Hello, lovely readers! (: I was pleasantly surprised, as well as happy, to see how many of you were interested in this story! And since I already had most of this second chapter done, I figure you all deserved it!

Next chapter may take a while longer, but if I get a lot of feedback, perhaps sooner than I originally thought.. *wink wink*

Disclaimer: If I owned anything DC or superhero cartoon related, they would bring the Teen Titans show back, Dick and Damian would still be a dynamic duo, and Lian Harper wouldn't be dead. Alas...

There is no refuge from memory and remorse in this world. The spirits of our foolish deeds haunt us, with or without repentance - Gilbert Parker

xXxXxXx

The Wales apartment was located on the second floor of the Gotham Estates apartment complex, fifth window from the left. Finding it was easy enough. Getting in would prove to be just as simple.

It was the whole 'explaining why I just broke into your house' conversation that was going to be a hassle.

Luckily, Dick was in no mood to waste time on preliminary politeness. Swiftly and silent, he scaled the two-story wall and slipped in the window—the locks were old, and with a bit of jiggling, gave in and opened.

The place was quiet and quaint; exactly what you would expect of a retired officer's household at roughly five in the morning. Dick crept into the kitchen, past the static-buzzing television set and Lazy Boy recliner. Everything was as it should be...

Until the lights abruptly switched on and Dick found himself staring at the barrel of a loaded gun. Quickly, he retreated back into the darkness.

"Retirement hasn't seemed to slow you down, Officer Wales," he said from the shadows.

He had forgone his Nightwing costume and decided to come wearing his civilian clothes, lest he raise the question of why a young vigilante was looking into a cold case that had occurred roughly around the same time as his own birth...

Officer Wales grunted out a laugh. "After two decades on the force, boy, you really think you could get the drop on me?"

"Not unless I wanted to scare you into a heart attack, which wouldn't serve my purpose," Dick said airily, emerging from the cover of darkness. "I need you alive to answer my questions."

Wales' eyes narrowed, his finger still clutching the trigger. "Oh, yeah? What sort of answers are you looking for?"

"The horrible kind," he answered ominously. "The hidden kind."

The former officer of the law scoffed. "Like I said, kid, I worked for the Gotham City PD for a long time. Gonna have to be more specific than that."

"I met my grandmother for the first time last night. I watched her die," Dick revealed evenly, trying to keep the anger out of his tone. "Or is she really my grandmother at all?"

Raw, unrefined shock registered on the officer's grizzled face, before an appalling comprehension dawned.

"You're the Napier baby," Wales realized. He lowered his weapon and ran the same hand through his thin gray hair, going from guarded to exhausted in all of a minute. "Jesus Lord Almighty, I thought I'd settled this nightmare years ago."

Fuming, Dick didn't say a word.

Wales appeared to debate over whether or not this confrontation was worth the trouble. In the end, his conscience must have won, because he sighed and ushered Dick in with a, "Come on in, then."

"I am already in," he felt the need to point out.

"Well, now you have an invitation, so sit your ass down," the officer ordered, grumbling under his breath, "Lucky my wife's on a bingo bus trip and won't be home until tomorrow."

While Dick did as directed and took a seat across from him, Wales rummaged around in the fridge, bringing two fresh beers with him to the table.

"Beer?"

"I don't drink," Dick declined.

"You will after I tell you this story." Wales took a moment to appraise him for the first time in eighteen years. "It's Richard, isn't it?"

"I usually go by Dick."

Wales snapped open his beer with a chuckle. "Nice name. The Graysons did well picking it. See, your mama died before she had the chance. Wonder what she would've called ya'. Hopefully not Jack Jr."

Dick's face must've been more aghast than amused, so Wales hastily changed the subject.

"Did she pass peacefully?" he asked quietly, referring to his recently deceased grandmother.

"Yes," replied Dick.

"Poor soul," Wales breathed. "Ethel was a nice lady, Richard, and I don't want you to have any misgivings against her. She was through a hell of a lot in her life, and she still had to die alone."

"She was pleased to see me there at the end," admitted the raven-haired boy.

"I'm glad," said Wales. His brow furrowed in earnest. "I wouldn't have sent you otherwise."

"I wish you hadn't sent for me at all," Dick mumbled resentfully.

Wales, to his credit, took the comment in stride.

"Listen up, kid, and listen good. I'm going to tell you something only a handful of people know." He set his beer aside with another sigh. "I assume you know about the Red Hood story, as most people do. But I'm going to go out on a limb and assume Ethel must've mentioned something about what happened to your mother that night?"

Dick nodded tightly.

Although it happened over a decade ago, Wales still looked aggrieved by his own recollection.

"When that call came in, when our operator heard that desperate mother pleading for help, my partner and I raced there with an ambulance in tow. I rode with her. All the while, she just kept saying, over and over, 'Save my baby, please, don't let him die, please, just save my son...'

"When we arrived, they told me that if they went ahead with the C-section, she would probably die. And I had to make that call. So I told them the truth: Told them she wanted her baby to live." Wales paused. "I heard the cries before I heard the heart monitor fail. They cleaned you up and gave you to me, because there was nobody else in the waiting room...

"Bundled in these blankets, I saw a beautiful, innocent creature. I wondered, how could something so sweet and pure be born of murder and madness? At that point, the Red Hood fiasco had already went down, and I knew that I couldn't let this child grow up with that heavy burden hanging over his shoulders."

"So you hid my real identity."

Shrugging, Wales continued, "Child Services is an easy place to lose a paper trail. And it wasn't long before that circus couple found you; you were a beautiful baby, after all, we didn't think it'd take forever for you to find a home. They were wonderful people and I met with them myself. I explained the sensitivity of your case, and they understood, and they wanted you anyway. They fell in love at first glance. So you became Richard John Grayson. And the Napier baby simply disappeared into the system."

The tense atmosphere that followed his story was broken by Wales himself, who tried to console his guest with a tentative, "Maybe, someday, they would have told you the truth. They were honest people. Maybe when you were older."

"Yeah, I guess they never got the chance," said Dick bitterly. "You know what happened to them ten years ago, don't you?"

"I heard," said Wales solemnly. He took a hearty sip of beer and crushed the can. "It's a damn shame."

Dick deftly read between the lines: Shame nice folks like that die when mass-murderers like the Joker live.

"Show me the case files," he said all of a sudden. Wales stared at him immovably, but Dick had been taught by best detective in the world, and therefore, was not easily fooled. "If you kept the paper trail clean, I'm assuming they aren't stored at the station. Get them out."

"Boy, I just told you everything you need to kno—"

"Show me," Dick insisted harshly.

"Yeesh," Wales muttered, taken aback. "Kids these days, pay no heed to what their elders say."

Even as he said it, the officer was maneuvering his old bones towards what Dick could only guess to be a storage closet. He waited for solid six minutes before Wales found the files. Even then, the man was reluctant to hand them over.

He slammed the box onto the table, out of Richard's reach, and leveled him with a stern glare. "I'm warning you for the last time, kid: You won't like what you see. Now as far as I'm concerned, you were born a Grayson and that's what you were raised. None of this Napier crap means anything, ya' hear?"

This was his last chance, the opening ready for him to grasp. He could take Wales' words to heart, claim to have seen the light, walk out the front door and nobody would ever blame him or put him at fault. Except Dick. He would have to live with the uncertainty for the rest of his life, because he was too much of a coward to dare seek the truth.

And the boy Batman raised ought to have more courage than that.

"My mother died on that operating table for me," Dick said quietly, dismissing the officer's pleas. "I need to see what the bastard did to her."

Knowing the battle was futile, Wales relinquished the files, although it pained him greatly. Yet it couldn't possibly compare to Dick's inner turmoil as he viewed the photos of the crime scene, the bloody mess of a kitchen that he could've grown up in, the tarnished apron Jeannie Napier had been wearing, or the sight of her wounds against the blurry background of the autopsy table.

To top it all off, there was face of the perpetrator, splashed across a mess of mug shots, grinning gaily at the photographer. Unashamed of what he'd done, or perhaps too psychotic to care.

Bile burned the back of Dick's throat, but somehow, he kept it at bay. Thick tendrils of rage flared through his veins, erasing any traces of other emotions like revulsion, sorrow, and fear. Of course, they too, would have their turn. Eventually.

"Why did nobody ever tell me?" he demanded tremulously, the urge to outright yell almost irresistible. "Why did I have to find out like this?"

Wales glanced at him, sensing the explosion about to erupt, with wary eyes. "It wasn't my place."

That, though, proved to be what set him off.

"Not your place? You're so involved in this case that it should have been you who told me a long time ago!" Dick raved.

"Kept in the dark, at least you were happy!" Wales defended just as passionately. "Are you feeling much better now that you have the truth? Eh?"

Fists clenched at his sides, Dick bit his tongue so hard it nearly bled, unwilling to admit defeat aloud.

"Thought so," the officer seethed, as if to say, 'I rest my case.' But the boy wasn't finished yet.

"I deserved to know," Dick adamantly repeated. "I had a right to know."

Collapsing back into his chair, the retired officer grabbed Dick's untouched can of beer and opened it with audible snap.

"Be honest with yourself, son," Wales said softly, pointing at the picture of the Joker's deranged mug shot. "What child deserves to be cursed with a father like that?"

For all his years of wisdom, Dick couldn't fathom an answer.

So it's sort of short, I suppose, but hopefully informative. It was for poor Dickie, at least:( Why must I always torture my favorite characters? I blame the my diabolical muses XD.

If you really want to see more, please REVIEW! You know where the button is!