Chapter Text
Dick didn’t remember making it to Gotham.
Truthfully, the first thing he remembers beyond the haze of gunpowder and blood and the rain and gravel is slamming stomach first into the fire escape of one the numerous safe houses he rarely used. The grappling line was half tangled in something when he tries to retrieve it and he just drops it to the street below and hauls himself onto the escape. His heart is still hammering in his mind and he can’t think beyond inside, inside, inside. Safe, safe, please I want to be safe—
He knew where this safehouse was located, hypothetically, but he didn’t care to think about it and instead pulled open the window after disengaging the security with his code, working on autopilot still.
He was somewhere at the edge of Crime Alley, he knew that by the smell and the sounds of several gunshots and screams and loud cars around him as he fell to the ground in a soaking wet mass as soon as he managed to clamour his way through the window. He was home, at least. Safe in the walls of Gotham and no longer with her.
He’s still covered in blood, in spite of all the rain. He runs a hand down his face and feels the tacky remnants of what he had done tonight clinging to his gloves and face.
He’s still shaking.
He feels like he is going to throw up. He needs to shower. He needs to at least get up and close the window because he was compromised, and still he doesn’t move from his place on the ground, curled up on his side and over his vital organs as if that could save him now. He forgot how to breathe at some point and all he can manage are halfhearted wheezes as he curls tighter around himself.
Dick gets up, eventually, after what feels like hours but must only be a few minutes and he doesn’t stay steady on his feet as he walks over to the couch. He’s stumbling. He’s an acrobat. He wasn’t supposed to stumble.
Bruce had insisted on keeping all their safehouses clean and privately hired people to stop by every few days to check in on the places and clean them up a bit. That’s probably one of the only reasons Dick isn’t overwhelmed in dust when he flops down onto the couch. This safehouse in particular was only ever used in the utmost of emergencies, or when one of them didn’t want to go back to the manor straight away.
This was a case of both.
He hadn’t called Bruce yet. He doesn’t know if he will. Tim maybe. Alfred probably. Eventually.
Not tonight.
He curls up to try and stop the shivering. It doesn’t get any better. He feels like he’s trembling more. He’s still covered in rainwater.
He flops down onto his side.
He sits there in the silence for a long time, letting the pounding in his head fill the quiet of the air. It’s better than the echoes of rain falling around him. He swears the gunshot still rings in his ears. Maybe Crime Alley was the wrong place to go.
He stares at the wall for a long time. Time doesn’t seem to pass at all as he just stares. He feels his chest moving and his eyes blink but he’s not really there. He just floats.
He jolts up from the couch hearing the window slide open (when had he closed it?) and shut again quietly. He glances over his shoulder in time to see the Red Hood stop in his tracks upon noticing Dick.
They stare at each other for a long time.
He can’t bring himself to care that Red Fucking Hood has seen his face. He’d rid himself of the domino at some point in his traipsing over cityscapes to get back to Gotham. He still had his suit on, haggard and rumpled as it was. Red Hood knows now who Nightwing is and Dick doesn’t care. He doesn’t… he doesn’t care about anything now.
Slowly, Red Hood toes his big boots off and walks a few more steps into the safe house towards Dick.
And he doesn’t move at all.
He wouldn’t fight. Whatever Red Hood came here to do he wouldn’t fight it. Even if he started killing him, which he no doubt wants to do, Dick won’t stop him. He’d done nothing all night, what was a moment longer? It would make it all easier for him at least.
Red Hood doesn’t do anything, for now, just stops once he’s closer to the couch. The glowing eyes of the helmet stare right at Dick’s tired face.
“I thought you were still in Bludhaven?” The mechanized voice asks, gravelly and rough under the modifier.
“Not anymore,” he says, too tired to keep himself upright and lets himself fall back onto his side on the couch.
“...What happened to you?”
Is it that obvious? Sure, he had always been a heart on his sleeve kinda guy but he had hoped he was hiding this well enough. Dick didn’t want to talk about it right now either, certainly not to Red Hood. He didn’t think he would ever talk about it. He certainly hadn’t when this happened before. It was always a closely guarded secret.
He stares at the wall across from him and curls back up into as tight a ball as he can manage. He still aches faintly. His hips hurt.
He shrugs.
He expects Red Hood to take advantage of him by now. Whatever the man would do Dick wouldn’t fight and he’s made that quite obvious by now. He closes his eyes when he hears footsteps, but they’re pointedly walking away from him.
“What sorta tea you got?” The modulated voice asks from the kitchen and Dick shrugs again.
“Dunno. Help yourself I guess,” he mumbles into the couch as he digs his face into the cushion.
If Hood wanted a celebratory tea before killing Dick or worse he wouldn’t stop him.
He lays there, breathing for a few minutes as Hood clatters around in the kitchen. He could be patient with this. If Hood took too long to kill him this safehouse was high up enough he could just throw himself out the window if it got to that point. It would be poetic, he thinks.
Faintly, he wants it to hurt and Hood was sure to make good on that request.
Red Hood returns to the couch with a steaming mug. Dick had expected it to be for himself, for him to sit down and drink it before he would shoot or stab Dick, but then Hood is pressing the mug into his hands. He fumbled with it for a moment, nearly spilling it as he sat up. The wafting scent of lavender hits him and he relaxes minutely.
Alfred always made them lavender tea after a hard mission, sometimes a little cream in it, often with some honey. They never had cream stocked in safehouses, but it’s still a nice sentiment regardless.
Hood wouldn’t know about that little fact. It was just for Dick to silently revel in.
He cradles the mug close and breathes it in.
“Why’re you back in Gotham?” Hood asks, suddenly breaking the little bubble of comfort Dick had found.
He wasn’t answering that honestly. It was easy to lie, sometimes. It wasn’t something that weighed heavily on Dick’s mind whenever he did it. And he did it a lot, often to Bruce.
“Needed a break.” A half truth, sort of. Hood believed it easily enough. He nodded and settled on one of the several arm chairs littered around the room.
Dick sipped his tea and it was still hot enough he burned his tongue slightly. He places the mug down on the coffee table and trails a finger along the scar on his hand when Jason bit him.
He still remembered that day. It was one of the few good memories he had to hold onto with Jason. He was still a half feral street kid at the time and Dick was visiting the manor, mostly so he and Bruce could fight and partially so he got a warm meal that wasn’t instant noodles. He’d been saying his goodbyes and when he passed Jason by he just latched on and refused to let go under any circumstances.
After they managed to pry him loose Jason was crying and almost begging Dick not to leave. After he’d been bandaged and the anger dissipated he’d felt guilty enough he stayed for the night and that night alone. Jason was attached to him at the hip the whole time. That night was when they started acting a bit more like brothers.
“What’re you taking a break from?” Hood asked finally, forcing Dick to focus again on the present and look at the man, watching him adjust how he sat so he looked a little less guarded and a touch more relaxed. Dick couldn’t say he would do the same, he was still tense as hell.
“Why d’you care?” He mumbles as he picks the mug of tea back up and takes a long sip despite how it burns his mouth faintly.
“Who says I do?” Hood shrugs after a moment of silence. “Maybe I’m looking for a weakness. Maybe only I’m allowed to hurt you.” Hood growls the last part quietly but Dick still picks up on it.
Dick laughs. As if he would have a future where he would need to know Dick’s weakness. But, he could humour him for a bit. “You want worst to best?”
“Best?” Dick can imagine the eyebrow raise he is given as Hood turns his head forward a bit.
“Maybe not best, but easiest to deal with.” He shrugs, feeling a bit awkward. “I was fired from my job? I guess that’s for the best. Even with all the corruption cleared out I still wasn’t doing much good there.”
“Uhuh,” Hood nods like he understands what Dick is talking about. He sits up a bit and leans his arms on his knees. “And, the worst?”
“Two of those,” he says as he takes a breath and another sip of tea. He isn’t crying even if his head feels like it’s going to explode if he says another word. He thinks he couldn’t cry if he wanted to. Instead, Dick just sort of… fades. Like he’s taken a step back. Not turned the tv off but switched channels. “My apartment blew up and everyone inside was killed.” That’s the hardest part to say, shockingly.
Hood remains in his position, only tensing minutely and clenching his fists. It’s hard to read him with his face covered and how little Dick knows him, but Dick can still tell when someone is angry. There’s a tension in his shoulders. Dick’s hands are shaking again and he has to place the mug down before he drops it. He’s not scared of Hood. He knew his M.O and knew he dealt with people quickly and efficiently unless they were especially bad people. Traffickers and drug lords that dealt with kids got hit the hardest. Always.
Dick would probably go the quick and easy route by the end of this.
“And, I killed a man.” He flinches back from the way Hood stands after slamming a fist on the table. He wasn’t scared, but he still is trembling. Must be cold, or something. The rain had managed to sneak into his suit when…
God. He was going to throw up.
Hood’s glowing helmet eyes stare at Dick for a long time and the fists at the man's side are shaking. “No, you didn’t,” he says, slowly lowering himself to the chair once again. His voice is low, and carries a new darkness in it.
“You don’t know what I did,” he hisses between his teeth. He didn’t pull the trigger and he knows this, it’s one of the last things he remembers before the rain blotted out most of the night. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t to blame. Faint images flickering through the static of his memories and he was at fault. He led her to him. He walked away knowing what she would do. He didn’t do anything to stop her when…
“I know you. You don’t kill, even people who deserve it.”
Dick grits his teeth. How dare this man assume to know him so well. They’d barely interacted and each time they had it was in the heat of a fight. “You weren’t there.” He grits out between his laboured breaths. He was still in his suit and it was tacky with blood and his sweat and rain and— “She had a gun to his head and I–”
It takes two, mi amore.
She’d said that under… other circumstances. It still rang true in his mind thinking over the night's events. It takes two. Her finger on the trigger as he walks away. It takes two. Her hips rocking against him as he cries out. It takes two.
He looks away from Hood and places a hand on his mouth. He really was going to vomit. “I didn’t do anything,” he whispers to the ground. He’s horrified.
“And?” Hood asks, mechanized voice shockingly softer, somehow. “You were there, but if you didn’t pull the trigger you didn’t kill him. Let him die? Sure, but you didn’t kill him.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Why should that matter?” Of course, Dick didn’t expect a murderer to understand his issue with what happened. He was there he let him die. He didn’t do anything to stop her. Not even when she—
He needs to turn himself in to the police, if Hood doesn’t kill him before the end of the night.
Dick growls. “You’re starting to sound like my therapist,” he mumbles to avoid arguing more. More details meant the more of his guilt was revealed. Hood barks a laugh as he brings a leg up to rest on his knee.
“Please. We both know you don’t go to therapy.”
He goes for the tea again, taking a sip of the cooler liquid. It still manages to burn his throat going down. Maybe it’s not the tea. He swallows again and still feels the burn at the back of his mouth. “God, I wish this were alcohol,” he breathes out, placing the mug down on the table and curling up again with his back pressed deep into the couch. It irritates the scratches on his back from the gravel roof.
He gags faintly behind his lips, covering it with a hand. The hand that is still covered in blood. The smell is awful. He smells awful. Like blood and fire and sex—
“No you don’t.” Hood says as he stands. He walks past Dick towards the kitchen, voice fading as he continues to speak. “Trust me. Tried the whole addiction ride. It’s hell getting off no matter which poison you pick.”
Dick is left in the quiet of the safehouse as Hood rummaged around in the kitchen. It’s bad, being left with his thoughts. He doesn’t want to think about her and her claws trailing down his chest but he does. He does and it’s like she’s still on top of him, rolling her hips and he’s begging her to stop but then something in his gut tightens and he—
He vomits this time.
And, apparently, Hood could tell he would because there’s a bowl in front of him just in time to catch it. With shaking hands he grabs it and gags once again. He’s shaking and there’s sweat rolling down his back. Maybe it’s a lingering drop of rainwater. He doesn’t want to consider what else it could be. His breaths are laboured and heavy as he tries to suck in any air he can that isn’t the smell of her perfume and gunpowder.
He spits the bile from his mouth and finally takes his face away from the bowl. His hands shake as he wipes his mouth on his sleeve. The iron taste follows and he gags again.
He was going to burn this whole suit before the night was over. Then maybe his skin wouldn’t crawl like that. It would get rid of the tangible proof of the night at the very least. He wouldn’t have to smell the lingering of anything he had done tonight.
“You done?” Hood asks him, suddenly at his side again with a glass of water.
“Probably not,” he grumbles as he takes it. He still didn’t know why Hood was treating him like this. This… gently when he had never bothered with it before. Why the extra special treatment when he was going to be killed?
“Okay,” Hood takes a seat once again on the armchair, watching intently as Dick cradles the water close. “Were you injured?”
In spite of all the blood he was covered in he was otherwise fine. Physically at least. The cuts on his back weren’t too bad, they would heal quickly. “I’m fine. Nothing happened to me.” Nothing had.
He watches Hood’s hands clench where they rest of the arms of the chair. Those must be pretty amazing gloves because he hears the leather squeak from the pressure but they don’t break. The glow of his eyes burns intently into Dick’s eyes as he swishes with the water and spits it into the bowl.
Then, Hood clears his throat and adjusts slightly so he’s looking less tense which somehow only makes him look more uncomfortable in Dicks eyes. “I… Did I ever tell you I had to sell myself.”
That gives Dick pause from his intermittent sips of water where he’d curled up against the arm of the couch. He glances up through his hair to see Hood looking a touch more uncomfortable as time passes in silence. He was confused by now. Where the hell was this coming from? Why did it matter? “I don’t think we’ve had a long enough conversation for it to come up.” Why would Hood tell him now?
“Well, I did,” he snaps. This just makes Dick more confused, perhaps a bit concerned. “I was around ten and I needed money ‘cause I was on the streets. The easiest option was sex with strangers.”
“That… never should have happened.” What did Hood want? Pity? Sure. Dick had plenty of sympathy to spare for others. Truly, it was an awful thing to happen to someone so young. Even if Hood was a murderer it doesn’t negate the abuse he’s suffered.
Maybe that’s part of why Crime Alley had been better about that since he came into power. In the few times Dick has visited since Red Hood took over they’ve been clear of kids in skimpy outfits. Even the ladies out working look happier, healthier.
Hood growls once again and places his head in a hand. He would look bored, almost. “Yeah. It shouldn’t. To anyone.” Dick knew when there was a deeper meaning to words. He could pick up on the little nuances of them and the tone. Batman had trained it into him at a young age. And, while Hood’s voice was hidden under the voice changer or whatever he used, it didn’t hide the rage that boiled under. There was a reason he was telling Dick this and right now.
He takes a breath and lets it out shakily.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“I’m telling you so you know we have something in common… So you are more willing to tell me what happened.” Dick inhales sharply and turns his head to the side for a moment as his body considers purging itself again. He swallows thickly as he looks back at the murderer sitting across from him, offering a sort of comfort. Hood tilts his head to the side like a confused puppy and not a murderer. “You think I don’t know a victim when I see one?”
Dick presses his lips together tightly. “I’m not a…” He wasn’t. He… he wasn’t. It didn’t even hurt to think about anymore. Liu was just another person in his past he would never have to see again. Yeah Miriam ruined a relationship but that was fine. Most of his relationships took a nosedive at some point anyways. He wasn’t…
It wasn’t like Tim who had good reason to feel traumatized by Ra’s Al Ghul and his attempted advances. That was truly violating. Not like Liu. He’d… he’d been fine with it even back then. The only reason he was even upset over it was because she betrayed him after. It was fine. He was just a slut anyways. That’s what everyone said. Manwhore might be a bit more adequate a term than victim. He wasn’t. It was fine.
Tonight was just hard because he… Because of what they did before. He wasn’t a victim just… in shock.
“Sure you aren’t.” Hood says with a breathy laugh. It sounds faintly sad. “How old were you?”
He can’t look at Hood right now. He turns his gaze back to the wall. His stomach is still roiling.
He doesn’t know how long time passes by. He’s thinking about Liu and Miriam and… tonight. Even when he doesn’t want to think about it. He still feels their hands on him. He’s shaking and he’s not supposed to. He needs to keep his composure in situations like this. At all times, arguably. He needs to be a rock for Jason to stand on because the poor kid’s never had many good adult figures in his life and fuck he deserves better than the mess that Richard Grayson is. Tim was still so young and he should have been kept and cherished all his life. Dick had so much love to give but it was never enough to make up for that.
He needed to get a grip and stop acting this way.
In the corner of his eye a hand reaches for his wrist and nearly makes contact before Dick throws himself back so violently he nearly topples over the side of the couch and curls into himself.
“Don’t fucking touch me!” He screams, cradling his arms close to his chest and covering them with his legs.
Hood takes a step back and Dick suddenly remembers that he wasn’t afraid. He wasn’t supposed to be. He had been waiting for Hood to put his hands on him all night. He’d been anticipating any kind of touch since she first made contact. He’d been waiting to die since his parents and he’d just squandered an opportunity.
Instead, he’d flinched away and cradled his arm against his chest and shakes so violently he must have a fever.
He hasn’t trembled so much since he was twelve and sick with a mild case of pneumonia and bedridden for weeks while Bruce fussed over him. He is sick. Sick in so many ways. He’s contagious and can’t let anyone else touch him tonight. Not when he was so… dirty.
Hood's fist is clenched at his side and he’s shaking like he wants to punch something. Or someone. Dick hopes it’s him and it hurts. It would make up for everything.
“I-I’m poison,” he mumbles as he tucks his head down to his chest. “Stay away.”
There’s a long breath from Hood and his shaking fist leaves his side.
“Okay. I’m not gonna touch ya.” Hood tells him, keeping his hands clearly visible and open and clearly not a threat. “I was just thinking you might wanna shower?”
Rain. Rain pouring down on him. Wet and cold and he’s on top of him. She’s whispering to him things he can’t remember and he—
“Yeah,” he says, pushing an arm down on the couch as he forces himself to stand. He wants to be warm so he’s not shaking so much anymore. He doesn’t want to be so cold.
Hood doesn’t touch him, even as Dick sways on his feet and needs to hold the wall just to keep himself upright. He does follow behind close enough to catch Dick if he did fall. He doesn’t. He manages to keep himself upright long enough to make it to the bathroom at which point he closes the door on Hood's face.
He isn’t reprimanded for locking his soon-to-be murderer out and the door isn’t kicked in. He closes his arms around his middle like a hug then quickly begins to tug off the suit.
He almost can’t stand looking in the mirror. His hair is tousled and a mess (he swears he can still feel her fingers in his hair). He’s still bruised where she bit him or held him too tight (where her tongue had lovingly laved over them). There’s little red marks on his chest. Hickies, but they’re not loving. Furthest thing from it possibly.
God he was pathetic.
He doesn’t remember coming out of the shower. He doesn’t remember getting into it. He doesn’t remember feeling the warm pelting of it on his skin and making the cuts on his back sting. He doesn’t remember cleaning his skin for an hour. He doesn’t remember kneeling in the water and holding his arms to his chest as he gasped for breath.
He comes to, skin rubbed raw, wearing clothes that are dry and soft standing in the empty bathroom.
He hadn’t… he didn’t grab clothes before entering the bathroom. He should have, but he didn’t. He doesn’t know where they came from. He peeks under the warmth of soft red fleece and spots flecks of red near his hips. His thighs and groin don’t look much better. He’s shocked he’s not bleeding all over with how much he’d scrubbed. At least his skin wasn’t crawling with bugs anymore. He… he doesn’t feel her hands on him quite so much.
He was going to be killed and if not he was going to sleep for days until the feeling went away.
He opens the door, dressed in the new clothes—ones that don’t smell like anything but laundry detergent and are dry—to find Hood sitting just beside the door like a guard dog waiting for its master. He has a gun in his hand but it’s hanging limply between his legs. He’s not pointing it at Dick and instead tilts his head to look up at him as he walks out of the bathroom.
His hair is still dripping water onto the collar of the shirt.
“Did you…?” Dick glances down at the clothes he wears. (The red sweatshirt and black sweatpants that were big enough they could easily fit Bruce, it just made stocking safehouses easier. Plus, they were comfy). He hopes he doesn’t need to explain further.
“I didn’t look, if that’s your concern.” Dick breathes out a breath he had been holding since he started that shower. “I just left the clothes on the counter.” Hood shrugs as he flicks the safety back on the gun and stands up. His helmet blocks out most of what he’s mumbling about but Dick manages to catch the “‘least it’s my colours,” he whispers.
He shakes off how odd Red Hood was being and wanders back over to the living room. Hood follows behind like a duckling and… actually, it doesn’t make Dick’s skin crawl. He certainly doesn’t feel safe with the known murderer but… He’s not actively afraid at least. If Hood was going to kill him (which he likely would), it would be relatively quick and painless. Worst case scenario he leaks Dicks identity to the public and doesn’t kill him.
He flops back onto the couch and he still curls up tight, but he’s more relaxed. His posture is a bit closer to how he normally likes to lounge. He folds his arm and lays his head where it rests on the arm of the couch. He keeps a close eye on Hood as he wanders back over to the armchair that he slides a touch closer to Dick.
The city sound seeps into the safehouse again and Dick manages to tune it out enough to close his eyes and try to drift a little. He still feels wide awake, but it’s the thought that counts. He doesn’t really remember the last time he’d had a good night's sleep. And, considering the way the sky is lightening it’s past his vigilante bedtime.
“When did it happen?” Hood asks suddenly.
Dick raises his head from his arm. He blinks sleepily as he does so and looks at Hood for a moment. They both know what he’s talking about. He’s trying to get Dick to talk about it.
Fine.
“Which time?” He asks, simply. Because, really, he’d been losing track by now. There were the major ones yeah, but there were plenty of other times as well. Hood clenches his fist again and looks like he wants to stand and pace or even reach for a gun.
“Any,” he growls out. “All.”
There’s a certain tone to his words the voice changer doesn’t catch and fix. It’s… aggressive. Something Dick should be afraid of but isn’t.
Dick, admittedly, doesn’t really count most of it as what Hood likely thinks of it. He wasn’t.. assaulted. Most of it was by his choice he just felt bad after. It was his fault either way. But, technically speaking… “First time I was sixteen? Maybe fifteen… then I was around seventeen the second time.”
“And?” Hood prompts, low and dark beneath the mechanized voice. He’s shaking again as he grips the arms of the chair.
“Third time was tonight.” He hears the electronic hiss of air from Red Hood as he stands. Dick doesn’t react in any way than to stare at the wall again. Something seems to fill his head with static as he stares unseeing at the wall. “Honestly, I should just be used to it by now,” he mumbles into his palm as he speaks. He turns to Hood with a soft smile. “You know what they say; one time’s coincidence, three’s a pattern.”
He laughs as he thinks about it more. Ignoring the burning at the back of his throat and behind his eyes. If he could ignore it long enough it would go away. That’s the way he always dealt with it. Just laugh it off.
“Then again, if you want to count the times I’ve been groped, that's a higher number. First happened when I was around nine, though Br-my dad was able to keep a better eye on me back then. Keep me to myself. He didn’t let me tempt anyone.”
Hood picks up on the meaning behind his words and comes to a stop from his rampant pacing in front of Dick. He stands there for a long time before Dick glances up at him, tiredly placing his head in his palm.
“Do you… really blame yourself for them?” Dick isn’t really sure why Hood sounds so… sad when he says that. He looks up at the unfeeling helmet and shrugs with a pout.
“I mean, it was my fault.” He reassures the other when it looks like he’s going to jump out the window and wreck havoc. “I… I initiated it every time but tonight.”
“...Who with?”
“Why’s it matter?”
“So I can deal with them,” Hood growls again, hand twitching on the holster that carries his guns.
“Don’t,” he sighs as he places his head back onto the pillow of his arm. He doesn’t look over at Hood again for a while as he stares at the wall again. “I just… It was a long time ago. It really doesn’t bother me anymore.”
And it didn’t. He could handle it on his own. He didn’t need anyone chasing down his old ghosts that didn’t even haunt him much anymore. He couldn’t have anyone else dying by his hand just because some crime lord was being oddly possessive of him when Dick had long expected to die by now.
Hood lets out a breath that crackles in the mechanics of his mask. “You… Want me to call someone? Your dad?”
Well, that’s an unexpected turn.
“No,” he snaps quickly. He couldn’t deal with Bruce right now. He still needed to figure out what he was going to do about the murder he had partook in and how Bruce would react to hearing about it. He didn’t want the lecture that was sure to come. He glances up at Hood and blinks slowly. He needed to sleep. He hadn’t for at least thirty hours and the last time had barely been a nap. His voice catches in his throat for a moment. “Not–not right now. I don’t want to see him.”
Hood scoffs. “Yeah, I get that. Dads are real shitty sometimes.” Dick feels a surge of offence on Bruce’s part. He was getting real sick of Red Hood assuming he would know Dick’s family well enough to make such claims.
He bares his teeth. “He’s not shitty, he’s just… not the best with this. He’ll probably try and make me talk and I don’t want to.”
“You’re talking to me.”
Dick laughs and says what they both know. “You’re going to kill me, why would I care? Doesn’t matter.”
There’s a crackle of what might be a breath as Hood tenses up once again. “What makes you say that?”
Was Hood… not planning on killing him? Strange. Why else would Hood have entered this place specifically? It wasn’t especially telling that it was a safehouse. Bruce made sure that externally, beyond the extra security, they were indistinguishable from other apartments. Hood probably saw Nightwing entering and followed after him thinking he could get a jump on him. What else could Hood want from him? Ransom? Probably that. Now he knew that Nightwing was actually Dick Grayson, ward of Bruce Wayne, and that was enough to warrant a ransom. Additionally, Hood could get anything beyond monetary value with the newest blackmail he had and, shit, now he could control Bruce or Dick without any way for either of them to fight back because leaking their identities would be a world ending event for either of them. At least Tim might be safe. He was a well kept secret. There would be no way to trace him back to Bruce.
Hood still stares at him like he’s expecting an answer to the question.
“You hate me and have been trying to kill Batman for months?” Dick tilts his head. He’s stating the obvious. Why wouldn’t he think Red Hood would kill him? It seemed the next logical course of action.
Hood's hand twitches away from his gun and Dick follows that hand as it slowly tucks itself into the crook of his other arm. Away from his guns. Away from anything that could hurt Dick. “This probably means nothing to you, but I’m… not gonna hurt you. Not now at least.” Yeah, he had that right at least. It didn’t mean much to Dick. When you phrase something like that it doesn't really hold much weight.
Dick looks away, toward the wall once again and silence settles over them. He keeps his head upright by resting his chin in his palm and he blinks slowly.
It’s like he can still feel the rain but… it’s quieter in his brain now. Like he’s safely inside a building and the rain is outside and unable to hurt him. He glances up at Hood every few seconds and he’s still standing there like he’s waiting for Dick to start ordering him around. It’s akin to when one of them got hurt and Alfred rarely left their side other than to get them things they requested.
Looking at him like this, Dick can see how he was once a street kid. He carries himself in a way Dick’s… only really seen in Jason. He stands rigid and head held just a touch too high like he’s trying to make himself look bigger. Though, he has a certain ease that Jason didn’t have until he got truly comfortable in the mansion. He doesn’t stand like he’s waiting to get hit just for existing in someone's presence. It makes Dick’s heart ache, burn, for his little brother. He wants to hold him close and curl up in bed with him safely pressed against the wall so no one ever hurts him.
He wishes someone would do that for him.
He feels so small in his skin that he just wants to be held and actually feel safe.
He’s careful when he stands. He’s still waiting for Hood to snap and finally attack him and kill him or rip his head from his shoulders and deliver it in a duffle bag right on the mansion steps. Tentatively, he stands opposite Red Hood and looks at the glowing of the helmet's eyes.
“If you won’t kill me, I’m going to bed.” He doesn’t wait for a response, just turns around and slowly walks in the direction of the bedroom.
He ignores the soft footsteps that follow him as he enters the bedroom.
He’s… really there’s more he should be doing in terms of getting himself ready for bed but this is a special case. He wants to brush his teeth but it’s not going to wash out the acrid taste in his mouth. He’s still going to smell the gunpowder. He’s still going to see her holding a gun to his head. Nothing is going to wash it from his mind.
So, he just crawls over the bedsheets until he is tucked into the corner where the bed and wall meet and curls in on himself. He hadn’t bothered to grab a blanket; anything was warmer than when the rainwater dripped down his chest, pooling at his lower back and dripping onto the roof below. He still feels the scratches from the gravel on his back tugging on the sweatshirt. At least the red will prevent too many stains.
He sucks in a breath as Hood flings one of the warm, fluffy blankets over his form before he settles again. The bed doesn’t dip behind him at all. Hood doesn’t try to crawl in beside him or even sit on the edge of the bed. Dick hears the dragging of a chair from the kitchen and Hood’s eyes rest on him again.
He’s keeping watch. And, Dick relaxes so instantly under that gaze it startles him.
It feels wrong to sleep so vulnerable but he needs his back to the world right now. Hood seemed to understand that and was willing to keep vigil over his vulnerability and keep him safe. He got him a damn blanket. The Red Fucking Hood is keeping watch over a vigilante he’s been trying to kill like he’s someone important to the man. And, somewhere, deep in his gut, he believes that Hood will guard him. He trusts Hood will protect him as he sleeps. He knows that nothing will hurt him with Hood there to shoot anyone who dares.
So he lets his body fall prey to exhaustion and closes his eyes.