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It wouldn't be hard to give in.
The situation is the same—so much the same—as before. Not directly before Dick got himself entangled in this mess, those few blissful months of freedom with the Titans that sometimes feel like a dream, a pretty lie he told himself in the first days of his capture as a rallying cry to escape; no, this feels like before before. With... Bruce. And it feels like before, because, cynically speaking, it is.
Think about it: one sullen, angry protégé; one harsh, angry mentor; one quiet, reserved butler, in a space too large, too dark, too full of blood and secrets.
("I'm not a butler," Wintergreen's offended voice echoes in Dick's head. But the image that comes with it—sudsy hands planted firmly on the man's hips, dishwater soaking unheeded into the faded blue apron far too much like the stupid kiss the cook one Dick made Bruce buy as a joke, a fond frown turned down at him that's far too much like Alfred's—hits too close regardless.)
("Perhaps some day I'll even be like a father to you," come darker words, more damningly. Dick had hurled them off at the time, disgusted, incredulous. But they stick to him still, in the corners of his mind, and he can never quite get rid of them.)
It wouldn't be hard at all to give in to a new normal. He's already settled into a routine, has come to recognize the quirks in the men around him (the twist of Will's wrinkles that could show his hidden humor, the shade of Slade's eye that could warn when to push and when not to), has learned the floor with his feet. He can wander in the dark in the dead of night without stumbling and tell from their breath who might come upon him.
He knows this place, these people, too well, and they're beginning to grow a bitter taste of home. It would be almost easy to accept that.
It would be a betrayal, too. A heinous one, against Bruce, against all that he has stood and sacrificed for since he was eight years old, against those he's helped hurt, against his own mind. A bent knee he can't take back.
Easy never used to define his path. Easy can't remotely describe his time here, for the most part. But, maybe that's the point. You can only swim against the tide for so long; eventually, your lungs will burn themselves through. Eventually, the water will shove you down, and there will be nothing you can do against it.
Eventually, maybe, you won't care to.
Maybe he doesn't care to.
Maybe—maybe, there's no point to his torturing himself with a token resistance when the only resistance that has mattered has been beaten down. What is his mind, against his body's actions? What is willingness, against obedience?
(What is love for a father who hasn't shown, against—)
What was ever the point of swimming in the middle of the open ocean?
It is three am. It is dark in a familiar way, nothing alien to the shadows around him. Dick shifts on his bed, and the mattress beneath him lays firm in a familiar way, the blanket over him wafts the faint, familiar scent of detergent he has come to know. His eyes stare aimlessly forwards at all too familiar walls.
He pushes himself up, gets to his feet. Leaves through a door no longer locked, walks with steady blindness down a hall to the kitchen. Blinks against the familiar, faded yellow light above the sink, and pulls out his own mug to fill with tap water that has lost its odd tang. Sips, in a familiar quiet.
His heart—beating smoothly, if tiredly—thumps too loudly in the stillness. Tell-tale. It aches, but he isn't sure it's calling for anyone anymore, rather than just… being known.
He could lie to himself.
He doubts it'll make much difference to anyone else.
He's tired.