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Dick is- is spiraling, just a little.
He feels pathetic admitting it to himself, but he’s been spiraling for a while. The moment Jason died, everything went downhill. Sure, things weren’t great before, but… But they never got any better after his baby brother’s death. They got worse.
And worse.
And worse, and worse, andworseandworseandworse-
He can’t eat solid food anymore.
Ever since Spyral — ever since that pill went down his throat — his stomach either physically rejected it and it came back up, or — on worse days — it couldn’t even go down the first time.
At some point, he gave up trying. He only consumed plain soup, smoothies, energy drinks, or just… water.
He was hungry, always. Fluids filled him at first, but only for so long before all they did was make his stomach hurt somehow worse. He… doesn’t know how to fix it. It’s like his body is physically rejecting anything he tries to nourish it, and it makes everyday things that much less appetizing.
The- the rain.
It…
It hurts. It makes his skin crawl and his breath hitch every time he hears it outside, and it makes his stomach twist even further up in knots when drops of water hit his skin. He can hear Catalina’s whispers in his ear, can feel her hands on his body, and just thinking about it makes him want to hurl and sob and break things. He can’t shower, because of this, and sometimes even baths are too much.
He can’t sleep, either. Insomnia and night terrors had been issues the moment his parents hit the ground, but it got more and more unappealing the longer he lived; the longer people died and bad things happened; the longer the people he knew and loved began to hate him.
Everything hurts.
Splotches of black and blue litter every inch of Dick’s body. Most bruises, he’s not even sure where he got them. Thinking too hard and remembering too intensely make his brain throb and his vision white out.
He can’t… remember quite right, either. There are plenty of instances where he’s sure he’ll remember and then acts surprised and distressed when he forgets.
He comes to consciousness in random places. Dick remembers waking up, once, on the kitchen floor with a handful of pills. He’d freaked out that night and cried for so long he fell asleep on that same spot on the floor. He was sure he’d die, and when he woke up the next day, he was slightly unsettled to find that he was disappointed to live another day — and then annoyed that he’d gotten so worked up.
Suffice to say, Dick is spiraling — just a little. Sure, he sometimes lingers on the ledges of rooftops, wondering, “If I fell and didn’t grapple in time, would I survive? Would anyone miss me?” But those are just thoughts. He… He wouldn’t actually do it.
He wouldn’t.
Even though he’s extremely tired, and everything hurts, and he let his family and friends down to the point where they won’t look at him without a hint of contempt or disappointment, and he hates himself, and he can’t keep track of the days, and he feels like a stranger in his own body.
He… He wouldn’t do it, Nightwing thinks as he sits on the ledge of a Blüdhaven rooftop, watching cars blur by.
He wouldn’t.
But what’s stopping him?
He doesn’t realize that how he scoots closer to the edge every time he gets a little too comfortable, just to feel his heart beat faster, might be saying something different than what he’s thinking.
It’s a testament to how out of it he is that Dick doesn’t notice a civilian has climbed up the emergency roof exit stairs until the young woman sits next to him. His heart jumps, but Dick makes sure to keep himself from flinching. He keeps an eye on the civilian in the corner of his vision. He can’t seem to tear his eyes away from the headlights below.
”Y’know… We’ve been here before,” the stranger says. Dick forgets he has a mouth before hearing his own voice ask, “We have?” He thinks maybe he might have just thought it, but the woman nods. “We have. I mean- maybe not this rooftop, particularly? But, uh, another one — in this city, Y’know?” She rambles. Dick nods numbly to show he’s listening.
”I was… I think, fourteen,” the woman continues, and Dick makes no move to interrupt. “Parents were fighting, was getting bullied at school... I was going to do it. And then I heard you land on the roof.”
The mention of him makes him tense. He doesn’t know what will come out of her mouth first — disappointment and that he’d stopped her from jumping, or gratitude. But he’s afraid he’ll react wrong in either situation. He’s had a knack for that, lately.
”You asked if you could sit down,” she continues, “and I just remember thinking ‘I don’t own the rooftop, of course you can sit down!’” The corner of Dick’s mouth twitches upward at the incredulity of her voice. “But you were Nightwing, so of course I was going to say yes. We talked. I talked. You listened. And then you gave some pretty awesome advice.” She takes a deep breath in. “The point is… you saw me sitting on the edge of a rooftop looking awful, and decided to sit next to me. Be my friend for a whole hour. I saw you on a rooftop and I… I mean, I don’t know your situation at all. I’m not even sure if you were going to try and do it. But… I’m here,” she says gently. Dick blinks, and suddenly he’s sitting next to a teenage girl, saying that exact same phrase. She’d talked, and then she’d cried, and then she’d laughed. They’d talked for a long while, and Dick had given her a burner, just in case she ever thought of doing this again. She never called, and Dick had always hoped she’d gotten better. He comes back to himself, still staring down at the traffic below. Suddenly, reality seeps in, and the blur of cars makes him sick. Before he can stop himself, Dick is coughing up stomach acid on the rooftop — on the opposite side of the girl.
”Oh, shoot,” he hears her mutter distantly. When he stops heaving, his stomach now twice as sore as it was before, he sits back upright, scoots backward slightly, covers his dizzy eyes with his palms, and lets out a laugh. Once one escapes his mouth, he can’t stop.
Laughter morphs into sobbing, and a hesitant hand is placed on his shoulder.
It doesn’t leave, or ask for anything he doesn’t want to give.
It just stays.