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“I know that they all performed admirably while we were gone, even surpassing expectations in some cases,” Diana began, her eyes going toward Bruce, who grunted without further comment, “isn't it time we took back our own responsibilities? Is it fair of us to put all of this back on their shoulders again? We were gone, they carried the burden, but it should be ours to take back.”
“You said it yourself,” Bruce began. “We weren't here. We don't know all of what has happened or what is happening now. We need to learn the state of affairs before we take any kind of action. Until we are better informed, we should leave things in the hands of those who already know and understand the situation.”
“Some of us need a more than a break,” Clark said. “A shower and change of clothes would be a start. As for the rest of it... There are people we should tell we're alive and other business to handle.”
“Excuse me,” a voice said from behind them, and Bruce turned to face Aqualad. Though he had questioned the young man's betrayal and out of character behavior, it was still a relief to know that he had not turned on his team or his friends and was working undercover. At the same time, it was not. “If I might have a word with you, I would appreciate it.”
“Kaldur, we know you were working against the Light. We do not hold any of your actions against you,” Diana told him, putting a hand on his shoulder. “We are glad to welcome you back.”
“Thank you,” Kaldur said, always respectful, “but that is not the word that I wished to have.”
“Where's Nightwing?” Bruce asked, ignoring the looks he was given.
“I should never doubt your perception,” Kaldur said, relieved. “I thought it best to tell you that he had taken a leave of absence from the team.”
“With the loss of Kid Flash, it's understandable,” Clark began, but Bruce ignored him as he walked away. He had to find his son. He had intended to go back to the cave and speak to Alfred first, but this—Dick—took precedence over that.
Paranoia trumped over Bruce's parental instincts, forcing him to stop at the cave anyway. Dick's apartment in Blüdhaven didn't have a zeta tube directly connected to it. They'd both been of two minds about it, but his civilian residence wasn't like the manor. There wasn't a natural cave formation underneath it to conceal a secret base of operations or instantaneous travel. The secondary base of operations they'd established long before the move had become the team's new home after Mount Justice—an easy choice with the zeta tube already in place—which would have made things simple if Bruce's identity was known to everyone on the team.
It wasn't. Bruce had to stop and ensure that he would not be recognized in the civilian clothes necessary to make the trek to Dick's apartment from the zeta tube. He had almost rejected the idea altogether, but it was still faster to go through the base than it was to drive from Gotham to Blüdhaven.
He could have left his suit on, gone in the shadows as Batman, but Dick needed his father, not the caped crusader.
He climbed up the steps to Dick's door, stopping in front of it. Knocking wasn't something he did often, and he would have expected his son to know he was there by now, but then Dick was grieving. His usual behavior was unlikely to happen, no sudden opening of the door with a smirk, not this time.
Bruce took out his key, turning it in the lock and letting the metal squeak open. Dick left it noisy on purpose, and most of the time it was amusing. Not this time. Bruce looked around the apartment, his gut trying to tell him it was worse than what he saw in front of him, but very little could be worse than the near destruction of everything Dick owned. Dick didn't have much despite Bruce's millions and he kept less of it here than he did at the manor, but what was here was gone.
The bookcase must have broken when it was overturned, wood splintered and likely unrepairable, with the books themselves torn and scattered across the floor. The stool from the bar kitchen had been smashed on the counter, and most of the cupboard doors had been pulled off their hinges, though either the cupboards had been almost bare—likely, given Dick's feelings toward shopping—or their contents hadn't been disturbed. A few cans and boxes sat unmolested on the shelves, probably the only things that hadn't been touched.
Bruce waded through the wreckage, stopping when his foot crunched glass and he found the picture of John and Mary Grayson Dick took everywhere with him. The poster had been ripped from the wall—it looked like it was in pieces on the floor.
Even in his darkest grief, Dick wouldn't do that. He couldn't. He knew that was all he had left of his family, a few photos and any of the old memorabilia that Bruce could find and buy over the years—and it wasn't much. When he'd been removed from the circus, the social worker hadn't let him take much of anything from his parents' trailer, and it was apparently repossessed not long after their deaths. If Bruce had known, he'd have made sure he bought it so Dick had more to hold onto from them, but by the time he'd learned of it, the trailer had been sold three times and was completely empty of anything that connected to the Graysons.
No, this was wrong. All of it, but then if Bruce thought back to when Jason died, to those dark months just after their loss... It almost fit the destruction here. Dick could have done this. The grief could have done terrible things.
“Dick?”
No answer. Bruce glanced at the bathroom before entering the bedroom. The mirror was broken, but otherwise that room was unharmed. The bedroom, even, looked relatively undisturbed, with Dick's sheets strewn on the floor in the way Alfred always hated.
No sign of Dick, though.
Bruce turned, going to the closet and pushing the small catch that opened the compartment where Dick kept his Nightwing gear in the apartment. Home base, Dick had called it. Closet, everyone else had said, and he'd laughed his head off.
He was not there, and he was not laughing now.
Dick was gone.