Archive of Our Own

There is an odd sense of unreality that washes over Dick. 

He is not real. He is slipping in and out of time, in that moment and this one and the one over there and none at all. He hears, distantly, leaves fluttering, muffled footsteps on grass, the calls of birds that do not exist outside dreams. 

Is this a dream? 

It might be. 

There is something about this moment that has a distinct note of mint, of ravens, of judgemental glares and elegant facial features. Dick is touching the door to his car, and it is a nice car, certainly, but it is not older than him, or orange, and it does not break down at inconvenient times. It is not a 1973 Camaro that is called the Pig, an affectionate insult, and Richard Grayson gets into the car and tries to make sense of his memories as Richard Campbell Gansey III. 

-

The drive gives him ample time to think. Dick—Gansey—Dick drives, and drives, and he stops for gas only a few times. It's seven hours, and he has a bag that holds his charger, his laptop, a few changes of clothes, his suit, a few weapons, and nothing else. He doesn't need anything else. 

He doesn't stop to sleep; he eats jerky and other junk food that he buys in gas stations, using cash, not card, because he really, really doesn't want Bruce tracking him. He doesn't want any of them tracking him.

Perhaps it's unfair to think that they would; perhaps it's more fair to think that they are worried and not just nosy. 

But Dick knows his family, and he and Bruce are skating on a line so thin that even a single conversation threatens to send him over the edge, and Dick is a grown adult capable of making his own decisions. 

So Dick drives, and drives, and drives, and when he parks in front of 300 Fox Way, Maura Sargent and the Gray Man are standing outside, waiting. 

Dick shuts the door behind him and smiles and doesn't think about how he could maybe beat the Gray Man in a fight. 

“Maura,” he greets, “Mr. Gray.”

“Gansey,” Maura says, and something in Dick settles, the acknowledgement of who he is, the knowing he's not crazy, not about this. It's real. It was all real, and now Dick is standing in Henrietta, Virginia, and he goes a little quiet on the inside. 

“Blue and the boys are inside,” Maura adds. “Would you like to come in?”

“Yes,” Dick says. He thinks: Blue. And he thinks: Ronan. And he thinks: Adam. And he even, a little, thinks: Henry. And he thinks about how he's always been a little empty, a little out of place, like he had been tilted to the side his whole life and hadn't realized until he was straightened once more. 

He follows Maura inside, and the Gray Man amiably walks beside him, and they exchange a look. 

It's a look that says: I know what you are. It says: I don't know who would win. It says: You are different, and dangerous, and I respect you. It settles something else in Dick, and he gives the Gray Man a small smile, which is returned.

“Blue,” Maura shouts, as Dick breathes in the familiar scent of 300 Fox Way. 

Blue comes pounding down the stairs, and she skids to a stop the second she sees Dick. She can't know who he is, not with how different he looks, not with how much of a difference person he clearly is, but her eyes widen all the same. 

She looks good. She's older now, and her hair would go down to brush her shoulders if it weren't pinned up by an assortment of clips, and she's not taller but she's fuller, and Dick has missed her so, so much. 

“Gansey,” she breathes out, like a prayer, and suddenly Dick can't talk through the emotion welling up in his throat. He gives a tiny nod, and Blue barrels into his arms; it's through sheer practice of catching Cass and Steph and Gar in the same way that he's able to keep his balance, spin her around, put her back down on her feet and bury his nose in her wild hair. 

“Blue,” he says. “Jane. Blue.”

“Gansey,” she returns, pulling back to cup his face in her warm hands, “Gansey, Gansey, Gansey.”

God, Dick loves her. 

He follows her to her room, where Ronan and Adam are crowded together on the bed. They lock eyes, looks pass, and there are no explanations needed for Dick to fall into their pile. 

Ronan tousles his hair roughly, and Adam grasps Dick’s wrist in a loose hold and brings it up to his lips so he can brush a kiss over Dick's knuckles. 

“What the fuck,” Ronan says, pinching Dick's arm. He hisses, shoots Ronan a dirty look, and lightly cuffs him on the back of his shaved head. 

“I don't know,” he says. “Magic.”

“Magic,” Adam echoes distantly, looking at once like he's right here and a million miles away. Dick adjusts his position as Blue clambers on her bed, and he rests his hand on Adam's cheek as they tangle together until he can't tell where he ends and the others begin. 

“Magic,” Blue agrees, wrinkling her nose. 

“Dick,” Ronan says, and Dick is unclear whether that's meant to be his name, or an insult, or both, but he smiles. 

“Yeah,” he says. His head tips back and falls on Adam's chest. 

“Yeah?” says Blue incredulously. 

Dick gives a one shouldered shrug; Ronan cackles. It makes something in Dick’s heart, previously grounded, spread its wings and soar. Maybe it's a raven. Or, maybe, it's a robin. He can't tell, and he doesn't want to dig deep enough to find out. 

Make way for the Raven King. 

“Yeah,” he says wryly. 

“Do you want us to call you that?” Adam asks, curling a strand of Dick's hair around his finger. 

Dick considers this. “No.”

“Dick,” says Ronan gleefully. Dick thinks about Jason, and happy boys that have been chipped away until nothing is left but anger and grief and violence. 

He sighs, heavily, and doesn't tell Ronan off, because what is this, Ronan's joy over his name being, once more, prime for jokes, over Jason's constant dickhead and dickface and goldie? Nothing. It is nothing. It is less than Dick has had to put up with; it is everything he wants to keep putting up with. 

“Henry?” he asks, and he very carefully doesn't ask about Noah, because his throat is tight enough, and he doesn't need to cry in front of them. 

“With his mother,” Adam says. 

“With Declan,” Ronan corrects. 

“Both can be true at the same time.”

Ronan scoffs. Chainsaw caws and lands on Dick's hair, picking at the black strands. 

“Opal's with Matthew,” Blue says before Dick can ask. “They're — what are they doing? Bowling?”

“Something,” Ronan says with a roll of his eyes that indicates nothing other than fond annoyance. It makes the last bit of Dick settle, and for what feels like the first time in eight hours, he exhales. 

-

Gansey is, as he always was, and always will be, a king masquerading as a boy. 

Even now, with his skin darker, with his eyes bluer, with his body longer and leaner and stronger, he is a king in a world of peasants. 

Make way for the Raven King. 

He feels fragile under Adam's careful hands, stroking his black hair around Chainsaw’s beak. He feels different. He feels the same. He feels like Gansey, because he is, even if he isn't only Gansey anymore. 

Adam suddenly, fervently, misses his early days at Aglionby, when he hadn't yet known Gansey was human enough to break. 

The others are talking, grilling Gansey about his life, how this happened — and it's a little funny, because Gansey so hated his first name, and now, in this new life that he's living, his first name is the same. 

Adam is good at noticing things; he notices how Gansey skates around details, his last name, tells him my siblings and I are all adopted, emotionally if not legally, and the youngest, my baby brother (and here Adam hears a little of what Gansey does not say, that his littlest brother is more than just that, though Adam can't tell what yet) is the only biological kid. He says I live in New Jersey but I'm around San Francisco pretty often too, and he doesn't name the city in Jersey, and he doesn't say Kavinsky’s name, though Adam, out of the corner of his eye, sees Ronan's own eyes flatten. 

Gansey was always good at dancing around subjects he didn't want to talk about; he was always good at working his silver tongue to get what he wanted; he was always good at talking. But before it was a necessity; now, it is like an art form. Adam is entranced at the way that Gansey cleverly maneuvers the conversation back to where he wants it, without Ronan or Blue ever noticing. Or, if they do notice, without them thinking much of it. 

“Adam,” says Gansey, and it is only then that Adam realizes he has been quiet for too long. 

“I'm here,” he replies. Here, not Cabeswater, which doesn't exist in that form anymore. Here, not at the trailer. Here, here, here, with Gansey and Blue and Ronan, in this moment, firmly rooted in the present. 

-

Gansey had never been clumsy, exactly, but now Blue watches this new Gansey gracefully dodge everything he doesn't want to touch, be it physical or verbal or emotional. 

She'd missed him like she would miss a limb, like she thinks Adam must miss his hearing in his deaf ear, like she thinks they all miss Cabeswater. 

Make way for the Raven King. Make way for the king. 

She's still in love with them all, years after Gansey had died for the second time and disappeared into the ley line; she's just not in lust with them. She is older now, they all are, and Gansey is both Richard Campbell Gansey III and Dick Whatever His Last Name Is, and Blue loves him, and she hates him a little for leaving her, and she kisses him that night, him in her bed, Adam and Ronan on the couch downstairs, and she thinks: I like this, but I don't want this. 

Or, no, because Gansey’s lips are soft on hers and his hands are warm on her face and his chest is solid where she splays her hands out, but she doesn't want to be his girlfriend. 

She likes kissing him, and it's a relief to have her only memory of kissing Gansey being the thing that killed him to no longer be true, but she doesn't want him like she did a few years ago. 

“I missed you,” he whispers into her mouth, and she swallows his words and pushes him flat out on her bed and she lays on top of him like a blanket. “I didn't know what I was missing, but it was you.”

“And Ronan,” she murmurs, tracing his jaw, “and Adam, and Henry, and this house, and the Pig” (for Adam had, at Blue's insistence, picked it up and brought it over, and they all watched Gansey try not to cry, and they all tried to stifle their own emotions) “and Henrietta.”

“And the ley line,” he agrees distantly, like he's thinking of something else, “and the Barns, but, Blue, I missed you.”

She pulls back to search his gaze. Does he mean to keep kissing her, she wonders, like kissing is all they'll ever do, or like he wants to take her out?

“I missed you too,” she says, plucking her words out of the rushing river of her mind. Gansey smiles, and it's a Gansey smile, a real Gansey smile, one that isn't manufactured or pleasant but one that is pleased and joyful, like a less-sharp version of Ronan's laughter, earlier, and she thinks, Oh. 

Yes. 

They are in agreement about this. 

“Do you want to kiss Ronan?” Blue asks curiously. She's always wondered, in the back of her mind, especially after knowing Ronan and Adam had kissed. It hasn't really gone away in the years since. 

Gansey doesn't say anything for a moment, his (blue) eyes falling on one of her posters. When he finally answers, his voice is a trained sort of steady. “Yes.”

“And Adam?” she presses. 

He huffs at her, tugs at her hair, kisses her. She loses herself in him before scraping her teeth over his neck just to watch him shiver. 

“Yes,” he says. His eyes are closed. 

“They'd let you.”

He falters, and it's not the first time she's seen him falter, not even the first time today, but — still. It is Gansey, faltering, and that makes Blue frown because Gansey so rarely falters. 

“They would,” she insists. 

“I'm kissing you right now,” he says, and, well, yes. That's true. Blue quite likes kissing him. But he's still deflecting. But then he lets out a breath that smells of mint and sadness, and she's missed him, and she doesn't want to fight with him, so she lets him kiss her until they fall asleep, tangled together. 

-

Ronan has to shield his eyes from the force of the sun. It's like the Barns is reflecting his mood, fiercely happy, overflowing with it in a way he hasn't felt since before Niall Lynch had died. 

Gansey, Blue, and Adam are a triangle in the grass, heads resting in the middle, bodies spread out. Ronan is standing, Adam's phone in his hand, watching the three dots jump and disappear and jump and disappear. 

“He's not answering,” Ronan reports. 

“He's not answering or he's texting right now and you're just impatient?” Blue shoots back. 

Ronan drops the phone on her chest just as words finally appear. He doesn't regret it. Adam shouldn't have given his phone to Ronan in the first place. 

“He’ll be here in forty minutes,” she says. 

Ronan's watching Gansey, like all of them have been watching Gansey since he showed up, inexplicably, at Blue's house; he lets out a little breath, like he's relieved. Henry Cheng had been a late addition, but an addition he had been, and Gansey won't be solid until he has all of his court at his disposal. 

A sharp, sudden ringing cuts through the dreamy atmosphere of the Barns, and Gansey pushes up until he's sitting. He makes a face as he pulls out his phone, but when he glances at the caller ID he accepts the call and presses it to his ear. 

“Yeah?” he says. He listens to whatever the other person is saying and interjects, “No, but — well, yeah, obviously —”

They're all up and watching him now. Ronan falls down, onto Adam's lap; Adam grunts and pinches his side. 

Gansey is Gansey, but he isn't Gansey, but he is — but he's not only Gansey right now. He's whoever he's been for his whole life, this life, open and expressive and less uptight, like someone had taken the stick from out of his ass. 

“Christ, Jay,” Gansey says, and it is so very apparent that he has lived an entire life away from them, away from Ronan. “No, that's not — will you — listen — yes, I'm aware, thank you—”

Gansey groans and tucks his legs into a criss-cross. He scrubs a hand through his hair, messing up the easy waves until they tumble into curls. 

“Can't you — well,” Gansey says, and his eyes are bright now. Ronan leans forward, though he can't, unfortunately, hear whatever the other person is saying. Gansey scowls, and it's a foreign look, even on this new face of his. “No. I'm not gonna talk to him for you, Jesus. You're an adult, you can talk to him yourself. I'm not a messenger.” He listens. Ronan watches Adam watch Gansey. “I don't know, I'm out of town. …None of your business. …Okay, and? Just because I — wow, Little Wing—” Little Wing, Ronan files away “—thanks, that means so much — no!” 

And here Gansey's voice rises, and Ronan and Adam stop pretending like they're being subtle (Blue hadn't pretended in the first place). “I don't care. No, shut up, my turn. I'm an adult, I can go wherever I want without being stalked, and if I have to talk to him right now I will say something I'll regret.” He closes his eyes. “Fine. Okay.” His voice softens. “I love you.” Ronan doubts the other person said it back by the way Gansey sighs, long-suffering. 

“Sorry,” Gansey says, putting his phone back in his pocket. He has a sheepish look on his face that doesn't belong there. 

“It's fine,” Blue answers for all of them. “Who was that?”

“My brother,” Gansey says, rolling his eyes, and here, too, is another not-Gansey-like thing Gansey has been doing. “He wanted to know if I'm coming over Sunday, there's a dinner at our dad's.”

“You're not?” questions Adam. Gansey's eyes go blank for half a moment. 

“No.” He rubs at his temple like he has a headache. “My dad was pissing me off, so I'm not talking to him until he apologizes.”

Here, too. Here, there. Here, Gansey's hair, his skin, his eyes; here in Gansey's body language and here in Gansey's voice and here in Gansey's words. Gansey whoever-he-is-now. Dick Last Name Unknown. Richard Gansey, Richard Blank, Richard, Dick, Gansey, other names that Ronan doesn't know but is nonetheless aware exist. 

“Stalked?” says Adam softly, and Ronan is all at once overcome with awe at his clever boyfriend. Ronan had caught it too, the word, and so had Blue, but Gansey had brushed over it so easily that neither of them had thought to ask. 

Gansey shrugs. “My brother — other brother — used to stalk us.” He smiles, fond at the memory, and Ronan thinks that maybe Gansey is just a little fucked up, now. “His pictures are incredible.”

“And you're just — okay with this,” Blue says dubiously. 

“Well.” Gansey exhales; it comes out as a laugh. “My family is —”

“Fucked up,” Ronan offers. Adam sends him a sharp look that only falls aside when Gansey answers with a simple Yes. 

“If it's alright,” Gansey says, “I'd rather not be interrogated. Please.”

Please, he says, like they wouldn't do nearly anything for him. Please, he says, like just because he's another person right now means he's not still their king. 

Make way for the Raven King, Ronan thinks sardonically. Make way for King Dick. 

-

Henry yanks Dick into a hug, and Dick hugs back. He'd forgotten how easily he breathed with touch; yes, he has the Titans, but he's over there once in a while, not nearly enough, and his family are mostly, well, non-huggers. So this — with Ronan and Adam and Blue who live and breathe and talk in casual touch — is a relief. It's a weight off his shoulders; it's changing into warm, dry clothes after being out in the rain.

“Hi,” Dick laughs. 

“Hello!” Henry beams at him. “Hello hello, Gansey-boy, Dickie-boy.”

“Gansey's fine,” Dick says. Henry wags his finger. 

“You go by your name, no?”

“Well. Yes.”

“Do you like your name?”

More than he used to. It used to fit like it was just a bit too small, or too big, just off enough that he disliked it. It fits, now, like how Gansey fits. Like how Robin fits (even if it's not his anymore. Even if Bruce had stripped him of it, of the name that his parents gave him, of his way of honoring them and gave it away to a stranger, to a broken little boy). 

“Yes,” he says honestly. 

“Then by your name I shall call you,” Henry declares. “Make way for the Raven King; make way for Dick Gansey.”

A collective shudder goes through them all at Henry's words. Make way, make way. Dick is no king. He is a boy is a man is dead is alive is no king. 

“Make way,” Ronan echoes, mockingly. 

“For the king,” Blue picks up. 

“Make way for the Raven King,” Adam says. 

Dick has a feeling that something had passed between the four of them that he isn't privy to. 

-

The day is spent in the Barns. The next day is spent back at 300 Fox Way; the day after, back at the Barns. The fifth day is the day they can no longer cling to each other. Dick wanders around Henrietta, stopping by Nino’s, passing by Monmouth Manufacturing, driving up to the old church where Blue and her mother talk to the nearly-dead. 

Here is where he had recorded them. Here is where he had learned of his coming death. 

He grips the wheel of the Pig. 

Here is where this happened. Here is where that happened. Here, in Henrietta, is where Gansey's life had truly become his life; here, too, is where it had ended. 

And here Dick is, in Henrietta, on the ley line, in his beat up old Camaro, by the old, abandoned church, like he's waiting to hear himself speak once more. 

He ought to head back. There is nothing here, not for him, not anymore. 

It takes him another hour to start the car. 

He parks on the street; the Gray Man is there, waiting for him. Dick doesn't get out of the car. The Gray Man comes in. 

“Dean Allen,” he offers. 

“Dick Grayson,” Dick replies, and they share an amused gaze. 

“You walk like you will be attacked any moment,” the Gray Man observes as Dick pulls away from Blue's house. 

“It's not paranoia,” Dick says, a shrug in his voice. He does not finish the phrase. He doesn't need to; the Gray Man knows it as intimately as Dick does. 

“True,” the Gray Man concedes. 

They drive until Dick deems them far enough, and then they walk, deep into the forest. And then the Gray Man pulls out a knife, and Dick pulls out his escrima sticks.

“Interesting choice,” the Gray Man notes. 

“I don't kill,” replies Dick. The Gray Man considers this, and then nods. And then he lunges. 

-

“Where's Gansey?” Blue asks, kicking off her shoes. Adam is right behind her, toeing off his shoes in a much more sedate manner. 

“Went off with Mr. Gray,” calls Calla, poking her head in the room. “Coca cola.”

“Calla,” Adam returns. 

“Come here, I'm trying a new recipe.”

Adam and Blue share a look, but, ultimately, nothing is worth Calla's wrath. They sit down at the table, thighs pressed together, ankles hooked. 

“So,” Calla says, placing a steaming cup of what Adam thinks is meant to be tea in front of each of them, “what do you think about him?”

“Gansey?” Blue clarifies, poking at her cup. 

“No, God,” Calla deadpans. “Yes. The king.”

Adam stops himself before he can think it. They're all thinking it, though. Henry had just been the one to say it aloud. 

“He's — Gansey,” Blue says, like just his name is enough to get across every nuance that is Dick Gansey. 

“Right, but what do you think about Dick?”

“I think,” Adam says, glancing at Blue, “that we haven't met Dick yet.”

They've seen little glimpses; changes in Gansey's speech patterns, a different body language that they are all relearning. And, most of all, the things that haunt him. There are so many, now, and Adam has no idea what any of them are. He doubts Gansey will tell them. 

“Hmmm,” Calla says. “Drink your tea.”

Blue sniffs and grimaces. Adam, politeness drilled into him, takes a miniscule sip. 

“Not bad,” he manages, after the tea — can it even be called that? — burns down his throat like alcohol. 

Blue just spits it out. “What is in this?” she demands, her pitch rising. Calla cackles at her and doesn't answer, just sweeps the cups back and dumps them into the sink. 

-

They're at Nino's — for the nostalgia, mostly — when Ronan sees Gansey staring at a man. 

Ronan, too, stares. 

The man is big, is the first thing Ronan sees, white hair and an eyepatch and visible muscles. Gansey looks at him like he doesn't know whether he wants to hit him or fuck him, and Ronan is familiar with the feeling. But this guy?

The man catches Gansey's eye and smirks; Gansey scowls back. It's enough to catch Blue and Adam and Henry's attention. 

The man makes his way over, and Gansey sighs, like he'd been praying that he wouldn't. 

“Little bird,” the man drawls.

“Slade,” Gansey — Dick — Gansey says tightly. “What are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” Slade says. Ronan dislikes the way he's looking at Gansey. 

“Personal reasons,” Gansey says, clipped. 

“Hm.” Slade slides his phone to Gansey, and Gansey reads whatever is on the screen, eyes quickly darting from side to side. 

“What,” he says flatly. 

“Joey said,” Slade says, taking his phone back and pocketing it, “that this is the sort of thing I should tell you.”

“You could have texted.”

“You blocked me,” Slade says, and though he says it calmly, though this whole conversation has been calm under the tightness, Ronan and Blue and Adam and Henry all stiffen. Who is this man, Ronan wonders, and how can he make Gansey look like that? Who is this man that if he is blocked, he chooses to ignore that set boundary and track the blocker down?

“You've got burners,” Gansey says. He's more relaxed now, like the tightness was a product of surprise. “Joey could have texted. Or Rose.”

Joey. Rose. Ronan files these names away. 

Slade scoffs. Gansey pushes at the inside of his cheek with his tongue. 

“What are you doing here, Slade?”

“Perhaps,” Slade says, calm, “I wished to know why my apprentice had ran off to bumfuck nowhere, Virginia.”

Here, the Gansey mask, that Gansey had been so diligent in keeping up these past few days, cracks and slides off, shattering into pieces on the floor of Nino's. 

“Jesus, Slade,” says Dick No Last Name, exasperated. 

“You could,” Slade pushes. Dick rolls his eyes so far up they nearly disappear. Ronan is impressed. 

“No,” Dick says, firm as he ever is. “I’m not your apprentice. And don't insult Henrietta.”

“Henrietta,” Slade mimics. “You waste yourself, Grayson.”

Grayson. Grayson. Grayson. 

Grayson. 

Dick's last name is Grayson. 

Dick Grayson. 

Richard Wayne?

-

And there goes that. 

“Just.” Dick runs a hand through his hair. “Seriously. What do you want?”

“You,” Slade says simply. Dick knows the others are listening, watching, right here, ready to leap into action. Ronan bristles, and Blue is glaring, and Adam is observing, and Henry is watching.

“No,” says Dick anyway, dancing to the familiar tune. 

“Hm. Shame.” Slade reaches out; Dick allows him to hold his chin, allows him to bring Dick close, allows the kiss. He kisses back, and he wishes both that Slade hadn't kissed him at all and that Slade would keep kissing him. But Slade pulls away, and Dick watches him leave Nino’s, and Dick is left with the information that Joey thought it would be hilarious to get Slade to show Dick a meme. 

And Slade showed up in person for this. 

“Sorry,” Dick says, after the door had closed behind Slade. “He's a bit — obsessed with me.”

“Like,” Blue says, “stalking?”

“Like,” Dick huffs, “stalking, kidnapping, attempted brainwashing. Etcetera.”

“Etcetera,” Blue says disbelievingly. 

Dick waves a hand dismissively. “It's fine. We came to an agreement.”

“He kissed you,” says Adam, quietly. 

“Yeah.” Dick glances at him. Adam is — lovely, elegant lines and soft hair and firm hands. He wished Adam hadn't seen Slade kiss him, or that he kissed back; he wishes the same about Ronan. It's too late for that now, though, so all Dick can do is take it in stride and keep moving. At least this way they won't think he's straight. 

“So he's…” Blue arches an eyebrow. 

Dick sighs. He knew they wouldn't get it. The Titans barely get it, Wally and Donna and Kori and the others, and they were there for all of it. “It's complicated,” he settles on, because he always settles on it, because it encompasses everything and lets him say nothing. 

“Complicated.”

Dick nearly blurts out a vine (I came here to have a good time and I'm feeling so attacked right now), but that would be so un-Gansey-like, moreso than anything else he's done these past few days, that he knows it would be the thing to tip them over from passive collection of the tidbits that Dick drops to a full-blown investigation into his life. 

They're going to do that anyway, now that they have his last name. What are they going to see? Richard Wayne, rich and pretty and prince of Gotham, like Richard Campbell Gansey III had been for Henrietta; or will they see Dick Grayson, who is just trying his best, who is drowning under the ocean that is his family?

They won't see Nightwing. 

He won't let them see Nightwing. 

Nightwing is too — ugly. No. That's not the right word, but Dick can't find another word that fits, so ugly it must be. It's not that he's ashamed of being Nightwing; of course he's not. Most of the time he feels more real in the suit than he ever does when he is in civilian clothes. But even so, there is an inherently ugly sense attached to the name. Nightwing lives to fight crime, to save people, but the people he deals with are the people he wants to keep his raven court far, far away from. Like Slade. 

“Gansey. Dick.”

Dick blinks a few times, forcing his thoughts to focus. “Ah, sorry. I got — distracted.”

“Mhm,” Blue says. 

“Has he fucked you?” asks Ronan. 

“Ronan, Jesus,” Adam says, “don't be a shithead.”

“Fuck you,” Ronan returns calmly. Adam raises an eyebrow, and Ronan, of all things, pouts. Adam is good for him. Ronan is good for Adam. Dick would just get in the way of that. Gansey would have just gotten in the way of that, and Dick is no longer Gansey, no longer the Raven King (make way, make way, cries his mind, as he attempts to shut it down); he is, technically, a stranger to them. 

-

They let Gansey get away with it for all of two days. 

That night, when Ronan and Adam go to the Barns to sleep, Adam asks, “Do you want to kiss him?”

“Who, Gansey?” Ronan says, pausing from where he's kissing a line up Adam's chest. Adam hums. “Yeah. You?”

“Yeah.”

“Then we should kiss him,” Ronan says, like it's that simple. Adam wishes it were. 

“He's a different person,” he points out. 

Ronan scoffs, and, to make his point, bites at Sam's neck. Adam's breath hitches in his throat, and the hand that he has threaded through Ronan's hair tugs lightly, chastising. 

“He's Gansey.”

“He's Dick Grayson.”

Ronan sits up; Adam lets his hands fall to Ronan's hips so he can straddle Adam. 

“Do you know who Dick Grayson is?” he asks. Adam starts to shake his head, and pauses. 

“It sounds familiar,” he says. 

“Richard Wayne,” Ronan fills in for him, and oh. Oh. 

“Bruce Wayne's kid?” Adam asks faintly. Ronan nods, and Adam is — well. He knows why Gansey hadn't wanted to tell them. He mutters, “Make way.”

Ronan echoes him. “Make way, make way.”

Gansey had always been the Raven King, not Glendower. It had always, always been Gansey. Gansey was the one who brought them together, who brought them this quest, and he is the one they all orbited. He is their king. Their Raven King. They are his court. That won't change no matter who he is, what name he is called by, what he looks like. Gansey is their Raven King. That's all there is to it.

It's Gansey. 

That's all there is. 

-

Gansey is spared the interrogation only because Maura and Calla need Blue there for an appointment. 

The boys are all there, so she sees the way Gansey stiffens at the sight of the people before the women, sees the way the bigger one, the one with the stream in his hair, catches Gansey's eye and grins, sharp and a little feral. 

“Jason,” Gansey says, strangled, and oh, oh, this is his brother. Is the other one, the small, wiry one too? 

“Dickhead,” Jason says, still grinning that infuriating grin. Gansey moves into the room, like he can't help but be pulled toward them. Blue looks at Ronan and Henry, who are watching; Adam is observing. 

“Why,” Gansey says helplessly, “are you here?”

“To get our fortunes told,” Jason deadpans. 

“Clearly,” adds the other one. 

“Tim,” Gansey says despairingly. “Tim, Timmy, baby bird, why?”

“At first it was curiosity,” Tim says, “because you don't normally just — run off like that.”

“I didn't run off,” Gansey says, and he's perching on the arm of the chair that Jason's sitting in, rubbing his knuckles into Jason's hair, and Jason is grimacing, swatting his hand away, and, yes, Blue can see it. Brothers. 

“Ran away,” Jason amends. 

“Shut up,” says Gansey. There's something there, Blue thinks, something that she and her boys have not been appraised of; it gets under Gansey's skin, though, clearly. “I didn't — I don't —”

Jason makes a noise somewhere between disbelief and amusement. Gansey rubs his temple. Gansey doesn’t run away, Blue thinks, but then she thinks of anything that Gansey deems unpleasant or unnecessary in regards to his own health, be it mental or physical (she remembers Malory, remembers hearing that Gansey hadn’t even said goodbye), and she thinks, He does run away quite often, doesn’t he. 

“Anyway,” Tim picks up, “I dug a little deeper into this place, because there had to be a reason you came here, and didn't tell us —”

“I'm an adult, I don't have to keep you informed of what I do —”

“An adult that lives off of dry cereal and Alfred's leftovers,” Jason intercedes, and Gansey looks as though he's about to retort, like this bickering is normal, like it's not against everything Blue ever knew of Gansey, but Tim, once more, goes on. 

“And I found out,” he says, training his sharp eyes on Gansey, “that this place is home to a bunch of psychics that are rated pretty high.”

For psychics, Blue finishes in her mind, holding back a scoff. 

“So you came here,” Gansey says, “to the psychics,  because you wanted an excuse to stalk me.”

-

Stalk him, Adam thinks, and he remembers the phone call at the Barns, and he remembers Slade at Nino's, and he wonders just what kind of life Dick Grayson has led. 

Gansey's given up on his brothers, resigned and annoyed. This is not an uncomfortable occurrence, then, being…stalked. 

“It wasn't stalking!” Tim yelps, and that's interesting. There's something there. Adam wants to dig through Gansey's life and figure out what he's missed, what pieces he doesn't have that he can fit into the puzzle that is Dick Grayson. 

But dead parents, and dark skin, and Gotham, and it paints a picture that most wouldn't be able to see under the shine of the Wayne name. Adam itches to figure him out. He's so similar but so different, so many terrors that follow him, constantly; he's good at being quiet at night, but sometimes Adam is awake to see Gansey's face contort into expressions Adam wishes he could unsee. He's awake to hear whimpers and soft sobs and sometimes, he is awake to see Gansey wake, gasping for air, calming himself down, routine enough that Adam fears how long it has been happening. 

“It was,” Jason says with a roll of his eyes. 

“It was,” Gansey agrees, and here too is something deeper, an inside joke. 

“It wasn't,” insists Tim, “it wasn't, I'm not a stalker —”

“Bro,” says Jason, flatly, and it shuts Tim up. Gansey lets out a breath that's painted with laughter and reaches for Tim's hair to mess it up. He wears older brother well, Adam thinks. 

“Okay, well,” huffs Tim, batting Gansey's hand away and trying to fix his hair (it doesn't really work), “I was nine, okay, shut up—”

“You realize that just makes it worse,” Jason says. 

“Impressive,” Gansey murmurs. Tim flushes and preens at the same time, like Gansey’s approval is water in a desert. Adam understands the feeling. Still,  he desperately wants to know what he’s missing, what else he doesn’t know about his best friend. Who is Dick Grayson? He wonders, something inside him aching at the knowledge that this man is a stranger. 

-

Dick's a little surprised that they were able to play that out, but then he thinks that that was probably the point. 

But Calla is impatient, and so she says, “Are you here for your fortunes or not?”

Jason and Tim exchange a look. Will they see the pit, Dick wonders, especially with Blue here? Will they see what Dick has so carefully kept from them?

“Should I —” he starts, but Maura waves him off. 

“No, you're fine. Blue?” 

“Yeah,” Blue says. 

Dick watches the familiar ritual, and something inside him relaxes, just a little. He distantly wishes he had a mint leaf he could put in his mouth. Jason reaches out to flip the cards, but — 

“Oh, god,” Maura says, looking sick. Calla stares at him. 

“What the hell,” she says flatly. 

Tim sighs and says, pointedly, “I told you.”

“Fuck off, Replacement,” Jason snaps back. 

“Names,” Dick says tiredly. Jason's eyes are flashing green, and Calla is demanding answers, and Dick knows that there will be no going back. 

“Names,” Jason mimics. “Names, names, names.”

Dick winces. Tim glowers. Jason stands, abrupt. 

“You are a coward,” he tells Dick. Dick doesn't argue. He feels more than sees Blue and the boys bristling, but he hopes they don't try to defend him, hopes they'll believe this is just — them being brothers, even though he knows they won't. 

But Dick is an expert at lightening the mood. “Emo.”

Stunned out of the pit’s hold, Jason stares at him. “What. What?”

“Emo,” Dick repeats. “Angsty little emo.”

Jason's face changes. He knows what Dick is doing, and he's letting Dick do it, because he heard Dick screaming himself hoarse at Bruce the other week and he's decided to go easy on Dick. For now.

“Discowing,” he says; Tim presses his lips together. 

“Little Red Riding Helmet!” Dick yelps; Tim ducks his head in a fruitless effort to hide his snickers. 

“Dude!”

“It's true!”

“Shut your fuck, you fucking — god — quit laughing,” snaps Jason at Tim. Tim looks him in the eye and dissolves, once more, into snickers. 

Okay.

Better. 

“Sorry for wasting your time,” says Tim apologetically. This was towards Maura and Calla, and also a little towards Blue. He fishes out two twenties and drops them on the table. “Dick, are you sure you won't come —?”

Dick tries to keep his face from going flat, but he fails. “Not til he apologizes.”

“So, never,” Jason surmises. 

Dick exhales a laugh that's too bitter for this house, for these people, for this town. He shouldn't have come here. He shouldn't have thought he could leave his problems behind; he knew it wouldn't work and tried anyway. He's poison, after all. 

He stands, and Tim walks into him, and Dick hugs him. 

“It's okay,” he murmurs into Tim's hair. “Really. I'm fine, I just need to cool off a bit.”

“Okay,” says Tim dubiously. He lets Dick hug him a bit longer and then extracts himself. “Sorry again. I'll text you later.”

Dick hums an acknowledgement and watches them leave. He's not sure why Ronan or Adam or Henry hadn't said anything, not sure why he was allowed that interaction with no interruption, not sure why his brothers weren't grilled on his life. 

Maybe they knew it would make him shut down. Maybe they know him still, differently than before, but enough that they can give him this. 

He owes them all so much. He can never hope to repay them. 

Ronan's there, then, nudging Dick's shoulder with his own. “Dick.”

“Lynch,” Dick replies. 

“Richard,” says Ronan, dragging out the name. “Richie Wayne.”

Dick sighs. He slumps into the chair that Jason had just vacated (it's still warm) and scrubs a hand through his hair. Strands fall in his face, and he blows at them. 

“Oh,” says Blue. “Oh, we're doing this now?”

Henry claims the seat next to Dick; Adam and Ronan perch on the arms of Dick's chair. 

“Apparently,” Adam says. His thigh is pressed against Dick's side. Ronan's hand is draped around Dick's head, resting on Adam's back. Dick is trapped between them, their heat seeping into him, and he at once wishes they'd sit closer and that they wouldn't touch him. 

Because. 

Because it's Ronan and it's Adam and Dick wants to shrink them and open up his chest to gently store them in a shielded, safe place in his heart. 

Dick can't believe he used to think he was straight. 

He can't believe he never realized he was in love with these two astonishing, incredible, beautiful boys. 

His magicians. 

“Dick Grayson,” he says, eyes firmly trained over Blue's shoulder. “Grayson-Wayne, whatever. My parents died when I was a kid—”

“The Flying Graysons,” Adam says softly. Dick jerks his head in a nod. He knew that Adam would look him up. He just didn't expect to last this long with it going unspoken. 

“They died, and Bruce took me in,” he goes on steadily. “We started fighting when I was — twelve? I lived with some of my friends for a while, and B picked up Jason, and then—” And then Jason died, he doesn't say. “—And then Tim, and there are others; B’s got a bit of an adoption problem. I live in Blüdhaven now, but I'm over in Gotham pretty often.”

“Jason Todd died,” says Blue. 

“Yeah.”

“That was,” Maura says, “what Calla and I felt, it was — I don't even know what it was. It was horrible.”

Dick closes his eyes for a moment and breathes, and tries not to remember Jason, feral with anger, spitting acid and bullets. “The Lazarus Pit,” he says quietly. “It brought him back, but it brought him back wrong. Angry. He's better now, it's been a few years, but the Pit leaves…scars.”

“Okay,” Ronan drawls. His hand slides from Adam to Dick, resting on the nape of Dick's neck. Dick has to fight back a shiver. “So here's the big bucks question: do the butts match?”

Adam gets it. Henry, too. The others don't. 

Most of the speculations, the theory that, specifically, it's Bruce, stays on Gotham, on Gotham message boards, jokes thrown around, snuck into articles as a friendly nod. 

“Do the what match?” Blue asks incredulously. 

“Butts, Sergeant,” Ronan says, flicking his fingers at her. She scowls back. 

There's a few answers he could give. 

He could lie. He ought to lie, really; their identities are secret for a reason, and if Bruce finds out he'll be even more pissed than before (but isn't that just a reason to tell the truth?), and he doesn't want to. That's what's getting him. Dick doesn't want to say yes, doesn't want them to know how ugly his life has been under the shiny surface of money and Bruce Wayne. 

“Gansey,” Adam says. 

“I,” Dick says, not looking at any of them, “plead the fifth.”

Ronan squeezes the back of his neck, hard, and Dick knocks his hand away. 

“Not good enough,” Ronan says sharply. 

“What does that even mean?” Blue asks, exasperated. 

“Batman,” Henry tells her. “He's asking if Bruce Wayne is Batman. If Gansey-boy is — Nightwing?”

He glances at Dick to check, and. And. Well. He can't lie now. He just can't. 

“Yeah,” he whispers, gaze falling down to his lap. “Yes. Bruce is Batman. I'm Nightwing.”

He's had nearly a week of freedom. He'd enjoyed it. But it's time to get back to the real world. 

“Nightwing,” repeats Blue. 

“Nightwing,” gasps Henry, joy dripping off the word. 

“Nightwing!” exclaims Calla. 

Maura and Adam don't say anything at all. Dick doesn't dare look at Adam. 

He clears his throat. “Yes.”

“How does that even — what?”

Blue's annoyance at her own confusion should not be adorable; she would hit him if she knew he was thinking it. 

“It's…a long story. Complicated.” Dick doesn't want to explain it. Doesn't want to tell them how his life started as a performance and never once changed; all that changed was the backdrop. The location. The people in the audience, smiling, laughing, screaming. Dead children and dead parents and dead siblings; murder and assault and rape and all those horrific acts of violence that make up Dick's life. He doesn't want to bring that to these people. 

Adam's brow, when Dick finally chances a look, is furrowed. “Complicated. Like that guy? Slade?”

“...Yeah.” Dick firmly looks down at his lap. 

“Didn't you say something about kidnapping?” Blue asks. “And stalking? Is stalking just — a common occurrence for you?”

“You try being a Wayne and a Bat,” Dick sighs. “Slade was — I was with the Teen Titans when we met. He wanted me to be his apprentice and I didn't want to do that, so he used extreme measures to get me to give in. I didn't, I fought back, and we came to an agreement.”

Blue stares at him. He can feel it, even without checking. “You're insane.”

“Nah, that's Jason,” he says, unable to stop himself from smirking a little. “The Pit sort of…messed up his mind a little. He's better now, obviously, but it was…not fun.”

“Right,” says Calla. “Right.”

And, somehow, that's the end of it. For now, at least. Calla stands and stomps off somewhere into the house, and Blue stands as well and takes Dick's hand in her own, pulling him up, leading him out of the house and to the beech tree. Adam and Ronan and Henry follow. 

-

Gansey stays only a few more days before he begs off. 

“You're leaving?” Blue asks, devastated. She doesn't want him to leave. Adam doesn't, and neither does Henry. Ronan can admit to himself that even he is feeling it, that sharp pang of loss. They had just gotten their king back. None of them want him to go.

“I have a job,” Gansey says helplessly. “I can't just drop everything and move here.”

Adam adds, idly, from where he's perched on Ronan's lap, “Even if you want to.”

“Even if I want to,” Gansey agrees heavily. 

“Blue,” Ronan says casually, ignoring the sharp look he gets from his boyfriend, “fuck off for a bit, will you?”

Blue narrows her eyes, but like magic, her phone buzzes. She lets out a big gust of air that isn’t quite a sigh. “You’re lucky Mom needs me for a reading,” she grumbles; none of them bring up the disastrous reading of Gansey’s little brother. 

Gansey’s frowning, now, and Ronan has the distinct impression that frowning isn’t really an expression Dick Grayson uses very often, especially not around other people. He wonders how much Gansey is carrying, behind those blue eyes; he wonders how much weight Gansey is carrying on his shoulders. Entirely too much, Ronan decides as Blue leaves the three of them alone at the Barns. Ronan nudges Adam and Adam gets up, so Ronan can stand and start towards his childhood bedroom, not looking back to see if the others are following. They are. Ronan knows they are. 

Ronan sits on the bed, and Adam sits next to him, and it is a mirror of the first time they kissed — except now Gansey is there on Ronan’s other side, and it is not Adam who Ronan will be kissing. 

“Dick,” he says. Gansey turns towards him — not just his face but his whole body, and it is a heady feeling, to have all of his attention. Ronan rests one hand on Gansey’s cheek, watching as Gansey’s eyes go wide. 

“Ronan,” he starts, and Ronan would rather he not talk for this, so he shuts him up with his mouth. 

When Ronan pulls away, he notes, with a warm curl of satisfaction, that Gansey is speechless. 

Adam crawls over his lap to replace him, and Ganssy makes a low noise against Adam's lips. Adam breaks the kiss and rests his forehead against Gansey's. 

“Been wanting to do that for years now,” he admits. 

“Yeah,” Ronan agrees. Gansey just sort of stares at them both, vulnerable, and Ronan wants to wreck him. 

Finally, though, Gansey says, a bit of a rasp to his voice, “I didn't realize it back then, but. Yeah. Me too.”

“Cool,” Adam says, and kisses him again. 

-

“Ronan Lynch,” Tim says, barely a second after Dick opens the door. Dick doesn't bother holding back the groan. “Adam Parish. Henry Cheng.”

“Blue Sargeant,” adds Jason from the couch. Tim's on the floor, cross-legged, laptop balanced on his legs. Jason's made himself comfortable on the couch, one leg dangling. 

“What are you doing,” Dick sighs, shutting the door behind him. 

“Interrogating you,” Tim says, like it ought to be obvious. And. Well. It is. 

“Can't it wait?” asks Dick. “I just got home.”

“Sucks to suck,” Jason says flatly. Dick pulls a face at him. 

“I just can't figure out why you went there,” Tim says, frowning thoughtfully at the screen. Dick drops his bag on the chair and heads to his room. Tim raises his voice to be heard. “I mean, why them? Why the psychics?”

“Maybe I just wanted a reading,” Dick calls, stripping down to his underwear and digging through his closet. Though he misses Henrietta and the people in it with a sharp ache, he can't deny it's good to be home. 

“You wouldn't have stayed over a week if it was ‘just a reading’.”

Sometimes Dick hates how smart Tim is. 

He pulls on a pair of sweatpants and throws on a hoodie — it's one of Bruce's, one he stole years ago, and he has to take a moment to breathe through the frustration. Still, he tugs the strings tight and focuses on the softness of the fabric, not the argument that still plays in his head at night. 

Dick lets himself take a moment to just breathe, before resigning himself to his fate and making his way back over to his brothers. He flops down on Jason's legs, and Jason kicks at him before retracting his legs so Dick can sprawl on the couch, upside down. 

“Gross,” Jason mutters. Dick sticks his tongue out. “Oh, yeah, real mature.”

“How do you know them?” Tim cuts in. “I just can't figure it out. When would you have met them? You'd never been to Henrietta before.”

“I might have been,” Dick says. “You don't know that I haven't.”

“Yeah, but you haven't.”

Dick blows out a breath. Tim's right, of course he is, there's no logical way for him to know these people, except he has memories of a life he once lived and sometimes he can feel hornets crawling over his face even though he's allergy-free. 

“Tim,” Dick says, carefully, “is there any way, any way at all, that will make you drop this?”

Tim turns his frown onto Dick, and Dick knows the answer before Tim says it. “No.”

Dick exhales slowly. “Okay. Um.” He rubs a hand over his temple. “The day I left, I’d woken up with…a. Hm. A new set of memories. Of a life that I’d lived, that I hadn’t known, because it had happened to the me I used to be.”

“Reincarnation,” Tim breathes out. 

“Yes. That.” Dick falls off the couch and spreads out on the floor, his head not quite touching Tim’s leg. “But also time travel, sort of. I still don’t really know how this works.” Cabeswater, he thinks, and also he thinks, Someone else on the ley line is dying when they should not, and so you shall live when you should not. But mostly he thinks of Cabeswater, and Ronan, and a dream Camaro. 

Jason kicks lightly at Dick. “So you were in that group? Those guys at the psychic house?”

The leader, Dick thinks. The king. He makes a face at that. He hates it, even if the others are all firm in calling him that. “Yes.” 

“Will you tell us your name?” asks Tim. 

And Dick sort of has to now, doesn’t he? “Dick,” he says dryly. Jason blinks down at him. 

“No way. No fucking way.”

Dick shrugs. 

“That is…shitty,” Jason snorts.

“Yes, thank you, I’m aware,” Dick sighs. “Between you and Ronan, I’m fairly sure I’ve heard all the jokes and more.” 

“Ronan’s the buzzcut, right?” Jason checks. Dick hums an agreement and tries not to think about the way Ronan's shaved head had felt under his hand, while they were kissing. “I liked him.”

Dick snorts. “‘Course you did. The world would tremble if you became friends.” But now that he's thinking about it — thinking about Ronan and about Jason and what if Ronan were to be revived with the pit, or if Jason were to have dream powers — it's a little terrifying to think about, actually. Ronan was broken enough by what he'd been through; Jason was a serial killer for months when he came back to Gotham. Maybe he ought to put off introducing them, Dick decides, though both of them are already so much better than they used to be. 

Maybe it's unfair. Maybe Dick just wants to keep his worlds separate, even as they're colliding. 

“Will you tell us?” Tim requests, and it is a request, not a demand, or even so much a question as a plea for trust. 

“Not…not right now.” Dick stands slowly, stretching. “I can't talk about it right now. But — later, alright?”

“When's later?”

“I don't know,” Dick says, bending down to touch his toes and rising back up, raising his arms towards the ceiling. “But I will tell you. I won't keep brushing it off. I promise.” Dick stops. Amends with, “I swear on the Batmobile.”

Satisfied, Tim relaxes a bit, turning back to the laptop. 

“What are you even doing on there?” Dick asks. 

“Just — helping Kon with something,” Tim says, his cheeks a little red. Dick and Jason exchange a grin. 

-

“I wish I could be there,” says Gansey over the phone. He's on speaker, Adam's phone placed between himself and Ronan. It's been a week since Gansey left, and Adam knows Ronan is feeling his absence as much as Adam is. 

“Come down, then,” Ronan says carelessly. “Not like you got anything better to do.”

Shithead, Adam mouths at him. Ronan kicks at him. Adam dodges. 

“—baby brother is staying a few days,” Gansey is saying when Adam refocuses. “And I've got to deal with Bruce eventually; I can't avoid him forever.” He sounds bitter, Adam notes, like he's tried this before. Like he's failed. 

Ronan scoffs. “Oh, please. Fuck him.”

“You don't even know what he did,” Gansey says, like he's holding back a sigh. He probably is. 

“Doesn't matter,” Ronan says dismissively. “Fuck him, fuck Gotham. That city's a shitstain.”

“Hey,” Gansey reprimands, “watch it. And, again, I live in Blüdhaven, not Gotham.”

“You're still there, though,” Adam points. Ronan wraps an arm around his waist and tugs him closer. Adam goes easily, gratefully, nestling into the sharp warmth that Ronan's body provides. 

“Well,” replies Gansey, and here he really does sigh. There's a clatter on his end, like he dropped something. “Yes. My siblings are there.”

“Lame,” Roman mutters. Adam elbows him; Ronan hisses. 

“Can you take a few days off?” asks Adam, trying and failing not to sound like he's begging. He just — he just. Adam Parrish, unknowable, he'd thought, but here he is wrapped up in Ronan Lynch’s arms, on the phone with Richard Gansey, not worrying about his dad or work or how he's going to pay for this or that. 

“I can't,” Gansey says. “I'm sorry. Damian's going to be here for two or three days, and then I told Tim I'd help with a case, and then I'm going to San Francisco for a bit.”

“San Francisco,” Adam echoes. “The Titans, right? That's why you're going?”

“Yeah.”

Ronan doesn't say anything, but something about the way his eyes narrow just a bit is nagging at Adam. He's plotting. 

“Okay,” Adam says. “Text me later?”

“Of course.”

When Gansey hangs up, Adam sits up and stares at Ronan. “What are you planning?”

“Planning?” Ronan echoes, trying to look innocent. “I'm not planning anything.”

“Ronan.”

“Parrish.”

Ronan grins, a sharp, knife-edged thing that makes Adam want to kiss it off his face. 

So he does. 

When he pulls back, Ronan is panting, his pupils dilated. “Damn, Parrish,” he says, “what was that for?”

“I was imagining you were Gansey,” deadpans Adam. Ronan snorts; Adam takes that sound, bundles it up in bubble wrap, and tucks it deep into his heart. “Seriously, though.”

“Fine,” Ronan huffs. Huffs. Like a petulant child. “You ever been to San Francisco?”

Adam's eyebrows shoot up. “You know I haven't.”

“Do you want to?”

-

“Lian’s with Oliver,” Roy explains when Dick asks. “I'd have dropped her off with Jason, but —”

“Oh, no, yeah,” Dick says with a nod. “He's with Harley.”

“Did you talk to her?” asks Wally, his chin resting on Dick's hair, his arms wrapping around him. Dick grins, knocking his fist on Wally's arm. 

“Nah.”

“Rob,” Wally says, squeezing him tight, “come on.”

“I'm fine,” Dick protests. 

“And I have a good relationship with Oliver,” Roy deadpans. 

“Well,” Dick starts. 

“Oh, don't —”

“It's been better, hasn't it?”

“‘Better’ isn't good.”

“But it's something,” Dick presses. 

“Shut your fuck,” Roy says, pointing at him. Dick snickers. 

God, he's missed this. It's been too long since he hung out with them like this, not for a mission or a battle or suit-related. Just the three of them, hanging out. Donna's off-planet, and he misses her, and he wishes she was here, but she isn't, so Dick decides to just try and relax a bit. 

“So,” Wally says cheerfully, falling back onto the couch; Dick doesn't whine at the loss of the touch, but he does follow, flopping on top of Wally and burying his head in Wally's shoulder. 

“So?” Roy parrots. 

“Food,” Wally says seriously. 

“What about food?”

Wally stares him right in the eye and says, slow, “Foooooood.”

“Jesus,” Roy snorts. 

“No, sorry, I can't walk on water.”

“You can run over it,” Dick points out, muffled in the fabric of Wally's hoodie. 

“Well,” Wally considers, “yeah. But still.”

“Pizza?” asks Roy. 

“No,” Wally disagrees, “Italian.”

“Pizza is Italian!”

“Is it really or is it just a stereotype?”

“No, it actually did originate from Italy,” Dick says, remembering Blue complaining about an argument she'd overheard between two classmates. She'd been really annoyed. Dick remembers thinking annoyance was cute on her. “I'm down for pizza.”

“Pizza it is!” Wally declares. 

-

“Pizza’s good,” Adam says. 

“It better be,” Ronan mutters, dragging Adam into the diner. They've been here for a few hours and already Ronan had picked up souvenirs for Matthew. Even a few for Declan, though those are more gag gifts and things that Ronan knows would annoy him. 

He'd plotted this trip out meticulously in the week since the call with Gansey. Niall Lynch hadn't usually taken his children on trips, but Ronan's been to New York a few times; there was a particularly memorable three days in Miami; and Aurora Lynch had taken the three of them to L.A. one winter break when Niall Lynch was tied up in Japan. 

Ronan had gotten bored and Declan was annoyed, so they'd stolen a car and went to Santa Barbara (there was a guy who claimed to be a psychic detective; Ronan didn't believe it at first, but then he'd been around a crime scene — not on purpose, regardless of what Declan would say — and he'd seen him work and if he wasn't psychic, then he was at the very least some sort of genius), and to Santa Monica, and to San Francisco. 

So Ronan’s been in the area, at least. He’s even seen some of the Titans in action; not Robin, though. 

The pizza place is cozy, Ronan supposes, as he and Adam claim a booth. Warm lighting, some pop song playing, various people scattered around. The food’s decent, too, Ronan is willing to admit as he steals another one of Adam’s fries. Adam sighs, exasperated, but lets him; he lets Ronan get away with a lot, in a different sort of way than Gansey does. 

Speaking of Gansey…

“Dod you know he’d be here, specifically?” Adam asks, staring at Gansey and the two redheads he’s laughing with. 

“No, actually.” Ronan narrows his eyes at the strangers. One of them, the one with freckles, is clinging to Gansey, and Ronan wants to punch him. Adam reads his face and tugs him back down with a sigh. 

“Ronan, no.”

“Ronan, yes.”

“Ronan, no,” says Gansey, having spotted them and veered over. Ronan imagines it like a magnet: the three of them are pulled together, whether they want to be or not. 

“You don’t even know what you’re saying no to,” Ronan points out with a scowl. Gansey just arches an eyebrow at him.

The cheerful redhead pops up over Gansey’s shoulder and grins at them. Ronan’s scowl deepens. 

“Hi!” he chirps. “I’m Wally, that’s Roy, you guys must be why Dick had an identity crisis.”

“It wasn’t an identity crisis—”

“It was some sort of crisis,” scoffs the other redhead — Roy, Wally had said. Ronan immediately likes him better than Wally (he still doesn’t like him, though). 

Gansey groans and buries his face in his hands, but it’s a fond sort of resigned, like he’s used to being teased about this sort of stuff. Ronan wonders who Dick Grayson really is. 

“Will you stop!” cries Gansey, low enough that he doesn't make a scene, loud enough to make his point. Stalking, running away, crises. Add in Nightwing and it paints a sad picture of Gansey's life. 

“Never,” says Wally, patting Gansey on the shoulder. “We're gonna go get food. You, sit.”

“Wally—”

“Sit.”

“I'm not a dog,” Gansey grumbles, even as he sits. Right next to Ronan, in fact, and he aims a smug look at Adam, who kicks at his shin under the table. 

Ronan turns a flat look on Gansey and barks once. Gansey groans, his head falling down to thump against the table. 

“So those are your friends,” says Adam helpfully, which is unhelpful to Ronan, who'd very much like to see how much further he can push Gansey. 

But a smile breaks out on Gansey's face, and it brightens up his tired eyes, and Ronan decides that, for now, he can settle for dealing with people he doesn't know nor give a shit about if it means Gansey will keep smiling. 

“Yeah. Wally's been my best friend since I was, like, ten, and Roy's — we used to be a lot closer, but then we sort of drifted apart? He's engaged to Jason now, and his daughter's really cute.”

“Your brother stole your friend?” Ronan snorts, sipping obnoxiously at his soda. 

“More like my friend stole my brother,” Gansey mutters, finally lifting his head. With a flick of his (blue, blue, blue) eyes at Adam, he leans in and pecks Ronan on the cheek. Ronan stares. 

Gansey doesn't blush, and nor does he look sheepish, but he looks like he's doing something in between. “I missed you,” he says quietly. “Both of you.”

Adam softens. Ronan resists both the urge to vomit and to dream something that would hold Gansey and let Ronan keep him close forever and never let him out of his sight again. 

“We missed you too,” Adam tells Gansey. “Blue and Henry too.”

“You should've stayed,” Ronan adds blandly, stealing Adam's fries. Adam watches in despair as Ronan pulls the entire plate over to him, though it gains some fondness when Ronan shoves it in front of Gansey. “Eat.”

“I can't just move to Virginia,” Gansey sighs, picking up a fry and dipping it in ketchup. “I can't just — leave.”

“You could,” Ronan says. 

“No.” Gansey looks defeated. “I can't.”

-

Ronan kisses him then, and Dick stops thinking about everything he can't do and starts thinking about everything he can do, like kissing Ronan back. Adam has switched seats, crowding Dick and Ronan and leaving the other side free for Roy and Wally. Dick breaks the kiss with Ronan to press his forehead against Adam's. 

“What are you even doing here?”

“We wanted pizza,” Adam deadpans. Dick snorts. 

“You know what I mean.”

Adam grins. “Yeah, I know.”

Roy and Wally return before Dick can keep asking questions, but after a glance at Ronan’s smug face, he’s pretty sure he doesn’t need to ask. 

Roy leans in close, propping up his chin with his hand. “Huh,” he says pointedly. Dick pales. 

“No.”

“I’m just saying.”

Wally gasps, his eyes darting between Adam and Ronan, who match in their hidden confusion. Dick groans. 

“No.”

“He’s not wrong,” Wally says sympathetically. 

“Shut up, I hate you both, kill me right now.”

Adam stiffens at that, and Dick grips his thigh and squeezes it apologetically. 

“The fuck are you going on about?” drones Ronan boredly. 

“Nothing,” Dick says immediately. 

“Dick’s got a type,” Wally sings. 

“And you two,” Roy continues, “aren’t it.”

“Shut up,” Dick says, his cheeks burning. 

“We’re right and you know it.:

“I do not!”

“So what’s his type, then?” Ronan interjects. 

Dick wishes that the floor would swallow him up. Instead Roy just grins. 

“Oh, you know. Redheads.”

“Redheads,” Adam echoes, looking between Wally and Roy.

“Redheads,” Wally agrees. 

“I do not have a type,” Dick says helplessly. 

“Me, Roy, Babs, Kory,” Wally lists off. 

“Die in a hole.” 

-

‘Go with them,’ Wally had told him. ‘You want to. It’s okay.’

So Dick had gone with Ronan and Adam, and they’re in their hotel now. Dick’s perched on the bed, Ronan laid out on the floor, Adam cross-legged next to Dick. 

“So,” Ronan drawls out. Dick groans. “We’re not your type.”

“I don’t have a type,” Dick repeats. “I don’t. Seriously.”

“Those were a lot of names Wally said,” Adam notes; Dick can hear the grin in his voice, and it makes him want to bottle it up and tattoo it into his soul. 

“That’s,” Dick tries, “a  coincidence.”

“Uh-huh.”

They fall quiet then, and Dick isn’t going to ask why he’s been spared the teasing. But then Ronan sits up, and meets Dick’s eyes, and Dick understands that this is a serious conversation. That this is about them, about Ronan and Adam and Gansey.

“I’m staying in the Barns,” Ronan says. 

“I’m away for college,” Adam puts in, “but I come back.”
Dick hears the unspoken question. He says—

-

—”I don’t have an answer for you.”

Adam had known it before Gansey had opened his mouth. Of course he doesn't. He doesn’t want to give up Adam and Ronan and Henrietta, but he can’t just switch lives. He can’t just stop being Nightwing. 

“I don’t know how to make this work in a way that’ll make us all happy,” Gansey admits, staring down at his hands. It’s brave of him, Adam thinks, to bare his soul like this. “I want to be with you, with both of you, but I can’t just give up my life here. In Blüdhaven. In Gotham.”

Ronan searches for something in Gansey’s face. Adam’s unsure if he finds it.

“I know,” Ronan says after a heavy moment. “I think I knew that the second I saw you again.”

“I’m sorry,” Gansey whispers. 

“Oh, fuck off,” says Ronan, disgusted. “Don’t fucking apologize for having a life.”

Adam wants to say something, suggest something—they could make long-distance work, couldn’t they? Like he and Ronan have been doing? But no, because there was always a guarantee Adam would come back. For Gansey, no such guarantee exists. 

“I can’t just leave Henrietta,” says Gansey. “It’s not like I’m never coming back. It’s just—”

“It’s just,” Adam says quietly, “that it won’t be enough.”

Gansey closes his eyes. “I don’t know how to make it work,” he repeats. 

“You don’t have to,” Ronan says. Gansey’s blue eyes open and he frowns at Ronan. “Yeah, it fucking sucks, but who says you have to have all your shit figured out right now? We’ve got time, Gansey.”

They do have time. They have time that Gansey had never thought he’d get. They’re all alive, all breathing, and they’re all desperately holding onto each other, with no intention of letting go. 

"You're still ours," Adam adds. 

"Our Raven King."

Gansey grimaces, and Adam smiles, and Ronan smirks.

-

It’s not enough, Dick knows. It’s barely enough for right now, and it won’t be enough very soon. But it’s more than he thought he’d get, especially after that night on the Corpse Road, listening to his own voice saying “Gansey. That’s all there is.”

Maybe it used to be. 

Maybe it doesn’t have to be, not anymore.