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There was a monster that laid in Dick’s bed. Dick watched him sleep and saw the rise and fall of his hairy chest. He sprawled wide, slept shirtless with half his suit still on, sometimes his eyepatch was there and sometimes it wasn’t.
He took up this immense space in Dick’s life even with his orange and black mask off, took up over half the bed and Dick let him.
Sometimes he liked to think he didn’t have a choice in the matter. Slade would do whatever he wanted, especially when it came to him.
He had just always been there after all, had somehow moved from the other side of the battlefield into a different, more intimate part of Dick’s life and you know what, Dick was okay was that. It was hard at first; the blood stained on both of their hands made it difficult.
But eventually, he was okay when Slade started to meet him in safe houses after the sunset, when he started to kiss the side of Dick’s neck, when he started to help on cases and pretend like he wasn’t. Dick was even okay the first time Slade referred to them as old friends, the first time he stepped into Titans Tower because they asked him to come.
Somehow through the years, they’d become closer, went from just having sex with one another to waking up beside one another, to sitting across from each other at the breakfast table and smiling.
It was good, scarily easy to fall into a routine, to find each other after long missions away, and get comfortable.
And then Dick coughed up his first petal.
Dick had loved so many people through the years. His heart swelled every time he walked back into the cave. He felt like he was dying every time Koriand’r left for space, and could hardly breathe whenever Donna had to go back to Themyscira.
Dick was no stranger to love, and he’d always loved strongly and with his all. He loved Damian even when the boy sought to make his life a living hell. He loved Tim before Bruce ever signed any adoption papers.
And he had loved Joey in the way you love the sunrise. It had always been easy for him to love his people, and easier to fall in love with them.
So Dick knew that he wasn’t in love with Slade Wilson. He had been in love before, in every type of way, and what he felt for Slade wasn’t comparable to any of that.
He coughed up flowers anyway.
The hardest part was hiding it.
They were vigilantes, so the blood could be explained if he worked hard enough. The pain of the cough was a minor issue, not half as bad as broken bones or burning cities. Sure, the entire thing was a little worrisome, but they were people that get concussions for a living, who put their lives on the line every day.
He wasn’t afraid of death, had always known that love would be what got him taken out.
But he had to say he was fine when Bruce looked at him strangely the first time he had to choke down a petal in the man’s presence.
“I got something stuck in my throat,” he had said and then had to hide a winch because that was the most cliche thing he could have said and Bruce knew it, furrowing his brow.
The Batman cleared his throat and made a face like he was the one in pain before he told Dick gingerly, “you know I love you right?”
Dick had smiled back and said, “of course I do,”
Another flower in his chest bloomed.
When he was sixteen, right before he quit (right before Bruce fired him) when Harvey’s bruises still littered his skin, Bruce sat him down in the cave and said, “I don’t know what I would do if I lost you, Dick,” His eyes red-rimmed. “I thought I cut this feeling out of me,” Dick had watched, terrified and injured, as a small blue petal fell from Bruce’s lips.
He knew it was a Forget-Me-Not.
Dick felt like screaming that night. He wasn’t stupid. He knew what that meant, knew that if Bruce was showing him this weakness, he truly meant it and it was so easy to open his mouth, to say what he had to say.
“I love you,” he had said, desperate and all-consuming. Reached for Bruce with hurt arms and hands. “I love you so much. Batman will always have his Robin, okay? Nothing can take me away from you.” and had meant every word.
Bruce had said thank you.
A month later, he wasn’t Robin anymore.
He took to chewing gum to get the taste of iron out of his mouth, brushing his teeth to ensure that no one ever saw the blood that kept spilling over from his throat. He quit his undercover job, the fewer people he saw, the better. He stayed in his apartment except for patrols and emergencies.
Still, Wally almost found out when he came to visit, was always a little oblivious when it came to his friends, and didn’t notice anything weird but had to run thankfully before he saw Dick throw up full orange flowers.
It sucked when he went out on patrol and could feel the flowers inching up his throat. He got hit in the stomach once and they fell out of his mouth onto the ground and then the criminal looked at him with all this pity in his eyes.
Dick ended up cracking that guy’s ribs.
He stayed in Bludhaven, avoided Bruce’s calls, and managed to keep other vigilantes away. Put his foot down until people got through their heads that Dick didn’t want any help in his city.
He’d never been Bruce, never had a no-meta rule. But he did feel bad the first time he rode the top of the trains with Tim and had to tell the boy to stay away for the near future. He told Oracle over the comms that he didn’t need her help on the case and would call when he could.
When Jason came and refused to be put off with words, Dick didn’t pull his punches, told his brother to stay out of his business, and tried not to look at the bruises that bloomed on his cheek.
Roy ended up being the first one to find out, anyway.
His mother was the one that told him about the flowers. He sat on her lap inside the Big Tent of the circus and looked up at his father hanging from the bars, strong legs swinging in the wind.
“The flowers are proof,” she had told him. “That love is the most dangerous weapon imaginable. That love will always make itself known whether you want it to or not.” She looked up at his father then, her smile warm. “So to protect yourself, your heart has to be big enough for the whole world,” Mary Grayson had said into her son’s ears. “You don’t want to leave anyone out and that way you will know someone will always love you,”
And Dick had nodded, huddled deeper into her arms.
“You are so loved, Robin,” she said, smacking kisses onto his head as he giggled. “And if flowers ever bloom for you, I know what you’ll do,”
“I’ll love them,” Dick had said, gripping his mother’s hand. “Like I’ll love everyone.” He looked up at her then, at her dark eyes, and smiled. “I don’t want anyone to ever be in pain” For a second, Mary Grayson’s smile did not match her eyes.
Roy just watched him throw up. Was far too quiet as he watched Dick lean over the trash can as the cloying perfumed flower threatened to overtake his senses.
Dick shouldn’t have even let him in, but the man had pushed past his hand, had looked at his cheap decaying department with the scent of blood still fresh in the air, and knew.
“It’s not me, right?” he finally asked as Dick wiped the blood off his lips.
Dick shook his head and looked down at his hands. They were stained with red and orange, the petals making themselves known by bleeding into his skin.
“Is it any of us? And Roy’s keeping his voice flat, but Dick can hear the fury rising, can hear the way that Roy is barely keeping it in check.
“No,” he said, his voice an unattractive croak.
“Are you going to tell me who?” and he’s stalking toward Dick with an expression that was filled with so much pain and anger. “Were you ever gonna tell us?”
“No,” Dick said, voice barely higher than a whisper.
“Goddamnit, Dick,” he says, gripping Dick’s shirt in his hand, eyes glistening suspiciously. “you’re supposed to be smarter than this.” Fear was the most present in Roy’s voice, aching deep-seated fear.
Roy had seen countless people die from the flowers, and had nearly lost those closest to him as well. Dick was sorry that Roy had to see him like this.
“Who is it?”
Dick held up one of the big orange blooms, stained black from his blood, and fought down a laugh because, of course, these would be black and orange too.
“I think you know,” He said and Roy glared at him after the shock faded from his features.
“You are so stupid.” He began to pace. “And I bet you didn’t tell him, either. You were just gonna let this fucking kill you.”
“It’s an annual,” Dick said, trying to get Roy to understand. “It’ll die. I just need time.” Roy just looked at him, devastation clear on his face.
“When have you ever been able to stop loving someone in your life, Dick?”
Dick couldn’t answer.
He did get lucky in one aspect. The first petal came the morning after Slade left.
The man had kissed him before he left, had made them breakfast, and gave his advice on the cases that littered his table.
“I don’t know when I’ll be back,” He said before he left, leaning over Dick as Dick looked up at him. “But I’ll give you a call when I’m back in town.”
He leaned down all the way and kissed Dick, slow and sweet, a chuckle leaving his lips as he pulled back.
“Stay out of trouble,” Dick told him. “I don’t want to see you in the news.” There was this look in his eyes as he looked down at him.
“You take care of yourself too, Grayson,”
And then he was gone, Dick’s apartment feeling smaller without him there and Dick sat there at his table, smiling to himself when something caught in the back of his throat.
He coughed hard, trying to dislodge it, and it got hard to breathe. He was wheezing.
A small part of him thought, damn did Slade poison me? Tried to look over their night together to see if that left any clues.
When the flower fell out of his mouth and onto the table, wet with blood, his heart stopped in his chest.
There was just no way.
A bright orange full marigold shone up at him.
Power. Death and Resurrection. No other flower could reflect Slade like that.
“No,” he said. He reached his fingers into his mouth, tried to reach down his throat, scratched at his tongue, and gagged right there, trying to drag the rest of the plant out. Eventually threw up as tears fell down his face.
He couldn’t be in love with Slade Wilson, not like this, not now.
Except there was a blood-stained flower on the table in front of him that said he was.
Dick was at a loss, unable to stop his tears. He ended up calling out of work, and had no idea what he was going to do.
He had always figured that Slade was going to be the death of him, thought that when the man held a sword to his throat, but this, this was unbearably cruel.
“So, are you going to get the surgery?” Roy had gotten him off the ground, had stood by as he cleaned his face and brushed his teeth, popped gum in his mouth. His hands were still clenching and unclenching like he wanted to do nothing but punch Dick in the face.
Lurched in his seat when Dick shook his head.
“What is wrong with you?” He cried, his voice breaking.
Dick had thought about this. There was an 87% chance that the surgery would be successful in removing the growth inside of his chest, but there was also an 48% chance of his ability to love being taken away as well.
Love was why Dick was a vigilante. His love for Bruce, for Bludhaven, for his Titans, for this world. His heart had always been large enough to fit love for everyone he’d ever cared about. He couldn’t lose it, couldn’t even take that risk. What type of hero would Dick be without his love?
“It’s a part of me. I can’t just rip it out,” was what he said to Roy now.
“I will,” Roy vowed like he would take the scalpel himself and rip Dick’s heart out of his chest. “I’ll tell Donna, I’ll tell everyone. Maybe one of them can talk some sense into you. Fuck it, I’ll tell Bruce,” He was crying now. He hadn’t seen Roy Harper cry in years. “We can’t lose you, Dick.” He reached his hand out to stroke Roy’s cheek.
“It’ll be okay,” he said, and the tone in his voice was all Nightwing, comforting, and in control.
“I won’t be okay if you’re not there,” He said and Dick smiled at him.
“You’re going to be okay,” He promised and then he began to cough as blood welled in his mouth.
“Dick!” Roy was screaming his name as he clutched at Dick's shoulders.
“It’s going to be okay,” Dick tried to say around the stem that felt like it was growing straight out of his throat, choking on petals. “I promise.”
Dick’s been dying for others his entire life. Once he matured from his anger, he let love and hope drive him. Put his body on the line to protect as many people as he could, and pulled Bruce out of the dark and into the light. Brought light to so many others.
He made his life, his parent’s death, and Bruce’s teachings all mean something.
And he wanted to be sure that people knew that he wasn’t a selfish person, and was self-sacrificing to the point of a fatal flaw. He wasn’t letting the flowers kill him to be selfish.
No, the flowers were just proof that Dick could love the entire world no matter what, just the way Mary Grayson had taught him to. Those marigolds falling out of his mouth showed that Dick was good and kind enough that even Slade Wilson could be loved and forgiven by him.
It wasn’t a bad way to go out. Plenty of heroes had given themselves up for love.
“You’re an idiot,” were the first words that Slade Wilson said to him in months.
“How did you get in here?” Dick asked. The hospital all around him was white, which made the blood on his hands stand out all the more. Roy had assured him that he had security. That was clearly untrue, given the fact that Slade Wilson was sitting next to him.
“And you look like shit.”
“Slade,”
“Don’t,” the mercenary said, his tone unreadable, but dark and unavoidable. “You don’t get to say my name like nothing’s changed.”
“Nothing has.” Tried to sit up in the bed. He knew Roy was following up on his threat, was calling everyone who ever cared about him, and Dick would deal with that later. “I knew better than to think they would,”
“You’re dying.” Harsh and certain. “In what world do you think I would be okay with that?” There was this burning undercurrent in Slade’s voice. Dick felt like he was getting whiplash.
“You tried to kill me before,” He said, weak, his skin burning under the passion in Slade’s one visible eye.
“Harper wasn’t lying, you are stupid,” Then Slade breathed out. “Listen,” and Dick shook his head.
“Don’t lie to me,” He said. “Not now,” Slade just frowned at him. “I never asked for anything more because I knew you weren’t capable of it.” Anger swept through Slade’s face so fast, but Dick just kept talking. “I met you where you were, so do me the courtesy of not lying to me now.” And Slade looked so conflicted, different emotions warring on his face. Dick wanted to rub his fingers against his furrowed brow and felt another cascade of flowers sweep up his throat.
Slade rubbed his back as he threw up into the bucket. The Marigolds were getting bigger, and wider. It hurt more, and Dick blinked tears from his eyes as he sat back up.
He was surprised when Slade reached out to grip his hand, too quick for Dick to even consider flinching back. It was warm, and he held on tight.
“Fine,” Slade said, biting out the word. “You don’t have to listen,” and then he leaned forward and kissed him, fast and powerful but not angry or harsh. It felt desperate, his hands holding Dick so tight he couldn’t get away.
But Dick didn’t want to, had always loved the way that Slade consumed him with his all, melted.
“You weren’t even going to let me try,” He said when he leaned back. Slade Wilson didn’t do hurt, but if he did, Dick thought that there might have been hurt twisting his face.
“I know how you are,” Dick said, trying to pretend like it didn’t ache to say the words and Slade sneered.
“Yeah, well, I don’t think you knew this,” he said and put his hand down on the side table before standing. Dick’s eyes widened as he took in the small blue flower beside him. “I heal too fast for shit like this to kill me,” Slade said. “But it fucking hurts.”
“Slade,” Dick said, his voice so distant, cracking apart.
There was an iris on the table and that only meant one thing.
Hope.