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Chapter Text

If Dick is being honest, his issues with food began long before he was old enough to understand that he had an issue at all.

Every kid reacts to trauma differently. When the Flying Graysons are tragically killed in a trapeze accident and their son finds himself relocated to a cushy mansion alongside a man who understands Dick’s morbid situation better than anyone should while providing none of the proper coping skills to recover from it, he doesn’t have a lot to lean on. Dick has people around him, but he’s alone.

The circus was all Dick knew. It was all he had. It was his family. He is grateful for everything Bruce has done for him, but how can Dick be expected to move on and act like everything is fine when his parents aren’t with him? More importantly: How is Dick supposed to be okay when the man who stole everything from him is still free?

Dick needs a handhold in the abyss. Only eight years old and already his life has fallen to pieces around him. He needs something that he can control, otherwise he’s going to spiral off into oblivion. It doesn’t take long for food to become that something.

It isn’t even intentional.

In his grief, Dick refuses to eat any food placed in front of him, even when Alfred goes out of his way to prepare all of Dick’s favorite meals and springs for proper dinosaur nuggets from the grocery store instead of healthifying his own. It doesn’t matter—nothing is appetizing anymore.

Dick knows logically that he should eat. He likes food. He’s always had a sweet tooth, and there is no shortage of snacks at his disposal. Dick just…isn’t hungry anymore. Some days the thought of eating makes him nauseous, so he doesn’t bother trying.

“Don’t like meatloaf?” Bruce asks during one of the rare dinners he’s actually shown up for. He’s always too busy “working” in the basement to spend time with his new ward. Dick wasn’t aware that billionaires had to work for anything. Bruce gestures with his fork to Dick’s cold plate.

Dick shrugs. Actually, he loves meatloaf. His mom made it best: she always mixed cheese and onion soup mix in it, and she’d let Dick sculpt ski slopes out of his mashed potatoes. Alfred’s recipe isn’t bad, but it’s different. Everything is different here.

“Can I be excused?” Dick asks after a reasonable amount of time has passed. “I’m finished.” He didn’t pick up his fork once during the short dinner. It isn’t fair to let Alfred’s hard work go to waste, but Dick is living with rich people now, so they can’t be too concerned about wasting food. And Dick would have been happy to skip dinner altogether if it were allowed.

Bruce frowns. “You haven’t touched your food. Are you feeling okay, chum?” He exchanges a swift look with Alfred over Dick’s head.

Dick moves away from Alfred’s palm trying to feel his forehead. “Yeah. I’m just not hungry.”

“Is there something else I can make you?” Alfred tries. “A peanut butter sandwich, perhaps? You really should get some food in your stomach. You barely touched your breakfast this morning either.”

“No.” Dick pushes away from the table and plods off toward his room. He knows they won’t try to stop him. Nobody wants to boss around the fresh orphan.

“I fear we are going through a picky phase,” he hears Alfred whisper to Bruce just before he’s gone.

They both are trying so hard to help Dick, only to receive the cold shoulder at every turn. He knows he’s being ungrateful, but Dick can’t wade through the grayness of his world enough to figure out what to do about it. The grief has taken over everything; it’s the only thing his brain will let him think about now.

He picks at his breakfast every morning like a bird, only getting down a few bites before his roiling stomach decides he’s done. He’s still hungry when he leaves the table—starving, by this point—but no matter how hard he tries, Dick can’t make himself eat anything more than that. It’s like his body has forgotten how to function properly. He is a boy in disrepair.

Appointments are made with the Wayne family’s personal physician, Leslie Thompkins. She’s nice enough. She measures Dick’s height and weight, and then she inquires about his eating habits at home—not that Wayne Manor is Dick’s home, but Haly’s isn’t his home anymore either, so where does that leave him?

“What do you like to eat, Dick?” she asks, taking a seat on the examination cot beside Dick as if that makes them friends. “What’s your favorite food?”

Dick shrugs. “I dunno. I like pancakes.”

“Pancakes are great,” Leslie agrees. “Does Alfred make them for you a lot?”

“Sometimes.” He even makes a smiley face out of chocolate chips the way Dick’s dad used to. It should have made him happy, but all it did was curdle Dick’s stomach and make tears prick at his eyes. He left the table hungry.

Dick is young, but that doesn’t make him stupid. He’s aware that his eating habits aren’t normal. How could a kid who watched his parents fall to their deaths right in front of him ever expect to be normal in the first place? Bruce is a perfect example of how bleak Dick’s future will be. What’s there left for him to hope for?

“You’re right to be concerned,” Leslie tells Bruce after Dick’s appointment. They sent him to sit around in the waiting room until the grown-ups are done talking, but even a circus performer can be sneaky when he wants to be. “He’s lost weight since his last check-up. He wouldn’t make eye contact with me throughout the whole appointment. How is he doing at home? Does he pick at his food, or does he avoid touching it at all?”

“Sometimes he’ll take a few bites if we distract him,” Bruce answers thoughtfully, “but that’s about it. He keeps telling me he isn’t hungry, but I know he must be starving. He just has no interest in eating.”

Bruce sounds stressed. Dick is the one causing all that stress, and that only makes him feel more guilty than he already was. Bruce went out of his way to take Dick in when he had no one else, and Dick has been nothing but a burden to him since.

“Well, there’s nothing physically wrong with him apart from the weight loss,” Leslie says. “I’m not going to waste my time explaining to you the details of ARFID. You already know it’s not an uncommon reaction in children who have experienced trauma. I’m no child psychologist, but my guess is it’s a control issue. The stool’s been kicked out from under him, so hunger is the only thing he’s decided he can control right now.”

Bruce runs a hand through the back of his hair, sighing. “I was hoping you were going to tell me he was sick. I didn’t think an eight-year-old could actually be starving himself.” He searches Leslie’s face, looking more lost than Dick has seen him in the entire time they’ve known each other. “Did I cause this? It’s been months since Dick lost his parents. I thought he would have started to recover by now.”

“Did you recover in a few months?” Leslie retorts with a knowing cock of her eyebrow. “He’s eight years old and he’s just lost everything he knows. If food is the only thing Dick feels he can control right now, then let him do that. Encourage him to eat whatever and whenever he wants. Give him ice cream for all three meals if that’s what it takes to get some calories in his body. Eat with him to take the pressure off.”

She pats Bruce’s shoulder. “Just be patient with him, okay? Keep an eye on it, and call me if anything changes, but don’t drive yourself into a frenzy over this. Dick will start eating again when he’s ready.”

Bruce takes Leslie’s advice, and thus begins the torturous process of letting a second-grader be in charge of his own life. Starting with a trip to McDonald’s directly after the appointment because Dick’s mom used to buy him a Happy Meal any time Dick had to go to the doctor when he was younger. He’s only in it for the toy, anyway.

“This is going to be our secret, okay?” Bruce says as they walk into the colorful dining room. “Alfred will kill me if he finds out I gave you fast food.”

But that can’t be true because Alfred beams at Dick like he’s won a million bucks when they return, and Dick knows Bruce told him where they went. He didn’t even eat that much—just the nuggets and most of his apple slices. He didn’t touch the french fries. But it’s something.

The following weeks are a battle. Dick still turns away most meals and has to be practically bullied into taking a gummy multivitamin every day to keep him somewhat healthy. Potato chips quickly become one of the only forms of sustenance they can get Dick to eat, as he doesn’t have to sit at the dining table for them, and it’s easy to distract him with cartoons so he doesn’t become too aware of the fact that he’s eating.

If Dick doesn’t think about it too hard, it’s okay. Some days he makes it through half a sandwich before his stomach starts to hurt and he gives up. It’s better when he’s on autopilot. Once Dick remembers that he’s eating, though, and he can actually taste the food, all bets are off. He might as well be chewing a glob of wet cement.

It becomes their daily challenge to navigate—one that none of them win.

Alfred softly confronts Dick about it during the car ride to school one day post an unsuccessful attempt at a healthy breakfast. Dick drank half a glass of milk before deciding he’d rather just go to school hungry.

Dick hates Gotham Academy. The ride to school every day feels like being in the back of a hearse on the way to his own wake. All the kids there are rich and hate him. They call him a weirdo and ask if he was raised by clowns.

“I put an extra cupcake in your lunchbox,” Alfred informs Dick, eyeing the boy in the rearview mirror. “But you should try to finish your sandwich first.” When Dick says nothing, he adds, “It’s peanut butter with marshmallow fluff,” as if that will make one bit of difference.

Faced with a silent car, Alfred gives up and sighs. “Why don’t you want to eat, my boy?” It comes out so sorrowful and defeated that Dick could cry. Bruce and Alfred have tiptoed around the subject before now. They speak about it amongst themselves and with Leslie, but they have never acknowledged it directly while Dick was in earshot.

Dick stares out the window at the traffic alongside them, willing himself not to tear up. “I dunno. It feels bad.”

“Aren’t you hungry?”

Yes, he wants to confess. Yes, he feels every pang of hunger from a nutrient-starved stomach, and he feels the growing weakness in his muscles when he goes too long without nutrients. He wants to confide in Alfred that, despite the fatigue and the hunger and the guilt over worrying everyone around him, it also feels good to be this way. Or at least better than the way things were before.

If Dick’s parents have to be dead, then what right does Dick have to keep himself alive? How is that fair? What reason does he have to eat when the two most important people in the world are gone? This is the only thing that feels right anymore. It’s the only feeling Dick has found that makes sense in the confusion of this new life he’s been tossed into.

Maybe if he starves himself enough, he can become so small that he’ll disappear entirely. It’s a tempting idea.

On Alfred’s singular day off, he takes himself out on a solo date to see the opera. He won’t be back home until after bedtime, which leaves Bruce to figure out what to do for dinner.

Bruce opens the same cabinet he’s already opened four times, as if he’s expecting a three-course meal to spontaneously appear on the shelf. “We have bread,” he offers with a pensive expression. “I could make us sandwiches. I don’t know where Alfred keeps the peanut butter, though. Or the jelly.”

Dick sits on a stool at the kitchen island watching his guardian fuss about. “You don’t cook a lot, do you?” Not that Dick is famished for whatever concoction Bruce does manage to dish out.

“No, I do not.” Bruce closes the cabinet and opens another, taking out a random jar of artichoke hearts and perusing the label on the back. “He could have at least set aside some leftovers for me to heat up. I know how to work the microwave.”

“My parents don’t let me use the stove either,” Dick says, pillowing his chin on his hand. “The only things I’m allowed to make by myself are cereal or peanut butter and jelly.”

Bruce hums, considering those options. “I could go for some cereal.” He returns the jar to the shelf and faces Dick. “Do we have any?”

Dick shrugs. Further investigation leads them to the conclusion that no, they do not have any cereal.

Thus, with Dick in his Superman pajama pants and Bruce wearing the first pair of flip-flops he could find, they set out for a drive to the closest grocery store, which turns out to be a local 7/11.

“I was hoping they would have a broader selection,” Bruce mutters to Dick as they browse their meager options. Bruce gravitates toward a box of Raisin Bran, which, ew. Only old people like Raisin Bran.

Dick’s favorite is a box with a blue unicorn on the front promising marshmallows inside. They go with that one, plus a Slurpee after Bruce catches Dick admiring the machine’s dozen flavors. At Dick’s direction, Bruce fills a cup with a portion of every single flavor until they all combine into swirly brown mush.

He finishes his entire bowl of cereal that night, along with Bruce’s unwanted marshmallows. It’s the most Dick has eaten in one sitting since his parents died.

Things start to improve little by little after that. Alfred invites Dick to cook with him after school, hoping that it might make Dick feel safer about eating. And, as he so excuses it, Master Bruce is a lost cause, but it isn’t too late for me to provide you with the proper survival skills. Dick doesn’t mind helping out in the kitchen. He likes feeling useful.

There are still days when food turns to sand in Dick’s mouth and not even his favorite meals are appetizing, but it’s better than it was before. Maybe that’s just what healing is, though. You’re not the same as you were before, and you aren’t exactly whole, but you make it through the days easier. You survive.

Robin helps. Robin helps a lot.

When Bruce agrees to let Dick join up in his mission to protect Gotham, it’s like a skewed piece of Dick’s soul slots itself into place. Donning his brand-new Robin uniform for the first time and breathing in the scent of Gotham is an epiphany. Suddenly everything feels right again.

Robin is created to be Batman’s light, and Dick fits the mold exactly the way he should. He invented it, after all. This is who he was meant to be.

Of course, Bruce can’t let his new sidekick out onto the streets without first ensuring that he can handle the physical toll of the job. Dick is put through rigorous training and field tests to make sure he’s fit to take down criminals twice his size without getting squashed in the process.

With everything that’s going on, Dick doesn’t have time to not eat. Every day is filled with training sessions and fighting lessons. He is taught everything Bruce knows. He learns how to be a detective. They work on tracking down Tony Zucco together and bringing him to justice for what he did to Dick’s parents.

Dick’s weight gradually ticks up and up as he gains more muscle. He starts eating more to keep up with all his new workouts, until pretty soon he barely has to think about it anymore. It’s just fuel for the fire now. Dick is still every bit an acrobat, but he’s a fighter now too, and he needs to bulk up like one.

It feels good. He feels good. Dick’s body is a weapon now, and everyone knows you have to take care of your weapons if you want them to be effective.

Taking down Zucco and his gang becomes more important than satisfying Dick’s own need to starve, and then Zucco becomes the Joker, and then Scarecrow. Protecting the people of Gotham by making himself the best hero he can be trumps everything else. Robin eclipses all.

Alfred and Bruce are with him every step of the way. Eventually Dick stops thinking of them as simply “the old guys he lives with now” and starts to see them as family. Real family.

Having friends helps, too. Especially Kid Flash.

Batman doesn’t like for Robin to be out fighting crime on his own without him nearby, but when Robin starts to meet other teen heroes, his leash lengthens. Robin and Kid Flash are permitted to team up on the odd occasion thanks to Alfred’s insistence that a young boy needs friends.

Kid Flash is the exact opposite of Batman. He’s hyperactive, talkative, and fun. Whenever their mentors get together for Justice League missions, it gives their sidekicks the chance to team up as well. Dick almost forgot what it was like to get along with other kids his age. He has friends at school now, but it’s hard to build a real connection when half of your life must be kept a secret. And Barbara is great, but she isn’t his best friend the way Wally is.

While Bruce and Barry work on a case in the Batcave, Dick and Wally suit up and patrol Gotham together in their stead. It’s a quiet night, so they end up stopping at a churro cart when Wally’s speedster metabolism forces him to take a break and refuel.

“So, what’s it like having your dad be Batman?” Wally asks after his third churro. They’re sitting side by side on a rooftop overlooking Park Row. Wally bought himself five churros. Dick didn’t want any.

“He’s not my dad,” Dick says quickly. “He’s just my guardian.”

Wally shivers. “Whatever he is, he gives me the creeps. Bet he’s a real jerk, right? He’s just so…” He makes a face that reminds Dick of Grumpy the dwarf.

“He’s really not that bad,” Dick says, and he means it. When the rest of the world ceases to make sense, Bruce is always there as a grounding force. “We get along great, actually. We understand each other. He’ll never be my dad, but he’s…he’s better than I thought I’d ever get, you know?”

The most important part of being an acrobat is trust. When you jump, you have to believe in your heart that your partner will be there to catch you. Dick knows he can trust Bruce to have his back no matter what. He’ll be whatever Dick needs him to be for as long as he needs it. Dick still misses his mom and dad so much that some days he swears the grief will crush him, but having Bruce around makes it just the tiniest bit more bearable. It’s nice to know he isn’t alone. Whatever Dick is feeling, Bruce has felt it before and he survived it.

Dick tacks on, “And the ‘dark, scary Batman’ thing is all an act, you know. He’s actually kind of a dweeb when you get to know him.” A dweeb who could disarm a bomb in seconds but somehow can’t figure out how to work the DVD player.

Wally has this way of laughing that sounds like a barrage of pig snorts. Dick kind of loves it. “So that’s where you get it from.”

Dick shoves Wally’s shoulder, making him nearly drop his churro. “You’re a dweeb.” But he likes Wally that way. He wouldn’t do a thing to change him.

Wally still has half a churro left. He holds it out to Dick in offering. “Want a bite?”

“Nah,” Dick replies out of habit. He’s better with food now, but it’s still difficult sometimes to eat when it’s not part of his regular meal plan. It’s easier not to think about it that way.

Wally just rolls his eyes and wags the thing in Dick’s face. “Come on, have some. This counts as circus food, right? Part of the boy wonder diet.”

“That’s dumb,” Dick says with a snort. But he takes the churro.

It tastes like home.

As Dick grows older, his body begins to change more and more. You’re shooting up like a weed, Clark laughs whenever they’re together. Pretty soon Dick no longer has to jump to reach his high-fives.

He likes it. He’s growing up, he’s getting bigger. It should come with more respect, and it does, for the most part. From everyone except Bruce.

It’s a real drag having to obey Batman’s orders all the time. You’d think he would learn how to let go of that stubborn grip he feels the need to keep on everything and everyone around him, but Bruce’s obsessive-compulsive tendencies only get worse as the years go on. It’s like the man has convinced himself that letting Dick out of his sight for five minutes will result in a painful and immediate death.

Robin, don’t do that. Robin, don’t go there. Robin, what did I tell you about running into burning buildings without me? You could have been killed.

As if Robin hasn’t been doing this gig for five years. As if he isn’t a professional. For all that he goofs off and makes his trademark quips, Dick knows the gravity of the role he’s chosen for himself. This is real life—it isn’t a game.

“You’re always so carefree,” a charming reporter tells Robin outside the scene of a (foiled, thanks to the dynamic duo) bank robbery. Seriously, Nygma needs to work on making those riddles harder to crack. It’s starting to get embarrassing. “How do you do it? It can’t be easy bearing the burden of an entire city’s well-being on your shoulders. Does it ever weigh you down?”

Robin sends the camera a dazzling grin. Batman naturally hates interviews and refuses to engage with the press, but Robin doesn’t adhere to those same guidelines. He’s a people person. He’s friendly. “I’m Robin, nothing weighs me down! It’s in the name, right?”

She laughs. “It certainly is. And I have no idea how you do all those crazy flips! It’s a good thing you’re so skinny. Better keep away from those doughnuts!” Then she pinches Robin’s cheek, which feels a little condescending, but Dick Grayson is nothing if not a seasoned performer. Batman’s job is to intimidate criminals, but it’s Robin’s job to comfort the public.

So Robin laughs along and lets the reporter turn back to the camera for her outro. He doesn’t stick around long once the cameras have stopped rolling.

“What did I tell you about talking to the press?” Batman reminds him when they rendezvous on a rooftop close by. “You’re making us look like celebrities.”

Robin snorts. “Isn’t that what we are? If you didn’t want attention, you should have thought twice about the bat gimmick. Everybody loves a freak in a Halloween costume.”

Batman rolls his eyes, but he doesn’t deny it.

Later that night—or early morning, depending on how you spin it—Dick leaves his uniform with Alfred to be laundered and heads up to his bedroom. Knowing Bruce, the guy is going to remain in the Batcave writing up reports and doing research for cases until Alfred manhandles him upstairs to bed.

Dick towels off his shower-damp hair and appraises himself in the floor-length mirror next to his closet.

Better keep away from those doughnuts!

Dick lifts the bottom of his tank top and pinches his side. There isn’t a lot there to grasp, but it’s still enough to feel between his forefinger and thumb. He’s always been a skinny kid, but now, at fourteen years old, Dick is starting to grow into his muscles as all his weight distributes itself vertically. It’s left his body requiring more and more calories to keep up. Maybe he’s been overdoing it?

Every time he runs into a Justice Leaguer or one of Bruce’s old friends they always say the same thing: Look how big you’ve gotten! Not like it isn’t true; with the amount Dick has to eat with his active lifestyle, it’s no wonder he’s gotten so much bigger than he used to be. He’s in his prime growing years. But isn’t that supposed to be a good thing?

Dick has never given much thought to his appearance before now. He never needed to. He knows he’s a good-looking kid. People comment all the time about how handsome he’s going to be when he’s older. Robin was voted this year’s number-one hottest teen in Gotham according to Teen Magazine, and Dick Grayson ranked number three. He knows he looks fine, but what reassurance does he have that it will always stay that way?

Maybe that reporter was onto something. Dick has been snacking a lot lately. Puberty has practically doubled his appetite. Alfred’s been preparing loads of sugary snacks to keep up with him. What if Dick has been letting himself go? It’s not like anyone would be honest with him if his appearance took a nose-dive. No one is going to walk up to an impressionable teen and tell him he’s getting fat even if it is true.

And Dick knows he isn’t fat, but maybe he should be taking measures to ensure it stays that way. Bruce doesn’t feel the need to pig out on cookies and ice cream all the time, so why should Dick?

Robin needs to be perfect. He can’t afford to screw things up just when he’s finally started to feel comfortable with his place in the world.

Dick cuts out the junk food after that night. It’s a long overdue change, so he doesn’t mourn the loss too deeply. It feels better this way.

“Would you prefer a blueberry muffin or potato chips in your lunchbox today, Master Dick?” Alfred asks while he packs Dick’s school lunch.

“Do we have any celery?” Dick asks instead. According to the health forums he found online last night, celery is a negative-calorie food and will make him burn calories just by digesting it. It’s probably true.

“It has been a few years since I’ve made ants on a log,” Alfred says fondly.

“Just the celery is fine.” One single tablespoon of peanut butter carries eight whole grams of fat. There was a lot of information on that forum.

Alf arches an eyebrow, but he obediently starts chopping a celery stalk into sticks. “Are we exploring a new diet?”

“Just trying to eat a little healthier.” Dick scarfs down the rest of his scrambled eggs and trades Alfred the empty plate for his lunchbox. “A superhero can never be too in shape, right?”

In hindsight, Dick can’t believe he used to be so careless about his health. His body needs veggies and protein—not sugar and fat. He can only imagine how heavily all those fattening snacks would add up on his body. The mental picture is repellent enough to make it easy to refuse when he’s offered unhealthy options. Dick is an athlete, anyway, so it’s not like it’s out of character for him to prioritize his health. That’s what athletes do.

Dick throws himself into exercise. He doubles the length of his usual workout sessions. Bruce had a trapeze built for Dick in one of the manor’s old unused ballrooms for his eleventh birthday, which Dick spent time in at least once or twice a week to feel closer to his parents. Now he’s in there daily, working through old routines and cutting through the air like a hummingbird. He makes himself lighter than ever.

An acrobat needs to stay trim and strong if he wants to be worth anything, and that’s just not going to happen if Dick indulges every time he craves something sweet. Imagine Robin the Boy Wonder pudgy and unable to buckle his utility belt? Everyone would laugh at him. Bruce will fire him on the spot if Dick can’t even do the bare minimum to keep himself in shape.

Dick spends hours a day training down in the cave’s personal gym, working on his form until it’s perfect. He runs for miles on he treadmill until his legs are close to giving out under him, and then he pushes himself harder.

And it pays off. Already Dick can see the results of his new lifestyle showing on his body in the mirror. He feels better than ever.

The only obstacle he has to be careful of is Bruce.

“It’s almost twelve-thirty, chum,” Bruce reminds Dick during his second hour on the treadmill. “You have school tomorrow. Time to hop to bed.”

Dick smothers a scowl and obediently turns the machine off. He was hoping to work in at least another hour down here before bed. He and Barbara got tacos from a cart today on the way home from school. He wasn’t thinking about it at the time, but the guilt lunged at him the moment he got home and has stuck with him since. “Yeah, yeah, I got it.”

“What are you even working out for this late? Today’s training wasn’t enough for you?”

Dick doesn’t have an authentic answer for Bruce that wouldn’t raise flags, so he replies, “Too much caffeine today. Figured I should run it off.”

Bruce hums, accepting that answer. “I’ll ask Alfred to bring you up some chamomile tea.”

It’s surprisingly effortless to navigate around Bruce’s keen observance. Part of that is because in Bruce’s mind, Batman business will always trump Bruce Wayne business, so a Dick Grayson problem is infinitely easier to sneak past him than a Robin problem. As long as he doesn’t mess up in the uniform, he’s free to do what he wishes with impunity.

Dick eats enough at mealtimes to make it look like he’s finished most of his plate and not one bite more. He learns how to smush the softer foods together and hide bits under others to make it look like he’s eaten more than he did. He offers to help Alfred with the dishes afterward so the older man won’t realize how much covertly squished-together food is left on Dick’s plate after dinner.

It’s exhilarating to have a secret that no one else in his life knows. Sure, Robin is a far bigger secret with far graver consequences, but the people Dick is closest to all know his real identity by now. He can still speak freely about that secret in the right spaces. This is the only secret Dick has that is for him and only him.

Dick begins spending his weekends at Titans Tower in New York City to get out from under his family’s watchful gaze, which works out well. It’s hardly a hardship to hang out with his best friends, and it gives Dick space to breathe. The closeness does come with its own assortment of issues to navigate, however.

“C’mon, Rob,” Roy says as he shoves a handful of chips in his mouth. “You know the rules. Movie nights are mandatory unless you’re actively bleeding. It’s literally your rule.”

Around the coffee table in the Titans’ living room is an agglomerate of the tower’s most sugar- and carb-loaded snacks: pizza, nachos, doughnuts, ice cream. For a gang of active superheroes, they sure know how to do a cheat day.

Dick can’t skip out on movie night without turning heads, but it would look weird if he were the only one not eating, so he gives in and takes a doughnut. It’s just one night. He’ll be fine if he eats a little unhealthy one time, right?

And it’s so tempting to give in with his friends around him, making fun of Garth’s movie choice and enjoying each other’s company. Dick never gets to have fun like this with Bruce. With Wally so close to Dick’s side that they’re practically sharing a seat and the others in arm’s reach laughing at some stupid inside joke they’ve all forgotten the origin of, it’s easy to lose himself.

Alongside his friends Dick wolfs down nachos loaded with sour cream and jalapeños, washing it all down with mint chip ice cream. He can’t recall the last time he let himself stuff his face without restraint. He’s been so disciplined when it came to his food intake that, when given an inch, he takes a mile.

But it’s okay. It’s just one night. It isn’t that out of place for him to be eating so unhealthily, either. Donna finishes off an entire pizza pie by herself, and everyone knows about Garth’s Dr. Pepper addiction. A movie-night binge won’t make a dent on the Titans.

Afterwards, though, the crash hits hard. Dick retreats to his bedroom at the end of the night feeling sick with everything he ate. He can imagine how all that salt and grease is going to look on his body tomorrow. He can’t remember the last time he felt full. It isn’t a good feeling. Add on the ham sandwich he had for lunch and his waffles from this morning’s breakfast, it’s—it’s too much.

He could hop on the elliptical and burn the extra calories off before bed, but Dick can’t possibly burn it all off before it starts turning into fat. Not to mention the calories Dick is already absorbing right now while he wastes time feeling ashamed. He needs a solution faster than exercise.

Dick heads into the bathroom farthest away from everyone’s bedrooms so they won’t hear. He locks the door behind him. He’s never done this before, but he knows how a gag reflex works. Dick kneels in front of the toilet and sticks two fingers down his throat, feeling around until the coughs turn to retches.

It doesn’t take long after that. Pretty soon everything he ate tonight is coming right back up in a sickening blend of ice cream froth, food chunks, and stomach acid.

It takes some time to make sure he gets all of it out. Dick can’t risk leaving even a small portion of food behind. He keeps going like this until all he can bring up is air, and only then finally can he breathe again.

He feels lighter already. Back to zero.

By the time Dick reaches his fifteenth birthday, he weighs 115 pounds and has ten percent body fat . He’s determined to shave that margin even smaller. He weighs himself every night after patrol with the scale he bought for himself and keeps stashed under his bed. Every calorie and exercise routine is logged into an app that tracks how much he burns and gains every day.

But he’s not, like, obsessive about it. He still eats, and most of the time it’s perfectly fine. He’s lucky that Alfred already cooks for a vigilante diet, so most of his meals are lean and filled with protein anyway. He’s just…more careful about it.

No one lingers or comments on how little Dick eats. Anyone who looks at him can deduce that he’s an athlete. Health-conscious eating comes with the territory, and being an acrobat at that means everyone expects him to stay lithe.

Besides—he’s Robin, isn’t he? Might as well eat like one.

He wasn’t expecting the restricting to get easier the more of it he does. Dick begins to thrive on an empty stomach, which only makes him want to do it more. The hunger pangs realize after a while that no one is listening, and eventually they stop altogether. Or maybe Dick has simply grown desensitized to it. He learns more tricks as time goes on until his new lifestyle becomes as natural to him as breathing.

School lunch is the easiest to fake. Dick feels slightly guilty about throwing away what Alfred had so lovingly prepared, but the results he sees in the mirror make up for it. Dick sleeps in late most mornings on purpose so he can miss breakfast and be forced to grab an apple or a slice of toast that he can pretend to eat in the car on the way to school.

The only real meal that Dick has to brave is dinner under Bruce’s watchful eye, but Dick ends up burning most of those calories during the night’s activities, anyway, so he doesn’t feel as bad about eating. When Bruce pays too much attention and Dick has no choice but to finish his whole plate, he makes up for the extra amount by doing excessive tricks and running through old routines during slow moments on patrol. If he’s moving constantly then he can’t possibly gain weight, right?

Like a golden retriever, Bruce often says fondly. You just can’t sit still.

It turns into a personal challenge for Dick, seeing how long he can go without eating or drawing suspicion. His record is three days without eating anything at all. He’s determined to beat that record.

The best part about it is the freedom. Dick has finally found something in his life that Batman can’t control. He gets a rush from having something that’s for him and only him. His body, his secret, his life. It feels fantastic.

Possibly things would be different if Bruce weren’t such a hardass sometimes. He’s as obsessed with keeping Dick under his thumb as Dick is with getting out from under it. And on the occasion that his Robin does screw up, he never hears the end of it.

Dick will admit that tonight’s debacle was mostly his fault. It was a stupid mistake. He wasn’t paying attention, and the bad guy got the drop on him. Batman had to swoop in at the last second to bail him out. And the guy still got away.

Batman is silent for the entire rest of patrol and the car ride home. Dick would almost prefer a lecture to the chilling silence. Once they get back to the cave and the lecture starts, however, he immediately changes his mind.

“It’s bad enough that I agreed to employ a child as my partner,” Bruce growls, pacing back and forth before said sullen partner. The gravel in his voice makes Dick feel two feet tall. “If you can’t take care of yourself on the field, then you have no business being there at all.”

Dick wishes for the ground to open up now and swallow him whole. Robin is the only thing he has that makes sense anymore. It’s him. Robin is meant to carry all the parts of Dick Grayson that he can’t show in his everyday life. It’s supposed to be his best parts, and he can’t even do that right. He doesn’t know how to be himself the right way.

“Come on, Bruce, you know I had that guy right where I wanted him,” Dick protests. “I had a plan. I just—I got distracted. And yeah, it was stupid, but I know how to take care of myself out there. I would have figured it out.”

“Would you have? If I wasn’t out there tonight, you would be dead right now.” It’s worse that he’s still wearing the cowl for this. It hurts more.

Dick rolls his eyes, trying his best to make it seem like Batman’s words aren’t killing him. “Please, it’s Condiment King. How much damage could he really do? Put hot sauce in my eye?”

“This isn’t a joke,” Bruce says. “Do you understand that? There is no room for hesitation in this line of work. You mess up, you die. Or, worse, you get someone else killed, and that will weigh on your conscience for the rest of your life.”

Dick has heard the same lecture enough times before. Every time he steps out of line, every time the bad guy escapes on his watch, and every time he dares to disobey Batman’s orders. He could recite the speech in the mirror at this point, but that doesn’t make it any easier to take. “Fine, I’m sorry, okay? I’ll do better, I promise.”

“You’d better follow through with that promise, because if you continue to make mistakes like this, I might have to reconsider whether Batman needs a partner at all.”

And that is the worst feeling in the world.

When Dick turns sixteen years old, three things occur: 1) He hits 110 pounds . 2) He runs away from home after yet another fight with Bruce drives him out. 3) He meets Liu.

After packing his things and leaving Wayne Manor to strike out on his own, Dick finds himself shacking up at Metal Eddie’s center for youths, just until things cool down. It’s better than being at the manor, at least. No one here tells him where to go or what to eat. Here, he’s listened to. He’s respected.

It’s better treatment than Dick has gotten in a while, and he finds himself liking it more with each day. It’s nice being treated like an adult for once. Plus, he and Liu get along well right off the bat, which may be his favorite part.

She’s nice. She’s beautiful. Dick has dated a handful of times before—schoolyard crushes and kisses from adoring damsels after a daring rescue from the boy wonder—but they’ve always been girls his own age. Liu is twenty-five, but she gets Dick in a way that other adults never do.

She actually listens to him, and she doesn’t call him whiny or immature when he complains. She treats him like an adult because he is an adult. Dick knows how to take care of himself, which is a concept Bruce couldn’t understand if it hit him in the face.

“I wish he’d just stop treating me like a little kid,” Dick confesses to her one night in his room. She does that a lot, the late-night visits where they sit on Dick’s bed and talk for hours. Dick can’t confess to her all of it, the Batman and Robin parts, but he can give her the fundamentals. He trusts her. She listens. “I’m sixteen now. I know what’s good for me.”

Liu runs her fingers through Dick’s hair, humming. She’s touchier than Dick is used to, even with his closest friends, but he doesn’t mind it. He can smell her shampoo from this close. Jasmine. “Sounds to me like he’s never going to understand you. That’s okay, though, baby. You don’t need Daddy Warbucks anymore. You have us.”

Dick just wants to be seen for once. Not for his failures, but for his strengths. Liu sees him, and clearly she is taking nothing for granted with the way her eyes linger on his body. She licks her lips. “You know, Dick, I have a couple of ways we can take your mind off it.” And then she kisses him.

Dick has been kissed before, but never by someone so much older than him. She knows what she’s doing, which can only be a good thing. He can put himself in her hands and trust that she won’t hurt him. Right?

“Let me take care of everything,” she whispers against Dick’s mouth as lithe fingers pop open the button on his jeans. “I’ll treat you like a man.”

And she does just that.

Dick wasn’t sure at first how far he was willing to go with Liu, but the more she touches him, the more confident he grows. Dick has never been shy about his body even during his worst moments, even when he feels three hundred pounds, and he isn’t shy now. He wants her to see all of him. He wants her to touch every inch of his chiseled body and see all his hard work.

“Don’t be scared,” she coos as she strips off his pants and underwear in one go. “I’ll teach you how, baby.” Dick almost says something, but in the next moment Liu is pulling off her tank top, and suddenly Dick forgets how to speak.

She ends up teaching Dick quite a bit, and he loves it. He thinks he might love her. Liu doesn’t treat him like a kid the way everyone else in his life does. She shows him how to touch her and calls him a good boy when he does it right.

“Yes, that’s it,” she moans hotly against his ear. “You’re perfect, Dick. You’re so perfect for me.”

He’s perfect.

It was all a lie. Every word of it. Liu and Eddie…Liu and Dick…

How could Dick have let himself be fooled so easily? He’s supposed to be smarter than this. Robin doesn’t let himself get seduced by criminals. He doesn’t let a grown woman—

He shuts that thought down immediately before it can hurt him, and then Batman and Robin shut down Liu and Eddie’s operation. Together. And after it’s all over and Dick has returned home to Wayne Manor, he shuts down his own feelings as well. He takes every memory of Liu and what they did together, and he locks it up in a box in his mind.

“You did good today, Robin,” Bruce says when they return to the Batcave. “I know things have been…rocky between us, but you really proved yourself tonight. Those people would still be out there corrupting dozens more innocent street kids if it weren’t for you. You were right—you aren’t a child anymore. It’s possible that I misjudged you. I’ll…work on it.”

It’s the closest thing to an apology that Batman could ever give. Dick will take it.

Dick should be relieved that it’s over; Eddie and Liu are halfway to prison by now, and everything is back to the way it should be. Batman and Robin. Partners.

“Thanks,” Dick mutters. He hasn’t brought himself to look Bruce in the eyes once since the car ride home. It almost feels like if he does, Bruce will be able to see on his face exactly what happened during his time away.

What would Bruce think if he knew how weak his partner had become? Letting Liu groom him, get close to him, touch him—

Dick shoulders past Bruce in the direction of the locker room. “I’m gonna shower.” He swears his skin still smells like jasmine.

Bruce stops Dick with a hand on his arm. “Hey. Is everything all right? You’ve been quiet.” His eyes search Dick for a crack in the armor.

Dick shakes him off. “I’m fine. Just…feel kinda stupid for letting them trick me so easily. I really thought I could trust them.”

You’re doing so well, Dick. Shh, I’ve got you. You’re so fucking hot.

“It happens to the best of us,” Bruce tells him. “What’s important is that you saw through their act and we brought them to justice. I’m proud of you, chum.” It usually feels good to hear praise coming from his mentor. It’s all Dick has ever wanted. “Don’t stay in the shower too long, okay? Alfred has dinner waiting.”

“You can eat without me,” Dick says, and he continues for the locker room. Bruce doesn’t follow. “I’m not hungry.”

He doesn’t bother trying to make an excuse for himself, and thank god that Bruce at least has the tact not to fight him on it. With Dick’s stomach in knots as it is, he wouldn’t be able to eat anyway.

He scrubs his body thoroughly in the shower and still feels grimy after he’s finished. He can’t put his finger on why this whole thing is affecting him so badly. Maybe it’s just because he’s young. Or because Liu wasn’t young.

The guys at school always brag about getting with older women, boasting about dating a senior when they’re only a freshman themselves. It’s a badge of honor to be with a more experienced woman. Dick should be proud of himself, but all he feels is dirty.

He trusted her. He let her do so much to him. He let her kiss him, let her see his naked body, let her touch him all over—

Nope. Don’t think about it.

It happened, yes, but Dick is fine. He’s over it. Virginity is a social construct anyway, right? It doesn’t have to mean anything if he doesn’t want it to.

Dick goes straight up to his bedroom after he’s clean and dressed. Bruce and Alfred must sense his desire for space because neither of them bother him for the rest of the night. He buries himself under the covers of his bed and checks his phone for the first time since his fight with Bruce. Unsurprisingly, Dick has been missed.

Donna: Watch the video I just sent and tell me if you think I could replicate the look with my Hannah Montana glitter scarf. I’m thinking we could do coordinated costumes for Halloween???

Roy: dude check out this bug i found i think i’m gonna put it in garth’s soup or something to see what happens

Wally: DICKKKKKKKKKKDICKDICKDICK ANSWER MY TEXTS U BITCH IM BORED

He wonders if he should tell them. Popping one’s cherry is a thing people tell their friends, right? He had sex with a beautiful woman and he liked it. That’s something to celebrate.

Why doesn’t he feel like celebrating?

Dick has put so much time and effort into making his body perfect; you’d think that this would be the desired end goal. Isn’t it? What else is a good-looking body good for if not to be appreciated? He’s a teenage boy, so sex should be everything to him. He should be happy that this happened to him.

Why can’t he ever do anything right?

Dick’s stomach growls painfully. He tosses his phone down the bed with a sigh. He’s starving, but he also feels kind of like puking. And he was not about to sit through a quiet dinner with Bruce and Alfred. He doesn’t even want them looking at him right now. He doesn’t want anyone looking at him.

His stomach growls again. Dick throws himself out of bed and quietly makes his way downstairs to the kitchen. Alfred has gone to bed by now, and Bruce is either in bed himself or hunkered down in the cave working on Batman’s latest case. Probably the latter.

In the refrigerator is a plate covered in plastic wrap with a post-it note stuck to the top: Dick. It looks like pot roast and mashed potatoes, which won’t work. Neither will the pasta from last night’s leftovers. He needs something light, something that will come up easily. His stomach begs him for food, but it isn’t the fullness that Dick is craving right now—it’s the emptiness that comes after.

Some more digging produces a container of raspberry sorbet in the freezer. Perfect.

Dick grabs a spoon and takes his prize upstairs to his room, locking the door behind him. He sits on his bed and eats every bit of sorbet left in the tub, wincing through the waves of brain freeze that spike with every bite. He doesn’t even really like sorbet, but he forces himself to finish all of it.

When it’s over and he feels like he’s going to hurl from the sheer amount of weight in his stomach, Dick runs to the bathroom and does exactly that. It’s still cold when he brings it back up, and it hurts, but he forces his fingers deeper down his throat and keeps going until all the pink mush is in the bowl and his head feels like it’s going to split in half.

He’s dizzy from the puking, dizzy from the short breaths he dragged in between heaves, but he feels better after. He feels terrible. 

He feels weightless.

Chapter Text

"You’ve lost more weight,” Bruce informs Dick during his bi-yearly checkup. It’s one of the conditions of Dick being Robin; Bruce is too much of a helicopter parent to risk his ward fending off criminals in anything less than tip-top shape.

“Did I?” Dick asks with feigned non-concern.

“A healthy weight at your height with our lifestyle is 130. You are twenty-two pounds short of that.” Inside, the information makes Dick preen. Twenty-two pounds under. That’s better than he was expecting.

“Weird.” Dick shrugs. “Maybe I’m having another growth spurt.”

Bruce accepts the half-baked answer and says, “I’ll inform Alfred to incorporate higher-calorie foods during mealtimes. You should be getting more protein in your diet to build your weight back up.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Dick says, but inside he begins to panic. It will be impossible to avoid food now that Bruce has got his eye on the problem, and protesting the diet change will raise too many red flags. Dick just started to feel satisfied with his body. He can’t let Bruce ruin it all for him with his misguided worrying.

As promised, Dick is provided with a higher-calorie diet and extra snacks throughout the following days to get his weight up to where it “should” be. He can only get away with claiming not to be hungry so many times before Bruce and Alfred will be sure to notice the pattern, so for the good of his sanity, Dick falls back on another, more effective habit.

He builds a simple routine from there. Eat his breakfast and lunch whenever someone is watching, then excuse himself for homework or something and go purge it all in the bathroom. The only meal he keeps down is dinner because he knows he’ll burn most of the calories during patrol anyway. He takes a multivitamin daily to keep his body from breaking down and giving him away.

Dick keeps an emergency stash of food he’s deemed “safe” in a small trunk under his bed labeled Winter Clothes. The trunk is full of rice cakes, protein bars, breath mints, and other inconsequential snacks that he can get away with eating without hating himself after.

It doesn’t take long for the not-so-inconsequential snacks to make their way into the trunk as well. Chocolate bars, snack cakes, pudding cups, packages of mini muffins. Anything soft and relatively easy to get back up is stashed away for those nights when everything hurts too much and the only way to fix it is by making himself vomit until he passes out.

He keeps losing weight. He couldn’t be more thrilled.

Dick knows what an eating disorder looks like. He’s not one of those Holocaust-looking supermodels with bones poking through his skin and hair falling out in clumps. He still has plenty of muscle on his body. He has a six-pack. He couldn’t continue being Robin if he weren’t physically fit enough to do so, and he would never do anything to jeopardize that.

He’s just…making sure it stays that way, is all. He’s obsessed with making sure it stays that way.

Dick wears long-sleeved shirts and pants to cover up the bruises that begin to blotch his body more than the usual wear and tear of vigilantism. With the lack of vitamins in his body, he bruises like a peach nowadays. Luckily it isn’t too big a hardship to layer up when he’s cold all the time anyway. It’s pure luck that the changing of the seasons lines up with him wearing fleece leggings under his Robin shorts.

Dick backwardly has more energy when he’s starving himself, which is an effect he wasn’t anticipating, but he’s not complaining. His brain works faster, his reflexes are quicker, and he’s more centered. It’s like being hungry has made him superhuman. The rush of accomplishment from knowing he’s gone so long without gorging himself makes him feel like he can do anything. He’s euphoric.

The best part about it all is that not a single person in his life knows the extent of what he’s done. That might be the best part of all this—the satisfaction of knowing Dick has successfully kept a secret from the world’s greatest detective right under his nose. Very few people in the world are capable of such a thing.

Dick only feels a tiny stab of guilt whenever he has to make an excuse not to hang out with a friend because he knows they’ll inevitably want to get food at some point, and he can’t risk being pressured into eating something he can’t afford to.

It’s the hardest with Wally.

“Should I get three burgers or four?” Wally wonders aloud, looking up at the Batburger menu while they wait in line to order. “I feel like it’s weird to get four burgers and two Joker meals, right? Maybe I should pace myself.”

“Get the extra burger,” Dick encourages him with a fond smile. “We both know you’re gonna complain about it later if you don’t.” He’s spending the day with Wally in Keystone City, but Wally was craving Batburger, and what’s two thousand miles round trip to a speedster?

“Excellent point, Grayson. Are you getting the usual?”

“Just a large fry is good for me.” Fries are light, and it’s easy to get away with not finishing the whole thing. Dick isn’t about to make himself throw up at Wally’s small house where someone could potentially hear the sounds of retching coming from the bathroom, so he can’t risk getting a full meal.

Not like Wally, who can eat anything and everything he wants without gaining a single pound. Wally complains to Dick all the time about how terrible it is—how he can never feel full, how his body is always in starvation mode, the hunger pangs he gets after an hour without food.

Dick knows he’d be an irredeemable asshole to resent Wally’s hell. But he does.

They bring the food back to Keystone and watch TV in Wally’s room, sitting side by side on the bed. Dick allows himself ten slow fries from the container before he passes it over to Wally, who is already two burgers and half a milkshake in. “Here, you can have the rest.”

Wally gives him a strange look. “Dude, you ate, like, two fries. You’re really not hungry? I haven’t seen you eat once all day.”

Dick waves it off. “New Robin diet. You know how it is.” He turns up the volume of the Suite Life episode they’re watching.

It doesn’t discourage Wally’s suspicion like he hoped it would. “Are you sure that’s healthy? You’re as lean as I am. What business is it of Batman to tell you not to eat?”

“It’s not like that,” Dick quickly backpedals. “That’s not what I meant. I’m just trying to eat healthier, is all. Bruce isn’t making me do anything.” To prove it, Dick takes his fries back and stuffs a few in his mouth, and then washes the mess down with some (diet) soda. Regretfully he finishes off the rest of the fries just to keep Wally from saying anything else on the matter.

Being with Wally almost makes Dick regret all the lying and sneaking around. There’s a thrill in managing to slip a secret past the Batman, but hiding something from Wally makes him feel rotten inside. Best friends aren’t supposed to keep secrets from each other. Especially on those rare nights when the lines blur and they’re giddy with teenage hormones, and suddenly there is no such thing as boundaries.

Wally and Dick are pressed as close together as they can get on Wally’s twin-sized bed. Dick is procrastinating on going home even though he knows Wally can run him there in minutes. Bruce is always a pain to deal with after Dick has been out of his sight for too long, and Wally is so warm against Dick’s cold body that it’s worth the lecture he’ll receive later.

Wally tastes like fries and cherry Coke. Dick imagines that his own lips taste like nothing.

“This is…different,” Dick says the next time he and Wally part to catch their breaths. Different, but not unexpected. Dick and Wally have always been close. This is just…a new kind of close. A better kind.

Wally chuckles a little, breathless. “Have you ever kissed a guy before this?”

“Nope. Have you?”

“I live in Kansas, what do you think?” This is uncharted territory for the both of them, but it isn’t bad territory. Far from it. Is this what love is supposed to feel like? Dick has always loved Wally. He’s his best friend in the whole world, and Dick knows the feeling is mutual. Where is the line between best friends and Something More, and when did they cross it?

Dick doesn’t want to play with Wally’s emotions for the sake of his own experimentation, but it doesn’t feel like he’s playing. Wally is one of his favorite people. He’s home. This isn’t some shallow teenage fling for him, so does that mean Dick is gay? He had sex with Liu, though, and he liked it at the time. Did she do this to him?

If he did turn out to be gay—not that Dick can make heads nor tails of what the hell he is anymore—he knows a lot of people would be disappointed. There are girls of all ages who throw themselves at Robin like he’s a celebrity, and Dick has seen the reactions he gets on the news and in the comment sections of articles about Bruce Wayne’s ward. They wouldn’t want him to be gay.

And what about Bruce? What would he think if he knew what Dick was doing on his innocent playdates with Kid Flash? Dick’s parents were as unconventional as parents could be, so he knows they wouldn’t have had a problem with their son no matter what his sexuality turned out to be, but Bruce is different. He’s more stern, more refined. Dick has already disappointed him so many times as both a son and as a partner. Would this tip Bruce over the edge?

Dick doesn’t realize he’s been zoned out until Wally lifts himself up on one elbow to check the alarm clock on his nightstand. “Don’t let me lose track of the time. Your dad’ll kill me if he finds out I’ve held the boy wonder captive in my bed all night.” And isn’t that a tempting thought?

Dick spent so long uncertain what it would be like doing this again, being intimate in this way after everything Liu did to him. He doesn’t want to think about her at all, but it’s hard not to when he only has the singular experience to compare this one to. She was curvier than Wally, and her hair was longer. Where she was cold, Wally is nothing but warm. She smelled like jasmine. Wally smells like Wally.

Don’t be scared. I’ll teach you how, baby.

Wally is nothing like Liu. Now that Dick has had a couple of months to distance himself from the affair, he realizes that he barely knew her. He spilled his secrets to her and let her touch him all over, but she was a stranger to him. It was his own fault for letting his guard down so easily.

Wally is Dick’s best friend. He’s…whatever they are to each other now that hands and mouths are involved. He would never do anything to hurt Dick, and that squashes a fraction of the fear.

Wally’s got his hands on Dick’s waist and if he closes his eyes he can imagine it’s Liu, but he knows it isn’t. He keeps his eyes open to prevent himself from slipping away. Wally must feel Dick tensing up because he pulls back to examine Dick’s face. Dick can count his freckles this close up. “We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.”

Liu didn’t check in to make sure Dick was okay.

“I’m good. I want to.” Dick goes in for another kiss to wipe her ghost from his mind. Liu didn’t taste like fries and cherry Coke. He doesn’t want her in his head anymore, doesn’t want that to be his only experience. She’s already taken so much from him, but it doesn’t have to stay that way.

He likes getting to touch Wally, getting to hold him. Dick lets his hands wander across Wally’s chest and back, feeling out the wiry muscles underneath his t-shirt. He’s slim, but he’s strong. He’s beautiful. Dick doesn’t know how he could ever be good enough to deserve someone like Wally.

Mouthing at the skin of Wally’s neck, Dick’s hand drifts down to the button on Wally’s jeans. That’s when Wally freezes and pulls away. “Wait, wait,” he says breathlessly, his pupils lust-blown and overtaking the green of his eyes. Dick yanks his hand away like it’s on fire. “Sorry, I don’t mean—I like this,” Wally emphasizes at Dick’s hurt expression. “I really like this. Kissing you. It’s just—my aunt’ll be home soon, and I’ve never…” He trails off, his cheeks reddening.

“Oh,” Dick says. He knew that. He’s aware that Wally’s still a virgin. As far as Wally knows, they both are. Dick never told him about Liu. “Right. Okay.”

“But we can still do this,” Wally says. And he kisses Dick again to prove it.

While adamant that they won’t be going any farther, that doesn’t mean Wally doesn’t appreciate every second of where they are now. His hands wander all across the planes of Dick’s body, taking nothing for granted like he’s been wanting to do this for years. Dick knows he has.

Wally feels out Dick’s sharper-than-normal hipbones, presses his mouth to Dick’s protruding collar bone, and leaves a warm hand on Dick’s visible ribs. “Christ, man,” he breathes against Dick’s skin. “You sure you’re okay?”

“I’m great,” Dick replies. Liu isn’t here anymore. All Dick needs now is Wally, and Wally would never do a thing to hurt him. He kisses Wally again to distract him, and they stay tangled in Wally’s bed until it’s time for Dick to go home.

Dick and Bruce both avoid Wayne events when they can, but after years of citing chicken pox and the flu to explain absences, they’ve run short of excuses. Tonight’s charity gala is mandatory for both of them. Dick tries to convince Bruce he has homework, and then that he feels sick, but Bruce answer to that is, “If I have to go and play billionaire playboy philanthropist for the night, so do you.”

Dick has a love-hate relationship with these events. He’d take beating down bad guys over playing the part of “polite ward of Bruce Wayne” any day. And as much as he can appreciate seeing the effects up close of all the charities and programs the Wayne name has created for the less fortunate people of their city, everyone knows these parties are just an excuse for rich people to frit away their money and get tipsy with other rich people. They’re all snobs, and they all love Dick Grayson.

“Well, well, look at you!” Snobby Rich Socialite Number One remarks at Dick, squeezing his arm. “Someone sure has done some growing up since we last saw each other. How old are you now, eighteen?”

Dick plasters on a polite smile. “Sixteen, ma’am.”

She laughs. “Oh, well, close enough.”

The woman is obviously tipsy, which isn’t unheard of at these functions. People get touchier the older Dick gets, which he tries to make himself get used to. Bruce got dragged away by one of Waynetech’s shareholders shortly after they arrived, which leaves Dick alone in the lion’s den.

Eventually the lady’s husband comes to drag her away to the next disastrous conversation. Dick smooths out his hair and makes an effort to keep his smile from cracking. It’s a relief to have her hands off him.

Dick stands at the outskirts of the party until Bruce finds him with two flutes of sparkling cider. “I’m starting to miss my hermit days,” he whispers to Dick as he passes over one of the flutes.

“It’s never too late to go back.”

Bruce smirks. “Oh, trust me, I’ve considered it. Have you had anything to eat yet? The hors d’oeuvres are good this year. I’ve found it’s easier to avoid conversations when you have your mouth full.”

“I had a bunch earlier,” Dick says. “Just come find me when it’s a socially acceptable time to high-tail out of here and I’ll be right behind you. I’m itching to get on the streets.”

Bruce pats Dick on the back and downs the rest of his cider. “You and me both, son.” He’s been calling Dick that more often, son. Most likely because of all the people around. They have to keep up appearances. Still, it sends a sharp jolt through Dick every time he hears the word from Bruce’s mouth.

Bruce and Dick may disagree on most things, but in places like this, they are one and the same. Dick has always adored the spotlight, and he still does, but something about being the focus of Gotham’s high society specifically makes him feel dirty.

Maybe it’s the ignorance of viewing money as a plaything while families on the other side of town are starving. Or it could be the way these people take every opportunity to comment on what a handsome young man Dick is growing up to be. They marvel at his figure and imagine aloud what they would do to him if he were of legal age, and even though it’s clear they’re all just joking, it still makes his skin crawl. They stare at him like they want to eat him alive.

Dick comes across a gaggle of young socialites on his way to the bathroom. He slips past them unnoticed, but when he hears his name among the whispers, he stops behind a wall close by and listens in.

“Have you seen his tush?” one of them giggles. “I swear, that boy gets finer every year.”

“Brucie should bring him around more often. With the way they hide in that big mansion, you’d think he wants to keep him all for himself.” Dick’s stomach somersaults at that. What is with everyone assuming the only reason someone could want a person like Dick Grayson is for sex? They don’t even care who they hurt with their “harmless” theorizing.

Do they really think him so worthless?

“Can you blame him?” another snickers. “I mean, he’s sex on legs! I could definitely teach him a few things if Wayne would lend him to me for the night.”

“What I wouldn’t pay to get my hands on that body,” her friend agrees.

Dick feels sick. He vanishes from the corner without a sound, the socialites’ hushed giggles chasing him down the hall. He finds his way to the men’s room without further hassle and, after checking that he’s alone, he locks himself in. He studies himself in the wall-width mirror above the sink.

Dick does look good tonight. Alfred pressed his suit and bought him a new tie for the occasion. Only the best for Gotham’s elite. But the longer he looks at himself, the less Dick understands what they’re all so charmed by. His gelled-back hair is too stringy; it’s thinned in the past year. When he pulls his shirt tight he swears he can see the way his body bulges through the fabric. Have his abs softened? And his skin is so waxy underneath the faint tan.

Dick touches his face, his neck, pulling at his skin as he catalogs every acne scar and imperfection. How do they not see it? How can they not notice how disgusting he is underneath the expensive suit and the charming smile? Dick has gotten so good at distracting everyone from the real problems that the world has ceased to realize they’re there at all.

Then again, isn’t that what Robin is for?

And how is it fair for Dick to be upset about the way they talk about him when he’s the one making himself look this way? He is attractive. He takes every measure to keep himself that way, but now that his plan has worked and people are acknowledging his sexiness, suddenly he doesn’t want it anymore?

It doesn’t make any sense.

Dick lifts his shirt and examines his stomach from every angle. He did try some of the appetizers like he told Bruce, having gotten dizzy after standing around the hot ballroom for so long. They were deep-fried and delicious, but he knows they can’t have been forgiving on his body. It’s been almost forty minutes since he ate them, though. He can’t possibly undo his mistake now, but he still—he has to do something. He has to keep it from catching up to him somehow.

So, Dick goes into one of the stalls, and he makes sure it won’t catch up to him. Luckily he thought ahead to bring a pack of Tic Tacs with him, so no one will be able to smell it on his breath after.

To make things worse in Dick’s already fairly unfair life, that’s when the articles start pushing their way to the forefront of Gotham’s publications. Because this is by no means the first time Gotham Globe’s finest have slandered Bruce Wayne’s good name or Batman’s over the years. Now that the city’s little Robin is through puberty, journalists are hungry for their scoop.

It’s possible that’s what they were waiting for all along while they peddled out tabloid articles about Bruce Wayne and his ward, just waiting for a bigger fish to mature. The little boy isn’t so little anymore.

It’s not like there aren’t plenty of other heroes who have their own young partners—Green Arrow, the Flash, Aquaman—and yet the world feels the need to zero in on Batman and Robin specifically. As if Dick didn’t already have enough to worry about when it came to the media.

Suddenly every gossip monger and even the “serious” journalists in Gotham feel the need to speculate on the reason behind Robin’s bare legs and “provocative” uniform style. They claim it’s out of genuine concern for the easily impressionable minor. They’re just so worried for this sweet young man’s safety when he’s clearly been taken into the clutches of the Batman against his better judgment.

Suddenly everyone is wondering what Batman was thinking choosing a young boy in the first place to be his partner, and what their relationship could possibly be outside of the masks. People begin to wonder if poor, naive Robin is being targeted by the perverted Batman with his hypocritical notions of justice.

Others wonder if Robin is simply a closeted homosexual. He’s too skinny, they say, too feminine, too soft and boyish to fight crime in a man’s world. His voice is too high. He’s too short. He isn’t right.

Dick’s skin itches under the world’s scrutiny, and the worst part about it is that there’s no escaping it as Dick Grayson or Robin. He’s trapped like a bug under a microscope, forced to remain silent while they say whatever they want about him.

And this might be the smallest, stupidest thing for him to fixate on in the midst of all this slander, but something about seeing their title, Batman and Robin, so many times in writing has Dick’s gut twisting with envy. No one ever writes it as Robin and Batman. Why would they? Batman is the part of the equation that matters. Robin is just the and. He’s the afterthought. He’s the tool being used. He will never be the man in charge, not while he’s under Batman’s thumb.

Somehow, that hurts worse than the rumors themselves.

Bruce tells Dick to ignore them. The media has been dragging Bruce Wayne and Batman’s reputations through the mud countless times in the past. Journalists get bored quickly after enough time receiving nothing for their trouble. But everyone is staring now.

Robin is pushed even further into the spotlight than he already was now that his photo is in every newspaper and online editorial in Gotham. Dick can see now everything they see in him—he is too soft. He does dress provocatively. If it were about young heroes as a whole, then Speedy or Kid Flash would be pulled into focus as well, but it’s just Robin that everyone cares so much about.

It’s Dick’s own fault for giving them a reason to question his character. And it’s not like they’re wrong about all of it. He isn’t straight. Half the time Dick doesn’t know what he is anymore. But he knows how to stop the stares, or at least how to turn them into better ones.

Dick promptly throws away his secret stash of snack foods. No one will be calling Robin soft after he’s crossed the finish line. Nobody is going to think him weak when he’s sculpted like a god. Dick will wipe away every last curve and pinch of fat until everyone forgets he used to look this way at all, and all they’ll be able to do then is look on in envy.

The world is going to see Robin’s perfect body and hate themselves so much they’ll have to look away. He is going to be impenetrable, unbreakable. He can do it. He can make it happen. Just a little bit more.

“Robin? Robin.” Something— someone is touching him, grabbing at his arm, manipulating his body to do what it wants— “Wake up.”

Dick jolts awake, instinctively lashing out against the hand that’s still shaking his shoulder. His wrist hits a spike on Batman’s gauntlet, the sharp jab of the Kevlar poking through his glove. Batman grabs his arm to stop his flailing. “Relax, Robin, it’s me. You fell asleep.”

Dick— Robin blinks as the remnants of a nightmare he can’t remember melt away. Robin jerks his arm from Batman’s hold, and he lets him go. They’re…on a stakeout? Gathering intel on the Falcone family’s next job, he recalls now. Robin can feel the familiar leather of the Batmobile’s passenger seat against him.

“Sorry.” Robin rubs his eyes through his mask, stifling a yawn. His resting state has been flat-out exhausted these past few weeks. Even when he’s awake he’s tired. It’s like his brain has forgotten what it’s like to have energy. “Guess I nodded off.”

“That’s twice now,” Batman says, frowning. He’s always frowning, but this one is of the concerned variety that only crops up whenever a civilian or a Robin is in danger. “And you were talking.”

“In my sleep?” Robin can only imagine what he could have been saying if the dreams he’s been experiencing lately are any indication. Sometimes it’s Liu. Sometimes it’s Bruce. Sometimes he dreams about eating everything in sight while the world watches on. Sometimes he dreams that he’s choking.

“I can drop you at home and finish the stakeout myself,” Batman offers, rather uncharacteristically. “Clearly you could use the rest.”

Robin resettles himself in his seat, willing himself to wake up. “No, I’m good. Seriously. Just need some more coffee.” Dick grabs for his untouched-until-now thermos of Alfred’s special hazelnut brew. Thirty-five calories. “Did I miss anything?”

“Hardly. They spent fifteen minutes deciding on whether to order Italian or Thai food. The meeting hasn’t even started.” Batman lifts his binoculars to his eyes, observing the assemblage through the second-story window across the alley. He gives Robin a sidelong glance. “You didn’t want to be touched.”

“What?” Robin pauses in chugging the lukewarm coffee. He’s already halfway through the thermos. When was the last time he drank something besides water?

“In your sleep. You said not to touch you. It sounded like you were upset.”

Robin shrugs and caps the thermos. “Weird dream, I guess. I don’t even remember it now.”

“Hn.” Batman passes over a flat white box of doughnuts. “I left the jelly ones for you.”

Excessive sugar. Too much dough. Slathered in oil. Empty calories. “Maybe in a little while,” Robin says, feeling sick. “I’m still kind of full from dinner.”

“Hn,” Batman says again.

Dick used to practice on the trapeze every day to fit in extra exercise and to feel closer to his parents.

Nowadays he’s too tired to do it anymore.

“Dick, can I have a word with you?” Bruce is standing in the doorway of Dick’s bedroom looking out of place among the Superman posters and dirty clothes strewn everywhere but in the hamper.

“I’m finishing up some homework.” Dick waves his textbook to prove it. He’s been napping more often, too tired to keep his eyes open lately. He’s fallen behind on schoolwork, but it’ll be fine. He’ll catch up.

“It will only take a minute.” Bruce sits on the side of Dick’s bed, moving some loose papers out of his way and stacking them aside carefully so they won’t wrinkle. “Alfred came to me with some…concerns. He’s worried that you seem to keep losing weight. I’ve noticed it too.”

“I told you, it’s just a growth spurt. I’m fine.” Dick picks his pencil back up and keeps his eyes fixed on his work so he won’t have to look at Bruce.

“Are you?” Bruce takes the book from Dick’s hands, seizing back his attention. “You hardly snack anymore, and I know you haven’t been eating your school lunches. I called Titans Tower yesterday. Your friends say they haven’t seen you eat anything in weeks.”

Dick leaps to his feet. His vision goes spotty only for a second. “You called my friends? What the fuck, Bruce?”

“Hey, language.”

Dick plows on, undeterred. “What is everyone’s problem? You literally saw me eat pancakes this morning.” He threw them up afterwards, but it still counts.

“And yet you continue to lose weight,” Bruce points out. “You’ve been more tired than usual lately, and your hair has thinned. I know you aren’t getting the calories you need. What is it, extra training when I’m not around? Have you been making yourself sick?” Dick gulps and looks away. “Just tell me what’s been going on and I can help you.”

Dick always knew in the back of his mind that if he kept doing this, he would get found out sooner or later. He just has so much more to lose. He can’t stop now, or everything he’s lost will come rushing back. He can’t let Bruce fuck this up for him until he reaches his goal physique.

“There’s nothing going on! You’re just being paranoid, like always. Lay off it, all right?”

“I will not stand by while my son—”

“Stop calling me that!” They both go still—Dick immediately wishing he could take his words back, and Bruce looking at the boy in front of him like everything he thought he knew is reconfiguring itself in his mind.

Dick tries to storm out of the room, but Bruce stops him with a hand on his shoulder. “You can’t go on like this, Dick. I won’t let you. Whatever is going on with you, it has to come out eventually. You know that, right?”

Dick shakes him off. “Why can’t you ever just trust me? I’m not a kid anymore, Bruce. I can handle myself.”

He can. If everyone will get off his back and give him time, they’ll see eventually how fine he is. How perfect he can make himself be. Why can’t anything ever go his way?

“I don’t need this,” Dick says the following day in the passenger seat of Bruce’s Lamborghini on the way to Leslie Thompkins’ clinic. “I’m really okay.”

“Let’s have Leslie tell us that, okay, chum?” Bruce pulls into the parking lot. “Just humor me.”

This is so embarrassing. Robin doesn’t need a doctor to tell him how much he should be eating. He knows his own body better than anyone else ever can. He’s fine.

The silver lining of this pointless charade is that Leslie tells Bruce to stay in the waiting room while she talks to Dick. There is still hope that he can steer this back in the right direction and show her that he’s fine.

Leslie makes Dick take his sweatshirt off before he steps onto the scale. She doesn’t make a sound when she gets an eyeful of his admittedly thinner body, but the look in her eyes is condemning. She has Dick face away from the scale so he can’t see his weight, but he takes a peek anyway. He’s lost two pounds since last week. He smiles to himself when she isn’t looking.

He’s grateful to be allowed to put his sweatshirt back on after. Even in the shelter of the heated clinic he’s freezing. It isn’t even December yet. Leslie makes Dick sit back down on the medical cot and pulls up a rolling chair for herself. She sighs, leveling Dick with a critical stare. “How do mealtimes look for you, Dick?”

Dick shrugs innocently. “Alfred makes all my meals, mostly.” Which is true.

“And you eat them?”

“Obviously.”

Leslie arches an eyebrow at him as if to say, Is it really that obvious? “Around how many calories would you say you consume in a day?”

“I don’t exactly keep a log.” He does. The answer is 800 at the absolute most, but on good days he strives to keep it below 500. Any more than that and he gets anxious. “Enough, I’m pretty sure. Athletes are supposed to get a lot of protein to keep up with our active lifestyles.”

Leslie nods and jots something down on her clipboard. “Do you find yourself getting hungry at mealtimes?”

Yes. He’s hungry all the time. “Not really. Maybe my metabolism has just slowed down? I stay full for a while.” It lines up with his behavior and with what he tells Bruce and Alfred whenever he skips a meal. Besides, no one can possibly eat three meals every day. Dick can function just fine on a one-meal-a-day diet.

Leslie takes off her glasses and folds her hands in her lap. “Dick, I know you’re a smart kid. If you’re just telling me what you think I want to hear, then I might as well go home and leave you to handle this yourself, shouldn’t I?”

Please. “Bruce is overreacting,” Dick insists. “He’s a helicopter parent. That’s what he does.”

She hums like she doesn’t believe him. “You’ve lost seven pounds in the last month alone. Can you explain that?”

Dick shrugs. “I had a growth spurt.”

“You need to Google what a growth spurt is.” If it were anyone but Leslie, Dick would be able to get away with this. He could manipulate any regular physician, but Leslie is too close to the bats. She knows their tells too well. She knows him too well. “I know you’re not a normal teenager, so I won’t waste my time telling you the dangers of eating disorders and the damage you’re doing to your body. You already know that.”

“I do.”

“Then why do it?” Leslie says, emphasizing every word like he’s stupid. “You were a picture of health before. Is it Bruce? Has he been pressuring you into staying in shape?”

“Bruce didn’t do anything,” Dick says quickly, shutting that train of thought down immediately. “I am fine, all right? I’m eating enough, I’m exercising, I do well in school—everything is going great in my life. I don’t need any of this. I know how to take care of myself.”

Why can’t anyone just leave him alone? Dick won’t be this way forever. Once his body is to his liking, he can stop easily. He’ll go back to his regular eating habits and everything with be fine. He just needs to reach perfection first.

“So, what are the next steps?” Bruce asks after Leslie has invited him back into the exam room and reported her findings. It didn’t take long for her to give up on trying to get answers from Dick’s uncooperative self. “A therapist? Dietician?”

“Both,” she answers grimly. “I know the names of a few I trust can be discreet.” Great. Now Dick is going to have more people to juggle his lies around.

Finally addressing Dick directly for the first time since Bruce came in, she says, “I’m prescribing you three meals a day, two snacks, and round-the-clock supervision. If you keep losing weight like this, pretty soon your body is going to start looking for other places to take energy from. That means your muscles. Your heart. Do you understand me? If you keep starving yourself, your body is going to cannibalize itself until there’s nothing left.”

That threat shouldn’t sound so appealing.

After the appointment, Bruce asks Dick if he wants to stop at a McDonald’s on the way home. Or Burger King, or wherever he wants. This used to be the tradition whenever Bruce took him to the doctor when he was a kid. It used to make Dick happy.

Dick just stares resolutely out the window and shakes his head. McDonald’s? It’s like Bruce is mocking him.

Bruce pulls into the drive-thru and orders two meals. “Do you want a Sprite?” Dick says nothing. Bruce orders him a Sprite anyway. 280 calories.

Bruce finds a parking space so they can sit and eat. They could have just had their food inside, but Bruce rightfully assumed that Dick wouldn’t want to eat a bunch of fried junk in front of a dozen other people. He hands Dick his chicken sandwich, which Dick doesn’t unwrap. 470 calories, he read off the menu. 150 of those are probably from the bun alone. Fries are 320 calories.

Bruce eats his own meal like all that salt and oil means nothing to him, but of course it wouldn’t. He’s nearly twice Dick’s weight, all power and muscle. He can afford to indulge once in a while. It wouldn’t make a dent in his impenetrable physique.

Dick, however…everyone would take one look at him and know what he’d done. The calories would hang off his thin frame, ballooning out in all the worst places. Dick feels sick just imagining it. His chicken sandwich might as well be a flat of butter.

While Bruce eats and Dick stares at his own meal, Bruce starts looking into the list of specialists Leslie gave him to choose from. He makes some calls that Dick tries not to pay attention to, but it’s impossible not to when phrases like “eating disorder” and “anorexia” keep popping up alongside Dick’s name.

After a few minutes of quiet discussion, Bruce nudges Dick’s arm and presses the phone to his chest. “Do Saturday mornings work for you?” Dick shrugs, which Bruce takes as a yes. “Nine o’clock is fine,” he tells the other person on the line. “Thank you for your time.” He hangs up and turns to Dick. “We’re meeting with the dietician every alternate Saturday starting this week. Finding a therapist will take a bit longer while I do background checks, but I’ll let you know when I find one.”

“Whatever,” Dick says. He doesn’t touch his soda or fries, but he picks a pickle off his sandwich just so the act of chewing will prevent him from having to talk. It goes down like a piece of cardboard. Five calories.

“It is not ‘whatever’,” Bruce says. “Do you even care how dangerous this can get? You’re losing energy and muscle mass every day that you do this. What if I let you patrol again and something happened to you?”

“Let me?” Dick repeats. “You’re taking Robin away?” That one solitary pickle threatens to make a reappearance.

“It’s dangerous for you to go out in this condition.”

“I’ll get better,” Dick promises abruptly. “I’ll eat more, I’ll do the stupid weigh-ins—I’ll do whatever you want. You can’t take Robin away from me.” It’s all he is now. It’s the only thing that Dick can do right anymore. “Please.”

Bruce is hesitant, and Dick knows that everything Leslie told him gives him good reason to be, but it isn’t true. Dick would know if he had a real problem. It’s supposed to be a good thing when people lose weight. They should be praising Dick’s success and marveling at how healthy he is now. He’ll accept their judgment because he knows he’s doing the right thing.

But not at the expense of the only piece of his life that matters.

“I’ll make you a deal, then,” Bruce says after some deliberation. “Follow the meal plan and stop losing weight, and you can have two nights out a week. Small crimes—no long missions. We can negotiate more than that once you’re out of the red zone. Does that sound fair?”

“Fine,” Dick says. Whatever it takes.

Robin ends up on the front page of Teen Magazine’s latest issue.

“Gotham’s Cutest Protector!” the headline reads. “What is the Boy Wonder’s Sexy Secret?”

The photo they chose for the cover is a shot of Robin partially from behind just as he’s turning to look in the direction of the hidden camera. He can’t recall which fight it was taken during. At least five or six months ago; he’s lost weight since then. The camera angle isn’t shy about putting his ass in frame. It’s likely that was the entire point of the picture.

He does admittedly look good. Dick can’t blame the editors for putting him on the front page. Everyone wants a piece of the boy wonder these days. The older he gets, the more his fanbase grows. Maybe it’s the shorts.

Dick goes online to see what others are saying about the magazine article.

Gothamitegirl67: The things I would do to that boy…

Ashleeyyy624: if he ever gets a girlfriend i will CRYYYYYY i need to kiss him so bad. bouta rob a bank to get my moment with this piece of ass

00penis00: Have u seen how respectful he is with female victims? He’s so gentle I bet he’d be sooo considerate in bed he’d do anything u want just to make u happy

Anonymoose: i would do ANYTHING to be between those thighs do u hear me ANYTHING

The meal plan that the dietician draws up for him is entirely unreasonable. Grains, healthy fats, fruits or veggies, and protein included in every meal. Three meals a day with snacks in between, and he can’t space them out longer than three hours apart.

Alfred becomes militant about it, channeling every morsel of the British Forces soldier he once was into ensuring Dick’s compliance. Dick isn’t permitted to leave the table until he’s finished at least three-fourths of what’s on his plate. When Alfred isn’t available, Bruce sits with him. If they’re both busy, Barbara or Helena will come over to “hang out” and eat with him. Everyone knows the real reason they’re there. They passed humiliating days ago and skipped right over to downright mortifying.

Bruce and Alfred are on top of him twenty-four-seven, but Dick manages to find a few tricks to keep his sanity. He skips study hall to jog to the nearest drugstore from Gotham Academy and stocks up on as many packages of laxatives as he can fit in his pockets. He never used to need them, but with the amount of calories he’s being made to gorge on every day, he needs some way to balance it out.

Everyone would certainly notice Dick running to the bathroom to vomit after meals or snacks, but they misjudge how much dignity he’s willing to compromise for this and suspect nothing about Dick slipping away to shower after lunch. The sound of the spray and the fan perfectly cover up the quiet sounds of retching as Dick coughs up whatever he can down the soapy drain. After all he can do is dry heave, he drinks water directly from the spray and goes again to make sure he’s gotten up every last bit of food in his stomach.

When that gets too suspicious, he’ll excuse himself for a drive to the library or a shopping trip with friends he hasn’t spoken to in weeks, and in the back of some unpopulated parking lot he vomits everything into a plastic bag and tosses it into the closest dumpster when he’s finished.

No one has to know, and it isn’t like Dick is doing any real harm to himself. Aside from the mouth sores and the persistent sore throat, he’s in perfect shape. He is still getting most (too many) of the calories from whatever he eats, just… less. He’s simply leveling out the scale to something he’s more comfortable with. He isn’t starving himself.

It takes some trial and error to figure out the right technique to make the food come up the fastest without making a mess or too much noise. It becomes a skill, the purging—one that Dick is immensely proud of. It’s become a daily ritual for him. It feels healing to expel all of the badness from inside himself, like he’s purifying his body by purging all his food. It quickly becomes addicting.

Dick knows he passed normal a long, long time ago, but he can’t make himself stop. He’s an acrobat. He’s supposed to be weightless. How can he be expected to fly if his disgusting, corpulent body is weighing him down so heavily?

Bruce checks in with him every day now, which would be touching if it weren’t so annoying. How are you feeling today? and Did you finish your breakfast/lunch/dinner? become their new version of hello. Dick doesn’t understand why Bruce bothers with the pretense at all: Alfred is there to negate whatever lies Dick tells him, anyway.

It isn’t even about losing weight anymore. At ninety-nine pounds Dick is finally starting to feel okay with himself. He adores the way his bones poke through his skin when he looks in the mirror. He could theoretically give up now, but if everyone’s plan to fatten him up works, all the pounds he lost will come rushing back. He can’t let them fuck this up for him.

During his nightly weigh-ins, Dick avoids scrutiny thanks to the small weights he’s sewn into the lining of his clothes. He chugs glasses of water before each weigh-in to raise those results even higher. As far as everyone else knows, Dick has gained three pounds since they put him on the new diet.

He’s actually lost five pounds since the appointment with Leslie. When Dick looks at himself in his bedroom mirror, he can count every one of his ribs. His hipbones stick out and his arms have thinned, but he’ll build that muscle back, he reassures himself. Once all the fat is gone, he can start from scratch again. He’ll rebuild himself better than he was before. He just…he needs to see it all gone first.

Dick puts himself to bed earlier and earlier each night, and he winds up sleeping in until Alfred has to shake him awake for breakfast. Regular teenager stuff, he promises. Not that he has a reference for what being a regular teenager means anymore. He’s a different species.

“You doing okay?” Wally asks during their weekly Skype call. He peers at Dick through the computer screen like he’s seeking to peel his layers apart and study the secrets within. “You haven’t come by the tower in a while. Started to worry you found another team of superpowered sidekicks to hang with.”

Dick gives him as genuine a grin as he can muster. “Everything’s fine. I’ve just got a lot going on in Gotham. Arkham breakouts, homework, you know how it is. I can never get a day off.”

“Yeah, I get that.” It’s clear that Wally’s bummed out, but Dick can’t face him in person like this. Everyone keeps saying he’s sick, and he knows that he isn’t, but he can’t drag Wally into this sad mess. Wally is supposed to be one of the good things in Dick’s life. “I could come over there,” Wally offers. “I miss our team-ups. We can spend the day together tomorrow. I don’t have anything going on until school on Monday.”

“Sorry, Walls, I have—a thing tomorrow,” Dick stammers. The truth is he has his biweekly meeting with the dietician in the morning and therapy in the afternoon. Neither are doing much for him, but Bruce feels better when Dick goes, so he does the song and dance and lets the doctors believe that they’re helping him. Everyone wins.

Wally frowns. “Did you lose weight again? You look different.”

Dick pulls at the neck of his sweatshirt self-consciously. He’s been wearing baggier clothing to try and hide the weight loss. “I think it’s just the lighting in here.”

Wally doesn’t look convinced, but he doesn’t press the matter. “Yeah, I guess. Hey, how’d things shake out with that Solomon Grundy case? I never asked.”

Dick is relieved for the excuse to launch into a subject as easy as crime fighting. It’s the only thing he doesn’t have to lie about these days. Wally listens quietly through the story, watching Dick attentively until suddenly he says, “Do you know how hot you are?”

Dick stops mid-sentence. “Wow, uh—” His eyes dart to his closed bedroom door. Alfred is doing laundry and Bruce is at Wayne Enterprises for the afternoon, but still his ears heat up. “Okay. That was random.”

“I mean it, though,” Wally goes on, unfettered. “You’re one of the most good-looking people I know. Most guys would kill to have a body like yours. I just—I dunno, I thought I should say that more often. You really are beautiful, Dick.” Wally West has never been much of a words guy. Like most of the Titans, he prefers to demonstrate his emotions through action instead. This is new.

Dick doesn’t know what he’s supposed to say. He wants Wally to keep talking like this. He wants to hang up. “Uh, thanks?”

Wally rubs the back of his neck. He’s blushing too, now. “And even if you weren’t…you know, how you are. Even if you weren’t top of the list of the country’s hottest superheroes, it wouldn’t change anything for me. I’d still—it would still be okay. Us. I’d still want you the same way.”

Dick clears his throat. “Sounds like you’re flirting with me.”

“Yeah, I guess I am,” Wally says with a little chuckle. “But I’m also telling you the truth.”

Dick loves this. He hates it. He wants to crawl under a rock and die. He wants to ask Wally to run all the way here to Gotham so they can be in the same room again. He should inform Wally that as sweet as his words are, they both know that what he’s saying isn’t true. Dick Grayson is his looks. He is what he can offer as Robin. If he weighed 500 pounds, he would be worth nothing to Wally, Bruce, or the Titans anymore. He’d be unsalvagable.

“Anyway,” Wally continues, “I was thinking when you were free, maybe we could go on a real date sometime? The way normal people do. We could see a movie, or grab dinner somewhere that isn’t a fast-food joint. What do you say?”

“Sorry, Bruce is calling me,” Dick lies, pretending to look over his shoulder. “I’ve got to go, Walls, but I’ll text you later, okay?” He hangs up on Wally’s protest.

It will take time, but Wally will realize soon enough that Dick is doing him a favor. He’d be nothing but an anchor around Wally’s neck. It’s better this way.

The Titans could never understand what it’s like for Dick. Wally with his impossible metabolism, Garth’s scrawny but strong body from being raised under the ocean’s pressure. Roy couldn’t care less about his weight. Being the most confident of the Titans, he’s never let them see him doubt himself. And Donna got to grow up with the Amazons who all loved and encouraged each other unconditionally regardless of how their bodies looked.

Dick would sound like a crazy person if they knew all the rules and standards he had set for his own body. They’d think he’s weaker for it.

Dick is still allowed to patrol on weekends as long as he adheres to his meal plan, so he suits up on Saturday night like usual. He cinches his utility belt around his waist as tight as it will go. He’s been wearing the pants-length green tights instead of his usual shorts more often lately since the magazine came out, too cold and exposed to resist covering up. And this way no one can see how thin his legs have become.

Just standing back up from the locker room bench has Dick’s vision blacking out for ten seconds, but he shakes it off by the time Bruce comes in, already in uniform.

“Ready to go, Robin?” Dick nods in the affirmative, but Bruce doesn’t move. “Did you finish your dinner?” Another nod. Its mushy regurgitated remains are tucked away in an old tupperware container from when he was changing, waiting to be disposed of when he gets a minute alone.

“I’m good,” Dick says. He yanks his mask into place. “C’mon, old man, I’m itching to get on the streets.”

In hindsight, Dick probably should have let himself actually digest some of his dinner so he’d have the energy for patrol, but it’s never been a problem before. In the field, adrenaline can be one hell of a helper when Robin needs an energy boost. His focus never sways no matter how depleted his body gets. It’s like muscle memory, even if his muscles are on the withering side these days.

Robin could have gotten through the night without a hitch, too, if only they hadn’t gotten dragged into stopping a bank robbery an hour before the night’s scheduled end. Batman uses Robin exclusively for backup now since his unspoken diagnosis, paranoid about his partner being blown over by a gust of wind, but the fight was seven-on-one, and even Batman can’t take out seven guns on his own.

The humiliating part is that it doesn’t even take a bullet to knock Robin down. One second he’s kicking some asshole in the solar plexus to send him careening into his friend, and the next Robin is flat on his back blinking up at the spinning ceiling.

He doesn’t even remember being hit. There’s gunfire ringing out all around him. Through the cacophony he can hear the distant sound of someone calling his name.

Robin should get up. It’s not safe for him to stay down in the middle of a fight. He’d try to move if it didn’t feel like his limbs were encased in cement. He can hear the blood rushing in his head and the irregular pounding of his heartbeat warring with the sounds of violence around him. The black spots in his vision clear just enough for him to get a glimpse of the last robber being slammed against a wall.

And then his view is being blocked by a black cowl and wide blue eyes hidden behind the lenses. Robin? Batman mouths. Robin can’t hear him over the ringing in his ears. It’s like he’s underwater. Dick, can you hear me?

“M’fine,” Dick mumbles, weakly pushing away the gloved hands on his face and on his pulse. “J’st…” He pushes himself up on his elbows, blinking away the blackness creeping into his vision. Then he notices the blood.

It’s all over Bruce’s gloves and the front of his uniform, turning the bat symbol into a shapeless blob. Dick didn’t even feel the bullet.

He checks himself over with trembling hands, feeling for the wound. Dick’s blood sugar is so low that it takes him an entire minute to realize that the blood dripping onto his tunic isn’t his own.

“Agent A,” Bruce barks into his comm, “we need an evac quickly. Send the car.” There’s a brief pause. “I’m fine. The bullet didn’t hit anything vital. I am alert and conscious, but I can’t say the same for Robin.”

“Y’were…” Dick gapes at the blood still gushing from Bruce’s side. Dick’s fault. Bruce let his guard down to protect his fallen partner. Dick tries to sit up, but he has the strength of a kitten. His vision fuzzes at the edges, and before he knows it he’s falling again.

Bruce catches him and lays Dick’s head back down. “Don’t move, son. The Batmobile is on its way.”

This wasn’t supposed to happen. Dick never wanted it to be this bad. “Y-You…Batman, they—”

“They didn’t even touch you,” Bruce says, ignoring his own injury like the bullet hole in his flesh is inconsequential to him. Like he couldn’t have been killed on Dick’s watch. “I saw it. No one touched you. You just…” Dick rarely ever sees Batman scared. He didn’t think it was possible. “Why are you doing this?”

Dick doesn’t know how to answer that. His mouth feels like it’s lined with cotton. He doesn’t try to sit up again, and Bruce doesn’t make him until the car arrives with the police close behind. 

Chapter Text

“That was perfect, my little robin!” Mary Grayson said, catching Dick in her arms before he could hit the mat.

At five years old her little boy was still too young to be allowed on the actual trapeze alongside his family, but the beginner bars were good enough to occupy him for now. He would get stronger with time, and he’d go on to perform more advanced routines. It was his destiny, after all. He was born a Grayson, and Graysons were meant to fly.

Mary nuzzled Dick’s small nose with her own. “Amazing job, honey.”

“But I fell,” Dick said, pouting. He watched his mom and dad perform death-defying stunts every night under the big top, meanwhile he couldn’t even master the straddle whip without slipping from the bar.

Mary shrugged, ruffling Dick’s hair. “Falling is part of it,” she said, unconcerned. “Do you think Daddy and I have never fallen down before? The important part is that you get back up and you try it again. That is how you get better.”

Mary raised Dick up high until he could reach the bar again. Once he found a good grip, she let go and allowed him to hold himself up on his own. “Now, let’s try it again, sweetie. You can do this.”

It doesn’t take long for everyone to clue in on what’s happened to their young Robin. Alfred calls in Leslie to attend to Bruce’s gunshot wound, which means all three of them are there to grill Dick on exactly what he’s been doing to himself. Alfred already searched his bedroom and the locker room for all his hiding spots, uncovering the stashes of laxatives and emetics, as well as the tupperware containers of what were once lunches and dinners.

It’s obvious once they know what to look for: calluses on his knuckles from the repetitive scrape of his incisors, erosion of his enamel from the bile splashing against the backs of his teeth. Mouthwash and breath mints hidden in his nightstand.

All of Dick’s secrets are out in the open. He’s never felt so naked.

Alfred makes Dick get on the scale and doesn’t let him see the results, but Dick can tell by the look in the old man’s eyes that it’s low. Just standing upright for that long makes his head spin, but Alfred’s hands are a steadying force as they guide him down to a nearby chair. His blood pressure and sugar levels are taken and tutted at. After that, Dick is forced into a medical bed and told to stay put while the adults figure this out.

Everyone keeps throwing around terms like “anorexia” and “bulimia,” but that’s not right. They won’t listen to Dick no matter how many times he corrects them. Dick doesn’t have those illnesses. It would be anorexia if he didn’t eat at all, which he does, and it would be bulimia if he binged before purging, which he doesn’t.

Dick is just…particular about what he eats and when and how much of it. That’s normal. He doesn’t need all of this.

Alfred hands Dick a nutritional shake and tells him to drink. When ten minutes pass and Dick refuses to take a sip, it’s collectively decided that he will be given an IV so nutrients can be pumped into him that way.

“I’m fine,” Dick insists, batting away Leslie’s hands as she prepares the needle. Now that he’s had time to rest he can think clearer. He’s less dizzy than before, even if he still can’t get up on his own without passing out. “I don’t need it. Just get me some water and I’ll be good.”

“Dick,” Leslie says seriously, “you are not fine. You are severely malnourished. You could have been killed out there today. As it is, your body is on the brink of shutting down from starvation. Let us help you.”

However nightmarish Dick imagined the fallout would be if everyone found out, the reality is so much more agonizing. The lectures and talking-down he could handle, but the sadness he sees in Alfred and Leslie’s eyes is awful enough to shrink him down to two inches tall.

Bruce’s is somehow worse.

“How long have you been doing this?” Bruce demands, standing over Dick even while the gunshot wound in his side must be throbbing. Dick can already see blood staining the fresh bandages. “And don’t you dare lie to me.”

Dick shrugs, looking down at his hands in his lap instead of at Bruce. He can’t bear to see the disappointment that is surely all over his guardian and mentor’s face. What kind of sidekick is he? Can’t even feed himself. “A few months,” he says quietly. Give or take.

“Why?” Bruce pleads desperately, sinking into the chair beside Dick’s bed. “You know you’re not fat. There’s nothing wrong with your body that needs to be changed.” He takes Dick’s cold hand and holds on tight like he’s afraid Dick will slip away otherwise. “Why don’t you want to eat, son?”

“It’s—I’m—” Dick huffs and buries his face in his arms, willing the heat in his eyes to abate. “I don’t know, okay?”

“You don’t know, or you don’t want to tell me?”

“I don’t know!” It makes sense in Dick’s head until he thinks about it too hard. He loathes the thought of eyes on his body as much as he needs them to look. He wants to keep his muscles in shape as much as he thrills at the sight of them breaking down from malnourishment. He’ll do anything to be perfect. He needs to punish himself for how pathetically imperfect he is.

“You don’t do anything without having a good reason,” Bruce says. “Did something happen to you? Did someone do something? Talk to me, chum. Help me to understand.” Bruce isn’t like this. They aren’t like this. Batman and Robin aren’t supposed to show weakness, yet here they both are.

When Dick was a kid he wouldn’t eat because it was the only way he knew how to cope with his grief that he could feel. He needed to be able to feel something that wasn’t sadness. Something that could take his mind off the pain—something he could control and manipulate however he wanted.

And then Robin encompassed everything, and suddenly Dick didn’t need hunger as his crutch anymore. Robin was the new thing he could control. Robin became the new focal point in his life—bigger than the circus, bigger than his sadness. It was a life preserver in the ocean of his grief. Robin saved him.

Dick needed to make himself good enough to deserve the privilege, but he’s—he’s so tired. He’s exhausted down to the marrow in his bones, and what does he have to show for it? Nothing has worked. Nothing will work. He doesn’t know what to do anymore. He has no idea how to make the pain end.

“I don’t know,” Dick repeats as he cries into his hands, feeling rotten and pathetic and wishing not for the first time that he could make himself disappear forever.

Dick is (surprise, surprise) barred from anything Robin-related until further notice. Bruce met with the headmaster at Gotham Academy and got Dick three weeks of medical leave. He has no idea what reason Bruce gave the school for his absence, and he doesn’t care. Dick doesn’t care about anything anymore.

Dick, you have to eat something. You’ll die if you don’t. Come on, chum, you can’t ignore this forever. Dick?

Dick is forbidden from exercising, or even walking around for too long. As it is, Dick gets winded just from standing up, so he spends the following days confined to a bed in the medbay where he can be monitored around the clock. He isn’t left alone for any period of time.

Apparently Dick is at risk for a slew of conditions including heart failure, refeeding syndrome, and a million others that everyone seems way too hung up on. They don’t ask for Dick’s opinion on any of it. They hook him up with dextrose and electrolytes to replenish what he’s lost and to keep his digestive system from shutting down or something. Dick doesn’t bother paying attention to that part. He can’t do anything about it anyway.

The worst part is the feeding tube. After the first day when Dick refused to touch his cup of yogurt now that there was no insurance he could purge it all afterward, it was collectively decided that whatever Dick refused to eat would be supplemented with a tube in his nose that would pump food into his stomach by force.

As if Dick didn’t have enough to be embarrassed about.

He fought them on it at first, but Leslie informed Dick that if he kept resisting treatment, she would have no choice but to take him to a proper facility that dealt with eating disorders and they would make Dick eat. Dick can barely handle just the three adults here with him seeing him at his weakest. He can’t let anyone else in on this tragic performance, so he surrenders the last bit of his autonomy and allows them to hook up the tube.

“Just one bite,” Bruce urges him after ten minutes of Dick staring into the same bowl of soupy oatmeal that’s been on his tray since Alfred decided it was time for Dick’s daily breakfast battle. Bruce cleared his schedule for the week so he can stay home with Dick and sit here for hours and hours while Dick persists in his one-man hunger strike. “You don’t even have to finish it. Just try.”

150 calories. Carbohydrates and fiber.

To make it worse, Bruce reminds him, “If you don’t eat, Alfred will just have to set up another tube feed. You’re going to be getting the calories no matter what. Wouldn’t you rather do it this way?”

Dick presses the heels of his hands into his eyes, squeezing until bright spots firework in the blackness. It’s taking all of his self-control not to burst into tears like a baby. “I don’t want to,” he says quietly. This is pathetic. Robin isn’t supposed to be intimidated by anything, let alone an innocuous cup of oatmeal.

It’s silly for him to be this way. From a distance, it makes him look like any other spoiled rich kid. Dick lives in a cushy mansion with food readily available. There are people starving in the world who would give anything not to be, and here is Dick Grayson denying himself food by choice. He is a poster child for everything that is wrong with society.

He wishes he could go back to the way things were before. He wants to erase everyone’s memories of realizing that anything was wrong in the first place, and then Dick could continue doing what he wants without consequences.

After another twenty minutes have passed and Dick still hasn’t touched the oatmeal, Bruce sighs. He pats Dick’s shoulder and shifts for his phone to text Alfred.

This time Dick does start crying. “Why are you doing this to me?” He doesn’t want the tube pumping food into his unwilling stomach. He wants to be in charge of his own body again, but no one in this stupid house will let him.

“This isn’t a punishment, Dick,” Bruce says, baffled that Dick could possibly have an issue with this. “You’re sick. Can’t you see that? We’re trying to keep you alive.”

“I never asked you to do that!” Just to be an asshole, Dick swipes the cup of oatmeal and spoon off the tray. They clatter onto the floor in a clumpy, tasteless mess. He silently hopes that if he’s resistant enough, eventually Bruce will get annoyed and give up on him. It hasn’t happened yet. “I was fine. I don’t need anyone’s help.”

Dick is rapidly losing the brief surge of energy that rose in him. He’s already exhausted and this isn’t even a real argument. He’s pathetic.

“You were on the brink of dying from malnourishment,” Bruce says, as if Dick needs the reminder. “You do need help. Honestly, what were you expecting to happen? You thought I wouldn’t notice? Did you think I wouldn’t care that my son is killing himself right in front of me?”

“I’m not your son!” Dick snaps. He smacks his palms down on the tray before him with a bang. “Stop saying that!”

Bruce is silent for a long minute. He has pushed back with double the intensity against Dick’s outburts for far lesser offenses in the past, and yet he remains eerily calm as he says, “Do you think I give a shit what the law says?” The expletive is shocking enough to shut Dick’s mouth.

“I don’t care what the courts have to say,” Bruce says. “It’s fine that you don’t want me to be your father, but don’t you dare sit here and try to tell me that you are not my son. I will do whatever it takes to protect you and keep you safe, even if the thing I’m keeping you safe from is yourself. I don’t care if you end up hating me for the rest of your life because of it. You will get better, even if I have to drag you every step of the way. I won’t allow my son to kill himself.”

Dick hates him. He’s never hated Bruce more than he does right this very moment. He could sock the man in the face if he had the strength to do so.

“What were you expecting to happen?” Bruce badgers on. “You thought you could just keep going the way you were going and everything would work out fine? Where does it end, Dick?”

“I would have stopped.” Eventually. When he was ready. When he had done enough.

“When? When you went into cardiac arrest because your body wouldn’t have the energy to keep your heart pumping anymore? I taught you all of this, Dick. You know how to keep your body healthy. I know it isn’t just about the weight.” Great. This again. “What is it that you feel you can’t tell me? What happened to you?”

Bruce keeps asking that. He’s convinced himself that Dick is harboring some deep dark secret to explain why he’s starving himself to death. But he isn’t.

Better keep away from those doughnuts!

Yes, that’s it. You’re perfect, Dick. You’re so perfect for me.

If you continue to make mistakes like this, I might have to reconsider whether Batman needs a partner at all.

Dick isn’t hiding anything.

After two more days Dick spends in the medical bay being fed from a tube and refusing more than a singular bite of anything given to him, Bruce finally allows Wally to visit. It’s possible he merely ran out of ideas for how to make Dick better. Either way, Dick isn’t complaining.

“You look like hell,” Wally says as he takes a seat in the chair beside Dick’s bed. Currently Dick is only allowed to get up for short walks, and there has to be someone with him at all times. He misses being active. He misses the trapeze. He misses his parents. “How are you feeling?”

“Same as I look, I guess.” Dick is tired all the time even though he can’t do much besides sleep and stare at the food they give him. Somehow it still takes so much out of him.

Wally is twitchy, anxious. He has a hard enough time sitting still as it is, but Dick can always tell when he has something to say and doesn’t know how. “Say it,” Dick sighs. Might as well get the judgey beratement out of the way now.

Wally hesitates, then finally comes out with, “I’m sorry I didn’t say something sooner.”

Dick frowns, perplexed. “Why are you apologizing? You didn’t do anything.”

“I knew you weren’t…eating right. I should’ve intervened, or at least tried talking to you about it.” His eyes keep darting to the medical equipment surrounding Dick and then away, like he’s trying not to think about it. Dick wishes he had that luxury.

“It’s really nothing. They all think I have a problem when I don’t.”

Wally tilts his head as if he’s trying to see what Dick sees. “You think so? You look like you’ve been starving for weeks. Months. Do you honestly think that’s the way it’s supposed to be?”

“I don’t want to talk about this with you.” Dick can’t. He can barely hang on to his sanity as it is. He won’t do this too. Wally shouldn’t have come. Dick is too raw, too open right now.

“Okay. We don’t have to talk about it.” Wally sits back in his chair and props his feet up next to Dick’s knee. “Do you…want to hear about the new rogue that’s popped up in Central? Get this: He calls himself the Trickster. I’ll give you one guess what his schtick is.”

Wally stays for an hour. He talks Dick’s ear off and prattles on even when Dick offers no commentary. He knows he’s being a terrible conversationalist, but Wally doesn’t seem to mind Dick’s reticence. He makes up for it by rolling on to the next topic without skipping a beat in typical Kid Flash fashion. It almost makes Dick feel normal again for once. Almost.

Eventually Alfred shows up carrying two plates of crackers with a tuna-fish spread layered on top. He puts one on Dick’s tray and offers the other to Wally, ever the good host. He also hands Dick a strawberry protein shake.

Dick gives Alfred a pleading look. “Come on.”

“You’re anemic. Tuna fish is high in iron. I made it with scallions the way you like it,” he offers, as if he’s done Dick a favor. As if Dick gives a fuck about the taste.

Wally distracts Dick while Alfred goes about checking the heart monitors and his blood pressure. “When you’re allowed out again, you should come to my house and see the game system Uncle Barry got me. It has the new Pokémon game and everything.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Dick answers hollowly, staring down at the plate of crackers. God knows what other ingredients Alfred mixed into the tuna spread—all for the purpose of fitting in as many calories as possible.

“Hey, look at me,” Wally says, grabbing Dick’s closest hand in his, and Dick realizes that Wally hasn’t touched his snack either. Not until Dick does. “It’s okay. No rush, right? Don’t stress out.” As if it could ever be that easy, but for Wally, it is. It’s just food for the kid who burns through calories faster than they can do anything to him.

Wally has never had to worry about his weight. In fact, Barry and Iris are always trying to give Wally special supplements to help him gain weight since he can’t seem to keep the pounds on. Wally complains about it all the time, how wiry he is, but Dick has always been jealous of him for it. It almost makes him hate Wally, and that just has him feeling even shittier than before.

Wally doesn’t push Dick to eat or tell him he’s being dramatic for not wanting to. He lifts a cracker to his own mouth like it’s no big deal and produces a thin smile when Dick does the same, only because it’ll erase that heartbroken look in Wally’s eyes.

Wally doesn’t dare comment or congratulate him when Dick nibbles on a cracker. He carries on with his story from before and finishes off his own plate as he talks. He also doesn’t make a big deal out of it when Dick stops after four crackers.

“Robin is going to be benched for a while,” Dick says eventually, though Wally had to have known it was coming. Dick can’t bring himself to sip his protein shake, but he’s holding the glass, which almost counts.

Wally shrugs as if to say it isn’t the end of the world, even though it is. “So, what? Dick Grayson can still hang out, right? When you’re better, obviously.”

“I don’t even remember what ‘better’ feels like,” Dick admits in a rare display of honesty. He’s too tired and ashamed to lie to his best friend. “It’s not—” He chews his cheek, staring up at the ceiling. “I know this isn’t normal. I’m not stupid. But it feels like…if I eat the amount they want me to, I’m going to die.”

“You’re going to die if you don’t.” Wally West is never serious except when he has no other option but to be. “You get that, right? You’ll kill yourself.”

“Everyone keeps saying that, but I know how to take care of myself. I’ve been an athlete my entire life, you think I don’t know how to stay in shape?”

“Alfred said you’ve been making yourself throw up after you eat. You honestly think that’s healthy?”

Dick scoffs. “You don’t get it, Walls. I’m not like you. I don’t have a crazy metabolism that gets rid of all my calories for me. I need this.”

“You don’t, though,” Wally insists. “You looked fine before. Even if you do gain a little weight, who cares? You could use it at this point.”

“It’s not all about looks. I’m not some obsessive movie star who only cares about their appearance.”

“Then what is it?”

“I just—I need to have this, all right? This is the only thing I have that’s just mine. No one can change my body but me. I get to decide what I eat and how much and how often. It’s my body. I have a right to do what I want with it.”

“Not if you’re hurting yourself,” Wally says. Anyone else would be giving up on Dick right about now, but Wally isn’t going anywhere. He takes Dick’s hand and squeezes it tight. “Personally, I’d really like to see Dick Grayson live.” 

Dick and Bruce have been sitting at the dinner table for over an hour and a half now. Dick stares down at the same piece of chicken, the same enormous scoop of mashed potatoes, and the same half-eaten pile of peas he’s been glaring at since Alfred put the plate in front of him.

The only thing Dick has dared to try so far has been the peas, and even that was a Herculean challenge. The butter sauce Alfred sautéed them in has to have added at least eighty calories. Dick wants to vomit just thinking about all that butter going into his body. The chicken could theoretically be safe, except that Alfred made it cutlet-style tonight. With the carbs from the breading and the sodium from the oil, Dick can’t let himself touch it.

Bruce nudges Dick’s elbow with his own. “It won’t get any easier if you put it off.” He finished his own plate an hour ago, but he refuses to leave Dick alone.

“Babysitting me won’t make it any easier either.”

“You need to eat, Dick.”

“I do eat.” Why does no one believe him? Dick already had most of his eggs this morning and four bites of a turkey sandwich for lunch. That’s not even counting the thousands of calories that are being fed to him through the nasogastric tube every day, which sends him spinning into a panic attack if he looks at it too closely. He’s reached his limit for the day. This dinner will do nothing but add layers of bubbling fat onto Dick’s perfect body.

After another ten minutes with no progress, Dick drops his fork decisively. “Can’t I just have some grapes or something and we’ll call it square? I already had a big lunch today. I’m not gonna be hungry.” It’s hard to find safe foods when everyone is so determined to fatten him back up, but fruit is usually a safe bet.

“You know the rules,” Bruce says. “If you finish at least half of what’s on the plate, I’ll let you supplement the rest with a nutritional shake.”

Dick wrinkles his nose. He hates the shakes. They’re all sweet and powdery, and every time he’s manipulated into having one he swears he can feel his body swelling up from the calorie-dense drink. It’s still preferable to choking down the contents of this plate, though. “A quarter.”

“Half,” Bruce doubles down.

It shouldn’t be this difficult to eat. It didn’t used to be—not when Dick had ways he could balance it out after, but a lot about Dick has become abnormal recently. He can only imagine what this must look like to an outsider. Here is a teenage boy, practically an adult, throwing a tantrum over finishing his dinner. It’s sad. But now that the adults in his life have seized the only thing in Dick’s life that made sense to him, it only makes him more desperate to hang on to what little control he has left.

He sees his therapist, Nancy, twice a week now, doctor’s orders. Dick had been down to only monthly appointments until the truth came out and it became apparent just how much of Dick’s previous “recovery” was a lie. The visits are the only times Dick is allowed to go out anymore. Fighting over his meals has become a full-time job these past couple of weeks; Dick is always either glaring at a plate of food or worrying about when the next plate is going to show up. He’s exhausted.

His therapist is a kind, nonthreatening woman. She specializes in eating disorders, so she doesn’t bat at eye at any of Dick’s strange behaviors or gawk at the tube taped to the side of his face. It also means that he can get away with less, which he hates.

“Your dad said you ate most of your breakfast this morning,” Nancy says. Dick never starts their conversations. Half the time he doesn’t talk at all, waiting out the clock until he’s allowed to go home and be silent there. It’s why he doesn’t bother reminding her that Bruce is most certainly not his dad. “How did that feel?”

“Fine.” Torturous. Dick wasn’t allowed to leave the table until he finished at least two-thirds of his bowl of oatmeal and half of a grapefruit. It took forever.

“Is it getting any easier for you to comply with your new meal plan?”

“It’s stupid,” Dick says. “I don’t need a meal plan. I wasn’t doing anything dangerous before. Bruce is just making a big deal out of nothing.”

She tilts her head curiously. “Is he? According to your doctor, you were severely malnourished and dehydrated. You wouldn’t call that dangerous?”

Dick grimaces. He tries his best not to think about that day and its embarrassments. Reflecting on the past has never done him any favors before. “Maybe I took it too far for a minute there, but it won’t happen again. I’ve learned my lesson.”

Nancy hums like she doesn’t believe him. “What about the purging? How have you been doing with that? Any relapses since I last saw you?”

“I told you I’m not doing that anymore. I really am fine.”

“You seem to have an interesting definition of fine,” Nancy says. “I shouldn’t have to remind you that anorexia is one of the deadliest mental illnesses out there, and one of its most dangerous symptoms is the disinclination to get better. Your brain doesn’t want you to recover even when your body is demanding it. It’s why relapses are so common.”

“I’m not anorexic,” Dick tells her, as she makes him do every time they meet. “I eat all the time.” He eats too much. It isn’t as much as most people do, yes, but only because Dick’s body is different from everyone else’s. He doesn’t need the amount of nutrition they do. A normal meal for a regular person is a five-course dinner of lard for Dick. And when he accidentally overdoes it, he only has a handful of options to reverse the mistake. What else is he supposed to do?

He goes on, “If I weighed two hundred pounds, you wouldn’t be making me sit here and talk about my feelings. No one would force me to eat five times a day. It’s just because I look sick that everyone is freaking out so badly, but I’m not any sicker than anyone else.”

Nancy gives him a doubtful stare. “Most healthy people don’t make themselves vomit after they eat.”

“Yeah, well, most people don’t fuck up as much as I do. They can afford it.” Dick picks at the knee of his jeans, the fabric loose even though they had fit perfectly a few months ago. “I’m taking care of my body by doing all this. No one gets that.”

She nods, considering Dick’s argument. At least she listens to him, unlike some people. “So, if someone kidnapped you and kept you in a cell without feeding you for weeks, would you consider that ‘taking care’ of your body as well, then?”

Dick rolls his eyes. He hates it when she pulls tricks like this, like she thinks she can outsmart him. He’s Robin. He’s not some stupid kid. “That’s a completely different scenario. This is my decision. It’s my body, and I get to decide what happens to it.”

“We’ve discussed before your fixation on maintaining your bodily autonomy, but we’ve never quite landed on exactly why that is.” Nancy sets her notebook down in her lap and leans back in her chair. “After our last session, Bruce came to me with some concerns. I understand that you struggled with eating after you lost your parents. It’s a more common trauma response than you might think.” She pauses briefly, allowing time for the meaning behind her words to sink in. “Bruce is worried that your recent struggles may also have been triggered by a trauma, but he doesn’t know what it is.”

She’s good. More astute than Dick wants to give her credit for, and she seems like she genuinely wants to help him, but Dick doesn’t need a person he barely knows to pull out all of his secrets and hold them against him. Robin doesn’t need to cry into his therapist’s arms about how he thinks he might have been statutorily raped. Robin is stronger than that. Dick is stronger than that.

Dick knows the difference between real trauma and the everyday hurts that come with being a person. Losing his parents was an actual trauma. The pain of losing them chewed him up and spit him out, and Dick thinks he very well may always be just a little bit broken inside because of it. That was his big trauma. Everything else…Liu’s misuse, the touches and stares and harsh words of Gotham’s grimiest, his breadcrumb trail of failures as Robin…they’re all minor hurts. If he can’t get over those, how can he expect to ever recover from the big one?

Dick just…he just misses so much of who he used to be. There are so many losses for him to mourn—his parents and Haly’s and the trapeze and his innocence. He misses the old Dick Grayson that existed before the weight of the world fell on top of him.

Dick doesn’t tell Nancy any of that. Instead, he lifts his own dull gaze to her misguidedly compassionate one and says, “Look, I’m complying, okay? I’ll eat what’s on the meal plan. I’ll deal with the tube. I’ll get better if that’s what you all want so badly.”

Instead of relief or accomplishment, he can detect only concern in Nancy’s tone when she asks, “But do you want you to get better?”

Dick doesn’t know what he wants anymore. When you ignore the hunger enough, eventually your body stops sending you the signals to get hungry. Dick isn’t hungry for anything now.

Dick is slowly given more privileges back as time goes on and he starts eating more. He doesn’t want to, and it’s torture when he does it, but he’s run out of other options. He isn’t allowed to give up no matter how desperately he wants to. At least Alfred’s meals are slightly more bearable than the tube feedings—fewer calories this way.

Alfred babysits Dick during the day. He has Dick help him out in the kitchen, as if watching Alfred cook will somehow make the idea of eating less nauseating to him. It doesn’t. Knowing exactly what’s in the food and how it’s prepared doesn’t erase one bit of the anxiety that comes with actually eating it.

Alfred supplies Dick with a bowl of fruit for his afternoon snack: blueberries, orange slices, cantaloupe, and raspberries. Normally Dick doesn’t mind fruit, but the bowl is so big. How can they keep expecting him to put so much in his body?

It’s better than the tube, Dick reminds himself over and over again. It’s the only way he can keep himself from going insane. He only just earned back the right to sleep in his own bedroom again instead of the medical bay, and he forgot how nice it is to be able to shower without someone standing on the other side of the curtain so they’d hear if he tried to make himself throw up. Dick can’t risk backsliding now when he’s barely functioning as it is.

Dick picks at the fruit, sticking to the raspberries only. Ten calories each isn’t as bad as the rest. “I gave you a variety for a reason,” Alfred reminds him, which is ridiculous because he’s stirring a saucepan at the stove and not even looking in Dick’s direction. Dick swears the guy has got eyeballs in the back of his head. “Oranges and blueberries contain vitamin C, and cantaloupe is full of vitamin A. Potassium, as well.”

Dick grimaces, but he obediently pops a blueberry in his mouth. It shouldn’t take so much effort to make himself eat. Dick used to be able to run for miles on end with no problem. Now, simply finishing a meal feels like a full mental workout.

“Have you read the news? Batman shut down a human trafficking ring last night,” Alfred informs him while he grates a block of parmesan, trying to provide Dick with a distraction so he doesn’t spiral over his puny bowl of fruit. “Twenty-six young women were saved. It was a good night for Gotham City.”

Dick could have been part of that. Batman needs Robin by his side, but his Robin is too busy trying to eat a fucking snack to hit the streets alongside him. It’s so embarrassing being relegated to the sidelines like a trainee. The city has realized by now that its boy wonder is absent from the fray. One journalist suspects that he was dealt a career-ending injury. Some wonder if he died.

Even when Dick isn’t presently in the spotlight it’s still searching for him, waiting for him to return, speculating about his whereabouts. He’ll never get out of it. He doesn’t know how to.

Bruce keeps reassuring Dick that he’ll be back out there in no time, but every day that drags on discourages Dick more. It takes a year to get through one week, and Dick doesn’t feel like he’s getting any better. Leslie comes over every day to check his progress and make sure his body isn’t about to quit on him.

“Recovery isn’t supposed to be a walk in the park,” she told him yesterday during his daily weigh-in. He doesn’t look at the number anymore. It’s only going to send him spiraling, and he spends so much of his days doing that already. “It will get easier over time. Just keep following the schedule, keep working toward the goal, and you’ll be back in the uniform before you know it.”

Some days he wonders if he’s delusional in thinking that things could ever go back to the way they were. The Robin uniform was baggy on him anyway. Dick wants it to be baggy. He beamed with pride the first time Alfred had to tailor his suit because he’d lost too much weight to fill the armor out properly.

If he throws away the rest of the fruit in his bowl right now, he could make it even baggier.

Better than the tube. Better than the tube.

It takes thirty minutes for Dick to finish the bowl to the sound of Alfred’s soothing monologue. He feels uncomfortably full. It wasn’t even that much, but there is still that pesky voice in the back of his head reminding Dick of how many calories were in each piece of fruit.

Dick shows Alfred the empty bowl and earns an eye-crinkling smile in return. “Wonderful job. Now, care to help me layer the lasagna?”

It’s another few days before Leslie finally gives the okay to remove the feeding tube. Dick still can’t stomach much solid food at once, but he drinks Ensure to supplement the rest and he hasn’t purged in weeks. He is doing exactly as well as everyone wants him to.

It feels strange to let himself eat. It feels wrong.

Titans Tower should be an escape from it all when Bruce at last deems Dick not-dying enough to let him spend a weekend with his friends.

Months ago Dick would have been able to enjoy himself with the team and ignore his problems like normal, but clearly everyone in his life has been made aware of his issues whether Dick likes it or not. No one says anything about the weight loss when he shows up for movie night skinnier than the last time they saw him over a month ago, and Dick stupidly hopes this means he can get through the night without having to think about food at all.

When Donna asks what toppings they all want on the pizza and Dick says he isn’t hungry, the four of them exchange an uncomfortable look that Dick doesn’t need to be a detective to catch.

“How about one slice?” Garth offers gently. “Just cheese, no toppings.”

The betrayed look Dick sends to Wally has the speedster raising his hands in surrender. “I didn’t say a word, I swear.”

If Dick weren’t so outraged, he could cry. “I don’t know why I’m surprised. Of course Bruce had to involve you all in my personal business.” It makes sense now why Bruce was so lenient about Dick spending time at the Tower. He probably gave them a full Batman-patented crash course in Dick’s “illness” in preparation for tonight. They’re not here for movie night, they’re babysitting.

“Hey, pump the brakes,” Roy says. “Do you see anyone judging you right now? Life sucks, we all get it. If you really don’t want to eat, we’re not going to shove it down your throat.”

Dick’s stance loosens only slightly. He almost can’t trust it. “You won’t?”

“I’ve got no problem lying to Batman,” Wally says with a shrug. He’s already snacking on a bag of pretzels. “We’ll tell him whatever you want us to tell him. Hell, I’ll say you ate a whole pie if you want me to.”

“All we’re asking is that you try,” Donna says. “Not because Batman wants it. We just want you to be healthy, okay?”

Wally pats the couch cushion beside him. Reluctantly, Dick sits back down. Wally squeezes Dick’s hand where the others can’t see, and they all go back to figuring out the pizza order. Dick tunes out of the conversation.

Dick knows he’s being dumb. So many people have it worse than he does. There are starving families in third-world countries who would be grateful for one bite of the food Dick willingly throws away every day. Wally has to consume at least ten thousand calories a day just to stay alive, meanwhile Dick can’t bring himself to go over six hundred without panicking.

The pizza arrives. Garth pulls out some controllers and starts up a game of Mario Kart, which makes it easier for Dick to sink into the comforting environment of being with his friends. It was so stifling being trapped under house arrest at the manor. Here he can actually breathe. Not being forced to eat makes Dick bold enough to sneak one of Wally’s pretzels.

And thus, the fuck-up is unavoidable.

Dick eats with the Titans, taking slower bites than everyone else but gradually getting there. He can’t remember the last time he felt comfortable eating something. He ends up eating two whole slices of pizza. It’s only when Dick catches Donna smiling proudly at him that he realizes the crime he’s committed, and everything falls apart from there.

God, one night out and this is what happens? Each slice of pizza is three hundred calories and Dick just ate two. Not to mention the half-can of iced tea that he washed it all down with. How could Dick be such a pig? He hasn’t even hit his ideal calorie count for the day, but it’s still…it’s still bad. He was careless in a way he isn’t supposed to be. The Dick Grayson from a few weeks ago would never let himself indulge in two entire slices of pizza.

Dick silently urges himself to stay seated even while his stomach turns. Bruce’s voice is in his head reminding him that the world won’t end if he goes a little over budget, except that it is. The world is ending and those cheesy slices are being digested in his stomach right now, turning into energy, building on him as fat reserves, and he can’t—he can’t—

Dick stands up and stretches, brushing crumbs from his hands. “I’m gonna pee,” he says over his shoulder. He very casually walks out of the room until he’s far enough away to break into a sprint across the tower to the nearest bathroom out of hearing range.

Every second those pizza slices sit in his stomach he’s gaining, and gaining, and gaining.

Obviously, Wally is faster. He materializes between Dick and the bathroom door, his brows creased with concern. “Dick.”

“Move, Walls, I have to go.” Dick tries to get around him, but his friend is steadfast.

“Don’t lie to me, man.”

“I’m not. Just—move, okay?” Dick can feel the tears hot in his eyes, threatening to surface as the panic wells in him. Every millisecond that passes he’s digesting more and more of it, absorbing all that fat and carbs into his body.

“Not if you’re about to go make yourself sick,” Wally says firmly.

“Why does it matter? You said yourself that I can do what I want.”

“Not if it means hurting yourself! So you had some pizza, who cares? It’s not like you ate a gallon of butter. One meal isn’t going to change anything, but this?” Wally gestures to the door behind him. “Making yourself throw up every time you eat? This will do damage. Do you even give a shit about what you’re doing to yourself?”

“Please, Wally,” Dick begs, and he knows how undignified this is. The tears are flowing before he can stop them. “I need to—I can’t let it—” He doesn’t know how to explain it in a way that makes sense. No one gets it but him. They can’t see the shape Dick makes in the mirror. He’s gripping Wally’s arms for dear life, his hands shaking with the effort.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay.” Wally holds onto Dick just as tightly. His hands are able to wrap completely around Dick’s wrists. “It’s okay. No one’s mad at you. You’re okay.”

Dick doesn’t know how they expect him to live like this. Fighting for every meal like his life is on the line. Having to fight the urge to undo it every time he eats something high in calories. Is this the way other people do life? Is it just a never-ending tug-of-war between starvation and self-hatred?

Is this what his forever is supposed to look like?

He just wants everyone to stop looking. He wants to stop existing so no one can ever lay their eyes on his body again.

They end up sitting right there in the hallway with Wally’s arms wrapped around Dick’s ginormous body to hold him together. Dick wants more than anything to purge and be done with it, but Wally doesn’t leave his side. He stays between Dick and the door no matter how much Dick hates him for it. He waits patiently until Dick’s tears have dried up.

When Dick’s stomach has stopped flipping and it feels less like he’s going to die, Wally gives him a hand up and together they go back to the living room.

None of the other Titans acknowledge Dick and Wally’s absence or ask what happened. They can connect the dots on their own. Dick doesn’t eat another bite for the rest of the evening, keeping to himself on the couch between Wally and Roy. At one point Garth leaves and returns with a sugar-free Gatorade for Dick, which he takes tentative sips of.

He doesn’t know how he’s supposed to deal with this part—the aftermath. Everyone knowing and taking care of him. Dick can’t stand the sensation of everyone’s eyes on him, knowing what he’s done to himself and trying in vain to save him. But he loves his friends. Knowing they love him back eases the itch in small amounts.

They all end up sleeping in the living room together instead of retreating to their own rooms, likely (wisely) not trusting Dick by himself overnight. Whatever His Majesty the Batman demands. They spread out on the couch and on the floor with blankets and sleeping bags, a tangled nest of Titans.

Dick doesn’t know how he and Wally end up sharing Wally’s sleeping bag, but he isn’t complaining. They’re facing each other, huddled close, and Dick can only imagine how tired he must look this close up, how pale and ugly he is. He’ll never understand what Wally sees in him. Can Wally hear his stomach gurgling this close? Can he feel the fat on Dick’s stomach, his arms, his hips? He’s too nice to say anything, but Dick knows it can’t be pleasant to be near him.

“Don’t tell Bruce,” Dick whispers after the others have all fallen asleep. He needs to cover his tracks. “Please. I’m working on it. If he knows what happened, he won’t let me come over for a while. I’ll never see you guys.”

Wally’s mouth is set in a grim line. “He’s just worried, y’know. He wants you to get better. That’s all any of us want.”

Dick rests his head on Wally’s shoulder and closes his eyes. “I don’t want to get better,” he confesses, his voice nearly inaudible. He’s never told anyone that. Bruce and Alfred would freak out and lock Dick away if they knew that he’s already planning how he will lose all the weight he’s gained the second they think he’s cured enough to take their eyes off him.

Wally holds Dick without judgment, without a naysaying word even though Dick knows he can feel every ridge and bump of Dick’s spine. Dick is always cold these days, but Wally’s body heat warms him better than if he were sitting in front of a fireplace. “You don’t have to want it now,” he says. “But one day, years from now, you’ll look back and be glad that you did it. Just wait for that, okay?”

Dick has gained seven pounds since his captors caught on and made him start eating regularly again. He stares at the scale in disbelief, willing the number to go back down.

Bruce doesn’t see the disaster where Dick does, merely giving a low “hrn” that Dick knows from experience means he’s pleased. This was the goal, after all. Eat more, put on more pounds, climb slowly but surely out of the danger zone. It’s what everyone else wants for Dick because they won’t be the ones to deal with the consequences after. It isn’t their body they’re destroying.

No one warned Dick that the worst part of recovery wouldn’t be the physical effects like the digestive issues and the constant fatigue that makes him require at least twelve hours of sleep a night to feel somewhat like a real person. It isn’t even the way the brain fog turns his memory into mush and requires him to learn how to be a person again.

Sometimes Dick spends full hours of the day paralyzed with indecision, unable to make himself grab something to eat regardless of how loudly his stomach growls because the options are all too high in calories for him to allow it, or there are too many carbs, or it’s too low in calories and he knows he’ll be in trouble for not eating more, so instead he sits there and eats nothing because he can’t make up his damn mind.

No, the actual worst part of anorexia recovery is recovering.

Dick jumps down from the scale and pulls his sweatshirt back on. He’s shaking. Seven pounds. Everyone keeps saying he’s better off this way, but how can they expect him to believe that when Dick can see himself getting bigger every day that they keep force-feeding him?

Bruce stops Dick from making a hasty exit with a hand on his shoulder. “Dick, this is a good thing. We’ve talked about this. You’re still not even at a healthy weight, do you realize that? You are still clinically underweight.”

“Yeah, I know,” Dick mutters. Then why can he still feel himself taking up the entire room?

He tries again to leave, but Bruce’s grip is steadfast. “It’s okay, Dick. It’s okay to get better.”

So why doesn’t he feel any better?

That night Dick sits alone at the dinner table with a bowl of beef stew and a bread roll. Alfred is puttering elsewhere in the house, and Bruce finally trusts Dick to make it through meals alone without someone there to coach him. That’s how he gained the seven pounds of fat, after all.

Dick procrastinated by drinking his entire glass of orange juice first, but he still hasn’t attempted the stew or bread. They’ve gone cold.

Ah, there’s that sparkle in your eye I’ve been missing, Alfred told Dick days ago after he triumphantly finished a plate of pasta. Dick has been doing so well, everyone says. Well enough to gain seven pounds. One weigh-in shouldn’t have fucked him up as bad as it did, but he can’t shake the acute awareness of seven pounds of fat clinging to his once-perfect body. He swears he can see it pudging out of his arms and thighs.

Every time Dick tries taking a spoonful he is blinded by the image of that damn number on the scale, and he’s too sick to continue. He’s gained so much weight. And he knows it’s supposed to be healthy and he was dying without it, but he didn’t want this. He wasn’t planning on seven pounds.

How is he going to handle an entire life of this? Every weigh-in he goes through now, that scale is going to tick up another few notches. Where does it end? If just seven pounds is rattling him so deeply, what’s it going to be like when that number changes to ten? To twenty? Can his body even take another twenty pounds?

It’s just food. Dick shouldn’t let it have this much power over him. He’s supposed to be stronger than this.

Personally, I’d really like to see Dick Grayson live.

Dick pushes the sickening image aside and forces himself to bring the spoon to his mouth, chewing and swallowing before he can think about it too deeply. Just get through this meal. Get it down, get it over with. The food isn’t in charge of him. Dick forces down spoonful after spoonful faster than his brain can catch up with him.

Stop being such a fucking baby, he urges himself. It’s just food.

It isn’t until Dick is greeted by the bottom of the bowl that it begins to sink in what he’s done. All that thick broth and the meat and even the potatoes and the salt, he ate it so fast and it was so much.

It should be okay. It’s just one bowl.

It’s okay to get better.

He can’t get better.

He should be better, but what does better even mean anymore? Better isn’t real. It doesn’t mean anything.

He can’t let himself get better.

Dick bolts from the table and runs for the bathroom. He doesn’t care how stupid and pathetic this is or how much trouble he’s going to be in later. He doesn’t fucking care anymore. He gained seven whole fucking pounds and the stew he just guzzled down is only going to push that number higher until he dies, he’s dying right now, he ate too much and it’s going to ruin him.

Dick locks the door behind him and throws himself to his knees. He hasn’t made himself throw up in weeks, but muscle memory is a beautiful thing. His body remembers what to do just fine. He shoves his fingers to the back of his throat until all that broth and beef comes rushing back up and Dick is choking on it. He gasps for air that his lungs can’t find, but he can’t afford to let himself stop long enough to breathe, he needs it out.

There’s pounding on the door that Dick ignores, shoving his fingers deeper and hacking up chunks of partially digested meat and vegetables. He shouldn’t be so surprised when the door opens because a locked door could never stop the Batman. Hands are on Dick’s shoulders and pulling him back but he resists, throwing himself forward to heave again, and this is gross and embarrassing but he needs to, he can’t let the calories sink in and turn into another seven pounds, it’s going to kill him.

“Dick—Dickie, stop it,” Bruce is commanding, pleading. Dick cries big, heaving sobs while bile spots his chin and runs down his wrist, and his stomach clenches on emptiness but he still feels so huge. Dick fights, but Bruce is stronger than him. He’s got Dick’s arms pinned and he holds Dick close against his chest. “Stop it. Breathe, son, you’re okay.”

How has Dick let his life get so fucked up? Why can’t anything be right anymore? He can’t even remember what normal feels like. How can he ever expect to be fixed if episodes like this are just going to keep happening?

Bruce is rocking him back and forth like he’s a child, hushing Dick’s wet sobs and wrenching apologies. “It’s okay, Dick. You’re all right. Breathe.”

Dick shakes his head, fresh tears sliding down his face and mixing with the rest of the mess he’s caused. “I can’t—Bruce, I can’t.” It feels like his heart is being crushed in a fist. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry—”

“Shh, it’s all right,” Bruce says. He’s never held Dick like this before, like he’s his real son and not some cosmic mistake that’s fallen into his lap. “We’ll handle it later. Take a deep breath.”

“It’s too much, I can’t—” He can’t make it stop. The voice in his head ordering him to starve, the number on the scale steadily ticking up and up as his daily calories tick up and up and it’s just too much. “I can’t make it stop, Bruce. It’s too much.”

He knows he wasn’t healthy before, but Dick would rather be unhealthy and perfect than healthy and a failure. He’d rather die beautiful than live like this.

Dick has stopped fighting Bruce off, just letting the older man hold him while he cries. He’s sixteen years old and eight years old at the same time. “I don’t want to get better,” he whispers, shivering. “Please don’t make me. I can’t do it.”

Robin can do anything he sets his mind to, but Dick Grayson is just a kid. This is all he knows how to be.

“But you’re trying,” Bruce reminds him gently. He wipes the mess from Dick’s face with some tissues. He pushes the hair out of Dick’s face so he can see his tear-filled eyes. “It won’t always be this hard, chum, I promise. I’m with you every step of the way.”

He makes it sound so much easier than it is. He makes “better” sound like an attainable thing, as if there is some way to measure what really quantifies as better. Is better ten pounds? Twenty? Where does it end? How long until Dick just relapses again and lets all that so-called progress go right down the drain? How long until everyone around him realizes that he is nothing more than a big waste of their time?

It takes several minutes for Bruce to convince Dick to leave the bathroom floor. He’s dizzy and dehydrated from the vomiting and the crying, but Bruce doesn’t let him fall. They end up going to the kitchen where Bruce makes some wheat toast with peanut butter. It’s one of the very few things he knows how to prepare himself. He makes a plate for himself as well, and he matches Dick bite for bite as Dick slowly forces himself to eat the toast.

“I’m sorry,” Dick says again after he’s choked down the last bite, his voice thick with leftover tears. It takes all his will not to spit out the remnants of peanut butter in his mouth.

“Relapsing is part of recovery,” Bruce recites. It’s something they’ve been told countless times before, but Dick never fully understood how hard it would be until now. “It’s okay, son. I know you’re working on it. We’ll get there together.”

Dick nods, but he still feels hollow. This isn’t a very dignified way for a superhero to be. He’d change everything about himself if he could—strip down all of the details, bad and good, and start over from scratch. Back to the circus, before there was Batman and Robin, before Dick Grayson was anything more than a little boy who wanted to fly.

“I’m…sorry as well,” Bruce says. It’s strange enough to hear Batman apologize that Dick momentarily forgets about the weight of the bread and peanut butter sitting in his gut. “For not noticing sooner. For letting it get this bad. It would be unfair of me to ignore my own role in all of this. I put too much pressure on you as Robin when I should have allowed you to be a child instead.”

“I like Robin,” Dick says. It’s the only thing in the world that he is one hundred percent sure of. “That’s never going to change. I would do it all over again.”

“I know. And I want to preface this by saying that I am not firing you. Robin is yours for however long you want it.”

“Okay.” Dick waits for the but.

“But you don’t have to continue being Robin,” Bruce says, his blue stare completely serious. “There is so much more to you than Robin. There are a million other things you could be doing with your life besides sacrificing yourself for a mission that never should have been your burden to take on in the first place. If you wanted to walk away, I would support you fully.”

Dick can’t even imagine what that would be like. Dick Grayson and Robin have become so inseparable in his mind, so entwined that he can’t fathom a world where he can have one without the other. He doesn’t want it, no matter how fervently rationality reminds him that it would probably be better for him in the long run.

But would it be better for Gotham? Would it be better for Batman?

“Robin or not,” Bruce vows, reaching across the table to squeeze Dick’s hand, “you are my son. I could never be disappointed in you. You will always be a hero to me. You’re allowed to say no to this life.”

“I know that,” Dick says quietly. He pulls his hand back and lifts his gaze from the lacquered table to meet Bruce’s. “And I know it would probably be healthier for me to give it up, but…I want to be Robin. Regardless of the danger, regardless of the burden. The best I ever feel is when I’m wearing that suit. It’s all I want to be.”

“But it isn’t all you have to be,” Bruce stresses. “You don’t owe anyone anything. Your health comes first, Dick, always.”

Dick nods. He clasps his fingers on the table and traces the veins through his thin skin. He can see every bone and joint in them. These hands used to punch out criminals without breaking a nail. They used to swing from the trapeze every dazzling night. “Maybe one day I’ll give it up and find something else, but for now…this is my place, Bruce. By your side, fighting this fight. This is who I want to be.”

He doesn’t want to get better, but he needs to be Robin. If getting better is what it takes to get there, then he’ll do it. He will do whatever it takes.

Bruce lets out a breath. He doesn’t indicate which outcome he was hoping for, and Dick knows better than to ask. “Okay. Then I will do everything in my power to help you get there.”

Wally still visits after school most days of the week. Dick is slowly being given more freedom as he works towards recovery—for real this time—but after the incident from the other day, he’s back to being confined to Wayne Manor apart from school. Dick isn’t as angry about it as he suspects he should be. Maybe that’s part of recovery too.

Wally doesn’t mind the house arrest. There is no shortage of activities they find to do at home: They play video games and do their homework together now that Dick has to catch up on all the schoolwork he missed while he was out. Sometimes they shoot hoops in the yard if Dick has eaten enough for the day to afford the calories burned. Sometimes they just sit in Dick’s room and coexist together. It’s nice.

Mealtimes are still torture, but it’s easier to bear when Wally is around. He’ll talk Dick’s ear off about anything and everything to distract him from what’s on his fork. This strategy works better some days than others. Some days a bread roll will send Dick’s mind into overdrive and he can’t bring himself to take a bite of anything no matter how ravenously his stomach growls.

Wally never gets frustrated with him or calls Dick a baby for not wanting to eat even though he knows it looks that way. He’s pathetic, but all Wally does is kiss Dick’s knuckles and promise him that everything will be okay. If he can’t finish it now, they can save it for later. He’s still doing good.

Neither of them acknowledges the uncertainty of what they are now. Dick doesn’t have the strength to figure it out on top of everything else in his life right now, and Wally doesn’t push him. Dick worries that he may have accidentally fallen in love with Wally. Their kisses are confined to the brief moments they get to share in private, behind closed doors and whenever neither Bruce nor Alfred are watching. The hand-holding is new as well, but they don’t go to such lengths to hide that.

Wally never asks for a single inch more even though Dick is aware it can’t be easy for him. Here is Dick, this fragile, anxious mess who’s forgotten how to live, and Wally can’t do anything to help him except be there. Dick has no idea what will come of this. He can’t ask because asking makes it real, and if it’s real then that means there will be expectations, and Dick can’t handle expectations right now.

Boyfriends do more than kiss. Boyfriends are depended upon. Dick can do neither of those things without shaking apart, and he knows Wally would never pressure him into anything he doesn’t want to do, but the possibility still terrifies him.

You’re not obligated to sacrifice parts of yourself to please others, his therapist’s voice echoes in his head. You are the one in control of your own life. If only he could be.

After Wally leaves for the day to go patrol with Barry in Central City, Bruce knocks on Dick’s door and lets himself in without waiting for a response. “Do you have a minute?”

“Yes, I finished my lunch and had most of my afternoon snack. You can ask Alfred.”

“That is good to hear,” Bruce says, “but that wasn’t what I came here to speak with you about.” Dick arches an eyebrow. It’s the only thing anyone wants to talk about lately. Monitoring Dick’s recovery is a full-time job. Bruce steps into the room to stand in front of Dick’s bed. “You can have Wally over as much as you want so long as Barry approves, and so long as it doesn’t interfere with school. Your friends are always welcome here.”

“Okay?” Dick says.

“But when Wally is here, the door stays open at all times, understand?”

Oh. Dick stares up at Bruce, uncomprehending. In hindsight, it’s not like he has a great track record when it comes to keeping secrets from the world’s greatest detective for long. “You…”

“I’m not naive. And while I do think it would be wiser to practice abstinence at least until you’re more recovered, I remember what it was like to be a teenager. Just promise me you’re being careful.”

“Oh. Uh—no.” At Bruce’s pearl-clutching expression, Dick quickly corrects himself, “I mean, not no as in not being careful, which…” Dick can feel his face heating up several degrees. “I’m not— we’re not…we’re not.”

Bruce nods slowly, piecing together what he can from Dick’s nonsensical explanation. “You and Wally are not together. I apologize, I thought—”

Crap. “No, we are. Together. I think.” Dick still doesn’t know what to call what they are. He doesn’t care what it is so long as Wally isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. They’ll presumably talk more about it once Dick can walk past a mirror without having a meltdown. “But we don’t…do that. I’m not really—I don’t like that stuff. Sex.”

Saying the word around Bruce makes it a million times more embarrassing because he’s Bruce. Sex education and a coming-out talk were not on Dick’s agenda of conversations to have with the goddamn Batman. It was hard enough having to acknowledge his eating disorder aloud.

“Oh,” Bruce says, finally understanding. He looks relieved. “That’s…good,” he says stiffly. “You’re young. There’s no reason for you to rush into anything you aren’t comfortable with.”

“Yeah.” If only he knew.

“And like I said, it’s probably best to hold off for a while until this rough patch is over. Your health will always be more important in the long run than boyfriends or girlfriends.”

“I know,” Dick says. “I’ll be careful.”

Bruce looks profoundly uncomfortable, as he always is whenever they have any conversation resembling a father-son discussion. They’re both wildly out of practice. “But I’m…glad that he makes you happy and is respecting your boundaries. And you know you can always come to me if you need to talk about anything, whether it’s…dating, or if you have questions, or if you need to get something off your chest. Whatever it may be, I’m here. I’ll listen.”

Dick clears his throat, swallowing down the lump in it. “Right. Got it.” There’s a pause as neither of them quite know where to take the conversation now. “Is this as uncomfortable for you as it is for me?”

Bruce cracks something almost resembling a smile. “Very much. On that note, I’ll leave you alone now.”

“Cool, see you at dinner.”

Bruce makes a swift exit after that. But Dick smiles to himself. It’s a step in the right direction for both of them. He isn’t quite Dick’s father, and Dick isn’t quite his son, but they’ve landed somewhere in the middle that isn’t a bad place to be at all.

It takes a back-breaking level of effort, but after Dick gains another two pounds and manages to keep them on, he finally qualifies for the checkpoint weight that means he’s allowed on the trapeze again.

Since he became too sick to handle anything more exertive than walking, Dick hasn’t even let himself into the room that holds that entire chunk of his heart. It was too painful to be faced with all he’d lost. He’s missed it like a limb.

Dick takes his time stretching out, getting used to his body again. He feels both heavier and lighter than he was the last time he was here. It’s been so long since he’s flown.

Dick runs through a few old routines on the wire, just getting back into the swing of it, (pun intended). How heavy was he the last time he swung on these bars? How much more agile, more full of energy? Dick has been making advances in his recovery, but he’s aware that it’s still a long road ahead of him. There’s a possibility that he may never achieve his full potential again, and that thought scares him more than anything he’s been through up to this point.

He just wanted to be perfect.

That was perfect, my little robin!

Dick knows he had a reason for starting all this when he did, but the longer time goes on, the more distant that memory becomes. He can’t even remember when it began. His brain has been so starved of nutrients that a solid portion of this past year is fuzzy to him now. He’s probably better off not remembering.

Bruce advised Dick not to push himself too hard his first time back on the trapeze, but Dick can’t stand not knowing if he even belongs on the wire anymore. He has to see if he’s still the Flying Grayson he was before. He needs to know that everything he’s done to make himself better was worth it.

Dick swings back and forth on the bar, building up momentum for the jump. The quadruple somersault used to be his signature stunt. It was him. The rest Dick can handle losing—his dignity, his independence, his once strong and capable body—but he can’t lose this. After all, a Grayson is nothing if he can’t fly.

Falling is part of it, his mother’s voice reminds him. The important part is that you get back up and you try it again.

There is a net beneath him, but Dick’s heart still races as he swings himself up high and lets go of the bar. He somersaults two, three, four times through the air and catches himself on the opposite bar without so much as a fumble.

Knowing better than to push his luck, Dick swings up to the platform ahead and lands on his feet, wobbling once before he regains his balance. It’s possible that he pushed himself too hard for his first day back on the trapeze after months away, but he can’t make himself care. He’s ecstatic. He hasn’t felt this good since…since…

Someone is applauding below.

Dick peeks over the edge of the platform and sees Alfred standing beneath the trapeze, looking up at him with pride. “That was beautiful, my boy.”

Dick starts to climb down the ladder. “I’m still rusty.”

“You’ve been up there for nearly three hours,” Alfred informs him with a sparkle in his eye. “It’s time for lunch.” Dick had no idea he’d been in here that long. It felt like twenty minutes. “It’s been too long since I’ve seen one of your routines in person. You haven’t changed a bit,” Alfred tells him proudly.

Except that Dick has changed. Better in some ways, worse in others. He’s not the same kid he used to be. He doesn’t know who that person is now, but for once, he doesn’t mind not knowing.

“There is stroganoff waiting for you on the table after you’ve washed up.”

Dick wipes his forehead with a towel and smiles. “Sounds good, Alf. I’ll be there in a minute.”

It takes a lot of trial and error for Dick to reach his new goal weight. He’s been eating everything he’s supposed to and he hasn’t thrown up at all, but his weight has fluctuated up and down between the same numbers no matter how hard he’s tried to keep the pounds on. The daily trapeze sessions don’t help, but Bruce and Alfred seem to understand that Dick needs it to live at this point. They don’t discourage his workouts so long as they are done in moderation.

And Dick knows better now. He doesn’t work himself into oblivion anymore, pushing harder and harder until his body is close to giving out under him. He just wants to fly again.

Dick’s body isn’t used to him taking care of himself anymore, but he doesn’t stop trying. No one will let him stop trying, and slowly but surely, Dick finally hits the checkpoint. The one he’s been waiting for all these laborious months. The only thing in the world that really matters to him.

It’s been too long since he’s suited up in the Robin uniform.

The suit is still baggy on him around his arms and stomach, but not so severely as it was before. Alfred opted not to tailor the suit to cling better to his starved physique, trying to give Dick a visible goal to attain. His extra armor pads it out in the meantime and makes up for the loss. Soon it will fit again the way it’s supposed to.

Robin is prohibited from jumping into any real action aside from providing backup if Batman gets in a pinch, but Dick doesn’t mind being relegated to the sidelines. He’ll get back in the field properly soon enough. Recovery is no longer just a possibility—it’s a promise. Dick will get his weight back up come hell or high water. He will bring Robin back into the fray.

Bruce’s reflection appears behind him in the mirror, already suited up himself, cowl and all. He looks down at his Robin with pride. “Ready to head out, chum?”

Dick turns away from the mirror to send Bruce his first real grin in months. “Born ready.”