitching.”
“Revolutionary.”
You smiled. The expression reached your eyes this time.
Dick felt something inside his chest loosen, then tighten twice as painfully.
Living together formed a rhythm neither of them acknowledged.
The two of you cooked. Argued over films. Patrolled together once Dick learned that you had operated as a vigilante in your own world, although your methods were cautious and calculated where his your had been instinctive.
You learned each other as strangers. Dick discovered you hummed when nervous and went silent when angry. You discovered he reorganised the kitchen whenever he could not sleep and avoided the street where the fracture had opened.
You did not speak about the people they had lost every day. You did not have to. Grief sat at the table with you. It travelled in the back seat of Dick’s car and waited outside the bathroom while you showered. It lay between your separate bedrooms at night, vast and listening.
There were moments when the boundaries blurred.
One morning, Dick entered the kitchen and found you wearing one of his shirts, hair disordered by sleep. His heart leapt before reality caught up.
On patrol, you shouted his name when a bullet passed too close, and Dick heard his old you in the panic.
Once, you fell asleep against him during a film. Dick remained perfectly still for forty-seven minutes.
When you woke, they pulled away so quickly their elbow struck the side table. “I’m sorry.”
“You were asleep.”
“I shouldn’t have—”
“It’s okay.”
“It isn’t.”
Your breathing had become uneven. Dick recognised the beginning of panic and reached out before remembering himself. His hand stopped halfway to you.
You stared at it.
Slowly, you placed your palm against his.
Your hand was warm. The scar across it pressed into his skin.
Different. Real.
“I’m not them,” you whispered.
Dick curled his fingers around yours. “I know.”
“You looked at me like I was.”
“I know.”
You tried to withdraw.
Dick held on. “But then I remembered you weren’t,” he continued. “And I was still glad you were here.”
Your eyes closed, and a tear slipped free.
Neither of you mentioned the moment afterwards, but something had shifted.
Not healed. Grief was not a bone that could be set straight and left to mend. It was weather, changing shape while remaining the same sky.
The following week, Dick said your name aloud for the first time.
You were standing on a rooftop after patrol, city lights spread beneath you. You had taken a hit to the shoulder and were insisting it was only bruised.
Dick touched your wrist. He said your name.
You went completely still.
Dick felt it too—the sharp wrongness followed by something quieter. He had spoken that name thousands of times to another person. He had laughed it, shouted it, breathed it against skin.
Now the name belonged to the person standing in front of him. It had always belonged to them, too.
“Let me look at your shoulder,” Dick said.
You nodded.
The world did not end.
Bruce found a route home eight months after your arrival. Dick knew before anyone told him.
He returned to the apartment after patrol and found you sitting on the sofa with your hands clasped between your knees. You looked up when he entered, and grief had changed its clothes.
This grief contained hope. It was somehow worse.
“They found it,” Dick said.
You nodded. “My Earth. Or what they think is my Earth.”
“When?”
“The window will be stable tomorrow night.”
Dick removed his mask. He placed it on the kitchen counter carefully because, if he did not, he might throw it through the window. “That’s good.”
“Yes.”
“You can go home.”
“Yes.”
You stared at each other across the apartment.
Dick wanted you to stay. The knowledge arrived without mercy.
He wanted you in his kitchen drinking bitter coffee. He wanted your bag hanging beside his by the door. He wanted to hear you complain about Blüdhaven’s traffic and laugh at jokes you pretended not to find funny.
He wanted to keep learning you. The desire made him feel faithless.
You had died saving him. How could he love another version of your face without reducing you both to interchangeable parts?
You looked down. “I don’t know what I’m going back to.”
“Your home.”
“My home exploded.”
“Your friends are there.”
“Versions of them.” Your mouth twisted. “Maybe. Bruce said the dimensional coordinates aren’t exact. It could be my Earth several years later. It could be an adjacent reality.”
“Then don’t go.”
The words escaped before Dick could stop them.
Your head lifted.
Dick’s pulse thudded painfully in his throat. “You don’t have to,” he said more quietly. “Not until you know it’s safe.”
“The window may not open again.”
“I know.”
“If it is my world—”
“I know.”
“My family could be waiting.”
“I know.”
They rose. “Then why are you asking me to stay?”
Because I love you. The answer stood between you, impossible and alive.
Dick stepped back from it. “I don’t know.”
You laughed once, bitterly. “Yes, you do.”
“Don’t.”
“You think I haven’t felt it?”
Dick turned away. “Felt what?”
“The way you look at me and then hate yourself for it.”
“I don’t hate myself.”
“You’re a terrible liar.”
“You deserve someone who sees you.”
“You do see me.”
The words stopped him.
Behind him, you voice trembled. “That is what makes this so awful. At first you didn’t. At first, every time you looked at me, you were looking for them. But you stopped.”
Dick faced you.
Tears shone in your eyes, but your chin remained lifted. “You know how I take my coffee,” you said. “You know I hate being touched when I first wake up. You know I always check the locks three times and that I pretend heights don’t bother me even though they do. You know I play the piano when I miss him. Those things aren’t theirs. They’re mine.”
“I know.”
“And I know you. Not my Dick. You.” Your voice cracked. “He hated cereal. You could live on it. He never sings in the shower. You turn every shower into a concert no one bought tickets for. He fought like he was angry at gravity, and you—”
You smiled through the tears.
“You fight like you’re in love with it.”
Dick’s eyes burned.
“I loved him,” you whispered. “I still love him. I think part of me always will.”
“I still love them.”
“I know.”
The room seemed very quiet.
Dick took one step forward. You did not move.
“I don’t know what this is,” he admitted.
“Neither do I.”
“I don’t know whether loving you means I’m holding on or letting go.”
“Maybe it isn’t either.”
He stopped in front of them. “What if we’re only doing this because we miss them?”
“We are.”
The honesty hurt, but it did not destroy him.
You lifted their hand, hesitated and touched the centre of his chest. “But that isn’t the only reason.”
Dick covered your hand with his. Your scar pressed against his palm.
“I don’t want to be a replacement,” you said.
“You aren’t.”
“I don’t want you to love me because somewhere in your head, you think I’m them coming back.”
“You didn’t come back.”
Your face crumpled.
Dick brought your hand to his mouth and pressed a kiss against your knuckles.
“You came here,” he said. “You stayed. You became someone I know separately from every memory I have of them.”
A tear slid down your cheek. “And if I go?”
The question broke something open inside him.
Dick remembered your hand slipping from his. He remembered begging you to stay.
For years, he had believed love meant holding tightly enough to defeat every force trying to take someone away. Perhaps that had never been true. Perhaps love was also opening your hand.
“Then I’ll miss you,” he said. “And I’ll be grateful I knew you.”
Your eyes closed.
Dick pressed his forehead to theirs.
“I think I love you,” you whispered.
His breath shuddered out. “Me or him?”
“Yes.”
Dick almost laughed. A sob caught inside it.
You leaned closer, your nose brushing his.
“Both,” you said. “Differently. Completely. I don’t know how to explain it.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Do you?”
Dick thought about his you. He thought about the life you had shared and the future you had lost. He thought about the stranger who had arrived with your face and slowly become familiar in entirely new ways.
Love had not replaced love. It had grown beside it. A second tree from the same impossible soil, roots tangled beneath the earth but reaching toward its own sky.
“Yes,” Dick said. “I love you.”
You kissed him.
It was nothing like kissing his you. The angle was different. Your mouth trembled. Your hand caught in the front of his suit with a desperation that belonged to another lifetime.
Dick kissed you back. Not because they resembled someone he had lost. Because you were here. Because he knew you. Because the universe had taken two love stories, broken them in opposite places and scattered the survivors across realities—and somehow, against all reason, they had found each other in the wreckage.
When you separated, both of you were crying.
“This is incredibly messed up,” they murmured.
Dick laughed, wet and breathless. “Objectively, yeah.”
“Your family is going to have opinions.”
“My family has opinions about breakfast.”
You smiled against his mouth. “Dick?”
“Yeah?”
“I still think I need to go tomorrow.”
The pain was immediate, but it did not surprise him.
He nodded. “I know.”
“I need to see if it’s home.”
“I know.”
“And if it is…”
“You should stay.”
Your fingers tightened around his suit. “What if I never see you again?”
Dick thought of the thousands of worlds hidden beyond the sky. Somewhere, perhaps, his parents had never fallen. Somewhere, Bruce had never taken him in. Somewhere, you and Dick had grown old together. Somewhere, you had never met at all.
And somewhere, in more worlds than he could ever count, you had found each other.
Perhaps not in the same bodies. Perhaps not with the same names. But love had always been larger than recognition.
Dick touched your cheek.
“Then love me there,” he whispered. “And I’ll love you here.”
The portal opened above the same lawn where you had first arrived. It shimmered silver at the edges, revealing a hazy image of a city beyond. Familiar buildings pierced the horizon. A red symbol glowed from the side of a distant clock tower.
Your world. Perhaps.
The family gathered at a respectful distance. Alfred embraced you. Damian pretended not to. Jason told you that your version of him had better not be an asshole, and you informed him that some things apparently remained constant across every universe.
Then you stood before Dick. You wore the same clothes you had arrived in, repaired where the explosion had torn you. A bag rested over one shoulder.
Dick wanted to memorise you.
Not the shape of your face.
The details that belonged only to this version of you. The scar on your palm. The nervous rhythm of your fingers against the strap. The way you held yourself slightly forward, always prepared to run toward danger rather than away from it.
“You have your comm?” Dick asked.
“Tim modified it.”
“If the portal destabilises—”
“I know.”
“And if anything looks wrong on the other side—”
“I know.”
“You could let me finish one safety lecture.”
“I’ve heard your safety lectures. They’re ninety per cent hypocrisy.”
Dick smiled.
The portal’s hum deepened.
Bruce glanced at the readings. “The window is narrowing.”
Your expression changed.
Dick stepped forward and pulled you into his arms.
You held him fiercely.
For several seconds, neither spoke.
Then you whispered against his shoulder, “I’ve got you.”
Dick closed his eyes.
Once, those words had meant goodbye. He refused to let them mean that again.
“No,” he murmured. “We’ve got each other.”
You pulled back.
Dick kissed you. It was brief and soft and full of every impossible thing you could not promise.
Then you walked toward the portal.
At the edge, you turned. The silver light framed your body, making you look half-real already.
“Dick?”
He forced himself to smile. “Yeah?”
“I think I would have loved you in any world.”
His throat tightened. “You did.”
You looked at him, grief and wonder woven together in your eyes.
Dick placed a hand over his heart. “And you will.”
You stepped through. The portal vanished. The lawn fell silent.
Dick stood beneath an ordinary sky. He waited for the old emptiness to consume him, but it did not. There was pain. There would always be pain.
But there was something else threaded through it now—a thin silver certainty, delicate and unbreakable.
Love was not a single life. It was not one body, one world or one ending. It was a pattern repeated across infinity. A hand reaching through the dark. A promise spoken at the edge of death. Two souls finding each other beneath unfamiliar stars and recognising, not a face, but the shape of home.
Dick looked up.
Somewhere beyond the sky, you were gone. Somewhere beyond the sky, you were alive. Somewhere, another Dick Grayson was falling.
And somewhere, in every universe that had ever been kind enough to let it happen, someone was reaching out to catch him.
no. 1 party anthem - what was supposed to be a night for work takes an unexpected turn when you run into clark kent—alone at a restaurant, waiting for a date who seems to have no intention of showing up. poor guy.
best to you - clark loves being superman, though he can be away for hours and sometimes days on end. you tend to miss him more than you admit, and you find comfort in wearing his clothes and... his spare superman suits.
