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“You could get out of this, you know.”
Dick lifts his head to glare at the figure lounging in the corner. There’s a blinding glow, and Dick has to squint.
“Fuck off,” he mutters.
“Wow,” Apollo remarks. “I didn’t realize you were so mean to yourself. Oh, wait.”
Dick glares harder, but his anger quickly dissipates and he lets his head drop back down. He’s hallucinating now. Great.
“I might be a hallucination,” Apollo agrees. “Then again, I might not. You wouldn’t know, though, because you’re too much of a coward.”
Dick shouldn’t engage. He should just ignore the hallucination, because talking to hallucinations is bad, and Dick is tired. He’s been in this tiny room for hours, and he’s sore all over from the way he’s restrained. He just wants to go home.
“What home?” Apollo laughs mockingly. “The manor? Your apartment? Olympus?”
Dick turns and faces the wall. It leaves his back to the door, but it’s better than being overwhelmed by the light emanating from the hallucination.
“You’re pathetic,” Apollo sneers. “Pathetic and poison. You ruin everything you touch.”
“Shut up,” Dick whispers. He knows all that already. He knows. He doesn’t need a hallucination to tell him.
“Nah. I mean, I’m you. You never shut up, so why should I?”
“You’re a hallucination.”
“Am I, though?”
Dick doesn’t answer. He doesn’t want to debate with someone who’s not even real.
“Ouch,” Apollo says. “God, you’re brutal. I definitely wasn’t this bad.”
“You’re an arrogant asshole who only cares when it benefits him,” Dick says. “You cause pain wherever you go.”
“You know,” Apollo says, sounding much closer, “you could try being nicer to yourself. Cut yourself some slack once in a while.”
“I’m not listening to you.”
“Yeah, but you are, though.”
Dick, if his hands were freed, would have covered his ears. They’re not, though, and his wrists are an angry red from the chafing, so all he can do is lay there and listen to himself. He’s really annoying. He knows that, uses that, but wow.
“You’ve made it a whole personality trait to be annoying. Someone’s gotta show you a taste of your own medicine.”
Dick can feel his hair rustle as someone breathes above him. It can’t be the apparition, though, because it’s not real. Still, the light is so bright that he can see it even through his closed eyelids.
“That’s dehumanizing,” Apollo remarks blandly. “I’m not an it. I’m you.”
“You’re a figment of my imagination that exists solely to torment me.”
“Woof. Go easy on me, would you?”
“Leave me alone.”
“Can’t,” says Apollo, much too blasé for the situation. “You’re trapped, I’m trapped.”
“You’re not real,” Dick grits out.
Apollo sighs. Dick can feel it on the back of his neck.
“You keep saying that,” says Apollo reproachfully. “Okay, fine. Say I’m not real. Say I’m just a ‘figment of your imagination’. So what? I’m still here. You’re still trapped. Talking to yourself is better than talking to yourself.”
“That doesn’t even make sense,” says Dick, finally opening his eyes. He squints as the light fills his vision, increasing the ache in his head, but when it dies down, he sees Apollo, sitting back on his haunches, looking satisfied.
“There you are. Are you ready to talk now?”
“What are you?” asks Dick.
“I keep telling you.”
“You can’t be me,” denies Dick. “I’m me.”
“Mostly.”
“Mostly?” Dick repeats, incredulous.
Apollo shrugs. “Yeah. I mean, you haven’t really…embraced me, y’know? You barely even refer to yourself as me. Like, okay, I get it. You like being a mortal. You’ve learned things. But a guy can feel a bit neglected.”
Dick blinks. Then blinks again. “You’re the part of me I’ve been repressing,” he says slowly.
Apollo grins. It’s too wide, too sharp, and it’s unsettling. “Now you’re getting it.”
“You’re…a manifestation. Not a hallucination.”
“Well,” Apollo hedges. "I’m a bit of both. I’m as real as you are, technically."
A slow clapping noise fills the cramped room, and Dick’s head swivels around. There’s another figure, this one dressed in black and blue.
“That’s great,” the figure says mockingly—Dick’s own voice coming out of his mouth. His hair is matted with blood, and his suit has rips and tears all throughout, bruises blooming on the skin that’s visible. His eyes are covered by a domino mask. “Amazing. Well done.”
Apollo scowls. “Christ on a stick. You have issues.”
“I thought you are me,” Dick replies, feeling slightly hysterical. He’s gone crazy. That’s the only explanation.
“Not the only explanation,” Nightwing drawls. Dick flinches. He waves a dismissive hand at Apollo. “He’s your repression of your past. The truth you deny. Who you were, who you are, and who you always will be; your godly essence.”
“Then…who are you?” Dick asks cautiously. He doesn’t want to hear the answer.
“No, you don’t, do you.” Nightwing laughs. It’s bitter and hollow and joyless and it grates on Dick’s ears. “I’m your lies. Your anger. Your grief. The part you shove down even farther than goldie over here.”
“Why are you here?” Apollo snaps. “I was getting through to him!”
“You were taking too long,” Nightwing sneers back. “You’re not real. Stop trying to convince him you are.”
“You’re not real either!”
“I’m more real than you. I’m more true than you.”
Apollo flinches back like he’s been physically struck. “That’s not fair.”
“Nothing about this is fair! He got himself captured because he played the martyr again, and now look where we are! Python is going to kill us!”
“He might not,” Apollo says quietly.
“Might,” Nightwing repeats, incredulous and mocking in equal measure. “Might. If he doesn’t kill us, he’s going to torture us for eternity. There is no way out.”
“The others—” Apollo begins. Nightwing cackles, cutting him off. Dick flinches; it’s his laugh, the one he’s honed since he was Robin, but it’s wrong. It’s all wrong.
“The others? What can they do? Rescue us? They don’t know where we are! We don’t even know where we are!”
“Shut up,” Dick whispers. The two—shades? Parts?—ignore him and keep bickering. Dick repeats, louder, “Shut up. Shut up. Shut up!”
They both fall silent, looking at Dick in surprise.
“I don’t care who you are,” he grits out. “I don’t care what you are. Just—just shut up and leave me alone.”
Apollo frowns. “We can’t do that.”
“Why not?” Dick demands, his voice cracking. He’s on the verge of tears. He can’t even wipe them away.
“We’re you, asshole,” Nightwing answers shortly. “We can’t go unless you make us go.”
“How?” Dick asks, suddenly so, so exhausted.
Nightwing shrugs. Apollo makes an apologetic face.
“We don’t know.”
“Don’t lump me in with you,” Nightwing mutters, leaning against the wall.
“We’re the same person,” Apollo replies, exasperated.
Nightwing flips him off.
Dick tries his best to ignore them; when the circlet clenches around his head, he welcomes the pain, and the blackness it brings with it, gratefully.