Title: Youth
Rating: T
Characters: Dick Grayson/Nightwing, Wally West/Flash, Kaldur'ahm/Aqualad, Artemis Crock/Artemis, Clone!Roy Harper/Red Arrow, Jason Todd
Pairings: None really. Slight Spitfire.
Genre: Angst/Friendship
Summary: On the path to becoming Nightwing, Dick Grayson has suffered loss. His best friend, his teammates, his brother… He's the lucky one, he thinks. Or is he?
Author's Note: So yeah. Depressing. There's some cussing and character death's in this. I highly recommend you listen to the song Youth by Daughter. It really is the background music for this fic and once you listen to it I guarantee you will understand why I chose it. That being said, grab a bucket for your creyes maybe, and enjoy?
Youth
Dick knows what loss feels like.
Watching his own parents die at a young age had already made Dick exceedingly paranoid of watching his friends die. It was absolutely unbearable for him to even consider. Of course he hid it well, because frankly, Batman didn't give you time for weakness.
And he would never admit to anyone except maybe Wally, but half the time they spent out on mission assignments he was scared shitless. Specifically the invasion exercise all those years ago had scared the crap out of him.
He'd had to watch his teammates, his friends die one by freaking one and there was nothing he could do to stop it. He'd vowed then to never let that happen.
It was useless.
Now, several years later he felt as if everyone was either dead or a ghost of their former selves. In one way or another, Dick was losing everyone he cared about and there was, just like all those years ago, absolutely nothing he could do but sit back and hope that it would stop.
Artemis. Then Wally. Roy. Followed swiftly by Kaldur. And Jason.
All of them either lost or gone, leaving behind a gaping would of sorrow and pain that Dick feels to this day, five years later.
And if you're still breathing, you're the lucky ones.
'Cause most of us are heaving through corrupted lungs.
Artemis was the first person to die in the field on Dick's watch.
Their mission in Beijing was supposed to be a simple one. Protection detail for an American ambassador who was on the Shadows hit list. They were right in the middle of getting ready to transport the ambassador from a meeting with a Chinese Government official back to the hotel when Kaldur received word that Black Spider had been seen in the vicinity.
They decided to split the team and use a decoy to cause a bit of confusion. Kaldur, M'gann and Conner would go with the decoy convoy while Artemis, Dick and Wally would serve as protection for the real ambassador. Zatanna and Rocket were to head back to the hotel and make sure that everything was secure on their end.
Easy. It would be easy, he remembers thinking. They could handle a lone Shadows assassin any day of the week.
Dick remembers everything flowing smoothly up until one of the tire's popped on their car. Then, it was as if time itself had slowed and everything was moving quickly all at the same time.
A group of commandos swooped in on them, moving too fast for any of them to have time to collect themselves. They reacted.
Wally went for the Ambassador, Artemis called for backup, and Dick went after Black Spider.
Five minutes, Kaldur had told them. All they had to do was hang tight for five minutes while the rest of the team arrived.
Those minutes would turn out to be some of the longest of Dick's life.
Wally ran the Ambassador out of harm's way. Artemis went for her bow and immediately started taking out the commandos. Dick didn't hesitate to engage Black Spider in hand to hand combat. They were outnumbered, yes, but it wasn't anything they couldn't handle for five minutes.
Five stupid minutes.
All these years later, the entire scenario tended to blur together in his mind, save for the one moment that changed everything.
He sees Black Spider evade his attacks, finally managing to break free.
Black Spider pulls a gun on him, point blank.
Dick's eyes widen and he starts to turn back, to retreat, get out of the way.
Bang. A flash of green costume and yellow hair blur in front of him.
Artemis. He hears Wally's anguished scream. Black Spider's laugh. Dick watches as Artemis' eyes widen in surprise, as if she hadn't expected he'd hit her when she jumped in front of that bullet.
All he can do is stare as Black Spider, seeing the rest of the team arriving, makes a fast escape. Dick can't bring himself to move, even as Artemis reaches out for him, and a small trickle of blood rolls down from the corner of her mouth. Then Wally's there, and he's crying too, and he's telling Dick to do something, to stop fucking standing there, but his legs won't let him go to her.
Artemis' gaze is fixed on him, and stays on him until the light finally fades from her eyes and her chest stops heaving.
Her beautiful, stormy grey eyes are now glazed over, forever fixing their gaze on him, wherever he goes.
Setting fire to our insides for fun
Collecting names of the lovers that went wrong
The lovers that went wrong.
Wally isn't dead. At least not physically.
He's very much alive, working a nine to five job at the Central City police station as a forensic scientist. He's given up on being a superhero though, claims his heart just isn't in it anymore.
Barry's tried to get him to come back, to join the Justice League, has tried enticing him with all sorts of perks and promises all to no avail. Barry is reduced to begging Wally to come back, to start living his life again, but all it does is create tension in the family.
Ever since Artemis' death, Wally's not been the same. He barely leaves his apartment, and when he does, it's to restock the fridge, visit his family, or go to work. Wally doesn't tell corny jokes anymore, or flirt with girls incessantly, he hardly ever runs and when he does it's out of necessity not because he wants to.
He doesn't want to talk to Dick, or see him, but they arrange semiannual visits and infrequent phone calls for the sake of courtesy. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that Wally wishes it had been Dick who'd taken the bullet, instead of Artemis.
Hell, Dick even wishes that he would've taken the bullet instead of Artemis. Then maybe his best friend would still be living his life. Maybe everything would be different.
Or maybe nothing would be different at all.
And if you're still bleeding, you're the lucky ones.
'Cause most of our feelings, they are dead and they are gone.
Roy eventually finds the real Roy Harper at a Cadmus facility in Indiana. Dick gets a call from him as soon as Roy's outside the facility.
"I'm giving you my last position, in case…"
In case what, Dick had demanded, but Roy had already hung up the phone. He knows it will be too late to do anything by the time Dick can get to Indiana, so all he can do is wait. Wait for a phone call, a newspaper article informing him of Roy Harper's sudden death, or something.
Three days later, Ollie gives him a call and informs Dick that Roy's back in his apartment and that he's fine health-wise. Mentally? Not so much.
"I couldn't stop him," Roy says when Dick enters his apartment through the window. "It didn't matter."
Roy's voice is void of emotion, his face expressionless as he tells Dick about finding the real Roy Harper in a pod, most likely in a coma. Discovering he only had one arm, and thus would never be an archer again. Fighting Sportsmaster. Losing. And being forced to watch as Sportsmaster took the real Roy off of life support.
Roy had begged, pleaded with Sportsmaster to kill him right then and there. But that would've been too merciful for replacement Roy Harper.
Dick knows there's nothing he can say to his friend that will console him. He just sits there on Roy's coffee table and lets him know that he's here to listen.
Roy tells him to get out because he's meeting Jade soon. Dick isn't sure that's the best thing for him, but he can't argue with someone so broken and apathetic.
It's a week later that Dick discovers Roy's started using.
We're setting fire to our insides for fun.
Collecting pictures from the flood that wrecked our home,
It was a flood that wrecked this home.
Of all of his friends, Dick most looked up to Kaldur. He was everything a good leader should be. Calm under fire, gentle but firm, caring but not too placating.
When he was younger, Dick had looked up to Kaldur, had been thankful for his strong presence as team leader. Kaldur had stepped up to take on the mantle of leader when Dick couldn't, when he'd been too afraid to.
And Dick knew that Kaldur had done his damndest to keep the team together after Artemis' death. He'd tried reaching out to Wally, consoling Zatanna and M'gann, urged Conner to stay on Earth rather than going to Krypton for an extended period of time.
It hadn't made even the slightest difference. The team still split off, never technically breaking up, everyone just agreeing to go their separate ways.
Then again, in the end, Kaldur couldn't even save himself, let alone the team.
Dick supposed that Kaldur's lust for his father's affection was what drove him to join eventually Black Manta. Unlike Artemis and her father, Black Manta hadn't been trying to blackmail Kaldur into joining him. He'd used love as a tactic, rather than fear.
He'd befriended Kaldur, and in the end used that 'love' to get Kaldur to change sides.
Dick didn't blame Kaldur for wanting his father to love him. He could never begrudge someone the love of their own family.
No. Dick blamed Kaldur for shattering what remained of an already fractured team. Dick blamed him for putting the nail in the coffin, walking out and leaving Dick to deal with the aftermath of it all.
He hasn't seen Kal on any missions yet, and Dick thinks Batman does this on purpose to keep the pain of seeing their former leader in darkness to a minimum. But Dick knows a meeting is inevitable.
And when he finds Kaldur…
Well. He's not sure what he'll do.
And if you're in love, then you are the lucky one,
'Cause most of us are bitter over someone.
Setting fire to our insides for fun,
To distract our hearts from ever missing them.
But I'm forever missing him.
Dick remembers the day Jason joined the family.
He remembers Jason being a generally cheerful kid, although he'd exhibited some disbelief at Dick's frequent appearances at Wayne Manor.
Dick couldn't count the number of times Jason had asked why he was still sticking around because 'he wasn't even Robin anymore.' To which Dick would always laugh and explain that just because he stopped being Bruce's partner, it didn't mean that Dick would stop being Bruce's son.
It had taken a long time to crack that kid. He was naturally suspicious, hard-headed and stubborn. All the things that made him a great Robin, despite the clear differences between the both of them.
It had taken a long to time to crack Jason, but when he did, he found the brother that he'd always wanted.
Dick would train with Jason when Bruce was out of town, teach him a few of his old tricks that Bruce had probably forgotten about, and eventually they just started hanging out together at the manor. Watch movies, play video games, try to steal Alfred's cookies—you were never too old for this Batfamily tradition—and just engage in general tomfoolery.
They became brothers. The word rolled off of Dick's tongue, perfectly naturally, and neither of them blinked an eye at his use of the term.
When Jason dies, it hits Dick hard. It hurts, and makes Dick seriously question his underlying beliefs and morals. Optimism is hard when you've just lost your brother.
He wasn't there when Jason died.
No. He'd been in Bludhaven, having just returned from a short trip to the Czech Republic. Jason had begged him not to go—it was going to be his sixteenth birthday after all— and for the life of him Dick couldn't remember why he'd gone anyway.
He wishes he would've stayed.
"Don't die okay?"
Dick turns and gives Tim a hard look, because he means it. Tim's face is serious as he nods and Dick knows that Tim realizes what he's referencing.
Artemis. Wally. Roy. Kaldur. Jason.
He's not losing anyone else, not another brother or another friend to this life, and certainly not on his watch.