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The man leaned closer, breath rank against Dick's face.
"Officer Grayson, huh?" he said. "They tell me you have a friendly thing going on with Bludhaven's vigilante."
Dick grimaced, but nodded warily, as much as he could with the knife pressed into his jugular.
"Here's what you're going to do for me."
The man was dressed in black gear, Kevlar. He had a ski mask on his face, which left all but his facial hair covered. He would've been a typical criminal hitting up a bank, had it not been for the fact that, according to reports, he has walked right in and been about to walk back out with two giant sacks of cash. The call to the BHPD had come to one of the staff, who had hidden on the second floor when she had spotted him with his bags of money.
"Look," Dick breathed, "this doesn't have to go down like this. Give up now, let me go, and I'll make sure you get a lessened sentence. We'll waive the assault of officer charges."
The man gave a smile. "No, I have a better use for you." And then he leaned in, and Dick gasped as something cold prickled at the back of his neck. "Kill Nightwing. Whatever it takes.”
Dick’s apartment had been scouted out by Bruce a week after Dick had moved in. Jason didn’t know the whole story, but it was probably well known to Dick that his windows were bugged and booby trapped to hell and back – which made them all the more fun to sneak in through.
The house was dark when Jason entered. Dick had a shift today, and Jason had no idea when it ended; there was every chance that he was pulling overtime or something. He set his helmet on the coffee table and kicked off his shoes.
Later, Jason would thank everything from his bladder to that giant slushie he’d had on the road. Because if he hadn’t needed to use the bathroom, he probably wouldn’t’ve noticed the body in the bathtub until it was much too late.
“Dick?”
He rushed over to the tub. Red coated the insides, sloppy handprints on the countertop, the walls, the sink. There was a kitchen knife lying on the floor. Dick wasn’t responding.
Jason’s first thought was that there’d been an attack, that someone had found out who Nightwing was and had decided to take him down. But that theory left his mind when he processed the fact that Dick was still in his police uniform, the sleeves rolled up to allow for the knife to slash through his veins.
Jason’s next thought was to dial for an ambulance, because there was no fucking way Dick was surviving without a hospital. They were too far from the Batcave, and Dick’s lair – if he could even get him there without Dick bleeding out – didn’t have medical facilities he needed for this.
His phone rang while he grabbed towels to try and stem the blood flow. They ran red in moments. There was so much blood everywhere that Jason couldn’t even tell how long Dick had been there for, not to mention the amount that would’ve gone down the drain.
Normally, Jason would talk a little to the wounded as he tried to keep them alive. This time, nothing came out of his mouth. He answered the phone operator mechanically as he tried to process the fact that, at some point that evening, Dick had tried to kill himself.
Jason’s hands were shaking when he went to open the door for the paramedics, who immediately brushed him aside as they ran into the bathroom. Jason, with nothing left to do now, slumped against the wall. He had a list of people he probably should call, but when he looked around to search for his phone, his eyes landed on his bloodstained hands and clothes, and the shaking began all over again.
“Sir?” a voice said from the doorway. “Are you coming with us?”
Jason knew, with a clarity he hadn’t felt since he’d walked into the bathroom, that he would go crazy if he had to sit in an ambulance with his bloodstained self and a mostly blood-less Dick.
“I’ll follow behind,” he said.
The paramedic nodded. “We’re taking him to RABE Memorial Hospital.”
Dick also rented the apartment next to his, for vigilante purposes or something, under the name of Dr Fledermau. Jason had never been in there before, but now he was grateful it existed, because otherwise he would’ve had to shift Dick’s unwashed dishes aside to scrub the blood off his hands, and that thought turned his stomach.
Then it was back on his bike and to the hospital and waiting outside the room while the doctors stitched up Dick’s arms and pumped him full of blood again and observed whether or not he’d done permanent damage to himself.
The lights in the waiting room were bright and piercing, and Jason was desperately grateful that they were so incredibly uncomfortable, because they made sure his mind stayed in that room and didn’t wander to places he didn’t want them to go. Like what in the world had made Dick take a kitchen knife to his arms.
He needed to make some calls.
“Alfred?”
“Master Jason?” Alfred sounded surprised. “Is everything alright? I thought you were heading to Bludhaven—”
“Yeah, I’m in Bludhaven now,” Jason said. His voice sounded a little faint even to his own ears. “I, uh… I’m at the hospital.”
“Are you injured?” Alfred prompted when Jason stopped talking, voice going a little brisk.
“No, it’s Dick. He…” Jason didn’t know how to say it. “He lost a lot of blood. And…”
And then he was filled with a wave of anger, because how dare Dick do this to him, to everyone he considered his family and friends? It was one thing to be killed in action, but it was completely different to take matters into your own hands. Jason clung to the anger because it was easier than drifting in that helplessness.
“Alfred,” he said. “I think Dick tried to kill himself.”
Bruce arrived at the hospital five hours after Jason had called. Due to Damian being present, Alfred had told him very little, only that he needed to go to RABE Memorial.
There was a slumped figure seated on the chair outside the room the receptionist had directed Bruce to. “Jason?”
Jason tilted his head upwards, squinting in the light. He’d evidently been dozing. “Bruce.”
“What happened?”
“Nurse is with him, which is why I stepped out,” Jason said instead of responding. He didn’t look at Bruce when he spoke. “He’s awake, though. Why don’t you ask him?”
Bruce sat in the chair beside him while they waited for the room to clear. The silence between them would’ve been more stilted had either of them been more awake, but Bruce had come in from a late patrol, and Jason was very clearly not willing to talk.
“Sir?” The two of them glanced up. The nurse who stood before them eyed Bruce before turning back to Jason. “He’s awake now, if you wanted to see him. I have to warn you, though – the cuffs are hospital policy and for his safety, so please don’t remove them.”
“Cuffs?” Bruce asked, frowning.
“Yes. Richard…” The nurse hesitated. “I’m sorry, who are you?”
“Bruce Wayne,” Bruce said. “I’m his father.”
The nurse flipped open the clipboard in her hand, and then nodded. “Alright, then, Mr Wayne. Like I said, the cuffs are hospital protocol in cases like these where patients are placed on suicide watch.”
“On—” Bruce broke off, turning to Jason, who was no help. “I see,” he said instead. Bruce could clearly see what this was: Dick and Jason had partnered together, a patrol or mission had gone wrong, Jason had had to bring Dick to the hospital, and now they had interpreted the injuries as a suicide attempt. “Can we…” He indicated into the room.
“Of course,” the nurse said, moving away from the door. “Keep in mind he needs plenty of rest.”
Inside was a sight Bruce was intimately familiar with, although he was far more used to the setting being dimmer, with the coolness of the cave. The hospital room was bathed in white, from the sheets on the bed to the bandages wrapped around Dick’s arms.
“B?” Dick said, voice a little hoarse.
Bruce walked to where there was a cup and water dispenser, filling it up. “How are you feeling, chum?” he asked, lifting Dick’s head up so he’d be able to drink.
“I…” Dick was blinking around. “What happened?”
“We were hoping you’d answer that,” Jason said. He was a barely contained cloud of vibrating anger now. Bruce wondered what had gone down on this mission.
“The last thing I remember is going back to the precinct,” Dick said distantly. He was staring down at his arms. “Why am I cuffed?”
“It’s what happens when you try to kill yourself, Dick,” Jason snapped. Then he ran a hand down his face, visibly reeling himself back in.
Bruce felt the air leave his lungs.
“I…no,” Dick protested, struggling to sit up.
Bruce gently pushed him back down. “Jay?” he prompted. It felt like he was hearing his own voice from a distance.
“I come in for that goddamn thing that you wanted, and when I walk into the bathroom, I see you in the fucking tub with your arms sliced open.” Jason’s hands were clenched. “If I hadn’t needed to use the bathroom, you would’ve bled out.”
Dick’s eyes were wide. “Jay,” he said. “You have to believe me. I didn’t do it.” He glanced at Bruce. “B, c’mon.”
Bruce didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know how to process this. “Are you sure the precinct is the last thing you remember?” he asked instead. He could follow the breadcrumbs.
Dick nodded. “We were after some bank robbers. One of them got away, but we arrested the other, which meant a tonne of paperwork. I was at my desk about an hour after my shift. Everything after that is a blank.”
Bruce nodded. “Okay,” he said.
“Okay?” Jason repeated loudly. “What the fuck do you mean, ‘okay’?”
“We’ll investigate. There has to be a reason Dick can’t remember half the day. His apartment has cameras. We can see what happened.”
It was surprisingly difficult getting Dick released from the hospital. It was noon – Dick had been there for fifteen hours – and they were insisting on having him go through a psychological evaluation. It took Bruce giving them the name of the psychologist he’d seen a couple times for the doctors to relent.
The first thing they did was head to Dick’s apartment. Bruce hadn’t been there since he’d arrived in Bludhaven – Jason had left to grab Dick’s clothes – so the shock of seeing the state of the bathroom left him nauseous, almost stopping him in his tracks.
“There were no signs of a break-in,” Jason reported. “I came in through the window in the living room. All the alarms were still in place.”
“And no signs of a struggle,” Bruce said grimly. “Dick, are you done?”
“Yeah?” Dick said from his bedroom. He was busy struggling to put on a full-sleeved shirt, seated on the bed. He looked exhausted, which wasn’t surprising.
Bruce walked over to the closet, which had Dick’s overnight bag next to it. It was already half-filled from his last visit to Gotham a couple weeks ago. He rooted through Dick’s drawers, stuffing clothes in.
“What’re you doing?” Dick asked, an edge to his voice.
“Packing your bags,” Bruce responded, bracing himself for a fight.
“Bruce, I’m not coming to—”
“Yes, you are,” Jason interrupted. He had a glare fixed on Dick, and that same anger was rearing its head again. “Either you stay at the Manor, or we hand you back to the hospital’s suicide watch.”
“For the last time,” Dick growled, with more energy than Bruce thought he had. “I didn’t do it.”
Jason had an incredulous look on his face, and Bruce realised for the first time that he didn’t believe Dick.
“The recordings are stored in the Cave,” Bruce said. “You would’ve needed to come anyway. And you’re in no condition to work either of your jobs.”
The hour or so in the car was utterly silent. Dick was slipping in and out of sleep, worn out from the day and the blood loss. They were parking in front of the Manor doors when Dick suddenly lifted his head up from the window. “B,” he said. “Damian and Tim…”
“Tim read your files,” Bruce said, watching Dick. “I don’t think Damian knows.”
Dick let out a breath. “Okay.”
Dick had been insistent that the majority of the testing be done while Damian was at school, which gave them until five in the afternoon to finish running blood tests, scanning for any signs of mind manipulation, and going through the footage from Dick’s apartment.
Bruce handed Tim a vial of dried blood that he had scraped from Dick’s bathtub. The memory of the bathroom – the smell, the way everything was absolutely coated, that knife – was probably going to be ingrained into his brain for the rest of his life.
“We’ll check it with the newest sample of blood we have of his,” Bruce had told him as he pulled up the footage.
Dick had gotten back from work at seven forty-five. He’d toed off his shoes by the door and dumped his bag on the couch before heading to the kitchen for a glass of water. When he had finished with the water, he had placed it on the sink and grabbed a kitchen knife.
He’d then walked straight into the bathroom, only putting the knife down to roll up his sleeves. The slices he made through his flesh were clean and methodical, even as he stumbled slightly on the second arm. Wobbling, Dick had dropped the knife. He’d paused for a moment, looking down at it, before stepping backwards and practically falling into the tub.
Bruce felt sick, a churning deep in his gut that he rarely felt so physically anymore.
“Bruce?” Tim’s voice was halting. “You okay?”
Bruce straightened up. “I’m fine, Tim,” he said. Stupid, he thought. It was a stupid reaction, when the kids – when Dick – needed him to remain solid. “Did you get any results?”
Tim looked dubiously at him, but answered, “Nothing. It was all completely normal.”
Bruce’s mouth twisted. He hadn’t wanted to hear that. He’d wanted there to be some sort of external influence in this, something that he could go and hunt down and threaten. He didn’t know how to deal with a Dick Grayson who wanted to die.
“You watched the footage?” Tim asked quietly.
Bruce nodded, then narrowed his eyes. “You did too.” It wasn’t a question.
“After I read the report.” Tim’s eyes avoided Bruce’s, but there was a steel to them he didn’t anticipate. “I don’t think he did it, B.”
“Tim,” Bruce began.
“He was acting weird, okay?” Tim waved a hand at the screen where the video was still paused on the image of Dick in the bathtub. “I mean, who does that? He got home, and just decided to slit his wrists? He didn’t even change or anything! He left no note? None of that seems like Dick—”
“If I’d asked you yesterday whether you think Dick would do it,” neither of them had to specify what it was, “you would’ve said the same thing.” Tim still looked like he was ready to argue, but Bruce didn’t want to listen to it before he’d talked to Dick. “Where is he?”
“He fell asleep after Jay finished the scans,” Tim muttered. “He’s still in the medbay.” Then he glanced at Bruce. “Damian’s supposed to be home soon. What’re you gonna tell him?”
Damian. Another thought Bruce had tried not to think about, because there was something so inherently wrong about telling his son, who wasn’t even a teenager yet, that his favourite person had done this.
“We’ll leave that up to Dick,” he said. “He’ll probably be awake by then.”
Dick had been dozing on and off for the entire day since they’d arrived at the Manor. Every time he opened his eyes, there was someone sitting beside him. Only now, he woke up and his bedroom was finally empty.
It hadn’t even been a whole day and already the constant observation was grating on him.
He swung his legs off the bed and onto the floor, pleased when his vision didn’t black out as he stood up. He still swayed a little, but after the amount of blood he’d lost, that was to be expected. Looking at the bandages that circled his arms didn’t make him feel very much, too used to being injured in the line of work. They did, however, make his mind go strangely numb, as though he wasn’t allowed to look at them.
Dick walked to the bathroom to wash up, maybe brush his teeth. He hated the fuzzy feeling in his mouth when he took a nap, especially if he’d been administered any sort of heavy medication beforehand.
When he walked back out, towelling his face dry, there was a figure standing by his window, arms crossed.
“Hey, Dami,” Dick said with a smile. He quickly darted to the closet and pulled out a full sleeved shirt; regardless of how he felt about the origins of his injuries – in that they were not intentional – he was certainly not going to make Damian look at them any longer than necessary. If he’d thought it would help anything, he wouldn’t’ve even told Damian, but they’d made a deal, when he’d been Damian’s Batman.
“Richard.” Damian sounded grumpier than usual, which wasn’t exactly a surprise, considering the circumstances.
“How was school?”
Damian’s frown became more pronounced at Dick’s casual question. “Fine,” he ground out, which definitely wasn’t normal. Getting Damian to admit that school had been anything but the absolute worst was a feat unto itself. “Father picked me up. He told me you were injured on patrol last night.”
Dick blinked, a wave of relief flooding through him. “Ye—Yeah,” he said, stumbling over the words a little. He’d never lied to Damian like this, not about something important. He didn’t like the bitter taste it left in his mouth.
“And that you would’ve died if Todd hadn’t found you.”
Ah. Well, Dick mused, fiddling with the damp towel in his hands, Damian could’ve easily looked up his records on the Batcomputer and found out about the hospital trip and then he’d be even more mad, not to mention suspicious. This way was definitely better. More honest. Regardless of how much Dick wanted to avoid this conversation.
“Concussion,” he said smoothly. “I think I passed out before I could even remember I was injured.”
Damian had said patrol – had Bruce told him that he’d gotten injured as Nightwing, or had he just said 'night' and left Damian to reach his own conclusions? While more believable (and certainly a more welcome alternative than listening to Damian rant about how much he hated Dick’s daytime employment) it would only take Damian one moment to look up Jason’s reports. Or even the reports of the hospital, of the timestamp of when he’d come in.
Damian looked at him searchingly, eyes piercing through Dick’s lies. Dick almost held his breath. And then, Damian nodded, and looked away. “You should ask for assistance,” he muttered, looking back out the window. “Gotham is getting cramped with how many vigilantes there are.”
Dick couldn’t help the smile on his face at that. He walked over to Damian – he was just brushing Dick’s chin now, nothing like the tiny child who’d barely reached Dick’s chest when he’d first arrived – and ruffled his hair. Damian instinctively went to swat his hands away, and then stopped halfway through, probably remembering the wounds that Dick’s sleeves hid.
“You know how it is,” he murmured. “I didn’t expect any trouble. And Jason was there. And,” here was the real kicker that he’d been waiting to drop at the perfect moment, to get Damian to leave the topic alone, “I’m going to be staying here for a bit. While I heal. Took time off work and everything.”
Damian’s head turned so fast Dick almost winced. “Really?” he said, not even bothering to disguise the eagerness in his voice.
“Really,” Dick told him, valiantly resisting the urge to wrap an arm around the kid’s shoulder and hug him a little. “Might even join you on patrol when I’m up for it.” He grinned when he saw Damian ducking his head to hide the way his face lit up. “Now, did you eat anything? ‘Cause I just woke up and I’m starving.”
He knew Damian well enough to know that this wouldn’t get rid of all his suspicions, but at least it’d push them out of his mind for a little while.
Dinner was quiet, and unbelievably awkward. Alfred was just about the only one who acted normally. Tim couldn’t meet his eyes, and he stuttered over his words so badly when Dick asked him about school that Dick took pity on him and turned to Cass.
Cass was watching him with a sympathetic twist to her mouth. “I stopped a mugger on my way here,” she signed with one hand, the nifty way she got around the ‘no speaking with your mouth full’ rule.
Dick made an interested sound, devoting his full attention to her, and to his relief, he saw Damian and Tim also turning to read Cass’ hands as she gave a rather dramatic retelling of the incident.
Bruce was the only one who was still looking at Dick.
What? Dick mouthed, mildly irritated. If it wasn’t for Jason’s threat to turn him back into the hospital’s suicide watch, he would probably have gone home long before dinner, or at least very soon after. After all, Alfred had gone out of his way to cook Dick’s favourites.
Bruce opened his mouth to say something, and then shook his head, looking back at his plate. Dick let out a long exhale, and turned back to Cass, whose story now somehow involved the café she frequented – with that waitress she had a crush on – and an assassin. Damian was looking disbelievingly at the photographic evidence she’d somehow obtained.
Bruce had to get himself together. He told himself that repeatedly as he lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling. Every time he closed his eyes, the footage replayed in his head, and though he was utterly weary in a bone deep way, from the physical demands of patrol and the current open cases, it was the mental strains of the past two days that refused to let him sleep.
He glared at the digital clock on his nightstand, the bright numbers mocking him as they showed him the hours that continued to pass as he lay there, turning it all over in his mind. At least if he kept going over the facts, he wouldn’t think about the footage. His mind wouldn’t keep looping the vivid image of Dick slashing his own arms up.
That last thought sent Bruce out of bed, pacing in his room before he grabbed his nightgown and stepped out into the hall. He couldn’t handle one more minute of lying there, stewing in his own thoughts.
It wasn’t an unusual occurrence – nightmares had been a constant companion of Bruce’s, even before his parents had died. He’d had bad dreams and night terrors about all sorts of things, from the gardener holding a shovel to the spider he’d seen in the bathroom. They’d just become much more pointed, much more vivid, after his parents had died. And then there’d been no one to try and convince him that he was safe, because that would be an outright lie.
So Bruce would occasionally pace down the hall and peek into the bedrooms to make sure his kids were alright. He’d even convinced Damian last month to get rid of the booby trap that he placed on his door every night before going to bed.
Tonight, only Jason was missing, out of all his kids. Bruce could count on one hand the number of times Jason had stayed the night in the Manor since coming back. It would still be one hand if he combined that with the number of times he’d stayed at the Cave overnight, though he supposed it’d be cheating if he went on to add the times Jason had stayed and hadn’t slept.
Tim’s room was the closest. He split his time between here and his apartment in the city, though he was starting to spend more time in the Manor now that he and Damian weren’t as antagonistic as they’d been before. Bruce watched his chest rising and falling methodically for a moment, and then closed the door and moved on.
Damian’s room was next, placed opposite Tim’s. Bruce knew – he knew – that it was because of Damian’s insecurities with his position both in the physical family, and also in their hearts, but he hadn’t quite figured out how to bring it up yet.
Damian’s door had a flap that could only be opened if it detected either Titus or Alfred the Cat’s microchips. They somehow got around the booby traps, while Bruce had to deal with three whipped cream pies slamming into him from different angles. Bruce shut the door quietly behind him when he was met with Damian curled up in a tiny ball on one side of the bed, and two pairs of eyes staring at Bruce until Bruce left. It settled something in Bruce to know that Titus would guard Damian with his life, even if Alfred the Cat's first instinct would probably be to hide.
Next was Cass. Cass’ room was barer than Damian and Tim’s, a little like Dick’s, because most of her things were kept either in the apartment she had in the city, right next to Tim’s place, and also the little batcave Bruce had made for her. He was also pretty sure she kept a full wardrobe of clothes over at Steph’s apartment and at Barbara’s place. Bruce didn’t mind; it just meant he appreciated it all the more when Cass stopped by the Manor to spend time there.
She was watching him through thinly slitted eyes. When he smiled at her a little, she closed them again and went back to sleep.
Bruce knew that if he tried to walk away quietly, he wouldn’t succeed – or, he would, but only to make Cass suspicious – so he stepped outside and towards Dick’s door with his normal pace. Dick’s room had once been the closest to him, but now it had somehow ended up the farthest away. Bruce couldn’t help but think about the symbolism of it.
He opened Dick’s door a crack. At first, Bruce’s brain couldn’t quite figure out what it was seeing. It wouldn’t process it.
And then Batman kicked in and he was running inside, yelling out for Cass.
Dick was hanging from the ceiling fan, rope around his neck. Bruce couldn’t tell any other details from how little light there was in the room, though there was a sliver of moonlight that fell on Dick’s torso, highlighting his wrapped arms grotesquely.
Bruce wrapped his arms around Dick’s still legs and lifted as high as he could go. Dick was lighter than he looked, lighter than Bruce had thought of him, but he had the weight of the dead. He was still, so, so still, in Bruce’s arms.
Most people who hanged usually died from their neck breaking. After that, it was strangulation. Bruce couldn’t tell from down here whether Dick had already died, or what the cause was. He yelled for Cass again.
The world was going fuzzy around the corners, and his own heart was pounding in his chest. His own legs almost gave out when he heard the patter of footsteps.
There was a startled gasp from the doorway, and Bruce was just about to yell at whoever it was to hurry up, when there was the scrape of a chair.
“Cutting it now,” Cass warned him. Her voice was expressionless.
“I have him.” Bruce didn’t want to ask, didn’t want Cass to check. Schrodinger’s Dick, he thought distantly. As long as no one checked, or said anything, and as long as Bruce couldn’t tell, then Dick had just as much possibility of being alive as he did of being dead. Bruce thought he’d rather live in the uncertainty than to know.
Cass tried to hold Dick upright as she cut the rope, but she couldn’t stop him from slumping when there was nothing left to hold his head up. Bruce staggered a little, and then there were suddenly more hands helping keep Dick steady.
“On the floor,” he said with a grunt. It would be hard to manoeuvre him down, but they’d probably need to do compressions.
This was a basic part of training for Robins; they all knew how to move victims – especially heavily wounded ones – in ways that least aggravated any possible injuries. Between himself and Tim, Bruce carefully but speedily lowered Dick down to the ground. Cass tossed him a neck brace.
“He’s not breathing,” Tim said. His breathing was coming rapidly. “Bruce, he’s not—”
“He’s going to be fine.” Bruce would make sure of it. He checked Dick’s pulse, which was still there, and that discovery made him momentarily close his eyes for a moment.
And then he began compressions. At some point, Cass and Tim came to crouch down around Dick’s body, and then, to Bruce’s distant horror, Damian appeared. He stood there behind Cass, not speaking, not asking anything. It was probably easy to deduce, based on the various objects around the room, what had happened.
What Dick had done.
Dick gasped a breath, the force of it sending him upright.
“You’re okay, you’re okay,” Bruce said, muttering all sorts of other nonsense into Dick’s ears even as he helped him sit up. “You’re going to be okay.” He said it just as much to reassure himself, and his other kids, as he did to soothe Dick.
“Bruce?” Dick whispered, eyes blinking rapidly. His voice was hoarse; the hand not currently trapped between his side and Bruce’s torso came hover around his neck. Bruce’s name came out sounding more like ‘ruce’, and Bruce hated that he had such familiarity with his kids dropping the B. “What happened?”
Tim abruptly stood up and left. Cass turned to look, and then she shared some sort of look with Damian, because Damian also slowly stood and walked out.
“Oh no,” Dick muttered. “I didn’t.”
“Later,” Cass said, when it became clear that Bruce wasn’t going to be speaking anytime soon. “You should rest now.”
Dick looked worn out and lost, confusing marking his whole face. Bruce needed to get himself together. “I’ll be right back,” he said, voice ragged. “Cassandra, can you stay with him while I get the med kit?” It was mostly out of the need to go and collect himself, to try and compartmentalise what had just happened so he could figure out what had just happened.
Cass nodded, though she looked a little too stoic to be functioning normally. Bruce instantly felt bad about it, but if he was going to handle this situation, he needed to do something about the way his breathing was coming in short gasps right now.
He tore his eyes away from the picture the two of them made, Dick leaning against the bedpost and Cass crouched beside him, silently removing the circle of rope that had still been around Dick’s throat. Bruce avoided looking at the piece that still hung from the ceiling fan, frayed where it had been cut.
The bathroom mercifully contained a well-stocked med kit. Bruce grabbed it out from where they stored it in the cabinet beneath the sink, opening it up numbly and going through the contents automatically.
When his eyesight for blurry for a moment, and his hands started shaking visibly, Bruce turned on the tap, as cold as it could go, and splashed water on his face. He couldn’t have a breakdown, not now. There wasn’t time for it now. He had to put something in the wounds on Dick’s throat, see whether there was any other sort of damage. He had to see if someone had broken into Dick’s room, or influenced him in some way, run the necessary tests.
One thing was certain: Dick wasn’t sleeping alone again, not until they sorted this out. It would be their own sort of a suicide watch.
The moment that thought appeared in Bruce’s mind, rational and logical and a step, something that might go towards solving this whole mess, things started to get a little clearer. He sucked in a deep breath, wiping his face with his hands before scrubbing at it, and his wet eyes, with the towel hanging nearby.
They’d get through this. All of them.
Dick and Cass were signing when Bruce emerged. Judging by the clock, he’d only been in there for four minutes, though it’d certainly felt like twenty to him.
“Let me see,” he murmured, sinking down and placing the kit on the floor beside him. “Cass?”
“Just bruises,” she reported, in that clinical voice Batgirl delivered her reports in. “Some deeper scrapes from the rope.”
Dick shifted at the word ‘rope’. “Dick?” Bruce said, already getting out one of Leslie’s recommended salves from the kit. “How do you feel? How’s your voice?”
Dick shifted again, and then met his eyes, forcing a thin smile. “Kinda hoarse,” he whispered. “Might stick to signing for a day or two. And before you ask,” he signed, “I don’t remember anything. I just got to my room after dinner and changed into my pyjamas. And that’s it.”
That was when Cass shoved bloody tissue into Bruce’s face. “Here,” she said. “From as soon as he woke up.” Her meaning was clear: there was a possibility of whatever was influencing Dick disappearing from his system after the incident was over.
Bruce nodded. “Good thinking,” he said. He was glad that someone was thinking, because his brain certainly wasn’t being useful tonight. “I’ll stay with Dick.” At that, Cass nodded, and squeezed Dick’s shoulder, before running off.
“I scared them,” Dick signed, watching her go. “And you.”
Bruce suddenly couldn’t speak, but signing had always felt easier to him than speaking. Especially with emotions. “Yes,” was all he signed. “Though I can’t imagine it’s any easier for you. We’ll figure something out.”
Dick glanced at him, and nodded a little, wincing imperceptibly as the movement aggravated the wounds around his throat.
And then Bruce had to say something. He’d barely been able to conceive of this happening once, let alone again. Let alone just a few metres away from where they’d all been sleeping, where they would’ve woken up in the morning unaware, and only found out when one of them had walked into Dick’s room to grab him for breakfast.
“You’d tell us,” Bruce cleared his throat, “someone, anyone. You’d talk to someone, wouldn’t you? If things got—I know this isn’t your doing; I believe you. But if you ever felt… if you were ever suicidal, if you ever had thoughts or intentions, you would get help?”
Maybe he shouldn’t have phrased it like that. It was much too easy for Dick to tell him yes, of course I would, B and be lying, whether to Bruce or to himself. Bruce had done enough psychology courses to know that once a mental illness took over, you weren’t in total control of your actions.
Dick stayed silent for a moment. “I would,” he finally signed, fingers slow as they formed the words. “I have people I go to when things get hard.”
Bruce hadn’t realised just how much he’d needed to know that until Dick had said it. He exhaled, a weight coming off his shoulders at the knowledge that Dick had some kind of support system. And then it slammed right back onto him at the thought of Dick needing a support system.
But all he did was nod, and say, “I’m glad.” He tried not to think about Dick running off into a radioactive Bludhaven.
When Dick woke up, the first thing he felt was the acute sensation of being watched. Next came the pain around his throat, on his arms. He sucked in a slow breath, willing the fire to die down enough for him to sit upright and get on with the day, though it took a few seconds. He didn’t think he’d be able to talk properly for a little while.
And then he dealt with whoever was in the room with him. But when Dick opened his eyes, squinting slightly, something in his stomach tugged at the sight of Damian curled up in the armchair, furiously scribbling on that fancy little electronic drawing pad he’d gotten for his birthday.
Damian had to know. And after last night, Dick probably should say something to him, about mental health and to seek help and that Dick was definitely, most certainly not trying to kill himself.
“Hey,” he signed, and then he used the sign for Damian’s name chosen by Cass.
Damian looked up, though his frown darkened a little as he did so. Dick watched, and waited him out, as he went back to the drawing pad, and then as though coming to the reluctant realisation that Dick being awake might mean he needed something, he let out a long breath and balanced it atop the nightstand.
“Good evening,” he said stiffly. “You’ve been asleep for over half a day. You missed breakfast, and lunch, and will probably miss dinner. Though I suppose that’s what you wished for.”
Dick sighed. Had no one explained anything to Damian? “I didn’t do it,” he signed, not wanting to try speaking and frighten Damian any more than the kid already was. “I know what it looks like, but it wasn’t me.”
Damian squinted at him in suspicion, his arms folded across his chest. He looked even younger than he normally did, in a large hoodie with the hood drawn over his head. “You’re probably saying that so we leave you alone long enough for you to finish the job.”
Dick rubbed the bridge of his nose. Then he shifted the covers, sitting upright in the bed. The stitches in his arms twinged as he did so, pulling at the tender skin. He vaguely remembered having to redo some of them, after last night’s ‘suicide attempt’ had ripped a few.
“Damian, I promise you,” Dick signed, his whole body turning towards Damian, “that it wasn’t me. I don’t remember it. I wouldn’t lie to you about this, okay?” And then he stopped himself, because… possibly the one way to convince Damian that he really was telling the truth would be to reveal more information about himself than he’d ever wanted Damian to know. “I’ve been… in bad mental places before. And I remember what that was like. Trust me when I say that this is different.”
Damian looked him in the eye, finally, and that was when something in Dick cracked wide open because he’d never wanted to see Damian looking at him like that, like he desperately wanted to know that his safety net, the safety net that Dick’s presence in his life represented, was still whole and trustworthy.
He scrambled off the bed, just as Damian rose to his feet, and he met him halfway. “I’m sorry,” Dick whispered, voice rough from disuse and injury and emotion and god knew how many other things. “I’m sorry.”
Damian shook his head where he’d buried it in Dick’s chest. “I believe you,” he muttered, voice still sounding angry, though now Dick knew enough to know it wasn’t at him. He clung to him for a little bit longer, and then backed away, ducking his head a little.
It was endlessly fascinating to Dick all the little mannerisms of Bruce’s that Damian had picked up. He was sure his other siblings had them, had spotted them as well, but when it came to Damian it was different. He hadn’t watched his other siblings like he watched Damian, as though every new step was something to be documented. Every change in his features was something to be compared to Talia and Bruce, like an eager parent wanting their child to look like them.
He didn’t know why his thoughts had led him here, now.
“Dinner was postponed,” Damian said as he got out his phone from his pocket. “But if you wish to eat with us, we can have dinner in half an hour.”
Dick nodded. He didn’t particularly look forward to having more conversations like the one he’d just had with Damian – or the one he’d had with Bruce last night/that morning, for that matter – but he hated the idea of hiding out in his room and letting Tim and Cass jump to their own conclusions.
“I’ll join you,” he signed, heading towards the bathroom and indicating to Damian that he’d be about five minutes.
The bathroom looked as though it’d been childproofed. The razor he kept in his room here – one of Bruce’s old straight blades, the one he’d learned how to shave with – was gone. The spare one-time use razors were gone. The tiny scissors in the med kit were gone. There was no more dental floss. The mirror now had a plastic casing placed over it, probably to stop him from breaking it and using the shards.
He let out an irritated breath, but then realised it was probably for the best. He had no idea where he’d gotten the rope from last night, but it wouldn’t be a difficult matter to look for something harmful in this Manor. Or any of their living spaces. Being a Bat meant a house full of hidden weaponry, and to be adaptive enough to create makeshift ones.
Dinner was an uncomfortable matter. Alfred had clearly been told, but he’d evidently had enough time to deal with the news, because all he asked Dick was to check over his injuries. That, and the fact that Alfred had cooked food more suited to his throat.
Tim wasn’t there. When Dick raised an eyebrow at Cass, she grimaced, and did something complicated with her face. “He’s being weird,” was all she would sign.
“But he believes me, right?” Dick had to ask.
Cass nodded, reluctantly. “He’s taking it hard. You should probably talk to him.” Her hands hesitated a little, and then she added, “He took the night watches while you were sleeping.”
That was definitely not a conversation Dick wanted to have, but he had to check in with Tim. Though with Tim, it was different. Tim had been around for some of Dick’s darker days, when everything in his life had gone up in flames, quite literally. Even now, with Bludhaven having been rebuilt, the deja vu sometimes took his breath away.
“You’re meddling a lot, you know that,” Dick told her, lips curving into a small smile as he tried to make light of the situation.
Cass gave him a smug look and a shrug. Beside her, Damian grimaced. “Cassandra has been watching soap operas lately and getting ideas.”
After that, it got a little less tense.
Dick still went looking for Tim after dinner, heading up to his room. According to Alfred, he’d said he’d be staying at the Manor until this whole situation was resolved; Dick knew how busy Tim was, with all the things he still did for WE, as well as his team. He hardly ever stayed in the Manor for such an unpredictable stretch of time.
He knocked on the door lightly. His voice still wasn’t up for anything louder than a raspy whisper, so he used their special knock instead.
“Come in,” Tim called. Just as Dick went to open turn the knob, he heard a loud thump, and then hurried footsteps before the door was being ripped open. “Sorry,” Tim muttered, backing away as he gestured for Dick to come in. “Forgot ‘bout the arms.”
Dick would’ve loved to be able to calmly reassure Tim right now that everything was fine, because while they were all used to switching and mixing languages, whether they were spoken or signed, it was different when they had to do it out of necessity. It made it all the more difficult to properly reassure.
“My fingers are fine,” Dick signed, with a raised eyebrow.
“Right.” Tim rubbed the nape of his neck, heading back to his desk and the wheely chair.
Dick, after a longing look at the piles of clothing that were holding the armchair hostage, gingerly took a seat on the edge of the bed. “Is everything okay?”
Tim blinked, then looked up from Dick’s hands and met his eyes, barking a humourless laugh. “You’re asking me if everything’s okay?” He shook his head, and then got up to sit beside Dick on the bed, kicking a stray sock under the bed as he did so.
Dick frowned. “I know you’ve had your issues with mental health, so if any of this is triggering—”
“Dick,” Tim interrupted verbally. “You tried to kill yourself. Twice. ”
Dick blew out a frustrated breath, annoyed despite himself at both having to constantly repeat his argument and at the fact that his stomach kept clenching a little at the reminder of what he – his body – had done. “It wasn’t me. It was just… something, but not me me.”
“And I believe you. It’s just…”
And all of a sudden, Dick got it. “Frayed safety net,” he murmured, almost surprising himself with his own terrible voice and words.
Tim’s head jerked up. “What?” he said. “No! No, I mean…” He exhaled loudly, running a hand through his hair in agitation. “It’s just that… you never ask for help. From us. Sometimes you ask us to keep you company on stakeouts, but we all know that’s because you want to catch up, not because you actually need the extra pair of eyes. Sometimes you send me things to research or whatever, but you do that because you worry about me and want to keep me busy.”
Dick opened his mouth, and then shut it again, a little stung by how bluntly Tim was revealing what Dick had thought to be very carefully hidden motives.
“My point is,” Tim said quickly, “you barely ever ask us for help or come to us when you’re having issues. Even though we all go to you when we need it. And I know what you’re going to say – you have friends and other people, and I’m not saying you need to come to us, but… I just don’t want the reason you don’t to be that you think we’d stop going to you if we thought you were a human being who had problems of his own.”
Dick had no idea how to respond to that, because Tim was right, not that Dick would ever tell him. Because that was exactly what he worried about. “And to think I came here to tell you I’m perfectly fine and to not tread on eggshells ‘round me.”
Tim huffed a small laugh. He wormed his way under Dick’s arm, the arm closest to him, until they were half hugging. Dick wondered briefly whose benefit it was really for, but he couldn’t deny that he’d wanted to hug Tim since walking through the door.
“You’ll tell someone, right,” Tim muttered, “if you ever really… y’know. It won’t be like before?”
“Of course I will,” Dick signed immediately, a little clumsily with one of his arms wrapped around Tim. “Timbo, before… I know we never talk about it, but that was a completely different thing altogether. If I ever hit a low like that again, I have people I can talk to now.”
Tim didn’t say anything, just squeezed Dick tighter. And despite Tim’s words before, Dick knew that he’d probably never say anything to his younger siblings.
“Cass said you took the night shift to watch me?” Dick waited for Tim to nod before continuing. “How ‘bout tonight you bring a few movies along? It’ll be less boring.”
Bruce had called Lucius to tell him he wouldn’t be able to come to the office unless there was some sort of crisis, citing a family emergency. And because Lucius still got notifications if any of them were admitted to a hospital – something that hadn’t been changed since Bruce’s time in the timestream – Bruce thought he probably knew exactly what sort of emergency it was.
He was also going to have to buy Cass a new motorbike for her quick thinking in getting the blood sample to the downstairs lab so quickly. She’d followed him down after dinner, impatient to see whether the Batcomputer had made any progress analysing it.
“Cass,” he called now. “You’ll want to see this.”
She was doing some sparring drills over on the practise mats, but dropped her bo stick and jogged over when Bruce called.
“The computer took three samples,” Bruce said, still scrolling through the data. “The first one showed abnormalities, though not very many. And the next two were perfectly normal.”
Cass stilled. “It’s dormant now,” she signed. “It only appears in his body when it’s influencing him.”
Bruce nodded jerkily. “That’s what I’ve theorised as well.” He couldn’t even begin to put into words the sheer waves of relief that had swept through him when he’d found the abnormalities. He’d thought for sure they’d failed this time, when he’d found Dick hanging there, by his own hands. And of course he’d had doubts of what was causing this, if Dick truly was as in the dark as he said he was.
He remembered the time Dick had gone into an extremely radioactive Bludhaven, with no thought about his personal safety. He'd handled that terribly, which was part of what was making him so agitated about this situation now.
But Cass could already see where this was going. She scanned his face, and then looked away. “We need a proper sample,” she said tonelessly.
Bruce nodded once, sharply. His mind was already racing ahead, planning the rest of the night out in excruciating detail, figuring out safety measures and the best time to take a blood sample (it’d honestly be so much easier if they could take multiple, but Bruce suspected, based off what he’d seen, that this only took effect when Dick was alone, and he didn’t know if someone interrupting him as he got ready to… as he got ready would prematurely halt the transformation).
“I can hide in the room,” Cass was signing. “He won’t notice I’m there.”
Bruce pondered the idea. “What if it’s magical in nature?”
Cass shrugged. “Then I leave, and he tries again.”
Her words, uttered so bluntly, sent a shiver down Bruce’s spine. “Are you alright?” he had to ask. She’d been everything he’d needed – they’d needed – for the last couple days. Bruce should’ve asked sooner, before he’d began leaning on her so heavily.
Cass chewed on her lip. In the dimness of the Cave, the Batcomputer’s monitors lit up her profile, casting gaunt shadows all over her face. She huffed a breath. “Better when this is over,” she muttered.
Bruce wanted to push more, but instead, he squeezed her shoulder. He’d ask Barbara to try getting her to open up.
The plan was simple. “Alright,” Bruce said. “Dick, we’re doing this based on more assumptions than I like to have, but it’s—”
“Safer this way, I know, B.” Dick forced a smile at him as he signed the words.
They’d only gotten about twenty minutes into the movie – something sci-fi that Tim had picked out that, honestly, Dick was already halfway asleep over – when Bruce had stepped into Dick’s room, Cass in tow.
Now they were mostly waiting for Jason. Dick hadn’t wanted Damian in here, but he couldn’t have it both ways. He couldn’t treat this like it was just another annoying case that targeted one of them specifically but still keep Damian in the dark and away from it all, because that would mean telling him that it wasn’t like the other cases. And as much as that made sense, Dick refused to do that.
“Don’t tell me where Cass will be hiding,” he signed, eyes flicking to Cass. “If whatever’s influencing me is able to read my mind, or whatever, then I’d rather not know, in case it helps.”
How would he do it this time, he wondered. Dick hadn’t ever really had a plan, because he’d never been suicidal. Passively suicidal wasn’t the same – that was just not caring whether you lived or died (though Dick would admit that maybe his scales had weighed a little more on the former than the latter, in those days). Going out in a battle had a simplicity to it. No one would question it. It’d be chalked up to fate, to bad luck.
Taking a kitchen knife to your arms in the bathroom and bleeding out in your bathtub? Hanging yourself in your bedroom? Those very clearly involved steps, premeditation.
Jason was apparently texting the group chat, but Dick wanted to get all his thoughts out before he forgot. “We need something slow,” he signed, leaning back in his chair. “But something that’ll occupy my arms in case it tries to stop you from taking a blood sample.”
Tim looked ill, and Damian’s glower was going to burn a hole through the floor. But really, it was Cass’ face, her normally so expressive face, that turned Dick’s stomach, because ever since this whole mess had begun, she’d kept all her emotions under lock and key.
“Bruce?” Dick rasped. “You catch that?”
“Yes,” Bruce almost interrupted him. His voice sounded tired, another rarity. Bruce could be tired, but Batman never was. “I heard. We’ll wait for Jason – he should arriving any time—”
“Wait for me to… what?” Jason said from the doorway.
Despite everything, despite the situation and the reason for Jason being here, Dick was relieved. It was strange, to feel safer around one of his younger siblings, but he couldn’t deny that Jason’s presence, all of his family being together under one roof, made him feel better. Even if it all went wrong, they’d (hopefully) hold each other together. Probably not, but maybe.
“Hey,” Dick said with a smile, forgetting for one very short moment that his voice was still terrible. Jason’s eyes flicked to him, and then Dick watched as they travelled down to his neck. He didn’t let Jason speak, not wanting to have Damian or Tim hear whatever he was about to say. Instead, he signed, “B has a plan. We’ve been waiting for you to get here.”
After a little pause, Jason looked away and stepped into the room, taking the empty seat beside Damian. “I saw,” he said finally. “So? Get on with it, old man.”
Bruce was on the other end of the living room, closest to the fireplace. He leaned forward, hands between his knees. “Cassandra and I examined the blood sample she took from Dick. We have a theory that whatever’s making Dick do this is only visible when he’s alone, and in the process of… harming himself. At all other times, it lies dormant.”
The way Jason took in a sharp breath told Dick he knew what this was leading to, but he didn’t interrupt Bruce.
“We need a better sample. We need better data if we’re going to figure out how to stop this.” Bruce leaned back, eyes on Dick. Now, his gaze was all Batman. “Cass is going to be in the room with Dick, but hiding somewhere. We’re going to put cameras and sensors in there with him – Damian, Tim, and Alfred will be monitoring from the Cave.” He held his hand out as Damian began arguing his assigned role. “Damian, let me finish. Jason, and I will be right outside all entrances, and connected to comms to the Cave. Tim, Damian, it’s your job to monitor the situation and tell us exactly when to enter and take the sample, or when to abort. You’ll have access to Dick’s physiology. Does that make sense?”
He waited for them all to nod.
“We need to choose what I’ll use,” Dick said, forcing his voice louder and swallowing down the coughs that threatened to emerge. “Something slow enough that you’ll have time, and I’ll be incapacitated enough that whatever’s in me won’t try to fight.”
There was silence.
“Dick, c’mon,” Jason said finally, when it was clear that no one else would. “You can’t expect us to pick out what you’re going to—”
“I expect you all,” Dick whispered furiously, “to make a logical decision. Guns are too fast, my escrima would make it hard for someone to take a sample, knives or any sharp objects mean I might bleed out too fast… not hanging since, y’know, been there, done that—”
“Pills,” Tim interrupted, looking as though he hated himself the moment he spoke. Dick was just happy his callous words had finally gotten to someone. “We leave you alone with sedatives and a plastic bag. You tie the—wait. Can Damian leave the room? It feels weird to be giving suicide tips with a kid still here.”
Damian glowered at Tim. “I know all the best ways to commit suicide,” he said. And then he glared at the roomful of concerned looks. “What?”
“Damian,” Bruce said, voice sounding strangled. “I know you don’t like therapists, but please—”
“Father, please,” Damian interrupted, looking positively horrified, “I’m not suicidal. It was merely part of my early training. Assassin, remember?”
“Even then, Dami,” Dick signed, kicking Damian a little to get his attention. “If you ever feel like you’re even passively suicidal – don’t look at me like that, I know you know what that means – then I want you to promise you’ll go to someone. Even if it’s not us.”
Damian rolled his eyes. “Yes, fine. Can we please get on with the rest of the plan?”
Dick turned back to Tim, tilting his head and raising an eyebrow. Tim coughed once and cleared his throat. “Uh, so. Just wanted to start off again with a disclaimer that I am not suicidal, and this was not my plan. But if you took sedatives and tied a plastic bag ‘round your head, you’d eventually run out of oxygen but still be knocked out when you did. But lucky for us, once you’re out, we can sneak in, take the sample, run it, and poke a hole in the bag and make sure you just sleep off the sedative.”
Despite everything, despite the situation and what Dick was about to let himself do in a matter of hours, if not less, he felt a grin forming on his face. “Tim,” he rasped out, leaning forward so he could squeeze Tim’s cheeks and watch his mouth resemble a pufferfish, “that’s brilliant!”
“You’re welcome, I guess.” Tim’s words came out muffled.
“It’s a good idea, Tim,” Bruce said, tapping away on his phone. Dick was about to ask what was so important, when all five phones in the room pinged. Dick pulled out his, and saw the subject line ‘Confirm appointment with Dr…” just as four voices around him started yelling.
“Everything’s all set,” Jason said, though he seemed to be having a hard time releasing the bottle of pills in his hand. There were three in there, the maximum dose before it tipped into extremely unsafe territory. “You sure you want to do this?” It was the third time he’d asked.
Dick sighed. “It’s the only way to find out what the issue is,” he signed. “It’ll be fine, Jay. And Cassie is right here… somewhere. She’ll stop me if I do something that’s not in the plans.”
Jason nodded, just as he had the other two times Dick had told him the same thing. “Yeah, alright.” He pointed to the doorway. “I’m gonna…”
“See you in the morning.” Dick watched him go.
Bruce passed Jason as Jason exited Dick’s room. His eyes automatically fell on the spot where Dick had been hanging from, though the rope was now gone, and the only sign that anything had happened was how the fan was just a little lopsided.
“Everything set?” Dick asked.
Bruce nodded silently, still looking down at the plastic bag in his hands. Dick watched as he placed it on Dick’s desk, beside the bottle of pills. They’d removed practically everything else, barred the window so he wouldn’t jump out of it, locked the bathroom door. It was almost akin to baby-proofing a room, but much, much harder. Dick wouldn't have even thought of certain things until now, like drowning himself in the tub.
“It’ll be fine, B,” Dick said. He’d had a late night snack, because Alfred said it was always better to take sedatives with something in your stomach. “We’ll get the sample and it’ll be something really obvious that we missed, and we’ll fix it.”
Bruce huffed a little laugh. “I’m supposed to be the one reassuring you,” he said.
Dick would’ve snorted if he didn’t think that would result in pain. “When has that ever been our dynamic?” he said with a smile.
“It should’ve been.”
Dick sighed. “Bruce, c’mon. We don’t have time to get all sappy. You can say your little speech after we get through this, okay?” He coughed a little.
“I know. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to make you sit through that when you already have so much on your mind.” Bruce stepped towards the bathroom door, checking if it was locked properly. He went and examined the cameras and sensors again, one by one.
“Here,” Dick said, impulsively stepping forward and wrapping his arms around Bruce. He normally liked to squeeze tight, but the wounds on his arms were still too fresh for him to do that without it hurting.
Bruce didn’t hesitate, like he once might’ve. Dick almost squeaked in surprise at how tightly he was held, arms like strong, warm bands around his shoulders. “You’re right,” Bruce said, when he finally pulled away. “We’re going to get through this. All of us.” His eyes promised vengeance.
Dick nodded. “Now you’re getting it,” he said, trying to channel some Robin optimism.
But when Bruce had left, and they’d dimmed the lights to give the illusion that he was sleeping, it was harder to hold onto it. It’d been one thing to wake up from two occasions of suicide attempts, but now, to try and sleep and know that he was leaving his body vacant for someone else’s control… It didn’t make it very easy to sleep. Dick looked longingly at the sedatives laying out on the table, but he couldn’t—
“Cave to Manor, we think it’s begun.”
“Copy,” Bruce whispered. He and Jason crouched in front of a tablet, watching the camera feeds from inside Dick’s room.
“This is creepy,” Jason signed. There was just enough light in the hallway for his hands to be visible.
“Yes,” Bruce signed back, distracted. “He’s moving normally, but…”
“Too smoothly.” Jason frowned, watching the tiny figure on the screen. “He’s… checking through the drawers. Should we’ve hidden them?”
Bruce shook his head. “Too late for second guessing our choices now. Besides, there’s nothing else in there for him to use.”
It’d been a jarring experience, to go through Dick’s bedroom and see objects only through the lens of how harmful they could be. Pens and other writing utensils were immediately gone, as were any cables, wires, charging cords. Electricity to the power points had been shut down, and only his battery powered nightlight and surveillance devices remained.
“Maybe we should’ve dumped him in an empty room with nothing but the pills and bag.”
Bruce didn’t – couldn’t – respond to that. It would’ve felt too much like they were forcing Dick to do something without any alternatives. It was the same here, though – it’d still be the same if they didn’t figure out what was going on with him.
On the screen, the black and white live video showed Dick getting up. He first rifled through his bedside drawers, coming up with nothing. Jason shifted uneasily beside Bruce as Dick took out the whole drawer and upended it, removing something from the bottom of it.
The comms crackled to life. “Is that a hidden compartment?” Tim was demanding in Bruce’s ear.
“Cassandra,” Bruce said in a low voice.
“I see it,” Cass responded back in the same tone. “I’m entering the room.”
Dick’s body was hiding the object from the camera. Bruce flicked through all of them, watching as Cass’ heat signature became visible as she entered the range of the sensors.
And then, there was a sharp intake from Jason. “Batgirl, take him out. It’s a gun.”
Bruce didn’t stop to think about what they should do now, or even that Cass was in there already handling the situation. One minute he was in the hallway, and the next he was racing into Dick’s room, feet too loud, too slow.
Cass and Dick were fighting. In the dimness, Bruce was glad he’d forced everyone here to wear their masks; without the night vision lenses, it’d be almost impossible to see. The nightlight had gone out at some point.
Bruce wondered how it was that Dick could see.
Cass kicked at something, and there was a scraping sound against the wooden floorboards. A shiny object landed near Bruce’s feet, and he was frozen.
Jason was running past him to where Cass had Dick in a stranglehold; as Bruce watched, his ears ringing, Jason plunged a syringe into Dick’s arm and drew out blood.
“Got enough,” Jason was saying. “Is he back yet? Dick?”
Dick didn’t say anything, just stood there in Cass’ hold, body still and silent. His eyes were vacant as they looked on ahead.
“Let him go,” Bruce heard himself say. “I want to see what he does with us in the room.” He bent down and picked up the gun, emptying it and watching as the bullets rained down on the floor. And then he tucked it into his belt, feeling nauseous at the sensation as he did so.
Cass released him, and all three of them stood there, holding their breaths and waiting to see what Dick would do.
Dick took off.
Jason cursed, but Bruce was already there in front of the door, barring the exit. Dick didn’t pause; he continued running towards Bruce. He leapt at him – and this part, Bruce should’ve expected, but he still stumbled a little as Dick wrapped his body around Bruce’s torso to bring him down. With a grunt, Bruce spun, moving them away from the door even as he staggered with the momentum. With one leg, he kicked at the door and it slammed shut.
“Who are you?” he growled. “What do you want?”
“Nightwing,” Dick’s mouth hissed. “I want Nightwing.”
And then he kicked, a sweeping movement of his leg designed to topple Bruce. Bruce dodged, coming up behind Dick instinctively to knock his knees out.
“What do you want with Nightwing?”
There was no hesitation. It was almost as though Dick – or whoever it was – didn’t even mind telling him. “To kill him.”
“What’s your name?” Jason joined in the fight, keeping Dick occupied enough for Cass to escape downstairs with the sample. “Tell us your name.”
“Officer Richard Grayson,” Dick said. “I have to kill Nightwing.”
Jason sucked in a breath. “Oh, damn,” he said. “That’s right out of a telenovela.”
“What kinda,” Dick coughed, “telenovelas have you been watching, Little Wing?”
“Dick?” Bruce said, approaching slowly.
“Hey, B,” Dick rasped. “Get me some water?”
Bruce hurried into action, grabbing him the water bottle that rested on the desk, which they’d put there so he wouldn’t dry swallow the pills. In the comms, he said, “Switch power back on in here. He’s back.”
In less than a minute, the overhead lights were turning on. Dick squinted in the brightness.
“So?” he prompted. “Uh… I gotta say, I expected to be waking up downstairs. Did we get it?” His hands were shaking as he signed.
“Cassandra?” Bruce said, watching as Jason shoved Dick towards a chair. “Any updates?”
“She just put the sample into the computer, Father,” Damian reported. “Is everything…?”
“We’ll head down now,” Bruce told him, making sure his voice was softer. “Dick’s fine. He’s back to himself now. And I have a theory, but I’ll wait until we get the analysis of the blood sample back.”
“Copy,” was all Damian responded with.
Bruce approached Dick, and took out the gun. “How long have you had this here?” he asked.
“Hey,” Jason said, voice hard as he turned to Bruce. Bruce wondered if the way he moved his body to half cover Dick was instinctive. “Maybe cut the guy some slack? He’s just got out of his weird trance murder state.”
“Murder?” Dick repeated. He sounded as though he was worlds away, and his voice was thick with confusion and weariness. “So you’ve finally ruled out suicide?”
Another tell that Dick was very much out of it, Bruce thought, because these last few days he’d been a little less blunt about it all. “Yes,” Bruce said. He took out his phone from his pocket, getting up the footage from the cameras to show Dick. “Here.”
On the tiny screen, they sped through the fighting, right up until Dick responded to their questions.
“Huh,” Dick said, the sound more like a breath of air. “This makes sense, actually.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose.
“Headache?” Bruce frowned. The last few times hadn’t resulted in Dick being affected like this afterwards. But then again, those times had all resulted in him being affected by whatever method he’d chosen. This was the first time they’d stopped him.
Dick shrugged a little. “I’ll sleep it off, seeing how we got what we needed.” He glanced between them. “We got the sample, right?”
Bruce nodded. “C’mon,” he said. He steadied Dick when he stood up and wobbled.
Cass was standing in front of the Batcomputer when they arrived downstairs. Alfred was at the bench, wearing a white labcoat, and behind him Tim and Damian stood on opposite ends of the bench, pulling faces at each other.
"The analysis compared it with all our known samples of toxins. Even the magical ones," Cass reported. She glanced at Dick, and gave him a small smile. "It's 87% certain it's magical in nature."
Bruce nodded. "Dick thinks so too, as do I." He glanced at Dick, who stepped forward.
"The last case I was on at work was apprehending some faux magician wannabe," he signed. "Guess he wasn't as much of a fake as we all thought."
"I'll get in touch with Zatanna. Hopefully she'll respond, and we won't have to deal with Constantine."
Tim snorted. “C’mon, cut the guy some slack,” he said. It appeared, Bruce noted, that the results had lifted a significant weight off everyone’s shoulders. “He only whistled a little. Most people do worse.”
Dick scrunched up his face, though Bruce didn’t know if that was from the – hopefully horrific – memory of Constantine hitting on him, or from the headache. “Yeah,” he said dryly. “Didn’t even send me obsessive love letters.”
Damian frowned. “Who sent you—”
Bruce cut off the conversation before they could derail further, or cause someone to receive death threats in the mail. “Alright,” he said, voice echoing in the Cave. “Everyone, upstairs. We resume watches on Dick, but the rest of you should get some sleep. I’ll take patrol – I already asked Barbara, and some of the Birds of Prey are helping out tonight.”
Cass looked questioningly at him as the rest of them wandered off, lifting herself to sit beside the keyboard. Bruce was just glad that the rest of the kids had disappeared, because he'd always told them off for doing that, but not with Cass (yet), because she didn't accidentally lean on the keyboard and soft delete five weeks worth of reports.
“You too,” Bruce said. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed that you haven’t been sleeping properly.”
“No one has,” Cass said pointedly.
Bruce sighed at that. “I know,” he said, voice softer this time. “But…” he squeezed her shoulder, “I’ve been on this rollercoaster enough to know that figuring out the source of a problem often leads to a bigger problem, before things can get better. Get some rest while you can.”
“You need to sleep too,” Cass said, her smile turning a little too innocent. “You said the Birds of Prey are watching over Gotham tonight.” And that was when Bruce realised he’d walked into a trap.
Jason normally found more comfort in sleeping bodies than this. But now, as he sat leaning against the headboard in Dick’s room, listening to the heavy breaths all around him, he couldn’t bring himself to be soothed in any way.
The kids had decided to have some sort of slumber party crossed with sleepover crossed with movie marathon. None of those had been particularly successful, seeing how Damian and Cass had fallen asleep almost as soon as they’d gotten under the covers. Tim had held out longer, though Jason assumed that was mostly because he’d had an impromptu nap in the living room that afternoon.
The jury was still out on Dick. The last time Jason had glanced over at him, over the snoring figure of Damian between them, and Cass’ toes, Dick had been staring fixatedly at the projected movie in front of them. Jason didn’t even know what they were watching.
“You can sleep if you want,” he said, keeping his voice low to avoid waking anyone. “I’ll wake one of them up if I get tired.”
Dick looked over at him, and shook his head just the slightest. “Nah,” he whispered. “Can’t sleep. Thinking too much.”
“Thinking’s bad for you,” Jason informed him. “Causes things like insomnia.”
“Like you haven’t had your share of sleepless nights.”
Jason didn’t respond to that, too busy trying to get up the courage to ask Dick the question he’d been wanting to voice for hours. “Why’d you have a gun in your room? And how the fuck did you forget about it?”
Dick shifted in the bed, probably to see if the others were still asleep. Jason couldn’t really tell with most of them – for all he knew, Damian and Cass’ assassin training had also taught them to pretend to sleep flawlessly – but Dick’s radar was usually pretty accurate.
“Honestly?” Dick said. “I don’t think I knew. It’s not my gun. But Alf… he keeps guns around, like we keep weapons around. I didn’t realise he had one in my room, but he has a rifle in the living room, in a hidden compartment under the TV unit. So not totally surprising. And since it’s magic, I figure it’s locating weapons and stuff based on its senses, not mine. Or, not mine entirely.”
Jason was quiet. “Bruce know?” he said. “About Alfred?”
Dick huffed a little laugh. “Not all of them, I don’t think,” he said. “But he knows about the one under the TV.”
There was a moment of silence, and then Jason said, “Can you imagine if there was one in Bruce’s room, and he only found it cause he was… looking for his underwear or something?”
“He’d probably scream like that time Tim saw a spider on the shower curtain.”
They got a response in two days. On top of that, half a day was spent with Dick looking on as the rest of the family yelled loudly at each other – though he quietly left out the back door for a few of those hours when Damian started looking a little too overwhelmed.
“Richard?” Damian said, watching as Titus chased the tennis ball into the pond.
Dick waited a beat for Damian to continue; when he didn’t, he gently prompted him. “Yeah?”
Damian’s hands were stuffed into his pockets, though he didn’t hesitate to pat Titus and take the soggy ball in hand to throw it again. “This… it’s not our only plan, is it?”
Dick sighed, running a hand through his hair. “It might be, kiddo.” He knelt down in front of Damian. “Hey. It’s just like… surgery. Even safer. I’ll be awake before you know it.”
The plan wasn’t even really a plan, so much as, according to Zatanna – and, much to Bruce’s chagrin, Constantine – the only thing they could do. He had to die, by his own hand, and that would break the spell. Dick felt like part of him had always known this would be where he'd end up.
“We barely know anything about the magic. You might die permanently.”
Dick couldn’t exactly argue against that. “Dami, look,” he said. “Until that happens, I’m still stuck under this curse. Any time you leave me alone, I might be making another attempt. I haven’t pooped freely in weeks.” Damian’s lips curled up a little at that. “But this isn’t the first time we’ve had to do something like this. Hell, the toxins we have to take now are a lot safer than they used to be. It’s as safe as it can get.”
Damian didn’t say a word, all his good humour gone. “Come, Titus,” he called, and walked back towards the Manor.
Dick watched him go, something a lot like regret sitting beneath his chest. Damian wasn’t mad at him, not really – he’d have to task someone, either Jason or Cass, to stay beside him while it all went down, to make sure he was okay. Alfred would have his hands full with the rest of the family.
When he walked back inside, through the kitchen entrance, he was met with stormy silence, and a lot of folded arms.
Dick exhaled loudly. “Geez,” he said. “You’d think a guy came to his own funeral.” When he was met with even stonier silence, he said, “Too soon.”
“Scone, Master Richard?” Alfred handed him a tray, and Dick blinked, though he shouldn’t have been surprised. Alfred was a stress baker. He couldn’t remember how many pies the man had made when Dick had had school exams. “The others have already eaten.”
“Thanks, Alfie,” he said, settling down at the breakfast bar with his plate.
“Dick,” Bruce began.
“Bruce,” Dick interrupted. “I’ve made up my mind. It’s the least risky way to go. It’s not like I haven’t done this before.”
Bruce frowned. “You’ve slowed your heartrate down to mimic death,” he said in admonishment. “You haven’t stopped your heart.”
“First time for everything, I suppose,” Dick said, slicing a scone in half and placing a dollop of jam and cream onto it. “Between all of us, it’ll be fine. It’ll be safe. Safer than me showering alone is, apparently.”
Truth be told, Dick was rather sick of the constant fear that the next time he lost time, it’d be the last. He hated waking up without knowing what had happened, only seeing the devastation around himself and piecing it all together, from strewn objects to terrified faces.
That first time, at the hospital, but even more so when he’d woken in the med bay after he’d apparently tried to hang himself in his own room. Jason and Bruce didn’t say anything, didn’t talk about what it must’ve been like to walk in on a loved one in the middle of a suicide attempt, but Dick could tell, from the way they looked at him now, that something had changed between them.
“Fine,” Jason said, surprising all of them. Dick blinked at the unexpected acquiescence. “Knowing you, you’ll probably do it anyway and involve, like, the shadiest people we know.”
Dick frowned, momentarily distracted by this. “Like who?”
Jason shrugged. “Your harem of sugar daddies, for one,” he said, and then Bruce cut in with a mildly alarmed look towards Tim and Damian eagerly leaning forward.
“Alright, but only because it’s the only way.” He scrubbed a hand over his face, and Dick noted, as though realising it for the first time, that Bruce was almost fifty. “We can do this safely, observe you for a while and see if the curse truly is gone.”
Dick looked at him and then nodded. “Okay then,” he said, trying for a smile. The only one who offered one back was Tim; even Cass, who usually tried, awkwardly, to mimic facial expressions like that, wouldn’t meet his eyes as she hurried after Bruce down to the Cave.
In the end, they decided on poison. It’s the easiest way to stop a heart, Bruce had argued. We have plenty of antidotes. He didn’t have to mention all the things that could go wrong, because Dick knew. He knew because he’d been there when they’d been developing said antidotes, had been there when they’d catalogued problems and had to redo tests. He’d been there when they’d tried administering them to victims of the latest toxin of the week, had been there reading their medical reports. Even now, when they were over a decade away from the earliest antidote to Joker Venom, Bruce still followed up on the people he’d given antidotes to, to see if they were having any issues. Dick knew that Wayne Industries had some sort of a charity dedicated specifically to those victims.
His earpiece crackled a little as the person on the other end pulled in a breath. “Ready?” Bruce said. “We’ll be with you the entire time. You’ll be fine.”
“You sure this is gonna work?” Dick had already asked this twice, but he felt he wanted to keep hearing someone’s voice.
“You’ll be fine,” Bruce said instead of offering him the same long spiel he’d given the previous times. “We’re right here with you.”
They'd decided to do this in Dick's room again, rather than to test it out in a new environment, even if it was as contained as one of the quarantine cells in the Cave. Jason and Alfred were hiding in the bathroom this time, antidote ready. They would come in the moment Dick had finished administering the poison into himself, and use the heart monitor he was attached to, to gauge whether it was long enough.
“Okay, B,” Dick said, and then switched off his mic. “Jay? C’mere a sec?”
Jason poked his head out of the bathroom. Despite the size of the place, Dick wondered how he and Alfred fit in there, with Jason’s broad shoulders taking up all the room. “What?” he said. “Cold feet?”
Dick shook his head quickly, and indicated to Jason to switch off his mic. Jason did so with a frown. Dick said, “I know B told you that a minute after I’ve injected it is the longest you can wait, to be safe that the antidote will work.” He ignored the curse Jason muttered under his breath, already anticipating his next words. “We both know that two minutes is the real maximum. Promise me—no, Jay, don’t give me that look—promise me you’ll wait at least until then. Until my heart’s properly stopped for a bit. And then give me the antidote and whatever else you have to do to revive—”
“Are you out of your fucking mind?” Jason hissed, glancing at the bathroom door. “You realise how risky this whole thing is in the first place, right, shithead? The antidote’s supposed to be given before your heart gives out, and you want me to wait even longer?”
“I can’t live like this,” Dick said, desperate. “I, I can’t… the way you all look at me, after I wake up. I can’t have a life like this, Jason! It’s worse than being on suicide watch, ‘cause at least then you can leave me alone in a room and not expect me to go ham on whatever I can find because I’m cursed. If I don’t fix this soon, I’ll end up dead at some point. At least this way, you’re giving me a fighting chance.”
Jason was silent; the only sound in the room was him breathing, his chest rising and falling rapidly as though he’d just come in from a run. “Put your damn earpiece back in,” he muttered. “We’re starting.”
Dick knew better than to call after him. He jammed the button, and was welcomed by the tiny little ping that informed him that he was connected once more.
“Dick?” Tim was saying. “You ready?”
“Yeah,” Dick said, sitting back down on the bed and picking up the syringe. “I’m ready.” And then he turned off the sound from his end. They wouldn’t know, not unless they asked him a question, but Dick couldn’t handle the thought of so many of them, his younger siblings, watching him do this.
He lay down – safety and all that – and sucked in a breath. It was strange, because before this whole situation had begun, he’d had several instances where he’d had to inject questionable substances into himself. It never stopped making him think of Roy, especially not in this situation.
Dick should’ve written something, he realised belatedly, only after he was already pressing it into a vein. He had his digital will, which he tried to update regularly; when was the last time he’d opened that? This had happened in such a rush, stressed that Bruce or one of the others, or Alfred, would suddenly change their minds about this whole endeavour and take a harsh stand against it, that he’d barely had any time to actually process that he was doing this. He was poisoning himself to stop his own heart, to mimic killing Nightwing. Killing himself.
Dick pressed down on the plunger, and coldness trickled down his arm. His fingertips went cold first, a numbness spreading through them. The syringe fell from his hand, and onto the bedspread. Dick hoped, rather distantly, that there weren’t any droplets of the poison left on the tip to drip onto the sheets – he knew how Damian got about his pets being exposed to stuff like that.
It was a fast acting poison, chosen specifically because it would take effect almost immediately. He hadn’t wanted to suffer for no reason. Then there was the fact that it was one of the few toxins that had a higher success rate for surviving.
Dick couldn’t breathe. He’d known this – he’d seen victims of this poison and knew intimately what the symptoms of this were – but now that it was happening to him, he found he could barely control his own word to himself that he’d try to make this as un-traumatising as possible, for those watching.
He was just glad that he’d gotten Damian to promise he wouldn’t watch. He wished he could’ve convinced Tim of the same, but he’d refused to, and then he’d looked as though he was going to burst into tears if Dick kept pushing the issue, so he’d dropped it. (Dick wished he knew if Cass would’ve preferred being asked to not look, but after Tim, she’d glared a little at him when he’d tried to make eye contact with her.)
The heart monitor was beeping like crazy beside him. Dick wished it would shut up, just for the peace of silence. And then it was granted to him.
“He’s unconscious,” Jason said, voice rushed and anxious and not at all like the cool exterior he’d been clinging onto the entire time he’d been waiting in the bathroom with Alfred. “Do you feel a pulse? The heart monitor…”
Dick was still hanging on, though his heartbeat was going down with every second that passed. It wasn’t fast enough. Alfred’s fingers were at Dick’s jaw; he shook his head.
“It’s been fifty seconds,” Alfred said. He looked sharply towards Jason’s hand, where he held the vial of the antitoxin.
“He made me promise,” the words came out in a rush, “to wait till two minutes. I don’t know if…”
“His body is fighting the toxin,” Alfred murmured. “It must be from the prolonged exposure to chemicals.”
“We factored for that, though.” Jason’s hands were shaking and he didn’t know how to stop them. Die already, his mind screamed at Dick’s still body.
“But we played it safe and gave him a single dose.” Alfred pulled out a vial from inside his coat pocket, and before Jason could shake himself awake and stop him, he’d injected Dick with half its contents.
“That might kill him!” Jason yelled. The heart monitor’s insistent beeping in the background, and the constant ticking of the timer in his hand, served to heighten the anxiety he had for this entire situation. “He might not come back from that, Alfred!”
“The worst that someone has come back from is two doses of this poison,” Alfred said sternly to Jason. “Now, calm yourself, and do what needs to be done. I will not lose a child over this ridiculous mess.”
Jason sucked in a breath to say something, anything, but found he couldn’t. Instead, he turned back to Dick’s still body, and counted the seconds as his heart dropped.
And then there was a long beep, with no pauses. His heart dropped to his stomach, but he didn’t hesitate. “He’s gone.” The words came out in a rush.
He hadn’t realised it at the time, but the comms had gone silent. Jason didn’t stop to worry about that now. He counted along with the timer, waiting for precisely two seconds, and then he jammed the antidote into Dick’s chest, right near his heart where it would travel the quickest.
“C’mon, you asshole,” he muttered, as he pumped Dick’s chest with compressions. Alfred kept count for him, even as the door to Dick’s room was flung open, and the rest of the family came hurtling inside.
Jason had never been more grateful for Alfred as the older man lifted a hand and halted them in their tracks; he kept pumping, kept whispering angry insults under his breath.
“It’s not… he’s not…” Jason’s breathing was coming out in short gasps, half from how much this was physically taking out of him, but mostly from the way his brother refused to return to life after they’d all agreed to let him take it.
Without a word, Alfred pulled out a different syringe, and gently injected it into Dick’s bloodstream.
“Adrenaline?” Jason said. “Isn’t that bad for him?”
“Not worse than this,” Alfred said. “There may be side effects, but that’s the case for everything that has happened tonight.”
Then, mercifully, the heart monitor beeped. Jason, exhausted, slumped back and let Bruce, who’d arrived and stood by his shoulders like a dark agitated cloud, take over for him. A hand came and tapped his shoulder, and Jason glanced up to see Damian standing there.
“He’ll be okay?” Damian asked. “He’s free now?”
Jason couldn’t lie to the kid. “We still have to keep him under observation,” he said. And then, watching as Damian resolutely shoved all his worry under a frown, he added, “But I think so. I think he’ll be fine.”
That wasn’t a lie so much as a promise, Jason decided, seeing the way Damian’s hands unclenched just a little.
They kept Dick in observation for three days. He’d join the others for meals on the third day, but apart from that, he stuck to the areas of the Manor with cameras, and the others – though he knew they were just a few rooms away – kept quiet and to themselves. Raven had fashioned protection charms for him, though she couldn’t entirely confirm that they’d repel every type of curse there was. She’d emailed him a fifteen page long document on loopholes and ways it could fail, which Dick found rather depressing to read through, quite frankly.
But he’d liked talking to her about it, hearing the explanation, seeing her when she came to visit. At this rate, Dick thought bitterly, he’d worsen his mental health simply due to the isolation. He hadn’t attempted anything, hadn’t had any blackouts. And he didn’t even really have that many nightmares (or intrusive thoughts) about the poison.
It was just that the lack of people to talk to, or things to even do, was starting to grate on his nerves. He’d called Amy, telling her that he was going to be coming in to work the next week. He was fairly confident he’d be able to keep his word. And then, with the realisation that he could call absolutely anyone and talk their ear off, he started phoning his friends.
He spoke with Lian on the phone for a solid two hours, especially after he heard snoring start up somewhere in the background. And then Irey and Jai, for another hour or so each. It was easier talking with children than it was with people his age, people who knew either from one of his siblings telling their friends – who were undoubtedly connected to one of Dick’s, as was the way of their community – or from Dick himself.
Garth he couldn’t get on the phone, not that he was surprised by that, and Donna and Kory were in space together, and had only left an emergency contact number. But Dick did allow himself to be talked into staying with the Kents with Tim, Cass, and Damian during the upcoming long weekend.
On the eve of the last night of his ‘curse watch’, as he liked to call it, Bruce knocked on his door. “Can I come in?” he asked, poking his head into the room.
Dick had been going through his old music collection. He didn’t have the space to bring all these tapes and CDs everywhere he went – and Tim had digitised his collection anyway, so he didn’t really need to keep them – but he liked to play them while he was staying here. They felt… comfortable. Like slipping into an old pair of jeans.
Bruce wrinkled his nose when he heard the first notes playing. “You’re not going to grow your hair out again, are you?” he asked.
“Against the regulations of being part of the BPD, for men,” Dick informed him. “Little old fashioned, so I probably could fight it, but now I have four times as many siblings as I did then. Don’t think I could handle the ragging.”
Bruce snorted. He sat down on the floor in front of the bookshelf, where Dick had out the box of his old music. Reaching in, he flicked through the cassette tapes until he found what he was looking for, and put it in. “Remember this?” he said.
Dick didn’t have to hear it to know what Bruce had picked out. He nodded. “You got this for me a week before I discovered you were Batman.”
Bruce raised an eyebrow. “That’s how you remember it?” he said.
Dick shrugged. “I had sort of a one-track mind at that point. I don’t think I even listened to it properly till after I started training as Robin. And even then, it…” he shook his head, “it reminded me too much of you, and not enough of them. So I couldn’t.”
Bruce let out a heavy breath. “I seem to have picked the worst option, then,” he said.
“B, no.” Dick put his hand out to stop Bruce from removing the tape. “It… that’s how it began. But after that? After we caught Zucco? It was the only music that was mine, that I could listen to over and over again and know in full. And… it’s completely different from my music taste now, and I don’t think I could ever listen to any other album of theirs, but this one, this is the first one you gave me. Every time I listen to it, I dunno… it’s like eating one of Alfred’s oatmeal raisin cookies.”
Dick knew Bruce would understand it then, because he hated raisins with a passion as well, but he adored Alfred’s oatmeal raisin cookies.
They sat there, listening as the final notes of the first song in The Clash’s second album faded. In the silence before the next one began, Bruce said, “I think this goes to show that I don’t know you as well as I thought I did. Then and now.”
Dick sat there somewhat uncomfortably, not knowing how to respond to that. But he didn’t have to say anything.
“I know we’ve had this conversation before,” Bruce continued, “but for my own mental peace, I need to say it again… I’d appreciate it if we… talked more. Not about this, not about the night life, just… everything else.”
Dick smiled a little at that. “Bruce, you’d need to get a life to be able to talk about one.”
Bruce shoved him lightly. “Brat,” he said. “I’d tell you about the kids – or, Damian, really – to make up for it.”
Dick tilted his head. “Of course, B,” he said. “You don’t have to ask for that. Only real issue is figuring out when.”
Bruce grimaced at that, but it didn’t stop him from looking at Dick curiously. “You’re… you seem different. To how you were the last time you were—”
“Bruce,” Dick interrupted. “Just because I jabbed myself with poison doesn’t mean I’m suicidal now, okay? It might give me a couple weird nightmares, but it’s not like it’s the first time I’ve given myself something fishy. And it was for the case, not for a me reason. I’m not exaggerating when I say I’m fine. Or I would be, if my entire family hadn’t spent the last three days forcibly avoiding me.” He took in a deep breath. “I get it, I really do. We had to test it out. But B, honestly, I’m gonna go crazy if I have to walk around here with nothing to do. I told Amy I’m good to work starting next week, and I intend on keeping my word.”
Bruce was nodding before he’d even finished speaking. “We only ever meant for it to be a short term thing watch,” he said. “You’ve passed, with flying colours.”
“You can install more cameras or whatever,” Dick said. “I just don’t know how much help they’d be with something like this.” Bruce suddenly couldn’t look at him, and Dick winced. “Too blunt?”
“No. No, you’re right. We don’t monitor personal security cameras for things like this. And it’d be far too invasive to get some sort of profiling software in place to see if you’re behaving like yourself. I just…” He shook his head. “Just check in with someone? That’s all I’m asking for.”
Dick smiled a little weakly. “I do,” he said. “I don’t think I have any day where I don’t talk to someone from the community.”
Bruce looked at him searchingly, and then nodded; it seemed to Dick that, while he might not accept it, he could concede to the fact that this was all he – or anyone – could really do. There was the protection charm, and other magical protection placed on his home, his vehicles, but there were limits to what magical protection could cover. It was just a risk of the job – of life, really – that they had to accept.
“I’m just about done loading the car,” Dick said. “And I said goodbye to Damian this morning, and Alf at lunch.”
“So I’m the last one,” Bruce said with a nod. “I’ll walk you down.”
Dick had managed to fit all his clothes into the one backpack; he slung it over his shoulder now and followed Bruce down. They walked in companiable silence, and Dick couldn’t help remembering all the times he’d left feeling out of sorts with Bruce.
His phone pinged in his pocket, and Dick fumbled with the bag and reached into his pocket. He smiled at the text message responding to his own, asking whether he wanted to try out the new Thai place that had opened up a block away from his place. Only if you’re paying, the text read.
Course, he responded, wondering if it was too soon to add gotta repay you saving my life somehow, right? He sent it anyway.
When he lifted his head, Bruce was looking at him from the doorway. “Jason,” Dick said. “We’re trying out a Thai place near my apartment.”
Bruce’s face seemed to go through five emotions all at once: surprise, confusion, delight, that look on a new parent’s face when their children interact for the first time… Dick made a face at him as he skipped down the stairs to where his car was parked.
“Bruce,” he called, depositing the backpack in the passenger seat. “If you’re free sometime next Saturday, we can… do something?”
“I’m free,” Bruce called, unable to hide the note of relief in his voice. Dick suspected he didn’t think Dick was serious about spending more time together.
With a wave, Dick got into the car. Something settled in his skin, something that had felt missing the entire time they’d been investigating and trying to fix the curse. He was going to get looks, when he got to work – the bruises around his neck may have faded, but the scars on his arms never would, by the look of them. But it’d be fine. He could see that now, clear as day. His phone pinged again as he was backing out of the parking space; with a glance downwards, he saw Jason’s name on the screen for a moment before it went dark again.