Summary: Takes place about 6 months after Auld Acquaintance. A bit on the longer side, but it is somewhat important to the timeline.
Disclaimer: I don't own DC
The team was sent to take on Klarion, since the League had gotten word that he had acquired a very dangerous mystical artifact from a museum. They could not engage with him since they were busy with the issue of Doomsday landing on Earth in a small, unpopulated village. So the team had to take on the Witch-Boy. Simple enough since it was an 8 vs 1. However, Klarion had summoned dozens of shadow minions to handle the team whilst he charged up a spell. Dick was busy taking on a handful of them when the Witch-Boy noticed him and got fed up with his snarky cackle. Klarion unleashed a powerful energy blast from the artifact, shocking Dick with red energy. He yelled out in pain before collapsing to the floor, pain and blackness overtaking him. Zatanna screamed when she saw Dick fall to the floor, and she unleashed a ferocious spell to devastate the remaining shadow minions. Klarion laughed before warping away, leaving Zee to frantically run to Dick's body. The rest of the team followed her to him, but nothing they tried woke Dick up. Megan tried to enter his mind to wake him up, but upon entry, she was shocked with a similar mystic energy, forcing her out. Zatanna tugged viciously on her hair as she tried healing spell after healing spell, but nothing worked, and she slowly started to break down more and more. Kaldur had to eventually drag a crying Zatanna away from Robin as Connor carried him back to the ship.
The ride back was very tense, as Kaldur thought to himself how he could tell Batman of Dick's situation without him blowing up. Zatanna would not move from Dick's bed in the cargo hold, even when Wally came in and opted to take her place. She sat next to his bed, crying her heart out at the sight of him. None of her healing spells were working, and she even conducted a mystical biopsy on him. His body was physically fine, it was just his mental state. Whatever magic Klarion had used the artifact for, it had trapped Dick within his own mind, and nothing Zee could do would have had any impact on his situation. She was currently scared out of her life. She had already lost her father, and Dick was the only person in her life who she truly let past her walls. She couldn't bear to lose him, too.
The team landed in the cave and immediately carried Dick's body to the med bay, as there was no time to get to Leslie's clinic. Batman was waiting for a debriefing, but upon seeing Superboy carry Dick's unconscious body in, his eyes widened behind the mask, and he snatched Dick from Connor, rushing him to a medical table in the cave and having Canary help hook him up to all types of machines. They determined he was still alive upon studying his vitals, but they came to the same conclusion as Zatanna: his mind, while active, seemed to be folded in on itself, forcing Dick to be stuck inside a prison of his own making. Bruce turned to the team and glared harder than any of them had ever seen before. They legitimately feared for their lives as they heard him speak.
"What happened? Talk. NOW." Wally stepped up.
"K-Klarion, he, uh, h-he hit Rob with some kinda energy blast f-from the artifact. Z-Zatanna tried using her m-magic, but she couldn't g-get him to wake up." Bruce's glare softened the tiniest bit as he looked to Zatanna. This was his son's girlfriend after all. He nodded to the teenagers.
"I...I will call in Dr. Fate to analyze him. Th-thank you for bringing him in." The team looked in shock as Bruce walked away. Did Batman just...thank them? After Robin was put in a coma?
Nabu arrived soon after, and Zee felt a pang of sorrow upon seeing him. However, she easily pushed it aside, as she was far more worried for her lover than she was for her father at the moment. From inside the helmet, Giovanni Zatara couldn't help but feel horrible for not only Zatanna and Bruce, but also Dick. Ever since he found out they were together, he had been keeping watch on them through his own scrying spells from inside the helm, mostly out of worry for Zee but also because he did not want her dating just yet. While he wasn't watching them 24/7, he was keeping a relatively close eye on them, and he had seen how good Dick was to his daughter. He most certainly approved of the Boy Wonder for her at this point and he had seen how close Dick and Zee were to one another, which only made him feel worse for Zatanna.
Nabu gave Dick a mystic one-over before turning to Batman. "His body is physically fine, but the artifact the Witch-Boy used on him has caused him to enter a mental prison. He is reliving his worst traumas and painful memories from his mind, and there is no way to stop it. If you want Robin to return, you must let him get through it all. At the end, once he has made it through all his tragedies, he will be given a choice to accept death or return to the living. You cannot interfere. You must let him do this himself." Bruce glared for a bit before changing to a face of pure concern. His traumas? God...there's so many. He can't get through all that alone...
"Can...can I watch him from inside his mind?"
"I believe Martian Manhunter can safely project your consciousnesses into his mind without any harm on either of your parts. However, you cannot interfere. You would only be there to watch. There is a slight possibility your presence in his mind may be detected and appreciated, which would boost his chances for survival. Now, I am afraid I can stay no longer."
"What? Why?"
"The artifact in Klarion's possession is far too dangerous. I must go and retrieve it. I shall take a few Leaguers with me to handle the Witch-Boy." Bruce nodded, and although he would never show it, Zatara was one of the few who could see beyond his facade. He was worried out of his mind for his son. Nabu gave one last glance to both Dick and his host's daughter, who looked to be in a state of pure frenzy. Zee's normally perfect hair was in shambles, her face was dirty with tear markings, her beautiful blue eyes were puffy and red, and her usually pristine outfit was a mess from all the crying. Zatara felt his heart break at the sight of her. He wanted nothing more than to go up to her and comfort her, but Nabu had other ideas. From within the helm, Nabu spoke to Zatara. "I am sorry, Giovanni. Klarion is the priority, not her." Zatara sadly nodded.
"I...I understand. Let us get this over with." Dr. Fate teleported away, and Batman called in Martian Manhunter.
J'onn arrived soon after, and Bruce briefed him on the situation. "I...I think I could do it. It would not take much energy, and his mental defenses seem to be weakened to the point that I could safely project us in. The only question is...who do you wish to take? You do realize that taking the whole team would mean giving up his, and by extension your, identity?"
"Yes, but it's time they knew. They deserve that much. Besides, he's their friend. He's practically family to some of them." Bruce glanced at Zatanna and Wally before continuing. "There is no way any of them would sit it out." J'onn nodded before Bruce turned back to face the others. "Today...today you will be learning myself and Robin's identities. This goes without saying, but this is amongst the most sensitive secrets in the whole League. You must not tell anyone. We will be going into his mind to attempt to help him through his ordeal. You will be seeing some...scarring events today, so if any of you wish to opt out, now is the time." Nobody wanted to pass up the opportunity to help their friend, and so they all sat on the medical tables Canary had provided. J'onn linked them all up, transporting them into Dick's mind as they lay on medical tables and their consciousnesses left their bodies. Diana and Clark, who had arrived upon hearing of their sorta-nephew's state, watched on in anticipation with Canary.
Dick woke up in a strange, mostly empty grayish-black void with the exception of a few chairs and a massive monitor. He looked around him and saw Bruce standing next to the couch. "B-Bruce?" 'Bruce' smiled and made a gesture with his hands.
"Yes, and no." Wait, what?
"Huh?"
"What's the last thing you remember?" Dick thought back to the mission.
"Uh...Klarion...h-he hit me with magic. I was knocked out of it. I, uh, I don't remember anything after that."
"Well, let me fill in the gaps. That magic, it put you in a...mental fortress that you're stuck in. With me. See, you're actually in a coma on the outside. We're inside your mind. I'm not actually Bruce, I'm just a mental manifestation of whoever you want as your guide. If you really wanted it, I could be Alfred. Though no cookies, I'm afraid." Dick raised an eyebrow.
"How do I get out?" Not-Bruce gestured to the couch.
"Take a seat. The only way for you to leave is to watch the tapes."
"Tapes?" Not-Bruce sighed.
"Take a seat. We'll be here for a while." Dick did as he was told, and the monitor activated to show Haly's Circus, from 2006. "This is where it all began. Well, for you, anyways." Dick sighed.
"Alright, I think I know how this works. You're gonna force me to watch my greatest screw-ups from the past 5 years, and I'm just supposed to sit here?" Bruce nodded and pointed to him.
"Got it in one." Dick groaned as he turned back to the screen. Damn. Clearly no way outta here, since there's no doors or anything, soooo I guess I'm just stuck here. This is gonna be fun...
The team warped into Dick's mind the moment the monitor started to play, and they were stuck a few meters away from the couch Dick was on, though he could neither see nor hear them. J'onn gestured to the monitor, which was more than big enough for them all to see, even from where they stood a bit behind Dick. None of them could see his face, since he and the man next to him were seated and facing away from them.
"He cannot see us, but perhaps he will be able to sense us as this ordeal moves on. For now, all we can do is watch the tape." The team focused on the monitor to see the circus, and M'gann, Connor, and Arty instantly recognized it as the circus they went on a mission to. Zatanna and Wally did not recognize it by sight, but they had a good idea what it was. The moment he saw the circus, Bruce was instantly taken back to that fateful night 5 years ago.
"Wait a sec, that circus...that's where we went on that mission with Parasite!"
"Yeah...why is Robin thinking of it as a trauma?" Bruce silenced them all with a wave of his hands.
"Keep watching. You'll understand soon enough." The familiar events with the Flying Graysons started to play out on the monitor. The team saw a young Dick mess around with his family, and Artemis immediately yelled out.
"Wait, wait, wait...ROBIN...is DICK GRAYSON?! I go to school with him!" That little…"We'll laugh about this someday"? Oh, HELL no! Wait a goddamn...BATMAN is BRUCE WAYNE?! Artemis was about to glare at Bruce and yell, butBruce once more silenced her with a wave of his hand as they continued to watch, though the team was now deep in thought. They all knew the billionaire 'playboy' from the media, and none of them had too high opinions on him due to how the news portrayed him to be. Knowing that kid was actually the Boy Wonder they all got to know and love completely turned their worlds around. Zatanna and Wally felt a bit of relief knowing that their team was now aware, as they no longer had to keep the secret. Artemis, who was still lost in thought, suddenly remembered how Dick Grayson ended up in Bruce Wayne's care, and all sense of anger was immediately replaced by sorrow. Oh no...
The team watched the fateful events play out. They saw Dick stumble onto Zucco and Haly's conversation, they saw him come out onto the podium once Haly called for their act, and they saw the ropes snap. They all watched on as Dick saw his parents fall to their deaths. M'gann started to cry, burying her face in Connor's chest, though he himself was closer to tears than he would admit. Arty was tearing up as well, and Wally took hold of her hand, mostly out of comfort for himself, since he had also let a few tears fall. Dick had told him what had happened before, but he never knew how much it must have hurt to watch until he saw his bro's face on the monitor, noticing the fear and absolute terror present as his parents fell. Raquel was lost for words, and though she wasn't crying, she was very close. Kaldur was astonished at both the pain Dick felt at such a young age as well as the strength he must have had to carry on past it and smile every day. It was the strongest thing he had ever seen. Bruce felt a pang of guilt for not being able to comfort Dick as he watched this on the monitor, but he then noticed Zatanna. Zee was in tears and her legs were practically about to give up on her upon seeing Dick in this much pain. Bruce put a hand on her shoulder to try to comfort her, but it did little to stop the tears flowing down her face or the frantic beating her heart was giving at the moment.
Dick flinched a tiny bit upon seeing his parents fall and hearing the thump as they landed. He looked away from the monitor as the scene shifted to their funeral with Bruce comforting him. Not-Bruce turned to him. "Really? That's it? I must say, I expected more of a reaction from you."
"I live through this every day. Watching it happen on a screen won't change anything."
"Well, I'm impressed. But let's see if you can keep this up with the next few scenes." The monitor played the footage of Dick getting beat on in the juvenile center, Dick moving into the Manor, and the moments after he moved in, with Alfed and Bruce comforting him and even showing him uncover the Batcave. The team had their spirits lifted a small amount knowing that Dick received comfort this soon after his accident, but when they saw his treatment in the orphanage, they wanted nothing more than to find the people that hurt him and do the same to them. Connor especially was practically seething with anger, and Bruce was in a state of both shock and furiosity. Dick had never told him of the treatment he received in juvie. Knowing now what he had to go through the very week after all of this made him want to find those bullies and rip their heads off. As Dick watched the scenes play on, he let a few tears fall, but he wiped them away, not afraid to accept his past. The scene eventually shifted to Dick suiting up as Robin for the first time, helping Bruce take down Zucco and watching their conversation afterwards. The whole team smiled as they saw Dick accept his new life with his new name, and some of the pain in Zatanna's heart was replaced with warmth and awe. She found a new sense of respect for Dick, knowing that he was not afraid to smile and move forward. However, she was still a broken mess on the inside, and she wanted nothing more than to hold Dick and just be with him right now. If only she knew what was coming next...
Not-Bruce turned to Dick when the monitor paused the playback. "Well, that was certainly an interesting one. You lost your family, you got a new one, and you started running around on rooftops in a skintight suit as a way to cope with your loss."
"Heh, just following your example."
"Well, I think we both know I'm not the healthiest example of dealing with trauma, but in any case, let's move on. I have to admit, Dick, you've had a pretty messed up life. There's quite a lot to get through. We'll be here for a while." The monitor started to play bits and bits of Dick's life, showing some of his training with Bruce before he was allowed to suit up, some of the torture he endured in school and the media labelling him a circus brat, meeting Barbara Gordon and Luke Fox, et cetera. It eventually shifted over to a young Robin sneaking out of the Batcave to take on the Penguin. Dick flinched as he saw himself get kidnapped and beat on by the goons. "Okay, this one's all on you, bud. If I remember correctly, I told you that you weren't ready for this, but you snuck out anyways, and look how that ended up." The team was once again thrown into a state of utter shock and panic as they saw a chained up Dick, bleeding and bruised all over, hanging in front of a few Penguin thugs whose hands were covered in the same blood as his suit. The couples were all trying to comfort one another, but Dick was not around to help Zee. Her breath hitched at the sight of him, and her chest was getting sore from all the sobs. Bruce looked away from the monitor for a minute, feeling extremely guilty. It had taken him close to an hour to find Dick, and if he had tried harder, he likely could have saved him from at least some of the pain. The monitor showed Batman burst through the door, mercilessly beating on the crooks before unchaining and picking up a broken Robin in his arms, hurrying back to the cave to help patch him up. The team saw Dick wake up the next day, confined to his bed by Alfred and chewed out a bit by Bruce, and their hearts all shattered upon seeing the bruised body of the Boy Wonder laying in bed, crying a bit as he remembered how helpless he was. The scene once again shifted, and at this point the team was simply unable to keep up with the pain. They had already witnessed two massive, heartbreaking events from Dick's past, and the monitor had no intention of letting them stop to even catch their breaths before the next one played.
The monitor started to go into overdrive, not skipping a beat as it sped through Dick's worst moments. The team saw Dick get stabbed by Talia, get shot through the shoulder and fall to his near death by Hush, fight a mind-controlled Superman who blasted him with heat-vision, and get overdosed with fear toxin and have an uncontrollable panic seizure before Leslie could stabilize him. Dick flinched more and more at each moment, although he wasn't too hurt by them since he had already lived through and moved past them all. Damn, my worst moments are kinda turning into a Leslie Thompkins highlight reel. The team was at their breaking point. Most of them had sunk to their knees and were crying a bit with their significant other. Zatanna had basically given up on trying to control herself, and she just sat there, mesmerised by the countless horrors Dick had to go through. She was crying so much that she was certain her tears could fill up a river. Bruce looked on in shame, knowing that Dick had suffered through all this on his watch, but at the moment, he was doing his best to help Zatanna make her way through all this. Dick looked down in shame as he realized how much this must have hurt Bruce, and Not-Bruce seemed to have picked up on this.
"When you get hurt, it hurts the people around you. Trust me on that one. Your screw-ups mess with other people, too."
"I...I made mistakes. I couldn't have..." Dick didn't even know what to say, and tears started to form in his own eyes.
"Everyone makes mistakes. Yours have had serious consequences on both you and the people in your life. You've certainly had more trauma than most. But you've also had your bright moments." The monitor played another montage, but this one was much more...positive. It showed Dick meeting Wally, Donna, Roy, the League, Kara, Kaldur, Connor, Megan, Artemis, Raquel. It showed the Sidekick Squad in their happiest moments. It showed Dick, Bruce, and Alfred spending time with one another, just bonding with each other or actually enjoying themselves. It showed New Years when Zatanna finally kissed Dick. It showed Dick and Zee getting together and sharing laughs, kisses, and warmth. Dick couldn't help but smile at this, and Not-Bruce grinned a bit as he saw Dick's reaction, placing a hand on his shoulder. The team had stopped sobbing for the most part and watched on with some small semblance of happiness. Zatanna was still crying, but upon seeing the footage of herself with Dick, she let the smallest of smiles grace her face before a new sense of pain washed over her, removing the smile and bringing even more tears to her eyes. She wanted Dick to just come back to her, but he couldn't. Not right now. And that hurt her more than anything.
I wanted to write this for a while, so I actually reorganized the order of chapters I was gonna write. Next chapter will be part two, since there was no way I could fit this whole story into one chapter. I could probably make this whole story like 4 chapters long easily, since Dick has had a pretty f-ed up life, but I'll try to limit myself to 2, maybe 3. This was inspired by a fic that was once on Wattpad called The Stories I Never Told, but for whatever reason, the writer deleted it. Sucks cuz it was a fantastic story, but anyways. Feel free to leave comments or suggestions. Next chapter up soon.