If he were the lying sort, Dick would say that riding off Wayne property and onto the roadway into downtown Gotham was nothing significant. He could say that he didn't really give much thought to defying a direct order from his adopted father, the Batman. He could say that his palms weren't sweaty and his body didn't shake – if he was the lying sort.
Dick was an honest kind of a guy and for a stretch across the Gotham interstate he would privately admit that he truly believed that his heart had stopped. This wasn't the first time that Dick had defied the Batman, but it was the first time that Dick had ever been unsure deep down whether he'd ever return to Gotham manor again. Escaping Bruce's security once was one thing, but there was no way that Bruce wasn't already aware of what had happened. If he returned to Wayne Manor and his life as Richard Grayson, heir to the Wayne fortune, he would probably never fight crime again. He would have to spend years ducking under the radar of both Bruce Wayne and Gotham's Dark Knight, but if giving up everything he stood for was the cost of living comfortably, going against the big bad bat didn't seem quite so bad.
Dick's heart roared in his ears as loudly as the motorcycle between his thighs. His cape fluttered almost violently behind he and he felt like he was flying. Maybe it wasn't the way he had always imagined it, but Dick had finally stepped out from under the Batman's wing and become his own hero.
. . . That is . . . supposing that heroes were accustomed to sleeping in abandoned warehouses in Gotham's once industrial East End. The place was beyond filthy, but it was miles from Bruce's usual haunts and if you could ignore the used needles and urine smell, it seemed like a reasonably safe place for a runaway to spend the night. By now Alfred was probably trying to convince Bruce to head to bed for the evening while his employer paced and brooded. The image was warm and bright in his mind, and thinking about it in this dank hellhole made his heart hurt. He was cold and tired and he wished that things could go back to the way they were before. He wished that he might see Alfred one more time or spend one more boring stakeout with his team.
His body rejected the thought, shaking violently. He'd spend the last couple weeks pushing his friends as far from his mind as he could. He felt sick thinking wondering if he'd ever get the chance to reconcile with Wally over that stupid kiss… and Connor. The floor was cold and hard and Dick guessed that Connor had never felt so uncomfortable in his life. He couldn't feel the ache forming in Dick's back from the unforgiving concrete of the chill of the East Coast air, but there's one thing they both could surely feel: utterly, and completely alone.