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Dick had felt grief before. It wasn’t anything new. His parents were sent plummeting to their doom. Jason was blown apart by the joker. Bruce was obliterated fighting Apocalypse. Tim was AWOL on his hopeless Brucequest, leaving no clues where he was. Damian was killed by a boy wearing his own face.
Really, he wasn’t a stranger to losing people. It’s practically a job requirement when you’re a Bat. Well, now the Bat. Anyways, what Robin came with parents? Tim doesn’t count, his parents are basically dead with how absent they are.
Whatever. All this to say, Dick is used to it. He knows the stages of grief. He’s mastered them by now. All Bats should be.
This is what Dick tells himself every night as he lies awake. Tonight is no different. His head rests on the sweat soaked pillow, sheets throw aside. He’d had to end patrol early. Now that it was Dick patrolling as Batman, he’s the only target for the rage of Gotham. Now, he sits, fever stricken from an infection raging through a stab wound he hadn’t cared to disinfect.
Tonight, like countless others, he stares at the ceiling, counting the rivets in the popcorn ceiling of his childhood bedroom. He tries to avoid remembering how Bruce had changed it from the sleek, seamless box to something that was less sterile. Something to make it his .
No, he keeps his eyes trained on the ceiling. Dick doesn’t let his gaze stray to the wall to his right. He won’t let himself catch even a glimpse of the charcoal drawing resting there, framed with pride. He shouldn’t be allowed to take in the soft lines, the very joy and love the family portrait conveys. Not when he let Damian die. He doesn’t deserve to let himself remember.
Dick’s on rivet number 257 now. He winces as his insides boil within him, but he keeps counting. They’re safer than the few books that sit on his shelf. If he dared (he doesn’t), all he would see would be pockets of his little brother. The one Jason used to be. The little brother than had gifted him the stories that had been his light in the darkness, hoping to connect. Dick wouldn’t let himself stare at the dust they collected. He couldn’t bring himself to read the stories even now, as if they were meant to be a bridge to a brother taken from him. Taken by people Dick couldn’t bring himself to kill.
He won’t think about the skateboard boxed up beneath his bed. If he did, flashes of a boy just out of reach would appear. The wheels were barely worn, ridden once or twice before it was packed away. Before the distance between Tim and Dick grew by miles, stranding him with no road to skate towards his brother. It had been his fault. He’d taken Robin (it was taken from Dick first), he’d allowed Damian to thrive at the expense of Tim. He’d called him unstable and crazy and now that boy was gone in the wind.
The heat was getting too unbearable to keep his eyes open. Dick refused to close his eyes, fighting to stay squinting at the popcorn ceiling. Darkness engulfed most of his vision, nearly swallowing the little rivets whole. The iron dam he kept to stave off anything less than perfect, anything that would dishonor his family’s memory was holding on by a thread, cracking under pressure as water leaked from the crevices.
What’s a son’s purpose if all the planets have all left his orbit? If you had no one to shine for, why would you waste the hydrogen for an empty audience? What was the point.
Maybe it's time to rest. Dick felt himself start to relax. His muscles loosened in a way he hadn’t allowed for in… he didn’t know when. Alfred’s with his daughter. Maybe, maybe I can go to sleep. It’d be nice to see them again.
As he closed his eyes, he heard a voice. One Dick hadn’t heard in years. The voice he’d heard in a stupid voicemail he played over and over and over just to hear it one more time. Tears sprung to Dick’s eyes, or was that just sweat running down his temple to his cheek?
“Rob, what’s going on?” Wally asked. Wally, the boy that had died to save the world from the REACH because Dick couldn’t figure out how to stop them faster. The boy he’d shared so much with. Wally, the one person Dick refused to reminisce on.
He knew he’d never recover if he allowed himself to feel a fraction of that pain. So like any Bat, he pushed it down. Gave an outstanding wellness check to Dinah. And he went on pretending his world hadn't shattered in two.
“Rob?” Wally called out again. “What’s going on man? I’m worried about you.”
Dick forced out a short, bitter laugh. He’s really not there. It’s just the fever.
Despite what Dick tried telling himself, he couldn’t help the knife in his chest that the voice had driven in. It didn’t matter that his eyes were shut and all he could hear was Wally’s voice. It felt like his best friend, the one he’d give his soul to bring back, was at his bedside.
“You’re not real,” Dick rasped out. He gripped the sweat soaked sheets, trying to ground himself. “Wally’s gone.”
Wally, or whatever hallucination this fever brought on, made a wounded sound. “Dick, what do you mean I’m not here? Bud, I’m right here.”
“No you’re not,” Dick shook his head roughly, wet bangs slapping against his forehead. “Wally died.”
“What? I'm pretty sure I’m alive,” The hallucination sounded confused. “Dick, what’s going on? This joke is funny anymore. So not aster!”
Dick barked out a laugh. It shocked him. He hadn’t heard aster in the longest time. No one could stand to use the goofy word plays they’d come up with after Wally. They didn’t feel right.
But now, hearing it come out of this hallucination that had Wally’s voice? It broke something in Dick. Something that finally broke through the dam, water bursting from the seams until the door was ripped from its hinges, bolts flying. All that was left was a flood and the destruction it would no doubt leave in its wake.
Tears that had been on a drip now flowed uncontrollably down Dick’s face. The laugh that had been shocked out of him morphed into sobs. Wrenching, body shaking sobs that tore through him, setting fire to every nerve.
Is this punishment? Should I have done more? Why, why can’t I protect anyone. Everyone’s gone. Dick hiccuped listening to the soothing, sweet nothings the Wally hallucination was trying to give. If I had only been better. Faster. Stronger. Maybe they’d all still be here. It’s my fault.
“I miss you so much,” Dick spoke, cutting off Wally. “Everyday, it feels like I’m walking through life with a hole in my chest. I have to pretend it isn’t there and that I don’t feel the wind rushing through, making everything burn like I’m dying.”
Dick could practically hear the sad smile in Wally’s voice when he spoke. “It’s okay Rob. You can go to sleep now. You can rest.”
It was like those were the keys to salvation. Dick felt a heavy blanket settle over his brain, starting from the edges to the center. Despite the calm, soft slumber that awaited him, panic spread through Dick like a wildfire.
“Wait! Please, don’t go. I need you ,” He knew he was begging at this point, but Dick didn’t care. He didn’t care that this was all a hallucination. All he wanted was his best friend in any way he could have him.
“I can’t keep going. Everyone’s gone,” Dick’s sobs softened as he felt his already loose muscles settle into the mattress like a puzzle piece. “Don’t leave me here alone.”
Wally shushed like one would a crying child. “It’s okay, it’ll all be okay. You’ve got to keep going. I don’t know what’s wrong, but there’s nothing my best friend can’t handle.”
As sleep finally drove its claws deep into Dick and drug him into the chasm of sleep, he thought he felt something. It felt like a pair of soft, familiar lips on his cheeks. Goodnight Wally.