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Chapter Text

She’s alive. She’s alive and as long as she’s alive, so is Dick.

So he keeps trudging along, holding her small, tiny body in his hands as they cross the desert to Narjani in South Saudi. It’s a two hundred mile journey from the helicopter they crash landed in together eight days ago. 

“Your mother loved you, you know?” Dick tells her, when the sun sets on their eighth day in the desert. They keep walking. To stop walking meant to die.

The baby in his arms doesn’t respond. She just puts her hand on his chest and cries as he closes his eyes.

“Shh, darling,” Dick whispers, rocking her back and forth until the crying stops. They’ve run out of water. They’ve run out of baby formula. Helena couldn’t walk anymore on day three and Midnighter fell on day seven.

That leaves Dick alone. Well, not exactly alone. He still has her. And she’s still alive. So they keep walking.

“It was her final wish,” Dick says absent-mindedly, “To keep you safe. Isn’t that wonderful?”

The baby can’t respond, but she’s silent now, watching him intently as he speaks to her. Dick holds her tightly across his chest as he trudges up a sandy hill. They’ve all started to blur together, each hill looking the exact same as the last.

“Alfred would call it a parent’s love,” Dick murmurs, resisting the urge to stop even as his legs get stuck in the sand. He yanks them out, trying to keep his body stable so he doesn’t jostle his precious cargo, “A love that persists through danger. The need to protect your child, even as you lay bleeding on the floor.”

The baby says nothing. Of course she doesn’t. She’s only eight days old. She can’t talk. She doesn’t understand that her mother has just passed away in the helicopter wreck, bleeding out by a piece of shrapnel through her heart. Dick wonders if this child will remember it when she’s older, if blinking images of death and dying will infiltrate her dreams. Nightmares of a time she doesn’t remember and a time she doesn’t understand. 

“Are you thirsty?” Dick asks, trying to change topics quickly, even though he’s sure she can’t understand him so it’s not like it actually matters, “We don’t have water, but sometimes I drink my own spit if I get thirsty. It simulates actually drinking water.” 

The baby smacks her lips. Dick laughs. He smacks his lips too and watches as she smiles up at him.

“My father taught me that,” Dick tells her, stumbling a little bit as they go back down the hill, “His name is Bruce… but you can’t tell him I told you that. He’s a bit anal about the whole secret identity thing."

Dick slides down the rest of the hill, panting when he reaches the bottom.

“I used to be pretty anal about it too,” Dick tells her, “Up until this guy named Luthor revealed my identity to the world. Now there’s no point in caring about it. I’m not Robin anymore. I’m not Nightwing. I’m not even Batman.”

Dick breathes and says out loud the thing that he hasn’t wanted to admit, “Sometimes I don’t even think I’m Dick Grayson anymore either. Just Agent 37. That’s all that’s left of me.”

Dick’s steps stutter as he keeps walking. They’ve got to be close to Narjani, right? One more step. Then another. He has to keep going. 

What did he say when they started walking?

Right. He said that if she’s dead, he’s dead. And she’s not dead, so he’s not dead either. So he keeps walking. The night swallows them whole as they carry on, beneath stars that can’t speak and a moon that stares silently. 

It’s hot and the white of the night gives Dick a headache. He can feel his mind slipping from him, begging him to just lay down for a second.

He obliges himself. He lays down onto the ground, still hugging the baby to his chest. He stares at the night sky above them and points his finger up into the air.

“That’s Ursa Major,” Dick whispers. His voice cracks as he does so. Without water, even talking has become a chore.

“I’ll teach you about the stars,” Dick mumbles. He fights to stay awake, to keep himself sharp. He needs to keep walking, but the coolness of the desert sand beckons him. Dick closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.

In his arms, the baby starts to cry.

Not now, Dick thinks to himself, let me rest. 

When Dick startles awake, his first thought is her. He grabs at the air in front of him, blindly in the darkness until he hits the softness of fabric below him. Panic sets in. That’s not sand.

Dick reaches towards his left, still blindly in the dark. His hands hit something hard. A wall. That’s not sand either. Dick runs his hand along the wall until it hits a switch. The lights turn on.

Dick is greeted with a view of unwashed laundry in a pile on wooden floor and paperwork strewn across the top of a cheap, plastic desk. 

He’s in his apartment.

Dick breathes. He’s not in the deserts of South Saudi. He’s not walking away from a helicopter crash barely unscathed with a baby in his hands. He’s not Agent 37 anymore. He’s not with Spyral. He doesn’t have an implant in his head controlling his every movement and infiltrating his every thought.

Still, Dick rushes to his kitchen and downs a glass of water from the sink like it’s the only glass he’ll have in days. He breathes, smiling at his dirty apartment. He’s alive. He’s in control. 

The time on his stove says 2:45 AM, but that clock always runs fast, so Dick figures it's closer to 2:30. He knows he won’t be able to get back to sleep. It’s just one of those nights. 

When it was the old days, Dick would’ve donned his uniform and gone out into the night to fight until sunrise broke and he had to be at his day job. That’s just how things were done in Blüdhaven. 

But Dick lives in Gotham now, not Blüdhaven. And Gotham isn’t his city, not really. It’s Bruce’s city. In a way it’s also Jason’s and Tim’s and Damian’s and Steph’s and Cass’ and Barbara’s, but it’s never really felt like his in the way that Blüdhaven has.

The Bats have a schedule and routes and specific areas they patrol. There’s a system in place and areas that have special attention on them and Dick currently doesn’t fit into that system. Babs didn’t really want to add him back. They’re not on speaking terms.

That’s okay though, Dick just won’t patrol randomly. He’ll pick and choose his battles; he’ll be strategic about where he goes. He’ll avoid the Narrows where Stephanie strays and Crime Alley where Jason runs base and he’ll be fine. 

Dick is a watcher now. He’s an observer. That’s why he’s picked an apartment in the middle of Gotham. It’s the place where he can be in the middle.

Alfred had of course told him he was welcome back to the Manor. Dick wasn’t stupid though. There was an unwelcome air about the Manor, and even though Dick is sure Damian would love him to return, he doesn’t think Cass and Tim share the same feelings. 

It’s not just his siblings though. Bruce had already made it clear that Dick wasn’t welcome there, even though he never said so explicitly. Dick never understood why that was the case. He’d taken down Spyral from the inside. The mission had succeeded.  

And that was what it was all about, wasn’t it? The mission? That was Bruce’s lifeblood, his purpose. The mission had succeeded, and Dick was greeted home with nothing more than a head nod and a whispered “good job, Birdwatcher” .

Dick hoped he’d never have to be called Birdwatcher again. He hoped that what he’d done was enough. He hoped that Bruce would never ask him to do this again. But knowing Bruce, he would. Dick would never be enough.

It’s still early and Dick doesn’t have anything to do, so he unlatches the window of his apartment and climbs onto the fire escape to watch the night sky. A distant flicker of red crosses his vision.

Dick recognizes the vibrant red as Tim. Behind him, right on his tail, is Damian. Damian has something in his hand, and from where he’s sitting, Dick can’t tell what it is.

Dick watches as they chase each other across the sky and thinks about the time when they’d all do that together. Now, it’s just Tim and Damian. They flit across the rooftops, grabbing at each other and Dick is sure Damian is probably screaming bloody murder while Tim just laughs. That was always the way they were.

Impulsively, Dick grabs a hold of the comm link he keeps stored in his kitchen drawers. He goes back out to the fire escape and sits on the ledge while he watches Tim and Damian jump across the rooftops. He slips the comm link in his ear, discreetly turning it to the frequency that the Bats use and muting himself.

Then he listens.

“Where are you guys?” Jason’s voice rattles through the comm link, just as loud and bold as it’s always been, “I’ve been waiting for-fucking-ever for you guys to get here. Gordon is way too scared of me to give me evidence, so one of you needs to get your ass over here.”

Dick closes his eyes and listens to Jason talk. He isn’t bothering to hide his Gotham accent tonight. Dick can’t begin to describe how much he’s missed hearing it.

“We’re on our way, Hood,” Tim says, his voice coming through in a pant. 

“We had some very important business to take care of,” Damian follows up with.

Dick scoffs to himself, watching as Damian skids to a stop on a rooftop far away, motioning Tim to stop too. Damian waves his hands around and Dick finally focuses on what Damian’s holding. It’s ice cream.

Very important business indeed. Dick watches as Tim swats Damian’s head lightly and motions at the ice cream. Damian shoves it all in his mouth.

Dick laughs to himself, watching as Tim and Damian activate their grappling guns. They’re out of his sightline within seconds. Dick turns off the comm link and shoves it back into his cupboard.

He misses his brothers. He wants to see them everyday. But things are complicated now, and maybe Damian is okay with seeing him, but Jason and Tim surely aren’t.

So Dick has to face facts.

His brothers don’t want to see him. No one does. Not after Spyral. Not after the lies. And Dick wants to scream that it’s not his fault; it never was. But he can’t.

So he doesn’t. He’ll be fine alone anyway. 

The grocery bag cuts into Dick’s hand. It’s sharp under the weight of the milk and the eggs, all crammed together in a bag by the tired looking cashier at the convenience store next door. Dick shifts the weight of the bag to his other hand as he roots around for his keys in his pockets. 

“Shit,” Dick whispers to himself when the keys don’t appear in either of his pockets. He sets his grocery bag down and searches the floor around his apartment door to see if he dropped his keys. If not, it’s not a huge deal. He could always break in, but he doesn’t necessarily want to pay the missing key fee.

“Looking for something?”

Dick’s apartment door creaks open and Damian stands on the other side, arms crossed around his chest as he flicks a keyring around his middle finger.

Dick breathes a sigh of relief and grabs his keys from Damian’s hands before doing a double take.

“Dami?” Dick asks, unable to hide the shock from his face. Damian smirks.

“You’re getting rusty, Grayson,” Damian teases, hauling up the grocery bag from where Dick has left it on the floor and ushering him into his apartment, “I pickpocketed your keys after you left and you didn’t even notice.”

Dick scratches the back of his neck awkwardly, “Yeah, I was a little distracted, sorry.”

“Clearly,” Damian rolls his eyes, “What a disappointment. I was hoping we could have some fun.”

“Have you been waiting in my apartment for a while?” Dick asks, thinking of the pile of laundry he’s abandoned in his room for an embarrassing amount of time. He hopes Damian didn’t see it.

Damian raises a judgemental eyebrow, “Yes. Twenty-nine minutes precisely. You know, I’m quite concerned with your cleanliness, Richard. There were five dirty dishes in the sink.”

“I haven’t done dishes in a while,” Dick admits, emptying out his grocery bag, “Just got… busy.”

“Really?” Damian asks, pushing Dick’s hands out of the way to put the food away, “Because I haven’t seen you out on patrol.”

Dick wrestles the milk out of Damian’s hands and puts it in the fridge, “I’ve been out.”

That’s a blatant lie. Dick hasn’t really been out. Not as Nightwing. Not anymore. There’s something unwelcome about Gotham lately. It’s as if the other Bats don’t want him to patrol there. He receives dirty looks, he gets ignored on the comm lines, and he is generally left out of the loop of important cases.

Dick is on his own. He’s been going out as a civilian lately. Just a guy in a hoodie doing as much good as he can. It doesn’t draw too much attention and it reminds him of his Agent 37 days. Just an anonymous person doing things. Rather than bad things though, he’s doing good.

“Well,” Damian relents, “You haven’t put your schedule on our patrol charts yet. Even Todd has… and if you don’t put yours on the chart then we can’t patrol together.”

Dick winces and thinks of Bruce's harsh glare the minute he came to the Manor a month ago to hang out with Damian at the arcade. He’s unsure why, but Bruce hasn’t seemed that open to him hanging out with Damian.

He thinks it probably has less to do with Spyral and more to do with Bruce’s own parenting insecurities.

“We’re not Batman and Robin anymore,” Dick says gently, folding up the plastic bag and putting it with his collection under his sink, “You don’t need to patrol with me. You’ve got B.”

“I guess,” Damian shrugs, but he doesn’t look too happy about it.

“What are you doing here?” Dick asks, crossing his arms and looking at Damian’s get-up. He’s wearing all black and the sneakers he wears when he wants to walk quietly.

“I was in the area,” Damian says vaguely, waving his hands in a way that reminds Dick of himself. 

“You were in the area…. at midnight?” Dick presses, raising an eyebrow and looking at Damian critically. Damian looks away, out the window. To anyone else, it might seem like a casual look, but Dick knows Damian better than most.

“I was just on a walk,” Damian says gruffly, avoiding eye contact.

“Must’ve been some walk, huh?” Dick asks, leaning back on one of his kitchen stools, “Wayne Manor is about a thirty minute walk away.”

Damian scrunches up his nose and looks the other way, “If I’d known you were going to be this annoying, I wouldn’t have visited you.”

“Damian,” Dick sighs, laying a hesitant hand on Damian’s shoulder, “You know you’re never in trouble with me.”

Damian looks up at Dick with wide eyes, like he’s surprised. Something ugly in Dick’s heart twists when he sees that. How long has it been since he’s reassured Damian of that?

“I know,” Damian says quietly, softly, like the admission is one he’s only truly processed after he’s said it.

“You know I’ll always listen,” Dick reiterates, because it’s important to him that Damian understands, “Just… you gotta tell me when something is wrong, kiddo. I’m always by your side.”

Damian almost looks surprised and Dick can’t help a sense of bitterness from creeping into his body. He’s going to have to have a talk with Bruce about parenting Damian. It’s like all the progress he’s made with Damian has been flushed down the drain.

“I got into a fight with Father,” Damian finally says, his shoulders deflating as he finally lets out the words. He stares at the counter, “It wasn’t ideal.”

“What was the fight about?” Dick asks.

Damian looks at Dick for an uncomfortably long second. He sighs, “You.”

Dick stops, “Me?”

“You,” Damian repeats, rubbing his shoulders, “It’s nearly always about you, lately.”

Dick raises an eyebrow and brings himself taller, like he used to when he and Damian got into a disagreement when they lived together, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

At this point, Damian isn’t much phased by Dick, he can tell. Damian keeps staring at the counter, “Father speaks of you… weirdly, for lack of better term, as of late.”

“Oh,” Dick shrugs and he can feel the tension in his arms fading, “That’s not a big deal.”

“No,” Damian snaps vehemently, “You don’t understand, he speaks of you oddly.”

“Okay,” Dick says slowly, but he’s unsure why this is a big deal, “What’s he saying?”

“He just,” Damian waves his hands around in front of him just like Dick does, “He used to speak of you so highly before he got lost to time. He would compare me to you and spin stories of your perfection. But now he constantly critiques your performance as Nightwing. It’s like he is ashamed of you.”

Dick thinks back to the fight he and Bruce got into after he died. Bruce had been angry that Dick was even in a position to let himself get killed.

“I don’t want to scare you, kiddo,” Dick laughs lightly, shaking himself out of the memory, “But I think Bruce is ashamed of me.”

Damian bristles, “Why would he be?”

Dick sighs. Bruce’s language was pretty explicit. Everything that happened to Dick: the capturing, torturing… killing, everything was his fault. You let it happen, Bruce’s voice echoes in his head. That was explicit. It meant that it was Dick’s fault.

But Damian doesn’t know that any of that was real. Like the rest of the Bats, he thinks that the footage was doctored and that Dick’s death is fake. So Dick can’t be honest. Being honest meant admitting that Bruce hit Dick and that Bruce lied to his family.

“I made some mistakes while undercover,” Dick lies, scratching the back of his head and hoping Damian doesn’t notice, “I think he’s disappointed in me. You know, he has pretty big expectations of me.”

Damian narrows his eyes, “But we all make mistakes.”

“Bruce has higher expectations of me,” Dick points out, “And I was undercover. My mistakes could have cost lives.”

Damian looks out the window again, “My mistakes cost lives when I started out as Robin.”

Dick nods and doesn’t refute the statement. It’s a fact and both he and Damian know it.

“You never spoke so meanly of me,” Damian says quietly, “Even when things were serious and even when you were frustrated, you never said such horrible things about me.”

Such horrible things? Dick is starting to wonder what Bruce is saying about him.

“Damian,” Dick settles on, after internally debating if he should ask what’s been said or not. He decides on being the bigger person and not asking. He sighs, “I appreciate you defending me, but I really would rather you don’t get into fights with your dad about it.”

Damian scrunches up his nose and folds his arms into each other, “I’m your Robin. It’s my responsibility to defend you. It’s what Robin does.”

“You’re not my Robin anymore,” Dick says gently, his heart aching as the words come out. He lays his hand on Damian’s shoulder, “You’re Bruce’s.”

Damian grabs Dick’s arm fervently, “No. I’m your Robin. I always will be. Father…. Father is Batman. And he’s brilliant. But he’s not my Batman.”

Damian stares at Dick with an intensity that he thought was previously unmatched. It’s like he inherited Bruce’s ability to stare uncomfortably for long periods of time.

“Thank you, Damian,” Dick says finally, looking back at Damian’s waiting face. Unsurely, he reaches out and hugs Damian close to his body, “And I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Damian says quietly, and to Dick’s surprise, he returns the hug gratefully, “I’m just… glad to see you. You’ve been gone so much lately.”

“It isn’t just Bruce that’s angry with me right now,” Dick says honestly, rubbing Damian’s hair, “Tim and Jason aren’t exactly happy, Babs isn’t on speaking terms with me, and Cass hasn’t contacted me in a while. Just give it time. And don’t worry about me in the meantime.”

“They shouldn’t be mad at you,” Damian says resolutely, pulling away from Dick, “They are insipid creatures.”

Dick smiles, “Hey, language. They’re not stupid. They have every right to be angry.”

Damian looks at Dick unsurely, “I don’t think they do.”

Dick shakes his head, “Dami, drop it.”

“Fine,” Damian says, nodding his head, “If that is what you wish.”

Dick breathes out a sigh of relief, “Thank you.”

Damian nods towards Dick’s bedroom, “Could I stay for the night?”

“Of course,” Dick says, motioning towards the room, “You take the bed. I assume Bruce doesn’t know you left?”

Damian stiffens, just a little bit. 

So that’s a resounding yes. Dick rolls his eyes. Of course. He hopes Bruce hasn’t realized Damian has left, or else he’ll be dealing with one angry father.

“Okay,” Dick sighs, leading Damian to the bedroom, “Let’s get some sleep, kiddo. We’ll wake up at 6:00 and I’ll drive you back. Bruce gets up at 8:00 anyway. He won’t even know you left.”

Of course Dick had to run into Jason during one of his only patrols of the week. Of course. Just his luck.

Dick tries to sneak across the rooftop before Jason can spot him. Apparently, they’ve both gotten the same idea to guard Gotham’s main bank. 

“What the hell are you doing here?”

Jason’s voice rings across the rooftops, loud and bold and angry. It’s an anger that’s aimed towards Dick. That’s not entirely new, but the fact that the anger carries through Jason’s mechanical voice modulator is impressive.

Dick whistles through his lips and turns around on his heel, his hands clasped behind his back, “Hood… fancy meeting you here.”

“Don’t make me repeat myself, Wing,” Jason growls, stalking across the roof.

“I’m patrolling,” Dick says calmly, standing his ground, even when Jason makes his way in front of him and plants his feet firmly onto the concrete.

“This is my route,” Jason argues, gesturing to the bank, “It says so on the schedule. I’m on bank duty on Tuesdays.”

Dick scowls, “I wouldn’t know that, Hood. I’m not on the schedule.”

Dick can’t see Jason’s face, not through the helmet. He hates that. He hates that Jason decided on a helmet and that he can’t see what he’s thinking. 

Jason cracks his knuckles, a habit he’s had since he was a child, “Then get on it and get off my route.”

“Fine,” Dick says, because he doesn’t really want to have an argument with Jason here. He has no energy for it.

Dick walks to the edge of the bank, grabbing at his grappling hook from his side pocket. He loads the barrel quickly, cocking it upwards.

“Is that all?” Jason calls from somewhere behind him.

Dick nearly groans, lowering the grappling hook. Jason always does this; he always tries to instigate an argument when there’s none to be had. It’s destructive, but he does. There’s a need for closure, for answers with Jason. Even when the other party doesn’t want to argue, Jason will start an argument anyway, digging deep into the skin of their problems, clawing his way down into the ugliest parts.

Dick turns around and waits for the instigating comments to drop.

“Nothing more to say for yourself?” Jason says, walking back up to where Dick is standing, close to the ledge. Dick thinks about the fall if Jason pushed him. It wouldn’t kill him. He wonders if Jason knows that. He wonders if Jason would push him anyway.

“Not really,” Dick says tiredly, watching Jason very carefully.

“Would’ve thought you’d’ve had some new lame excuse for faking your death,” Jason says, crossing his arms.

“I’ll let you know if I think of something new,” Dick says sarcastically, even though now is definitely not the time to be so cavalier. Still, if he stays positive, then maybe he’ll leave this argument unscathed.

“Do you really think this is a joke?” Jason asks, “Oh, of course you do, you’re Dick fucking Grayson. Always the positive one.”

“Of course I don’t,” Dick snaps vehemently, not bothering to correct the use of names in the field. So much for being positive. But if it's an argument that Jason wants to have, then it’s an argument that Dick will give him.

“Then stop acting like it is and fucking explain to me,” Jason exclaims, “Why you felt the need to lie to us about it.”

“I didn’t-” Dick starts, his voice rising. He cuts himself off before he can shift the blame to Bruce, “I didn’t want to lie.”

“But you did anyway,” Jason says. He lifts his hand up and flicks a switch on the left side of his helmet. The mechanized voice modulator that he uses turns off and it’s like Dick is no longer talking to the big, bad Red Hood… he’s talking to Jason, his younger, hurting brother.

“I didn’t want to,” Dick repeats , “I didn’t want to do that to you.”

“It doesn’t matter what you wanted,” Jason repeats, pointing at Dick’s chest, “You did it anyway.”

That’s a good point. Dick can’t argue with that. So he doesn’t. He just stands there and tries to calm down the anger that’s bubbling up in his chest. Jason is hurting. Jason doesn’t deserve for Dick to blow up and say something he doesn’t mean.

But God, does Jason make it hard not to.

“Say something!” Jason yells, hitting his hand onto the venting tube on the roof.

Dick doesn’t flinch. Not outwardly. He’s too experienced to be phased by shows of power like this. But inwardly, his body screams at him.

Dick knows what’s coming before Jason seems to. The tensed shoulders, the right foot automatically skidding outwards, the unclenching of the fists. Dick lets it come, he doesn’t bother dodging. 

Jason pushes Dick. He pushes him hard. 

Dick expects to fall backwards, down the building and onto the ground four stories below. But he’s not so lucky. Jason pushed him sideways onto the concrete roof. Dick skids to a stop.

When Dick sits up, his arm is bleeding. The skin has broken. Dick touches his glove to it, and when he pulls it back, it’s full of sticky, red blood.

Dick can’t see what Jason is thinking. Stupid helmet. His body language indicates surprise though, like he can’t believe what he just did.

“Feel better now?” Dick asks sarcastically, looking at Jason’s still, tensed up body, “Want to take another hit at me?”

Jason shakes his head quickly, standing normally rather than the fighting stance he’s been in for their entire conversation.

“Go at it!” Dick yells, not really caring if there are civilians walking past that happen to hear him and Jason, “Hit me! That’s all I’m good for in this family, isn’t it?”

Dick can hear Jason draw in a breath, but he ignores it. Jason can draw his own conclusions from that statement.

“You want me to say something?” Dick yells, standing up and walking up to Jason until they’re face to face, “Fine. I’m fucking sorry, Hood. What else do you want me to say?”

“I want you to say why you fucking did it,” Jason hisses out, “I want some honest answer, not this crap you’re giving me right now.”

Dick can’t give an honest answer. Not as long as Bruce doesn’t want him too.

“Of course,” Jason says, when Dick doesn’t respond for a good minute, “Of course you can’t give an honest answer.”

“I did it to protect you,” Dick finally says, watching as Jason squats down at the edge of the building and runs a hand on his helmet. That’s a technical truth.

“You did it to protect-” Jason repeats, cutting himself off shortly, “‘Wing, I’m not that much younger than you. I’ve been in this life almost as long as you have. You don’t think I can’t protect myself?”

Dick bites back a comment about Jason being unable to protect himself when he was Robin. That would be going too far.

“Leaving you in the dark was the safest thing I could’ve done for you all,” Dick says, which is as honest as he can get it, “If I hadn’t, you would’ve been compromised. You don’t want to be involved in what I was involved with.”

Jason looks back at Dick, “So you thought it was smart to go deep undercover alone?”

“It was for your safety,” Dick shoots back, curling his hands around his arms. That’s a lie. It wasn’t his idea. That had been Bruce’s idea. And look where that had gotten Dick.

It’d gotten him stranded undercover when Bruce got amnesia.

“Did you,” Jason pauses, leaning his head up to the sky. Dick wishes he could see his face right now, “Did you think we wouldn’t have helped you? Do you not trust us?”

“No, I trust you all with my life,” Dick responds automatically, looking on curiously as Jason unclips his mask from his face and putting it under his arm. Dick can now see Jason’s facial expressions, albeit guarded by his backup mask.

“Then why lie?” Jason asks, his mouth twisting downwards.

“I didn’t fucking want to,” Dick repeats. He’s a broken record, but it’s true.

“I need a better reason than that,” Jason says, crossing his arms, “Did we deserve what you did to us? Sure, maybe I did-”

“You didn’t.”

“Did Tim deserve it?” Jason bulls ahead, ignoring Dick’s interruption, “Did Damian deserve it? Did Babs or Steph or Cass or hell, even Bruce deserve it?”

Dick bites his lip. He tastes the iron of his blood when it bleeds. Bruce caused this whole mess. 

“No one deserved it,” Dick says instead, licking the blood off.

Jason looks at Dick for a long time.

“I don’t want to talk to you right now,” Jason finally says, putting his helmet on again and flicking the switch that changes his voice back to a modulated one, “Just leave me alone.”

“Fine,” Dick snaps, stepping off the roof and not bothering to pull out his grappling gun til the last minute.

Dick is exhausted by the time he manages to crawl back home. 

Jason’s words rattle in his head. He told Damian to wait out the family’s anger towards him, but the amount of vitriol that Jason was spewing seems impossible to wait out. 

He wonders if he can talk to Bruce. It’d be nice maybe, to somehow sort this whole mess out. He never wanted to do this in the first place. 

Dick crawls into bed, not bothering to peel off the layers of his costume. Screw his secret identity. If someone crawled through the window and saw that he was Nightwing, would it really matter all that much? It wouldn’t be the first time his identity was revealed anyway.

Dick squints his eyes shut and tries to focus on sleep. 

Something rattles in the kitchen an hour into Dick’s restless slumber. It’s metallic, small. It sounds like the lock on his window. Dick’s eyes shoot open immediately. An intruder?

Dick turns to the alarm clock next to his bed. It reads nearly 4:00. Robbers weren’t really active at that time of night and Dick lives on the eighth floor. Who robs the eighth floor of the poor part of town?

Dick debates his options. He’s wearing his mask and his uniform. He could probably ambush the intruder. But on the off chance that the intruder sees him? That’s his secret identity down the drain again.

Maybe if he just lays here, the intruder won’t come into the bedroom. 

Dick listens to the noise. It’s concentrated in the kitchen and there’s humming. Dick focuses his ears, just like how Bruce taught him to. The humming sounds an awful lot like the Brady Bunch theme song.

The footsteps are weighted in a familiar way. Soft, but slightly inexperienced, like they have to really focus on how they’re stepping to make it quiet.

“Ah, nuts,” a voice says, before a large clatter sounds from the kitchen.

Dick relaxes immediately. It’s Tim. Tim is the only Bat besides Steph who’s footsteps sound so inexperienced. And Steph would rather be caught dead than be in Dick’s apartment.

And Brady Bunch? Tim and Dick used to love watching that together. Tim must be here for the med kit that Dick stores in his kitchen.

If this would have happened when Dick was in Blüdhaven, he’d be out of his bed instantly to help Tim with his bandages and wounds. Somehow though, Dick doesn’t think Tim will want to see him. Tim is here out of necessity and likely nothing else.

Dick listens to Tim hum the Brady Bunch theme song over and over, counting the minutes it takes for Tim to dress his wounds. It must not be so bad if Tim is feeling good enough to hum and talk to himself, but the wound is probably still bad if Tim had to stoop so low to stop here.

The clock on his bedside reads 4:12 when the humming finally stops. Dick breathes. Tim must be done. Clattering sounds from the kitchen, followed by some assorted chattering. Dick identifies that as Tim talking to himself as he puts the med kit back into its rightful place.

The footsteps sound again. They get closer. Before Dick can formulate a thought, his bedroom door swings open slightly. 

There’s a quiet noise and an awkward pause. 

“I’m sorry,” Tim’s voice drifts in quietly, like he’s not sure if Dick is awake, “I didn’t know you were in.”

“It’s okay,” Dick responds, not bothering to lift his voice to be loud, “Don’t worry about it. Just send me a list of things I need to replace if you took too much out.”

“Okay,” Tim whispers, “Sorry about that.”

The steps retreat towards the window, this time not even bothering to sound quiet. Dick breathes out again when he hears the window clicking and lets himself try to sleep.

Dick lays there a minute before the window clicks again and the steps return.

“Hey, are you okay?” Tim’s voice drifts in again from his doorway, awkward and uncertain. 

“I’m fine,” Dick says, shifting a little bit in his bed, “Don’t worry about me.”

“Okay,” Tim says. The footsteps retreat again.

This time, Dick opens his eyes and looks at the ceiling. He doesn’t think he’ll be able to get to sleep after that interruption. He hums to himself, the Brady Bunch theme song, just like Tim was before.

“You’re bleeding.”

Dick jerks back, surprised. Tim is standing right next to his bed, the mask of his Red Robin suit pulled down completely. 

“I’m fine,” Dick repeats, looking Tim up and down. There’s a spot of his uniform that’s torn, right above his hip bone, “Did you manage to patch that up okay?”

Tim looks down at his hip, “Oh, uh, yeah.”

Dick sits up in his bed and rubs the sleep out of his eye, “Mind if I check?”

Tim’s face widens in the familiar grateful position Dick’s become accustomed to before it turns into one of mild annoyance. It’s new, and Tim’s only started pulling that attitude with him ever since the whole Spyral debacle.

“You can check,” Tim says finally, only after looking conflicted for a few seconds. He sits down at the edge of Dick’s bed and orients his hip in Dick’s direction. Dick’s grateful for the distraction, for something to do that doesn’t involve the awkward, stilted speech between them. 

Dick puts a little bit of pressure on Tim’s hip and watches him flinch, “What happened?”

“Hyena bite,” Tim says, looking down at his hip, “Harley thought letting her hyenas free was the “ethical” thing to do.”

Dick laughs a little bit as he removes the bandage and looks at the poorly dressed wound. From his bedside table he takes out a small bottle of antiseptic. There are some places Tim clearly couldn’t reach.

“That sounds like Harley,” Dick murmurs, biting some bandages between his mouth as he slides the antiseptic over Tim’s hip with practiced ease.

Tim’s always had trouble dressing hard to reach places by himself. Dick figures that maybe he’s contributed to that. He always fixed that problem for Tim and never allowed him to do it himself. But Tim was always a smart boy. He figured out some sort of solution every time.

“I sent the hyenas to Star Labs,” Tim says, looking anywhere but Dick as Dick carefully replaces the bandage, “Since they’ve got Joker venom in them I thought the zoo was a bad choice.”

“That’s a smart decision,” Dick says, “Good thinking ahead on that.”

Tim simply nods, turning down to watch as Dick finishes dressing the wound.

“Good job with the bandages,” Dick says, crumpling up the old bandages and laying them on his table, “You just missed near your bone. It’s a hard place to get.”

“Thanks for helping,” Tim says, looking up at Dick like he wants to say something.

Dick nods and lays back down on his bed, closing his eyes, “Of course, Timmy. Again, just send me that list.”

Tim’s footsteps don’t sound though. He remains seated on the bed.

“You’re injured,” Tim says.

“Just a skin wound,” Dick says, rubbing the place on his arm where Jason shoved him into the ground. The blood is mostly dried by now.

“Still a wound,” Tim says, gently touching Dick’s shoulder and motioning him to get up.

Dick remembers when they weren’t so tentative. There were times when touch was given so freely. Now it is guarded. But at least Tim is talking to him, and that is a start. 

“You shouldn’t go to bed in your uniform, you know,” Tim says, chastising Dick when they walk into the kitchen. He’s carrying the old bandages. He shoves them into the trash can and brings out the med kit, “Isn’t that like… the number one rule of secret identity keeping?”

“My secret identity was spilled once,” Dick jokes bitterly, before he can stop himself, “I don’t really think a second time will make much of an effect.”

Tim lifts a suspicious eyebrow, “Yeah, but that was a planned leak. You’re not planning to leak your identity again, are you?”

Dick blinks twice. No, the identity leak was not on purpose. But that wasn’t the story that Bruce told everyone else. 

“Right,” Dick says, shaking his head, “Planned leak.”

“So,” Tim says awkwardly, motioning to the scrape on Dick’s arm, “What happened?”

“Fell into a wall,” Dick shrugs casually, “No biggie.”

Tim doesn’t say anything to that, just gives a slightly concerned look. Dick sits still while Tim’s hand brushes over the injury. He tenses.

Tim takes out a medical knife and cuts Dick’s uniform away from his skin. It peels off in one big motion.

Tim silently treats the wound, running the antiseptic right over the blood with ease. It slides over and while it does, Dick relaxes into the touch.

He’s tired. He didn’t even realize how tired he was. 

“Are you still with me?” Tim asks eventually, and his experienced hands stop touching Dick’s shoulder for a second.

The lack of touch is like a jolt of cold air and the moment it’s gone, Dick wishes it would come back. But it doesn’t, so he just says, “Yeah, I am. Must be tired; I’m dozing off.”

“Have you been getting sleep lately?” Tim asks, and his hands return to the wound, brushing away the blood with a firm hand.

Dick relaxes the minute the touch is back. He lies, “I have. How about you?”

“It’s been… okay,” Tim says, and from his body language, Dick deduces that it’s an honest response. Tim sighs, “I could honestly use a little more though.”

“You know that sleepy-time tea I used to give you when you were young?” Dick asks, watching as Tim takes utmost care in bandaging the big parts of his wound.

“How could I forget?” Tim laughs a little bit, pausing, “That stuff did wonders.”

“I always keep a mix of what I used in it in a drawer,” Dick says, waving his hand in the general direction of his kitchen, “Just in case. You’re welcome to take it if you don’t really want to come to my apartment anymore. I understand. I can send the instructions of how to make it to Steph or Alfred or anyone you want to have it.”

What follows is a silence that Dick has no idea how to fill. Tim continues to bandage Dick’s arm. Dick can tell he’s finished when his hands leave and the bandage feels tight.

“I want to be mad at you,” Tim whispers, when that’s all done.

“Then be mad at me,” Dick says back, looking over at the pile of bloody wipes falling onto each other in the trash, “You deserve to be.”

“I can’t be mad at you though,” Tim furrows his brow and Dick finally finds himself looking at Tim in the eyes for the first time that night. Tim sighs, “It’s so hard to be mad when you do all these stupid things like check my wounds and make me special tea."

Dick stays silent for a minute, “Sorry.”

“No,” Tim shakes his head, “This is all me.”

“Tim, I understand if you’re mad,” Dick says finally, “You don’t have to be so guilty about it. Bottom line is that I hurt you. It’s okay to be mad.”

Tim scrunches his nose up, something Dick is sure he got from Damian. Tim huffs. Oh yeah, that’s definitely a Damian habit. 

Finally, Tim leans his head to the side and looks at Dick inquisitively, “If I had done what you did… would you be mad at me?”

“Absolutely not,” Dick says automatically with as much conviction as he can possible. If Tim had done the same thing that he’d done, then it would’ve entailed Tim being strapped to a bomb and dying and then being brought back to life only to be put it a secret evil agency that he has to overthrow alone.

There is no world in which Dick would be mad at Tim for that. If anything, he’d be worried.

“Then I probably shouldn’t feel so mixed up about this,” Tim laments, laying his body against the counter, “Everything points to me not being mad at you. You wouldn’t be mad at me, you still treat me the same as you always have, and yet…”

Dick stays silent and watches Tim.

“Yet I think… I think I’m mad at you,” Tim says, honestly. His hands curl around his hair, “You lied to me, Dick. I went to your funeral. I mourned you. I thought you were gone.”

“I’m sorry-”

“I cried over your grave, ” Tim emphasizes, turning away from the counter to gesture his hands at Dick’s face, “ Your grave, Dick. I thought I’d lost you. You were my first…”

Tim pauses and takes a shuddering sigh, “You were the first person in this life to take me wholeheartedly. Not just as Robin, but as Tim Drake. We were brothers. I loved you like a brother far before I loved Bruce as a father. To see you die….”

“I’m sorry,” Dick says honestly, “I really am.”

“I know you are,” Tim admits, “It just… it doesn’t feel like enough right now.” 

“That’s okay,” Dick says, hoisting his injured arm up and reaching out towards Tim tentatively.

Tim looks at his hand before taking it. Tim rushes into Dick’s arms and hugs him tightly. It’s the first time they’ve hugged since before Dick died. That would make it years since they hugged last. So Dick hugs Tim like he’ll never be able to again.

Brothers are weird that way. Dick is pretty sure there’s no one in the world he’d try to protect more, but there’s no one else in the world he could hurt more.

To be a brother meant to be angry sometimes: a raging, violent anger. But to be a brother also meant that that anger came from love: a soft, desperate love.

So Dick hugs Tim as hard as he can and keeps that in mind when he releases him. Tim nods when Dick lets him go and he heads towards the window, his Red Robin cape swishing behind him.

Tim pauses before he opens the window, turning around ever so slightly, “Dick?”

“What’s up?” Dick asks, leaning against the counter and watching as Tim runs a hand across his hair. It’s growing out. Dick used to cut it sometimes. He wonders if Tim hasn’t cut his hair because he and Dick haven’t been talking.

“You know I still love you, right?” 

Dick startles. His hands freeze against the counter, “What?”

A flash of hurt appears on Tim’s face. He doesn’t bother to hide it. He stops completely, “Dick…”

“No, no, I knew that,” Dick says, because yeah, logically. But with everything that’s been happening lately, sometimes it’s hard to believe.

“Okay,” Tim says suspiciously, fumbling with his fingers in his hair, “Well just in case you didn’t know-”

Dick holds his hand up and smiles, “Love you too.”

Tim nods, giving Dick a half smile before he holds his hand up in a wave and steps out of the window and into the night. 

“Bruce,” Dick says, barging through the door of Bruce's study, “We need to talk.”

Bruce looks up, surprised, “Dick, what are you-”

Dick shuts the door behind him with a slam, locking it after him. He stalks across the room, closing the blinds and curtains quickly. Bruce seems to understand what wavelength he’s on almost instantly because he turns on the radio at his desk and covers up the camera on the wall.

“We need to talk,” Dick says, when he’s sure there’s no way that his siblings could listen in to the conversations he and Bruce are about to have.

“I gathered as much,” Bruce says dryly, making a pointed stare at the locked door.

Dick sits down at the chair right in front of Bruce’s desk and watches as his former mentor casually brushes his Wayne Enterprises paperwork off the desk and into a cabinet.

“So,” Bruce starts, not making eye contact with Dick as he reaches into a drawer for a pen, “What’s on the agenda today?”

Dick tilts his head to the side and narrows his eyes, “Mr. Malone, this is Birdwatcher checking in.”

Bruce freezes instantly. Dick pinpoints the moment where his eyes harden and his shoulders tense. 

“Dick,” Bruce lowers his voice and looks furtively around the room, “We can’t use those names anymore.”

“Why not, Mr. Malone?” Dick asks, leaning back in his chair in what he hopes is a casual looking manner, “Afraid it’ll reveal your secrets?”

“No,” Bruce says, pinching his eyes with his calloused hands, “Dick, you know we had to bury any evidence of what we did-” 

“I can’t do that anymore,” Dick exclaims, throwing his hands up, “Bruce, it’s destroying me!”

“Dick,” Bruce says harshly, clicking his pen onto the desk, “I sent you because you were the strongest of all of us. I knew they couldn’t break you. You’re fine now, you’re back.”

“I am,” Dick says, looking at Bruce’s eyes and searching for any empathy. He doesn’t find any, “But our family hates me. Could we at least explain that the decision was a joint one between the two of us? I don’t want to be hated.”

“No one does,” Bruce answers, standing up and pacing around the room, “When you went into Spyral you knew you would be hated by your family.”

“I didn’t want to go though, Bruce,” Dick says, standing up as well and following him to where he stops in front of the red telephone that he’s moved to the bookshelf.

“You had to go,” Bruce says loudly, whipping around and standing in front of Dick. He towers over him, he’s always had.

“I only went because you fucking beat me until I said yes,” Dick rants, slinging his arms out. One of them nearly hits Bruce in the head, but Dick doesn’t care.

Bruce grabs Dick’s hand mid swing and grips it. Hard. He glares, “Don’t say that.”

Dick narrows his eyes and wiggles his wrist out of Bruce’s grasp, “You did.”

“I didn’t beat you,” Bruce says, brushing his shoulders, “I seem to recall you winning.”

“Because I had to,” Dick exclaims, “You beat me up and then told me, one rule: you have to win.”

“And you did,” Bruce says, “I don’t see what the issue is.”

“You hit me!” Dick yells, hitting his chest with his hands with a resounding thud, “You hit me until I felt like I had to hit back.”

“I didn’t hit you, Dick,” Bruce says, looking offended, “We simply exchanged blows. It’s not so different from when we spar.”

“We fought,” Dick recontextualizes, looking Bruce dead in the eyes, “You fought me.”

Bruce says nothing. He just looks up at the ceiling.

“Who started that fight, Bruce?” Dick asks bitterly, trying to get to where Bruce can see him.

Bruce looks down to make eye contact with Dick again, “It was a fair fight. I knew you would be able to win.”

“That wasn’t a fair fight,” Dick says angrily, hissing out the words and narrowing his eyes as he does so, “I had just been killed, Bruce.”

“You were brought back to life,” Bruce shrugs, “You were okay.”

Dick opens his mouth and closes it several times. There’s so many things wrong with that sentence but Dick doesn’t know where to start. Was Jason okay when he was brought back to life? Was Damian okay? Was Cass?

Dick knows that his death wasn’t nearly so traumatic, that stopping his heart with a paralytic is the least dramatic of all the others’ deaths. But it still took a toll on his body. Bruce should know that.

But rather than explain all that, Dick just sighs and asks what he wants to ask, “Why couldn’t we tell the family what I was doing?”

“It would’ve compromised them,” Bruce says, like it’s a point he’s had to repeat a million times and he’s frankly quite tired of it. In a way, Dick thinks he is.

“Doing that hurt them,” Dick argues, “My death traumatized them.” 

“It made your fake death more believable,” Bruce points out, “Spyral had zero suspicion that you were infiltrating them. Your real death made it so easy for us to put you undercover. It was a blessing in disguise.”

“Whatever,” Dick says, frustrated. He clenches his fists and walks towards the door, “If you can’t understand what I’m saying-”

“Dick,” Bruce says, putting his hand out and motioning for Dick to stop. There’s a little bit of empathy in his face now, “You know you were the only one I could send. You were the only one strong enough to leave your family and stay undercover for so long.”

“I know,” Dick says quietly.

“By doing what you did at Spyral,” Bruce says, motioning his arms between Dick and himself, “You saved our family. You saved the superhero community. Without you, they may have succeeded in uncovering our identities.”

“I know,” Dick repeats, “I just don’t understand though. It’s over now. Why can’t we tell them the truth? That I really died and you needed me to do this. I don’t want to be the one that shoulders all this blame.”

Bruce stays quiet for a moment before reaching out his hand, a conflicted expression on his face, “We can’t tell them.”

“Don’t want to admit you hit me, is that it?” Dick asks testily. He reaches for the doorknob and grabs his hand around the worn brass.

“Dick, I-”

“Save it,” Dick snaps, yanking open the door with clear annoyance on his face.

Tim stands on the other side. Quickly as possible, Dick reads his features to see if he heard anything. Slightly pale face, but that could always be Tim not getting enough nutrients. Unsure feet placement, but Tim’s been awkward around him lately so that could easily just be standard awkwardness. Shaky hands. That’s new. 

“Hey Tim!” Dick says loudly, trying to alert Bruce to Tim’s presence.

Immediately behind him, Bruce seems to understand. The loud music is turned down and Dick is sure the camera is likely being reactivated. The appearance of light in front of him indicates that Bruce probably opened the curtains back up.

“Hey,” Tim says, clearing his throat a little bit. 

“Do you need something from Bruce?” Dick asks cheerily, “I was just heading out.”

“No, no,” Tim shakes his head, “I’m totally okay. I just thought I heard something and wanted to see that everything was okay.”

“Everything’s A-Okay over here,” Dick says, flashing an okay sign at Tim and winking.

Tim rolls his eyes.

“Hey, you didn’t hear Bruce and I chatting, right?” Dick asks. Bruce pops up next to him and looks at Tim expectantly.

Tim looks between the two suspiciously.

Dick tries to think of a convincing lie, “We were discussing this Christmas gift idea we had for Damian. You know how Dami is sometimes … you know, doing everything he can to try and figure out what his gifts are.”

Bruce nods in approval at Dick and then slips back into the study.

“Oh,” Tim says, staring at Bruce’s retreating form, “No, I didn’t hear anything.”

“Good,” Dick says sharply, closing the door behind him with a little bit more force necessary, “That’s good.”

Dick waves goodbye to Tim and walks out the hallway and out of the Manor to where his bike is waiting. Tim’s eyes follow him all the way out.

Chapter Text

Dick wakes up to the sound of screams and strangled cries. When he jolts awake, there’s a weight on his chest that shifts downwards as he sits up. Dick catches it before it falls and when his eyes focus in the darkness, he makes out the glare of moonlight off two tiny eyes and the soft shape of skin.

The baby. 

“How long was I out?” Dick asks her, looking around wildly. There’s nothing around. No cacti, no camels, no lizards, no scorpions, no rocks… no remote sign that there’s life in this wild desert.

The baby responds by bawling even harder. 

“Shh,” Dick whispers desperately, rocking her back and forth as gently as he can, “I’m here. I’m so sorry I dozed off on you there.”

Dick looks up at the sky. He last remembers the moon just rising. It’s the ninth night, he figures. The moon in the sky looks about at a midnight position and the stars orient him towards where he’s supposed to go. 

“We still don’t have water,” Dick updates the baby, making eye contact with her as he reswaddles her in her blankets. He switches and shakes them out, doing his best to make her more comfortable. 

The baby’s cries peter out into sniffles and hiccups.

“That’s it, darling,” Dick whispers, because his voice is too hoarse to be louder than that, “You’re doing so well. Just, shhh. You’ll feel better.”

The baby quiets completely, and when she does, Dick can see her light brown eyes stare back at his. Dick brushes her tears from her face as carefully as he can, trying to make sure his calluses don’t harm her.

“We’re going to be okay,” Dick lies, picking her back up from where he’s been rearranging her blankets, “We’re going to be okay.”

The baby coos in response, grabbing at Dick’s growing stubble. Dick laughs and lets her. They keep walking.

Dick’s lost track of the amount of miles he thinks they’ve walked. He lost track of scale a long time ago. The desert swallows him whole. The sand becomes monotonous; one color, all day every single day. The last week has felt like hell, and Dick almost supposes it is. Is hell this hot?

When he dies, Dick supposes he’ll know.

The scars across Dick’s back from the crash are becoming infected, he can feel it. There are corns and calluses on his feet from the boots and rough patches where he used to wear his gloves. The fatigue is eating at him. 

Dick takes another step, trying to balance himself as he walks across the dark expanse of the night, blindly taking one step in front of the other. He trips on something and stumbles. As he falls, he draws the baby close to his chest, trying to absorb the impact. 

Dick sighs, standing back up again and brushing the grains off the both of them.

“You can’t understand me, can’t you?” Dick asks the baby, watching carefully as she simply responds by blinking slowly.

“Yeah, no you can’t,” Dick says, the words coming out vehemently and the anger directed more at himself than her, “So I don’t know why it’s so important to me that I’m honest to you.”

Dick swears that the baby’s following noises are questioning ones.

“I lied to you earlier,” Dick says honestly, “And being dishonest about it is making me feel guilty. I told you we’d be okay, but I don’t think we will.”

Dick falls back into the sand, just mere feet away from where he took a tumble.

“Maybe I’m not even lying to you,” Dick says, “Maybe I’m just trying to lie to myself.”

The baby cries. It’s like she can understand the urgency of needing to keep walking. It’s like she’s telling Dick that they need to keep moving. But Dick can’t. 

“I don’t think we’re going to be okay,” Dick muses, rocking the baby lazily in his arms, “Let’s think about this realistically. It’s been almost ten days and we haven’t reached a town. We ran out of water on day seven, we lost our companions and our only allies. Your mom is dead-”

The baby wails.

Dick ignores that and keeps talking, “And what are we going to do when we reach Narjani? I’ll have to call Spyral and turn you over to them. That was the whole point, wasn’t it? You’re the whole point.”

The baby doesn’t stop wailing and Dick holds her to his chest like she’s his last lifeline, “They need your heart. They’ll kill you for it. They don’t care.”

Dick closes his eyes, “And I’m the one delivering you to that fate.”

Dick sets the baby down on the ground beside him, shushing her as he does so. He reaches into his pockets and takes out all that they’ve amassed on their journey across the desert: an empty canteen, his old gloves, and the piece of shrapnel that went through her mother’s heart.

Dick doesn’t know why he’s kept it. It’s gruesome and not entirely sanitary either. But he held onto the fly and catch bars that his parents had been holding when the wires snapped and they fell to the ground. Alfred had etched a quote onto them and Dick had treasured them ever since.

Bruce had kept the bullets that killed his parents too. He’d melted down the metal and molded it into the massive metal bat that detailed the front of his uniform for several years until he retired the entire costume.

Maybe, Dick thinks, the baby will want the piece of shrapnel when she’s older.

Or maybe, Dick thinks, she’s not as fucked up as Bruce and I are.

“I’m not Dick Grayson,” Dick tells the baby, looking from the piece of shrapnel to her and back again, “Because Dick Grayson never would’ve kidnapped a lady off of the street to harvest her daughter for a secret agency hellbent on kidnapping meta children.”

The baby keeps crying. Dick grips the piece of shrapnel in his hands and looks towards her.

“I’ve got none of me left,” Dick says, placing a hand on the baby’s pink wrap. When the helicopter crashed, he’d taken the pink wrap out of the pregnant lady’s bag. It was new, clearly sewn with love by either the mother herself or a friend. Now it’s dusty and stained and smelly.

Dick takes the cursed swaddling off of her again, just like he did a while ago. But now, rather than rearranging her into a more comfortable position, he leans her head back and lowers the shrapnel to her throat.

If she dies now, it’ll save her the fate of being murdered when Dick inevitably has to hand her off to Spyral when he gets to Narjani. It’ll be better this way, Dick reasons. She won’t be killed by heartless criminals who don’t care about her as a person, she’ll be killed by someone who wants to save her from that fate.

The desert is going to kill them anyway. What options do they have?

It’s either they die here, on their own terms… or she is murdered by herself. Alone. 

“I’m sorry,” Dick gulps out, swallowing his spit down his throat, “I’m sorry.”

The shrapnel cuts into the side of her throat. Blood flows out quickly, thick and sticky.

The baby doesn’t cry, to Dick’s surprise. For once, she doesn’t bawl or whine or sob or wail. 

Dick thinks of all the times she’s cried violently. She only did so when Dick stopped walking. She only cries when Dick is on the verge of giving up.

But right now, the baby stares at him with unblinking eyes. Dick stares back. In her eyes, Dick sees the echoes of the millions of people he’s saved.

He sees the couple he pulled out of a river on his first jaunt as Nightwing, their faces as they hug him close until they stop shaking. He sees the young street urchin he pulled out from a car accident when he was Robin. He sees the businessman on the ledge of Tappan Zee Bridge when he was walking through New York to Titans Tower.

In her eyes, Dick sees Jason, grasping onto his hand to avoid falling off the train they’re jumping on. In her eyes, Dick sees Cass, looking at him incredulously as he teaches her sign language. In her eyes, Dick sees Tim, hugging him desperately in the wake of his father’s death. In her eyes, Dick sees Damian, in almost every single interaction he’s had with him.

It’s then when Dick identifies what that look is. It’s trust.

Immediately, Dick yanks the shrapnel from the baby’s neck in panic. Guilt floods through his body as he watches the blood trickle like sanguine tears down her neck. 

She still doesn’t cry.

Dick grabs his old gloves quickly, ripping the material in half and putting a light pressure on the wound that he created. He treats the cut with practice. He does the best he can with what he has. The wound won’t kill her, it’s too small for that. Still, it’s deep enough to scar and there’s always a risk for infection.

They’ll have to get out of here fast.

“I’m sorry,” Dick says, tying the glove around her neck so that it seeps up all of the remaining blood, “I… I wasn’t thinking.”

Dick sighs in relief when the baby just motions at him. He puts his hand out in front of her. She grabs it with tiny, fragile fingers.

“You’re going to survive,” Dick tells the baby, and this time he’s not lying to her, “Your heart…it's strong. Stronger than any other heart I know.”

The baby looks up at Dick with wide eyes.

“It’s much stronger than mine,” Dick says softly, placing his hand over her chest and listening to her heart beat. It’s slow and steady, but it’s strong. She’s alive, and Dick is determined to keep her that way.

Dick places a hand over his own heart and stands up, her bundled up in his hands again. His heartbeat is not as strong as hers. It stutters. But it still beats. Dick is alive too.

“We’re going to survive,” Dick tells the baby as he walks up another hill of sand, “Because that’s what Dick Grayson would’ve done.”

The baby babbles. Dick imagines it’s a babble of approval. 

He keeps walking.

“You’re patrolling.”

“Robin,” Dick jumps up from where he’s sitting on his favorite gargoyle. 

“Nightwing,” Damian nods, sitting on the ledge right next to the gargoyle, “I’m glad to see you out on patrol.”

“I didn’t know this was your route,” Dick says, slipping off the gargoyle and onto the ledge where Damian is sitting. Damian rolls his eyes when Dick inches closer. 

“Not exactly,” Damian admits, looking around them, “I was meant to be patrolling down the main stretch of Broad all the way ‘til it crosses Paris Street, but I saw a flash of blue and followed you here.”

Dick laughs, “I see.”

“I am lucky you’ve decided on such a visible uniform,” Damian huffs, kicking his legs gently on the stone building they’ve situated themselves on, “Or else you’d be impossible to find.”

Dick looks himself up and down and laughs, “My getup is like… mostly black. If anything, you’re the one with the visible uniform.”

Dick flicks Damian’s hair. Damian sticks his nose up in the air and flips his yellow cape like he’s offended, “It is not my fault that you chose so many bright colors as Robin.”

“You could always choose a different uniform,” Dick points out, reaching over the gargoyle and ruffling Damian’s hair, “The red, green, and yellow aren’t a requirement you know.”

“It’s gold,” Damian says, looking offended. He knocks Dick’s hand off his head, “And without the colors I’m not sure I’d be Robin.”

“Robin is an idea,” Dick says, thinking back to when his identity had been passed down to Jason. For the longest time, he’d considered Robin his own identity. But since then, it’d been passed to four other people. 

Robin had long stopped being his. Especially after the things he’d done in Spyral, Dick isn’t sure he can claim ownership of a symbol of hope after he’d been the harbinger of death.

Dick is aware he’s spent too much time being quiet, so he shakes himself out of it and smiles down at Damian, “Robin is like a symbol.”

“Symbols should be recognizable,” Damian points out, “Robin’s colors are as iconic as he is. Plus, weren’t they the colors your parents used in their old circus costumes?”

“They were,” Dick smiles fondly, happy that Damian has even remembered.

“Then I wouldn’t dare change it,” Damian says, crossing his arms and glaring at Dick.

Dick smiles, looking down at where Damian is now watching the streets through binoculars, “Thanks, Robin.”

Damian just nods.

“Need to get back on your route?” Dick asks eventually, kicking himself off the ledge and hanging himself off the edge. Damian stares at him with a disappointed look until he flips back up. He offers his hand towards Damian.

Damian takes it and drags himself up, “Not right now.”

“You sure?” Dick asks, “You don’t have to stay here with me. You know we can hang out as civilians any other day together.”

“I do know that,” Damian says, rubbing his wrists together nervously, “But… actually, I had to ask you something.”

“Yeah, shoot,” Dick yawns, stretching out his arms. It’s getting late. He’ll probably go back home in an hour.

“Red Robin has recently been expressing concern about you,” Damian says slowly, looking at Dick seriously.

Dick narrows his eyes. He makes sure that his body doesn’t lie. Did Tim hear anything that he and Bruce were saying the other day? There was no way. Bruce had turned the radio all the way up and covered the camera. There was no way that he and Dick missed something.

“I’m alright,” Dick says, making sure there’s a normal amount of cheer in his voice.

Damian studies him for a couple seconds, “I understand not being honest with Red Robin, but you would be honest with me, right?”

Dick laughs a little bit, hoping his discomfort is well hidden. It hurts him, but he lies, “Of course. I’m fine.”

Damian uncrosses his arms and looks a bit less tense, “Alright. If you are sure. But recently he has been asking me questions.”

“Like what?” Dick asks.

“If you’ve been acting weird or saying weird things,” Damian shrugs, “He was quite insistent about it.”

Dick laughs, hoping it sounds convincing, “I’m always saying weird things.”

Damian nods, “This is true.”

Dick looks back out on the city and thinks. If Tim is really asking around so insistently, it's possible he heard something. But there was no way, right? Dick gave no reason for Tim to be concerned.

Maybe, Dick considers, Tim heard something from someone else? It could be a possibility, but Dick is also sure that no one outside he and Bruce know. The truth is buried. And it's buried somewhere unattainable, Dick is sure of that. Bruce always hides things in impossible places.

The other possibility is that Tim is just curious. Naturally. It's possible that Dick gave off bad vibes and Tim picked up on them. Dick hopes that's not the case.

Dick is shaken out of his thoughts by a blood-curdling cry.

“Someone needs help,” Dick says, shooting a quick look to Damian before planting his foot firmly on the edge of the gargoyle’s head and launching himself into the night.

Dick lets himself fall for a couple seconds too long before he deploys his grapple. It grips onto the edge of a building nearby and Dick swings himself over. As he does so, he looks over the city, trying to pinpoint the source of the noise.

He sees it: a child sprinting out of an alleyway on Spring Avenue. Dick swings himself downwards, pulling the trigger on his grapple that returns the line to its original position. He’s in free fall now.

Dick tumbles onto the ground next to the child, grabbing them in his hands, “Are you okay?”

The child looks at him with wide eyes. Relieved eyes, trusting eyes. 

“There’s someone with a gun,” the child says quickly, the words tumbling out of their mouth and onto each other in a panic. They point somewhere behind Dick.

“Nightwing,” Damian snaps when he lands on the ground next to him, “What’s going on?”

“Unclear,” Dick says, gently heaving the child into Damian’s hands, “Investigating now, take care of the child and report back.”

Damian doesn’t argue. He lifts the child into his arms and darts off in the other direction.

Dick races towards the alleyway the child was just running out of. He flips himself up onto the fire escape and silently turns the corner, anticipating what’s about to come.

“There was a kid,” a man is saying below, a massive gun in his hands and a mask over his face, “What should I do?”

“Shut ‘em up,” the other man says, rubbing his tattooed arms before unlocking the back of the black SUV sitting in the middle of the alleyway, “Can’t have any of the Bats finding them.”

Dick keeps himself as quiet as possible and flattens himself against the wall as he jumps to the next fire escape. There’s a miniscule creak when he lands. Dick flattens himself further into the metal. The thugs don’t notice.

“Was listening to the police tuner tonight,” the first man says. Dick decides to call him Rings since he’s wearing rings on all of his fingers, “No reports about any of the bat brats.”

“I dunno man,” the second man, Dick dubs him Tattoos, says, “I heard Spoiler was out around 2000.”

“She went in a while ago,” Rings says, “Haven’t heard anything about her activity since 2200. You know those Batwatch people keep socials updated whenever they see a Bat and they haven’t shown anything.”

“Okay,” Tattoos says, but he sounds a little uncertain, “Then don’t worry about the kid. Don’t wanna have child murder on our conscience anyway. Okay, ya sure we have everything?”

Rings hoists his gun onto his shoulder, “Yeah. Let’s bust it. Jewelry shop ain’t gonna rob itself.”

Dick has taken stock of the situation. Tattoos doesn’t have a visible weapon on him, nor does he have a concealed carry. Rings is the only one with a weapon, and Dick is sure he could take him out easily.

Dick drops from the fire escape, two floors down and onto Rings’ shoulders. It takes him out almost instantly. Tattoos lunges for the gun that Rings dropped onto the ground. 

Dick kicks it out of the way and drops his foot onto the grip, popping the gun into his hand.

Dick aims the pistol at Tattoos with a practiced ease. It’s familiar, like the gun he used when he was Agent 37 not too long ago. The gun fits into his hands and he locates it right at the back of the SUV.

Tattoos reaches for something in the SUV. From the corner of his eye, Dick can see that it’s a knife.

Dick shoots the gun before he can even think. The bullet pushes the knife backwards and Tattoos widens his eyes, looking at Dick in shock.

There’s multiple ways to use a gun as a weapon. 

Dick whips the gun out towards Tattoos’ head. It hits him right in the temple and before Tattoos can even utter an expletive, Dick swings his leg out at his knees and Tattoos crumples. There’s gonna be a nasty concussion waiting for him when he wakes up.

Dick looks around the SUV for anyone else.

Dick hears a drop behind him, crunching on the gravel. He freezes and then whips around. It’s only Damian though. Dick relaxes.

“I heard a gunshot,” Damian says quickly, his birdarangs ready in his hands, “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” Dick says curtly, gently setting the gun onto the ground, “It’s not a problem. Just had to make sure this guy wasn’t reaching for another weapon.”

It takes Damian a second to register the words and even another second for him to stare at the gun. He widens his eyes, “Wait, did you…”

Dick crosses his hands behind his back, just like he’s grown accustomed to doing in Spyral. He stands in an at ease position and looks at the bodies on the floor in front of him. He waits for a command that never comes.

“Nightwing,” Damian says urgently, shaking Dick’s shoulder, “Did you use the gun?”

Dick looks over at Damian and lifts up an eyebrow. 

Right, not in Spyral. 

He releases his hands from each other and tries to stand more casually. He feels awkward though, like he’s not sure where to put his hands if he’s not standing like he’s about to receive instructions. 

Eventually, he shifts onto one leg and says, “I didn’t shoot anyone, Robin.”

“But you used the gun,” Damian repeats, pointing at the hole in the back of the SUV. It’s smoking.

Dick blinks a couple times before he can recognize what the big deal is. He’d been the one who drilled into Damian’s head that they were not to use guns. 

Out of respect for Bruce, Dick remembers saying, And for his parents, we don’t use guns. Think of it like our code.

He remembers all the discussions he had with Bruce and all the arguments he had with Jason. It was important to know how to use guns, sure. That way you could disarm them if need be. But Bruce had always preferred it not be their weapon of choice. 

Guns were easy, but unforgiving. He’d taught Damian the same thing, over and over and over again.

But in Spyral, guns were the weapon of choice. Dick had grown accustomed to their weight in his hands, their presence on his hip. He’d gotten used to reaching for them automatically and shooting when he could. 

Shoot first, Minos’ voice whispers in his head, Think later.

Dick leans his head backwards and internally beats himself to a pulp. Maybe Bruce could do it for him in real life if he ever learned what happened tonight. That gives Dick a bit of a laugh, but Damian is staring at him worriedly now so the laughs turn into coughs.

“I… panicked,” Dick says, playing up the coughing a little bit, “I’m really sorry you had to hear that, kiddo. I should’ve used my wingdings. Do not, under any circumstance, do what I just did.”

Damian stands very still for an uncomfortably long time. Finally, he says, “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Dick says, sighing out loud to himself before taking some rope off the notch in his belt, “Let’s tie these guys up.”

“What shall we do with them?” Damian asks, deferring to Dick as he ties the ropes up around Rings’ wrists, “Do we discern if they work for a more prevalent villain and send them to jail or are they simply disadvantaged and we employ the Bruce Wayne would like to offer you a better job method?”

Dick freezes. It’s been such a long time since he’s been out on patrol and done something so hands-on. When was the last time he did that? Probably sometime before he died.

Lately, he’s just been tying up the criminals and leaving them for the cops like a coward. Dick waits for a command to pop up in his ears and tell him what to do, just like it did in his Spyral days.

But he’s not in Spyral anymore. He’s allowed to make his own decisions.

“Nightwing?”

Dick stares at Tattoos’ back and resumes tying up his wrists. He tries to hurry his brain along, but it feels like mush. The concept of him making his own decision about something as small and stupid as this feels concerning. He decided on dinner last night, didn’t he? Why can’t he decide on what to do with a criminal?

“Why don’t you take point on that tonight?” Dick asks, internally cursing himself the minute the words leave his mouth. Wrong play. Normally he’s the one who can figure out if criminals are in it for crime or in it for necessity. 

“Me?” Damian asks suspiciously, “I’m unsure. You’re the one who saw them conversing, right?”

Dick blinks a couple times. His mind is screaming at him for the decision to come, but it doesn’t.

Damian shakes his arm, “Nightwing?”

“I don’t know what to do,” Dick admits quietly, shaking Damian off of him. He puts his hands right behind his back and spreads his legs apart to the width of his shoulders, just like he’s standing at attention. 

He imagines someone is telling him what to do. Bruce, Spyral, anybody. Maybe that’ll push the decision along.

“Why don’t we just leave them for the police department this time?” Damian asks quietly, his brow furrowed along his mask, “We can ask Batman to figure this out.”

“Good idea, Robin,” Dick says, relaxing a little bit. He lets his hands go loose from behind his back, “Shall I take you home then?”

Damian nods slowly. Dick grabs Damian to his side and shoots his grapple at the tallest building next to them.

Dick pretends that Damian isn’t staring at him weirdly the entire journey home.

“What’s the emergency?” Dick asks, kicking his bike into a locked position before sprinting his way over to where Tim is standing in the Batcave.

Tim is leaning over the desk by the Batcomputer, his head looking at the keyboard as the white light glares around him. He doesn’t respond. He doesn’t look up at Dick’s calls either.

“Tim,” Dick says harshly, skipping steps as he tries to get where Tim is standing, “Tim, what’s wrong? You hit the distress beacon.”

When Dick reaches the platform Tim is on, he notices that his eyes are wide and unblinking.

Dick’s first thought is fear gas. He slows down, his steps quieting as he inches closer. Is Crane out of Arkham? Tim’s not in costume, which indicates that he was at least well enough to get himself into civvies.

Dick steps silently, slowing down. He doesn’t want to scare Tim away if he’s really under the effects. But Tim is a Bat too, so he hears the slight sound of Dick crushing his shoelace aglet between the metal and the bottom of his shoe.

Tim looks up at Dick, his eyes widening even further. Dick takes stock of Tim’s sunken eyes, their dark circles contrasting his pale skin. Tim reaches out towards Dick’s face, lightly touching his cheek.

Fear gas, Dick internally confirms. He came here as Dick Grayson, not as Nightwing, but he still carries the essentials on him. He rummages in his pocket and pulls out a tiny flashlight. He turns it on and flashes it in Tim’s eyes, trying to check the dilation.

“Agh!” Tim yells, scooching back like a freaked out animal when the light hits him, “Dick, what the fuck?”

“Oh, you’re completely lucid,” Dick says, both slightly and pleasantly surprised. He puts the flashlight back in his pocket and grabs Tim’s face, jerking it back and forth, looking everywhere else for a sign that something’s wrong, “Thought you got fear gassed or something.”

“Crane is in Arkham,” Tim says, still looking at that place on Dick’s cheek that he was touching before.

Dick looks around, confused, “Okay. You do know you hit the emergency distress beacon, right?”

Tim shakes his head, like he’s trying to refocus. He looks back at the Batcomputer, “Yeah, I did.”

“Okay,” Dick says, looking around the Batcave for the emergency, “So…. what’s up then?”

Tim sits down at the chair and motions for Dick to come next to him. Dick leans over the chair and looks at the files that Tim has brought up on the computer. All normal cases: Gordon’s evidence, Jason’s drug busts, Cass’s overseas reports. Nothing out of the ordinary; nothing to classify an emergency.

“I found some footage earlier today,” Tim starts off by saying, looking directly upwards to where Dick is leaning, “I’ve been poking around ever since last time you’ve been at the Manor.”

Dick thinks back to the last time he was at the Manor. He’d been talking with Bruce last time. And they’d been talking about…

Surely it was a coincidence?

“Okay,” Dick takes a deep breath and looks down at Tim’s head, “Is there something wrong with the footage? I’m still unsure how this is classified as an emergency. A concern, maybe, but an emergency-”

Tim thuds his hand onto the desk, almost angrily. The sound shocks both him and Dick. 

Tim clears his throat, embarrassed, “Sorry. I just… the footage is disturbing. Really disturbing. And there’s the slight possibility it was doctored, but I need you to look at it and tell me if it is.”

Dick observes Tim for a couple seconds. He takes in the clenched fist, the knotted shoulders, and the drawn, slow breaths. Whatever is going on, it’s serious to Tim.

So Dick treats it seriously.

“Okay,” Dick says, placing a hand on Tim’s head and hoping that little motion is fine, “Show me.”

Tim takes a deep breath and clicks through the files on the screen. Dick watches as Tim goes through the complicated maneuver of navigating through the millions of open cases on the Batcomputer to get to the computer’s finder.

Tim opens it up, finding his way to the terminal. Dick watches carefully as Tim inputs several commands. None of the commands are familiar to Dick, but the Batcomputer is also updated yearly and he’s been out of commission for a while. He probably wouldn’t recognize them anyway. 

Still, there’s something fishy and all too familiar about what Tim’s doing.

“You’re accessing backlogs,” Dick says suddenly, widening his eyes and looking down, because he too has hacked into B’s computer before. He regards Tim suspiciously, “Why are you…”

“I found a backdoor,” Tim says simply, like it’s a complete answer. His fingers speed across the keys with alarming expertise.

“Okay,” Dick says slowly, “But you know if B puts backdoors into a system, it’s because it’s private. Not to be messed with.”

“Didn’t stop you from hacking into the Justice League system for the tele-codes. Twice,” Tim shoots back easily, “Plus, I had good reason to look into this.”

“Which was…?” Dick asks, looking at Tim warily.

“I’ve had this concern recently,” Tim says vaguely, pausing for just a second to observe Dick, “It’s just… not matching up with the other things being told to me. I had to check for myself.”

In the back of his mind, Dick registers that this has to do with him. Tim calling on him, mentioning his last visit to the Manor, looking at him so frequently… none of it strikes Dick as normal.

Curiosity wins over concern though, and Dick just watches incredulously as Tim creates systems and references backdoors that he clearly created himself.

Tim finishes typing out his commands, “Once I discovered the backdoor in the logs, it was fairly easy to create my own shortcut into the information he was hiding. Look.”

With a final keystroke, the Batcomputer’s screen changes. Instead of the chaotic home screen of open cases, pictures of bloody bodies and criminals, and cam views of Gotham streets, Dick is greeted by a pale blue screen with five folders neatly lined up on it.

Dick scans them quickly. He recognizes the first four. He was there for the creation of all of them, and he was there when Bruce hid them behind a backdoor.

Bruce called it Deathbay, a place where all of the family’s real deaths were recorded. They were hidden files, private and unattainable to anyone other than Bruce and Dick.

Jason’s death file pops out as the first file. It’s labeled simply: Robin 2 [Year 3]. Dick’s used to that. That’s how Bruce classifies stuff. Dick scans the other similar files and finds Cass’s death files, Stephanie’s, and Damian’s.

He knows what’s in the files. There’s pictures of the bodies, autopsy reports, videos if they’re available, and written firsthand reports done by Bruce himself. None of this surprises Dick and he’s almost surprised that it’s taken Tim this long to find it.

It’s when Dick sees the fifth file that his heart drops. The back of his brain screams at him. He had to have known this was coming. He shouldn’t have let curiosity win, shouldn’t have answered Tim’s call.

Dick feels like vomiting.

“Nightwing - Robin 1, Batman 3,” Tim reads, and the steady voice that he’s been using all throughout their conversation is starting to shake, “Year 15.”

“Tim,” Dick says, in the firmest voice he can muster, “Stop.”

Tim doesn’t stop looking at the screen, but his face pales a little bit in response to that. 

“It’s not what you think it is,” Dick says, trying to sound a bit calmer instead. He thinks of something on the fly, “Bruce had to fabricate a file on my death to make it more believable. You know how he is. Paranoid and all that shit. That’s… that’s fake. He figured it you’d find it and it’s just… it was just in case. He must’ve forgotten to take it down.”

Dick prays that that excuse is enough for Tim. Tim narrows his eyes and clicks the file open. Dick reads him quickly. Narrowed eyes, tight lips, and taut arms. He’s suspicious. He looks even more apprehensive.

“Right,” Tim says slowly, “I thought you might say that.”

Dick looks at the information in front of them. He hasn’t seen his own death file. He’s not surprised by what’s on there. Time of death, cause of death, reason for death. There’s pictures of his bruised body, grainy photos from Bruce’s cowl, and an autopsy log. Dick’s not even sure how Bruce drew that one up. He wasn’t dead long enough for an autopsy.

There’s footage too, and Dick recognizes it as the footage of him strapped to a bomb. It’s moments before Luthor is about to kill him.

Dick thinks he’s going to be sick. Now that it’s all laid out in front of him, he feels angry. How could he let this happen to himself?

“Dick?” Tim asks, reaching up to tap Dick’s shoulder, “What’s up?”

“It’s a convincing report,” Dick grits out, looking at everything in front of him.

“That’s what I thought too,” Tim says with a sigh, “Which is why I investigated this further. It was… it looked too real. I couldn’t find proof that this video was doctored, the autopsy was too detailed… it was nothing like Bruce’s previous attempts at fake files.”

“Bruce was just very thorough this time,” Dick says. There’s bile coming up his throat. He bites it down.

“Except I don’t think he was,” Tim says, narrowing his eyes, “And I think you know that too.”

Dick remains silent and keeps his face neutral. 

“I found another backdoor through this file,” Tim says, his voice shaking ever so slightly as he speaks.

Dick doesn’t need Cass’s ability to read bodies to know what this means. Tim knows what Dick knows. 

Tim is already typing away again, turned back to the computer with a cold expression.

“Tim,” Dick says, his voice hardening when he sees Tim type further commands into the computer. The Batcomputer frizzes, beeping a little bit on the side, “Tim, that’s Bruce’s personal stuff, cut it out.”

“Sorry, Dick,” Tim says, typing quickly, “I think you know why I have to do this.”

“Tim,” Dick repeats again, placing his hand firmly over the mouse and dragging it away, “Let Bruce have his private files. It’s hidden for a reason”

Tim’s face hardens, “No, I can’t do that, Dick. I’m sorry.”

Dick barely sees Tim’s hand coming. It knocks his arm out of the way and grabs the mouse in a flash. Tim kicks his leg out and uses it to stop Dick from coming at him.

Tim types faster than Dick can reach for Tim’s leg to flip him onto the ground. When Dick flips him over, Tim has already clicked into the mainframe. The file that Dick has hoped he’d never have to see again flashes on the screen.

Birdwatcher, it says in simple terms. 

Birdwatcher, it says in a sans serif font underneath a virtual manila folder on a massive blue screen. 

Birdwatcher, it says, like the name isn’t vile, wretched, cruel. 

Birdwatcher.

Tim pops up from where Dick flipped him onto the floor and launches himself at the mouse.

“Don’t,” Dick warns, lunging at Tim.

Tim’s too fast. He clicks open the file before Dick can exit out of it. Dick freezes. So does Tim.

The screen seems to dwarf both him and Tim. In front of him are hundreds of photos, audio files, and videos that all expose the truth that he and Bruce have been trying to hide. 

The screen is too bright. Dick leans on the counter of the desk, his arms spread against the cold metal and his palms gripping tightly. Dick looks up at the screen. The file names jump out at him. Amidst the many, Dick can pinpoint some notable ones labeled in italics.

Birdwatcher - Check In Day #1

Birdwatcher - Check In Day #78

Birdwatcher - Data Collection, Day 17

Birdwatcher - Data Collection, Day 168 

Tim doesn’t say anything. Dick doesn’t say anything either. For once, he’s at a loss for what to say.

His brain can’t think of a lie fast enough. It’s mush, just like it was with Damian a week ago, it’s complete mush.

Tim knows. Tim knows and he knows and he knows and he knows… and how is Dick going to come back from this?

Tim clicks on Birdwatcher - Check In #278 and presses play.

“Mr. Malone,” Dick’s voice floods through the cave speakers, “Mr. Malone, are you there?”

Dick winces at how desperate his voice sounds.

“Bruce,” the voice in the recording begs, lowering to a whisper, “Please answer me. I haven’t heard from you in months and I want to go home. I know it’s silly but I want to-”

There’s a crash in the recording. Dick looks up at the audio file while it plays through. He keeps a straight face. This was one of the many days that Spyral nearly caught him calling.

“I gotta go,” recording Dick’s voice says, now hardened completely, “This is Birdwatcher, signing out.”

Tim watches Dick carefully. Before Dick can warn his body, he slumps forward. Tim catches him and drags him up onto the chair.

He says nothing. But he’s also apparently not done putting Dick through the emotional wringer, because he clicks on one more video.

Dick recognizes it instantly and reaches to turn it off.

“Let it play,” Tim says quietly, stopping Dick’s hand. The ugly part of Dick doesn’t resist, so he lets Tim keep playing it. He keeps his eyes glued to the screen.

It’s the cave footage of Dick and Bruce fighting. Faintly, through the cave system loudspeaker Dick can hear him and Bruce arguing as they fight.

“I’m alive!” Dick is shouting, hitting his chest with his hands. The noise of skin hitting skin echoes through the cave. 

Dick remembers doing that. It was a cry of desperation. It was a way to shout into the world and beg for it to respond, for anyone to respond.

Dick watches with morbid curiosity as Bruce shouts back, telling him the details of the mission while he hits him. Dick winces. There were so many things in this fight he could’ve done better.

He knows Bruce hits left. Why didn’t he dodge? He keeps his right open and…

And Dick is thinking like an insane person now.

“Is this real?” Tim asks quietly, as the video plays a clip of Bruce slinging Dick into a wall.

Dick winces and watches his back bend as he hits the wall, falling into the ground below him. Blood stains the cave. How did they clean that out? How did Bruce clean that out?

Dick doesn’t respond to Tim. He just exits out of the video.

“How much of this have you seen?” Dick asks, exiting out of the files completely and trying to erase any evidence that Tim may have seen it.

Damage control. Dick has to start damage control.

“All of it,” Tim says, looking up at Dick with worried eyes, “Tell me it’s fake. Tell me that it’s all fake.”

Dick looks down and shakes his head. There’s no lie he can tell that would sound real. He doesn’t know how he’s going to explain this to Bruce. How would he even start?

Tim looks blankly at the computer, “I knew it. I knew it but I didn’t want to accept it.”

Dick doesn’t say anything. He just watches as Tim bows his head into his hands and starts to shake.

“Are you okay?” Dick asks gently, reaching down and touching Tim’s shoulder.

“Am I okay?” Tim repeats, looking up at Dick like he’s insane. He shakes his head, “I… I knew, like I knew in my head this was real. Like logically, everything lines up but… oh my god.”

Dick thinks about damage control while he rubs Tim’s back in circles. He’ll have to erase cave footage, but he’ll need a good excuse to do that. He could tell Bruce it was a blackout maybe? But Bruce won’t believe that unless the whole of Gotham’s power goes out since the Batcave has so many generators.

Dick could make a temporary power outage. It would be easy. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s done that, but it will be the first time for selfish reasons.

“I have to tell Damian and Jason,” Tim murmurs quietly.

“No,” Dick says immediately, standing up and taking his hand off Tim’s back, “We cannot tell Jason and Damian.”

“We have to,” Tim says, pointing at the screen, “This is important, Dick.”

“It doesn’t change anything,” Dick whispers, waving his open palms down in the air, “We have to keep this between us.”

“It changes everything!” Tim yells. Tim doesn’t yell often, which is why Dick nearly flinches at the sound of his voice ringing through the cave. He doesn’t though. He reaches out towards Tim.

“Timmy-”

“No,” Tim says, hitting his hand onto the desk, “I…”

Tim throws his hands up in the air and then hits them onto his head, pulling at the hair. He makes an anguished sound, “Dick, that means you died. For real?”

“It doesn’t change anything,” Dick repeats, trying to act more calmly than he feels, “I still went undercover. That was still … a decision that I sort of made. The death part is just a detail we left out.”

“Oh, right!” Tim throws his hands up in the air, “Because death is just a minor detail!”

“In this case,” Dick starts, shrugging his shoulders in what he hopes is a casual way, “Yeah.”

Tim takes a deep breath like he’s about to argue but he just puts his head in his hands. Dick watches as he toys with his emergency distress beacon.

“They don’t have to know,” Dick whispers, “It’ll make it more painful. Jason and Bruce just reconciled. He doesn’t need a reason to be angry with him.”

“Bruce hit you,” Tim whispers, his face paling as he says it. His hands clench around the beacon, “I don’t think Jason would want to be around Bruce if he knew that.”

“Exactly why we don’t tell him,” Dick says, shaking his head, “And Damian… what would he think if he saw his dad doing this?”

“They deserve to know,” Tim argues, “What if Bruce does it again? What if Bruce does it to Damian?”

“He would never,” Dick says instantly, shaking his head, “Only to me.”

Tim’s face hardens and his grip on the emergency distress beacon tightens. His hands are turning white. He clicks two buttons on it before Dick can even register the action.

“I’m making an executive decision here,” Tim says, showing Dick the beacon, which is now flashing with two signals, a red bat and an R, “They deserve to know.”

“Don’t I get a say in this?” Dick says, grabbing the distress beacon from Tim. There’s no off button, no cancellation, no going back. He tosses it back, “Or is this it? Just another entry in the long line of things I don’t have a choice in?”

Tim blanches. He fumbles with the beacon before slipping it into his pocket, “Dick…”

Dick needs to vomit. When Jason and Damian arrive, they’ll be angry. He doesn’t even want to think about Damian seeing the images, videos, and audio files.

He rushes towards the garbage can next to the computer and vomits. It tastes like the leftover Thai food he had last night. 

There’s a hand on his back and a wet rag patting down his face. 

“Haven’t you held onto this for too long Dick?” Tim asks, patting down the corners of his mouth where the vomit is sticking, “They deserve to know, but you also… You deserve better.”

Dick passes out before he can argue.

Dick wakes up panting.

“Fuck,” Dick whispers to himself, shaking his heads in his hand, “I just had the worst nightmare.”

In his hands, the baby rustles. She’s waking up too. Lately, Dick’s been taking occasional twenty minute naps every couple hours as the moon travels through the sky. The night is the best time to sleep. The sand is cooler and doesn’t burn to the touch.

“Ignore the cuss word,” Dick tells the baby when he sees that she’s fully awake, “You’re too young for that.”

The baby doesn’t do anything. Nothing at all. She looks peaceful.

“Okay,” Dick says, stretching himself out and looking at the sky, “We’re heading north.”

The baby giggles when Dick says that. Dick looks down and smiles, “North. Towards Narjani, remember?”

Dick scans the sky, “Look. There it is. Polaris. The North Star. See it?”

The baby follows Dick’s pointer finger. She lifts up her hand and grabs at where he’s pointing, making chattering sounds as she does so.

“It’s part of Ursa Major,” Dick says, “Remember when I taught you that?”

The baby stops grabbing at the direction of Polaris and starts grabbing at Dick again. Dick laughs and hoists her higher to his body. The glove around her neck slips a little. He sets her down on the sand again and moves to adjust it. The blood has clotted already. Good. Dick takes the glove off completely. 

“Still no water,” Dick tells the baby when he picks her back up and orients her so that she can see the night sky, “So just keep drinking your own spit.”

Dick follows Polaris. His renewed energy helps him as he trudges through the endless sand.

“I’m gonna tell you about my nightmare,” Dick tells the baby, “Because I’m running out of stuff to talk about.”

The baby makes an inquisitive noise.

“It was a nightmare that Bruce forgot about me while I was at Spyral,” Dick tells the baby, even though she has no idea what Spyral is, “And I spent years there.”

Dick pauses to maneuver around a tiny hill.

“Anyway, when Bruce finally told me I could come home,” Dick says, “I came home to a place I didn’t recognize. Gotham… that’s where I’m from, was nearly unrecognizable. My sister became Batman and Bruce had retired. My brothers had all grown up.”

The baby whines a little bit in response. Dick imagines she’s asking about the details.

“Tim had a partner,” Dick reports, “Like a long term partner. They were getting married. He’d grown out of everyone’s shadows and he was happy. Like really happy. And Jason… he’d reconciled with Bruce completely. He was like… the glue of the family. The protector. They all loved him. Oh, and Damian was alive again. They’d managed to revive him. There were more people. Our family had grown while I was gone.”

“I know what you’re thinking,” Dick continues, even though the baby probably wasn’t thinking anything at all, “Isn’t that great?”

Dick scoffs. He looks at the next hill he has to walk up. He puts his foot in front of the other, ready to take the journey.

“Not so great, lemme tell you,” Dick says bitterly, “When I came back, no one recognized me.”

Dick pauses for a second and stares at Polaris, “Not because I looked different. It was because I was different. I wasn’t Dick Grayson anymore. I was just Agent 37. A lone rider, a man with blood on his hands, a monster.”

Dick reaches the top of the hill, sticking his foot at the top victoriously, “I’m starting to think that this nightmare is becoming my reality.”

Dick sighs and closes his eyes. Through his eyelids, he can make out the distant shine of Polaris. He breathes, long and deep.

When Dick wakes up, he wakes up to the sounds of loud arguing. Someone, probably Tim, has leaned him up against one of the beds in the medbay. Dick feels groggy and he knows he has a massive headache.

He notices immediately he’s not in the desert. He’s in the Batcave.

And Tim is with Jason and Damian.

Shit, he’d hoped that was a nightmare.

“I don’t understand,” he hears Damian say. He sits up completely so that he can see where Damian is standing, “What do you mean his death was real?”

“That’s not the main fucking point, Baby Bat,” Jason says to Damian, stepping in front of him and facing Tim, “What the hell do you mean Bruce hit Dick?”

“There’s evidence,” Tim is saying, his fingers pinching his temple, “I told you, Jason. You didn’t listen to me when I told you Dick was acting weird.”

“He’s always weird!” Jason yells, whipping his arms out. One of the arms gets too close to Damian and he dodges. Jason looks back and ruffles his hair, “Sorry, Brat. Anyway, Dick is always saying weird shit. How was I supposed to know-”

“How were any of us supposed to know,” Damian interrupts, “Father said-”

“Bruce said wrong!” Tim interrupts, hitting his hands onto the desk, “I kept telling you guys that shit wasn’t adding up.”

“I didn’t not believe you,” Damian says quietly, “It was just…”

Dick sits up completely, watching the scene in front of him. Damian’s school jacket is half off, the Gotham Academy logo dragging close to the ground. He’d probably just gotten home from school and was changing when he got the emergency distress beacon.

Jason, on the other hand, is in pajamas. At 4PM? Maybe he had a long patrol last night? Dick notes that his gun is holstered on his side though. Of course, he’d never leave home without it.

Dick needs water. He isn’t sure why, but he’s parched. Automatically, he spits into his mouth and swallows it.

Dick shakes his head. He’s in the Batcave. There’s a water filter nearby. He doesn’t have to spit.

Dick silently gets out of the bed and wanders over to the water filter. Maybe if he was really quiet, he could escape the Batcave. He could leave behind his arguing brothers to figure this out themselves before they confronted him.

“I don’t understand,” Damian is saying, in a quiet, uncharacteristically nervous voice, “Why would Father hit Richard?”

“Is this another conspiracy theory?” Jason demands.

Dick gulps down the water. Holy shit, it feels like he hasn’t drank in ten days. He lets the water slide down his throat and enjoys the way it settles in his stomach. His splitting headache feels a lot less threatening now.

“Richard!”

Dick grimaces. So much for escaping without any of them noticing him. Dick quickly finishes another glass of water before turning around and giving his best half grin. He’s sure it doesn’t come out as friendly as he intends it because Damian gives him a knowing look.

“Explain yourself,” Damian says, marching over to Dick and dragging him over to where the rest of his brothers have congregated, “Drake is spewing nonsense. Please help me clear this up.”

“It’s not nonsense,” Tim says, looking at Dick with big eyes that say help me, “It’s real.”

“It’s a fucking conspiracy, is what it is,” Jason says finally, looking at Dick for confirmation. When Dick doesn’t respond, Jason offers an explanation, “Replacement has had this wild conspiracy for about a month and he won’t let it go.”

Dick doesn’t say anything. For once, he’s not sure how to proceed. Tim knows the truth. Tim has told them what seems to be the bare minimum. Both Jason and Damian are in denial. He could use this to his advantage.

He could make Tim seem insane, delete all the files, tell Bruce to put them elsewhere and then erase all of today’s cave footage.

But that wouldn’t be right. Tim would become an outcast. He’d been treated insane once, Dick doubts he’d want to be treated as insane again. He’s not sure what that would do to Tim’s psyche.

He looks at the faces of the three people surrounding him. Tim looks at him expectantly, Damian confused, and Jason bordering on anger.

“I need another glass of water,” Dick says.

Dick sprints back to the filter, downing another glass, and then another.

“You drink like you haven’t had water in days,” Jason says, grumbling as he watches Dick walk back.

“Grayson,” Damian says, ignoring Jason, “What is Drake talking about? What does he mean when he says you died?”

“If Dick doesn’t want to admit it himself, I’ll pull up the footage,” Tim threatens, looking at Dick with harsh eyes.

“Please don’t do that,” Dick begs, because if there’s one person in the world he doesn’t want seeing the footage, it’s Damian.

“What footage?” Jason snaps, stepping up to Tim and ignoring Dick completely now. The mention of hard evidence seems to have called him into attention.

Tim rushes to the computer, keying in the codes that he was keying in earlier. This time, Dick doesn’t stop him. If he tries, he knows he’ll have a fight with Jason on his hands. And Jason is holding a gun.

“Damian,” Dick says, grabbing Damian’s wrist before he can follow Jason, “Please don’t. I don’t want you to see the footage.”

Damian’s face falls. He pauses, scanning Dick’s face for something. He opens his mouth, closes it again, and then finally speaks, “Then it’s true?”

In the background, Dick can hear the Birdwatcher audio files playing. It’s an audio clip of a conversation he and Bruce had, probably around the hundredth day.

“Please, Mr. Malone,” Dick’s voice drifts across the cave, “Haven’t we done enough?”

Damian looks like he wants to turn around, but Dick keeps a hand on his shoulder, “I’m asking you not to look at what they’re playing.”

Dick can see the screen change from the audio to the video file of Bruce beating Dick up. Dick can see Tim’s face blanch from the distance. Dick wonders how many times Tim has watched the footage. Dick can’t see Jason’s face. It’s obscured in shadow. Jason is completely silent.

“I have a right to see what this footage is,” Damian says finally, when screaming comes through the loudspeakers. It’s as if the sound has prompted Damian from his stupor and he’s gained his usual spunk back. He yanks himself out of Dick’s hand.

“Damian,” Dick says, dropping his voice an octave lower. It’s the Batman voice. He doesn’t use it often. Damian stops immediately and turns to face Dick.

“As your Batman,” Dick says, hating how much he sounds like Bruce, “I’m asking you not to look at the computer.”

Damian looks like he wants to challenge that. He stands there with his fists to his sides and his mouth in a straight line, “Is that an order?”

Dick scrunches his eyes closed. He long promised himself not to abuse his power, but this was important. Damian didn’t have to see the nasty details of Bruce hitting Dick. He didn’t have to see his father in this light.

So Dick nods.

Damian breathes out, clearly frustrated and angry. A moment passes, and then another. Damian takes a deep breath, “Okay. Then I will obey.”

“Thank you,” Dick says, inhaling a breath. He’s getting light headed again. Since when have the lights in the cave been so bright?

In the background, he can hear Jason and Tim’s voices getting louder and louder as they argue. Dick can faintly see the video changing to a report of Dick’s first mission with Spyral.

“You really died then?” Damian asks, closing his eyes.

Dick nods, murmuring a yes because he notices that Damian isn’t looking up at him.

“I apologize,” Damian says, looking up at Dick, “I’m sorry I wasn’t there to protect you.”

“Oh, kiddo,” Dick says, leaning down and hugging Damian to his chest, “That was never your job. I’m sorry I wasn’t there to protect you.”

“Bruce and I need to have a serious chat,” Dick hears Jason call from upstairs. There’s loud stomping and Dick can see Jason rushing down the stairs.

“We need to tell Clark or Diana,” Tim shouts, chasing after him. Dick sees that the computer has been turned off. Thank god, he doesn’t know what he would’ve done if he’d had to see that footage some more.

Vomit again maybe.

“We do not need to contact the alien nor the Amazon,” Damian says harshly, turning around, “This is an internal matter. I’m sure if we just asked Father-”

“There is no asking,” Jason rants, heading towards the Cave’s elevator, “I know what I saw in that video and there is no fucking question about it-”

“Wait, Jay,” Tim shouts, skidding in front of the elevator, “Let’s think this out, logically. If we tell Bruce, what if he does something impulsive? We should preserve the evidence first.”

“We could ask Father his side of things,” Damian offers.

“No,” Jason and Tim say in unison. Damian scrunches up his nose.

“Look, Brat, you have no idea what was in the footage,” Jason says, cutting through the air with his hand, “We need to take immediate action.”

“Right, and that immediate action should be saving the evidence,” Tim says, turning to Jason, “Not revealing to Bruce that we know-”

“I don’t understand why we can’t talk to Bruce first,” Jason says angrily, trying to push himself into the elevator, “It’s not gonna do anything.”

“Yes, it is!” Tim argues, pulling Jason backwards. He motions for Damian to try and stop him.

“Get off me, asshats!” Jason thunders, shaking Damian off his arm.

“Everyone just fucking stop!” Dick shouts, whipping his hands out to his sides. The minute he raises his voice, the arguing stops. Everyone looks at him.

“I don’t want to deal with this right now,” Dick says, lowering his voice to its normal cadence, “So leave it be.”

“But-” 

“No,” Dick says, raising his hand before Damian can say anything more.

Tim opens his mouth, and Dick can see the words on the tip of his tongue. What do we do about Bruce?

“Not dealing with that right now,” Dick says. Tim snaps his mouth shut.

Jason glares at Dick and Dick can tell there’s about a million things he wants to say. But Jason doesn’t, for once. 

“Just,” Dick breathes out from his nose, “Don’t bring it up, okay?”

“How are we supposed to just ignore that this happened to you?” Tim asks, looking mildly offended.

“You did just fine before,” Dick snaps, and he knows it’s wrong the minute it’s out of his mouth because all three of his brothers look up at him in a mix of hurt, confusion, and betrayal. It’s not a fair thing to say. 

How would they have known? 

But there’s this bitterness in Dick’s heart that wins out the logic, born from all the ignoring and the anger and the hurt he’s withstood for the past couple months that he’s been back. 

“Don’t mention it,” Dick says, with aggressive finality, “Don’t tell Bruce you know. Don’t even make an inkling that you know. And just…” 

The aggression leaves Dick’s voice. The anger seeps away and all that’s left is everything that’s broken, “Just leave me alone, okay?”

“Richard,” Damian starts, standing up from where he’s sitting to reach out to Dick.

Dick steps back, trying to calm himself, “I need space.”

Dick kicks his bike into gear, shoving the helmet over his face and not bothering to look back. He’ll take care of erasing the footage later. He’ll do damage control later. He’ll talk to Bruce later.

Right now, he just needs to be alone.

Chapter Text

“They know,” Bruce says. He walks into Dick’s apartment at 1AM like he’s a businessman severely late for a meeting.

Dick wakes up groggily, staring at Bruce’s intimidating form at his bedroom door. He throws off his covers and stretches himself out. So much for good sleep.

“Are you telling me or asking me?” Dick asks, watching as Bruce paces the floor.

Bruce observes Dick for a couple seconds before coming to his own conclusion, “So they do know.”

Well. Cat’s out of the bag.

At least Dick kept it from him for four days. That’s gotta be a record.

“Did you tell them?” Bruce asks, his voice dangerously unemotional. He’s wearing a calculating look. His eyes are slanted down and his mouth is pulled in a taut line. It’s a Batman look, not a Bruce look, but lately the lines have been getting blurred anyway.

Dick drags his hands across his face, sighing, “No, of course I didn’t, Bruce.”

“Then how-”

“Tim,” Dick says automatically, looking at Bruce in between his finger, “Who else do you think could’ve figured that out?

“Well,” Bruce draws himself up straighter. He doesn’t break eye contact, “You must have given him some sort of inkling-”

“I did nothing!” Dick exclaims, throwing his hands up in the air. He tries to calm himself down. He takes a big breath and then slips out of his bed. He really doesn’t have the energy for another argument.

Bruce looks at Dick critically, like he’s trying to figure him out. Dick feels naked, stripped down, even though he’s wearing clothes. Bruce has that effect sometimes.

“Okay,” Dick says finally, when Bruce seems done with his analysis, “Here’s the deal. I don’t really want to argue about how it happened and I don’t really think you want to either. It’s time for damage control now.”

Bruce narrows his eyes but doesn’t argue, “Right. What do we tell them?”

“Tell them?” Dick laughs bitterly, following it up sarcastically with, “Come on, B. What’s the protocol for this one? Ivy’s mind controlling spores? Lex’s amnesia gas? A forgetting spell from Zatanna?”

Bruce tilts his head to the side and lifts his eyebrows, “A spell from Zatanna could work… but after the argument we got in three months ago we’re not on speaking terms and we’d have to explain to her what she’s erasing from their minds so … that’s actually not such a good idea. The spores and gas are too wild, they might wipe something we don’t intend to wipe.”

The suggestions had mostly been jokes on Dick’s part, which is why he’s shocked that Bruce is actually considering them. Bruce should’ve known they were jokes. That’s why the reality of the situation hits Dick immediately.

“You… don’t have a plan, do you?” Dick says quietly, looking at Bruce in shock.

Bruce looks away. He walks towards the window, hands behind his back. It’s a cloudy night. Dick can barely see Wayne Enterprises through the murky weather. The penthouse is dark, abandoned.

A quick flash of frustration runs through Dick’s body, “How do you not have a plan? You plan for fucking everything and you didn’t plan for this?”

“Dick,” Bruce says tiredly, in the tone he used when Dick was eight and exhausting him.

“You’re fucking Batman!” Dick shouts, throwing his hands in the air above him. His neighbors can probably hear him, but there’s no way they’d actually believe anything that’s happening so Dick doesn’t care. Dick grabs Bruce’s shoulder and moves him around so they’re looking at each other, “You’re Bruce motherfucking Wayne! You make plans for your plans! How could you not plan for this?”

“The files were behind three separate backdoors,” Bruce says, pinching his eyes together and rubbing them, “Not to mention encrypted. I used Justice League level security measures.”

“Okay,” Dick says, trying his best to sound calm. He points his hand at Bruce, “But you realize you raised a family of hackers, right?”

“Well,” Bruce leans his head to one side, “Jason and Damian both aren’t-”

“Tim,” Dick clarifies, “How could you not anticipate Tim?”

“I really didn’t think he’d be able to get through the firewalls,” Bruce says honestly.

“Bruce,” Dick says, inhaling and then clasping his hands together in a steeple position. He points the little steeple in Bruce’s direction, “It’s Tim. Babs trained him. We’re not talking about some normal teenager."

Bruce’s eyebrows twitch. That’s as close to an admission of guilt as Dick’s gonna get.

“Okay,” Dick breathes, but he’s bordering on panicking. The only thing that’s kept him going for the past four days was the idea of some deus ex machina that Bruce would pull from the woodworks and make everyone forget and they wouldn’t have to deal with how complex the situation was and everyone could go back to hating Dick.

And yeah, it would suck, but Dick figures it would suck less than this.

“I don’t know what to do,” Dick admits. For once, he feels completely lost. If Bruce doesn’t know…

“Maybe we could recontextualize it,” Bruce muses, turning back to the window. He casts a long shadow on the ground, “We could say you started the fight.”

Dick balls his fists together. The blame is on him again.

“I don’t think that’ll work,” Dick says bitterly, sort of gratefully, “They have all the footage. From each different angle.”

“Hn,” Bruce grunts, not looking away from the window, “Audio?”

“They heard it all too,” Dick says, “I really don’t know how you plan to explain that away.”

Bruce rubs his temples with his hands. He looks old. He’s graying. He no longer has that kind face that he had once upon a time, when Dick was young and they went on camping trips. Where did it all go wrong? What changed?

“We could tell the truth,” Dick offers, because if all supernatural options are exhausted, then there’s realistically one course of action, “If we explained it together, I’m sure the kids will be a lot less… uh, angry at you.”

“Are they angry?” Bruce turns around and asks, “What did they say?”

“Jason seemed pretty upset, though I can’t imagine why,” Dick says bitterly, looking at the ground, “He hits me nearly as much as you do.”

Bruce’s face hardens, “I don’t hit you.”

“Yeah, you keep telling yourself that, old man,” Dick rolls his eyes, “Tim seemed confused, I think. I’m not sure if he’s upset or not. Damian seemed more hung up on the fact that I died rather than the fact that you hit me.”

“We sparred,” Bruce corrects, “While having a conversation. That’s what we did.”

“Sparring is when both parties consensually agree to fight in order to train and get better at their skills,” Dick says, leaning his head to the side, “I didn’t agree to fight you.”

“But you hit me back,” Bruce points out, nodding his head.

“Ever heard of self defense?” Dick asks bitterly, “Who are you trying to gaslight, me or you?”

Bruce shuts up after that. He has a headache, Dick can tell. He’s rubbing his temples too much. Dick gets off his bed. His back aches. He can feel the scars on his back pulse. They were never properly treated.

Dick heads into his kitchen and grabs two cups of water. Bruce likes ice water in glass cups. Dick opens up the fridge to get ice for both cups. While he waits for his water pitcher to filter the water, he goes to close his window in the living room. It’s getting drafty.

He pauses to breathe the air from outside. It’s acrid and smokey. Of course it is. He’s in Gotham.

At least when he was dying in the desert, the air smelled clear.

When Dick reenters the room, he shoves both glasses of water into Bruce’s hands. Bruce looks at them for a second before downing one of the glasses in one go. He puts it onto Dick’s plastic desk.

“Dick…” Bruce says, softly. It sounds like it did when Dick was a kid and dammit, he’s not falling for that voice again.

“Don’t,” Dick says harshly, “Don’t apologize. I know you’re not sorry.”

“You can’t speak for me,” Bruce says. He downs the second glass of water and thuds it onto the desk.

“You’re sorry you got caught,” Dick accuses, picking both the cups of water up again, “You’re not sorry about what you did.”

Bruce is quiet at that. He looks down at the water cups, “That’s not true.”

“Okay,” Dick laughs a little bit, but it’s a cruel laugh, “Then let’s entertain the fact that you are sorry. If you’re sorry, then we let the kids react themselves. We tell them the truth.”

Bruce scrunches his nose upwards. Dick knows what that means. Bruce doesn’t want to tell the truth.

Dick scoffs and retreats back to the living room. He refills both cups of water and hands them back to Bruce.

Bruce downs both of them, like he’s a dying man, like he hasn’t had water in ten days. Dick nearly sneers at that thought. What if it had been Bruce in that desert, dying but trying to keep a baby alive? Would he have made it through?

“Do you think if we left it alone, it would be better than if we tried to intervene?” Bruce asks.

“I think it’s just best if we come clean and tell the truth about what happened,” Dick says honestly, “If we both came to them together, like I’ve been saying, they might think it was a decision the both of us mutually made and might be more forgiving.”

“That’s possible,” Bruce says, observing Dick, “But it’s possible that I completely erase the footage and if we both pretend like it never happened-”

“What?” Dick asks, widening his eyes, “Like a massive gaslighting attempt?”

“Not exactly,” Bruce paces around the floor, “If we get them all out on a mission where they somehow get knocked out… and then we erase the footage and pretend nothing ever happened they might think it’s a fever dream.”

Bruce is going insane. 

“I’m not letting you do that,” Dick says, growling at Bruce, “If you wanna fuck with me then fine, but the minute you start messing with my siblings-”

“You just suggested Ivy’s spores,” Bruce argues.

“As a joke!” Dick says, throwing up his hands, “Because I thought you had some obscure ass plan for this! Also, spells are generally harmless, but ordering a hit on them just seems like an ass thing to do.”

Bruce grunts and leans against the doorway, “Okay. Let’s just see how this plays out then. It’s possible they don’t do anything about this, right?”

Not after the argument I had with them, Dick thinks.

He shrugs, “I guess.”

“Okay,” Bruce looks drained, “Then why don’t we leave it at that? If it escalates then we step in.”

“You step in, you mean,” Dick shoots back, “I don’t want any more part in this.”

“Fine,” Bruce says, giving Dick a cold stare and walking out the bedroom door, just as briskly as he entered it. 

Dick doesn’t watch him as he leaves. He just lets Bruce brush past him in a flurry towards the door.

Dick’s remembers the empty glasses of water in his hands just as he hears Bruce click the knob.

“Hey B!” Dick says, inserting a little bit of false cheer into his voice. He exits his bedroom and goes into the living room. He sets the glasses down. Bruce looks up from the door and back at Dick with a confused expression.

“So,” Dick says, “What if you were abandoned in a desert and-”

“Dick,” Bruce pinches his nose and looks at the ceiling, “What are you on about?”

“Hear me out,” Dick says, laughing lightly. He tries to communicate that this is a fun conversation, like one of his stupid tangents that everyone hates and pretends to tolerate. 

Bruce shuts his eyes and gives a big sigh. That means he’ll humor Dick.

“Okay,” Dick says, leaning back on his couch and smiling, “Survival scenario. Tell me what you’d do, okay?”

“Okay,” Bruce repeats, “I’m in a desert?”

“Yes,” Dick waves his hand vaguely, “Say… due to some unknown circumstance, you’ve been put in the middle of a vast hot desert. Middle of November, so it’s hot in the day but a little cool at night. Nearest town is sayyyyy…. 200 miles away? No comms, no buddies with super hearing can come to save you.”

Bruce nods. There are a million situations going on in his head, Dick can tell.

“I’d only walk at night,” Bruce says, pointing his hand to the side like he’s going through a list of points, “And I’d preserve my water. Sips only. If I’m only walking at night and I preserve my water I should be in the town within 15 days.”

“Okay,” Dick waves his hand again, “Too easy for you, clearly. Let’s up the ante then. You run out of water on day seven.”

Bruce thinks about that for a second, “No way to stretch it past?”

“No,” Dick confirms, narrowing his eyes, “But you’re nearly superhuman as is. You could last a couple days without water. So let’s make it even harder.”

“Dick,” Bruce says, “Where are you going with this?”

“There’s a baby,” Dick ignores Bruce completely, “Newborn, let’s say-”

“How did I get a newborn…”

“Details are irrelevant here,” Dick shakes his head, smiling while he does so, “You’re Batman aren’t you? Gotta prepare for everything. So hear this one out.”

Bruce rolls his eyes. Dick continues, “Newborn baby. You don’t have formula. Only enough water for the both of you for seven days. Would you make it?”

“If I’m only walking at night,” Bruce muses, “Then we wouldn’t last. Babies can only survive four days without water in ideal situations… and without formula, that’s a death sentence.”

“So you’re saying you guys would die?” Dick considers, smiling a little bit. It’s a deceptive smile, but Bruce was never as good at reading people like Cass was.

Bruce thinks. He thinks for a while. Dick can practically see the gears in his head turning, trying to figure out every single possibility for how he could save the baby.

“The baby would die,” Bruce concludes, “No baby could make it in the desert that long. It’s a suicide mission. The baby would be dead the minute they were put in the desert.”

“So no point in saving them, huh?” Dick asks.

“No,” Bruce sighs, his shoulders deflating, “There’s just no way. I’d take the body to the town though. Give the baby a proper burial.”

Dick considers that. He files that information away in his head and just nods at Bruce, “Good to know.”

Bruce gives him a confused look for a second, before just shaking his head and going back for the door, “Go back to bed, Dick.”

“I’d love to,” Dick says cheerily, shooing Bruce away and heading towards his bedroom. He grabs his blue blanket from the floor and wraps it around his bare shoulders, “I was actually having a nice sleep before some asshole disturbed my REM cycle.”

Dick’s asleep the minute he closes his eyes.

Dick wakes up to a punch in the arm and a massive headache. 

“Fuck,” he whispers, rubbing his ear. When he brings his hand down, it’s a gloved hand. Dick is disoriented for a second. That is, until Helena bumps his shoulder. 

“You good, Agent 37?” 

“I totally wasn’t sleeping,” Dick grumbles. He looks around him. They’re still pretty high in the air.

Helena gives him an amused look. The corner of her lip quirks up a bit and she raises an eyebrow, “Really now? Sure you’re ready for the mission?”

Dick shakes his head and screams at the tiredness to leave his body, “You know me. Always ready to kidnap pregnant women.”

Helena rolls her eyes. She flicks the trim speed switch on the helicopter’s controls and then taps the turn indicator. The little dial inside moves a bit when she does.

“Did she have the baby yet?” Dick asks Helena, looking out the window. They’re still well over the South Saudi desert.

“Probably not,” Helena reports, not taking her hands off the controls, “Last I heard, she hasn’t even started contractions.”

“You know,” Dick says, picking up the messaging device that they’ve been using to contact their inside man, “Why can’t we just wait til she has the baby and then kidnap the baby?”

“Better to find her before she gives birth,” Helena says, nodding down to a tracer that sits in between them, “Here, use that to pinpoint her position.”

“I still don’t understand,” Dick says, looking down at the tracer and back out the window towards the town they’re landing at.

Helena laughs a little bit, sadly, “You’re so naïve, Agent 37. Spyral is gonna want both the lady and the baby. It’s possible the lady could give birth to more meta children. And Spyral will want to harvest those meta organs.”

“So we’re not killing the mother?” Dick asks, sighing internally in relief as Helena expertly lands the helicopter in the sand.

“Just the baby,” Helena confirms, parking the helicopter a safe distance away from the town, “Now, we walk.”

“How are they going to kill the baby?” Dick asks, unstrapping himself and taking off his helmet. He flips out of the helicopter and onto the ground. He adjusts his head scarf and walks to the other side of the helicopter, where Helena is packing up her backpack.

“Don’t ask questions you don’t want to know the answer to, Agent 37,” Helena warns. She slings the backpack over arm and motions for Dick to follow her.

Dick bites his lip and follows her into the town. He pulls his tracer from his pocket and motions Helena to follow him as he pursues the small, beeping, red dot.

“<Hello,>” Dick greets a shop owner in Arabic when they near the red dot, “<Could we use your bathroom?>”

The shop owner nods, opening the door to his carpet store that he was standing outside of and gestures towards the inside. He stays outside, sweeping the doorstep.

“Good decision on Minos’ part to have you tag along,” Helena says, pretending to look at a price tag on one of the carpets, “Not many agents know as many languages as you do.”

Dick grunts, pretending to be fully engrossed with the pattern on one of the carpets, “We all have our skills. She’s upstairs. Should I go get her?”

Helena looks upwards and taps her temple twice, “Blueprints show that you can escape with her by the window. I’ll get back and get the helicopter running. Think you can handle this by yourself?"

“You know me,” Dick teases, winking at her, “I’ve got this.”

Dick sprints up the stairs. There’s a lady waiting in a room with a couple midwives.

“<Hello, ladies,>” Dick says, waving at them as he enters the room.

Everyone looks up at him in shock. Dick waves his hands and winks, “<You’re needed downstairs. There’s a surprise for you.>”

“<She’s about to give birth,>” one of the midwives says. The other two midwives pause by the door and look back guiltily.

“<It’ll take only a second of your time,>” Dick tells her in his most assured tone, waving his hands lightly and watching them as they leave the room.

The pregnant lady sits alone in her bed now.

“<What are you doing?>” she asks, watching him carefully.

Dick takes the chloroform rag out of his pocket and lifts it to her head. The chemical shouldn’t have too much negative effect now that she’s actively giving birth. He sighs, “<I’m sorry.>”

Dick carts her all the way back to the helicopter, jumping out the window with the lady slung across his back. It takes five minutes of him trudging her back to the helicopter before he hears panicked screams. Her midwives have noticed she’s missing by now.

“You’re good without a co-pilot, right?” Dick asks Helena, tugging the lady into the back of the helicopter and sitting her up, “I think she’s about to give birth.”

“Ever watch a woman give birth, Agent 37?” Helena teases, already starting the take-off process, “Or do we need to switch places?”

Dick ignores that comment and looks at the lady, “I’m sure I have more experience dealing with pregnant women than you do.”

The lady wakes up soon after Helena transitions from hover to forward motion. She’s confused, she’s crying, she’s in pain, and Dick’s heart aches with every motion she takes. She tries to back away from him. He wants desperately to tell her that she’ll be okay, that he’s only here to help.

But Dick can’t even say that, because he’s not here to help. 

“Matron… Helena,” Dick calls, doing his best to get her attention over the violent whooshing of the blades. He lowers his voice a little when she turns her head slightly, “Let’s take her back.”

“No can do, 37,” Helena yells over the noise of the helicopter, “Minos needs the baby’s heart.”

The little voice that has been controlling his brain screams at him. Dick shakes his head and tries to break control of Hypnos.

“She’s in pain,” Dick yells over the noise of the chopper as he tries to hold the lady through her contractions, “I don’t think she’ll make it.”

“That’s unfortunate,” Helena yells back, “But as long as the baby makes it, we’ll be fine. We need the heart to be alive when we extract so make sure the baby comes out alive.”

Dick screws up his face, “How can you-”

“Agent 37,” Helena says harshly, in the way that Dick understands that she knows his plight, but can’t budge on this. Dick feels bad. Helena is just as stuck in Spyral as he is.

The pregnant lady will likely die. 

The baby must die.

Dick’s commiserations are interrupted rather rudely by Midnighter kicking down the back door of the helicopter and closing it in a flurry. The helicopter shakes as the pressure of the open door rattles their balance and Dick and the lady slide against the cold metal floor.

“What the fuck is going on back there?” Helena shouts, trying to keep the helicopter steady. Outside the window, Dick can see an A.R.G.U.S plane approaching.

“Don’t worry about it,” Dick shouts back. Helena has bigger things to worry about than Midnighter. Dick turns around and faces Midnighter, “Unless you can help me deliver this baby, I’m kicking you off the helicopter.”

Turns out, Midnighter is as shit at taking care of pregnant women as he is at having good timing, because the A.R.G.U.S plane starts shooting the minute Midnighter nods and the pregnant lady starts screaming when he tries to take the baby out of her.

The crash is fiery, a wreck of twisted metal, cargo, and sadness.

The baby survives.

The mother does not.

“Well,” Midnighter says, looking at the burning helicopter, “That could’ve gone better.”

Simultaneously, Dick and Helena turn their heads to glare at Midnighter.

“What the hell was that?” Helena screams, limping her way over to Midnighter and slapping him across the face, “The mission-”

Midnighter doesn’t flinch and grabs Helena’s wrist, “Was fucked the minute Spyral put you and 37 on the case.”

Helena hisses at him and pulls her hand back.

As they fight, Dick holds the baby in his hands and rocks her while she screams. He sits on the sand and holds her close to his chest. He rummages around the wreckage. The mother’s hands are still clutched around a bag. Dick tries to situate the baby so he can reach the bag.

Helena reaches over and gently pushes him back, “I got it.”

Dick nods at her and refocuses himself on the baby.

“Shhh,” Dick whispers to her as her cries come out strangled and pained, “Shhhh, darling.”

Helena resurfaces with a pink blanket and formula, “Looks like we have this for her.”

“Perfect,” Dick says, grabbing the bag from her and slinging it over his shoulder, “I’ll carry it.”

Everyone is silent for a few minutes. The baby doesn’t cry, Helena sits in the sand and nurses the wound on her side, and Midnighter moodily stares at the wreckage like he’s been personally affronted by it.

“What do we do?” Helena asks eventually, when it seems like she’s finally caught her breath, “The closest town is Narjani and that's 200 miles away.”

Dick looks up and grimaces. It’s silent.

Helena and Midnighter look at Dick expectantly.

For once, Hypnos is silent too. There’s no one to make a decision for him. 

“We walk,” Dick decides, holding the baby tight to his chest, “If she’s alive, we’re alive. If she’s dead, then so are we. So let’s walk.”

Dick looks out from the top of his apartment building. He misses his redbrick apartment in Blüdhaven, but that’s long gone, resting under the sea. Now he’s just stuck with this apartment in Gotham that’s made out of boring concrete and has the standard 21 Gotham floors. 

There’s speakers on every floor warning for Arkham outbreaks and neighbors that regard you with suspicion. There’s a goon alert in their apartment complex every month and the Joker gas filtration system has been broken ever since Dick moved in.

Dick wishes he was back in Blüdhaven, where his landlady Clancy was nice and his neighbors cared about him. He misses the feeling of belonging somewhere. He misses the feeling of home.

He felt at home when he lived with Damian and Alfred a couple or so years ago, but that peace was shattered pretty heavily when Bruce arrived back in town.

Dick stands up at the edge of the apartment complex and wanders around. He leans his feet on the chamfers of the concrete and walks, balancing with only the precision a former acrobat can manage.

He gets hit on the side before he even knows what’s happening. Arms encircle him and skid across the ground underneath him. 

Dick opens his eyes and immediately reaches for the multitool he keeps in his pocket.

He pauses when he sees that it’s just Red Hood.

“What the heck, man?” Dick asks, laying flat on his back on the roof while Jason stares over him.

Jason immediately flicks off the switch for his mechanized voice and takes his helmet off. Underneath the red helmet is a shock of messy black hair and a wild look crossing Jason’s face. He pants, “Don’t do it, Goldie, come on.”

“Do what?” Dick asks, scooching out from under Jason and brushing himself off, “Also, you smell like onions.”

Jason breathes out a breath of air into his hands and smells it, “Oh that was the Batburger Deluxe Oversized I had earlier.”

Dick raises an eyebrow, “How can you eat that stuff?”

“It’s better than the fucking Night-Wings that you eat,” Jason defends himself, before hitting Dick on the arm, “Also, what the fuck was that?”

Dick looks around him, “What the fuck was what?”

“Were you trying to… you know…” Jason points towards the ledge and makes a tossing motion with his whole body.

Dick takes a couple seconds to follow his logic before looking up in shock and laughing. Suicide? 

Dick laughs hysterically. He thinks he might be laughing for a bit too long because Jason gives him a suspicious look.

“No,” Dick says finally, wiping tears from his eyes, “And also, I hope you don’t stop civilians from committing suicide by jumping them.”

Dick’s sure Jason is rolling his eyes behind his mask, but he just crosses his arms and sits criss-cross applesauce, “I do not. Didn’t know it was such a bad thing to take an interest in your well-being in particular.”

“Since when do you take interest in my well-being in particular?” Dick asks bitterly. The strained peace between them shatters.

“I always have,” Jason says after a couple beats of silence, “I’ve just been… things have just been weird.”

Dick looks at Jason for a long while. He’s sitting on the roof in full gear. His leather jacket has a large tear in it now, probably from trying to guard Dick’s fall on the roof. 

“Your jacket is broken,” Dick says finally, when the silence gets suffocating. He stands up and takes a hold of Jason’s gloved hand, yanking him up, “Let me stitch it up.”

“I can take care of it myself,” Jason says grumpily, pulling himself out of Dick’s grasp and walking to the edge of the roof, “I’m heading out.”

“It broke because you jumped me,” Dick points out, following him, “Let me pay you back. I’ll stitch it up for you.”

Jason turns around and stares at Dick for a long hard second. Dick waits. Finally, Jason nods.

Sneaking a wanted anti-hero into his apartment wasn’t on Dick’s to-do list today, but he’s doing it anyway. Dick takes immense joy in dodging all the windows and staying to the shadows while he drags his brother down to his apartment. As they sneak in through the window, Jason bangs his head on the sill.

Dick stifles a laugh while Jason complains about a splitting headache. It’s almost like… things are normal.

But they aren’t. Nothing about this interaction is normal because they’re not normal brothers and this isn’t a normal apartment and Jason likely isn’t here for normal reasons. 

Still, Dick hands Jason a pack of frozen peas for his head and pretends that it is.

“Jacket,” Dick says, holding out a hand while Jason sits in the kitchen icing his forehead.

Jason hands it to him wordlessly. Dick moves to get the sewing kit from one of his drawers. Alfred left him with one when he moved in. He’d called it a home necessity.

Dick takes out some red threads and a patch of fabric and looks at Jason’s brown leather jacket. He wonders if he can embroider a design there after he’s finished patching. He and Cass learned how to do it together years ago. Maybe he still has the skill.

Dick sits down on his couch and starts stitching up the jacket quietly while Jason rummages around the fridge.

“What were you doing here?” Dick asks finally, looking at where Jason is sitting at the kitchen bar area, downing the last of Dick’s sandwiches.

“What do you mean?” Jason asks, rubbing his mouth with his arm after he takes a swig of water.

“I got on the schedule,” Dick says, waving his phone in the air, “Says you’re supposed to be by the harbor today. Don’t know if you noticed, but I don’t live anywhere remotely near the harbor.”

Jason blinks a couple times. Then he fervently avoids eye contact. Dick drops it.

“Stop eating my sandwiches,” Dick says after a minute, leaning his arm over the back of the couch and pointing at Jason, “Did you not just have like… the biggest burger that Batburger has to offer?”

“I’m a growing boy,” Jason says, shrugging his shoulders up and licking his fingers.

“Hey, leave me some,” Dick exclaims, watching Jason down another bite.

Jason sticks out his tongue so that the chewed up food is visible, “Still want it?”

“Ew,” Dick says, looking away quickly from where Jason is acting like a menace in his kitchen. He supposes he can’t complain though. This is the most he and Jason have talked to each other like normal people since before Dick died. And that was years ago.

Dick grins to himself while he stitches the red threads around the torn fabric. Would a robin be too soft for Red Hood? Robins and bats are the only things that he and Cass bothered to learn how to embroider though, so a robin it is. Dick finishes stitching up the actual places that need it and begins on his robin.

Jason eventually comes to the living room and sets his helmet on the coffee table, as if it’s an appropriate home decoration. He turns on the TV and flips through the meager channels that Dick has available.

After ample amounts of complaining, Jason finally settles on the conspiracy show Tim really liked seven years ago that tried to deep dive into the identities of famous superheroes.

Jason watches while Dick stitches the robin into the jacket. Dick stitches automatically, starting with the beak and the head. Like riding a bike, he jumps back into it. Dick hopes that Cass would be proud.

Dick changes his thread color. He thinks the robin would benefit from something other than red. The noises of the TV fade as he stitches, and all he’s left with is the comfort of just doing something.

“So,” Jason says eventually, breaking that comfort, “Let’s talk about it.”

Dick looks up at the TV with a start. He doesn’t think he even watched the beginning of the episode. He scans what’s currently going on.

“What’s the theory on Blue Beetle’s identity so far?” Dick asks, setting down his stitching temporarily. They’re deep diving into the third Blue Beetle: Jaime Reyes.

Dick scoffs. Fat chance they’re gonna get that identity correct.

Jason looks from the TV to Dick and back. He slaps his head in his hands, “For the love of… do I really have to spell it out for you?”

“Yes?” Dick asks, “I wasn’t really paying attention to-”

“Oh my god,” Jason says, drawing out the words, “I’m talking about everything from last week with-”

“No.”

“Dick…”

“No.”

Jason snorts unhappily, shaking his head a little bit, “We have to talk about-”

“My apartment,” Dick hisses, gripping the leather jacket tightly in his hands, “My rules.”

Jason stays quiet for a long second. He looks down at the coffee table for a second, “I’m sorry I punched you. And I’m sorry I pushed you.”

Dick subconsciously rubs his cheek where Jason hit him and then touches his arm lightly. It’s healed nicely from where Tim bandaged it up over a month ago.

“It’s okay,” Dick says. It is. He forgave Jason the minute Jason punched him.

“No, it’s really not,” Jason shakes his head, “Hitting you was such a dick move. And you shouldn’t think it's okay.”

“It’s really not a big deal,” Dick says, lifting up his shirt sleeve to show Jason the healing arm. It’s a shade lighter than the rest of his skin, “I’ve had worse.”

Jason stares at Dick long and hard for a while. The comment seems to shift something in him. His features screw up. 

“Fuck Bruce,” Jason spits out, balling his fists together, “He shouldn’t have fucking hit you.”

Dick’s automatic reaction is to tell Jason no, no he didn’t. But the footage was out there. Jason saw it all.

“Bruce and I fight all the time,” Dick says instead, looking away uncomfortably.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jason asks, his eyes widening, “Are you fucking telling me that he’s hit you more than that? If he laid a single-”

“No!” Dick exclaims, jumping up before Jason can grab his phone and start typing, “I mean, yes, he has, but it’s not a big deal. It’s just… how we operate.”

Jason stares at Dick long and hard, and for once, Dick can’t really read his body language.

“How long?” Jason asks. It doesn’t come out like a question. It comes out like a request.

“How long?” Dick repeats, the words sloshing around in his mouth.

“How long have you been… operating like that?” Jason asks. There’s something dark in his eyes, something brewing underneath the surface.

“Does it matter?” Dick asks, slightly annoyed. He looks away and says more quietly, “It’s not like it’s a common occurrence or anything.”

“If Bruce had hit Tim,” Jason says, “Just once. What would you have done?”

“Called CPS,” Dick says automatically. The words immediately feel ironic, because Bruce was the one who taught him how to react to child abuse. Get the victim out, call CPS, the police… me.

Jason raises an eyebrow, like that simple admission has just made his point.

“You don’t understand,” Dick argues, shaking his head, “Bruce didn’t hit me. He was just testing me.”

That’s a thinly veiled lie and Jason sees through it immediately.

“That’s no excuse to hit your child,” Jason spits out, harshly and critically, “What if he’d tested Damian that way?”

“CPS,” Dick repeats, laughing awkwardly now, “But it’s different. Damian is fourteen. He’s a child. I’m an adult and Bruce and I have had our fair share of fights. Plus, I won.”

“Did you, Dick?” Jason asks, looking Dick dead in the eyes, “Or did he?”

Dick breathes through his mouth. His lungs shudder, like they’re trying to expand past his bones but can’t make it. 

“I saw the files, Dick,” Jason says, not breaking eye contact, “Tim sent them to me and I went through every. Single. One. I watched every angle of that fight over and over and fucking over again. There’s no… that wasn’t… fuck. Dick, that was abuse.”

The word echoes hollowly throughout the apartment. They ring through the halls and bounce around Dick’s head. 

“I’m an adult,” Dick whispers.

“Adults get abused. You know that, Goldie.”

“He’s our dad,” Dick whispers. There’s a million things wrong here. Dick knows there is. Every logical part of his brain screams at him that yes, the hitting was abusive. Forcing him to go on a mission he didn’t want to was abusive. Dick knows that. Dick knows that because it’s his job to know.

And yet… when someone else says it, Dick doesn’t want it to be true.

“Just because he’s our dad or whatever doesn’t make him innocent,” Jason says, “Willis sure wasn’t.”

Dick tenses at that, “Bruce is not Willis. It’s different with Bruce.”

The apartment is silent.

“He just wants me to grow, to be better than him,” Dick says, a bit more confidently, looking at the TV blankly, “He wants me to be more than he is. That’s why we fight. It’s to make me better.”

Jason stares at Dick like he’s grown a second head, “That’s not how parents are supposed to work. Tell me you know that.”

“I do,” Dick says, leaning his head to the right, “But Bruce is different. He’s Batman. I was Robin. He trained me to be better. This is all just… part of being better.”

Jason blows out a bout of air. He hits his hand into the couch and spits out his next words angrily, “You’re just wretched mirrors of each other. Binary stars. If you guys keep on the way you are, you’re bound to get drawn into each other’s orbits and explode.”

“That’s okay,” Dick says quietly, “It was how it was meant to be.”

Jason stares at Dick incredulously, “I can’t believe I didn’t notice how off you’ve been acting lately.”

“I haven’t been feeling like myself lately,” Dick replies honestly.

Jason stays silent, a quiet way for him to tell Dick that he can keep talking.

Dick leans his head back on the couch, “I haven’t felt like Dick Grayson ever since I died.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jason asks hesitantly.

Dick looks down at the half finished robin he’s stitching. He sets down the needle. It’s then that he notices his hand is shaking.

“Dick Grayson,” Dick starts slowly, looking down at his hands and willing them to stop moving, “Would never have done the things he did in Spyral.”

“You are Dick Grayson,” Jason says. When Dick looks up, Jason’s eyebrows are knit together and his mouth has formed a tight line.

“No, I refuse to believe that,” Dick says, and he’s aware his hands are shaking and his voice is rising and he can’t stop either of those things from happening, “Because then that means Dick Grayson has blood on his hands and if Dick Grayson has blood on his hands, then Robin has blood on his hands and Nightwing has blood on his hands and neither of them should ever have blood-”

Jason reaches across the coffee table and grabs Dick’s hands. They don’t stop shaking. Jason grimaces before picking up the needle Dick was working with, “Here… just, do something.”

Dick focuses hard on the stitches. His hands stabilize out as he does the task.

“I didn’t tell Bruce this and I sure as hell didn’t put this in the files,” Dick says, adding brown to the little wings of the robin, “But there was this baby. It was the only thing I left out about the files.”

“You didn’t tell Bruce,” Jason repeats, leaning back on the couch and looking at Dick critically, “About a baby?”

“Because it was the worst thing I’ve ever done,” Dick whispers, the little robin underneath his fingertips taunting him as he creates it, “And I couldn’t face Bruce with it.”

Jason says nothing.

“Helena and I,” Dick remembers, “We kidnapped this pregnant woman. You read the files, Jay, you know what Spyral wanted in general. They wanted to harvest meta organs. The woman was about to give birth to this baby who had a massive meta signature. It was her heart that they needed.”

“Yeah,” Jason says slowly. Dick can see it in his face, he doesn’t entirely know where this is going.

Dick sighs, “Well after we kidnapped her, we put her in a helicopter to lift her out and get her back to base. But we were ambushed and crashed in the South Saudi desert. Like… smack in the middle… no way out. Nearest town was Narjani, 200 miles away. Anyway, the trauma of giving birth and this stupid, fucking piece of shrapnel killed the lady. Not before she gave birth though. Baby survived.”

“Okay,” Jason breathes out, “That’s good isn’t it?”

“Not exactly,” Dick says, “The baby was meant to be killed by Spyral, remember? They needed her heart.”

Jason narrows his eyes.

“Okay,” he says, sighing, “So what’d you do?”

“Helena hurt her side,” Dick recounts, “She was injured in the crash. She couldn’t walk anymore on day three, so we left her under a makeshift hut. I tried to leave her with water but she insisted I keep it for the baby. And then there was Midnighter, he was there too.”

“Okay,” Jason says, like he’s trying to wrap his head around that piece of information.

“He couldn’t walk anymore on day seven,” Dick says. He can breathe a bit better now but his hands still shake, “And so it was just me and the baby.”

“And you were still going?” Jason asks, looking at Dick incredulously, “Doesn’t Midnighter have like… meta abilities? How could you keep going after he fell?”

Dick shrugs, because he doesn’t really have a good answer to that. He keeps working on the robin, stubbornly willing his hands to stop shaking as he finishes out the feathers.

“We ran out of water after we left Midnighter,” Dick says, “We ran out of baby formula too, a bit before that.”

“So either way,” Jason says, like he’s trying to figure this out, “You were walking that baby to her death?”

Dick nods.

Jason snaps the pieces in place, “It was either that she died when you reached the town or that she died in the desert.”

“Exactly,” Dick shudders, “It was awful. It was one of the worst things I’ve ever done. They were innocent, that mother and that baby. And I brought them death.”

“That’s….” Jason trails off, looking at the jacket that Dick’s holding, “Yeah, that’s not great.”

“Comforting,” Dick says sarcastically.

Jason throws his head back on the couch, “This sucks ass.”

“Why?” Dick asks, finishing the claws off for the robin.

Jason balls his hands into fists again and Dick spots a bit of Lazarus light in his eyes. Jason takes a deep breath, “Because everything about this situation is fucked up. What Bruce made you do, what they made you do…. I don’t even know where to start helping.”

“You don’t have to,” Dick says honestly, “I’m really just glad we’re talking again.”

Jason stares at Dick for a couple seconds, “Me too, Dickie. But even then, I wish there was something I could do.”

“It’s okay,” Dick shrugs, lifting up the jacket in his arms and examining it, “This is one of those situations where there’s no easy answer. All I know is that I’m not Dick Grayson and I’m something and I don’t know what."

Jason narrows his eyes, “I don’t believe that for a second.”

Dick shrugs again. The jacket is finished, so he hands it off to Jason. Jason looks at it curiously, examining the little embroidery on the side.

“Try it on,” Dick suggests. 

Jason wraps the leather jacket around his body, putting each arm through the sleeves easily.

“You know,” Jason says, “I don’t think this jacket is gonna last a day in the field without getting all fucked up.”

“Hey,” Dick scrunches up his nose, “I worked hard to fix it up.”

“This is totally gonna ruin my street cred,” Jason complains, pointing to the robin on the sleeve, “What are all the goons gonna say when they see this?”

“Probably something like wow, what a pretty jacket, I hope you thanked your brother for doing that for you,” Dick teases.

Jason just rolls his eyes, “Yeah, right.”

Dick huffs and settles back into his couch, “Last time I do something nice for you.”

Dick doesn’t want to see Damian. Not after all that Damian just learned about him. Not after everything that Damian learned about Bruce. Holy shit, how do you even start to process the fact that your father beat up your brother? 

Suffice to say, Dick has been avoiding Damian. 

Of course, Damian is Damian, so Dick knows better than to expect him to leave well enough alone.

That’s why he’s not entirely surprised to see Damian leaning on the door outside his apartment, a massive scowl across his face.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” Damian says, point blank when Dick walks up to the door.

Dick doesn’t even bother lying, “Yeah, I have.”

Damian’s frown deepens while he waits for Dick to unlock the door, “Most people don’t avoid their loved ones. Most of all you.”

“Most people don’t have their most humiliating secrets revealed in front of their younger brothers,” Dick quips back, turning the key and cocking his head backwards flippantly, “But c’est la vie.”

“Humiliating?” Damian repeats, following Dick into the apartment and taking his shoes off immediately. He places them in a neat pile by the door, “I would not call that information humiliating.”

“I would,” Dick mutters. He tosses his keys across the room. The land into the basket on his kitchen counter. He takes off his jacket and puts it on the rack, offering to take Damian’s.

Damian hands him his own jacket.

“Does B know you’re here?” Dick asks Damian. He scans Damian’s clothing. It’s not inconspicuous clothing and it’s in the middle of the day. It’s a school day though and, “Holy shit, you’re not skipping school are you?”

Damian grumbles to himself, kicking his socked toes on each other, “What Father doesn’t know won’t hurt him. Plus, I … received a doctor’s note.”

“You mean you doctored a doctor’s note,” Dick jokes before he can filter the pun. 

Damian gives him a withering glare, “I forged a note, but we’re not going to tell Father. I’ve been avoiding him as of late.”

“You’ve been avoiding…” Dick groans. Of course. Bruce had probably picked up on the change in behavior in Damian and figured that he knew.

Dick doesn’t scold Damian though. That wouldn’t get them anywhere.

“How’ve you been holding up lately?” Dick asks Damian, walking into the kitchen and motioning for Damian to take a seat. He goes into his drawers and looks for the hot chocolate.

Damian seems to know what Dick’s doing, so he takes out a pot from the cabinets below, “I’m … adjusting. I didn’t watch the footage since it seemed important to you.”

“I appreciate that,” Dick murmurs, trying not to interrupt Damian too much. He gets the milk out of the fridge.

“But Drake did inform me on the nature and extent of Father’s actions,” Damian clarifies. He takes the milk out of Dick’s hands and turns up the heat on the stove, “I don’t… I don’t know if I want to be around him right now.”

Dick frowns.

“Are you doing that because you think he’ll hurt you?” Dick asks. He pours the milk into the pot, stopping when Damian motions him to, “Because I know for a fact he’d never hurt you.”

Damian makes a clicking noise with his tongue, “That’s not why I’m avoiding him.”

“Okay good,” Dick says, stirring the milk around, “Because I want you to know, if Bruce ever—and I mean ever—lays a hand on you… you don’t even want to know what I’m going to do.”

“I know,” Damian says confidently, crossing his arms, “I know that. And I know I wouldn’t be able to stop you.”

“Good,” Dick smiles. He reaches over and ruffles Damian’s hair.

“If that’s the case though,” Damian says, uncrossing his arms and pouring the hot chocolate mix into the milk, “Then you’ll understand you can’t stop me from what I’ll do to Father now that I know he’s hit you.”

Dick stops stirring immediately. Knowing Damian, that could mean a million things. It could range from siccing snakes on Bruce while he’s sleeping to murdering him in cold blood. Both options raised several concerns.

“Damian,” Dick says, trying to sound calm, “Bruce and I kinda just do that sometimes. Bruce and are both adults and maybe we should have better ways to communicate, but-”

“You raised me to never accept abuse from my parents,” Damian interrupts, “You’re a hypocrite, Richard.” 

The only sounds in the apartment are the sizzling of the milk and Damian’s foot tapping on the floor

Dick’s heart gets ripped into a million different directions.

“Fuck,” Dick whispers. He buries his head in his hands. He begs himself not to cry. He hadn’t cried for his entire conversation with Jason, but this?

Maybe it’s because Damian is so young and the word abuse has been thrown around a lot lately and maybe it’s because his siblings are acknowledging it and they aren’t mad but everything comes crashing down at once and suddenly his hands are stained with tears and he’s making pathetic crying noises.

There’s a clattering of the stirring spoon and a click of the stove and suddenly Damian’s arms are around his body and he’s hugging him tightly.

Dick drops down onto the ground on his knees and hugs Damian tightly to his body.

“Father will get what’s coming to him,” Damian says bitterly in Dick’s ear, “I swear to you Richard, we will get you justice.”

“I don’t need it,” Dick says, because he really doesn’t. All he’s wanted is for his siblings to forgive him. 

“Drake is working tirelessly,” Damian continues, as if Dick never even spoke at all, “He’s drawing up a detailed report and he plans to take it to the Justice League. You can’t tell Father though. And Jason wants to get revenge by far more physical means. He says we ought to take an eye for an eye approach.”

“Please don’t let Jason beat up Bruce,” Dick says absent-mindedly. All he can focus on is the fact that he’s got his arms gripped around Damian and Damian understands.

“I don’t think he will,” Damian says, “I think he’s just frustrated and sad he didn’t realize sooner and he’s taking it out with violence.”

Damian untangles himself from Dick and scooches back on the floor, “You know Richard, you should’ve told me sooner.”

Dick laughs, and while it’s nice that Damian understands, he also would never tell Damian if he’d had a choice. Kids shouldn’t grow up therapizing adults.

“No,” Dick says, still laughing a little bit, “But I appreciate you looking out for me.”

Dick drags himself up off the floor and wipes his eyes. The hot chocolate is sitting on the stove. It’s still warm, so he pours it out into two mugs and hands one to Damian.

“Do you remember what you told me when we first met?” Damian asks when he takes the cup and sips it in his hand.

Dick squints his eyes shut and figures Damian isn’t talking about the snide comments he made about Damian to his face.

“Eating cereal with your hands is okay as long as Alfred isn’t around?” Dick asks, opening one of his eyes and smiling when Damian flinches backwards and huffs.

“No!” Damian exclaims, but he’s smiling too now, “You’re the worst.”

“And you’re the best,” Dick teases.

Damian rolls his eyes, “You told me that we would work through my past. It didn’t matter what I’d done before coming to Gotham. You were willing to accept who I was now and who I could be.”

Dick nods his head. It sounds familiar.

“Then later,” Damian says, “You told me you loved me despite anything I’d ever done."

"Of course," Dick says automatically.

"I know you had to do things you didn't want to do when you were in Spyral," Damian says, pausing to take a sip of his drink, "And I'm not privy to the details, but I know the things you did make you feel ashamed of yourself."

Dick chugs his hot chocolate instead of responding.

"I desired to let you know," Damian says, making eye contact with Dick, "That even if you don't feel like yourself, and even if you feel ashamed of what you did, I will still love you. You're an imbecile if you think I wouldn't extend to you the same courtesy that you once extended to me."

Dick stares down at his hot chocolate and closes his eyes. Sometimes, he sees so much of who Dick Grayson used to be in who Damian is now and it hurts.

But it makes him happy all at once too, because that means that Dick Grayson still exists, somewhere, in little moments.

“You know, Dami,” Dick teases, “If you don’t like being hugged by me, then you should stop saying nice things.”

“You know, Richard,” Damian shoots back just as quickly, “If you stopped deflecting your emotions so much, maybe Alfred wouldn’t have to call you every Thursday.”

Dick sticks his nose in the air and laughs. Really laughs. Not a cruel laugh or a bitter laugh or a fake laugh. It’s a real laugh and he doesn’t know if Damian can see that or not but he’s so glad to have him by his side.

“Thank you, Damian,” Dick says. He hopes the words contain all the gratefulness he feels.

Damian just smiles though and Dick knows he’s got the memo.

“You staying over with me for the day?” Dick asks, taking Damian’s empty mug from his hand and placing it in the sink.

“Father thinks I’m staying with the Kents for the weekend and believes I’m going to them after school,” Damian says, shrugging his shoulders, “But I haven’t informed the alien of my intentions to visit…”

“So you want to stay over here for a couple days?” Dick finishes, watching as Damian flops onto the couch.

Damian crosses his arms and sits up straight on the couch, “Someone has to take care of you, don’t they?”

“I appreciate it, kiddo,” Dick says affectionately. He walks to behind the couch and aggressively rubs Damian’s hair.

Damian squawks, batting Dick’s hand out of his face.

“Still wanna stay with me?” Dick teases, leaning over the couch and peaking into Damian’s eyes upside down.

Damian blows a bunch of air out of his mouth and into Dick’s face. Dick flinches backwards when it hits him and laughs.

“Unfortunately,” Damian says, a slight smile gracing his face, “I still want to stay.”

Dick knows that Tim is following him. He knows because he can hear the footsteps like music in his brain, permanently imprinted in his ears as Tim’s. Dick knows that Tim is following him because there’s no one else in the family that would. 

Tim hasn’t changed since he was a teen. Tim has grown as a vigilante; he’s learned more skills and taught himself to use his unique worldview to his advantage. But he’s still the same Tim that Dick helped teach.

That’s why Dick knows how to shake Tim off his trail.

Dick ducks behind the vendor of the farmer’s market booth that he’s walking past and flips onto the fire escape. He watches Tim look around, trying to figure out where Dick went. Dick grins.

He drops down from the fire escape, right behind Tim.

Dick taps Tim’s shoulder. Tim jumps a foot into the air and swirls around, his hands ready in combat. Tim turns red with embarrassment when he sees that it’s Dick.

“Howdy partner,” Dick says, grinning as hard as he can.

“Dick,” Tim says, scratching the back of his arm and looking around him, “Uh. Fancy meeting you here?”

Dick turns to the vendor he jumped up behind and gives him five dollars, “Just one roll please.”

The vendor hands him a roll of sushi and gives him a confused look. Dick winks and hands the sushi over to Tim, “You like sushi, right?”

Tim takes the sushi in his hands and looks at Dick suspiciously, “You’re not mad at me for following you?”

“You’re Tim Drake,” Dick shrugs, “Should’ve expected you wouldn’t call like a normal person.”

Dick turns around and walks down the street, waving at the flower lady as he passes by. He buys a bundle of flowers from her. It’d probably be nice to get some color in his apartment. Alfred was always bugging him about that.

Tim scurries after him and pops up beside him again, “What are you doing down here? Farmers markets aren’t your normal scene.”

“I needed to get out,” Dick admits, picking out one of the daisies from the pack of flowers and turning to Tim with a murmured hold still.

“Why?” Tim asks, standing in front of Dick as Dick fumbles with the daisy.

“Well,” Dick says, shrugging his shoulders and lifting the daisy up to Tim’s ear, “Some certain family members keep ambushing me in my apartment to talk about stuff. So. I am just trying to get out.”

Tim grimaces, a guilty look crossing his face, “Ah, sorry. Now I’m doing that while you’re out.”

Dick tucks the daisy behind Tim’s ear and adjusts it beneath his hair, “It’s fine.”

Tim touches the daisy and smiles, “Daisies. My favorite. You remembered.”

“How could I forget?” Dick says affectionately, looking at the little daisy and how it shines right next to Tim’s eyes. Tim’s hair falls forward into his face and covers it up.

Tim furiously tries to tuck it behind his ear, “Sorry, my hair is getting way too long.”

“Want me to cut it?” Dick asks.

The offer stands in the air for a while and for a second Dick’s sure he’s overstepped. After all, it’s not like Tim has forgiven him, right?

Before Dick can further overthink, Tim just smiles, a little bit unsurely, “Would you really?”

“Of course,” Dick says immediately, “My apartment is just a block away, do you want to do it now?”

“That’d be nice,” Tim nods, shoving a piece of sushi in his mouth. 

Dick stifles a laugh while he leads Tim back to his apartment. Tim still eats like a fourteen year old.

Dick unlocks the door to his apartment. Damian left a day ago to go back to the Manor, but Jason had picked him up from Dick’s apartment and hadn’t explicated on that. Dick suspects Damian is staying with Jason for now, which hurts a little bit because he wished Damian would stay with him.

He figures there must be a reason for that though, and he’s sure his brothers are planning some sort of something. He doesn’t really want to know. He’s surprised Bruce hasn’t contacted him about that, but Dick suspects Jason had a hand in that too. 

Since Dick’s trimmed Tim’s hair about a million times before, they both fall into a pattern without speaking. Tim goes to the bathroom while Dick grabs scissors from the kitchen cabinet.

When Dick gets to the bathroom, Tim is already sitting in the tub shirtless while downing the sushi with his hands. He finishes eating when Dick walks in.

Tim wordlessly hands Dick his empty sushi container. Dick tosses it in the trash can and hands Tim a towel. Dick watches while Tim situates it around his shoulders, lifting up his hair so that it’s not caught in the cloth. Dick leans down to adjust the towel so that it covers more of Tim’s back.

Dick picks the scissors back up from where he left them on the counter and sits on the edge of the tub, letting his feet hit the cold, white, acrylic bottom. He stares at the back of Tim’s head for a second before lightly taking his black hair between his fingers.

“Ready?” Dick asks, leaning to the side a little so he can see Tim’s face.

Tim nods, almost imperceptibly. He closes his eyes and keeps his head steady.

Dick takes the scissors and makes his first cut. The hair falls to the bottom of the tub.

Dick works for a couple minutes, gently cutting the hair little by little, just like he used to when it was just him and Tim.

“I’m sorry,” Tim says eventually, when Dick cuts a little bit higher near his ears, “For everything I did in the last two weeks.”

Dick doesn’t stop cutting, but he slows down for a second and breathes out, “It’s okay.”

“No,” Tim repeats, “I’m sorry. For everything. For being angry and ignoring you and not listening when I should’ve and not knowing. I should’ve known something was off. There were so many things that didn’t match up.”

“It’s okay,” Dick repeats, because he’s not really mad at Tim for that. How could he ever be? Why would his first assumption be that Dick was undercover? 

“I’m not sorry for poking around though,” Tim adds on, almost defensively, “I know if you’re gonna be mad at me for one thing it’s gonna be that.”

Dick takes the scissors and snips the hair next to Tim’s cheek, “I’m not mad, though yeah… maybe you shouldn’t have.”

Tim taps his fingers against the wall of the bathtub, “No. That was the one thing I did right. I’m not sorry.”

Dick pauses his cutting for a second to measure out how much he should cut off on the other side. When he’s found a good measurement, he speaks again, “How did you figure out that something was off?”

“Honestly?” Tim says, “I kinda overheard you and Bruce that day you were visiting the Manor. I wasn’t sure what was happening, but I got even more suspicious when Jason told me you were saying weird things about getting hit. And then the icing on the cake was Damian coming to me and begrudgingly telling me that stuff was off with you.”

Dick scrunches his nose up, “Oh. I didn’t think I was so obvious.”

Tim turns around abruptly. Dick moves the scissors quickly so they don’t nip Tim’s neck. Tim stares at Dick for a second before laughing a little bit, “Damian said you used a gun, Dick. A gun. And then Jason told me you called yourself the family punching bag. Something was very, very wrong.”

Dick grumbles under his breath, “And Bruce thought you wouldn’t figure it out.”

Tim lifts an eyebrow, “You haven’t talked to Bruce recently, right?”

“No,” Dick shrugs, “He hasn’t contacted me for a while.”

Tim gives a pleased look, “Good.”

“Do I want to know?” Dick asks, thinking back to Jason and his suspicious behavior.

“Probably not,” Tim says honestly. He turns back around and makes a motion that means Dick can keep cutting, “But do know that we’re taking care of Bruce.”

“About that,” Dick says, resuming his cutting. He puts the scissors on Tim’s nape, cutting the hair that rests there, “I really don't want you guys to do that. I’d rather you just left him alone.”

Tim screws his face up, “Dick, think about this logically. Bruce hurt you and according to Jason, that wasn’t the first time. Who’s to say he won’t do it again, to one of us? I respect that you may not want to do anything, but maybe try to think about it in the context of Damian’s safety or something.”

“Bruce wouldn’t hit Damian,” Dick shakes his head. Bruce would never hit someone who wasn’t him.

Tim narrows his eyes. It’s a look that says we’ll discuss this later. Not now though. Now is a fragile moment, and neither of them want to break it.

Dick nudges Tim’s shoulder to turn him around. Tim obliges. Dick starts cutting Tim’s bangs, making sure to avoid the parts that are too close to Tim’s eyes. The hair falls to the bottom of the tub. It doesn’t make any noise when it falls. 

Dick notices that the edges are damaged and frayed. They look like they haven’t been given even a little trim. He wonders why Tim left off cutting it for so long.

“Did you know that all of you have died except for me?” Tim asks, eventually cutting off the silence between them. His eyes are closed when he says it. They’re squeezed shut. It looks painful.

Dick looks at Tim for a second, “There’s no-”

Tim cuts Dick off with a wave of his hand. He starts counting on his fingers, “Jason, Cass, Damian, Stephanie, and now you.”

“I barely died. I was dead for three minutes,” Dick corrects, “I died on technicality.”

“So did Steph,” Tim points out, “And if you have to add technically in front of it, you still died.”

Dick looks at Tim then, really. His eyes are sunken in. On top of the frazzled hair and the pale skin, Dick wonders if Tim has been feeling well lately.

“If you’re worried about dying…”

“I’m not,” Tim says automatically. He deflates a little after he says it, “I just thought… after all the kids, I’d be the one next. I didn’t think you’d die. I thought you’d be the last to go.”

“Sorry to disappoint,” Dick says, laughing lightly, “We should go back in time and ask Luthor and the Crime Syndicate very nicely to decide to kill me like… a little bit later.”

“It’s not funny, Dick!” Tim exclaims, jerking away from Dick’s touch. He buries his face in his legs. Dick is struck then by how lanky he is. He’s skinny. He’s always been skinny.

Dick sighs and then crawls into the tub, sitting right next to Tim. He brushes the cut locks of hair out of his way as he does so.

“I’m alive now, aren’t I?” Dick asks gently, putting a hand on one of Tim’s shoulders, “Can’t keep me down for too long.”

“What if Luthor hadn’t had that shot of adrenaline?” Tim asks, his face still buried in his knees, “What if Bruce and Selena hadn’t been there to make sure you woke up?”

“Then…” Dick trails off, “Then I guess I’d really be dead. You could go dunk me in the Laz Pits or something.”

Tim yanks his head out of his knees to make eye contact with Dick. It’s then that Dick notices he’s crying. Tim glares at Dick, “Stop being so chill about this!”

Dick lets a moment pass before he speaks next, “Sorry.”

“You talk about death like it’s no big deal,” Tim motions his hand in front of him, snuffing his nose as he does so, “All of you do. Jason and Steph make jokes and Damian is all stuffy and victorious about beating death like it’s some kind of achievement and even Cass smiles when I talk about it like it’s an achievement for her too, but you…”

Tim trails off. Dick looks down at his feet. They’re all scarred and bloody and bruised and disgusting looking at the bottom of an otherwise pristine tub.

“You hid it,” Tim whispers, but it’s more like a hiss at this point, “And sure, that part wasn’t your fault, that was Bruce’s. But I also know you, Dick. Even if Bruce hadn’t forced you to go undercover, you would’ve hit the fact that you died anyway.”

Dick can’t argue with that point. He sighs, “It wasn’t a big deal-”

Tim makes an anguished sound and buries his head back into his body. Dick politely shuts the fuck up and instead rubs circles on Tim’s back, just like he did when they were both much younger.

“You can’t just die and pretend you’re okay,” Tim mumbles.

Dick knows Tim is a grown adult. Dick is a grown adult too. But right now, he feels like he’s twenty again, rubbing Tim’s back in circles while he sits on the floor of his apartment in Blüd after a tough case.

“I’m sorry, Tim,” Dick says genuinely, “I’ll stop being so cavalier about it.”

“It scares me that you’re not even upset over it,” Tim mutters, looking up from where he’s hid his head, “Because if you’re not scared or upset that you died, it makes me scared that you don’t fear death. And if you don’t fear death…”

Dick deflates a bit. His body feels too big for his mind right now. He feels out of place. He’s the older brother. He’s supposed to know what to do now. He’s supposed to be better. He’s supposed to have the comforting words and the comforting gestures, but he doesn’t feel that way now.

So Dick takes a big sigh and nudges Tim’s shoulder with his own.

“I don’t like pills,” Dick admits. He puts both hands on his lap and stares at them, “They remind me of Luthor shoving one down my throat. I mean I can still take them, but I’ve gotta be like… in a good headspace.”

Tim widens his eyes.

Dick offers a half smile, “I don’t like being bundled up in weighted blankets anymore. Makes me feel trapped like I was when I was strapped to the bomb. That feeling will pass in a couple months though I’m sure.”

Now Tim’s hand is on his back.

“There’s a certain point where I figure it’s gotta be funny,” Dick says, laughing a little bit and running his fingers through his hair, “Because if it isn’t then what’s the point? If it isn’t funny then I have to admit that it’s bad. And if it’s bad then I have to tell myself it’s damage. And if it’s damage, then I dunno… no one likes damage, right? So I might as well just think it’s funny.”

Tim’s staring at him like he’s scared and now Dick’s regretting he ever said any of that. He’s the big brother. He’s supposed to be on a pedestal.

“I take that back,” Dick says quickly.

Tim’s arms around him before Dick can take it back though. His hair is still only partially cut, so it tickles Dick’s neck a little bit when he buries himself there, but Dick can’t think because Tim is hugging him, really hugging him.

Dick hugs Tim back and lets himself stay there.

“Some shit older brother I am,” Dick says, mostly to himself though, “You don’t need to hear any of this.”

“I don’t care,” Tim mumbles into Dick’s neck, “I don’t care if you think you’re damaged and I don’t care if you actually are.”

Dick buries himself in Tim and he’s not going to sob, he’s not going to sob, he’s not going to sob… except maybe he does, and maybe Tim cries a little too and maybe Tim’s hair isn’t completely cut near one side but he doesn’t hear Tim complaining about it.

Tim and Damian are fighting over the best way to cook eggs. 

Some things never change.

“Look,” Dick says harshly, stopping them from arguing even further, “I’m cooking the eggs one way only so you guys better settle on which way you prefer.”

“Scrambled,” Tim says, at the same time as Damian says, “Over-easy.”

“Guys,” Dick groans, looking between the two of them, “I’m not gonna make eggs if you guys can’t decide on which way you want it.”

Tim gives Damian a suspicious look, “Omelet?”

Damian stares at Tim intently, “An omelet would be adequate, I suppose.”

“An omelet would be adequate, I suppose,” Tim mocks under his breath, rolling his eyes as he does so.

“Tim,” Dick scolds, hitting Tim lightly on the back of the head.

“I want mushrooms in it,” Damian says, sticking his tongue out at Tim when he thinks Dick can’t see. Dick, of course, can see. He reaches over and slaps Damian lightly on the head too.

Tim gives a victorious smile, “I’ll have green peppers.”

“Noted,” Dick says, grabbing both the green peppers and mushrooms out of the fridge.

“Add cheese in there,” Jason says, crashing through the door of Dick’s apartment, kicking his boots into the pile that Damian organized neatly.

Damian gives a dignified shout, “Todd! My pile!”

“My door!” Dick shouts, looking horrified at how his door is swinging loosely on the hinges.

“We are not putting cheese in the omelet,” Tim decides, shaking his head.

“You’re putting those nasty ass green peppers in it,” Jason snaps, shooting Tim a glare. Dick notices that he closes the door a little more gently and shoves his boots in a bit of a more orderly fashion before heading into the apartment completely. Jason scoffs, “I reserve the complete right to have fucking cheese in the eggs.”

“Guys,” Dick says, cracking the eggs in a bowl and whisking them, “I’m not gonna make you eggs if you keep complaining.”

There’s an assorted amount of whining after that statement. Dick just rolls his eyes.

“Can we watch TV?” Jason asks, pointing to the TV with his thumb.

“If you can decide on a channel,” Dick says, pouring the eggs into his pan, “If one of you breaks my TV I’m gonna be pretty pissed.”

“Ooh!” Tim yelps, raising his hand immediately, “Let’s watch Superhero Watch!”

“That trashy show where they try to determine the identities of superheroes?” Damian asks incredulously, “They insinuated I was actually a tiny Brazilian soccer player on that show. I’m not even Brazilian.”

“Guess who submitted that theory,” Tim says, looking awfully pleased with himself. Dick shoots Tim a look. They’ll be talking about that later.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Jason interrupts, putting a hand on both Damian and Tim’s chest while looking at the TV with excited eyes, “Do they have an episode on me?”

“Yeah,” Dick says, looking over his shoulder to where his brothers are arguing, “It’s kinda old though. Like three years ago?”

“I’ve gotta watch it,” Jason says, grabbing for the remote and turning on the TV. He flicks through the channels, trying to see if there’s a rerun of it.

It seems like he’s in luck. The show is in the middle of airing a rerun and as Jason, Tim, and Damian flock around the TV, Dick’s apartment is filled with just the sound of the hosts explaining the leading theories.

It’s blissful. For once in the past four years, Dick feels somewhat at peace. Organizing a breakfast with all three of his brothers had been easier than ever. Damian had of course jumped at the opportunity, Tim had agreed as long as he wasn’t busy working, and Jason had just said yeah, whatever. In Jason-speak, that meant he was excited. 

Dick figures his brothers are a bit worried too. Bruce still operates as Batman, but Dick’s noticed how the schedule has shifted. Damian doesn’t patrol with him and everyone’s routes seem to diverge away from his. While Damian hasn’t directly said it, Dick doesn’t think he’s based in the Manor anymore. Damian oscillates between staying at Dick’s, Jason’s, and in Metropolis with the Kents.

Dick hasn’t had contact with Bruce in a while. Jason seems intent on keeping it that way and Tim is still in the process of running up a detailed report to give to the League.

Dick… Dick’s not sure how he feels about that yet. The logistics of somehow punishing Bruce seemed difficult, especially because Bruce funded the League and their base of operations. And what would Alfred do?

That’s still an argument for another day though. Not for today.

Today is a good day.

“Eggs are ready,” Dick says eventually, piling the eggs onto four plates on the kitchen counter. He takes them over to the couch, “Are we eating over here?”

“That would be ideal,” Damian says, reaching for the plate without ungluing his eyes from the TV, “They’re predicting that Red Hood is Black Mask’s son right now.”

“Ridiculous,” Jason says, gesturing wildly in the air before grabbing his plate from Dick’s hand, “I don’t even know where they’re getting that.”

“I also submitted that theory,” Tim says, smiling brightly as he takes his plate from Dick’s hand, “Thanks.”

“Are you the sole provider of theories on this show?” Dick asks, looking down at Tim. He can’t say he’s surprised.

“You could say I’m a big fan,” Tim beams, aiming that beautiful smile in Dick’s direction, “Though Kon likes to say I’m more of a little shit.”

“Little shit is correct,” Jason grumbles, shoving eggs in his mouth and talking with his mouth open, “What is this crap? How could you even say Black Mask and are related?”

“This is fascinating,” Damian says, smiling, “Drake, you’ve outdone yourself.”

“I’m begging you guys to talk about something normal for once,” Dick says.

Everyone falls into an agreeable silence and Dick watches in peace as the hosts of the show go through several pictures of Jason’s original Red Hood costume.

“Oh,” Jason says, pausing the program with the remote and standing up, “This reminds me.”

“Are you just turning off the TV so we don’t see your condom costume?” Tim teases, leaning his head back on the couch to watch as Jason moves towards the door.

Jason launches a pen across the room and hits Tim smack in the forehead, “No, dimwit. It’s more important than that.”

Damian just rolls his eyes, “I think Drake is right.”

“You better shut your trap before I launch another pen at you,” Jason says grumpily, his New Jersey accent coming in full force. Dick watches as he walks towards them with a manila folder, labeled in big red letters on the front.

“What’s that?” Dick asks, looking curiously at what Jason’s holding in his hands.

Jason stands in front of Dick and holds the manila folder out, “I did a little digging. That baby you were talking about… this is her file.”

The room stills. Damian and Tim give each other confused looks. It’s like all the background noise: the traffic below, Tim’s murmurs, Jason’s steps along the wood floor… they all disappear. Dick stares at the file. 

Before he knows it, he’s reaching out and grabbing ahold of the folder. It’s smooth in his hands. On autopilot, he puts it down on his lap and just looks at it. He traces the red letters that say CONFIDENTIAL.

“Seemed important to you. Took all that those things you were saying about her,” Jason says awkwardly, looking away while pointing to the folder, “Date, time, location… and tracked her down.”

“Why?” Dick asks hoarsely. His hands pause over the side of the folder, pinching it between his fingers. It’s thick.

“You didn’t think you were Dick Grayson,” Jason shrugs, “I had to prove to you that you still were. When you told me about the baby, you didn’t really tell me how the story ended. I knew there had to be more.”

“Back up, back up,” Dick hears Tim say in the background, “What’s this about a baby?”

“Stop interrupting, Drake,” Dick hears Damian respond, “Can’t you see that Grayson is having a moment?”

“Lemme explain,” Jason tells them and out of the corner of his eyes, Dick can see him waving his hands as he walks up to them.

Dick tunes them out and pulls the manila folder from his lap and onto the coffee table. He leans off his chair and sits on the ground, letting his knees flatten into the wood of his floor.

Tentatively, he opens up the file. There’s a picture paperclipped to the first page.

It’s her.

There’s a scar on her throat, right at the left side where Dick tried to slice it open. It’s just a shade or so lighter than the rest of her body, but it’s there and it’s visible. She’s two now, the file says. Her correct birthday is noted and her health files are attached. Dick scans the file and sees the names of her two adoptive parents: Jamal and Maram.

Dick covers his mouth. She’s got a flurry of curly hair like her mother’s and eyes that shimmer. Dick recognizes the beautiful light brown of her irises. She’s smiling through the photo. She’s practically beaming.

“It’s her,” Dick says, trying desperately to ignore the tears that are pricking in the corners of his eyes. It’s not a big deal, it’s not a big deal, it’s not a big deal…

“I had a couple connections that had business in Narjani,” Jason explains, shrugging his shoulders like it is indeed no big deal, “I did a bit of investigating. I asked them if they’d ever seen an American man walk into Narjani about two years ago with a baby.”

Dick flips the files. There’s medical records. He spots a hospital record for treating dehydration and a wound.

“Funnily enough,” Jason says, sitting back down on the couch, “They hadn’t. They said something stranger than that. It was a man with no face.”

Dick knows what that means. Spyral’s facial disguising technology made them faceless. It hadn’t completely stopped working when Dick reached Narjani. He’d put it back on.

“But no one questioned it,” Jason recounts, “Because apparently you’d brought a baby from the desert.”

Dick reads the file. They gave her a name.

“Amal,” Dick says out loud, looking up at his brothers. They’re all staring at him with various confused and curious looks. Dick speaks up louder, “They named her Amal.”

Damian smiles, “Amal… that means hope.”

Dick smiles widely, looking down at the file, “They put her favorite story on here?”

Jason looks up, “Well I had them ask her parents questions that were like… related to education or school or something. I didn’t want them to get freaked out as to why some random men were asking questions about her daughter."

Dick reads the answer, “Her favorite story is Beauty and the Beast.”

Damian frowns, “That’s not a super common story in that part of the world.”

“No,” Dick agrees, smiling some more, “It’s not.”

“It says she likes stars too,” Damian reads, taking some of the papers in his hands, “She can point out Polaris if she’s asked. They don’t know how she understands them enough to do that.”

“She’s a meta,” Dick says quietly, “She’s a bit different from your average toddler. She probably learns a bit faster than anyone else.”

Tim leans over his shoulder to look at the file, “The file says she was adopted.”

“You told me you were terrible, Dick,” Jason says, pointing to the girl in the file, “That you were sent to kill her. But she’s alive.”

“We were rescued on our tenth day in the desert,” Dick says, tracing the little scar in the photo of her, “By a couple who had always wanted a baby. I gave her to them. I worked my hardest to hide it from Spyral. It took forever to cover it up and hide it from Minos, but I did it.”

“Ha!” Jason points at Dick, jumping on the couch a little bit victoriously, “You said to me that you didn’t think you were Dick Grayson. That’s a lie though. Because would someone who wasn’t Dick Grayson walk ten days in a desert to save a baby and then hide it from a secret spy organization?”

Dick blinks. The folder in his hands is shaking. He lets it.

“Anyone would’ve done it,” Dick says quietly, shaking his head, “Anyone could’ve done it.”

That’s not true, Dick’s brain whispers to him, Bruce would’ve given up before he even tried. That’s what he told you. 

“Not anyone,” Tim says, and a familiar tone in his voice creeps up. The one that’s full of awe, “Just you.”

“I could’ve done it,” Damian says, crossing his arms across his chest, “Grayson is not so special.”

“Nah,” Tim shakes his head, “You couldn’t have done that.”

“I don’t think any of us could’ve,” Jason says, interrupting Dick’s muttered protests, “And it’s not that we’re out of shape. Each of us is in peak physical condition. It’s not about that though.”

Damian harrumphs, “What’s it about then?”

Tim leans forward on the back of the couch, tumbling next to Dick, “It’s about tenacity, I think. That’s what you meant, right Jay?”

“Yeah, basically. Like your will to keep going for someone,” Jason clarifies, looking down at Dick and nodding in approval, “Right? That’s what it’s all about. As long as she was alive, you had to stay alive for her?”

“Keep walking,” Dick mutters, Jason’s words unlocking a memory he thought he’d buried, “As long as she’s alive, I’m alive. So I keep walking.”

Dick can see out of the corner of his eyes Jason and Tim share a look. Tim puts a hand on his shoulder, “You did well, Dick.”

Dick leans into the touch. It’s freely given, it’s not tentative. 

“I’m proud of you, Richard,” Damian says, placing the manilla folder back on the table right in front of Dick, “That was no easy feat.”

“That’s our Dick,” Tim says affectionately, “You never weren’t you. You were always still there.”

Dick closes his eyes and picks the folder back up again, hugging it to his chest. He leans his head up in the air and tries to blink back the tears that are so nearly flowing.

“Thank you, Little Wing,” Dick chokes out, “This is the best present you could’ve given me.”

Dick is faintly aware that Jason thuds his back with his palm and tells him that it's no problem. He can faintly hear Damian turning the TV back on and that the announcer is predicting Nightwing’s identity. Besides him, Tim’s discussion on how he provided the theories on this episode too fade into the background.

Dick can feel the smoothness of the folder, the slight breeze running through the apartment in his house, and smell the remnants of the eggs. He’s alive.

He’s not sure he ever let that sink in.

He’s alive. So is the baby. She’s alive too.

And it was because of him, because of Dick Grayson.

Dick opens his eyes and looks out at the chaos of his life in front of him. After everything, he thinks, you’re still you.

They’re taking a break.

The baby smiles as Dick does a fake roar. Dick laughs back before twirling around in the sand and giving the baby a circus-worthy bow.

“And that was my rendition of Beauty and the Beast,” Dick says hoarsely, adding on a curtsy before the baby.

The baby laughs and moves her hands together. 

Dick grins wildly. In ten days, she’s learned how to move a little. Dick attributes the quick learning to her meta abilities. Dick claps his hands. She copies the motion.

“I’m glad you liked it,” Dick says, pushing the sweat off of his face, “I used to act out princess stories for my little sister.”

The baby giggles as Dick rushes towards her. She grabs at Dick’s stubble as he picks her up. He twirls her in the air, stumbling onto the ground almost immediately. His strength is giving out.

Dick rubs the sand off his shoulders and hopes that not too much got into his infected back wounds. He stands up again.

“Okay,” Dick tells the baby, “Maybe no more unnecessary movements. Let’s keep walking.”

The baby coos and Dick reswaddles her clothes. He picks her up, cradling her in his arm as he walks across the sand.

“We’re going to do this,” Dick tells the baby, full of new vigor to live, to survive. He looks up at the sun, “You and I, we’re going to survive.”

The baby gives an affirmative slap to his chest.

“It’s what Dick Grayson would’ve done,” Dick says sagely, nodding at the baby. There’s a wind today. It makes the sweltering heat a little bit more bearable. By Dick’s calculations, today is the tenth day they’ve been in the desert.

The baby has been without water for three days now. Dick’s been without water for three days.

They won’t last much longer. That’s just a fact.

Dick can’t think about that though. By his estimations and at the rate they’ve been walking, Dick thinks they’ve probably hit around 200 miles. Narjani should be on the horizon soon. There’s still hope.

Even then, Dick has to stay realistic as well as optimistic. Dick may believe in the best of a situation, but he’s not näive.

They could’ve overshot Narjani. North is a general direction and following Polaris leads them there but between the winds and getting disoriented after naps, it’s possible that Dick and the baby are walking straight past Narjani.

Dick has to pray they’ll get close enough for someone to find them.

The baby babbles at Dick fifteen minutes into their walk. She waves her arms in the air.

Dick cuddles her to his chest, “I know you’re hungry. Sorry. I’m doing my best.”

Dick adjusts his head scarf around his head to shield himself from the sun. He’s really fucking thirsty. He spits into his mouth and drinks it back down. Even his spit is getting dry now. He can’t imagine how the baby feels.

Dick takes another step against the wind and stumbles a little bit. It’s getting harder and harder to walk. His vision keeps blinking in and out.

Dick stops for a second and leans down.

The baby cries at him.

“I know, I know,” Dick tells her. He gets back up, “We gotta keep walking.”

The baby gives him an approving noise.

Dick gets five more minutes before his legs give out. 

As Dick collapses onto the ground, he holds the baby tight to his chest and absorbs most of the blow of the fall on his back. He rotates himself on the ground so that the baby is guarded from the sand.

Dick tries to move his legs. One of them won’t move at all. It burns and drags and Dick can’t feel his toes in several spots.

Dick winces.

The other leg isn’t much better. It can move a little bit. Just enough to kick at the sand.

Dick closes his eyes and wonders if this is it. They haven’t reached Narjani. Dick doesn’t even know if they got close. The baby seems to understand this too, because she doesn’t cry. 

Dick is sure Bruce would’ve figured out a way to get both the baby and him to Narjani in like three days max. But Dick isn’t Bruce. Dick isn’t even Dick anymore. He’s Agent 37.

This is it.

Dick can feel the baby move on his chest. She rests her hand on his heart.

Dick opens his eyes back up and looks at her. Her brown eyes meet his.

Dick puts his hand on his chest. His heart is still beating. Slower than last time. It stutters more. It’s barely there, but it’s a heartbeat.

Dick is still alive.

And so is the baby. The baby is still alive.

“This can’t be it,” Dick whispers to the baby, “We’re not going to go out like this.”

Dick lifts the baby up into the air and flops onto his stomach. He puts the baby on his back.

“You stay there, okay?” Dick tells her. He hopes she won’t fall off.

Dick’s legs may not work, but his arms sure as hell do.

Dick puts one arm in front of the other and kicks with the leg that works. It’s the dead man’s crawl. That’s what Alfred always called it. His father had used it when he fought in the war, moving in the trenches to stay low. To survive.

The name is fitting, Dick thinks.

His arms start to get sore after thirty minutes.

His left arm starts spasming after what he thinks is a couple hours. His right still works though. 

His right arm starts spasming during the sunset just as the left gives out.

Dick hasn’t talked the entire time. He’s focused. The baby picks up the slack though. She babbles and murmurs and it doesn’t sound like she’s sad or angry and Dick sort of wants her to not do that because it’s going to dry out her mouth.

But Dick also doesn’t want her to stop. It tells him that she’s alive. She’s keeping up his morale.

By the time the sun sets completely and the sky is turning dark, Dick’s right arm gives out too. Dick considers moving his body like a snake completely the rest of the way, but his hips are burning and his back hurts. The energy isn’t coming back to his legs. Dick would hope they aren’t permanently damaged, but at this point it doesn’t really matter.

“Okay,” Dick whispers, turning back over so that his back is on the ground and the baby is on his chest, “I think this is officially it for you and I. Roll credits. Al fine. That’s a wrap.”

Dick has a massive headache. His body is pounding. His vision is peeking in and out.

The baby’s eyes are closed now. She’s not moving now. She’s not crying.

Dick tries to lift up his arm to shake her. His left moves just a little bit so that he can grasp her in his arm, but that’s all. 

“Hey,” Dick tells her. God, his head hurts, “Wake up, baby. If one of us dies, it’s gotta be me first, okay?”

Dick lays there for however long. He goes in and out of consciousness. Everything is blurry now.

After a while he thinks he hears the sound of a car.

Dick wants to scream, but he can’t open his eyes back up. He hears screaming.

It’s not his screaming. It’s not an adult screaming. It’s the baby screaming, louder than she’s ever screamed.

The noise of the car stops and Dick can hear footsteps now. He struggles to open his eyes. He fights the black spots and looks at the two people rushing towards him.

Something registers in his brain.

People!

“Jamal!” the lady screams, running towards Dick. Her knees land right in front of his face and she takes the baby from his arms. Dick wants to reach out and take the baby right back.

Mine, he wants to say, mine.

The man runs right up to him and stops. He leans down, “<Maram, get the phone!>”

“<We’ve always wanted a baby,>” Maram says, running off with the baby towards the car, “<Our prayers have been answered!>”

They’re speaking in Arabic, Dick tells himself. They use the same slang and lingo that Damian's been trying to teach him for forever.

“<The phone, Maram!>” Jamal shouts. He leans next to Dick’s head and lifts him up. Dick looks at his features. He’s got a shock of white hair and crinkles near his eyes. He must be a kind man, Dick reasons, because he looks so much like Jason.

“<Baby needs water,>” Dick chokes out, trying to force the Arabic out of his brain.

“<So do you,>” Jamal answers. Dick can feel his limp body being half lifted and half dragged across the sand towards the car. He can hear Maram on the phone, frantically calling the hospital to get ready for their arrival.

Dick watches Jamal get out a bottle of water and put it to the baby’s mouth. She drinks greedily.

“<What’s your name?>” Jamal asks Dick, leaning the water bottle up to his mouth too. Dick drinks greedily too.

“Dick Grayson,” Dick answers, because Spyral be damned. His eyes flutter; they’re closing again. He can feel his consciousness slipping away again.

Dick hears Maram end the phone call and start the car, “<The gods have brought us a baby, Jamal.>”

“<No, not the gods,>” Dick hears Jamal say, his voice fading out as Dick’s vision does, “<Only a man.>”

Maram’s voice is the last he hears before he passes out completely. Her voice is reverent, like Tim’s is sometimes, “<Not just any man. Dick Grayson.>”