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Age 5
Mama and Daj are helping me write down my bad dreams because they say that writing down my bad dreams will help the bad dreams go away but I don’t know how to write that good yet so they said I can talk and they can write and maybe that will help. They said I have an overactive imagination which is why my dreams are so scary (“overeact, ovactive, over imagination.” “Overactive, my little Robin.” “O-ver-act-ion.” “O-ver-act-ive.” “Overactive. Overactive!” “Good job, Dickie.”). A monster with lots of eyes and lots of arms and lots of legs was chasing me. Mama and Daj were flying above me and couldn’t reach me and then the monster got me and then I woke up. It was really scary and I screamed and woke up a bunch of people who don’t even live with us and Papa Haly came running in because he thought I was hurt for real but I was only hurt in my dream. Mama and Daj let me have a second dessert to make me feel better and now they said I should try and sleep some more
Age 7
I had a bad drem I hav them evry nite. I feel bad alwas waking my mama and daj up. I did not screem this time so they are stil sleping so I am riting it this time. I was in a place I dont no and my mama and daj were mising. I screemed but nobody herd and then I wok up. Im sleepy.
Age 8
I had a dream that I was waching mama and daj fly from the ground but then they mised the bar and fell but I catched them! I want mama and daj to hold me but they are sleeping. We hav a big show. They will let me fly with them soon but not yet cause they are flying with no net. They told me befor I went to bed so may b that is why I had a bad dream but I dont kno cause I have bad dreams alot. It scares me
Age 9
They fell again. I see them fall every night.
Age 11
Bruce said he is really worried about my bad dreams. He said that it made sense for me to have bad dreams when I was younger because of my parents but that was almost 3 years ago and I still have bad dreams sometimes. He doesn’t know that I have most nights. I’m scared if I tell him that I have always had bad dreams that he won’t let me go out with him anymore. He’ll think I’m too young, but I’m not! At least my dreams now make sense. I had nightmares when I was little that made no sense but my parents always told me I have an overactive imagination. Now I dream about the clown and the lightning bug and the plant lady. And I can’t even really write down everything about my dreams now in case somebody reads it. I asked Bruce if I can write down my dreams and he said no. And I get why but I need to! He would probably say yes if he knew I always had nightmares It helps me out so I just have to hide this from him. I woke up from a bad dream a few minutes ago about the plant lady. It wasn’t even that bad but I kept getting trapped by a giant flower thing and I couldn’t breathe and I could hear Bruce but I couldn’t see him and I knew he needed my help but I was stuck. I don’t know why I dreamt about her. She doesn’t scare me. She’s actually kind of nice to me. But this dream scared me pretty bad. I want to go to Bruce but I’m too old for that anymore and he's worried enough about my dreams. I think I’m going to tell him I don’t have dreams anymore if I don’t wake up screaming.
Age 12
I’ve been having more nightmares ever since Bruce told me I wasn’t good enough. I’m not even having them about that freak with the coin. I’m having them about Bruce sending me back to the center. I haven’t dreamt about juvie in a while but this is the 6th night in a row. Sometimes Bruce drops me off there. Othertimes I’m already there. I really don’t want to go back. I’m scared that if I bring it up with him then he’s going to think it’s a good idea and make it happen. I don’t think Alfred would let him but I don’t know. Alfred always defends Bruce and makes me feel like I’m crazy for being mad at some of the things I’m mad about.
I woke up screaming tonight. Bruce is out. That man from the center was in my dream this time. I never told anybody about him. I don’t like to think about him but sometimes I’m scared he’s still trying to sell me. I think I would have told Bruce tonight if he were here. I’m still hiding in the closet. I’m such a baby. Bruce was right.
Age 14
I was having a sleepover with my friends and had a nightmare. So not feeling the aster. Megan heard it and got freaked out cause she couldn’t get into my room so she called the adults. Embarrassing. She feels really bad about it now and I told her it’s okay but it still sucks. Bruce made me come home and asked about it. I told him I don’t have nightmares all like that anymore but I don’t think he believes me so he said he wants me to talk to Leslie about it. I don’t know what he thinks talking to Leslie will do. It’s just a nightmare. Many nightmares. A lot of nightmares. I’m so tired of having nightmares. Now my friends are all going to think I’m weak. I’m already younger and smaller than all of them. They’re gonna treat me like a baby.
It was of the circus. It wasn’t even a scary dream. I was home with my family. Not just my parents but the circus. Everybody I grew up with. But I couldn’t see my parents faces. There was nothing there. I was looking up at them close to the ground like I was 8 again and I could see their bodies and hair and hear their voice but no matter how hard I tried or how close I looked I couldn’t see their faces.
I’m forgetting what they look like.
Age 16
I am 16 years old. I’m practically an adult. I helped form two teams. I’m almost done with high school. I stay at home part time. Why am I still having nightmares? I’m better than this. I’m smarter than this. I’m braver than this. I’m not scared by any of these things when I’m awake. Why do the same things scare me so bad when I’m asleep? I wake up afraid and it takes me a few minutes to calm down and stop being scared of something that didn’t scare me before I fell asleep and won’t scare me in ten minutes. I’m so tired of this (“Robin, are you alright?” “I’m alright, Star.” “What are you doing awake?” “I’m just…I’m writing in my journal. Don’t laugh.” “Why would I laugh at that? Isn’t that a normal thing that people do?” “Yeah, but…yeah.” “You’re embarrassed.” “I know it’s stupid.” “Journaling? That isn’t stupid. Would you like some company while you write?” “…that would be nice.”).
Kori is with me now. I could tell her about my nightmare and she wouldn’t laugh. She wouldn’t judge me. She wouldn’t freak out like my friend did a few years ago or make me talk to a doctor like Bruce did or tell me I’m a baby like I tell myself. I could tell her that when I’m asleep the concept of space scares me. That I dream of being in that endless vacuum with nobody around, screaming where nobody can hear me, until I scream so loud I break my helmet and lose all my oxygen and suffocate knowing that everybody I love and care for will always wonder what happened to me because they will never find my body. I don’t think I can tell her that though. She won’t think any less of me, but what if she does?
Age 17
I dreamt that I screamed for Bruce to let me come home and he ignored me.
Age 17
I dreamt that Bruce had to choose between me and the clown and he didn’t choose me.
Age 17
I dreamt that when my parents called for me, they were really calling for Jason. My name and colors and guardian weren’t enough. He was given my parents, too.
Age 17
Bludhaven fell into a sink hole and as I was falling under the earth, I could see Gotham clear above us. Bruce was standing there. He let me fall. What the fuck kind of dream is that?
Age 18
It’s been almost a year since I had to redefine myself and find a new balance and way to live without Bruce. I haven’t seen him face to face without hiding who we really are once since he kicked me out. And I’m still having nightmares about it. Hello abandonment issues, am I right?
Age 18
I can’t keep doing this. I can’t. I had a dream that Jason got hurt thanks to something I created and I couldn’t even try to save him because Bruce was more preoccupied with making me leave than he was helping the kid. Jason has been through so much. He’s a good kid. He didn’t deserve the life he was given, and now he’s fighting a fight only because I paved the way. Proof of concept and all that. He was dying and I couldn’t save him and Bruce didn’t care. What if Bruce pushes him aside like he pushed me aside? What if he dies because of me?
Age 18
Had a dream that I died. I don’t think it counts as a nightmare but I’m writing it down anyways. I think about dying a lot lately. What if I just don’t shoot my grapple? I can go out the way I was always meant to. The last of the Flying Graysons.
Age 19
I dream of you every night, little wing. I’m sorry.
“Hey Dick?” Tim called from the other room.
Dick turned off the sink from where he was washing dishes so he could hear without either of them having to yell. “What’s up?”
“What’s this?”
Knowing Tim just asked a question that unlocked Irritating Older Brother, Dick smirked to himself. “I would love to answer that question, Timmy, but I’m afraid I can’t see what you’re doing and therefore have no idea what you are asking about.”
“Must you be insufferable at all hours of the day?” Damian asked with a sigh from the couch.
“Not at all hours, but I used up all my allotted sufferable time when I so graciously slaved over the stove to cook a homecooked meal made with love for my favorite little brothers.”
Jason groaned from the bathroom before opening the door, waving his hands to dry them over the carpet rather than using a hand towel like the animal he was. “If I knew you were going to hold it over our heads, I would’ve bought lunch for us instead.”
“Dick.”
Tim was standing behind Jason in the hallway now, face serious. Dick dried his own hands off (with a towel, you know, like a person) and lightly moved Jason to the side so he can see Tim. “What is it? Are you okay?”
“What’s this?”
Dick grabbed the book out of Tim’s hands before looking to see what it was. When he glanced down at it, he let out a quiet, “oh,” and idly flipped through the pages. It was a relatively well taken care of journal with a leather cover that had his name on it except instead of Richard Grayson, it had Dickie Grunitzky. He could see the different paper from the times he had to remove the paper in order to add more when he ran out of room. It was bulging slightly from all the extra paper he needed throughout the years. He became an expert when he was young at how to restore his journal.
He hadn’t written in it in years. He gave up because writing almost every night had done nothing to help him. Instead, he just had hundreds, maybe thousands, of entries to look back on and remember all the scary things he never really forgot. There were a few moments in the last few years where he wanted to throw it away and be done with it, but he never could.
It was the only thing he owned that had his birth name on it, and all the early entries were written by his parents making it the only thing he had that had their handwriting on it. He stopped using it, but he could never get rid of it.
“This was my dream journal,” he said after staring down at it for a short while. He hadn’t pulled it out to look at it in probably over a year, and he hadn’t gone through the entries in even longer. “My parents got it for me when I was little so we can keep track of what I dreamt about, and I kept up the habit all the way through my teens.”
“Not anymore?” Jason asked.
“Nope,” he said. He traced over where his mother had written his name with his finger. “I guess I grew out of it.”
“No, no, what’s this?” Tim asked, tapping his name aggressively and staring at him with wide eyes.
“My name.”
Jason peered over his shoulder and, when he read the cover, pulled the book out of his hands. “Dickie Grunitzky. That’s not your name.”
This was turning into an unexpected conversation. “It used to be. What were you looking for, Tim?”
“A case file from your time with the BPD, but that’s not important anymore. What do you mean it used to be your name?”
“Just that. It used to be by name.”
“Then where the fuck did Richard Grayson come from?” Jason asked, smacking Dick with the journal until Dick took it back.
“Is your name not Richard?” Damian, who had silently joined them in the hall, asked.
His brothers were all really tense and that just wouldn’t do. He laughed, trying to lighten the tension. “Guys, I’ve been pretty vocal that I go by Dick. Dick is my name. Richard was just assumed by social workers, so when they worked on getting me my official citizenship status after my parents died, that’s what they were putting down for everything.”
“Why wouldn’t Bruce clear things up when he adopted you?” Jason asked.
“I mean, he didn’t adopt me until I was an adult. By that point, I had been Richard most of my life. It was pointless to address it.”
“And Grunitzky?” he pressed.
“My parents changed our name when we came to perform here. The Flying Graysons were the main act, right? Haly didn’t think that we would sell too many tickets with a name like Grunitzky here in the US, so we changed it up, and so I came here as Dick Grayson, and social workers made another assumption about it being my real name. They had no reason to think my family was being advertised under a different name.”
“But if they thought you were Richard Grayson and your name is really Dick Grunitzky, how did you ever get citizenship?” Tim asked. “That’s, like, fraud or something, isn’t it?”
“Probably,” Dick laughed. He moved around his brothers back to the kitchen and put the journal down on the table. “Don’t forget that this was all in Gotham. Nothing is done legally here. The social worker who made the decisions worked with the detention center who didn’t really care about legal trails for children. Someone got me a birth certificate and social security card and all that stuff as if I was born here. I never asked questions. I was eight or nine, I didn’t care, and by the time Bruce got me, it was already handled.”
Damian looked concerned in that way where he didn’t want to appear concerned so he mostly just looked constipated. Tim looked scandalized and, considering he had tried to create a fake uncle once upon a time, that was a fair reaction. Jason was flipping through the journal with furrowed brows. These were…well, Dick never considered having this conversation with anybody so he never thought about how everybody would react, but it felt more serious than he would have thought to prepare for.
“I do not understand,” Damian said, breaking the awkward silence that was beginning to grow. “What does a detention center have to do with anything?”
“Dickie here was a bad boy and spent some time in juvie,” Jason said off-handedly, flipping a page in the journal.
“There wasn’t anywhere for me to go after my parents died,” Dick said when it looked like Damian was believing Jason. “I stayed there until Bruce got guardianship.”
“I know that Gotham is corrupt in just about everything, but I can’t imagine them letting something like that slide,” Tim said, giving Dick an accusing look. “What aren’t you saying?”
Dick snorted. “What else could there be? I was eight. The adults around me made decisions without involving me. All I know is that I suddenly had a new name, an American birth certificate, and a social security number despite being born somewhere in Europe. Then I was the ward of a strange billionaire who just so happened to be there the night my parents died and the detention center washed their hands of me. I don’t think there was even a home visit to make sure they weren’t shipping me off to a child predator first.”
There was silence, and then… “The fuck?”
It was so rare that Tim was the one who swore that Dick couldn’t hold back another snort. Damian was looking about as horrified as he could manage while still looking composed. “That place needs investigating. How you or father allowed them to remain running all these years later is appalling.”
Like the thought of the detention center always did, a pit was dropped in Dick’s stomach. He always got nervous remembering his time there. He knew when he was nine and living with Bruce and then discovering his identity as Batman that he should speak up and get that place closed down for good, but he never could manage it. Everything that happened there was a secret, something he never once spoke about. Not to Bruce or Alfred, not to Leslie, not to any of his teams, and certainly not to his brothers.
Before the anxiety could start eating away at him, Jason looked up at him sharply. “This isn’t a dream journal. This is a nightmare journal. These are all nightmares.”
“Nightmares are dreams, just bad ones,” Dick said dismissively.
“That thing is overflowing,” Tim pointed out. “You’re saying it’s all nightmares?”
“I had an-”
“Overactive imagination,” Jason finished. “That’s pointed out a few times. How old were you when this started? This isn’t your handwriting.”
“I was five when we started keeping track. My mom or dad would write for me at first. I didn’t start writing my own until I was seven or eight, I think.”
“What did you dream about?” Tim asked.
It was Jason who answered and he did so by reading the page he was on. “I had the dream about the shadow man again. He was standing in the middle of the elephants and was calling my name. Every time I started walking towards him, my Mama and Daj would grab my arm to stop me but when I turned around they weren’t there and the shadow man would call my name again. I woke up at the door trying to go outside and my Daj was holding me back. He says that once we get this written down that I can sleep in between him and Mama tonight and that tomorrow we are going to go talk with Ms Jeta about my bad dreams and then we are going to get ice cream since I’m being so brave so I’m going to go back to sleep now because I never get to have ice cream.” He paused before, “what the fuck, Dick?”
“Oh, yes, the shadow man,” Dick said, leaning back against the counter and crossing his arms. “That was a common one when I was little. I’m pretty sure I grew out of that one before my parents died.”
“Who is Jeta?” Tim asked.
“She was our fortune teller, but I think she might’ve been a nurse before joining our circus. Everybody always went to her when they were sick.”
“And the sleepwalking? Do you sleepwalk?”
“Not often, but it’s happened a few times. I haven’t since I was a teenager. I think I was with the Titans the last time it happened.”
“They fell again. I see them fall every night,” Jason read, having skipped ahead a bit. Dick and Tim winced. Jason jumped forward seemingly at random. “Bruce locked me out of the basement and told me I wasn’t good enough. I’m never going to be good enough. Every time I tried to go down, Bruce got bigger and bigger and I got smaller and smaller. Once I got in, the floor below me broke away and I fell. I woke up on the floor.”
It was not a good idea to let Jason continue to read about his dreams. This was bringing up things he didn’t want to talk about. “Okay, okay, I don’t think we need to hear about some of the things I used to dream about.”
“What did Bruce do?” Jason asked, staring at him. “I’m assuming he did something for you to dream about something like that. How old were you?”
“The first one, I don’t know. Anywhere between eight and maybe ten or eleven. The second one eleven or twelve, but look, let’s not get into-”
“What did father do?” Damian interrupted.
Dick looked to Tim for some reason as if there was ever a chance of him being on his side, but Tim was looking at him expectantly, so he sighed. “Why is it you three never agree on anything unless you’re ganging up on me?”
“Little brother privileges,” Jason snapped, “now answer the question.”
Another sigh. “If I had to guess, it was probably after he fired me when I was beaten pretty badly by Two-Face. I had a lot of bad dreams about Bruce telling me I wasn’t good enough around that time. My self-esteem was through the floor at that age so anything could set me off. Now are we done embarrassing me with childhood fears and nightmares and ready to watch this movie? Answer carefully. Anybody who answers incorrectly will finish washing the dishes.”
It took some griping, some bribing, and a couple more threats, but the four of them did get comfortable in the living room with popcorn and warm drinks (coffee for Dick, tea for Jason, and hot chocolate for Tim and Damian). Jason called dibs on the armchair and was leaning back with his feet on the ottoman. Tim was stretched out on his stomach on the floor in a sleeping bag in front of the TV. Dick had latched onto Damian the second they were both sitting on the couch and pulled them back to be laying down. Damian grumbled about it which led to Tim laughing at him which led to Damian threatening him which led to Jason teasing him which led to Damian threatening both of them which led to Dick squeezing him tighter which led to Damian letting out an indignant squawk which led to all three of them laughing and Damian grumbling some more.
Halfway through the movie when it was clear that Tim had fallen asleep and Damian was close to it himself, Jason threw a piece of popcorn at Dick’s head to get his attention. Dick readjusted himself to face him and pulled the blanket up higher on Damian to avoid bothering him. “What’s up, Jay?”
Unbeknownst to Dick, Jason still had his dream journal and was reading it silently through the movie. He frowned at him but didn’t question it because Jason was looking at him with some emotion Dick couldn’t identity just yet. “You had nightmares about your parents calling for me?” he asked.
Dick thought back to some of his dreams. He did have one a couple of times where his parents were calling out for Robin and, instead of waiting for Dick, they were waiting for Jason. That was a dream from when Bruce adopted Jason and Robin first reappeared in the news. “I felt really strongly back then about B giving you my name. It was something from my parents, you know? So when I heard you had Robin, it messed me up a little bit,” he said, keeping his voice soft even though he could feel the way Damian became more alert at the subject of the conversation.
“I don’t think I ever thought of it that way,” Jason admitted quietly. “I’m sorry. It wasn’t right of him to give your name away like that.”
“It’s not something you need to apologize for. Besides, I got over it pretty quick. You having my name just meant you were family. My family away from Bruce since it wasn’t him who came up with the name.”
“You’re a sap,” Jason said, but he said it with so much fondness that it almost made him emotional. “And you had a lot of dreams about me dying. Guess you can predict the future.”
“Is now really the time for those jokes?” Tim asked, voice muffled from where it was buried in his pillow.
“You were snoring thirty seconds ago. How the hell did you wake up in time to hear my only death joke of the night?”
“I don’t snore.”
It was true. Tim didn’t snore. But it was something Jason started telling him early on after coming back to the family to bother him. He was certain that he could one day convince him he snored and would not stop until he succeeded. It always made Dick chuckle. “Keep telling yourself that, kid,” Jason said. He started flipping towards the end of the book. “Lemme see if he ever got around to writing about having dreams of you dying before he stopped recording anything.”
“Pretty sure I stopped writing my dreams before I ever met him,” Dick said. He was sure of it, in fact. He wanted to tell Jason to stop reading but knew that would be suspicious and achieve the opposite effect.
It didn’t really matter because there was no way Jason wouldn’t make it to the end whether he asked him to stop or not. The pained look on Jason’s face told Dick that he read the end. “Dickie…”
“I know, Little Wing. I stopped writing my dreams down after what happened to you.”
“There’s none in here. You never wrote one?”
“I couldn’t.”
He watched Jason flip back a few pages, reading the dreams leading up to his own death. He read one that had him sitting forward and gripping the book tight. The movement caught the attention of Damian who turned to face him. The sound of Damian moving then caught Tim’s attention, who then lifted his head. When he saw the look on Jason’s face, he sat up. “What is it?” Tim asked quickly.
“I had that dream again, the one where I don’t shoot my grapple. It scares me less and less every night. This time I heard my parents calling for me as I swung, asking me to go out like a Flying Grayson. That’s the bit that scared me, my parents urging it on. I think of them a lot these days. I miss them. It makes me hate myself that I can miss them so much but dream of them encouraging me to kill myself. I’m doing them such an injustice. I’m terrible.”
Dick flinched a bit halfway through Jason reading off the entry. When he finished, he sighed and hugged Damian closer. “Please don’t worry,” he said quietly. He pressed a kiss into Damian’s hair and gave Jason and Tim a reassuring smile. “That was six or seven years ago. It was a dark time for me, but I’m okay. It’s in the past.”
“What was going on?” Jason asked in a way that sounded like an accusation. His worry always did come out angry. “Six or seven years ago, so you would have been eighteen or nineteen and it was before my death. Things between you and Bruce were getting better and you were dating Kori and everything seemed like it was going fine.”
“Jace, that all can be true but that doesn’t take away that I was having a hard time. There wasn’t always a good reason for it when I got down like that. Sometimes all it really took was a few too many days of little sleep and I’d spiral. I’m not too sure what the case was for that dream, but whatever it was ended up working itself out. Okay?”
The truth was at that time, his relationship with Kori was falling apart. They were trying to work things out after a brief breakup, but things were tense between them more often than not. Both of them struggled to forgive the other for how things played out with Mirage (which was another thing he was trying to work through by repression and denial, ignoring it to the point he didn’t even record those dreams). He also had never fully forgiven Bruce for firing him that second time, kicking him out, and replacing him, and those feelings were coming out pretty strong when everything with Kori was going down. It was a tough time.
His little brothers didn’t need to know any of that, though. They shouldn’t have known about that last entry at all.
“Do you still have nightmares?” Damian asked in what could almost be described as a hesitant voice. He must’ve felt the dismissive answer Dick was about to give when he opened his mouth because he was quick to add, “Beyond the normal bad dreams that is expected of anyone who deals with what we deal with as vigilantes, that is.”
Dick dropped his cheek on top of Damian’s head and hummed softly as he thought about how to answer that. Jason was watching him closely and Tim was looking at him expectantly. He couldn’t really lie to them right now, not when he was being looked at like that and leaned against by Damian. “Yeah, I do. But they don’t bother me too bad anymore. I’ve gotten them my whole life. I sleep through most of them now. I really do just have an active imagination.”
“I will sleep with you tonight in an attempt to help keep the nightmares away,” Damian said determinedly.
Dick laughed and found himself loving his three brothers just a little more. “I sleep more peacefully whenever you’re here with me, Dami.” He gave Jason and Tim a look to tell them that it was the same with them, too. He knew they got the message when they both relaxed, letting their shoulders drop as the tension went away.