Welcome to the Epilogue, hope you enjoy!

I still don't own Young Justice

Epilogue: Who Are You Now

Six months later...

Bruce walked down the hall of Wayne manor toward Dick's room. It had been a long six months. The road to recovery had been full of complications, not the least of which had been explaining the whole fiasco to not only the Justice League but the team as well.

To say they did not take it well would be the understatement of the year considering that their were numerous motions to ban both Dick and Wally from hero work ever again, and a few more that wanted to ban Bruce and Barry as well. It took weeks of meetings, proposals, testimonies and paperwork to get to the agreement they had now, which was still subject to change at a moments notice.

Basically, Bruce and Barry had been acquitted of any wrong doing as the league, prompted largely by Green Arrow and Wonder Woman, agreed that it was unfair to hold a hero responsible for a rogue sidekick (and vice-versa should the situation ever arise). As for Wally and Dick, once all the evidence regarding Dr. Strange's mind control had been submitted, and reviewed an exhausting number of times, the league was also ready clear their names as well, provided that Batman formulated contingency plans to be approved by the league should this ever happen again. Superman had commented that asking Batman to create contingency plans was something he never thought he'd have to do.

However, with the league on their side, dealing with the non-hero population became a bit easier. It helped that the "Rogue Robin" story had been kept largely under wraps two years ago and Kid Flash's name had never been publicly released in connection with the recent murders. As promised, four days after the fight in the warehouse Batman had a long discussion with Commissioner Gordon about both the murder cases. Gordon seemed more than happy to accept the evidence of Dr. Strange's guilt, and admitted that he'd always had trouble accepting Robin's fall to the dark side, but at the time the case against him had been to solid to continue refuting. He took Batman by surprise however when he asked if Robin was going to make a return to hero work once he'd recovered, mostly because in that moment Batman realized that he actually didn't know what Dick was planning on doing with the Robin mantle. He'd told the Commissioner that Robin was undergoing intensive therapy in order to work through the abundant non-physical wounds this whole ordeal had left on him, but when he was ready, Batman would broach the subject to him and notify the Commissioner of his decision.

That was the reason Bruce wanted to talk to Dick this morning. According to J'onn and Dinah, he was showing signs of great improvement in his sessions with both of them, and both Bruce and Alfred had been quietly taking note of his gradually improved demeanor and eating habits. So perhaps it was time to talk about the future.

Bruce knocked softly on his son's door.

A startled "come in" was heard, accompanied by the crinkle of papers as Bruce opened the door to find Dick sitting at his desk with an almost comical amount of crumpled notebook paper scattered around him.

"You know Alfred would have a heart attack if he saw this room right now," Bruce noted overlooking the mess.

Dick smiled sheepishly, as if he too had just noticed the sheer volume of the crumpled white balls as well. "Yeah, he probably would. I'll be sure to clean it up when I'm done though."

Bruce closed the door behind him and moved to sit on the bed behind Dick's desk chair, noticing for the first time yet another sheet of paper in front of Dick. It looked like there was something drawn on it but Dick's arm had been placed over the center so Bruce couldn't tell what it was.

"What are you working on?" he asked only to feel a twinge of regret when Dick lowered his eyes and seemed to sadden at the question.

"Well..." he paused as if he was trying to work out exactly how he wanted to phrase his next words, Bruce just waited patiently. "I talked to Wally over the phone yesterday, and he says that he thinks he's done with the hero thing. He says he just can't put that costume on anymore without thinking about what happened."

Bruce's eyes widened slightly, yes he figured that both boys would want to take a break from the hero life, but somewhere in his subconscious he must've just assumed that at some point they would both want to return to their mantles. "What does Artemis think about all this?" He knew that the two had been pretty serious before this whole incident, but had been a little preoccupied with Dick's recovery to keep up on how it had affected their relationship.

"According to Wally, she feels the same way. Apparently they've been talking about settling down and going to college or something, but nothing's concrete yet."

Bruce nodded, while he was happy that the young couple's relationship had clearly emerged from this trial stronger than before, he was reminded of the night Dick had finally made an attempt to reconnect with Zatanna, only to find that whatever they had had before was gone. Bruce remembered how Dick had assured him that he was fine and that it wasn't a big deal, but he could tell that that rejection had put a serious doubt in Dick's mind that anyone would ever be able to love him again because of his past. Both Bruce and Alfred had been desperately doing anything they could think of to convince him that that was in no way true, but while Dick had outwardly projected an air of nonchalance regarding the problem, everyone who knew him well enough could see that it still deeply bothered him. However, there was one silver lining. In the six months that Batman had been devoting a greater amount of time to Dick a new hero had sprung up in Gotham in the form of Batgirl. It didn't take long for Bruce to figure out that her true identity was Barbra Gordon, the commissioner's daughter. She regularly showed up when Batman went out on patrol and thus far the two had worked well together, well enough that Bruce was seriously considering extending an invitation to join not only the team, but the Batfamily as well. If nothing else, perhaps she could reach Dick in a way that Bruce and Alfred hadn't been able to, but it was really too early to be thinking about that.

"So what are your thoughts on that? Are you thinking about retiring as well?"

Dick took a moment to think, glancing down at the paper still hidden under his arm. "I'm glad Wally's found a way to move on, and I'm glad he'll have Artemis with him while he does, but..."

"But?" Bruce prompted after Dick trailed off.

"But I don't think that would work for me, retirement that is," he met Bruce's gaze, a quiet determination in his eyes. "Bruce I've been doing this since I was nine. I don't think I can give it up permanently and not go crazy. That said, I am done being Robin."

He paused for a moment to let that sink in before continuing. "Wally's right, that costume's been tainted. I'm never going to be able to call myself Robin again without thinking about what happened. I've been Robin since I was nine so... I was thinking it might be time for an update." He smiled as he took the paper he'd been working on out from under his arm and handed it to Bruce.

It was a new costume design, almost startlingly different from his old one. No cape for starters, and the only color present besides black was in the form of a bright blue bird across the chest. All in all Bruce could see the idea Dick was going for with it. It was darker and more mature in contrast to the almost innocent youthfulness of the colorful Robin costume, which reflected the change in Dick post-trauma rather well. However, it wasn't completely eaten up with darkness, the blue bird on the chest stood out in stark contrast to the rest of the outfit, holding back the blackness in an almost hopeful way.

Hope. Because that's what their lives had become about, what they'd always been about in some ways. Hope that no matter what happened in the past, or how dark the present is, or how obscure the future may seem they can still move forward.

"So what do you think?"

Bruce smiled at his son, "I think it's perfect, but obviously this isn't a Robin"

It was Dick's turn to smile, "No, it's not."

"So who are you going to be now?"

Dick's smile grew a little wider, and when he spoke his voice had an edge of excitement to it.

"Well, I've always kinda liked the name Nightwing."

End

A/N: So that's the actual ending - took me long enough I know ;) But I hope it leaves everyone feeling satisfied. It's still funny to think that this whole story started out as a one-shot made up of the prologue and first chapter, but I have to say I'm proud of what it became. Thank you so much to all of my readers and a special thank you to all of you who took the time to review, your words of encouragement and comments were all very touching and I cherish them all. I do have ideas for some other stories but I have decided that I won't be releasing any of them until I have them almost completely written, but be on the look out! Again thank you so much for reading and if you enjoyed it please consider leaving a review or a favorite!

Best,

Celestia