A/N: This is the last updated chapter! After this, the story will stay as it is until I finish the whole thing.
Happy reading!
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Dick forced himself to smile at his neighbour. He ignored the painful twist in his cheek—his face was still sore, even if the bruise had finally disappeared today.
This morning he'd grabbed his make-up kit from the bathroom cabinet, prepared to spend at least half an hour hiding it. But he froze when he made eye-contact with himself in the mirror.
With the bruise gone, his face looked empty and pale. In pictures from before Spyral his skin had been golden and glowing, not death warmed over, the bags under his eyes ashen, his black hair too long and curling at the tips.
Once, he looked like his mother.
Like Damian.
Now a ghost stared back at him. A ghost he wanted to shatter into a million pieces so he'd never have to look at it again.
"You alright there, Grayson?" his neighbour asked. He'd left his apartment right when Dick pushed the key into his lock, definitely another attempt to make friends. Dick wasn't looking for another burden, though. He'd done security checks on all the residents in his building and was perfectly fine with just greeting them in the hallway. If any of them ever saw the state of his apartment, they might report him to the landlord, after all.
If they didn't see the Nightwing gear strewn across the floor first.
"Just had a long day," Dick answered. He found the right key and stepped inside before his neighbour could get another word in.
He let out a breath, then another. Leaned back against his door and closed his eyes, taking a moment to compose himself.
He hadn't lied—every day at the BPD lasted an eternity, and not just because of the work. His colleagues were all corrupt bigots, throwing around slurs like they were playing bingo. If he called them out, Redhorn slammed more paper on his desk. And if he ignored it, he might as well call himself a bigot, too. The whole point of becoming a cop had been to better the place, but now he wondered if the uniform didn't rub off on him, instead.
It was exhausting.
He took his paperwork home when he got the chance, but he still had to patrol and file evidence. Worked detective cases, too, even though he was on beat cop salary. No one else at the station cared enough to take a case without a bribe, which meant ninety percent of reports got ignored by default. Except for Amy, of course.
But then she quit.
Dick was happy for her, but he would be lying if he didn't feel like she left him to drown.
The room stopped spinning, so Dick started to take off his coat and shoes. He couldn't afford to linger if he wanted to shower before patrol.
His fingers stumbled around the buttons of his coat as he willed his hands to move. He grabbed at the laces of his shoes clumsily, and when he looked down at his feet, he couldn't get Jason's voice out of his head.
Did you even notice the goddamn blood you stepped in?
He did now. Every look down had him gasping for air, scarlet splattering his shoes, blood blooming beneath his feet. He left red footprints only he could see.
Breathe.
That night with Jason had come straight out of his nightmares. Except he'd expected that whoever found out would call Bruce and spread his sins like wildfire. And when Batman would find out how much trouble Dick still had with his memories of Spyral, he would push and push and push, until everyone inside their family would have to suffer because of him.
Instead, Jason had let him go, and to this day no one had burst into his apartment to drag him to Arkam. It made sense for Red Hood to keep Batman out of it, but the way he'd let go of Dick's arm, hadn't even chased him as he fled out of Gotham—that had been out of character.
It had to be because of their last exchange, but he couldn't figure out what made those words different from their usual jabs.
He'd been mean, but it wasn't like he insulted Jason's dead mom or told him anything he didn't know. Dick used to berate him for shooting criminals all the time.
He'd stopped doing that after he came back from Spyral. As long as Jason kept it clean during team-ups, Dick felt like he was the last person to judge him.
Breathe. He'd never find Red Hood if he didn't want to be found, so all he could do was wait for him to respond to the dozens of messages he left on his phone. Until his brother was ready to talk, he would focus on work like he always did.
Dick did a double take when he finally stepped into his living room.
Tim sat on his couch. He'd sandwiched himself between two laptops, one on his lap and the other on a stack of laundry Dick used as a pillow.
"I so don't have time to be here," Tim said, his eyes flashing between his screens.
"Hi, Timmy." It had been a while since one of his siblings had showed up like this. They'd all slept on his couch at one point or another, either to flee the manor or to get away from superhero drama. Dick knew from his days with the Titans that sharing dorms with supers could be just as exhausting as dealing with Bruce—even if Wally was infinitely better at Mario Kart.
"I can't stay," Tim said as he grabbed the to-go cup next to him and took a sip. "Lucius's on vacation, and his assistant keeps sending me emails about fixing his dumpster fire of a formula. Did you know we make toothpaste? Apparently, Wayne Tech makes toothpaste. It's so stupid and yet here I am mailing people about it."
So Tim didn't have time to be here, couldn't stay, and was rambling about toothpaste.
He seemed to be doing fine.
"You want coffee?" Dick asked. He used to be reluctant about fueling Tim's coffee addiction, but his brother was turning twenty-one in a couple of weeks. If he wanted caffeine, he'd get it—with or without Dick's thrifted coffee maker.
Tim held up his cup as he kept typing. Case in point.
"Right," Dick said. Should he sit? Make tea? Tim wouldn't be here unless it was important, so he could hardly excuse himself to have a shower.
His vision tilted, a sudden bout of dizziness making him reach for the desk chair in the corner. He sat down heavily and breathed through his nose, trying to keep his movement casual.
Thank god Tim's eyes were glued to his screen.
"So why are you here?" Dick asked before Tim could clue in on how he almost fainted. "I would love to help, but you know Bruce forbid me from making executive decisions after I spent a year worth's of budget on developing the flying skateboards from Back to the Future."
Tim looked at him blankly, blinked, then looked down at his screen. He let out a breath. "Sorry, I'm just… I'm really busy. I'm not here because of the Toothpaste, obviously." He pushed both laptops closed and shoved them to the side.
"So basically, you've become a meme, and Bruce wants me to fix it. Like, the man is—" Tim's fingers make bat ears on top of his head "—but he's still a Boomer who doesn't understand the internet like he thinks he does. I can't just delete everyone's TikTok accounts, even if the sentiment is relatable. I'd have to mindwipe the entire earth, and I don't think Nightwing backflipping while holding Dunkin' coffee cups warrants that. And Cass keeps showing him more and more videos of people duetting you, and she clearly thinks it's hilarious." He took another sip.
"And it is."
Dick waited for him to continue, but after a beat of silence, he realised that was the end of it. He knew he hadn't been thinking clearly that night, but he hadn't thought this would be the part he got in trouble for.
"You want me to talk to Bruce about it?" Dick asked. Red Robin was in charge of deleting any footage that featured them, like smartphone recordings or security tapes, but if this had blown out of proportion, it wouldn't be fair to make him deal with it. "If it's a lot, I'll take care of it myself."
Tim shook his head. "I can handle B. I just wanted you to be aware he might bring it up at dinner tomorrow—I wasn't sure I'd catch you before then and you've been really slow with your messages."
Shit. He'd completely forgotten the monthly dinner at the manor. He hadn't missed it once since he they started the tradition as a way for all of them to catch up and enjoy Alfred's cooking.
And this would be the first time Cass would be here for it in months. Dick hadn't seen her at all since she arrived from Hong Kong. He loved her, but he'd been afraid she'd see straight through his smile.
God, it was going to be a shit show. He could forget about patrolling tonight—if he didn't try to sleep, he'd probably faint before he made it to the dining room.
Tim narrowed his eyes. "You, Mr. let's-all-hug-and-say-I-love-you, didn't forget, did you?"
"No," Dick said, "of course not. I just didn't realise someone was filming me at Dunkin'."
"You winked at the camera."
"Ah. So I did."
"Didn't you notice anyone referencing it during patrol? Two of these thugs kept asking B if he could do the 'Espresso Flip' and I swear I heard one of his veins pop. Damian got all pissy about it being lattes and not espressos, which like, almost made me respect him for defending your honour."
Dick cringed. "I haven't… gone out much at night lately." Tonight was supposed to be the first time since the disaster with Jason over a week ago, actually.
Tim's face turned serious. "Like, not at all?"
"It's been quiet."
They stared at each other.
"No offense Dick, but you look dead on your feet. You mean to tell me this is what you're like with sleep?"
That was the thing. Even if he turned in early, his muscles jittered and his mind raced. He was back at Spyral, the hypos implant in his skull making it impossible to distinguish between illusion and reality. He'd reach out and brush past rows of corpses, faces staring at the gun in his hand. Every touch another gunshot broke his skin, and the dead would cry and beg for mercy. Sometimes they morphed into Damian, Tim, or Jason.
He wasn't strong enough to try for more than an hour before he fled from his bed, aching with the need to move. But when he tried to suit up, his fingers wouldn't grasp his zipper. His escrima sticks would clatter to the ground. He would turn and see another corpse in the corner, then realise it was his mirror.
It often left him hurt and broken in his silent apartment, curled up on the couch in the middle of the night as he pulled at his scalp, trying to remember what being human felt like.
After he composed himself he worked on cases, both for the BPD and the Justice League. He read and read and put on loud music until he passed out an hour before his alarm went off.
Rinse and repeat.
Tim looked honest to god worried now. "Dick."
"I'm working on it, okay? I'm really busy with paperwork and my patrol partner just quit. You can't judge me for missing sleep, you're the original Wayne Family zombie."
Tim shook his head. "One, I find that title insulting. Two, if you still look dead tomorrow, sorry, but I will be judging you heavily. You're not the only one with a license to worry."
Dick forced a smile. "I promise I'll be right as rain after I get some solid hours in."
Tim jammed both laptops back in his bag. "You better."
"Thanks for warning me about Bruce, though. And for reminding me of dinner. You didn't have to come all this way, but I'm glad you did."
Tim smiled as he closed his bag. He'd filled out a bit in the last year, his vigilante work finally catching up with the ridiculous growth spurt he had in his teens. Although he still had bags under his eyes, his skin was clear and healthy, his hair trimmed and cared for. He'd grown up well.
Might've been the only one out of the lot of them who did.
"I thought you didn't forget?" Tim asked.
"I didn't," Dick answered with a grin.
A loud bang rattles the front door, both of their heads whipping towards the sound. Someone banged it over and over, shock droning through his apartment.
Tim looked at him, mouthing 'who?' without making a sound. Dick shrugged and grabbed the paperweight on the table. He could hardly open the door with a real weapon in hand.
He had no idea who it could be. None of his neighbours were confrontational. Most of them were immigrants, single parents, or both. They wouldn't bang on his door like this, especially at night.
Tim looked around for a weapon too, but Dick gestured for him to hide. Better to have the element of surprise.
After the sixth bang a yell broke the pattern. Dick dropped the stone in his hand and rushed to the door, ignoring Tim's confused look from behind the couch. That was Miss Nowak's voice, the Polish widow from three doors down the hall. Something must've been very wrong for her to sound like that.
"Mr. Grayson!" She yelled, pulling him out of his apartment with frantic hands. Her blond hair stuck out at random angles, and her pupils were enormous. Dick could feel her pulse hammering through her grip. "Please help my Johnny, I beg. Please help."
"What's wrong?" Dick allowed himself to be pulled along, waving at Tim to close his door behind them. Miss Nowak led them to her apartment, a mirror to Dick's own if he ever bothered to clean.
She gestured to the open window. "My Johnny, I left him alone. I needed to do the laundry, and he was being so good watching TV."
Dick knew the kid. All his pants had colourful patches sewn over his knees, and he never left the apartment without his Flash toy.
"Where is he?"
Miss Nowak gestured to the window again, and Dick shared a look with Tim. He rushed past her to look down at the street. They were on the third floor. If the kid had fallen…
When he looked down, the street was empty, thank God. The window led out to the fire escape, a narrow set of iron ladders that connected the roof to the street.
"I don't see him," Dick said as he climbed onto the metal platform. He shivered as the wind bit into his limbs—Blüdhaven nights weren't meant to be weathered without a coat.
Miss Nowak peaked her head through the window and looked up. Dick followed her gaze and sure enough, there was Johnny, on his way to the roof.
Tim let out a breath when he too spotted the boy. "He looks unhurt, at least."
"I've been afraid to yell," Miss Nowak whispered. "What if I scare him and he falls? He is only seven. Please, Mr. Grayson. You are police and you are nice. Please."
Dick's vision swam as he looked at the ladders. They were on the third floor, but his building had nine total, and the kid was almost on the roof. Six pairs of ladders shouldn't be intimidating, but she'd had caught him at a terrible moment. Hell, he'd almost fainted from fatigue just a few minutes ago.
Still.
"Of course I'll get him," Dick said. There wasn't a universe where he could say no to such a plea.
"Thank you," she whispered. "You are a good man, Mr. Grayson."
There was no point in disagreeing, even if the words felt so wrong they made him sick to his stomach. He smiled at Miss Nowak and let it go.
Tim handed him his shoes and coat he'd brought with him from Dick's apartment—he'd always been psychic like that.
Dick's hands shook as he tied his laces, but neither Tim nor Ms. Nowak said anything.
He stepped back outside, took a deep breath, and grabbed the first rung of the ladder. He took every step slowly, his eyes glued on Johnny's back until the boy disappeared onto the roof.
When he looked down, Miss Nowak's stared straight up to the roof. Tim's eyes were on him instead. He frowned when they made eye contact. His face blurred, then snapped back into focus. Dick blinked away the dark edges in his vision and decided to keep his eyes on the ladder.
One flight. Another. Another. He halted to catch his breath, pretending to check the ladder's integrity so Tim wouldn't notice how he struggled to breathe. On the next flight his feet slipped, but his hands choked the metal rung, rust leaving heavy indents in his palms.
He somehow made it to the roof.
He'd been here before, of course. His building was one of the few in the district that had a roof access, this little square the width of a staircase that popped out of the concrete. His landlord kept the door locked and used the roof as a dump, dozens of crates and trash bags littering the space.
Johnny kneeled in between the crates, his back turned and his hands busy with something Dick couldn't see.
He waved down to Tim and Miss Nowak, giving them a thumbs-up.
He mouthed 'I got this' to his brother, who nodded and led the woman back inside. Showtime.
"Johnny," he said.
The boy whipped around, his Flash toy slipping through his fingers.
"Mr. Police?"
"What are you doing up here, kid?" Dick took a step forward, and when Johnny didn't run, he came closer until he could touch him. He knelt and gently forced the boy to look away from his toy.
"Can you tell me? Or do you just want to go down? Just nod if you do."
Johnny shook his head, his body stiff and his expression stoic.
His heart softened when he recognised fear. "You aren't in trouble with me, Johnny. I'm here because your Mom asked me to help you get down."
The boy finally made eye contact. "You're friends with Mom?"
Not really. But that wouldn't be an acceptable answer to a seven-year-old.
"We all look out for each other," he said. "All that matters is that she's very worried about you."
Johnny's face morphed into a scowl. "Mon doesn't care."
Miss Nowak had been near hysterical, but Dick understood how it could seem that way to her son. Sometimes adult love is subtle. It lives in little touches, in heartfelt dinners, in sacrifices, in everything but the words 'I love you'. Sometimes adults make it hard for children to see their aching hearts, and when you're seven, it makes you think no one aches but you.
"Why would you think so?" Dick asked. "to me it feels like she cares a lot."
When Johnny didn't answer, Dick picked him up and set him down on a crate, then went back to grab the Flash figure. He pushed it into the boy's hands and sat down next to him.
Johnny fiddled with the toy. It was an older one, from when Barry still held the mantle. Dick could always tell, even though there really wasn't a difference between his and Wally's costumes.
"I wanted to go to the park," Johnny said. "But she says we can't go at night. And it has to be at night."
"Why?"
Johnny kicked back against the crate. "It's stupid."
"Stupid enough to break your neck over?"
"I wasn't going to fall."
"That's what everyone thinks," Dick said. He plucked the action figure from the boy's hands and dropped it back into his lap. "Until they do."
Johnny glared at him. "You climbed the ladders, too."
"Yes, but when you grow up, you become responsible for your own decisions. Right now your Mom is the one who gets to decide if you're allowed up here or not."
Johnny put the figure down next to him and let out a heavy sigh. "I just wanted to meet a superhero."
"You wanted to meet Flash. At night. On a rooftop in Blüdhaven?"
"No. I wanted to meet Nightwing."
Dick blinked.
Johnny opened his jacket and took out another, smaller figure, the kind of toy you get from a Happy Meal. Nightwing, this time. Not Flash. "I need to give him this."
Dick knew Nightwing toys existed. Not a lot of them, of course, but enough. Once, Donna had given all the original Titans themselves for Christmas. He'd only just begun patrolling as Nightwing and his was clearly bootleg, painted horribly, bits of sharp plastic left from the mold.
He'd loved that thing. It had been proof that Nightwing was real, and that Blüdhaven cared. That he could still be himself without being Robin.
Johnny turned the toy in his hands. "I wanted to leave it on the statue in the park, so he'd see it. But if I left it too early, other people would grab it. It needed to be night, but Mom wouldn't let me, so I picked the roof instead. I only wanted to leave this here, I was coming right back. She wasn't supposed to notice."
Dick couldn't stop looking at the stupid toy, smaller than the boy's palm.
"But why?" he asked.
"It's stupid."
"I don't think you're stupid, Johnny."
"I see him sometimes," the boy admitted. "Outside the window. And he waved at me once, when Mom and I came back from Babcia really late."
Silence.
"That's it?"
The boy nodded.
Dick couldn't help himself. He laughed.
"That is stupid," he said.
Johnny smiled. "Told you!"
"It's not bad stupid, though. Sometimes, a little stupid is better than a whole lot of nothing, and I'm sure Nightwing would be flattered to know you cared so much."
"You really think so?"
"I really do. But I don't think he would've liked the way you sneaked up here and gave your Mom a heart attack. You're probably going to get grounded for months."
"Worth it."
They left the toy on the edge facing away from the roof-access. That way, only someone planning to jump to the next building would notice it. Dick made Johnny promise he wouldn't come back to check on the figurine, which he agreed to without a fuss.
"It's going to be gone tomorrow, anyway," he'd said.
Dick itched to take the toy right now, to hold it in his hand and put it somewhere safe. But he knew leaving it mattered to Johnny. So they left it.
For now.
He'd be back.
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Down wasn't as hard as up, even with Johnny hanging from his neck. Within minutes both of them were back inside.
Miss Nowak rushed her son, kissing and hugging him. When she found every hair on him untouched, she switched to fast words in polish, Dick understanding enough to hear 'reckless', 'idiot' and 'fool'. After her rant, she shoved him forward.
"Say thank you to Mr. Grayson."
Johnny looked up at him. He bit his lip, then quickly hugged Dick's legs. "Thank you," he said, and only the two of them knew what he really meant.
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"I thought it was just Damian," Tim said when they were back at Dick's apartment. He was putting on his shoes, his bag already packed with both his laptops. He never said it with so many words, but being left alone with civilians always stressed Tim out.
"What?"
"I thought you were like, the Damian whisperer, but that kid ate right out of your hand."
"My superpower," Dick joked.
"No, really, as someone who reads psychology books so he doesn't scare civilians, you're a wizard."
"That's it, though," Dick said. "You can't think of someone as 'just' a civilian or 'just' a kid. Children hate being talked down to like that—I was only a year older than that kid when I became Robin, you know."
Tim stared into the distance, trying to compute that information. "Shit, I'm kind of mad at Bruce for allowing that. Were you that small, too?"
Dick shrugged. He'd probably been smaller, if they counted weight instead of length. "I didn't give him much choice."
"I bet you were a horrible child."
Dick fought a yawn as he pointed a finger at his brother's face. "You're one to talk. You just walked up to the manor and demanded to speak to Batman."
Tim slung his bag over his shoulder. "Go to sleep, Dick."
And for the first time in a long while, Dick felt like he'd actually drift off if his head hit the pillow.
