Chapter Text
Everything is blissful, fuzzy and warm. He revels in it, catches stars on his finger tips and blows them away like dandelion clocks. For a moment, beneath the fuzz, his brain rumbles that there is something he needs to do. There is always something he needs to do. Was. Now he has rest. Now he has peace. He has light and warmth and comfort and all the things he deprived himself of. When did he deprive himself of those things? This peace is all there is, all there has been and all there will be. The peace trembles. That can’t be right. This is a constant. This is home. This is rest. There’s just him and the stars and… he hates it. If there are people not at peace then he needs to be with them. He needs to help. He needs to fight. He has no time to rest. The stars start to fall and he scrambles to catch them, the night sky above him growing darker and darker. He holds the light to his chest, a flickering, fragile thing. Candlelight.
He remembers a vow, small hand taken into that of a God. He will protect. He will make the world better. He will not become those who made him, he will not let others share the fate of those who loved him. The flame burnt away the peace, the comfort, the light. It was worth it.
And then came the man with the sun, who could give hope that tomorrow would be better once Robin had dragged them through the night on promises that they’d survive. From here, he was given a different name. Nightwing. A Kryptonian name given to an Earth boy as he became a man. A promise. Nightwing was both types of hope, hope for survival and hope for betterment. The candleflame warps into the sun, warps into something more, something blinding. It falls into Dick’s chest and drags him down, down, down.
He collides with something hard and dusty, noise piercing through his ears to shake his brain. Eyes, he has eyes, opening them would be a good move. Dirt. There’s dirt beneath him, foot prints in it, close together, frantic, a battle had taken place here. An explosion. A battle is taking place here. His chest hurts. Breathe. Lungs. He has lungs, he should breathe and taste ozone and ash and dust on his tongue and choke on it. There’ a battle going on here. He braces himself to cough, lungs working out how to exist again, limbs too. He has limbs. He should, use them. He stands. One of… someone’s on the ground… from the uniform… they work with Deathstroke, shit, Deathstroke is here, and one of his men is conveniently collapsed and unconscious next to Dick. He steals his sword and runs into the fray.
He spots Bruce first, surrounded by foes and looking like he’s making his last stand. He leaps and knocks out three of them with the back of his new sword, it’s good, only sharp on the one end, Dick can safely use the blunt side. “Dick?” Bruce asks, shocked.
“Twenty years of saving your ass and you doubt me now, geez B?” Dick grins as he kicks down another foe.
“You’re late,” Bruce says in response.
“I don’t know, think I’m just in time. You gonna be okay with the rest of these, old man.”
“I could still kick your ass any time, Nightwing.”
“Counting on it,” Dick says before throwing himself further into the fray. Something tells him that he needs to get to Deathstroke, that it will lead him to it if he’s willing to listen.
“Troia!” he shouts, throwing himself into another fray.
“Dick!” she knocks down his foes with ease. “You’re alive?”
“As of a few minutes ago,” he says. “I need to get to Deathstroke. Think you can follow me into Hell one last time.”
“This better not be the last,” she says. She lifts him and onwards he goes.
Slade is a mess, transmogrified and bulging and shaking in a way that must be agony. He roars, beast he’s become emanating darkness. Everyone here is throwing their all against him and it’s not enough. The dark tells itself that it’s always enough to snuff out the light. And Dick finds himself thinking of the candle, only there until it burns itself out, weak to even the touch of a finger or a gust of breeze and somehow, it’s enough. He reaches out and the darkness flows.
Here there is nothing. Here there is him, a light in his palm. He is Nightwing, he is Robin, he is Batman. The light flickers and he wills it to keep going. It’s so dark. It hurts. It’s angry at the dark. It doesn’t want to be here. It has never wanted to be here. It’s a crying child, stood alone on a trapeze. “It’s okay,” he tells it. “You’re stronger than this.” He hugs it.
It melds into him and the dark isn’t so oppressive. It too is a scared, fragile thing. It clings to him and perhaps, perhaps it can make its home in him too. The crowds in the stands disappear. He is alone on a gargoyle, the city bleak and smog thick beneath him. A hand lands on his shoulder, the weight of the universe added as the weight of the world is taken away. He will come through this stronger.
Laughter, bickering, his friends keep making sure he dips into the light outside of his chest, drag him away from his work for pizza and movie nights. His brothers, he trains them, makes sure that he keeps the weight of the universe off them for as long as possible, teaches them how to deal with the weight of the world.
And then there’s him. Slade. His enemy. The one who cut away Robin and made him Nightwing. He seems so defeated. Of course he is. “Foolish and cowardly lot,” Bruce’s voice says in his head.
Dick pities him almost as they clash. “You were meant to be dead.”
“I was,” Dick answers, his cape flairs and huh, he’s back here. Just a boy, facing against a monster. And as always, he’s going to win. “The darkness brought me to you.”
“It should be destroying you, it should be making you like me.”
He blinks and there’s blue against black, glowing. “I will never be like you.”
“It doesn’t matter, you’ll be dead again before too long. What you have to remember, Dickie, is I can withstand all of this and keep fighting in the real world. You’re a sitting duck.”
“And I’m not alone,” Dick says. “I’ll fight you here,” he lands a punch, “They’ll fight you up there. You’re not going to win, Slade.” He throws him to the ground.
Slade disappears. And Dick stands alone once more. The dark has grown fangs again. It claws at him. It would be so easy to succumb to it. It would be so, so easy. He thinks of the Joker’s skull giving way under his fists. He thinks about Blockbuster dead on a rooftop. He thinks about Red Hood, dangling off the bridge. He thinks about the masses. All the ones who have hurt others, all of those who have destroyed lives. What would it matter if he took their darkness and used it against them. He feels the fangs in his own mouth, he feels his fist tighten. It would be so easy to make this world right. But it wouldn’t. He thinks of the candle again. He thinks about the sun. He thinks about the crowds that he will never face again, not like this. They’re so happy. They deserve that. There is no hope in killing, no hope in vengeance. He feels warmth, he feels peace, he feels comfort, he feels light. They are his to give, not his to own. But they are his. He’s hope. Hope is all he can do.
He wakes up and his body reacts on instincts to fling the chains around him at Deathstroke. Slade is running at him now and he is tired, he is shaking, “But if this is to be the day I die, legacy dies with me!” Slade shouts.
Dick prepares himself for a fist fight in the mud.
Rose knocks Slade down and Dick collapses under his own power. They’ve won. They’ve won.