Original Author's Note

I wanted this one to be longer, but it didn't turn out that way. I wrote the ending line and then realized I couldn't top that; it's the logical endpoint of the scene. oh well.

Prompts

lies | new scars | breathing through the pain

Chapter 15: emotional damage

“Batman is dead.” 

The blade bites deep into his skin. 

“Robin is dead.” 

It carves a line across his back. From the outside of his shoulder to his spine. 

“Batgirl. The Black Bat. The Huntress. Oracle.” 

Blood trickles across his skin. A new mark for each name. 

“Am I forgetting anyone?”

It shouldn’t hurt so much, Dick thinks. It’s just a knife—just a knife cutting his skin—and he’s felt that before, felt it dozens of times just in the last hour, and it shouldn’t hurt so much anymore. 

He takes a breath. It’s hard to breathe, laying on his stomach. He takes another breath. He feels his chest open and cave again. 

Owlman stands over him. Watching him. Applying the knife with a careful, steady hand.

“Your family is dead. Your friends are dead. The world you knew is gone.” 

Lying. You’re lying. Dick doesn’t say it. It’s not worth the effort, it won’t accomplish anything—Owlman has all the power here, and both of them know it. But he holds the thought in his mind, turning it over and over like a pen between his fingers. That’s not true. If they were dead—if they were really dead—

The knife bites into him again. Dick can’t stop the strangled gasp of pain. 

“Rose Wilson. Ravager.” 

Dick’s arms jerk against the chains holding him down. The chains tighten against his wrists. It’s nothing, just a muscle spasm, but Owlman goes still. Dick takes a desperate breath. 

“You thought she escaped?”

She did. She’s gone. She found the League, she’s with Lian, and they’re both safe—

“She didn’t. Johnny Quick found her in Narragansett. Only a few hours after she left here.” 

Narragansett. Dick’s mind catches on the name. That’s twenty miles south of Happy Harbor. Twenty miles in a few hours—he knows Rose could do that on a good day, but injured, low on energy, not even able to heal herself—

“He dragged her back by the hair and threw her in a cell with a broken neck.” 

Lying. He’s lying. The details give him away. Rose is fine. She escaped, she found a hiding place, and she’s making her way down the coast to get help. 

Maybe she’ll meet up with the others in Gotham. 

“You tried so hard to help her,” Owlman says, “and you only made it worse. Now she’ll die slowly.” 

Lying. Dick will believe that when he sees it—which he won’t, because she isn’t here. It doesn’t matter what Owlman says. It doesn’t matter what Owlman does. Rose got out. Lian is safe. The others are in Gotham, hidden away in one of the Bats’ safehouses. They’re going to be fine. 

The knife slices across his back. Dick jerks again.

“At least you’ll have something to remember them by.”