This is the piece I've been wanting to write since like February, and I cried the entire time I wrote this. I also cried while editing. This is sad and I'm sad and I hope that this is a worthy finish to this series.
He was going to die.
Oh god, Bruce wasn't going to make it through another one. He was so stupid, such a horrible son for dying so soon after Jason's death had shattered Bruce into a million little pieces. His only consolation was that Bruce would still have Tim and Alfred after he was gone. Bruce wouldn't be completely alone.
And maybe, just maybe, this was some sort of justice. Some sort of recompense for waging a war he didn't know how to win without throwing his friends into danger. It was a stupid recompense then, because his death would do nothing but break his family and prove that he was just as weak as he thought.
The only thing that would linger after his death would be pain. He'd leave everyone else behind to take care of the pieces, and he couldn't do that. He couldn't. He knew exactly how it felt to pick up those pieces, and he never wanted another living soul to feel like he did the day his parents fell or the day Jason didn't come back, because it was unimaginable. It was pain.
He couldn't do that to someone else.
And yet, here he was. He was going to die, and there was nothing he could do. The cold metal of the gun held to his head as the rain washed down on him, the chilly eyes of a killer staring down at him as the gunman straddled him.
The gunman's lips pulled back in a snarl. "You put my brother in jail, Nightwing!" the man yelled. "You ruined our lives, and now I will ruin yours!"
He was alone in an alley in the backstreets of Gotham. No one was coming for him. Batman and Robin were dealing with a gang war, and they had no idea a maniac had taken advantage of his slowed reflexes, still suffering from months of sleep deprivation. He was alone, he was stupid, and now he was going to pay for it.
Dick was going to die.
And he was terrified.
The man's hand shook, and Dick couldn't close his eyes. He watched as the man screamed incoherently and then—
—the man pulled the trigger. Dick was a dead man.
It took Dick a minute to realize that, no, he wasn't actually dead, and yes, the shot really had missed his forehead, grazing his ear instead. I took even longer to realize that the gunman wasn't even on top of him anymore.
Dick was alive, and the sound of a scuffle reached Dick's ears as he tried to process that fact. He blinked, and then blinked again.
What had just happened?
The sounds of the fight stopped when the gunman cried out, and then it was quiet. Just the sound of Dick's very loud, very fast breathing and the raindrops pattering against the alleyway. It was disconcerting, but Dick couldn't make himself move.
It was stupid. If it had been six months ago, he would already be up on the rooftop by now. Physically, he was fine. Mentally, he was all sorts of messed up still, and he couldn't make himself move, even with a potential threat still in the alley with him.
"Nightwing?"
Dick's face crumpled, his breathing picking up to dangerous level, his heart trying to beat straight out of his chest. Dick blinked one more time, and then Wally's green eyes were peering down at him uncertainly.
"Hey, hey," Wally soothed, but he sounded too shaky to be comforting, his eyes too wide as he watched his friend panic next to him. "Hey, you're okay, 'Wing. Just, uh, take a deep breath. In, then out, yeah?"
It was Wally. Wally was here. Why was Wally here? Shouldn't he be with his family in Central City? Or at college, living with Artemis? Wally was literally supposed to be anywhere but Gotham, but Wally seemed to have picked up the habit of randomly sticking his nose into Dick's life, because there he was.
And god. Wally was the only reason Dick was even alive right now. He'd be dead with a bullet through his head if Wally hadn't saved him.
Wally's hands hovered over Dick's face, and he looked like he'd wanted to do what he used to do all those years ago when Dick had a panic attack. And Dick kind of wished he would. Maybe if Wally pressed a hand to Dick's cheek, grounding him, and smoothed back his hair and cracked a corny joke that could hardly be considered funny, maybe then Dick would finally fell like he was okay again.
He wasn't okay, though. And Wally didn't do any of those things. Dick couldn't breathe.
"Dick," Wally said, his voice still shaky. He gently peeled off Dick's mask. "Dick, look at me. I need you to look at me, okay? Listen to my voice. You're okay, alright? You're fine. Just, just, uh, goddammit, I need you to breathe, Dick."
Dick wasn't a stranger to panic attacks, and this one wasn't anything special. They all left Dick breathless, they all left Dick drained, and they were all equally terrifying. All the same. Fortunately—or maybe unfortunately—Dick knew a trick to stop the panic attacks before they could cause him to pass out.
When Bruce had been at the office and Alfred had been too busy to bother, or when Dick had been at school and had class in five minutes and there had been no one to help Dick deal with the rising panic in his chest, Dick had forced himself to hold his breath for fifteen seconds, let it out, try to breathe slowly for another fifteen, and then hold his breath again if it didn't work the first time.
It was a familiar pattern that Dick fell into when he forced himself to stop breathing then, in that alley, counting dutifully in his head. One, two, three, four. Wally's eyes widened furthered, and he looked horrified.
"Dick?" Wally whispered, his trembling fingers finally falling to Dick's jaw, cupping it gently as Dick stopped his oxygen intake. Wally's sudden touch caused Dick to let out his breath with a gasp, and he was back to square one. He couldn't get enough air. "Dick, stay with me."
Dick felt a sudden urge of anger. At Wally, or himself, he didn't know, but it filled him up, and Dick felt like he wanted to punch something, a scream building up inside of him that he was too breathless to let out.
"Why," Dick said, the word just a puff of breath against his lips, all but disappearing under the onslaught of rain. Dick's face crumpled, and then the scream tearing him apart inside tore free, and tears spilled over, mixing with the raindrops. "WHY!"
Wally flinched back, his fingers leaving Dick's jaw. "Dick—"
But Dick's composure had left the moment the man's gun had rested on his forehead. He used what breath he could. "Why, Wally?" Dick sobbed. "Why did you think I wasn't doing everything I could possibly do to make sure everyone came out alive?!"
"Dick," Wally pleaded. "Please don't, Dick. Not right now."
"I tried," Dick told him desperately, his hands scrabbling for Wally's arms, finding them and squeezing, barely even listening to what the other was trying to tell him. "I tried so hard to keep everyone safe. I tried. And it wasn't enough." Dick choked on his own tears. "Jason died, Wally, and I thought that was the worst of it. And then I had to send Kaldur undercover like it wasn't the hardest fucking thing I'd ever done!
"And you know what?" Dick asked between sobs. "I agonized over it every single day. I wanted to tell someone, anyone, what I had done, but I didn't know how! I didn't know how to admit that I was slowly dying inside because I had just sent one of my best friends on a suicide mission."
It was all coming out now. Everything that he'd kept tucked deep into his very being, his insecurities, his nightmares, he was laying them all down for Wally to see, and he felt so bare. Like he was being stripped and stared at, and he hated it.
But he couldn't make himself stop.
"I didn't know who else to go to," Dick cried, his shoulders shaking with the force of his sobs. "So I went to you, even though you and Artemis had quit the team. I went to you thinking you would support me. And thank god you did, but then I had to get Artemis involved. I had to, Wally. There was no way I couldn't. Kaldur needed help, and I couldn't do it without compromising everything Kaldur had worked for, no matter how much I wanted to.
"And then Mount Justice blew up, and I was alone. I was completely alone," Dick told him, squeezing Wally's arms harder. Wally winced a bit, but didn't move otherwise. "There was no one else to go to, Wally! You turned your back on me, and I was already drowning. I was the goddamn Batman, patrolling Gotham and then turning around and patrolling Blüdhaven, and keeping tabs on Kaldur and Artemis and the Light and the Reach, and then doing damage control for the Justice League with the public, and running the team.
"It was so much, Wally," Dick sobbed. "It was so much, and I was all alone."
You left me alone.
Wally was staring down at him, eyebrows crumpled, expression distraught. Not talking. Just listening as Dick screamed his feelings at him, and it made Dick angry. He wanted Wally to say something. Anything.
"Say something!" Dick yelled, before his voice lowered to a whisper. "Please. Just say something, Wally."
Wally didn't say anything. Instead, he leaned down and, to Dick's complete surprise, tucked his arms around Dick's shoulders, pulling him into an embrace.
Dick cried and cried there in that alley, tucked into the safety of Wally's arms as the world passed them by, and Dick couldn't stop himself. He couldn't stop himself from crying, or leaning into Wally's comfort, and he found that he really, really was pathetic.
Batman found them like that almost a half hour later. Wally, in his Kid Flash suit, cradled Dick (sans mask) in his arms, hidden away in the shadow of some stacked crates. Dick was all but passed out, shivering and shaking in the rain, his face scrunched up.
"What happened?" Batman growled as Robin dropped down next to him. Wally flinched slightly, his arms tightening around Dick. "Kid Flash, I swear—"
"The guy was going to kill him," Wally said, his voice shaky. "I stopped the guy, tied him up, but he—Nightwing had a panic attack."
Batman's gaze roamed further into the alley where a skinny, pathetic looking man lied, unconscious and bound, a gun a few feet away, the clip missing. Batman's stomach flipped at the sight, and he swallowed the urge to wrap Dick up in his cape and never let him go. 3 months gone and then his son was almost murdered without him even realizing.
He didn't let it show, though. He kept those feelings hidden underneath the cowl and refused to react. Later. Dick wasn't dead, so he could deal with those feelings later. For now, he needed to get the perp to the police, and Dick back home.
"Robin," Batman said, catching the teen's attention. "Take Nightwing and Kid Flash to the Cave. Have Agent A look over Nightwing, and then call it a night."
Robin tensed, almost looking like he was going to argue, and if Bruce weren't Batman right then, he would have raised an eyebrow. Waiting for Tim to call out Bruce for being an ass, indeed. It looked like Dick had really called that one.
But in the end, Robin slumped, and moved towards Wally and Dick. "Alright," Robin told Batman before turning to Wally. "The Batmobile is a parked out on the street. Can you carry him to it?"
Wally nodded, and they left. Batman let them go, and turned to the perp. It was going to be a long night.
Tim was seething.
Batman was brooding, Wally was back in Gotham, and Dick had just had a panic attack. A wonderful night, all in all, Tim thought as the Batmobile came to a stop in the Cave. He climbed out of the driver's seat, watching as Wally pulled Dick, still really out of it, from the backseat.
"Master Tim?" Alfred asked from the stairs, looking like he'd just come down from the manor above. "Is everything alright?"
Tim shrugged, gently peeling off his mask. "I'm not sure. Batman told us to call it a night."
Wally moved forward, into Alfred's line of sight, and the butler frowned. "Is Master Dick injured?" the butler asked, climbing down the stairs.
Wally just shook his head as he and Tim made their way to medical, Alfred just behind them. Setting Dick on the bed, Tim noticed that besides a small nick to Dick's ear, he was physically fine. Mentally, Tim could only wince as the thought of Dick's mental state. Who knew how horrible Dick would feel when he woke up.
While Alfred reassured himself with Dick's well-being, Tim turned on his heel, heading for the changing room. He grabbed a few towels once he was dressed in a pair of sweats and one of Dick's old sweaters, coming back into the medbay just as Alfred finished pulling up a Dick's sweats, the Nightwing suit puddled on the floor.
Tim handed Alfred a towel, before throwing one to Wally. Wally caught it, but didn't do much more than hold it loosely in his hands. Tim toweled his own hair dry.
"Thank you," Tim said after a moment, watching Wally watch Dick. "For saving his life. For—For being there."
Wally was quiet, and again, Tim found he couldn't understand how Wally and Dick had been such good friends. All Tim ever saw when he looked at Wally was anger and fear, and Dick's warm personality and his good heart seemed to drown in Wally's presence. How could two people like them be friends at all?
"I thought you were mad at me," Wally finally said, where almost anyone else would have taken the thank you and told Tim It was the least I could do. It's Dick. Wally really didn't make any sense sometimes. "For barging into your kitchen a few weeks ago."
Tim bit his lip. The truth was, he was angry at Wally for forcing Dick to confront his demons before he was ready.
Back then, in the kitchen all that time ago, Wally had visited, and then Dick had spiraled. He fluctuated between happy and so unbelievably depressed, and he didn't sleep, and then just when Tim thought that maybe they might be making some progress, he found out that Dick had just buried everything inside him, and in a fit, it'd been let out only when Bruce could comfort him.
In short, Tim had been useless. And Wally hadn't helped one single bit. Wally made Tim so mad. How could he just abandon Dick like that? The guy had been dead, sure, but Dick had been dealing with the aftermath of Wally being dead, and in Tim's very informed opinion, dealing with someone's death was almost like dying yourself.
Wally, though, he hadn't seemed to get it before it. Now, though, there was something to his shoulders that made Tim wonder just what Dick had spilled out to him. What had changed Wally from anger and exhaustion to—to grief?
"I am," Tim admitted. "I mean, I was. But not for barging into the kitchen." Wally finally looked away from Dick, meeting Tim's eyes. Tim faltered a little at the blazing green, but he didn't back down. "I was, uh, angry with you, but it was really only because you seemed to blame Dick for every little thing that went wrong around you."
Wally swallowed. "What do you mean? I didn't—"
"You did," Tim said, wringing his hands. He wasn't any good at this. "Dick was under so much stress, it was breaking him, Wally. And then you died and came back to life, and Dick was trying to cope, is still trying to cope, and you weren't there to help him through it."
"I was dealing with coming back to life," Wally murmured. "Everything was, well. It was hard, Tim. To come back from the Speed Force like that. I was angry."
"But you're not now?" Tim asked.
Wally's eyes drifted back to Dick, Alfred stood back with a sigh, picked up the Nightwing suit and Tim's used towel, patted Tim on the shoulder, and walked out, leaving them to their conversation. Probably a good thing Alfred stayed out of this. Maybe Tim should be staying out of this, too.
"I am," Wally said, "but not about the same things. I didn't realize that Dick was trying so hard. I didn't think the affect that everything would have on him."
Tim was tired. He was tired of trying to live up to a dead person, of trying to do the right thing, of trying to understand the way others' minds worked, of trying to make sure that Dick didn't fall to pieces. It was exhausting, but it was nothing compared to what Dick had been going through. Dick was so, so strong, and Tim wished he could be that strong.
But he also wished it wasn't necessary. Why couldn't they all be happy for once in their lives? Tim didn't understand why it always seemed to be Bruce and Dick and Tim against the rest of the world. What did they deserve to get this treatment?
So, yeah. Tim was angry when those words came out of Wally's mouth, because how could someone—Dick's best friend—not notice that Dick was drowning in responsibility? How could Wally not look at Dick and see a person who was trying their best?
He swallowed down the bubbling anger, though. This—This wasn't his battle, Tim realized. This was Dick's battle, no matter how ready he was to fight, and it hurt Tim that he couldn't do much more than stand on the sideline and hand Dick a shield to defend himself with, only to watch as Dick threw it away and let the world—and Wally—beat him down.
Absolutely and utterly exhausting.
But Tim couldn't fight this battle. For now, he would let it go. There was nothing more he could say to Wally to make him realize that this whole situation was screwed up.
So instead of responding to Wally, Tim just asked, "Why are you here?"
Wally inhaled and exhaled heavily through his nose. "I…came to apologize to Dick. For yelling at him for things he couldn't control."
"I don't think an apology will be enough," Tim whispered, his eyes finally moving back to Dick, who was completely unconscious at this point.
Wally didn't say anything for a long time. They just stood in silence, and finally, after almost five minutes of quiet, just watching Dick breathe, Wally whispered back, "Yeah. I didn't think so, either."
When Dick peeled open his eyes, Wally was still there, this time slumped in a chair next to Dick's cot in the medbay. Tim, Alfred, and Bruce were missing, and Wally hadn't changed from his costume, while Dick was in sweats. Someone must have dressed him. He must have passed out back in that alley.
So many things out of his control. It was maddening.
"Wally," Dick rasped, holding out a hand to the person he had once seen as his best friend. The one person he could trust with his identity when no one else was quite safe. The person who used to just give him a look and know. Tears slipped down his cheeks as Wally reached out and tentatively took his hand.
"Can we talk?" Wally asked.
"Yes," Dick choked. "God, yes. I missed you so much."
Wally squeezed Dick's hand. "I'm sorry, Dick," he breathed, his face pained and his eyes bright. "I'm so sorry for not trying to understand. But," he paused, looking Dick straight in the eye, "Dick. If you want to talk, I'm willing to listen. I'll listen, and I'll be there for you."
"I just want to know why."
"I was scared," Wally admitted, his eyes dropping to the floor, his head lowering to his other hand. "I was so scared that what you were trying to do would save the world, only take away my world. I was terrified, Dick."
"So was I, Wally," Dick told him, tears still running down his face. He covered his face with his free hand. "I was so scared that I was sending my friends to their deaths. I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to save the world, and if they did die, then it would all be for nothing, and it would all be my fault. I don't know why you couldn't realize it."
"I know," Wally said, his voice as shaky as it had been in that alley. "I know. I'm sorry I didn't think about how you were feeling, Dick. I'm so sorry."
The last word was a sob, and then they were both crying, hanging onto each other for dear life, and Dick hated himself for not speaking up all those months. He hated himself for letting Wally slip away from him. He hated himself for being this weak.
Wally found his composure first, when all those months ago, Dick's wouldn't have broken and Wally would never have calmed down while still around Dick. They were both so messed up.
Dick swallowed noisily, gripping Wally's hand for dear life as he let his other hand fall to the bed. "Don't leave," Dick whispered. "Please."
Wally shot him a trembling smile. "I'll be here."
And for now, it was enough. Maybe, eventually, they really would be okay.
Thank you for everyone who supported me through writing this entire series. Thanks for the comments and kudos, and I hoped that you enjoyed reading!
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