Chapter Text
“I wish you would reconsider,” Kori said.
“Aren’t you happy with my tech support?” Dick asked.
She flipped her beautiful hair back over her shoulder and stared down at him with severe green eyes. “That wasn’t what I meant and you know it, Dick Grayson. Do not attempt to make this my problem.”
They were having this conversation on the rooftop of their Titans HQ, sitting down on the edge of the rooftop, since they both liked the height and the breeze in their hair. Kori had practically kidnapped him. To be fair to her, he’d been avoiding private conversations for the last few weeks. He’d been in Gotham for most of it. From what he understood of the situation, Donna had decided to do something. Wally called it an intervention. The brooding’s not healthy, my friend, he’d said, zipping round to cut off his escape route. Not all the way. Kori gets first crack at talking it out with you. If not her…we’ll figure something else out.
So they’d talked. Just her being there, close enough to touch, helped a lot. He hadn’t been able to look at her as he described going back to being a Talon in his head that night in that warehouse, though. And it didn’t change his decision: he couldn’t be doing field work as Nightwing. “I was out of control,” he said.
“It was an extreme situation,” Kori countered. “You’ve seen us in danger before without losing yourself. You’ve seen Batman in danger without losing yourself.”
“I couldn’t bear it,” he said. “I promised.”
“You are better than you give yourself credit for.” She took his hand. She was very warm. “I know you. If you make a mistake, you will recover from it.”
“Kori…”
“I believe in you,” she said. “We all do. If you need time to believe in yourself again too, we’re not going to force you to do anything. But we want you to get better. Not - stew in your own juice.”
“Wally told you that phrase, didn’t he?”
“No. It was Donna. I like it.”
They sat like that a while longer. Dick wondered what Kori would say if he leaned against her shoulder. He wondered if she’d like it. Perhaps he should ask? Was it an acceptable thing to ask? Before he could, she leaned on him. She was quite a bit taller than he was, though, and he almost ended up with a mouthful of her hair. In spite of that, it was nice. They stayed like that until the sun set and Kori said she was getting cold.
“You will give it time?” she asked, as they headed for the door.
“Time,” Dick agreed. He didn’t expect time to change anything. He would still be what he was. The best way to deal with it would still be not to go out in the field and put others at risk. “All right. Time. I can do that.”
When they went back below, Donna said, “Sorry to spring that on you.”
Dick shrugged. If he’d wanted to leave, really wanted to leave, they couldn’t have stopped him. More importantly, they wouldn’t have. “It’s fine,” Dick said. “Kori and I talked.” Like they wanted. They’d been right. Mostly right. It had helped some things.
“Dick is going to be tech support for us a while longer,” Kori said imperiously. Daring the others to defy her. Another thing they wouldn’t do if they thought either of them was serious.
“That’s what you want?” Donna asked Dick.
He nodded. “I promised to give it some time. I’m not ready to go back to the field yet.” Or ever. But it would be fine. He was good tech support too. Donna was as good a field leader as he was, or better. The Titans would be fine.
His friends looked at each other. Wally said, “So. Volleyball?”
Volleyball was also a fun game. Dick stayed for another hour, then excused himself. He had things he wanted to do back in Gotham. Before everything, he’d been considering moving out more permanently. Now…
Things were a little different.
He heard them before he saw them. It happened a lot these past few weeks. Dick was tempted to flee to the ceiling. Or the rooftop. Somewhere he didn’t have to deal with the anger.
“You’re just not getting it through your thick head! Tim is my friend!”
“A friend who -“
He’d come back for the start of the argument. Jason insisted Tim Drake had never meant for any of it to happen, Bruce insisted Drake was reckless and manipulative, and from there it got worse. Personal. The same thing again and again. Dick just wanted them to stop shouting so Jason could focus on getting better. He’d been in the hospital so long. Out of school, out of the cave. Away from the things he enjoyed. Away from home.
When Dick rounded the corner, smile firmly in place, the first thing he noticed was that Jason was in his wheelchair. A bad sign. He hated the wheelchair and didn’t use it unless he was made to. He was made to quite often, because he pushed himself in physiotherapy. Hard as he could. If he was in the wheelchair now, that meant he’d be tired, in pain again, and cranky.
As for Bruce, these days, Bruce was angry most of the time, no matter what.
But they both stopped arguing when they saw him. That was something. “Dick,” Bruce greeted him. “Good to see you back.”
“We played volleyball,” Dick said brightly as he could. Jason scowled, but Dick knew from experience that he would scowl more if Dick tried to pretend he hadn’t done any of those active things which Jason couldn’t right now. Or maybe ever again. Dick didn't know how to handle it. Say something and bring it to Jason's attention that he couldn't do those things, don't say anything and bring it to Jason's attention that people were treating him differently now. No matter what Dick did, Jason got hurt.
“I’m going back to the pool,” Jason announced, and wheeled himself off.
Bruce opened his mouth. Probably to say that Jason shouldn’t do any more exercise today. Dick glared at him. Bruce thought better of it. That was good. Dick hated hearing them shout at each other. “What was it this time?” Dick asked.
“School,” Bruce said. “I don’t think he’ll be going back this year. Jason disagrees. Not because he wants to go to school, per se, but because he wants to…maintain his friendship.”
So that was how the fight had started. Very predictable.
Just as Bruce had decided not to say anything more to Jason, Dick decided to say nothing more to Bruce on this. Tim wasn’t so bad. He was brave and clever (except for the part where Jason said he snuck out at night by himself without any training or equipment, that wasn’t so clever) and he’d helped save Jason as much as he could. Dick just had to trust that eventually Bruce would see that too. “I’ll make sure Robin’s okay,” Dick said.
Bruce deflated a little, the anger visibly leaving him. “Thank you,” he said. “I may be gone when you get back.”
“I was planning to stay in the cave,” Dick said.
“Very well,” Bruce said. “Make sure Jason eats something and rests properly.”
It was his way of saying he felt bad about the argument. Dick knew that. But he didn’t change what he did. Bruce was stubborn like that.
—
The pool was a very different room to the one it had been a few weeks ago. It had originally been designed for entertainment, flat and open, with broad steps leading out of the pool. Now there were shining steel rails everywhere Jason might possibly need or want a handhold.
Jason had struggled into his bathing suit by himself and was just lowering himself into the water when Dick arrived. The surgical scars stood out on his legs, arms and shoulder in bright, raw pink. Healed, now, but still fresh. Dick had scars in straight lines a bit like that, from when the Court had disciplined him. He knew from experience that over time neat cuts from sharp knives healed fairly well. They weren’t the problem.
“What are you doing here?” Jason asked.
“Checking up on you,” Dick said. He sat down well back from the edge of the pool. Not helping. Not even hovering. Just keeping him company.
“What would help is you going back to Nightwing,” Jason snapped, lowering himself into the water. “Or Bruce taking his head out of his ass. Either will do.”
Bruce wasn’t the only one who was angry a lot these days. Now Dick was the one who didn’t want to have the argument. Instead he watched Jason paddle around. Swimming was exercise the physiotherapist recommended, since it kept Jason’s weight off his healing body while he built up his strength. The only problem was that Jason didn’t know how to swim. Or he hadn’t when he started. He’d been learning. Fast.
It was hard to see Jason struggle to rotate his left shoulder all the way. Hard to see the lack of power behind his kicks, the way his right knee didn’t, couldn’t, bend much, the stiffness in his limbs. If he’d been even a little faster - if he’d stopped even one more hit -
No use to that thinking. He’d done what he could. The only thing he regretted was losing control. It had to be harder for Jason to go through, and so he didn’t say anything about it. Jason would not appreciate it.
After only a few minutes, Jason stopped and returned to the edge. “Throw me a towel, will you?” he asked. Dick obliged and watched Jason struggle to haul himself out of the pool and dry himself, leaning on the newly-installed rails to keep his balance. He had to. He still couldn’t stand unassisted. The way he shifted his weight to compensate for his injuries and tested each movement was starting to look a bit more practiced. “So. Volleyball? That’s it?”
Dick smiled. He didn’t want to bother Jason with his problems. “And a bit of technical support. That’s it. I’m not going to stop being friends with them just because I quit.”
“You’re being an idiot,” Jason said.
“You’ve told me,” Dick replied. “Bruce said to make sure you ate something.”
Jason snorted. “As if I’d pass up Alf’s cooking after a few weeks of hospital food. Fine. If you get your ass to the cave and start working.”
“I haven’t eaten yet either,” he said. “We’ll both eat and then I’ll go downstairs.”
“Seems fair,” Jason nodded. “But no pushing. I can handle my own fucking wheelchair.”
“I wasn’t going to,” Dick said. Which was true. It was Jason’s wheelchair and Jason hated not being able to get around by himself. Dick already knew that.
Fortunately for Jason, there were already elevators in Wayne Manor. They’d been installed when Bruce was a child, something his parents had arranged for. So they were old despite regular servicing, but someone in a wheelchair could get between floors with only a detour. Not that it had stopped Bruce going and making sure the entire rest of the manor had handrails wherever they might be needed. He’d installed the rails to the cave stairs himself. Jason scowled at them sometimes, but they all knew that he did, and would, need them. Changes in air pressure and colder weather both made Jason’s injuries hurt more, and winter was coming on.
Alfred was tense and tired (he’d had his own hands full with the fighting and the problems and the installations in the manor) but he still had dinner ready. Dick didn’t know about Jason, but food made him feel better. “Going to come downstairs with me?” he asked, once they’d finished their meal.
“Nope,” Jason said. “Me and Tim are doing stuff.”
“Okay,” Dick said simply. It wasn’t his job to stop Jason meeting Tim either. It was nevertheless a lonely trip downstairs, when it used to be all four of them.
When he reached the bottom of the stairs, he almost stopped dead in his tracks. There was someone else in the cave. There was an echo where there shouldn’t be an echo. Just a small one. Anywhere else, he might not have noticed it, but he knew the cave. Every corner.
So instead of stopping, he carried on. Anyone trying to ambush him would be in for a surprise. He knew how to deal with someone who came for his back.
Whoever was hiding wasn’t familiar with the cave’s acoustics. They were good at sneaking around. They just hadn’t compensated properly for the space. He walked straight to the middle of the cave as if he hadn’t heard anything and presented his back for a clear shot.
There was another slight echo of movement, and then someone attacked from not quite the angle he was expecting. A lower angle. Dick whipped around fast enough to deter the strike at his kidneys.
He faltered when he saw he was being attacked by a child. Only a little bigger than he himself must have been when the Court took him, and dressed all in black. That was all it took for Dick to take this seriously. He’d been a lethal threat when he was that size. He couldn’t afford to take it easy on his opponent just because that opponent was a child. It wasn’t often he was the larger combatant in a fight, though. He struck back as hard as he dared and send the child flying.
The small figure twisted in the air and recovered their footing. Not the way the Court taught recovery. So it wasn’t the new Talon come to eliminate the old. Who was teaching children that small and young to fight like that, then? The child launched into an immediate counterattack, aiming at Dick’s legs and trying to immobilise him. A good tactic, but Dick was an adult. He was faster, stronger, and more experienced. He grabbed the child’s wrists and held them together, forcing their legs out from under them and twisting around to pin them.
“Alfred,” he called. The cave’s alert systems would pick it up. “Alfred, there’s an intruder in the cave.”
Sure enough, the answer came back within seconds. “What?” Surprise made Alfred’s tone unusually harsh. “I’ll be right down, of course.”
Beneath him, the child made a tt! sound. A boy, it seemed. “What’s your name?” Dick asked.
“None of your affair, pretender,” the boy said.
“You know who I am?” He frowned to himself. “You have to. This isn’t somewhere you can break into without preparations. Next question. Why did you come here?”
“Also none of your affair, pretender,” the boy said. He was very bossy for someone pinned to the ground.
“I’m not pretending anything,” Dick said. Child or not, if the boy came here to hurt Jason, he would regret it. “If you know my name, you should use it. It’s polite. And you should introduce yourself too.”
“I will not,” he said. “I will introduce myself on my feet or not at all.”
Dick frowned. What difference did that make? “I can’t let you up yet,” he said. “You’re very good at fighting.”
“Naturally,” he replied. “My teachers were far better than the second-rate cultists you call the Court of Owls.”
“Second-rate cultists,” Dick repeated. On the one hand, the Court was…bigger than that. Whatever this boy thought. What they could do was scarier than he gave them credit for. On the other hand, if the worst happened and the Court did take him back, he definitely wanted to call them second-rate cultists before they started hurting him again. “I like it,” he decided.
That, of all things, actually seemed to make the boy angry. Or some emotion other than superior, anyway. “You’re not supposed to like it!” he snapped.
“Why would I mind?” he asked, genuinely curious. “I didn’t train with the Court because I chose to. I don’t owe them. I don’t like them. So why would I mind?”
From behind him, Alfred said, “I take it our young guest is aware of several pertinent facts, then?”
“He hasn’t introduced himself and he keeps calling me ‘pretender’,” Dick said. “He was serious when he attacked me.”
“I see.” Dick heard the click of handcuffs, but Alfred didn’t get any closer.
Dick wasn’t uneasy about restraining a child. Like he’d said, the boy was serious when he’d attacked. Bruce had restrained him, the first time they’d met, and it had been the right decision. “Pass those here,” Dick said. He might be a child, but he could still be very dangerous.
Alfred sighed, but passed the cuffs anyway. Dick shifted his weight, shifted his grip, and secured his prisoner, hands behind his back. Not that he intended to relax any; if the boy was good enough to get in here, he might well be good enough to get out of any restraints. Dick did not intend to be taken by surprise. No more than Alfred would. Jason was upstairs and as little as any of them liked it, he was in no shape to fight back or run away.
He edged around to at least see his attacker’s face. Masked. Sort of. Cloth only, pulled up to hide the boy’s features. Dick tugged it down.
“My goodness me,” Alfred said.
The face beneath was very young, maybe seven or so, but familiar. Dick couldn’t place why, at first. Between the baby fat and the scowl, he was reminded more of Jason than anyone. Then he worked out the shape of the jaw and the line of the nose. “Oh,” he said, putting it together. “You look like Bruce.”
“I am his son,” the boy said, drawing himself up impressively for someone stilll cuffed. “You are a pretender.”
“You keep saying it. I’m not pretending anything.” He wondered if the boy knew what it meant, or if he was copying the word from an adult.
“You are a pretender. You and the other one. The cripple.”
That made Dick angry. Not for him, for Jason. He was allowed to be angry. He didn’t know how he should show that with a child, though. Children could be dangerous, but they could be hurt more easily than adults, too.
“If I may, young man,” Alfred interrupted, “Could I inquire as to the identity of your mother?”
The boy lifted a stubborn chin. That was definitely familiar. “I am the son of Talia al Ghul,” he said with obvious pride.
He’d heard the name al Ghul before. Not recently. Not often. But he’d heard it. From Bruce too, he thought. Dick turned to Alfred to see what he made of it. Something, from the look on his face. It wasn’t often anyone caught Alfred with a look of disdain on his face. “Alfred?” Dick asked.
“I’ve never met the lady in person,” Alfred said. “But from my recollection, our young guest’s story has a level of…plausibility.”
Dick looked at the boy. His chin was still held high, but there was just a bit of uncertainty in how he looked at Alfred now. And when Dick looked at Alfred. “You don’t -“ like her? Approve of her? He wasn’t at all sure how to describe the quickly-hidden expression.
“A topic best not discussed in front of our guest,” Alfred said smoothly. “Now, Master Dick, I think it is well past time to inform Master Bruce that he is required at home.”