Chapter 7: (interlude)

Dick knows he’s a coward. 

He learned quickly. The night Bruce put a knife in his hand. The night they killed Harvey Dent. The first time Bruce left him alone in the cave. Dick walked to the edge of the cliff and looked down into the dark. He stood there, and he looked at the dizzying drop, and he stood there, and he heard the water rushing at the bottom, and he stood there, and then Bruce came back and grabbed his arm and pulled him away from the ledge. 

He thought Bruce would be angry. He wasn’t. He drew Dick into his arms and kissed him and said don’t scare me like that in a soft burning voice. They didn’t do anything else that night. Bruce just held Dick and stroked his hair and kissed him. There you are. There you are. Don’t scare me like that. 

Dick wonders if he cried that night. He can’t remember. Bruce never liked it when he cried. 

He stood there on the edge of the cliff. He looked down into the black. His knees locked. If he had just leaned forward….

If he had just let Harvey Dent shoot him. If he had just missed his grappling line off of Wayne Tower. If he had just killed Kid Flash that first day. If he had just leapt off the platform after his parents. 

But he was a coward then, and he’s a coward now. 

Dick comes back to that. It happens again. The first night, in the apartment, when he slips out of bed and goes to the living room and finds the other Jason—the older Jason—and freezes there looking at him and loses he doesn’t know how much time—

“Hey. You startled me.”

And the other Jason doesn’t hit him. He doesn’t pull Dick into bed or push him down onto his knees. He boils water for chocolate, and he doesn’t ask for anything in return. 

Dick doesn’t offer. 

“I am not going to have sex with you.”

The other Jason says that. And Dick, like a coward, believes him. 

Jason says he doesn’t want sex. Dick believes him. Jason says they don’t have to pay for things here. Dick believes him. Jason says they’re safe from Bruce. Dick looks at the dagger strapped to his ankle and the unloaded gun in his overnight bag and wonders how Jason escaped the first time. Dick knows what Bruce does to people who steal from him. He knows better than anyone. He wonders what Jason saw that would make him risk that for someone else. 

He doesn’t ask. 

He doesn’t test it. He doesn’t push. He doesn’t try motivations. Maybe Jason isn’t into fear. Maybe he doesn’t like boys. Maybe he’s a normal fucking adult who doesn’t get off on raping kids. It doesn’t really matter. He gives them food and shelter and protection and asks nothing in return, and Dick believes him. 

Dick believes him, until Jay looks the man in the eye and asks. 

Jay is braver than him. Jay asks, and stands his ground, and all Dick can think about is how small he is, and how much it will hurt when Jay’s own double tears him apart. 

Dick doesn’t know how to stop it. He doesn’t know how to stop Jason, either version of him, and all he can think is that he’s going to fail, he’s going to fail again, because he can’t stop Jason and he couldn’t stop Bruce and he just can’t seem to die. 

He doesn’t die. 

The other Jason doesn’t hit them. He doesn’t beat Jay until his skull fractures or fuck him into a bloody mess on the floor. He lets them go, and Dick wakes up the next morning in the little bedroom with the window that opens on a fire escape, in the narrow twin bed with Jay cuddled up against his side.

And nothing hurts. 

They wake up late, to pale light streaming through the window, and nothing hurts. They take turns using the bathroom, showering and brushing teeth, and no one follows them inside. They eat breakfast in the kitchen—scrambled eggs and fruit with vegan bacon for Damian—and no one demands anything in return. Jason cooks the food and cleans the dishes after and looks at them, short dark glances that would be menacing if he ever got any closer than ten feet. The other Dick eats with them. Damian calls him Richard. Dick likes that. It makes him think of his uncle—the uncle he never met—who he only knew in his mother’s stories. It makes him think maybe this Richard is someone his parents could have been proud of. 

Richard eats with them and talks with Damian about the pets he has back at Wayne Manor. Damian has a lot of pets. Bruce must like him a lot, Dick thinks, to allow that kind of indulgence. Maybe it’s another way of controlling him, a way to hurt him without Bruce having to lay a hand on his own blood son. 

Dick wonders if Damian didn’t already know what Bruce is. 

He knows about Batman. Dick is pretty sure of that. Maybe Damian didn’t care about that, the killing and terror, but the sex…. 

Could Bruce have hidden it? Would he even care to? Dick feels a jab of sympathy for Tim and Duke. At least he only had to act outside the manor. If they have to keep up appearances even inside—

Or maybe they’re too old. Maybe Dick’s first impression was right, and the older boys don’t fit Bruce’s tastes. Maybe they really are nothing but accessories to Batman.

Maybe Damian really didn’t know. 

He didn’t even try to stay with Bruce. Jason took them—and Dick let it happen—and Damian went along with them, right there in the manor, right in front of Bruce. He didn’t seem scared. He still doesn’t. He stood there and watched the other Jason throw himself on a live grenade, and the other Richard put all his life and freedom in danger, he just stood there and watched it happen without a shred of worry. He didn’t stop them. He didn’t try to placate Bruce. He doesn’t seem afraid and he doesn’t treat Richard or Jason or any of them like servants or toys and Dick can’t understand why. 

He wonders what happened to Damian’s mother.

After breakfast, they… sit. 

Richard has a television and a collection of DVDs. He tells them they can watch any they’d like, or anything on the public broadcast channels. He doesn’t have many books, but he says Jay can look at his old textbooks if he wants, and he says they’ll visit the library sometime, and he says if they want anything else they can always ask. He says a lot of things. The other Jason chimes in sometimes and his voice makes Dick tense but it’s never an order or a demand and no one touches him except Jay taking his hand and helping him sit down on the couch and tucking a blanket around his shoulders and it feels good so Dick stays there and no one touches him. No one makes him move. 

He doesn’t know how much time passes. 

It’s not his problem. You don’t have to do anything, the other Jason said, and no one makes him move, so Dick doesn’t. So he sits curled up on the couch and lets everything else pass him by. Sometimes things play on the television: bright colors, shapes of animals, and a level, soothing voice that never quite makes him feel anything. It’s… nice. 

It’s nice. 

Living with the West-Allens was nice. 

Dick remembers that. It was peaceful. He didn’t have to do anything. Wally told him that, over and over, and Iris told him, and Barry, and after a few months Dick started to believe them. It took longer, then. He didn’t know he could live without Bruce. He’d never had to try. 

It was hard at first. He spent a lot of time scared. He spent a lot of time hiding in the kitchen or the coat closet or the basement while Wally or Iris tried to convince him that he was safe, while Barry told him that it was just the mailman on the porch or a neighbor driving home, that he wasn’t hearing Batman. Barry was right, in the end. None of them heard Batman coming. 

Once, in the first month, Dick woke up in the middle of the night convinced that if he went back on his own Bruce would forgive him and spare the West-Allens and everything would be fine. Wally couldn’t talk him down. Wally had to physically stop him from leaving the house. The noise woke Barry and Iris up. Iris spent the next four weeks working from home so she could watch Dick in case he tried to run away again. Barry took his turn watching on weekends. 

And they were kind to him. Iris talked about her assignments and read over drafts with him. Barry taught him about baseball. Wally played video games with him and showed him fidget toys and learned how to make manriklo and held Dick’s hand when he cried at the taste of it. They watched the sunset together. 

Living with the West-Allens was nice, but it couldn’t last. Just like Dick’s life with his parents couldn’t last. This is just… another iteration. He might be safe now, but eventually, Bruce will come for him. 

Bruce always comes for him. 

Not yet, though. Probably… probably not yet. It’s only been a few days. Richard seems determined to keep them away from Bruce. Jason threatened to kill Bruce if he followed them. 

Jason, who is not dead. 

Jason, who stands over six feet tall and carries a gun and says the shock of white in his hair came from head trauma. 

Dick wonders what he saw. Dick wonders why he disappeared from the portraits in the manor, and what happened to him after that. Dick is too much of a coward to ask. 

Jason watches over them. Jason moves around the kitchen making things that smell good. Sometimes he calls them over to the table and they go, and they sit, and they eat. That’s all. Richard talks and Damian talks and Jay talks so Dick doesn’t have to. So he doesn’t have to think.

He eats with the others. He showers alone. He guards the door for Jay. Damian stands with him, and they don’t talk, but Dick feels the warmth of his presence. For a minute he lets himself imagine that Damian is safe, that neither of them will ever have to hurt the other, that they can stand here in a narrow hallway far outside Gotham and just… be.

Damian is a child, too. He’s younger than Dick, though he doesn’t act like it. Dick wonders if it is safe for Damian here. Maybe that’s why he took the chance to follow them. 

More time passes in the bedroom, in the night, and the sun rises and Dick wakes up in the twin bed with Jay cuddled up against his back. 

He sits on the couch. Jay throws a blanket over him and Dick has enough feeling in his hands to pull it tight around his body. Jay sits next to him with his book and rests his head on Dick’s shoulder and stays there. Dick feels the warmth of his body through the blanket. 

It’s nice. 

He doesn’t know how long he sits there with Jay. He just… drifts, for a while. This used to happen before. Mostly when Bruce had to travel for work. A few times when he got so fixated on hunting down a target that even sex couldn’t distract him. Those few times Dick had nothing to do, no role to play, no threat of punishment hanging over his head, he would just… let go. For a little while, he could sit and rest and think about nothing at all. 

Jay moves. The couch feels cold without him. Dick twists his hands in the blanket and turns his head, trying to see where Jay went. If he can see Jay at all. The apartment is small but there are still spaces he can’t see. The bedrooms. The bathroom. The linen closet. 

Jay is in the kitchen, though. With the other Jason. With Damian. They move around and talk but no one yells or hits so Dick thinks it’s probably fine, until Jason looks across the room and meets his eyes. 

Hey Jason says in his rough voice there’s hot chocolate. You want some?

Dick says something like yes. He’s good at that: responding without thinking, giving people what they want without being fully present. Wally never liked it when he did that. 

He doesn’t know why he keeps thinking about Wally. 

Jason moves from the kitchen. Dick doesn’t register it until he’s right in front of the couch, pressing a mug into Dick’s hands. Dick startles. Jason steps back. 

Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you. 

The mug bleeds heat. In a minute Dick has to readjust his grip. He sees Jason sitting in the armchair next to the coffee table. Jason is holding a mug, too. It’s blue and white. It has birds on it. 

“Hey,” Jason says. “You with me?” 

“Where else would I be,” Dick says, and tries to smile. 

Jason’s mouth twitches. His amusement doesn’t reach his eyes. His eyes are sad. “I was telling Jay,” he says, “I’ll be gone the next couple days. I’m going back to Gotham. Damian’s going with me.” 

Jay appears in the living room to set his mug on the coffee table and settle on the couch next to Dick. The weight of his body is comforting. The mug is hot in Dick’s hands. 

“I’ll be back,” Jason says. “I just have some things to take care of.” 

“I will be back as well. For the weekend,” Damian says. He’s further away. Still in the kitchen. 

“Damian has school,” Jason says. 

“Tt. Unfortunately.” 

The mug is hot. Dick looks down at it. At foamy brown liquid with a bit of powder floating on the surface. It smells like cinnamon. 

“Okay,” he says. 

Jason looks at him a little longer. “Okay,” he says. “I wanted to give you this.” He holds something out. “This is a practical gift. There are no strings attached. I am not doing this to get anything from you. I don’t want anything from you. You do not have to pay me back.” 

Jay makes a soft noise that might be a laugh. He stays relaxed against Dick’s side. 

“You can give it back, if you want,” Jason says. “Next time you see me. That’ll make us even.” 

He holds a cell phone in his hand. It’s an older model, durable and relatively cheap, the kind people often use for burners. 

“Okay,” Dick says. Jason says they don't have to pay for things here. Dick believes him.

He takes the cell phone. 

“It’s got my number,” Jason says. “I think you have Dick’s, too.”

“And Cass,” Jay says. 

“Yeah. Okay,” Jason says. He leans forward. “You see this button?” He points out a slim button on the side of the phone. 

Dick nods. 

“You press that three times,” Jason says, “it’ll call me. You don’t have to do anything. You don’t have to talk. I’ll get your call, and I’ll come help.” 

The mug is hot and heavy. Dick can’t hold it in one hand. He sets the phone down in his lap and Jay picks it up to slip into the pocket of his hoodie. 

“You got that?” Jason says. 

“Yes,” Dick says. “Thank you.”

He wraps his other hand around the mug. Jason gave him that, too. This is a practical gift. He doesn’t know why Jason gives them these things, but it doesn’t matter. Jason says there are no strings attached. Jason says they don’t have to do anything. Dick believes him. 

He sips the hot chocolate. It tastes different from before. Thick. Rich. Sweet. It burns the roof of his mouth. 

By the time Dick finishes his cup, Jason and Damian are gone. 

Back to Gotham. Back to Bruce. Dick doesn’t know what accord Jason and Bruce have, what kind of deal, but he knows that Gotham belongs to Batman. Jason goes back to Bruce’s territory, of his own free will, without fear of death. He invades the man’s house, steals from him, threatens him to his face, only to turn around and go back. With Bruce’s son. 

Whatever truce they have, whatever delicate balance of power rests in Gotham, Dick and Jay are right in the middle of it. Whatever blackmail or bribery or powerful magic holds Bruce back, Jason is testing it, with them as the prize. Bruce never even got to try him. Now Dick is just out of reach.

When Jason dies, it will be Dick’s fault. 

Like Amanda Paulson, his fourth grade teacher. Like Lauralyn Myers, the school nurse. Like Michelle, the flight attendant. Like Harvey Dent. Like Barry Allen and Iris West. 

Like Wally. 

Richard doesn’t treat them any differently after Jason leaves. He lets them sleep in the bedroom, eat at the table, sit in the living room. Jay carries a book with him everywhere. He reads in the living room, at the table, and the first time Richard asks about it he tenses but he doesn’t panic. He answers the question. Richard keeps asking, after that. The words pass Dick by but Jay seems to like them. He answers, and answers more, and Dick sees him turn toward Richard like a flower to the sun. 

It’s good. 

It won’t last.

It’s good. Dick is a coward, with a broken brain, and when Batman rips apart this fragile peace it will be his fault, but Jay deserves better. Jay deserves someone who will listen to him, care for him, keep him safe. Richard wants to keep him safe. Richard survived Bruce and escaped to Blüdhaven and still went back for them. Richard is good. Hoping for escape is useless, but maybe…

Maybe, when Bruce comes for him, it can just be him. Maybe Dick will be enough. Maybe he and Richard together can get Jay somewhere else—somewhere safe—where he can have home-cooked meals and his own bed and books. 

It’s stupid to hope.

For now they’re together. For now he can hold Jay in his arms and press him to his chest and shield him with his body. That’s enough. It has to be enough. 

“Could you,” Jay says, one night, when they’ve eaten and showered and crawled into bed. Damian is gone, so the folding cot is empty, but Jay still climbs in the twin bed with Dick, and Dick lets him. He lies on his side, facing Dick, with his stuffed fox clutched to his chest. 

Dick waits for him to finish his sentence. He waits and waits. 

“Could,” Jay says, and then nothing else. He takes Dick’s hand. He brings it up to the back of his head and lets it rest in his hair. “Could you… again?”

Dick flexes his fingers. He pushes them through curls starting to grow out. Hair thick and soft now that Jay has time to wash and dry it gently. Jay pushes closer into his grasp and makes an eager noise that catches in Dick’s brain and echoes like a skipping disc. The same second over and over. The same noise. 

It’s the same noise. 

The next thing after that is Jay crying quietly. I’m sorry. Dickie, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. The wall is rough against his back and his knuckles are white in the blankets. He missed something. He lost time. 

What happened, he says, or something like it. His mouth is dry. 

“I’m sorry,” Jay says, “I didn’t mean—”

“Jay, what happened?”

“You went back,” Jay whispers. “Back—in your head, I don’t—I don’t know. You were. You were moaning.”

“Did I hurt you?”

Jay shakes his head. “You didn’t,” he says. “You just weren’t—” He sobs. He cries, but he’s quiet, and no one hears, so it’s okay. 

Dick can’t bring himself to touch Jay after that. 

He sits on the couch. Jay goes to the window seat with his book. He sits with the grey city clouds over his shoulder. Something plays on the television. Birds of paradise in the jungle. The apartment smells like black tea, and vinegar, and pasta. 

Hey. Hi. No, now’s a good time. It’s good to hear from you. Yeah. 

The voice doesn’t register at first. It’s distant, disconnected, another thing he doesn’t want to touch. But it keeps rising and falling. It strikes an irregular rhythm.

Yeah. It’s… well. I knew what I was getting into. Yeah, that’s good. I’m glad. Maybe… I don’t know when. But maybe. 

It sounds closer. Dick twitches away from it, into soft cushions and the wool blanket under his hands. Soft light. Bright colors—on the TV. Jay—in the window seat—reading. 

“I know,” the voice says, on the edge of laughter, “you don’t have to tell me—” A pause. “Oh, I would pay to see that.”

Richard’s voice. Talking. But not to them. Dick looks up, across the living room, until he finds Richard in the kitchen. Wearing earbuds, moving back and forth at the counter. 

Oh. He must be talking on the phone. 

Jay holds a finger in his book to mark his place and moves over to the couch. His arm brushes against Dick’s side. 

“It’s his friend,” Jay says in a murmur. “Wally. He has two kids and he lives—” 

Dick’s heart skips a beat. 

“Wally?”

Richard looks over at them. “Hey,” he says, “I’m gonna switch to video.” He rinses his hands in the sink and takes his phone from his pocket to tap the screen. Then he looks straight at Dick and says, “You want to talk to him?”

Dick stands up. He drops the blanket on the couch with nerveless fingers. He moves toward the kitchen, where Richard stands watching him. 

“Is that,” Dick says. 

Richard holds the phone out. A video call fills the screen. A man with bright red hair and a strong chin, slightly blurry, looks out with avid interest. 

It’s him. 

“Wally?”

The man smiles. His smile— “Hey,” he says, and his voice, almost the same, just a little deeper and a little more settled, “Dickie, right? Can I call you that?” 

He has freckles. He has freckles just like Wally did, all over his nose and cheeks and forehead. He has thin lips with the hint of a cupid’s bow, tilted up into a smile. He has long ginger eyelashes. 

He has the same eyes. 

“Dick? Kiddo?”

“You’re alive.”

Wally looks surprised. Then confused. Then pitying. “Yeah,” he says. “I am. What—what about you, how are you?”

Dick blinks, and the screen goes blurry. He blinks again furiously, trying to clear his vision, but that just makes it worse. He can’t breathe past the awful weight of relief on his chest.

“You’re alive,” he says. Wally, here, alive. Here in this strange impossible world. “You’re okay, you’re—”

“Yeah,” Wally says, and laughs a little, but it’s not a cruel laugh. It’s beautiful. “Yeah, I’m just fine. Are you….”

Tears spill over his cheeks. Dick ducks his head to scrub them away, to at least try and get himself under control. 

Richard says, “Wally, no,” and then a gust of wind tears through the apartment. Jay yelps and drops his book. 

“Sh—oot,” Wally says. Dick raises his head. 

Wally. Here. In the apartment. Standing in front of him, half turned back to look at Jay. “I didn’t mean to scare you,” he says. “Jason, right? Or uh—Jay?”

Jay nods and picks up his book. Dick can’t breathe. Wally. Here. 

Wally West, alive, brave enough to run all the way to Blüdhaven on a whim, to see Richard—to see all three of them—without any fear. Wally, alive, happy—and Jay said he had children— 

“I just wanted to say hi,” Wally says. “And, well, to be honest… you looked like you might need a hug.”

Richard says, “I don’t know if—” and then Dick lunges forward and wraps his arms around Wally. 

He cries. 

Wally never got angry when he cried. 

He screams. He sobs. He can’t get it under control. He can’t even try. It feels like his chest cracked open and bleeding. Like water bursting from a pipe. He is alive. He is terrified and sick and disgusting and lonely.

He is alive, and Wally is hugging him back. 

He presses his face into Wally’s chest. He hears Wally’s heart beat hummingbird-fast. He feels Wally’s arms around his shoulders and Wally’s chin against the top of his head. 

“It’s okay,” Wally says. His voice buzzes in Dick’s ear. “Oh, kiddo. It’s okay. Just let it out.”

This world is different. This world is better. Here Richard Grayson grew up. He didn’t endanger everyone he touched, and he didn’t get his best friend killed with his stupid delusional thoughts of escape. He found another way. He saved Wally, and he saved himself, and he stayed kind enough to give the children after him this fleeting safety. 

He gave Dick the chance to see his best friend again. 

Dick clings to Wally. Long after he stops crying, he grips Wally’s hand, and this happy adult version of his friend lets him. Wally stays for dinner, though he leaves right after, and he promises to visit again soon.

Dick doesn’t care if he keeps his promise. If it’s only once, if he has to pay for it later, he doesn’t care. They saw each other. He got to hold Wally’s hand. One last time, he got to see the person who saved his life. 

He’s glad he lived long enough for that.

⁂