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Rain trails across his skin. Dick can feel the hundreds of tiny droplets across his body, never ending. They gather in the hollow of his throat, catch in his eyelashes, run cold over his exposed neck. Crimson stains his knuckles and his lips. His hands are covered in blood. His teeth are the same shining red. He doesn’t remember if it’s his.
The rooftop is cold beneath his back, concrete pressing against his spine, unforgiving and solid but everything feels distant. It feels like the rain is slowly drowning him.
He should move. Push her off. He knows that.
Some part of him is still measuring the distance to the edge. Still cataloguing the pain in his ribs. Somewhere beneath all of the haze is the part of him that learned years ago how to get back up.
But he cannot make himself move.
Looking up he can see the ashen sky, the horizon of swirling clouds, dark and somber. He cannot reach it. The sky is far off and beyond wherever he is now.
Sometimes the rain drips into his eyes and causes the world to blur. Thick swatches of heavy color, greys and blues and orange. Bludhaven’s lights bleed together below him, smeared across the edges of his vision until he can’t tell where the city ends and the sky begins.
He blinks.
The world doesn’t come back into focus.
Catalina’s lips are on his skin. She is burning and Dick is cold. She opens her mouth. She says she loves him. Dick chokes on the bile that rises in his throat. His airway constricts until he is struggling to breath, gasping on the cool night air around them.
No, he wants to say. No no no no no. The word is trapped in his blood soaked lungs. He says nothing.
Catalina’s hands are in his hair and he is collapsing at her touch.
“Oh, mi carino,” Catalina is cooing. Her voice is soft. Too soft. She says it like a lullaby. Like it’s something Dick should recognize as kindness. She is bloodstained too. He can see it on her fingers, beneath her nails, dark streaks disappearing beneath the sleeves of her suit. She is smiling. She is dragging Dick deeper, deeper and deeper.
He tries to remember when this started. There should be a moment, a line crossed. Something he can point to and say there, that was when everything changed.
Instead there are only pieces.
A gunshot.
Fingers trail down his abdomen and tears carve into his cheek. He doesn’t know when he started crying. The tears simply exist against his freezing skin. Catalina wipes one away with her thumb, replacing the tears with a bloody smear.
“There,” she whispers, as if she has fixed something. As if she has done him a kindness.
Dick closes his eyes. When he opens them again Catalina is dragging him to his feet. His legs don’t feel like his own.
She coos at him again, licking liquid off of her fingers. She is smiling and she is dragging him toward the door of the rooftop.
Dick is tired.
He follows.
He doesn’t remember leaving.
Her hair blocks his view of the hotel room. Dark strands spill over her shoulders, framing her in the warm light. Her lips brush against his ear and he wants to dissolve into nothingness. Her perfume smells like sage. He swallows acid down his throat. Maybe he's been there for hours.
The clock says 2:17.
The clock says 4:03.
The room is too bright. The walls are too stark. There is blood on the carpet. There is blood on his suit. There is blood on her.
He stares at the stain until it becomes something else.
A circus tent.
Red curtains.
Gold light.
A little boy running across a wire.
His mother's hand reaching for his.
Dick jerks back into the room.
Catalina kisses at his neck and he lets her lips trace over his skin.
Then–
Dick is hunched over the toilet bowl, his fingers curled over the rim. He retches stomach acid into the toilet. Nothing real comes up. He keeps trying anyway. His ribs ache from the force of it. His eyes water. His throat burns raw. Catalina holds him back with fingers that grip too tight. He wants to tell her to let go. He wants to tell her that it hurts. He stays silent.
I love you. Catalina says. Again and again and again. Her words scrape against the inside of his skull. I love you. I love you. I love you.
Is this love?
He closes his eyes before he can think further. He lets her drag him under. He is tired. Catalina’s fingers curl around his wrist.
He calls for Bruce and he does not come for his son.
He calls for Batman and he does not come for his weapon.
He calls for anyone.
Nothing answers.
She hits him one evening. When he’s knelt at her feet. The sound is louder than it should be. His head snaps to the side. Silence follows.
Dick stares at the floor. His cheek burns. He waits for anger. For something, anything. But all he feels is exhaustion.
Cat says that she wishes he wouldn’t force her to do things like that. He almost laughs. Almost. Instead he swallows. That becomes the pattern. There is always a reason. There is always something he did wrong.
If he had listened she wouldn't have gotten angry. If he hadn't mentioned Bruce she wouldn't have felt threatened. If he loved her properly she wouldn't need to hurt him.
It's always his fault.
She twists his words around him and he watches her do it. He watches her take every apology, every confession, every frightened admission and turn them into proof that he needs her. That he’s cruel. That he’s selfish. That everyone else abandoned him. That she is the only person who stayed.
He knows it isn’t true. Deep under everything, he knows. But he is starting to doubt.
“You don’t mean that,” she tells him. He doesn’t know which part she’s talking about.
“I do.”
“No.” She says it gently. Like she’s correcting a child. “You don’t.”
Dick looks at her. He wants to disagree. Instead he lowers his head. The motion feels automatic now.
Cat says they’re going to get married. He doesn’t know what to say to that. The word feels impossible. He thinks of rings and he thinks of handcuffs. Cat smiles when he doesn’t answer.
She tells him that she knows he is scared. She tells him he will understand eventually.
Dick looks at the ring she has chosen. It is beautiful. That might be the worst part.
She’s on top of him again. Hands everywhere. Sage and blood and the smell of sex. Dick stares at the ceiling and counts the cracks. He has learned to lay there and take it.
There is a tiny water stain near the light. He fixes his eyes on it and pretends it is a star.
Jason stands in the corner of the room. Forever fifteen year old Jason. His hair is messy, his face is pale. Jason is staring at him. Not Catalina. Him. And Dick wants to cry out. He shouldn’t be seeing this. He shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t have to watch.
Jason doesn't move. He just stares. There is accusation in his eyes. Or pity. Or maybe neither. Dick can't tell anymore.
“I'm sorry,” he whispers.
Catalina doesn't hear him. Jason does. Dick squeezes his eyes shut. When he opens them again Jason is gone.
He makes it three blocks before she finds him. Three blocks. That’s all.
His shoes hit the wet pavement and his lungs burn. His body screams with every step.
He doesn’t know where he is going. He doesn’t need to know. Anywhere is better.
He walks past shuttered storefronts and flickering streetlights. Rain slides beneath the collar of his jacket. His heartbeat pounds in his ears.
For a few seconds something inside him wakes up. Instinct. Training. Survival.
He walks until his legs shake, which doesn't turn out to be very far.
Then he hears a voice behind him.
“Richard.”
He stops. He shouldn’t. His body does it anyway. She catches up easily. She always does.
She tells him that he can’t live without her. He thinks about arguing. He thinks about telling her she is wrong. He thinks about telling her that he lived before her. But he's becoming less and less sure that it is true.
Dick stares at the pavement. Rainwater gathers against the soles of his shoes. Where would he even go?
He thinks of the manor. He thinks of the Titans. He thinks of every person he has ever loved and every person he has failed. None of them feel real enough to reach.
Dick closes his eyes. For a second he can see the rooftop again. Rain. Blood. Concrete. Sky.
He remembers thinking that if he stayed there long enough the rain might wash everything away.
He doesn’t know what to do anymore.
He doesn’t know how to get home.
He doesn’t know if home is somewhere he’s still allowed to go.
So he stands there in the rain, Catalina’s hand around his wrist. And Dick, exhausted beyond anything he has words for, lets her take him back.