Chapter Text
Dick gets up at 5 am nowadays. He has to be awake before the factory workers get in so he gets up, stashes his sleeping bag on the roof and then goes to find something to do during the day.
His options are limited. The library is always open but he can never stay there long. He loves to read but not when he’s expected to do it sitting down or being quiet for extended periods of time. When he reads he multitasks, he wanders or he sits upside down, he fills the margins with notes and comparisons and memories. Memories are hard to dwell on these days and he has spent too long sitting down and being quiet.
He thinks about Bruce. About the soft moments after nightmares and when he let himself think the man cared and then he thinks about leaving (“Leave your key with Alfred on the way out.”)
He thinks about Jason. How the boy had died wearing Dick’s mantel, his colours. His parents' colours. Robin was marked for death long before he started fighting crime.
He thinks about Slade. How the man had broken something that Dick was never truly able to fix. How after Renegade, he had to work twice as hard to keep himself from crossing the line.
He thinks about Bludhaven and how in the end it hadn't mattered how hard he had tried to keep himself from crossing that line because he had let her do it anyway.
He thinks about the suffocating and lonely quiet of Spyral and how much harder sitting still became after dying and being forced into isolation.
He feels despondency creep in. So today is one of the bad days. Great. Definitely not the library today.
There's a bakery on 34th and Terrace that lets him take up the odd shift when he gets low on cash.
There's the park in midtown with the uneven bars. Sometimes the kids like it when he stops by and teaches them a few moves.
He checks his stash. He has enough cash to last him the week so he doesn't necessarily need a shift today and if he really does get desperate he could always try busking in midtown again. That usually earns him enough for at least one meal. Gothamites aren't the most generous people but there are enough tourists that he can make some cash.
The park it is.
It's been 3 months since he woke up in this Alternate Gotham and at least he hasn’t needed to use his assets to survive. There was some time at the beginning where he had been so hungry he almost didn’t care what he would have to do but then he had met Holly, the owner of the bakery and she had saved his life. His second life? He’s still not really sure what the point of all this is.
He was sure he had bled out on some random rooftop but next thing he knows he’s here. Here being a world where Bruce Wayne is still Batman but Dick Grayson died at 13 years old. Supposedly a suicide, after being shuffled through Juvie then foster home after foster home. He disappeared 3 months before his body had been found. Probably a run away attempt or something.
The point is he’s dead and now 19 year old Dick Grayson has taken his place.
For the life of him he cannot figure out why.
He passes a news stand and sees a familiar smiling face on the front of the tabloids. Jason. He misses his brothers. Bruce Wayne never adopted Dick Grayson here but he had adopted Jason Todd when he had found the boy stealing his tires. Essentially the super hero community functions exactly the same just without Dick. Even the titans are a team here. Roy Harper and Wally West founded them. (and fuck does he miss them but even on his world his Wally and Roy are dead, which hurts so damn much and cements just how alone he is)
The way it should have been, he thinks. Maybe it wouldn’t have hurt as much if Bruce just had not gotten involved. If he had left him on that floor instead of bringing him in and pretending to love him only to send him away again and again. Clearly he didn’t belong there. He doesn’t really belong anywhere anymore.
Jason Todd-Wayne turns 16 in three days and Dick can’t help but wonder if the boy will actually make it to that day. Sparrow took to the sky’s two years ago. Maybe this world will be kinder to Jason.
Dick can only hope. Jason is a good kid even if he’s not Dick’s little brother here.
He shakes his head. It’s not like he can go back. And even if he did, his family there had made it clear he wasn’t wanted. He winces as he remembers Jason’s fist across his cheek. It mirrors Bruce as he remembers the night after Jason’s death when he had returned to take the boy out for ice cream.
It mirrors the night Bruce had told him about the Court of Owls and when he had given him the mission for Spyral. There had been no mercy then and Dick had realised he was nothing more than a soldier to Bruce. A tool to be used and thrown to the side when it breaks.
Bruce’s love had always been hard looks and fractured edges but Dick can take a hit. He’s been taking them since the first night in Juvie. The shattering of his heart when Bruce turned him away the first time was the worst of it. The last time before Spyral, Dick had thought he was done for good, but even then he had come back. For some reason he always comes back.
He wouldn’t change anything if it meant saving them. He would always save them. It hurts that to save them he had to lose them. After the rejection from his brothers and the cold look in his fathers eyes when he hadn’t recognised him he couldn’t take it anymore so he had returned to Bludhaven. Something in him had cracked. So he threw himself into the only thing he knew he was good at. Being useful. He went back to saving and protecting and changing and even that he had failed at.
The city had officially taken everything from him. Including his life. And yet as he lay on that roof bleeding out he couldn't help but think At least it will stop hurting.
And then he woke up again.
And it’s like a second chance but Dick has no idea what to do with it. He’s not Nightwing here.
He’s not really Dick Grayson either.
He’s had so many names and titles at this point he isn’t even sure he knows who Dick Grayson is supposed to be.
Agent 37, Renegade, Red X, Robin.... None of those were him anymore. And as he went about navigating this new life there was always a hole. Something was missing from Dick Grayson’s life and he could not for the life of him figure it out.
It still hurt. Not physically but he was cold. So cold and there was this gaping wound inside, raw and open and it wasn’t healing no matter what he tried.
He stays at the park until after nightfall, then takes to the rooftops to get back to the factory. The factory he stays in is on the far end of the warehouse district so he takes the long way. Most of the warehouses are empty but they have catwalks and ladders and other such ledges that makes for a great parkour session. He may not be a vigilante but flying is still in his blood. That he’s sure of.
He’s three warehouses in when he hears a familiar heart stopping laugh.
Dick knows he should go the other way. He doesn't have armour or weapons or anything really but if the Joker is out he could stop him from killing Sparrow. He could save Jason this time.
So of course he continues on. He goes to the roof of the warehouse he heard the laughter from and peers through the skylight.
Fuck. He can see the Joker alright. And Sparrow.
He’s tied up and bruised. The Joker has already started and Dick is running out of time. Summoning his stealth training, he slips in through the window landing on the catwalk. He can’t fuck this up or both of them are screwed. The Joker is singing and Dick can feel his blood boil. How dare this man hurt his little brother. This man killed his brother.
Not this time. I’ll save him this time.
If he jumps at the right angle he can have the Joker down in seconds then get in a nerve strike. It’s a half assed plan and nothing with the Joker ever works out like that but Dick has always been an optimist.
He takes a deep breath and jumps. No time for hesitation when Jason is on the floor breathing heavily and struggling. His baby brother is probably in a lot of pain right now.
He gets the angle right but he doesn’t account for the crowbar, which he learns as it stabs into his leg, has been sharpened for this awful occasion. Fuck. The shock from the wound makes Dick miss the nerve strike and he falls to the floor stumbling away from the Joker. It’s fine. He can get this back. If he could just get his breathing under control.
“I don’t know who you are kiddo, but that little stunt is gonna cost ya’” Dick goes for a jab but the crowbar comes down on his wrist and he hears a crack. The lack of armour is definitely killing the vibe right now.
“You must not be from around here but in Gotham, when the bat’s and birds play the people stay away. And you're interrupting a game.” he laughs.
“Beating up a kid is not a fucking game, Joker.” Dick gets a hit to the clown's jaw and the Joker stumbles to the floor. His vision is spotting but he pushes forward anyway. The Joker stands and the crowbar hits his injured leg. He goes down hard and fast, hitting his head on the concrete. He’s really fucked this one up hasn’t he.
Jason is 5 feet from him and he still failed to save him.
He groans and looks in the direction of Jason to see that he managed to slip his bonds during Dicks distraction. At least he’ll get away. Maybe he hadn't fucked it up too badly. The crowbar comes down again, hitting him in the ribs. He draws in a sharp breath and waits for the next hit but it never comes.
He feels small hands slip under his arms. Nononono Jason needs to get away. Dick doesn’t matter as long as Jason gets away.
“Well that can’t be true if you were willing to risk your life for me. Don’t worry man Batman is dealing with the Joker just let me help you now.”
Oh. He had said that out loud. He must be more out of it than he thought.
Jason chuckles beside him and it comes out a little strained, “Well you are bleeding pretty heavy from that leg wound and you took an awful hit to the head.”
Dick snorts at his lack of filter and then panics when his vision clears and he sees Jason’s dragging him to the Batmobile. He can’t go to the cave, they don’t- he doesn’t belong in the cave. He starts to struggle against Jason but his vision is spotting again and then he’s passing out.