Chapter 14: The Shadows that Haunt Us
June 5th
Somewhere over America
Nightwing
Dick used his computer to scan over Morgan's body for the fifth time, checking her vitals. He knew it probably wouldn't give him some new, revolutionary result, but it was something for him to do, as he sat in a crouch beside her still form. He had put her in the back of the bioship, following an urge to protect her – even from the eyes of the rest of the squad. He knew she hated being perceived as vulnerable, and lying passed out on the floor in full view of a League member like Superman was something she would find humiliating.
Still no movement – still no sign that she was waking up.
He looked at the dried blood still stark against the white gloves of his polar-suit. He resisted the urge to change it back into the black version, so the blood would no longer be visible, but the thought was somehow even worse.
She'd been sweating blood. That's what had unsettled him so deeply, had made him panic when he should've been leading them. He had thought she was dying.
"She's fine," he mumbled to himself, the words barely above a breath. He snapped his mouth shut when he remembered that there were two kryptonians with superhearing close by, and they would've heard the self-assuring words.
God, even just thinking for a split second that Morgan was dying had struck him with such a deep terror that he'd felt lightheaded. As he'd carried her out of the now restored Fortress of Solitude, he'd been unable to hear anything over the sound of his heart doing its best to beat out of his chest.
His gloved hand reached up and pushed a stray curl off her forehead, which was still tainted red from her blood. She looked deathly pale, the weak pallor of her skin looking worse against the contrast of the dark bruises under her eyes, and the crusted blood along her hairline.
He watched as her chest rose slowly with a fluttering breath, and it gave him the courage to quirk one corner of his mouth into a small smile.
She'd be fine. She had to be. There was still so much stuff that he needed to tell her, to experience with her. She wasn't done. They weren't done.
Funny how crises reveal truth.
Dick blew out a breath and allowed himself to fall back onto his butt, resting his arms on his raised knees. He ran a hand through his hair and took his mask off to rub at his tired eyes and pinch the bridge of his nose. Then he placed his arm back onto his knee and looked at her again.
It was something he'd always known but had buried so deep that it had become forgotten knowledge, like background noise he'd tuned out months ago.
The fact that he was still in love with her.
Almost on their own accord, Dick's fingers found his utility belt and unclasped the button keeping one specific pocket shut. He reached inside and pulled out the small piece of paper from within. With an odd sense of self flagellation, he studied the picture. The one the older Dick had slipped into his pocket those weeks ago.
In the image lay a clearly tired and sweaty Morgan on a hospital bed. Dick was embracing her shoulder, and looked down at her with such tenderness on his face that it was almost unbearable that it had been caught in a photo. Morgan was looking straight at the camera, her skin pale and her eyes tired - and yet she was radiant. Worst of all, in her arms she clutched the tiny form of a newborn. Alex.
The emotions coiling in his stomach became too much, and Dick flipped over the photo, his thumb idly tracing the hastily scribbled words on the back.
Trust your instincts.
He held back a scoff. Trust his instincts? About what?
And yet, as he looked at the girl lying before him, he thought perhaps he understood. The Other Dick was trying to encourage him to not deny how he really felt.
He resisted the urge to stroke her hair, knowing he didn't have the right. She had broken up with him, and he had to respect that.
He looked at his crimson-colored hands and clenched his fists in frustration.
Didn't she understand – how.. how couldn't she see that they were meant for each other? That he was sitting over here in agony, just waiting for her to realize that.. that this was it?
Dick let out the scoff he'd been holding in and pressed his forehead against his arms. He was being foolish. Just because he was still in love with her – would always still be in love with her – didn't mean she had to feel the same. Just because it felt like an irrefutable truth to him, didn't mean she saw things the same way.
He wanted to aggressively stuff the picture back into his pocket, to give movement to his frustration, but he was afraid of creasing it. It felt like something sacred, too precious it crumple in his anger. Instead, he gently put it back in his pocket and closed it tightly again.
Maybe she didn't feel the same as he did. But then.. why had she hugged him like that yesterday? Why had she been blushing and trying to assert that they were okay? Why had she been struggling to express that she needed him, but not daring to use those exact words when that was clearly what she'd been thinking?
He.. had to believe she felt the same. She just needed time. For whatever reason, she wasn't quite there yet – he could only guess as to what had made her break up with him, but he had to believe she would come around at some point.
He was fine waiting for as long as she needed.
A voice broke him out of his musings.
"How is she?"
He looked up at Connor, who stood staring at their sleeping friend with worry.
Dick sighed and shrugged. "No change yet. When are we reaching the Tower?"
"Five minutes." Connor told him, placing a hand on his shoulder. "Came to tell you to get ready."
Dick got up from the floor and gingerly picked up Morgan, who was still limp as a boned fish in his arms. Her wings dragged against the floor, and Connor held them so Dick didn't accidentally step on any feathers. They went into the main part of the hull and he put her in one of the chairs, strapping her in and making sure she was sitting comfortably. Then, he found his seat and watched as the Bioship zoomed past the landscape at great speed. They reached Star labs and the giant beta-platform used to transport the bioship when they were in need of haste.
Two minutes later, the ship was docked in the Watchtower garage. Dick jumped out of his seat the moment the ship powered down and had Morgan back in his arms seconds later. Robin appeared beside him, looking serious and focused. The young boy eyed their fainted teammate with something Dick recognized as worry. It was a relief, a good sign that Damian was getting better at teamwork, that he was showing even a hint of worry for one of the other heroes. Zatanna came over and somberly placed Morgan's arm into her lap, so it wouldn't dangle around as she was carried.
The three of them exchanged looks. They all understood – she had saved their lives. And sacrificed a great deal to do so. He was still haunted by the way she'd screamed when the Fortress had collapsed. It had sounded like every bone in her body had been crushed in an instant – her continued whimpers and gasps had let him know she was in a desperate amount of pain. And yet, she'd held on.
He was ashamed of the way he'd doubted her abilities earlier the very same day. It was as if he'd never known before how powerful she actually was. This was a stark reminder. Looking at her blank face, he knew that that power also came at a prize.
The haphazard bun Morgan's hair had been in at the start of the mission had fallen out a long time ago, and her loose hair bounced around with each step he took.
They drew the attention of every hero they passed, as they headed down long and cold hallways, towards the infirmary.
Morgan would've hated this, he thought, with no real sense of humor. That was the only good thing about her being knocked out – she had no idea how many people got to see her like this.
They reached the infirmary, and Dick placed her on a bed. Zatanna mumbled something about getting one of their medical staff. Impatient as he was, he wanted to hook her onto every machine he could – but he knew he should leave it to the professionals. Her vitals hadn't changed during their trip, and they likely wouldn't change within the next few minutes.
Dick tried to tell himself this was part of the life they'd chosen. Injury was something they just had to deal with – it was something unavoidable.
Didn't make him feel any better.
He stood still as a statue as he waited for the medic to show up. He didn't want to leave her alone. Once they arrived and started treating her, doing a more thorough scan than his computer was capable of, he left.
He'd be back later to check on her, and hear what the nurse had to say, but for now – he needed to get out of there. He needed some distance and some fresh air.
There was water sloshing somewhere to her left, and sunlight was shining, coloring the back of her eyelids an orange-y red and bathing her body in a comforting warmth. Her fist closed around a mass of soft, long grass. Awareness slowly seeped in, like all five of her senses were waking up one by one. Still, she couldn't quite open her eyes yet. There was a fuzziness to her thoughts, the kind that only sleeping in on a lazy Sunday morning brought. A bird started trilling to her right and the musical sound was enough to wake her up fully. One eye cracked open to peek carefully about.
Where was she?
Slowly, with a stiff neck, she looked to her right, and then her left. She was in a meadow. Big, beautiful, and light trees encircled the little space of grass she was lying on. The underbrush was thick with flowers of many colors.
To her left was a pond, big enough to bathe in, but not swim. The other side of the pond was hugged by an outcropping of rock, from which a creek flowed into the body of water – the origin of the trickling sound she'd first noticed upon waking up. Tentatively, she reached out a hand and dipped her fingers into the pond. The water was clear and cool.
"It's pretty, right?"
Morgan jumped up at the unknown voice by her feet. Disoriented from the bursting of the peaceful bubble she'd been in, she blinked blankly at the man sitting cross-legged before her.
"He made this small spot for me. Something that resembles earth."
She narrowed her eyes at him. It took her a moment to place his face, something she attributed to the dreamlike state she was in.
"Wally?"
He smiled at her, pleased that she recognized him. Then, he tilted his head to the side and regarded her with questioning eyes.
"What are you doing here?"
"Where is here?" she asked back. "Wait."
Oh no – was she dead? After all, as far as she knew, Wally had died two years ago. Right? The last thing she remembered was fainting after their battle at the Fortress of Solitude.
"Am I... dead?" She supposed the thought should've scared her, but this place was too tranquil for things like fear and worry.
Wally threw his head back and laughed.
"No," he said. "You're fine. You're just.. stuck somewhere between time. I don't think you're supposed to be here. I mean, unless you also got zapped by a Magnetic Field Disruptor that's gone chrysalis."
Morgan ran a hand through her hair and looked at the pond again. There were large, colorful koi swimming lazily in the water, gliding around each other in circles. The more she stared at them, the more the fish melted together into a large, colorful, and swirling mass. With a start, she realized it resembled the magical mists they'd been traveling by.
"I wasn't zapped by anything," she said. "Is there a way I can go back?"
She didn't really understand what this place was. The obvious answer was that she was just dreaming. But something told her this was more than that. That Wally wasn't just a figment of her imagination, but something more tangible, more.. real.
Wally shrugged and moved closer to the pond, dipping a finger into the water. The ripples from his finger grew, and the surface of the pond grew dark.
"Let's have a look. He lets me use this pond as a way to keep up with everything going on back home," he explained. He looked down, his brow furrowing. "In case I ever.. get to go back."
The darkness from the surface of the pond seeped into the lower layers of the water, and the fish disappeared. Slowly, images, figures, rose out of the darkness. They sharpened into something comprehensible.
Morgan saw her own body lying on a bed, from a birds-eye view. It took her a moment to recognize the watchtower's infirmary. Did that mean she was still physically on earth? She wanted to ask Wally, but she was afraid of looking away. The picture widened slowly, like a camera slowly zooming out, and more objects came into view. A figure was pacing back and forth beside her bed. Even though all that was visible was the top of his black-haired head and the outline of his broad shoulders, she could recognize Dick instantly. He was exuding a jittery, restless energy and she realized with warmth in her chest that he was worrying about her. She could tell he was speaking, his breath leaving him in heavy sighs.
Morgan drew in a sharp breath and sucked in her bottom lip when she watched as he sat down in a chair beside the bed and pulled her hand into his own. It looked like a plea, the way he was clutching it.
She gasped audibly when the touch registered to her – she could feel it, even though she wasn't physically there. Or even though she wasn't currently in her body. She drew back from the pond and looked at her hand.
It was warm. She could feel the movement of a phantom thumb stroking over the back of her hand. She started registering other pressure points on her body that didn't make sense from the way she was sitting – a pillow at the back of her head. An itchiness on the back of her other hand let her know there was a needle there. Something was sticking to her temples – were they monitoring her brain activity?
She looked at the pond again, but the scene was gone. The water was clear, and the koi were back.
Wally was looking at her shrewdly.
"See? You're still tied to Earth. You just need to wake up."
"How do I do that?"
He shrugged. "Hell if I know. I wouldn't be here if I did."
"That's different, you don't have a body there.." she protested weakly, feeling bad about reminding him..
"Touché."
"Maybe if I go back to sleep, I'll wake up back at home," she suggested with a shrug.
"You could try," Wally said lightly. "In that case, I'll leave you to it." He rose to his feet in one fluid movement, towering over her.
"Wait – " she got up too, standing for the first time since arriving. She looked out over the landscape from her new position but realized with a start that there wasn't one. Outside of the little clearing with the pond, only milky blankness, disturbed by various, formless shapes, went on. It looked like they were in the midst of a swirling cloud, many subtle colors bleeding together into a colorless, greyish mist.
Exactly like…
… Where was she?
She shook her head and pushed the question to the back of her mind, focusing on her previous objective.
"Don't you have something you want me to pass on? Anything you want to tell – anyone? Artemis? Dick? Barry?"
He looked frozen for a moment, and then profoundly sad.
"I think.. I think that would only make it worse. If they knew I was – stuck – here."
She realized he was right. "Of course."
"You can't tell them."
"I promise."
Wally nodded, pleased. "Good. I'll check back on you in a few hours, but I suspect you'll be gone by then."
She looked down at the soft, cushiony grass below. She was sure she could fall asleep quickly – after all, she was more or less profoundly sleep-deprived, permanently. Her nightmares were still going strong.
He walked away at a leisurely pace and Morgan realized that he didn't have his powers here.
Then, she was alone. She stood looking at the pond for a few minutes, wondering if the images would come back. But the koi kept swimming in their endless swirl, and the water remained clear.
She sat back down in the grass and looked around, feeling inexplicably awkward. She felt like she had an audience, peeking in on her nap. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she registered how strange this all was. But above all, her mind was calm, a peacefulness that was brought on by her surroundings, like a heavy blanket suppressing clarity of mind.
Eventually, she lay back down and closed her eyes. The bird was still trilling. The grass was soft beneath her fingers. The water trickled by merrily, sounding like a sweet lullaby. The sun was pleasantly warm.
Her thoughts started muddling as her senses faded into oblivion, one by one.
June 7th
Batcave
Dick
"I'm not happy that you took Damian with you without asking me first."
Dick pointedly ignored Bruce for a good minute as he sat cleaning his grappling hook. He immediately knew he wasn't in a good headspace to have this confrontation now. He was only here because the thought of sitting alone in his apartment for another minute made him miserable. He'd had little to no sleep since they'd come back from the North Pole. He'd spent agonizing hours sitting at home telling himself he couldn't just sit at Morgan's bedside until she woke up. He knew it wouldn't be appropriate – he knew the others would talk. He knew his feelings would become glaringly obvious to anyone who saw. He just wasn't ready for that yet. So even though it was torture, he stayed away. He resorted to logging onto the Watchtower's security feed to get a quick visual on her, and then into the computers, to check out her medical logs.
No change, so far.
He'd gone to check up on her once yesterday, in the dead of night, when the Watchtower was almost empty. In a moment of weakness, he'd grabbed her hand and begged her to be okay.
"I had promised him I would take him along on my next mission," Dick responded in a flat voice. He hoped it would convey to Bruce that he really didn't want to get into this right now.
"You shouldn't have made that kind of promise without talking to me first." Bruce's tone was clipped.
He still didn't look up. He already knew exactly what he'd see if he did. Bruce pretending to focus on the screen in front of him. He'd be sitting with his side facing Dick, enough to avoid direct eye contact, but so that the tight line of his jaw and the furrowed line of his brow would still be visible. The calculated, cold, distanced, and displeased demeanor that Dick so hated.
He considered just getting up and leaving. He decided he'd actually much rather face the emptiness of his apartment than deal with Bruce right now.
But he realized, if Bruce was angry with him, he was certainly also taking it out on Damian. And the young boy didn't have the option of simply leaving – he was unfortunate enough to be living with the man still.
He blew out a low breath. "It was good for him. I'm not going to apologize."
"Hmpf," Bruce grumbled.
Dick rolled his eyes. "Damian needs a few successes right now. He needs to know there are people that trust him and see the good in him."
"I do see the potential for goodness in him."
"That's not what I said," Dick snapped. He could feel his temper rise, his tolerance for Bruce's nonsense at a low. "You see the potential for goodness instead of realizing it's already there. All he needs is your trust, but you keep him on such a short leash. He knows you're being unfair, but he also knows if he speaks out, you're just going to take it as proof that you're right."
"You don't know him like I do-" Bruce protested, his voice coming out like a low hiss because his jaw was clenched so tightly.
Dick ignored him. "Damian was a perfect teammate – he did as he was asked, he fought alongside the others without issue. He wasn't snarky, he wasn't defiant. He didn't fall into a fit of bloodlust like you seem so afraid of."
At his last words, Dick finally looked up from his work, and pierced Bruce with a sharp look. He looked caught between fury and regret.
Eventually, Bruce sighed and sunk further into his chair, running his fingers along his brow, looking deep in thought.
"The way Damian was raised.. The worldview he was taught. The blood he has on his hands. He has this.. Darkness," he admitted, the words leaving him like someone was forcibly pulling them out of him. "I fear it. I want to help him overcome it, but I'm afraid I won't be able to. He's not.. you."
Dick furrowed his brow. He felt like he'd heard these exact words from Bruce before.
"Stop comparing him to Jason," Dick bit out, suddenly furious. His tone rose, but his voice remained strong. "Stop viewing every Robin under the shadow of Jason and what happened to him!"
"Jason was my fault and every person he's killed since is because I failed to help him," Bruce said. His eyes flashed with something resembling desperation, but his voice betrayed that he was angry at being challenged.
"Oh my god, get over yourself!" Dick exploded. Bruce's eyes flashed at him with fury. "What happened to Jason was a tragedy, but you can't keep treating Damian like he's a bomb waiting to go off. You wanna talk about failing? You're failing Damian right now! You're afraid of his darkness? Then deal with it, dammit! Do you honestly think keeping him isolated in the Manor, in Gotham, is going to help him? Let him join the Team!"
Bruce shook his head and turned away from Dick once more. His voice shook with his barely contained anger. "He's not ready for that kind of teamwork. He's not a team player yet. There's too much ego."
"And how is he ever going to become a better team player if he's not allowed on the team?" Dick shot back. "It's not exactly something you can practice on your own!"
Bruce's jaw was clenched so tight, Dick was afraid he'd crack his teeth.
"You wouldn't understand." Dick could tell Bruce knew he was right but was grasping at any excuse. He knew that the real problem was Bruce's own fear. His fear of failing, his fear of losing. "You're not a Wayne. You don't have that darkness."
He felt stricken for a hot second. Did Bruce really just use blood as a way to exclude him from the family? On the one hand, he was hurt, but on the other, he praised his damn luck that he wasn't a Wayne.
"So, which is it?" he challenged. "Is it his upbringing with the League of Assassins, or his cursed Wayne blood that's making Damian so dangerous?"
Bruce didn't answer.
Dick wanted to leave. God, his adoptive father was easily the most irritating person he knew. Nobody could piss Dick off like Bruce. Except, perhaps, the woman currently lying in a coma, whom his thoughts refused to stray from for long.
He slipped his grappling hook in the bag carrying his suit and slung the strap over his shoulder. He wasn't getting anything else out of Bruce anyway.
"I'm not going to stop bringing Damian on missions if he asks again," he told him. "But I know if you tell him not to, he'll stop going. That's how desperately he wants your trust."
Bruce looked like a little angry black cloud in his stupid chair in front of the gigantic computer screen. Dick knew he wouldn't get an answer from him, so he decided to leave. He hoped, once Bruce stopped steaming, he would actually understand what Dick had said. Part of him was doubtful – he wasn't so sure that the true 'Wayne Darkness' wasn't simple stubbornness. He also understood that Bruce was struggling with the reemergence of a few demons after Jason's violent return. That didn't make him all that interested in cutting him some slack, however.
It had been a rough year.
"Tell Alfred I said bye," he grumbled as he stepped into the zeta tube and disappeared. He needed to tell Abigail about Morgan's condition anyway. He knew nobody would've remembered to, and she must've started to worry by now. As always, the responsibility fell on him.
He arrived in the dirty streets of Gotham. It was dark out by now – a look at his watch told him it was past ten. Damn. Would she even be awake by now? What if she was at work?
The walk to their apartment took all of ten minutes, time he spent trying to figure out what to say. If she wasn't at home, should he write her a note and stick it onto their door? What could he write that would get the message across, without giving away anything a random neighbor shouldn't know?
He resisted the urge to connect to the Watchtower security feed for the tenth time that day to check on Morgan. He was sure she'd be lying in the same spot that she'd been since he put her there two days ago.
He arrived too quickly. The tall, old building loomed over him like a bad omen. Dark clouds were gathering overhead – another rainstorm?
The thought encouraged him to get inside quickly, if he wanted to finish this up before those clouds finished gathering and began unloading their burden onto the grimy streets of Gotham.
He felt like ten pounds were added to his weight with each step he took up the staircase. He wondered if it was the exhaustion, his dread at what was to come, or if Tim and Babs had sown lead into his coat as a prank again.
He stood staring at the door for quite a while, gathering his thoughts. The hallway was almost pitch black. The overhead lighting had been broken for a while, and he knew from countless complaints from Morgan that their landlord did almost zero upkeep of the building. The sink in their bathroom had been broken for a while, unable to run any hot water.
He remembered with a strange sort of twinge in his chest that he'd promised to fix it for them a long time ago. And then he never found the time. And then.. well..
He checked his watch again. Would the hardware store still be open?
Mind made up, Dick jogged back down the stairs and left. He already knew which fixture he needed, and he had the tools in his utility belt.
Fifteen minutes later, he was back in front of the door.
Was this weird?
He supposed Abigail had experienced weirder than her daughter's ex showing up late in the evening to fix her bathroom sink. Right?
With a deep breath, he brought his hand up and knocked on the door. It was quiet for a moment, and he was ready to give up. Then, the door was thrown open with a vigor that surprised him.
The look on Abigail's face was happy and relieved. Then, she saw him, saw the state he was in, and the expression crumbled.
"Oh god. Please no."
He realized with a start how this looked. She hadn't heard from Morgan in two days, and now he showed up at her doorstep, looking like he hadn't slept in days, hair greasy, eyes red, face unshaven.
"She's not dead!" he blurted out.
He saw the way her hand was trembling on the doorframe, but she sagged with relief. Her head dropped until her chin almost touched her collarbone. Her eyebrows were knitted close together, her face pulled into a painful mask, and she let out a shuddering breath that shook her entire body.
How much time did she spend worrying about her daughter? Dick felt awful for not showing up sooner. The past two days must've been hellish for her.
"Come in," she said when she'd gathered herself.
Seating himself at the table in their kitchen, he watched as she started mechanically preparing a cup of tea. It was practically ritual by now. He wanted to tell her she didn't have to, but he understood that she needed to keep her shaking hands busy as she came down from the intense grief she'd been in when she'd thought he was here to tell her Morgan was dead.
"We were on a mission at the North Pole," he began, still trying to work out how much he should tell her. Abigail's hands stilled, a spoonful of tea grounds hovering over the filter, waiting to be poured in.
"I don't know what Morgan's told you about what's been going on," he admitted. He knew Morgan preferred to keep her mom in the dark with a lot of these things. Did Abigail know about the spell?
Abigail poured the tea leaves into the filter and dumped it into the teapot. She grabbed two mugs and put them on the table.
"You know as well as I do that she tells me as little as possible." Her tone carried something resigned yet bitter. She turned and gave him a clipped smile.
"We've been traveling to other timelines," he blurted out. God, he knew Morgan was going to be furious with him for telling her mom anything.
Abigail set the kettle of boiling water back onto the table with a clank and turned towards him. She leaned against the counter and crossed her arms, regarding him with a look of disbelief. There was a sternness to her, the lines of her body exuding that mom-energy that forced the truth out of him. He was sure hours of torture couldn't have pulled information out of him as effectively as the look she was piercing him with.
"After the wedding last month, Morgan came across a spell.. somehow, she absorbed it. I was there, so some of the spell went to me," he knew he sounded crazy, and Dick pulled off his jacket and showed her the mark he carried. Abigail put the teapot on the table, wordlessly studying the dark handprint on his wrist. "This is her hand – we, uh, we both carry part of the spell. She has a mark like this too, but I assume she hid it from you."
He found himself explaining everything. The fact that they were trying to stop certain doom. That they'd actually managed to stop the total invasion and subjugation of the human race a few years ago, and now they were trying to prevent that from happening anyway. He avoided any detail of Morgan's visions and her nightmares. That wasn't his secret to tell, and least of all to her mom.
Abigail listened attentively, without asking any questions. She sipped her tea, her expression thoughtful. Some parts of the story made her eyebrows rise on her face, other parts made her frown. Some made her smile.
"We were at the North Pole to close one of the rifts. The timelines had already started to merge, and soldiers kept bleeding into our reality." His chest seized at this part. Finally, they'd come to the part of the story he dreaded the most. The part where he had screwed up, and Morgan had gotten hurt because of it. He had to alter the story slightly, to avoid mentioning the Fortress of Solitude, but the bones of his tale remained the same.
"A giant chunk of the cave's roof was starting to collapse, and Morgan wanted to stop it with her telekinesis." His throat felt a bit tight as he relived the moment. His terror when he thought she was going to die because of what he'd perceived to be misplaced confidence and overreliance on her unstable telekinetic abilities. "I ran over and pulled her away. I thought I saved her, but she was angry with me. Because I didn't believe in her."
His fingers clenched so tight around the mug in his hands, he was afraid it would shatter.
Abigail placed her mug down on the table and enveloped his hands with her warm ones. She offered him a reassuring smile.
"I know you only ever do what you do from a place of love," she said. He looked at her helplessly. He wanted to protest, but the look she gave him told him it would be pointless. Abigail knew – there was no doubt in her mind as to Dick's affection for her daughter.
It was like a dam threatening to burst. Words and promises of love and devotion wanted to pour out of him like an endless river, but he sucked in a breath and plowed on. He was still working on coming to terms with the fact himself. He would regret it if he told her. No matter how safe he felt in her presence, how the small, unhealed child-part of him ached because this was almost like having a mom again.
"The soldiers came back. I ran to find the rift while the others fought them off. To buy me some time. I found it, but by the time the others had arrived, and we could close the portal, the entire cave collapsed on top of us. We were going to be crushed to death. Morgan.. Morgan stopped it. She supported the entire cave, allowing us to travel back home and close the rift."
Abigail looked proud, but not surprised. Had she known how powerful Morgan was? When Dick had had no idea?
"It.. hurt her. She saved us, but she fell into a coma immediately after. She's at the Watchtower. She's fine, just hasn't woken up yet. If she ever will." He was surprised at the trembling way his breath left him. Was he so wracked with guilt that he couldn't even talk without shaking? He really needed to sleep.
His next words left him in a rush, "If only I'd been quicker to find the portal-"
"Dick."
"or if we hadn't split up, or-or-"
"Dick."
He looked at Abigail, feeling tortured. She regarded him with sympathy.
"Not everything is your fault, nor your responsibility."
"But I'm the leader," he protested. "I make the decisions and I carry the burden of those calls."
"And I administer patient care – does that mean it's my fault if any of them die from unknown complications?"
Dick looked at the golden-brown liquid in his mug. He wasn't sure what to think. He'd always been taught that he had to be better, had to know every variable, that any mistake he made could mean death. He saw the way Jason's death had almost destroyed Bruce, how he had blamed himself and how that guilt made him spiral. He squeezed his eyes shut.
I'm not Bruce, I'm not Bruce, I'm not Bruce..
No, he was supposed to be better. That's what Bruce always said. That Dick was better. Better than him. Better than all of them. Did that also mean he had to be better than the mistakes he made? That he had to be perfect because anything less than perfection would bring ruin? Because so many people relied on him to always be the one with the plan, with the perfect fix?
"Morgan is strong." Abigail's soft voice brought him back. "I know, as long as she's still breathing, she'll find a way to get back to us."
Us.
His brow furrowed crookedly with some strangled emotion, but he knew she was right. This wasn't Morgan's end – she would be fine.
With a deep sigh, he felt his burden lighten, only if slightly. Receiving Abigail's forgiveness allowed him to stop beating himself up. Even better - Abigail telling him this hadn't even been his fault, when she should've been the first to blame him, was something he hadn't even dared to hope for.
His eyes traveled across the table and onto the plastic bag containing the new faucet and fixture he'd bought.
"I got you a new faucet for the bathroom."
Abigail cocked a single eyebrow at him and shook her head slightly, taking a sip of her tea.
"You can install it tomorrow. We both need to sleep."
"I'm already here, I might as well just do it now-"
"You need to sleep." Abigail insisted again, getting up and pouring the rest of the tea into the sink before rinsing the insides of the teapot. "You can have Morgan's bed. I'll make you breakfast."
He absolutely could not have Morgan's bed. But he also didn't want to go home to his own, empty apartment. He was aware that he must've looked like a lost puppy, from the way she regarded him.
"Maybe I'll just sleep on the couch?" he offered weakly as an alternative.
Abigail nodded with acceptance. "Sure. I'll get you a blanket."
I was really trying to channel my inner Tolkien with the description of that meadow. I hope you'd be proud, Mister Tolkien (I know he wouldn't be lmao. Not nearly enough descriptions of trees).
Some fun stuff in this chapter. Dick is really going through the wringer these days. It's fun to watch him pinpoint exactly what Bruce's issue is, but then also sort of do the exact same thing. And it's not that he isn't mostly aware of it, but awareness doesn't always help.
And he's also admitted to himself that, indeed, he's still in love! I feel like it was obvious to us readers, but I honestly think he would just burry it so deeply to focus on the mission, that it would indeed take something like Morgan getting hurt to really make him realize it. That moment between him and Abigail hadn't initially been part of the plan, but I added it on the fly as I wrote, and it ended up unlocking a lot of the issues that he's dealing with in this story. It's not that Abigail is going to be a super present character in the story per see, but Dick's relationship with her will end up becoming super important to the core of his character growth in the story, as that scene demonstrated. But I wont spoil too much!
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Your reactions to the last one was really encouraging and I'm happy to know that we're all still enjoying this ride! Let me know what you think!
As always, let me know your theories and what you think is going to happen, I love reading your speculations because they let me know if my foreshadowing is too obvious or not obvious enough lmao! What was that meadow? What the heck is Wally doing there? Who created the rift? And the spell? Where are the Fates hiding? Lots to wonder about!