Dick wasn't able to keep what was bothering him from the rest of the family for long, and ended up apprising them of the details before Tim and Damian left on a grudging dual patrol. Friday night passed fitfully, half of it spent dozing in one of the cave's chairs while Bruce worked on a file and the remainder trickling away as he lay sleeplessly in his childhood bed. The only consolation the evening held for him was that his brothers came home safe.

On Saturday he returned to Bludhaven for his shift, and the reception he received at the precinct was one of the few things from the days after the deaths of his fellow officers that would forever stand out clearly in his memory. A small number of people, his sergeant among them, approached him to spend a few seconds sharing their pain and to apprise him of the temporary patrol protocols that had been put in place. The rest, however, barely glanced at him as he prepared to hit the streets. It confused him at first – he was usually popular amongst his fellow officers, so the lack of greetings was odd – but he wrote it off as a combination of grief, some blame towards him over Josh's presence in the field, and the fact that police work never stopped.

His theory was challenged when he met up with Bob Smedley. Emergency procedures called for no one to go out on shift alone, and with his usual partner out of town he'd been assigned to Bob for the short-term. The quiet certainty with which the older officer went about his job had always reminded Dick of Alfred, and he wasn't unhappy to hear that they would be together today. "Hey," he said quietly as he drew up to him. "I'm ready when you are."

Smedley cast a cautious glance in his direction. "...You sure?"

"Well...yeah? As much as anyone can be, I guess." Bruce had asked him the same question at least three times that morning, and his answer had been the same. Even if he had wanted to, he couldn't have brought himself to call out or duck patrol some other way. Not when there was already a body laying in the city morgue because of a last-minute schedule change. "People are counting on us to be out there."

"Yeah. People are counting on us." Then, with another odd look, Smedley pushed away from the wall he'd been leaning against. "Let's go, then."

"...Hey, Bob?" Dick broached in the car a few minutes later.

"Huh."

"Um...look, maybe I'm really misreading this, but...I feel like you're mad at me for something." He'd thought he'd managed to explain away the weird vibes at the station, but the stony silence of the few blocks they'd traveled so far was making him question his logic. Bob wasn't a big sharer, but he did like to get others talking; for that habit to be neglected today struck Dick as being something more than mourning could account for.

There was a sigh from the passenger seat, and he knew he'd hit the target. "Where were you yesterday, Grayson?" came a flat question.

"What? I...I went home," he answered. "I went to be with my family."

"Your family."

"Um...yeah."

"But not us. Not your police family."

"I...Bob, I-" I needed Bruce, he frowned. What's wrong with that?

"Look, no one blames you for the schedule change, okay?" Smedley cut him off. "Well, maybe a couple do, but that's just because they're confused and think hating on someone will make them feel better. The rest of us know it wasn't your fault. But kid...you should have been here yesterday, afterwards, I mean. Almost everybody else dropped what they were doing and came to work, but not you."

The guilt of abandoning his co-workers heaped onto the regret he was already carrying about Josh taking his place on patrol the previous morning. It was almost too much to bear, and he had to bite his lip to keep it from trembling. "...I needed to go home," he whispered a weak defense. "You don't understand..."

"I don't understand, huh? Let me tell you something, Grayson; this is the sixth time someone from my precinct has been killed in the line of duty. Six times in less than twenty years. None of those deaths have been easy, but the one thing that's always made coping possible is the way we all come together for each other. All of us, Grayson. It doesn't matter that this was the first time people you had worked with died; you should have come to us. We were the family that needed you yesterday, and you didn't show. There's no way your dad or whoever else has a better understanding of what happened and how it makes you feel than the men and women you work with do. You should have come to us."

There was nothing Dick could say in the face of that cold diatribe, but there was plenty that he wanted to. Bruce had more experience than either of them in losing brothers-in-arms, he ached to inform Smedley. Bruce was the only person in the world who could all but read his mind and know exactly how he was feeling and how to make it better. Others could say all they wanted about the fact that he wasn't to blame for Josh's death; Bruce was the only one who stood a chance of making him believe it someday. Bruce had been the one he'd needed, so he'd gone to Bruce.

To say any of that would be to open a can of worms that might very well contain the seeds of an unmasking, however, so he restrained himself. "...So what, I'm a...a pariah now?" he questioned instead, the road growing fuzzy through his unshed tears. "That's why everyone ignored me back there, is because I went where Ineeded to go rather than where everyone else thought I should?"

"It's a question of solidarity, Grayson," was growled back.

There, perhaps, lay the crux of the matter. Dick loved his job, loved his fellow officers, loved the ideals they fought for shoulder-to-shoulder. The department was massively important to him, and he would die for it or any of its members without a second thought. However, that didn't make it his first love. That position would always be held by his mask and the man who had given it to him. In second stood his comrades in the broader crusade for justice, people he had been in union with for seven times the number of years that he had worn the uniform of the BPD. Only below that was there room for the fraternity that Smedley wanted him to put first, and while third place in his heart was nothing to scoff at he knew it wasn't enough. Not at times like this, and not to men who treasured their badge the way he did his mask.

Again, though, that was all unspeakable information. "...Will it pass, at least?" he inquired, looking for the light at the end of the tunnel. "How long before people stop hating me for doing what I felt I had to do?"

"I don't know. It depends on the person, I guess."

"Well how long until you stop hating me, then?" He had no doubt that Bob would have his back in a crisis regardless of his personal feelings, but it would be nice to know if he'd have to spend the rest of the emergency protocols period riding with an icy brick wall for a partner.

"...I don't hate you, Grayson. I think you made a dumb-fuck decision yesterday, and I don't blame some of the others for holding it against you, but I don't hate you. I will say this, though; you better make sure you're at the funeral procession tomorrow. You miss that after missing yesterday and you'll end up the loneliest man in the department. You wouldn't be the first I'd seen it happen to, either, so that's not a threat. Just a warning. Got it?"

"Got it," he grimaced. He'd had every intention of going to the public mourning event the following day, but knowing that his reputation depended on his presence made it all the more crucial. "I was going to be there anyway."

"...Good."


He made good on his promise the following day. Bruce, sensitive to the fact that his son tended to keep quiet about who had raised him and wary lest his appearance divert the media's attention from the true focus of the event, parked a few blocks away from the route and said he'd stay in the car. Thus it was that Dick found himself weaving through the already-tight crowds by himself, heading towards a few blue-clothed specks on the corner. If he was to be held accountable for whether or not he was here today, he thought, then he was going to make damn sure that the right people saw him.

Smedley spotted him first. "Grayson," he nodded curtly.

"Hey." There were three others with his temporary partner, only one of whom attempted to give him anything other than a disinterested glance. Sensing that he wasn't welcome in their group but not willing to go in search of others and end up being accused of having left, he took a position a short distance away. This way, he swallowed, he wouldn't be able to hear if they started talking about him and they wouldn't be able to honestly say they'd lost sight of him.

Thirty impossible minutes ticked by. The audience continued to swell in number, pressing against the barricades, standing atop the cars parked in side streets, and leaning out of windows. Strangely, the noise level didn't give away the size of the gathering, remaining at a low hum despite the thousands of attendees. Dick swept the assembly with his eyes automatically despite not being on duty, well aware that there were elements of Bludhaven's underworld who would take a solemn occasion like this one as an invitation to cause havoc. Nothing sinister appeared, however; all he saw was the citizenry of his city, gathered now to remind him and every other law enforcement official present of why they did what they did.

A wave of unearthly silence swept through the masses without warning. Ten city blocks, swollen with humanity of all ages and colors, went so quiet that the air itself seemed to stop moving. No birds crossed between the rooftops overhead; no dogs barked; no children cried. The sun slipped behind a cloud, and in that surreal instant the first cruiser rounded the corner onto the procession's main straightaway.

The cavalcade crawled along, and while its slow speed was intended to allow more people to see the horse-drawn caskets of the fallen officers it did nothing but draw out the pain for Dick. He stood stock-still, frozen in place and staring blindly as the vehicles rolled by. Josh's bier drew even with him, and he closed his eyes, unable to stand the sight. When he looked again it had gone on, leaving only the twin tear trails on his cheeks as evidence of its passage. ...I'm so sorry, Josh. I'm so...so sorry.

Twenty minutes later things were breaking up, the still-hushed residents of Bludhaven filtering away back into their lives. Dick turned stiffly away from the path death had just walked and began to make his way towards where Bruce was waiting, trying not to stumble after having his knees locked for so long.

"Grayson!" a call stopped him.

He turned to find Smedley watching him go. "Yeah?" he asked hoarsely.

"We're all going to the precinct now. You coming?"

It was another warning, he knew, and at the same time that he appreciated it he hated it. The last thing he wanted to do was try and deal with his personal grief in the midst of people who were shunning him, but if that was the only way he could work his way out of the no-man's-land he'd been cast into... He sighed. Bruce would understand, and if it proved to be too much he supposed he could always leave and be in no worse of a position than if he didn't go at all. "...Yeah. I'm coming."

The two who hadn't spoken to him before exchanged a look, but Bob merely nodded. "Good. See you there."

The next thing he knew he was dropping into the passenger seat of the low-end luxury car Bruce had chosen as camouflage. "I have to go to the precinct for a little while," he moaned, closing his eyes once the door was shut.

"Why?"

"...Solidarity."

"You don't sound like you particularly want to go."

"I...I don't know, Bruce. I just...have to." He paused. "If you have stuff to do, it's okay. You can just drop me off and I'll take a taxi home, or something."

"No," the billionaire replied, his tone making it clear that such a thing was out of the question. "No. If you need to go to your precinct, then that's where I'll take you. I can wait outside there just as easily as here. I'll call Alfred and tell him to hold dinner for us. And speaking of Alfred..." Craning around, Bruce reached into the back seat. "Here. He thought you might need these after...well, after."

Dick looked down to find a bag with three of the butler's biggest, best double-chocolate-chip cookies being offered to him. "Aw, Alfred," he felt his throat tighten as he took them, "your cookies make everything better..." Even social ostracism, he added mirthlessly to himself.

"...Dick?"

"Yeah?"

"Is there something going on that you're not telling me?"

He started. "And you say Alfred's the one with the witchcraft," a lame joke escaped his lips.

"I've seen you grieve enough times before to know when there's another element involved in your sadness."

"So not witchcraft," he sighed. "Just love. Damn that stuff, anyway."

"...Is it something I can help with?"

"No. I wish it was, but...it isn't. Anyway, I...I don't want to talk about it right now, okay? Maybe later, but...not now. There's too many other things going on, and there's nothing you can do to fix it."

"And it's nothing I need to be worried about, right?"

He could read the real question beneath the words – was he going to do anything stupid like hurt himself, or worse? – and he shook his head at it. "No," he swore, gripping the broad hand on the center console reassuringly. "I'll be okay, Bruce."

"Are you still blaming yourself for what happened?"

"Not...not as much. A little still, but...it's getting better."

"Good."

The relief in the man's voice was palpable, and Dick smiled. At least he'd managed to make one person happy with him today. "...You want a cookie for the road?" he asked, holding out the open bag. "I don't mind sharing."

"No, chum," Bruce refused. "I'd say you've more than earned the right to keep those to yourself. Even if you hadn't, I think you need them far more than I do. After all," he squeezed his fingers before pulling back to start the car, "you have to go to your precinct."

Giving a half-laugh, half-sob at that, Dick broke a chunk off of the first cookie. "Witchcraft," he muttered.

"...No, chum," the billionaire repeated. "The other thing."

"Love?"

"Yeah."

"I like that reason better."

"Me, too. Now eat your cookies."

He settled back in his seat, exhausted but somehow feeling lighter than he had since Friday morning. "...You got it, dad."