Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"Take a deep breath. Inhale peace. Exhale happiness."

- A. D. Posey

Dick gives up at the one-year mark.

He tried. He really, really did. He traveled the world, looked through dozens of ritualistic tomes, consulted with the most powerful magic users out there, even turned to less savory corners of the magical world. He did everything he could think of and then some, and then he did it all again, in the desperate hope that maybe the first failures were flukes.

And a year later, all he has to show for it are countless dead ends and an empty heart.

There's just… no answer. No solution. Zatanna and Constantine had warned him the spell was permanent. He hadn't accepted it then, but after a year of searching, a year of scrabbling at any wayward leads he can find, a year of exhausting even the faintest suggestions of hope, he's finally forced to face the truth:

They were right.

His home, his life, his family… are gone forever.

He breaks down for a long time after that realization.

He doesn't get out of bed the next day. He can't. He'd kept himself going on the hope that he'd one day he'd see them again, that one day they'd see him again, but without that…

The hotel staff don't bother him. One maid had walked in around noon, seen him, and immediately backed out again with an apology. She must've flipped the "Do not disturb" sign on her way out because nobody else tried the rest of the day. Dick had just stared at the wall, unable to muster the energy to even react, and tried and failed to breathe around the crushing loneliness twisted around his chest.

He doesn't even have his friends either. He'd checked, those first couple weeks. There'd been zero recognition in their eyes when they looked at him. Robin had never joined the first iteration of the Titans. Nightwing had never led his team to countless victories. Dick Grayson had never been their friend.

Briefly, he wonders if he could've stayed, tried to become friends with them again. But then he remembers the agony of them treating him like a stranger. Of having their entire history, their shared sweat and blood and tears, shadowing his every word, yet knowing none of it was reciprocated. Everything he was, everything he'd accomplished, it only exists in his head now. Nobody even tried to keep in contact with him during his year-long search. He'd gotten no calls, no messages, not even an email.

But why would he have? To them, he's nothing.

Maybe Bruce or Tim have quietly kept tabs on him, but even that thought doesn't bring him comfort. It wouldn't be the invasive, stalker-like love language his family specializes in. It wouldn't be their awkward but well-meant concern manifesting in the only way they know how. It'd just be Batman and Red Robin keeping an eye on a potential security risk to their identities.

Morning sunlight spills through the hotel windows, slicing through the room and suffusing it in a warm, golden glow (Jason's never going to call him "Goldie" again. Jason's probably never even going to talk to him again). Dick just rolls over, pulls the blanket over his head, and cries himself back to sleep.

It's on the third day that Dick takes a deep breath and thinks, They wouldn't want this for me.

It takes everything he has to leave the shelter of the bed. But he does it. He gets up. He takes a shower. He cleans up the takeout containers scattered around the room. And then he squares his shoulders and walks out into the morning sun.

He's in some little Polish town, pressed up against the border of Lithuania. He'd originally come here in a last-ditch effort, but he hadn't bothered to explore before, so caught up in his hurricane of desperation. Now he lets his feet carry him wherever, trying to just take in the sights and sounds. There's a small open-air market, it turns out, just a few blocks away. Dick doesn't speak the language, aside from a handful of phrases he'd looked up online, but he does his best to adapt. He pulls on his brightest smile, shaky as it might be at the moment, keeps his head high, and tries to enjoy it.

He doesn't succeed, not really. It's painful, when the memories keep trying to whisper in his ear (Cass would absolutely adore this, Tim would laugh so hard at that, that little cat-shaped trinket would be perfect for Damian). He gives up after an hour, retreats back to the hotel and curls up under the blankets.

But the next day, when he's contemplating just staying in bed for the rest of his life, he again thinks about how concerned they would be if they saw him, wallowing away in grief (the old them, at least, the versions that remembered and cared about him). He tries to ignore it, but eventually the heavy ball of guilt sitting in his chest forces him out again. He makes it longer this time. Explores more of the town before hiding away in his hotel room again.

That's how the next week goes. Get up, explore for a bit, a little longer each time, then head back to the hotel. In any other situation, he thinks he would love it here. He's always liked learning about new cultures. Now the whole experience is tainted with the sour taste of despair and defeat.

Dick wants to give up. He longs to. Nothing sounds better than the idea of just lying down and letting time wash him away, just like magic washed away his existence. But every day, he reminds himself that they wouldn't want that for him. No, they'd want him to get up. They'd want him to move on.

They'd want him to be happy.

("Nightwing?" the memory of Bruce echoes. "I've never heard of you.")

He can't imagine ever feeling happy again. Not without his family by his side. But standing there in the middle of the market, hopelessly alone even in the middle of a crowd, Dick closes his eyes, inhales shakily, and promises to his family's specters, I'll try.

He moves on soon after.

For once, he has no destination in mind. No goal or purpose. Gotham used to be his home, but it holds nothing but bad memories for him now. Same with Blüdhaven, Jump, Metropolis — anywhere he's ever spent time in, really.

So he just… wanders. He doesn't have much anymore — the spell ended up erasing a lot of his possessions, further destroying evidence of his existence, and his nomadic circus roots means he never really got into the habit of collecting stuff anyway — but he takes what he does still have after his year of searching and stuffs it all in a backpack. What he can't fit, or doesn't need anymore, he leaves behind.

(He gathers up all his notes on his investigation and sends it to the Justice League, just in case. It's probably a pointless gesture, he doubts the League would be able to find a solution where he didn't even manage bread crumbs, but the idea of throwing them out forever makes his chest clench. At the very least, maybe they'll come in handy for solving other magical problems.)

(And sue him, maybe a little part of him is still hoping they'll be able to fix this. Years down the line, when nothing changes and still no one remembers, he'll come to terms with the fact that they couldn't, but for now, he hopes. There's nothing else left he can do.)

And then he walks.

Town to town, city to city, country to country, continent to continent, he backpacks all across Europe and then beyond. Sometimes he books a flight, sometimes he catches a train ("Train surfing? What's that?" thirteen-year-old Tim asks), sometimes he just hoofs it, but he keeps moving. Money's no issue; Bruce may not remember him, but he at least recognized the practical issues arising from the spell. Namely, that without legal identification or anything that might hint at his existence pre-spell, Dick didn't have a single cent to his name.

Whether out of guilt for his fate or sheer pity, Bruce gave him far more money than he would've needed to get back on his feet. Dick hadn't protested then, not when he needed it to search for a solution. He's spent a lot of already, but he still has plenty left over. Also, he's pretty sure that Bruce set up automatic transfers. He doesn't check the balance that often, but it always seems higher than it should be. All the better to keep him happy, he supposes, so the security risk doesn't become a threat. For a relative term of happy, at least.

Sometimes he thinks about the fact that the documents he has now, with his real name and his real birthdate and as close to the originals as his memory could make them, are still technically faked.

He doesn't bother to hide his identity anymore, not that anyone would care enough to even look into him. His documents are good enough for any legal channels, and anyone investigating him for nefarious reasons wouldn't even find a ghost.

At least a ghost would be remembered by their loved ones.

Every time he passes by a cafe or library offering free wifi and an open computer, he can't resist checking up on his friends and family. With only public articles and social media (and strictly PR-regulated ones, at that), he can't always get very accurate updates on them, but it confirms they're all still alive and kicking. Jason is trickier, but a lot of Gotham papers include mentions of Red Hood's latest activities. He takes what he can get.

With how much time he spends on the move, he can sometimes go days or weeks without looking. But every time he does, he sees the same thing, over and over.

They're handling themselves just fine without him. The vigilante presence in Gotham seems to be running just as smoothly as ever. There's nothing to indicate that his disappearance has caused a problem. But most importantly, they're happy.

They don't need him.

(Maybe they never did. He remembers that first night, the way they'd filled in his place in the family seamlessly, as if he really had never existed. How he'd been rendered completely obsolete within the span of hours.)

It's devastating, seeing the evidence of how unnecessary his presence really was, it really is, but as months pass and Dick slowly relaxes into the backpacking experience, he also realizes it's almost… a relief.

He's used to feeling like Atlas, constantly holding up the weight of the sky. He's always carried so much responsibility all his life, ever since he first took up the Robin mantle. He's always been one of Bruce's rocks and his family's anchor, always been touted as a paragon of the hero community. He's always been one of the first people that others look to in a crisis.

But now he can spend a full week in Paris and know he's not letting anyone down by not being there. He can take a day trip to walk along the Great Wall of China without spiraling into a panic attack about wasting working time. If he wants to just pack up on a whim and go explore Brazil for a week, he can. No stress or disappointed looks, just him and the wide, wide world.

Tim's always been the photographer of the family ("He's like our very own miniature stalker," Jason quips), but Dick splurges, gets a high-quality camera of his own and starts reading about contrast, about texture, about exposure. He finds places that offer photo development services. He rearranges the contents of his backpack, frees up some of the precious space.

And then he buys a photo album and begins filling it with memories. He has a lot of pictures of famous monuments in there — the Eiffel Tower, the Great Pyramid of Giza, the Taj Mahal, to name a few — but there's also little things. A quaint antiques shop tucked away in Sweden, a cat curled up on the table of an Angolan cafe, a dish of Tom Kha Gai from a local restaurant in a Thai town. Dick takes pictures of anything and everything, big or small, and carefully stores them all in the album. He finds pictures online of his friends and family, prints and cuts them out to give them a place of their own, but most of the album is dedicated to the places he's been and the sights he's seen.

The camera and album quickly become his most prized possessions.

(It helps, having picture evidence of his travels. It reminds him that even though everything before is gone, he still took those photos. He was there. He still exists in the here and now.)

He thinks he hates himself a little, for how utterly free he feels, camera in hand and nothing on his shoulders. Tension that'd been there for so long he'd stopped noticing its presence is finally unwinding, and despite everything, his heart feels lighter than it has in years. The pressure in his lungs eases, and for the first time in a long time, he feels like he can breathe.

He still longs for the spell to be broken, for his family to love him again, but he's spent so long bearing all his family's burdens, a crushing weight he never wanted or asked for.

It feels like betrayal when he realizes he's glad he doesn't have to anymore.

Halfway through year three (god, it feels impossible that he spent two-and-a-half years just traveling around the world, wherever and whenever he felt like it, but the dates don't lie), Dick finally returns to the States.

He's intending to do some backpacking there too, round out his journey, but first he stops by Metropolis, Central City, San Francisco, Gotham, everywhere really, to look in on everyone in person. Lian, Jai, and Irey are getting so big now. Donna's career has really hit its stride. And his family — his family has improved so much. Damian is in high school and already hitting growth spurts that are catching him up to Bruce's height. Tim manages WE with efficient competence, looking perfectly at home in his own skin. Jason seems to be angling to finally go to college, a life-long dream of his. Cass dances across rooftops and in ballet classes, her steps light and joyful.

And Bruce smiles. Bruce chuckles. Bruce is happy.

His family is happy.

Dick smiles as he leaves, even as tears sting his eyes, because ultimately, that's all he's ever really wanted.

Eventually, he settles in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

There's no real reason for it. He spends several more months traveling around the States, but eventually the wanderlust that had driven him for the past three years finally fades. Harrisburg is where he ends up.

He gets an little two-room apartment on the fourth floor, buys a mattress and a table and a couple chairs, hangs up some of his photos to decorate the walls. The paranoia from Bat-training has never truly gone away, but he sets up some rudimentary security, enough to assuage those worries for the time being.

It's not much, but it's his. The first night there, he sleeps soundly ("Brother," Cass soothes. "Sleep now. I'm here. You're safe."), well-used to sleeping in unfamiliar hotel rooms.

And as a plus, Harrisburg is only a few hours from Gotham. He won't interact with them any more than necessary, won't interfere in their business, but it's nice, knowing he can take a day trip out there to see them whenever he wants to.

For a while, he finds a job at a nearby warehouse, moving and stacking boxes. It's simple, menial work, but although he went easy on the training while traveling, he never stopped. It's not a difficult job for him to do, and it fills his days and pays the bills (not that he needs it. It's definitely an automatic transfer, because he keeps getting money from Bruce despite the man almost certainly having forgotten about the strange vigilante that just showed up four years ago).

But a couple months after officially settling down, he sees an ad for a new instructor at a local gymnastics center. One interview and demonstration later, Dick officially has a new job.

He loves it.

He'd taught gymnastics on the side, back in Blüdhaven, but that was years ago. The moment he steps into the center, though, nostalgia comes rushing back in. The other instructors, two women named Valeria and Sage, welcome him warmly. He gets put in the teaching roster, ends up assigned to classes consisting of kids anywhere from six to sixteen. He teaches four days a week, sometimes paired up with Valeria or Sage, sometimes alone.

He hadn't realized how much he missed it until he's standing in front of his first class, a dozen-some faces peering at him curiously. Until he's gently coaching them through the proper form of a somersault, advising them on the best ways to protect their heads and tuck in their elbows. Until he's helped guide dozens of little hands to something wonderful.

(Just like how he'd helped all his siblings.)

The kids are amazing. He couldn't ask for better ones, honestly ("We were the best, Richard," Damian whispers). They adore him in turn. They hound him after class, eager and chatty, and he's always happy to oblige.

He wonders if this is what Bruce felt like sometimes, constantly surrounded by kids demanding his attention. Surprisingly, the thought doesn't hurt as much as it used to.

He picks up a barista job on the side, to further fill his days. He learns all the regulars and their orders, learns to prepare dozens of different drinks, learns to breathe through the pain whenever he thinks about how often Tim would've visited him at work, ostensibly to get his daily caffeine fix but also just to see him. How much Cass would've loved to guest star in one of his classes, show the kids how to dance elegantly, beautifully.

He grieves for the lost moments, the what-ifs and the could-have-beens and the should-have-beens, but he also smiles. He laughs. He becomes good friends with Valeria and Sage. He jokes with the regulars at the cafe. He teaches the children how to safely do gymnastics. He takes his camera, carried with him through all the hard years, all the adventurous days and mournful nights, and he memorializes every moment, every single, little, precious moment.

And he heals.

Bruise by bruise, cut by cut, stitch by stitch, Dick heals.

Time passes. Years slip by, one by one. And one day, as Dick walks in to the gymnastics center and greets Valeria cheerfully, as he smiles at the parents dropping their kids off, as he calls together his students to the center of the room to begin the lesson, he realizes:

I'm happy.

It was impossible to imagine, all those years ago, but he is. He's truly happy. Against all odds, he's built a new life for himself — not the same as before, not at all, but wonderful all the same.

A day will never pass that he won't miss his family. That he won't wish they were here, sharing this life with him, their shared love blooming like the blossoms of an apple tree, ready to bear the fruit of the future.

But his students are smiling up at him now, a dozen young, bright-eyed faces eager to learn. How to flip. How to tumble. How to fall. How to fly.

And Dick smiles back at them, and laughs brightly, and breathes. And to his family's specters, the memories of their love forever hovering over his shoulder but no longer haunting him, he whispers, I'm going to be okay. I promise.

Chapter Text

Reality ripples.

It's not a big deal. They're used to that happening after world-ending catastrophes. It's pretty standard, actually. Jason's pretty sure he might've came back to life because of one of those post-catastrophe-reality-ripples, based on what he's pieced together of the timeline.

This time, it's some alternate dimension demon trying to claw its way into their dimension for some nefarious reason or other. It's about a week of slowly-increasing dread as people realize something's wrong, a day of unbridled panic as the crisis approaches, and an hour of desperately trying to shove the demon back into the swirling vortex portal it came from.

So, like any other crisis.

Jason grimaces at the thought as he brushes the dust from his shoulders. God, he's been in the business for almost twenty years and has faced almost as many crises. Briefly, he considers the fact that there's probably something seriously messed up about that, before deciding nope, I'm not dealing with that today. Problem for future-me.

Rubbing his forehead tiredly, Jason retrieves one of his guns from where it'd fallen. The other he leaves behind, its barrel bent and useless — he'd had to use it as an impromptu bludgeoning weapon when he'd run out of ammo. Then he crosses the battlefield to join the cluster of people he, for some unknowable reason, calls his family. He does a quick headcount and breathes a sigh of relief when all six are accounted for.

Duke, Damian, and Tim are crowded around Bruce and clearly pestering him about something or other, if their body language is anything to go by. Steph is propped up against a nearby rock, and Cass is busy bandaging her arm, but both keep looking over at the others and occasionally interjecting their own comments. Fortunately, none of them look to be injured aside from Steph, just the standard bumps and bruises, and Steph's injury must not be that bad, if the others aren't hovering over her. Seems their family got lucky this time.

"So, B?" Tim is prompting when Jason gets within earshot, his tone far too innocent for the smirk on his face.

Duke gives Jason a friendly shoulder-bump when Jason comes to a stop beside him, but he doesn't stop staring Bruce down with the others. Unbidden, Jason's lips twitch up, the way it always does whenever his siblings unite to annoy Bruce.

"C'mon, just tell us. Promise we won't hold it against you," Steph cajoles. Then she pauses, reconsidering. "Well, not too much, anyway. Only a smidge, really. A teeny-tiny amount."

"It's me, right?" Cass asks, and Jason grins at the devious glint in her eye. Oh, he loves ganging up on Bruce. Best pastime in the world.

Damian sniffs, drawing himself fully upright. "Don't be ridiculous, Cassandra. It's obviously me."

"In your dreams, kid." Duke pats Damian on the arm in a facsimile of pity.

"I'm not a kid! I'm twenty-three!"

"Still the youngest," sing-songs Tim, ignoring his brother's disgruntled scowl.

"I bet it's me," Steph declares.

Bruce sighs. It's a very deep, very weary sigh, perfectly encapsulating his exasperated, Bat-patented expression of I'm way too tired to deal with life and why are my children like this. Jason's impressed. "For the last time, I don't have a favorite child."

Jason can't help but snort loudly at that. "Please, that's a bald-faced lie. We all know it's Goldie, don't even try to pretend — "

He stops.

Everyone else does too.

It takes a long, heavy moment to register what pinged as wait wrong go back, but the instant it does, Jason's whole body goes numb. His blood runs cold, a thousand frozen rivers abruptly solidifying under his skin.

The tired but cheerful levity in the air vanishes as if it were never there.

Goldie. Dick.

Jason can see it crawling over everyone's faces too, the slow realization that's churning in his own gut. He'd find it funny, the stark horror that hits them like a tidal wave, if he wasn't busy experiencing the exact same thing.

"…Oh my god."

Tim's words come out strangled.

No one's moving. Jason's not sure any of them are even breathing. They can't — they didn't — how could they have —

"Oh my god!" Tim's voice is quickly rising with hysteria. Jason can't blame him. He's feeling pretty hysterical himself.

"We… we forgot…" Damian croaks.

Damian looks as if his knees are about to buckle, and normally Jason would come help hold him up — it's his job as the oldest brother, after all (but you're not, are you? You never were. You never were) — but his feet are frozen to the ground.

God, how long has it even been? How long have they forgotten? How long was his big brother alone, cast out from the family he poured his heart and soul into? Jason can't remember. Why can't he remember?

It can't… it can't have been that long, right? They can't have forgotten for that long. Not for years. It's Dick. It's their big brother. He's been there since the beginning, for practically all of them. He helped train them. They never would've forgotten him. Jason never would've forgotten him, let alone Tim or Bruce or God forbid Damian.

(But you did, Jason's heart screams — or is that his guilt? He can't tell the difference anymore. You did, you did, you did — )

Is Dick even still — no. Jason shies away from the thought. No, he's got to be alive. Right? He has to. Don't think about how it's been years, don't think about how much his emotional stability relied on friends and family, don't think about how he might have crumbled without us, don't…

Tim is clutching Duke's arm for support, although Duke himself is clearly unsteady with horror. Steph is staring straight ahead at nothing, her mouth working uselessly. Damian's face has gone bloodless, gauntlets curled into shaking fists.

"Bruce?" Cass asks quietly, desperately.

Everyone's eyes snap to him. Jason looks to him too, as if his father could possibly provide an answer, just work his detective magic and explain this all away, but for once the old man seems completely lost for words. His face is utterly blank in the way that Jason knows it means he's absolutely devastated inside.

"I… I don't…"

Bruce doesn't finish.

Jason closes his eyes to try to keep the tears from falling. Hot droplets streak down his cheeks regardless.

They did it. They defeated the demon, overcame the catastrophe, saved the world again.

But once again, the rug has been yanked out from under them. The wool has been removed from their eyes. Technically speaking, nothing has changed, and yet Jason knows that from now on, nothing will ever be the same.

Because ten years after Dick Grayson was erased from living memory, reality ripples. A spell breaks. And they remember.

He's a gymnastics instructor now, teaching young children and teenagers. Works part-time at a local coffee shop. Lives in a small but decent apartment situated in urban Pennsylvania.

It's… comforting, Damian has to admit. A person can change immensely in ten years — Damian certainly has — but seeing all the ways, big and small, that his big brother is the same… Richard had had a temper, yes, but he was still somehow so kind, so forgiving, even when Damian was just an arrogant, impulsive preteen. It will be a long time before Damian forgives himself for this egregious oversight (you were his Robin. He was your Batman. How could you leave him alone like this?), and he doesn't expect Richard to welcome them back anytime soon. Still, perhaps his brother may be able forgive them all. Someday.

Duke and Stephanie are standing next to Damian, staring at the door leading to Richard's apartment. The records they've dug up during the drive here indicate that he has lived here for a little over four years.

The family had split up on arrival. Jason and Bruce had gone to the cafe. Timothy and Cassandra to the gymnastics center. And Damian, Duke, and Stephanie to his apartment. They hadn't had time to properly observe his schedule — none of them wished to delay any longer than absolutely necessary — but at almost four in the afternoon on a Tuesday, Richard is bound to be at one of the three places.

Damian's not certain how long they spend staring at the door, trying to muster the courage to knock. Longer than is socially acceptable, he's sure.

Duke is the one to break the silence. "Well," he says, and his voice is so forcefully steady that in any other situation, Damian would not have even known he was anxious. "Shall we?"

Stephanie takes a deep breath. "Yeah. Yeah, let's do this."

She steps forward. The rap of her knuckles seem to roar out louder than thunder.

They wait, but when a minute passes without any acknowledgment from within the apartment, it's clear that Richard is not home. Duke shifts his weight, and Stephanie glances back at them hesitantly.

Damian frowns, glances both ways down the hall, then slips forward and begins to pick the lock.

"Uh, you sure we should — ?" Duke says.

"Are you not curious?" Damian retorts.

The door swings open with a quiet click. Damian steps inside, turns on the light, and has to immediately choke down a wave of emotion.

Because Damian can see traces of Richard everywhere. In the sink half-cluttered with dishes. In the electric Nightwing-blue blanket folded on the couch. In the casual way an eyesore of a t-shirt has been tossed over a chair. There's a painted wood carving of a Robin on the kitchen counter, right next to a Superman-themed clock.

But as Damian fully enters, his eyes are drawn to the opposite wall. It's plastered with dozens of photographs, and as Damian steps toward them, he's hit with another abrupt surge of grief.

Right in the center of all the pictures, prominent and eye-catching, is their family.

He framed our portraits, Damian realizes, and then he arranged so that they're the first things he sees when walking through the door. Even after everything…

Barely even realizing he's doing so, Damian drifts closer, entranced by the proof of how long Richard's love has endured. Each member of the family has at least two photos, one of them at their present age, and one as they were ten years ago, the last time Richard would've seen them.

Damian stretches a shaking hand toward the picture of his younger self, pausing millimeters above the glossy paper. The boy's expression is tight and stiff, but he's looking straight at the camera. It feels as if he's about to reach out from the photo and ensnare Damian in his cold, unforgiving grasp.

"He never forgot us, did he?" Stephanie whispers, voice thick with tears. "Even after we forgot him, he never forgot us."

"No," Damian murmurs, unable to look away from his thirteen-year-old self. His own eyes stare back, accusing even after all these years. "He didn't."

Duke's voice is soft with wonder as he looks over the rest of the wall. "He really went everywhere, huh?"

Damian finally manages to tear his eyes away and finds that Duke is correct. There are easily another twenty or thirty photos spanning outward from the family, covering practically every spare inch. These ones feature everything from world-famous monuments to a well-kept bed of flowers. Damian flips through a nearby photo album and discovers countless more, each one labeled with a location, date, and short description.

Richard's legible but messy scrawl is still exactly as he remembers it.

Damian looks back up at the photo wall, and his attention catches on one that's clearly Richard himself, looking roughly the age he must be now. His blue eyes are sharp and bright, and his skin has a clean, healthy glow to it. He's surrounded by a dozen young teenagers, ranging from thirteen to sixteen, all of whom are beaming widely at the camera. A boy at the front is holding a shiny gold medal, and Richard's looped one arm around his shoulders.

The decade-old ghost of his brother's arm does the same across Damian's own shoulders, and it feels a sharp contrast to the story that the picture is telling. Richard had lost everything. Richard is grinning. Richard had been alone. Richard is happy.

Even if Richard never forgives them, Damian is glad they've seen these snapshots into his new life because above all else, Richard's happiness will always be one of the most important things in the world.

Stephanie, standing in between Duke and Damian, is a warm comfort as she reaches out to squeeze their hands. Damian squeezes back just as fiercely, and for a long time, the three of them stand there, hand-in-hand, and drink in their eldest brother's image, a decade older and yet seemingly still the same in every way that matters.

Seeing Dick's smile hurts worse than a sword to the gut, and considering Tim's experienced that before, he knows exactly what he's talking about. Dick's kneeling next to a young girl in the center, gently nudging her feet into the correct form to best distribute her weight. All around him, his other students are practicing their forward flips, and as Tim watches through the glass making up the street-side wall, the girl takes a deep breath and attempts one of her own. It's clumsy but controlled, and Dick claps when she manages to land mostly upright.

Tim remembers Dick doing the same thing for him, years ago, when he was first training to become Robin. Remembers spending hours with him until Tim had gotten the movements just right. Remembers how his brother would always lean over and wrap him up in a firm, encompassing hug at the end.

The girl looks up at Dick and says something, and while Tim can't hear Dick's laugh from across the street, he can still imagine it, that rumbling noise that never failed to light up his day.

Cass is a silent statue beside Tim. She's not letting any hint of her emotions reach her expression, but Tim knows his sister. He knows she's feeling that tumultuous mess of grief and guilt just as strongly as he is.

He doesn't bother trying to comfort her, showing her the same courtesy she's showing him. There's nothing either of them can say to each other that will make this situation feel any better.

Ten minutes go by before class ends, and then another fifteen as parents come by to pick up their kids. In silent agreement, Tim and Cass wait until the gymnastics center is completely clear of all the students and their parents before making their move. Dick is busy putting all the equipment away, so he probably doesn't have another class today.

Even if this goes horribly wrong, Tim reminds himself, hands twisting anxiously in the hem of his t-shirt, at least we'll have a little privacy.

Tim hesitates at the door, one hand hovering half-way to the handle. God, he's ridiculous. He's a twenty-nine-year-old veteran vigilante who's been in the game for sixteen years. He's dealt with Gotham's streets for all his life. Only a couple days ago, he faced down a ten-story demon without flinching, and yet now he's petrified with terror at the mere act of opening a door.

Cass reaches past him before he can work up the courage to continue. The welcome bell's tintinnabulation pierces Tim's ears as they step inside. The door swings shut behind them, and even though Tim knows he could leave at any point, it still feels uncomfortably like he's being locked in for this upcoming conversation.

Dick's back is to them, but he twists around at the jingling sound, a welcoming smile already settling in place.

"Hello," he calls. "Can I — ?"

Dick breaks off abruptly, and Tim knows the exact moment he clocks them. For a moment, there's only blank shock in his eyes. Then his expression shifts, flashing through a myriad of emotions far too fast for Tim to decipher, before he finally manages to sculpt it into something more controlled.

But beneath that, Tim can see him trying to crush down an agonizing, frightened hope.

Tim's heart breaks at that, because this should never have happened. Dick should never have had to be be afraid of getting his hopes up, of his family not remembering him.

"Can I help you?" Dick asks after a moment, his careful smile fixed in place.

Tim swallows down the fear stoppering his voice and takes the plunge.

"Dick," he whispers, and the achingly familiar name tumbles off his tongue like it'd had hundreds of times before. Like it'd never stopped doing so.

Dick goes very, very still.

"…Yeah, that's me," he says after a long silence. His gaze flickers cautiously between the two of them.

Tim's nerves swell, and Cass steps forward.

"Big brother," she says quietly, and Dick, somehow, stiffens even more. "We remember now. Everything."

Dick swallows, and the hope in his trembling hands and wet eyes is painful to see. "Everything?"

"Everything," Cass confirms. "All of us. The whole family."

"You remember." He says it more like a statement than a question, but Tim can hear the begging note to it, the desperation for it to be confirmed.

"Yeah," Tim chokes out. "Yeah, Dick. We remember."

Dick's expression crumples, and for a moment Tim panics, afraid that maybe his brother doesn't want to see them after all, that they made a mistake coming here and they should've just let him live out his new, vigilante-free life in peace and —

Oh.

Dick's hugging him.

Tim shudders, then melts into his brother's arms. He feels Cass do the same beside him. Dick's cheek presses against his, and Tim leans into the contact, ignoring the tears wetting his face.

He's not sure how long they stand there, wrapped up in each other's embraces.

"…I'm sorry," Cass whispers eventually. "We forgot you, and we didn't believe you after. We should've. We should've helped and supported you, but we let you go instead."

"We're sorry," Tim gasps. "I'm sorry. I'm supposed to be a world-class detective, but I couldn't even see what should've been right in front of me. Dick, I'm so, so sorry."

Dick pulls back to look them in the eye but leaves his hands on their shoulders, one on Tim's right and the other on Cass's left. His brother's touch is warm, and Tim can't hold back a sob at the comforting familiarity of it. He reaches up to grasp Dick's arm with both hands, lets himself be anchored by the way it stays firmly, reassuringly solid.

This is real. This is real.

Tim's breath catches, hitches, and releases.

This is real.

"No, don't be," Dick soothes, even as his eyes spill over with tears. "It… it hurt, I'll admit that, it hurt worse than any injury I've ever had before, and it took me a long time to even start to heal… but I never once blamed you. Any of you. It was a terrible situation with no answer, but it was never any of our faults. Not mine, not yours."

"But — "

"It's not your fault," Dick interrupts firmly. "How could you have known? The spell erased your memories, and all the evidence was wiped from existence. You had no reason to accept my word at face-value, not when it was all you had. You were just as much a victim to the spell as I was. Understand?"

"I still should've — "

Once again, Dick doesn't let him finish. "Understand?"

Tim sags in defeat because, yeah, intellectually he knows Dick is right. It's no one's fault but the magician's. It doesn't make the guilt easier to bear, but the kindness in Dick's voice is enough to ease something tight in his chest.

Tim takes a deep, shuddering breath and whispers, "Okay."

"I understand," Cass repeats dutifully, if not wholeheartedly.

It's obvious Dick knows they don't really believe him, but he doesn't push, just nods once with a smile. "Good."

"I love you, big brother," Cass murmurs.

"I love you," Tim echoes.

And Dick laughs, a little wetly but joyously too, and pulls them both back in to crush them against his chest. "Love you too, Cass, Timmy."

Tim knows they still have a lot to talk about. About what happened ten years ago, what Dick's been up to since, why they're only just now remembering. About how the family will proceed from here, with their obligations to Gotham and Dick's life in Pennsylvania. And the superhero community will want an explanation too — the Bats were hardly the only ones to love Dick Grayson.

But all that can wait. For the first time in ten years, Tim has his big brother back. So for now, Tim just closes his eyes, returns Dick's hug with a ferocious tightness, and lets himself believe that everything is going to be okay.