Dark clouds loomed over the night sky in Bludhaven, completely obscuring the moon and casting the already grim place into a promise of danger and threat to any that dared to roam the empty streets so late in the night. That promise was already made true to low lives and thugs that attempted to go about their repulsive ways by a figure dressed clad in black and gray with a blue colored bird emblem pasted across the chest.

Bludhaven was always acknowledged to be far worse in terms of corrupt police and crime than its sister city, Gotham, but all that was about to change if the new hero in town had anything to say about it.

As it turned out, taking a leave of absence from the Team was the best choice Nightwing could've made for himself, because it seemed he was finally learning just the kind of man he wanted to be. He could finally take a step back and fully away from the shadow of his former mentor o realize what he was becoming and put an end to it as quickly as possible.

He just wished certain events that took place didn't have to in order for him to see that for himself.

Wally never should have died… that had been his first step into seeing the truth. It took the death of his friend – his best friend in order for him to notice his reaction to the sight of his friend disappearing in front of his eyes to notice that something was not right. That he should've cried. But he didn't. He didn't cry, scream, curl up into a ball… nothing. He'd done nothing except look helplessly at Aqualad and Superboy as Artemis poured her heart out onto the snowy, cold ground.

Something wasn't right. First he didn't react appropriately, and then he didn't go to the funeral. Instead opting to sit in his apartment in Bludhaven and stare blankly at the clean, white wall(minus two slightly darker spots where tape had once been) in front of him, his eyes unblinking and yet still not watering.

His eyes didn't drag down to where an old photo of a fifteen year old Dick Grayson giving a seventeen year old Wallace West a stink eye for having stolen his cookie from his hand heartbeats before the photo was taken. His lips didn't quirk up at the memory of him knocking Wally on the back of the head as soon as the photo was taken, or at the thought of Wally shoving the cookie into his mouth before sprinting as far away from his room as he could, nearly knocking Alfred over in the process, leaving behind a young Bat going through puberty and high with hormones to plot deadly revenge.

Dick's second warning sign was when he didn't answer his door when Barbara tried to visit. Barbara, the woman he'd once loved fiercely, was left outside his door to plead for him to open it, to do anything and let someone know that he was okay. Barbara, the woman who'd broken down his door after a half hour of waiting because she was concerned for him, was left to stare at the billowing curtains from an opened window because Dick had been too much of a coward to talk to anyone.

His third signal was all the sleepless and restless nights he witnessed for months after, sleep only arriving to him when his body could not stay awake for any longer. He often found himself sprawled ungracefully on the floor of his apartment, stubble covering his face since he couldn't find it in him to take the time and shave, the only reason for having woken up having been him trashing about and hitting something while experiencing a nightmare.

His fourth and final warning sign arrived months later, when it'd finally occurred to his wearisome brain that he hadn't talked to Bruce, Tim, Artemis, Barbara, Zatanna, Kaldur, M'gann, Conner, anyone in who-knows-how-long, and Bruce probably told Tim and Babs to give him his space for awhile, the others most likely thinking the exact same thing except for Artemis… God, Artemis…

He really was deserving of his nickname… he already knew as much considering he'd been called a 'dog' for all the relationships and he'd been in and all the people he'd dumped over the years, but she didn't deserve any of this. If anything, Artemis needed more help than him.

Dick realized this and finally connected the dots as he stood in the shower, the steaming hot water racing down his body in rivers while he brooded.

The brooding, sacrificing everything for the mission, not taking time to grieve but taking out his anger on criminals, the isolation he'd created, not caring enough about others to even bother checking on them…

… he turned into the one thing he promised himself he would never turn into…

Dick groaned at his blind stupidity and rushed out of the shower, a towel quickly being wrapped around his waist while he slowly made his way through the shadowed hallway and entered his room, his blue eyes searching for his phone so that he could call someone, anyone. He just needed someone to talk to, someone to open up to because he finally knew he had to stop doing this to himself. He had to stop shutting others out because that wasn't the type of person he was meant to be, not the person his parents would've wanted him to become.

His parents, the very people he'd started fighting crime for, the best people he'd ever met, the people who trained him in everything they knew so that one day, he would've been able to train the next generation of Grayson's. John Grayson, the perfect father a eight year old could ask for. Mary Grayson, the best mother and most flexible person he'd ever witnessed. Such a disappointment he turned into, having both left the circus and abandoned the trapeze in exchange for fighting crime.

Pausing his thoughts and his quest for the phone he just couldn't seem to find anywhere, Dick put on a baggy pair of sweatpants and an inside-out tee shirt that he didn't care enough about to flip. It was probably just a blank, gray shirt anyways.

He nearly jumped in surprise when his phone made a muffled dinging noise from somewhere in his room, and he rummaged through his clothesbasket, deciding that was a good place to start for a search now that he knew it was buried under something. It then went off in rapid succession behind him. Dick dove through his clothes piles strewn all over the floor and found it underneath a growing pile of smelly workout shirts.

Dick stared at the phone and read through the messages on his lock screen, his eyebrows narrowing in confusion as he tried to work out why Tim would send him seven texts spelling out his last name. He unlocked the phone and scrolled up through the conversation he'd never had with the Boy Wonder that apparently happened. He nearly broke the device in his hand by clenching his fist in fury.

'11:17pm. Me: Tim, we need to talk

Timmy3: Dick? Where have you been?

Me: Not important. We need to talk. Is Bruce with you?

Timmy3: No. He's going out alone tonight but wants me to prepare for tomorrow. There's going to be a team training session and it's everyone against everyone.

Timmy3: Where have you been?

Me: Bludhaven. Needed to work some things out. Need to talk to you and Barbara

Timmy3: When?

Me: Tonight. Can you come?

Timmy3: …sure. Where at and at what time?

Me: Outskirts of the Haven. Ten minutes. Bring Barbara with you. We need to talk

Timmy3: Okay. See you in ten.

11:42pm. Timmy3: G

Timmy3: R

Timmy3: A

Timmy3: Y

Timmy3: S

Timmy3: O

Timmy3: N'

Dick glared daggers at the screen and pressed the facetime request button. He was declined.

'Me: Who are you and what have you done with Tim and Barbara?'

The response came back mere moments later.

'Timmy3: I've been watching you for some time now, Grayson.

Me: Who are you?

Timmy3: Meet me at your old haunt in fifteen minutes, or your ex and so-called brother will be sent to your doorstep in bodybags.'

He frowned, mind racing to figure out where his old haunt would be as Dick Grayson. He made his way over to his closet to retrieve his Nightwing uniform, but the ding of his phone stopped him in his tracks, his hand raised in the air to open the door.

'Timmy3: Touch that costume and I will slit their throats, Grayson.

Timmy3: Come to me exactly as you are now. No shoes, no weapons, no nothing except the clothes you're wearing.'

Alarm bells rang in the back of his head and Dick lunged to his window, the curtain that was supposed to be closed cut down so that anyone could watch him in his room at any given time, and the window itself wide open. He scoured the rooftops across from him, the windows around his apartment, but to no avail.

The floor creaked in the hallway and he all but sprinted out of the premises, the sound of the window in the small living room opening guiding him, but he arrived too late. A crumpled piece of paper landed on the ground. He opened it and read what it said, his knuckles turning white from clenching together so hard, the paper ripping in half in his fury.

Eight minutes, kid.