Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Dick Grayson and Wally West meet on a Thursday, when Wally runs directly into Dick and spills Dick’s scalding hot coffee all over his very expensive shirt. Wally stops dead in his tracks, and stares in horror as Dick winces and pulls the ruined fabric away from his chest.

There’s a tense moment of silence where Wally thinks that he might have to bury himself in a hole and never come up for air, because he’s just spilled hot coffee all over Mr. Wayne’s son in the middle of a Wayne Enterprises lobby, on his first day of work.

Dear god, he’s so fired already and he hasn’t even really started yet, oh no, what has he done.

Wally’s expression is sitting somewhere between stunned and horrified when Mr. Grayson finally looks up at him. He’s expecting some sort of retribution and a blunt dismissal. Mr Grayson asking for his name and department so he can have Wally fired immediately. Some good all those super reflexes are doing him now.

But instead, what he gets is a blinding smile that is frighteningly similar to Nightwing’s, and a soft look in his eyes as they meet Wally’s.

Wally cannot stop himself from spewing words as soon as he locks eyes with him. “Mr. Grayson, I am so, so sorry, I wasn’t watching where I was going, I should have been paying more attention, I can… oh god, I don’t think I can afford to replace that shirt, but I can at least buy you a new coffee? Oh, shit, I’m so late, I’m so sorry, I really have to go, I can’t--”

Wally realizes only when Mr. Grayson cuts him off, that he’s been talking just a touch too fast.

“What’s your name?”

Oh god. Here it comes. He’s going to get fired right here, right now and then he’ll have moved all the way to Gotham for this job for nothing and it’s going to be a huge mess, shit. “Uh. Wally. Wally West. I’m supposed to be starting in the R and D lab today,” he says quietly.

Mr. Grayson’s smile doesn’t fade.

Wally winces.

“Hey, Wally, nice to meet you, I’m Richard Grayson. Most people call me Dick.”

Wally doesn’t stifle his laugh in time, and all of the color abruptly leaves his face. He is absolutely getting fired now.

“Don’t worry. I know how it sounds. English wasn’t my father’s first language,” Mr. Grayson says, his smile softening into something less blinding, more real. “You look kinda like you’re about to have a heart attack, Wally. Are you alright?”

“I’m not getting fired for this, am I?” Wally blurts out before he can think better of it.

Mr. Grayson just laughs, a sound that Wally thinks would make angels jealous. “Relax, man. It’s just a shirt and a cheap cup of coffee. I’ve got my uniform shirt up in my father’s office anyway, no big deal.” Right. Cause if this guy wasn’t already perfect enough, he’s also a cop, Wally remembers. “But I will take you up on that coffee. Saturday at two? Let me give you my number.”

Wally just blinks dumbly for a moment, and hands over his phone without processing what’s happening.

“I’ve gotta run, I have a shift starting in a little bit, but text me your address, and I’ll pick you up. And don’t worry. I’ll make sure your supervisor knows I’m the reason you were late so you won’t get in any trouble,” he says with a wink.

Wally nods along like he’s really processing what Mr. Grayson is saying and takes his phone back with a dopey grin.

It’s not until Mr. Grayson is already in the elevator that Wally actually realizes what just happened. He makes a surprised noise and goes through the rest of the day with a stunned smile fixed on his face. He’s never gotten a date that fast, let alone attracted the attention of such a perfect man.

~*~

It’s the first time Wally West has ever met Dick Grayson, but Dick Grayson has been waiting to ask out Wally West since he was sixteen.

~*~

Dick and Wally get on like a house on fire, it turns out. Dick already knew this. Wally is pleasantly surprised.

Coffee turns to Dick showing Wally around the city, turns to dinner, turns to a second date and a third and a fourth and Dick has a steady boyfriend before he knows it.

He’s happy. He’s in love. And he’s lying.

He feels fucking awful .

But Bruce had been very clear from the time he was a child. He was never to tell anyone else about his secret identity. Not even other heroes. Not even the man he’s pretty sure is the love of his life.

So Dick, as much as it pains him, keeps his mouth shut.

~*~

They’re dating for six months when there’s a knock on Dick’s apartment door in the middle of the night.

The League had spent several hours that day fighting off some wannabe big bad and playing clean up crew after, and Dick is nursing two cracked ribs and an impressive bruise on his hip and he’s sore and tired and he had to watch Wally get hurt and he couldn’t act like he wanted to towards him, because he was Nightwing, not Dick Grayson and he thinks he actually might kill whoever it is that’s on the other side of the door.

It’s Wally.

He’s wearing a hoodie he stole from Dick weeks ago, over top of…

Over top of his Flash uniform.

Dick’s jaw drops and he yanks Wally into his apartment, slamming the door shut behind him.

His mouth flaps like a fish for a moment before he waves a hand at Wally’s lower half and just says, “What?”.

Wally rubs the back of his neck with a pained look on his face and Dick’s look of concern only worsens as the silence stretches.

“I have something I need to tell you,” Wally says quietly, his voice rough and scratchy.

Dick can see the outline of the bruises on Wally’s throat that his accelerated healing hasn’t gotten to yet. Dick’s heart clenches in his chest as he remembers the fight with the witch earlier, his limbs leaden and held to the ground by her magic while she’d gripped Wally’s neck with preternatural strength. Donna had gotten a lucky shot at the witch’s side and she’d dropped Wally and lost her control on the spell she’d been holding over Dick, but there were a few moments where Dick felt like he was watching his parents fall all over again, watching Wally in pain and being able to do nothing about it.

But Dick Grayson didn’t experience any of that.

Nightwing did.

Dick can’t let Wally know that he knows what happened or he’ll give himself and his family away and he can’t let Bruce down like that, no matter how much every fiber of his being aches to tell Wally the truth.

So instead, he hides the pain pulsing through his body and lets his face fall into confusion and worry, which isn’t too far off from how he’s really feeling, but isn’t really all true either.

“Baby, what happened to you?” he asks, in his best scared civilian voice.

He wants to shudder as he says it, feeling filthy for lying to his boyfriend like this.

Wally takes a deep breath and holds a hand protectively over his side where Dick knows there’s a hole in his uniform, covered by the hoodie, from the spell that had taken him down, allowed the witch to get her hands on him in the first place.

“I’ve been keeping something from you. And I’m so sorry that I have because you don’t deserve to be lied to like this, cause I love you so goddamn much, and please don’t think that this was cause I didn’t trust you. Cause I do. I love you and I trust you with everything I am, but I just,” Wally has to stop talking for a moment, his face twisting into a pained grimace. “Sorry. I, uh. Well I guess I should just say it. I’m the Flash. I have been for a little while. Took the mantle from the last Flash. But I was Kid Flash before that. I’ve… I’ve been a hero for a long time. And I was keeping it from you because I thought it’d keep you safer. But I almost… I thought I was going to die, today, Dickie, and I would’ve died having never been honest with you and that thought was fucking terrifying , so I had to… I just had to tell you this and please don’t just stare at me, please say something, babe, please tell me I haven’t scared you away.”

Dick doesn’t think Wally breathed once through that whole speech.

He doesn’t answer, instead, reaches out for the hem of the hoodie Wally’s wearing, helping him take it off to reveal the uniform underneath. Wally doesn’t look him in the eye as Dick looks at him in the uniform. Dick can’t help but linger on the ugly patch of healing skin on Wally’s side.

“I’m so sorry I lied, Dick,” Wally whispers, raspy and quiet.

Dick gently takes Wally’s face in both of his hands and kisses him like his life depends on it. “Wallace West, you are nothing short of wonderful. I love you. I understand why you kept it from me. I’m not mad,” he says softly, against Wally’s lips. “I’m not mad. You haven’t scared me away.”

Wally sighs in relief and his whole body sags against Dick’s.

Dick has to bite back a shout of pain when Wally rest squarely against his injured ribs. Thankfully, Wally doesn’t notice. As much as he wants to reciprocate, Dick can’t tell his secret tonight.

Dick guides Wally into his bedroom and goes right for the first aid kit he keeps in his bathroom, but Wally waves him off. “I’m a speedster, I’ve got an enhanced healing factor, cause of how fast my cells do their thing.”

Nightwing knows this. Nightwing saw Wally get the all clear from Doctor Midnite and Zatanna. Nightwing had the Flash tell him that he was totally fine.

Dick Grayson knows none of this. So Dick acts surprised when Wally waves the first aid away and sets it aside like he doesn’t quite believe Wally.

“Why don’t I at least help you get this thing off. You can borrow some sweats? I’m not letting you out of my sight if you’re hurt, Speedy,” Dick says, an inside joke just for him.

“I was never Speedy! Speedy was Green Arrow’s sidekick! I was Kid Flash.”

“Baby Flash. Got it,” Dick jokes as Wally guides him through the releases on his uniform. Dick already knew where they all were, but he waits for Wally’s instruction anyway.

“No!” Wally protests indignantly, frowning up at Dick.

Dick just smiles and presses a kiss to Wally’s forehead and gently drags his uniform top off, brushing a stray strand of hair off of his forehead.

The wound in Wally’s side is uglier now that he can see it up close, without the shredded remains of his uniform in the way. His skin is mottled and burned and red and it makes Dick’s chest hurt to know he couldn’t stop this. He should have, but he couldn’t. He’d been immobile, useless, powerless to stop the witch from hurting Wally like this. And he can’t even apologize. Not as Nightwing, because Bats don’t admit fault like that, and not as Dick Grayson, because Dick Grayson was not there.

Dick’s fingers brush over the irritated skin next to the wound subconsciously and Wally winces, sucks in a harsh breath.

Dick recoils.

“Hey, it’s okay. I’ve… it sounds bad, but I’ve had worse. I’ll be totally fine by the morning. I can feel myself healing as we speak. It just hurts a bit now,” Wally says in an impossibly soft voice.

Dick just nods and purses his lips and turns to dig up a clean pair of sweatpants for Wally to wear. The quiet, pained noises Wally makes as Dick helps him out of his uniform pants and into a clean pair absolutely crush Dick. He does not show it.

Instead he gives Wally a soft smile and climbs into bed next to him.

He has to lie on his bruised hip to face Wally, and it’s a struggle to keep the pain from showing on his face, but he manages. At Dick’s request, Wally starts telling him stories about his career as a hero, and it’s easier to ignore the discomfort in his hip as he listens to Wally tell him stories he already knows.

Wally leaves out some details, and Dick smiles, knowing the little things that Wally’s keeping to himself, to keep Dick from worrying, or to make himself sound a little bit cooler, trying to impress his boyfriend. Like Dick hasn’t been impressed with him since the very first day the first Robin met the first Kid Flash.

They drift off just like that, Wally telling Dick stories and Dick tracing circles on Wally’s bare chest.

When they wake up in the morning, Wally’s side is completely healed true to his word.

Dick’s ribs scream at him as he sits up, the pain radiating down his side, the bruise on his hip aches dully and his face is throbbing. He groans and takes a moment to convince himself that getting out of bed is worth it. Wally stirs a little in his sleep, but otherwise doesn’t move when Dick gets up and heads for the bathroom. Wally may have super healing, but Dick does not.

He’s glad he was the first one up when he gets a look at himself in the mirror, noticing that a bruise has bloomed around his left eye, darkening from the barely noticable yellow it was yesterday to an ugly bluish color.

He’s also glad for his make-up skills. Yet another thing he’s held on to from his circus days.

He makes quick work of the black eye, and pulls his shirt to the side to work at the patch of the bruise that peeks out from over his pants, in case his shirt rides up. That one’s darker, takes more concealer and more time to cover up, but he does it, tugging down his shirt and sliding his little make-up bag away just as Wally nudges the bathroom door open with his toe.

“Morning, Gorgeous,” he says, voice still rough from sleep.

Dick forces a smile to his face, and leans forward to kiss the tip of Wally’s nose. “Hey, babe. How are you feeling? All better?” he asks, glancing down at the splotchy pink patch of skin on Wally’s side.

Wally smiles and nods, wrapping his arms around Dick’s waist. Dikc bites his tongue when Wally’s wrist rests right on his bruise. “All better. The magic makes it a little funky, so I think that spot might always be a little scarred and discolored like that, but other than that, I’m completely fine.” Wally tugs him closer and kisses him, and Dick can ignore the ache of his injuries in favor of tangling one hand in Wally’s wild red hair and deepening the kiss for just a moment.

Wally slips a hand under Dick’s shirt, and Dick’s breath stutters, and he has to pull back. His hand slips from the back of Wally’s head to rest in a fist on his chest instead. Dick drops his head, can’t meet Wally’s eyes. Wally removes his hands from Dick’s hips immediately, reaching up to cup the sides his face instead.

“I’m sorry,” Dick whispers, and he means he’s sorry for everything. He’s sorry for the lying and the sneaking around and the cancelled dates and the fact that he can’t even let Wally see him shirtless no matter how much he wants to take their relationship further. He’s sorry for all of it, but he doesn’t say any of that. “Don’t. Please. I’m sorry, I just… Walls, I can’t.”

“Hey, hey,” Wally says, and he sounds so soft and kind and understanding and Dick doesn’t know what he’s done to deserve a man so good. “It’s okay. You have nothing to apologize for. We don’t ever have to do anything more than you’re ready for.”

And how ridiculous is that? With the reputation Dick Grayson has in the media for being a womanizer just like his adoptive father, a reputation he has no idea how he got for the record, how ridiculous is it that Wally won’t even say the word ‘sex’ around Dick now, just because Dick’s slowed them down the few times it’s looked like they might be heading that direction.

He really, really doesn’t know what he’s done to deserve Wally West.

“How about I make us some breakfast? You should see how fast I can whip up a meal with the super speed and everything,” Wally jokes, pressing a soft, chaste kiss to Dick’s lips to punctuate his sentence.

Dick smiles into it and kisses him back and nods. He has some time before he has to leave for work. And besides, Wally looks happy at the idea of showing off for his boyfriend, and how could Dick say no that look?

Dick pulls on his uniform for his day job quickly once Wally leaves, and heads out into the kitchen after him. His boyfriend is dashing around in a blur of orange and lightning flashes. Dick smiles at the sight that’s all too familiar to him. Wally takes it as awe of the new development.

“It’s pretty cool, isn’t it?” Wally says, beaming at Dick as he sets out plates for them.

“Incredible. Just like you,” Dick responds.

~*~

They spend a lot more nights staying at one of their apartments together after that, though they don’t officially move in together.

~*~

They get into their first really serious fight two months after Wally reveals that he’s the Flash.

It’s right after the holidays, and therefore, it is also right after a lull in criminal activity. Even Gotham’s worst tend to take a break around the holiday season. So naturally, as soon as the season’s over, the villains and big bads and wannabes come back back in full force. In short, the League is kinda swamped.

Wally told Dick as much a few days earlier, after a third consecutive cancelled date night and a week of coming home later and later.

Dick, of course, was already well aware of this, but Wally can’t know that, so he just assures Wally that it’s okay and that he understands. Wally’s off saving the world. He’s a hero. Dick loves him, and he’s not upset and they are fine.

Nightwing meets the Flash in the field more often than not on these missions, they work well together and are good friends, despite the fact that Nightwing knows the Flash’s real name, and the Flash only knows Nightwing by his alias. Flash is always full of worry about the way he’s treating his boyfriend, and Nightwing finds it almost endearing.

And then there’s The Mission. Nightwing takes a hit that knocks him flat out during the mission and he has to sit the rest of it out. Flash takes him back to the WatchTower, and sits with him while he’s looked over.

They talk about nothing, the latest League gossip, and ridiculous stories about whatever nonsense Hal and Guy have gotten themselves into recently while Dick’s looked at, and a little while after they’re left alone before Flash’s face turns suddenly serious. He tugs off the cowl and puts his head in his hands.

“Wallman, what’s going on?” Dick asks, careful not to step over the line he’s drawn for himself. Nightwing is nothing more than Wally’s friend. He is not Dick Grayson right now.

Wally makes a wounded noise and lets out a long breath. “I think Dick’s cheating on me.”

And wow. Doesn’t that hit him like a ton of fucking bricks.

“What?” Dick says, disbelieving. Nightwing is concerned for his friend whose boyfriend is maybe cheating. Dick Grayson wants to know how he fucked up this badly.

“You know I told him I’m the Flash a couple months ago, right? Well we’ve been spending nights together more often than not since then. And like, things were going great at first, you know? He took it so well and he wasn’t mad that I kept it from him. He was so understanding. But then I started noticing him sneaking around at night, or coming home ludicrously late or sneaking back in always just a little after I come back from missions, and then he’s always saying he’s working on cases that keep him out late cause that’s when he can meet with informants and stuff, but I don’t know. God, I don’t want it to be true, cause I love him so fucking much but I don’t know what else he could be keeping from me,” Wally says, his voice quiet and slow in a way that’s entirely unlike him.

He promptly begins to feel like the world’s shittiest boyfriend. He’s not cheating, of course he’s not, Nightwing’s just been needed more than usual lately, and with the amount of time he’s spending with Wally, it’s been getting harder and harder to keep it hidden that he’s got a night job as a spandex-clad vigilante.

He wants to pull off his mask right then and there and tell Wally everything. He almost does. But he sees Bruce, Batman, in the doorway and he thinks better of it, knows he can’t do that. He can’t give away his identity, his family’s identities, on an impulse like that.

“I’m sorry Wally,” he says instead, watching Bruce over Wally’s shoulder. “Maybe you should just talk to him. I’m sure you can work it out.”

Wally looks like he’s going to say something more, but Bruce clears his throat then, and Wally jerks in surprise. “I’m gonna zip back planetside. Feel better ‘Wing. Nice talking to you as always Bats.” He gives a sad smile and a mock two-fingered salute and then he’s gone.

Dick glares at Bruce. The effect is kind of lost with the masks in the way, but he thinks he gets his point across.

Bruce taps at the command module by the door and seals the room off.

“I know you heard that,” Dick snaps as soon as the sequence completes itself.

“How are you doing?” Bruce asks, instead of addressing that.

Dick scoffs, swinging his legs off the side of the bed as he sits up. “I’m fine. I know you read my medical report the second it was input. That’s not the important thing right now. The hit I took was nothing. Just winded me. What’s important is that my boyfriend, who I love and care about, thinks I’m cheating on him because you won’t let me tell him who I am.”

“You know the risks.”

“Yeah, I know the risks, B! I’ve always known them! I know there’s a reason we keep our identities secret, but this is different! It’s not like he’s a random civilian or even a random League member. I love him. I trust him with everything I am. And I know he loves me back, and he’s kind and caring and so considerate, and he’s been entirely honest with me about being the Flash and all I’ve done in return is lie to him. I can’t even get changed in front of the man I’ve been dating for eight months cause I can’t let him see my scars. Do you know how awful that feels?”

Bruce says nothing.

“Course not. You’re the Batman. You’re above feeling an attachment like that.”

“Dick,” Bruce growls, and Dick immediately cows.

“Sorry, I know you care about us, I know that, just. This hurts. A lot. To not be able to be honest with him when I love him so much.”

“You know why you can’t. It’s for the best, to keep this all a secret.”

“Yeah, I know. Still feels like shit.”

Bruce unseals the room after that and leaves, satisfied that Dick is not severely injured and is not going to tell Wally that he is Nightwing.

Dick returns to Earth and changes into civilian clothes at a safehouse and heads back to Wally’s apartment where he was supposed to be the whole time.

Wally is standing in the kitchen, staring blankly at the countertop between his hands.

“Hey, you’re back,” Dick says, forcing cheer into his tone. He already knows how this conversation is going to go, and he knows it is not going to go well. “Did it go alright? Is everyone okay?”

“Everyone’s fine,” Wally mutters, and Dick sees that Wally’s phone is on the counter between his hands, that he’s actually staring at an open conversation. Dick just catches the Uncle Barry at the top of the screen before Wally shuts the phone off. “Dick we need to have a talk.”

The way Wally says that hits Dick like a punch to the gut. He tries not to let it show too much.

“About?”

Wally takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly, opens and closes his mouth a couple times like he can’t quite decide what to say.

In the end, it seems, he decides to dive right into the deep end with it. “Dick, are you cheating on me?”

Hearing it a second time doesn’t make it any easier.

Dick can feel his face fall, his shoulders slump. Entirely out of his control. Dick Grayson isn’t as good at concealing his emotions as Nightwing is.

“Wally, how could you say that?” Dick gasps, unable to keep the hurt out of his voice.

“Don’t lie to me. Don’t pretend you haven’t been sneaking around when I’m off on missions and when I go out to patrol at night, and don’t pretend you haven’t been blowing me off with the same ‘it’s for a case’ excuse for months. God, I don’t want this to be true, I don’t want to believe this, but you’re not leaving me with a whole lot of options.. I don’t know what else to think.”

Wally sounds even more hurt than Dick does, and that’s like a shot to the chest. It feels like maybe he’s swallowed a batarang, he’s having so much trouble swallowing around the sudden thing lodged in his throat, trying to strangle him as he watches the man he loves lose every ounce of hero and become every inch an average man.

Dick takes a step forward and Wally takes one back and Dick flinches.

“I’m not cheating on you. I would never. I’m so sorry I’ve been coming back so late and I’ve been so flaky and everything, I’m so sorry, we’ve just been really swamped at the precinct and my captain puts a lot of the extra work on me and Rohrbach cause she knows we’re clean, and that we can be trusted. We’ve just been working double time with this uptick in activity since the holidays are over and most of the CIs we have won’t meet us in the light of day and we need their intel so we’ve gotta go at night and… Wally, I love you with every fiber of my being. I would never cheat on you. Please. You have to believe me.”

Dick feels on the verge of tears by the time he’s done speaking.

He never had this problem when he dated Barbara. They never had to keep identities or nighttime activities from each other.

God he wishes he could just tell him. But that option is not on the table.

Wally nods slowly. “I want to believe you. I really do.”

“But you don’t, do you?”

“I love you, Dick.”

“But do you believe me?”

Wally doesn’t answer.

Dick nods. “I understand. Maybe I should go stay at my place tonight. Call me tomorrow, or whenever you’re feeling a little better about this?”

Wally makes a quiet noise of agreement.

Dick doesn’t even make it back down to his motorcycle before he’s crying.

~*~

Wally does call him the next day, and he apologizes to Dick for accusing him of something like that and he takes Dick out to dinner and he says that they can work through what’s probably just both of them being really stressed about work and he tells Dick that he loves him so many times.

Things look like they might not actually be as terrible as Dick thought they were last night.

Two days later, Dick learns Bruce has a son.

Damian’s barely settled in Gotham before Bruce is dead.

Dick breaks.

Chapter Text

Nightwing never wanted to become the Batman, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

Having lost his father and having his sister run off to Hong Kong and having gained a preteen assassin as a little brother and having learned his previously dead brother is actually alive and on a murder spree?

Dick would call himself desperate.

~*~

It’s an awkward conversation to have with Wally, to say the least.

He’s so busy, with Lucius Fox helping him take control of Wayne Enterprises, and dealing with Jim Gordon and arranging for a leave of absence from the GCPD, and trying to reign in Damian, and keeping track of Jason, and moving into the penthouse, and keeping tabs on Cass in Hong Kong, and trying to figure out what to do about the sudden lack of a real Batman. He’s so busy he can’t even afford the time to go have the conversation in person. It makes him feel, to put it lightly, like an absolute shit person, but he has to let Wally know and he currently cannot leave Damian on his own for longer than thirty seconds. The kid’s a fucking menace. Dami’s honestly not even at the top of Dick’s list of priorities, but he is the most time consuming thing.

They’ve finally gotten the last of the boxes they need into the penthouse and Tim is helping Alfred unpack, while Damian complains that such menial labor is beneath him. It’s the first shred of downtime that Dick’s gotten in the days since Bruce died at Darkseid’s hands, so he takes what he can and tells Alfred he needs to make a phone call.

Alfred, god among men that he is, just nods, and tells him to take all the time that he needs. The sigh of relief that Dick lets out is loud enough that it draws Tim’s attention from the kitchen.

Dick steps out onto the terrace, and taps on Wally’s contact.

His hands shake as the phone rings.

“Hey, what’s up?” Wally’s too cheery voice greets him from the other end of the line.

Dick winces. He knows he’s been upsetting Wally. He hasn’t really been answering calls lately. Or texts. Or even showing up as Nightwing since Superman had brought them their father’s broken body.

It’s been a rough few days.

But to the general public, Bruce Wayne is alive and well and Dick has not just lost his father and gained custody of Tim and Damian and lost his sister to an extended stay on the other side of the globe.

“Hey Walls.” Dick’s voice cracks, he can’t help it.

“What’s wrong?” Wally asks, picking up on Dick’s distress immediately, despite Dick’s attempts to hide it. “I’m up in League HQ right now, are you at home? If you need me, I’ll be there in less than a minute.”

Dick coughs to clear the lump stuck in his throat and forces his voice to steady.

“Nothing’s wrong, babe,” Dick says, keeping his tone carefully light. “But actually, the whole home thing is a little bit of the reason I’m calling. I’m sorry I’ve been so absent for the past few days. But something happened and it changed a lot of things. My dad… uh, Bruce is going away for some business and he’s going to be gone for a really long time. I don’t know how long. None of us do. It’s not something that can be avoided or done by anyone else. So I’m… Walls, I’m taking over Wayne Enterprises while he’s gone. And I’m taking temporary custody of my brothers and sister. Alfred and I are moving us all into Bruce’s penthouse downtown today. I’ve been busy trying to wrangle Damian and arrange for the temporary transfer of the company and custody into my name and taking an extended leave of absence from the GCPD and I just… I’ve been meaning to call you. I’m so sorry.”

Wally lets out a low whistle when Dick finally stops speaking, and Dick can clearly picture the expression he’s making right now. Eyebrows raised and furrowed together, lips pursed, eyes shining. God, Dick misses him. He wishes he could have Wally’s support through this.

But he will be fine.

He is a Bat.

He is Nightwing.

He is a rock.

He’s suddenly found himself responsible for his siblings and a company and so, so many people.

He will not let it get to him.

He will be strong, because strong is what everyone else needs out of him right now.

So he doesn’t break and tell Wally everything in a frantic rush, no matter how much his every instinct is screaming at him to say something .

“Dickie, it’s okay. I don’t think you have anything to apologize for babe. That sounds like… wow. You’ve been doing that all on your own?”

Dick shrugs and then remembers that Wally can’t see him. Good lord, he’s tired.

“It’s not really that much.” It is. “I’ve got it under control.” He doesn’t. “It’s not forever either. Just until Bruce can get this business wrapped up. It’ll be a while, but it’s only temporary.” It isn’t. “But for now. I’m going to be a little busy. I don’t… I don’t want us to take a back burner, but I’ve gotta settle into a whole new routine now. Gotta get used to WE and taking care of the boys and everything.” He has to learn how to be Batman, and holy fuck, he doesn’t want to, he wishes Bruce were here, he wants his dad, he wants someone else to take this cowl and all that it entails. “Is all that okay?” Please, please, he needs someone to stay, needs something to stay the same.

Please don’t leave.

Wally makes a soft noise that Dick can barely pick up over the receiver, and Dick thinks this is it. This is where Wally decides that Dick’s not worth it and breaks up with him cause he could have a much more fulfilling relationship without all this baggage with someone else.

Dick grips the terrace railing and braces himself to lose the one good thing in his life at the moment.

“Dick, babe, you know I love you.”

God, please no, please don’t do this Wally, please, please, please don’t, please stay, please don’t leave, please, pleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease.

“But.”

No, no this can’t be happening, this can’t be happening, he can’t lose Wally too, he can’t lose Wally, he can’t do this, not now, no, no, no, he can’t lose someone else, why does everyone he love leave him, why isn’t he good enough to stick around for, what more does he need to do, why isn’t he good enough, why isn’t he enough.

“I think you’re lying. I don’t think you’re fine at all. This is a lot for anyone to handle. Are you sure you’re alright?”

Dick is stunned into silence.

“Dick? Dickie? Hey, you still with me? Babe, I am not above ditching monitors and running through the entire city of Gotham to find you right now. Dick?” Dick manages a sound of acknowledgement. “Okay. Good. We are fine. I still love you. This changes nothing. You take all the time you need to get used to all of this. I will be there, okay? Whatever you need. Just don’t forget about me, okay? Can you go find Alfred or someone? I have the sneaking suspicion you’re a little stressed and shouldn’t be alone.”

Dick nods like Wally can see him, and lets out a shaky breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. “I could never forget about you Wally. You’re my everything.”

Wally’s soft laugh sounds tinny over the receiver, but it settles something in Dick that he hadn’t even realized was bothering him. “Have you gone to Alfred? Tim? I don’t know who’s around right now, but I want you to find someone. You might have to be the one to take over for your dad while he’s gone, but you don’t have to be alone.” He does, but Wally can’t know that. He has to do this on his own because his siblings are dealing with having lost their father. He’s all they have left. He has to be stronger than he feels, because he is the head of this family now. But Wally doesn’t know that.

He nods, remembers that Wally can’t see him, and then responds. “Yeah, Alf’s here. I’m on the terrace, but they can see me through the window. He’s making the kids unpack boxes. Damian’s pitching a fit about it, but Tim’s helping out. Wish Cass was here, we could use the extra help.”

“What?” Wally asks, distant, like he’s doing something else while he’s talking. Dick remembers something about monitors. He runs through the Justice League roster quickly in his head. Right. Wally’s on monitor duty right now. It’s confirmed when he hears Wally lean away from the phone and shout to Diana and Hal to dispatch them to somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. After a moment, he returns his attention to Dick. “Sorry. What were you saying about your sister? What’s she up to? Why isn’t she there?”

“Hong Kong,” Dick says without explanation, and then, after a beat, he continues, “Cass is on an extended trip to Hong Kong with… no foreseeable end. She’s happy, she’s doing some work for WE and she’s really enjoying herself. I’m happy for her.” His voice does not sound like he’s happy. Wally, bless him, does not call him out on it.

There’s a moment of silence, and then a commotion on the other end of the line and Wally swears. “Dick, babe, I’m so sorry, I’ve gotta actually handle some dispatching, but I am not forgetting about this. I love you, I care about what you’re struggling with right now and I am here for you whatever you need, but I gotta go right now. I love you. I’m sorry. Bye.”

Dick barely gets out a parting word in before the line goes dead.

Dick has to turn away from the window for a moment and take a second to collect himself. He scrubs the tears away from his eyes before they fall and he takes a few deep breaths and plasters a smile on his face and reenters the penthouse to face his family.

Or what remains of it at least.

“Dick!” Tim shouts, at the same time Damian yells, “Grayson!”

Alfred gives Dick a tired look.

“Whatever it is, knock it off, the both of you,” Dick says, weary in a way he’s never felt before. He doesn’t think he can really handle whatever argument his brothers are having at the moment. “And Damian, put down the boxcutter!”

Damian grumbles, but does as he’s told.

Dick begins to wonder if he made a mistake, keeping Damian here with them.

He shakes that thought away as soon as it comes to him. The other option was send him back with his psychotic mother, and there was no way in hell that Dick would ever subject anyone to that, let alone his little brother.

He’ll figure this out.

Bruce is dead.

They have no other choice.

~*~

Tim doesn’t believe that Bruce is dead.

Dick has no idea how to handle this.

It takes him three weeks to confront him about it. Three weeks without a real Batman, without their father, without their sister, with their not-dead-anymore brother running through the streets of Gotham murdering people, with their new brother threatening bodily harm or other ill will at every turn.

Needless to say, the resulting argument threatens to bring the walls down around them.

Dick and Tim have never fought like this before.

It feels so wrong that when they finally settle down, Dick has to excuse himself, because it makes him feel physically ill.

Tim finds him hunched over the toilet in the bunker, and despite Dick’s protests, sits with him until he doesn’t feel so shaky.

Better ending than he could’ve hoped for.

~*~

“I’m going to make Damian Robin.”

“ Excuse me? ” Tim says, his voice dripping venom, as he stands up to face Dick.

Okay. Bad way to start a conversation, it seems.

“Can I start over?”

“Explain yourself, Richard,” Tim bites out, and Dick almost flinches. Almost. “You’re firing me? Are you kidding me? Now of all times?”

“Timmy, this isn’t about you or me,” Dick tries.

“Bullshit it’s not!”

“Language,” Dick chides absently.

“Oh, fuck you! Are you kidding me? You want to make that little monster Robin over me? Dick, how could you do that?” Tim shouts, crowding into Dick’s space.

Dick smacks a hand onto the workbench in front of him so loudly it echoes through the entire bunker. “Tim, sit down ,” Dick roars. Tim sits back on the stool he’d been working from before. “You do not talk about Damian that way, ever , am I clear?” Tim nods, sheepish. “Just. Listen. Please. Please, Tim.” Dick’s voice is quiet now, doesn’t carry any of the weight it did when he was shouting. He’s desperate for Tim to hear him out.

Tim huffs and makes a ‘go on’ gesture, not meeting Dick’s eye.

“This is not me replacing you with Damian, or me not wanting to work with you, or anything that I know you have running through your head right now, Timmy.”

“Sure feels like it is.”

“It’s not,” Dick snaps, shutting that down before Tim can spiral. “Tim, you are an incredible Robin. Maybe even better than I was. And that’s actually the only reason I can make this decision without turning into a nervous wreck. Robin isn’t a forever thing. I always thought it was, but now? I don’t think it ever was meant to be. Maybe you don’t feel like it right now, but you’ve reached a point in… everything. All of this. You can start to create an identity of your own, outside of Batman and Robin, like I did with Nightwing.”

There are tears in Tim’s eyes when Dick ducks his head to meet his brother’s gaze.

“So what?” Tim sniffles, trying and failing to hide it. “I’ve gotten old enough so you’re just going to kick me to the curb, is that what this is? Trade me in for a newer model that’s better equipped for combat?”

Dick crouches a little so he’s closer to Tim’s level, places a hand gently on his shoulder. It breaks his heart that he’s doing this to his baby brother. That he’s the reason Tim’s so upset. But he doesn’t see another way out of this whole situation. And he means it. Tim is more than ready to forge his own path.

“That is not at all what this is, Timmy. You’re not gonna be on your own. I’m not trying to cut you off or cut you out of our lives. But, kiddo, you can start to make your own path now. You have that ability, the skills and the resources and the self discipline. Damian… Damian needs a lot more guidance than any of us ever did. He needs structure and an outlet and to start establishing a good moral compass before his is fucked up beyond all repair. Right now? I think he needs to be Robin. And I think I need someone at my side, a partner, to help me make him Robin instead of… whatever he is now.”

“You’re really not even gonna ask for my input on this, are you?” Tim says, voice quiet. Shaky. “Dick, please. Please, I’ll do better. We can figure something else out for Damian. I’ll help figure something out. Please don’t do this. Please Dick,” Tim begs, and it sounds like a whimper and Dick’s heart shatters into dust in his chest.

He pulls Tim into a tight hug, and Tim clutches at his back like his life depends on it.

“Please, Dick,” he pleads into Dick’s chest. “Don’t replace me.”

Dick just holds him for a moment, rubbing soothing circles into his back through the thin material of his shirt. When Tim’s collected himself a little, Dick pulls back, holding his brother by the shoulders.

“Tim, I love you, so, so much. Okay? I am not replacing you. I am helping you move on to bigger things. Better things that you deserve, okay?”

“I’m not ready!” Tim protests, grabbing desperately at Dick’s wrists.

“I didn’t think I was either.”

“You were though! You were so much better at this than I am!”

“No, I wasn’t. When I first struck out on my own, I had the Titans. When I left Batman, I left him for a team. I had the Titans to support me, and Superman to help me figure out a new identity.”

“I don’t want to stop being Robin. I don’t want to move on.”

Dick cups the side of Tim’s face with one hand and presses a kiss to the top of his head, pulling him into a hug again.

His words are a little muffled by Tim’s hair.

“I don’t think you ever stop being Robin. Robin is more than just the name and the uniform. It stays with you, no matter where you go with it. I’m still Robin. Steph still is, even though she only wore the colors for a little while. Even Jason still is. And you still will be too. Regardless of who wears the uniform, or what you start calling yourself. You’re always Robin. And besides. You were my first Robin, way back when. Nothing will ever even hold a candle to how special that is. And moving on isn’t always bad. Sometimes it’s for the best.”

They stay like that for a long time, Dick just holding his little brother.

It’s about more than Batman and Robin.

“I’m gonna need a new name, I guess,” Tim says after a long stretch of silence.

It’s far from perfect, but they can work with this. He’s not going to lose his brother too. He’s not. He gives Tim one last squeeze and releases him, ruffling his hair just the way he knows Tim hates.

“Hey!” Tim protests indignantly.

“You’ll need a new uniform too. We’ll work on it, okay? This… none of this is an end. Not you taking up a new mantle. Not Damian becoming Robin. Not Bruce dying. It’s all just new beginnings. Even if it doesn’t seem like that quite yet. You know?”

Tim fixes him with a look when he mentions Bruce, but he doesn’t start anything over it, and Dick’s grateful.

“We’ll see. Do I get to help with the Brat’s Robin training?”

“We’ll see.”

~*~

“Hey, Dick, you know I could take up the Nightwing mantle while you’re playing Batman.”

“No.”

“But-”

“Too short. Not bendy enough.”

“Damn you.”

~*~

It’s not long before Robin and Red Robin are hitting the streets of Gotham with Batman.

And it’s not long after that that Tim gets some sort of lead, and takes off, following the thin trail in an effort to prove their dead father is not dead.

Dick is terrified that this is how he will lose another brother, but he does not stop Tim. He meant it when he said that he thought Tim was ready to strike out on his own. He trusts that Tim will be able to take care of himself.

He still calls Tim every other day like clockwork.

~*~

The League knows something is up.

Dick, ever the performer at heart, thinks he’s been doing a fairly good job at impersonating Bruce. He’s a little more open and reasonable, but the gruff and brooding thing is surprisingly easy when he’s balancing Batman and Wayne Enterprises and being a parent and keeping tabs on the siblings he’s got scattered across the globe.

It’s not Dick that’s raising suspicion. Rather, it’s his absence.

Or. Nightwing’s absence.

It hasn’t gone unnoticed.

The new Robin hasn’t either.

Only Superboy comments on the latter. And only to Dick. Damian scares a lot of people.

The former issue though, draws attention from Clark (expected), Diana (not a shock), Roy, Donna, Kori and Victor (no surprise), and Booster Gold (interesting). They all draw Dick aside and quietly inquire after Nightwing’s well-being, a couple of them ask about the change in Robins. Dick brushes them all off with short assurances that everything is fine, and gruff dismissals.

Wally, however, confronts Dick in the middle of the WatchTower, with half the League around to hear.

“Where the hell is he, Bats?”

“Excuse me, Flash?” Dick growls, thankful for the voice modulator in the cowl. He could never sound like this to Wally without technological aid.

“You know what I’m talking about! Where the hell is Nightwing? I know you get off on keeping secrets or whatever, but Nightwing means a lot to everyone in the League, not just you. He’s my best friend. Quit it with the avoidance. What is going on?”

Damian reaches for the katana he keeps on his person at all times when he’s in uniform and Dick stops him with a simple gesture. Dick crowds into Wally’s space, scowl fixed on his face.

He feels sick, acting this way.

But he’s not Dick Grayson.

He’s not even Nightwing.

He’s the Batman, and the Batman does not allow anyone to question him like that. Not on personal matters.

“You do not get to speak to me that way, Wallace.”

They have the attention of every hero in the area now.

“My people are my business not yours,” he rumbles, and then, louder, addressing the group as a whole, “And because all of you seem intent on getting involved where you don’t belong, I will say this once, and only once. Anything about Nightwing beyond his duty status with the League is irrelevant to everyone here! He is alive, he is well, and he has been removed from all League rosters indefinitely. Anything more than that is none of your goddamn business, do I make myself clear?”

Dick voice is a roar by the time he finishes.

There is a chorus of ‘yes, sir’s that follow his statement, and Wally looks… kind of terrified. Dick feels a little like he’s going to be sick.

“Lantern, put me and Robin on the ground. We have more important things to be handling.”

Hal complies and fires up the zeta, and Dick and Damian have boots on the ground in Gotham before anyone can really react to Dick’s statement any further than general shock.  

At least Dick makes it back to the bunker before he loses his lunch.

~*~

Tim tells him he thinks he has a solid lead on Bruce the next time they talk. He seems to be settling into his new identity fairly well, seems to have found a purpose in looking for Bruce, no matter how pointless Dick thinks it

Cass has only gotten faster at signing the next time they video chat, and Dick almost has trouble understanding her, but he keeps up, if only barely. She’s found a good place in Hong Kong. She seems genuinely happy.

Steph makes a point to cross his path every few patrols. Batgirl fits her, Dick thinks.

Babs is a constant presence, keeping them all connected as they work.

Damian is settling into Robin as well as can be expected. He’s still incredibly violent, but he’s improving. Dick is proud.

Jason punches him in the face, the first time they run into each other. It’s… that’s a work in progress, he guesses. But Jason is at least alive and back in Gotham, and happy, even if he is happy because he’s putting bullets in criminals. Dick will take what he can get.

He’s happy for his siblings, his family.

They are all moving forward.

He only wishes he could too.

But stuck living Bruce’s life for him?

Dick’s stuck in the past.

~*~

Wally notices.

Dick lies.

More often than not, Dick is lying to his boyfriend, as of late.

He really doesn’t like it.

He still does it.

He tells Wally that it turns out that Jason, who they all thought dead, had been mistakenly identified, after the explosion they all thought killed him. He had merely gone missing, and had returned, alive and well, but seriously changed from his missing years. He’s not talking to them at the moment.

He tells Wally that Cass is in Hong Kong to study and do Wayne Enterprises related things and that is all.

He tells Wally that Tim is visiting her and travelling to study foreign cultures to better understand how business works all over the world.

He tells Wally that Damian’s mother is abusive, and that is why he cannot stay with her while Bruce is gone.

He tells Wally that before Bruce left, he was going to begin the process of adopting Stephanie, which is why she’s seen coming and going from the penthouse so often. She’s family.

And he tells Wally that his father is still alive.

Hush shows up to a gala wearing Bruce Wayne’s face to prove it. It is the most stressful evening of Dick’s entire life to date.

He didn’t invite Wally for obvious reasons, but those reasons are not known to Wally, so, of course, because it’s exactly what Dick needs, it leads to an argument.

“What, are you embarrassed or something?” Wally asks him from his seat in the penthouse kitchen, the day after the gala that Dick had entirely neglected to mention to Wally.

Dick makes a hurt exasperated weary noise and shakes his head. They’ve been arguing for well over an hour now, and Dick is still exhausted from the night before. “No. Of course not, Wally! I’m a circus kid! Do you think I care what those pompous assholes say about me anymore?”

“Well you obviously do, if you hid the fact that there was a Wayne Gala happening just so you wouldn’t have to take me along!”

“Do you really care that much about some stupid gala?” Dick shoots back, deflecting.

“No! Jesus, do you think I’m that shallow? I care that you lied and hid it from me! I know you’ve been under a lot of stress lately, but this is ridiculous.”

“We’re just going in circles now. This is absurd,” Dick mutters.

Wally scoffs.

“Right. Of course it is,” he bites back, standing and grabbing his coat so quickly that it knocks his chair over. He doesn’t right it, instead storming out of the penthouse after shouting. “When you find some sense, we can finish this discussion.”

Dick rights the chair, leans his forearms on the back of it, leans his head on his arms, and cries.

~*~

Dick nearly lets the Riddler get away from him the next night, and Damian will not let it go. In all fairness, it was a wretched mistake, one he never should have made, but still. He’d fixed it. He’s only human, after, what more can Damian expect?

A lot more, apparently.

“You’re a fool, Grayson,” Damian repeats for the millionth time, as they’re in the batmobile on the way back to the bunker.

Dick tightens his grip on the wheel, and does not acknowledge Damian’s complaints.

Robin only redoubles his effort to get a reaction out of his Batman.

“You are a disgrace to this family. To the name of Batman.”

“Damian,” Dick grunts in warning.

“You are unworthy of my father’s cowl!”

Dick snaps, smacking a hand against the steering wheel loudly. Damian almost jumps. Almost.

“Do you think I care?”

“You should care, if you insist on taking his mantle when it’s rightfully mine!”

“I never wanted this! Do you know how long I spent trying to get out of Bruce’s shadow? How long I spent forging my own path and creating my own identity away from Batman? Do you know how hard it is for me to put on this cowl every night? But Gotham needs a Batman, and so do you so you’re going to have to deal with it! I’m all we’ve got right now!”

Dick doesn’t notice his foot pushing down on the accelerator bit by bit.

He takes a sharp turn that almost tosses him against the door.

“You’re weak, Grayson,” Damian spits. “My father would be ashamed of you.”

“If it meant he were still here, I’d take it! You think you’re the only one who misses him? You think you were the only son he had just because you’re the only who who shared his blood? Bruce was my father for longer than my biological father was!”

“Grayson,” Damian says softly, like he’s worried about interrupting.

“He was my father just as much as he was yours! He raised me! He trained me! He was my Batman. He was all I had for so long and he’s dead now! I lost him, just like you did, but I also lost Tim and Cass and I’m losing Wally, and Jason’s out of control and I can’t help him!”

“Grayson.”

“And you think it’d bother me if he were ashamed? I’d take it if I could see him just one more time! I can’t even find a way to move on like all the others! I don’t get to strike out on my own or move to Hong Kong or separate from the family! No! I’m stuck living his life for him! I have to wear the cowl and run his company and raise his fucking son and I have to grin and bear it because that’s what’s expected but this is the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and you have the nerve to call me wea-”

“Grayson!” Damian shouts, and Dick swerves, but it’s too late.

He’s going too fast and the turn is too sharp, and he’s too out of control of the batmobile.

He releases the steering wheel and twists, throwing himself in front of Damian as best he can and the car collides with the corner of the building in front of them.

Dick distantly thinks he hears someone scream, and his first worry is “Oh god, Damian,” but then he tries to move and no. That was him. There’s a small piece of rebar that made it through the windshield and Dick’s suit, and if it didn’t hurt so damn much, he’d be impressed that the metal made it through so much reinforced material.

But there’s at least three inches of rebar sticking out of side, so the only thing he can really think is ‘jesus fuck this hurts’ and ‘at least it wasn’t Damian’.

“Grayson,” Damian says, and his voice sounds almost worried. “Grayson, are you injured?”

Dick groans in response and shifts so Damian can see the rebar sticking out of him, and he thinks he hears Damian draw in a sharp breath.

“Y’good?” Dick slurs out, trying to push himself up off of Damian. He manages to shove himself upright, the rebar still stuck firmly into him. With a little wiggling, Damian crawls across him to the driver’s seat. He’s about to protest when Damian cuts him off.

“I have known how to drive for a long time now, Grayson. You are injured, and the autopilot functionality has been damaged. I will return us to the bunker safely.”

He says it so confidently that Dick can’t find it in him to argue, and he passes out as Damian carefully extracts the batmobile from ruin of the building.

He comes to in the bunker, when a jolt of pain jerks him awake as Alfred helps him out of the batmobile.

“Dami… S’Dami okay?” he asks, trembling with the effort of just standing.

Is he injured?

Rebar, he remembers when he looks down and sees the metal protruding from just below his ribcage.

He crashed the batmobile.

He’d gotten so upset, he’d crashed the batmobile, with Damian in it with him.

He curses under his breath. Alfred, surprisingly, doesn’t chastise him for the language.

“I’d say that is an apt reaction, Master Dick,” he says instead, as he helps Dick onto a cot.

Dick wheezes something that might be a laugh and tries to lie back.

The action makes the rebar shift ever so slightly, and it’s like fire coursing through his veins, and Dick screams and passes out again.

Chapter Text

The next time Dick wakes up, there is no longer a metal rod in his side, he’s been stripped of the cowl and the batsuit, he’s been stitched up, and there’s a clean gauze pad covering the wound.

Someone’s talking in hushed tones over Dick’s bed, or no. Two someones.

It takes him a moment longer to identify the someones as Damian and Alfred.

Alfred is talking in hushed tones. Damian is speaking in angry ones.

No.

Not angry.

That tinge in his voice is guilt.

Dick doesn’t move, wants to know what’s gotten Damian to sound like that. To sound so young. So much his age.

“He was visibly upset and I continued to push him. I did not realize the burden that he is under,” Damian is saying, and oh. They’re talking about him. Huh. “I am only adding to it.”

“Master Damian, that is preposterous. You are not a burden to anyone. You are a part of this family.”

“He does not want me.”

Alfred makes a noise that is entirely unlike him and he thinks if he doesn’t get a word in to defend himself when he ‘wakes up’, Alfred might kill him.

“What makes you think that?”

There’s a beat of silence and Dick almost opens his eyes.

“He said he is unable to live his own life, while he is running Father’s company, and wearing his cowl and raising me. I think it may be for the best for me to return to my mother. So as to avoid any further incidents like this one. It won’t do for the Batman to be compromised like that again. Drake can return to his post, though he will be inadequate at it, surely. It will be better for Richard.”

Dick’s eyes flutter open in his shock.

Damian has never used his first name before.

“Master Richard, it’s good to see you awake.”

Oh yeah. He’s in trouble with Alfred for sure.

He plows right through that, it’s a problem for later. He tries to sit up, and that’s a horrible, horrible mistake, but he forces himself to anyway, because he needs to look Damian in the eyes as he says this, he needs to know that his baby brother understands that he never meant for that to be a cut on him.

“Damian,” he grunts out through a grimace. His side is screaming at him in pain but he needs to say this. “Damian, look at me, kid.” A beat, and then Damian does. His lower lip is trembling, like he’s trying to contain some emotion, and he looks his age for the first time since Dick’s met him and it’s his fault that Damian’s defenses are stripped like this and he hates himself. He has never hated himself more than he hates himself in this very moment. “I did not mean that I didn’t want you when I said that. Yeah, adapting to being your guardian has been stressful, it’s different, and it… all of this is keeping me from moving on about Bruce. It is, but not a single bit of that is your fault, do you understand me? The only way you’re going back to your mother is over my cold, dead body, and trust me, I know how likely that is, considering her occupation, but I don’t care. I am not letting you go. You are a part of this family. You are a brother to me, no matter what I am to you. I never meant to make you feel unwanted. Do you understand me, Damian?”

Dick is gasping for breath by the end of his little speech, but it’s all worth it for the way that Damian’s lips quirk in the closest he ever comes to a smile. He throws himself at Dick and wraps his arms around his brother’s neck and Dick lets out a cry of pain, but grabs Damian in a tight one-armed hug to make sure Damian doesn’t draw away.

He’s the one who breaks the hug after a few moments, collapsing back to the cot, panting for breath.

“Pennyworth, I think he’s torn his stitches,” Damian says cautiously.

He clenches his hands into tiny fists to hide their shaking, but Dick sees it anyway. He reaches out and clutches Damian’s hand while Alfred fixes the stitches he pulled and Damian, surprisingly, does not pull away.

Dick’s so incredibly proud of his little brother’s progress.

He only wishes he could brag to someone (Wally) about it.

It’s fine. He’ll live.

~*~

It’s not really fine. The end of the quarter, whatever that means, is fast approaching at Wayne Enterprises. There was an Arkham breakout two days ago. Jason set off an explosion that killed twenty three of the Joker’s henchmen the night before. The League has been a mess for the past few days, after an incident that had required an all hand on deck call. Damian has just started school, and hates it with a fiery passion. Tim is running himself ragged on a search for a dead man.

Dick is at the end of his rope, but he’s the only thing Gotham’s got at the moment. He’s trying to keep Damian and Steph from spreading themselves too thin, but he’s stretched so far he’s about to snap.

He’s being held together with will power to rival a Lantern’s.

~*~

The injuries are easy enough to hide from the people at WE, and from the League, and he can keep the worst of it from Damian.

A bruised collarbone, a couple of cracked ribs, a not-serious-but-still-incredibly-painful injury right where his hip bone juts out on his right side, and impressive collection of bumps and bruises.

And then he gets a whole night alone with Wally for the first time in weeks.

They have a dinner that isn’t ruined by argument, and return to Wally’s apartment to a few hours that they both know will not be interrupted by League calls on either of their parts. Clark said he’d make sure of it.

It’s nice. It’s relaxing. Dick is actually enjoying himself for the first time in months.

Wally presses into his space and Dick finds himself on his back on the couch and this is more than enjoyable and he knows that he’ll have to eventually put a stop to it, but while it’s just making out like teenagers on a couch, it’s fine and it’s fun and… painful?

That’s not right.

Oh.

The hole in his side from the rebar.

Dick keeps tearing the stitches while he is patrolling so it isn’t healing as quickly as it should and the heel of Wally’s hand has just found it by chance and pressed down hard and Dick screams before he can even think about biting back the sound.

Wally is off of him and across the room faster than Dick can even take half a breath.

“What’d I do? Dick are you okay? Did I do something wrong?”

Dick sits up slowly, taking slow, measured breaths. He waves at Wally almost dismissively while he breathes through the pain and collects himself and thinks of an excuse.

He says something that’s… probably as close to the truth as he’s ever told, at least about things concerning night-job-related-nonsense. “I forgot to tell you. I knew I was forgetting something,” he whispers, like he hadn’t meant to keep this from Wally.

“Forgot to tell me what?” Wally says, his voice impossibly soft as he takes a few careful steps forward to stoop in front of the couch.

Dick takes a deep breath. “I got in a car accident the other day. Me and Damian,” he says, casting his eyes to the side. “I was so tired and stressed and I wasn’t paying enough attention and I… Dami’s fine, but I got a nasty cut on my side.” Well isn’t that putting it mildly. There had been three inches of rebar inside of him. “You just pushed at the wrong spot, it’s okay. I’m okay. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Wally inches closer and rests his forehead on Dick’s knee. He’s got a bruise there, but he doesn’t say anything. “Jesus, Dickie. You scared the shit out of me. I thought I… I don’t know. I don’t know what I thought. I’ve never heard you make a noise like that. Any other bumps and bruises I should know about?”

Dick shakes his head, and uses the hand that isn’t curled protectively around his middle to cup Wally’s chin and lift his face so he can look at him.

“All good,” he lies. The others are… inconsequential. “Come back up here?”

Wally takes the invitation with a smile and a kiss pressed to Dick’s jaw, and Dick finds himself on his back once again, with Wally’s body pressing against his.

It doesn’t take long before Dick’s panting for breath and his ribs and his side are screaming at him and Wally’s hand is starting to ruck up his shirt and Dick has to pull away and gasp out a desperate “Stop,” before he makes a mistake and lets this go further than he really can.

Wally backs off as soon as Dick pulls back from him, still hovering over him, but not making a move otherwise. He must read the apology in Dick’s eyes, no matter how hard Dick tries to hide it, because Dick doesn’t even so much as open his mouth before Wally says, “You have nothing to apologize for, babe. I know we’ve been going through one hell of a rough patch, but you still don’t owe me this. You never will. It’s okay.”

Dick loves Wally so goddamn much.

He just really wishes he could share all of himself with Wally the way Wally’s shared all of himself with Dick.

“Oh, jesus, fuck, Dick, you’re bleeding.” That snaps Dick out of his thoughts very quickly. Shit. He must’ve torn his stitches again. There’s little spots of blood on his shirt. “Was it bad enough that you had to have stitches in it? You might’ve torn them. Can I…?”

Wally reaches for the hem of Dick’s shirt as he speaks. He doesn’t even get the full question out before Dick is flinching violently away from him. His entire body protests that movement.

“Hey, okay. I’m sorry. I was only going to ask if you’d let me see it. You don’t have to. You should probably go to a doctor, to have it checked out, if it’s bleeding again,” Wally suggests gently.

Dick nods, staring a little numbly down at the spots on his shirt.

“We have a family doctor I can call. I suppose I should be getting home then,” Dick says, a little sadly.

Wally doesn’t protest.

Dick thanks him for the night and kisses him like it’s the last time he’ll ever see him and heads back to the penthouse.

He doesn’t answer Alfred when he asks how Dick tore the stitches this time.

He really fucking hates being Batman.

~*~

He sends Clark on a mission that nearly gets him killed.

He sends Donna and Kori on a mission he knows they’ll never be able to forget.

He sends Diana on a mission that has her coming back so distraught that she tears through six punching bags in the WatchTower gym before anyone can even think about approaching her.

He sends Roy on a mission that keeps him away from Lian for far too long.

He sends Wally on a mission that almost costs him the use of his legs.

He really really really fucking hates being Batman.

~*~

Lucius can only do so much to keep the Wayne Enterprises vultures off of his back, and he’s not Bruce, so there’s only so much they’ll tolerate from him, so he doesn’t get nearly as much sleep as he’d like to get. Batman keeps him up well into the early hours of the morning, and Wayne Enterprises is there each morning to wake him up with business jargon he doesn’t understand, and meetings he’s wildly unprepared for and this was absolutely always Tim’s place. Tim was always the one of them that was better at this. Dick is so out of his depth.

But there’s no one to take his place.

He has to do this.

Damian’s teachers keep calling him because Damian is a discipline problem in class. It falls to the back burner as he comes home each night with worse and worse injuries and less and less sleep.

He can’t bring himself to care. He gives Damian a verbal slap on the wrist after the third call and that’s all he can bring himself to really do about the issue and he goes on patrol and comes home with a knife in his shoulder and falls asleep while Alfred is stitching him up.

Dick wonders what changed, when he gets no more calls from Damian’s teachers.

He doesn’t see the look of worry his brother has each time he comes home more and more burned out.

He feels like he’s going to collapse from exhaustion, but he still patrols and goes to work and helps Damian with his homework when he’s asked and he stays awake when he could catch a few hours of sleep to talk to Tim or Cass instead.

He’ll manage. He always does.

~*~

He hasn’t slept in forty-one hours when he gets an urgent call from the League that he answers despite the fact that a man with better self-preservation instincts would not.

He answers the call and performs as expected when they look to him for guidance and he does not let anyone see how tired he is.

He should’ve known it all would’ve caught up with him eventually.

They go on the mission. It all goes to plan.

Well, all of it, except the bit where Dick goes back to the WatchTower with a piece of rebar stuck into his chest that had come dangerously close to shattering his collarbone when it hit him.

He’d let out a hysterical laugh at the familiarity of the situation if he didn’t feel like he was about to die.

Oh god, he’s going to die.

He’s going to die and he’ll never have gotten to say goodbye to Tim or Damian or Cass or Steph or Babs or Jason.

He’s going to die and he will have died failing everyone he cares about.

He thinks it’s fitting, considering how he’s spent the rest of his life doing that.

Diana holds him down and Clark wrenches the metal from his chest and Dick screams.

Pain lances through every inch of his body and, god, who is screaming like that, who is making that godforsaken noise?

It’s him, he realizes distantly, and while he can stop the ear splitting screams, he can’t stop himself from making the ragged, broken, pathetic whimpering noises.

He can feel Clark ripping away the kevlar of the batsuit, and Diana still holding him down by his one good shoulder and the gaping hole in his chest is agony and the rest of his body just aches and throbs and it all hurts so much, he hurts so bad, he wants his family, he wants to not be alone for this, he’s so tired of being alone and exhausted and in pain and he just wants it to stop stop stop stop stop.

He doesn’t realize he’s been speaking aloud until Diana is muttering soothing words in hushed tones, and Clark is waving someone over and then there is magic rushing through his body, holding him still and slowly, so goddamn slowly, making him sleep.

~*~

He jolts awake with a shout and immediately regrets every movement he’s ever made in his entire life.

He barely has time to register that he’s not alone in the room before there are hands gently pushing him back down to the mattress.

“Woah, woah, easy, Dick. You took quite the hit there. The magic could only do so much.”

Clark’s voice would be soothing in any other situation. As it is, Dick’s eyes snap open again, and he stares at Clark through the cowl lenses.

“Excuse me?” The voice modulator is still active. He sounds very strange with the mechanics altering his weak and scratchy voice.

“Dick, I pulled over two feet of metal through your chest last night. There’s only so much that-”

Dick cuts Clark off roughly.

“Why are you calling me that?”

Clark blinks owlishly, and furrows his brow in confusion. “Because it’s your name?” he says, slowly, like he’s not sure it’s the answer Dick’s looking for.

“How the fuck do you know that?” he bites out, and the ‘Batman’ voice actually throws some weight this time.

At first glance, it would seem like it does because he’s angry.

It is because he is terrified.

Clark doesn’t say anything for a moment and Dick almost panics. “How do you know that!” he shouts again.

“Bruce told me and Diana, years ago, Dick. Just after your brother died.”

“Get Diana and seal the room.”

Clark does as Dick commands.

Diana arrives and the room is sealed and the cowl comes off and Diana gasps.

“My gods, Richard, when was the last time you properly slept?”

“That’s irrelevant,” Dick retorts quickly, deflecting the question, mostly because he doesn’t really know the answer.

He maneuvers himself upright, a feat made more difficult be the fact that he can really only use one arm. He glares at Clark and Diana when they move to help him, determined to do this on his own.

He can’t appear any weaker than he already does.

He’s fine. There’s a hole in his chest. But he’s fine.

He has to be.

“How long have you both known about this?” he demands, making a vague gesture at his face.

The implication is clear enough.

“Were you not aware we knew your civilian identity, Richard?” Diana asks, and that look of concern on her face is only getting worse, her forehead creasing with worry.

“No. I was not.”

“We have both known since Jason passed. Your father was distraught, and we both became concerned for his well being, and began inquiring after him frequently. Eventually, he told us who he was, and who you were as well.”

“Bruce came to trust us a lot more after that. He told us about your siblings too, and Barbara and Stephanie, as they each came along. And your cousin Kate too. We both assumed that you knew. That’s why we’ve been asking after Nightwing so often recently. We could never get you really alone, but we assumed that you’d understand that asking about Nightwing meant we were asking how you were doing. Becoming Batman can’t be easy, and we know that you’ve taken on a lot more recently too.” Clark says this all very plainly, like Dick’s whole world isn’t inverting as Clark speaks.

Diana places a hand on his arm and gives it what is supposed to be a reassuring squeeze. He hisses at the sensation, though, because Diana’s hand has found a place under his suit that is currently home to a still-healing second degree burn. She withdraws like she’s the one who’s been burned.

Dick takes a moment to breathe through the pain and assess the state of his body and try to pick apart the disaster that is his mind at the moment.

In the end, he says softly, but with feeling, “What the fuck.” It’s not a question, merely a statement. An observation of the tornado swirling around him and making a mess of his life.

“Dick?” Clark says carefully.

Dick hates people tiptoeing around him. He’s not fragile.

Instead of responding to Clark, he just switches off the voice modulator and repeats himself, louder this time. “What the fuck!”

“Richard.” That’s Diana. He hears her, but does not register what she says.

“That giant hypocrite,” he mutters, almost to himself, now. He hardly remembers the others in the room with him. “He spends my whole life telling me I can never let anyone know my civilian ID and then he goes and tells you guys his without a second thought! What, do his rules just not apply to him? Is this just… I can’t believe him! He makes us isolate ourselves from everyone cause he says it’ll keep us safe and then he goes and gets himself killed and leaves us to pick up the pieces on our own when he was never doing this on his own in the first place? Did he not understand how hard it’d be for us to keep this quiet? For me to keep this from Wally, or for Tim to keep this from his friends, or, I mean hell, even Jason’s kept his identity secret and he was hell-bent on seeing Bruce dead  for a while! Did he even care at all? He… I…” Dick stammers for words for a moment, his hands trembling as he clenches them into fists and relaxes them and clenches them again, over and over and over and over and-

“Dick, hey, you still with us?”

Dick jumps at Clark’s voice, looking over at him with wide eyes.

His entire body protests when he flinches. His breathing is getting heavier and his teeth feel fuzzy and his skin feels jittery and this feels an awful lot like an anxiety attack, only he hasn’t had one of those since he was a child.

Diana places her hands over his in a gesture that’s so motherly it makes him want to cry.

“You have every right to be upset, that you were not included in the decision to tell me and Clark your identity. I cannot imagine the burden you have been under since your father passed, and I am so very sorry that you did not know that you could reach out to us for help sooner. But you know now. We will provide whatever support we can,” Diana says and she goes to pull away, but Dick flips his hands over and catches hers in a white knuckled grip. He needs some form of contact right now or he’s going to shake apart.

He wants his dad.

“And Dick?” Clark says quietly, the softness of his voice completely out of place coming from a man who can bend steel with his pinkies. “Bruce absolutely cared about how keeping this secret affected you. But he thought it was best to keep you and your siblings safe. All he ever wanted was to keep you safe. He told us that enough times. He loved you all so much.”

Diana extracts one of her hands from his grip to brush his sweat-damp hair away from his forehead. She leaves her hand gently cupping the side of his face and Dick blinks and he’s not looking up at Wonder Woman, he’s looking at his mom, and he blinks again and she’s gone and his dad’s still gone and Bruce is still gone and he’s alone and every wall he’s spent months reinforcing crumbles to dust under Diana’s gaze.

Batman does not get upset or show any emotion other than occasional bouts of anger and he most certainly does not cry. But right now, even though he is wearing the Batman’s suit, he is Dick Grayson and he misses his family and he wants nothing more than for someone to tell him this’ll be okay. Someone to help him make sense of the madness. Even Bruce was allowed that, it seems.

It hits him all very suddenly. He’s not the original Batman. Not by a long shot. That someone might’ve been Clark and Diana for Bruce. But Dick is not Bruce. They are not his someone, much as he loves them. He has a someone.

“My communicator,” he gasps, certain his words are near incoherent with how much of a goddamn emotional mess he is at the moment. Clark understands him anyway, and fishes it out of his utility belt. Bruce must’ve told him what pouch it was stored in, he thinks absently.

“Do you want me to call one of your siblings?” Clark asks, looking to Diana briefly before passing the comm unit to Dick when Dick shakes his head, a little wildly. He wants to speak to his siblings, but not yet. Not while he’s like… this. They can’t see him so broken.

He doesn’t speak, doesn’t think he could if he wanted to. Instead, wordlessly, he sends out an emergency call to the Flash, before he can think better of it, giving him the details of their location and nothing more.

He instructs the WatchTower’s computer to unseal the room, but only for the Flash. It takes ninety-two seconds for message to go through and for the Flash to come careening into the room, his cowl askew, costume in a state of disarray.

His eyes settle on Clark first, and he speaks before looking anywhere else. “Clark? I. Fuck, shit, is Bart okay? Why am I needed in medical? What happened?” he says, without a breath between words, just barely slow enough for Dick to make out.

Clark makes a helpless gesture towards the cot, and Wally finally glances down and Dick can hear his breath leave him in a rush.

“Dick?” he says, disbelieving.

Dick, still heaving for breath, just nods and finally, finally , lets the tears begin to fall.

Chapter Text

It takes Wally a few minutes to really process what he’s seeing, and then he’s babbling faster than Dick can understand. It makes Dick’s head spin when Wally’s hands start vibrating in his rush, and Dick finds himself clutching at Diana’s hand to steady himself.

“Wallace,” Diana says gently, and goddamn, is Dick glad she’s here.

Wally abruptly stops moving all together, going eerily still for a split second before he takes a shaky breath and steps closer to the bed.

“Jeez, Dickie. You’ve really done a number on yourself haven’t you?” is the first comprehensible thing out of Wally’s mouth and it’s not a dismissal, and Dick’s daring to get his hopes up.

He still can’t make himself speak, so instead he signs, struggling to make his arm on his injured side work properly.

He manages. Diana translates for him. Bless that woman.

I’m so sorry I’ve been lying, he signs, because it’s the only thing he can think to say and he just wants Wally to tell him this is all fine and that they’ll be fine and that he’ll be okay and that this isn’t all his fault cause he’s a giant fuck up that can’t do anything right.

Diana looks at him for a moment, as if silently asking him if this is really the first thing he wants to say to Wally, and he nods, biting the inside of his cheek and wringing his hands together.

She relays what he’s said, and Wally’s face falls, and Dick thinks this is it. This is where Wally breaks up with him. He finally brings himself to break his dead father’s number one rule and it’s going to cost him the love of his life.

His breath hitches in his chest and suddenly he’s struggling for breath even more than he was just a moment ago and Wally’s at his side faster than the blink of an eye.

He’s so, so careful about Dick’s injury, but as he gathers Dick into a hug, Dick still lets out a quiet whimper. Wally doesn’t know about all of the other injuries, through no fault of his own. He tries to pull away as soon as he hears Dick, but Dick was anticipating that. He’s got an arm around Wally’s shoulders to prevent him from drawing back before the speedster can even think of moving. He can handle a little bit of pain, if it means Wally will stick around just a little longer.

He’s probably a little touch starved, if he’s being honest with himself.

Wally, amazing man that he is, patiently waits for Dick to collect himself before he extracts himself from his boyfriend’s desperate grasp and sits on the edge of the bed. He pushes his cowl completely off of his head, like he’s only just remembering that it’s there and drags a hand through his hair, taking a shaky breath. He stares at some invisible spot on the floor and is quiet for a long moment.

“You. I… Jesus Christ. My boyfriend’s the one in the bat furry suit.”

There’s a beat where the room goes deadly quiet, and then Dick bursts into peals of hysterical laughter that make his whole body ache, but he hasn’t laughed, really truly laughed, in so long that he can’t bring himself to care.

Diana is dumbstruck for a moment, as is Clark, but they are quick to follow Dick in the direction of hysterics. Wally doesn’t hold a straight face either.

It doesn’t last for long before Dick is grimacing in pain, and there’s blood spotting the bandage peeking through the gaping hole in the batsuit.

Clark rests a hand on Dick’s good shoulder and makes him lie back a little so he’s not putting so much strain on his body. He’ll have to have someone double check those stitches, but it can wait. He’s got his boyfriend in front of him and he’s telling the truth for the first time and god it feels so good to not have everything clouded by lies that Dick’s dizzy with it.

Or maybe he’s still dizzy from the massive blood loss earlier.

Semantics.

The room settles, and Clark pulls back the gauze to make sure the stitches are okay, even though Dick waves him off, and x-rays his chest despite his protests and Clark makes a really unhappy face when he does that, but he and Diana leave the room and reseal it, giving Dick and Wally some privacy.

Dick’s grateful for it, though he’s sure he’ll get some sort of lecture about the state his body’s in the next time Clark gets him alone. That’s a problem for future-Dick though.

Wally worries his lower lip between his teeth and studies Dick’s face for a moment before he finally breaks the tense silence.

“So. Batman, huh? Of all the things, I never… Batman?”

Dick casts his eyes downward, fiddling with the thin sheet over his legs.

“Robin first. Then Nightwing. Now Batman, cause it’s how I was needed,” Dick explains, and it’s not nearly enough, but it’s all he can make himself say.

Wally actually balks at that. “You… you’re Nightwing?”

Dick nods. “I was the first Robin and when B fired me when I was sixteen, when I doing stuff with the Titans, I kinda freaked. I was on my own, so Clark told me that story from Krypton, about Nightwing and Flamebird. I took that name. Moved to the Haven. It was good, but I guess I realized I belonged in Gotham. So I moved back. I helped train the new Robins and I made up with B, and then…” Dick’s chest seizes and his throat closes up and his words are choked off before he can form them. He calms himself, and then says quietly. “And then Bruce died and now I’m Batman, because there was no one else to take it.”

Wally’s face goes very, very pale. “You don’t mean Bruce your father Bruce right? I thought he was just on business,” Wally says, like he’s hoping for some other Bruce to have suddenly cropped up in their lives.

Dick shakes his head and scrubs under his eyes with the back of a hand. “No. I mean Bruce, my father. He’s the original Batman. I mean, I was the Bat for a little bit while he took a break, but other than that, it’s always been him. And the… Darkseid. He-Batman died during Darkseid’s attack. There was no medical miracle. He died. My dad’s dead,” Dick whispers, his voice shaking and cracking and it feels so real now, acknowledging Bruce’s death to Wally.

“But he was at an event two weeks ago. He’s been to half a dozen big things since the Darkseid thing.”

Dick shakes his head. “Tommy Elliot. Hush. He’s been… wearing Bruce’s face. It’s why I haven’t let you come to any of them. I spend all my time trying to corral him, make sure nothing goes wrong. You’d’ve noticed something was up.”

“Jesus, Dickie.”

“It’s why Cass left for Hong Kong. It hurt her too much to stay. And Tim’s gone, cause he thinks Bruce is still alive and he’s trying to find proof and Damian’s mother is actually Talia al-Ghul, like, the League of Assassins al-Ghuls, and Jason isn’t back from being missing, he died , and Damian’s mother brought him back with a Lazarus Pit and he’s been running around murdering people and I’m living Bruce’s life for him and pretending nothing’s wrong, because I’m the fucking Batman and that’s what I have to do.”

Dick’s chest aches when he finishes.

It’s not from the hole in it.

Wally is stunned into silence.

After a moment, he reaches out and carefully, so, so carefully, cups Dick’s face with a hand. He’s wary of the dark bruise on Dick’s chin, and the rough material of his uniform’s glove feels funny against Dick’s face, but he leans into the touch anyway.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Wally asks, a little sadly.

Dick lets out a noise that’s closer to a sob than anything else and grabs Wally’s wrist.

He takes a second to collect himself and then forces words out of his mouth, despite the fact that it’s being very uncooperative.

“I couldn’t. It’s. Well. I mean, my family isn’t exactly unknown. We’re really public people. And the people we deal with, the Joker, Two-Face, Bane, they’re all really dangerous. Most of them don’t even have plans for world domination or whatever, they just want to cause chaos and pain and if anyone were ever to find out our identities, or that someone knew our identities, it’d be so, so dangerous for us and for everyone we care about, and I was so scared for you. And before I was even worried about that, Batman gave a gag-order. None of us have ever told anyone our identities. Except apparently Bruce told Clark and Diana, but I… I don’t know how I feel about that. Not the point. Mostly I was just afraid. I’ve always known who you are, Wally. I’ve got files and contingencies for every League member, past and present, that B set up as he met each of them. You and Barry and Bart included. And I haven’t just been keeping who I am from you. I’ve--”

“You’ve been hiding that you knew who I am, too.”

Wally pulls away.

Dick lets him.

“I’m so sorry,” Dick all but whimpers, biting his lip and casting his eyes to the side. He’s trying really hard not to cry. Really, really hard.

Silence settles over them and it’s uncomfortable in a way it never is between them. Dick hates this, hates that he’s done this to their relationship.

How could he have let it get so bad? How did he let this happen?

Wally takes a deep breath and Dick braces himself.

“I love you, this doesn’t change that,” he says, slowly, like he’s picking each word carefully. “But this is a lot. I just. I need a little bit of time to, you know. Process. This is not me breaking up with you. Not even close. I love you and thank you so much for finally telling me. I just want some time. I’ll still be there if you need anything from me, of course I will. Just. You know. I think a little space for a few days would be a good idea.”

Dick nods, still unable to look at Wally. “I understand. Take all the time you need. I, uh, I think I need to call my siblings, now. Let them know I’m awake and okay.”

Wally gives him a soft smile and presses a kiss to his forehead. “I love you. Anything you need, just tell me, okay?”

Dick nods again, and Wally’s gone.

Dick gives himself fifteen minutes to panic and lose his composure and embrace the mess he’s feeling on the inside.

And then he pulls himself together and makes sure the room is sealed and he pulls out his phone, the secure one he uses to keep in contact with his family.

He calls Cass first, pulling up a video chat and propping the phone up on his lap so that he can sign back to her. He tells her that he’s told Wally his secret, that Diana and Clark know who they are, that as bad as his injury was, he is out of the woods now, and it’s just a matter of resting up and healing what his teammates couldn’t fix with magic. Cass nods once, and then, very hesitantly starts to sign, her movements so small and kept so close to her chest that Dick can’t make out her signs.

“Hey Cassie, do that again?” he asks, signing along as he speaks.

Cass’s hands flutter in front of her for a moment before she makes them into fists in agitation.

“Tell Dinah?” she finally asks, speaking aloud. She holds out one hand, and curls the other into the ‘D’ sign, moving it over the outstretched one, her sign for Dinah’s name.

He knows that Cass and Babs have done a lot of work with Dinah in the past, and he knows how much Cass likes the Black Canary, and how much the girls trust her.

He hadn’t thought about a change to the gag order, had hardly thought when he’d broken it himself. But he is the Batman now, and if he can tell important people in his life who he is, why can’t his siblings?

Dinah’s trustworthy, she’s a hero, and this might… maybe it’ll get him his sister back. Maybe if she has another anchor to the states, she’ll come back, at least to the country, if not Gotham.

So he nods, makes the sign for Dinah’s name back at her with a half smile. “Yeah, Cassie. Tell Dinah. But make sure she knows she can’t tell anyone else. And if you want to think about telling anyone else, just tell me first, okay?” Dick says, and Cass’s face breaks into a blinding grin as she watches his final sign.

He double and triple checks that she’s doing okay after that, that Hong Kong is treating her well and that she’s happy where she is, but she’s all but vibrating with anticipation, so it’s not long before Dick lets her go, with a reminder of terms and a quickly signed, ‘love you, little sister’.

Cass is still smiling as she hangs up.

Dick makes a decision in the few seconds between hanging up with Cass and pressing the button to call Tim.

Tim barely gets out a hello before Dick’s blurting out, “Tell them. Kon, Cassie, Bart. Tell them who you are.”

Dick can hear his brother splutter on the other end of the line, and then he says, suddenly very concerned, “Oh my god, are you dying? I mean. They told me you got hurt on the last League mission, but I didn’t… Dick, please tell me you’re okay.”

“I’m fine!” Dick is quick to assure Tim. “I’m okay, Timmy, I swear I’m okay. It’s not as bad as it was. Took a few magic users and Doc Midnite to close up the hole in my chest, but they did and I am going to be just fine. I’m fine. I promise you. Just need to rest up a lot. Damian wasn’t hurt either. I think out of the whole League, I was the only one off my game enough to get caught off guard that bad,” he says, self-deprecating.

Tim doesn’t laugh along with him like Dick hoped he would.

“You haven’t been sleeping again.” It’s not a question.

“I’ve just been busy. I mean, we are a little short staffed around Gotham lately, and the Wayne Enterprises people are vultures I swear to god. Plus, y’know, Hush and pretending B’s still around, and Damian. The kid’s a handful. I’m fine, Timmy.”

“A hole in your chest doesn’t sound fine. Forgive me if I’m not inclined to believe you, given your track record, Bird Brain.” There’s no heat behind Tim’s insult, only concern.

Dick thinks about arguing, and then decides against it. He’s too tired to argue, and he knows Tim’ll see right through it anyway.

“It’s been hard. I’m spread a little thin, and there’s only so much I can ask of Steph and Dami, and Babs helps, but it’s not like she can get out on the streets with us. Jason’s tactics have been keeping a lot of the low-level issues out of the way, cause everyone’s so afraid of him, but he’s not exactly working with us. I think he’s been talking to Roy and Kori the past few weeks, though. So that’s good. At least he’s talking to someone, right?”

“You’re getting off topic, Dick. But you are right. Maybe they’ll mellow him out a little bit,” Tim concedes, no doubt relieved that Jason might be on his way to getting some sort of help with everything he’s obviously struggling with. “Not the point of this though. What about you? What’s bringing this sudden policy change on? Are you sure you’re okay?”

Dick nods and then remembers that Tim can’t see him and sighs. “Yeah, I’m fine, Timmy. Just. I woke up a little while ago, and Clark was sitting in the room with me, and we were alone and he saw me wake up, and he called me by my name.”

Tim chokes on the other end of the line, and after a fit of coughing, he says, “He took off your cowl? He saw your face?”

“No, I was still wearing the cowl. Bruce told him, before he died. Years ago, actually. After Jason. He told Diana too. They’ve known for years, and just assumed that Bruce had told us he’d told them.” Dick scrubs a hand over his face and takes a deep breath. Tim lets out a low whistle. “I kinda freaked out a little bit, and I called Wally. I told him everything. And I was just talking to Cass and I told her what happened, and she asked me if she could tell Dinah. I guess, if I can break down and tell Wally, why can’t you guys tell the people who are important to you? I know how much Kon and Cassie and Bart mean to you. You should tell them who you are. Who I am. Give them a real explanation for why you had to leave. Give yourself a few people to lean on when you need it.”

Tim is very, very quiet for a moment after that and Dick almost panics, his mind automatically going to worst case scenarios of Tim’s reaction. It’s one of those days, he guesses.

“Are you sure?” Tim asks, hesitant. When Dick answers in the affirmative, Tim lets out a quiet laugh. “Really? I never asked Bruce, cause I saw you two get into fights about it a few times and I knew he’d say no, and I got it. I understand why it’s important to keep it secret but I’ve always… I’ve always wanted to tell them. Since we first started working together. They’re like a second family to me and it’s so hard keeping it from them sometimes, especially Kon and I-”

“Especially Kon?” Dick interrupts with a laugh and he imagines Tim’s blushing, wherever he is.

“Shut up. It’s not… it’s nothing,” Tim mutters.

“Oh, Timmy’s got a crush ,” Dick singsongs. It’s so painfully normal and Dick revels in it, this shred of normalcy in his insane life.

Tim makes a noise that’s something like a shriek and protests. “I do not! I don’t! And even if I did, I don’t think it’d matter, cause I don’t even think he likes guys. So.”

And just like that, they’re nothing more than a big brother helping his little brother deal with a crush and Dick missed this so much.

“Hey, I didn’t think Wally liked guys at first either, and look where we are.”

“I don’t know. It’s different. It would be different, if I had a crush, but I do not have a crush, so it’s not different cause there’s nothing to compare.”

“Tell him who you are, Timmy. Tell them all. I think it’ll be really good for you. In more ways than one.” If he could see his little brother, he’d wink. He settles for clicking his tongue.

Tim groans in response. “You’re the worst, you know that?” But there’s no anger in his words, just amusement. “I’ll tell them, though. Thank you, really. And take better care of yourself, yeah? I think I might be able to come back to Gotham soon and I… I want to come back to my family. All of you. Alive and well. Please take care of yourself, Dick.”

That tears at Dick’s heart like nobody’s business, but he doesn’t say that.

“I will, Tim. Come home to us soon, yeah? I miss my little brother.”

“As soon as I can. I promise.”

~*~

Dick knows it’s a terrible, terrible idea, but still, a few days later finds him on the streets of Gotham, without Damian.

As Nightwing, not Batman.

He’s not looking for a fight or anything like that tonight.

He’s looking for the Red Hood.

It doesn’t take him long to find him.

He’s keeping to rooftops, following a trail Jason probably doesn’t even realize he’s leaving through Gotham when he hears it. A woman screams, and there’s at least two guys down there with her saying lewd things as they back her into an alley, and Dick’s about to break his chase and drop down to help her when a gun goes off. His breath catches, thinking he’s too late, that they’ve already hurt the woman, when he realizes that one of the thugs is on the ground, a hole in his head.

Jason.

Dick looks around, trying to find his brother, and thinks he’s been unsuccessful when a hulking figure drops between the woman and the remaining man in the alleyway, a red helmet covering his head, the silver gun in his hand gleaming in the light of the nearly full moon.

There’s another shot, that one hit the guy in the knee, and he cries out in pain, trying to scramble away from Jason on the ground.

Jason stomps on the guy’s ankle and growls out a question that Dick can’t make out from his vantage point, but the terrified man stammers out and answer, and Jason puts a bullet in his head.

He rounds on the woman then, and Dick tenses, ready to intervene if necessary, but Jason doesn’t advance on her. Instead, Jason holsters his gun and makes a show of securing it, keeping both of his hands visible the whole time. He takes his helmet off then, rests it on the ground, leaving him in just a red domino mask.

He slowly extends a hand to help the woman up from where she’d shrunk down against one wall of the alley. She jerks back from him and he holds both hands up and takes a step back.

Dick can just hear him when he speaks, all heavy Gotham accent and rough voice. He sounds so different than the kid Dick remembers from before.

“Hey, miss, I’m only trying to help. I didn’t get ridda those assholes just so I could hurt you. You live around here?”

“A couple of blocks away,” she responds hesitantly, still pressed to the wall.

“How’s about I walk you home?” Jason offers, taking a step back so he’s leaned against the other wall. “I’ll even keep the helmet off the whole time, just for you,” he says with a crooked grin. It makes him look younger, like the Jason Dick knew years ago.

She hesitates a few moments more, but finally nods, and Jason walks her home, helmet under his arm, making sure to leave a big enough space between him and the woman the whole way. She smiles and hugs him for a brief moment before turning to dart into her building.

Jason turns then, and grapples to the roof Dick’s standing, stalking towards his brother until he’s crowding into Dick’s space.

“The fuck are you tailing me for, Goldie?” he growls, jabbing a finger into Dick’s chest.

Right into the gaping hole Dick’s still got there.

Dick makes a pathetic sounding noise and sags against the roof fixture he’s backed up against, and tries not to let it show just how much pain he’s in.

Jason notices.

“What happened to you?”

“Rebar. Through my chest. Not fun,” Dick gasps out. His hands are trembling. He shouldn’t have come out tonight. He’s really not strong enough to do much more than basic moving around. He’s definitely not up to an all out fight with Jason.

Luckily, that seems to get Jason to back off a little, though he’s still not leaving Dick any escape routes. His hand rests dangerously close to the gun holstered on his hip.

“The fuck are you doing running around in your old monkey suit if you just got run through like that? I haven’t even blown anything up recently, I can’t be that much of a priority.”

Jason says it like he’s trying to joke, but his face is set and stony.

Dick responds through heaving breaths, focusing on a spot right in the middle of the red insignia on Jason’s chest because it’s eye level and not moving and he feels a little nauseous with the sudden pain. He’s definitely not doing too hot.

“I don’t care what you’re doing. I don’t agree with your methods, but you’re keeping a lot of people off the streets, I need the help right now. I’m not about to give you a lecture on all this. I’m not B.”

“You sure as shit look like you’re trying to be, running around in his suit and running his civilian life and raising his little demon son,” Jason snaps back.

Dick’s upper lip curls in something like a snarl, but he reigns in his temper.

“Not like I could send him back to his mother, or let the company die and let countless people lose their jobs. And Batman carries a lot more weight than Nightwing does. I can do more wearing that suit than this one. I didn’t want to, I had to. And that’s not at all what I was looking for you for.”

Dick thinks Jason’s rolling his eyes behind the white lenses of his domino, but he doesn’t comment. “What do you want from me, then?”

“I broke B’s gag-order. Told the Flash. Superman and Wonder Woman know too. I gave the okay for Black Bat to tell Canary, and for Red to tell Superboy, Kid Flash and Wonder Girl.” Dick takes a breath, tries to gauge Jason’s reaction. Jason’s stoic as ever. “I just wanted to tell you that. I know you’ve stuck to the gag-order even through… all of this mess with B and everything. And I know you’ve been talking to Arsenal and Starfire lately. I wanted to… well, not give permission. I don’t control you. I just wanted to let you know I think you should tell them. I think it might be good if you have someone to talk to, about everything you’ve been through. And I know you don’t really trust any of us, ‘cept maybe Agent A the way you used to, so I thought it might be good for you.”

Jason really does snarl when he speaks again. “What the fuck do you know about what’s good for me, Dickhead?”

“Just speaking from experience. When you start caring about someone, and you’ve got a whole half of your life that you can’t tell them about, it causes issues. Learn from my mistakes. Tell them. Everything. About me, the kids, B, Agent A. All of it. Just make sure they don’t tell anyone else. And if you decide to tell anyone else, just let me know.” Jason opens his mouth like he’s going to protest, but Dick holds up a finger. “You’re my brother. No matter what’s going on with you, or how much you hate me, I care about you. I want you to be happy, whatever that looks like for you. I know you’re getting really close to Star and Arsenal. I don’t care what kind of close. I really, really don’t. As long as you’re happy. That’s all I care about. Now I think you popped one of my stitches, so I’m going back to the bunker. Think about what I said. And maybe think about swinging by to say hi, sometime. Agent A misses you.”

Dick leaps off the roof then, and makes his way home quickly.

He doesn’t hear from Jason on the matter again, but he does return from work one day a couple weeks later to find Alfred washing two tea cups instead of one, and not long after, Roy pulls him aside and says, “Thanks for getting Jay to open up, Dick,” and that’s enough for Dick.

Chapter Text

Two weeks after Arsenal tells Batman that the Red Hood revealed his identity finds Batman stumbling into the bunker after a patrol, mostly supported by Robin’s tiny form, half out of it from blood loss.

Dick thinks he’s really gotta stop doing this.

He’s shaking with the effort of just remaining upright, but he makes it to a cot in the bunker’s medbay anyway, panting for breath as he collapses on it.

He has a meeting at Wayne Enterprises the next morning, he recalls in some distant corner of his mind. Lucius will kill him if he misses another one of these things. He hopes that Alfred can stitch him up and that a little bit of sleep will be enough to get him back in basic working order.

He doesn’t realize he’s been mumbling this train of thought aloud until he hears someone speak.

“Don’t worry about Wayne Enterprises, Dick, I can handle the meeting tomorrow, if you tell me what it’s about.”

That’s not Damian. Or Steph. Or Alfred.

“Tim?” Dick gasps, not daring to hope. He forces his eyes open, and his face splits into a blinding grin. “Timmy! You’re home!” Dick can’t tell if the tears that spring to his eyes are from the gash in his side or from the pure, unadulterated happiness he feels at having his little brother home safe again.

“Drake,” Damian greets curtly before moving to help Alfred set up medical supplies to patch Dick up.

Dick makes an aborted motion like he wants to get up and go towards Tim, but he can’t really do that, what with the sluggishly bleeding wound he’s currently sporting.

Tim seems to get the message though, and he crosses to Dick’s cot, sitting carefully on the edge of it. He helps Dick out of the cowl and cape, and maneuvers him out of the top half of the batsuit. Tim backs off long enough for Damian to clean the wound and for Alfred to play doctor, but he’s back at Dick’s side as soon as they’re done.

He pushes Dick’s sweat damp hair off of forehead, and leans over his big brother to give him a hug as best he can without aggravating any of Dick’s injuries. Tim buries his face in the crook of Dick’s neck when Dick lets out a sound like a sob and pulls Tim just a little closer.

“I missed you, kid, you know that?” Dick whispers and Tim laughs.

He pulls back and frowns at the state of Dick’s body, covered in bruises and bumps and still healing cuts and the still nasty looking remnants of the hole in his chest. He doesn’t say anything, instead just smiles at Dick and nods.

“I missed you too. But I think I’m back for good now. Dick. I… Bruce is alive.”

Dick’s face falls. He just got his brother back. He doesn’t want to start over with this argument all over again.

“Timmy, we’ve been over this a thousand times.”

Tim just shakes his head and grabs Dick’s forearm in a death grip, hope sparking behind his eyes for the first time in months. “No, no, I know, but this isn’t like last time. Dick, I have proof. I know he’s alive. He’s not… alive now, but he’s alive in another time. Darkseid didn’t kill him. He’s somewhere else in time. He’s alive. We can get him back.”

They both know that won’t be easy, but that’s probably the greatest news Dick’s had since they found out Jason was back.

“Hear that, brat?” Tim calls across the bunker to Damian, where he’d started typing up a case report on the computer. Damian startles and turns. Dick would laugh if it didn’t hurt. The reaction makes Damian look so young. “We’re getting our dad back.”

Damian, for the first time since he came to them, smiles at Tim. “You’re serious, Timothy?”

That’s a first too.

Tim nods, and Damian’s smile widens for a fraction of a second before his expression settles back into its neutral standard. “Thank you, Drake. It would seem that you are not as useless as I had assumed.” That’s probably as close as he gets to admitting fault in his judgement.

Dick’ll take it, for now.

Tim just huffs, and turns back to Dick, shaking his head. He pauses for a moment, and Dick thinks he sees hesitation flit across Tim’s face, but it’s gone as soon as it came and Tim’s leaning in a little closer, a small, shy smile on his face.

“I told Cassie and Bart who I am. Kon too. I, uh, told Kon separately? And I told him how I felt about him.” A furious red blush colors Tim’s cheeks. “He asked me out on a date. He said he’d wait however long it took for me to get back. And when I told him I was back in Gotham, he asked me out for real.”

Dick can’t help but smile back. Tim looks like a little kid, all giddy and blushing and excited that his crush has noticed him. Dick never had a doubt that Kon would reciprocate Tim’s feelings, he saw the way they both looked at each other when they thought no one was looking. But he’s so happy for his brother and he’s so happy that they’re getting their dad back, and that Damian’s actually being kind to Tim, even if it’s only for the time being. The stitched wound on his side goes entirely unnoticed. This is the best day he’s had in a long, long time.

~*~

He calls Jason first. Jason tells him to fuck off, but he also says if they need help, they know how to contact him.

Cass is next. She books a plane ticket home while she’s on the phone with him.

Wally comes after that. He’s in the bunker before Dick can even get most of the story out.

Clark and Diana are almost an afterthought, but they both sound so happy when Dick and Tim tell them that Tim’s found hard evidence that Bruce is alive, that Dick’s thrilled that Wally had the idea to call them.

They’re getting their family back together, and it’s growing and Dick’s heart soars at the thought.

~*~

Of course, nothing is ever truly that easy, and their lives are never simple either.

Getting Bruce back takes hard work and time and things are still a disaster for a long while after Tim discovers that Bruce was still out there. But it’s better.

Of course, because life needs to remind them all that it will always suck, Dick gets shot in the head and Wally nearly vibrates the whole building down around them, waiting for news on Dick’s status.

He’s okay, in the end. And they’ve got Bruce back.

Everyone takes a collective sigh of relief.

They’ve won, this time.

~*~

There is a lot of explaining to do, in the end.

“What the hell is this?” is the first thing out of Bruce’s mouth when he sees Kon and Wally in the bunker.

Tim, distracted by something on the computer, and the worry about his brother’s health, answers, “Wally’s stressed about Dick. Kon’s here cause I was worried and he felt bad.”

Not the answer Bruce wanted, it seems.

“What?” Bruce grumbles. It seems as though being missing for… however long it was for him and travelling through time have done nothing to change Bruce’s gruff demeanor.

Or his ideas on secret keeping policies.

Tim blanches when he remembers they haven’t told him that they’re not keeping secrets from everyone anymore, that Dick had changed that rule.

Kon and Wally seem to remember at the same time as Tim. Kon stiffens next to Tim, the arm he’d had casually slung around Tim’s waist suddenly holding Tim tight to his side. Wally goes worryingly still.

“Well. You see-” Tim says, fumbling for an explanation. He’s saved from it by someone else piping up behind him.

Dick.

Dick, who’s recovering from a gunshot to the head.

Dick, who shouldn’t be moving around yet, much less coming down to the bunker.

Dick, his stupid, stupid older brother, who of course , is going to stick his neck out to Bruce so none of them will take the fall for any of this.

Dick, who’s standing at the entrance to the bunker, with Damian scowling by his side like he didn’t approve of Dick’s idea to come down here.

“I changed the way things work around here,” Dick says so plainly that no ordinary man would argue with him. Bruce is not an ordinary man.

“You did what?”

“Changed things. Not like you hadn’t already broken your own gag-order by telling Clark and Diana.” Dick sways where he stands and Wally zips to his side, taking some of his weight and helping him to the big chair in front of the computer. Tim hovers nearby worriedly, and Kon has to tug him off to the side so he’s not in the way as Wally paces nervously behind Dick. Damian hoists himself up to sit on a table nearby, gaze fixed on Dick with unnerving concentration.

“You know why I gave that order in the first place. It’s for your safety, Dick. I know it was a difficult thing to do sometimes, but I did that to keep you safe!” Bruce says, and his voice is almost edging on desperate. Wally and Kon look a little freaked out by it.

Tim and Damian hide it, but they are too. They rarely see Bruce in such a state.

Dick, however, has known Bruce for years. He knows his father.

“I know that. And for a while, it was fine. I had you to lean on. It was okay that I had to keep this from others because I had a support system. I had you, and Alf and Tim when I needed him. But you were gone Bruce. I was sure you were dead. Cass was in Hong Kong, Tim had gone off to try to find evidence you weren’t dead, Jason wasn’t talking to us. Babs and I weren’t speaking all that often. Steph had her own life. I didn’t have my family to lean on anymore, and I was living your life for you and pretending it was fine and it wasn’t. I was miserable. Being you while I thought you were dead was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, Bruce. I was slipping.

“So after Clark had to pull a few feet of rebar through my chest and several magic wielding members of the League had to make sure I didn’t die, and I woke up to Clark calling me by my name? I was tired, I was scared and all I wanted was someone to lean on. I’m not close with Clark and Diana. Not like you were. Are. So I made a decision. I told Wally. And then I talked to Cass and I realized that with all of us spread out like we were, all of us needed someone. I gave the okay for Cass and Tim and Jason to tell a few people. Not the whole League, and no one civilian. Just. We all needed someone. I knew we could trust these people. It was for the best,” Dick states firmly, though some of the weight behind his words is lost in the grey pallor of his face, the heaviness of his breaths. He should really probably be in bed still.

After this is settled, he decides.

“Who knows?” Bruce demands.

Tim ticks off the list on his fingers. “Wally, Kon, Bart, Cassie, Dinah, Kori, Roy.”

“We didn’t tell a lot of people. But we needed it. We understand the need to keep our identities secret. Even from some of the League. But Bruce, we aren’t these stoic figures everyone sees us as all the time. We can be that, when the situation calls for it, but we can’t keep that up all the time. We need a support system, we’re only human. And while you were gone, we realized that there will be times that our family will be spread out all over, taking care of different things, living our own lives. We can’t always depend on each other, all the time. We need our own people, just like you needed Clark and Diana after Jay died,” Dick says softly, his eyes closed, head leaned back against the chair.

Bruce doesn’t seem to know how to respond to that.

“We know you only ever gave that order to keep us safe. I mean hell, even Jason kept to it until I told him he should tell Roy and Kori. But we’re growing up, changing. It couldn’t last. I’m pretty sure I’m gonna marry Wally. I couldn’t be keeping secrets like this if that’s gonna happen.” Dick’s last few words are a little slurred, and by the time anyone can process what he said and react, Dick’s slumped in the chair, fast asleep.

Bruce is stunned, staring at his eldest son.

“He’s right you know. We only told people we trust. And we stressed the importance of them not telling anyone else. This is good for us, Bruce. Everyone needs a person,” Tim says quietly, so as not to disturb Dick. He folds into Kon’s space a little more, Kon’s arm draped around his shoulder casually.

Bruce nods, the hint of a smile coming to his face.

“I know. I just didn’t realize my kids did so much growing up while I was gone. I’m really proud of you all.”