Chapter Text
She’s alive. She’s alive and as long as she’s alive, so is Dick.
So he keeps trudging along, holding her small, tiny body in his hands as they cross the desert to Narjani in South Saudi. It’s a two hundred mile journey from the helicopter they crash landed in together eight days ago.
“Your mother loved you, you know?” Dick tells her, when the sun sets on their eighth day in the desert. They keep walking. To stop walking meant to die.
The baby in his arms doesn’t respond. She just puts her hand on his chest and cries as he closes his eyes.
“Shh, darling,” Dick whispers, rocking her back and forth until the crying stops. They’ve run out of water. They’ve run out of baby formula. Helena couldn’t walk anymore on day three and Midnighter fell on day seven.
That leaves Dick alone. Well, not exactly alone. He still has her. And she’s still alive. So they keep walking.
“It was her final wish,” Dick says absent-mindedly, “To keep you safe. Isn’t that wonderful?”
The baby can’t respond, but she’s silent now, watching him intently as he speaks to her. Dick holds her tightly across his chest as he trudges up a sandy hill. They’ve all started to blur together, each hill looking the exact same as the last.
“Alfred would call it a parent’s love,” Dick murmurs, resisting the urge to stop even as his legs get stuck in the sand. He yanks them out, trying to keep his body stable so he doesn’t jostle his precious cargo, “A love that persists through danger. The need to protect your child, even as you lay bleeding on the floor.”
The baby says nothing. Of course she doesn’t. She’s only eight days old. She can’t talk. She doesn’t understand that her mother has just passed away in the helicopter wreck, bleeding out by a piece of shrapnel through her heart. Dick wonders if this child will remember it when she’s older, if blinking images of death and dying will infiltrate her dreams. Nightmares of a time she doesn’t remember and a time she doesn’t understand.
“Are you thirsty?” Dick asks, trying to change topics quickly, even though he’s sure she can’t understand him so it’s not like it actually matters, “We don’t have water, but sometimes I drink my own spit if I get thirsty. It simulates actually drinking water.”
The baby smacks her lips. Dick laughs. He smacks his lips too and watches as she smiles up at him.
“My father taught me that,” Dick tells her, stumbling a little bit as they go back down the hill, “His name is Bruce… but you can’t tell him I told you that. He’s a bit anal about the whole secret identity thing."
Dick slides down the rest of the hill, panting when he reaches the bottom.
“I used to be pretty anal about it too,” Dick tells her, “Up until this guy named Luthor revealed my identity to the world. Now there’s no point in caring about it. I’m not Robin anymore. I’m not Nightwing. I’m not even Batman.”
Dick breathes and says out loud the thing that he hasn’t wanted to admit, “Sometimes I don’t even think I’m Dick Grayson anymore either. Just Agent 37. That’s all that’s left of me.”
Dick’s steps stutter as he keeps walking. They’ve got to be close to Narjani, right? One more step. Then another. He has to keep going.
What did he say when they started walking?
Right. He said that if she’s dead, he’s dead. And she’s not dead, so he’s not dead either. So he keeps walking. The night swallows them whole as they carry on, beneath stars that can’t speak and a moon that stares silently.
It’s hot and the white of the night gives Dick a headache. He can feel his mind slipping from him, begging him to just lay down for a second.
He obliges himself. He lays down onto the ground, still hugging the baby to his chest. He stares at the night sky above them and points his finger up into the air.
“That’s Ursa Major,” Dick whispers. His voice cracks as he does so. Without water, even talking has become a chore.
“I’ll teach you about the stars,” Dick mumbles. He fights to stay awake, to keep himself sharp. He needs to keep walking, but the coolness of the desert sand beckons him. Dick closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.
In his arms, the baby starts to cry.
Not now, Dick thinks to himself, let me rest.
When Dick startles awake, his first thought is her. He grabs at the air in front of him, blindly in the darkness until he hits the softness of fabric below him. Panic sets in. That’s not sand.
Dick reaches towards his left, still blindly in the dark. His hands hit something hard. A wall. That’s not sand either. Dick runs his hand along the wall until it hits a switch. The lights turn on.
Dick is greeted with a view of unwashed laundry in a pile on wooden floor and paperwork strewn across the top of a cheap, plastic desk.
He’s in his apartment.
Dick breathes. He’s not in the deserts of South Saudi. He’s not walking away from a helicopter crash barely unscathed with a baby in his hands. He’s not Agent 37 anymore. He’s not with Spyral. He doesn’t have an implant in his head controlling his every movement and infiltrating his every thought.
Still, Dick rushes to his kitchen and downs a glass of water from the sink like it’s the only glass he’ll have in days. He breathes, smiling at his dirty apartment. He’s alive. He’s in control.
The time on his stove says 2:45 AM, but that clock always runs fast, so Dick figures it's closer to 2:30. He knows he won’t be able to get back to sleep. It’s just one of those nights.
When it was the old days, Dick would’ve donned his uniform and gone out into the night to fight until sunrise broke and he had to be at his day job. That’s just how things were done in Blüdhaven.
But Dick lives in Gotham now, not Blüdhaven. And Gotham isn’t his city, not really. It’s Bruce’s city. In a way it’s also Jason’s and Tim’s and Damian’s and Steph’s and Cass’ and Barbara’s, but it’s never really felt like his in the way that Blüdhaven has.
The Bats have a schedule and routes and specific areas they patrol. There’s a system in place and areas that have special attention on them and Dick currently doesn’t fit into that system. Babs didn’t really want to add him back. They’re not on speaking terms.
That’s okay though, Dick just won’t patrol randomly. He’ll pick and choose his battles; he’ll be strategic about where he goes. He’ll avoid the Narrows where Stephanie strays and Crime Alley where Jason runs base and he’ll be fine.
Dick is a watcher now. He’s an observer. That’s why he’s picked an apartment in the middle of Gotham. It’s the place where he can be in the middle.
Alfred had of course told him he was welcome back to the Manor. Dick wasn’t stupid though. There was an unwelcome air about the Manor, and even though Dick is sure Damian would love him to return, he doesn’t think Cass and Tim share the same feelings.
It’s not just his siblings though. Bruce had already made it clear that Dick wasn’t welcome there, even though he never said so explicitly. Dick never understood why that was the case. He’d taken down Spyral from the inside. The mission had succeeded.
And that was what it was all about, wasn’t it? The mission? That was Bruce’s lifeblood, his purpose. The mission had succeeded, and Dick was greeted home with nothing more than a head nod and a whispered “good job, Birdwatcher” .
Dick hoped he’d never have to be called Birdwatcher again. He hoped that what he’d done was enough. He hoped that Bruce would never ask him to do this again. But knowing Bruce, he would. Dick would never be enough.
It’s still early and Dick doesn’t have anything to do, so he unlatches the window of his apartment and climbs onto the fire escape to watch the night sky. A distant flicker of red crosses his vision.
Dick recognizes the vibrant red as Tim. Behind him, right on his tail, is Damian. Damian has something in his hand, and from where he’s sitting, Dick can’t tell what it is.
Dick watches as they chase each other across the sky and thinks about the time when they’d all do that together. Now, it’s just Tim and Damian. They flit across the rooftops, grabbing at each other and Dick is sure Damian is probably screaming bloody murder while Tim just laughs. That was always the way they were.
Impulsively, Dick grabs a hold of the comm link he keeps stored in his kitchen drawers. He goes back out to the fire escape and sits on the ledge while he watches Tim and Damian jump across the rooftops. He slips the comm link in his ear, discreetly turning it to the frequency that the Bats use and muting himself.
Then he listens.
“Where are you guys?” Jason’s voice rattles through the comm link, just as loud and bold as it’s always been, “I’ve been waiting for-fucking-ever for you guys to get here. Gordon is way too scared of me to give me evidence, so one of you needs to get your ass over here.”
Dick closes his eyes and listens to Jason talk. He isn’t bothering to hide his Gotham accent tonight. Dick can’t begin to describe how much he’s missed hearing it.
“We’re on our way, Hood,” Tim says, his voice coming through in a pant.
“We had some very important business to take care of,” Damian follows up with.
Dick scoffs to himself, watching as Damian skids to a stop on a rooftop far away, motioning Tim to stop too. Damian waves his hands around and Dick finally focuses on what Damian’s holding. It’s ice cream.
Very important business indeed. Dick watches as Tim swats Damian’s head lightly and motions at the ice cream. Damian shoves it all in his mouth.
Dick laughs to himself, watching as Tim and Damian activate their grappling guns. They’re out of his sightline within seconds. Dick turns off the comm link and shoves it back into his cupboard.
He misses his brothers. He wants to see them everyday. But things are complicated now, and maybe Damian is okay with seeing him, but Jason and Tim surely aren’t.
So Dick has to face facts.
His brothers don’t want to see him. No one does. Not after Spyral. Not after the lies. And Dick wants to scream that it’s not his fault; it never was. But he can’t.
So he doesn’t. He’ll be fine alone anyway.
The grocery bag cuts into Dick’s hand. It’s sharp under the weight of the milk and the eggs, all crammed together in a bag by the tired looking cashier at the convenience store next door. Dick shifts the weight of the bag to his other hand as he roots around for his keys in his pockets.
“Shit,” Dick whispers to himself when the keys don’t appear in either of his pockets. He sets his grocery bag down and searches the floor around his apartment door to see if he dropped his keys. If not, it’s not a huge deal. He could always break in, but he doesn’t necessarily want to pay the missing key fee.
“Looking for something?”
Dick’s apartment door creaks open and Damian stands on the other side, arms crossed around his chest as he flicks a keyring around his middle finger.
Dick breathes a sigh of relief and grabs his keys from Damian’s hands before doing a double take.
“Dami?” Dick asks, unable to hide the shock from his face. Damian smirks.
“You’re getting rusty, Grayson,” Damian teases, hauling up the grocery bag from where Dick has left it on the floor and ushering him into his apartment, “I pickpocketed your keys after you left and you didn’t even notice.”
Dick scratches the back of his neck awkwardly, “Yeah, I was a little distracted, sorry.”
“Clearly,” Damian rolls his eyes, “What a disappointment. I was hoping we could have some fun.”
“Have you been waiting in my apartment for a while?” Dick asks, thinking of the pile of laundry he’s abandoned in his room for an embarrassing amount of time. He hopes Damian didn’t see it.
Damian raises a judgemental eyebrow, “Yes. Twenty-nine minutes precisely. You know, I’m quite concerned with your cleanliness, Richard. There were five dirty dishes in the sink.”
“I haven’t done dishes in a while,” Dick admits, emptying out his grocery bag, “Just got… busy.”
“Really?” Damian asks, pushing Dick’s hands out of the way to put the food away, “Because I haven’t seen you out on patrol.”
Dick wrestles the milk out of Damian’s hands and puts it in the fridge, “I’ve been out.”
That’s a blatant lie. Dick hasn’t really been out. Not as Nightwing. Not anymore. There’s something unwelcome about Gotham lately. It’s as if the other Bats don’t want him to patrol there. He receives dirty looks, he gets ignored on the comm lines, and he is generally left out of the loop of important cases.
Dick is on his own. He’s been going out as a civilian lately. Just a guy in a hoodie doing as much good as he can. It doesn’t draw too much attention and it reminds him of his Agent 37 days. Just an anonymous person doing things. Rather than bad things though, he’s doing good.
“Well,” Damian relents, “You haven’t put your schedule on our patrol charts yet. Even Todd has… and if you don’t put yours on the chart then we can’t patrol together.”
Dick winces and thinks of Bruce's harsh glare the minute he came to the Manor a month ago to hang out with Damian at the arcade. He’s unsure why, but Bruce hasn’t seemed that open to him hanging out with Damian.
He thinks it probably has less to do with Spyral and more to do with Bruce’s own parenting insecurities.
“We’re not Batman and Robin anymore,” Dick says gently, folding up the plastic bag and putting it with his collection under his sink, “You don’t need to patrol with me. You’ve got B.”
“I guess,” Damian shrugs, but he doesn’t look too happy about it.
“What are you doing here?” Dick asks, crossing his arms and looking at Damian’s get-up. He’s wearing all black and the sneakers he wears when he wants to walk quietly.
“I was in the area,” Damian says vaguely, waving his hands in a way that reminds Dick of himself.
“You were in the area…. at midnight?” Dick presses, raising an eyebrow and looking at Damian critically. Damian looks away, out the window. To anyone else, it might seem like a casual look, but Dick knows Damian better than most.
“I was just on a walk,” Damian says gruffly, avoiding eye contact.
“Must’ve been some walk, huh?” Dick asks, leaning back on one of his kitchen stools, “Wayne Manor is about a thirty minute walk away.”
Damian scrunches up his nose and looks the other way, “If I’d known you were going to be this annoying, I wouldn’t have visited you.”
“Damian,” Dick sighs, laying a hesitant hand on Damian’s shoulder, “You know you’re never in trouble with me.”
Damian looks up at Dick with wide eyes, like he’s surprised. Something ugly in Dick’s heart twists when he sees that. How long has it been since he’s reassured Damian of that?
“I know,” Damian says quietly, softly, like the admission is one he’s only truly processed after he’s said it.
“You know I’ll always listen,” Dick reiterates, because it’s important to him that Damian understands, “Just… you gotta tell me when something is wrong, kiddo. I’m always by your side.”
Damian almost looks surprised and Dick can’t help a sense of bitterness from creeping into his body. He’s going to have to have a talk with Bruce about parenting Damian. It’s like all the progress he’s made with Damian has been flushed down the drain.
“I got into a fight with Father,” Damian finally says, his shoulders deflating as he finally lets out the words. He stares at the counter, “It wasn’t ideal.”
“What was the fight about?” Dick asks.
Damian looks at Dick for an uncomfortably long second. He sighs, “You.”
Dick stops, “Me?”
“You,” Damian repeats, rubbing his shoulders, “It’s nearly always about you, lately.”
Dick raises an eyebrow and brings himself taller, like he used to when he and Damian got into a disagreement when they lived together, “What’s that supposed to mean?”
At this point, Damian isn’t much phased by Dick, he can tell. Damian keeps staring at the counter, “Father speaks of you… weirdly, for lack of better term, as of late.”
“Oh,” Dick shrugs and he can feel the tension in his arms fading, “That’s not a big deal.”
“No,” Damian snaps vehemently, “You don’t understand, he speaks of you oddly.”
“Okay,” Dick says slowly, but he’s unsure why this is a big deal, “What’s he saying?”
“He just,” Damian waves his hands around in front of him just like Dick does, “He used to speak of you so highly before he got lost to time. He would compare me to you and spin stories of your perfection. But now he constantly critiques your performance as Nightwing. It’s like he is ashamed of you.”
Dick thinks back to the fight he and Bruce got into after he died. Bruce had been angry that Dick was even in a position to let himself get killed.
“I don’t want to scare you, kiddo,” Dick laughs lightly, shaking himself out of the memory, “But I think Bruce is ashamed of me.”
Damian bristles, “Why would he be?”
Dick sighs. Bruce’s language was pretty explicit. Everything that happened to Dick: the capturing, torturing… killing, everything was his fault. You let it happen, Bruce’s voice echoes in his head. That was explicit. It meant that it was Dick’s fault.
But Damian doesn’t know that any of that was real. Like the rest of the Bats, he thinks that the footage was doctored and that Dick’s death is fake. So Dick can’t be honest. Being honest meant admitting that Bruce hit Dick and that Bruce lied to his family.
“I made some mistakes while undercover,” Dick lies, scratching the back of his head and hoping Damian doesn’t notice, “I think he’s disappointed in me. You know, he has pretty big expectations of me.”
Damian narrows his eyes, “But we all make mistakes.”
“Bruce has higher expectations of me,” Dick points out, “And I was undercover. My mistakes could have cost lives.”
Damian looks out the window again, “My mistakes cost lives when I started out as Robin.”
Dick nods and doesn’t refute the statement. It’s a fact and both he and Damian know it.
“You never spoke so meanly of me,” Damian says quietly, “Even when things were serious and even when you were frustrated, you never said such horrible things about me.”
Such horrible things? Dick is starting to wonder what Bruce is saying about him.
“Damian,” Dick settles on, after internally debating if he should ask what’s been said or not. He decides on being the bigger person and not asking. He sighs, “I appreciate you defending me, but I really would rather you don’t get into fights with your dad about it.”
Damian scrunches up his nose and folds his arms into each other, “I’m your Robin. It’s my responsibility to defend you. It’s what Robin does.”
“You’re not my Robin anymore,” Dick says gently, his heart aching as the words come out. He lays his hand on Damian’s shoulder, “You’re Bruce’s.”
Damian grabs Dick’s arm fervently, “No. I’m your Robin. I always will be. Father…. Father is Batman. And he’s brilliant. But he’s not my Batman.”
Damian stares at Dick with an intensity that he thought was previously unmatched. It’s like he inherited Bruce’s ability to stare uncomfortably for long periods of time.
“Thank you, Damian,” Dick says finally, looking back at Damian’s waiting face. Unsurely, he reaches out and hugs Damian close to his body, “And I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Damian says quietly, and to Dick’s surprise, he returns the hug gratefully, “I’m just… glad to see you. You’ve been gone so much lately.”
“It isn’t just Bruce that’s angry with me right now,” Dick says honestly, rubbing Damian’s hair, “Tim and Jason aren’t exactly happy, Babs isn’t on speaking terms with me, and Cass hasn’t contacted me in a while. Just give it time. And don’t worry about me in the meantime.”
“They shouldn’t be mad at you,” Damian says resolutely, pulling away from Dick, “They are insipid creatures.”
Dick smiles, “Hey, language. They’re not stupid. They have every right to be angry.”
Damian looks at Dick unsurely, “I don’t think they do.”
Dick shakes his head, “Dami, drop it.”
“Fine,” Damian says, nodding his head, “If that is what you wish.”
Dick breathes out a sigh of relief, “Thank you.”
Damian nods towards Dick’s bedroom, “Could I stay for the night?”
“Of course,” Dick says, motioning towards the room, “You take the bed. I assume Bruce doesn’t know you left?”
Damian stiffens, just a little bit.
So that’s a resounding yes. Dick rolls his eyes. Of course. He hopes Bruce hasn’t realized Damian has left, or else he’ll be dealing with one angry father.
“Okay,” Dick sighs, leading Damian to the bedroom, “Let’s get some sleep, kiddo. We’ll wake up at 6:00 and I’ll drive you back. Bruce gets up at 8:00 anyway. He won’t even know you left.”
Of course Dick had to run into Jason during one of his only patrols of the week. Of course. Just his luck.
Dick tries to sneak across the rooftop before Jason can spot him. Apparently, they’ve both gotten the same idea to guard Gotham’s main bank.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
Jason’s voice rings across the rooftops, loud and bold and angry. It’s an anger that’s aimed towards Dick. That’s not entirely new, but the fact that the anger carries through Jason’s mechanical voice modulator is impressive.
Dick whistles through his lips and turns around on his heel, his hands clasped behind his back, “Hood… fancy meeting you here.”
“Don’t make me repeat myself, Wing,” Jason growls, stalking across the roof.
“I’m patrolling,” Dick says calmly, standing his ground, even when Jason makes his way in front of him and plants his feet firmly onto the concrete.
“This is my route,” Jason argues, gesturing to the bank, “It says so on the schedule. I’m on bank duty on Tuesdays.”
Dick scowls, “I wouldn’t know that, Hood. I’m not on the schedule.”
Dick can’t see Jason’s face, not through the helmet. He hates that. He hates that Jason decided on a helmet and that he can’t see what he’s thinking.
Jason cracks his knuckles, a habit he’s had since he was a child, “Then get on it and get off my route.”
“Fine,” Dick says, because he doesn’t really want to have an argument with Jason here. He has no energy for it.
Dick walks to the edge of the bank, grabbing at his grappling hook from his side pocket. He loads the barrel quickly, cocking it upwards.
“Is that all?” Jason calls from somewhere behind him.
Dick nearly groans, lowering the grappling hook. Jason always does this; he always tries to instigate an argument when there’s none to be had. It’s destructive, but he does. There’s a need for closure, for answers with Jason. Even when the other party doesn’t want to argue, Jason will start an argument anyway, digging deep into the skin of their problems, clawing his way down into the ugliest parts.
Dick turns around and waits for the instigating comments to drop.
“Nothing more to say for yourself?” Jason says, walking back up to where Dick is standing, close to the ledge. Dick thinks about the fall if Jason pushed him. It wouldn’t kill him. He wonders if Jason knows that. He wonders if Jason would push him anyway.
“Not really,” Dick says tiredly, watching Jason very carefully.
“Would’ve thought you’d’ve had some new lame excuse for faking your death,” Jason says, crossing his arms.
“I’ll let you know if I think of something new,” Dick says sarcastically, even though now is definitely not the time to be so cavalier. Still, if he stays positive, then maybe he’ll leave this argument unscathed.
“Do you really think this is a joke?” Jason asks, “Oh, of course you do, you’re Dick fucking Grayson. Always the positive one.”
“Of course I don’t,” Dick snaps vehemently, not bothering to correct the use of names in the field. So much for being positive. But if it's an argument that Jason wants to have, then it’s an argument that Dick will give him.
“Then stop acting like it is and fucking explain to me,” Jason exclaims, “Why you felt the need to lie to us about it.”
“I didn’t-” Dick starts, his voice rising. He cuts himself off before he can shift the blame to Bruce, “I didn’t want to lie.”
“But you did anyway,” Jason says. He lifts his hand up and flicks a switch on the left side of his helmet. The mechanized voice modulator that he uses turns off and it’s like Dick is no longer talking to the big, bad Red Hood… he’s talking to Jason, his younger, hurting brother.
“I didn’t want to,” Dick repeats , “I didn’t want to do that to you.”
“It doesn’t matter what you wanted,” Jason repeats, pointing at Dick’s chest, “You did it anyway.”
That’s a good point. Dick can’t argue with that. So he doesn’t. He just stands there and tries to calm down the anger that’s bubbling up in his chest. Jason is hurting. Jason doesn’t deserve for Dick to blow up and say something he doesn’t mean.
But God, does Jason make it hard not to.
“Say something!” Jason yells, hitting his hand onto the venting tube on the roof.
Dick doesn’t flinch. Not outwardly. He’s too experienced to be phased by shows of power like this. But inwardly, his body screams at him.
Dick knows what’s coming before Jason seems to. The tensed shoulders, the right foot automatically skidding outwards, the unclenching of the fists. Dick lets it come, he doesn’t bother dodging.
Jason pushes Dick. He pushes him hard.
Dick expects to fall backwards, down the building and onto the ground four stories below. But he’s not so lucky. Jason pushed him sideways onto the concrete roof. Dick skids to a stop.
When Dick sits up, his arm is bleeding. The skin has broken. Dick touches his glove to it, and when he pulls it back, it’s full of sticky, red blood.
Dick can’t see what Jason is thinking. Stupid helmet. His body language indicates surprise though, like he can’t believe what he just did.
“Feel better now?” Dick asks sarcastically, looking at Jason’s still, tensed up body, “Want to take another hit at me?”
Jason shakes his head quickly, standing normally rather than the fighting stance he’s been in for their entire conversation.
“Go at it!” Dick yells, not really caring if there are civilians walking past that happen to hear him and Jason, “Hit me! That’s all I’m good for in this family, isn’t it?”
Dick can hear Jason draw in a breath, but he ignores it. Jason can draw his own conclusions from that statement.
“You want me to say something?” Dick yells, standing up and walking up to Jason until they’re face to face, “Fine. I’m fucking sorry, Hood. What else do you want me to say?”
“I want you to say why you fucking did it,” Jason hisses out, “I want some honest answer, not this crap you’re giving me right now.”
Dick can’t give an honest answer. Not as long as Bruce doesn’t want him too.
“Of course,” Jason says, when Dick doesn’t respond for a good minute, “Of course you can’t give an honest answer.”
“I did it to protect you,” Dick finally says, watching as Jason squats down at the edge of the building and runs a hand on his helmet. That’s a technical truth.
“You did it to protect-” Jason repeats, cutting himself off shortly, “‘Wing, I’m not that much younger than you. I’ve been in this life almost as long as you have. You don’t think I can’t protect myself?”
Dick bites back a comment about Jason being unable to protect himself when he was Robin. That would be going too far.
“Leaving you in the dark was the safest thing I could’ve done for you all,” Dick says, which is as honest as he can get it, “If I hadn’t, you would’ve been compromised. You don’t want to be involved in what I was involved with.”
Jason looks back at Dick, “So you thought it was smart to go deep undercover alone?”
“It was for your safety,” Dick shoots back, curling his hands around his arms. That’s a lie. It wasn’t his idea. That had been Bruce’s idea. And look where that had gotten Dick.
It’d gotten him stranded undercover when Bruce got amnesia.
“Did you,” Jason pauses, leaning his head up to the sky. Dick wishes he could see his face right now, “Did you think we wouldn’t have helped you? Do you not trust us?”
“No, I trust you all with my life,” Dick responds automatically, looking on curiously as Jason unclips his mask from his face and putting it under his arm. Dick can now see Jason’s facial expressions, albeit guarded by his backup mask.
“Then why lie?” Jason asks, his mouth twisting downwards.
“I didn’t fucking want to,” Dick repeats. He’s a broken record, but it’s true.
“I need a better reason than that,” Jason says, crossing his arms, “Did we deserve what you did to us? Sure, maybe I did-”
“You didn’t.”
“Did Tim deserve it?” Jason bulls ahead, ignoring Dick’s interruption, “Did Damian deserve it? Did Babs or Steph or Cass or hell, even Bruce deserve it?”
Dick bites his lip. He tastes the iron of his blood when it bleeds. Bruce caused this whole mess.
“No one deserved it,” Dick says instead, licking the blood off.
Jason looks at Dick for a long time.
“I don’t want to talk to you right now,” Jason finally says, putting his helmet on again and flicking the switch that changes his voice back to a modulated one, “Just leave me alone.”
“Fine,” Dick snaps, stepping off the roof and not bothering to pull out his grappling gun til the last minute.
Dick is exhausted by the time he manages to crawl back home.
Jason’s words rattle in his head. He told Damian to wait out the family’s anger towards him, but the amount of vitriol that Jason was spewing seems impossible to wait out.
He wonders if he can talk to Bruce. It’d be nice maybe, to somehow sort this whole mess out. He never wanted to do this in the first place.
Dick crawls into bed, not bothering to peel off the layers of his costume. Screw his secret identity. If someone crawled through the window and saw that he was Nightwing, would it really matter all that much? It wouldn’t be the first time his identity was revealed anyway.
Dick squints his eyes shut and tries to focus on sleep.
Something rattles in the kitchen an hour into Dick’s restless slumber. It’s metallic, small. It sounds like the lock on his window. Dick’s eyes shoot open immediately. An intruder?
Dick turns to the alarm clock next to his bed. It reads nearly 4:00. Robbers weren’t really active at that time of night and Dick lives on the eighth floor. Who robs the eighth floor of the poor part of town?
Dick debates his options. He’s wearing his mask and his uniform. He could probably ambush the intruder. But on the off chance that the intruder sees him? That’s his secret identity down the drain again.
Maybe if he just lays here, the intruder won’t come into the bedroom.
Dick listens to the noise. It’s concentrated in the kitchen and there’s humming. Dick focuses his ears, just like how Bruce taught him to. The humming sounds an awful lot like the Brady Bunch theme song.
The footsteps are weighted in a familiar way. Soft, but slightly inexperienced, like they have to really focus on how they’re stepping to make it quiet.
“Ah, nuts,” a voice says, before a large clatter sounds from the kitchen.
Dick relaxes immediately. It’s Tim. Tim is the only Bat besides Steph who’s footsteps sound so inexperienced. And Steph would rather be caught dead than be in Dick’s apartment.
And Brady Bunch? Tim and Dick used to love watching that together. Tim must be here for the med kit that Dick stores in his kitchen.
If this would have happened when Dick was in Blüdhaven, he’d be out of his bed instantly to help Tim with his bandages and wounds. Somehow though, Dick doesn’t think Tim will want to see him. Tim is here out of necessity and likely nothing else.
Dick listens to Tim hum the Brady Bunch theme song over and over, counting the minutes it takes for Tim to dress his wounds. It must not be so bad if Tim is feeling good enough to hum and talk to himself, but the wound is probably still bad if Tim had to stoop so low to stop here.
The clock on his bedside reads 4:12 when the humming finally stops. Dick breathes. Tim must be done. Clattering sounds from the kitchen, followed by some assorted chattering. Dick identifies that as Tim talking to himself as he puts the med kit back into its rightful place.
The footsteps sound again. They get closer. Before Dick can formulate a thought, his bedroom door swings open slightly.
There’s a quiet noise and an awkward pause.
“I’m sorry,” Tim’s voice drifts in quietly, like he’s not sure if Dick is awake, “I didn’t know you were in.”
“It’s okay,” Dick responds, not bothering to lift his voice to be loud, “Don’t worry about it. Just send me a list of things I need to replace if you took too much out.”
“Okay,” Tim whispers, “Sorry about that.”
The steps retreat towards the window, this time not even bothering to sound quiet. Dick breathes out again when he hears the window clicking and lets himself try to sleep.
Dick lays there a minute before the window clicks again and the steps return.
“Hey, are you okay?” Tim’s voice drifts in again from his doorway, awkward and uncertain.
“I’m fine,” Dick says, shifting a little bit in his bed, “Don’t worry about me.”
“Okay,” Tim says. The footsteps retreat again.
This time, Dick opens his eyes and looks at the ceiling. He doesn’t think he’ll be able to get to sleep after that interruption. He hums to himself, the Brady Bunch theme song, just like Tim was before.
“You’re bleeding.”
Dick jerks back, surprised. Tim is standing right next to his bed, the mask of his Red Robin suit pulled down completely.
“I’m fine,” Dick repeats, looking Tim up and down. There’s a spot of his uniform that’s torn, right above his hip bone, “Did you manage to patch that up okay?”
Tim looks down at his hip, “Oh, uh, yeah.”
Dick sits up in his bed and rubs the sleep out of his eye, “Mind if I check?”
Tim’s face widens in the familiar grateful position Dick’s become accustomed to before it turns into one of mild annoyance. It’s new, and Tim’s only started pulling that attitude with him ever since the whole Spyral debacle.
“You can check,” Tim says finally, only after looking conflicted for a few seconds. He sits down at the edge of Dick’s bed and orients his hip in Dick’s direction. Dick’s grateful for the distraction, for something to do that doesn’t involve the awkward, stilted speech between them.
Dick puts a little bit of pressure on Tim’s hip and watches him flinch, “What happened?”
“Hyena bite,” Tim says, looking down at his hip, “Harley thought letting her hyenas free was the “ethical” thing to do.”
Dick laughs a little bit as he removes the bandage and looks at the poorly dressed wound. From his bedside table he takes out a small bottle of antiseptic. There are some places Tim clearly couldn’t reach.
“That sounds like Harley,” Dick murmurs, biting some bandages between his mouth as he slides the antiseptic over Tim’s hip with practiced ease.
Tim’s always had trouble dressing hard to reach places by himself. Dick figures that maybe he’s contributed to that. He always fixed that problem for Tim and never allowed him to do it himself. But Tim was always a smart boy. He figured out some sort of solution every time.
“I sent the hyenas to Star Labs,” Tim says, looking anywhere but Dick as Dick carefully replaces the bandage, “Since they’ve got Joker venom in them I thought the zoo was a bad choice.”
“That’s a smart decision,” Dick says, “Good thinking ahead on that.”
Tim simply nods, turning down to watch as Dick finishes dressing the wound.
“Good job with the bandages,” Dick says, crumpling up the old bandages and laying them on his table, “You just missed near your bone. It’s a hard place to get.”
“Thanks for helping,” Tim says, looking up at Dick like he wants to say something.
Dick nods and lays back down on his bed, closing his eyes, “Of course, Timmy. Again, just send me that list.”
Tim’s footsteps don’t sound though. He remains seated on the bed.
“You’re injured,” Tim says.
“Just a skin wound,” Dick says, rubbing the place on his arm where Jason shoved him into the ground. The blood is mostly dried by now.
“Still a wound,” Tim says, gently touching Dick’s shoulder and motioning him to get up.
Dick remembers when they weren’t so tentative. There were times when touch was given so freely. Now it is guarded. But at least Tim is talking to him, and that is a start.
“You shouldn’t go to bed in your uniform, you know,” Tim says, chastising Dick when they walk into the kitchen. He’s carrying the old bandages. He shoves them into the trash can and brings out the med kit, “Isn’t that like… the number one rule of secret identity keeping?”
“My secret identity was spilled once,” Dick jokes bitterly, before he can stop himself, “I don’t really think a second time will make much of an effect.”
Tim lifts a suspicious eyebrow, “Yeah, but that was a planned leak. You’re not planning to leak your identity again, are you?”
Dick blinks twice. No, the identity leak was not on purpose. But that wasn’t the story that Bruce told everyone else.
“Right,” Dick says, shaking his head, “Planned leak.”
“So,” Tim says awkwardly, motioning to the scrape on Dick’s arm, “What happened?”
“Fell into a wall,” Dick shrugs casually, “No biggie.”
Tim doesn’t say anything to that, just gives a slightly concerned look. Dick sits still while Tim’s hand brushes over the injury. He tenses.
Tim takes out a medical knife and cuts Dick’s uniform away from his skin. It peels off in one big motion.
Tim silently treats the wound, running the antiseptic right over the blood with ease. It slides over and while it does, Dick relaxes into the touch.
He’s tired. He didn’t even realize how tired he was.
“Are you still with me?” Tim asks eventually, and his experienced hands stop touching Dick’s shoulder for a second.
The lack of touch is like a jolt of cold air and the moment it’s gone, Dick wishes it would come back. But it doesn’t, so he just says, “Yeah, I am. Must be tired; I’m dozing off.”
“Have you been getting sleep lately?” Tim asks, and his hands return to the wound, brushing away the blood with a firm hand.
Dick relaxes the minute the touch is back. He lies, “I have. How about you?”
“It’s been… okay,” Tim says, and from his body language, Dick deduces that it’s an honest response. Tim sighs, “I could honestly use a little more though.”
“You know that sleepy-time tea I used to give you when you were young?” Dick asks, watching as Tim takes utmost care in bandaging the big parts of his wound.
“How could I forget?” Tim laughs a little bit, pausing, “That stuff did wonders.”
“I always keep a mix of what I used in it in a drawer,” Dick says, waving his hand in the general direction of his kitchen, “Just in case. You’re welcome to take it if you don’t really want to come to my apartment anymore. I understand. I can send the instructions of how to make it to Steph or Alfred or anyone you want to have it.”
What follows is a silence that Dick has no idea how to fill. Tim continues to bandage Dick’s arm. Dick can tell he’s finished when his hands leave and the bandage feels tight.
“I want to be mad at you,” Tim whispers, when that’s all done.
“Then be mad at me,” Dick says back, looking over at the pile of bloody wipes falling onto each other in the trash, “You deserve to be.”
“I can’t be mad at you though,” Tim furrows his brow and Dick finally finds himself looking at Tim in the eyes for the first time that night. Tim sighs, “It’s so hard to be mad when you do all these stupid things like check my wounds and make me special tea."
Dick stays silent for a minute, “Sorry.”
“No,” Tim shakes his head, “This is all me.”
“Tim, I understand if you’re mad,” Dick says finally, “You don’t have to be so guilty about it. Bottom line is that I hurt you. It’s okay to be mad.”
Tim scrunches his nose up, something Dick is sure he got from Damian. Tim huffs. Oh yeah, that’s definitely a Damian habit.
Finally, Tim leans his head to the side and looks at Dick inquisitively, “If I had done what you did… would you be mad at me?”
“Absolutely not,” Dick says automatically with as much conviction as he can possible. If Tim had done the same thing that he’d done, then it would’ve entailed Tim being strapped to a bomb and dying and then being brought back to life only to be put it a secret evil agency that he has to overthrow alone.
There is no world in which Dick would be mad at Tim for that. If anything, he’d be worried.
“Then I probably shouldn’t feel so mixed up about this,” Tim laments, laying his body against the counter, “Everything points to me not being mad at you. You wouldn’t be mad at me, you still treat me the same as you always have, and yet…”
Dick stays silent and watches Tim.
“Yet I think… I think I’m mad at you,” Tim says, honestly. His hands curl around his hair, “You lied to me, Dick. I went to your funeral. I mourned you. I thought you were gone.”
“I’m sorry-”
“I cried over your grave, ” Tim emphasizes, turning away from the counter to gesture his hands at Dick’s face, “ Your grave, Dick. I thought I’d lost you. You were my first…”
Tim pauses and takes a shuddering sigh, “You were the first person in this life to take me wholeheartedly. Not just as Robin, but as Tim Drake. We were brothers. I loved you like a brother far before I loved Bruce as a father. To see you die….”
“I’m sorry,” Dick says honestly, “I really am.”
“I know you are,” Tim admits, “It just… it doesn’t feel like enough right now.”
“That’s okay,” Dick says, hoisting his injured arm up and reaching out towards Tim tentatively.
Tim looks at his hand before taking it. Tim rushes into Dick’s arms and hugs him tightly. It’s the first time they’ve hugged since before Dick died. That would make it years since they hugged last. So Dick hugs Tim like he’ll never be able to again.
Brothers are weird that way. Dick is pretty sure there’s no one in the world he’d try to protect more, but there’s no one else in the world he could hurt more.
To be a brother meant to be angry sometimes: a raging, violent anger. But to be a brother also meant that that anger came from love: a soft, desperate love.
So Dick hugs Tim as hard as he can and keeps that in mind when he releases him. Tim nods when Dick lets him go and he heads towards the window, his Red Robin cape swishing behind him.
Tim pauses before he opens the window, turning around ever so slightly, “Dick?”
“What’s up?” Dick asks, leaning against the counter and watching as Tim runs a hand across his hair. It’s growing out. Dick used to cut it sometimes. He wonders if Tim hasn’t cut his hair because he and Dick haven’t been talking.
“You know I still love you, right?”
Dick startles. His hands freeze against the counter, “What?”
A flash of hurt appears on Tim’s face. He doesn’t bother to hide it. He stops completely, “Dick…”
“No, no, I knew that,” Dick says, because yeah, logically. But with everything that’s been happening lately, sometimes it’s hard to believe.
“Okay,” Tim says suspiciously, fumbling with his fingers in his hair, “Well just in case you didn’t know-”
Dick holds his hand up and smiles, “Love you too.”
Tim nods, giving Dick a half smile before he holds his hand up in a wave and steps out of the window and into the night.
“Bruce,” Dick says, barging through the door of Bruce's study, “We need to talk.”
Bruce looks up, surprised, “Dick, what are you-”
Dick shuts the door behind him with a slam, locking it after him. He stalks across the room, closing the blinds and curtains quickly. Bruce seems to understand what wavelength he’s on almost instantly because he turns on the radio at his desk and covers up the camera on the wall.
“We need to talk,” Dick says, when he’s sure there’s no way that his siblings could listen in to the conversations he and Bruce are about to have.
“I gathered as much,” Bruce says dryly, making a pointed stare at the locked door.
Dick sits down at the chair right in front of Bruce’s desk and watches as his former mentor casually brushes his Wayne Enterprises paperwork off the desk and into a cabinet.
“So,” Bruce starts, not making eye contact with Dick as he reaches into a drawer for a pen, “What’s on the agenda today?”
Dick tilts his head to the side and narrows his eyes, “Mr. Malone, this is Birdwatcher checking in.”
Bruce freezes instantly. Dick pinpoints the moment where his eyes harden and his shoulders tense.
“Dick,” Bruce lowers his voice and looks furtively around the room, “We can’t use those names anymore.”
“Why not, Mr. Malone?” Dick asks, leaning back in his chair in what he hopes is a casual looking manner, “Afraid it’ll reveal your secrets?”
“No,” Bruce says, pinching his eyes with his calloused hands, “Dick, you know we had to bury any evidence of what we did-”
“I can’t do that anymore,” Dick exclaims, throwing his hands up, “Bruce, it’s destroying me!”
“Dick,” Bruce says harshly, clicking his pen onto the desk, “I sent you because you were the strongest of all of us. I knew they couldn’t break you. You’re fine now, you’re back.”
“I am,” Dick says, looking at Bruce’s eyes and searching for any empathy. He doesn’t find any, “But our family hates me. Could we at least explain that the decision was a joint one between the two of us? I don’t want to be hated.”
“No one does,” Bruce answers, standing up and pacing around the room, “When you went into Spyral you knew you would be hated by your family.”
“I didn’t want to go though, Bruce,” Dick says, standing up as well and following him to where he stops in front of the red telephone that he’s moved to the bookshelf.
“You had to go,” Bruce says loudly, whipping around and standing in front of Dick. He towers over him, he’s always had.
“I only went because you fucking beat me until I said yes,” Dick rants, slinging his arms out. One of them nearly hits Bruce in the head, but Dick doesn’t care.
Bruce grabs Dick’s hand mid swing and grips it. Hard. He glares, “Don’t say that.”
Dick narrows his eyes and wiggles his wrist out of Bruce’s grasp, “You did.”
“I didn’t beat you,” Bruce says, brushing his shoulders, “I seem to recall you winning.”
“Because I had to,” Dick exclaims, “You beat me up and then told me, one rule: you have to win.”
“And you did,” Bruce says, “I don’t see what the issue is.”
“You hit me!” Dick yells, hitting his chest with his hands with a resounding thud, “You hit me until I felt like I had to hit back.”
“I didn’t hit you, Dick,” Bruce says, looking offended, “We simply exchanged blows. It’s not so different from when we spar.”
“We fought,” Dick recontextualizes, looking Bruce dead in the eyes, “You fought me.”
Bruce says nothing. He just looks up at the ceiling.
“Who started that fight, Bruce?” Dick asks bitterly, trying to get to where Bruce can see him.
Bruce looks down to make eye contact with Dick again, “It was a fair fight. I knew you would be able to win.”
“That wasn’t a fair fight,” Dick says angrily, hissing out the words and narrowing his eyes as he does so, “I had just been killed, Bruce.”
“You were brought back to life,” Bruce shrugs, “You were okay.”
Dick opens his mouth and closes it several times. There’s so many things wrong with that sentence but Dick doesn’t know where to start. Was Jason okay when he was brought back to life? Was Damian okay? Was Cass?
Dick knows that his death wasn’t nearly so traumatic, that stopping his heart with a paralytic is the least dramatic of all the others’ deaths. But it still took a toll on his body. Bruce should know that.
But rather than explain all that, Dick just sighs and asks what he wants to ask, “Why couldn’t we tell the family what I was doing?”
“It would’ve compromised them,” Bruce says, like it’s a point he’s had to repeat a million times and he’s frankly quite tired of it. In a way, Dick thinks he is.
“Doing that hurt them,” Dick argues, “My death traumatized them.”
“It made your fake death more believable,” Bruce points out, “Spyral had zero suspicion that you were infiltrating them. Your real death made it so easy for us to put you undercover. It was a blessing in disguise.”
“Whatever,” Dick says, frustrated. He clenches his fists and walks towards the door, “If you can’t understand what I’m saying-”
“Dick,” Bruce says, putting his hand out and motioning for Dick to stop. There’s a little bit of empathy in his face now, “You know you were the only one I could send. You were the only one strong enough to leave your family and stay undercover for so long.”
“I know,” Dick says quietly.
“By doing what you did at Spyral,” Bruce says, motioning his arms between Dick and himself, “You saved our family. You saved the superhero community. Without you, they may have succeeded in uncovering our identities.”
“I know,” Dick repeats, “I just don’t understand though. It’s over now. Why can’t we tell them the truth? That I really died and you needed me to do this. I don’t want to be the one that shoulders all this blame.”
Bruce stays quiet for a moment before reaching out his hand, a conflicted expression on his face, “We can’t tell them.”
“Don’t want to admit you hit me, is that it?” Dick asks testily. He reaches for the doorknob and grabs his hand around the worn brass.
“Dick, I-”
“Save it,” Dick snaps, yanking open the door with clear annoyance on his face.
Tim stands on the other side. Quickly as possible, Dick reads his features to see if he heard anything. Slightly pale face, but that could always be Tim not getting enough nutrients. Unsure feet placement, but Tim’s been awkward around him lately so that could easily just be standard awkwardness. Shaky hands. That’s new.
“Hey Tim!” Dick says loudly, trying to alert Bruce to Tim’s presence.
Immediately behind him, Bruce seems to understand. The loud music is turned down and Dick is sure the camera is likely being reactivated. The appearance of light in front of him indicates that Bruce probably opened the curtains back up.
“Hey,” Tim says, clearing his throat a little bit.
“Do you need something from Bruce?” Dick asks cheerily, “I was just heading out.”
“No, no,” Tim shakes his head, “I’m totally okay. I just thought I heard something and wanted to see that everything was okay.”
“Everything’s A-Okay over here,” Dick says, flashing an okay sign at Tim and winking.
Tim rolls his eyes.
“Hey, you didn’t hear Bruce and I chatting, right?” Dick asks. Bruce pops up next to him and looks at Tim expectantly.
Tim looks between the two suspiciously.
Dick tries to think of a convincing lie, “We were discussing this Christmas gift idea we had for Damian. You know how Dami is sometimes … you know, doing everything he can to try and figure out what his gifts are.”
Bruce nods in approval at Dick and then slips back into the study.
“Oh,” Tim says, staring at Bruce’s retreating form, “No, I didn’t hear anything.”
“Good,” Dick says sharply, closing the door behind him with a little bit more force necessary, “That’s good.”
Dick waves goodbye to Tim and walks out the hallway and out of the Manor to where his bike is waiting. Tim’s eyes follow him all the way out.