CHAPTER 7
6 Months Later
The clink of metal hitting metal fills the training room. Jason's sword moves so quickly that it becomes a blur, deftly blocking hits from both Rachel and Gar.
A strike to Gar's chest sends him flying across the mat, leaving Rachel to defend herself against Jason's lightning fast moves.
I sit up on the window sill, my legs crossed and my chin in my hand. For six months, we have trained together, day in and day out. The monotony of it all is starting to get to every single one of us, but none more than Jason. His restlessness is evident as he swings harder and harder against Rachel, their swords clashing together. She stumbles back, off the mat.
"That's enough," I call out, before Jason accidentally hurts her. He freezes, right before he strikes her, and drops his sword to the ground with a reverberating clatter.
"Man, I'm sick of this. I'm sick of being locked up in this fucking tower and I'm sick of Dick's rules," he complains.
"We all are," Gar says, standing and rubbing at his chest.
"Don't do this, don't do that," Jason mocks Dick and I smile, just a little.
There's a beep over the intercom, signalling the presence of someone at the entrance of the building.
"Who is that?" Rachel asks, confused. It's not like we get a lot of visitors here.
I jump down from my perch and walk out of the training room, toward the elevator. Just as I get in, I hear Dick come into the living area, questioning the others, "Is someone here?"
When I come back up the elevator and into the penthouse, it's with four pizzas in tow, stacked on top of each other.
Rachel, Gar and Jason rejoice, yanking a box from me each and shoving their faces with pizza slices. Dick is decidedly unimpressed.
"I made dinner already," he tells me, using his stern voice.
"Not the vegetable soup again," Jason groans. "It's disgusting."
"He's right, Dick. We can't keep eating that stuff. It's gross," Gar sheepishly agrees, clearly feeling guilty.
I don't though, pushing myself up onto the kitchen counter and flinging open the final pizza box. I bite into a slice as Dick gives me his unimpressed stare. I have become well acquainted with the unimpressed stare over the past few months.
"Will, can I talk to you please?" The frustrated strain in his voice makes me smile. I hop down from the countertop, pizza in hand, and follow him into the hallway. He turns to face me, arms crossed over his chest.
"You want some pizza?" I ask as I take a bite.
"This needs to stop." His face is as serious as always. I hum.
"Eating pizza?"
"You know what I mean."
"Do I?"
"The rules are in place for a reason, alright? The others see you flaunting them and think—"
"Think what? That they might not have to follow the Dick Grayson handbook on how to live? I don't see that as a bad thing. This isn't a prison, you know?"
He shifts, frowning. "It's not supposed to be. But I'm trying to prepare them—all of you—for…"
"For what?" I ask. "What exactly are we preparing for? To become Titans? Please." I scoff and shake my head.
"Is that so hard to believe?" There is a hint of insecurity in his voice, one that I can only detect because I've spent the last six months living in close proximity to him.
"Who says we even want to be Titans? Gar might, but Jason just wants to go back to Gotham, Rachel wants to go back to bloody high school and I…."
"And you?" He prompts. His eyes search my face, looking for something. I wonder what.
"I just want Rachel to be happy. That's it."
His mouth flattens and he shakes his head. "That's not an answer."
I shrug. "That's all I got." I finish off my slice of pizza as I walk past him, toward the kitchen. Rachel reaches out for me and I slot into her side, leaning against the counter. She's been having some issues with her powers ever since her battle with her father, but for the most part she is happy here, in Titans Tower. More importantly, she's safe.
And that's all that really matters. Right?
~O~
The night sky always looks pretty from way up here in the tower. Even I'll admit that.
In Rachel's room, looking out over the twinkling San Francisco skyline, I take in a deep breath and think about the past few months, about being here in this tower. It's safe and it's comfortable and there is a semblance of family that I haven't had before. But a part of me is restless and broken; I feel like an imposter. How long can I really keep this ruse going? I'm never going to be a Titan, that's the truth. But I feel tethered to Rachel, bound to stay by her side.
"What're you thinking about?" Rachel asks me softly from her bed. She's having some trouble with nightmares so I've taken to staying with her till she falls asleep.
"That we should have tacos tomorrow night," I say, turning to face her. She gives me a disapproving look, her wet hair dripping onto her pyjama shirt, still damp from her shower.
"You need to start at least pretending to follow Dick's rules, Will. The more you undermine him, the more Jason thinks it's alright to do the same and the more chaos it causes." She looks at me almost imploringly. I would not cave for anyone else, but for Rachel…
"I'll try," I concede and she seems happy enough with this answer because she slips beneath her sheets and lays down. I sit beside her, stroking her hair out of her face.
"You'll leave right when I fall asleep?" She checks and I sigh.
"Yes, Rach. It's fine."
"I don't want to hurt you," she murmurs. Some odd things have been happening with her powers whilst she's asleep and she's increasingly afraid that she's going to hurt me accidentally. I sit by her side until her breathing slows and then I creep out of the room and close the door tightly behind me.
In my own bed, I lie awake for sometime, staring at the ceiling. When I finally sleep, it is fitful and terror-filled.
Black-eyed and soulless, the Titans - both new and old - surround me. Rachel's mother's house warps and elongates, becoming utterly inescapable. I bump into Donna who shoves me forward into Rachel.
"Rachel, please. Come back to me," I beg, crying. She stares at me, utterly unfeeling, under her father's influence.
"I'm never coming back," she says and tosses me to the side, right into Dick. I crash against his chest, my fingers twisting into the fabric of his jacket to stay upright. His hands go to my waist, steadying me against him. His empty, inky eyes bore down into mine.
"Don't, please," I whisper, knowing what happens next. What always happens.
But this time, it's different. The black seeps out of his face, his eyes becoming his own again.
"Dick?" Hope fills me.
"I'm here," he says, one of his hands moving to cup my cheek. His thumb brushes my hair back. Relief consumes me and I pull him closer, his forehead tilting down to rest against my own.
I'm safe, in his arms. I know he won't let the others hurt me now that he's himself again, free of Trigon's compulsion.
Our noses brush and my breath catches. Dick's lips ghost over my own, barely a touch that makes me arch forward into him. "I've been waiting so long to do this," he breathes out. My hands tighten on his jacket; he's going to kiss me.
Instead, blinding pain bursts through me and I slowly look down to see a knife embedded in my stomach. I cry out, stumbling back, and the knife tears out of me, clutched in Dick's hand. I look at him and expect his eyes to be black again, but they aren't. It's him, truly him.
"No, no!" I shout as he strides toward me and roughly grabs my hair, yanking me into place. He winds his arm back, holding the knife up, ready to strike me again.
I gasp awake, sitting straight up in bed. My heart pounds like a jackhammer and I feel phantom pain in my stomach, right where I should have two scars. I scramble to lift up my shirt, half expecting myself to be bleeding out. But there's no blood, no wounds. I'm safe.
My bedroom door creaks; I must have left it slightly ajar. I look over and see Jason in the doorway, poking his head in. I wonder if I screamed while I was asleep.
"The fuck's up with you?" He asks.
In and out, I take a few deep breaths. I hate feeling like this and I won't be sleeping again tonight. Tossing the covers off, my feet hit the floor.
I look at Jason. "You wanna get high?"
~O~
"That's bullshit," he laughs, taking another hit from the joint in his fingers. I shake my head, chuckling.
"It's true. Gar was standing there butt-fucking-naked in the middle of a barn." My voice trails off as I'm overwhelmed with laughter. I pluck the joint from his hands and raise it to my mouth.
It's chilly on the roof of Titans Tower, gravel at our backs as we gaze up at the starlit sky. If I blink hard enough, the stars start to swim together like fireflies.
"I think you need to be cut off," Jason tries to take the joint from me but I hold it out of his reach.
"I'm fine. Stop."
He sits up on his elbows, looking down at me. "What were you so upset about before anyway?"
"Huh?"
"I heard you crying. I think you were asleep," he says quietly.
I contemplate my answer, rolling the joint between my fingertips. "Just a bad dream, that's all."
He lies back down. "Yeah I get 'em too sometimes."
"From being Robin?"
"Nah, stuff before that. Had a few fucked up foster families so I ended up living on the street. It wasn't always sunshine and fucking rainbows."
I turn my head to study his profile as he stares resolutely at the sky. I knew that he didn't have a family but I hadn't realised that he'd been in and out of the system before he met Bruce Wayne.
"You ever have a case worker that was just super fucking weird?" I ask. "I had one who was obsessed with cats and would wear this stupid, cat-print dress…"
We swap stories for some time, lying up on that roof and smoking weed till our heads spin.
It's got to be near sunrise when the door to the roof swings open and Dick strides out.
"Are you serious?" He glares down at us as we blink up at him, red and bleary eyed. "Jason," Dick snaps as Robin 2.0 gets to his feet beside me. "You go on and on about how you want to be doing more and want to be out, fighting as Robin again, yet you're up here getting high."
"Hey man, I can definitely do both. And it's not like you ever let us actually leave this fucking place anyway! What else is there to do?" Jason throws his arms up and lets them flop back down at his sides.
I push myself up, my head spinning slightly, and take another, final hit of our last joint. I walk up to Dick, holding his gaze, and breathe out the smoke into his face. He doesn't move, doesn't flinch or even blink. But I see the muscles in his jaw tighten. He's angry - perhaps angrier than I've ever seen him.
"Jason, go inside," Dick commands, his eyes not leaving mine. Jason throws me a look and, for once, does as he's told. The roof's door slams shut behind him. I am sure that Dick is about to yell at me or lecture me or even kick me out of the Tower altogether. Instead, he says, "Talk to me."
For a brief moment, I'm thrown. "What do you want me to say?"
"I want you to explain why you're acting like this, why you seem so opposed to the idea of becoming a Titan—"
I can't help but laugh. "I think we both know I'm never going to be a Titan."
His arms cross over his chest and he examines me. "Why do you always say that? Your fighting is coming along fine, if you'd actually be willing to train with the others and dedicate yourself—"
"Why are you trying so hard to force this? I don't get it, I really don't. I'm not going to be a Titan, Grayson. It's not who I am and I think you know that. So why are you constantly pushing for it?"
He pauses and breathes out, "I don't want you to leave."
I swallow thickly, my hands curling into fists. The fragmented image from my dream of him touching my waist and nearly kissing me flashes through my mind and I do everything in my power to push it away. I want to drown that image in the deepest, darkest parts of myself.
"Rachel still wants me here, so I'm not going anywhere," I tell him. It is the easy answer, the obvious one.
He nods. "Fine. Good."
I must still be pretty high because I swear his eyes dart down to my lips momentarily. I scrub at my face and say, "I'm fucking starving. Maybe there's leftover pizza."
~O~
My fist sails past Dick's face as he steps aside, dodging my hit. But I anticipated that; he's always too fast for me. So I follow it up with a swift kick that manages to actually catch him in the stomach and push him back a step or two. I'm not quick enough drawing my leg back though and he grabs it, giving it a hard yank. I crash onto my back, the training mat barely cushioning my fall. Wind knocked out of me, I lie there for a moment, wallowing a bit.
Dick holds his hands out for me and I take them. He pulls me to my feet.
"That was better, but you stepped before you punched again. That's how I knew it was coming. Again," he instructs me.
This time, I lead with a kick and when he ducks beneath that, I throw an elbow at his face and try to sweep his legs out from beneath him. Instead, he catches both my wrists and spins me around, pinning my back against his chest. My arms incapacitated, I try to struggle free from his grip but it's useless. He's stronger and he weighs more and hard as I try, I can't dislodge him.
After a few moments of me pushing and pulling against him, I slump back into his chest.
"Don't give up," he says.
"I give up," I say.
"You're small, which means most of the time your opponent is going to outweigh you. How do you beat someone who's twice your size?" His breath touches the back of my neck.
"You bring a gun to a knife fight," I say.
"Will." He sounds severe and his grip tightens. My head tilts to the side and my cheek brushes against his jaw. A tightening in my stomach makes me freeze.
"Enough, let me go."
He does, his hands leaving my wrists and the heat of his body disappearing as he steps away.
There's an uncomfortable look on his face, one I avoid by striding across the mat to grab my water bottle and take a big drink from it.
"I think Jason should take over your training," he says, out of the blue. I turn to face him.
"What? Why?"
He shrugs, beginning to wrap his hands so he can use the punching bag. "It'd be good for him, give him some responsibility. Besides, maybe you'll learn more from him; you two seem to be getting along well." A bitter note in his voice makes me bristle.
"So this is you giving up on training me? Pawning me off?"
He looks up sharply. "It's not that at all."
"Whatever," I scoff and shake my head, walking out of the training room.
"Will—"
I don't want to hear what he has to say, turning into the hallway and striding down to my bedroom. I slam the door shut behind me. Despite the fact that we didn't have a particularly strenuous training session, my face is flushed and my chest heaves up and down. I hate this feeling, whatever it is. This hurt that only he can inflict. I bang my head back against my door, frustrated. A cool shower will help, I think. But it doesn't.
I get dressed and slip out of my room, walking into the main living area.
"Hey, is everything ok?" Rachel asks me, sitting at the kitchen bench with Gar.
"Everything's fine, I'll be back later." I get into the lift just as Dick comes down from the opposite end of the penthouse.
"Will, wait—" The elevator doors close before he can say more.
Out on the busy street, I slip through the bustling crowds, my hands stuffed into the pockets of my denim jacket and my head ducked down. I feel suffocated in that Goddamn tower. I need to interact with normal people, even if it's at a freaking park or something.
"Will! Willow!"
You've got to be kidding me. I look over my shoulder to see Dick jogging up the footpath toward me, weaving through the throngs of people. I turn down an alleyway and hear him following me.
"Just leave me alone, Dick," I tell him, not stopping. He reaches out and grabs my wrist, pulling me to a halt.
"Can you just listen to me for one minute?"
Resigned to hear him out, I yank my wrist out of his grasp and motion for him to say whatever he so desperately wants to say.
He opens his mouth, but before he can speak, a blue van screeches to a halt behind him, blocking the alley's entrance.
"What the hell?" I breathe as six armed gunmen jump out and surround us.