"So, where are we going, Cass?" After several buses, Tim was getting a little impatient with trying to guess their destination. Cassandra continued to insist it was a surprise, but finally, they stepped off the final bus and the short girl pointed to a skate park. "Here?"

"Teach me how?" It would be a good distraction from the drama of the hospital, but it seemed an odd choice for Cassandra.

"I didn't realize you had an interest in this stuff."

"You had a skateboard. It looked fun." She shrugged. "I could use fun." Couldn't they all? So Tim agreed to teach her, and they went to a nearby rental hut to rent some equipment, since neither had brought any.

Tim managed to find a bright red skateboard, and snatched it up instantly. "Ah, reminds me of the ol' Redboard." He grinned fondly, remembering skating all over Brentwood on that thing, until it got shot during a kidnapping attempt on a classmate. All his memories seemed to start happy and then end in a dark place. He'd never gotten around to fixing that thing.

Cassandra smiled as she acquired her own skateboard, and then the two of them went out to the park. It wasn't especially crowded, but there were a few extremely talented people currently occupying the half-pipe and gaining some attention. Tim suddenly felt a little self-conscious.

"Okay, so I hope you're not expecting me to be as good as those guys," he said nervously, "Because I was only decent on this thing, not Tony Hawk, you know..."

Cassandra rolled her eyes. "Just teach me how to ride." And so he did. For the next few hours, he and Cassandra made slow loops around the skate park, and Tim instructed her how to balance, how to turn, how to stop, and when she seemed to be picking it up quickly, they started trying out the few little tricks he knew how to do. Tim suspected that Cassandra really didn't need all that instruction. For someone so adept at mastering the body and reading the moves of others, she probably learned more from watching the more talented skaters and imitating them. A few minutes of watching those guys on the half-pipe and Cass would probably be able to duplicate their technique.

But it was still nice to share this with her. Skateboarding was a part of Tim's life that had been shelved away since moving to Bludhaven, and he wasn't even sure he'd pulled it out that much since they'd all moved to the smaller house. No, this was a hobby that existed when he was young and happy, when he had Dad and Mom, or at least Dad and Dana, something that gave him joy outside of the Robin costume. It came bursting with memories of Gotham, of Crest Hill, of Brentwood Academy, of all the people he knew and of Tim Drake most of all.

Little skateboarding Timmy was a real person, with a life in the daytime and a mask at night. He was full and complete. Now, Tim Drake felt more and more like a formality, a thing that needed to exist because a teenager disappearing suddenly would just inconvenience everybody. But it wasn't like "Tim" had a life going on when he wasn't Robin.

Until now, when that life was going up in flames again. "You know, we've only been at this a couple hours and I think you're somehow better than me." He narrowed his eyes at Cassandra, but playfully. "Care to explain that?"

"I'm a good student." Probably watching the other, better skaters. Tim was half-tempted to just let her loose and see what else she'd picked up, but he was enjoying the time having Cass to himself. It was nice to hang out with her as a friend, instead of spending evenings stitching up each other's bullet wounds. "Do you need a break?"

Actually, now that he'd started, Tim felt like he could go for hours, but he thought his muscles might kill him once the adrenaline and endorphins wore off. "Yeah, a break sounds good." They walked over to a small hill and plunked themselves down on the grass.

From there, they had a great view of the park and all the skaters. Some on skateboards, others on roller-blades and various other devices Tim wasn't familiar with. One guy on a segway, probably trying to be ironic. It was a diverse crowd of people all at different skill levels, but one thing in common.

They all looked happy.

"Do you ever miss your life before the cape?" Tim asked, then regretted it instantly. Cassandra frowned at him, and shook her head. "Yeah, I know, that was a dumb thing to ask."

"Not dumb. I can still have regrets," she said, but didn't elaborate. "But you miss it?"

Not really, when Tim thought about it. He wasn't sure when that life even ended, if he wanted to count it from putting on the Robin costume or from stalking Batman and Robin from the shadows. "I miss some things. The things I can't get back. Somehow, I thought I would be Robin for a certain amount of time, and then just go back to being a normal person." He leaned back a little. "But now I'm not sure if that was ever a possibility. How could I go back to goofing off like a normal kid with all that training under my belt? See a bad thing happening and knowing I could do something, but not acting? Every time I looked at the newspaper, I think my conscience would want me back on the streets."

"Maybe Dick was right. Joining the police," Cassandra clarified. "Doing good things without a mask. Maybe we don't need Batman."

"Blasphemy!" Tim teased, then sobered up. "Maybe, but the 24/7 crime-fighting gig hasn't been working out real great for him, even if he cleaned up Bludhaven a little." Still, Tim could see himself working in forensics or CSI, or maybe he had a future as a lawyer? Back when he had a future in front of him, at least. Now, everything was wrapped up in Batman's mission. "It just feels like I'm drowning in everything, like Robin and Batman are bigger than I am, and I'm just a little cog in the machine to keep the whole thing going until I break and have to be replaced with a new one..." Like that role was more important than his actual identity.

"I won't care if you quit," Cassandra said, not in the unkind way it could have been meant. "I'd miss you. But you should be happy."

"See, that's my problem, why should you have to miss me if I quit Robin? Are we only friends because of the superhero thing?" He was scared to find the answer was yes, and not just for Cassandra. "And why does it feel like my happiness comes at the expense of helping people? And yeah, I realize it is totally dumb of me to be concerned with my identity when everyone around us is losing their lives or their homes and getting shot up. It's a really stupid thing to worry about when Dick's got... all his stuff. But I can't just push it aside and get to work anymore."

"Do you have to? Why can't you be helped? Why can't happy people help Gotham, or Bludhaven?" Tim wasn't sure he fully understood Cassandra, and she looked a little frustrated with herself as she tried to find different phrasing. "Dick was happy. He made us smile. Now he doesn't, and life sucks." Cassandra gestured to the Gotham skyline. "People aren't happy. They're sick, or scared, or hungry. Other things. They need someone to save them from that, too."

"You're saying... whatever makes me feel good about my life is still useful to the mission?"

Cassandra's face gave away that this wasn't quite what she'd been trying to convey, but she eventually rolled her eyes and gave up. "Yeah, sure. That's close." Tim burst out laughing, and after a few seconds, she joined in.

"That doesn't change that Dick and Bruce need me now," Tim said once he'd calmed down. "Or that the people of Bludhaven need a protector, or that Gotham's only slightly better than a war-torn country. Everyone needs Robin, or Robin in Tim's clothes. And once this crisis is over, another one's just going to take it's place." And he didn't know who he was anymore, or if who he was even mattered.

Cassandra shuffled a bit closer and sighed. "Well, I need you now, too. Not Robin, just Tim."

And hearing that... "Oh..." Tim wasn't sure what it meant, exactly, but it seemed to change something. He sat with Cassandra a bit longer, just quietly watching the people in the park playing around. They were happy now, but what would they go back to when they finally had to leave?

He turned to his companion, his friend. "Want to go skate some more?"

And she smiled. "Thank you."

Dick wasn't especially fond of the circumstances that got them here, but he had to admit that their time in the hospital wasn't all bad. Being surrounded at every turn by health care professionals took the edge off his helplessness and anxiety, especially as RJ seemed to have gotten through the first hurdle, and it was an immeasurable relief that his baby was no longer screaming at him constantly. He was surrounded by family and friends who were not currently fighting with him or each other, and as long as he stayed with RJ, they could only gang up on him one at a time.

It was nice to have a breather, even if he knew it couldn't last forever. Sooner or later he would do something to break the peace, or finally confess the truth to Bruce, and then the screaming would start up again. But for now, it was nice.

Barbara was with him, currently. She seemed to be focusing more on RJ so as not to actually talk to Dick, and that was fine with him. After their last conversation, things were a little awkward, with sensitive subjects just hanging in the air. Dick regretted ever saying anything, though he still had a case for plausible deniability, and he hoped Barbara would take the hint and let it all get buried and forgotten.

But no such luck, she seemed to be psyching herself up for something, and no matter how many times Dick tried to distract her with a harmless topic, he sensed the wave breaking. "You know, I really hate hospitals," Barbara finally tried, and it sounded like the opening line.

"Really? I don't mind them," Dick lied, rushing to block. "After fixing up Mr. Tummy Trouble here, I think they're my new favorite place. Yeah, RJ, we should say thanks to all the nice doctors and nurses, huh? They took such good care of you~" He knew Barbara still had nightmares about her spinal surgery, knew she didn't have a lot of great memories attached to these places, but he wasn't about to let that observation lead into-

"RJ's lucky to have you here. It would have been nice if my dad had been there more," Barbara continued, easily routing the conversation back. "He was recovering from his own injuries from Joker during a lot of my rougher surgeries."

"That sucks." More than Dick would ever know, probably. He'd been safely out of town when the Joker went on his Terrorize-the-Gordons campaign. But he couldn't think of anything to say to take control of the conversation, because he knew Barbara was gearing up to turn this all back around to him.

He never should have said anything. Secrets were supposed to stay secret. "Yeah. We don't really talk about what the Joker did to us. Both of us dealt with it separately." Alone, if Dick knew Barbara. She took her own problems along with everyone else's and made sense of it all. She didn't need help from anyone, but provided help to everyone.

Why couldn't Dick be the same? Why was he falling to pieces over every little thing? "Sometimes it's hard to..." Oh, no, he was walking right into the trap! Dick clamped his mouth shut before sympathy incriminated him further.

"Hard to what?"

"I don't know," Dick fibbed, and locked his eyes on RJ. He had to keep the walls up, couldn't display weakness again. "Look, I'm sorry about bringing it up earlier, it wasn't my business."

"No, it's fine. We're friends," Barbara said, and Dick's heart felt like it was begin squeezed. After how they'd left things, he was lucky she would think that. He wasn't sure he deserved to be thought of so highly. "And it's nice to stop pretending you don't know. Well, not right now," she admitted after a second. "It'll feel nice later, right now it kind of sucks."

"Yeah, I know what you mean," Dick couldn't help but mutter, then almost smacked himself. He was terrible at this. Why couldn't he be like Bruce, cold and untouchable when his heart was under attack?

Of course, Bruce would never be in this situation in the first place.

"I've been kind of selfish with this," Barbara mused, and Dick tried to make himself not care. "The chair is impossible to ignore, so I owned that, but everything else I can hide. I decided it was my pain and my tragedy, and I didn't have to share it with anyone else if I didn't want to. And I guess that was fine," she said after a pause, when it didn't look like Dick was going to respond, "But I never thought my friend might one day need something different, and I'd have nothing to offer."

This wasn't her responsibility. "Babs-"

"You're going to be a great dad, and RJ's going to grow up into a great person," she charged on, changing tracks. "But no matter how hard you try, you can't protect him from everything, Dick. And someday, he might need to talk to his dad about something very painful, or very personal." Dick gripped at the little table that housed RJ, suddenly feeling sick. "And I think you'll want to be able to contribute to that conversation. Because I'm finding out I can't get my shit together retroactively."

"I'm fine," Dick whispered, but it was a lie, and Barbara knew it. "There's nothing wrong, I'm fine, RJ is perfect, I'm..."

"Blockbuster put you through hell." Did she have to bring that up? "And I'm sure posing as a mob enforcer hasn't exactly been tiptoeing through the tulips."

"All part of the job."

"Sure, but you're not 'fine'. People have hurt you. Catalina hurt you. It's okay to tell people you need help, and not just with the babysitting."

"I don't!" It was all Dick could do not to raise his voice. There were sick babies convalescing, after all, and a few parents keeping watchful vigils. He worried some of them might overhear their conversation, but then realized they were too absorbed in their own tragic nightmare to care. Some of their little babies might not recover, after all, what did they care about some other man's dumb mistakes? Dick wasn't the only one to know pain and suffering.

"I'm not really able to talk about how I felt back then, at least not now," Barbara was saying, but Dick could barely hear her above the pounding of his heart. "But I know a lot of people you could talk to. Discrete, some of them wear masks themselves. And you have legal options, too. You don't have to do this by yourself."

"Babs, just stop." Dick took a breath, trying to center himself before he fell over. She didn't know the full story, the whole situation. She only knew one small piece of Dick's damnation jigsaw puzzle, and when you put it all together, those options all dried up. But even if it was just the one small thing... "You've got it all wrong. I'm sorry if I gave you the wrong idea, but I'm-"

"Don't back-pedal, Boy Wonder!" she shot at him. "You can't just deny it and make it go away. It's always going to be a thing that happened, and if you can't deal with it, it's going to be the defining thing about you." No, that would be the moment where he just stepped away and let another man die. "You're not alone, Dick. I know it might be difficult to talk about, but you have friends, family, there's plenty of resources available to you-"

"Fine. Fine!" Dick whispered back, conceding a little ground. "But how could I play that card, Babs, when Sue Dibny had it so much worse?" That shut her up for a second. "And Starfire? And... well, it's not like life was a real picnic for you, after..." He swallowed. "This happens all the time and women take so much shit for it! I'm not going to pull everyone's attention from the real issues, not when you have to fight so hard as it is..."

Barbara regarded him coldly. He turned back to RJ, and after a heavy silence, heard her voice behind him. "Okay, I see how we got here. I'm sorry, Dick."

"What? What are you sorry for?"

"Because you think if people support you, it makes what I went through somehow less. Or Kori, or however many number of people. Because we didn't get a lot of help or understanding when we needed it." She shook her head. "Of course you think that, people pull that move all the time. I've been doing it all day; I thought being excited about your son took away from my pain at not being able to have one. I thought feeling sympathy for whatever weird situation you had with RJ's mom took away from the pain of our breakup. If I have to care and bolster other people, it takes away from the energy I have to care about myself, I do that all the time."

"Look, I have friends who went through violent attacks they didn't ask for," Dick tried to argue over her, "Hundreds of innocent people have suffered. So what right do I have to get all whiny? When I-"

"What?" Barbara hissed, and Dick was reminded why he'd never won an argument with her, ever. "You need to suffer a certain amount before you get to ask for help? Or are you going to try to tell me you asked for it?" There was probably a case to be made for that. He certainly hadn't stopped it. "The fact that you knew Catalina makes it less reprehensible, or because you're a man it somehow makes the score even?"

"I'm not innocent." She hadn't expected that answer. "Babs, there's a lot you don't understand. I shouldn't have ever brought it up, I was just being stupid." He swallowed and tried to control the sudden trembling that had taken over his shoulders. "I don't want to talk about this anymore. Ever."

"Dick-"

"No. I screwed up, and then I tried to put it on you, but I'm old enough to clean up my own messes." Dick insisted. Was he crying? It felt like he was, his nose, eyes and throat were suddenly full of water. "It's my issue to deal with, and I'll do it by myself-"

"But-"

"So RJ never has to know about this!" That was the most important thing. Finding out his father was a coward, a hypocrite, a criminal, that would be rough.

But finding out that he didn't exist because of an act of love, but a crime? That his creation was a source of pain to other people? That was too large a burden for any child to bear.

He bent down to view RJ through the small hole in the isolation box. "That's right, my perfect cutie. Nothing's wrong with you. Daddy's a dum-dum sometimes, but he's fine and he loves you so much! Yeah, scrunchy-face, he loves you lots and lots!" He kept up the dialogue until his emotions were under control again, but felt Barbara behind him, boring holes into his back with her eyes.

Eventually, she turned her wheelchair towards the door, but she stopped just at his elbow. "Sometimes I don't have it in me to deal with all my crap and someone else's. And sometimes our whole circle gets hit with that at the same time."

"I said I was sorry."

"Idiot, I'm not done. There are people suffering through horrible things all alone, and maybe they even have it worse than you. But that doesn't make you less important. It doesn't make what happened to you acceptable."

"And I said I didn't want to talk about this anymore."

"Well, too bad, because I'm always going to be here. I'm going to ask how you're doing and make you tell the truth and give you unsolicited advice during all the bad parts. Part of that means poking you until you get your angst off your chest. It's what I've always done, Former Wonder, so don't act so surprised now."

"I can't tell if you're my best friend or my worst friend."

"Speaking of, where are your other friends? RJ's made it through the first scary nightmare. Isn't it time to announce the happy news to them?"

Dick thought about that for a moment, mentally scrolled through his list of friends and filtered out the ones that were no longer alive, the ones crushed under the weight of their own drama, the ones no longer speaking to him... And of the remainder, he'd had little contact with any of them in the past few months. His world shrank to a very small space, and they'd probably given up on him, as they'd be right to. It was selfish to call them up after so long just because he was having a problem, or to pull them from their own emergencies so he could rub happy news in their faces.

In the end, he didn't answer Barbara, and she sighed. "You saw the details of the Joker case. Saw the pictures, I'm assuming. It really didn't change anything you felt for me?"

"No." How did other people's crimes make Barbara less of a person? "I've always loved you, nothing changed that," he whispered, mostly to himself, but he knew Barbara overheard.

There was a smile in her voice. "This doesn't change anything for me, either." She patted his arm. "Think about that. I'll give you a minute to get those manly tears under control." And with one last wave to RJ, she wheeled out of the room.

Dick wasn't sure just how long he'd spent with his head in his hands and weeping, but he wasn't finished by the time Jason showed up.

"Hey." The younger boy slunk in like a ninja, and Dick hurriedly wiped his face and jumped up from the chair he'd pulled over.

"Hey." The two stood waited while Dick tried to get himself under control, but that ended up being a futile effort. Everything was so wrong and everyone could see it, and that revelation was happening all the quicker because Dick couldn't stop telling people. "How are you?"

"Fine," Jason shrugged, and like Barbara, seemed to be psyching himself up for something. But his tactics had always differed, and Dick didn't expect Jason to launch into some story that would eventually cycle back around to the point. No, Jason was more direct, and he would say whatever he felt he needed to say.

Or so Dick thought. Then Jason came back from the dead, and he was the equivalent of a teenager crashing his dad's car in a desperate plea for attention. Either way, Dick wasn't going to get any more composed, so he decided to get this over with. "What do you want, Jay?"

He expected a question about Bruce, or Tim. Maybe Jason would demand the full story on some detail he'd heard out in the waiting room. Maybe he could sense that Dick was not the perfect, golden child he'd always thought, and wanted to know why he'd looked up to him for so long.

But he wasn't expecting Jason to sidle up to him, briefly pull open his jacket to reveal a glimpse of the gun he was hiding, and somberly say, "Do you need me to kill someone for you?"

"What? Jason, are you-?"

"Just calm down, Dick-head," Jason growled. "Not looking to piss off security again. Just..." he sighed, and fixed Dick with a look he didn't like. "You've been saying stuff, and I can see... signs..." He looked very uncomfortable, but perhaps not as much as Dick. "So just tell me. Give me the names of the people who hurt you, and I'll go put them down. By tomorrow, it'll all go away."

"No, Jason." It wouldn't solve everything. And Dick knew that, because he'd already tried letting someone do his dirty work for him. He'd whored out his integrity, so was he really surprised that Catalina treated him like anything else? "Don't do that. Please."

"Why not? Someone has to do something!" Jason crossed his arms and glared. "You embarrassed? I'm not asking for details, just a name." When Dick didn't answer, he stomped his foot and the glare darkened. "Remember where I grew up? There are people out there who prey on the desperate, and people who just take what they want no matter who it hurts." Dick could have pointed out that revenge shooting fell under that latter category, but this didn't seem like the time. "Some people hurt others so personally, so permanently, that they don't deserve to live. All I need is a name, Dick, and one of them never hurts anybody again."

It was a little tempting. And karma might find it poetic. But in the end, Dick shook his head. "Already in jail, Jay."

"Oh yeah? And how long will they stay there before they're back on the streets and doing things to someone else?" He had a point, but Dick liked to think Catalina had learned something from their tumultuous experience. Maybe she'd rethink her brand of justice, and maybe wouldn't just take it for granted that her touch was welcome with the next vulnerable person she came across. Or maybe not, it wasn't like Dick ever spelled that last one out for her. But still, in his heart of hearts, Dick didn't believe Tarantula actually meant to hurt him. Yes, she treated him like an object and used him like a toy, and yes, she treated his feelings, soul and protests like they were worthless, but he still thought her goal had been to make him feel good.

And maybe also exert power or prove her point or any number of things. There was no way to spin it to make her innocent of a crime, but Dick didn't think she deserved to die. And Dick wasn't innocent enough to truly be called a victim. "Come on, you don't have to tell me all the crazy details of your life, just tell me who deserves to get a bullet through their head!"

"Me." That sent Jason into shocked silence.

But only for a second. "You suck at this!" When Dick gave him a bemused glance, Jason went into a small tirade. "I'm supposed to reach out or whatever, you're supposed to have an epiphany and then things start getting good again, that's the pattern!" He looked so angry and confused, it made Dick want to laugh in spite of everything. "Replacement came up and said something pithy about Robins, I had this revelation or something and now I'm here in the last place I ever wanted to be, and he thinks I'm supposed to be able to do something, but this is all I got, Dick-head! I don't know what you people want!"

"I forgot how cute you were," Dick grinned in response, and Jason bristled at being called cute. But the sight stirred up old memories, the precious few where he and Jason weren't fighting. Jason would go on these long rants about seemingly pointless things, from video games to whether or not Alfred bought the right kind of peanut butter at the store, and his view of the world had always been so black and white, good or bad. Childlike, and he seemed almost comically betrayed any time things didn't fit his preconceived notions, even if the end result turned out favorably for him. In fact, Dick suspected Alfred purposefully shook up Jason's worldviews and expectations for entertainment value. It was the only reason he could think of for the sudden frequency of the Wayne household to eat snails, frogs and octopus.

Jason still appeared peeved that Dick wasn't following whatever conversational script he expected to be having, but the boy just grumbled to himself for a few seconds before adopting a softer tone. "You don't really... you're not gonna shoot yourself, are you?"

An interesting question. A lot of Dick's behavior in the past would suggest that, and an ache in his leg reminded him a recent occasion where his effort to avoid bullets might not have been as convicted as it could be. Dick wasn't sure, and didn't ever think about it too hard, but he knew that if he happened to die on the job, it wouldn't be a bad thing.

"No," he said after a pause, looking down at RJ. "Too many people need me." And if this baby hadn't come into his life, what then? Would he have latched on one mission to the next, forever limping along until he was finally put out of his misery? Or would he have taken decisive action on his situation? It was hard to know, without delving deep into how Dick really felt about his life, and that was territory too dark to handle right now. "I'm not planning on going anywhere."

"Well... good," Jason fidgeted. "'Cause I'd feel bad if you were dead." That was something Dick hadn't expected to hear from Jason, ever. "I'd probably even go to your funeral and, like... cry, or start a fight, or something..." Jason would go to his funeral, even now, with the Red Hood identity and feud with Bruce... "And I still mostly hate your guts, so just imagine how all the people who love you are gonna feel?"

Dick couldn't imagine it. He really couldn't. But Jason was real, and he was right here being the same little brat he'd always been, and never once thought Dick was anything special. Jason's expectations of him had always been dismal, and Dick couldn't be more resented or sink any lower in his eyes. But Jason would cry at his funeral, and maybe Dick was still too emotional from his conversation with Barbara, but that meant something.

He turned and wrapped his arms around Jason. "I'm glad you're alive." Jason froze, and Dick felt a little paralyzed himself. When did little Jason Todd get so tall? And when did the two of them go around saying nice things and hugging each other? But it was nice, it was warm, even if Jason stayed stiff and still like an ironing board through the whole thing.

He probably should have mentioned that he never got to go to Jason's own funeral, that he didn't even hear the news of the death until months later, but Dick's guilty conscience might not have mattered. Jason probably never assumed Dick would want to go, but had given his own words of compassion regardless. And while there was no telling how he'd react to the news about Blockbuster, Dick couldn't see Jason condemning him in the same way the others would. Jason probably wouldn't think it such a crime, and while that wasn't something to be happy about, it gave him hope that maybe they could still have this connection between them when the world fell apart.

The universe gave them back Jason, in all his contradictory, wonderful glory, and made him Dick's brother. Maybe, just maybe, he didn't stand to lose everything he valued.

Jason finally moved, to give Dick an awkward pat on the back. "You see, now you're starting to get with the program. This is more how that feeling stuff was supposed to go."

And Dick just laughed.