Written for eleavir – "Dick, being the intuitive person he is, has figured out they're fated by scripts. No one believed his theory and they all gave him sympathetic looks, thinking he's finally lost it (at this point only issues up to Nightwing #17 happened). Then Robin was KIA. Dick now decides to alter the course of history by rewriting the script that controls their fate. Only question is, How?"

Dick Grayson has looked at his life and his choices. He's looked really hard at the last year, and he's thought: This isn't me.

Bruce only frowns when Dick tries to haltingly explain. Alfred, Babs, and Jason suggest with varying degrees of civility that Dick needs a break, some sleep, perhaps a little company …

Damian scoffs, but he's eleven years old. Perhaps cruelest of all, Tim tells Dick that he's crazy.

This isn't his family.

Dick flounders after that. Damian tries in his own way to comfort his former-mentor, but he doesn't understand the scripts, the roles that Nightwing feels forced into. Dick has no one else to turn to, and even that feels wrong—there should be someone else. Maybe two others—someone to understand and someone to believe in him whether they understand or not.

He clings to Damian a little tighter.

Then comes the day when Dick wakes up in the Bat Cave without Damian. That's the day when the scripts converge, and Dick loses it just a little over the body. He spends a few days in varying levels of sedation, and then hides himself away in his bedroom at the Manor. No one believes him when it comes to his theories; no one else is willing to prod that knot of wrong-ness pervading their home and family.

Dick needs to rewrite the story. He needs to wake up the other Bats so that they can take back their lives, so that they can fix this! Don't they understand that this isn't like it was with Jason? Can't they hear Damian's voice in the Manor?

They need to wake up. Dick needs to wake them up.

And for that, he needs something big, something outside his role, something that Nightwing would never ever do.

This is how Dick finds himself on the roof of Wayne Manor over the stone courtyard just as Jason and Tim are coming up the drive. He'd sent them good-bye texts, and they had dropped everything. It almost makes Dick feel bad for what he's about to do, but he has this planned out too carefully to go back now.

He's not worried about dying; Bruce will save him. Bruce always saves him.

So Dick does what he does best. He puts on a show, and rants a little about not being crazy before flinging himself in a little flip off the roof.

He hears Tim's strangled cry, and Jason's single curse on the way down. Alfred's gasp and Babs silent horror are swallowed up in the childish scream: "Grayson, stop this!"

Dick closes his eyes, and then something grabs him around the chest with enough strength to halt his fall completely. It's Bruce half-stretched over the windowsill like Phoebus in Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame, and really, how many times has Bruce irritably pointed out that the physics involved should have pulled the other man over the edge too?

"Believe me now?" Dick gasps out, and something in the world snaps when Bruce gives a grim nod.

Bruce hauls him back over the edge, and they both collapse into a slight figure in uniform. Cassandra. How could they have forgotten Cass?

She had her own arms locked around Bruce as he saved Dick, adding her considerable strength to the Batman whether or not he could see her. Dick isn't sure if that's enough to circumvent physics, but well, that's the way of the Bat, isn't it? Now, Dick has gotten his arms around her in hysterical relief, and where there's Cass, there's Steph … How could they have forgotten Stephanie?

She's at the end of the hallway, holding back a smaller figure with all her might.

Dick chokes, and half-crawls out of the Bat-pile. The moment he reaches out, Stephanie lets go and then Dick has Damian in his arms again. Alive and safe … and Dick isn't going to let him go again for a few days. Weeks. Whatever, Damian isn't protesting.

Stephanie joins the group hug, and by then Tim and Jason have caught up. Alfred is on their heels, and Babs is already tackling her successors. Bruce has an arm around Dick and Damian while the other is wrapped around Cass. Titus appears out of nowhere as kitten-Alfred circles the mad mess of limbs cautiously. Dick just buries his face in Damian's hair and inhales … because … because …

This is right.

"It's curtains for you, Dr. Horrible . . . lacey, gently-wafting curtains . . ."

- Captain Hammer; Joss Whedon's Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog