Chapter Text
It starts with Damian. Fourteen and in the throes of tween-age angst.
Dick sees it happen from a distance, a rare visit in time to see his youngest brother’s entry into an art exhibition hosted by his school. It’s an important event, one that Dick swore up and down to attend, and he’s been waiting for it all week. He’s mostly excited about it. Another part of him is also nervous. The energy in the Manor has been rife with anxiety and pubescent sweat, and Dick watches as Damian slowly unravels as the hours tick closer and closer to the showing.
Dick is reviewing some case files on his phone in the parlor while Damian paces up and down the adjacent hallway. His footsteps are sharp and timed, dress shoes thumping against worn-in, faded carpet. He’s muttering to himself, hands shoved deep into his pockets and a scowl practically carved on the boy’s face. Dick eyes him, debating whether or not to confront him and ease his worries about the whole thing. Usually, he wouldn’t hesitate. However, Damian was so overwhelmed with anxiety, Dick thought letting the boy have some space was the better option. Dick could remember being that age, isolation all he could stand when he became so wrapped up in his head.
He smiles every time Damian looks up from his pacing though, the boy glancing into the parlor where Dick sat waiting, but his scowl only deepens with each look. Empathetic anxiety stirs in Dick’s own chest at the show of nervousness. It had been a long time since he’d seen Damian so riled. Today was special, something Damian knew everyone had taken time out of their day to attend, and the very idea of being prioritized must be claustrophobic to him. No one in this family was used to having the spotlight on them like this, and Dick couldn’t help but feed off of the restless energy himself as he scrolled through file after file, barely paying attention to the words as he listened to Damian’s pacing.
It comes to a head when Damian suddenly stops mid-stride, glaring at an old stain on the carpet before he takes out his ticket to the art show and begins ripping it apart. Dick doesn’t initially understand that what he’s hearing are the sounds of paper being shredded until Alfred makes a startled noise.
“Master Damian!” the old butler exclaims, walking towards the boy. “Good heavens, what are you doing?”
Bruce suddenly appears in the hallway too, taking note of the ribbons of laminated paper around Damian’s feet and the embarrassed flush of his son’s cheeks.
“We’re not going anymore,” Damian says, voice tight. “There’s no point. The whole thing is stupid and a waste of time.”
Dick makes a move to get up and comfort the boy, his heart swelling at his younger brother’s doubts, but before he can, Bruce steps nearer and places a hand on Damian’s shoulder. Not to trap. Not to confine. It’s a gentle touch, thumb rubbing lightly along the joint of Damian’s shoulder.
Bruce’s voice is also gentle when he asks, “Why do you think that?”
“Because it is,” Damian bites out, defensive and tense. He doesn’t lean away from the hand on his shoulder though, willingly staying beneath the small, comforting weight. “There are more important things to do– things actually worth everyone’s time.”
Bruce frowns at that, thumb pausing, and Dick’s heart rate picks up slightly at the look. Bruce doesn’t like what Damian said. He’s upset. Finding it within himself to move again, Dick takes a step forward and has his mouth halfway open to intervene before things got out of hand when he’s stopped again, frozen as he watches Bruce get onto one knee and place both hands on his son’s shoulders.
Damian is taller now. He shot up like a weed and is barely below Dick’s shoulder, and with Bruce kneeling, Damian is a head taller than his father. Still, Bruce makes eye contact with his son and Damian meets it. It’s like that for a moment; Bruce just calmly searching his son’s face, hands gentle and huge.
“I think it’s important,” he says seriously. “Right now, seeing your exhibit is the most important thing to me.” Bruce pauses, momentarily breaking eye contact to glance back down at the torn ticket he kneels in. “I would like to go and see it. But if you don’t want any of us to, then we won’t. I would like to though.”
Damian studies his father’s face with an upsettingly rigid expression, one Dick recognizes as his attempt to conceal emotions he’s not ready to share. The urge to hug the boy is strong but Dick stays frozen in place, separated by the parlor and Bruce. No, that’s not right. That’s not right.
Eventually, Damian sighs, the tension in his body flooding out like the tide. He relaxes into the tender touch and slouches slightly, eyes cast downwards but no longer creased in anxiety.
“Okay,” he says quietly, ears still flushed pink. “If you want to, then we will go. I… I would like that, too.”
Bruce’s lips twitch upwards, not quite a smile but happy and relieved, nonetheless. Dick is still frozen. His heart beats to a strange rhythm, brisk and hot. He swallows against the heat and slowly pockets his phone, averting his eyes away from the kind scene. It feels too… intimate, like a secret he’s not supposed to share in.
He hears Bruce stand back up, one of his knees popping as he straightens, and turns back in time to see Bruce squeeze Damian’s shoulder a final time. Alfred smiles warmly at them, a pleased air about him, and Dick feels something like the beginnings of queasiness creep into the back of his throat. He shakes it off as best as he can, worrying at the cuffs of his shirt before grinning brightly and determinedly marching into the hallway, finally joining the rest of his family.
He holds his hands against his waist, hiding a tremor he knows he can’t see but can feel in the stiff fibers of his muscles, and asks teasingly, “You ready, little man?”
Damian scoffs, worry not forgotten but eased, and rolls his eyes. “Shut up, Richard. Let’s go.”
Dick laughs good-naturedly as they head out the door, lightly patting his younger brother’s carefully combed hair. Bruce and Alfred follow close behind and although his heart still beats strangely, Dick eventually forgets about it and loses himself in his elation over Damian’s exhibit. It is a special day after all, and he isn’t one to forget it, showering his brother with genuine praise and awe over his work, congratulating him on winning first prize, and nudging Bruce and Alfred to follow suit. They do it more readily than Dick was expecting and the accolades they give him are enough to dash the remaining uneasiness he had felt before. They end the day with a trip to an ice cream parlor Damian is fond of, taking a pint to go home with after an unhealthy portion of sundaes and maraschino cherries, and Dick gives his brother a tight hug before leaving back to his city.
The events eventually dissipate into the background of his mind, and Dick continues on with his days unburdened.
But.
It happens again with Tim.
They’re in the Cave this time. Bruce is at the computer, and Dick and Tim are checking over equipment inventories. He’s mostly there to restock his own supplies, but it’s no large task to help. It’s quiet, methodical work, paper lists and the soft scratch of pencils accompanied by the muffled clacking of keys. Tim is putting away some of the smoke bombs when Bruce’s hands still on the keyboard, the silence of it immediately pinging something in Dick’s hindbrain.
Bruce doesn’t look away from the computer, but his voice is clear when he asks, “Who did Report #732?”
Dick isn’t sure why Bruce is asking, all of their reports are signed off with the writer’s initials, and he doesn’t immediately recognize the case. However, Tim perks up at its mention. “I did,” he says, turning from the drawer he was organizing. “Delivery truck front with some of Two-Face’s associates, right?”
Bruce hums, eyes still focused on the screen in front of him, hands gently steepled under his chin.
“It wasn’t filed correctly.”
Dick pauses, eyes darting to his brother’s face as he watches it sour. He hears Bruce’s chair roll back, wheels scraping against the concrete, and something in Dick’s chest squirms like a dozen worms in the sun.
“What?” Tim mutters, walking quickly over to the computer. Dick follows a step behind. He can feel the muscles in the back of his throat and neck tensing. “That can’t be right. I put it with the rest of that week’s reports. I know I did.”
Bruce is only slightly frowning. Most of his face is relaxed and there’s a minuscule tick in the muscles of his cheek. That’s good. He’s not angry, just…
“It was filed with last month’s reports,” Bruce says, gesturing towards the screen. Just as he said, Report #732 is filed under last month’s compilation, neatly beneath another report that coincidentally happened on the third week's Thursday. A simple mistake, easy enough to make.
But no mistake is “simple” in their line of work.
Tim blows out a breath and yanks at the hair on the back of his neck. “Fuck, B, I’m sorry. I was up late, I– I had no idea. I wasn’t thinking right.”
Bruce hums and the worms inside of Dick’s chest make it difficult for him to parse through its meaning. The older man didn’t seem upset but Dick’s been wrong before. He takes a step closer and places a hand on his brother’s shoulder, offering a reassuring smile.
“Don’t beat yourself up about it,” he says, intentionally looking away from Bruce still in his chair, moving in front of Tim’s field of vision. All of his attention is focused on his brother. “Mistakes happen. I’ve done it before, B’s done it before– pretty sure everyone’s filed a report wrong. No big deal.”
He’s expecting an interruption from Bruce. Something along the lines of Reports are vital to our work or Don’t let it happen again. He’s expecting it, preparing to make some kind of non-inflammatory defense on behalf of his younger brother, but Bruce doesn’t say anything. He just nods quietly to himself and continues on with whatever he was doing before.
Tim, still wrestling with his guilt, releases the back of his hair and throws a small smile Dick’s way. When it's returned, Tim turns back to Bruce, a frown on his face. “B, it won’t happen again. I’ll make sure to double-check next time.”
The automatic response of There won’t be a next time rings so loudly in Dick’s head, he has to take a moment to realize Bruce hadn’t actually said it. Instead, the man pauses in his typing again and turns his attention towards Tim.
“As Dick said, mistakes happen. Nobody got hurt, it’s fine. I just wanted to make sure you were aware of it.” He says this while fixing Tim’s mistake, dragging the file into the correct folder. The motion is smooth on the screen, clicker neatly disappearing the highlighted document and vanishing the problem completely. It’s quick and simple. Such a little mistake to make, such an easy thing to fix. Like it should be.
Dick doesn’t know why it irritates him. Something flickers in the back of his head, sympathetic nervous system firing like he’s running through Gotham’s slick streets, and he’s still standing there behind Bruce even after Tim has gone back to reorganizing their supplies. Hindbrain thinking, something just on the edge of discovery. Something, something, something– but what?
Bruce glances over to him, unmoving in his chair, and Dick blows out a breath and walks away. It’s nothing. He goes back to helping Tim, casual and calm, and chalks up the sweat on his palms to the warm air in the Cave. Bruce continues typing and reviewing reports. Everything is fine and nobody is hurt. That’s what matters.
But.
It doesn’t leave his mind. The events replay over and over in his head.
Damian upset, on the verge of tears. The air in the room slightly stuffy and hot. The feel of plastic between his fingers, phone like a brick in his pocket. Stagnant water dripping from stalactites, bat colonies loud and chittering. The smell of polish, oil cloth scrubbing away rust and dirt. Tim’s face pinched and filled with complex guilt and responsibility. The seventeen steps Tim took to reach Bruce, the sixteen he himself took. Bruce’s hands on the keyboard, a new scar healing on his thumb.
What was it? What was wrong? He goes back. Thinks about it more.
Purple and brown foyer carpet, roughened and old but never to be replaced because that was Martha Wayne’s only permanent alteration to the Manor. The pale blue button-up Damian was wearing, crisp and starched by Alfred. Physical bright white ticket in his hand, creased and shiny, torn in half and then half and half again. Little papercut on Damian’s index finger. Bruce. Bruce appearing in the foyer, swift and sudden and just there. Eyeing the situation much like Dick had but, differently. Analyzing it, surveying Damian’s face, the shreds of paper, Alfred’s own dismay. Dick doesn’t think Bruce looked at him. He was in the parlor, out of sight. Out of–
Bruce, kneeling, hands coming up to rest on his son’s shoulders. No scar on his thumb. Gentle, soothing motions– what did he say to him again? Dick can’t remember that part. It’s fuzzy, but it was good. He remembers that. Bruce said something good, something right, to Damian and Damian had gotten better after hearing it. He’d smiled at his father’s words, not exactly stretching on his face but just the right amount of imperceptible, a reflexive action to his father’s gentleness.
That is ingrained; the gentleness: Bruce kneeling in his son’s anger and bearing it.
Tim. Tim and himself in the Cave, Bruce at the computer, all at their own tasks. Bruce going quiet. The silence almost ringing, the spike in blood pressure, the itchy warmth in his palms. Had he eaten before that? Maybe. He doesn’t remember, but Tim was upset and Bruce was… almost upset. His fingers resting, gently Dick remembers now, gently against the keyboard and waiting calmly for Tim to see for himself the mistake he made. Not to ridicule. Just to show. Just to confirm.
The wheels on Bruce’s chair squeaking ever so slightly, a wash of blue over the scene, and the computer stacked with documents and files and police scans organized by date, time, and person. Tim’s black Times New Roman RR signature resting at the bottom of a two-page report on a simple stakeout, neat and tidy and to the point. A carbon copy of all of their reports, trained to write them in a formula so exact it’s almost impossible to distinguish between writers. Tim’s lips pulling inwards, taking in his mistake, interrupted by Bruce’s careful reassurance echoing Dick’s own.
Nobody’s hurt. Everything is fine.
There’s got to be something there. What was it that he couldn’t name? Why doesn’t he feel good about it, like he’s waiting for some shoe to drop out of the sky? It’s an itchy sensation, a rash, and Dick squirms at night unable to alleviate the steadily growing ache. He loses sleep over it. Something’s wrong.
He thinks it might be the air in Gotham.
It’s always been a polluted city, nothing seems to cure the smog: not the regulations, not the solar panels, not the waste management, and not Batman. It makes him sick, the air, or he thinks it makes him sick. His head gets heavier with each breath. His mouth takes on a tacky, silt-like quality, his tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth and making it difficult for him to swallow. He can’t eat and nothing is appetizing enough to get him to stomach more than a couple of mouthfuls of anything nutritional. He checks his temperature, blood pressure, and sodium levels, and though everything seems normal, Dick can’t shake the cloud of illness that hangs over him. It drags him down.
Staying in Bludhaven alleviates some of his symptoms. His apartment is dark, and he keeps the curtains closed, which seems to help his headache. Patrolling helps too. Without the need to check comm channels or worry about several others in the same vicinity, he can focus on his own movements and his own thoughts. Bludhaven is big and full of people, and it distracts him enough. Two weeks away from Gotham’s air cures him and Dick feels normal again. The thought occurs to him to ask if anyone else had similar symptoms, if it was just him, or if there’s something in the air to be worried about, but he pushes it off for next time. Next time.
For now, Dick keeps to himself and inhales his city’s air. He loves Bludhaven. Loves it so much it confuses him sometimes, the draw it has on him. It’s a symbiotic relationship, a give and take, and though it seems to take a pound of flesh for every meager embrace he gets in return, it works. It works and he loves the city and the city is starting to love him. If he can keep at it, keep building that trust, that relationship like the one Bruce has with Gotham, then maybe… Maybe…
He forgets the uneasiness. Lets it drift into the far reaches of his mind, hidden behind a veil where all of his other daily, mundane interactions go to die. He doesn’t go back to Gotham for a while. The city doesn’t need him anymore, not like Bludhaven does, and with at least six other vigilantes on rotation in Gotham, the urge to check in isn’t a strong one. He reads the reports from afar, calls his brothers and sisters occasionally just to see how their day was, and waits patiently.
For what, Dick can’t place his finger on.
That feeling of the metaphorical other shoe dropping had never quite left him, even after a month away from its initial presence. Always in his peripherals, always in the back corners of his hindbrain where a prey instinct rests, ready to fight or flee at the slightest movement. Some days he finds himself restless, pacing around when he should be sleeping; constantly checking his phone and monitoring the news for something. Other days he’s sitting down, staring at nothing but deep in thought, sifting through old memories and new ones. Continually on the lookout for something he can’t name or find. It’s a sensation that annoys him but also frustrates him, keenly aware of a lack but unable to point out exactly what it was that was missing.
He’s sitting at his table, lost in thought over a bowl of tomato soup gone cold, when his second phone rings. It’s the phone he uses only for heroes, heavily encrypted and on a secret Wayne network that was created specifically for hero usage, so Dick picks it up expecting some kind of emergency or special mission. He’s not expecting Jason to be on the other side though.
“Nightwing.”
Dick pushes his soup away, standing to grab gear. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
He stops, hand mid-reach for his suit. “Why’re you calling me then?”
“Didn’t realize I needed to make an appointment to talk. You got a secretary I can confirm with next time?”
Dick rolls his eyes and moves to sit on his couch. The lights are off and it is well past calling hours. Especially for a friendly chat. “Is there something you need, Hood? Did something happen?”
“No.” Dick can hear shifting in the background, the light sound of rain against a window. “Just wanted to see if you’d pick up. Testing this thing out.”
“What thing?”
“The hero line, or whatever. I’ve got to say, it’s a pretty sweet arrangement– having access to the ‘world’s finest’ at the click of a button. Good range. Nice reception.”
Dick frowns. “You didn’t have access before?”
“Nope.” Thunder in the distance. Dick can’t tell if it’s on his side or Jason’s. “I’m a liability, ‘Wing. It’d be no good for a killer like me to mix with the good souls of the League. Wouldn’t want to contaminate them with the murder germ.”
“But you’re not anymore?”
“Not what?”
“A liability.”
There’s more shifting on the other side of the line, the sound of leather on worn plastic leather. “Yeah,” Jason says, a touch of hesitation in his voice, “I guess not. Killer redeemed or something like that.”
“How did you get access?”
“New phone,” is the slow reply. Then, “Batman gave it to me a few nights ago.”
“He did?” Outside, Dick sees a brief flash of lightning. The storm has moved over to Bludhaven. “Why?”
Jason barks out a laugh and Dick presses his lips together at his bluntness. “I’ve been asking myself the same thing,” his brother says. “Why the hell would Batman give the infamous criminal Red Hood a landline to every super in the world?” Jason laughs again, softer this time, and Dick waits quietly. A headache is beginning to form at the sides of his skull, crawling and torrid.
“I did ask why,” Jason continues, “and you know what he said? He said he trusted me not to abuse it. Said something else about redemption and second chances, and well, fuck, ‘Wing, what the hell am I supposed to say to that? He just appeared and tossed me the phone like it was burning him, gave his speech, and left. Weirdest fucking thing.”
When Dick still says nothing, Jason goes on. “I checked and it’s not bugged. Which–” he breaks off then, gathering his thoughts. “That’s weird, right? I expected some kind of backdoor, some monitoring or tracking device, but it’s just a phone. I’m sure there’s some kind of recording going on but– It’s weird, right? Why would he do this? Do you know something that I don’t?”
“I haven’t been to Gotham in weeks, Hood.” Suddenly feeling feverish, Dick walks to his kitchen to grab a glass of water. He rubs it against his forehead, leaning back on the counter. “Batman hasn’t told me anything and I haven’t asked. Do you think something’s up?”
“I don’t know,” Jason admits, “but I don’t like it. He was acting all skittish. Twitchy. Opened up his hands and spread them like- like– It was just fucking weird. You’re sure you don’t know anything?”
Stomach churning, Dick slides down to sit on the tiled floor, regretting the small spoonfuls of soup he had eaten earlier. “No, I don’t. But maybe he was being sincere? You don’t– kill. Not like you used to, at least. Maybe he recognizes that and is trying to give it all another chance. Maybe it’s an olive branch. A cease-fire.”
“Batman doesn’t exactly do cease-fires.”
He and Jason both know how ridiculous it sounds and yet the hope of it prevents either one from shooting it down entirely. It wasn’t that long ago when they both knew a Batman that smiled. Death changed that and it was like a secret between the two, the last Robins to ever witness a Batman who could be Bruce at the same time before it all went to hell: violence, broken knuckles, scraped elbows, rage that was consuming, and grief so rotten it putrefied the air.
It was a bad time. Really bad. Dick doesn’t like to think about it.
Jason huffs into the receiver. “This is the first time I’ve used it. I don’t know what he’s expecting me to do with it.”
“He’s given you access to him, Hood,” Dick sighs wearily. “What else could he possibly want you to do with the line?”
“What, so I’m just supposed to call the bastard whenever I’ve got my finger on the trigger? ‘Oh, gosh Batman, do you think this low-life should be allowed to live, or should I just go ahead and blow his head off?’ Fat fucking chance.”
“You know,” Dick says, pinching the bridge of his nose, “you could at least try . Take the scaffolding for what it is and actually try to not set B off every time you guys run across each other.”
Jason is quiet for a moment. “Is that what you think is happening?”
“Obviously not. But–”
“You really live up to your namesake, asshole. It’s ironic, really, how you can’t stand to look at yourself these days. At least I can call it like it is.”
Dick frowns, wrong-footed now that he’s so easily shoved it into his mouth. “Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean–”
“That’s your problem, Nightwing. You never mean anything. It’s always toeing the line with you, too scared to ever make a decision for yourself because you’re still, after all of these years, trailing after the Bat like the good little soldier he trained you to be. He tells you to jump and you kill yourself pole vaulting.”
“You’re one to talk,” Dick says lowly. “What are you even still doing here, after all that’s happened? From where I’m standing, it seems like I’m not the only one incapable of recognizing what’s in the mirror.”
Thunder cracks, cleaving the air in two, and Dick wants to crawl into a hole.
“Your problem is with Batman,” Jason hisses, voice dangerous and scathed. A stray cornered and bleeding. “Not me. So fuck off.”
Jason hangs up without another word and Dick sighs, thudding his head against the cupboards. His head is swimming in an achy, persistent pain and his stomach rolls with the sky.
He always does this to himself. The wounds never heal fully, but they do scab over, and yet he still reacts like a caged animal whenever anyone pokes at them. He was a tender, aching thing, and the thought makes him manic with distress. Jason had called him for a reason and that reason was as simple as having a commonality between them. They were the first and last people to ever know Bruce before Jason’s death and had borne the brunt of his fury in the aftermath. Jason had called because he knew Dick would understand, and what had Dick done instead? Jesus.
And what did it all mean? Was Bruce really trying to build a bridge again between himself and Jason? Was he reaching out? Or was there something else going on, like Jason suspected? Some kind of message or plan hidden beneath the cease-fire? Dick hadn’t realized his brother didn’t have access to the line. Duke even had a direct connection to it, and he wasn’t one to team up or ask for help from others often. So, if Bruce had initially withheld access to it, what made him change his mind? It was true that Jason had slowed his more violent means of cleaning up Gotham, but it wasn’t as if it was a recent development. What changed? Why now?
Dick was beginning to notice a pattern with all of his brothers and their relationship with Bruce. It was ill-defined and fuzzy, and he still couldn’t place a name to it, but there was definitely one there; a link between all those interactions that unsettled something deeply within Dick. His head pulsed with the reminder of his lack of knowledge and Dick swallowed thickly, throat clicking.
It was like Gotham all over again except this time he couldn’t blame it on the air.
He has a nightmare a week after his conversation with Jason.
It’s one he’s familiar with. It rolls around appropriately every year, leading up to or trailing after the anniversary of his parents’ fall. Death. He’s working on engraining that part and getting it to stick. Articles tell him that’s the hardest part: letting go of the past, the pain, accepting it as it is, and moving on to greener pastures. He’s working on it. He is.
But the nightmare still comes every year without fail.
He is sitting in his room at the Manor. He’s younger, or, he’s watching a younger version of himself. Dick is never himself in the dream; he’s always taken an outsider’s view, witnessing his child form as an adult just out of reach. The accuracy of the dreamscape sometimes startles him: the black mahogany bedframe, waxed wooden floors, the brass handle on his closet door, the Flying Graysons poster just above his vanity mirror, the electric alarm clock with its blinking red numbers, the slight lump in the mattress that hid his utility belt, the scuff marks on the walls from too many collisions in slippery socks. Sometimes, he could even smell his old room, whiffs of the citrus cleaner Alfred liked to use, and the musk of prepubescent odor from his hamper in the bathroom.
The room is always dark. It is always night outside his window. And his child-self is always crying.
Dick is frozen in the corner of the bedroom, lurking like some sleep paralysis creature. His younger self never notices, too absorbed in his tears and the reverent way he holds a makeshift photo album in his hands to look up and see.
He’s focused on a picture of his parents, a year or two younger than they were the night everything went wrong. His father is squinting, caught off guard by the flash, and his mother is smiling so wide that her cheeks dimple. Between them, holding both of their hands, is Dick, wearing a bright green leotard and his own brilliant grin. It’s a good memory, a great photo, but his younger self won’t stop crying looking at it. The tears roll down the laminated page and Dick is too far away to see what it says on the bottom of the printed photo but it makes his child-self cry harder, curling around the album as if in pain as his sobs grow louder, escalating to the point of screaming.
The screaming becomes so loud that Dick has to close his eyes and cover his ears, horrified and drenched in the feeling of unbearable loneliness and heartache. It rings in his ears, oscillating in pitch and noise, and when he opens his eyes again, the scene has changed.
It’s him, again, but as a teenager. He’s not in the same room anymore, the surroundings having morphed into his old Titan dorm. To his right, a bed akin to a hospital cot piled high with pillows and blankets he knows are not his own; carpeted floor in need of a vacuum; picture frames of various Titans and jokingly signed autographs on the walls; stray blue paint on dirty trim, a sign of a home paint job; an empty key ring flung beneath the only window. It’s nothing like his room at the Manor but it feels like his, like he really lives there, and if not for that instinctual feeling to call it home, then his teenage form kneeling in front of that same photo album would have been his confirmation.
The room is dark. Like it always is. But his adolescent self isn’t crying.
He’s trembling.
The photo from before is out of its protective sleeve. Dick can see that his younger self has gloves on, his Robin ones, and the shaking of the picture in his hands shows how lightly he holds onto it despite the tension radiating from every other muscle in his body. Dick can hear him saying something, over and over again like a mantra.
“I hate him. I hate him. I hate him.”
Quick, whispered, and so, so angry. There’s no room for sadness in the quake of his voice, a crack on every fifth word.
“I miss you. I miss you. I miss you.”
There’s a duffle bag shoved into one of the darker corners of the room, overstuffed and hurriedly packed. A poster tube sticks out of one of the zippers, matte black and unobtrusive. Dick knows what’s in it. Knows what’s missing back at the Manor.
There are no tears but his teenage self slowly quiets. His trembling eases, body going limp as he slumps to lie on the floor, cradling the photo to his chest. His face and eyes are red, and when he sees Dick standing in the corner, he sneers.
“This is your fault.”
Dick tries to say something, the beginnings of “It’s no one’s fault” on his lips, but the floor suddenly gives way beneath him and he’s falling, plummeting into the dark. He falls endlessly, a trip that steals his breath and stops his heart, and when he finally lands, his elbows hit the cement so hard he feels them crack. The right side of his face burns like it’s on fire and he raises a hand to cradle it.
In front of him, a black mass stands, pulsing like writhing flesh. A black tendril is stretched out, frozen in place from the blow, and Dick can taste the metal in his mouth.
“Leave!” the thing bellows, increasing in size, suffocating the cavernous hole he’s fallen into. “Leave! Leave!”
Again and again, Dick tries to stand, and every time he fails. His legs simply won’t move and all he can do is crawl away from the shrieking mass, too lost in its own despair and anger to bother chasing. Dick’s only escape is the small glint of light in the distance, a glimmer of green leotards and crows feet and mauve brown lipstick. He crawls and his elbows ache. His inner cheek bleeds. But he crawls and reaches out for his parents with shaking fingers, pinching its corners and bringing it to his lips– a silent prayer.
“You would’ve never done this to me,” he says, feeling the rage, the grief, the pain of it all wash over him. He wants to cry, wants to scream. He hates him, he hates him, he hates him. “You would’ve never done this to me.”
His father raises an eyebrow at him, incredulous, as his parents release his tiny hands and walk out of the frame. They don’t come back and Dick is left standing alone, empty-handed, their final words echoing in the emptiness.
“Wouldn’t we?”
Dick wakes silently, rigid in bed and soaked in hot sweat. He knows he has a fever without having to check and he chugs the room-temperature water by his bedside. Already the nightmare is fading even as his heart struggles to calm down. He breathes deeply through his nose, inhaling for five seconds and exhaling for six, and wipes at his wet face with his blanket.
It is two days after the anniversary of his parent’s death. His name is Dick Grayson. He lives in Bludhaven. It is 2:03 a.m. He is in his room.
And his room is dark.