Author's Note: Hey everyone! So I wrote this as a sort-of form of self-therapy. I am a lupus patient, and I just wanted the world to know a little bit about what my daily life is like and about the frustrations of waiting on a diagnosis. I'm sorry if the characters are a bit OOC. I am still relatively new to the DC universe.

Lupus didn't care. Lupus didn't care that Dick Grayson was only twenty-four and in the prime of his crime-fighting life. Lupus didn't care that he had a good, stable job at the Bludhaven Police Department. And Lupus certainly didn't care that he had a girlfriend he loved dearly and wanted to spend the rest of his life with and he wasn't entirely sure she could deal with this, any of it.

He had first noticed it in his knees. He had woken up one morning with a dull ache in both of them, but he wasn't too worried. He'd been fighting crime since he was nine, for God's sake. He'd dislocated both kneecaps more times than he could count, not to mention hyper-extensions and other injuries. It was probably nothing, at least nothing to be too concerned about. He was a God damned vigilante. He was bound to have a few aches and pains.

The pain had come and gone, and he had dealt with it as best as he could.

And then the headache had started. But it was flu season, and he had just assumed he was catching the local strain that had been circulating around the station. But the headache had lasted for weeks, not days, and he showed no signs of shaking it any time soon.

But all of that had been bearable.

Until he found himself sleeping for 15 hours a day, missing work and patrols, and barely being able to function during the few hours he actually was awake.

He had thought maybe he'd gotten mono. It wasn't impossible. Jason had gotten it when he was a teenager, and it seemed like the symptoms were similar. Yes. It was probably mono. And he would just sleep it off.

He had been lying in bed. His phone had been going off, but he had been too damn exhausted to roll over and answer it. So he wasn't too surprised when, a few hours later, he heard a knock at the door followed by some not-so-quiet yelling. "Grayson!" the voice demanded. "Open this door before I kick it in!"

Damian. Of course it was Damian. Dick had missed their weekly dinner with Bruce and Alfred, had been to exhaust and too achy to go. And he had forgotten to text the family to let them know. He shut his eyes and took a deep breath.

It had taken every ounce of energy he had in him to open that damn door.

He looked like shit. He was wearing the same sweatpants he'd put on a few nights before and never bothered to get out of, his shirt was crumpled and stained, and he hadn't combed his hair in what felt like an eternity. "Hey, Dami," he greeted, kicking himself for not being able to hide the fatigue in his voice.

"Good. You are alive," Damian seemed to approve, then frown. "You look terrible. Are you ill?"

Dick just nodded. "I'll get over it soon," he promised and hoped to God Damian would just go home.

He didn't even have the energy to sit and talk.

He had gone to the doctor and explained his symptoms. He had been told he was probably just depressed (no, that felt different. He knew that, even if he would never admit it to another living soul). Or maybe his thyroid was out of whack.

But every damn test had come back fine.

Weeks went by. The aches started appearing in his elbows. In his shoulders. Hell, even the joints on his fingers. He could barely walk some days, could barely function on most. Nightwing hadn't been seen in Bludhaven in almost two months. The crime rate had skyrocketed. And he just sat there, lying in his bed, not being able to do a damned thing about it.

"We never go out anymore," Kori had said on a long, draining phone call. "We barely even talk. What's going on?"

"I don't know," he had responded, because, in all honesty, he didn't. He didn't know why he was sleeping all the damn time. He didn't know why he could barely remember the things he was told even seconds after being told them. He didn't know why going out in the sun for even short periods of time caused him to get burned. He didn't know why his body had suddenly decided to crap out on him.

"You need to figure it out, then," she had responded. "Because I can't keep doing this."

He wanted to fight, to argue that she didn't understand, to point out that he didn't even understand what was happening. He wasn't being lazy. He wasn't ignoring her. He. Just. Couldn't. Do. Anything. Anymore.

And so he had gone to another doctor and relayed his symptoms again. And he had gone home with a shiny new prescription for a steroid and prescription strength Advil to take for two weeks. By then, the doctor had said, he'd be back to normal. Had sent him to a sleep specialist who had confirmed that, no, it wasn't a sleep-related issue.

And the two weeks had passed.

And the joint pain had gotten worse. And his lower back was constantly hurting, and he knew that couldn't have meant anything good. And he was sleeping 18 hours a day. And a stupid rash going across his cheeks and nose had appeared and dear God it burned.

He had trudged through the door to his apartment, threw his bag wherever it fell, and all but collapsed onto his couch, not even registering that Bruce was already sitting there until he heard the man speak. "Dick," he had stated, his voice deep, full of... concern? Man, he must have really been losing it. "What's going on?" he asked. "Nightwing's been missing for weeks. You haven't been missing. Some of the League thought you were…" he trailed off, unable to finish the thought.

And Dick had completely broken down on him. Had cried ugly tears. Had sobbed violently. And Bruce had held him and asked what was wrong, but Dick had just shook his head because how could he explain what was wrong when everyone kept telling him he was fine? "I don't know," he had managed to choke out. "I don't know what's wrong with me."

And Bruce had demanded Dick return to the manor with him, and Dick didn't even have enough fight left in him to argue.

Bruce had taken him to Alfred.

Alfred had taken him to Leslie.

And Leslie had sent him to the God-damned emergency room.

And he had been pumped full of fluids and more steroids and told to go back home. He would be fine in a few days.

And Bruce and Alfred and Leslie had all argued with his doctors about that.

After his hospital stint, Bruce had taken him to see yet another doctor. And Dick was relieved that this doctor had actually listened to him, had believed him. Had told Dick that he wasn't crazy, that it probably wasn't all in his head.

And that doctor had ordered more blood work than Dick had thought possible.

And he had waited three agonizing weeks to get that blood work back. To be told that his ANA had come back positive and that the doctor had sent a referral to a rheumatologist, whose office couldn't see the young vigilante for months, but he didn't care because that meant he wasn't crazy and that there was something wrong with him, and he could live with that.

And he had sat and talked with his rheumatologist for a solid three hours, being told the worst and best news of his life. He wasn't crazy. He was sick. And he would be sick for the rest of his life. But it was treatable. He would maybe even have good days, even though his life had changed forever.

Because lupus didn't care. Lupus didn't care that Dick Grayson was only twenty-four and in the prime of his crime-fighting life. Lupus didn't care that he had a good, stable job at the Bludhaven Police Department. And Lupus certainly didn't care that it had caused him to lose a girlfriend he had loved and wanted to spend the rest of his life with.

But Dick was a fighter. He'd been a fighter even before Bruce had taken him under his wing. And he was going to fight it.

And he was going to win.