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After a few days the local and national news channels found other things to talk about. The latest ratings sensation was already a rapidly fading memory in the city’s collective consciousness. Within a week, Red Hood would be yet another name cast into the waters of Lethe by a city that had seen far too many costumed criminals come and go.
Dick almost wished it could be the same way at the manor.
He hadn’t been there for Bruce when the clues had started to fall into place. He hadn’t been there for Alfred when all the doubts had been finally put to rest. Nightwing had not been there to support his mentor during that final, futile confrontation.
In the aftermath of hot rubble and scorched wood, Dick found any unspoken comfort or kind word he had to offer lacking in the grim reality of Jason’s return. Despite his desperate attempts, there wasn’t a cheap quip or light-hearted anecdote in the young man’s vast arsenal that would lift the sour heaviness from the mansion or the shadows from their faces – even for only a moment.
As it was, Bruce’s monotone responses and cold silences weren’t taken to heart. His casual dismissal of the entire affair was dismissed in kind. Dick was far too well versed in his mentor’s tactics to be affected by them anymore, and even if he hadn’t been, wild horses wouldn’t have been able to drag him away from Gotham.
The entire affair had broken Bruce in a way that his enemies could only have dreamt of. It wasn’t noticeable to an untrained eye, of course. Bruce would chew his own arm off before he’d let an outsider see behind his carefully moulded mask of icy neutrality, but to his inner circle, Bruce’s broken heart was as bright and blinding as the sun.
Batman was making mistakes. A lot of mistakes. Nothing so bad that it would attract the attention of a drug dealer camped out on some street corner, or a greasy mugger lurking in the shadows of an alley - hell, the likes of Tetch, Wesker and Quinn probably wouldn’t even pick up on them given how minor they were.
However, the likes of Joker, Two-Face and Ivy would. And they wouldn’t hesitate to take advantage of the fact and that scared Dick more than he thought possible.
So he stayed in Gotham, keeping half an eye fixed on Bludhaven, branding all its happenings and all its events firmly into his brain to be referred to and dealt with at a later date. He helped Alfred around the house, went on errands with him, and was there if the elderly butler felt the need to talk. He kept his patrols close to Batman’s, pottered around the Batcave hoping that his presence would be an extra reminder that his mentor wasn’t alone in the world.
Friends and allies were briefed on the circumstances, if not the emotional impact of Jason’s return. Thankfully many of them didn’t ask too many questions that Dick couldn’t answer or make offers that he’d had to refuse. They knew Bruce well enough to leave to know that he valued his privacy and that well-wishers would not be welcome at his door during this time.
Barbara’s subdued reaction to the news had caused Dick no small amount of anxiety; a quick call to Dinah had gone a long way in allaying much of it, but not enough to make him feel completely at ease. Dick recognized he was going have to go and talk to her about Jason sooner rather than later given their shared history with Joker, and while he didn’t resent the idea, it was still something he wasn’t looking forward to. Because he knew she’d want to talk about The Month of Hell again.
And Dick hated that. Being forced to relive the Bat Family’s darkest days; that cold October five years ago when one member was paralysed and another was robbed of their life. Bad enough that he had to talk about what happened to Barbara; replay the black call from Alfred on that crisp autumn evening; remember that ashen body lying motionless on cheap linen sheets – recall his own ineptitude, his clumsy flowers and clumsier words. No doubt the conversation would then turn to the Joker, opinions usually left unspoken in Bruce’s presence would see the light of day; a fruitless debate would follow and fuel a bitter air between them.
But worst of all, Barbara would want to talk about Jason. She’d want Dick to talk about Jason. She’d want to know how he felt about it all.
And Dick wasn’t sure that he was ready for that.
Sure, he could support Alfred. He could try and support Bruce through meaningless gestures and empty words – but confront his own feelings? Give them voice?
Dick didn’t think he could ever be ready for that.
All he’d really done these past few days was to avoid dwelling on his own thoughts, his own feelings on the matter. Nobody had taken a second to ask him how he felt about Jason’s resurrection and that was just fine with him, because if they had then he’d actually have think about it…
Cast his mind back to that little usurper who stole his costume and identity all those years ago. Recall that impudent teenager who was uneasy on the nerves. Remember that young team mate who he just couldn’t get close to no matter how hard he tried.
If Dick let himself think about it, really think about it. He’d have to accept his share of the blame in the rise and fall of the second Robin. Maybe if Dick hadn’t wallowed in his own jealous misery, his own adolescent feelings of entitlement, he might have been positive influence in Jason’s life. Someone that didn’t need to be impressed or rebelled against. A figure that Jason could have confided in or sought advice from that came without authoritative prejudgement.
Instead, Dick had been nothing but a yardstick to be measured against; a distant, loathsome ghost that invited rebellion and antagonism.
Dick couldn’t dwell on that. Not now. Not with his only family being so close to the brink. There’d be time enough to air all of his regrets and all his failings later, but for now he had to be a rock; an unyielding pillar of support, unnoticeable and easily missed but crucial in its existence.
Because the way Dick saw it, not all wars were won in the heat of bloody battle.
***
Dick’s self-inflicted role served him well through the days and weeks that followed. As predicted, Jason’s mark was wiped away from Gotham’s collective memory as efficiently and absent-mindedly as a waitress cleared crumbs from a table in some grotty diner downtown. All the inroads he’d made into the underworld had been swept away like cigarette butts in a thunderstorm.
The dreaded talk with Barbara never came to pass. Dick wasn’t sure whether Dinah, Helena, or some other unforeseen event had been responsible for its unspoken cancelation; all he knew was that he was grateful that it had never seen the light of day. His time back in Gotham had been more mentally and emotionally challenging than he’d thought possible when he’d elected to return home in the aftermath of The Red Hood, but then maybe Barbara had guessed that and had known that ‘the talk’ was just another thing that he could have lived without.
Either way it didn’t matter as Dick seemed to be in the clear. His family was almost out of the dark. Alfred was starting to remember how to smile again and Bruce was slowly returning to normal – or as normal as Bruce could be. That ghostly haunted glint in Bruce’s eyes was slowly fading away; the shadows on his face that had lengthened and twisted in the darkness of the cave were slowly recoiling or being absorbed under his skin. Perhaps most importantly, Bruce was remembering how to centre himself.
Or as Bruce had put it in an uncharacteristically vulnerable moment a few nights ago which had both moved and outright terrified Dick: he was learning to carry it all again.
Dick’s work in Gotham was almost done. The castle wasn’t crumbling. The walls weren’t caving in. Bruce would carry on as he always had and Alfred would endure. That was just the way of things and would always be the way of things, imperfect as they were.
Satisfied by the state of affairs, Dick turned nearly all of his attention to more pressing concerns like the deteriorating state of Bludhaven. If rumours were to be believed, Blockbuster had apparently taken full of advantage of the young vigilante’s absence from the city and had been quick to expand his empire and worm his way into the heart of several previously impenetrable businesses and organisations.
As it was, Nightwing spent his last few remaining patrols in Gotham only half there. His body went through the motions of vigilantism in an efficient haze; muggers were dealt with mechanically, street gangs were taken down unthinkingly, while his mind concocted different strategies and methods of dealing with the threat that he would face upon his return to Bludhaven.
It was unsurprising then, that during his last patrol somewhere above the shadowed alleyways and darkened backstreets of south-west Gotham, Dick found himself automatically, unthinkingly answering a cry for help below somewhere in-between the birth of an new alias and an name of a possible contact inside city hall.
Nightwing’s landing on the soaked concrete in the dim alley was perfect; his trained unseeing eyes had already spotted the slumped body before his feet had even touched the ground. The crimson pool that surrounded the pale victim was barely visible in the dull light. In an instant, mindless legs brought Dick to the fallen man’s side, skilled unhearing ears listening for changes in his shallow breathing, programmed hands quick to locate the open, pouring wound.
The surprise kick to the back of Dick’s head was quicker. The stunned sound that fell from his lips as his skull struck wet concrete even faster.
“Wow. And this is the man who thought he was too good to be a mere sidekick.”
Groggily, Dick blinked past the brilliant white fog that flooded his brain and grunted through the dull ringing pain that clouded his mind. With no little effort he managed to drag himself to his knees and glare at the shaded figure leaning lazily against a vandalised wall.
“You know,” Jason said lightly, his smile widening. “You’ve actually gotten worse over the years, Dick.”
Nightwing swallowed down his nausea and tried to focus past the warm red liquid that leisurely trickled down his frozen face, not quite believing what he was seeing. “How…”
“Oh come on!” Jason’s jovial expression twisted into one of disgust. “You didn’t really think I get taken out in another exploding building, did you?”
Gathering some of his wits, his breathing too heavy and too loud against his own ears, Dick turned from him and slowly started towards the unconscious body whose life ebbed away with each passing second.
“I wouldn’t if I were you,” Jason warned as Dick reached for the man. “Not unless you want to join him on his journey.”
“Why?” Dick spat, his cold shock at seeing Jason again melting melting away into anger. “What did he do to you, Jason?”
“Nothing much,” Jason replied easily with a shrug, his voice taking on a dreamy quality. “Ben Greene paid his debt to society,” he said quietly, “but if you’re going to lurk in the shadows down some grotty alley opposite some crappy nightclub in the wee small hours, then,” he grinned moonily, “in my book you’re just asking for it.”
“Who gave you the right to be judge, jury and executioner, Jason?” Dick snarled.
“I did,” Jason replied evenly, he straightened, folding his arms neatly across his chest. “It’s the only way to deal with scum like him.”
“Oh, right,” Dick chuckled bitterly, his laughter echoing hollowly around them. “The only way, right.”
“Well your beloved justice system didn’t seem to do any good in this instance,” Jason’s eyes glittered dangerously and Dick swore he saw the madness burning in them. “The way I see it, I’m saving a lot of tax payers a whole lot of money and someone else a whole lot of grief.”
“I don’t even know where to start,” Dick breathed, turning to the fallen man once more.
“Like I said, I wouldn’t,” Jason warned once more. “Looks like he’s on his way out to me, probably won’t even make it to the hospital and you’re in no state to take me on.”
Angrily Dick wiped the blood from his face and struggled to his feet, grunting against the dull ringing in his ears. “Try me.”
A high pitched laugh spewed forth from Jason’s lips and scraped harshly against Dick’s brain. “Oh, please,” he waved a hand, “look at you, you couldn’t go two rounds with Riddler right now let alone me. And I don’t want to take you out despite what you think, Dick.”
Dick looked at him, swaying lightly on his feet. “Could have fooled me.”
“You might be the apple of Bruce’s eye, but you’re persona non grata as far as I’m concerned,” Jason stated quietly. “I don’t think you’re worth the effort or the fallout – but that doesn’t mean I won’t knock you into next week if you get in my way.”
“You and whose army?” Dick snapped, his patience coming to an end. “You always were second best, Jason.”
“No, I wasn’t,” Jason said simply. “I was just taught against my nature, that’s all. You can’t teach a wolf tricks that were meant for a puppy dog.”
“Wolf?” Dick laughed, “You were no wolf, Jason. A flea-bitten mongrel maybe, but you were no wolf then and you sure as hell aren’t one now.”
“Well, you would say that, would you?” Jason sneered. “I was always just some punk kid that Bruce dragged in off the street. Never quite good enough for the golden boy, was I?”
Dick shook his head, immediately regretting it as a wave of dizziness washed over him. “If that’s what you think then you’re dumber than I thought you were.”
“Spare me,” Jason growled, “You used to walk around the Bat cave with your nose in the air and spent half your time either ignoring me or running me down.”
Dick grimaced, swiping hopelessly at unbidden images that came flooding into his brain, aided by the fog that clouded his mind; that fateful overcast summer’s day when he returned home from college only to find Jason standing in the Batcave wearing his costume; his bitterness when he discovered Bruce’s reasons for it; his anger at Bruce; his jealously of Jason; his own wounded pride. They all grasped at him, pulling at the bedraggled threads of his hard fought for and won maturity. It unravelled away easily and without resistance.
“You were reckless.” Dick intoned.
“No more than you.” Jason shot back.
“You didn’t listen.”
“There wasn’t anything worth listening to.”
“Then why did you stay?”
Jason didn’t answer as he was staring intently at something over Dick’s shoulder, a decidedly gleeful expression on his face. “Well,” he said after a beat. “It seems like our friend has moved on to warmer pastures,” he grinned happily, “looks like my work here is done.”
Dick turned around and looked, pushing down his nausea. He knew Jason was telling the truth but he needed the conformation. To see it with his own eyes, to make it seem more real. Quickly, he took in the man’s stillness; his unmoving chest, his frozen posture. He didn’t think there was any need to check for a pulse. Channelling his anger he turned back to face Jason, he was done talking.
Jason clucked his tongue and pouted mockingly. “Oh, you’re not mad with me are you?”
Dick glared at him. “You’re going down, Jason.”
“And who’s going to take me down?” Jason sneered. “You?”
“Yeah,” Dick spat. “Me and my imaginary friend, I call him Larry.”
Jason moved so fast that Dick didn’t even have enough time to blink. He hit the ground solidly, the wind knocked right out of him, the dense fog clouding and twirling his brain once more, his nausea returning ten-fold.
“Imaginary friend,” repeated Jason from somewhere above his spinning head. “Is that to go along with your imaginary war on crime?”
Dick groaned and fumbled for his utility belt, scrambling for the communicator, instinctively knowing he needed help, sure hands stopped him.
“And therein lies your problem,” Jason stated quietly, his face fading in and out, his breath too hot against Dick’s cheek, his voice so very far away. “Yours and his, you both treat the whole thing like it’s some silly children’s game, like it’s conclusive that you’re going to win just because you’re the good guys. You both act if Joker never moved on from stealing mud pies and Ivy’s still some idiotic gold digger that has a huge crush on Batman.”
Dick blindly made a grab from him and was swatted away easily. “Times have changed,” Jason went on conversationally. “We have to move with them if we are to remain relevant,” he smiled down at Dick almost kindly. “We have to adapt.”
Dick coughed on his blood, “you’re crazy.”
“No, not crazy,” Jason replied, his voice taking on a tinny quality. “It’s just like Plato’s cave. I’m the only one who sees the shadows for what they really are.”
“You're talking utter garbage.” Dick managed.
“And you have a head injury,” Jason replied sweetly. “You’re not thinking clearly.” He leaned forward, his face dark, his smile angelic. “Get back to me when you can think straight, but until then,” his hand came into blurry view, “get some rest, Nightwing.”
And Dick Grayson knew no more.
***
Slowly, the familiar confines of the Batcave swam into focus. Feeling as though he were floating on thin air, Dick struggled to sit up but firm, steady hands held him down.
“Easy now. You took quite a knock to your head.”
Dick sluggishly blinked and turned his head towards his mentor. A thousand memories stumbling into the forefront of his mind. “How did you find me?”
Bruce turned away, busying himself with various tools and pieces of equipment on the counter opposite. “The distress signal in your utility belt was activated.”
Dick breathed silently, trying to think back. “I don’t remember activating it.”
Bruce didn’t turn around. “You didn’t.”
“Jason’s still alive.”
“I know.”
Dick stared at him, his stomach doing somersaults. “Did you catch him?”
Bruce picked up a screwdriver and examined it for a few moments. “No.”
Dick squeezed his eyes shut briefly. “I didn’t handle it as well as I could have.”
Bruce said nothing. The silence wrapped around them both like a tourniquet.
“I let myself get distracted,” Dick went on, suddenly feeling as if he were thirteen years old again. “I let him blindside me and when I saw what he’d done I lost it.”
Finally Bruce turned around and looked at him. “You have a concussion,” he said quietly. “You’ll probably be out of action for a while. I’ve called in a few favours and a couple of people are willing to help out with the Blockbuster situation.”
Dick opened and closed his mouth in disbelief. “Didn’t you hear me?”
“I heard you,” Bruce said firmly, “and the matter is closed.” He looked away for a moment, his calculated face free from expression. “You’ll have to stay here for a few days until you’re well enough to return to Bludhaven.” He nodded distractedly to himself, “I’ll help you to your room.”
The brief journey to Dick’s old room was filled with a million unspoken words and an impenetrable air of defeat and anxiety that neither man wanted to disturb. The realisation that Jason’s return was not merely a nightmarish event that could be placed into a box of forgetfulness and abandoned on a dark shelf of memory was soul destroying. The Bat-family’s latest adversary was one of their own, and that in itself guaranteed a grimmer future ahead for them all. But in Dick’s mind there was a hope that future wouldn’t be permanent.
Once they reached their destination, Bruce wordlessly turned to leave and Dick finally his voice:
“He called for help,” he said softly, although to his own ears it sounded as if he’d shouted it. “Doesn’t that count for something?”
Bruce didn’t turn around. “Perhaps.”
And then he was gone.
And Dick was alone.
Dick let the recent events run through his sluggish mind like a raging river, comparing and contrasting them with half-faded memories from years ago. Back then, he’d known all the answers before the question had even been asked. These days as time wore on he wasn’t sure how to even interpret the question.
He was certain about one thing though.
In one tired movement he picked up the phone next to his bed and dialled a familiar number, his lethargic fingers working of their own accord. Time seemed to stretch and twist back on to itself as he patiently waited for the other end to pick up.
“Barbara? It’s me,” Dick said without trepidation. “Listen, I don’t know if it’s inconvenient or not, but I was hoping we could meet up this week sometime. I need to talk to you about Jason.”