Chapter Text
[Saturday, May 15, 2021 | 22:05]
[High Earth Orbit, The Watchtower - Medical Bay]
"Home."
The single word hung in the air like a prayer answered, like a promise kept, like the first breath after drowning.
Dick's voice was rough, damaged from disuse and the strain of reintegration, but it was his voice. Not the Winter Soldier's mechanical monotone with that cursed Russian accent. Not the fragmented whisper of a consciousness barely holding together. Just Dick Grayson, speaking with the vocal cords that had been his since birth but had been controlled by programming for four years.
Zatanna's breath caught, her hand tightening around his human hand—warm, real, present. Tears she didn't remember starting streamed down her face as she looked at his eyes.
Blue eyes.
Dick's blue eyes.
Not empty.
Not cold.
Not scanning for threats or calculating optimal strike points.
Just... His.
Exhausted.
Confused.
Overwhelmed.
But undeniably, impossibly, miraculously Dick.
"You're back.", she whispered, her voice breaking on the words, "You're really back. You're—"
She couldn't finish.
The weight of four years—four years of grief and searching and desperate hope that everyone told her was denial—crashed down all at once. Her free hand moved to cover her mouth as a sob escaped, her shoulders shaking.
Dick's fingers twitched against hers. A deliberate movement, conscious and intentional. His hand squeezed back, just slightly, just enough to acknowledge her presence, her touch, her tears.
"Zee.", he said, and even that single syllable carried so much—recognition, apology, love, fear, all tangled together in a voice that was learning to be human again.
Bruce was there in an instant, his hand on Dick's shoulder—careful, mindful of the medical equipment, but present. Grounding. Real.
"Dick.", Bruce's voice was rough in a way Batman's never was, emotion bleeding through the careful control he usually maintained, "Chum. You're safe. You're in the Watchtower medical bay. You're—"
His voice caught, and for a moment Bruce Wayne—not Batman, not the Dark Knight, just a father who'd lost his son and found him again—couldn't continue.
Dick's eyes moved to him, slowly, as if his consciousness was still learning to direct his body's movements. His gaze focused on Bruce's face—older than he remembered, more lines around the eyes, gray threading through the black hair at his temples.
Four years.
He'd been gone for four years.
"Bruce.", Dick said, and the word was layered with complexity—the man who'd raised him, trained him, loved him in the only way Bruce Wayne knew how. The man Dick had tried to kill in Gotham, Belle Reve, and Mount Justice, his metal fist breaking ribs, his programming screaming eliminate the target while some buried part of him screamed no, not him, please not him.
"I—", Dick started, but whatever he was going to say dissolved as his body suddenly rebelled.
His breathing hitched, became rapid and shallow. His heart rate spiked, the medical monitors shrieking alerts. His human hand clenched around Zatanna's hard enough to hurt, his metal hand spasming as neural connections misfired.
Not a seizure.
Not exactly.
Just his consciousness and body trying to resynchronize after existing separately for so long, like a computer rebooting after a catastrophic crash, systems coming online in stuttering bursts rather than smooth integration.
"Dick?!", Zatanna's alarm cut through everything else, her magic instinctively flaring purple-white around her free hand, "What's happening? What's wrong?"
"Neural adjustment.", Dr. Chen was already there, her hands moving across holographic displays with practiced efficiency, adjusting something in the IV drip feeding into Dick's arm, "His brain is reasserting full control over autonomous functions. Heart rate, breathing, motor control—everything was running on autopilot while his consciousness was fragmented. Now that he's integrated, his mind is trying to take conscious command again, and it's overwhelming his nervous system."
She pulled up Dick's brain scan, the holographic image rotating above his bed, showing activity patterns that looked like a storm of lightning across his neural pathways.
"It's like learning to walk again.", she continued, her voice calm despite the chaos of alarms, "Except he's relearning everything simultaneously—how to breathe, how to make his heart beat, how to move his limbs, how to process sensory input. Give him a moment. The adjustments will stabilize."
Bruce's hand remained on Dick's shoulder, steady pressure, an anchor point.
"Breathe, Dick.", Bruce said, his voice dropping into the tone he used when training new Robins through panic attacks, "Focus on my voice. In through your nose. Hold for three seconds. Out through your mouth. You've done this before. Your body remembers even if your mind doesn't quite trust it yet."
Dick's eyes fixed on Bruce's face, using it as a focal point while his nervous system recalibrated. His breathing was still erratic, but he was trying—consciously trying—to follow Bruce's instructions.
In.
Hold.
Out.
In.
Hold.
Out.
Slowly, incrementally, his vitals began to stabilize. The alarms quieted. His heart rate dropped from dangerous levels to merely elevated. His breathing evened out into something that resembled normal respiratory patterns.
"That's it.", Bruce's voice carried approval, "You're doing fine. Just keep breathing."
Behind them, the observation room doors burst open as the Team flooded in, unable to wait any longer.
Wally was first, naturally, vibrating with nervous energy that had nothing to do with his speed force connection. His eyes were red-rimmed, face blotchy from crying, and he looked like he'd aged five years in the past hour alone.
"Dick?", Wally's voice cracked on the name, "Dude, is that really you? Like, really you?"
Behind him, Kaldur moved with Atlantean composure that was betrayed by the tightness around his eyes, the way his hands clenched and unclenched at his sides. Artemis had her arms wrapped around herself, her face carefully neutral in the way that meant she was barely holding together. Conner's expression was stony, but his eyes were suspiciously bright.
M'gann floated slightly off the ground, her telepathic presence a gentle hum at the edge of everyone's consciousness—present but not intrusive, offering connection without forcing it.
Dick's eyes moved to them, recognition flaring in his gaze. His lips moved, trying to form words, but his voice failed him. Too much. Too fast. His nervous system was still catching up to his consciousness, still remembering how to coordinate complex muscle movements like speech.
Zatanna felt his hand trembling in hers, felt the way his entire body was shaking with fine tremors that spoke of complete exhaustion—mental, physical, psychological.
"Give him space.", she said, her voice gentle but firm, projecting to everyone even though she never looked away from Dick's face, "He's conscious, he's him. But he's exhausted. He needs time to adjust."
"Time?", Jason's voice cut through from where he stood in the doorway with Tim and Barbara, "Zee, he's been gone for four years. I think we can give him five minutes to—"
"Jason.", Barbara's hand on his arm, her voice carrying warning, "Look at him. Really look."
Dick's eyes had started to flutter closed, the burst of consciousness and awareness fading as exhaustion overwhelmed his ability to stay present. His breathing was evening out into the deeper, slower pattern of someone slipping toward sleep. His hand in Zatanna's loosened, muscles relaxing as his body surrendered to biological necessity.
"He's crashing.", Dr. Chen confirmed, checking her displays, "The procedure took immense energy. Mentally, physically, psychologically—he's running on empty. His body needs rest to process everything that just happened."
"But he just woke up.", Wally protested, though his voice lacked conviction, "We just got him back. We can't—he can't just—"
"He's not leaving.", Bruce said firmly, his hand still on Dick's shoulder even as his son's consciousness faded, "He's here. He's safe. He's himself. Let him rest. He'll still be here when he wakes up."
Dick's eyes opened one more time, just barely, just enough to look at Zatanna's face. His lips moved, forming words that had no sound behind them, just the shape:
"Love you."
Then his eyes closed, and his breathing shifted into the deep, even pattern of genuine sleep—not unconsciousness, not sedation, just natural, healing rest that his body desperately needed.
Zatanna felt her heart break and heal simultaneously, tears streaming freely now as she lifted his hand to her lips, kissing his knuckles gently.
"I love you too.", she whispered, not caring who heard, not caring about the audience, "Sleep. We'll be here when you wake up. I promise."
Dr. Chen moved around the bed, adjusting monitors, checking IV lines, ensuring everything was stable.
"His vitals are good.", she said, speaking to Bruce and the assembled heroes, "Better than I expected, honestly. Whatever happened in his mindscape, it’s holding for now. His consciousness is stable. He's just... Exhausted. Let him sleep for at least six to eight hours. His body and mind need time to finish the adjustment process."
"And then?", Kaldur asked, his voice carefully controlled, "When he wakes again? What happens then?"
Dr. Chen's expression was troubled as she pulled up Dick's brain scan again, showing the storm of neural activity that was slowly settling into more organized patterns.
"Then we see if the integration is permanent.", she said quietly, "The mindscape procedure, Richard Grayson successfully reclaimed control of his consciousness from the Winter Soldier programming. But we don't know if that control will hold under stress, under triggers, under the weight of four years of suppressed memories suddenly accessible."
She paused, her hands moving across the holographic display, highlighting areas of concern.
"His mind went through systematic destruction and reconstruction. Even with the integration, there will be... Complications. PTSD. Flashbacks. Possible dissociative episodes if something triggers the conditioning. He'll need extensive therapy, probably for years. And we'll need to monitor him carefully for any signs of the programming trying to reassert itself."
"You're saying he might relapse?", Tim's analytical voice cut through the gentle optimism that had been building, "That the Winter Soldier could come back?"
"I'm saying is that we don't know.", Dr. Chen replied honestly, "This is unprecedented. We've never had someone successfully integrate after this level of psychological conditioning. The Martians, Batman, and Zatanna did excellent work to reach him, but all his memories, skills, and neural pathways that four years of being the Winter Soldier are still there, not removed. All of that is still in his head."
She looked at Dick's sleeping form, her expression softening.
"But from what Martian Manhunter told us, he fought for himself in that mindscape. He chose to be Richard Grayson even knowing it meant carrying the weight of everything the Winter Soldier did. That takes incredible strength. If anyone can survive this, it's him."
The Team and Bat Family stood in silence, watching Dick sleep, each of them processing what Dr. Chen had said.
He was back.
But he wasn't the same.
Could never be the same.
The Dick Grayson they'd known—the one who smiled and joked and made everything feel possible—had been forged in the fires of trauma and loss, but he'd emerged with optimism intact, with hope as his shield against the darkness.
This Dick?
This Dick had been systematically destroyed and painstakingly rebuilt. Had spent four years as a weapon, aware but unable to resist, forced to kill while some part of him screamed in horror. Had integrated those memories, accepted them as his own, chosen to carry that weight rather than disappear into comfortable oblivion.
Would he ever smile the same way again?
Would he ever joke about terrible puns during stakeouts?
Would he ever do that backflip off a building just because he could, joy in the motion itself?
Nobody knew.
And the not knowing was almost as hard as the four years of believing he was dead.
M'gann's telepathic presence rippled with gentle reassurance, her voice projecting to everyone present without intruding on Dick's sleeping consciousness.
"He's still in there. I can sense it. The core of who Dick Grayson is—his compassion, his determination, his love for all of us—it survived. It's wounded, yes. It's scarred. But it's present. Give him time. Give him space. Give him the chance to figure out who he is now, after everything."
Zatanna nodded, still holding Dick's hand, her thumb tracing gentle circles on his skin.
"We'll give him whatever he needs.", she said softly, "However long it takes."
Bruce's hand finally lifted from Dick's shoulder, but he didn't move away from the bedside.
"Batgirl.", he said quietly, "Notify the League that Richard Grayson has successfully reintegrated his consciousness. He's stable, resting, and will require monitoring for the next 24-48 hours minimum. Schedule a full League meeting for tomorrow evening to discuss next steps."
"Understood.", Barbara answered, trying to hold the best she could despite all the emotion in her face as she stood in the medical bay, "I'll send the notifications now. But Bruce... Is he really okay?"
Bruce looked at his son—his first son, the boy he'd raised, trained, loved in his clumsy, complicated way—sleeping peacefully for the first time in four years.
"I don't know.", he admitted, "But he's here. That's more than I'd hoped for twenty-four hours ago."
Dr. Chen began ushering people out, insisting that Dick needed quiet, needed rest, needed space to heal without an audience.
"Two people can stay.", she said firmly, "No more. Everyone else needs to clear out and let him sleep."
Nobody argued about who those two people would be.
Zatanna remained in her chair at Dick's bedside, her hand still wrapped around his, her magic a gentle presence that said I'm here, I'm not leaving, you're safe.
And Bruce pulled up a chair on Dick's other side, settling in with the patient determination of someone who'd kept vigil over injured sons more times than he could count.
The others filed out reluctantly, casting backward glances, wanting to stay but understanding the necessity of space.
Wally was the last to leave, pausing in the doorway to look back at his best friend.
"Welcome home, man.", he said quietly, even though Dick couldn't hear him, "We missed you."
Then the doors closed, and the medical bay fell into peaceful quiet.
Just the soft beep of monitors, the gentle hum of life support systems, the sound of three people breathing in the same space.
Dick slept, his mind processing, integrating, healing in ways that would take time to fully understand.
Zatanna kept her vigil, her magic a constant presence, ready to soothe nightmares or anchor him if he started to fragment again.
And Bruce watched over them both, the father who'd failed to protect his son but had never stopped searching, never stopped hoping, never stopped believing that somehow, impossibly, Dick would come home.
Outside the medical bay, dawn was approaching on the planet rotating below them.
A new day.
A new beginning.
And the long, painful process of healing had finally, truly begun.
…
…
…
…
…
[Sunday, May 16, 2021 | 10:30]
[High Earth Orbit, The Watchtower - Medical Bay]
Dick woke to the smell of coffee.
Not the bitter, institutional coffee that permeated most of the Watchtower's communal spaces, but the specific blend that Alfred prepared in the Manor—rich, complex, with notes of chocolate and caramel that somehow made even the worst mornings bearable.
For a moment, he thought he was home.
In his room at the Manor, after a long patrol, with Alfred bringing breakfast on a tray because Master Dick had once again forgotten that human bodies required fuel and rest in addition to crimefighting.
Then he opened his eyes and saw the medical bay's ceiling, and reality crashed back down.
The Watchtower.
The mindscape.
The integration.
The Winter Soldier.
Him.
His breathing hitched involuntarily, and immediately Zatanna's voice cut through the spiral before it could fully form.
"Hey.", she said softly, her hand finding his—still there, still holding on after however many hours he'd been sleeping, "You're okay. You're safe. Just breathe."
Dick's eyes moved to her face. She looked exhausted—dark circles under her eyes, makeup long since cried off, hair falling out of its usually perfect styling. She'd changed at some point, trading her stage outfit for comfortable civilian clothes, jeans and a soft sweater that looked like it might have been his once, years ago.
"How long?", his voice was rough, unused, but it was his voice and that still felt like a miracle.
"About twelve hours.", Zatanna replied, squeezing his hand gently, "Dr. Chen said you needed the rest. Your body was processing a lot."
Dick's gaze moved around the medical bay, cataloging details with the automatic threat assessment that was now permanently wired into his consciousness.
Bruce was gone, though a still-warm coffee cup on the side table suggested he'd only left recently. The monitors showed his vitals—all stable, all within normal ranges for someone with enhanced physiology. Early morning light filtered through the viewports, Earth rotating peacefully below them.
And sitting in chairs arranged in a loose semicircle near his bed were four people who'd apparently been waiting for him to wake up.
Tim, perched on the edge of his seat with a tablet balanced on his knees, his Robin uniform replaced by civilian clothes—a pair of jeans, a plain t-shirt, and a simple Robin merch hoodie.
Jason, leaning back with forced casualness, his Red Hood helmet absent for once, revealing a face that had aged and hardened in ways that made Dick's heart ache. The white streak in his hair, the scars visible on his neck were new, the weight in his eyes was new.
Barbara, sitting with perfect posture in her chair, her expression carefully neutral but her hands clenched tight in her lap.
And Wally, vibrating slightly even sitting still, holding what looked like his fourth or fifth cup of coffee based on the empty cups scattered around his chair.
They'd been waiting for him to wake up.
"Hey.", Wally said, his usual manic energy subdued but present, "Welcome back to the land of the living. Again. For real this time."
Dick's throat tightened. He tried to speak, tried to form words that could possibly express what he was feeling—gratitude, shame, fear, love, all tangled together—but nothing came out except a choked sound that might have been a laugh or might have been a sob.
"It's okay.", Tim said quickly, setting his tablet aside, "You don't have to say anything. We just... We wanted to be here when you woke up. To make sure you knew you weren't alone."
"And because we have a lot to catch you up on.", Jason added, his voice carrying an edge that might have been humor or might have been pain, "Four years is a long time. You missed out on a lot of shit, man."
Dick's hand tightened around Zatanna's, his anchor point, and he forced words past the lump in his throat.
"I remember, but tell me.", he said, his voice barely above a whisper, "Everything. I need to know."
The four of them exchanged glances, some silent communication passing between them about where to start, how much to say, how to explain four years of grief and searching and eventual discovery.
Barbara spoke first, her voice measured and calm.
"Do you remember Siberia?", she asked gently, "The mission four years ago? The meta-human trafficking operation?"
Dick's eyes closed as he reached for the memory. It was there—fragmented, distant, like watching a movie of someone else's life—but present.
"The bunker.", he said slowly, "We were extracting victims. The fight went wrong. The structure was compromised. I ordered everyone to evacuate with the victims while I stayed behind."
He paused, his breathing becoming slightly elevated as more details surfaced.
"The ceiling came down. I tried to get out, but the collapse was too fast. Everything went dark. I thought... I thought that was it. That I was going to die there."
"You should have.", Tim said quietly, and there was no accusation in his voice, just statement of fact, “Would have. The bunker collapsed completely. By the time me, Jason, and Kaldur could get back with emergency equipment, the entire structure was rubble. We searched for hours, Dick. When we told the League, Bruce brought in every resource they had. Ground-penetrating radar, thermal imaging, specialized rescue teams."
"We found nothing.", Wally continued, his voice thick, "No body. No signal from your comm. No trace that you'd even been there except that we knew you had been. Bruce kept searching for weeks. The rest of us... Eventually, we had to accept that you were gone."
Dick's chest tightened as he processed this, as he tried to reconcile his memories of the bunker collapse with what they were telling him.
"But I didn't die.", he said.
"No.", Jason's voice was hard, "You didn't. The League of Shadows pulled you out. Along with some rogue KGB assholes and Deathstroke. They were running the trafficking operation—not to sell the meta-humans, but to test conditioning techniques. And when the bunker came down, they saw an opportunity."
Barbara pulled up a holographic display from her tablet, images flickering in the air above Dick's bed.
Security footage from a Siberian facility. Grainy, low quality, but clear enough to show a figure being dragged through snow. Unconscious. Injured. But alive.
Dick stared at the image—at himself, four years younger, still in his torn Nightwing uniform, being hauled away by soldiers in winter camouflage.
"They took me.", he whispered.
"They took you.", Tim confirmed, his voice tight, "Transported you to a black site facility somewhere in Soviet territory. And then... Then they broke you."
The tablet in his hands displayed more images now. Not security footage this time, but intelligence reports. Psychological assessments. Training logs. All stamped with classifications in Cyrillic and marked with logos Dick recognized—the League of Shadows' symbol, Cadmus designations, and references to "Project: Super Soldier".
"We didn't know.", Wally said, his voice breaking slightly, "We had no idea you were alive. We mourned you, Dick. Bruce held a memorial service, one for the public and one here in the Watchtower. He gave a speech about how you went down a hero, saving those meta-humans, well, in the Watchtower memorial. I spoke at your public service and I... I couldn't get through it. I broke down crying in front of everyone because my best friend was dead and I hadn't been there to save him."
Tears were streaming down Wally's face now, his coffee cup forgotten in his trembling hands.
"Except you weren't dead. You were being tortured. For months. And we didn't know. We didn't come for you. We didn't save you."
"You couldn't have known.", Dick said automatically, though his voice lacked conviction, "If the Shadows covered their tracks—"
"We should have known.", Jason interrupted, his voice harsh, "Bruce is supposed to be the World's Greatest Detective. I'm supposed to be good at tracking down assholes who hurt people. Tim's supposed to be a genius at connecting dots. And we all failed you. For four years, we failed you."
Dick didn't know what to say to that. Didn't know how to process the guilt in their voices, the self-recrimination that mirrored his own feelings about what he'd done as the Winter Soldier.
"Tell me what happened.", he said instead, redirecting to information he could process, facts he could catalog, "After they took me. What did they do?"
Tim's fingers moved across his tablet, pulling up new files.
"According to the intelligence we recovered from Cadmus—and yeah, we broke into Cadmus to get this information, long story—they spent four to six months breaking down your psychological defenses. Torture. Sensory deprivation. Electroshock therapy combined with repeated exposure to activation words in Russian."
The tablet displayed a list, and Dick's breath caught as he read the words, recognizing them immediately even in Cyrillic script.
“Желание.” (Longing)
“Ржавый.” (Rusted)
“Семнадцать.” (Seventeen)
“Рассвет.” (Daybreak)
“Печь“ (Furnace)
“Девять“ (Nine)
“Доброкачественные“ (Benign)
“Возвращение на родину“ (Homecoming)
“Один.” (One)
“Грузовой вагон.” (Freight car)
"The activation sequence. They would strap me to a chair and shock me while reciting those words over and over until the words became... Everything. Until hearing them meant compliance. Until compliance meant survival."
Zatanna's hand tightened around his, her magic flaring purple-white for just a moment before she controlled it.
"You remember.", she said softly.
"Yes.", Dick replied, his voice hollow, "The integration—when I defeated the Winter Soldier in the mindscape—it didn't erase the memories. It just... Made them mine again. Everything he—I—did over the past four years, I remember it now. All of it."
He closed his eyes, and even that wasn't enough to block out the images flooding through his consciousness.
The chair. The electrodes. The officer circling him, speaking the words with clinical precision. The pain—god, the pain—tearing through his nervous system until he couldn't think, couldn't breathe, couldn't do anything except scream.
"Dick?", Barbara's voice cut through the spiral, "Stay with us. Don't get lost in there."
Dick's eyes opened, focusing on her face, using it as an anchor.
"How long?", he asked, "How long did I resist?"
Tim checked his tablet, though Dick suspected he already knew the answer.
"According to the Cadmus files, you held out for approximately three and a half months. Longer than anyone else they'd conditioned. They had to escalate their techniques multiple times because standard methods weren't breaking you fast enough."
Three and a half months.
Ninety days of torture.
Ninety days of fighting with everything he had.
Ninety days of screaming for help that never came.
And then he'd broken.
"What happened after?", Dick asked, though part of him didn't want to know, "After I... Stopped resisting?"
"They moved you to the modification phase.", Barbara said, her voice carefully neutral, professional, doing what she could to confront her friend's mutilation, "Injected you with an enhanced version of the super-soldier serum that they'd refined from the original formula used on Slade Wilson. The serum increased your strength, speed, healing factor—not to Kryptonian or Martian levels, but significantly beyond normal human capability. In a somber way, they gave you powers."
Jason's voice was rough when he continued.
"And then they cut off your arm."
Dick's metal hand flexed involuntarily, servos whirring softly. He'd been trying not to think about it, trying not to focus on the weight difference, the way it moved in response to neural commands that felt foreign and familiar simultaneously.
"It served two purposes. They needed to ‘augment’ your physical capabilities and also needed a genetic sample.", Tim explained, pulling up medical reports that made Dick's stomach turn, "Just like they did with the original Roy Harper. They wanted your DNA, your enhanced physiology post-serum, for cloning, or research purposes, or both. So they performed a surgical amputation—not in a hospital, but there in the bunker, they just... Cut it off and replaced it with a cybernetic prosthetic."
The tablet displayed schematics of the arm—complex machinery, neural interfaces, alloy plating that could withstand superhuman impacts.
"The arm is... Impressive, technically speaking.", Tim continued, his voice carrying a note of anger beneath the analytical tone, "Cadmus and Shadows engineers working together created something that responds to your thoughts faster than a normal biological limb would. The strength is estimated at being able to lift approximately two tons. The metal is a proprietary alloy that's nearly indestructible."
"They made you into a weapon.", Wally said flatly, "They took one of the best fighters on the planet, someone Bruce trained personally, someone who knew how heroes think and how we fight, and they turned you into something designed specifically to kill people like us."
Dick stared at his metal hand, watching the fingers flex and curl in response to his thoughts. It was his hand now.
A part of him.
But it would never be his hand, not really.
It was now always a reminder of what had been taken, what had been done to him.
"When did I become active?", he asked, voice barely above a whisper, "When did the Winter Soldier start... Operating?"
"First confirmed sighting was November 2017.", Barbara replied, "Approximately ten months after your disappearance. You—the Winter Soldier—assassinated a Czech Minister of Defense. Clean kill, in and out, no witnesses except one security guard who survived long enough to describe a masked operative with a metal arm."
She pulled up more files, and Dick felt his chest tighten as he saw the list.
Names. Dates. Locations. Methods of assassination.
So many names.
"The Shadows and their partners—KGBeast's rogue Soviet faction, Deathstroke, probably others we haven't identified—used you for the next three years.", Tim said, his voice tight with controlled anger, "High-value targets. Politicians, diplomats, business leaders, scientists. Anyone who threatened their interests or whose death would advance their goals of global destabilization."
"Two hundred confirmed kills.", Jason said bluntly, "Over three years. That we know of. There are probably more that we just haven't connected to you yet."
Two hundred people.
Two hundred lives ended by his hands.
By his skills.
By everything Bruce had taught him, everything he'd learned, everything he'd become—all of it turned to murder.
Dick's breathing was becoming rapid again, his chest tight.
"And the high-profile targets?", he managed to ask.
Wally took over, his voice gentle despite the horror of what he was describing.
"December 2017. British Prime Minister Lord Michael William Jones. Struck by what appeared to be a runaway truck. Security footage later revealed the driver had been dead for hours. Whoever controlled that vehicle walked away without a trace. Witness accounts—buried in classified files—spoke of a figure on a nearby rooftop, with a flash of silver at his side.”
"November 2019. Korean President Park Gyun-Seol. Killed when a government building suddenly imploded during an address. The official story? Structural failure. Unofficially? Survivors described a man with a mask and an arm made of metal. They said he fired once. And then the building fell.”
"February 2021. German Chancellor Adelheid Meyer."
Dick's breath caught.
That one he remembered with crystal clarity now that the memories were integrated.
The EU-USSR summit in Berlin. Moving through the delegates with mechanical precision. Finding his target. Raising his pistol. The shot. Her falling. Blood pooling on marble floors while chaos erupted around him.
The Team trying to stop him.
Beating them back with systematic efficiency because he knew their fighting styles, knew their weaknesses, knew exactly how to counter everything they'd throw at him.
Escaping into the smoke while sirens wailed and a world leader bled out.
"I killed her.", Dick whispered, and his voice was breaking now, "I remember. I was there. I was aware. Some part of me was screaming to stop, to not pull the trigger, but I couldn't—the programming wouldn't let me—and I killed her."
"The way you fought us felt familiar. Like you knew our techniques. Like you'd trained with us. Batman started suspecting then, I think, but he couldn't prove it. Didn't want to believe it."
"After that was the attack in Gotham.", Jason said, his voice carrying a harder edge, "A week or two after Berlin. Your own fucking foundation, the Richard J. Grayson Foundation Fundraiser at Wayne Manor. Explosions, armed mercenaries, and the Winter Soldier coming specifically for Bruce Wayne."
Dick's metal hand clenched into a fist, servos whining with the force.
"I remember that too.", he said hoarsely, "Fighting Batman and Red Hood in the Manor. You fought well, Jason. Better than in Berlin. You were adapting to my patterns. But I was programmed to adapt faster. I would have killed Bruce if the police sirens hadn't forced me to abort."
"Yeah, well…", Jason’s voice trailed, "I guess we just got lucky."
"At that time, maybe the programming just prioritized escape over mission completion. Asset preservation, or some shit.", Dick countered bitterly.
"Then Moscow.", he said, changing the subject because he couldn't process the implications of what they were suggesting, "I remember Moscow too. The Kremlin. Fighting the Team again. Hurting M'gann."
His voice cracked on her name.
"I remember her telepathic presence trying to reach me, trying to find something human in the void where my consciousness should have been. And I remember the Winter Soldier dismissing it as just another threat to neutralize, calculating exactly how much force was needed to fragment her enough that she couldn't maintain offensive telepathy."
Wally's face had gone pale.
"She told us it was like touching nothing.", he said quietly, "She said your mind was just... Empty. A void where a person should be. She tried three times—Berlin, Moscow, and Singapore—and every time it was the same. She could barely sleep for days after Moscow because how the void felt, it traumatized her."
"I'm sorry.", Dick whispered, knowing the words were inadequate, knowing they couldn't possibly make up for what he'd done, "God, I'm so sorry."
"It wasn't your fault.", Zatanna said firmly, her hand still holding his, her magic a constant gentle presence, "Dick, you have to understand—you were being controlled. The Winter Soldier was in command. You were just... trapped. Aware but unable to affect anything."
"That doesn't change what happened.", Dick said, his voice hollow, "It doesn't bring back Chancellor Meyer or everyone I killed. It doesn't undo what happened to M'gann. It doesn't erase the trauma I caused everyone. I was there. I was aware. And I did those things."
"While being tortured every day.", Tim interjected, "Dick, the conditioning—it wasn't just psychological. The Cadmus files and Ra’s confession showed that they reinforced the programming regularly. If you showed any signs of resistance, any emergence of your original personality, they'd put you back in the chair. Back on the electrodes. Back to the activation words until you complied again."
He pulled up more files, and Dick had to look away from the images of himself—older, harder, empty-eyed—strapped to that chair over and over again.
"You endured four years of that.", Barbara said, her voice gentle, "Four years of being broken down and rebuilt, of being forced to kill while some part of you screamed in horror. You survived something that would have destroyed most people completely. That takes incredible strength, Dick."
"It doesn't feel like strength.", Dick said, his voice breaking, "It feels like weakness. Like I should have been stronger. Should have resisted better. Should have found a way to—"
"To what?", Jason interrupted, his voice sharp, "Break conditioning that Ra’s Al Ghul and Cadmus specifically designed to be unbreakable? Programming that was refined over decades of research and tailored specifically to counter your psychological profile? Dick, you held out for three and a half months before you broke. Most people break in days. Some in hours. You fought like hell."
"And it still wasn't enough.", Dick whispered.
Silence filled the medical bay, broken only by the soft beeping of monitors and the sound of Dick's ragged breathing.
Wally finally spoke, his voice thick with emotion.
"Singapore is where we finally captured you. The trilateral summit between China, Korea, and Japan. You came for the world leaders, and we were ready. We'd learned from Berlin and Moscow. We adapted our tactics, coordinated better, didn't give you openings."
He paused, clearly struggling with the memory.
"Zatanna stopped you. Knocked you unconscious with magic before you could complete the mission. Then… We unmasked you and saw your face for the first time.”
Wally’s breath hitched, “We didn’t know what to do. Bruce was still in Nanda Parbat confronting Ra’s, we called him and he ordered us to bring you to Mount Justice."
"I remember waking up in the detention cell.", Dick said, his memories providing details now, integrated and accessible, "I remember all of you trying to talk to me. Trying to reach me. And I remember not recognizing anyone. Not caring. Just calculating threat levels and escape routes."
"Then someone hijacked the Cave’s systems.", Tim said, his voice carrying residual anger, "Broadcast your activation words through the speakers. We only saw from the security recordings; Jason, Babs, and I were still at the safehouse in DC combing through the Cadmus files. But we watched you try to resist—god, Dick, you fought so hard—but the programming was too strong. The words activated you, and you tore through Wally, Zatanna, and the Team like were nothing."
"I escaped.", Dick said, not a question but a statement, "I remember fighting Bruce. Remember him trying to reach me, trying to make me recognize him. And I remember standing over him after I'd beaten him, looking down at his face, and feeling... nothing. Just mission parameters. Just the need to complete objectives."
"But you didn't kill him.", Zatanna said fiercely, "You had every opportunity. You'd beaten him. You beaten us. We were injured, vulnerable. And you walked away. You let us live."
"The programming prioritized escape over elimination of secondary targets.", Dick said automatically, then stopped, realizing he was still thinking like the Winter Soldier, still categorizing Batman as a target rather than as Bruce, as his father.
“I tried twice.", Bruce's voice came from the doorway, and everyone turned to see him standing there, holding two cups of coffee, "The first was in Belle Reve when you busted out Deathstroke, the second was in Mount Justice when you broke out."
He moved into the medical bay, offering one cup to Zatanna—who took it gratefully—and setting the other on Dick's side table within reach.
"I've been standing in the corridor listening for the past ten minutes.", Bruce admitted, his voice carrying a note of apology, "I didn't want to interrupt. But I need you to hear this, Dick."
He moved to stand at the foot of Dick's bed, his expression more open than usual, more Bruce Wayne than Batman.
"You didn’t recognize me when you were first sent to kill me in Gotham, you didn’t hold back, you took down Jason, Tim, and only escaped because I held you off long enough for GCPD and emergency services to arrive. In Belle Reve, I knew that something was a miss, bastards like Deathstroke wouldn’t surrender willingly without a purpose. You were blowing up your way in as I interrogated him, I tried to reach out to you but failed. You stared at me cold, and didn't even remember who I was."
Dick's throat was tight, his eyes burning with tears he was trying desperately not to shed.
"I tried to kill you.", he whispered, "Gotham, Belle Reve, Mount Justice. I tried to—"
"But you didn't.", Bruce said firmly, "Whether it was because of the circumstances, your programming, or something else entirely, some part of you wouldn't let you succeed. That distinction matters, Dick. It matters more than you know."
"It doesn't feel like it matters.", Dick's voice was breaking now, "It doesn't change what I did to everyone else. The people I killed who didn't have that protection. Chancellor Meyer. President Park. Lord Jones. The two hundred others whose names blur in my mind because there were too many."
"And that's what we need to talk about next.", Tim said quietly, pulling up another file on his tablet, "The attack in New York over a week ago. The US-USSR bilateral summit. That's where everything changed."
Dick's memories provided the details before Tim could continue.
The summit. The final day. Moving through the venue with mechanical precision. Fighting the Team again—they'd adapted even more, fought smarter, coordinated better.
And then Zatanna getting through his defenses.
Zatanna's voice cutting through the programming with magic and desperation and love.
The activation words starting—Deathstroke's voice reciting the sequence that would reset him, would force compliance, would destroy the tiny crack in his conditioning that Zatanna's breakthrough had created.
And then her spell silencing Deathstroke before he could finish.
The incomplete sequence.
The partial activation that had left his programming damaged, vulnerable.
The opportunity that had led to the mindscape procedure, to the battle between Dick Grayson and the Winter Soldier, to his integration and return.
"You saved me.", Dick said, looking at Zatanna, really looking at her, "In New York. You stopped Deathstroke from completing the sequence. If he'd finished, if the programming had been reinforced, I'd still be the Winter Soldier. I'd still be their weapon. You saved me."
"We all saved you.", Zatanna replied, her hand squeezing his, "The Martians who guided us through the mindscape. Bruce who never gave up searching. Tim, Jason, and Barbara who broke into Cadmus to get the intelligence we needed. Wally who, though he had his pessimistic moments-"
An audible, “Hey!", could be heard from the speedster.
But she continued, " We never stopped believing you were still in there somewhere. We all played a part."
"But you're the one who stopped Deathstroke.", Dick insisted, "You're the one who gave me the opening I needed to fight back. You're the one who—"
His voice caught, and suddenly he couldn't hold back the tears anymore.
Four years of pain and horror and guilt came crashing down all at once, the weight of two hundred murders and countless assaults and being forced to hurt the people he loved, and it was too much, too overwhelming, too impossible to process.
Dick broke.
His shoulders shook with sobs he couldn't control, tears streaming down his face, his human hand still clinging to Zatanna's while his metal hand covered his eyes as if he could hide from what he'd become.
"I'm sorry.", he gasped between sobs, "I'm so fucking sorry. I should have been stronger. Should have resisted better. Should have found a way to stop them. I'm sorry."
Zatanna was there immediately, standing, leaning over the bed to wrap her arms around him, her magic flaring purple-white as she held him.
"You have nothing to apologize for.", she whispered fiercely, "Nothing. You survived. You held on long enough for us to find you. You fought back in the mindscape and won. You did what you could, Dick. Everything."
Bruce's hand landed on Dick's shoulder, and Wally moved to the other side of the bed, and suddenly everyone was there, surrounding him, touching him—careful of the medical equipment but present, real, solid.
His family.
His Team.
The people he'd tried to kill.
The people who'd never given up on him.
And for the first time in four years, Dick Grayson let himself believe that maybe, possibly, he could be saved.
That maybe the Winter Soldier hadn't won after all.
That maybe there was still hope for him after all.
…
…
…
…
…
[Sunday, May 16, 2021 | 14:00]
[High Earth Orbit, The Watchtower - Private Recovery Room]
Dr. Chen had insisted on moving Dick to a private room after the debriefing session.
"He needs space to process.", she'd said firmly, overriding protests from the Team who wanted to stay close, "His psychological state is fragile. Too much stimulus, too many people, and he risks fragmenting again. Give him quiet. Give him time."
So they'd moved him to one of the Watchtower's recovery suites—smaller than the main medical bay, designed for long-term patients who needed privacy more than intensive monitoring. The room was comfortable in a sterile, institutional way: a proper bed instead of a medical berth, a small sitting area with a couch and chairs, viewports showing Earth rotating peacefully below.
Dick sat on the couch now, dressed in comfortable civilian clothes that someone had retrieved from his old quarters in the Cave—a soft t-shirt and sweatpants that felt strange after four years of tactical gear. His metal arm was exposed, reflecting the white lights of the room.
He stared at the arm, watching servos shift beneath alloy plating as he flexed his fingers, still trying to reconcile this mechanical thing as part of himself.
Zatanna sat beside him, close but not touching, giving him space while remaining present. She'd changed again—showered, fixed her makeup, put on fresh clothes—but the exhaustion was still visible in her eyes, the weight of four years of grief that had transformed into four hours of desperate hope and now settled into something more complicated.
Relief that he was back.
Fear that he wasn't really back, not completely.
Uncertainty about what happened next.
"You don't have to stay.", Dick said quietly, his voice still rough, "I know you're exhausted. You should rest."
"I'm not leaving you alone.", Zatanna replied, her tone making it clear this wasn't up for negotiation, "Not after everything. Not when you're processing four years of trauma all at once."
"I'm fine."
"You're not fine. Nobody would be fine. And that's okay."
Dick wanted to argue, wanted to insist that he could handle this, that he was trained to compartmentalize, to process and move forward. But the words died in his throat because they'd be a lie.
He wasn't fine.
He was fracturing in slow motion, his integrated consciousness trying desperately to organize four years of memories that kept surfacing in random, violent bursts.
It had started during the debriefing—hearing about Chancellor Meyer's assassination had triggered a full sensory memory, complete and overwhelming. But that had been just one memory, one mission, one kill.
Now, sitting in quiet with nothing to distract him, the flood was beginning.
Dick closed his eyes, trying to center himself with breathing exercises Bruce had taught him when he was eight years old and newly traumatized by his parents' deaths.
In through the nose.
Hold for four counts.
Out through the mouth.
In.
Hold.
Out.
But the breathing exercises didn't work because the memories weren't following any logical pattern, weren't waiting politely for him to be ready to process them.
They just came.
~~~~~
Berlin. February 2021.
The Chancellor's voice echoing through the summit hall, speaking about peace and cooperation and building bridges between East and West. Her words carrying hope, carrying possibility, carrying everything the Shadows wanted to destroy.
Blowing up his way in, dispatching the Team with relative ease.
Drawing his weapon. Acquiring the target. Finger on trigger.
Some part of him—the part that was Dick Grayson, buried and screaming—trying desperately to resist. Trying to make his hand tremble, to throw off the shot, to do anything to prevent what was about to happen.
But the Winter Soldier's programming was absolute. His hand was steady. His breathing controlled. His focus perfect.
The trigger pull. The recoil. The bullet traveling true.
Chancellor Meyer's hands going to her chest. Blood spreading on her blue suit. Her body falling. The podium catching her on the way down, then releasing her to crumple on marble floors that would never be completely clean again.
Chaos erupting. Screaming. Security converging. The Team moving to intercept.
And buried inside his own head, Dick Grayson screaming louder than all of them combined, screaming in a voice only he could hear.
"NO! STOP! PLEASE GOD MAKE IT STOP!"
But it didn't stop. It never stopped. The Winter Soldier just continued the mission and escaped while a woman who'd been trying to make the world better bled out behind him.
~~~~~
Dick's eyes snapped open, his breathing ragged, his human hand gripping the couch cushion so hard the fabric tore slightly.
"Dick?", Zatanna's voice, careful and concerned, "What just happened?"
"Memory.", he managed to say, his voice strangled, "Berlin. I remembered killing her. Not just the facts—I remembered being there. Remembered the shot. Remembered her falling. Remembered the part of me that was still Dick Grayson screaming inside my own head while I pulled the trigger."
Zatanna's hand moved to his arm—his human arm—gentle pressure that said I'm here, I'm real, you're not in Berlin anymore.
"You were aware.", she said quietly, "When we talked about it during the debriefing, I wasn't sure if you meant aware like remembering afterwards or aware like present during. But you were there. Conscious. Just unable to control anything."
"Every mission.", Dick whispered, "Every kill. I was there. Aware. Screaming. And nobody could hear me because I was trapped inside my own body while the Winter Soldier used my skills, my training, my knowledge to murder people."
He turned to look at her, and his eyes were haunted.
"Do you understand what that's like? Being a prisoner in your own head? Feeling your hands move, your muscles respond, your body perform actions that your consciousness is screaming against? It's not like being unconscious and having someone else operate your body. It's worse. It's being present for every moment, every decision, every kill, and being completely unable to stop it."
"That's torture," Zatanna said, her voice thick with emotion, "Dick, that's another layer of torture on top of everything else they did to you. Not just the physical conditioning but the psychological horror of being aware and helpless."
"I thought I was going insane.", Dick said, and the admission felt like tearing open his chest, "The first few missions, I kept thinking maybe this was punishment. Maybe I'd died in Siberia and this was hell—being forced to watch myself become everything I'd sworn to fight against. Being forced to hurt people, to kill people, while some part of me screamed uselessly in the background."
He laughed, but there was no humor in it.
"And then I started hoping I was insane. Because insanity would mean this wasn't real. Would mean the people I was killing weren't really dying. Would mean I could wake up and discover it had all been a nightmare."
"But you never woke up."
"No. I never woke up. Because it wasn't a nightmare. It was real. All of it was real."
Another memory surfaced, violent and immediate.
~~~~~
Korea. November 2019.
Three weeks undercover as kitchen staff at the Presidential Palace. Three weeks of playing a role and building a cover identity, being Alexei Lee, a Russian-Korean translator, instead of the Winter Soldier.
Except there was no real difference. Alexei was just another mask, another identity constructed by programming. And underneath both the Alexei mask and the Winter Soldier programming was Dick Grayson, screaming.
The state address. Hundreds of guests. Security everywhere. But security was looking for external threats, not for the catering staff who'd been thoroughly vetted three weeks ago when the Winter Soldier had infiltrated their ranks.
Moving through the kitchen with practiced ease, readying the detonator that would bring the entire building down.
Dick Grayson screaming: "DON'T DO THIS! HE'S A GOOD MAN! DON'T—"
But the Winter Soldier's hands didn't tremble, he made his way to the pre-designated safe zone.
One press, and the entire building came crashing down.
President Park Gyun-Seol died in the collapse.
And Dick Grayson, still screaming inside his own head, added another name to the list of people he'd murdered while being unable to stop himself.
~~~~~
"Korea.", Dick gasped, his hand moving to his chest as if he could physically feel the horror of that memory, "President Park. I blew up the building. Spent three weeks building a cover identity, getting close, earning trust. And then I killed him, his own security detail didn’t even know I did it."
Zatanna's magic flared instinctively, purple-white energy crackling around her hands before she controlled it.
"That wasn't you," she said firmly, "Dick, you have to separate—"
"How?" Dick interrupted, his voice rising, "How do I separate myself from what I did when I was there? When I remember his face? When I remember setting up the explosives? When I remember the speech he was delivering about ‘a new era for the people of Korea, united’?"
He stood abruptly, his metal arm spasming as his emotional state affected his neural control.
"I’m remembering all of them, Zee. Not just the high-profile targets. All two hundred. Some are fragmented—just flashes of faces, of final moments—but others are crystal clear. Every detail. Every sound. Every smell. Every expression on their faces when they realized they were going to die."
He was pacing now, unable to stay still, his breathing becoming rapid.
"There was a scientist in Prague. Dr. Helena Novak. She was working on renewable energy technology that would have undermined fossil fuel markets. The Shadows wanted her dead because one of their financial backers had investments in oil. I remember breaking into her apartment at three in the morning. I remember her waking up, seeing me standing over her bed, and the look on her face—she knew. She knew she was going to die. And she begged. In Czech. She begged for her life, said she had children, said please don't do this."
Dick's voice was breaking now, tears streaming down his face.
"And I killed her anyway. Snapped her neck because the programming said that was the most efficient method. Quick. Clean. Minimal struggle.
And inside my head, Dick Grayson was screaming, 'SHE HAS CHILDREN! DON'T DO THIS! PLEASE!', but it didn't matter because the Winter Soldier didn't care about children or begging or anything except mission completion."
"Dick—", Zatanna stood, moving toward him.
"There was a diplomat in Cairo," Dick continued, his voice taking on a manic edge as the memories kept flooding through, "Trying to negotiate peace between Israel and Palestine. Shot him in his hotel room while he was video calling his daughter. I remember her face on the laptop screen. I remember her confusion when her father suddenly fell forward. I remember her screaming when she saw the blood splatter as she realized what had happened."
He turned to face Zatanna, and his expression was shattered.
"There was a journalist in Manila exposing corruption. A labor organizer in Kyiv trying to improve working conditions. A human rights lawyer in Istanbul defending refugees. A doctor in Johannesburg developing affordable treatments for HIV. A teacher in Mumbai who was advocating for girls' education."
His breathing was becoming erratic, hyperventilating, as memory after memory crashed through his consciousness.
"I killed them all. Some with guns. Some with knives. Some with my bare hands—with this hand—", he held up his metal arm, "—snapping necks, crushing windpipes, all the things Bruce taught me never to do, all the lines I swore I'd never cross, and I crossed every single one while being aware enough to know exactly what I was doing and unable to stop myself."
"Dick, you need to breathe.", Zatanna said urgently, moving closer but not touching him yet, recognizing that he was spiraling, "You're having a panic attack. Focus on my voice. Focus on breathing."
But Dick was too far gone, the memories overwhelming his ability to regulate.
~~~~~
Moscow. February 2021.
The Kremlin. Fighting the Team. They'd adapted since Berlin, coordinated better, didn't give him as many openings.
But he was still winning because he knew them. Knew how Kaldur thought, how Wally moved, how Conner relied on his strength, how M'gann used her telepathy.
And the worst part—the absolute worst part—was feeling Dick Grayson's consciousness begging.
Begging the Winter Soldier not to hurt them.
Begging for mercy that the programming couldn't provide.
"THEY'RE MY FRIENDS! THEY'RE MY FAMILY! DON'T HURT THEM!"
But the Winter Soldier didn't care. Mission parameters said defeat opposition. So he defeated them.
Wally first. Two shots, the first missing but the second hitting his thigh.
Dick screaming.
"NO! NOT WALLY! HE'S MY BEST FRIEND! PLEASE!"
Conner next. Using his strength against him, throwing him through walls.
Dick screaming.
"HE'S MY BROTHER! STOP IT! STOP!"
And M'gann, her telepathic presence trying to reach him, trying to find some fragment of a person in the void where the Winter Soldier was.
Finding nothing because Dick was buried too deep, suppressed too completely.
The Winter Soldier's metal fist catching her ribs. The sound of bones breaking. Her cry of pain.
Dick Grayson's consciousness shattering in sympathetic agony.
"NO! M'GANN! I'M SORRY! I'M SO SORRY! PLEASE SOMEONE MAKE IT STOP!"
But nobody could hear him. Nobody could save him. He was alone in his own head, forced to watch himself hurt the people he loved most in the world.
~~~~~
Dick collapsed to his knees, his hands moving to his head as if he could physically extract the memories, as if he could claw them out and make them stop.
"I hurt you.", he gasped, "I hurt all of you. In Moscow, M'gann, Kaldur, Wally, Conner, Artemis, Raquel, Jason, Tim, Babs, you. I knew who you guys were. Some part of me was screaming your names, screaming for you guys to run, to get away from me. But I couldn't make my mouth form the words. Couldn't make my body stop. Could only watch myself hurt the people I love while being completely aware of what I was doing."
Zatanna was kneeling beside him now, her hands hovering near his shoulders but not touching, not wanting to make contact without permission.
"Dick, listen to me.", she said, her voice carrying both urgency and gentleness, "You're dissociating. You're losing connection with the present moment. I need you to ground yourself. Can you feel the floor beneath you? Can you feel the air conditioning? Can you hear my voice?"
"I can hear all of it.", Dick whispered, "I can hear everything. The memories are so loud, Zee. They won't stop. Every time I close my eyes, I see their faces. Everyone I killed. Everyone I hurt. And I can't make it stop."
"Then don't close your eyes.", Zatanna said firmly, "Look at me. Right now. Look at my face and focus on me. Not on the memories. On me."
Dick forced his eyes open, forced himself to focus on Zatanna's face. Blue eyes meeting blue eyes. Her expression was open, concerned, but not afraid. Not disgusted. Not repulsed by what he'd become.
Just... Present.
"That's good.", she said, "Keep looking at me. I'm going to touch you now, okay? Just your arm. Just to help ground you."
Her hand settled on his human arm, warm and real and solid.
"You're in the Watchtower.", she continued, her voice steady, "You're safe. You're not in London, or Seoul, or Berlin, Gotham, Moscow. You’re not in anywhere of those places. You're here, with me, and you're safe."
"I don't…”, his voice hitched.
“I don’t think I deserve to be safe. Two hundred people are dead because of me. How many families did I destroy? How many children lost parents? The world I helped destabilize? How many—"
"Stop.", Zatanna interrupted, her voice carrying command now, "Dick, I need you to hear me. Really hear me. What was done to you—the conditioning, the torture, the programming—none of that was your fault. You didn't choose to become the Winter Soldier. You didn't volunteer to be a weapon. You were taken. You were broken. You were used."
"But I still did it.", Dick said, "My hands. My skills. My body. I pulled the triggers. I threw the punches. I denoted the explosives. I killed them."
"While being tortured.", Zatanna countered, "While having your consciousness suppressed. While being forced through systematic psychological conditioning specifically designed to make you incapable of resisting. Dick, you were a prisoner in your own body. That doesn't make you responsible for what that body did under someone else's control."
"The law won't see it that way."
"Fuck the law.", Zatanna said, and Dick's eyes widened slightly at the vehemence in her voice, "I mean it. Fuck legal definitions of responsibility. Fuck trying to determine culpability. You were a victim. You are a victim. And I'm not going to let you take on guilt for crimes you committed while being actively tortured and mind-controlled."
Dick wanted to argue, wanted to insist that accountability mattered, that responsibility couldn't just be dismissed because the circumstances were complicated.
But another memory was already surfacing, violent and immediate.
~~~~~
The chair. The torture chamber. Some facility in Siberia or maybe somewhere else—the locations blurred together after a while.
This session was different. This was punishment for resistance.
Because the Winter Soldier had hesitated during a mission. Just for a microsecond. Just long enough for Dick Grayson's consciousness to nearly break through, to nearly make his mouth form words.
"Please. Help me."
The target had escaped. Mission failure.
So back to the chair.
Back to the electrodes.
Back to the words.
The officer standing over him, face impassive, reciting the activation sequence while electricity tore through Dick's nervous system.
“Желание.” (Longing)
Pain beyond description. Every nerve ending on fire.
“Ржавый.” (Rusted)
Screaming. Always screaming. His voice raw and broken.
“Семнадцать.” (Seventeen)
The part of him that was Dick Grayson trying to hold on to his identity, trying to remember Bruce's face, Zatanna's laugh, Wally's jokes—anything that proved he was a person and not just a weapon.
“Рассвет.” (Daybreak)
Memories dissolving under the assault. Personality fragmenting. Everything that made him him being systematically destroyed.
“Печь“ (Furnace)
“Девять“ (Nine)
“Доброкачественные“ (Benign)
“Возвращение на родину“ (Homecoming)
“Один.” (One)
And finally.
“Грузовой вагон.” (Freight car)
The world going quiet. His screaming stopping. His resistance ending.
The officer's voice, satisfied, "Солдат?" (Soldier?)
And his own voice, flat and mechanical.
"Готов подчиняться." (Ready to comply.)
Ready to be a weapon again.
Ready to kill. Ready to follow orders without question or hesitation because questioning meant pain and pain was all that existed in the spaces between missions.
~~~~~
Dick was convulsing now, his body shaking with tremors that had nothing to do with temperature. The memory of the chair was visceral, physical, as if his nervous system was remembering the electricity even though it wasn't actually present.
"The chair.", he gasped, "That fucking chair. Every time I resisted, every time some part of me tried to break through, they'd put me back in the chair. Back to the words. Back to the pain until I stopped being Dick Grayson and became the Winter Soldier again."
Zatanna's magic flared, instinctive protective response. Purple-white energy wrapped around Dick like a blanket, not restraining but soothing, trying to calm his nervous system's phantom response to remembered trauma.
"Peels.", she whispered, and the spell carried through, not forcing sleep but offering it, making rest available if he wanted to accept it.
But Dick shook his head, fighting against the gentle pull of her magic.
"I can't sleep.", he said, "Every time I sleep, I dream. And the dreams are just memories on repeat. Chancellor Meyer falling. President Park dying. Dr. Novak begging. The chair. The electrodes. The words. Over and over. I can't escape it."
"Then we need to get you help.", Zatanna said firmly, standing and offering her hand, "Professional help. Dinah is a psychologist trained in trauma therapy. J’onn and M’gann can do more telepathic work to help organize your memories, make them less overwhelming."
"No more telepathy.", Dick said immediately, his voice carrying panic, "Please. No more people in my head. I just got control back. I can't—I can't let anyone else in. Not yet."
"Okay.", Zatanna agreed quickly, "No telepathy. But therapy. Anything to help with the panic attacks, the flashbacks. Dick, you're experiencing severe PTSD. That's not something you can just push through."
"I've had PTSD before.", Dick said, and his voice was bitter, "After my parents died. After Jason died and came back. After everything with the Reach invasion, thinking that Wally was dead. I know how to manage it."
"This is different.", Zatanna said gently, "This isn't trauma from witnessing something horrible or from losing someone. This is trauma from being systematically tortured for four years while being forced to commit atrocities. The scale is completely different."
Dick knew she was right. Knew that what he was experiencing went beyond anything he'd dealt with before. But admitting that felt like admitting weakness, and weakness felt dangerous in ways his training had never fully addressed.
Another memory surfaced, and this one was worse because it was mundane.
Not a high-profile assassination.
Not a mission.
Just... Maintenance.
~~~~~
Some facility. Some time between missions. Being strapped to the chair not as punishment but as routine.
Reinforcement conditioning. The Shadows didn't wait for him to show signs of resistance. They reinforced the programming regularly, preventatively, ensuring Dick Grayson stayed buried.
The words spoken in calm, clinical tones. The electricity measured, calibrated to cause maximum psychological impact without permanent physical damage.
And the worst part—the absolute worst part—was that this had become normal.
Dick Grayson's consciousness, buried deep, had stopped screaming during these sessions. Had learned that screaming changed nothing, that resistance was futile, that the only way to survive was to retreat so far into himself that the pain couldn't quite reach.
Dissociation as survival mechanism.
Becoming nothing as protection against being destroyed.
The officer finishing the sequence, asking the ritual question.
"Солдат?"
And the Winter Soldier responding with mechanical precision.
"Готов подчиняться."
But underneath, so deep that even the Winter Soldier couldn't detect it, Dick Grayson still existed.
A spark.
A fragment.
A tiny piece of consciousness that refused to be completely erased.
Waiting.
Hoping.
Praying that somehow, someday, someone would find him and bring him home.
~~~~~
"They conditioned me between missions.", Dick said, his voice distant, dissociated, "Not just when I resisted. Regularly. Preventatively. Every few weeks, back to the chair. Back to the words. Back to the pain. To make sure I stayed compliant."
He looked at his hands—one human, one metal—and his expression was haunted.
"I stopped fighting after a while. Stopped screaming. Because screaming didn't change anything. The pain came whether I resisted or not. So I learned to retreat. To hide so deep inside myself that the pain couldn't quite reach. To become nothing so they couldn't destroy me."
"But you didn't become nothing.", Zatanna said fiercely, "You survived. That spark of Dick Grayson that stayed hidden—that was you surviving the only way you could. That was strength, not weakness."
"It felt like weakness.", Dick whispered, "It felt like giving up. Like surrendering. Like letting them win."
"Survival isn't surrender.", Zatanna said, "Survival is the most fundamental act of resistance. Every day you stayed alive, every mission you completed while some part of you stayed hidden and aware, every moment you didn't let them completely erase you—that was you fighting back. Maybe not in ways that felt heroic or dramatic, but fighting nonetheless."
Dick wanted to believe her. Desperately wanted to accept that surviving four years of systematic torture was an accomplishment rather than a failure.
But the memories kept coming, relentless, overwhelming, each one carrying its own weight of horror and guilt.
A child's face in Jakarta, watching from a window as the Winter Soldier killed his father.
A wedding in Athens that the Winter Soldier disrupted with a bomb that killed seventeen people, including the bride.
A hospital in Damascus where the Winter Soldier had terminated a doctor who was treating refugees, regardless of their political affiliations, because she was an activist against the Syrian dictatorship.
On and on and on.
Two hundred names.
Two hundred faces.
Two hundred final moments that Dick Grayson had been forced to witness while being unable to stop himself.
"I—I can't do this.", he said finally, his voice breaking, "Zee, I can't carry all of this. The weight of it—it's too much. Every time I think I've processed one memory, three more resurface. Every time I start to feel stable, another wave hits. How am I supposed to live with this? How am I supposed to function knowing what I've done?"
Zatanna's hands cupped his face, forcing him to look at her, to focus on her presence rather than the memories threatening to drown him.
"One moment at a time.", she said firmly, "One breath at a time. One day at a time. You don't have to carry all of it at once. You don't have to process four years of trauma in four hours. Give yourself permission to take it slow."
"I don't know how to take it slow.", Dick said, "I don't know how to be anything except Batman's protégé who pushes through pain and keeps going. But this—I don't know how to keep going with this."
"Then we'll figure it out together.", Zatanna said, "You, me, Bruce, the Team, everyone who loves you. We'll help you carry this until you're strong enough to carry it yourself. And eventually, with time and therapy and work, the memories will become less overwhelming. They'll never go away completely—trauma doesn't work like that—but they'll become manageable."
"How do you know?", Dick asked, his voice small, younger than his twenty-five years, "How do you know I'll ever be okay again?"
"Because I know you.", Zatanna said simply, "I know Richard Grayson. I know that you've survived impossible things before. I know that you have a capacity for hope and resilience that most people can't even comprehend. And I know that you just defeated the Winter Soldier in your own mind, which means you're stronger than four years of conditioning. If you can do that, you can survive this too."
Dick wanted to believe her. Wanted to trust that eventually, someday, the memories would stop feeling like they were tearing him apart from the inside.
But right now, in this moment, with his consciousness still raw from integration and his mind still flooding with suppressed memories, belief felt impossible.
All he could do was hold onto Zatanna's hands, let her magic soothe the worst of his panic, and try to breathe through each memory as it surfaced.
One moment at a time.
One breath at a time.
One day at a time.
It wasn't much.
But it was all he had.