A/N: Prepare for the chapter titles to become more and more unhinged as the story continues, sorry not sorry X) I had WAY too much fun with author's notes and summaries on AO3 X)))

Enjoy!

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Dick had seen a lot of videos of himself. There were the old Flying Grayson tapes, shaky footage of his tiny shape soaring on the trapeze. There were the press cameras, which had taken dozens of images of him smiling the same practised smile. And the security tapes in the cave were filled with hours and hours of footage of him throwing the same punch, trying the same trick. Sometimes civilians saw a blur of blue, whipping out their phones just in time to catch a glimpse of Nightwing on the Blüdhaven skyline.

And one time Nightwing, sleep-deprived and in a shitty who-gives-a-fuck mood, backflipped in front of Gotham's Dunkin' Donuts with two coffee cups in his hands. Somehow, it went viral. Whoops.

He truly hadn't been himself that day, not when he picked Damian up from school, and definitely not when he was with Jason and casually forgot blood was supposed to be inside a body. And now every time he opened his phone he was reminded of it.

Cass shoved her phone in his face, showing him another video of someone backflipping and spilling coffee all over the floor. She laughed. He laughed. She looked at him, her eyes narrowing. He coughed and looked away.

Cass was even better at sniffing out wrongs than Alfred. When Dick and Damian had arrived in a taxi, it was already game over. Dick couldn't blow her off, not when he hadn't seen her in six months. And why would he want to? He loved Cass, and after tonight she'd be gone again. She deserved to see him at least once.

That's what he told himself as she kept shoving her phone in his face.

Damian had dragged Dick down to the Cave when they got back, eager to do his promised medbay check. Dick let him prod his still sensitive ribs as Cass hovered over the boy's shoulder, making a face at every test that came back clean. Damian seemed relieved, though.

Cass had hugged Damian, too. And surprisingly, He'd let her, even though he was still prickly and tense from the Zoo. Maybe because of it. Dick couldn't find it in himself to be jealous — he was far too drained to focus on anything but smiling. Every second Cass looked at Damian was one she looked away from him.

Cass nudged him and held her phone out. Another video. He laughed again, wondering when she'd switch up tactics. Even if Cass picked up on issues extremely fast, her ideas of fixing them usually were… interesting.

"Show me," Tim said. He leaned over Dick's chest and sighed when he saw the screen. "Deleted that one last week."

"I like it."

"You mean Steph likes it."

Cass shrugged.

"She's a bad influence."

She grinned. "I am too."

The three of them were squished together on the den's couch. Cass to Dick's right, Tim to his left. They were waiting for Bruce to come back from the watchtower. Batman never missed a League meeting.

Tim kept leaning against Dick's chest as he and Cass looked at the video. It was comfort and restriction both.

Relax, I'm here.

Be warned, you're not leaving.

It got hard to breathe.

"You can't be a bad influence to someone so pestilential—"

Tim flinched back as Steph entered the room. Her arm swung back, and Dick's senses sharpened. His hand lashed out, and when he pulled it back, he was holding the pillow she'd thrown. His heart pounded painfully in his chest, a battering ram smashing against his ribs. He desperately tried to suppress the need to move, get away from the danger.

Except he was holding a stupid pillow in the den, and he knew that. He saw Tim and Cass and Steph. He felt the thick rug beneath his feet. He smelled the old wooden furniture. But these things meant nothing. He blinked, and on the inside of his eyelids, there was a gun against his head.

"Pull the trigger."

He was in the den, and his gun was in the gun safe in his apartment.

"He's as good as dead, anyway."

He was in the den,

"What a waste of a bullet."

The den

The gun presses more firmly against his head. "It'll make a nice art project, though."

Do it, Dick thinks. Just fucking do it.

Steph cleared her throat. She looked annoyed. "He calls me 'pestilential' and you save his ass?"

Tim laughed. "You don't even know what it means!"

"I don't have to, with all this blatant sexism wafting up the room."

"No," Cass said. "Nepotism."

"It can be both!"

Cass nodded thoughtfully. "Both." She jabbed her phone under Dick's nose, the screen filled with torturous laughter.

Dick stood up. His legs carried him to the bin in the corner, where he buckled over and retched.

"Dick?"

"Shit!"

"Go get—"

"No," Dick said through the bile, "don't get anyone. Just let me—" he puked again. "Just let me finish. I'll clean it up."

"Jesus," Steph said. "When Tim told me you looked like shit, he wasn't kidding."

Of course Tim had told her. They hadn't dated in three years, but still acted like an old married couple. His brother didn't even look remotely sorry, either.

Cass came back into the room, handing Dick a glass of water. He hadn't even seen her leave. The water felt cold as it slid down, flushing away the thick bile in the back of his throat. Tim reached out to help him up, but Dick swatted his hand away. He pushed himself off the floor with shaky limbs.

"Not a word to Damian," he said, his voice raspy. "Or the others."

Three matching, unimpressed faces glared back at him.

"Seriously?" Steph asked.

"If you think we're just going to let this go—"

Cass shook her head at him. "You're ill."

It wasn't fair. Blood, guts, bullets. People hurting and dying. Vulgar things. Red and red and red and pain and death, and it makes him feel nothing. But then Steph throws a pillow, and he spews his innards like a garden hose.

He needed to dispose of the evidence before Damian, Alfred, or even Bruce walked in, but if he left the three musketeers alone, they would tell the entire house before he'd make it back.

They all froze when the grandfather clock moved. Bruce stepped through, already dressed casually for dinner. He frowned when he took in the room, four of his kids in various states of distress, silent even before he arrived. Dick could smell his own puke in the bin behind him. He prayed he was the only one.

"What's going on?" Bruce asked.

Damian strode into the room just as Dick opened his mouth to spew more bullshit. "Great news, Grayson! It appears you do not have aids!" A beat of silence. Then Damian turned and saw Bruce. He paled.

Dick made a strangled noise. "You checked me for aids?!"

Damian opened his mouth, closed it, and turned around. "I'll go help Pennyworth in the kitchen." He disappeared. Oh god, the poor kid.

Silence. Awful, awful silence. Steph coughed, the corners of her lips trembling. Her shoulders shook as both Tim and Cass shot her murderous glares.

Dick wanted to disappear.

Bruce's eyes shifted between the four of them. "Will anyone please explain what's going on?"

Dick clapped his hands together and smiled so brightly his teeth bared. "Let's talk after dinner, yeah? I'm starving!"

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Dick did his best to swallow everything on his plate. Since he'd so loudly declared to be hungry, he'd served himself a huge portion. Every time his fork moved towards his mouth several pairs of eyes followed it, as if he would somehow dump it if they looked away. He wished he could. At least the aspirin he'd taken down in the cave helped with his headache, or he'd really be in trouble.

There were six of them today: Bruce, Damian, Tim, Cass, Steph and him. Alfred would join them after he finished the desserts, and Jason was absent, as usual. He'd only joined once after becoming Red Hood, when Cass had tracked him down and kidnapped him from his own hideout. This time, his absence felt like it was Dick's fault, though. The thought twisted in his gut.

For now, Tim, Steph and Cass stayed silent about him spewing all over the den, probably because they didn't want Bruce to go into hardass mode when they had to spend the entire evening with him. But Dick knew it would come up eventually. He just hoped they'd wait until he was back in Blüdhaven.

Bruce cleared his throat. "How was your day, Damian?"

Damian's eyes flickered to Dick before he answered. "Grayson and I went to the Zoo."

"Yes, Alfred told me. But how was it?"

"Laika was still gravid."

"No, I meant—"

"I went down to the lab today," Tim interrupted. "Did you know Lucius approved a grant of three million to develop toothpaste?"

Oh, there definitely was a video of their disaster at the Zoo, and Tim had definitely seen it. That redirection was way too smooth. At least he seemed to understand that informing Bruce would only complicate things.

"I trust Lucius."

"Yes, well, next time he goes on vacation, please make sure there's someone left who knows what's going on."

Bruce smiled as he cut another corner of his meat. "I left you, didn't I?"

"And who's doing my job while I'm doing his?" Tim slammed another spoonful of mashed potatoes on his plate.

Bruce's smile faltered. "I thought you liked R&D?"

"I like water. Doesn't mean I like to drown in it." There was a sharp edge to Tim's voice. Was it an act, or was he genuinely mad? He could be hard to read when he wanted to be.

"Why didn't you tell me you were having trouble?"

"Because I didn't realise until Cathy started sending me emails about toothpaste!"

Bruce laid down his cutlery. "Don't yell at the table." They glared at each other until Tim deflated.

"Sorry. I've just been really busy lately."

"Maybe Dick can help you," Bruce said with a hint of sarcasm in his voice. "Since he's also responsible for that, no?"

All eyes on the table shifted to Dick, dead silent. He laughed nervously.

"I'm also extremely busy."

"Not too busy to ruin all of our reputations."

"I didn't…"

"We have an image to maintain. Half of the petty criminals in this city don't commit crime because of that image. And in ten hilarious seconds, you undercut years of work." He gestured to Tim. "Until we can find a solution, Tim is going to have to keep working to keep your stupid stunt below the radar."

"Now hold on," Tim said. "I never said—"

"I'll do it myself," Dick interrupted. "It's not Tim's problem."

"No," Damian and Tim said in unison. They looked at each other, shocked they agreed.

Bruce laughed. "So now you suddenly have time?"

"No, I… What I meant was—"

"I'm only hearing excuses, not solutions."

Cass slammed her hand on the table. "Don't fight."

"This isn't a fight," Bruce said. "This is me holding him accountable."

"I'll fix it," Dick said again. "I'll fix all of it. I will."

"Dick—"

"No Tim, Bruce is right. If I'd known about this earlier, I never would've let it happen."

Tim pushed his plate away. "And what exactly would you have done in between not patrolling, not sleeping, and puking your brain out literally ten minutes ago?"

"Grayson did what?"

Shit. This was exactly what he was afraid of. And even though his whole mind had been occupied by doomsday scenarios, the actual moment still caught him by surprise.

"Went all 'blaargh' in the den," Steph added, ever so helpful.

Damian frowned. "But all the tests came back clean? Why didn't you tell me?"

Bruce's scowl slowly spread across his face. "What tests? There were more?"

Dick reached deep down, pulling at some part of the old him. The Dick before Spyral. A different him that knew what to do. But all he grasped was something malicious he didn't recognise.

He threw up his arms. "They all seemed dead-set on worrying about me. I allowed Damian to run some tests to prove I was alright, that's all."

"Did you keep a sample?"

"No Bruce, I didn't keep a goddamn puke sample. Jesus Christ."

"Don't get funny with me, Dick. If something's wrong with you, we need to figure it out so we can fix it."

That was the problem, wasn't it? There was no fixing this. There's no fixing becoming a ghost who carries around his own corpse. A corpse so heavy, he might as well be Atlas carrying the world.

"I'm fine in the field, and beyond that, you all should mind your own business. I'm an adult with my own life. I have my own job and my own apartment in my own city. I'm flattered by all the attention, but most of my issues are trying to convince you all I don't have issues, and it's not helping at all. So please, kindly fuck off."

Everyone's mouths hung open.

"If you're fine on patrol, then why is Jason ignoring you?" Tim bit back. "Every night, I see him muting you before he joins the comms."

The comment hit like a truck, but Dick couldn't afford to back down. "That had nothing to do with my performance."

"Then why haven't you patrolled once since you met him?"

Damian stood up from the table. "You haven't been patrolling?"

"I'll patrol tonight," Dick said. "Right here in Gotham. But after that, you're all going to respect my wishes and mind your own fucking business."

He was going to regret those words.