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There was no city that had a skyline like Gotham’s.
He’d gotten too used to Blüdhaven, honestly. The skies there were always cloudless, dark indigoes painting what would normally be pitch black in Nightwing’s hometown. Neon lights ran across pockmarked grime and the soul of the city would just buzz like a unified vibration under the soles of his boots. Like the city’s breath was always held in some great waiting and never released. Gotham was different. It was stagnant and constantly rushing at the same time, air always acrid with fear or chaotic bustles or a nervous energy. It always felt like the city was off-kilter. Never grounded.
The views were always killer, though. Similar pictures, sure, but different in the same way that two artists interpret the same subject. That distant familiarity was what kept Nightwing’s head in the game back in Blüdhaven, but now being back in Gotham, it just felt disconcerting. If he closed his eyes, he might just forget where he was for a moment.
He inhaled sharply as he sat down on the concrete ledge. He forgot a lot of things nowadays. Too many thoughts crammed inside his head to clear for the minimal stuff, like remembering what day it was or what he ate for breakfast that morning or where he was going whenever he wandered aimlessly throughout the mansion. Usually, when the overthinking really ripped his brain a new one and teetered dangerously close to a migraine, Wally would-
Nightwing’s vision blurred. No. No, not right now. He couldn't do this right now.
He just wished he could turn his brain off. Windows update it, maybe. Run diagnostics, insert some pre-written program to heal away all the wounds and let it just fix itself.
This was the beginning of the grief cycle, and that meant that everyone had to treat him like glass as he shuffled from moment to moment in a washed-out world that never quite course-corrected itself since - since the Arctic. The world turned and turned and he was expected to eventually, one day, stand up and turn with it again.
There was a deep urge to stay still forever.
A jarring jingle caught his ear from behind, instantly straightening Nightwing’s posture and swivelling his head; a dramatic gasp followed. “Is that Mistah Wing in my neck’a the woods?”
Nightwing blinked. “Wh - oh. Hey, Harley.”
Said Harley lithely shimmied up the brick fencing, jester tassels bouncing as she plopped next to his nook on the wall’s top.
“Oh, c’mere you! ” she squealed, wrapping Nightwing into a tight hug before he could even think to scramble out. “It’s been years, birdie! Wherem’st th’fuck’ve you been? Some buddies said you’d popped up somewhere around Bluddy Heaven-”
“Blüdhaven, yeah.”
“-but then I see you on the news like fifty fuckin’ times with the whole War of the Worlds thing, and then you’re somewhere ‘round Europe ‘n Africa ‘n the great ‘ole Arctic -”
Nightwing winced; It’s fine. She doesn’t know.
“-and you’re just all over the place and you’re just so big now and all in your big boy blue suit-
“Harles, it hasn’t been that long since you’ve last seen me.”
“- oh, shut it, birdbrain, seein’ you grow even a day older just makes me wipe a damn tear away from my eye, and, oh , Wingnut, you’ve missed out on so much drama between me and Mistah J and Ivy and the massive asskickin ’ I finally delivered to his dingy paste-butt-”
“About time!”
“Yeah, and Batsy wouldn’t hear it when I was tellin’ ‘im but you always liked hearin’ it so I’m gonna tell it to you right after you tell me ‘bout everythin’ you’ve been up to, and-” Harley’s rant paused for a moment to take in a much-needed bout of oxygen, “-what’re you doin’ up on this lil ‘ole ledge, anyway? Shouldn’t you be, like.” Her eyes flicked to the skyline stretched across Gotham Harbor, finger jabbing at the twinkling cityscape. “Over there?”
Nightwing swallowed. “I, uh. Needed to get away from it all for a bit.”
Harley nodded solemnly. “Yeah, me too. That’s why I moved away from the big D to a cozy lil apartment down here! Much quieter neighborhood, rent so low it’s basically free, ‘n landlords ‘n managers don’t care if you’re an ex-con! Who knew outer Gotham was so forgiving to people with shitty credit?”
He frowned. “Harley, there’s no difference in rent rates between Midtown and outer Gotham.”
“There is if your landlord’s dead!”
“I - Harley. ”
“What?”
“Did you kill your landlord?”
“No! He’d signed the lease off to me ‘n Ivy ‘n shot himself up too much. I just, y’know,” Harley’s voice dropped to a mutter, “‘forgot’ to call the boys in blue.”
The vigilante pinched the bridge of his nose. “That’s negligent homicide.”
“I forgot! Besides, he had it comin’. I saw him kick a baby right in the noggin the day before, I swear it. I’ve turned ‘round, Boy Blunder, you know that.”
“You’re…” Nightwing sighed, a smile tugging across his face despite himself. Some things don’t change . “The courts said you got three strikes. Don’t forget that, alright? Three strikes and you’re out.”
Harley’s back went straight as a pin, hand raising in a comically strict salute. “Yessir!”
It got a chuckle out of him, that was for sure. “So you and Ivy have been holding up well? I’m happy you guys finally made it official.”
“Yeah, it’s been a real bla - hey, now, you’re avoidin’ my questions!”
“Yeah, but I wanna talk about you .”
Harley frowned. “But I don’t wanna talk about me.” She jabbed a finger at his chest. “We’re gonna talk about you , because you look like shit.”
“Thanks.”
“You look like shit in an affectionate way! Like a ‘blind mangy flea-ridden two-legged dog licks your leg’ way!”
“Man, sometimes talking to you feels like getting blindsided with a frying pan.”
Harley’s face twisted into some nonplussed expression.
Nightwing winked. “Affectionately.”
She mumbled something about “stupid supermodel faces” and “‘affectionate’ my ass” before clearing her throat. “Y’know, word on the street’s that you’ve been pretty down in the dumps lately. Like, down down in the dumps. Spread all the way from Blüdhaven’s gutters to Gotham’s, y’know?”
The acrobat raised an eyebrow. “Am I really that popular?”
Harley shrugged. “You Bats are a pretty intrinsic part of the underground’s world, squirt. We got eyes ‘n all. Mouths to talk with.”
“God, don’t tell me there’s some criminal tabloid going around with the local Batman drama plastered on the cover. I might have to get myself a few issues out of morbid curiosity alone.”
“You wish, Boy Blunder - besides, you got yourself a couple thousand circlin’ ‘round the light side of life to keep your ego busy.”
“Yeah, but that’s not sexy vigilante drama. That’s, like, comparing a shitty CW drama to Lost,” Nightwing drawled, crossing his legs and leaning forward to prop his head up by his hand. “Gonna be honest with you, I think a Nightwing show would get significantly higher ratings than a Grayson one.”
“Depends on your tastes,” Harley replied. “I, for one, think a Grayson show would be a great premise for some real interestin’ billionaire vampire acrobats.”
“I’m starting to think your tastes are a bit lackluster, Harles.”
“And I’m gonna choose to ignore that. Speaking of shitty CW shows, didja see that Flash show they’re tryna air next mo-”
Nightwing jumped to his feet, blood roaring in his ears again as his chest seized. “Stop.”
Harley froze, eyes wide. “Too on the nose?”
Maybe his expression said it all, because Harley nodded quickly and tugged at his wrist. “My bad, birdie. Just...just tryna getcha to open up, is all.”
He scowled, drawing his arm away from her and turning to hop off to the sidewalk. “Look, I appreciate the concern about my - my shit, but I really ought to get going-”
The harlequin stood up, squaring her shoulders. “Nightwing - Dickie , hold up . We’re just worried for you, kiddo. Gotham’s worried for you.”
“I don’t need it, ” Nightwing hissed, spinning around.
“Yeah, you do,” Harley shot back. “You’re thin, kid. You’re thin and you got bags under your eyes and your punches are slow and soft and all the Bats have been actin’ like you’re near dead or somethin’ but you’re bein’ nothing but smiles and everyone’s shittin’ themselves bein’ concerned for your damn wellbein’ , Dickwad!”
His throat went dry.
Harley’s eyes softened, shoulders slumping. “Look, we...you and the B-man may have always been on the other side of the moral moat, but the streets can have a heart sometimes. Lord knows you folks’ve done it for us once or twice.”
Nightwing’s gaze turned from her, tracing the individual grains on the concrete below them. “I think I’ve spent too much time talking about myself.”
“Talkin’ or thinkin’?”
He knew the answer and didn’t have the heart to say it.
The look Harley gave him was something straddling pity and understanding. “I know grief and bottlin’ emotions when I see it. Just ‘cause I got dumped in a vat of acid and had my life fundamentally changed from the inside out by some clown with a crowbar fetish doesn't mean I just forgot my psych degree, birdbrain. C'mon, talk to me.” She patted the ground beside her. “Dr. Harleen Quinzel, at your service! Trial session's free, next one's $135 a pop!”
That teased another grin onto Nightwing’s face. Damn Harley Quinn and her insufferable ability to conjure good vibes out of thin air.
As he sat down at his appointed place, Harley pulled down her jester hat and mask, blonde hair falling in tangled curls around her shoulders. "Alright, kid, you're in my invisible four foot square office now. Masks off, them's the rules! Chop chop!"
Nightwing rolled his eyes and Dick Grayson slipped the mask off his face, dropping it on his lap. “Gettin’ a little pushy there, are we?”
“It’s for your own good, ‘somethin’-somethin’-dismantling-physical-and-mental-masks’ bullshit. Look, just humor me, alright?” Harley pulled her hair back into a ponytail, pulling out a pen and an invisible clipboard. “Alright, champ, tell Auntie Harley about all your problems!”
Some of the tension bled out of Dick’s muscles as he shifted to get comfortable. “I...don’t even know where to start, really.” Odd how his thoughts could run at a million miles per hour and then disappear the second anyone gave him the opportunity to vocalize them.
“That ain’t matter, just tell me ‘bout whatever comes to mind! Unless it’s regardin’ your political opinions. Nobody wants to hear that shit.”
“Oh, so like how we still haven’t dealt with the massive opioid crisis plaguing the American citysc-”
She clapped her hands over her ears. “ La la la, the world is burning and I couldn’t give lessova shit! ”
Dick belted a laugh. “Alright, alright. I think I got something.”
Harley readied her imaginary clipboard, ears perked intently.
“You know,” he chuckled, “When I was little, my mom always used to say ‘ tratați fiecare la revedere ca pe unul final ’ - 'treat every goodbye like a final one'. You never know what might happen to them, you know? You say good night and might not wake up the next morning. You think you're gonna walk across the street and meet up with them in a second and you get hit by a car. Things like that."
He fidgeted with his mask, tracing the dark curves and ridges. “I didn't used to think about it that much until they died. When you're a kid, you don’t really know what death is. You think everyone is immortal until, suddenly, they're not.
"And so that stuck with me. It stuck with me and B told me the same thing - to expect the unexpected, to know that something could always go terribly wrong in our line of business. Especially after Jason's...after Jason , it was real to me. It was real to all of us, everyone in the hero gig and League and the Team - it was just a part of the job.
“But, Wally …” He paused for a moment, lips pressing into a line as he thought out his next words. “Superman always said I was the multiverse's constant. No matter what universe he was spit into, I was always a friend to him. Never changing, which is - which is good, I guess. nice to know I'm not some asshat in Universe #40,000. But Wally was my constant - when the world changed and got too fast and too cruel and too stressful and too complicated, Wally was the thing that kept me grounded. He was the one thing I could count on to grab hold of when the storms got too rough.
“We'd always prepared for it. We'd always known that one day it could totally happen, but Wally just seemed immortal. We'd prepared for it but it still felt like some distant plan for the 'just-in-case' that would never really happen. Like naive dumbasses.”
“And when it happened, it blindsided you?”
Dick nodded slowly. “Yeah. Just because you read about how to change a tire and technically know how to change a tire doesn't mean you've actually had the experience of changing a tire.” The buzz of anxiety worked its way through his hands; his breathing seemed to skip a pace now. “The second...the second he went through that Zeta tube, I knew I spent too little time. I remembered what my mom said and just hoped that this would be another time where I'd see him in a moment and a car wouldn't coincidentally hit him when he was gone. I hoped and I hoped and I prayed that things would work out like they do in the movies, even though they never do.”
He wrapped his arms around himself - because it was cold. It was just because he was cold, not because he needed Wally’s embrace, but because he was just cold . “I spent too much time hoping about the unsecured future when I should've been focused on what was going on right in front of me.”
"You hadda lot to think about at the time, Dickie," Harley said quietly. "Not a lotta time to give him a good lovin' when the world's at stake."
Dick gave a thin smile. "You wanna know something cruel, Harles?"
"The shit you been put through?"
"No - well, yes, but no." He drew in a stuttering breath, closing his eyes from the sparkling lights dancing on the harbor waves. “The cruel motif that keeps popping up in my life is that every one of the people I've ever lost had a preventable death. I knew about Zucco's argument with Haly before my parents' final show. I caught the woman falling off the rooftop in Gainsly and I didn’t shield her neck when we hit the ground. I could've tagged along or been there on comms when Jason and B were in Ethiopia. I had a chance to grab Wally's wrist and say ' wait ', and I didn't take it. ”
“You can't be everyone's hero, kid," Harley sighed. "Not everyone can be saved.”
"But it could have been prevented."
“Yeah, could have . But you ain't some god. You can't know what's gonna happen when your loved one crosses the street. You can't know you'll go to bed nicely ‘n wake up the next mornin’ safe ‘n sound. And birdie," she said, "you and your beau hadda make a choice. A tough choice, one no one should hafta make, but maybe the right one. But every choice has a consequence, even if it ain't deserved. No one coulda known Speedy Gonzalez wasn’t gonna make it. Not one, includin’ you. ”
And there it was again. The air escaping his lungs, the feeling of falling on solid ground. The knowledge that he just had to get through today and tomorrow and the day after that without half of himself.
Harley wrapped an arm around him and he leaned against her. That painful ache that never left him since the Arctic squeezed his throat and twisted his chest, but tears didn’t prick his eyes. It just came in waves. Waves that crashed and threatened to sweep him off his feet, but the hold of someone who loved him kept him from getting lost.
“I just needed more,” he rasped, “more time. ”
She ran a hand through his hair. “There ain’t ever enough time when it comes to the loves you lose, birdie.”
Gotham Harbor’s tides slammed against the piers as the wind began to pick up again. They sat there, wrapped in each other’s arms, for what felt like an eternity before Harley nudged him off her a bit, leaning him upright again. “A’ight, champ,” she said gently. “You Bats are planners, right? All about that overthinking biz.”
Dick snorted, swiping a hand at his eyes and wrinkling his nose. “Y-yeah.”
“So when you go home, what’s your plan?”
“Gonna...sleep.”
“A’ight. An’ when you wake up?”
“I…” His gaze returned to the churning water. “Dunno. Keep getting through it.”
“How?” Harley asked.
“How?”
“How’re you gonna get through it?” Her sky blue eyes were large, secure. “Walk Auntie Harles through it.”
“Harley, I…”
“I wanna hear it, Wingnut. When you wake up tomorrow mornin’, how’re you gonna get through the day even with the grief on your back?”
He pressed his eyes closed. Actually, how had he been getting through the days? Check-ins with Alfred. Spare conversations with Tim. Laying in bed. Working out until his muscles gave out entirely. Avoiding calls from M’gann or Artemis or Barbara. Warring with himself over memories that seemed more distant than he’d like to realize as time passed on. “I’ll...distract myself. Try to forget.”
“ Bzzt , wrong answer,” Harley sniped.
“Then what else? Everything else just - Harley, it’s a gut punch to go down to the kitchen and see Wally’s favorite coffee mug. Even just that can make - make me-” He found himself struggling to push out the words. “I can finally muster up the strength to walk down and talk to people, and a fucking piece of ceramic can just make me spiral all over again. I just...I’m just so fucking fragile , now.”
“Heard smokin’ pot does the trick to cure pottery-related heebie-jeebies,” she remarked cheerily. Dick shot her a look. “Sorry, bad time. But it ain’t good to try ‘n forget things. You gotta let it pass over you. Things get worse before they get better, y’know?”
Not a bad call. He’d probably said that very thing to someone in his own lifetime, but it’d slipped out of his thoughts until now. He took a breath, trying to settle the buzz in his chest; he off-handedly fished the wedding band out from under his chestplate, fiddling with the ring on the too-thin chain. “I keep thinking that if I - if I try to forget it all, try to just swallow it down and lock it away and not think about him anymore-”
“You can't rush grief, kid,” Harley said softly. “You lost your parents, didn'tcha? An’ you tried to rush that and what’dja get?”
“A fucked perception of emotional recovery time?”
“No, you donned some traffic light colors ‘n started flounderin’ ‘round one of the world's most dangerous cities with some guy in a Kevlar fursuit. Rushin’ grief makes you do things you may regret in the long run, Dickie.” She rapped a knuckle against his forehead. “An’ I know some’a those thoughts running through that big noggin’ o’ yours ain’t the healthiest."
The words died in Dick’s throat. There was nothing else to say.
The quietness turned to a dim stillness as the wind began to die down. Harley squinted across the bay, glancing from Dick to the ice cold water below and back again. “Why’re you here, Nightwing?”
“What?”
Any joviality in Harley’s expression had slid from her face when he met her eyes. “Why’re you here? ” she echoed, a hardness starting to form behind her words.
Dick frowned. Pieces were starting to form in her head and he didn’t quite know what she was thinki - oh. “It’s - I wasn’t gonna do anything, I swear. I would - I don’t think I could ever bring myself to do anything like that, no.” He’d entertained the idea a few times in life, but...no, it wasn’t something he’d ever see himself actually going through with. Too many good things in the world, regardless of the neverending stream of bad.
The tension immediately ran out of Harley’s shoulders as she puffed in relief. “Really scared me there, Wing! Thought I’d waltzed right inta somethin’ deeper than expected,” she laughed. “But, seriously, if you ever start thinkin’ ‘bout shit like that-”
“I’ll reach out, Harley,” Dick said, tossing her a smile. “Promise.”
She held his look for a while longer before flopping on her back and crossing her arms behind her head. “Well, curiosity shot the cat in the nuts, so tickle my fancy for a second. Why ain’t you drownin’ your sorrows in patriotic hot dogs in main town Gotham? Don’tcha got, like, big Justice League grill-offs to go to or somethin’? This is, like, the shitscape. Ain’t no good here besides cheap booze and cookie cutter dilapidatin’ houses.”
“Would you buy it if I said it was the view?” Dick replied.
“Yeah, okay, the view’s alright,” Harley admitted, “but there’s a betta high-rise two blocks down. Bats don’t do things for the shits ‘n giggles.”
“You’d be surprised. Jason bought 42 bottles of soap to teach Damian a math problem,” Dick commented.
“Hood’s been straddlin’ the Bat-line for, like, five years. He doesn’t count.”
“Tim goes to carnivals and just stares at people for hours until they notice.”
“That’s competitive people-watchin’, that’s not shits ‘n giggles,” Harley said sourly.
“I put milk before the cere-”
“You’re gettin’ me side-tracked again with your fuckin’ war crimes, you filthy animal!”
He folded his legs up to his chest, bowing his head as the smile waned out of him. Confronting why he was here, on this ledge, just…
I can get up by myself.
Yeah, I know you can, but you kinda need at least one free hand, and you've already been hogging the fries all night. Pass them up.
A breath. Two breaths. Three, but he didn't quite get there because his chest stuttered between two and a half. “Usually the city, uh, has the big fireworks show over the harbor, but the Reach invasion made shipment delays pretty much inevitable. They only shot off a few sparklers earlier.” His shoulders hunched as his fingers gripped the stone. "It was our first kiss, here."
"On the fourth of July?"
"Yeah."
Harley was silent for a moment. Then she pulled his head onto her shoulder. "I'm sorry, kid.”
The quietness didn’t feel oppressive now. It was just a bare, knowing silence; and for the first time in weeks, the weight on Dick’s shoulders felt a bit lighter. A burst of brilliant red shot through the sky, splitting into a cloud of sparks above them.
“Hey!” Harley cried, “some fucktwat got the fireworks goin’ again!”
Off in the distance, a crowd of teenagers seemed to be huddled around Dock E, shooting off rockets and hooting when they soared through the air. The cops would probably bust them in a bit, but damn if illegal fireworks weren’t better than nothing. Harley sniffed the air, tumbling off the ledge and landing on the sidewalk. “You stay right there, champ, Auntie Harley’s gonna go get us some shitty gas station hot dogs! Be right back!”
Dick toyed with a grin as he watched her go, the sky lighting up with color behind him.
Happy Fourth, Walls.