Chapter 7: To be or not to be Bruce

May 15th, 2022

Batcave

Nightwing

The two of them stood in shocked silence as they took in the sight before them. Eventually, Morgan turned back around to look at him, and even through her mask, Dick could sense the whirlwind of emotions she must've been experiencing. He tried to find words, anything to say, but his own shock was too great, and he just stared back.

She turned back towards the statue, suddenly looking terribly small and fragile and his fingers itched to grab onto her and hold her close, to protect her from anything and everything that wanted to hurt her, past, present, and future.

Four years.. Four years into the future and Morgan was dead. When did it happen? In a year from their timeline? Two? Three – four? No answer could be long enough. Not when she deserved so much more time than she was apparently getting.

His chest stung with guilt at the realization that she may have lived to grow old if he hadn't found her and introduced the hero-life to her. Surely, with the Reach invasion, it wasn't difficult to guess what was going to happen to her. But hadn't they stopped it? Hadn't they altered the timeline – wasn't that what Bart told them? He couldn't comprehend how everything was able to reverse back to that doomed timeline within the next four years, how it could get this bad so fast.

He reached a hand towards her and took a step closer, intending to grab her shoulder and offer whatever comfort he could. "Morgan," he still had no words. "I-"

"Who are you and what are you doing here?"

The two of them jumped at the angry voice coming from behind. They whirled around, Dick holding out his escrima sticks.

In front of them, dark and foreboding, stood Batman. He was glaring at them through his mask. His glare deepened as he trained his eyes onto Dick first, before he looked at Morgan and broke into a sneer.

"Batman!" Dick cried with relief, although alarm bells were going off in his mind. The voice was wrong, the face was wrong, the build was wrong. Something was off. "You're here!"

"How dare you!" Batman's voice was seething as he kept staring at Morgan with hate. She took a step back, clearly startled and still in shock from looking at her own memorial statue. Dick barely had a second to react as Batman threw several batarangs at the two of them. He pushed Morgan back, who landed on her back with an 'ouf', before deflecting all but one of the batarangs. It nicked his shoulder, cutting into the blue fabric and his skin. It smarted, but he did his best to ignore it, launching himself at their attacker.

He had realized who it was, and his mind was reeling.

This couldn't be..

He brought his escrima sticks down upon Batman, who held up his armored forearms, the two heroes clashing together. They stood locked, both pushing against the other with all their might. The battle, their strength, was perfectly matched. "I know who you are!" Dick said, gritting his teeth. "You're Dick Grayson!"

Batman glared back over their locked forearms and escrima sticks, but there could be no question as to his identity.

"Of course, I am," he growled, "Who are you?"

"I'm you!" Dick said, willing the other Dick to believe him so they could stop fighting.

"Bullshit!"

"That's enough!" Morgan's angry voice cut through their fighting, and the two men were ripped apart and left dangling in the air. She stood with both arms raised, holding each of them locked in her telekinetic grasp. Her face was thunderous. "So typical men to start fighting for no reason the second they meet," she grumbled.

Dick tried to wriggle out of her grasp. "Morgan, put me down!"

"Not until you both agree to chill out and talk instead of trying to beat the snot out of each other!"

Dick thought she looked very much like a mother giving her naughty children a lecture. Her telekinetic strength was formidable.

The Other Dick had gone strangely quiet, and he was looking at her with emotions so painful, Dick had to look away from him after an initial glance.

"Morgan?" he said, and his voice was devastating. "Is it really you?"

"And who the hell are you?" she asked, slowly lowering both of them back onto the floor. Dick walked to her side, still not trusting this other guy – erh, this other him.

Batman drew his mask back, and the truth was unmistakable now. Wavy black locks fell into place, framing a pair of blue eyes, set over a straight nose and lips pressed into a hard line. He was different in subtle ways– a few years older probably – but there was no doubt. Dick Grayson stood before them.

Dick felt uncomfortable to his very core staring back at his own face. His instincts told him it had to be an imposter – maybe sandman, maybe some other shapeshifter and he needed to get rid of It before it took over his identity. What was its angle? Maybe it was going to frame him for some crimes and get him arrested? Maybe it was a trick by the Reach – maybe, it was here to take them both away.

But, staring into the eyes of the Other Dick, he could see the exact same thoughts flit across his face, and he realized this must've been Him. The Other Dick looked to have reached somewhat of the same conclusion as his stance relaxed marginally. Though he remained guarded, he now studied them with curiosity instead of contempt.

Morgan's mouth popped open at the reveal.

"Oh shit," she whispered, turning to Dick with an accusatory look. "And you told me this definitely wouldn't happen!"

Dick rolled his eyes at her. Though he didn't fully understand why, his theory about not meeting their future selves had been wrong - he had thought that was already abundantly clear when they'd seen her memorial statue. He took the presence of the other him to mean that they would get back to their own time, and that, at least, comforted him.

"How do I know you're who you say you are?" The other him asked cautiously, his eyes dancing between the two of them.

Morgan raised a slow eyebrow at him. "I think it's pretty obvious."

"Not necessarily. You could be shapeshifters," he said.

"Or sandman," Dick added, shrugging. He completely understood the Other Dick's suspicion.

The Other Dick nodded thoughtfully, "Exactly."

Morgan looked between them and let out a small groan. "Oh great, there's two of you now. Literally."

The Other Dick turned serious. "If you really are who you say you are, prove it," he challenged, "Tell me something only I would know."

Dick scrambled to think of some secret he could reveal that the other him would agree was good enough.

Meanwhile, Morgan considered the request for a second only, and shrugged her shoulders in a way that gave Dick the distinct feeling she was about to do something he wouldn't like.

"You've never been able to come when I give you blowjobs because you're so worried it's uncomfortable for me that it gets in your head, and the thought of swallowing icks you out."

Dick stared at her, openmouthed. "Morgan!" He cried, feeling heat rise to his cheeks at the incredibly personal information she just revealed about him, "What the hell!"

She shot him a wide-eyed look, like she couldn't see the issue. "What? He's you!"

"Stii-ill!" he whined. Unwillingly, images of the exact scenario she'd alluded to popped up in his mind and he shifted uncomfortably in his tight suit and angled himself away from her.

The Other Dick had been studying the two of them with a slowly growing smirk on his lips until he barked out a laugh. "Yeah, you're definitely Morgan," he concluded.

"One and only," she smiled back at him. Why was she smiling at him? "Erh, or so I thought." She cast her eyes back at the statue behind them. "Can I ask what happened to her – uh, me?"

The laughter died on the Other Dick's face, and it turned dark. He turned away from them and headed back towards the computers.

Morgan and Dick exchanged looks and followed him. Knowing they were finally getting some answers, Dick forgot about his embarrassment.

"It's weird seeing you in the Batman suit," Morgan whispered, but the sound reverberated across the large cavern, and the Other Dick turned back towards her.

"What year are you from?" he asked them. Clearly, he had deduced that they weren't exactly from here.

"Twenty-eighteen," Dick said. He couldn't stop studying the Other Dick, incredibly uncomfortable at being in the same room as him. Wasn't this time-travel rule number one – never meet yourself? What if they were screwing up their timeline, or his, by being here?

"Good, so you know about the trial at Rimbor?"

Morgan and Dick nodded. "Five League members were sent to stand trial for crimes committed under the influence of Vandal Savage."

The Other Dick sat in the seat by the computer and turned towards them, leaning his elbows on his knees, nodding to indicate their information was the same. Dick leaned against a nearby table, which Morgan hopped up on to sit. She started taking off her boots, sighing with relief. "And when they lost the trial and were sent to prison for life there, I had to take up the mantle. The world needed Batman more than it needed Nightwing."

Dick blanched at that notion, that the world needed Batman more than Nightwing, even if he wasn't so sure that he wouldn't have done the exact same thing if he had been in this Dick's position. However, his protest was only a fleeting thought, as the rest of what the Other Dick had been saying just didn't make sense.

He frowned. "What are you talking about? M'gann and Connor were sent to Rimbor and cleared their names. The Leagues came home just fine."

The smell of sweaty feet reached Dick and he pushed off the table to approach the Other Dick, to get away from Morgan. He didn't blame her – he knew how smelly their boots got after a long mission.

The Other Dick frowned identically as he studied Dick. He turned towards the computer and pushed a few buttons. A recording of Metropolis being decimated by Reach ships started playing. The two younger heroes watched it with serious faces.

"Would this have happened if Superman was on Earth to stop it?" he asked them, his voice betraying his anger and bitterness. Dick studied himself – the other him. He could tell this Dick had been through hell and back. He must've been about twenty-five, if his math was correct, but he looked much older, dark bags under his eyes, his skin a shade or two paler from how little sun he assumed he must've been getting.

"There are very few of us left now." His voice was chilling, and Dick felt goosebumps travel down his back at the intense look of hate the Other Dick was wearing. "Most have been killed – a handful gave up and left the planet. Some were taken by force, and we never saw them again. The Watchtower is destroyed so the few of us that remain to fight the fight operate underground in complete secrecy."

"Isn't it obvious, Dick?" Morgan piped up, and her voice was heavy. "We're in the old timeline. The one where Bart never traveled back in time to stop everything."

Dick nodded. He'd come to that realization himself. For a second, it was almost comforting. This wasn't their timeline, and if they could find a way to get back to their own, Morgan wouldn't be killed, and the Earth wouldn't get enslaved by the Reach. He looked at the Dick that stood before them and felt his stomach drop, finding he wasn't comforted by the thought, after all.

Because the Earth had been enslaved. And Morgan did die. Maybe not in his timeline, but this Dick had been through that doomed scenario. Maybe he hadn't had to go through that suffering, but a version of him had.

The Other Dick was studying them again, clearly still in disbelief. Time travel was one thing, but dimension-hopping? Dick realized it must've sounded insane.

"You're from a different timeline?" he sounded doubtful. But Dick nodded eagerly.

"In our timeline, the invasion was stopped in twenty-sixteen, and we've been living in relative peace ever since," he explained.

"So, you managed to stop it almost before it even started.." he said thoughtfully, stroking his chin. "Because of someone from the future, you said?" he looked at Morgan. Dick hated the soft look that came over him every time he looked at her. He wanted to tell the other him to back off.

God, this was complicated. And uncomfortable. Dick was starting to regret them going to the cave.

"Flash's grandson," Morgan shrugged. "One of the first things he did was save Barry from dying."

The Other Dick frowned, "Flash has been dead for years."

"Exactly," Dick said, giving him an imploring look. "Different timeline."

Morgan became insistent. "You still haven't answered my question about Morgan, or me, I guess.. Her?"

"Just say her," Dick suggested.

"She was killed in battle." The Other Dick's voice became hard, unflinching. "By-"

"-by Black Beetle…" Morgan interrupted him, her voice suddenly far away, like she was reliving a memory.

"How did you know?" he asked her, his voice full of hurt.

The Other Dick studied her with astonishment, the grief in his eyes almost too much to bear. Dick looked away. He couldn't look upon that face, the face that was his and yet not. He wanted to get out of there. He felt shame pool into his stomach, thinking about how he'd been feeling sorry for himself for months now for getting broken up with, how he'd been languishing in that feeling of losing her and not understanding why, and how unfair he'd felt it was.

This Dick had lost Morgan. In a way he could never comprehend. It was unfair in a way he couldn't compare to.

Morgan looked incredibly uncomfortable, like she had realized the pain she must be causing the Other Dick simply by being there.

"I'm sorry I asked," she said, her voice full of emotion. "Bart told me about it."

The Other Dick squared his jaw and nodded slowly at her words, clearly taking it all in.

"We don't have time to mourn right now," Dick interrupted. He desperately wanted to move the conversation along, the coil of emotions in his stomach impossible to decipher. They had to focus on the mission at hand. "Dick, we need to find a way to get back to our own timeline before us being here causes some interdimensional problems."

The other him nodded. "You're right. It's probably best that you get back home." He frowned at the two of them, realizing he was missing a few pieces of the puzzle. "Um, how exactly did you end up here?"

Morgan shrugged. "Magic bullshit-"

"Interdimensional wormhole-" Dick theorized at the time, the two of them speaking over each other.

They exchanged a look.

"Interdimensional wormhole or portal," Dick insisted, "Caused by magic."

They launched into an explanation. Morgan explained seeing the portal the first time and how it had disappeared in the blink of an eye. Then, Dick explained seeing the Arkham tape of a woman entering through a second portal. Then, Morgan explained the wedding and the explosions and her coming back later to check the site out. Dick interjected with his own side of events, culminating in them stumbling through the portal.

The Other Dick sat with his elbows propped on his knees, listening to them carefully. He asked no questions during their story, but sat silently and took it all in.

"And that's how we ended up here," Morgan finished with a shrug.

The Other Dick considered the two of them for a moment. "You were at Connor and M'gann's wedding?" he asked eventually.

Dick quirked an eyebrow as the other him focused on what he thought was the least important detail.

"Weren't you?" Morgan asked.

"I was.. We were," he said. "Tell me – did anyone die?"

Morgan opened her mouth in horror at the question just as Dick said, "What? No!"

"Superman stopped the missile," she explained, and Dick realized with a sinking feeling what the other him was getting at.

"But Superman wasn't there in your timeline.." he breathed, swallowing thickly. "How many?"

The Other Dick looked away, rubbing the back of his neck, his shoulders slumping. He looked tired, oh so tired. Dick could recognize the haunted look in his eyes. The look that said he truly did not think there was a chance for him to ever be happy again. It was the look he'd seen every time he looked himself in the mirror after his parent's death. The surety that his life was cursed, scratched, meant for heartache, and fighting, constant fighting.

He looked away.

"Four heroes died, including the groom."

Vaguely, Dick was aware of Morgan gasping in horror behind him, but his ears were ringing and quickly drowned out the sound.

They needed to get back home. He wasn't sure if it was logic, or pure selfishness, but he wanted to get home this instant. The three of them stood in silence for a long while, none of them sure how to move past the heavy topic. Eventually, the older him sighed and turned to his computer.

"If what you say is true, and magic is involved, we should get help from Zatanna."

"Zatanna's still alive?"

The Other Dick nodded. "One of the last handful that's still in the fight. She's on a mission right now, so you'll have to wait for her to come back." He looked at them over his shoulder as he sent a message for the sorceress. "I'm afraid that's all I can offer you right now. You can stay at the Manor until we hear from her."

Morgan and Dick exchanged looks. Dick had to be honest; he wanted to get out of here. Seeing himself made him profoundly awkward, some existential horror settling deep in his stomach. It felt wrong, to his bones.

But they obviously couldn't camp out in the sewers - not when Morgan hated being underground so much - so he couldn't see any other choice. He so dearly wished they didn't have to wait, but he knew the other him had much more important things to worry about.

Speaking of the sewers.

"There's something you should know," he said, pulling up the data he had collected of the corpse they'd encountered. "We found a dead guy in the sewer. Probably a murder."

The Other Dick blinked at him. "Okay?" He seemed at a loss for what he was supposed to do with the information. Dick frowned at him.

"I guess that's not what you do anymore?" he asked, referring to the sort of normal crime fighting and investigative missions he'd always done.

"You think I have time to care about one dead body when we're fighting for the future of the entire planet?" The other him asked with a challenging note in his voice.

Dick felt stupid. With a swift press of a few buttons, he deleted the data off his computer.

"No, I guess not."

"Do you have anything on the portals you talked about?" the other him asked instead.

"Yeah," Dick pulled up that data instead, glad he had something useful to offer.

The three heroes gathered around the Batcave's computer as the Other Dick uploaded an extension onto Dick's wrist-computer to make the two pieces of technology compatible. Then, the information about the portals was shared, and he leaned back in his seat to study it.

Dick couldn't help but think about how much the Other Dick resembled Bruce, then. The way he sat in the chair, Batman's cape draped around him, scratching thoughtfully at days-old stubble along his jawline.

"I'll send this along to Zatanna, so she knows what we're dealing with. I'll let you know when she gives me a call back." The finality to his voice made the other two heroes step back from the computer, the end of their night implicit.

"C'mon. I'll find you someplace to sleep."

Their day had been a long and taxing one. At the mention of a proper bed with a soft mattress to sink into, Dick could feel his entire body throb with exhaustion. He could only imagine Morgan must've felt the same. Their short rest on the ground last night hadn't exactly done much to replenish their energy, and Dick longed to do a few stretches to ease the pain in his back.

The two of them shuffled after him up the stairs and through the grandfather clock in Bruce's study. It looks completely unchanged, as Dick had known it would be. Certainly, he knew that he'd never touch the room if his Bruce was taken away, and he knew the other him must've felt the same.

The Manor as a whole appeared unchanged. Dick wondered if Alfred was still here, but he doubted it, with the amount of dust piled up. The thought made his chest twinge. He started to wonder why the Other Dick was still here – was it solely to access the Batcave? Surely the Manor wasn't a happy place for him to be. Then again, maybe that was exactly why he sought it out.

He hadn't bothered taking off the batman suit, nor had he asked them to change, and Dick felt weirdly uncomfortable about wearing the suit in the manor, something that had always been a big no-no for Bruce.

They stopped at a room Dick recognized to be his own old one. He still used it if he ever spent the night at the Manor, not that he was there often these days.

The other him walked inside ahead of them and made a sweeping hand gesture towards the bed.

"The covers probably need to be changed.. I'll bring you some. The room hasn't been used for a couple of years, so…"

The room looked nothing like Dick's did back in his own timeline. There, it still bore signs of his childhood and teenage years. Here, it was scrubbed clean of all his childish paraphernalia, the toy cars, old school books, the model airplane he hadn't bothered to remove as it still hung from the ceiling.

This was a proper grownup bedroom. A king-sized bed dominated the middle of the room. To the right of it was an ornate, light dresser with a large mirror and various bottles of perfumes, skincare products and makeup scattered about. The tall window was covered with a light, breezy curtain that he was sure let lots of light in during the day. To the left of the bed was a large closet in the same light wood as the dresser.

Dick stared at the single bed. He shared a short look with Morgan, who stared back at him with slight panic in her eyes, grabbing and pulling at fistfuls of her curly hair.

Obviously, the Other Dick had made a wrong assumption.

"I think," Dick cleared his throat, figuring he'd speak for both of them. "Uhm, I think we'd prefer separate rooms, if that's alright with you."

The other Dick looked at the two of them, stood awkwardly in the door like they both wanted to flee, with incomprehension. Then, he narrowed his eyes and seemed to take them in anew, as he realized what he hadn't seen before. As he suddenly saw the way they rarely met each other's eyes, and that Morgan wouldn't stop angling her body away from Dick anytime they stood too close.

"You two aren't..?"

Morgan quickly interrupted him, like she was afraid he'd say it out loud. "We're not."

"Oh."

A long pause. Dick felt speared by the look the other him was giving them. Why did he feel guilty, like a kid getting caught making trouble?

"One of you can stay here then. The other can have Tim's room next door."

"I'll take Tim's room," Morgan immediately volunteered, already heading out the door.

Somehow, it felt like a punch to his gut, even though he should've expected it. Of course, she wouldn't want to sleep in his room.

"No, you can have this room," Dick said, "Tim's bed sucks and he's done so many weird experiments in there, I'm sure the air is still mildly toxic."

Morgan was absolutely about to argue with him, but she shot a subtle look at the Other Dick, who was still staring at them with something like disbelief and betrayal on his face.

With a sigh, she backed down. "Fine. You can have Tim's room," she grumbled. She took a few more steps into the room, looking about with her wings fluttering nervously.

"Follow me," the other Dick said, his voice wooden. He stopped when he reached Morgan "I'll come back with new sheets for you in a bit," he assured her, and then he motioned with a flick of his hand for Dick to follow him.

Dick felt like he was being pulled outside the classroom by his teacher for a scolding, and he shot Morgan a look over his shoulder. She shrugged at him, but her face was not unsympathetic.

The two men arrived in Tim's room seconds later, and the other Dick closed the door behind them. Dick stood in the middle of the room and resisted the urge to shuffle his feet. He already felt so disarmed, just being around himself. Clearly there was a reason why one shouldn't travel across dimensions. Alarm bells went off in his head every time he looked at the other him that was him but somehow not at the same time.

And when the other him was looking at him like he was a lowlife thug he was about to interrogate, Dick felt that much more uncomfortable.

"What did you do?" he asked, voice like that of a tired father.

Dad isn't angry, he's just disappointed.

"What did I do?" Dick challenged, knowing exactly what he was talking about despite the words going unspoken. Why was he getting all the blame here? "She broke up with me. I'm the one that got dumped!"

"Exactly," the Other Dick said with a stern tone. "So, I'm asking, what did you do for that to happen?"

"I-" Dick wanted to argue but he was frankly a little bit flabbergasted. "What?" He realized he'd been so busy feeling sorry for himself for getting dumped, that he hadn't thought about how he might've had a hand to play in it.

There's a chance I might be an idiot.

"I'm just a little surprised." The Other Dick said with deliberate patience. "I hadn't expected you two to show up to start with, and now I find out this?"

Dick shrugged and crossed his arms defensively across his chest, "Well, what happened with you and your Morgan?"

"Well, I married her!"

Dick blinked at him. The words seemed to flit around in the air above his head, refusing to settle down and make sense in his brain.

"Huh," he said.

The Other Dick walked closer to him and pulled out something from his utility belt. He handed over the piece of paper to Dick, who studied the picture with incomprehension, his insides feeling frozen.

It was a wedding picture. Obviously.

God, Dick was hating this day more and more every second.

It was a picture of the two of them from the waist up. Morgan stood in a white, off-shoulder, lacy dress, a laugh on her face. She was in Dick's arms, and her nose was scrunched up, her hand on his chest in an attempt to escape the big kiss he was placing behind her ear, where he knew she was very ticklish. Most of his face was obscured behind hers, but his wide smile was visible. His hand enveloped hers.

"So, you can imagine my surprise," The Other Dick said patiently, "When you come here and tell me you two broke up?"

Dick tried to tear his eyes away from the picture that was somehow too terrible to look at, and yet too wonderful to look away from. He managed it after an additional five seconds, his insides curling and his thoughts churning in such a frenzy, he could hardly pinpoint how he really felt.

The Other Dick was regarding him with a knowing, sympathetic look and Dick glared at him, scowling at the vulnerability he could tell the other him had seen.

As if. He scoffed to himself.

"Well, you'll have to ask her, if you want to know what happened." He stood straight and strong, keeping his glare stern and his gaze on the man across from him, unwilling to show any weakness. "She didn't bother telling me why."

The Other Dick pursed his lips in thought and Dick found right then that he was over this conversation. He didn't like being accused of being at fault, especially when the other him had no clue what had gone down between the two of them. "Don't you have bigger things to worry about?" he challenged.

The other him quirked a wry smile. "I suppose I do," he relented, stepping back towards the door. "I'll bring you some sheets."

And with that, Dick was alone. He heaved a relieved sigh, which did little to alleviate the knot in his chest. He went over to the bed and fell down into it with a sigh. Dust, long settled on the sheets, blew into the air and he coughed when he inhaled some of it.

Could today get any worse? He thought, as he lay and watched the dust float gently down again, tickling his nose and settling in his hair.

He realized he was still holding the picture, clenched in one fist. Refusing to look at it again, he threw it onto the bedside table.

"As if," he mumbled to himself. "As if that's what I'd want."

The words felt hollow and meaningless as he uttered them, a fact he refused to ponder for long.

Instead, he turned his thoughts to the Other Dick. It had been disturbing, seeing him. Staring into his own face, seeing himself, but not him, had shook him to the core, and he wasn't sure he understood why – it wasn't like interdimensional travel was such a weird concept to superheroes. Stranger things happened every day. Other people had met their clones before, or past and future selves – it had just never happened to him before.

Looking at the upside down picture sitting on the desk across from him, he thought maybe the thing about the Other Dick that unsettled him, was all the ways in which they differed.

He didn't like how much the other him had followed in the footsteps of Bruce. He was wearing the suit, he was acting like him.. Despite being the same person, Dick felt like he couldn't recognize himself in this future, alternative version of himself. This Other Dick was like the version of himself that he feared becoming, and seeing that he was capable of it was terrifying.

I'm not Bruce, I'm not Bruce-

It scared him that the other him hadn't cared at all about the dead body in the sewer. How jaded had he become? Did he actually believe they could still win against the Reach, or did he just keep going because he wasn't sure what else to do? Why hadn't he just left the planet?

Dick wondered if he'd been in the same situation, would he have left? Or would he stay to fight a fight that was already lost, from a place of unshakeable loyalty to his world?

He already knew the answer.

After all, a version of him had already made that choice.

I feel like that blowjob joke has to be the most controversial thing I've ever put in any of my stories lmao. I have to admit I've been AGONIZING on whether I should keep it or not because maaaaybe its weird that she'd say that this early into their breakup, BUT as a wise tumblr post once said "She would not fucking say that unless it would be really funny if she did". So I kept it in, entirely because I just think its SO FUNNY and I dont care if that makes me immature! But I really have been agonizing over it - I've had two separate friends read it + context and they both said it was funny and didn't feel jarring, so I decided to keep it in. So if yall hate it, you'll have to blame my betas :D

Also, this is definitely the dumbest name for a chapter I've done yet, but it made me laugh so. Peace and love on planet earth.

This is the shortest chapter so far, but I wanted to cut it here because this chapter and the next are pretty heavy on information and reveals, so I wanted to give all of the different points room to breathe.

We've dived a bit more into Morgan's issues in the past few chapters, especially the last, so I hope you enjoyed as we explore Dick's problems some more in this! I think he'd still carry a lot of guilt after the invasion and how he handled things and I do think this whole "I'm not Bruce and I don't want to be, but who am I then?" dilemma of his is necessary for him to really step up to some day became that Nightwing we see in the comics (the ones that get him right, at least..)

I'm trying to toe the line and have his ethical and moral integrity there, but perhaps have him be emotionally and relationally a bit less secure and mature, because he's still only 21 and has some growing up to do. The full-fledged, secure, leader Nightwing we see in comics is, what, mid-to-late twenties? early thirties? Point is, he's not really supposed to be there yet, but he is on his way. I'm pretty sure that arc is going to be very open-ended in this story tbh, because I think finding out who you really are is a life-long process and I don't think he'd know by the time he's 22.

Btw I have a question - I often do this thing where I have the dialogue in the middle, or at the end of a line and I just want to know if people hate that? Because I can edit it to be more "correct" if its bothering people. For example, a line like this:

The Other Dick blinked at him. "Okay?" He seemed at a loss for what he was supposed to do with the information. Dick frowned at him.

Would become this:

The Other Dick blinked at him.

"Okay?" He seemed at a loss for what he was supposed to do with the information. Dick frowned at him.

Tell me what you think!

Oh, and I hope you enjoyed this chapter and the reveals!