Dick doesn’t wake up.
Jason gets him out. He sticks around just long enough to see the Justice League burst forth from Firestorm, to see the atomic matrix glow for a single second; then he grabs Dick and runs. Everything else—the Crime Syndicate, the battle, the sun—it’s the Justice League’s problem now. Jason came here to rescue Dick. That’s what he’s going to do.
He finds Kory and Roy outside, in sudden, brilliant sunshine. It was night when they breached the Watchtower. It’s been night for the past sixteen days. For some reason Jason thought it would still be night when they finished here.
“Where’s Luthor?” Jason says. He passes Dick off to Kory. She lifts him and holds him with ease.
“Inside. He went looking for Batman.”
“Batman can handle him,” Roy says. He shifts from one foot to the other. He’s scratched up, bruised, but he doesn’t look hurt. He looks nervous. “We should go. Cold and Manta and the others already split.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Jason says. “Rendezvous in Gotham. I got a hideout there.”
“We have much to tell you,” Kory says. She tilts her head at Roy. Then she takes off in a burst of orange light.
Dick doesn’t wake up.
He lies limp in Koriand’r’s arms. She holds him under his back, under his knees, and it reminds her of nothing so much as their time with the Titans, when she picked him up and carried him into battle so he could keep up with the others. She loved carrying him then. She loved being close to him, feeling his skin on hers, feeling his life and warmth and love. She loved him then.
Now he is cold to the touch. He looks paler than he ever did before. He is naked. Kory has never understood humans’ visceral aversion to nakedness, but she knows that Dick is more fervent about it than most. He hates to be naked. He hates to let others see him so openly.
He would hate to have her carry him now.
His heart beats fast. His blood pulses under his skin, but even that feels colder than it should be. Kory flies faster. She shoots across the bright sky in the direction of Gotham—now a distant shape on the horizon—and she hopes that Jason and Roy are moving fast, too. She will need their help when she lands in Gotham. She has some idea where Jason’s hideout is, but it is his, and she will be a stranger there. If more of Batman’s family is there, she will be a stranger to them, too. And she will need their help to care for Dick.
Dick cares deeply. She has always known this. He cares for his family, his friends, and the people he meets in his travels, even if he only meets them once. Now he needs someone to care for him.
Koriand’r is glad that it might be her.
Dick doesn’t wake up.
When Kory lands in Gotham, when Jason and Roy roar in on a stolen motorcycle, he doesn’t wake up. When they take him down into the sewers, he doesn’t wake up. When they lay him down on a cot in a surprisingly clean and organized cave, he doesn’t even twitch.
Roy would find it funny, if he wasn’t so damn worried.
“Heart rate’s elevated,” Jason says. He has his helmet off, finally, so Roy can see how worried he is. He stands over the cot in the cave’s little infirmary—again, surprisingly tidy—with one hand on Dick’s neck, taking his pulse. Kory hovers behind him. “I think he’s going into shock.”
Roy moves to the foot of the bed and lifts Dick’s feet. He grabs a blanket and folds it over and over to prop underneath. Then he shakes another blanket—a thick blue fleece—over Dick’s body.
“We should clean him,” Kory says softly.
“We gotta get him awake first,” Jason says. “He—” Then he doesn’t say anything. He stares at Dick’s face, arms crossed over his chest, shoulders hunched. He looks small. Scared.
Roy can relate.
“If he’s going into shock,” Roy says, “he needs blood or oxygen.”
“Of course he does, Luthor fucking suffocated him, and—” Jason stops again. He has a raw look in his eyes—something in his head that he doesn’t want to say out loud. Maybe something he can’t say out loud. They all have those. Jason likes to pretend he doesn’t, but Roy knows.
“So oxygen,” he says, patient, even though Dick is stretched out on the bed between them and he might be dying. “You got a supply down here?”
Jason jerks into motion. “Yeah. Yeah.”
He goes to a closet and drags out a tank of compressed air and starts setting it up. “And blood,” he says over his shoulder, “he’s—he needs it. There’s some in the fridge.”
“This is how you store your blood?” Kory says, peering into the refrigerator.
“Get the bag marked O-negative,” Jason says.
“But blood is warm,” Kory says. She takes the blood bag out, as directed.
“Jay,” Roy says. “Is this fresh?”
Jason looks up.
“Yeah,” he says. He glances around the infirmary. The rest of the cave. The haunted look is back in his eyes. “Someone else was here. Is here—I think.”
“Bats?” Roy says.
Jason nods.
“Lucky for us,” Kory says.
“Lucky for him,” Jason says. His voice is bitter. He fits an oxygen mask over Dick’s face. “We gotta set up an IV.”
So they do. Roy sets the bag up on a stand. Jason ties a tourniquet, finds the vein, and wipes the skin down with water and rubbing alcohol. Kory’s hands are the steadiest, so she injects the needle and places the catheter tube. Roy runs the line to the bag.
At some point, a couple of Bats slip into the infirmary. Robin steps inside the privacy curtain and lingers there, scowling behind a domino mask. He’s on crutches, with a baggy sweatshirt and sweatpants pulled awkwardly over a cast. After him comes Batgirl, the blonde one, still in costume and smelling like the city.
Jason glares at each of them in turn, but he doesn’t leave Dick’s side.
At some point, Batgirl slips out again. Roy finds some chairs and drags them to the bedside. Jason sits. Kory sits. When Roy points at the third chair, Robin shakes his head. Roy lets him be. The kid is old enough to know what he wants; Roy isn’t going to argue with him.
It feels wrong to argue, with Dick lying still and silent in front of them.
Batgirl comes back with instant noodles. She hands a bowl to Robin. She edges around the bed, cautious but confident, and offers a bowl to Jason. He takes it.
She gives Roy and Kory bowls, too, which is nice of her.
At some point, Roy puts his head down on Kory’s shoulder. Her skin is warm. She’s still sweaty from the battle earlier, a little bit sticky, but she doesn’t smell bad.
At some point, Batman steps into the infirmary.
He lingers next to the curtain, like Robin did. He stares down at Dick. He still has his cowl, but most of the rest of his costume is gone. He’s been here a while, Roy thinks.
Jason glares at him, darker and angrier than he did with Robin or Batgirl. He reaches under the blanket and takes Dick’s hand, lacing their fingers together. Batman grimaces, but he stays quiet, and the truce holds.
At some point, Batman moves close enough to check Dick’s blood pressure and blood-oxygen levels. He stays on the other side of the bed from Jason. He takes the reading and then—slowly, gently—tugs the oxygen mask away from Dick’s face. He leaves the IV.
And there they sit. Jason clutches Dick’s hand, bending his head as if in prayer. Roy and Kory sit next to him, dozing on each other’s shoulders. Bruce looms at the head of the bed. He stares at Dick through unblinking lenses. Robin and Batgirl linger on the edges of the room, too agitated to sit, too nervous to walk away.
They sit there for a long time.
There are voices.
“…so Sinestro flies up to Black Adam and does something so he can talk again—”
“He realigned his jaw.”
“And Black Adam calls down his lightning, boom—point blank shot to the chest. And Mazahs doesn’t even blink.”
“That’s such a stupid fuckin’ name.”
“So now Black Adam’s in trouble. And we already know Sinestro can’t stand up to this guy…”
Somewhere close. Speaking softly. Do they know he’s here?
“…drives Luthor into the ground. I thought that was it for him.”
“It would be better than he deserved…”
There’s a bed. Underneath him. A firm mattress. Stiff cotton sheets. And—on top of him—a blanket. Soft fleece.
There’s something in his arm.
Dick twitches before he can stop himself. There’s no heart monitor, thank God, but he hears his heart beat faster all the same. There’s a needle in his arm. There’s an IV. Again. Again.
He takes a deep breath through his nose. He tries to keep it slow. The voices are close, but not right next to him. He might have a few seconds before they can reach him—before they can stop him.
And then what?
He doesn’t know where he is. He doesn’t know how he got here. He doesn’t know who’s talking in the other room. If he moves—they’ll catch him. They’ll catch him and they’ll tie him down and they’ll drug him or they’ll give him incompatible blood just to watch him struggle—
He grabs the IV. He pulls it out. He sits up, and then he has to stop as the room swings around him. His head throbs.
A grey room. Bare, unfinished walls. Cabinets in the corner. A curtain over the doorway. And a bed.
No. No. No.
He slides off the bed onto his feet and grabs for balance and knocks the IV stand over. It rings against the stone floor. He’s naked. No, no, no— He grabs the blanket to his front and then there are people in the doorway people all stronger than him and they—
They’re familiar. He knows them.
“Dick,” Jason says. He holds his hands out. They’ve fought before, Dick knows, has the scars if he ever somehow forgets, but right now Jason’s hands are empty.
And Roy is with him. And Kory.
“Kory,” Dick says.
Something shutters in Jason’s expression, but he moves sideways. Kory glows bright in the doorway. “Yeah,” Jason says. “Kory’s here. We’re all here. No one’s gonna hurt you. Alright? You’re safe now.”
Roy moves through the doorway—closer to Dick, but that’s alright. It’s Roy.
“You wanna sit down?” he says.
Dick does. The walls are still spinning an elliptical path through space. His feet feel numb. He steps toward the bed, bumps his knees against it, and then he falls.
Roy is there to catch him.
“Easy,” he says, and Dick shudders. Roy’s hands roam over his shoulders his arms his back and it hurts—
But Roy is helping him. Roy helps him into bed and pulls the blanket up over him, so it’s alright.
“You pulled your IV out,” Jason says. Something in his voice makes Dick’s heart slam into his throat.
“No,” he says, before he knows what he’s doing.
Then he stops. He lies still. He shouldn’t have said that. He’s not in any shape to be contradicting Jason. They’ve been on better terms lately, they’ve learned how to talk to each other, but Jason is stubborn and aggressive and now Dick is challenging him only he didn’t mean to he swears—
“Okay,” Jason says. He—he’s further away. On the other side of the curtain. His hands are still empty. “It’s okay—whatever happened, it’s fine.”
“Dick,” Kory says—Kory, with her voice like fire, warm and wild and burning and alive. “Do you want us to put the intravenous line back?”
He doesn’t want to answer. Jason is still watching him—and Roy—but Kory is there. Kory is the one asking. Kory doesn’t want to hurt him. She never has.
“No,” he says.
Kory nods. “Then we will not,” she says.
Dick could cry from relief.
“There you go,” Roy says. “Just relax, buddy. No more excitement. You need to rest.”
Jason ventures inside the curtain. “Dick,” he says. “Do you remember what happened?”
Roy throws up his hands. “What did I just say?”
Dick tries. He casts his mind back—before the blanket, the bed, the unfinished room. He searches for some thread of memory in the grey and black. There was metal—a metal grate under his feet, metal pipes on the walls—wires—and a hand over his mouth.
“Luthor,” he says. “I…” I died.
He doesn’t know if that part is real. He doesn’t want to ask.
“Yeah,” Jason says. He tilts his head. He’s not wearing a mask. Dick can see his face, all of it, the faded freckles, the little scar over his nose. And his eyes. “You remember what happened to that bitch owl?”
A laugh ripples through his lungs like rigor mortis. He does remember, when he tries—a deafening gunshot and ringing in his ears and the inside of Owlman’s mouth splattered across the floor.
“He’s dead.”
Jason smiles. It’s a tiny motion, just the corner of his mouth twitching back. He smiles like Bruce.
Like Owlman.
“That’s right,” he says, and he sounds nothing like either of them. “I killed him. And I’ll kill anybody else who tries to hurt you. Got it?”
Dick closes his eyes. He can sense Roy by the side of the bed. Kory hovers nearby, radiating warmth. His body must read them as safe, because he can feel himself fading, sinking back down into the dark. Roy is right. He needs to rest.
“No killing,” he says. Jason lets out a sharp, bitter laugh, and Dick doesn’t have time to be afraid before he’s gone.
There are voices.
“Jason—”
“No.”
“Just hear me out.”
“Oh, that’s hilarious, coming from you.”
In the other room. Right outside the infirmary, in the larger part of the sewer cave. As if Dick won’t be able to hear them.
“This isn’t meant to be a long term base of operations.”
“According to who? You?”
“He’ll have better care in the Cave. He’ll be closer to home.”
Jason and—Dick squeezes his eyes shut—Bruce. Jason and Bruce. Owlman isn’t here. Owlman is dead. Jason shot him.
“Home? That’s not his home. Why don’t you just say it—you want him there so you can keep an eye on him. So you’ll know the instant he’s ready to get back on the streets—”
“This isn’t about you. This is about Dick. What he needs.”
They don’t argue in the infirmary. Jason fusses over Dick—as much as Jason ever fusses over anyone—and tries to keep things calm. He tries not to scare Dick.
Bruce is mostly silent. He looms in corners, watching everything from behind his cowl. Dick hasn’t seen him without it yet. Roy is gone—to meet up with Lian and Rose, Rose, who’s alive and well at a safehouse in Boston—but Kory and Selina are still around, and that’s enough for Bruce to keep identities on lockdown.
Jason doesn’t care. Jason hasn’t worn a mask since Dick woke up. Damian follows Bruce’s lead, wearing either a domino or a half-mask around the cave. Dick hasn’t seen anyone else. The rest of the Bats are out, reuniting with family or mopping up the aftermath of the invasion. Or missing.
(No one has heard from Tim yet. No one knows where he is. Bruce only mentions him in murmurs, sitting at the computer, but the cave isn’t built for privacy. Dick knows. The Titans might not come back. He might never see Tim again.)
(He wishes they hadn’t tried to rescue him.)
Dick moves around when he can. He does slow laps through the rest of the cave, admiring Jason’s attempt to build an underground hideout of his own. He plays cards and video games with Damian, who’s been on crutches for the last two weeks, and by now looks about ten minutes away from setting something on fire. He sits with Kory, in the time she has underground, until she leaves to soak up the sun and check on the outside world.
Dick can’t go outside.
Richard Grayson’s name and face are plastered across every news screen in the United States, and quite a few outside of it. Richard Grayson is Nightwing, the world-famous vigilante and senior member of the Justice League. Richard Grayson is suspected to have been Robin, an equally famous underage vigilante from the most dangerous city in the country. Richard Grayson is dead.
And Dick is here. Sitting on a bed in a cave under Gotham’s sewers. Eating oatmeal, taking painkillers. Listening to voices in the other room.
“Jason. You cannot keep him here.”
“I’m not keeping him anywhere. I’m giving him a safe place to heal, which is more than you’ve ever—”
“Don’t flatter yourself. This is not a safe location. This is a temporary solution at best, and you’re doing more harm than good by—”
“Fuck you! You’re the reason he’s in this mess!”
They must know he can hear them. They must want him to hear. It’s another mind game. Maybe they want him to choose, or maybe they want him to know how inconvenient he is, sitting here useless while the media firestorm rages outside. Maybe they want him gone.
Dick squeezes his eyes shut. He can’t. He can’t go yet. He’s still on bed rest. He’s still wearing a sling while his shoulder heals. Bruce just reopened the cuts on his back to clean them and stitch them up properly. He wouldn’t have done that if he was just going to throw Dick out. He wouldn’t have wasted his time.
Jason brings him food and a little paper cup of pills. All his meds are in pill form—they didn’t try to set up another IV after he pulled the first one out, and Dick was so, so grateful, but maybe it just wasn’t worth the effort. Jason sits with him while he eats. He talks about small, meaningless things, and his voice is quiet, and his eyes follow every spoonful of soup that Dick eats.
Do you want me gone?
The words rise in Dick’s throat, locked behind his teeth. He can’t say that. Jason wouldn’t tell him the truth, anyway. He might get angry.
“How’s Bruce?”
Jason frowns. His eyebrows draw together, just for a second, before his expression smooths out again. “Fine,” he says. “Pissed off he keeps having to talk to reporters.” Jason rolls his eyes. It’s a performance, not quite genuine annoyance, but it does make Dick feel better. “You’d think he never had a kid die before.”
Dick chokes on his water.
“Jason,” he says. He coughs. Water drips down his shirt. Jason pats him on the back—very lightly, so he doesn’t aggravate Dick’s stitches. It doesn’t help much. Dick leans into the touch anyway.
“What?” Jason says.
“You know what,” Dick says. “Maybe that’s why he’s upset.”
“Hm, no. That can’t be it.” Jason keeps rubbing Dick’s back. It feels good. His hands are warm and light against Dick’s puckered skin. “He’s just an ass.”
Dick laughs a little. He dabs at the wet spots on his shirt.
“You want to change?” Jason says. Dick freezes a little.
No. He doesn’t want to change. Days after the rescue, in the safety of the cave, he still hates the idea of taking off any of his clothes, for any reason. He doesn’t want anyone to look at him. Between the sling and the stitches, changing his clothes is a long, torturous process, and he can’t do it without help.
“No,” he says. By some miracle, it sounds casual. Jason is still touching him. Why is Jason touching him? “It’s just water.”
“Okay,” Jason says. His voice is quiet and small. Jason is never quiet. He isn’t small. He’s doing this for a reason, but Dick doesn’t know what that reason is. He needs to know. He needs to know before Jason gets bored of whatever this is and flips on him.
Jason rubs his back. Dick takes a deep breath. He feels Jason’s hand still over his shoulder.
“You okay?” Jason says.
“Yeah,” Dick says. “Fine.”
He takes his pills one at a time. Jason doesn’t ask him any more questions.
He doesn’t get any warning. One second he’s safe, and the next—
“Yes, Dick.” Owlman lunges out of the dark. Light sparks off his cowl. “I’ve come for you.”
He grabs Dick and throws him down. Dick can’t move. Owlman is here. On top of him, holding him down, and he should fight back, but he can’t move—Why can’t he move?
“I’m not giving up on you, Dick,” Owlman says. He’s not wearing the cowl anymore. He leans in close and his face is every color at once. Blue eyes and white skin and dark anger and bright red blood on the floor— “My Gotham is gone. My Alfred is dead. You’re all I have left.”
No, Dick says, but his voice is gone. No, no, no!
Owlman holds him down. Dick can see the hunger in his eyes. The want. His skin is on fire. It burns away where Owlman touches, and Owlman looks inside him.
“I need you, Dick,” he purrs. “You are my second chance. I want to do things right this time.”
“No!”
The word tears from his chest. He wrenches forward, clawing at the layers of cloth that hold him down. He can’t see. It’s dark, except for the dim light shining from a corner. Owlman is gone. Dick can’t see him anywhere.
He stumbles away from the bed, barefoot, wearing nothing but loose flannel. His skin crawls. He moves until he hits the wall, and then he turns his back to it, trying to see where he is. He can’t see. He can’t—
“Dick?”
He freezes. The wall at his back is suddenly a cold, cold comfort.
“No,” he says. It sounds more like a moan. He presses the back of his hand to his mouth. He presses back against the wall. It feels wrong. He can’t move his other arm—it’s tied down. He can’t escape. Owlman is here.
He looms out of the dark.
“Dick,” he says. “It’s alright. You’re safe.”
“No,” Dick whines. He can’t look away from the broad figure moving in the dark—wide shoulders, large hands, coming to grab and tear and take. “No, please—”
Owlman stops.
Dick takes a breath. That worked before. He remembers—Owlman wanted him to beg. He wanted that from the beginning, and Dick resisted, he fought back for a long time—but he can’t do that again. He’s hurt. He’s trapped. Owlman is here, and Dick knows what happens when he fights back. He can’t do that again.
“Please,” he says. He feels the wall scrape over his back. His knees hit the floor. “Please, I—I won’t fight.”
For a few seconds, Owlman is still. “Dick,” he says slowly. “You’re alright. You’re safe. No one is—going to hurt you.”
His face is wet. Dick shakes his head. He doesn’t want to do this. He doesn’t want to play this game. He just wants it to stop.
“Do you know where you are?”
No. He doesn’t. All he knows is the dark and the bed and the little fragments of light in the corners, but he has to say something. He takes a shallow breath.
“The—the Watchtower,” he says. “I was—in—the cell, please, I don’t—I don’t know what happened, please—”
“Dick?”
A new voice. Jason, Dick’s brain whispers, but that can’t be right. Jason wasn’t there—with Owlman, he wasn’t—so why would he be here now—
“Get away from him,” says the voice. Owlman turns away. “You’re scaring him.”
“He—” Owlman stops. He’s never done that before. He’s always been certain, in control, and Dick doesn’t understand— “He’s disoriented.”
“Yeah, no shit,” the other voice snaps. Jason, Dick thinks, only it can’t be. “Hey, Dickie.” Then his voice is soft and soothing. “You’re not on the Watchtower. You’re in Gotham. You’re safe. Owlman’s dead, remember?”
He’s not dead. He’s right there. Dick squeezes his eyes shut and opens them again in panic. Is he hearing things? Has he finally snapped?
“You’re gonna be okay,” Jason says, and it’s been years since he hallucinated Jason, but now—he doesn’t know—
Another shadow slips through the dark, skirting around Owlman, coming closer, and Dick scrambles back in a panic.
“Dick, stop.”
“You’re gonna make it worse, you idiot—”
“He’s going to tear his stitches!”
Stitches? Dick doesn’t remember that. He doesn’t know what’s going on, just that he can’t move his arm and his back hurts with the plucking pain of, yes, stitches pulling through skin. He scrambles back, only for his back to hit another wall. He makes a garbled shriek of pain.
“Dick, stop,” Owlman says. He’s moving closer. Dick can’t breathe.
“No,” he moans. “No. Please.”
He can’t get away.
“It’s alright,” Owlman says. He reaches out. He doesn’t have the talons—or his cowl, it’s just his face, Bruce’s face, twisted up in a facade of pity.
“Don’t,” Dick says. He bites the rest of the words off, but it’s too late. “Please—”
There’s a shout. Then hands grab around Dick’s ribcage and hoist him forward. Dick squeezes his eyes shut. A light flicks on behind his eyelids. Then there’s a bed, pressing into his stomach, and hands holding him down, and he can’t breathe.
Someone tears the back of his shirt open.
“You stupid motherfucker,” Jason’s voice snaps, “he’s already fucking afraid of you—”
“He’s bleeding.” Owlman sounds—sad. Scared. Sharp-edged and mournful. “He would have torn his whole back open.”
There’s a harsh sigh. Dick should open his eyes and see what’s happening, but he can already feel the light pricking at his eyelids, and he doesn’t want to. He just wants this to be over.
Maybe if he lies still and stays quiet, it will be over faster.
“Okay,” not-Jason says. “Okay. Hey, Dick, can you hear me?”
Dick nods his head once. He hears another sigh.
“I gotta fix your stitches. You remember those?”
Dick shakes his head. He should remember, he thinks. It sounds—important. Familiar, maybe. But all he knows is the room, the bed, and Owlman holding him down.
“Okay,” Jason says. “Okay.” He moves away. Dick tracks him across the room. He hears drawers and cabinets opening. “This is gonna suck,” Jason says. Then, to someone else: “Hold him down. I’m gonna do it fast.”
Fast, fast, that’s what he wanted, but Dick can’t stop the last wave of panic that seizes him. He jerks, but he can’t escape. Owlman is too strong.
Then the needle slides into his skin and it hurts too much to think about anything else.
“Okay,” Jason says. “I’m going to touch your arm.”
No answer.
“I’m not going to touch anywhere else. I’m just going to help you sit up.”
No answer. Jason didn’t really expect one.
He sets his hands on Dick's shoulders and slowly turns him over. Then he lifts him up by the shoulders, avoiding the fresh stitches, and settles him back against a wall of pillows.
“That’s better, right?”
No answer. Dick looks at him with vacant eyes.
“I need to wash my hands,” Jason says. He makes a fist. Dick doesn’t react. “I’ll get Damian to sit with you. Okay?”
No answer. Dick just looks at him. His eyes are focused and tracking with the light, which is a good sign, but it’s nowhere close to where he was before. He was talking; he was lucid; he was healing. Now he’s trapped in his own head.
Jason digs his fingernails into his palm. He has blood on his hands.
“Okay,” he says. “Good talk.”
Dick doesn’t say anything to Damian, either. The kid hoists himself onto the bed, cast and all, and curls up against Dick's side. Dick’s face doesn't change, but he twitches at the contact and leans into Damian’s shoulder.
“It will be alright,” Damian says in Arabic. Jason only catches the edge of it, but he’s heard those words before. “You’re safe now, brother.”
Jason leaves them be.
He washes his hands in the cave’s one working sink. He’ll bleach it later.
Bruce watches him. He stands next to the computer, still dressed in sweatpants and a loose cotton shirt. He doesn’t have his cowl. Selina is spending the night elsewhere, and Kory left yesterday.
“How is he?” Bruce says.
When Dick stopped struggling, he left. Took his hands off of Dick’s back and walked away. He let Jason finish up the stitches by himself.
Jason shrugs. He lathers soap up his wrists.
“He went limp,” Bruce says. “Is he still… unresponsive?”
Jason shrugs.
“Jason.”
“He’s not talking,” Jason says.
“Is he awake?”
Jason shrugs. He takes a second to appreciate the way Bruce’s whole face tightens in displeasure. “He’s conscious. I don’t know if anybody’s home.”
He rinses his hands. Then he lathers them again, just to feel the warm water on his skin. He scrubs under his fingernails.
Bruce is silent. The cave lights throw deep shadows across his face.
“Still think he should move to the Cave?”
It’s a nasty, underhanded blow. That’s why Jason says it. Bruce jerks, and then turns to look at him with shuttered hurt in his eyes.
“You scared him too.”
Jason stops. Turns the water off with a flick of his wrist.
“When you approached him,” Bruce says, slow and measured and angry, “he was afraid of you, too.”
Jason bites the inside of his cheek. Words bubble up in his throat, a dozen caustic responses to throw like acid. Sure, I scared him. And you triggered a flashback. Did you like that, seeing him on his knees? Is that why you want to take him home? He’d do anything you say. Anything to keep you from touching him—!
In his head he screams it. Bruce punches him and slams him against the wall. Jason laughs in his face. Are you gonna do this to him? The first time he does something you don’t like? And then—
And then Bruce says something in return, and his voice sends Dick into another flashback. Or he doesn’t say anything at all, and Jason proves what a sick bastard he is by laying into a guy who can’t defend himself.
Jason takes a shallow breath. He uncurls his fingers one by one.
“Maybe he should stay with Babs.”
Bruce frowns. “What?”
“Dick. Babs. They’re dating, right? Why don’t you send him to the Clock Tower. If you’re so fucking concerned.”
“Oracle,” Bruce says, “is busy. I won’t ask her to add physical therapy and trauma counseling to her responsibilities.”
“Because you’re handling it so well.”
Bruce stares at him. The hurt and anger are gone from his face, although Jason would bet money they’re still circling in his head.
“Would you come to the Cave?”
“I—sorry, what?”
“Would you come to the Batcave,” Bruce says slowly, “with Dick, to make sure he was safe?”
Now Jason stares. “I’m sorry,” he says, “for a minute there it sounded like you were inviting me to live in your house.”
“I am,” Bruce says. He doesn’t even hesitate. “If that’s what it takes to prove that Dick is safe with us… I’ll allow it.”
Jason stares at him a little longer. It seems like a sincere offer. Bruce says it like Jason is the one being irrational and paranoid, but that’s Bruce. Jason wouldn’t expect anything less.
“Why?” he says.
“Dick seems,” Bruce says, “more comfortable with you. If it helps…” He trails off. He stares in the dark for a long moment. When he speaks again, his voice is a bare whisper. “I don’t want to do this anymore.”
He looks up. He meets Jason’s eyes—just for a second, but it’s enough. Jason sees the bleak sorrow in his face, and God help him, he understands.
“Okay,” he says. “I could. I could go.”
Bruce turns away.
“Hello, Richard.” Damian steps into the bedroom. He leaves the door cracked open behind him. “How are you today?”
Richard looks up from the bed. He’s sitting up today, propped up by, frankly, more pillows than anyone needs. He has a glass of water on the table next to his bed, and a few books stacked just as they were yesterday. The room is silent and still.
Richard smiles when he sees Damian. His lips turn up, and Damian sees his teeth, but his eyes don’t change. They stare at him, more blank than anything else.
Another might find it unsettling. Damian takes it in, the familiar motions of his brother’s face, and moves on.
“I have two activities for us today.” Damian crosses the room and hops up on the bed. He is finally free of that infernal cast; he starts back on regular patrols tomorrow night. “First: cribbage.” He sets the board down on the side table. It’s the plain one, painted red-yellow-blue with wooden pegs, not the family heirloom. “Or, if you would prefer, we can watch the next episode of Dungeon Meshi.”
The blank look doesn’t quite leave his eyes, but Richard is clearly unimpressed with the latter suggestion. He looks at the cribbage board.
“Do you have a preference?” Damian says. Richard looks up at him. His expression is wide-eyed—pleading, Damian thinks, if he had to guess. He doesn’t like it. He would prefer a frown. An expression of disdain. He would prefer for Richard to speak.
He doesn’t. He hasn’t spoken since he left the temporary cave in the sewers. He arrived at the Batcave a shell of himself, silent, dissociative, and he stayed more or less the same through his first few days in the Batcave infirmary. Then through Alfred’s insistence that he move to a proper bedroom. Then through the protracted, passive-aggressive argument between Alfred and Father. Todd has since moved into the room next door, to the chagrin of everyone except Alfred.
Richard lifts his hand. It trembles slightly as he points at the cribbage board.
Damian sighs. “Very well,” he says. “I suppose that will work for now.”
He arranges the cribbage board on the bed between them. Richard sits forward, shifting away from the pillows somewhat, and crosses his legs in front of him. His body is healing well. The stitches in his back have begun to dissolve as his skin knits together; his bruises are nearly all gone. His arm is still bound in a sling, but from what Damian has overheard, he could start physical therapy if he wanted to. If he had expressed any interest in it whatsoever.
“Father wants you to start physical therapy,” Damian says as he shuffles the cards.
Richard glances up at his face. Of course, he says nothing.
“You wouldn’t have to leave the house. Although Todd thinks you should.”
Then Father snapped that Richard was legally dead and couldn’t go anywhere, and then Todd made a snide remark about his own death, and the conversation rapidly devolved from there. Damian slipped away before it turned physical.
Richard shakes his head. It’s a short motion; it looks more absent-minded than anything else. Now he looks at the cards in Damian’s hands. Damian deals them out.
“They both think they know best,” he says. “And of course Todd does the opposite of everything Father says. You better start talking before they start a war.”
Father, at least, would not start a conflict on that scale, especially not with Gotham still recovering from the Crime Syndicate’s invasion. Todd might, though, and if he starts something Father will feel the need to finish it. Damian, like Richard, has already lived that series of events. Personally, he doesn’t feel the need to retread it.
Richard picks up his cards and studies them. He doesn’t frown. He always frowned before, looking at his cards, even if it was only a bluff.
The game opens in silence. It continues the same way. Richard pays attention to the game, and he plays to win, but he stays entirely too placid throughout. He doesn’t laugh. He doesn’t tease. He won’t even speak.
You better start talking, Damian said; has said in some way every time he’s visited. He doesn’t want to force Richard into anything. He doesn’t want to set his recovery back even further by threatening him. But he doesn’t know what else to do. He doesn’t know how to say, I miss you. You’re here but you’re not. I wish you would come back.
“Hey, Dick.” Jason turns away from the stove. Dick stands in the doorway, backlit by the hallway lamps. He stands still, planted on both feet. He looks at Jason. “You want some tea?”
Dick doesn’t answer. Of course. He hasn’t said anything in days; he’s not going to start now. But he steps into the kitchen, circles the island, and moves to stand next to the table. He doesn’t sit down. He keeps staring at Jason.
“Are you hungry?” Jason says. Healing is an energy-intensive business, and three meals a day—even three of Alfred’s meals—might not be enough. He’s glad that Dick at least feels comfortable enough to go looking through the kitchen on his own.
Still no answer. Dick lingers at the table. He still has the sling on his arm. He wears a loose tank top, sweatpants, and a thick pair of purple socks. His hair is mussed, like he just stumbled out of bed.
“You have a nightmare?” Jason says. He turns back to the stove, where the water is just starting to bubble. He opens the tea cabinet to rummage through the options. “Alfred has this ‘sleeping beauty’ blend—it’s chamomile, rose, and mint.” He shrugs. “Might help.”
“I was dead.”
Jason’s head snaps around so fast he’s surprised his neck doesn’t crack. Dick stares at him. His eyes are still wide, his face is still slightly blank, and he stands in the same spot next to the table. But he opens his mouth and says, “He killed me.”
“He,” Jason says. It’s barely more than a breath.
“Luthor,” Dick says. His voice is soft. Eerily placid. It matches the look on his face. “He… he killed me.”
“Yeah,” Jason says. He doesn’t know what else to say. He doesn’t know what else to do. Dick is talking. After days, weeks of silence, after whispers of a mental break and psychological damage—he’s talking. To Jason.
“He…” Dick looks down. At his hands, Jason realizes. “I… I died.”
“Dick,” Jason says. He doesn’t like the distant, hollow tone of his brother’s voice.
Dick looks up. His expression hasn’t changed. “Why did you save me?”
Jason’s next breath catches in his throat. “What?”
“Why did you…” Dick wavers. Jason lurches across the kitchen, suddenly terrified that Dick might collapse. He’s been steady since they got to the manor, but just a few weeks ago he was unconscious in Jason’s arms. Just a few weeks ago he was dead.
Dick lifts his head, sees Jason in front of him, and tenses. “No,” he says. Suddenly his voice is pleading. Jason stops.
“I’m not,” he says. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
“I—” Dick shakes his head. He closes his eyes and shakes his head. “Don’t. Don’t grab me. Please.”
“Okay,” Jason says. I wasn’t going to, he thinks, but Dick doesn’t need to hear his excuses. “Okay. I’m—going back in the kitchen. Now.”
He backs away.
Dick opens his eyes. “I was dead,” he says. His voice seems the slightest bit stronger. “You didn’t…” He shakes his head again. “You could have just let me die.”
“No,” Jason says. Maybe it’s too harsh, too aggressive, but he can’t let that statement pass.
“Why not?”
Now Jason shakes his head. “That was never an option,” he says. “We—we went there for you.”
Dick stares at him. “There was,” he says, and then stops. “The Justice League—”
“Dick,” Jason says. Slower than he wants, because he needs Dick to get this. “I don’t care about the Justice League. Or the Watchtower. Or whatever else you’re gonna try and say. I went there for you. Roy went there for you. Kory went there for you.” A bitter smile crosses his face. “Saving the world was just—a bonus.”
Dick shudders. “Don’t say that,” he says.
“It’s true,” Jason says. “And it all worked out. In the end.”
The kettle whistles.
Jason grabs onto the distraction like a grappling line fifty feet up. He takes the kettle off the heat. He watches it simmer down and bleed off steam. He pours the water over the mesh steeper and watches the water turn yellow-green.
“Last call for tea,” he says over his shoulder. He looks back, just in case Dick has run out of words for the night.
Dick is looking at his hands again.
“I was dead,” he says softly. He lifts his head and looks at Jason with an edge of curiosity. “I—I died.”
“Yeah,” Jason says. “But… it didn’t stick.”
Dick nods. His eyes drift down again. “I thought maybe it was a dream.”
Jason has no idea what to say to that. He stands there, trying to think of something, trying to find the right words, until Dick turns and wanders out of the kitchen.
I want to go.
Dick forms the words in his head. He imagines the sounds, individual and overlapping. He turns them over and says them again. In his head, and out loud.
"I. Want. To go."
It's not like before. There's something in him—nestled in his windpipe, in his lungs—something blocking the words. He can't say them without a lurch of terror, a muscle that clenches with the certainty that this is wrong. These words, this room, his heartbeat and the blood in his veins and the breath in his lungs and the words. This is wrong, his body tells him. He should be back in the Watchtower. He should be dead.
I want to go home.
He has to practice his words now. If he doesn't, he'll lose them. He'll go downstairs and look at Jason and look at Bruce and his thoughts will slip away and he will freeze.
He doesn't want to freeze.
It's a defense mechanism. He knows that. His body is trying to protect itself. Talking led to bad things, when he was on the Watchtower, and he doesn’t remember leaving the Watchtower, and sometimes he thinks he’s still there, waiting for Owlman to come back, trapped, alone—
Dick shuts his eyes. No. No. He doesn’t want to think about that. He isn’t going to. This is—this is a trauma response, survivor’s guilt, he knows that. He knows. A lot of bad things have happened, and his body doesn’t quite understand that it’s safe now.
That’s how he would explain it to a child. Apparently he needs the same watered-down explanation for himself. He can’t handle anything else.
“I want…”
To go home, he thinks, and the words come a little easier in his head. They get caught somewhere before they reach his mouth. He doesn’t try to force them.
Home doesn’t mean anything anymore. He can’t leave the manor, and if he could, he doesn’t have anywhere else to go. Dick tucks home away in his mind and settles for the kitchen instead. He slips out of his room, into an empty hallway, and down the stairs. It’s late, but not quite late enough for Jason to go looking for a snack, or Bruce to be getting back from patrol. He hopes the kitchen will be empty.
He doesn’t realize until he steps through the door. The kitchen is dark, except for a single light over the sink, and so still that Dick doesn’t see the shadow sitting at the table until it moves.
Dick spins toward it. His body is stiff and sluggish, but adrenaline shoots straight to his heart. He’s alone. The manor is empty—except for Alfred, and Jason, but he doesn’t know where they are. He doesn’t know if they would hear him. If he screams—if he calls for help—
The shadow stumbles away from the table. Dick backs away. His limbs feel—heavy. Disconnected. His ankle twinges—No, no, that’s wrong, that’s healed, his ankle has been healed for weeks, he shouldn’t—he doesn’t—
“Dick?”
Tim stands next to the kitchen sink.
A long breath whistles out of Dick’s lungs. He closes his eyes and breathes in again. And out. In, and out. When he opens his eyes, Tim is still there.
Dick doesn’t want to do this.
He thought—he hasn’t hallucinated Jason in years. He thought he had gotten it under control, with the meds and the meditation and actually sometimes going to therapy. Apparently he was wrong.
“Tim,” Dick says, because he has to. It’s his brother.
“Dick,” the hallucination says. It looks—Dick wants to cry, wants to scream, because it looks just like him. Tim, wearing his Red Robin costume, with a ripped hoodie over the top of it. Tim, with a yellowing bruise on his cheekbone and dark bags under his eyes. Tim, wide-eyed and vigilant and unsteady on his feet.
“Dick,” the image says again. He takes a wavering step forward. His breath hitches. He’s injured—of course he is, because the real Tim is gone, and Dick’s brain is—trying to reconcile that. Trying to make it real.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers. He hates the words, even as they leave his mouth. I’m sorry won’t bring Tim back. It won’t make the hallucination stop. All it does is make Dick feel worse, and it doesn’t matter how he feels—but he can’t say anything else, he doesn’t have the words, and he has to say something. They—Jason always wanted to talk to him.
“No,” the hallucination says. “Don’t—God. Don’t say that, Dick.”
Dick shakes his head. It’s all he can say. But of course that’s not what Tim wants—of course Dick would fail him now, just like he failed the real Tim in life. It makes sense.
Something moves in the doorway. Dick turns toward it, and Tim looks too. The kitchen light turns on. Dick blinks. Cassandra stands in the doorway, wearing her costume. Her eyes dart between Dick and—and Tim.
“Dick,” Cass says. She tilts her head sideways, brow furrowed, the way she does when she’s thinking hard.
“You—” Tim says. He sounds out of breath. “Cass, you can see him?”
Dick blinks and blinks again. If Cass is here—if Cass can see Tim—but Cass is alive. Dick wasn’t even thinking about her. She went dark during the invasion, but she made it through. He thought she was still in New York—
“Yes,” Cass says. She’s still looking at Tim. “I see him. He’s real.”
I’m real? Dick thinks hysterically, but before he can even try and find a response to that, Tim’s expression cracks.
“Dick,” he says. He rushes forward.
Part of Dick’s brain—most of it, even—understands. Tim is here. Tim is alive, somehow, and he hasn’t seen Dick since the Crime Syndicate unmasked him in front of the entire world. He wants to confirm it. He wants to see for himself that Dick is alright. He might even want a hug.
A smaller part of his brain sees hands reaching for him and flinches.
Tim stops. He looks at Cass. Then back at Dick. Confusion and fear and grief war on his face.
“I’m sorry,” Dick says. “I—” The words lodge in his throat. He wants to explain, but he can’t. He doesn’t have the words.
“It’s just us,” Tim says. He holds one hand out. Dick doesn’t want him to. Dick wants to give him a hug, but the idea of hands touching him—arms wrapping around him, pinning him down—
“It’s okay,” Cass says. Her voice is quiet. “To be scared.”
Dick takes a deep, shaky breath. I know, he thinks, but he can’t make himself say it. It’s not right. Instead he nods. Tim takes a slow step forward.
“Do you want a hug?” he says.
Yes. No. I don’t know. I’m sorry. I missed you. I’m so glad to see you. Please don’t touch me.
He doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t know how to say it. Tim watches him, carefully sympathetic, with the calculating edge that Dick is so used to seeing on his face. Tim. Alive. Dick wants to touch him. To make sure he’s real. He does want a hug. He desperately wants to hug his little brother.
He reaches out.
That’s when Jason walks into the kitchen.
“What,” Cass says, “is he doing here?”
“Oh, Bruce didn’t tell you?” Jason bares his teeth. “He asked me to come.”
“Liar,” Cass snaps. She points her body at him like a gun.
“Not this time.” Jason grins. “I’m here for Dick. I’m helping him recover.”
“He doesn’t need your help.”
“Well, he needs someone,” Jason says.
I’m fine, Dick thinks. And then, I can hear you. Don’t tell me what I need.
“Bruce is a shithead,” Jason says. “Damian is a kid, and you were off playing hero with the family disappointment, so I guess that leaves me.”
The look on Cass’s face is pure, incandescent rage. She raises her hand and points at the kitchen doorway.
“Get. Out.”
“Make me,” Jason says.
“Okay,” Cass says.
She lunges at him.
Jason doesn’t stand a chance. Cass hits him in less than a second. He takes the punch, blocks the next, and grabs Cass’s wrist. He pulls her into a hold.
Cass drops flat. She grabs Jason’s restraining arm and pulls all her momentum to flip him over flat on his back. The breath punches out of his lungs. Cass rolls to her feet and slams a knee into Jason’s chest.
“Yield.” She growls in his ear.
Dick flinches.
“Hey,” Tim says. Dick flinches again. He didn’t realize Tim had moved in next to him. He wasn’t paying attention. “We should leave, right? Let them figure it out.”
Jason tries to flip Cass off of him. She dodges the movement, grabs his face, and slams his head back against the floor. “Stay down.”
Pressure builds behind Dick’s eyes.
“Dick,” a voice says. A hand plucks at his arm. Dick flinches. “Dick, come on, you don’t have to watch this—”
A hand grabs his face and slams his head against the wall.
“Stay down.”
“Dick—”
Someone grabs his arm. Dick bolts.
He doesn’t know where he goes. He doesn’t know where he is. He doesn’t remember. Everything is dark and the walls are too close and the floor under his bare feet is carpet instead of steel. Too soft. It’s too soft. He runs. He runs. He has to get away.
“Dick! Wait!”
They’re chasing him. He has to get away. If he doesn’t—
He doesn’t know what happens then. He doesn’t remember. He curls up with his back to the wall and puts his hands over his head and breathes, breathes, gasping for air. It’s too loud. He’s too loud. They’re going to find him, and then—
What happens then?
He doesn’t remember.
“Dick…?”
A voice. Tim. No sound of footsteps—the carpet is too soft.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” the voice says. Tim. “No one is… they’re not fighting anymore. Cass says she’s sorry.”
Tim wasn’t there. There. The Watchtower. Tim wasn’t there, so this must be—
Dick lifts his head. He looks around. The room is dark, but he can make out a high ceiling. A sliver of moonlight through the window in the opposite wall. Furniture. A table.
The manor.
Dick takes a deep breath. He is in Wayne Manor.
He is safe.
He knows that.
“Dick?” Tim’s voice. Down the hall. Moving further away.
“Here,” Dick says. His voice cracks.
A few seconds later Tim appears in the doorway. Light from the hall silhouettes him. “Dick,” he says. He moves across the room—slowly, deliberately, and he crouches when he gets close. “Hey, it’s just me. It’s Tim.”
“I know,” Dick says. “I’m sorry.”
“No, don’t say that,” Tim says, but Dick barely hears him.
I know. I’m sorry. He said that. He spoke. And Tim heard him. The words didn’t get stuck.
“I’m okay,” Dick says.
Tim doesn’t believe him. That much is clear from the skeptical look that crosses his face. Then it smooths away, and Tim nods.
“Okay,” he says. “Good. Can I help you up?”
Dick nods.
Tim puts his hand out. Dick doesn’t flinch.
He catches Jason at the side door. The one by the library, which leads out onto a corner of the grounds, near the fence. Jason has a duffel bag over his shoulder and an ice pack in his free hand. He startles when he sees Dick.
“Hey,” he says. Then he backs up a step. He has a red mark on his cheekbone. “Hey, Dickie. It’s just me.”
“I know,” Dick says.
Jason looks surprised. Dick is surprised, too, at how easily the words come. They don’t stick. They don’t linger. They don’t feel exactly his, either—they feel a little disconnected, like someone else is saying them through Dick’s mouth—but it gets a little easier every time.
“I have to—” Jason says, and then he stops. He looks at the door. “Cass gave me an hour to leave. I’ll catch up with Roy in Boston, I guess. See if he’s up for anything. You have his number, right?”
“No.”
Jason looks back at him, surprised again. Dick pauses for a minute, sifting through his words, trying to find the right ones. “We don’t… talk much. Anymore.”
“Oh,” Jason says.
He looks away again. He lifts the ice pack to the back of his head and winces slightly.
“You’re hurt,” Dick says.
Jason laughs. “Not any worse than usual,” he says. “Cass let me off easy. I think she felt bad ’cause you—ran off.” He looks at Dick out of the corner of his eye. “’Cause she scared you.”
“She didn’t…” Then he can’t find the words. Dick shakes his head. “It was—”
“If you say ‘stupid,’ or any variation thereof, I’ll kick your ass,” Jason says. “I still got forty minutes before Cass comes looking.”
Dick laughs. Jason cracks a smile. He lowers the ice pack.
“You’re hurt,” Dick says again. A red mark on his face, a bruise on the back of his head—and Cass hit him more than that. Dick saw.
“I’m fine,” Jason says. He turns away.
“You might—have a concussion—”
“I’m fine,” Jason snaps. “I’ve had worse.”
“That doesn’t—that doesn’t make it—”
“No.”
Jason turns to face him. The movement is sudden and sharp. Dick steps back. Something flickers in Jason’s eyes, but he doesn’t let it surface. He buries it and raises a hand to point at Dick.
“Don’t you worry about me,” he says. “Don’t you dare. This is nothing. This is—” He breaks off. He shakes his head. Then he winces. “This is nothing. Don’t you dare worry about me when you’re the one who—” He stops. The same look crosses his face—something dark and angry and afraid.
Maybe Dick should be afraid, too, but he doesn’t feel it. Jason hasn’t hurt him yet. Jason doesn’t want to hurt him.
Maybe everything else doesn’t matter.
“What,” Dick says, “were you going to say?”
Jason looks him in the eyes. “You,” he says. “You got the shit kicked out of you. You got tortured. And you’re worried about this?” He points at the back of his head.
“He did that to me too.”
Jason’s eyes widen. Dick is surprised, too. He didn’t plan to say that. It’s not something he wants to remember.
“Owlman,” Jason says.
Dick nods. “He—” He flails for a second, and then reaches out to mime grabbing Jason’s face. He makes the same motion that Cass did. That Owlman did.
“Oh,” Jason says. “So that’s why you—” He stops. Shakes his head. “Shit. I’m sorry.”
Don’t be sorry, Dick thinks. It’s not your fault, it’s his, and at the same time he thinks, I’d do it again if I had to. But he can’t quite say it. He can’t find the words.
Instead he shrugs. “Better me than you.”
Jason starts back. Then he laughs, but it turns sour halfway through. He stares at Dick with wild eyes.
“No,” he says. “No. Fucking—” Then he turns and goes for the door.
Before Dick can stop him—before he even thinks of it—Jason is outside. Dick rushes after him, out into the dark, into chilly air and wet grass on bare feet. He can just see Jason in the light from the house.
He wants to yell. He wants to call Jason back, to convince him to stay, to keep him here in the house under this strange truce. Only the truce is over. Cass is here. Jason will never stay in the manor—and Dick’s voice is gone.
He wants to yell. He wants to scream. Instead he stands in the dark and watches his brother disappear.
When the Crime Syndicate unmasked Nightwing in front of the entire world, Bruce made a plan.
It was vague at first. Half-formed. He had a lot to think about, a lot to do: get himself and Selina out of danger, lock down the cave, find Damian, find Stephanie, find a new base of operations. He didn’t have much space left over for contingencies, possibilities, what-ifs. The world was ending.
He found Damian; he found Stephanie; he got Selina and the rest of them to safety in the sewers. But he never found Tim. He never found Cassandra. He never heard from Jason, or Barbara, or Kate. And he couldn’t get to Dick. Dick stayed in the Syndicate’s hands.
The plan kept growing.
Nightwing was no more. The Syndicate made sure of that. One of the most famous members of the Justice League had his identity revealed to the world. He was tortured, brutalized, and in the end, he gave his life to defeat them. In the end, Nightwing died, and Richard Grayson died with him.
So the story goes.
Nightwing is dead, but Dick Grayson is very much alive, which makes him the ideal candidate for a deep cover mission. Before the dust settled, Bruce knew what that mission would be: to infiltrate an organization called Spyral, find their records on masked heroes around the world, and—if necessary—take them down from the inside.
It was a good plan.
Then they found Dick. Then they rescued him from the Syndicate and brought him back to the cave. He wasn’t dead, but he wasn’t quite whole either.
He still hasn’t fully recovered.
He’s well enough to join them in the Batcave. Some days he spends more time in the cave than the house. He’s well enough for casework and helping with comms on busy nights. He spars with Damian. He has medical check-ins with Alfred, monitoring his health as he recovers. He works out with Cassandra.
He never lets Bruce close enough to touch him.
They can share a room. Bruce sits at the Batcomputer, and Dick works out on the mats nearby, slowly building his strength back up. Bruce reads in silence and listens to the soft, muffled sounds of Dick moving through a basic agility course. He listens to Dick’s breathing.
They can share a room. They can see each other. For now, that’s enough. Jason is gone—last reports put him somewhere in the Caribbean with Arsenal and Starfire—and Dick no longer needs him to keep his memories of the Crime Syndicate at bay. For now, that’s enough.
Bruce sits at the computer in silence and works on the Spyral case. He’s known about the organization for a few years, and only recently found evidence that they might be more than they claim. Composed mostly of rogue and disillusioned espionage agents, Spyral fights the usual sources of evil: murderers, terrorists, mercenaries and assassins. They work under the radar, unnoticed by all but the most watchful. And while they travel the globe, defending refugees and migrants and aid workers, they look out for masked heroes—non-powered vigilantes and metahumans alike. They compile information; they keep lists. Then, they kill whatever heroes they find.
The members of Spyral want Spyral to be the only protector of the world. They want a monopoly on fighting evil. If they aren’t stopped, they will escalate. Bruce intends to stop them.
A sharp gasp pulls him from his thoughts. He turns back towards the agility course and sees Dick—on the ground—curled on his side. He isn’t moving.
“Dick?”
Sometimes Dick still flinches at the sound of Bruce’s voice. He reacts worse if Bruce startles him. Now he doesn’t react at all. He lies still on the ground.
Bruce stands. “Dick,” he says again. He takes a step forward. He makes sure Dick can hear it.
No answer.
Sometimes Dick dissociates. He stops responding in the middle of a conversation or an activity; his face goes blank and he stares, present in body but not in mind. Sometimes those episodes have a clear trigger, and sometimes they don’t. They rarely last long, but if one struck in the middle of a dangerous situation, it could be devastating.
“I’m coming closer,” Bruce says. He makes sure that Dick can hear every one of his footsteps. Even if he doesn’t respond, it helps. He moves in an arc, so Dick can see him coming.
Dick looks up at him. He tracks Bruce across the floor.
“Bruce,” he says. It almost sounds like a question.
“Yes,” Bruce says. “It’s me.” He crouches down, just within arm’s reach. “May I help you up?”
“No,” Dick says. The word is harsh, hurried, bitten off. Dick stares at him. “Don’t touch me. Please.”
“Okay.” Bruce stays where he is. He keeps his hands where Dick can see them. He does not reach out. “Do you want me to go away?”
Dick squeezes his eyes shut. His jaw tightens. His hands spasm against the floor.
“Yes,” he says.
Bruce stands up. He moves away. He makes sure Dick can hear his footsteps as he walks across the cave and starts climbing the stairs.
The Spyral mission does not exist on paper. It does not exist on the Batcomputer. It exists only in Bruce’s head, one more contingency plan among many. Now he tucks it away, a little deeper in his mental files, for further consideration at a later date.
It would be easy to implement it now. Bruce knows Dick better than anyone. It would be easy to push him, to apply just the right pressure in just the right spots, and shove him out of the nest into Spyral’s waiting arms. Dick might hate him for it, but Dick has hated him before. It wouldn’t stop him from completing the mission.
His dissociative episodes might stop him, though. His hand tremors, his overactive freeze response, and his flashbacks might. His body is still healing. His mind is still in the process of recognizing safety. To push him into another dangerous situation now would be foolhardy. Worse than that, it would be cruel.
Bruce keeps the Spyral mission for another day. It’s a good plan, but Dick isn’t ready.