Trigger Warning: Mention of Suicide, Rape

Chapter Two – Prettybird

Bruce

Bruce swore when he saw Nightwing's blue tracker turn a bright red. "Master Wayne," Alfred's voice came through. Right on time, he thought as he abruptly changed the direction of the Batmobile, grateful for the time being that Jason was determined to keep his mouth shut. No doubt the boy would be upset about the detour. I only stopped looking when I thought I saw him kill you, he thought. "Sorry to bother what I'm certain must be an… Emotional reunion, but Master Grayson has just sent off a distress signal."

"I know, Alfred," Bruce sighed and tried to focus on reaching the blinking dot. A bad feeling formed in the pit of his stomach when he realized the dot hadn't moved, not even slightly. "I'm on my way." He saw Jason roll his eyes, but ignored it. The kid could have as bad an attitude as he wanted; it wouldn't change anything.

"Very good, sir," Alfred replied. "Though I do suggest you hurry. His vitals are going off the charts."

Not good, he thought, still keeping his eyes more focused on his GPS than on the actual road, not like watching the road would matter anyway. Gotham had been evacuated. Only Jason and Scarecrow's men were left. Despite his better judgment, he checked the screen Alfred had sent him. Blood pressure high. Heart rate astronomical. Low oxygen. Terrified of something.

"Oh, come on now, Bats," Bruce tried to ignore the Joker hallucination. He needed to focus. He needed to find Dick. "You know what happened. The same thing happened to you. I wonder if he'll off himself just like poor Barbara?"

Bruce wanted to shout, to tell the son of a bitch to leave him the hell alone. But he couldn't lose his cool in front of Jason. He couldn't let Jason know anything about the hallucinations, about the blood, about anything. The last thing he needed was to know that the man he hated was all but sharing a mind with the man who had tortured him.

"Now, now," Joker stretched back, rested his hands behind his head, and looked Jason over. "I can only imagine how he must be feeling right now. You let him rot under Arkham for over a year, and yet you go after your precious little Nightwing not two minutes after you learn he's in trouble."

He kept talking, but Bruce focused on tuning him out, a task that was far easier said than done. Keep calm, Bruce, he thought as he drove. The last thing you need is to lose control.

"So why is he back in town anyway?" Jason asked, and for a moment Bruce was certain it had been part of the hallucination. "Last I heard he was running around in Bludhaven."

Bruce thought about ignoring him, knowing that it wasn't his story to tell, but he knew that ignoring Jason would just make matters worse than they already were. No, for the time being, it would be best to keep him happy, or at least as close to happy as he could be. He sincerely hoped it was a good sign that Jason seemed to be at least a little concerned for his brother. "Showed up at the manor a few weeks after…" he trailed off, and Jason raised an eyebrow. "After I got the video of you being shot." He heard Jason's breath catch, but was impressed that he managed to otherwise stay calm. "His apartment building was blown up. Asked if he could stay with me for a few days until everything calmed down. A few days turned into a few weeks, and now here we are."

He watched as Jason turned away once more.

It was more than an explosion that had sent Dick back home. Bruce knew that, but he had never pressed the issue, figuring Dick would talk when he was ready. Though it had never happened. He had asked what had happened when he saw him at the doorstep. Dick had shrugged it off, saying it was nothing, and gone off to the Batcave to train.

He had been quiet. Eerily quiet, acting more like the enigmatic, brooding Batman than the carefree, light-hearted Nightwing.

Parental instincts had gotten the best of him, and he had gone to check on his son. He watched as Dick trained, noted his lack of balance, and had moved to correct him.

He would never forget how quickly, how violently Dick had jerked away from him. "Don't touch me," he had growled, actually growled, before storming out.

Weeks later, Dick was finally turning back into some resemblance of his old self, and Bruce was still trying to piece together what else had happened.

Once he had reached a reasonable distance to the distress signal, he pulled over and locked Jason in the car. The last thing he needed was the boy trying to escape while he was dealing with this, whatever this would end up being.

He grappled onto the rooftop, and he froze.

He had expected blood, maybe an unconscious body or two, hell, even a gunshot. Having a strong suspicion fear gas had been used, he had been expecting screaming, panicking.

What he didn't expect was to find Nightwing curled onto his side in a tight ball, whimpering quietly, begging for whatever was happening to end.

Dick

He could feel his escrima sticks digging into his back, could feel Blockbuster's blood, still warm, on his face. And he knew he could never tell Bruce what had happened. He had broken the code. He had stood to the side and let a man, however sick and twisted of a man, be killed. Bruce would hate him for it…

No. He shook his head, trying to clear it. That had been weeks ago. That had been before he found out about Jason's disappearance and death, before this night, this hell of a night. Blockbuster was gone. She was gone. And he needed to focus on getting back to the manor, on getting back to Jason…

"No," he breathed and felt sick when he saw her approaching him. She was supposed to be gone, supposed to still be in Bludhaven. He had left to avoid seeing her again. Despite years of training, of knowing how to protect himself, he let her push him back onto the roof and pin him down. "You're not real," he tried to tell himself, his rational mind knowing it was just an effect of the fear toxin, nothing more than a figment of his imagination.

But she felt real enough.

"Everything's all right, baby," she said, running a hand down his chest, slicing his uniform open with her nail, the events of that night playing out all over again.

"Not real," he kept repeating, shutting his eyes tightly, hoping that would make her go away, hoping that anything would just make her go away.

"Quiet, mi amor callado," she whispered into his ear, covering his mouth with her hand.

He curled himself into a tight ball just as Jason's voice and face joined the party. "You didn't look for me," he said, his voice icy, full of nothing but pure, unadulterated hatred, and Dick felt even more sick. He hadn't known Jason was missing. Bruce hadn't told him. He had to find out about his death from some obituary weeks after it had happened. "Why was it me and not you?" He tried to cry out when the Jason hallucination wrapped his hands around his neck, but no sound would come. "He would have beaten down every door in the world to find you. He would have killed him for taking you, for killing you."

"Stop," Dick muttered weakly. "I'm sorry," he hated his voice, how weak and pathetic he sounded. "I'm sorry," he whimpered. "Please just stop."

"Quiet, mi amor," his blood ran cold when he heard her voice once more, when he felt her fingers run through his hair.

"Nightwing?" he heard a familiar voice in the chaos, but was too far out of it to listen closely, to try to figure it out.

"I'll take out the people you care about," Blockbuster appeared and kicked him square in the ribs. "Hell, even the strangers you stand next to on the street."

"No," he muttered. "No, you're dead. We killed you. I saw you die. You aren't real."

A chill ran down his spine when the man laughed. "You won't be able to shake someone's hand without marking them for death," he smirked, kneeling beside him.

"It's not real, Dick," the familiar voice came through again.

"Do you like being alone, Dick?"

"It's not real," the voice came through once more, clearer this time. "Whatever you're seeing, none of it's real."

He shut his eyes even more tightly, and though he hated himself for it, knew he was shaking.

"Don't make me do this," the voice groaned.

"Not real," he tried to mutter to himself again.

"Quiet mi amor callado…"

The not-Jason stood over him once more, his boot on Dick's chest. "It should have been you." He watched the second Robin's foot come up to kick him in the face, and everything went black.