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Chapter Text

Age 6, The Circus

“How many times have I told you not to go near the animals, huh?” Chachi screams after Daksh in Assamese.

Dick giggles as Daksh runs around the grounds, his mother chasing after him with a slipper. Daksh had tried to pull a prank on the mean monkey named Daisy. He only ended up giving the poor animal a panic attack along with a possible aneurysm to his mom.

Chachi catches up to Daksh, hissing more admonishments. Daksh covers his head as his mom brings down the slipper on him repeatedly.

“Amma, stop, stop! I’m sorry, I swear I won’t do it again!”

“I’ll make sure you don’t! I’ll lock you up. See if I let you out of the tent again!”

“Amma!”

That isn’t good. When chachi didn’t allow Daksh to come out of the tent, Dick would have only little Fathima to play with. He liked her well enough, but she was too scary. Dick didn’t want to get kicked by her again.

“Chachi,” Dick says in Assamese, trying to control his giggles. “I’ll make sure he never does it again. I’ll keep him away from the monkeys, promise!”

Daksh looks at him with relief, but his mother’s anger doesn’t defuse. She tsks, “As if. You can’t stay away from that elephant of yours. You’re no better than him, I ought to give you a good beating too!”

Dick giggles because that’s true and also because Daksh was making a particularly terrified face. Chachi looks at him in outrage, about to turn her slipper on him. But Dick is prepared. He runs away as fast as he can, his laughter mixing in the air along with chachi’s admonishments behind him.

She will definitely tell his mother. But Dick hopes his mom will find it as funny as Dick did.

Age 8, The Circus, Mexico

It was Dick’s first time in Mexico, and he couldn’t be more excited. His parents had even let him go to the neighbourhood park with a bunch of local kids. Dick felt like an adult.

His performance yesterday had all of the kids in awe. They stand around him in a circle, asking him questions about the circus and his tricks.

“Don’t you ever fall? It’s so high!” One of the kids wonders.

Dick gives him his biggest grin. “Falling is normal; we just have to get back up,” he quotes his dad. He rolls up his sleeve and shows them a scar on his elbow. “This was a really bad fall, but I’ve never fallen like that again.”

“Oh, oh! I have a scar too!” The kid pulls down the neck of his shirt to expose a dark spot on his collarbone. “It’s kinda shaped like that fat monkey from the circus, isn’t it?”

Dick takes a closer look at it. He has never seen a scar like that. “I think it looks more like a fat baby. How did you get it?”

The kid blows up his cheeks, embarrassed. “I stayed out too late and tried to sneak back into the house. But my mom—she heard me.” The kid gives a small, prideful smile. “She was so angry that she came after me with her ladle. Some of the hot oil dropped on me from that.”

Dick’s eyes widen. That must have been painful.

“Hah!” One of the kids says, “That’s nothing. One time, when I tried to take some money, my dad hit me with his cane. I swear, it still hurts a bit. He must have broken a bone!”

Another kid pipes up, “Yeah, but do you have a scar? I got this one when my mom slapped me, see?” He points to his cheek, a thin white scar running down it. “It was from her ring. It makes me look cool, doesn’t it?”

Dick agrees. It makes him look like the bulky bhaisahab who helps with the circus equipment. He had a lot of scars.

Dick rolls up his shirt and shows them another scar. It makes him feel strong.

Age 9, Juvenile Detention Home, Gotham

Most days, Dick can’t look past his anger.

That was bad, Dick knows. His dad had told him to always keep a smile on his face because that made it easier to make friends.

But how could he smile now that his dad was gone?

And thus, Dick kept the mean scowl on his face, fuming constantly. But the other kids didn’t like that. They never like anything Dick does.

One day, a tall boy with brown skin confronts him in the sleeping room.

“Give me your blanket,” he growls at Dick, towering over him with clenched fists.

Winter is approaching, and it gets cold for Dick, whose family had always moved somewhere warm before the cold came.

“No,” Dick snarls back, clutching it to his chest. He knows this boy. He would always sneer at Dick and give him dirty looks.

The tall boy doesn’t hesitate. He grabs Dick by the shirt and pulls him up, close to his face.

“Listen here, you bastard. I’ll tell you a story. A Latino boy loses his parents. He gets sent to foster care to be cared for by some white woman. She was one of the best, apparently. All the kids were jealous of me.”

Dick’s expression doesn’t change. English being one of his weaker languages, he can barely understand the boy. He clenches his fists too.

“But the moment she saw me, she threw a fit. Apparently, she hated anyone who wasn’t white. She said I was a fucking gypsy,” the boy spits the word at Dick’s face. “She said all our kind were dumb and could never do anything properly. She would take out her anger only on me.”

Dick wants to roll his eyes. He has seen worse parents.

“And you know what? It’s all your fault! It’s people like you who go around doing tricks with your body like a slut! You fucking bitch!”

Dick has had enough. He could barely make sense of what the boy was saying anymore; his accent was too thick. But Dick had heard ‘body’ and ‘tricks’ and ‘slut’. The boy was insulting his parents.

Dick gets into a fight.  Daksh would be proud.

Age 11, Gotham Streets

As soon as the man slapped the kid, Batman was on him.

Robin followed to make sure the kid was fine. “Hey, you okay?”

She doesn’t answer him. “Dad!” She runs past Robin and hugs her dad’s legs. He couldn’t hug her back; Batman was restraining him.

“Kid,” Batman says.

The girl looks up at him with a red face and teary eyes. “You can’t take away my dad! He’s good! You only take away bad guys!”

Batman tilts his head minutely. “He hit you.”

“So what?” The kid stomps her leg, offended. “He still buys me toys and helps me with homework. He’s a good dad.”

“He’s—that’s abuse.”

Robin blinks. Was it? It didn’t look like the slap had been that hard. Dick had seen Chachi hit Daksh much harder. Dick observes the man.

He looks stricken. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he pleads. “I didn’t realise, I swear. I love her. Please don’t take her away from me.”

The corners of Batman’s mouth pull downwards. Dick thinks he should let the man go.

“How often does he hurt you?” He asks the girl.

“He doesn’t hurt me! It’s only when he’s tired from work and I annoy him. It’s not his fault. He has a bad boss.”

Batman opens his mouth, “That’s not—”

The man interrupts, shaking his head vigorously. “No, no. I see it now,” he turns to look at his daughter, eyes wet. “It is my fault, kiddo. I’m supposed to know better. And it is never your fault.”

The man struggles to move, and Batman lets him go, still hovering over the family.

The man kneels in front of the girl and holds her hands.

“I’m so sorry, kiddo. I really am. Things have been hard since your mother…but that’s no excuse. I promise I’ll never hurt you again.”

The kid is crying too now. Robin isn’t sure he understands the situation.

She shakes her head. “It’s not your fault. It’s not. You always take care of me.”

Robin sees Batman moving back into the shadows. He moves to follow him and slip away from the family.

“Want to get ice cream?” Robin hears the father say as he shoots up to the nearest rooftop.

“What was that about?” He asks the shadow of Batman.

But Batman doesn’t listen. He’s staring at another alley, another potential crime.

Robin thinks about repeating his question. But before he can open his mouth, Batman has already taken off, following another offender, another victim.

Age 12, Gotham Academy

There’s blood on Dick’s knuckles.

Not Robin’s, but Dick’s.

There is blood on his knuckles, and Dick doesn’t know if he’s sorry.

This was far from the first physical fight he got into while being Dick Grayson. Kids in the circus had always gotten into petty tussles. And Dick had certainly thrown around some punches in the juvenile centre, but…

It had never been this aggressive.

The school had called Wayne Manor. Bruce had been the one to pick up. Bruce hadn’t said a word to Dick as the principal explained the situation, Your adoptive child may have learnt this kind of behaviour from the place where he comes from, but please teach him our ways. Bruce just listened, not commenting on the blood dripping from Dick’s knuckles, even on the ride home.

Now they stood in the kitchen. Bruce still hadn’t turned around to face him.

“Bruce,” Dick starts, because someone has to, “Bruce, he said—”

Bruce turns around, violence in his movements. “I don’t care what he said!” 

Dick flinches back from sheer astonishment. He had never seen Bruce this angry. The man takes quick, angry steps, looming over him. Dick stands his ground.

“Dick,” he starts, his voice quiet in the way vengeance is, “there is one rule. I don’t care if you get into fights; I don’t care if you run your mouth. But do you realise how much damage you did to that kid?”

Dick meets Bruce’s eyes; his anger is contagious.

“He deserved it.”

One moment, Dick is standing on the ground. The next moment there’s a thud, and he’s against the wall, feet lifted in the air.

Bruce has slammed him against the wall, Dick realises.

“I don’t care!” Bruce shouts, “There was one rule, Robin, one rule! You compromised our identities as soon as you decided to throw punches that broke bone!”

Oh, Dick thinks. This is what it is about.

Bruce hauls him up even more, bringing them face-to-face. He’s surprised his shirt hadn’t torn yet.

“When we are out there, without the mask, we need to remember to control ourselves, no matter what the situation is. I don’t care if the boy insulted your parents. You get him when you’re Robin. But when you’re not wearing the mask, you do not go around breaking noses. A twelve-year-old boy is not supposed to have that much strength, that much skill, Robin.”

Bruce is right. His fight with the boy contained too many skilled moves, too many feints, too much force.

He was not Dick Grayson when he fought the boy; he was Robin.

“Yes sir,” Dick says, still suspended in the air. His voice comes out hoarse and quiet. He looks down, only to realise his knuckles are still coated in blood.

Bruce puts him down in one harsh movement. Without sparing him another glance, he leaves.

Dick stands there, staring at his hands. He moves only when the bump on his head starts throbbing.

It doesn’t matter that the boy insulted Bruce and not his biological parents. It doesn’t matter that the boy started the fight. It doesn’t matter that when Alfred asks him about injuries, Dick has nothing to show him except for the bump on his head and a lie about its origin.

Dick almost compromised their identities. He made a mistake.

He almost compromised Batman.

Age 14, The Batcave

Gotham has been getting worse.

There are too many rogues, too many victims. The crimes aren’t so petty anymore. They’re violent and heinous, and Robin has to use his fists more than his flips.

It’s another night of busting drug cartels and stopping gang wars. They fought for hours in fistfights with rage as their only fuel.

And yet, the adrenaline rush of the fight hasn’t left him.

It never does these days, Robin knows. Even when he’s Dick, smiling at everyone and hanging out with friends, he’s always on edge. Always ready, always waiting for a fight to break out.

The violence lingers in his bones.

He knows this because, for Bruce, it has been true from the moment Dick met him. He had always had this look, like he was just waiting for things to go wrong; even when Dick didn’t know he was Batman.

He knows this because he is the one who has to face the consequences when Bruce’s violence slips out of his bones, even with their masks off; when the Cave is empty or the house is silent, the violence doesn’t hold back.

It’s an outlet, Dick knows. They’re both angry—frustrated—because of one case or another. So when Dick shouts at Batman and the man uses his fists to retaliate, Dick doesn’t blame him.

Dick shouts back; he stands his ground. Unlike the first time his back hit the wall, he pushes back.

He knows what abuse is. But this? This is completely different.

They’re vigilantes. Every day, they throw punches and dirty their hands with someone’s blood. Their lives are moulded with violence, and Dick knows that it’s a habit.

Violence doesn’t leave you. It becomes a part of you.

That’s why it’s not anyone’s fault, Dick thinks as he cleans up his split lip and applies antiseptic.

It’s not his fault, he echoes.

Age 15, Gotham Streets

"You're not getting the cardboard."

Dick shrugs, "That's okay. I have newspapers."

The teen in front of him snorts, "Yeah, yeah, sure. Like that’s gonna keep you any warm."

Dick doesn’t reply. He was trained to survive in extreme temperatures anyway. He climbs up to the fire escape and settles down.

He can hear the girl setting up her cardboard. She’s about his age. She probably hasn't been on the streets that long; her clothes look relatively clean, and she didn’t walk in the hunched way that all homeless kids do. Dick had met her when the two of them decided to camp in the same alley for the night.

"So," the girl starts, "what's your story?"

Dick keeps looking at the sky. There's Orion's Belt, the three stars easiest to spot. Any other pattern of stars is covered with Gotham's pollution.

"Take a guess," Dick answers, not in the mood to talk.

The girl shifts, and Dick feels her staring at him.

"Well, you got plenty of scars. And that's a nasty black eye. Fuck, I swear it's the same story every time. You're no different from the rest of us."

Dick thinks about that. Would she still think the same if she knew he was Robin?

But no, she's right. He's not Robin anymore. He's just like the rest of them—kicked out of his home with only an aching jaw to survive on the street.

"So, who was it?" The girl continues, "Mom, dad, some shitty relative, or maybe those foster parent fuckers?"

Dick thinks about this too, still looking at the sky. There's another dim light in the sky, probably Venus.

"...A partner," he answers finally.

The girl snorts, "Aren't you too young to be getting into relationships like those?"

"Not that kind of relationship," Dick defends. "Like work partners."

"That's a first. What did you two do? Drug trafficking, or fuck, don't tell me it was something like child pornography."

"No, nothing like that. We…we saved lives."

There’s a pause, the girl probably waiting for an explanation. If Dick squints, he can make out some other tiny lights in the sky. But they look like they’re moving, so they’re probably aeroplanes—nothing you could wish on.

The girl huffs when Dick doesn’t say anything else. "Sounds like a scam."

Dick closes his eyes and wishes on aeroplane lights.

Age 17, The Titans Tower

Dick absolutely hates this.

After only spraining his ankle a little bit, he was stuck on comms duty. Dick could never bear to sit still, especially when his team needed him.

At least Wally was there to give him company. It hadn’t been an eventful night. The team was already heading back. Dick stretches in his seat and shifts closer to Wally. The redhead turns around, the first rays of sunlight glinting through his hair. Dick gives him a soft smile.

“Quiet night, huh?”

“Definitely. I almost don’t regret being on the field—”

“Hey guys?” Victor’s voice comes through the comms.

“What’s up, Cyborg?”

“There’s some shouting from that apartment on the third floor. It’s probably nothing, but I’ll take a quick look.”

“Sure, let us know if you need any backup.”

Cyborg keeps his comms on. They can hear him jumping inside the building. The shouting becomes clearer. It’s two high-pitched voices screaming at each other.

“Do you have any idea how much that cost? Do you think I can show up to work without it?”

“All you care about is work, work, work! You only come back here to take out your anger on me!”

“How dare you say that to your own mother? This dress—” There are sounds of shuffling, “—you brought this with my money! Why do you think I work, if not for you?”

“No! You work because you fucking hate me. Can’t stand to be near your own daughter, can you? At least at that office, you don’t have to see my face.”

The screaming match continues as Cyborg reports, “A woman, mid-forties, asian. Teenage girl, couldn’t be older than 15. Should I—fuck!”

“Cyborg, what—?”

The girl had started shrieking in the background. Dick moves forward to take action but…Wally wouldn’t let go of his hand. Dick looks back to find his face pale, eyes unfocused.

“You ungrateful brat!”

“Let go, let go! Please, I’m sorry.”

The screaming gets louder as Cyborg moves into the apartment. He engages with the threat, and the screaming stops only for sobs to follow. Dick can hear Cyborg restraining the woman. A moment later, he starts talking to the girl in a soft voice.

Dick tunes him out and turns to Wally. “You holding up okay?”

Wally has calmed himself, his grip on Dick’s hand a bit looser. “Yeah. Yeah, sorry. Just…”

Before he gets the chance to finish, Cyborg speaks on the comms, “This is not a one-time incident. There are old scars and bruises on the girl. I’m reporting her to the authorities—”

“Wait, please! She—she, I mean, she does take care of me. She makes me food, and buys me things. She isn’t that bad. It’s just—just, I make her angry sometimes. I’m not a good kid—”

“Hey, no, no, no. It’s not your fault. Listen…”

Dick tunes him out again, because as soon as the girl started speaking, Wally’s hold on him tightened to a white-knuckled grip.

“Fuck. Fuck! Why is it always like this?” He whispers, looking down at his lap.

Dick places his hand on top of Wally’s. “It’s alright. She’ll be safe now.”

“No, no. Fuck, Dick, you don’t realise what—what they have to go through. She’s blaming herself. We always blame ourselves first. And—and it never goes away. You keep thinking that if you were just a bit better, a more likeable child, then…then you wouldn’t have done that to your parent.”

Dick moves closer. “Wally, no. It wasn’t your fault. You know that. You know that now. You saw the girl—you know it wasn’t your fault. Parents are shitty sometimes.”

Wally laughs. It’s a sound without humour. Dick hates it.

“You think I don’t know that? Yeah…yeah. I get it. I understand now. It’s just…no parent should hit their child. Ever.”

“Okay,” Dick gives in. “No parent should hit their child.”

Age 18, The Batcave

"I'll be up in just a bit. Go get your stuff. I just have to grab some equipment from down here."

"Okay!" Jason agrees and flies up the stairs. Dick can't help but grin at his excitement. The kid was literally bouncing up and down, all for a simple trip to the bookshop.

"See you in a bit, Little Wing!" He waves goodbye and makes his way towards the Batcomputer.

"Bruce," he greets, his tone a contrast to Jason’s excitement.

He turns back to look at him, cowl still in place. "Dick," he says back, eyes weary in anticipation of another fight.

But the air between them is different from before. They have been working together more often these days.

"I want to talk about something important," Dick says, taking a seat beside Bruce.

The Batman scrutinises him for a moment. Dick keeps his body language open, non-confrontational. After a moment, Bruce takes off his cowl and turns his chair to face him.

"Talk."

Dick nods, pulling up his legs and resting his chin on his knees. "You adopted him," he says as casually as possible.

Dick waits about five seconds to see if Bruce wants to say anything as a sequitur. When silence reigns, Dick adds to his comment. "That means you're his parent now. A proper parent."

This time, Dick doesn’t give Bruce a chance to say anything. "And being a parent means—well—it means you have some duties, right? He thinks of you as—I have heard him refer to you as ‘dad’. So it's not like us. It's different."

Dick stops. Fuck, he should have written down what he wanted to say first.

Dick looks up at Bruce, hoping that maybe the greatest detective in the world has already understood what he's trying to say. Bruce tilts his head in return.

Dick takes a deep breath, straightens his posture, and looks Bruce in the eye.

"What I'm saying is," Dick starts in a low tone, "no parent should hit their child."

Bruce freezes. Dick knows this only by the small stretch of his fingers and his weight shifting more towards his feet. The Batman has no tells, but his partner knows all his tricks.

Bruce opens his mouth, slow and deliberate. "I know that."

"There was a case with the Titans a few months ago. The mom hit her child. We took the kid away from her."

Bruce keeps staring. Dick holds his gaze.

"Do you understand what I'm saying, Bruce?"

Bruce takes one breath; in, and then out. He turns his chair back towards the computer.

"I understand."

Dick nods to himself. "Good, I really hope you do."

He gets up and starts walking away, steps heavy but shoulders upright.

"Dick."

He stops, not looking back.

"I would never."

With slow movements, Dick turns back to look at Bruce. Blue eyes stare back at him, sincere and firm.

Dick swallows.

"Okay."

Dick wishes he would remember.

But he always forgets. In those moments when they look at each other to share an inside joke, or when Dick leans on him from an injury and he holds him back, or when he calls him chum. 

When Alfred kicks them both out of the kitchen, saying that their disastrous cooking is hereditary; when Damian brings a porcupine home and Dick and him share a look; when Dick has a fever and he forces him to stay at the Manor and sits besides him with a wet cloth—

No—it’s impossible to remember in those moments.

But he has to remember. Batman makes him remember. It always hits him in the face, quite literally, that he isn’t, never was, will never be that. Not when Bruce didn’t think he deserved to go to Jason’s funeral, not when he took back Damian like Dick was nothing more than a babysitter, not when he sent Dick to Spyral like the family wouldn’t need him.

Not when he doesn’t even tell Dick that Damian was alive.

It’s true, though. Dick might need them, but they don’t. They’re all Batman’s. And Dick isn’t, not in the same way they are.

Chapter Text

Dick didn’t think death would be a big deal to him.

Not in a depressive way. At least not in this context. Just that death wouldn’t be a novel experience. It would be familiar, probably. He comes in contact with it every day, with every bullet nicking his arm, with every stab wound to his thigh, with every jump off a roof.

It would be that light feeling in his chest; or that hollow feeling, depending on what kind of day it is. It would feel like his lungs have been carved out and replaced with lit kerosene. He would be stumbling, falling, flying, and for a millisecond, the entire world would stop in a sharp focus. And then things would resume, but just without his consciousness in the world anymore.

That’s all it would be, probably. One movement where your body would feel empty and the world painfully vivid. No grand flashback of his cherished moments, or a replay of his whole life, or any light at the end of the tunnel.

He was wrong.

Actually dying was…different. It was where you know you have taken your last breath, not because your intuition tells you, not because the scenario seems impossible to overcome, not even because you actively promise that it will be your last breath.

It was because he felt the physicality of it. He felt his heart thump for the last time; he felt the blood recede from his fingertips. He remembered when the oxygen supply cut off from his brain—just a millisecond of the realisation that, oh, now your cerebellum can’t make your nose remember to breathe.

And in that one moment where he realised that this death would be as final as the snap of a rope, he had a realisation.

It started with a memory—forgotten or repressed, Dick didn’t know. There was a girl, he couldn’t remember what she looked like. His memories of her were in hues of blue, purple, and red, matching the colours of her skin.

They met in the old nurse's room of Gotham Academy. It was the room he used to change bandages of wounds he acquired through Robin, but more often through Bruce. 

He always checked the room and locked it. But this one day, this singular moment in time, his mind was too addled by pain, and habit had made him complacent. He was in the middle of haphazardly fixing up his wounds when she found him. They stared at each other, both in shades of blue, purple, and red. There were no words exchanged, yet there was an inherent understanding.

It’s not what it looks like, Dick had said.

She had just pursed her lips and gestured for him to sit down. She fixed up his bandages, and Dick allowed her to. Just this one time, only because his brain was too muddled by painkillers and last night’s fear toxins. Only because Bruce wasn’t there to see it.

At the end, she had whispered to him, I realised it recently. She didn’t look him in the eye, not once. It is definitely what it looks like.

Dick didn’t reply. He got up and walked to the door, whispering a thanks.

It’s abuse, he thought he heard the girl say as he stepped out of the room.

Dick didn’t remember those words the next day, or the days after that. It took dying for that memory to come back to him.

He remembered meeting someone that day, though; someone who needed help. He agonised over what to do about it, but he didn’t remember her face, or what she sounded like. Just her colours. But it turns out he didn’t have to worry about it much longer. The next week, there was news of a girl from his school killing herself, and Dick knew, with the surety of a crime committed, that it was her.

He didn’t remember anything more of the incident until now, her words echoing back to him.

It is definitely what it looks like.

Dick exhales, thinking it to be his last one.

It’s abuse.

Age 26, The Batcave

But it’s not like he had time to revel in that realisation.

He woke up from death.

He saw Batman.

He saw his dad.

He collapsed in his arms.

The next time he woke up in the medbay of the cave, the words came back to him.

It is what it looks like.

And then Bruce told him he was dead. That he had had a funeral for Dick.

And then—

—then his dad, his dad, his dad used his fists. Like always, but different. Because this time, the force of his words was the one that punched out the air in his lungs.

And he couldn’t think about anything more than how Bruce expected Dick to leave; to leave Tim to his deadly sleeping habits, Jason to his self-destructive ways, Cass to her tendency to withdraw, Barbara to her workaholism, and Steph to her self-doubt—

It was his duty to take care of them—he couldn’t abandon it. Not for this long, not like this.

Not after Damian.

Maybe in his dreams he'll admit it—he didn’t think he deserved to live anymore. But he didn’t want to die either. He couldn’t abandon his family.

He couldn’t abandon his family to Bruce.

He needs to—needs to—

It is what it looks like.

The words ricocheted in his mind, and Dick gave in, feeling helpless, feeling hopeless, feeling like a victim.

He accepted the girl’s words, and that was the final catalyst.

He accepted Bruce as his dad and his abuser at the same point in time and said to him, I’m not your son.

Said to him, After this, Bruce, between us, things can’t be the same.

It was a promise.

And then Dick packs up every thought, every emotion, and every word of a dead girl and puts them in the corner of his mind. The mission, he has been taught, always comes first.

Age 27, Gotham Streets

It was Damian, the reason why he didn’t.

Or maybe it was the aftereffects of Spyral. Maybe it was that, to be Agent 37, he had to repress so much of Dick Grayson that he didn’t know how to reclaim that identity.

Or maybe Dick Grayson died when his heart stopped.

Maybe he died when his dad told him that he had arranged his funeral.

Whatever excuse he may give himself, the truth is that he didn’t. He didn’t until he went through it again, quite literally.

Magic users were a rarity in Gotham, and yet magic itself was common. The numerous magic users popping up around the world turned magic into a commercial product. And somehow, disregarding the homelessness and poverty prevalent in Gotham, rogues had money to spend on buying fucking magic.

Or maybe it was stolen, Dick notes. It was just a band of a dozen run-of-the-mill thugs, no cavalry required. Dick went in alone and got almost all of the goons before the last one threw a potion bottle on him. A literal potion bottle with purple liquid.

Dick felt like he was in a fucking Minecraft game.

Fortunately, a “potion” isn’t enough to disorient Nightwing, not when he has faced every impossibility since the age of nine. One kick is all it takes to bring down the last man.

“What was that?” Nightwing growls, his foot putting pressure on the man’s neck.

Years of experience tell Nightwing that the goon isn’t ready to open his mouth yet. So he grasps his escrima sticks and turns on the electric shock mechanism.

It takes one try, and the guy has already peed his pants.

“Please,” he gasps, “I don’t know.”

Nightwing turns up the setting.

“I—I swear!” His voice cracks. “All I know is that it turns your body back to a time when you were injured.”

It’s too vague, but Nightwing can see that it’s the truth. He can feel the faint tingles of injuries that are yet to start hurting, suppressed by the adrenaline of a fight.

He asks some other cursory questions, like who made it, where he got it, and how long it lasts. All answers are ambiguous.

Incompetent, thinks Agent 37, and delivers a harsh kick to the goon’s head.

Dick walks away, leaving behind the bodies. As he raises his arms to grapple away, he feels it.

His body starts taking hits from a phantom. Abruptly, pain erupts, first at his jaw, then at his chest, his sides, his ankle. It doesn’t stop. Dick stumbles into the place just beside him, thanking his stars that it seems to be abandoned. Breaking and entering came to him as easily as unlocking the door to his own home.

As soon as he is inside, he drops to his knees, his back burning. Bile stains the floor in front of him, and Dick’s consciousness is so messed up that he can’t remember throwing up. The pain comes in waves, and all he needs is a moment to breathe. But he can’t. He physically can’t. Not when breathing itself feels like inhaling glass.

Bruised ribs, bruised jaw, bruised knees, possible concussion, stinging knuckles, intoxicated with morphine, twisted ankle, and glass shards in his back—his vigilante brain clocks in, because that too is a habit more ingrained than coming home.

Dick tries to inhale.

Glass shards in his back.

He fails.

He reaches backward to feel the shards. He gags again.

These injuries are familiar—familiar in the way every funeral is.

“Fuck,” he says.

“Fuck,” he repeats, because it’s not just physical. His mind was also unravelling. He can feel the release of a different kind of adrenaline, the kind that makes his knees go weak and his chest feel empty. It’s as close to a panic attack as he allows himself to get; as close as his training will ever allow him to get. The thoughts come back to him in a barrage, leaving him shaking with their intensity.

He can’t believe he survived this the first time.

It’s realisations after realisations. He died, Bruce is his dad, Bruce is his abuser, he is not Bruce’s son, Bruce wants him to go on a suicide mission, Bruce held a funeral for him, his family thinks he’s dead, and Bruce wants him to abandon them.

It is what it looks like, whispers the phantom of the girl in his ears.

Dick screams, raw and bitter, feeling like no one can hear him. He screams, feeling like no one wants to hear him. He screams again and again and he didn’t think the screams were leaving his throat. Because surely, surely, if they were, someone would hear them. Someone would help.

Dick screams, but it’s all in his head.

Finally, he takes a shaky inhale, barely restraining a sob at how the expansion of his chest digs the glass shards in his back further in. The morphine will take care of it.

With only the support of one functioning leg, Dick gets up.

He gets up and comes face to face with a ghost.

Grey-skinned, with blood dripping down his whole face. Eye bags deep, hair greasy and crusted with blood. Posture thin and contorted in the way he has been taught to recognise as that of someone in pain.

That couldn’t be him.

The only time he could remember seeing someone in that state was when he failed to save them. When they would be too far gone for him to save, with lifeless eyes and cold hands. Victim—beaten to death, his reports would say; by the husband or partner or mother or cousin or friend or father—the offender, those reports would cite.

Dick exhales, and the person in the mirror moves with him.

No, no. That—

That—

That looks like a victim.

Dick inhales.

Before his knees can give out on their own, he sinks to the ground. He couldn’t see himself in the mirror now. The place was only illuminated by harsh yellow streetlights, with tables, chairs, and couches around him. The mirror was a decorative piece, along with several other smudged reflective materials. Dick touches the ground. It was coated in dust, mildly damp and sticky. He brings his hands up to feel his uniform, feeling fabric and metal, noting how it remained intact despite his injuries. He closes his eyes and inhales, smelling acid and alcohol.

He’s in a bar, he realises, swallowing down bile.

But that doesn’t matter. Barely anything matters at this moment.

Because with another exhale, Dick accepts it.

He accepts what has always been there. He accepts Bruce, a father and an abuser. He accepts himself, a victim, not a survivor. He accepts this situation—not his current predicament, but what has been happening since the violence settled in his bones.

It wasn’t his own violence. It was always Bruce’s influence, every single time. And now, especially now, after he rose from the dead only to raise his arms to protect himself from his father’s fists, he realises his own delusions.

How has he been living? He hasn’t been, maybe. Spyral was a ghost of a time; it was a mission where he switched off his emotions and became ruthless. Now, he was back, and Bruce—Bruce didn’t fix anything.

How has he been living? Without remembering that promise of things not being the same. He did realise it, didn’t he? He told Bruce, he told him, he wasn’t his son, that things won’t be the same. That he will get back up again and push back.

How has he been living? Dick asks himself, not sure whether to cry or laugh or go on a rampage. With glass shards in his back and a consciousness that was once dead, really, how has he found the will to stay alive, to withstand this betrayal, to even allow for it? 

Dick inhales, and this time, he decides he is not Bruce’s son.

Because Bruce killed his son.

He makes a promise—a pledge to the dead—that no, things won’t be the same anymore. They can’t be. They should never have been.

One more shaky inhale, and Dick is back. Not completely, not mostly, but enough to pick himself up and stagger to the bar counter.

The pain numbs, like all pain does when you’ve been hiding injuries since nine—since thirteen from the one who treats you. He pours himself a drink, hums, and thinks. 

What can he do?

He drinks and thinks and thinks and drinks. With shaking fingers, he opens up a burner phone.

It's time to fulfil a promise.

Chapter Text

Jason was acing this. He was absolutely doing the best—definitely even better than the original, never mind the supposed successor.

“I am vengeance,” he growls at the face of a random rogue, holding him close by the collar.

He actually sees the rogue’s throat bob, and Jason has to suppress his smirk. After all, this cowl didn’t cover his mouth.

He hears a tut behind him and knows that the Replacement was likely rolling his eyes at him.

“You’re going overboard,” he berates.

“Do not question me,” he growls at Red Robin, adding a sneer for effect.

“Father is not quite so obvious in his…entitlement,” Robin says as he drops down from the roof.

Jason breaks character and guffaws; all the rogues were unconscious anyway. “So you admit he’s an entitled ass.”

Robin looks away and crosses his arms. Jason takes that as a yes, his laughter doubling.

“This is fun. I get it now—why B is so overdramatic.”

“I still can’t believe he let you do this,” Tim murmurs as he ties up the last of the villains. They start walking out of the building, having already called the police.

Tim continues, “Well, I guess he didn’t have much of a choice, with the urgent league mission and the Gotham stakeout already planned. Also…”

Tim doesn’t finish, but Jason knows what he would have said.

“Please,” he says, offended, “I make a much better Batman than Nightwing. The cowl should have been mine then too.”

Damian lets out an indignant noise. “You are wrong. He and I were the best Batman and Robin. No one ever suspected a thing, not even the Joker.”

Jason rolls his eyes. “Yes, yes, fine. He is the most similar to B, with all their fucking secrets and lies,” he spits out.

Tim nods, but Damian makes an offended noise. “I keep telling you—“

A phone rings somewhere in Jason’s Batman uniform. He fumbles around, only to find a burner phone.

Tim narrows his eyes. “That’s B’s emergency phone.”

Jason nods and picks up the call, holding the phone close to his ear.

There is just one word, “Batman.”

Jason freezes. It’s most certainly Dick, but he doesn’t sound quite right.

“Nightwing,” Jason demands, maintaining the Batman voice. He had considered making his voice softer and using the term ‘chum’ instead, but…he hadn’t really seen Bruce act like that towards Dick these days.

“Backup,” Dick murmurs. “Just you. No cavalry.”

“Situation?” Jason asks, trying his best to remember how Bruce interacts with Dick. Should he be more gentle, more concerned?

There is a grim chuckle that ends with a painful-sounding cough. Jason is sure he must be injured, at the least.

“Nothing serious,” replies Nightwing in a murmur, then hangs up.

Jason holds the phone in front of him and stares at it for a moment. Something was wrong, obviously. But—but it’s Dick. He had—he didn’t care. Dick lied to them and—

Jason shakes his head. Now is not the time. He can at least hold back personal feelings in life-and-death situations. Still, he can’t help the scowl that takes over his face.

“What was it?” Tim questions, Damian standing beside him with an equally curious look.

“Nothing serious,” Jason echoes. He thinks about mentioning that Dick needed backup, but then takes a good look at Damian. Considering how Dick had sounded…no, he didn’t want the younger ones to worry. “I have to go. Promise I’ll call for backup, if needed.”

There are immediate protests.

“That wasn’t even for you. You need to—”

“This is most irresponsible of you and I—”

“Guys,” Jason says firmly. He looks each of them in the eye, calling back upon the big brother role he had adopted in Dick’s absence. “Trust me on this. I will tell you if something is wrong.”

After a moment, Tim nods. Damian still looks like he wants to protest, but he closes his mouth when Tim places a hand on his shoulder.

“I’ll stay in touch,” Jason says before grappling away. He can’t help but wonder about how much more they trust him now.

Dick’s death had certainly strengthened their bond, he thinks bitterly.

Jason stops on a rooftop for a second to track Dick’s location. It wasn’t far—only twenty minutes away. The place seemed to be…a bar.

Jason sighs and takes off towards it. He really hopes that Dick wasn’t drunk. He was the giggly kind of drunk, at least the last time Jason had checked. Though that was almost a decade ago.

Jason soon finds himself before a closed bar. He’s grateful for that; he didn't think the place would take it well if Batman just walked into a functioning bar.

Jason enters, only slightly surprised to find the lock broken. The door creaks behind him, and he can immediately make out a slouched figure sitting on the bar stool.

Jason considers making a joke about breaking and entering as a vigilante, but that wasn't Batman's style, unfortunately. He wants to see how long it will take until Dick figures out it’s him, not Bruce.

"You're here." Dick greets, the smallest note of surprise in his voice. Jason almost rolls his eyes. Of course, Dick would expect Batman to not come get him even in an SOS call, the pretentious shit that he is.

Jason stays near the exit and goes through all the things Batman could say and settles on two possible options. Either he would ask if Dick was hurt, or he would demand a report on the situation.

He thinks for a moment more about how Bruce has acted towards Dick lately and decides to go with the latter option.

"Report," he says, in the same raspy quality of Batman's voice.

Dick lets out a chuckle that sounds so weary that Jason is sure he would never have let anyone other than Bruce hear it. He always puts up a facade in front of the rest of them.

"The report is, Batman, that I’m grieving,” Dick answers in his own rasp.

Immediately, Jason is on alert. Anyone Dick knew well enough to grieve, Jason also most likely cared about.

"Who?" Jason says in an urgent whisper, breaking character.

Dick finally looks at him, and oh fuck. There was something very wrong.

“Myself,” Dick whispers back, so quiet that Jason wouldn’t have heard him if he hadn’t been reading his lips. Streetlights reflect back into Dick’s eyes. They are wide and glassy.

He’s drugged, Jason knows. Or in pain, maybe. Or drunk. Or all of those. Please let it not be all of those.

When Jason doesn’t move, Dick clicks his tongue and slumps back at the counter, offering a cold smile. “It is what it looks like,” he says, like he’s quoting someone. “But the problem is, Bruce, we’ve never actually looked.”

Jason blinks. He doesn’t know how Dick still hasn’t realised it’s Jason, not Bruce, but he decides to keep up the act. “Looked at what?”

“Us, Bruce, us. You wrote ‘A Good Soilder’ on Jason’s plaque.” The mention of his name makes Jason’s heart skip a beat. “What was it for me? Or did you not write anything since you knew it was all fake?”

Jason isn’t sure how to feel about this. He wants to be offended, but this, in its entirety, feels too personal for Jason to handle. This is not the kind of blackmail material he desires, not the kind of story he wants exposed under a deception. He thinks of ways to get Dick to shut up and actually tell him what’s wrong.

“Nightwing,” he says, and he’s barely maintaining the Batman voice. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

Dick shakes his head. “I just want to talk, B. We can still do that, can’t we?” He laughs and answers his own question, “No, I know we can’t. You won’t, and I don’t think I want to, either. But just for today. Come sit. You only have to listen.” He tilts his head to the stool next to him.

Jason thinks about revealing himself, about taking off the cowl and sneering at Dick for being a sentimental loser, about breaking Dick out of this strange mood and taking them both home.

Instead, he walks over the bile- and alcohol-covered floor of the bar and takes a seat next to Dick.

Dick will realise it’s Jason and not Bruce at some point or another. Jason is willing to take advantage of his loose mouth for now. God knows Bruce and Dick never reveal any of their dirty little secrets. 

Jason scans over the Nightwing suit just in case. He can’t see any obvious rips or damage, so there’s no immediate danger, although Dick holds himself tight with his face shrouded in darkness. His hands play with his domino mask, and he does not look at Jason.

Dick takes a shaky breath and pushes the mask a bit towards Jason. “Remember when this was off? When they revealed everything? I—I tried to tell myself that I didn’t really care, that it was okay if that turned out to be my end. Tim was angry, and Jason never stopped being angry, but most of all, Damian was gone. You had not been a good father to him, and neither had I.” He chuckles in a way that sounds almost like a sob. “We both failed, Bruce.”

Dick shakes his head and takes back his mask, looking at it with pinched eyebrows. Jason feels a faint tightness in his chest, remembering how Dick had been after Damian died.

“But I wanted to live. I wanted to live so badly, Bruce. I—my last hope was you. I wanted—needed you to come save me. And you did, I guess. You did.”

Sure, Jason thinks, realising that he was talking about the events with the Crime Syndicate. Batman had saved Dick, and then, to celebrate, the two fuckers decided to host a fake funeral for the rest of the family.

Something at the back of Jason’s mind tingles, nagging him to look deeper into Dick’s words.

He doesn’t listen to it. For once in his life, he wants to hold on to the anger. It hurts too much otherwise.

“But?” Jason prompts Dick to continue spilling secrets. This time, he completely gives up on maintaining his disguise. Jason was sure Dick wouldn’t even notice if the Batman suit was neon pink instead of black right now.

Dick stares at nothing and doesn’t answer. A moment passes, and Jason thinks again about just manhandling Dick home.

Then, Dick starts somewhere else. “Was there a backup plan?”

He speaks in a whisper, his shoulders tightening themselves around his body to the extent only a contortionist would. Jason doesn’t know what he’s talking about, but he’s certain Batman would have known. So he decides to stay silent.

“There couldn’t have been, could there?” Dick answers his own question once again with conviction in his voice. “It was…it was a suicide mission, that’s why. You saved me only to send me to die.”

Please, please let this not be about Spyral, was all Jason could think. But then again, even if this was about something else, it wouldn't make the situation any better.

Why did Dick go then? Did he really want to die that badly? Was he really planning to abandon them like that?

Jason had never been enough for Bruce, much less for the Golden Boy.

"And I get it, Bruce. You needed to do that to be a good hero, to save lives. But Bruce, does that—that can't make you a good father, can it?"

Dick turned to look at him, a strip of light illuminating only his unfocused eyes. "It doesn't make you a good father at all."

Jason can’t focus on the words. Dick’s posture was all wrong. In the dim light around him, Jason could barely make out his pinched eyebrows.

He was definitely in pain. Now Jason only needed to decide if it was physical or emotional. Or both.

Definitely both.

"Answer me, Bruce, tell me, are you a father? Have you ever considered yourself a father to me? I grew up seeing many kinds of parents in different places. I grew up with a boy whose mother would beat him up daily and still told him she loved him. I thought—at that time I thought that was how some parents were. But Bruce, Bruce—" his voice breaks with desperation.

“Bruce, you would report parents like those to the police. And by the time I was with the Titans, I would too. And still, Bruce, still, I took it when you hurt me because—because I don’t know. Because maybe, somewhere along the way, I started pretending you weren’t my father.”

"Hurt you," Jason echoes, and now his voice isn't raspy because of an act. That is the phrase he’s stuck on. Bruce. Bruce hurt Dick. The first son, the favourite, the one most like him.

Bruce hurt him?

Dick laughs again, still facing him. There’s no mirth in the sound. "Do you still not understand what you did? What you keep doing? ‘It is what it looks like.’ Funny how I only realised it after my death, after you beat me up and sent me away from my family.” 

Dick stands up, all stiff movements. The light from outside hits him directly, and Jason realises he’s in a nightmare.

Jason was—he was dreaming. Maybe one of the goons got him, and this was just a very bad, awful nightmare. Please. This cannot be real. Dick is—Dick was Bruce’s favourite.

This—this man, hunched and shaking and bleeding—cannot be Dick. His brother’s face could never be dripping with blood from his father’s fists. Never, never, was he supposed to look at Dick so close to death.

“Look. You’ve made me a victim,” Dick tells him.

Yes, Jason would whisper if he could speak past the dread coating his lungs.

Jason pushes himself up, slow and without intention.

He reaches out a hand and touches a bruise on Dick’s cheek. The man doesn’t flinch.

Jason inhales, feeling reality crashing down on him.

Real, this is real. He feels the blood crusted on his brother’s face.

Real, his mind whispers, as he realises his father’s sins.

Real, says the voice of the Pit, his eyes starting to glow green.

“Bruce did this,” Jason growls.

The last thing he hears before losing himself is Dick’s empty voice.

You’re not him, it says, like he expected it all along.

Chapter Text

The thing about performing with your body is that you have to forget your mind.

You have to stop every thought, every emotion, every stutter in your heartbeat. That’s the only way you can stop yourself from getting nervous before a swing, before a leap, before a fall.

That’s what his parents taught him, that’s how Robin swung, that’s how Nightwing leaped, and that’s how Agent 37 shot.

That’s how Dick Grayson took a punch.

In every emergency, Dick has learned to lock away his emotions. He has learned to be rational.

So when he realises the fuck-up he did, Dick inhales.

Then, he evaluates.

Jason’s eyes are glowing green. He’s definitely not conscious. He’s taking off Batman’s cowl and throwing it away.

Jason roars, and Dick focuses on neutralising his punch. Their hands stick together for a moment, Dick’s blood-covered palm coating Jason’s knuckles with red. Then, with swift movements, he has Jason’s hands held behind his back, the element of surprise and rationality on his side. The brutal strength used against him does not work without adequate technique.

Nightwing pulls out a zip tie and starts restraining him. Jason keeps struggling blindly, roaring about injustice and the like.

With great strength and greater skill, Nightwing manages to push Jason out of the bar to the desolate alley just beside the place. There’s a sturdy metal door on the side. Nightwing uses another zip tie to tether Jason there. Just to be sure, he uses three more, all Bat-grade. He steps back.

Threat neutralised, Agent 37’s voice reports.

Dick closes his eyes and exhales.

He knows what he’s supposed to do. He needs to stay here until the green from Jason’s eyes fades away. He needs to talk Jason down and tell him that it’s okay, he didn’t do any damage.

He needs to be a good brother.

Nightwing inhales.

He steps back.

It won’t come back.

Or maybe Nightwing isn’t letting it come back.

The war inside his head is suppressed. He does not feel anything.

He looks at the facts.

Jason knows.

Jason will most likely go after Batman.

Batman is on a mission with the Justice League.

Jason will take time to recuperate and plan. He will tell Tim, definitely. Their most likely course of action would be to look for evidence. They might also involve Barbara, and possibly Damian will refuse to stay out of it.

Nightwing waits for the panic to hit him.

It doesn’t.

Batman is smart enough to hide things well, but he wouldn’t have deleted anything.

And Tim is smart enough to find what Batman hides.

They will definitely be waiting for Batman.

He has to act before them.

He has to—

He has to—

He has to get to Batman before them.

When the green leaves Jason’s vision, he finds himself in an alley.

Some motherfucker had tied his hands to a fucking door.

That motherfucker is his brother, Jason realises. His brother with blood dripping down his face.

Jason finds himself battling the green again.

He is so tired of this. Not just losing himself when something even mildly inconvenient happens, but of having revelation after revelation about his family’s “best”-kept secrets.

His family.

Fuck, he only thought of them as his family after Dick was gone, after he realised no one was going to hold them together and resolve all disputes. That there was no common link remaining that would make them care about each other.

But they did. Because Jason tried. He thought he owed it to Dick to try.

But then that motherfucker, that motherfucker—

He—

He can’t even blame him.

He was never to blame. It’s all that fucking—

That—

Jason screams.

He screams so that he doesn’t cry.

And fuck! His hands are still fucking tied up with a fuckton of zip ties. Count on his brother to be meticulous even when—

Even when…

Jason struggles for a good fifteen minutes trying to free himself. He may have been able to pull it off in his Red Hood suit but this heavy fucking Batman suit—

Jason hates it.

With no other option left, he calls Barbara.

“Oracle,” he says, not keeping up any ruse of being Batman. He might throw up.

“Hood,” she replies immediately. “You’ve been inactive for more than half an hour.”

“Yeah so fucking send help,” Jason spits out. “Send in the cavalry. Send in fucking Wonder Woman, so God help me.”

Babs is silent, most likely started by his extremity. He considers regretting his words, but he’s just—he’s just—so fucking angry.

So angry because his brother’s bloodied face keeps appearing in front of him. Blood literally dripping down like a waterfall—what the fuck Bruce?

He’s so angry that he might cry if he stops being angry.

“Hood, tell me who to send. Are you injured?” Babs asks in her no-nonsense voice.

And Jason—Jason doesn’t know. He can’t think about anything else. Whoever comes to his rescue will inevitably see his rage. And he can’t—he can’t do that to any of them. He doesn’t—he doesn’t even—what does he fucking do?

Is this why Dick hid it? Because he couldn’t do this to any of them?

Never has Jason felt more like a big brother than he does now. Neither has he felt this pathetic as a—as a brother, a friend, a fellow Robin, even a fucking bystander.

And he must have remained silent for too long, because the next thing he knows, Babs is telling him that Red Robin is on his way.

And then Jason is having another crisis because what the fuck is he supposed to do?

All Jason can think of is going up to Bruce and Dick and asking, How long? How long has this been going on? How could they? How could Dick let him? How could Bruce do that?

How could—how could Jason never realise?

Don’t blame yourself, Harley’s voice tells him. The Big Bird used to do it enough for your whole nest of birds.

But—

But—

No. She’s right. Jason is—Dick is—God Dick is alive and he—he’s like that. Bruised, bleeding and broken. He—

Jason has to act. He has to stop blaming, and he has to act—has to make sure this never happens again—has to make sure this hasn’t happened with anyone else.

Oh god, oh god, if—if it happened with anyone else, then—

He will fucking kill that bastard.

With that, Jason sees green again, and, oh god, he can’t even control himself—such a fucking hypocrite.

He punched him, he remembers. Dick’s blood was on his knuckles. He was, oh god, he was sprawled on the ground. Jason’s brother was alive and he—

It’s all his fault, it’s all his fault, it’s all his fault.

Fucking Bruce.

“Jason!”

He feels the sting of a slap across his face.

“The fuck?” Jason says, for once, not out of anger.

“Wake the fuck up and tell me what happened,” Red Robin says, arms holding up Batman’s cowl.

Jason growls and takes the cowl, throwing it to the ground and stomping on it. His metal-toed boots crack the mask in half.

“What the fuck?” Red Robin hisses.

“I’m not fucking wearing that,” Jason hisses back.

“Hood, you’re compromising our identities. This is bigger than some grudge—”

Jason laughs.

“Is it, Tim? Are you sure? Can anything really be bigger than—”

He stops. His hands are free now, and he has made the mistake of looking down at them. He can see it, the blood coating the knuckles of Batman’s gauntlet.

He punched him. His brother was alive, his brother survived that, survived that for all those years and Jason just—

“Hood!”

Fuck, he really doesn’t know what to do.

What would Dick do? He wants to ask himself, like he has done so many times in the past year. But he already knows that answer. Already knows that it’s not the right choice.

He sighs.

“Let’s go back to the cave first.” Jason says, rummaging in his toolbelt for a simple eye mask.

Tim probably wanted to argue, but Jason is already walking out, still trying to suppress the green.

The journey back to the Batcave is calming, somewhat. Jason feels like he can finally get his head on straight. Flying, Dick would call it. Flying always makes it better. It comes with being Robin. It comes with being a teenager who has jumped across rooftops so many times that it seems easier than walking sometimes.

By the time they’re back in the cave, Jason can compartmentalise the emotions and actually “analyse” what happened. Fuck, he hates being a Bat sometimes.

But it does help him come to an important realisation.

“He was injured,” Jason says.

Tim, already at the Batcomputer, gives him a look.

“Dick  was injured,” Jason repeated, panic seeping into his voice. “Badly. Very badly. We should—was Bruce—we need to figure out what happened.”

Tim continues to give him The Look. “No shit, Sherlock,” he murmurs. Then he shakes his head. “Just come here. I did a bit of investigation while you were having your breakdown.”

Jason opens his mouth to protest but thinks better of it. That is not the priority right now.

Tim starts looking through security camera feeds around the area, briefing him simultaneously. “Nightwing was supposed to deal with a trafficking group today. They’re with the police, so I’m assuming that mission was successful. I looked around the area and found some—This one.”

They focus on the screen. Nightwing is fighting around a dozen goons in the grainy video. He looks, and moves, like a shadow, barely registering on the screen.

His fighting style has changed so much, Jason thinks. What he remembers best are the flashy flips and kicks Nightwing used when Jason first became Robin. But now? All flips were solely functional, and his kicks were harsh rather than awe-inspiring. When did it become like that?

They see one of the last remaining thugs throw something at Nightwing. Tim pauses the video, zooming in and enhancing it. The scene repeats, and Jason can see some glass container with a dark liquid being thrown at Nightwing. It breaks on impact.

“Is that a volumetric flask—?”

“What is this fucking Minecraft bullshit—?”

Tim and Jason stare at each other.

“Nerd,” they both say at the same time.

Jason groans, “Whatever. Just play the video.”

They see Nightwing interrogating the thug. Jason winces at the ruthlessness of it all. The Nightwing he remembers is less…pragmatic.

Nightwing gets off the thug and walks away from the camera frame. Tim opens up another video; Nightwing is at the very edge of the frame. They see him raise his grapple gun, then suddenly, he’s flinching, hard. They see his body go through seizure-like movements. He stumbles to the shop nearby him, taking almost no time to break in. That’s the bar Jason found him in.

“The thugs didn’t touch him. What did the potion do?”

Tim is already moving about. He takes out a evidence bag with glass pieces inside.

“I already ran it through the Analyser—first thing I did when we came back. The results should be out in a few minutes. What do we need to do?”

Jason didn’t know what they would do without Tim. He’s definitely the best detective out of all of them. He’s the one who can always keep his head about him.

Yet, he’s asking Jason about what to do.

“We should—we should try to find Nightwing. He’s still injured, and…,” Jason has never felt so helpless.

Tim gives him a long look. “Sure then. I’ll try to track his location. But you need to tell me what’s going on.”

Jason looks at the ceiling, as if that would somehow get the image of Dick’s bloody face out of his head.

“Tim,” he says. “You’re not going to like it.”

He can feel Tim’s glare on him. “I thought we weren’t going to keep any more secrets.”

Jason nods. He knows. No matter how much he wants to, he can’t hide this. It’s not his place to protect Tim from a secret that never should’ve existed. He won’t do what Dick did—what Dick has been doing since forever.

But, at least, for his older brother’s sake, he can make one concession.

“Is the Demon Brat around?”

Tim blinks. “No. I sent him to bed. He has that art competition tomorrow.”

Jason would smile if he didn’t feel so harrowed right now. Look at those two getting along.

“Okay. Okay, you’re not going to like this; I didn’t like it. And Dick—I guess he’s been trying to protect us from this or whatever. But…fuck, I—I really don’t know how to say this.”

Tim rolls his eyes. “Just start from the beginning.”

Jason almost laughs at that. He didn’t know when it began. Was it during the last few years? Or did Bruce start throwing punches the moment he took Dick in? Just how far back do his father’s sins go?

But he guesses, for now, he could start with tonight. He takes a deep breath and narrates, “Nightwing made an SOS call. He didn’t sound right. Said he needed backup. I found him in that bar. He didn’t realise I wasn’t Bruce till the end.”

“That’s impossible. He’s a Bat.”

“Yeah,” Jason looks him in the eyes. “But—but it was bad.”

Jason breathes to find his next words. A loud beeping sound saves him from having to continue.

Tim takes off towards the machines. “The results for that—that potion are out. Let me just check them real quick.”

Tim skims through the report, frowns, then clicks a picture of them. He calls someone.

“Hey Raven, you free for a minute? I need some help. I sent you a report on this, um, potion thing we’re dealing with. Do you know what it does?”

Raven replies on the other end, and Tim notes it down on paper. Jason looks over his shoulder and tries to decipher his awful handwriting.

“Thanks Raven. I’ll let you know if we need any other help.” Tim turns to him. “It’s a new potion going around in the black market. If you throw it at someone, it reverts their body and mind back to the worst state they’ve ever been in. It has a permanent effect, but most people usually recover. They already made it out the first time, so it’s mostly a tool to buy time to escape.”

Jason thinks about the implications of that. The worst state Dick has ever been in—it wasn’t caused by some villain or an apocalypse. It was the doing of his father.

I started pretending you weren’t my father, Dick had said.

“It was—it was after the Crime Syndicate.”

Tim furrows his brows, “You sure? If he was good enough to go on a mission right afterwards—”

“No.” Jason chokes on the realisation that Bruce beat him up till he was like that, till he was more blood than body, and then sent him on a damn mission. “The Crime Syndicate didn’t do the damage.”

While he was speaking, Tim had already taken a seat in front of the Batcomputer and pulled out the records of the Crime Syndicate.

“Well, the injuries here are pretty extensive, obviously. They did lead to his fake funeral. But these would be fake, just like how the death was fake.”

And—and Jason couldn’t take it.

The report is, Batman, that I’m grieving, Dick had said.

Jason didn’t know what he meant, but—but this was all Bruce’s fault.

“It was Bruce,” he says.

“What?”

“Bruce hurt him.”

“What are you—”

Jason kneels down in front of Tim’s chair. He looks him in the eye. He takes a moment to think about what’s important—what matters right now. There’s only one answer.

“I need you to listen to this. It’s okay if you don’t believe me; we’ll figure that out later. But promise me—promise me that you’ll focus on what’s important right now. We need to find Dick. He’s really hurt.”

Jason needs that reassurance from himself as much as he needs it from Tim. He can’t go after Bruce right now; he can’t lose himself without saving his brother first.

“Okay,” Tim says, head tilted at Jason’s sobriety.

Jason takes a deep breath. “Bruce—Batman, at least, has been hurting Dick. He’s been—he’s been abusing him. I don’t know since when, but definitely for a long time. After the Crime Syndicate, before Spyral, I think—I think Bruce did that to him. I think he beat the shit out of our brother and sent him to Spyral on a suicide mission.”

Tim considers him for a long moment. Jason can see the disbelief in his eyes. “We…we would’ve known. We would’ve noticed. We’re detectives.”

“Bruce is supposedly the greatest. And you know how good Dick is at hiding things.”

“Like he hid his death.” Tim says with sudden vitriol. “Bruce never hurt any of us. There were no signs. He couldn’t have—Dick knows better. He wouldn’t let Bruce do that.”

Jason closes his eyes.

I grew up with a boy whose mother would beat him up daily and still tell him she loved him. I thought—at that time I thought that was how some parents were, Dick had said. Funny how I only realised it after my death, after you beat me up and sent me away from my family.

But this wasn’t the time to dwell on that. “That doesn’t matter right now,” he tells Tim. “What you need to know is that Dick knew Spyral was a suicide mission. He said—he implied that Bruce beat him up to that state in order to convince him to go. I don’t care if you can’t believe that yet. But Dick is injured, and our anger has been misdirected. We need to find him.”

Jason doesn’t wait for Tim’s reply. He gets up and starts working on the Batcomputer, trying to locate Nightwing’s tracker. After a minute, Tim joins him.

“I already looked. They’re disabled. They have been for a while.”

“Oracle?”

Tim nods and connects them with her. “Any updates on Nightwing’s location?” He asks when she’s on the line.

"He turned off all trackers. I was able to track him through security cameras. He went to that safehouse near the harbour, the one with the Jeta Tubes. That was a few minutes ago. He hasn’t come out yet.”

“Is he teleporting somewhere?”

“Yes, he just did. He Jetad to…give me a minute.”

Jason looks at Tim while they wait. “That means he didn’t take any time to fix his injuries.”

Tim shrugs, “He could’ve Jetad to one of his Bludhaven safehouses.”

Jason gave him a look. Tim knows how bad Dick is at self-care. The man doesn’t ever even use moisturiser, for fuck’s sake.

“I can’t find it,” Oracle says, voice tight. “He encrypted his destination. He doesn’t want us to track him.”

Jason’s heartbeat kicks up. He can’t get the image of Dick’s bloodied face out of his head. “He’s going to bleed out.”

Oracle is silent for another moment. “I’ll…I’ll try to find him.” With that, she disconnects.

Tim turns to him with a sharp look. “Now tell me exactly what happened.”

Chapter Text

Nightwing creeps through the halls of the Justice League Tower, blending in with the shadows. He goes through the most isolated halls, going out of his way to avoid any other living being.

He has to get to Batman.

He finds him in the almost empty kitchen, talking to Superman in a quiet voice, his cowl off. Nightwing can tell it’s not an important conversation by the gap between Batman’s feet and the slope of his shoulders. He doesn’t look like he got injured in the mission either.

Nightwing wants to wait for Superman to go away. But when both of them start moving out together to the Jeta Tubes, he knows that he won’t find a more advantageous time to confront him. Besides, Clark is already looking at him.

“Nightwing,” Superman says, and Batman follows his gaze.

Nightwing doesn’t step out of the shadows. “Batman,” he says, voice steady. “We need to talk.”

Bruce’s fist twitches at his side, a moment so small that Dick knows he’s the only one who notices. Nightwing doesn’t wait. He steps further into the dark, trusting Clark to understand that this is a private conversation and tune them out.

Batman follows him. When he finally looks at him, Dick can see the moment he registers the state that Nightwing is in. He could’ve taken the time to wipe the blood off his face. He’s glad he didn’t.

“Report,” Batman says. The only change in his expression is the tightening of the skin around his jaw caused by the clenching of his teeth.

Don’t you recognise your own handiwork? Dick wants to ask.

“I’m here to warn you,” he lies instead.

“Gotham?” Batman asks. His primary concern, of course, is always the city.

Nightwing tilts his head. “Gotham’s fine. I’m here to warn you about what might be waiting back for you back at the Cave.”

Dick gives Bruce a few seconds to reply. When he doesn't, Nightwing continues, “I told them about Spyral.”

The reaction is immediate. Batman moves forward and grabs his bicep, digging in his fingers. Nightwing laughs.

“They won’t understand,” Bruce hisses.

Dick stares down at him with quiet eyes. “Exactly, Bruce. They wouldn’t. And I don’t either. Only an abuser can justify their own actions. So you better think up all your excuses.”

Dick sees the twitch of Bruce’s mouth and knows what’s coming. Batman tightens his grip enough to drag Dick forward. “What did you tell them,” he growls in his face, less a question and more a threat.

Nightwing grins, showing off the red in his teeth. “Only the truth.”

By the slight jerk of his arm, Dick knows that Bruce wants to throw him into the wall and growl in his face. Dick makes sure his teeth are clenched, even though he knows Batman can’t do that right now. Superman is just outside.

“Was there a backup plan?” Dicks asks, barely any inflection in his voice. After all, he already knows the answer. But that doesn’t stop him from searching Bruce’s eyes.

Batman remains a silent pillar of fury. A moment passes, and with each second, Dick’s heartbeat kicks up. He reaches out to clutch at the side of Batman’s cloak.

“Bruce,” he pleads, and this time he can’t stop the desperation leaking out. “Was there a backup plan? An evacuation strategy? An extraction? Someone who knew the truth? Someone who would’ve saved me if—” Dick stops. If what? All that could’ve happened, happened. He had to save himself every time.

The air around Bruce changes. He loosens his grip, and in turn, Dick tightens his. “Bruce,” he repeats, twelve years old.

“We will tell them you were compromised.”

Dick has to close his eyes against the feeling of betrayal that crashes into him. He only has himself to blame for never being able to crush the hope that Bruce maybe even cared a little bit about him. Not about Robin, not about Nightwing, not about the soldier he has built, but about Dick, the son he has raised through a stoic voice calling him chum.

Dick opens his eyes again and takes a step back.

“Do you remember what I said, Bruce? When you made me like this? When you sent me off to that damn place on a fucking suicide mission?”

Bruce doesn’t answer, no expression on his face except the minute clench of his jaw.

“I said things can’t be the same. It was a promise, Bruce.”

Batman still does not move. The rage-grief-betrayal swirling in Dick’s chest feels like it wants to crawl up his throat and burst into a storm of fire at Bruce’s face.

Dick steps around Bruce, into the light.

The last time he stepped into the light thinking that the man in front of him was his father he wanted him to realise his sins. This time too, it’s a test.

Dick bares his teeth at the Batman, grinning through stiff cheeks congealed with blood.

“Do you see this, Bruce? Do you think things should be the same after this?”

Dick’s eyes scan Batman’s face, looking for any shift at all in his facial muscles.

He steps closer, vivid blue eyes searching that dull cobalt. “It is what it looks like. Bruce, Bruce, look, won’t you? You are a man made of violence and nothing else. You are a hypocrite.” All that Batman does is breathe. Dick’s words come out from his throat, sharp and jagged, wanting to hurt, wanting to have any effect at all. “Where is your humanity, Bruce? Do you actually care about the ones you protect, or do you care more about the vengeance that needs to be served to those whom you think of as criminals?”

Dick steps even closer, willing him to look, to see. His voice raises, willing his father to listen.

“Tell me, Batman!” He spits out. “Do you remember the purpose we serve, or is it always about the mission?” He reaches up and grabs Batman’s collar, the element of surprise helping him jerk down Batman’s face.

“Why would you do this?” He roars. “How could you do this—?”

“Woah—Nightwing!”

Gentle, strong hands pull back his shoulder. Dick is turned around to stare into another pair of blue eyes. They are so soft. The eyebrows above those eyes pinch together. The mouth on that face stretches downward. Those eyes dart towards Batman but return to him. The warm hands on his shoulder hold him steady.

“Are you okay, Dick? What happened?”

And—and Dick hates that this is everything he has been looking for. This is everything he wants. And it is so unfair that it won’t come from the person he wished it would.

It is enough to take out the fight from Dick.

The adrenaline leaves him so suddenly that Dick staggers. His vision blurs, and now, all he wants to do is sleep for an eternity.

“I’ll go back,” he tries to get out, but the words slur and barely make it past his aching, swollen jaw.

“Dick,” Clark says with so much emotion that Dick has to close his eyes. “You need immediate medical attention. There are foriegn objects embedded in your back and—”

“I need to go back to the Cave,” Batman says as he steps around them, heading to the Jeta Tubes.

Clark looks at him with so much disbelief that Dick would laugh if he had the energy. His hands on his shoulders are so warm.

“Bruce,” Clark says.

Batman pauses, his back towards them. “There’s an emergency.”

Dick watches Clark’s face shift with fascination. The juxtaposition is absurd. He watches the clench of his teeth and the raise of his pinched eyebrows. His lips part to say something else, but Dick interrupts him.

“I’ll go with you,” Dick says to Batman.

Batman ignores him and continues forward. Clark tries to hold him still. “Dick, you need to go the medbay—”

Dick doesn’t listen. He needs to go after Batman. He needs to make sure Batman doesn’t do anything reckless to his family, doesn’t do any more damage.

Clark lets him move out of his grasp, always so gentle. He keeps one hand around Dick, helping him limp forward with his sprained ankle. Dick honestly doesn’t know how he managed so far. He can feel the effects of the morphine receding as the pain returns to his fingertips.

When they reach the Jeta Tubes, Batman stands in their way. He has put his cowl back on. He faces Clark. “Take him to the medbay.”

This time, Dick can’t stop himself from laughing. He can’t help but think how absurd this is, how absurd it has always been.

“This is a threat, Bruce,” he grits, with his teeth on display. “I’ll tell all of them.”

Batman doesn’t move, doesn’t look at him.

“You won’t,” Batman returns, another threat.

Superman looks between the two, his eyes concerned.

The anger he feels gives Dick one last buzz of adrenaline. He uses that to walk out of Superman’s reach and put in the coordinates for the Cave himself.

“Clark,” Batman warns, as Superman enters the tube behind them.

Superman ignores him, letting Dick lean against him once more. “I’m not leaving. I’m not leaving either of you like this.”

Dick wonders how a man as brilliant as Clark ended up befriending a man like Bruce. But he forgets. Bruce is like that only in front of him. Batman is brilliant as well.

As the Jeta Tube teleports them away, reality hits Dick.

This is Batman. Batman, the pillar of justice.

Who is Dick to desecrate that pillar?

As Tim stares at the videos on the Batcomputer, he takes a moment to pinch himself.

It’s real, his brain tells him.

No, his whole being wants to deny.

“I can’t believe this,” Jason murmurs from behind him, mostly anger, but part disbelief.

Tim can’t believe it either. That was his hero. His hero couldn’t be that violent, that heartless.

Jason lets out a bitter laugh and turns his face away. Tim pauses the video, knowing neither of them could stomach it anymore.

Tim closes his eyes, feeling the world spinning. The face his brother makes while being thrown by Bruce plays in his head again and again, until Tim is ready to throw up.

It’s too resigned. 

“Jason,” he says. The older man is immediately by his side, kneeling down in front of his chair.

Tim meets his eyes. They are still sparkling green. “What do we do?”

And then, the Jeta Tubes light up. Both of them are immediately out of their place, ready for action.

Tim hopes it's Dick.

But if it’s Bruce…

If it’s Bruce, Tim wouldn’t know what to do.

It turns out to be both of them, of course. 

Dick collapses the moment they exit. Tim and Jason rush forward, but Superman has already picked him up.

“Medbay,” Jason says as he leads all of them over.

Batman lingers behind, stepping in another direction.

“Bruce,” Tim says.

Batman doesn’t look at him, moving towards the Batcomputer.

Tim grits his teeth, “Bruce!”

Batman stops.

“We have already found it,” Tim declares, voice echoing in the Batcave.

Jason and Clark are taking care of Dick. Alfred arrives, and Jason moves back to Tim.

He crosses past him, footsteps heavy and angry. Tim is sure he’s going to punch Bruce.

He doesn’t. Tim is disappointed.

“There’s no way you can save yourself this time, old man. Come here and see exactly what state you put your son in.”

Batman allows Jason to drag him to the Medbay. Tim follows. Clark and Alred have already stripped Dick.

It’s so bad that Tim feels like he’s disconnected from reality. He saw Batman throw Dick into the glass case, but to actually see the glass in his back…

Alfred’s steady hands work on his skin. Tim walks away. Behind him, he can hear Jason lashing out in Bruce’s ears, holding him in front of Dick’s stretcher. But the voices mix together and he can barely decipher them.

A panic attack, he realises as his heart rate kicks up.

He tries to count his breaths, tries to inhale, hold, exhale—but. But the images of Bruce’s violence won’t go away.

As the floor spins, he feels a hand pressed to his back.

“Breathe, my boy,” Superman says. His voice reminds Tim that they are in the middle of a situation. He can’t panic yet.

“I have to show you—” Tim forces out, dragging Superman to the Batcomputer as fast as he can.

Tim stands in front of the screen, staring at the paused video. He can’t watch it again yet. He minimises that tab, and instead pulls out the Spyral files.

Superman stares, his eyes comprehending the information in seconds.

Tim takes him through file after file, all of them incriminating, questioning Batman’s stance as that of justice.

When they get to the reports Dick sent when Batman had stopped responding, Tim looks at Clark and sees the frustration in his eyes.

Finally, Tim brings them back to the video. He plays it.

Halfway through, Tim turns around, nauseous. His eyes meet Damian’s, standing at the edge of the stairs.

Alfred is also watching from the Medbay.

The Cave is silent; the only voices echoing are those of Dick’s pleas and Batman’s heartlessness.

“Why do we fall?” Batman asks on-screen. “We fall so that we can learn to get back up.”

Blood drips from Nightwing’s face as his broken mask falls off.

Nightwing opens his mouth to reply. “N—”

Something silver sails above them all and embeds into the Batcomputer. The screen flickers, and goes off.

“No,” All eyes turn to Dick, who has staggered out of the stretcher and is standing in front of Bruce. His voice echoes through the cave, just like in the video. “We fall because someone pushes us. We get up to push back.”

Tim feels like it happens in slow motion. Bruce raises his fist, Tim sees Damian’s eyes widen, Alfred and Jason move forward and—

And then Superman is there between Batman and Dick, stopping the punch.

“You are panicking,” Superman tells Batman, his voice emotionless.

Dick laughs behind him, stumbling back onto the stretcher.

“Clark,” he begs. “Tell me this isn’t justice. Tell me this man is not someone to keep on a pedestal. Please.”

Superman looks at Dick, his palm still holding Batman’s fist. “He’s not, Dick,” he says, voice soft.

Dick nods and covers his face with his hands.

Tim has never seen his brother cry.

Then, Jason is punching Batman. “Motherfucker.”

Chapter Text

“Alfred, something is wrong!”

“Just keep mixing it, master Dick.”

“Alfred the colour is not right.”

“It will get lighter as you mix it more.”

“It’s green, Alfred.”

That finally makes the older man come over and take a look. He sighs, “One would think that bad cooking skills are hereditary. Please leave it to me, young master.”

Dick steps back with a sigh of relief. Actual cooking is just too hard.

But…

He can’t help but linger on Alfred’s words.

He’s referring to Bruce, of course. Bruce once accidentally poisoned Jason while trying to make him a cake. But saying Dick inherited those cooking skills implies that…

“I apologise, Master Dick,” Alfred says, as perceptive as ever.

Dick can only give a nod, feeling guilty for ruining the light mood. It’s silent for a moment as Dick’s mind rushes for something to say that would start their usual banter again.

“Master Dick,” Alfred says. And oh no, Dick knows this is not going to be a happy conversation.

“I was somewhat…aware.”

Dick swallows. He knows what Alfred is trying to say. He definitely is the most perceptive out of all of them. He has seen everything.

Dick wants to reassure him, tell him that he was never at fault. But he can’t find the words without also bringing up the accusation.

Alfred sighs again, this time more sad and resigned. He puts down the utensils and turns to face Dick.

“My sincerest apologies to you. No excuse can absolve me from the crime of not intervening. I raised him, even. His misgivings are mine to share.”

Dick hates this conversation, hates the look on Alfred’s face.

“It doesn’t matter, Alfred. I never blamed you,” is all he can think to say.

“Ah, but perhaps you should have. I knew he was the strictest with you, but I did not realise the severity of it. I was the one to tend to your wounds, yet…I did not realise they were from him.”

Alfred’s face is the most expressive Dick has ever seen him to be. He can see the guilt in the pull of his mouth and the frustration in the wrinkle of his brows. Dick hates everything.

“Alfred, no. You were the kindest to me. It’s not your fault. I hid them from you. From everyone.”

“It is never your fault for protecting yourself, master Dick. But, I had all the clues, I had the responsibility. Master Dick, it was my duty to keep you safe. I failed you, I’m sorry.”

Dick feels like he could cry. He hates this, hates this, hates this. Alfred is the best out of all of them. He has been so good to Dick. He owes Alfred so much.

To have Alfred say that he failed him…

“Alfred,” he takes a step forward. “Alfred listen to me, please. All that I am is because of you. You have made me into who I am today. All the good parts, Alfred. I learnt everything from you—everything important. You haven’t failed me once.”

Alfred stares at him. Dicks looks him in the eye, hoping he can see his sincerity.

The older man sighs. “I see we are not ready for this conversation, young master. I do hope you stop shouldering the guilt for acts that were never yours, dear boy.”

With that, he turns back. Dick is relieved. If this conversation was any longer, he may have cried.

This day is turning out to be horrible. And it just started.

Today they were having a house-warming party in the Penthouse. Technically, he is the host. But it was all Damian and Alfred’s idea.

It was nerve-wracking. Everyone was going to be there—his closest friends and his family. He hadn’t exactly…reconciled with anyone. How do you come back from pretending you were dead?

He sighs, “I’ll drop Damian to school and come back to help again, Alfred. Keep any chopping for me.”

“I wouldn’t trust you with anything else, master Dick.”

Dick huffs, a smile accompanying it.

Damian is quiet as Dick drives. The drive to Gotham Academy is longer now that they live in the Penthouse.

“Damian,” Dick tries. The air between them had been stilted since…since that day. It was a dream to be living with Damian again in the Penthouse, to have him away from Bruce and be able to look over him every day. But…but they were barely talking. Dick knows he needs to fix this.

“Damian, I’m sorry.”

“Tt—what are you apologising for?”

Dick takes a moment to inhale. He thinks about how this must have impacted Damian, what he must be thinking, and what Dick needed to tell him.

“I’m sorry for being a hypocrite.”

The response is immediate, “You told me it was never justified to hit your children.”

Dick closes his eyes, if only for a second. It hurts.

“Yes. It’s not. But Damian. Damian, you have to understand. Bruce and I…we were partners. Not in the way you and him were, or how you and I are. Bruce and I were more like…like colleagues? Like brothers? We didn’t exactly have a parent-child relationship, Damian.” He tries to convince Damian of the same lies he has always told himself.

Damian’s eyes are sharp as they meet him the rearview mirror. “And does that justify what he did to you?”

Dick tightens his grip on the steering wheel, guilt rushing through him. “Damian. I don’t want you to blame him.”

Damian blinks at him. Then laughs. No child should laugh that bitterly. Not yet.

“You are still a hypocrite. You have told me you will protect me since I first came to this manor. You said that you are responsible for my safety. Was he not responsible for yours?”

“Damian, it’s different. You are—” there's only a moment of hesitation before Dick decides to confront the truth, “You are like my son.”

Damian looks away. Dick braces himself for rejection.

“I—I, yes. But that doesn’t make it different. Richard, you have to realise he was at fault.”

But Dick is thinking about something else. “I’m sorry for taking you away from him. You can visit him any time, you know.”

Damian tuts so hard, Dick winces. “I don’t want to,” he hisses.

Dick pulls into the driveway and Damian pulls at his sweater sleeve. Dick looks him in the eye, trying to smile.

Damian stares at him for a moment, all angry determination. Like a fierce little pomeranian. Adorable.

Dick smiles.

Damian tightens his grip on Dick’s sweater. “You are my Baba. I don’t care what happens to—to that abomination. I will not forgive him for hurting you. You must stop blaming yourself. I will not be leaving you.”

Dick has to take a moment to breathe. He nods once and ruffles Damain’s hair, movements slow. His throat is too clogged up to say anything more. Somehow, this is everything he had been waiting to hear—everything he needed to hear. Dick is so incredibly proud of him.

Yet…

The guilt stays. Damian had always sought for Bruce’s approval, Bruce’s pride. Dick took that chance away from him.

Damian looks at him like he knows. He tuts once more, leans out of Dick’s reach, and gets out of the car. He walks into the building, not looking back.

Dick keeps his forehead on the steering wheel and sighs. He’s so tired.

Dick is covered in flour when the bell rings. Alfred had made the mistake of trusting him with a “simple task” again.

“You’re not supposed to be here yet,” he greets the person behind the door.

Clark gives him a once-over. Dick can see the amusement in his eyes.

“I thought I’d help out. Seeing your state…I’m sure Alfred would appreciate my help.”

Dick sighs, “It’s not that bad, okay. I successfully kneaded the dough. Mostly.”

Clark brings his hand forward, slow, projecting his movements. Dick doesn’t hold his breath. He ruffles his hair.

“I’m sure you did, Robin.” Clark smiles, and Dick feels so warm.

“Come inside, please. Alfred’s gone for a moment to get some more groceries. I offered to go of course, but he said he doesn’t trust me.” Dick pouts, and Clark chuckles. Something about being near Clark makes Dick feel so much younger. Less tired, more childish.

“Did he leave behind anything I could help with?”

“Well, we were in the middle of making cookies. I was trying to spread them out but…” Dick shows off the work he’s done so far.

Clark outright laughs at him.

“Come on, it’s not that bad.”

“You might be worse than Jon,” Clark says through huffs of laughter.

Dick crosses his arms. “I’m trying,” he mumbles.

“Here,” Clark pushes an empty oven tray to him. “I’ll roll them, and all you have to do is flatten them out.”

They take up positions and work in comfortable silence. Dick can’t help but compare Clark to…to Bruce.

Every moment spent with Bruce was in anticipation. With every word, every action, Dick was scared he would trigger the next hit.

But with Clark, it’s just so different.

“I’m sorry, my boy,” Clark starts and Dicks is so done done with people apologising to him today. “I should have been there more.”

“You are literally Superman.”

Clark gives him a look. “And?”

“And you’d have other stuff to do, of course.”

“Dick,” Clark passes him another ball of dough. “You are my nephew. And I was supposed to be his friend—”

“Yes, exactly. He’s your friend. This—it doesn’t matter. You need to take care of him.”

“Dick,” Clark’s tone is firm, but still so gentle. Dick could never doubt the intentions of this man.

“Yes. He’s my friend. And that’s why I should have looked over his actions. I should have realised he wasn’t treating you right.”

Dick laughs bitterly. “Clark, I’ve had enough of people apologising to me. It doesn’t matter.”

Clark holds out another ball of dough. Dick reaches forward to take it, but the older man moves it out of the way. Dick looks at him.

Every conversation he has had today has been so sad.

“Clark. Let’s just…let’s just not talk about it. You don’t get it. This isn’t—it doesn’t matter, at all. And still, I took away Alfred from him, I took away Damian. I took away his family. I don’t want to take away his friendships too. You and Diana are the only ones who keep him sane.”

Clark puts his hand on his shoulder and squeezes gently. “Our Robin. Always so considerate. But Dick,” He puts away the dough and brings both his hands to Dick’s shoulder. He leans down and looks him in the eye. “It’s not your fault.

“All that is happening are the consequences of his actions. You would not have forgiven him if it was anyone else. Tell me, would you forgive me if I did to Conner what he did to you?”

“It’s different.”

“How, Dick?”

“It’s—” Dick turns, pulling himself out of Clark’s grip. “It’s different, okay. He knows it, and I know it. His actions did not warrant—” he gestures around himself, not meeting Clark’s eyes. “It did not warrant all this.”

Dick pushes his fingers through his hair and paces the small area of the kitchen. “It was between him and me. You—and everyone else did not need to be involved.”

“But Dick, don’t you understand? We care. Not just for him, but for you too. You have to realise that people care about you. It hurts us that he hurt you.”

“It shouldn’t.”

“Why?”

Dick throws up his hands. “It doesn’t make sense!”

He inhales and thinks of what he can say. “Clark,” he stops in front of him. “We are vigilantes. Surely, you feel the violence in your bones. It never goes away. It’s different for us. I was not his child. It was just—it doesn’t matter.”

Clark takes a step forward and envelops him in his arms.

Dick hesitates, but decides to lean back into him. The frustration melts out of him and his knees feel so weak, he’s glad he has Clark’s support.

“Do you remember what you said to me then, Dick?”

He stays silent, staring out of the window over Clark’s shoulder.

“You asked me if Bruce is someone worth keeping on a pedestal. He’s not, Dick. He’s human, and his mistakes too must be condemned. It matters, Dick. You matter.”

There is silence for a moment, the only sound being the beeping of the oven.

Dick sighs, putting his head down on Clark’s shoulder.

“I think I got flour all over you.”

Clark keeps hugging him.

As soon as he opens the door, a man jumps on him with superspeed.

“Oof,” Dick says as he gets the wind knocked out of him. He wraps his arms back around the other man.

“You bastard,” Wally hisses in his ear. “You fucking loser. Absolute idiot.”

“I missed you too, Wally.”

“Fuck you.”

Dick winces.

“You,” Wally pulls apart, holding Dick firmly by the shoulders. “You are in so much trouble.”

Dick nods.

“Dick,” Wally shakes him by the shoulders, “you fucking moron.”

“Yes, Wally.” Dick tires to keep his tone light, swallowing the dread sticking to his throat.

“I told you. All of us told you. That bitch needs to be put behind bars.”

“It’s not like that—”

“Dick,” Wally shakes him once again. Dick suspects he might be using his superspeed, considering how he feels like his brain is shaking in his head.

“Young masters,” Alfred’s voice interrupts them. Dick has never been so grateful to him. “If you would please step inside. Perhaps this conversation can take place over some tea and cookies.” He gestures to the tray kept on the dining table

Wally looks from Alfred to Dick, then back to Alfred again. Dick knows Wally won’t dare defy Alfred. No one defies Alfred.

“I made the cookies,” Dick offers.

Wally finally lets him go and huffs. “As if. We all know how bad you are in the kitchen.”

Wally marches over to the dining table, bringing over the tray of cookies and tea to Dick’s bedroom door. He glares at him.

“You and I are going to have a conversation. Don’t you dare run.”

Dick looks at Alfred, eyes pleading him to save him.

Alfred clears his throat and looks away. “The others will be arriving soon. I shall receive them.”

Dick gives him a betrayed look as Wally loses his patience and drags Dick into his room.

Wally makes him sit. Dick doesn’t look at him. Instead, he lies down on the bed and stares at his bare ceiling.

He hears Wally sigh. “You never change.”

Dick thinks of apologising again, but he has enough sense to know it won’t go over well.

“Wally,” he starts instead. “It’s not the same.”

A pillow hits him in the face.

“Ow.” Dick sits up and holds his nose, trying not to cry. “That hurt!”

“And you know what else hurt? Thinking my best friend was dead because some absolute moron beat him into it!”

Dick keeps his face hidden in his hands. “Where did you hear that?”

Wally leans over him and holds his wrists, not trying to move them away. “Dick. The way he treated you was never right.”

“I’m sorry.”

Wally’s warm hands move away. Dick looks up to see him pacing the length of his room. “What are you apologising for, you idiot?”

Dick looks at his friend, following his movement. “I’m sorry for disappearing like that.”

Wally laughs, all sharp edges. “As if you had an option.”

“I’m sorry for not seeing you after the mission was over.”

Wally pauses his pacing. He stares at Dick.

Dick stares back.

“Fucking dumbass,” Wally mutters and once again envelops Dick into a hug.

“You’re such an idiot.”

“You said that already.”

“I’m glad you’re alive, Dick.”

Dick hides his face in Wally’s neck. Guilt eats away at him. “I’m sorry,” he mumbles again.

Wally’s hands come up to his hair. “Stop apologising, Dick.”

Wally pulls back, looking Dick in the eye. His hands are still in Dick’s hair. That is the only thing keeping Dick anchored.

“Dick, do you remember how you came to us? How we made the Titans?”

Wally doesn’t give him a chance to answer.

“All of us were broken, Dick. We recognised the brokenness in each other. You were no different, Dick. We saw it. We saw the monster Bruce was to you.”

“He wasn’t.”

Wally grips his hair, firm, not painful.

“He was. He kicked you out of your home, took away what mattered the most to you. Dick, even though you may not recognise his physical violence, can you justify the emotional damage he does to everyone around him?”

Dick stares at the wall beside Wally’s head. It’s bare. He hasn’t put up anything because he’s too afraid that this is just temporary. They’ll all go back to Bruce once things calm down. He has always gone back. Bruce—Batman is the centre of their world.

“I recognise his violence,” he tells Wally, letting everything else go unsaid.

“No, you think of it as an outcome of the work he does. But Dick, Dick. Being a vigilante does not beget his violence, nor does it justify it. He’s no different from any other abuser.”

Dick inhales, and meets Wally’s eyes again.

“Then why was it only me?” He can’t stop himself from asking.

“Fuck,” Wally hugs him tight again. They stay like that until Dick’s heart stops trying to break out of his ribcage. He wants to run away, but Wally holds him tight.

“I can’t explain it for him,” Wally starts. “But you know how it always is, Dick. Can you not once look at this situation without keeping Batman on a pedestal?”

“I don’t,” Dick denies.

“Yes, but you see how the people around you revere him. He’s the pillar of justice, isn’t he? How can he do any wrong? But Dick, look at you and him. He took out his violence on you and hid it from everyone else. He has always used you as he liked. And it’s not just the physical damage he would do. Do you think the way he used to treat you was ever right?”

He cardles a hand down Dick’s hair. “He would shout and scream and give you the cold shoulder. He would try to control every action of yours. You weren’t just afraid of his punches, Dick. You were scared of him casting you out from your family. Like he has done every time you acted up.”

Dick exhales, “And now I’ve taken away his family from him.”

“They were never his. Do you forget they have autonomy, Dick? They aren’t Bruce’s to keep. You have been with all of them for as long as Bruce has been. I can’t speak for them, but I’m sure you’ve done more for them than Bruce. They chose you, and it was the obvious choice.”

Dick stays like that for a while, his face hidden in Wally’s shoulders. Wally keeps running his hand down Dick’s hair, and for a moment Dick can block out everything else.

The things that they’re telling him—they make sense. He has already had these realisations. He knows the wrongs done to him.

But…

He has defended Bruce for so long that it’s a habit now. He has defended Bruce’s actions not just to others but to himself all his life.

And he took away his family.

There’s the sound of knocking from his door.

“Master Dick, your friends have arrived.”

Dick hugs Wally tighter in return. He doesn’t know how to face them.

“It will be okay,” Wally says, hands in his hair.

Dick shakes his head, still on Wally’s shoulders.

“They’ll kill me.”

Wally laughs. “Maybe a little. But we know. You don’t need to apologise.”

He pulls back and holds Dick, looking him in the eye.

“It wasn’t your fault, Dick.”

Dick offers him a shaky smile.

The moment Dick steps out of his room, he goes on autopilot a little bit. He starts performing again, with his emotions packed away in some corner of his mind. He smiles and laughs and gives out apologies.

The others can tell, he knows. No one tries to have an elaborate conversation with him like Wally did. They still express their support at the end of light conversations.

Donna gives him a hug so tight he thinks it fixes something inside him. Roy keeps poking fun at him like in the old days, his jokes witty instead of sharp. When no one’s looking, Garth smiles at him the smile Dick knows means ‘I’m here if you need me.’ Starfire holds his hands under the table.

At the end of the day, it’s only Tim and Jason left. 

When they share a glance after everyone leaves, Dick knows they want to have another conversation with him.

He sighs.

“If you really are going to do this, then we are having a sleepover,” Dick declares as he ignores them and heads straight for the kitchen.

Alfred is wrapping up the mess in the kitchen. Dick moves to him and gives him a short hug, “Please take care of Damian for me today.”

“Of course, Master Dick. I have prepared some hot chocolate for all of you.” He holds out a tray with three mugs. Dick glares at it; of course Alfred would be in on the plan.

He takes the tray and goes directly to his room. The other two follow after him. Like little ducklings. Dick smiles.

He sets down the tray and takes a seat at the floor with his mug. He leans back on the bed frame.

“I’ll need your pyjamas,” Tim declares and takes his own mug. He takes a seat across from Dick, leaning on the nightstand.

Jason sighs and goes to get a pillow before sitting down with them. “You better not put me on the floor.”

“Why? The floor too hard for Red Hood’s back?” Tim taunts.

“At least I don’t sleep with soft toys.” Jason swipes at him with the pillow. Tim desperately tries to save his hot chocolate.

Dick laughs at them. “What’s wrong with sleeping with soft toys? I would still sleep with Zitka if I had her.”

“Where is she now?” Tim asks as he wipes the hot chocolate that fell on his fingers on Jason’s pants.

That gives Dick a pause.

“She’s…I think she might be somewhere in Jason’s room in the manor.”

They blink at him.

“Did you give that to him? Blatant favouritism,” Tim accuses.

Jason shakes his head, “No he didn’t. I think…well, when I came to the manor, the room I got already had his stuff.”

They both turn to him. “You didn’t take Zitka with you?”

Dick takes a sip of his hot chocolate. “I couldn’t.”

They keep looking at him, waiting for more. He exhales. It would be so easy for him to dismiss it. But…but they already know the ultimate secret.

“Bruce kicked me out from both, being Robin and the manor. I didn’t really have time to get my stuff.”

“He kicked you out?” Tim mutters, “I thought—I thought you left on your own. Did you know?” He turns his gaze to Jason.

“No,” Jason shakes his head. “No.”

Dick puts down his mug, looking at the ceiling. It’s white and unmarred.

They already know too much. What’s one more thing?

“Robin,” he says, slow and with affection. It’s precious to all of them, he knows. “That’s what my mother used to call me. The colours of Robin—I know they are too attention-grabbing, but that was the point. The Flying Graysons; we were performers.”

“It was your parent’s legacy,” Dick hears Tim whisper. He’s keeps looking at the ceiling.

“Yes. But then Robin was Batman’s partner. He had—you know how he would control us. You know how we would threaten to take it away from us.”

“He didn’t do that to me,” Tim whispers.

“But you quit yourself. And I’m so glad you did.”

Dick straightens his back and meets Tim’s eyes. They’re too wide.

“Tim,” He starts, holding his gaze. “You were the first one to take away Robin from Batman. Thank you for doing that. I didn’t want it to remain in his hands.”

“No, no. It should never have been mine.”

Dick shakes his head. He wills himself to look at Jason too. He’s too still, his face too blank. He still meets Dick’s eyes.

“I need you two to listen to me. Robin was for all of us. Each one of you turned it into a shining legacy. I’m so happy for that because I know if I—if Dick Grayson disappears, or if I can’t go by the name my parents gave me, Robin would be out there somewhere. The Flying Graysons would still live.”

Jason moves calmly. He puts down his mug, gets up, and moves to one of Dick’s bare walls.

He punches it.

Dick is immediately on his feet, Tim following behind. He takes Jason’s hand, holding it firmly to ensure he doesn’t do it again.

Jason looks at the cracks he made on the wall. “I should have punched him more.”

Dick sighs. “Just come here, Little Wing.”

He leads him over to the bed, getting out his first aid kit from beneath it.

“Sit,” he warns and starts cleaning up Jason’s hand.

They’re silent for a moment. He can hear the clink of Tim moving their mugs. Dick keeps his focus on Jason’s hands. “It’s okay, Jason—”

Jason replies with immediate vitriol, “What are you telling me it’s okay for? The fact that Robin was never supposed to be ours? The fact that I was the one to take it away from you? The fact that I thought it belonged to me and almost killed Tim over it? Or—or is it the fact that Bruce took away your parents’ last legacy from you? That Bruce kicked you out of your fucking home? Or, or, maybe it’s the fact he fucking hit you for all these years.”

Jason slams his other hand down on the bed. Dick is relieved. His bed is soft.

He lets Jason breathe for a few moments, working meticulously on his hand, taking longer than needed. He can see the tremble in his brother’s hand.

“None of those, Little Wing,” he says as he finishes applying antiseptic to the cuts and bruises. He looks up to meet his younger brother’s eyes. They are sparkling green. “I’m saying it’s okay to be angry.”

Jason covers his face with his hands, throwing his head towards the ceiling. “Fuck you.”

Dick opens his mouth to reply. Jason cuts him off.

“No. No. Fuck you.” he looks back down and pokes a finger to Dick’s chest. “Fuck you and fuck him. Why the fuck does this family have so many secrets? And why the fuck does that guy get the right to mess all of us up? You—”

He bunches up Dick’s T-shirt in his fist. “You were supposed to be his favourite.”

Dick doesn’t reply. “Favourite punch bag, maybe.” Tim mutters from where he’s standing behind them.

Dick detangles his T-shirt from Jason’s hand. He gets up, finds his hot chocolate again, and takes a seat against the nightstand. He sips.

A minute passes. Jason sighs and sits back down on the ground. Tim follows.

“I’m sorry,” Jason starts weakly, not looking at Dick. “I’m sorry for when I punched you after you came back. I didn’t—we shouldn’t have done that. We shouldn’t have been angry at you. We shouldn’t have treated you like that.”

“Yes,” Tim joins in. “I’m so sorry, Dick. It’s—you—I was just so angry—and—no. No. There’s no excuse. I’m just sorry.”

Dick keeps staring into his mug. He cups his hands around the warm mug and takes another sip.

He thinks about what he needs to say.

“Batman is your hero,” Dick starts.

“The hell he is—” Jason protest gets cut off by Tim jabbing his elbow to his thigh. “What the fuck?!”

“Won’t you just let him speak?” Tim hisses.

“In no world am I ever gonna think of Batman as my hero,” Jason hisses back and makes a retching noises.

Dick smiles at them. He amends his words. “Bruce is, and has been, our family. He’s been—he’s the centre of our world, in a way. He’s the reason we found each other. He’s the reason we are what we are today.”

“A bunch of sleep-deprived lunatics,” Jason inputs.

Dick snorts. “Yes, that. And—and I always needed him. I always kept going back. He saved me and I owe him a debt—”

“Let me stop this bullshit right there. He didn’t do shit. Don’t you remember what you said to me on that day? He saved you only to send you to die. He did that every damn time. What point are you even trying to make?”

Dick doesn’t know how to say it. He doesn’t know how to convince them.

“It was only me,” he says. “I was—I am different. You guys are still his family—” he can hear them starting to protest. He speaks over them. “You don’t have to stay away for me. We know Bruce doesn’t do good when left alone—”

Jason literally crawls over to him and takes away his cup. He holds Dick by the shoulders and looks him in the eye.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” He asks.

Tim actually snorts at the dramatics. “You have no idea how insane you sound, Dick.”

Jason groans and settles down right in front of him. “Look, I’m going to spell it out for you.”

Dick blinks at them.

“Before, in that bar, you asked whether Bruce had been a good father. Didn’t you already know the answer, Dick?”

“But—that’s to me—”

“Uh, uh, uh.” Jason puts a finger to his lips. “Do you think I would ever think of Bruce as a good father?”

Tim nods with a snort. “Bruce literally goes against all the general guidelines that exist for parenting. Alfred is more our parent than Bruce ever was.”

Jason takes away his fingers only to point at him. “And you have been more a parent to Damian than anyone else. So now, the conclusion is, ‘Bruce is not a good father’ is a universal fact.”

Dick opens his mouth to say something.

Jason doesn’t let him speak. “He’s not a good father because he puts children as young as nine years old in danger by grooming them to be fucking soilders. He’s not a good father because he then puts said children through abuse, whether it be physical or emotional. He may have only hurt you physically. But I’m sure all of us can agree how he’s a manipulative, gaslighting son of a bitch that should not be allowed near children.”

Tim backs him up, “He’s not even a good person, Dick. He’s obsessed with vengeance and nothing else. He is literally the most unethical out of all vigilantes.”

Jason snorts, “‘Unethical.’ What a nerd.”

Tim hits him with the pillow he abandoned, “As if you’re any better!”

Jason turns his head towards him. “Will you just wait for a bit? I’m trying to get across a point.”

“You started it.”

Dick laughs.

“Oi, you’re not supposed to be laughing. Listen—where was I?”

“Bruce is not a good father,” Tim reminds.

“Yes. So now. Why in the eight circles of hell would we want to even see that piece of shit’s face?”

“Very eloquent.”

“Fuck you.” Jason doesn’t miss a beat. “And tell me why we would care if he doesn’t do good without fucking babysitters looking over him.”

“You don’t do good either when left alone, Dick. We are so, so sorry for—for isolating you like that.”

Dick shakes his head at them. “It wasn’t your fault—”

“But wasn’t it? Isn’t it our fault that we didn’t notice Bruce was abusing you all this time?”

“No, no. I hid it, that’s on me—”

Tim gapes at him, “How is that on you?”

Dick looks between the two, struggling to find his words.

“You don’t get it, do you?” Jason sighs. “I guess that’s our fault.”

Dick opens his mouth to deny whatever Jason is going to say next.

“It’s our fault you think none of us care about you.”

He shuts his mouth.

Tim looks at Jason with wide eyes. He looks back to Dick. “You don’t really think that, do you?”

“I—”

“Don’t bother denying it,” Jason interrupts. He faces Tim. “Of course he would think that, with the way we acted after Spyral.”

Tim shakes his head. “But I was just—I was just angry. I didn’t—I could never not care about you.”

Dick gives him a smile. “I know, Baby Bird. And it’s okay. It’s okay that you were angry. I would’ve been angry too.”

“Don’t lie to us,” Jason scolds. “You forgave Bruce for not telling you Damian was alive.”

“I didn’t.”

“Sure, you didn’t. But listen, we care, okay? We—fuck I can’t believe you’re making me say this but we care about you more than we could ever care about Bruce. More than him, you have been our family. You—you are our brother.”

And Dick could just cry right now. This is everything he has been wanting to hear his whole life.

But…

Dick looks down on his lap. “Do you know why I kept coming back to him? Even after everything—after Spyral?” He closes his eyes. “It’s because all of you were there. I knew that cutting him off meant he would cut all of you from me. That day, when I called Batman over, I was going to do it anyway. I realised I—it didn’t matter. You guys would’ve been okay without me so…”

“You were gonna disappear?”

Jason makes him look up with his hands on his shoulders. “Did you not think we would condemn him for the crimes he committed against you?”

Dick turns away his gaze because no, he didn’t think so.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Jason mutters.

Dick looks at the hot chocolate mugs kept on the nightstand. They would all be cold by now.

“Is it so hard to believe we care?”

Dick keeps his gaze focused on the mugs. “I’m trying.”

“Valid,” Jason sighs. “As long as you’re trying.”

And then—and then he hugs him.

Dick is so surprised that he doesn’t even get the chance to hug Jason back before he’s leaning away again.

“Did you just—” Tim starts.

“Fuck off—”

“Not fair,” Dick breathes.

The two of them look at him.

“Not fair,” Dick repeats, and launches a hug on Jason.

Jason literally screams and tries to rush backwards. Dick is faster. Jason swipes at him desperately to get him off.

Tim laughs at them. Dick raises one hand to pull down Tim into the hug-cum-fist-fight too.

Somehow, it turns into a full-blown pillow fight. It doesn’t stop until their half-full hot chocolate mugs end up overturning. They clean it up, going back and forth to the kitchen sneakily. Dick is still sure Alfred would somehow know.

In the end, all of them end up sprawled on the floor. Or technically, Jason was half on top of him, so he wasn’t exactly on the floor. In any case, Dick wasn’t complaining (even though one of his arms had already lost feeling).

Dick stares once again at his dark ceiling. Tim’s soft breaths tickle his ears.

He thinks back to what his father, his real father, used to say.

Falling is normal. We just have to get back up.

Dick smiles and closes his eyes. Maybe he can get back up, certainly with his family around him.