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Bruce knew there was something up with Dick since the boy ran to him crying in the middle of the day at eleven years old. The age isn’t really that significant, but Bruce kept the details. Bruce had been working in his office when suddenly the door was thrown open and Dick stood in the doorway, tears in his eyes.
Bruce had waved the boy in, gently soothing him. “What’s wrong, Dick?” He asked once the tears had stopped.
Dick stared at him quizzically, like he was gauging what the correct response would be. “I woke up late, nightmare.” He said at last. Bruce could tell that he wasn’t telling the full truth, but it wasn’t entirely a lie either, so he let Dick get away with it and held him tighter in his arms while he cried.
Later, Bruce would realize that what he thought was a sob was actually a relieved sigh. He still has no clue why.
When Jason first met Dick, he was just sort of confused. Dick looked at him oddly, like he was constipated or something, before saying hello and then walking off. Jason later found out from Alfred that Dick had gone to talk to Bruce, and while he didn’t say what it was about, Jason could take a guess.
Once, before Jason walked into the living room to hang out with Dick, he could hear the older man muttering to himself, “Get it right this time, Grayson.” Jason walked in and sat down on the couch next to Dick, who smiled once he saw Jason. “Hey Jason, how are you?”
Jason shrugged. “Tired, mostly. Had a late patrol last night.” Dick hummed knowingly.
“Yeah, I know the feeling. How’s being Robin treating you?”
Jason’s face lit up. “It’s great! It feels good, being able to help.” There was a lot Jason could say about being Robin, but it all really came down to that.
Dick nodded, smiling slightly. “Yeah, it does, doesn’t it? Have I ever told you where the name Robin came from?”
“Nope, don’t think so.”
“It was what my mother called me. Her little Robin. After my parents died, I wanted to find their killer, so I used the name in their honor.”
Jason stared at Dick in awe. Dick stared back nervously, like he was worried Jason would judge him for sharing that. “That’s so cool,” Jason said. Then he fidgeted nervously. “You… don’t mind, right? That I’m using Robin now?”
Dick’s face softened, but there was also a layer of shock to it. “I don’t mind. You’re using Robin’s name for what it was made for. You’re doing great.” Jason smiled brightly, and before he could hesitate, he wrapped Dick in a quick hug before backing away. Dick laughed and ruffled his hair.
The first time Jason noticed Dick’s reaction time, they were doing a patrol without Batman. Which to them was a normal patrol, even though Bruce and Dick were talking like normal people again. They were intercepting a weapons deal, which was supposed to be quiet and quick. Of course, nothing happens like it’s supposed to, so it wasn’t.
The first gun went off and Dick and Jason were falling down to the ground like they’d planned it. They hadn’t, obviously, but Jason grinned all the same. He dodged a punch from one goon while kicking away the gun from another.
Then, from out of nowhere, Dick ran into him, throwing him to the ground. A gunshot went off right after, directly where Jason’s head was a second ago. “Jesus fuck,” Jason muttered. He didn’t have time to think about the fact that he’d almost died before he was forced back into the fight. He held his own throughout the rest of the fight, but he couldn’t take his mind off of it until he and Dick were back on a quiet rooftop.
“You’re okay?” Dick asked. Jason blinked at him for a moment before nodding. “Good, good, okay. Good, that’s good, you’re okay.” It felt like he was saying it more to himself than to Jason.
“And… you’re okay?” Jason asked back. Dick stared at him like he forgot Jason was there. Or maybe he just wasn’t anticipating the question.
He took a deep breath before nodding. “Yeah, I’m okay, Little Wing.”
Jason didn’t really believe it, but he had no real reason for that, so he just shrugged it off and went back to patrol with Dick.
Tim loved watching from the rooftops. Okay, that might sound a little creepy, but he swore it wasn’t! It was simply the only place he could really see Batman and Robin from. And also Nightwing, which was who Tim was looking at right now.
The scene was already a little bloody, but not enough for Tim to leave yet. Nightwing was trying to free hostages from an empty warehouse, which had turned into a fight once Nightwing had revealed himself.
Tim noticed that he was constantly taking hits for the hostages, who while freed were still trying to find a way out of the warehouse. Nightwing had knocked out most of the attackers, but he missed one while trying to tie up the others. Tim only knew this because he could see the last one trying to get away, but instead of just making a run for it, he took a shot at one of the hostages.
Nightwing looked up, and on instinct threw a batarang before running after the last guy. He knocked him out pretty quickly after that and ran to the civilian, who was now lying on the ground. Tim noticed a twitch of Nightwing’s fingers before he gasped.
“No, no. No, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” He was murmuring. Tim could barely hear it, but it was the only sound being made in the area, so the wind picked it up. His hands went for the civilian’s neck to check for a pulse, which Tim assumed wasn’t there, seeing how Nightwing jolted away from the body. “Fuck. Fuck!”
Tim watched as Nightwing stood up and paced, clearly going through grief of some kind. Tim would have wondered if Nightwing knew that person if he didn’t know who Nightwing was. But as it was, Dick Grayson had absolutely no association to that person. And Tim wasn’t dumb, he knew that this wasn’t Nightwing’s first time having someone die on his watch, so he couldn’t help but wonder why he was reacting so strongly to this.
Bruce hadn’t left the Cave since the funeral. He’d been staring at cases and making no real progress because at least looking at other dead bodies was better than looking at his son’s dead body. He didn’t look up as the door opened, assuming it was Alfred coming down to check on him again.
“Bruce?” Oh, it was Dick. “Damn you’re really out of it.” That was what got Bruce to finally look up. Dick had a faint smile on his face, gentle enough that Bruce almost couldn’t tell that it was fake. He must have found out then.
Bruce would have told Dick himself if he thought he could get through the sentence without clamming up. They’d been doing better; less arguments, more actual talks. Bruce had to admit that he was worried this would set them back. It would be nobody’s fault but his own.
“Um, I heard about- about Jas-” Dick cut himself off. He turned his head away from Bruce, likely to hide his tears. Bruce didn’t get up, but he pushed the chair an inch closer to where Dick was standing. Dick cleared his throat and turned back to face Bruce. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.
Bruce tilted his head. Dick wasn’t apologizing for his loss, that much he knew. “What are you sorry for?” He asked. His voice was rough from lack of use, but he tried to soften it as much as he could. He waved a hand so Dick would move closer, which he did until he sat down at the foot of Bruce’s chair.
“I could have saved him.” Dick said it like he’d heard it before. Like someone directly blamed him for Jason’s death.
Bruce shook his head. “Dick you were in space. You couldn’t have- have done anything.” If Bruce was honest, he both wished Dick had been there and was glad that he wasn’t. He was glad that Dick hadn’t seen the sight, but he couldn’t help but wish he wasn’t the only one there.
Dick let out a hollow laugh. “I could have saved him. I could have. I wasn’t here but if I’d known-” he cut himself off with a sob. “I could have saved him.”
“You don’t know that, Dick. I- I got there too late. Just barely. Who’s to say it wouldn’t have gone the same if it was you?” It was the first time that Bruce had admitted this out loud. He was too late.
Dick shook his head before leaning it against Bruce’s leg. “I could have saved him.”
Barbara had always known Dick’s reaction time was quicker than most. Whenever she brought it up he shrugged it off, claiming it came from a combination of being an acrobat from a young age and Batman’s training. But it was more than that. It was like he knew things before they happened, the way he would jump in the path of a bullet before it was even shot.
Being Oracle meant that Barbara had access to all security cameras for surveillance, which in turn meant she got every angle of every fight. So she could see the way that Dick had turned right before a goon raised his gun at Tim. It wasn’t just a small turn; it was like Dick knew that something was about to happen.
But after Barbara went through all of the footage, she couldn’t see any way that Dick could have known what was coming. He didn’t even look at the guy before he was jumping in front of Tim. She ended up calling Dick to the Clocktower under the guise of hanging out, simply because she couldn’t get the encounter out of her head.
Dick arrived ten minutes later and they talked for a bit before Barbara eventually pulled up the footage. She played it and paused it after Dick knocked the gun away from the goon. “How did you know he would do that?” She asked.
He walked over to her computer and rewound it until the footage was paused right before Dick turned. He zoomed in on the goon and hit play. Barbara watched as he reached for his gun, the flap of his coat moving ever so slightly. “I heard him.” Dick explained.
Barbara could only stare at him in disbelief. Sure, she could buy it, but it just seemed too easy, especially for Dick. She waved it off for the time being, but she’d get to the bottom of it eventually.
Bruce stood watching the Joker take uneven breaths, but he was breathing. He turned to look at Dick, who had moments before beaten the Joker badly enough that Bruce had needed to preform CPR on him. He was avoiding the thought of Dick killing him.
Dick was kneeling on the ground, staring at the Joker’s limp form. He seemed in shock of some sort, and his fingers kept twitching. Bruce could imagine what was going through his head, that he was thinking of how he could have killed someone. But Bruce couldn’t keep thinking of that, or he’d think about why Dick had tried to do that at all. Bruce stared at his unresponsive son and walked away.
Jason was sure that his plans were foolproof. He planned it all so there would be no interruptions at Titans Tower, especially from Batman and Nightwing. So why the fuck was Nightwing standing in the fucking Tower with an escrima pointed at Jason’s back? Jason hadn’t even noticed him enter, too busy with taunting his replacement.
“Hood.” Nightwing – because if Jason thought of him as anything other than just Nightwing he might lose it – said tightly. Jason’s grip on his gun tightened.
“How the fuck did you get in here?” He questioned instead of doing the thing he really wanted to do, which was get the fuck out of there.
He felt Nightwing shrug as the escrima stick moved against his back. “Oh you know, was in the area. Override codes are a real nice thing to have.” It would have been believable if Jason didn’t know for a fact that Nightwing wasn’t in the area around thirty minutes ago.
Jason decided to test his luck and shot at where Robin was still – for some reason, why didn’t he move –standing. It was close enough to him that he jumped, but it wouldn’t actually hit him. He took the small chance to make a run for it, or at the very least get away out of striking distance to Nightwing. What he didn’t expect was for his legs to be immediately swept out from under him, causing him to let go of his gun. He fell on the floor and an escrima stick was placed at his neck right under the helmet.
“Now,” Nightwing said gleefully, standing above Jason with a grin, “how exactly did you get in here?”
“Override codes are a real nice thing to have.” Jason echoed Nightwing’s previous statement. He grinned behind his helmet as he watched both heroes above him still.
“And where did you get those?” Robin asked hesitantly. He was standing farther away from Jason now, probably having learned his lesson.
Jason shrugged as best as he could while laying on the floor. “Had ‘em the whole time.” And it wasn’t even a lie. For some reason his codes from his time as Robin never got removed.
Nightwing looked over at Robin, like he was waiting for a report. Robin stared back before shrugging. “He knows our names.”
Nightwing tilted his head. “Did we know that already? I feel like we knew that already.”
“We didn’t know that already.”
“Huh. What the hell am I thinking of then?” Robin shrugged again. “Whatever,” he turned to look back at Jason, “so… why do you have codes already?”
Jason blinked at him. Did he really think Jason would answer him? Robin seemed to think the same thing, seeing as he smacked his hand against his forehead. “Really, Dick?”
“What? It was worth a shot.” Nightwing lifted his escrima stick from where it was resting against Jason’s neck. Jason didn’t even try to get up because he was so confused by the action. “What do you think Tim, should we leave him on the floor?”
Jason rolled his eyes, and somehow, he could tell that Robin was doing the same. “Do you think anything good will come out of letting him up?” He asked it like he already knew the answer. He probably did; the answer was no. But right now Jason wasn’t planning on attacking again, that plan had already gone down the drain. Now he just wanted to get out of here before Dick noticed something was up with him.
Because if anybody was going to figure out who was behind the helmet, it would be Dick Grayson. Jason couldn’t explain it even if he knew, but Dick has always had the craziest intuition known to man.
But instead, Nightwing just shrugged and stepped away from him. He sat up slowly while Dick looked at him like he already had all the answers. Jason stilled for just a second. Had he done something to give it away? Did Dick already know?
“You’re okay Timmy?” Dick asked Robin. Jason didn’t look towards him, but he assumed that the kid nodded. Jason hadn’t really gotten the chance to hurt him, after all. “Good, you go wait outside, I’ll be there in a minute.”
Jason waited until the door closed before sighing. “So, what, gonna take me in now?”
Dick shook his head and sat down on the floor where Jason had yet to stand up. “I just wanna know why.” He knew. The only reason Dick would ask that was if he knew. Jason still couldn’t figure out how the fuck he knew, but he had to know.
So he bit the bullet and took off his helmet. “’Cause I was replaced.” He snarled bitterly. Dick inhaled sharply, not at his face but at the words.
“You weren’t replaced,” Dick said gently. Much gentler than Jason expected. “Apparently, even Batman has enough emotion that his kid’s death makes him go off the rails. Who would’ve guessed. Tim basically forced his way in.”
Jason shook his head. “He should’ve gotten his head out of his ass on his own.”
Dick laughed dryly. “Believe me I tried to tell him that. Both of them.”
They sat quietly for a minute before Jason spoke up again. “You aren’t surprised.” It wasn’t a question.
“You had codes and knew our names,” Dick shrugged. “Not a lot of people can claim those two specific things.”
Jason threw his head into his lap and groaned. “Stupid Bat skills.” Dick laughed. Jason was quiet for another minute, thinking about something that had been on his mind since Dick entered the Tower. “I was gonna hurt him.” He said quietly. “He wouldn’t’ve deserved it, but I would’ve done it anyways.”
“Are you gonna do it now?” Dick asked. It wasn’t like how Batman would ask, all interrogation-like, he was just simply asking.
“No.” Jason replied honestly.
Dick nodded. “Good. I- I missed you.” He whispered into the quiet.
Jason closed his eyes and whispered back, “I missed you too.”
Cassandra watched her family. She saw how they laughed, how they fought, how they protected. She watched as one in particular held himself just slightly different to the others. It was the first thing she’d noticed when she met Dick, how he held himself in a permanent brace.
It wasn’t the same as Cass; she held herself like a warrior, and while she could admit that her family were also warriors, they didn’t hold themselves the same way. They all braced themselves for action, while Cass added in a layer of stealth to her body. But Dick braced himself for… change. That was the best way Cass could put it.
She watched during fights as Dick would react, how his body would change to determination-power-fix within seconds. He could catch things even Cass herself couldn’t catch, and when asked to explain how he caught it, he laid it out flawlessly. But there was a small layer of deception-hide-truth that Cass would catch each time. He was never lying, exactly, but he was hiding something, part of the actual truth.
She watched during the aftermath of a fight as Dick stared at the damage, his fingers twitching like he was still anticipating action. But then he took a deep breath, shook his head, and the anticipation was gone. His body smoothed out into safe-protected-relief like it was never any different.
She snuck up on him one night and stared at him blankly. He stared back before she broke the silence. “What do you change?” She asked.
He grinned at her. “More like when do I change it.” He said back cryptically. She narrowed her eyes at him before leaving.
She would keep watching until she found out what it was that her brother was hiding.
There was a lot going on that Tim couldn’t really wrap his head around. Compartmentalization could only get him so far. So he focused on the current thing; Dick standing in front of him like he was about to defuse a live bomb. So Tim got ready to brace for impact. “You wanted to talk to me?” He asked.
Dick’s gaze snapped to him. “Yeah, I did.” He interlocked his two index fingers, a nervous tick that Tim immediately clocked. “How are you doing? With Damian here?”
Tim let out a sharp breath. “I think I’d like him a little more if he wasn’t trying to pretentiously murder me.” Dick breathed out a laugh.
“Yeah, that’s fair.” He paused for another second. “I want to start this with saying your opinion matters,” uh oh. That never meant anything good. “With Bruce… gone, I need to give Damian a reason to stay where I can see him. Otherwise, we’ll have a murder baby loose on Gotham, which is what none of us need right now.”
Tim saw where this was going. “So, what, you want to give him Robin?” His head spun at the thought of it.
“I need to give him a reason to be here,” Dick said. “If you aren’t ready then I can figure something else out. I just… I know what it’s like, to have Robin taken from out of nowhere. So I figured I’d give you the choice.”
“Oh. Um. I’ll be honest, Dick, I don’t know.” He hated how small his voice was. Then he thought about it for a moment, remembering what he found. “Actually, I think… I think he can have it. I um, I found evidence that Bruce might be alive,” he forced himself to keep eye contact with Dick.
Dick’s eyes widened. “You… you’re sure?”
Tim shrugged. “Not sure sure but I think it’s likely. So I think I’m gonna go look for him.”
Dick took a deep breath. Tim watched him quietly. “Okay,” Dick spoke at last. “Alright, just- be safe. Contact me when you can, please. Or let me know if you can’t. Okay?”
“Okay,” Tim nodded. “I won’t leave right away, I still need to sort some things, but thank you Dick.”
“Of course Timmy.” Dick moved right after he spoke, and suddenly Tim was trapped in a hug. “Alright, I’m gonna go talk to Damian, I’ll see you later.”
Tim held onto Dick tighter for just a moment before letting the hug end. “Okay, I’ll see you later Dick.” Dick waved to him as he left the Cave to go upstairs. Tim would only realize later the sigh of relief Dick gave as the conversation ended.
Damian held his wrist where he sprained it as he and Grayson walked into the Bat Cave. It was the only injury he’d acquired that night, although Grayson kept looking at him like there were more. He kept scanning Damian’s body like he was waiting for him to collapse or something.
“How’s your shoulder, Dames?” Grayson asked. Damian tilted his head.
“My shoulder is fine. It was my wrist that was injured.” It pained him to admit that he was injured at all, but he knew now he could accept help here.
Grayson tilted his head. “You’re sure?” Damian stopped just short of rolling his eyes and nodded. “How about your leg?”
Damian squinted. “Were you not paying attention? I only injured my wrist.” Damian had to force himself not to still. Was this a test of some sort?
Grayson studied him for a moment before releasing a breath. “You’re right, I think I got it mixed up with last week’s patrol. My bad. You did good today, kid.” Damian preened at the praise. “Alright, go get some rest, let that arm heal, okay?” Damian nodded and walked to the exit. He couldn’t get the thought out of his head that Grayson had been specific with which patrol he mixed up Damian’s injuries with.
Steph knew there was something up with Dick. Well, not up in the sense that anything was different, but he was always different than the rest of them. She’d asked around though and nobody knew what it was. They all knew there was something though. So Steph was gonna find out what.
She started by watching Dick randomly. Not just during patrol like everyone else, but also around the Manor or whenever she went over to his apartment. She noticed the same things as everyone else; a crazy fast reaction time and intuition. But sometimes, he had no reaction time at all. Steph watched him drop a plate once and frown at it so deeply that Steph had started to frown.
But every time she thought she’d caught his trick, she didn’t. She heard him have multiple conversations over the phone with the Titans, and not once was it ever mentioned. She’d even unintentionally stopped in on phone calls, so it wasn’t like he could tell she was spying on him!
Once she walked into his apartment to hear him on the phone with Wally, talking about… something. “I tried but it was like, a block or something. I swear I’ve explained this to you before,” Dick was saying. “No, it’s not science. Okay, yes, it’s biology but this specific one makes no sense!” Steph stood perfectly still, trying not to alert him to her presence, hoping to get any knowledge she could.
But, of course, Dick and his stupid intuition caught her anyways. He looked up and directly at where Steph was standing half hidden behind his door. “Uh huh, hey Walls I gotta go. I’ll call you back later. Yeah, love you, bye.” He hung up and smiled at Steph. “Hey Steph! How’re you doing?”
Steph narrowed her eyes at him but smiled back anyways. “Oh you know, just breaking into my brother’s place, totally normal things.”
Dick nodded his head solemnly. “Of course, as you do. Well I was about to go break into the Manor, wanna join me?”
“Fuckin’ of course I do! Hurry your ass up!” Steph laughed as she ran to the window of Dick’s apartment, mostly forgetting the conversation she almost listened in on.
Jason hated these cases. Trafficking of any kind was always a sore spot for him, but sex trafficking especially. It wasn’t even what he’d initially been going after. It just so happened that his drug smuggling case happened to overlap with Dick’s sex trafficking case. So they decided to take it down together. Two birds with one stone, after all.
The bust went easier than anticipated honestly. Jason sure expected that it would go worse. As he and Dick were leaving the warehouse, he heard a soft tink and looked up to see rain hitting his helmet. “Well that’s always fun,” he muttered. “You ready to get out of here ‘Wing?” He asked Dick. He turned when he didn’t get a response. “Nightwing?”
Dick was standing frozen in the doorway of the warehouse, staring out at the rain. His hands were shaking and his breathing was stilted just the smallest bit. “Hey, Dick, talk to me. What’s going on?” Jason tried.
Dick took a shuddering breath. “It’s raining.” He rasped out.
“Yeah, it is. Do you want to get out of the rain?” Jason kept his voice as level as he could. He had no fucking clue what the hell was up with Dick.
“The- they’re safe?” He didn’t ask who. Jason could take a guess.
“Yeah, they’re safe. All on their way home or somewhere safe. You wanna do the same?”
Dick paused as his breathing leveled out. “Yeah. Okay.” He took a step forward and shivered as the rain connected with his head.
Jason kept talking all the way to the nearest safehouse, turning every now and then to make sure Dick was behind him. When they got there he didn’t say anything, just let Dick go about his routine as he did the same.
Once they had both changed and Jason had made food, they were both sitting down on the couch. He could tell Dick was anticipating some sort of talk, but Jason could take enough of a guess that he wasn’t going to start the conversation.
Eventually, Dick set his plate down and took a breath. “I didn’t want it.” Jason just nodded, but Dick shook his head. “I let it happen,” he whispered.
“Hey, no the fuck you didn’t.” Jason couldn’t help but snap. He took a deep breath to center himself. “You didn’t let it happen, okay? It happened. That’s it. You didn’t want it. It happened.”
“It happened.” Dick repeated. He took a shaky breath. “It happened.” Jason suddenly felt like Dick was trying to convince himself that was true rather than reassure himself that it wasn’t his fault. He let Dick repeat the mantra anyways. “It happened.”
Duke hated when he had to be called in to a night patrol. Mostly because it was always short notice and he’d have already done a patrol earlier in the day. Of course, that didn’t mean that he wouldn’t help out, he’d just do it while hating it.
Tonight was an all hands on deck situation with a big Arkham breakout. Duke really wished that it wasn’t but, of course, he had no control over Gotham’s criminals. So that led to him, Dick, and Steph currently tracking down Freeze through the city.
They eventually caught up to him in an abandoned building where there were also several goons. They launched into the fight instantly, tackling goons and trading blows with Freeze. Dick managed to knock out Freeze so they were left with just the goons.
Just as Duke was about to knock out another goon, his vision switched. He watched as Dick moved in front of him and took a bullet to the chest. His vision snapped back to the present and he turned to see a gun aimed at him. Then he turned just the slightest bit to where Dick was running towards him.
“Nightwing!” He called out, but the gun had already been shot. Dick shoved Duke out of the way just in time for the bullet to hit Dick. “Motherfuck,” he cursed. He raised a hand to his earpiece as Steph knocked out the last two goons. “Freeze contained, Nightwing is down.” He reported. “Requesting Batmobile to our location.”
“Copy, we’ll meet you guys back at the Cave.” Jason answered.
Duke didn’t bother with a response back before he ran to Dick, lifting him up and trying not to look at the bullet hole in his chest. Steph met up with them after she finished tying up the last of the goons, and she gave a wince as she looked at Dick’s wound. The Batmobile showed up a minute later to bring them to the Cave.
Duke watched quietly as Jason paced the Bat Cave, waiting for Dick to get out of surgery. “Stupid bastard,” Jason muttered. “Stupid fucking self-sacrificial asshole.”
“Well that’s not a nice way to be greeted.” Dick said from the doorway. Immediately everyone turned to look at him. His stomach was bandaged where the bullet hole had been and he had another bandage wrapped around his arm, but otherwise he was okay.
“Yeah well you fuckin’ deserve it!” Jason yelled. “Stupid fuckin’ moron. I swear, I should beat the shit out of you.” He folded his arms and gave what Duke knew he would deny was a pout.
“Hey, I’m fine.” Dick soothed. “Is everyone else okay?”
The group all gave confirmations that they were alright. Duke however, wasn’t about to let that go. “Yeah, except for when my brother took a bullet that I tried to warn him about. But y’know, all good here.” Never let it be said that Duke was above being petty.
Bruce turned to look at Duke. “You didn’t mention that you saw it.” Duke rolled his eyes.
“Well duh. I was waiting to ask him about it myself. I mention it before than and everyone would be clamoring him.” Duke shrugged.
Dick sighed as he walked further into the room. “It would have hit you if I didn’t.” He said.
Duke frowned. “But I watched it. It hit you. That was the original outcome.”
“I was looking, it would have hit you if I didn’t do anything.”
“But that doesn’t make sense,” Tim interjected. “If Duke saw you getting hit then that was always the outcome. Even if Duke wasn’t in the way, Dick still would have been the target.”
Dick shook his head. “It was going to hit Duke.”
“But it hit you.” Jason added, his fear still hidden behind rage. “How do you know it was going to hit Duke?”
“Because I saw it!” Dick snapped. The silence that followed was deafening. Dick’s finger twitched and he slumped against the wall. “Fuck,” he muttered.
Cass tilted her head consideringly but didn’t say anything. Duke squinted. “What do you mean you saw it?”
Dick groaned and rested his head against the wall. “Fucking hate energy depletion.” He said quietly.
Cass tapped the table to get everyone’s attention. Dick glared at her. “He changed it.”
“Okay,” Steph said, stretching out the word. “And what does that mean?”
“He saw it and he changed it.” Cass explained far too vaguely.
Tim tilted his head. “Like Duke?”
Duke perked up. “Like me?”
Cass tilted her head. “Yes and no. He doesn’t… see it. He experiences it. Then he goes back and changes it.”
Jason’s head snapped up and he looked at Dick. “You can fucking rewind time.” Dick’s finger twitched again. He glared at it like it betrayed him. Jason grinned. “Can’t do anything about it now, can you?”
Dick finally looked up to face his family. They were all looking at him with some sort of curiosity. Duke himself was just wondering how long Dick kept it from him, knowing how similar their abilities are.
“You can blame Batman from twenty years ago.” Dick deadpanned. All of them turned to glare at Bruce, who accepted the ire with a pout. “And then every time after that when I tried to tell someone it never felt right, so I just… undid it.”
Jason locked eyes with Dick like he’d just realized something. “It happened.” He said.
Dick sighed. “It happened.”
“Fuck, Dick,” Jason threw his hands up. “Fuckin’ martyr asshole.”
Duke tilted his head, ignoring whatever inside conversation just happened. “So, if you weren’t out of energy, you would have rewound this?” He asked.
Dick’s finger twitched like he wanted to do exactly that. He sighed. “It’s just habit now, when it gets brought up. It was never necessary so I just… ignored it.”
Steph jumped up with something between a glare and a grin on her face. “So I did find out at some point!” She yelled.
Dick groaned, but it was light and almost a laugh. “God, Steph you have no idea how many times I had to rewind to get you out of my apartment.” She gave a maniacal laugh.
Bruce cleared his throat. “Is there anything… notable, we should keep record of?” Duke tilted his head back at the Batman tone, and most of the others groaned out loud.
Dick rolled his eyes with a smile. “Yes, Bruce, I’ll get you a list later.” Bruce gave a short nod. “Okay awesome, let’s never bring this up again,” Dick’s statement was immediately met with multiple protests. He held his hands up. “Until tomorrow.” He conceded.
Everyone gave nods of approval and they made their way upstairs. And if Dick woke up early the next morning to use his abilities to make breakfast perfectly, well nobody had to know.