First of all I want to apologize. Originally this story was part of my one-shot series but I decided afterwards that I did not want to do a collection of shorts. Instead I wanted the stories to stand on their own; this is a result of that. So I'm sorry if this comes across like a repost! Just wanted to give a heads up.

thehotnessthatisdickgrayson from Tumblr wanted to see a story where Dick was the one Joker got to, and not Jason. Also they prompted me to add reactions to said death, if I so desired. I've added these additions as very short after-pieces at the end of the fic.

I don't normally do deathfics, and I know the whole Dick-instead-of-Jason thing has been done before, but it was a fic request so I tried my hand at it.

Also, a heads up to people who post anything in the Young Justice catagory. There is now a Richard G/Robin tag as well as the Richard G./Nightwing tag. Pass it on :)

Warnings: This is a deathfic. Mentions of violence.

Disclaimer: I do not own.

Cataclysm

Dick is confused. Joker crouches next to him, hand patting – smacking – his cheek, commenting with a giggle at how blue his eyes are when he finally peels them open. It dawns on him that his mask is partially torn.

Separating from Bruce had been a bad idea. Joker had wanted it. Waited for it.

Dick stares dizzily up at a red smile and his thoughts are drowned out with incessant chuckling. He doesn't know how long he's been here, but he knows that Bruce normally doesn't take this long.

So Dick waits for him, and Joker does the same.

But he's getting impatient. Each strike comes with deadly intent. The curved neck of the crowbar gets him good in the ear once, making it ring like a siren until he is half-certain the hearing on that side is gone completely. Somewhere he loses a tooth and his lower lip is busted. Eventually his left eye is swollen shut. And the hits come harder and harder still; Joker is waiting for him to cry out. Wants him to sing.

He coughs wretchedly instead, spitting pink to the concrete. He wants to wipe at his mouth, but the zip ties bite his wrists and keep them trapped at his lower back. One arm might be broken, he thinks, but he can't be sure at this point.

"What's the matter, kiddo?" Joker observes playfully, hooking the teeth of the crowbar under Dick's chin to tip his head upwards. "You're normally a lot more chatty! Not a single pun out of you in the last hour!"

Dick doesn't speak. Words only fuel the Joker. That, and speaking hurts. Breathing hurts. His insides burn and something rattles wetly whenever he inhales. Alfred will have a field day when he gets home.

But by nature Dick is interactive, and while he can't find his voice, he forces his lips to upturn. It makes his face hurt, but he flashes his teeth at Joker briefly.

Joker tells him for the second time that night how he hates that alter-boy smile of his and thwacks him across the jaw. The sound is what makes him feel sick – that heavy squelch and thump as it connects, the wet spray of his blood peppering the ground a second later – and Dick moans miserably, testing his jaw.

His eyes fall onto the underbelly of his cape. Stark and bright and optimistically yellow, shielded under a black topside. Batman and Robin, he thinks. There is red on it now, his life splattered over the fabric like someone butchered a canary. Which isn't far off.

Joker is close again. Dick can smell him. Lithe fingers are winding into his hair and then they pull, causing him to wheeze. Dick wants to ask him to please, pretty please let him go so he can breathe easier, but Joker only directs his head further back.

"You're losing your touch, bird boy," he grins down on him, scary because he's always smiling. Like nothing disturbs him. Dick feels like nothing ever does. "And so is Bats. Where is he, I wonder?"

He hums softly, a mockery of concern in his tone, before he drops Dick's head to the ground. Dick doesn't expect it, though in retrospect perhaps he should have, and blinks away stars and bats when he connects. He mutters something, or maybe it's just another attempt to breathe, and Joker doesn't miss it.

"Take your breath away, don't I?" yellow teeth spread wide behind thin, chapped lips, and Dick can feel blood dribble over his own. He tries to remember Bruce's tricks. Batman's tricks. Mental devices to keep him sane. He dives into memories, but Joker hits him again, across his shoulder this time, and Dick stops thinking about elephants and popcorn fights and instead wonders if his skin has been torn off or if Joker really just has that good of a backswing.

"I'll give you this, Robbie-poo. You sure can take a hit," he commended, taking another swipe. To the collarbone. "You're so tiny! I can't believe you're still in one piece! Sort of." Another hit, across the face again. Dick almost passes out. He wishes he would. Joker hoots and tugs a handkerchief from his breast pocket, sliding it across the length of the weapon. In one stroke, it is sodden and heavy with his blood. Dick can smell it in the air like death. Joker brings his lips close to his good ear. "Tick tock, tick tock, sweetheart. Do you hear that? That's the sound of Batsy ruining our fun."

Hope flickers within him. Has Bruce already gotten here? He hadn't heard anything. But Joker stands up and tugs a coat over himself, looking disappointed. Dick realizes that Joker is leaving and Bruce is still not there. Confusion shrouds him once more.

"He's usually so punctual," the clown muses absently, then shrugs. "Oh if only he had been on time! Ah well. It's been a blast, boy blunder. I'd be lying if I said I won't miss you."

Dick flops onto his stomach in agony in order to watch Joker stroll towards the metal door. The clown turns back once, ever-present grin in place and a maddening laugh seeping through his teeth before he throws his head back in uncontained laughter as he leaves Dick completely alone, left to bleed out until Bruce bursts in, scrapes him off the floor like a gum wad and takes him home.

Dick can still hear the laughter from somewhere inside of himself as he struggles to loop his hands under his feet to bring them in front. He can't.

He presses his head to the ground and uses that as leverage. Every part of him screams but Dick wobbles onto his knees like a newborn calf. He soon realizes he won't be able to stand, so he allows himself to return to the ground. Gracelessly, he worms his way across the floor, trailing blood and groaning shamelessly now that no one can hear him.

The door feels miles away but he reaches it, using it to prop himself back to his knees, then to his feet, where he puts his back to his only exit in order to grope for the handle. Dick knows it's locked before he turns the knob, but it was still worth a shot. He slides to the floor and breathes and breathes and breathes, face pinching when his chest twinges sharply. Like someone's swinging a crowbar from the inside, trying to bust out.

He can relax now, he figures. Joker got bored and now he only has to wait.

Then he sees it. The counter is at five seconds. Not enough time to react, even if he could, and barely enough time sort through his thoughts. Instead Dick relaxes, surprised at how quickly he resigns and not at all surprised to find his thoughts falling in, on and all around Bruce. He worries about him. What it will do to him. What it will ultimately do to Gotham.

He thinks he hears the faintly growing buzz of a motor roaring in the distance. He doesn't know if he's imagining it or not, but Dick focuses on that sound like a lifeline when the counter ticks to zero.

BONUS/BRUCE

Bruce resists the urge to call Dick by his real name. It's forbidden on the field. Dick is resilient, like a damn roach sometimes, but Bruce had seen the explosion with his own eyes, was pushed back by the intensity of it, eyes burning from the heat, and doesn't know if even someone like Dick can crawl out of the woodwork afterwards. The very thought is daunting and Bruce knows Dick would rebuke him for it. But Dick, in all his lovingness, doesn't have children, so Dick doesn't know. He won't understand. Not really.

He digs through rubble like an animal, tossing chunks to the side and looking for the colors of a robin to stick out over the ash and debris. Ten minutes in, he sees it. A hint of stained yellow calling out to him from under the clutter. Bruce rips the pieces away and discovers Dick's body in a weird, unnatural angle. His ear is nearly lopped clean off. Under all the char, his face is purple and engorged. Blood devours his colors, even turning the red of his tunic into an angrier shade.

He picks him up like he's a babe, knowing that he's dead before he even feels for a pulse.

An unnamable feeling rolls off him in waves. He's broken his own rule. He swore to never kill and he has murdered this boy. His fingers tighten around the body – so still, way too still, Dick is always moving, never still – and pulls him to his chest as if he can transfer his heartbeat into him.

BONUS/BARBARA

It is cold when she goes on patrol. Gotham is always chilly but Barbara feels that it is not the reason why. When Bruce lands silently behind her, she turns to him, following the line of his silhouette with her eyes. The tense shoulders, the pointed cowl, the rippling cape. He looks the same as he always does and yet, somehow, Barbara senses it.

"What's happened?" she ventures, voice already shaking because she can feel it. She can feel it so very, very deep in herself and she tries to tell her throat to unclench, for her eyes to remain dry because Bruce hasn't said anything, and yet it tells her everything. She touches Bruce's shoulder. Can feel the mourning through the thick material. She feels like she is touching a corpse, like Bruce has died along with his son. For a second she is angry that he is out on the rooftops, but she simultaneously understands. I'm sorry, she wants to say, but her mouth is too busy folding in on itself. Her chest has collapsed.

BONUS/ALFRED

The hot cocoa that he had so generously laced with sugar crashes to the cave floor, splintering the stone with glass. Bruce crawls out of the Batmobile with Dick in his arms, cowl pulled back, his face grim. The boy looks terribly heavy and motionless, and at first Alfred cannot tell if Dick is shivering in his sleep or if Bruce is shaking. The answers come quick when Bruce lays Dick over the medical table and instead of rushing for supplies, tenderly cards through his hair.

Alfred had always feared this day. Thought about it for long hours on many days and never thinks of a single way to deal with it. His voice is dripping with sorrow when he places an arm around his charge.

"Master Bruce," he manages, somehow. Alfred wants to mourn now, but self-given duty finds a way to guide him. He kindly tugs at Bruce to stand. "I can assure you that whatever you are thinking right now, Master Dick would disagree."

Bruce barely moves. Alfred fetches a white sheet and drags it over their boy. It is only after Dick's face is hidden that Bruce's face twists into grief and Alfred kneels to the floor to pick up broken pieces of glass.