Chapter Text
Dick is the Ghost.
Or he was, once. The original Robin, the Ghost. A little ghost hidden behind the father’s cape.
Then one day, Superman brings in the charred, lifeless body of his father. Now the Ghost becomes a haunted man himself.
Bruce is gone, sacrificing himself to protect the world. It is what Dick is always scared will be his end. A very likely, very much unwanted end.
Dick is Batman, carrying such a heavy mantle.
“Robin!” Dick shouts, sprinting through a hail of bullets. Robin is out subduing a goon, exposing himself to others. He flares his cape to make himself more noticeable in the eyes of other opponents. “Fade away!” he orders.
“No, I can fight,” the Ghost Robin hisses back.
And it becomes a shitshow, due to how out of sync they both are. Dick is so distracted, concerned Damian will be hurt, while Damian stubbornly pushes back on every order Dick gives.
“I object to your method, Grayson.” Damian stands his ground in the Batcave. “The criminals show their opening. That was a moment to strike the final blow, not to distract them. I know fifty-two ways to apprehend the enemy.”
“The Ghost,” Dick states, “is to never face the enemy head-on. That is my role, Batman.”
“You are not Father!” Damian throws back.
“I know!” And now Dick is shouting too. “Don’t you think I know?”
Damian’s eyes widen, maybe surprised at Dick’s burst of emotion. But the kid is so Bruce, because the boy faces things head-on. No one, not even Babs or Jay, does this. It is so infuriating he wants to cry. “No, Grayson. This is not acceptable. Reconsider your tactics. I mean—”
“No.” Dick says, hard. “This is final. Go back upstairs, Damian. And consider what it means to be Robin.”
Damian glares back at him, clenching his teeth hard. There is a fire in him. A determination that is not unlike Bruce’s willpower. He is so him. He is so him.
And Dick wants to do right by him, so, so much. But how? The person Dick can ask is already gone.
Damian detaches the Ghost’s cloak, the one that makes the first Robin become the Ghost. He throws it on the floor and stomps away, going to the changing room.
The cave is silent again. Dick picks the cloak up and rests it on the Batconsole. He makes a deep, long, exhausted sigh. He removes the Batcowl and pulls back his damp hair.
What time is it? One o’clock. It will be eight in the morning there.
He sits at the Batcomputer, and places a video call from it.
The outgoing ringtone is The Phantom of the Opera, set to prank Bruce. He never has a chance to change it back.
Dick wipes his face with his hand.
Finally, the call is answered, and Jason’s dirt-covered face appears. He is in loose linen clothes and a sand scarf. “Hey, Big Bird.”
Dick can’t help producing a small smile at seeing his brother’s face. “Hey, Jay.”
“I’m so dirty and feel like shit, but you look even shittier than myself,” Jason says. Dick lets out a self-deprecating laugh. “How’s you and the squirt?”
“We fought again,” Dick says honestly. Jason laughs back.
“Of fucking course. It is stressful-you and mini-Bruce. Of course you’re gonna butt your fucking thick-ass heads. I betcha it ended with you two screaming at each other and not conveying anything you want to convey at all.”
Dick groans. “Fucking shut up, Jay.”
“Really, Dick. You are so good at people. You are the best at Bruce-interpretation for others, but somehow you are shitfuck when you yourself talk to Bruce, and mini-Bruce, half the time. A mystery of the universe.” Jason continues his complaint. “Admittedly, the other half of the time you and B are—were—are the best dynamic duo. So maybe there’s hope left.”
Dick smiles. Oh, he misses Jason’s potty-mouth comments so much. He doesn’t know how he could do all this without Jason.
“How are you, Jay? And how is… Tim?”
Jason’s smile dims a bit. “We are okay. Today I find a good shelter and force the fucking stubborn bird to sleep in. The boy runs himself ragged.”
Dick feels a pang of guilt in him. “What’s the name he goes by? The Revenant?” A Revenant, a vengeful corpse that returns to haunt the living.
Taking Robin away is the same as killing me by your hand. I’m a corpse, Dick.
“Red Revenant, to be precise,” Jason replies. “The kid can be dramatic.”
“Must take influence from someone I know.”
“Fuck you, Dickface. Anyway, I dip first with the name beginning with red. So he is just Revenant.” Jason continues. “He… we find what could be an ancient clue left by a man with high intellect and godlike stubbornness. We are building a possible timeline of Bruce’s journey.”
“Is it true?” Dick asks his brother. “Bruce is really alive?”
Jason pauses to find his words, which is rare. Jason always has words to say, whether in filthy language or in dramatic monologue honed up by his communications study.
“You know our deal, Dick,” is what Jason says.
When I go with him, I’ll be a believer, his strongest supporter. The kiddo needs this, brother.
Okay. Keep him safe.
Dick nods. “Okay. I won’t ask again. I hope you accomplish what you have set out to do.”
Jason nods back. “But even… I mean. The potential process to bring B back may be very hard.” If he is retrievable is left unsaid. “So you keep doing your task too."
I can’t be him, Dick. I don’t think anyone can.
I know. But someone has to step up. I won’t let all he built be lost.
…Okay. You always take the heaviest duty, Big Bird. You carry his legacy, and keep the brat safe too.
Dick sighs again. “I’m sorry you have to take a break from your uni.”
Jason quickly cuts him off. “Stop right there. I can’t tolerate you talking like this too. You know how often the Baby Bird says sorry to me. It’s every eight hours. Cut it. It is fine. It’s not like even though the scholarship was withdrawn I will have financial problems. I am fine. Fare better than the two of you.”
“Okay, Jay. At least accept my thanks.”
“Gratitude accepted.”
“My love too.”
“Yucky.”
Dick laughs. “When Tim wakes up, please tell him I love him too.”
“Tell him in person when we come back,” Jason replies.
“Will he,” Dick says, “listen to me?”
Jason sighs, “Dick, yes, he will. As the kid often says, he is a man of science. He understands your reasons. He is just very angry and salty at your execution. I guess you'll need to grovel a bit. I will help though.”
“Help putting spikes on the ground I will grovel on, maybe,” Dick replies.
“Yeah…” Jason tapers down. “The kid is waking up. See you later.” And the communication cuts.
One bright spot shuts away from Dick again. It is almost two a.m. now. He should rest. Tomorrow he needs to track what Elliot is planning. He needs to talk to Lucius about WE’s direction. There is a JL meeting after. He doesn’t want to face Clark under this cowl. And pick Damian up from school. He can’t leave it to Alfred. Their grandfather is grieving, and is carrying the manor on his own. Dick is grieving too. He needs to go on patrol tomorrow. How can he patrol while keeping Damian safe? How, how, how?
Dick rests his forehead on the desk, just for a bit.
How could Bruce do all this? He’s tired. His shoulder aches from all the weight of the armor. Damian won’t listen to him, won’t work with him. What did Bruce do when Dick himself wouldn’t abide by the rules?
He misses his dad.
Dick closes his eyes.
“What are you thinking, Dick!? Playing a prank on Superman instead of calling me!” Bruce shouted at him, after he made sure Superman wouldn’t die from a Kryptonite batarang on his back.
Dick, almost nine years old, bursted into tears instantly, which made Bruce flinch in surprise. Dick has never been a crier, it was only for his parents that he cried this hard.
“Dick!” Bruce was alarmed. “Dick, listen…” He stopped, then tried again, sitting down on the floor on one knee. “Dick. Come on, chum.”
Dick couldn’t stop crying. Bruce is scary! He just… he just… Really, as an almost nine-year-old, Dick didn’t have enough mental capacity to deeply think about what exactly he wanted. What was in his head now is that Bruce is scary. And Dick was somehow wrong.
Actually, he was grown up enough to know why he is wrong, but still, Bruce is scarier than he is…wrong-er!
Bruce pulled him into a hug, which was cheating. Dick likes hugs. Meanie. It took a while until Dick’s crying subsided.
“I’m sorry for shouting. I’m really scared for you, chum.” Bruce rubbed his back. “The Ghost is invented to make you safe, not to make you a target.”
Dick wiped his tears with his small hands. “No, you are wrong,” he shouted back. “The Ghost was invented so that I can be with you! Everywhere Batman goes, Robin goes!”
Dick opens his crusty eyes, and slowly sits up. Ugh, his neck. This is the worst position to fall asleep.
Mini-him in the dream was pretty stubborn.
He stretches his neck, and a blanket falls down from his shoulder. Alfred?
No, it’s the Ghost cloak.
He looks around with his bleary eyes, and on the chair not too far, not too close, is Damian. Writing something on a piece of paper with immense focus and occasionally checking with whatever on the batcomputer. It reminds him of Bruce in his zone.
When Damian realizes Dick is staring, the boy blushes to his ears. (cute) “It is tremendously impolite to stare without alerting your presence, Grayson.”
“You seem deep in thought,” Dick slowly says. His throat is so dry. He needs water, and a shower. “What time is it?”
“Ten o’clock in the morning.”
Dick shoots up. Ow, his neck, his back.
“Sit down, Grayson. You are going to plant your face on this bat-stool ridden floor.”
“I've an appointment with Lucius.”
“Postpone,” Damian says.
“Thomas Elliot.”
“Is remotely monitored by Oracle.”
“Justice League.”
Damian looks at him like he’s stupid. Why is it so adorable? “It is three hours away.”
“Your school.”
Damian fidgets. “I might have pretended that I have influenza A?”
“Damian.” Dick glares at him. Damian counters with an impressive genetically corrected Batglaretm. Damn.
Damian picks up the paper he wrote. “Anyway, I have done further research, and prepared my counterarguments. Would you listen to my explanation before you cut me off again?”
Dick glances at the paper in Damian’s hand.
- Ask him to listen fully first. (the site says he will if he is reasonable.)
- Prepare and list all your reasoning.
- 2.1--
Before he can see the 2.1, Damian pulls the paper to his chest, face flushed. “Don’t look, you peasant.”
“What did you research about?”
“None of your business,” Damian hisses. “Will you? Listen to me until I finish.”
“Okay, I will,” Dick says.
Damian takes a breath, and reads what seems to be bullets on his paper. For once Damian really looks like a kid, with false bravado and naivety.
“Reasons why the current strategy for the Ghost Robin needs improvement,” Damian says in a slightly monotone voice, as expected when focusing on the text.
Dick internally groans. This again. But he makes a promise he will listen first.
“First, I am superior to the previous Robins. I am a savant in ways of combating enemies, single or multiple, barehanded or armed.”
Yeah. Child assassin. But nope, little D.
“Second, I am more familiar with being injured than previous Robins. Nanda Parbat trained me to have high pain and poison tolerance, and to be able to proceed with any instruction while experiencing injury.”
Okay, now Dick really wants to not listen. And hug the kid, and punch the wall, or Ra’s al Ghul’s face.
“Third, you are not Father. YoupromisedyouwillletmefinishGrayson,” Damian rapidly follows, because, yeah.
The kid looks at him, and Dick holds himself back from saying anything yet.
“You are not Father. Thus, my Batman is different,” Damian says, avoiding Dick’s eyes, and opens the camera feed. “You are agile, flexible, and naturally flaring. Father is not.”
Damian pulls up the camera feed. One is old footage of Bruce plowing through enemies like a tank. The other is Dick, not as Batman, but as Nightwing. So the kid even traces the feed back to those days.
“The opponent is more distracted with you as the spearhead, and the Ghost should not be another distraction. When opportunity comes, I can definitely strike the enemy.”
Dick looks at the Batfeed. It’s true as Damian says. Dick’s style is different. The child is really Bruce’s son. He has Bruce’s strategic mind.
However, more than that. Damian says my Batman. And those words lift up something in him.
Damian slowly turns back to him, masking the uncertainty with his haughty demeanor. “There. I finished my impeccable explanation. You can talk now.”
Dick looks into those green eyes, and slowly explains. “The first and second reasons are invalid. You are a kid, better or worse than any previous Robins or not. You will never be the frontliner,” Dick says first, and Damian furrows his brows. There is so much Bruce in him. The facial expression, the eyebrows, the deep, overarching reasoning that takes time to say. The hidden love in his actions.
The Ghost was invented so that I can be with you!
The little Robin he once was said. Oh, it’s so long ago, and it’s such a stupid reason that Bruce shouldn’t have allowed him in the field at all, but Bruce couldn’t help but abide by his little Ghost, yes? Kid-Dick tried so hard, in his own way, like Damian now does to be with his Batman.
Dick asked him to consider what it means to be Robin, and Damian answered so beautifully. Maybe Bruce was able to carry all the burdens because of this bright, light warmth that Dick is currently feeling in his chest.
“But the third argument is sound. We are a team, and if I am different from Bruce,” and how freeing it is that this fact is said by his partner, “then my Ghost can be different too. We can try to train a new strategy together. We will--we will be the best, Damian.”
Since Dick is different from Bruce, he pulls Damian into a hug.
“Release me, Grayson!”
“Never, little ghost.” He misses this, a human warmth. “By the way, since you are so good at writing, write an essay on why a gradeschooler should not fake being sick. You will be banned from Robin-ing until you send the paper to me.”
“Tch, imbecile.”
In the months that follow, the rumor about the Ghost is that now the ghost child places a curse.
While you are fighting Batman, if you don’t surrender, without even realizing it, your knees weaken, your arms shake, you fall to the floor, paralyzed. Or sometimes, your vision just cuts. You drop dead (almost).
The Ghost is so silent that many goons feel the presence of Batman even stronger. Maybe you can hear a faint clicking of the tongue, but only maybe. Now with just a glimpse of light reflecting from a katana, some goons run away. Hospital bills are costly, you know.
“We are the best, Richard.”
“Yes, we are, little ghost.”
Tim and Jason finally bring Bruce back.
Jason also lands several punches on Ra's face for almost taking Tim’s spleen (!?). He says later he should punch him more for Damian’s past upbringing.
Nevertheless, Bruce is back in a teary, joyful, dramatic reunion. Tim and Dick themselves will need time to rebuild what has been broken, but their family is all here, and Dick can go forward from there.
“Your Ghost Robin is even darker than mine,” Tim comments on Damian’s suit. “Almost no green and yellow left.”
“Because I’m a striker, I need not to expose myself,” Damian explains, puffing up. Dick is in awe that Damian does not stab Tim on sight. Tim and Jason are in awe of how Dick has tamed Damian. Dick doesn’t think he did any taming, really. The kid is actually a softie, like a porcupine’s belly. “So I have proved I’m the superior Robin above others!”
Jason uses his hand to ruffle Damian’s head, while evading the countering katana. “Yeah, yeah, tiny brat. Wait until you are taller than me before saying that.”
Damian screams in rage and fights Jason, who takes it head-on. Tim whisks himself far away to be a referee instead. He sees Dick and Bruce observing them, so he makes a small wave. Dick waves back. Small steps.
Dick himself turns back to Bruce, pushing the Batcowl back to him. “You take this back. It’s too heavy for me,” Dick says.
“Hmm. You still take it exceptionally well, chum.” Bruce takes the cape and the cowl in his hands, but his eyes are on Dick.
“No way, you should see my early footage,” Dick snickers.
“And you did well,” Bruce says. “With Damian. He acts so much his age now.”
Said Damian is screaming in five different languages about how he will remove Jason’s limbs. “…thanks?”
The boy’s cape swishes and swooshes around, making him flicker here and there, like a ghost, as his name.
Dick makes a small laugh. Bruce glances at him questioningly.
“Heh, you know, Babs said to me she read a book,” He begins. “It states that true love is like a ghost. Some even say that the attitude about ghosts is the attitude about love after all. What do you think? You who invented the Ghost.” He elbows his father.
Bruce thinks. B, his dad, the man who invented the tale of a mischievous Ghost, to make Dick safer, to be his little ghost in his dad’s shadow. “I invented the Ghost for one little ghost that teaches me what love is,” Bruce replies back, looking at his children, then looking back at Dick. “The Ghost was born because I have you, Dick. And that Ghost is being passed on to Jason, to Tim, and to Damian, even when I was not here.”
Dick smiles back, the same mischievous smile of the little Ghost a long time ago. That ghost boy has become a man, with his own ghost in his shadow.
“A very nefarious ghost. It seems to never go away.”