Chapter Text
September 30, 2010
Dick grinned, excitement flowing through his veins, and he couldn’t stop himself from doing an excited round of cartwheels.
Finally, after a over a month, Damian and Talia were back in Blüdhaven.
Cass and Shiva, who had left right after them, were also back, meaning that Dick had not one, but two (!) adorable kiddos waiting for him.
. . . They also might provide a good distraction from more anxious thoughts, too.
Like the mole.
If his team had a mole, they had to figure it out before it destroyed them. But what if. . . what if Dick was the mole?
Talia—she’d been great, sure, but what if that was all an act? What if he’d been spilling his team’s biggest secrets and not even realizing it?
What if his mother—his mind still tripped over the word, even months later—was just using him?
Dick wasn’t sure he’d be able to handle that.
So instead, Dick kept cartwheeling and trying to shut out his traitorous, wandering mind.
And when he got into view of the Al Ghul Blüdhaven safe house with its peeling white awning and coarse brick exterior, he didn’t even try to stop himself from sprinting up to the door—only to tumble back as two small figures launched themselves at him and torpedoed into him.
Dick laughed, letting Damian and Cass pull him to the ground.
“Grayson!” Damian let out an excited squeak, and Dick ruffled his hair.
Cass stood up, bouncing on her toes like she was about to take flight. Excitedly, she signed the letter “D” before fluidly pressing two of her fingers together and twisting that hand over her other hand.
“It’s your name,” Shiva called, leaning against the doorway. “She wanted to make you a name sign, so she combined the first letter of your infernal nickname and the sign for acrobat.”
Dick cooed then, hugging Cass tightly. “Oh, Cass, did you do that just for me?”
Cass nodded happily, her black bob cut bouncing with the motion.
Dick grinned again, and Damian tugged him inside. “I don’t like Nanda Parbat,” Damian spoke as he walked. “It’s hot, and I never see Mother when I’m there! I had to do a lot of training, and Grandfather is scary.”
Dick paused, squatting down to Damian’s level. His little brother had a still healing cut on his face, right on his cheekbone. Anger coiled in his gut. How could anybody be okay with letting a child get hurt like this?
But—Dick stumbled over his thoughts, too disjointed from thoughts of the mole on the team. Talia—Dick sighed, running a hand through his hair and messing it up. Cass pressed against him, reading his discomfort and confusion in his body language.
“Dami, Cass, if you go get ready, I’ll take you to the park today,” Dick told his two precious little sibling/pseudo-cousins. “I gotta talk to Talia first.”
Damian pouted, but Cass nodded, pulling Damian upstairs. Shiva glanced at Dick. “You want to talk to your mother alone?”
“Please,” Dick told her. Shiva nodded, following the smaller children upstairs, and Dick made his way to the kitchen, where Talia was in the middle of making dolma, stuffed grape leaves.
“Talia.” Dick’s voice cracked as he said her name, and Talia paused, pulling her hands from the mixture of rice, spices, and vegetables.
“Richard.” She gave him a soft smile. “What’s wrong?”
So that’s why she hadn’t rushed out to greet him.
She knew something was wrong.
Suspicion cemented in Dick’s shoulders, weighing him down. “The mole.”
Talia sighed. “What about a mole?”
No surprise.
“The Young Justice team has a mole, Talia.”
“Yes,” Talia agreed.
She knew, she knew, she knew. Dick thought he was going to throw up, and he collapsed in one of the kitchen seats.
Talia rinsed her hands and followed him to the table, setting down the grape leaves and the mixture on the table. She pulled out two plates and set one in front of him. “What about the mole, Richard?”
She passed him a grape leaf, and Dick took it mechanically. “Damian got hurt at Nanda Parbat,” he choked out, studying her reaction. She paused, ripping the dolma she was working on.
“Yes.” Her voice was a whisper, a quiet agreement.
“How?”
“My father—he was not happy with my actions at Cape Canaveral.”
“And that’s an excuse to hurt Damian?”
“For him it is.”
How could Dick be related to such a man? Someone who relished in the pain of others, who thought of nothing but his own gain, his own power?
“How’d he get hurt?”
“What my father calls training.” Talia was trying to keep her words clinical, Dick could tell, and her movements were stiff. Sighing, Dick folded the dolma he was working on.
“And the mole?”
“You know that I cannot answer that, Richard.” Talia set down the dolma she was working on, and Dick followed suit.
“Is all this fake?” Dick finally spat out the fear that had been eating him alive since he had heard the news of the traitor, the mole.
Talia flinched at his words, but he kept going. “Am I the mole? Did you approach me just to use me? Am I why my team is hurting?” His words came out faster and faster, his chest heaving as panic clawed at him, scraping against his bones.
Talia dropped all clinical feelings and moved so that she was on the ground on her knees in front of him, meeting his eyes. “Oh, Richard, never,” she swore vehemently. “I meant what I said—your life, your choice on how you live it.”
Dick choked on his words. “But the mole—”
“Is not you.” Talia vowed. “I cannot tell you because telling you would put you in danger, habibi.”
A strangled sob came from Dick’s lungs, and Talia pulled him off the chair ad hugged him. “Oh, habibi, I promise you this is real. You do not have to bear the weight of the world—the weight of your team, either. There is no usery here, no manipulation or falsehoods. I promise.”
Dick cried harder, leaning into Talia’s shoulder and ignoring the damp feeling on her green sleeves. “But—”
She cut him off, stroking his hair. “No buts, Richard. This is real. You are forging your own path, not bound by my legacy.”
Dick managed a nod, not moving from his position against Talia until his tears had dried. The entire time, Talia murmured reassurances, stroking his hair.
“You’re okay, habibi.”
***
Dick rubbed his eyes, finally pulling away from Talia. “Dami and Cass are waiting on me.” His voice was hoarse from crying, and it twisted Talia’s heart. She hated that he had been aching, hurting so badly while she had been gone. Hated the fears he’d wrestled with.
“What do you want to do with them?” Talia kept her voice calm and even.
“Park.”
“Would you like anyone to come with you?”
Dick shook his head.
“Alright,” Talia agreed, ignoring how her son was using few words, shutting down like she had seen Bruce do before. Like father, like son in some ways, she supposed. “Sandra and I will finish the dolma, and you just be back by six o’clock, alright?”
Dick nodded again, and Talia pressed a soft kiss against his forehead before she could talk herself out of it. Dick stood from the floor, but Talia remained there, watching him go.
She didn’t get up until Sandra entered the room, her hair pulled into a ponytail with a red scrunchie. From the way it was lopsided, it was clearly Cassandra’s work.
“Richard has left with Damian and Cassandra.”
Talia moved to wash her hands. “He thought he was the mole. It. . . unnerved him.”
“Did you tell him the truth? That it is the one they call Red Arrow?”
“No. How could I without endangering him?” Talia sighed. “If I tell him and he confronts Red Arrow, the alternate programming will kick in. My father will learn beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is a traitor in his league. I cannot risk that.”
“So you told him what?” Sandra’s voice was sharp, condemning Talia for her lack of action.
“Only that he was not the mole.” Talia moved to the table and returned to stuffing the grape leaves.
“Talia, how long do you think we can keep this double-sided blade balanced? How long before we get stabbed? Before our children get hurt in the crossfire?” Sandra kept pushing, even as Talia’s hands began to shake—and there was no way the trained assassin missed it.
“I will die before I let them experience the crossfire,” Talia hissed, slamming down a half-finished dolma.
“Tell that to Damian’s cheek!” Sandra fired back. “The blood we shed has never dried, and the longer we keep our children next to it, the more likely they are to be stained with our sins, our kills, our secrets.”
“And if I pull out now, they will die. My father is ruthless, Sandra.” Talia’s voice cracked. “I can’t pull out. I’m trapped.” A sob threatened to break free from Talia’s thready control, but she pulled her emotions in. “Until then, we keep fighting.”
“And keep protecting the children,” Sandra said, her voice softening. “Talia, I know it hurts—”
“What are you planning, Sandra?”
Sandra’s face closed down, becoming a mask of stoicism. “I cannot tell you, friend. Just as you cannot tell Richard about the mole. I must—I must do this on my own so that no one else gets hurt.”
Talia bit her inner cheek, a nervous habit she had never quite been able to quell when she masked her emotions. “Alright, Sandra. I trust you.”
Sandra nodded, moving to grab a grape leaf. “Thank you, friend.” The two worked in silence, folding grape leaves, as Talia turned over Sandra’s words.
Was there a way to escape the cage she was in without hurting her loved ones? Could—could Bruce help her? He’d offered time and time again, and each time she’d rejected his offer, too afraid of her own father.
But Damian’s cut was too fresh on her mind—as was her father’s rage and ire at her failure to stop her beloved at Cape Canaveral.