Chapter Text
It’s time to move on.
His safety net is nowhere to be found. Bruce is never coming back, so he has to pull himself up. His wings are mangled, and he may never fly again. It’s a life sentence, one he will have to carry out.
It’s a cold, hard pill to swallow. Once he has swallowed it though, things get better. Maybe he hasn’t touched the Nightwing suit in weeks, but he has cooked himself proper meals and taken out the trash. So baby steps.
He isn’t alone either. Jason may be the only one pulling him out of his stupors, making sure he doesn’t spiral, but he just needs to reach out to the others. Which he’ll do in time, when it’s right. He still braces for their wrath, but has he not already faced the worst?
Their wrath never comes. Maybe his old safety net is gone, but Jason is there. So is Alfred, and Damian. And Tim called him last week. Wally and Roy came over.
He’s not entirely alone and that feels so good.
He never is alone. Not with the Joker haunting him. He hears his disembodied laugh. And sometimes he can feel his beady eyes. He drowns it out though. With studious care –and he can tell that everything is ever so precariously balanced– everything feels alright. With a little more practice it should all be great.
Oh boy blunder , the cruel voice cackles.
Dick resolutely ignores it as he splashes hydrogen peroxide on his wound. It hasn’t been healing properly. Dick winces, as the cold liquid rolls over the freshest scars, trauma puckered on his skin like rosebuds in the garden of pain.
You aren’t who I thought you were, you make me so proud. The voice is so sing-song. When will you do it next?
Dick huffs, taking a centering breath. Steadying the shaking bottle, then continues with his ministrations.
You know that I am rightttttt.
He wants to believe that Joker is wrong.
☺☺☺
Dick polishes his badge. Then pins it to his new, freshly pressed uniform. It’s going to be his first time back on patrol. He looks in the mirror. He looks good, he looks healthy with color to his skin and no bags under his eyes. That might be the concealer.
He straightens his shirt, and pushes back the neat gelled hair. He wasn’t sure that we would ever put the uniform on again. That he could ever trust himself with that kind of power again. He’s not sure if he should even be a cop anymore.
He’s still not sure.
The last thing, he pulls the holster out of the locker, and clasps it around his waist. The gun is heavy on his side.
With a breath he is pushing out into the bullpen.
Amy smiles. “Officer Grayson, ready for your first day not on desk duty?”
“Am I ever?!” He pauses. “Hey, Amy?”
“Yeah?”
“Could I have an appointment with that counselor?”
She grins. “Absolutely, I can set that up. Are you alright?”
He pushes out the air he was holding for safe keeping. “Yeah.”
He’s happy she believes him, because things are truly honestly getting better.
☺☺☺
“How does it feel to be back?” his partner, Nick, asks.
Dick leans back. “It’s nice.”
“Bet you are happy to see my mug again.” Dick wishes he had gotten a new partner. But the Dick and Nick duo persists. Nick was the one that let him go in alone. When did he finally come in? After he heard the shots.
Dick huffs, “Sure am.”
“Dispatch Melville Avenue, disruption at the Hardy Bar. They appear to be under the influence and armed.”
Nick turns to Dick. “Are you ready?” Dick takes a breath, he hadn’t expected much to happen tonight, but then Nick is flipping the lights on and pulling them into a tight turn.
☺☺☺
Adrenaline is pumping as they peel through traffic of cars parting like the red sea. A badge, a gun, the lights, it’s a magnanimous power. He can’t really focus on it though; he is focusing on preparing himself.
You never really know how these things are going to go.
The squad car screeches to a halt beside the pavement, Nick has always been a little too excitable behind the wheels.
They share a glance, and in sync exit the vehicle. They pull the door open. The man is waving a knife, and he is clearly under the influence. He’s slobbering at the mouth to attack the man behind the bar. Yelling curses and insults.
They just need to disarm him and take him back to the station.
“Please put down your weapon, and come with us sir,” Nick says.
The man turns around and slurs, “WHY ARE YOU HERE? WHO CALLED THE POLICE?!”
Dick commands, “Sir, please put down the weapon.”
He lunges forward with the knife at Dick, of course he didn’t put it down when Dick asked him to. His hand goes down to his holster, but he hesitates. It’s too late, he feels something slim slide into his side. Not a very well aimed hit, still Dick is falling back.
BANG, the shot sends the other man scattering. Dick’s moods are as secure as the lines of his parent’s last performance. It snapped when he saw the man clatter back. He just got another person killed. Killer, killer, killer. You know I’m right.
Nick is pulling the radio to his mouth, “Officer down.” Nick offers his hand to pull him up. “I swear Grayson you are trying to give me a heart attack.”
Dick pushes Nick off, “I’m fine,” he snaps, “I’m just, I’m going to go home.”
“Rohrbach is going to have your hide if you leave.” Dick is already stumbling away, because that’s his favorite way to deal with problems. He can’t stay, not without breaking down.
☺☺☺
He looks in the mirror. His perfect hair mussed, the sweat rolling off the concealer, he looks unmade. At first he sees a murder. But then he looks at the scars, the nasty curdled skin, he remembers the pounding fear as his putrid breath curled his nose hairs. The staggering pain as his skin seared around the blunt tip of the cast iron stoker. His gasping breath as he stumbled into the table. Bits of wood digging into his back.
Bile rises in his throat, when he thinks about the first shot, the blood running down his throat he still cackled that awful cackle.
His heart is pounding too fast, he is leaning against the table.
He wouldn’t be alive right now.
If Nick hadn’t fired off his weapon, then he may not have been alive tonight. He knows what hesitation can do in the field. It’s life and death. There is blood blooming where the knife caught him. On his new uniform no less. It can’t be that bad.
He carefully peels the uniform from the sticky blood, the perfect crisp white now stained. He let some low life thug get the best of him. What would Bruce say? He thought he had grown out of needing Bruce’s validation.
The blood spill, and he presses down. Maybe this is him paying for his sins.
What if he just lets himself slip, tumble, succumb to the inevitable, stop fighting to fix it, and let it happen. There is no one to catch him, he’s falling on his own.
He tries lifting his hand, but more blood just spurts out. Suddenly he is feeling very lightheaded. He removes one bloody hand and gropes in his pocket for his phone. He fumbles through trying to open it, it won’t take his thumbprint. His finger slips to finding speed dial.
“Alfred, I think I’m having complications.”
“You stay right where you are.” That’s not going to be an issue, his head bounces off the sink as he collapses down onto his unforgiving bathroom floor.
☺☺☺
Dick startles awake, he didn’t expect to wake up again. He resists the urge to curl up and shrivel inside. The light is bright and the air is damp and he knows this place well enough to know it just by scent. He is in the Cave, a place he thought he would never see again, the home of the brooding justice bringers. He thought he was too sullied to ever be in the Cave again.
It all still hurts, everything inside and out. His throat jams up when he sees Bruce watching over him as he wakes up. He feels very much like a child in the body of an adult. Bruce reaches out towards him and this is it, Bruce is going to chok- Bruce’s hand brushes through his hair.
His big hands sift through his hair slowly and methodically, and Dick’s breathing evens out. He never even realized how uneven it was. There are tears sparkling on the corner of Bruce’s eye, on the precipice of the tear ducts, just about to slide over the edge. His eyebrows are all scrunched up in worry.
“Br-br-ruucee,” Dick’s dry mouth barely stutters out. The diamond drop cuts down Bruce’s cheek, and he shushes the sore-throated attempts at talking.
He chokes up, “I’m sorry, chum.” Dick eases into the touch, “I’m so sorry.”
Dick sits up despite Bruce’s protest, and leans towards him. Bruce scrambles into a hug, pulling him tight and close into his chest. Dick’s heart pangs, because he knows he doesn’t deserve this. He doesn’t deserve this forgiveness. His voice wobbles with his heart, he does his best to mask it but Bruce knows him too well.
Dick warbles, “I’m a killer.” It’s true, he shot and killed someone. It doesn’t matter who it was, he still did it. He feels disgusting, he shouldn’t be in Bruce’s arms, in the Cave. He doesn’t deserve it.
Bruce pushes him away, from the warmth, from the comfort, from the safety. Dick is grappling for whatever last smidgen that he can get. Bruce pulled him away to look at him, to see his face. “You are still my son, and nothing could ever change that.” Dick feels like he is about to burst into a whole new set of tears. Bruce glances over him. “What’s this?” Bruce thumbs the one burn scar. He doesn’t know, because he didn’t stay at the hospital.
“That’s,” Dick swallowed, “where he used the fire stoker.”
“Did it hurt?” The words weren’t accusing they were searching, almost worried if Bruce could ever be that.
“Not as much as this,” Dick leans into Bruce farther, trying to engulf him as much as possible before Bruce changes his mind, but with how Bruce is holding him back that might not be for a very long time.