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Dick took a deep breath before he exhaled. He dialed up the number and was quiet as it rang. When it finally beeped, he greeted, “Hello, Bruce.”
“… Dick.”
“I’m taking Jason for a trip.”
“Okay.” A pause. “Where?”
“To see the cluster.”
He could almost hear Bruce grit his teeth, knowing that he distrusted the little galaxy even more after Dick had made a deal with one of the stars, binding them together. Bruce also especially hated them because even after more than half a decade, he still could not understand the mystery behind the cluster.
But Bruce was apparently desperate to talk to Dick again, since he sucked it up and allowed it. It was Dick and Jason’s first outing, and he seemed oddly happy to let Dick take away his adopted brother into space.
When Jason had heard about it, he was excited.
“Wait, I’m seriously going to space? I get to see the cluster too??”
“Yes,” Dick huffed. “We’re going in a few days.”
“Do I need to wear the uniform? I don’t, right? Isn’t the ship safe?”
“You don’t need to. Nobody but us and people with high authority can come to the station.”
“Sweet!”
Dick chuckled and teased, “You’re so excited.”
“And you aren’t? Well, I guess that energy levels can start dropping when you’re getting old,” Jason said with casual brutality.
Dick gasped. “What! I’m not old!”
“Your age doesn’t have the ‘teen’ in it anymore. Face it, Dickwing, you’re old.”
Dick’s jaw dropped, gobsmacked.
Was it possible to be this sassy at such a young age?! He wasn’t this snarky either when he was this young, right?!
“Y’know what? Let’s cancel the whole thing. I refuse to take this disrespect!”
Jason immediately began whining. “Wait, no! I’m sorry!”
They joked about it, planned some more, and then the day came where Dick drove into the Batcave, ready to pick up his… brother to hang out.
“Ready to go, Little Wing?”
Jason bounced on his heels. “Yep! We’re going to see space, right?”
Dick smiled and nodded. Bruce slinked into the Batcave just as the two of them were climbing into the teleportation tubes.
“B!” Jason called. “We’re going!”
“… okay. Be safe.” Bruce was quiet for a moment, as Dick was inputting the code for the space station that bordered the cluster his star was in. Then he added, “Both of you.”
Dick glanced up, gave a curt nod, and then looked back down again. Jason shifted awkwardly next to him as the silence ensued.
As Dick finished, Jason waved goodbye again and pulled on his elbow for him to do the same. Dick sighed and also waved goodbye.
“Bye, B!” Jason called, before the teleportation started and away they went.
They landed in the dock and Dick immediately checked up on Jason, who stumbled from the unexpected landing.
“How was it? Teleportation is neat, isn’t it?”
"By neat, you mean nauseating?" Jason snarked. He looked vaguely green, but quickly got himself back under control and then bounced back to being all smiles. "We're going to see your star, right?"
"And all of the other stars and planets too," Dick said. "Are you excited?"
"Yep! I can't wait to see what they look like! What are they like? Are they nice?"
Dick smiled at the thought of his star, who had been his sounding board, his (metaphorical) shoulder to cry on, his anchor when he had been adrift after losing his right to become Robin.
"Very nice. You've read the report on them, right?"
Jason nodded seriously. He recited what he remembered, "This star cluster consists of mainly planets and stars that used to be humans before being changed by an unknown entity called "Clockwork". This "Clockwork" person has a relationship or power involving time. The four stars in the middle of the cluster, who anchor it and are the center, consider Clockwork to be their protector and family. The four stars in the middle are royalty, are all related as siblings, and are also dead children."
At the last description, Dick winced and went, "Yeesh, I don't remember that part being said like that in the report."
Jason shrugged. "I’m paraphrasing."
Dick gave a small laugh and shook his head. Jason was surprisingly more fun than he had remembered. Usually, he remembered him being gloomy and bratty, as well as hot-tempered. Dick had not liked him at all, especially because Bruce had been a hypocritical asshole who had fired him for being a child and then turned around just to adopt another one and slap the name Robin on him.
(Sometimes, he wondered why Bruce hadn’t adopted him too.)
Dick was quiet as he led Jason towards the command room.
Once inside, Jason gave a loud gasp as he immediately flew forward to look out the glass.
“Is that—?”
“Yep.” Dick couldn’t help but smile at his enthusiasm. He followed Jason at a more subdued pace and came up to the glass window. “This is the Phantom Cluster. It used to be considered a galaxy, but we discovered that a lot of the other stars and planets around it aren’t sentient, so we don’t consider them a part of the cluster. The star system in the middle pulled them in.”
“Whoa. How many sentient planets do they have?” He tilted his head this way and that in order to see more.
“Hmmm, somewhere around 3 dozen? But only those two talk to us and they’re considered part of the King’s “court”,” Dick said as he pointed towards the two planets that orbited the four cosmic bodies.
Jason stared at them with interest, eyes darting back and forth between all of the astronomical objects in view, the planets, the stars, the star corpses, the asteroids. As he stared in silence, he shivered and Dick took note of that, seeing that it wasn’t something that came from the cold.
He understood it.
These stars were once breathing, living, walking humans like they were. Children, too.
Now they floated in the empty void of space, silent beyond the radio waves they emitted, unfeeling beyond what emotions they had after transformation, existing beyond what was given to them in order to stay “alive”.
Sometimes, it was difficult to think of them as once human, when they were everything but that without the memories.
They gave off such a strong sense of otherness that it was almost frightening.
Jason pointed to the one with clouds covering its surface. “Is that… water vapor clouds?”
Dick grinned. “Yeah. That planet can hold life, but we haven’t touched down yet. It’s considered rude and they get angry.”
Jason smiled. “Cool.”
Dick pointed at his star. “That star is mine.”
“Wow,” Jason breathed in awe and pride swelled in Dick’s chest at the sound of his amazement. He gazed at his brightly glowing star with thinly veiled satisfaction.
Yes, it was a star now.
His star, who was once a black hole, had collapsed on itself on the day that he had shed his Robin identity and tried to find his own independence.
He remembered it so clearly.
——
“Uncle Clark! What do you mean my star is gone?!” Dick shrieked. He pressed his phone against his shoulder for easy movement as he started his car and began to drive desperately back to the Batcave, where the teleportation tube there would be able to take him straight to the station that watched over that strange, little galaxy.
He felt tears in his eyes as he drove like a madman past traffic and honking cars.
Only a few days ago, he had basically been fired from his lifelong job and passion after getting injured from fighting the Joker and he had only left the Manor today, and now he had to crawl back because his star was dying.
Dammit, dammit, dammit.
Why wasn’t anything going right?
It was just too much. Dick scrubbed the tears from his eyes and continued to bark on the phone, “Superman! What is happening?!”
“I don’t know,” Superman said. “Your star just stopped spinning a few days ago, and at first, I didn’t think it was a big deal because the rest of the cluster was still singing. But today, it started… shrinking.”
“Shrinking?! Tell me what’s going on!” His stomach felt like it was going through a wringer. He was almost sick with worry and exhaustion.
He had no one else now. Alfred was with Bruce, and Bruce had abandoned him. He couldn’t depend on other heroes like some charity case, and all he had left was his star…
Please… please let it be nothing.
“I don’t know. It’s shrinking and it’s stopped sucking in gas and matter a while ago too. This happened at least a week ago.”
Could nothing go right?!
Dick smacked the steering wheel of his car in rage, making it honk and the car in front of him to surge forward.
He raced back to the Manor and through the secret entrance to the Batcave. When Bruce came down to see what was happening, Dick had already gone through the teleportation tube and stuck a sticky note on the computer to tell him what was going on before he left.
For a moment, he thought Bruce could chase him, but he didn’t. Dick was left alone as he teleported to the space station.
When he landed on flat ground, he immediately took off towards the command room, where Superman was floating and staring out the window with confusion.
“Robin!” Superman called, and then he winced.
Dick felt his stomach twist into knots from the shame as he realized that his favorite superhero knew he was fired.
“You know,” he said tonelessly.
Superman grimaced and nodded. “I’m sorry. Batman shouldn’t have done that.”
“Yes. He shouldn’t have.”
Superman rubbed the back of his neck and then he gestured to the window, “There’s your black hole. I’m not sure why, but he started changing a week or two ago. I think it was around the time you got… uh, benched.”
It was both endearing and infuriating how Superman sugarcoated things to avoid hurting him.
It made Dick feel even more ashamed as he grit his teeth and realized that his star was being punished for his actions.
Dick laid his eyes on the cluster outside the window and felt his heart break. Like him, his star looked weak and small. Like it was stripped of its layers (his role, his mother’s nickname for him, his last piece of his family), it looked dull and small. It didn’t move as much as before either.
“My star?” Dick asked, his voice cracking as he came closer to the glass.
His star did not respond, still and silent. The song of the stars was quieter than usual too. It sounded sad and sorrowful, filled with melancholy and loss.
Dick felt tears in his eyes again.
Fuck. He hadn’t wanted to cry.
It was just inevitable. He and his star were connected in more ways than one. The two of them were bonded, two halves of a whole, two parts of a relationship, like milk and cereal, and peanut butter and jelly.
Okay, actually, he was just being melodramatic.
But the truth remained: Dick loved his star. He loved his star like he loved Bruce, like he loved Kory, like he loved his parents, like he loved Alfred, like he loved Barbara. His star was his family and he hated just how the both of them looked weary and worn out in this moment.
He remembered his childhood, where he would slip onto the manor’s roof and talk to his star, who would glitter and sparkle in the smoky sky of Gotham. He had loved it, had loved how he could see his star in the night sky, and how he responded back in the ways only a star could.
It sucked that his condition reflected back on his star.
It was unfair how Dick’s suffering and unhappiness appeared on his star too.
“R—… Dick, are you alright?”
Dick wiped his eyes with his sleeve. “I’ll be fine. Can I… Can I stay here for a little while? Just a couple of days.”
Superman looked sympathetic and it killed Dick inside to see the pity on his face.
“Of course. Whatever you need. There’s more than enough food and water in the station…. Do you want me to talk to Bruce?”
“No.” His voice came back sharp. Superman winced and Dick wanted to feel apologetic, but he couldn’t help but be angry at the thought of his foster father.
“No need. I’ll be okay here, thanks.”
Superman then nodded slowly and left, leaving Dick alone in the command room.
His black hole hummed in the background, spinning slowly. Its dark light shone on him as it spun, but Dick could only feel cold.
That was to be expected when in a room across from three dead stars and a baby star, but the cold was inside of Dick as well, penetrating his bones and making his stomach feel like lead.
He felt sick. And tired. And exhausted. And pissed as hell.
He stayed in that command room for days. Sometimes, he just sat there and watched the stars move, as his black hole turned dimmer and dimmer until its event horizon could barely be seen.
Was it dying?
Robin was now gone, so did that mean that his star would be gone too?
The King quietly reassured him that it was not true, but Dick worried regardless.
When he wasn’t looking out the window in a daze, he was researching about job offers and career paths. He was still barely in school, and he needed to look onward after being kicked out of being Robin.
Occasionally, Superman would come by and talk to him.
“So what are you planning to do?” He asked one day.
Dick had been writing down a list of ideas for his future and he looked up then. “I… I’m not entirely sure.”
“That’s okay,” Superman reassured him. “You’ll find your path one day. And I know you’ll be great at it. You were always shining brightly, just like a star, I trust that you’ll find your way again.”
He grinned then and Dick returned the look.
“… I want to be a hero again.”
Superman hummed. “Well… not a bad idea. Are you sure? You know the danger of it.”
“I know,” Dick said, determined. “That’s why I want to continue doing what I love. Being a hero helped me in more ways than one. It helped me and it helped others. I want to continue doing good.”
Was it just him or was his star shining brighter?
Dick was distracted by Superman’s next words.
“I see. What are your plans? Are you going to go back to Batman?”
“I think… I think I’m going to go to Bludhaven. I’m going to become my own hero.” He smiled, as the plan solidified in his mind. He was already 18, he could transfer his college credits to another university and finish his education. He would find a job, an apartment of his own, he would finally be independent!
He didn’t need Batman. He was his partner, but if Batman wanted to treat him like a kid, then Dick would show him that he wasn’t. He was smarter, stronger, wiser, and braver than Bruce realized.
He didn’t need him. (Even if it hurt.)
The singing grew louder, then. Just barely noticeable, like the stars were excited but wanted to be quiet so the surprise wouldn’t be let out.
Superman smiled. “That sounds like a great plan. What do you think you’re going to be called?”
He had thought about growing out of Robin before, but since he was forced out of his role like cutting off a child from their mother’s milk, he had thought about it extensively since then.
He gazed at Superman, thinking of the legends he used to tell him when he was young.
“… I think… I want to be named Nightwing.”
Just as his words came out of his mouth, there was a loud bang that echoed from space, and then an explosion that rocked the ship. Metal screeched from the movement and everything turned white. Superman immediately flew at him, covering him with his own body as the spacecraft rocked and creaked ominously from the explosion. Dick was pressed against the floor and his eyes clenched shut as he unconsciously covered his ears from the loud impact of whatever exploded outside his window.
Once the heat dissipated and the ringing of his ears stopped, Dick realized what had happened.
Dick cried out, “No!” and pushed Superman off of him as he stared out the window.
But it wasn’t what he had expected.
He had expected to see devastation, planets blown apart, stars torn in two, nebula clouds drifting from stars going supernova, black holes gone with evaporation.
Instead, he saw a new star.
His black hole had disappeared and in its place, was a bright glowing blue star, hot and enormous, second to no one but his sister, the quasar. His star cooed once, “My Nightwing,” suddenly making everything connect within his mind.
Dick’s jaw dropped as then song burst from the radio.
And in it, something new.
Before, the singing had sounded like that of a group of children from a church choir. It was haunting and beautiful, but light and delicate. It was a song of loneliness and melancholy sung by a group of children who were cursed to become astronomical objects and be alone with only each other in the sky.
But now, there was a new voice.
No, it wasn’t new.
It had grown up.
His star had a distinctly bass and masculine voice, one of a grown man with a deep, almost velvety quality to it. Surprisingly, it melded well with the other voices and they all sang with the sound of new hope and new beginnings, a sign of the new times and change.
Tears came to Dick’s eyes again. It poured down his cheeks and he couldn’t help but smile and laugh as his entire body unclenched from the relief.
Of course.
How had he not realized?
His star wasn’t dying. It was growing up too. The stars had mentioned rebirth before, having been turned from stars into planets into stars again and then into black holes or neutron stars or more protostars.
Dick had been growing up with his star. His star was a child when they made a deal, just like him, and the two of them had grown up together. With the curse, it was the only way his star could find any semblance of becoming himself again. Now that Dick had shed his childish identity as Batman’s partner of Robin into a newer role, his star would also do the same.
“Dick?” Superman asked hesitantly. “Are you alright?”
Dick gave him a wobbly smile that probably didn’t reassure him by the worried look on his face. “Yeah. I’m just fine.”
With his star by his side, Dick would enter a new chapter of his life. He wouldn’t hesitate any longer.
He had finally grown out of the nest, ready to take flight with new wings. Now all he had to do was jump and spread them for a new journey.
——
“Uhhh… what’s that black hole doing?”
Dick snapped out of his thoughts at Jason’s words and looked up. Outside the window, while his star was still alongside his siblings, the quasar was spinning rapidly, flares bursting outwards and lights sparking from the collision of dust and gas.
“… no clue.” She kind of looked like she was showing off.
The singing on the radio grew louder.
They both watched as the quasar continued its little show as the communicator crackled noisily.
The radio hummed, the song slowing down to a halt before then it spoke.
“Hello,” a thousand voices echoed.
Dick pulled his gaze away from the window to look at the monitor.
The chatter of the stars grew more excited as the quasar continued to spin crazily. The King was at the forefront of the speaking stars, who said, “How do you do?”
“… we’re well, thank you for asking.”
Another voice quickly interrupted the neutron star, calling sweetly, “Robin.”
Dick froze, feeling a strong sense of déjà vu. It was all too familiar of a scene. A scene that had occurred to him only 7 years ago.
Jason looked at Dick for answers, but when he was too dumbfounded to speak, Jason answered quietly, “Yes?”
“… do you want to help me?”
Dick and Jason stared at each other.
“Should I?” Jason asked him and Dick hesitated.
He had never felt like being the human host for a star was a burden. In fact, it held no repercussions for him, since all he had to do was grow and live and his star would follow. Frankly, it was almost a completely one-sided deal since Dick got all of the rewards.
His mouth felt dry. When they had mentioned Robins before, was it a sign that if Batman had more children and more Robins, they would all become a host for his galaxy?
“…. It’s your choice, Little Wing.”
Jason nodded slowly, and asked, “Who are you?”
“In front of you,” the voice called and the quasar gave a small spin with a burst of light from her accretion disk. Her jet pulsed and Jason oohed at the sight of it.
“Dick, who’s that one again?”
“That’s the quasar,” Dick said. “She’s the big sister of the cluster.”
Jason smiled, silent for a moment as he watched the quasar move before he answered her, “How can I help you?”
“Make a deal with me.”
“What do I get out of it?” Jason asked, as Dick put a hand on his shoulder to reassure him.
“I’ll watch over you. Protect you when I can… I’ll be yours.”
Jason smiled toothily. “But I don’t wanna be owned by something.”
There was sudden silence, only the crackling of static and the same sound of ocean waves filling the air. Dick eyed Jason with wide eyes, trying to telepathically sending him question marks for his vague refusal when there was seriously no downside.
Then finally, “You won’t be owned by me.” The quasar sounded hesitant and a little sullen, almost offended.
Jason tilted his head. “Okay. Then I’ll make a deal with you. You don’t own me, but we’ll belong to each other, ‘kay?”
There was silence again as the quasar thought about it. Then, sounding more pleased and extremely adoring, the answer came out in a quiet hushed and awed, “Okay.”
The quasar seemed shocked by Jason’s handling of the situation, who dared to even negotiate the terms of what they were to each other. Dick watched, slightly impressed as the quasar seemed even more endeared than before.
Jason said, “Deal!” before he put his hand on the glass and several flares came from the quasar.
Gas and dust rubbed against each other in an impressive show of lights and fireworks before one of the flares popped and then a piercing light came rushing towards them. Dick gripped Jason’s shoulder tighter before the light burst through the window and then into Jason’s hand, up his arm, and then his cheek before it then settled.
Jason gasped, bending over slightly as his hand came up to cradle his face as Dick rushed to catch him.
“Little Wing! Are you okay? Oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t think it’d be this bad! It wasn’t the last time!”
“I’m okay, Dickwing! Seriously!” Jason batted away his hand and then looked up at his reflection through the glass. “Whoa.”
On the left side of his face, below his eye and on his cheekbones, lines began to appear with bright bursts of black, bloody orange, and a turquoise blue. The same four pointed star as Dick’s appeared, its lines long and pointed. As the ink began to settle, Jason smiled, satisfied as he stroked the newly formed tattoo before he called out into the communicator, “Thanks!”
The stars were all celebrating around the quasar, a more cheerful and happy tune as they sang and spun.
“No, thank you, my dear Robin,” the quasar responded happily through the singing and cheering.
Jason beamed. Dick, however, frowned, as he reached down to press a thumb against the tattoo and said, “Isn’t the mark too obvious?”
“Didn’t you say that you could hide it before? You just have to teach me!” Jason said, with a raised eyebrow, as if daring him to refuse. However, the smile on his face wouldn’t die, and he looked overjoyed.
Noticing Dick gazing at him, Jason grinned.
Huh, how had he not noticed that Jason had dimples?
“Thanks for bringing me here, Dickwing!” Jason said with a wide grin. “I can’t believe I have my own star!”
Dick couldn’t help but smile too, and said, “No problem. Take care of her well.”
“I will! I definitely will!”
As Dick looked up out the window and observed his own star, who was spinning happily in circles around his newly bonded sister, he couldn’t help but marvel at the turn of events.
Who knew that this Robin would also acquire the protection of a star?
Man, Bruce was going to freak.