Chapter 8: What He Deserves

May 15th, 2022

Wayne Manor

Morgan

Morgan stood rooted to the spot for a long moment after the two Dicks had left. The dull thud of the door closing behind them seemed to bounce around in her head, the sound made all the louder by the silence of her surroundings.

She studied the room from her position, profoundly uncomfortable with what she saw. After all, she recognized this furniture, those bottles of perfume..

This hadn't just been his room; it had been theirs.

And there, on the bedside table, was all the proof she needed.

She went over to the picture, nestled in a golden frame, staring blankly at it for a moment. Then, she gingerly put it face down, hiding lacy, white fabric and bright smiles. This was one thing she didn't want to deal with right now.

Instead, she looked with trepidation at the large bed, and decided to get to work removing the old covers and sheets, while she waited for the older Dick to come back with new sheets for her. The task was more of an attempt to distract herself than anything, but she also knew it had to be done.

Some ten minutes later, there was a soft knock on the door, and he entered. She studied him wordlessly for a moment, almost unsure which one of them it was. It was obvious, though. Not just because of the suit he wore, but also from the look on his face when he looked at her. She shuffled her feet and hated that she felt guilty. It's not like it was her fault that her mere presence seemed to bring him pain. She saw the longing look on his face, though she knew it wasn't about her – not really.

Morgan cleared her throat, and the older Dick shook his head, coming out of whatever thoughts he'd been stuck in.

"Here are your sheets." He handed her the bundle in his arms, which she readily accepted. She threw them on the bed and looked at him over her shoulder.

"Thanks," she said, unsure if she hoped he'd leave or stay. He made her uncomfortable, because of the improbability of him being there, of her being here, of the history he shared with a her that was not her.. But she also wasn't sure she wanted to be alone, in this room, in this house, in this foreign time and place.

"Are you hungry?" he asked with concern. "It's been a while since the two of you had a proper meal, right?"

Morgan pressed her lips together and nodded.

"Yeah, I guess I am," she admitted, shrugging, and trying to feign casualty.

"I'll bring you something."

Then he was gone again before she could protest, and she resisted the urge to fly out the window and far away from this place.

The room felt terribly big and empty, as she stood in the middle of it with a pile of dusty old sheets around her.

Having to work with Dick for the past two days had been a challenge, an exercise in keeping confused emotions and lingering, hurt feelings at bay. But now that she was suddenly alone, in a foreign world, she missed him terribly.

Despite everything else, he'd been an anchor, something familiar and safe. And now he was somewhere else, and she was alone, in a room she could only describe as a shrine to her own, dead self.

She felt like she stood in a tomb. It was clear the older Dick hadn't touched the room since the day the other her had died and she could almost feel his grief lingering in the air like a heavy blanket, trying to suffocate her.

Morgan's fingers twitched as she looked at the window, wanting to open it and let in some clean air. But she didn't dare touch it, didn't dare disturb this memorial she stood in.

Sometime later, just as she was finishing up putting new sheets on the bed, the older Dick showed up with a sandwich.

Ham and lettuce with extra pickles and mustard – just as he knew she liked it. It tasted like ash in her mouth, but she offered him a cautious smile as she ate it, to show her appreciation. She wondered how he must've felt making it for her, or if he'd made that sandwich for the other her so often that he hadn't even thought about it.

When had been the last time he'd made it for her? Months before she'd died? Weeks? Days? The day of?

The older Dick cleared his throat and her head shot in his direction.

"So, I hear you broke up with him."

Morgan quirked an eyebrow at him. "This might come as a surprise, but you are not exactly the person I wanna talk to about it."

"Why not?" he challenged.

"Wha-?" she spluttered at his audacity for even asking. "Because, well, you're him!" she pointed out, motioning a hand vaguely at all of him.

"But I'm not, though," he shrugged. The cape draped across his shoulders shifted with the movement. He was right, of course. As she stood and looked at him, she knew he wasn't him, not really, not entirely. "Just like you aren't her."

Morgan shot him an unimpressed look, "Yeah, but you're close enough."

"That's exactly why I'm the right person to talk to," he argued. "I know both of you well enough to give advice, and after tomorrow, you won't ever see me again."

Morgan opened her mouth to retort, but the words never came to her. He was making a good point, which annoyed her more than anything.

"You even argue like him!" she said with exasperation, a short bubble of laughter escaping her.

He shrugged, a roguish grin on his face. "I have to; you're arguing like her."

She laughed again, though she wasn't sure if it was from any kind of mirth, or just as a helpless reaction to the strange situation she found herself in.

He became serious and the look he regarded her with made the laughter die in her throat.

"I just want to help. If not for you guys', then for my Morgan's sake. It would kill her to know her younger counterpart was going through this in another timeline." His voice was soft, but unflinching. "Besides, If I know you at all – and I think I do – you probably didn't give Dick an explanation. And you know you owe him one. So, consider me practice until you're ready to have that conversation with your Dick."

Morgan lost her fight to a small, bitter grin. "That sounds remarkably like foreshadowing."

He shrugged again and laughed shortly. "Call it what you want, but you know I'm right."

Morgan stood staring at him, feeling caught for a long moment, before she slumped and sat down heavily on the bed.

"Yeah, I broke up with him." she admitted almost sourly, the emotion brought out by how uncomfortable she felt. The older Dick came over and sat carefully on the bed beside her.

"What did he do?"

Morgan looked at him with wide eyes, feeling like he'd speared her right through the chest.

"He didn't do anything – I, I.." she didn't want to talk about this. She never wanted to talk about it with anyone, least of all here, not with him, not like this..

The Dick across from her gave her a caring, empathic look and it was almost encouraging enough for her to open up.

Almost.

"It was both our fault," she said vaguely, instead of digging into the actual meat of the problem. But even that small admittance was like poking a hole in the dam she'd built up inside. Before she had the time to reconsider, the time to chicken out, the words started spilling out of her, unbidden. "We were… fighting a lot. He was very busy as the leader of the Team, and I could tell I was a burden on him. We started becoming a liability on missions because we weren't being a good team. He kept trying to boss me around, and I was tired of it because he wasn't just my leader, but also my boyfriend, you know?" She paused for a long while, sorting through all her thoughts. "... I decided to join the League. I figured, if he wasn't my leader anymore, we could start being equals. Instead, he was furious when he found out. He was so betrayed by it – I don't know why, it's not like I'm the first member to ever make that jump. I think that's when I knew that things just weren't working out."

"You were a burden on him?" Dick repeated, managing to touch upon the one thing she hoped he wouldn't pick up on.

She shrugged defensively and tried to blow him off with a barely held-together air of breeziness.

"We both know I'm a big pile of unresolved daddy issues – and a host of other things. I didn't react well to the aftermath of the Reach invasion. I needed therapy, and he was shouldering that burden on top of everything else because I refused to admit I needed help for a long time. It became too much. I became too much for him."

She bit into her bottom lip, the truth sitting like a sour lemon on the tip of her tongue, so close to coming out despite her best effort. Her eyes were stinging, but her chest felt a tad lighter, like telling him had unloaded some of the burden she carried.

It was for that reason alone she ended up speaking those words she'd sworn to keep to herself.

"I.. left him because I wasn't what he needed."

The older Dick was studying her profile, but she refused to look at him, staring blankly ahead, her fingers clenched in her lap. She regretted almost immediately, that she'd admitted it out loud. Especially to him. She feared, with what she'd told him, he'd nod along and agree with her. Tell her that she was right, that she hadn't managed to be the kind of girlfriend Dick needed, deserved, that she'd done him a favor by leaving him. Intellectually, she believed it, but hearing it confirmed from someone else would break her heart. Her heart, which still hadn't fully accepted what her mind had decided. She knew that was why she still wasn't over him, why her heart still throbbed whenever she saw him. That despite how she intellectually knew she was no good for him, her selfish heart struggled to move on.

But the older Dick didn't confirm her fears. He looked hurt by her words, which made her feel even worse.

"Was that something he said, or something you decided?" he asked carefully.

She looked at him with a stricken face.

"Does it make a difference?" she asked, her gaze on him steady.

He shrugged, like he realized maybe it didn't matter; because even if Dick had never outright said it, something in their relationship had led her to that conclusion. Morgan busied herself with pushing her hair out of her face. She pulled it over her left shoulder and attempted to braid it, but it was so knotted that she could hardly pull individual pieces apart. Busying her hands with undoing the mess that was her hair, Morgan felt the dam start to rebuild itself. She was admitting too much. How had he managed to pull all this out of her? She felt deeply embarrassed by the weakness she had allowed to slip through.

"What did he say?" the older Dick gently pushed. He must've known she was retreating, and he was attempting to keep the floodgates open. It was all too easy to let him, to keep going now that she had already started. And as he had pointed out, after tomorrow, she would never see him again.

"Uhm," Morgan closed her eyes and thought back to that night, though most of it felt like a blur to her, like a bad dream from which she only remembered glimpses. She didn't want to remember specifics, didn't want to revisit the experience. "I-I'm not sure I can.."

The older Dick placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

"It's okay," he said "You don't have to tell me anything. I just assumed he must've said something to make you think that."

He hadn't, though. Morgan didn't want to talk about that night, but she couldn't bear that someone might think Dick had said cruel things to her, that he was in any way the bad guy.

"Dick didn't say anything like that. He.. was confused. Sad. He seemed completely blindsided by it." She bit her lip, her heart throbbing. "He begged me to stay and talk things out with him. He.. cried."

That was what made her feel the most ashamed and the image her mind kept replaying over and over when she was at her most miserable. The image of his shiny eyes and the fat tears streaming down his face when he had realized she wasn't budging, and they were done.

"I've never seen him cry before."

"Why didn't you try and talk things out?"

The room had grown steadily darker as they talked, the last few rays of sunlight losing its fight against the earth's rotation. Night had taken over outside, and Morgan felt the darkness perfectly matched how she felt inside. Matched the void she so distinctly felt right now.

"Because I knew he'd convince me to stay." Her voice croaked as she got the words out. "I knew he'd convince me to stay because I was so tempted to. But I'd already spoken the words, so I knew it was over for us. I couldn't just take it back, you know? It wasn't just some spur of the moment thing. I'd been thinking about breaking up with him for weeks, and I knew I had to stand firm on my decision. Otherwise, we'd only be dragging out the inevitable."

The older Dick watched her with an intensity that made her unable to meet his eyes. He weighed her words for a long time, and she was terrified of what he'd say, but also desperate to hear his thoughts and advice.

"Morgan, I'm not going to tell you whether or not you made the right decision," he eventually said, weighing his words carefully. "But if you'll allow me to speak frankly…"

Despite her fear, she slowly nodded.

"I've lost a lot of people in my life." He looked at the floor, but despite the heavy words, a small smile blossomed. "Sometimes, it feels like my life has been one long string of people entering my life shortly, only to leave again. And yet, the most important person that ever entered my life was you. I can't conceive of a timeline where you aren't what I needed."

Morgan felt like fireworks had erupted in her stomach and chest. She couldn't express to him strongly enough how much those words meant to her. And yet the happiness was laced with agony, because it wasn't the right Dick, her Dick that had spoken the words. She wished more than anything that it had been him.

But it was not. Her Dick wasn't her Dick anymore. He was already moving on – she saw it every time he spoke to Starfire.

"Maybe I managed to be the one from the timeline where it wasn't meant to be."

The look he offered her was sympathetic.

"I doubt it."

She eyed the golden band he wore on his ring finger, a testament to how strongly he meant what he was saying. She felt guilt, realizing he probably would've given anything to have his Morgan back, and here he was comforting her, when she'd willingly let him go. Did he feel betrayed by it, even though he was not the Dick she'd broken up with?

They sat quietly for a while, Morgan too miserable to speak, and the older Dick knowing the conversation was over, but not wanting to leave her when it was clear that she was suffering.

"I'll let you get some sleep," he eventually said, getting off the bed. "Goodnight."

"'Night," she sighed, not sure if she was happy or not to finally be left alone. One thing she knew for sure was that she was so exhausted, being left alone to sleep was for the best, whether she wanted to or not.

She lay in bed for a while, seriously thinking about asking Dick if she could sleep on the floor in his room. But the talk with the older Dick had confused her and made her heartsick, more heartsick than she'd been for weeks. The throbbing in her chest made her stay put, aware that facing Dick right now would probably be a mistake. Eventually, body aching from the past two days, she drifted off into a heavy sleep.

March 16th 2022

Wayne Manor

Dick

He woke hours later in a room that had faded from a golden sunset, into pitch black night. He lay staring at the ceiling for a long time, his eyes burning, but his mind reeling too much to fall back asleep. Dick was thankful he'd gotten any sleep at all.

Slowly, shadows crept along the ceiling, the weak, grey beginnings of morning peeking through the heavy curtains to his right. Eventually, a long, orange streak of light traveled across the room and his eyes followed it from his position in the bed.

It was still very early morning when he got up, stretching out stiff limbs. He went out to find a bathroom. The halls of the manor were still dark and gloomy, the small amount of light shining through the windows at the ends of the corridor failing to chase away the darkness. Dick wasn't bothered by it; he knew these halls well. With confidence, he walked along and rounded a corner…

He quickly swerved to avoid bumping into the small form that was before him. Sidestepping, he reached out instinctively and grabbed onto the shoulders of the small child, who was stumbling from the collision.

"Sorry!" he said. His surprise was so great from seeing a toddler roaming the halls of the manor, it took him several moments to properly study the boy.

He was a small, chubby toddler, no older than three old – though to be quite honest, judging the age of kids wasn't exactly Dick's area of expertise.

He stood in shadow, though the light from the window fell across his face so it was illuminated for Dick to study. Clear, blue eyes, terrifyingly identical to his own, looked up at him from under a mop of black curls. Full, rosy cheeks and a small button nose completed the look and Dick had to admit the kid was adorable.

But what exactly was he doing here?

"Daddy," the boy said, his voice young and sweet, "I just wanted to fly. That's why I was out here." He sounded worried, like he knew he'd been misbehaving.

Several things were wrong with what the boy was saying, but perhaps most wrong and terrible was that he'd called Dick daddy.

"Uuuuuh." He was at a loss for words.

"I wasn't trying to be bad." The kid pouted at him, eyes big and innocent. He shuffled his feet in distress, and Dick watched with frozen insides as the boy unfurled a pair of small, grey wings. They fluttered with a feeble energy, matching the fluttering taking place in Dick's stomach.

God, he wanted to go home.

He was still staring dumbfounded at the kid. This couldn't possibly be..? He tried to remember the details of this timeline, that Bart had revealed to them, but his mind was reeling to the point of uselessness.

Seeing himself had been bad enough. This – oh, this was much worse.

"Daddy?" The little kid looked at him with furrowed brows, his nose scrunching up adorably, as he quirked his head to the left and studied who he thought was his father.

"I'm here, Alex," came a voice from behind. The Other Dick stepped out from the shadows he'd been hiding in. "I thought I told you not to leave the bedroom without me today."

Alex looked between the two men with confusion for a moment, but quickly seemed to accept that the Other Dick was his father.

"I just wanted to fly a bit." He pouted at his dad and went over to him, readily climbing into his offered embrace.

The other Dick picked up his son with practiced ease, and the vision of him standing before Dick with his kid on his arm almost didn't compute.

The kid – Alex, apparently – pointed a small finger at him, leaning close to his dad to whisper conspiratorially.

"He looks like you, daddy."

"Don't worry buddy," his dad said, placing a small peck into his black curls. "He's just a friend, visiting."

The kid seemed to consider this too but accepted it.

"Ok," he shrugged. Then, he started fluttering his wings vigorously, forcing the Other Dick to let go of him, and he floated to the ground, his small wings beating very fast to keep him somewhat afloat.

"What's your name, mister?"

Dick was about to answer truthfully, but worried that maybe the kid would know his dad's name and wonder why they had the same one.

He looked at the other him, who shrugged.

"Uh, Richard," he settled on. Technically not a lie.

"Dad, can Richard stay for breakfast?" Alex asked, his little voice brimming with innocence, eyes huge.

Hell no.

"I'm afraid he can't," the Other Dick said, "Richard has to leave already. He's going to visit auntie Zatanna. She's picking him up in a few minutes."

Huh. Finally some good news.

Alex perked up. "Can auntie Zatanna stay for breakfast?"

"Tell you what," his dad put a hand upon Alex's head, and his fingers disappeared in the mop of curls. He pointed towards what Dick assumed was their shared room. "Why don't you go pick out your clothes for today and I'll help you in a bit. Then, if she wants to, auntie can stay for breakfast."

The little kid considered the deal for a moment, and then he ran off on short little legs, slamming the bedroom door behind him in his vigor.

The two men stood silently in the hallway for a moment, the Other Dick regarding Dick as he still fought to not drop his mouth open in astonishment.

He probably should've known, right? After all, he knew that Morgan was dead in this timeline because she was protecting her child. And he also knew the two of them were married in this timeline.

And he wasn't going to act like he hadn't thought about it from time to time, how the two of them had started a family in another timeline – and yeah, once upon a time, he'd maybe blissfully assumed that's where he had also been heading, before reality had kicked him in the nuts.

He remembered Morgan was also here – remembered that she had to know there was a kid somewhere. Or maybe she'd blanked it, like him, because it was too insane to think about.

"Morgan can't know," he decided, looking imploringly at the other him.

He nodded.

"She's not ready for that. And I guess you weren't either." He looked at the younger him with humor in his eyes. "That's why I asked him to go to our room – so I can smuggle you two out. Zatanna is waiting in the Batcave."

Dick nodded stiffly. "I'll get Morgan."

"I'll get Alex some breakfast and then meet you downstairs."

Missions thusly assigned, the two of them parted ways. Dick's mind was still reeling, but he willed himself to stay focused on the task at hand. Still, he knew meeting your own child from another dimension wasn't an everyday occurrence, so he allowed himself to be somewha shaken.

They were so close to going home, however. He wasn't about to drop his guard. Their road to the manor had been long and complicated, and he wasn't going to allow anything else to set them back. He prayed Zatanna had the solution to their problem. He couldn't imagine being stuck here.

He passed by what used to be Tim's room – he had refused to ask where Tim was, too scared of the obvious answer that was staring him in the face – and towards his own old room, knocking on the door.

A bit of shuffling inside and a groggy, "come in," later, he opened the door and peaked inside.

She'd still been asleep – that much was evident. She sported a wild case of bedhead, which he knew well, as she sat blinking blearily in the bed. She was still in her suit, covers pooled around her small frame. Her wings lay lazily along the bed, dropping over the sides. His heart gave a small throb of something akin to fondness.

"Zatanna is here," he said.

"What time is it?" she mumbled, hiding her yawn behind the back of her hand.

"I don't know," he admitted. "Early morning."

She slipped out from under the covers and into her boots, pushing the unruly curls out of her face a few times as she went. The early rays of sun hit her hair from behind and lit it up like a halo. Dick swallowed dryly and went back into the hall.

Morgan emerged a minute later, hair now in her thick, signature braid and her mask in place.

The two of them walked silently down the hall, heading for Bruce's office and the entrance to the cave. Dick couldn't stop thinking about the kid he'd seen, how much he'd looked like him, and yet with clear features inherited from his mother. He now knew that, if the two of them had ever had kids, they'd have her wings and her curls – the two things that made Morgan look like Morgan.

Something about seeing that kid with his and her features blended together perfectly, a physical proof of the love they had shared, of the union they had entered, had created in him a deep ache that he couldn't ignore. It was like a painful throb twisting at his gut, and squeezing his heart.

But it wasn't up to him, was it? After all, Dick wasn't the one that had made the choice to split.

They reached the study, and the grandfather clock was already open, a cool draft emitting from it. The damp wind disturbed the hair that framed his face, and he pushed it back.

"Well, this is interesting," A familiar voice said once they hit the last set of steps and entered the cave proper. Leaning casually against the computer desk, arms crossed across her chest and smirk in place, stood Zatanna. She pushed off the table and approached the two of them. "I was sure Dick had lost his mind when he called and told me his younger counterpart and the missus were here."

Zatanna looked the same as always, her dark hair long and glossy, her suit the one she'd always worn. Only the light in her eyes seemed different, and Dick understood that she was as affected by her fate as the other him was.

Dick and Morgan both shuffled around as she reached them. The Other Dick stood watching the exchange stoically by the computers in a black turtleneck that made him look very much like Bruce.

"It's not like we're supposed to be here," Morgan grumbled.

As she got closer, Zatanna studied the pair intently.

"Something is different about you two," she said. "Your auras are off. Have you been touching magical items?"

Morgan made a guilty face and Dick pointed accusingly at her.

"Someone touched a magical item."

She gave him a good glare.

"I. was. investigating!"

Dick opened his mouth, intending to reiterate his stance of her being careless.

Zatanna quickly interrupted, not needing magic to sense an argument was fast approaching.

"It doesn't matter who touched what, because you're both emitting magical frequencies."

She walked in a small circle around them, taking them in from all angles. Morgan crossed her arms over her chest sourly at their old argument resurfacing, and Dick followed Zatanna raptly with his eyes. That he could've absorbed some of the magic too was news to him.

The magician finished her studious circle and stopped in front of them again.

"Explain, in exact detail, what happened."

And so, they did. Dick did most of the talking up until the point where Morgan picked up the magical thread, at which point she took over to explain the sensation.

"It seeped into me – my vision turned gold. I fell because I couldn't see anything and Dick grabbed hold of me to steady me."

"I got zapped when I touched her, like she was carrying an electrical current." Dick said, snapping his fingers as if this fact had only just occurred to him.

"Next thing we knew, the white fog collapsed around us, and we were here." Morgan shrugged.

"Where was this?"

Dick pulled up his holo-computer and showed her the coordinates.

"It's just a normal wood, far as I know."

Zatanna considered the map, and then the two young people before her.

"I think," she said, contemplating their situation, one finger tapping thoughtfully at her chin, "I think we need to go back to the wood. Find the source."

The four heroes shared determined looks, and the Other Dick dangled a ring of keys from his index finger.

"I'll drive."

March 16th 2022

Somewhere outside of Metropolis

Nightwing

"We're here." The Other Dick announced their arrival, slowly landing the camouflaged batwing beneath the thick canopy. Zatanna looked at the two younger heroes sitting in the backseat, giving them an encouraging smile.

"Close to answers now!"

"Hopefully," Morgan sighed, looking worriedly out the window at the forest that lay beyond. Her brow was furrowed as her eyes swept across the scene. Dick could understand her worry. They were right by the clearing in which they'd encountered the magical fog, and there was nothing to be seen.

The other him pressed a button and the doors slid open with a hiss.

"Show me the exact spot," Zatanna requested, waiting for the two of them to lead the way. The Other Dick once again hung back as they went on. Dick wondered about Alex. Was he alone at the manor? His heart did a little squeeze at the thought. This was a terribly world to grow up in.

"Here," Morgan made a sweeping motion at an empty spot nestled between two old oaks and a brush of brambles. "You can still sort of see where the grass was disturbed."

Zatanna pulled out a large, ornate amulet and walked around with it. It emitted a low, almost lazy glow as she searched the area.

The two of them shared a look as she walked to and fro before them, identical looks of confusion on their faces.

"Stand here," she pointed at a specific spot before her, where the glow had seemed the strongest. "Both of you. Quickly!" Her excitement allowed for hope to bloom in his chest. Could they really be getting home?

"Dick, do you remember where you grabbed onto Morgan to steady her?" she asked next.

"Uh, sure," he said, "here?"

He grabbed onto her upper arm, trying to mimic the exact position. The effect was instantaneous. Dick could feel a low hum at the back of his mind, and he heard Morgan gasp beside him. Below their feet, the white mist manifested, looking like it was seeping out of the very ground. Soon, the mist had reached their calves and Zatanna clapped her hands together.

"This is very fascinating!" Speaking an incantation and making an intricate motion with her hand, a book appeared out of thin air, and Zatanna started leafing through it. "Don't let go of her arm!" she said, nose buried in her book.

Dick cleared his throat awkwardly and looked away, his other hand scratching at the back of his neck, as he was forced to stand there with a hand on her arm.

"Uh, guys?" Morgan piped up after a second, "It's happening again."

Dick looked at her and dropped his hand from her arm in surprise. Morgan's eyes were covered by a glowing, golden film. Zatanna let out an "oh!" when she noticed. As soon as Dick let go of her arm, the fog started disappearing again, and her eyes returned to normal.

"I've never seen anything like this," Zatanna said, and Dick couldn't tell if her tone was intrigued or worried. She resumed her frantic leafing through the book. It took her a few minutes, but Zatanna eventually provided them with answers.

"As far as I can tell, this specific place is where the fabric between our two realities is at its thinnest." She turned the book around and showed them what was on the page. There was a block of magical text that Dick couldn't read, but the illustration beside it provided him with the answers he needed. In the illustration stood what appeared to be a powerful sorcerer in a mist exactly like the one they'd encountered. His eyes were glowing gold, and he held his hands aloft.

"Whatever you touched," Zatanna began, but was interrupted by the two of them.

"Golden thread-"

"Crochet project from hell-"

"Morgan, I swear to God." Dick groaned.

"The gold thread you touched," Zatanna went on, ignoring their antics, "was imbued with the power to punch through the fabric. You teleported across realities."

"This raises way more questions than it answers," Morgan pointed out. "We've seen several of the mists before this one. And who's been using them? Why did they leave that piece behind?"

Zatanna shrugged.

"I guess that's a mystery you'll have to solve when you get home. Now shut up and let me explain."

Morgan snapped her mouth shut and sucked her lips in, until her mouth was nothing but a straight line. She made a vague motion with her hand that signaled for the other woman to continue.

"The thread was imbued with the power to activate and use these holes in the fabric. Usually, this can be achieved by one person. But because you're not a magic user, the magic was unstable, and when you-" she pointed at Dick and then Morgan's arm, "grabbed onto her arm, some of the properties of the spell seems to have seeped into you. It was displaced. That's why you could only activate it when you touched the same place as you had before – it allowed the missing piece to reconnect."

"So why aren't we home by now?" Morgan questioned, sounding very unsure of the, frankly, wild explanation.

"I'm not sure," Zatanna's eyes rowed over them as if trying to spot the missing piece of the puzzle. "Was your hand the only point of contact?"

There was a beat of silence as the two of them tried to remember what had happened two nights ago, though it was difficult to bring forth specific details from the tumultuous events.

Morgan suddenly reached forward and grabbed hold of Dick's wrist, and the fog instantly sparked to life once again.

They shared a look.

"I grabbed Dick's wrist, trying to steady myself," she told Zatanna. The fog was to their knees once again, and Morgan's eyes were swimming with gold. She blinked and started rubbing at them with her free hand.

"This is so annoying!" she cried, "Why is it happening?"

Zatanna shrugged. "Maybe a side effect from the former vessel of the magic. Or maybe it's just a reaction because you're not someone who has magic naturally. Your own Zatanna can look into it when you get back."

Morgan let go of Dick's wrist again.

Dick turned back to Zatanna. "This should work now, then?"

"Only one way to find out," she said. "Say your goodbyes."

The Other Dick had been standing back and observing them by the batwing. Morgan stepped up to him, and Dick watched with something indiscernible but unpleasant churning in his stomach as she hugged him tightly. The two of them carried on a short, whispered conversation, the other him grasping her shoulders as he spoke to her in a hushed tone that was too low for Dick to hear what was being said.

He briefly wondered if he was jealous of himself, but he wasn't so sure. Maybe seeing her act so familiar with a guy that was technically a stranger – because despite their similarities, he was not the Dick she knew – was disconcerting. Maybe he worried the Other Dick was going to get the wrong idea.

Maybe he was worried the Other Dick would swoop in and sweep her off her feet?

Dick almost scoffed aloud at the ridiculousness of his thoughts but kept it in as Morgan came back towards him, and the Other Dick motioned for him to come over.

Dick approached him with great reluctance, feeling his malcontent with his ex's display brewing.

The other him must've been able to tell something was off, because as Dick approached, he raised an eyebrow at him, pairing it with a small smirk.

"Whatever you're thinking; don't," he said with laughter in his voice.

Dick almost pouted, but his face remained a stoic mask. He crossed his arms and waited for the Other Dick to speak.

"I had a chat with Morgan last night." His words were spoken casually, but the intense gaze he fixed Dick with betrayed how serious he actually was. "You guys need to talk things out."

Dick rolled his eyes, even as some kind of hope swelled in his chest. He quickly pushed it away. After all, Morgan was the one who had dumped him; he wasn't about to crawl back to her and start begging. However, if she wanted to talk to him, he was willing to listen.

"I don't think I need relationship advice from me," he shot the other him down. "Besides, you have much bigger things to worry about."

The Other Dick looked at his feet and smiled a bitter and crooked little thing. He shrugged. "Well, you can't say I didn't try. Good luck in your world."

Quite suddenly, Dick felt his heart soften, like a frozen lake thawing at the first signs of spring.

"You should leave," he said suddenly, unable to stop thinking about the kid sitting alone in the Manor right now. "Leave Earth. Alex deserves better than this. There are other planets."

The Other Dick's face crumbled, his careful mask slipping briefly to let Dick see the sorrow and grief threatening to break him.

"I know," he admitted, sounding incredibly tired. "I'm.. I've been looking into it."

Dick nodded, satisfied. He clasped the Other Dick's shoulder, giving it a firm squeeze.

"I hope whatever your fate is, that it's better than what you've imagined for yourself."

Realistically, Dick knew he could imagine quite a grim fate, so the words didn't mean much.

The Other Dick seemed to appreciate his encouragement, however, and he grasped Dick's shoulder in the same fashion as he had.

"The same goes for you." He said, flicking his head towards the two women behind them. "Think about what I said." He stuffed something into one of the pockets of Dick's utility belt, but shook his head when Dick made to ask what it was. Then, he let go and went to stand beside Zatanna. Dick and Morgan both watched as he grasped her hand and she smiled fondly at him.

"It's time for you two to get going, before a patrol finds us."

Dick approached Morgan.

"Ready?" he asked once he stood in place. He faced her, offering her his wrist to hold, and held out his opposite hand, so that he might grasp her arm. Morgan seemed hesitant, and he could see on her face she was battling some inner conflict. Tentatively, she grabbed hold of his wrist, and he was about to touch her arm when she suddenly withdrew her hand.

"Wait." Her voice was barely above a whisper and she looked around them, first at the two heroes that stood looking at them. Then, her eyes moved along the hill behind them, and the large rock that hid their view of Metropolis. Her eyes trailed the long tendrils of smoke that rose from the ruined city, coloring the sky a gloomy gray. She was chewing on her bottom lip, but there was resolution shining in her eyes. With a sinking feeling in his stomach, Dick guessed her thoughts before she spoke them aloud. "Maybe we should stay."

"No!" came three voices as one. She was broken out of her deep thoughts and looked between the three of them with something akin to hurt on her face.

"Why?" she challenged, looking at Dick.

Oh no, he thought as he beheld the look on her face. There's that stubbornness.

"Morgan, you know why we can't stay." He held up a hand and started listing off every reason he could think of, even as his heart started pounding with terror that she might actually stay behind. "We aren't supposed to be here, we're disrupting the natural order, we don't know what our presence here is already doing to the timestream, you don't know how you'd change the course of action in our own world by disappearing from it.."

"I know, I know-" she said, "I'm not saying it's not crazy of me to suggest, but I just.."

Her eyes once again journeyed across the clearing, looking first at the sky, then the hill and at last the two heroes watching them.

"What if we were meant to come here?"

Was she really about to suggest fate had a hand in this?

"What if it's fate?" Morgan looked at him again and squared her shoulders.

Dick felt his mouth open and close like a fish's before he spluttered out, "there's no such thing as fate!"

Morgan rolled her eyes at him, because she'd known he'd say exactly that. He looked over his shoulder at the other him, motioning for any kind of backup.

The Other Dick looked uncertain.

"It does sound unlikely.." he said.

"What if we could fix things?" she said, sounding more and more certain. "What if we were sent here to save this world?"

"Morgan," Zatanna spoke up for the first time, her voice laced with unfathomable sadness. "This world can't be saved. And even if it could, it wouldn't be your responsibility."

Morgan looked between the three of them beseechingly, though uncertainty was starting to seep into her stance. She slumped her shoulders a bit.

"So, you're saying it's just a coincidence that we ended up here, that there's nothing we can do?"

"We're saying that you belong in a different, much happier world," the Other Dick said. "I can understand your thoughts. I'm sure I would've thought the same. But you need to go home."

Dick felt a sigh of relief release in his chest, even as he felt a pang of sadness at the look on her face. Tears welled in her eyes, which she stubbornly blinked away, as she nodded in defeat.

"Okay," she said, taking a step back and further into the fog that was now almost gone. "Let's go then."

"Morgan.." Dick sighed, wishing he could make her understand. He realized that even if they went home, this world would haunt her.

He wasn't so sure it wouldn't also haunt him.

"Let's just go." She repeated, grabbing onto his wrist quite suddenly. Where her fingers snaked across his wrist, he felt his skin tingle through his suit. He knew it must've been the magical spell that was shared between the two of them, but it still somehow felt intimate. The fog came to life and started rising again. It was pulsating like a heartbeat. He grabbed her arm. The mist, which had previously only reached their knees, suddenly gained in strength, and rose to their chests, whirling and writhing in many milky colors. Stars erupted and he was reminded of a picture of the galaxy that had hung over his bed in the circus wagon he grew up in.

A tug in his stomach told him this was it, and he quickly looked at the two older heroes watching with wide-eyed wonder, a goodbye on the tip of his tongue. It never made it past his lips, because suddenly the ground disappeared below him, and everything was black.

Quite a heavy chapter where we got a lot more insight into Morgan's version of events. I hope you can tell she's dealing with some issues that go deep and not all of it necessarily have anything to do with their relationship and how Dick treated her. But we're not quite done uncovering the reasons for their relationship failing! There's much more to come. Dick is still totally in the dark, and as the older Dick said, she needs to talk to him about it.

What did you think about their conversation?

Also seeing Dick completely short circuit over Alex was pretty fun, imo. Even if he's still falling back on that issue of making decisions for Morgan because he can't get out of that mentor mentality (mentorlity?)