Chapter Text
It had been a week since Dick was kidnapped by the Joker.
It had been a week since he lost his right leg.
It had been a week since all of Gotham witnessed the death of Nightwing.
The news had spread like wildfire and there wasn’t a single new station that hadn’t covered it.
“Joker kills Nightwing during livestream”
“Nightwing falls victim to the Joker after tortuous botched surgery”
“Nightwing added to the list of victims of the Joker”
“Bludhaven’s protector dies to Gotham’s Joker”
This was now his legacy. This was how Nightwing would always be remembered. Wherever Nightwing’s name was, the Joker’s would never be far behind.
The hospital staff were all under serious NDAs to keep the condition of one Dick Grayson under lock and key. His medical record of his recent surgeries could only be accessed by a select few and was behind Oracle’s impressive firewall. The world couldn’t know that Dick Grayson lost his right leg coincidently the same time Joker live streamed sawing off Nightwing’s right leg. Therefore, when Dick was finally discharged from the hospital, they did it under the cover of night and quickly rushed him to the manor where he would remain locked inside like a prisoner until his recovery.
Though, if you asked Bruce or anyone else they wouldn’t say that he was a prisoner. No, they would call it as him resting, or point out that he didn’t have to stay up in his room, but they all refused to see and accept what Dick already knew.
His life was well and truly over. Everything that he spent his entire life building for himself was ripped away and thrown into the gutter. Nightwing did die that night and there was no resurrecting him but at the same time, Dick Grayson might as well have died too. He had to hide away from the public eye for at least a year or even longer until the public mourned and forgot about the fallen hero. Only then could they bring Dick back out after staging some bullshit medical emergency that cost him his leg, of course.
Tim, Duke, and Damian volunteered themselves to help clear out things from his apartment so that he could get ready to sell it. He told them to just throw everything away, but they had given him such a pitying look and shook their heads, assuring him that they would do no such thing. Why couldn’t they see that none of that stuff mattered anymore? Dick Grayson was dead, but it appeared that he was the only one capable of seeing it.
Dick took a slow and calculated breath before he reached under the covers and placed his hand over the stump where his leg once was. He still hadn’t been able to bring himself to actually look at it, but he was trying to ease himself into it.
His leg ended a few inches below the knee and was still wrapped in bandages to keep the stitches clean and every so often Alfred would come in and reapply them while Dick looked anywhere else but at what he was doing.
He felt the awkward shape of it, frowning to himself about how lumpy it felt. Though, admittedly, that could’ve just been because of the bandages. The swelling had gone down at least from what he could tell. The first time he tried feeling it, it felt like it was the size of a balloon. Now though, not so much.
A firm knock on his door drew away his attention and he let out a sigh before telling whoever it was to come in.
Bruce pushed the door open enough to pop his head in and gave him a smile. “Dinner is ready. Everyone is already at the table.”
Dick could already feel his mood start to dampen. The last thing he wanted was to be surrounded by everyone and their pitying looks. “Not all that hungry. Sorry.”
“Do you think you can at least try?” Bruce frowned as he came further into the room.
Bruce was trying. They all were trying, but he didn’t want them to. He didn’t want them to baby him or even give him their pity. He wished that they had allowed him to die like he was supposed to. Everything would’ve been much simpler that way.
“B, I’m really not–”
“Please.” Bruce cut him off. Silence. Then Bruce sighed and sat at the edge of the bed before reaching over to hold Dick’s hand. “Please, son. You have to get out of this room and at least try to eat. If you can’t do it for yourself, then do it for Alfred. Do it for Damian. He’s been really worried about you, y’know.”
Dick didn’t say anything.
He hated the thought of Damian being worried about him. He didn’t like the thought of anyone worrying, but Damian especially had gone through more than enough in his life. He always hated the look the kid would get in his eyes whenever Dick got hurt. He saw that look more often nowadays.
“Is Jason there?”
“...No.” Bruce sighed. “He’s still gone.”
“Hunting the Joker, I’m guessing?”
“...”
Dick rolled his eyes and huffed. “He’s wasting his time. ‘S not like it’s going to magically give me my leg back.”
“Dick…”
“It’s fine, Bruce.” He cut him off before Bruce could have the chance to give him yet another speech. He had to hear it two times already about how he shouldn’t allow depression to get the better of him. How this wasn’t the end of his life, he still had so much ahead of him. He was sick of hearing it. “I’ll join you for dinner. Just– Just drop it, alright.”
Dinner ended up being just as miserable as he expected it to. He managed to get himself out of the bed and into his temporary wheelchair, but once they made it to the table he ended up needing Bruce’s help getting out of it and into his seat hile everyone pretended not to look. Damian and Alfred at least looked a bit happier seeing him, which made him only feel more guilty about how much he desperately wanted to go back to his room.
Dick hardly ate his food, instead picking at it with his fork while the others droned on about nothing worth really paying attention to. He was almost certain that most of the conversation revolved around schoolwork and boring things that happened at the company. At one point Tim had made an obvious setup for Dick when he talked about his latest hangout with Superboy. Typically, Dick would’ve chimed in with a teasing remark about it being a “hangout” and sometimes even thrown in the word “boyfriend”... but not tonight. Instead, he just hummed in acknowledgement as he stabbed a pea with his fork. He tried to not notice the disappointed look on Tim’s face. It wasn’t like it was the poor kid’s fault.
“Master Dick, would you like for me to make you something else, perhaps?” Alfred offered.
That snapped his attention and he straightened up with a small forced smile. “Nah, the food's fine, Alfred.” He then took a bite out of the lamb chop just to sell his point. Though, Alfred didn’t look convinced until he took two more bites off of his plate.
“Very well, sir. I’m glad to hear it.”
The table fell silent not too long after that with only the sound of forks gently scraping at the bottom of plates. It felt like Dick could feel all of their eyes on him. He could practically hear their thoughts that were full of pity, but also uncertainty. No one really knew how to help or what to do with him, which was fair because Dick didn’t have the answers for them either.
Before he was Nightwing, he was Robin, and before Robin he was the youngest member of the Flying Graysons. All his life Dick spent in the spotlight one way or another. All his life his body was his most special weapon and now it all came to ruin. His parents were dead, Robin was someone else, and Nightwing was buried a week ago. He didn’t even feel like Dick Grayson anymore. He was just a ghost. A living ghost that haunted the halls of the manor and those that tried to be in his presence.
He thought about Jason and Barbara.
If anyone could understand what he was feeling, it would be them. Though Barabra had visited more than a couple times, she had been kept busy with her Oracle tasks. And Jason… the last time he saw Jason was right before he left for patrol that night he was taken by the Joker.
Dick had been told that Jason had been there that night when they rescued him. He was also told that he lingered around the hospital long enough to get in a fight with Bruce, before storming off into the night. No one had seen him since, though there had been sightings of Red Hood throughout the city on occasion with the beaten bodies of goons laying in his wake.
He was hunting for the Joker. They all knew it.
The night it happened, Joker had been arrested and shoved in the back of an armored ambulance, but the vehicle never showed up to its destination. A few hours later, the original driver for the ambulance had been found knocked out a few blocks away from the abandoned hospital Joker had Dick holed up in. Tim searched through the security footage and was able to confirm what they all had feared. Four people disguised in different clown masks had knocked the driver out and stolen the vehicle.
“Chum? Did you hear what I said?”
The sound of Bruce’s voice snapped Dick out of thought and blinked a few times as he picked his head up. “Wh– oh. Uh sorry, no.”
“I was reminding you that you have your first appointment with your physical therapist tomorrow afternoon.” Bruce repeated himself patiently. “I cleared my schedule so that I could be there with you. If that’s alright.”
It wasn’t.
“Yeah. Sure.”
His tone didn’t sound too convincing, especially with all the looks he got from all the others. Which he tried to ignore.
They all cared about him, he knew that, but he just couldn’t stand the way they would all look at him anytime he entered a room or sounded anything with a tone that was less than okay. He had every right to not be okay. He couldn’t magically feel better all because they wanted him to. None of them understood. They all still got to be vigilanties. None of them had to bury their whole identity or hide away from the public. All of Dick’s civilian friends, his neighbors, he had to leave all of them without so much as a goodbye. In their eyes, he left without a single word to Italy or whatever bullshit country Bruce had said.
Nightwing was dead, yet Dick Grayson was still here. It didn’t feel right.
“I’m going to call it a night.” He announced and already started to slide out from his chair and into his wheelchair. “Dinner was good, Alfred. Thanks.”
Bruce stood up first. “Do you want me to–”
“No, I got it.” Dick cut him off. “Enjoy patrol.”
He then quickly wheeled himself away from the table and out into the hallway towards the glass elevator. He was finished pretending that things were normal. He was finished pretending that his whole entire being wasn’t stripped away from him. They didn’t get it. None of them understood.
When the elevator opened up, Dick wheeled himself out and headed straight for his room, wanting for the night to be over already. With any luck, he would sleep and never wake back up.
One could only hope.