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“Tt. I’ve seen those who come out of the Lazarus Pit. The dead are never the same as they were alive when you bring them back.”
“The Lazarus Pit is an abomination that can, at times, serve miracles. It brought Jason Todd back to you, did it not?”
Dick Grayson would call that a miracle. Damian called it an extra annoyance in his life. He wisely didn’t respond. This was not a villain, foe, or enemy for him to dispose of. This was an immortal being that deserved respect, and even Damian was no fool to unintentionally insult a Goddess of the Dead, especially one unnamed.
“As much as I appreciate the offer, I must decline.”
The scrawny dog regarded Damian with the tilt of her head. “You do not trust my offer.”
This was supposed to be a simple rescue mission. Dick had forced Damian to spend some time with the Teen Titans, whose company Damian was beginning to begrudgingly enjoy. All Damian did was save a dog from getting crushed from a crumbled piece of concrete wall that had fallen after Jon accidently missed who he had been swinging at and destroyed property instead.
Damian’s fingers itched for the knife he had sheathed in his boots. Would he be able to slash her if it came down to it? He didn’t trust her. He couldn’t trust her. No one offered a gift that was too good to be true without something in return.
Her eyes grew soft, with...he’d seen that look sometimes, two months into his and Dick’s partnership. Sad understanding. Dick often gazed at him like that when Damian said or did something related to the League or his childhood. “I promise you I am not trying to deceive you or trick you. The person I will bring back will be exactly as you remember. They will not be violent, or try to harm you, or be an alternate version of themselves. Depending how long they’ve been dead, they will be more at peace.”
“A week with a pleasant visit from the undead?” Damian scoffed again.
“A week with a pleasant visit from someone you love.”
A week with Father, the father he barely knew. It had been two years since Bruce Wayne fell in battle. Damian only knew him from the stories Dick and the others told of him. Stories his mother and grandfather passed to him as he grew up. Stories was all he knew of his father, and three months in person with distrust and impatience.
He thought of bringing Bruce back for Dick and Alfred. Wouldn’t they like to see Father for a week, to make amends, for Father to tell Dick how proud he was of all Dick accomplished in his stead since his passing? Damian may be a child, but he was no fool. Father and Dick were partners, best friends, and brothers. Dick may have eventually wished for a father-son relationship, but from the stories Damian heard, it seemed that Dick’s and Father’s relationship were always first and foremost that of equals. Would seeing Father again bring back all the trauma and emotional wounds that Dick had worked so hard to heal since Father’s death?
Damian didn’t want to bring Dick more pain, and he, in his heart, didn’t want to bring back a stranger, bring back someone he didn’t even know. A visit from someone you love was supposed to bring happy tears, hugs, safety, comfort, warmth—all that Dick gave him, all that...
An idea crossed his mind.
“Would it be okay if I use this gift to bring back someone for someone else?”
The dog’s ears perked upward, shocked, intrigued, and pleased. “You wished to grant your gift to someone else?”
For Baba. “For Richard Grayson.”
“A man who has a big impact in your life. Someone who dominates most of your heart.” She seemed to smile, despite having a long snout. “I accept. Richard Grayson is a man who has saved many. Who will you choose for him?”
Damian’s mouth worked. How could he choose between Mary and John? Dick loved them both so equally, so fully, so unconditionally. He tried to recall who Dick talked about more, but how could he make that choice? How…
The dog’s eyes shone. “In honor of your noble deed and in sharing this gift with another, I will grant you a visit from two, if that is what you so desire.”
Damian prayed it wasn’t a trick, that it wouldn’t break his baba. He nodded. “It is.”
Damian had returned back from his mission with the Teen Titans earlier than Dick expected. Normally that would be caused for concern on its own and reason enough why he would return from patrol to check in on his Robin. But with Gotham PD and the rest of his Bat-team closing in on Professor Pyg and his entourage, Batman duties came first.
Until Alfred got on Batman’s private line and stressed that it was of utmost importance that Dick returned to the Penthouse at once. He even ordered Dick to put civilian clothes he’d laid out for him and to look presentable when he met them in the kitchen.
Did Talia stop by for a visit? She usually notified him.
He ended up putting Red Hood and Red Robin in charge of the raid, and returned home. If Bruce were here, Dick would have gotten chided for not following through with the mission, that the police force, that the Bat-team were counting on him to lead. If there’s anything Dick learned about being Batman these last two years, it was that there was a time to lead, and a time to delegate and trust his team.
And a time where family comes before the mission.
He wasn’t that far from the Penthouse, so he made it home within ten minutes of Alfred’s call. On the Bat-computer chair, Dick found the blue check drawstring Ames trousers and collared white shirt, folded and waiting on the cushion. He eyed the loafers he rarely wore sitting on top of the pile.
Sometimes he hated how cryptic this family could be.
He knew he would get a scolding from Alfred if he didn’t look decent, so after he dressed in the clothes Alfred provided, he fluffed up his jet-black hair that got flattened by the cowl and wiped the grime from his features.
In the kitchen, he caught Alfred and Damian speaking in hushed whispers to each other.
“Guys?” Dick called out as he approached. “What’s going on?”
Damian spun, eyes wide and licked his lips, gaze shooting toward the closed double-doors that led to the dining room. “Richard.” He drew closer to Dick, hands writhing. Oh no, what did he do? Dick braced himself, ready to do whatever damage control Damian needed him to do. “You trust me. Do you?”
Any worries Dick had zipped out of his mind. Damian needed comfort. Reassurance. Trust. “I do.”
“Trust me,” Damian said, and it almost sounded like a plea. “They’re real. They exist. It’s only for a week, well, six days and twenty hours, but it’s real.”
Dick’s heart began to pound. Damian never rambled, never stumbled over his words, unless he was truly and utterly worried about something.
“Damian.” Dick knelt on his knees, to meet Damian’s eye level. Damian had grown a couple inches since he came to the manor as a ten-year-old brat. He laid his hands on both of Damian’s shoulders. “Talk to me, buddy. What’s going on?”
“I saved a goddess on our recent Titans mission. She gave me a gift. A week with someone deceased.”
The dead. Damian knew better than to mess with the dead. Damian didn’t trust so easily either. No doubt he would’ve rejected the gift immediately once it was offered.
“I can attest to Damian’s judgement,” Alfred said. The butler gazed down at them, eyes shimmering, with a soft smile that often eased Dick’s worries. “Master Richard, I ran tests myself, it is astutely a good thing.”
“It’s only a week,” Damian reminded. “I know it’s not enough time. I didn’t think to barter with that. I apologize.”
“There’s nothing to apologize for,” Dick said. He didn’t even know exactly what Damian apologized for. Who did he bring back? His heart stuttered. Oh, no. Bruce. Was it, Bruce?
No. Bruce wouldn’t wait patiently. He would’ve already strolled out of here by now, making his presence known. Okay. A week with a dead person Damian knew. He wondered why Damian kept referring them to their pronouns instead of by name. Was he ashamed of who he brought back?
“Look at me. I trust you,” Dick said. “I believe you. I’d like to meet them.”
Alfred nodded, and went to the doors.
Dick squeezed Damian’s shoulders again and offered him a wink. “We’re the best, okay?” he whispered.
The pinched lines around the corner of Damian’s eyes soothed, and he exhaled softly. “We are.”
Dick stood, watching as Alfred opened the door. “Master Richard is ready to greet you.”
Before Dick could move, two figures stepped through the doorway, excited, eager.
His heart stopped, and breath escaped his lungs. He couldn’t feel himself standing.
It was...
“Mom? Dad?”
He had forgotten how his dad’s eyes crinkled when he smiled, how his mother’s breathing hitched before she cried. He’d forgotten the bright red and green of their leotards, the golden G proudly embolden on their chest. He’d forgotten how their presence made him feel so safe, like nothing bad would ever happen to him.
“Oh...” Mary cried out. “My little Robin.”
A startled happy sob erupted from Dick’s chest, and his legs trembled from the shock, unable to move. His parents were here. His parents were here!
Mary and John closed in the distance toward Dick and wrapped their arms around him.
“Dick,” John greeted softly. “You’ve grown, oh, you’re so beautiful, my son.”
Dick laughed, through tears, through sobs, and threw his arms around them. His right around his father, and his left around his mother. They were solid. They were real. They were here. Here. And they still loved him.
“You’re here,” Dick whispered, because he still couldn’t believe it. His legs gave out, and his body sagged to the floor. His parents caught him, and guided him down, all of them on their knees, clutching each other tightly, embracing, holding on for fear of letting go.
“We’re here,” Mary reassured. “Your son brought us to you.”
My son. Dick looked over his father’s shoulder and saw Damian watching, a single tear spilling down his cheek, smiling softly as if they were a grand scene to behold. He reached out, grabbed Damian by the scruff of his shirt and pulled him into their nest of hugs.
His heart soared as his parents shifted Damian to the center, welcoming, catching him fully, as if he were part of the Flying Graysons.
John guffawed, loudly with abandon, head throw back, shoulders shaking, and Dick watched him closely, memorizing everything, imprinting it in his brain, because he had forgotten how sweet and infectious his father’s laughter was.
Next to him, Mary beamed, watching her husband with fond affection. She glanced at Dick, shaking her head slightly, and he remembered what that look meant: can you believe this dork?
Damian stirred, shifting slightly on the cushioned patio bench as he curled deeper against Dick’s hip. Dick ran his fingers through Damian’s hair. His kiddo had a long few days, and refused to go up to bed when he kept dozing off while Dick and his parents sat out on the patio to catch up. Alfred had left to give them alone time, but did suggest a family dinner the following evening.
John wiped at his eyes. “You talked all the time about how much you wanted to fly with Superman. Remember, Mary?” John sat down in the chair across from Dick, grabbing a piece of grape from the platter Alfred left out for them on the patio table. “You would sit around and scheme about how you would route Haly’s Circus’s travel plans so we could perform in Metropolis. I never imagined you would follow through your plan in climbing the top building in the city and call out for Superman.”
Dick felt his cheeks warm, from embarrassment and jubilation, because he never thought he would get the chance to hear his parents share stories of him from his childhood as an adult. Though, sitting with them, with barely an age gap now, felt like a twist of fate, a mockery of how Dick grew, but his parents remained the same age.
“I’m glad you had enough sense to wait for him to show up before you jumped,” Mary chided softly, reaching over, and poking his thigh. “How high did he take you?”
Dick chuckled. “As high as he could without me losing air. I got above the clouds.”
“Daredevil,” John said. He tossed a grape at Mary. “He gets that from you and your side of the family.”
“What do you mean?” Dick asked. He didn’t really know much about his family, and he had made his peace a long time ago that he would never know. He couldn’t even trace his ancestry back with a DNA test. Most of it showed up inclusive.
“Your grandmother, Ana, performed a lot of motorcycle stunts,” Mary said.
“She once drove sixty-five feet over a barbed wire fence,” John added.
“I think she made that up,” Mary said. “She was also a tightrope walker. She loved being up in the air.”
“What happened to her?” Dick asked. He never met either of his grandparents.
“All my father would tell me was that she was murdered for being Roma. I was born in Paris, and my father was a Frenchman, but…I never quite knew how much hate my mother received. She did her best to shield me from all of that when I grew up.” John reached over and grabbed Mary’s hand, a strength of support.
“You never talked about her,” Dick said.
John sighed. “It was something we wanted to talk to you about when you were older.”
How many parents withheld information to shield their children as best they could from the world? Dick tried to do the same with Damian after Bruce died. How do you shield a child who had already been exposed to so much? How do you give them back the innocence they already lost? How was Dick able to find the light, the spark of enjoyment, after the death of his parents? He couldn’t remember any moment that stood out. He just remembered that he had good days and bad. He watched Damian’s chest rise and fall, steadily. Dick would be the shield between Damian and the world, no matter what the night brought them.
“I wonder sometimes if I shielded you too much,” Mary whispered.
Dick knew the truth. “I was already soaring by the time I could walk. I don’t think you shielded me. If anything, being an acrobat, everything you taught me about fear, and how to be vigilant, and how to plan a performance down to the last detail, you prepared me to be Robin more than Bruce ever did. I think you may have protected me from certain harshness, but I don’t think you ever shielded me from how dangerous the world could be.”
“Oh, you gave us quite the scare when you become Robin,” John said. He stopped and paused. “I don’t know how I know that.” He frowned at Mary.
Dick recalled their reactions to his stories throughout the night. “In everything I’ve told you guys so far, you never seemed surprised.”
“We don’t have memories of the afterlife, or even of our deaths. I think whoever brought us back took our memories as preventive means to ensure the afterlife’s secrecy,” Mary explained. “Somehow, though, most of your stories, when we hear it, it’s like, we already knew.”
John nodded, agreeing. “I know we watched you a lot at first. I know we didn’t want to leave you. We were scared for you, worried about you constantly, and we watched over you as if that could give you all the strength in the world.”
Dick recalled the first two years in the manor, of huddling under his covers, muffling his cries, wondering if his parents watched over him, wondering if they were proud, wondering…
“Eventually, we stopped watching you. I think it was time for us to move on, but I know we didn’t leave your side until we knew you would be okay,” John continued.
“I think it was when you created and joined the Teen Titans,” Mary said, gaze looking behind Dick. “I…I felt an overwhelming sense of relief and happiness when you talked about them.” She locked her gaze onto Dick’s. “They’re family.”
Dick smiled. They were. They may be scattered, in different parts of the world now, but they are and would always be family. “I have to say, you two are the most well-adjusted dead folks I’ve come across, and in my line of business, that’s saying a lot.”
John laughed. “That’s fair. Corpses are usually lived about being dead.”
“Being dead certainly has improved your humor,” Mary said, dryly—though her eyes sparkled impishly.
“I’m being dead serious,” John argued.
“Hmm-hmm.”
“Well, it could be because we’ve been dead for almost seventeen years now,” John said. “We’ve crossed over. Moved on. Accepted our fate. And we checked in on you occasionally.”
“Seventeen years?” Dick breathed out. “Wow. It…” He exhaled. “It feels like it just happened, but it also feels longer than that.”
“You’ve been through so much since then,” Mary said, voice choked.
Dick swallowed a lump. “I worried sometimes that you two would be ashamed of who I’ve become, of what I’ve become, and the things I’ve done.”
“Never,” John objected, quickly, without hesitation, as if the very idea of being ashamed of his son was abhorrent to him. “Dick, I... I admire you. For all that you’ve been through, for the tough choices and decisions that you had to make, and you did that. You are so much stronger than I ever was. And I’m so proud of you.”
Dick sniffled, and wiped at the tears slipping down his cheeks. “Dad...”
Mary came over, slipped Damian’s legs onto her lap, and pressed up against Dick’s side. John sprang for Dick’s other side, snaking his arm around Dick’s shoulders.
“We’ve always known that at your core...” Mary laid a hand on Dick’s chest. “That you were a genuinely good person who wanted to and enjoyed helping people. We may not have wished this life upon you, but our deaths transformed that core part of who you are into something so much bigger, and so much more beautiful.”
“Mom, you...”
“We would never be ashamed of you,” John stressed. “Never.”
“We love you so much,” Mary said as she cupped his cheeks. “So, so, much.”
For so long, Dick fought against that overwhelming fear that he wasn’t good enough, and never would be good enough. It was a negative belief that hovered in the back of his mind on good days, and consumed him, making him feel as if he were drowning in it on bad days.
With his parents’ words, with his face being held gently in his mother’s hands, with his father’s sturdy grip around his shoulders, that belief, that I’m-not-good-enough vanished completely for the first time.
For once, he actually believed, whole-heartedly, that he was good enough, and he held onto that positive belief tightly, and made sure to banish all doubt that his parents wouldn’t be proud of him.
Because how could he believe otherwise in their firm presence?
When Dick opened the front door, he nearly laughed out loud. Good sense and experience dealing with skittish folks held Dick’s composure. Instead, he grinned.
“Nice tie, Jay.”
Jason wore a hoodie jacket over a dress shirt and bright red tie, a similar tie to the one Dick wore two weeks ago. “Shut up,” he snapped, cheeks immediately flushing.
Tim looked like a young teen in his dress suit, even though he turned twenty a few weeks ago. “So…” he drew out, hesitance making him tug his earlobe
“Tim,” Jason warned.
But Dick waited.
Tim found the courage after several beats. “Alfred told us the whole story, but, is it... are they…” Warmth flooded Dick’s heart. Logical, detective Tim, who nearly succumbed to the irrationality of grief to bring back three people very dear to him from the Lazarus Pit was worried just as Dick was then about the dangers of reviving the dead.
“They’re real,” Dick reassured. “It’s not a trick. It’s…” Words overwhelmed him, and he just nodded as if that said it all.
Tim gasped softly, getting his answer from Dick’s facial expression. He smiled widely.
Jason did for a brief moment, before he shifted nervously on his feet. “Um, you’ve got less than a week with them. Are you sure you want us here?”
“Yeah,” Tim agreed. “You should soak up as much time as you can.”
Dick jerked his head toward the kitchen and stepped aside, holding the door wide open for them. “Get in. I want them to meet my brothers,”
Relief flooded their features, though they quickly schooled it as they shuffled in. Dick wondered why they were so nervous, but realized given their life history, parents were a scary thing to meet.
Dick closed the door, and herded them to the kitchen.
Mary and Alfred were talking at the stove, and she watched as Alfred add some spices into a wide saucepan.
Damian and John sat at the counter, picking at the goat cheese date dip Alfred made.
John glanced up and a grin electrified his features. “Ah! Jason! Tim!”
Mary spun toward them.
Dick knew what was coming. He would not regret failing to mention his father’s Italian genetics required physical greetings. He stepped to the side as John barreled forward and plowed Jason in a bear hug.
“It’s good to meet you, my boy!” John exclaimed.
Jason’s eyes widened, the nervousness quickly seeped out of him as confusion and affection replaced it. “Um…you too.” He chuckled softly and patted John’s back awkwardly like he didn’t know what to do.
John set him down and turned to Tim. “You! You’ve grown so much!” He picked Tim up, who released a squeak, and hugged him fiercely. Tim laughed and locked eyes with Dick, smiling warmly at him. Dick wanted to chide Tim that of course his parents remembered him.
Jason yelped as Mary cupped his cheeks, giving him a quick kiss on the forehead. She squeezed his hands. “Jason, sweetheart. I’m Mary. And the excited bear is John.”
Jason chuckled. “Um, it’s...” his voice cracked. “Nice to meet you.”
John stepped back from Tim and wrapped an arm around his wife. “We know what a huge part of Dick’s life you two have been, and we’re honored to meet you.”
Jason brushed that away. “Yeah. We’re...ahem, honored to meet you. You two, you...” He wiped at his eye and headed toward Alfred. “Um, Alfie, what are you cooking?”
Dick laughed at Jason’s antics to avoid emotional conversations. He joined Damian at the counter, ruffling his fingers through the kid’s hair who only Tt half-heartedly.
“Timothy…” Mary was saying, and Dick missed her kissing Tim’s forehead. “I’m so glad you found your way back to Dick. He told us how you found him and Bruce.”
Oh, Dick wished he had a camera at the rate his brothers were blushing tonight.
“Oh, um, he made quite an impression on me that day. Uh, both of you, all of you, er, with your kindness,” Tim said, stumbling over his tongue.
Dick felt Damian stiffened next to him, and he knew what was going on through the kid’s mind. He leaned in and quickly whispered to stop the doubts: “Don’t worry. You’re still their favorite.”
Damian scoffed again, but relaxed.
“If anything,” Mary teased. “You made quite the impression on him, he kept asking us for a sibling before that show.”
Tim grinned at Dick, sensing blackmail material. “Did he now?”
And like a shark rising to the bait, Mary dived right in, sharing embarrassing stories of Dick, and Tim ate it all up with glee.
Dick flicked Damian’s nose, who grumbled before returning his attention back to the dip.
John joined in on Jason and Alfred’s friendly debate on whether mushrooms tasted better cooked in butter or oil. Dick watched how easily Mary and John fitted into the family he formed after their deaths, how they welcomed everyone in it with open arms and love, how they did their best to ensure everyone felt comfortable and included. Mary guided Tim back to the counter after a few minutes and nudged Damian into the conversation.
As Tim and Damian got into a brief tiff over something Dick didn’t really care about, he caught Mary’s soft eyes, watching Dick with the same fondness he watched them, a bit of regret lingering behind the fore emotion. He knew she saw the missed opportunity of watching Dick grow up, of losing the chance to be a part of his life and share in his ups and downs, to witness how this group Dick found became a family.
He felt a hint of regret too, but he also knew the harsh truth.
He never would’ve had this family if he hadn’t lost them.
He wondered if there was a reality where Dick could’ve had both.
Mary winked, as if she also knew where Dick’s thoughts were turning, and her smile shifted, and the lingering regret vanished. In that moment, Dick never loved his mother more. Because she chose to embrace this precious moment, the brief time she would have with her son, with his family, to be alive and a part of it, and she would be grateful for every second.
He found himself stepping away from the counter and pulling her into a hug.
“I think I know where I got my strength from,” he whispered into her ear.
She held him tightly. “My little Robin, it is you who gave me strength.”
They sat around the dining room table, nursing after-dinner tea and assortments of desserts. Alfred sat at the head of the table, while Jason, Damian, and Tim sat on one side with Dick sitting between his parents on the other.
Alfred had launched a tale of what happened when he returned home from running errands once when he and Bruce first took Dick in. “To my surprise when I walked into the foyer, I saw the chandelier had crashed onto a very priceless rug. When I found Dick in his room and asked him about what happened, the boy had the gall to tell me that I should inspect for rust on all the chandeliers in our home, as for them randomly falling was not a safe and fit home for a child.”
John guffawed, smacking Alfred fondly on the shoulder. “He did not!”
“He did,” Alfred said. “And so, as per his chores, I had him inspect all the chandeliers in our home for rust.”
“This is why you don’t cross Alfred,” Tim said.
Jason and Damian murmured in agreement.
John chuckled. “He always did try to use his way with words to sneak out of trouble.”
“If you use words as a distraction, they’ll forget what the problem was in the first place,” Mary said. “Every performer knows that, it’s the best way to deal with a restless crowd.”
“Explains why he’s always rambling on at his opponents when he fights,” Jason said.
“I could not get him to shut up when we first started going out on patrols together,” Damian said.
“And god, the puns. The insufferable puns,” Tim said.
“I don’t know what you’re complaining about,” Dick objected, taking a sip of the lukewarm tea. “My puns are a delight.”
“Yes, dear, of course they are,” Mary said.
John leaned in toward Dick. “She says that to me all the time when I defend my puns to her. So patronizing.”
“They don’t appreciate them,” Dick whined.
John ruffled his fingers through Dick’s hair. “No, but don’t worry folks, they’ll groan on you.”
Dick laughed when most of the people around the table did groan at John’s terrible pun. He finished the rest of his tea when huge yawn erupted from his lips.
“My little Robin, I think it’s time for you to get some sleep,” Mary chided. “You’ve had a long day.”
He didn’t want to sleep. Not yet. He wanted to soak every second with them, but he knew if he didn’t get any sleep soon, his sleep deprivation will prevent him from fully enjoying his parents’ company.
“Okay. Okay. I’ve got to know this,” Jason said. “Why do you call him Robin?”
Mary turned to Dick, smiling fondly as she answered: “Because he’s always bobbing along like a robin.” She tapped Dick’s nose. “Because he was also so cheerful as a child, and he loved to fly. I think he spent more time in the air than walking on the ground.”
Dick felt his own cheeks warming up. He rubbed his face. “Alright. No more stories about me.”
“Oh, did I embarrass you?” Mary teased.
“Um...” Tim leaned forward on the table. “I was wondering if I could ask you guys a favor before we retired for the night. If it’s possible?”
Dick and his parents shared a look.
“Sure, Timothy,” Mary said. “What is it?”
“Could we get a performance from the Flying Graysons?” Tim asked. “Since the last one I saw...” He winced, realizing he probably shouldn’t have hinted that part.
Instead, Dick’s parents took it in stride. They both turned to Dick, and grabbed one of his hands.
“Well...” John started. “I don’t know where we can find a trapeze set-up in the dead of the night…”
“I have a set, um, down in the Batcave. If you two...wanna…”
Dick’s heart fluttered. To perform again, with his parents. Would he even remember the routine? Perhaps he should decline, and just watch his parents. What if performing with them brought back those terrible memories of the night of their fall?
Dick caught Damian’s curious features, eyes brimming with excitement. “Dick always talked about the circus and how daring the Flying Graysons were.”
Dick didn’t want to tell Damian that he mostly told all his circus day stories to him. That most people didn’t hear the detailed stories of Dick’s childhood.
Dick smiled. “You know what we say before every performance...”
“Let’s give them a show,” Mary and John finished.
Damian sat in one of the chairs that Drake had dragged over from the Bat-computer. He, Todd, Drake, and Alfred sat on the sidelines, waiting as Dick and the Graysons set up the trapeze equipment.
Everyone did their best to pretend that Dick didn’t triple-check all the equipment, did their best to pretend the reason why he did so stood next to him. Dick wore a leotard with similar colors to his Robin costume, and the colors his parents wore on theirs. John got on his best announcer’s voice and welcomed them to their show, and Damian tried not to smile at the overperformance.
It was strange watching Dick interact with his parents. Strange to see John ruffle his fingers through Dick’s hair like Dick did to his. Strange to have Mary gently kiss everyone’s forehead with the same grace that Dick kissed his. Strange to listen to John’s puns and terrible jokes and realize that he’s heard them at least once before from Dick’s mouth. Strange to listen to Mary’s sharp insight that she arrived to with the same speed that he’d seen Dick do both on and off the field.
If Dick were so much like his parents, what did that mean for Damian?
Would he be dark, brooding and emotionally distant like his father?
Would he love and protect from a distant like his mother because being too close brought danger?
He was a little afraid when Drake suggested a Flying Graysons performance. Not for him, but for Dick. He had seen the flash of panic in his partner’s eyes. For some reason, instead of telling Drake off, he found himself encouraging Dick to do it. Perhaps Damian had an urge within him to see who Dick would’ve become, what his life would’ve been like, if the Graysons hadn’t been callously murdered.
He knew that Dick had grown, that the performance he practiced to an art with his parents would be different from one catered toward a child and two adults versus three. The trio had talked for about a half hour what they would change, and pointed to various parts of the trapeze set-up, and adjusted the height of the bars. Damian knew the physics, the mathematical and intricate details that went into an acrobat performance. It wasn’t all smiles and improvisations as many thought it to be.
Improvisations were for tricks that had no danger.
Detailed plans were for performances that held many.
Perhaps that’s why some called the Graysons daring, because they foolishly believed the group were so bold. Perhaps they were, but in the sense that demanded respect.
Mary and Dick waited at the top of their ladders, Dick’s higher than hers, waiting for John to climb up and join Mary, waiting for everyone to be in perfect condition. There was no circus music. No murmurs from the crowd. No tense waiting.
Damian sat with others, all with a calm patience that often came when they waited for Dick, because they knew when he came, it would be well worth it.
Mary swung out first, moving around the trapeze bar in a fluid, entrancing motion.
Dick swung out on his, moving in a similar yet different motion that was somehow remnant of Nightwing, sparking a memory from two years ago, and Damian found himself wishing he had fought more next to Nightwing, instead of the Batman Dick had to become. Because it felt almost criminal that Nightwing had to die along with Bruce’s Batman.
Mary leapt from her trapeze, and Damian didn’t even hold his breath, because he knew with utter certainty that Dick would catch her.
John caught Mary’s empty trapeze bar which arced up to meet him.
Dick swung back to the other side, when John swung from his station, Dick whirled back with such speed that caught Damian by surprise, throwing his mother up in the air, and she spun in a somersault, with John arcing forward and catching her with one swift motion.
“Damn,” Jason exclaimed.
Damian found his heart pounding. He watched the act, in awe at how jaw-dropping and exciting, and yet beautiful all of it flowed. He was watching Dick perform in his element, utterly free, happy, bright, and so alive.
“I never understood why Dick created Robin,” Damian found himself saying as John dropped Mary on top of the ladder he jumped from. “Don’t mistake me. I understand the rationality and reasoning behind it, but I never understood why he chose something so sentimental to fight against injustice.”
“And now?” Alfred prompted gently as Dick swung higher and higher.
“Robin is Dick Grayson. It is a reminder of his past, his parents, the circus...” Damian gasped as Dick performed a quadruple somersault in the air, John catching him with a heavy smack against his wrists. That must’ve hurt. Catching a grown man spinning at eighty miles an hour.
Tim and Jason whooped.
“It’s a reminder of who he was, and who he still strives to be,” Damian finished. He always thought Robin was the sidekick to Batman, a position where one learned and grew and developed their skills under the protégé of Batman. No, the Robins that came after Dick were the ones that Batman took under. But Dick—his Robin was Batman’s partner. They learned from each other. They taught each other. Dick’s Robin was Batman’s equal.
What did that make Damian’s Robin to Dick’s Batman?
Damian didn’t want a reminder of his past, though he know it shaped much of who he was today. He didn’t become Robin because of an answer to injustice. Dick gave Damian the Robin mantle, and Damian assumed it was because he had to learn from Batman to eventually pick up the Batman mantle.
He didn’t want that now.
Two years ago. Perhaps even still a year ago, Damian wanted that.
The sight of the Flying Graysons soaring made Damian realize that a part of him strived to become like them.
He was born an assassin, born to be his father’s son, born to learn all of his father’s skills so that he would rise as a successful heir to the League of Assassins, to Ra’s Al Ghul’s empire. That was his destiny. He was born to destroy the world. It was a destiny he readily accepted when he joined his father’s side two and a half years ago. Until that destiny was ripped from his hands when Bruce died.
Dick was born to fly, and the world tried to clip his wings. Yet Dick kept swinging, and jumping, and falling.
Damian was born to clip wings, and Dick showed Damian how to fly.
Tears welled in his eyes as Damian pressed his inner need, his selfish desire, deep into his heart: his desire to be a Flying Grayson. He wanted to soar as beautifully as they did.
A knock sounded on his door. Damian glanced up from where he laid sprawled across his bedroom floor, his colored and charcoal pencils scattered around him. He set the orange pencil down on his drawing book. “You may enter.”
The door cracked open, and Damian was surprised to see Mary’s head poke in. He thought she was out with John and Dick, taking a walk.
“Damian,” she greeted. “May I join you?”
He froze. Did she want to talk? Why would she want to hang out with him? There were only three days of precious time left to spend with her son. He nodded, unable to respond verbally.
She smiled as she entered and sat on the floor across from him. “I’ve heard you’re quite the artist. Would it be okay if I drew with you?”
Damian furrowed his brows. She...wanted to draw with him? “Certainly.”
He reached over toward his bookshelf and grabbed one of the spare drawing books he had. He handed her the newer and fresher one. She took it, responding with a thank you. Mary laid on her stomach, opening the drawing book to a new page and picked up a charcoal pencil. Was Damian supposed to speak? What was he supposed to say? When Mary didn’t say anything after a couple minutes and focused instead on drawing, Damian hesitantly returned to his own work.
“Why are you here, and not…” Damian flinched. He should be polite. This was Dick’s mother. What if she told on him? He didn’t want to disappoint Dick by being disrespectful to his mother.
She smiled again, eyes still on the paper. “I wanted to spend time with you.”
“Why did you return early?” Damian asked.
“Because I wanted to spend time with you,” Dick said.
Damian didn’t know how to respond to Dick all those months ago, so he kept quiet again, this time to Mary. He continued filling in darker shades of orange on his drawing. It felt kind of nice to have a companion when he did his artwork, especially with a companion who didn’t pressure him with American social expectations of protocols and cues Damian had to perform. He was slowly learning them, but he appreciated that Mary didn’t force Damian to conform to them.
Sunlight poured through his bay window, stretching across their papers.
Damian didn’t try to sneak a look at what Mary drew. He knew the artist’s code. The artist would share their work if they wished to. They worked, each picking up a different pencil, each inspecting their work briefly before they corrected or added to it.
When the sun’s rays moved and landed on Mary’s head, Damian finally gathered the courage to ask the question he’d been wondering: “Are you disappointed?”
Mary caught his gaze and tilted her head. “In what?”
“With Richard? With...what he’d become. I’m sure it’s different than what you and Mr. Grayson expected.”
Mary thought about it, writing something down on the page she worked on. Eventually, she set her pencil down and searched Damian’s features. “When I became pregnant with Dick, I had many who thought they had well intentions tell me that I shouldn’t rise him in the circus, that I would be raising him in an unstable and dangerous environment, that I would be a terrible parent if John and I didn’t move to community where he could attend a public school and have a normal childhood.
The circus was dangerous, but we controlled the danger, and by controlling the danger, we learned how to face danger, how to handle it, and how to understand it. Where I grew up, I had faced a lot of open racism and hostility for being Roma. The circus, John, they all accepted me for who I was, and recognized me for all that I am, and it was with that family that I was able to learn how to empower myself and stand up against the world’s prejudice and hate. Dick grew up with a strong family, with the circus teaching him how to empower himself, and when he lost us, his circus family, he became a symbol of empowerment for so many others. He empowered you, didn’t he?” Her smile reflected the sunlight pouring upon her. “How could I be disappointed in him?”
How could the world take away a spirit so loving, strong, and beautiful as hers?
“Are you disappointed...” Damian couldn’t finish the question.
Mary seemed to know what he was asking. “I see a lot of myself in you. You grew up in a world where hostility and hate told you who to be. You’re learning how to be empowered. From everything Dick’s told me, and from what I can feel from watching over you, I am proud of all that you’ve overcome and learned.”
Warmth spread across Damian’s chest. He held his drawing book out to her, revealing the drawing he’d been working on. A flaming dragon with wings of a bird.
“My friend Jon told me of the Krypton myth of Flamebird, a dragon-like creature whose body is consumed with flames. Flamebird was created to burn and destroy the world, so one of the gods could remake it when he grew tired with each creation. Flamebird grew perfectly content with his role, until he found himself drawn to Nightwing, a similar dragon-like creature, who was cast out of his family and decided to use his electrifying powers to help others who couldn’t fight for themselves. Nightwing taught Flamebird that his powers could be used to help those weaker than him, and Flamebird helped Nightwing discard his dream in making his family realize that he was better than them and gave him a found family that loved him for who he was.”
“That’s a beautiful myth,” she said. “And this is a beautiful drawing.”
“Robin was a torch Dick handed to me, but Father ensured that Robin will always be tied to Batman. I have come to the realization that I want to create a new mantle. I want to create something that’s me, and yet something that also includes...”
“Dick,” Mary finished.
He wondered if it was because he knew she wouldn’t be around long, or due to her open and generous nature, or because it was Dick’s mother, whether it was one or all of the combinations, he allowed himself to express a vulnerability that normally would have taken Dick time and patient for Damian to reveal: “Am I foolish to believe that Dick thinks of me as a family? A family that he views him, you and Mr. Grayson to be?”
A startled breath exhaled from Mary’s lips. “You are part of our family. You are a Flying Grayson.” She set his drawing aside and reached out, grabbing his hand. “Dick is so fond of you. Why did you bring me and John back?”
Because I love Dick. Because family is important to him. Because I wanted to give him something to make him happy. Because he is my...
Damian averted his gaze. “I...do not know.”
“Hmm.” Mary brushed the hair from his forehead. “You are so much more like your father than you realize.”
Damian frowned. “You remember Bruce?”
Mary smiled, patiently and kind. “Oh, my sweet Robin.” She leaned forward and kissed his forehead. “So much like your baba.”
When Dick found himself crushed under the weight of living up to the Batman mantle, he would stand in front of Bruce’s memorial case and gaze at his reflection in the glass, his eyes barely passing the mouth opening of the cowl. His reflection mocked that he would never measure up to Bruce’s legacy.
Something shifted in Dick’s stomach as he saw John’s reflection shining brightly against Bruce’s memorial case. Though John only had two extra inches on Dick, John’s light stood in stark contrast to the darkness of the cowl.
He and John just returned from a walk in the gardens next to the Penthouse, and after giving him a brief tour of the Batcave, his father hovered at Bruce’s memorial for some time.
“Dad?” Dick pressed, drawing close to man.
“I wonder if I met Bruce in the afterlife, because every time I look upon this case, I have an overwhelming urge to tell you to hang up Batman’s mantle,” John said. He turned his head toward Dick, and Dick inhaled sharply at the wet eyes.
“Dad...what…is there something else?”
Dick’s heart pattered with not-good-enough-not-good-enough-not-good-enough. Had John lied that first night? Dick knew he would never grow out of Bruce’s shadows, but he didn’t need a reminder that he would never shine as bright as John’s light.
“Are you happy?” John asked.
Dick blinked, thrown off by the question.
“Being Batman,” John clarified.
“I don’t think being a vigilante is a job that’s supposed to make you happy,” Dick said. He stepped back from the memorial case and paused, sparing a quick look at his Nightwing memorial case tucked in the far corner of the Batcave.
“Do you enjoy it?” John asked, re-clarifying.
“I enjoy working with Damian,” Dick said, re-directing. “I enjoy watching him grow under Robin’s colors.”
John frowned. “You hate it.”
Dick folded his arms, feeling so open and exposed. Bruce never called him out on his redirections, never pressed, never sought the real answer. How did John read him so well? “Does it matter?” Dick snapped. “Someone has to be Batman. Gotham needs a Batman.”
“No, it doesn’t,” John said. “Gotham isn’t broken. It doesn’t need a savior.”
“Not bro...” Dick bitterly laughed. “Gotham is broken! Have you forgotten that it was its greed and corruption that murdered you and mom?”
John grimaced, and Dick’s anger suddenly deflated.
“I’m…I’m sorry,” he said. Dick didn’t want to argue with his father, not over Batman, especially not about Batman. He wanted the easy-going conversations back, and his father’s pride in him.
“Dick…” John rubbed his lips together, seemingly thinking how to phrase his next words.
Dick stepped back again. “Look, we should go get Mom...”
“Dick!”
He stopped and waited, holding his breath.
“Gotham isn’t broken,” John said. “If it was, the city would’ve fallen a long time ago. There are cracks in its foundation, in the systems, in certain people, and you can repair the cracks, but new ones will always form. You don’t need to be its savior.”
John sat down on one of the steps and patted the seat next to him. Dick wavered a moment before he took a seat next to his father.
“Before I met your mother, I was part of my family’s acrobatic team: The Daring Six. We were popular in Italy, toured a lot of European countries. We were a good team. We communicated well together, and I thought we would be a family act forever. Then my father got cancer and died quickly after he was diagnosed. I was expected to take on his role, his performances. I did for a while, but it destroyed me. I never got the chance to grieve him, and never got the chance to figure out my identity. I was trapped in my roles: on the team and in the family.”
Dick could relate, he knew that feeling, losing his identity in who he was as Batman, because he couldn’t exactly make Batman into his own vision. Batman was a role, a constant performance, and while Dick loved performing, it wasn’t something he could perform every night. “You were the oldest, right?” Dick asked.
John nodded. “It’d been brewing in the back of my mind for a few years, to quit the Canarino family team, to travel to America, to create my own team. I wanted to focus more on the trapeze act. I loved flying.”
“How were you able to do it?”
“Haly’s Circus has a few international shows, and when they came in town, Haly approached me, said he was looking for a few acrobats to join his team, that I could have creative license and perform whatever I wanted. I turned him down. I regretted it the moment I did. I still don’t know what caused me to finally stand up for myself, there was no big light-bulb moment. I just woke up one day, and I was done. I stood up to my family, walked away, and tracked Haly’s Circus down, and Haly took me in.”
“You walked away?” Dick gapped. “Like that?” He knew John left Italy and his family behind, but he never knew his father walked away.
“Sounds simple, but it was the hardest thing I ever did. I felt guilty, and my family let me know their opinions of my sudden departure. They called me selfish, told me I broke the family, and they hoped I would fail in America.” John looked at Dick. “I carried a lot of guilt for many years because I felt like I was a selfish man. Meeting your mother, having you, made me realize that I was not put on this planet to save my family. I was put on this planet to enjoy my life. When I enjoyed my life, when I got to find out what my real identity was, that was when I was able to flourish, when I was able to help people more meaningful than I ever did before.”
“Did that guilt ever go away?” Dick asked.
“It did. Took time, but it did. It would resurface every once in a while, and I would find myself missing my family, but I never once regretted walking away. I never once regretted giving myself top priority.” John reached over and squeezed Dick’s knee. “Look, I know legacy is important to you. It was to me. Even when I walked away though, I carried my family’s legacy with me, it only changed and blossomed into something new. The legacy of the Flying Graysons lives within you, it blossomed into Robin and transformed into Nightwing. Allow our legacy, and your legacy, to continue to grow.”
Dick tried to think of what had been brewing in the back of his mind the last two years as Batman, as a guardian and father, as an older brother.
“Batman is gone, Dick. His legacy will continue, and it will change. Through you, the boys, the other vigilantes, and through the citizens of Gotham.”
“Can I really retire Batman so easily?”
“It won’t be easy.” John nudged Dick’s shoulder. “The simplest things can be the hardest.” He searched Dick’s features. “Son, you are not here to be Gotham’s savior, or the world’s savior. You are here to enjoy your life. I want you to enjoy your life. I know it won’t be easy, because even when we were the Flying Graysons, we had to work hard. We had to be diligent, and plan, and ensure our safety when we flew with danger.”
Dick understood. “But it was fun. We enjoyed it. I enjoyed it. I had the best childhood. It was one of the happiest times of my life.”
“I know it wasn’t an easy childhood either.”
“No.” Especially after they died, but even with Bruce, the earlier years of being Batman and Robin, they were the best. He tried to think why those years were the best. Bruce had often called those years simpler times, but listening to John made Dick realize why. Because despite the pain, the grief, the anger, and need for revenge and justice, Dick truly enjoyed being Robin.
“Ease up on yourself, Dick. You place way too much pressure on your shoulders.”
Dick thought about retiring the Batman mantle, thought about those who would try to pick it up and claim it for themselves, thought about Gotham succumbing into chaos, of all the people he would let down. “How…” Dick breathed out. “Where did you find the strength to walk away? To let your family and so many people down?”
“I didn’t find it,” John said. “I just realized it was inside of me all along.”
Dick looked at his father, who gazed upon him with no judgement, no pleading features, just love and understanding.
“Remember...” John winked. “You have more strength than I do.”
Dick found himself rolling his eyes, chuckling in spite of himself. “I think you hold me way high in regard.”
“Nah, that’s your mother.”
Dick laughed at that.
“I’m not expecting you to walk away overnight. I just…I want to remind and encourage you to be happy. Life’s too short, Dick. You know that.”
“I know. I think I’m more scared of letting Damian down. He came to Gotham because of Batman, because of Bruce. He stayed and learned from me because I was Batman. That’s Damian’s legacy.”
“Have you asked him that?”
“Bruce was his father. That’s all Damian ever talked about growing up to be. Taking up the mantle of Batman.”
John rubbed his lips together, giving Dick a strange look. “Did Damian tell you how we came back?”
“He saved a dog that was a goddess in disguise, and she offered to bring you two back for a week.”
“She offered to bring back one person that Damian knew. Essentially, she offered to bring Bruce back.”
“What?”
“Damian asked if he could use his gift for you.”
That...why? Why would Damian pass up a chance to learn about his father? “I...”
“People change. Legacies change.” John stood and pulled Dick onto his feet. He led his son to the memorial glass case that held his Nightwing armor. “Your greatest strength is the ability to adapt and change. You constantly look at yourself in your reflection, to see who you could be, how you could be better, where you could flourish, and you change. You shifted from being a Grayson, to being Robin, to being Nightwing, to being Batman. Not many have the courage to change, to save themselves.”
Dick stared at his reflection in the glass, how his eyes matched evenly with the rimmed vibrant-blue domino mask.
“Have you ever thought that perhaps you may have passed on that legacy to Damian?”
Dick looked at John’s reflection hovering behind his shoulders, smiling proudly.
“Have you ever thought that perhaps Damian might want to live up to your legacy now?”
Dick reflected upon John’s words the remaining of the day. He didn’t speak at dinner, listening to his parents tell stories to Jason, Tim, and Alfred. He pushed the food around his plate with his fork, heavy thoughts swirling around him.
Damian was quiet too, sitting in between John and Mary, scowling at his plate at if it offended him.
“Master Damian, is the food not to your liking?” Alfred asked, dabbing the corners of his mouth with his napkin.
Damian glanced up, eyes slightly widening as the attention turned on him. He frowned. “May I be excused?”
“We have guests. Do not be rude to them.”
Damian turned his gaze onto Dick’s, pleading. A nervousness settled into Dick’s stomach. Something bothered his son.
“Go ahead,” Dick said.
Damian tossed his napkin onto his seat when he left, sparing no one another look.
Dick watched Damian depart, gaze lingering on the door Damian exited. Did Damian need time to himself to collect his thoughts or could Dick talk to him now? He was still learning the delicate balance of when Damian needed space and of when Damian needed to talk.
Jason mumbled next to him, and the conversation picked up between him and Tim.
Mary caught his attention. “Go to him,” she whispered.
What did she know?
She smiled encouragingly.
John grabbed her hand that rested on the table and squeezed it.
Dick left without a word, from the murmurs of confusion from his brothers, and bounded up the stairs toward Damian’s room. Damian wasn’t in, but the window was opened.
If Dick had passed on some of his legacy to Damian, then… He slipped out of the window, and found Damian sitting at the edge of the ledge, legs dangling from the roof. Damian didn’t acknowledge Dick’s presence, but he noticed the shoulders tensing as Dick took a seat next to him.
They sat for a while, staring at Gotham’s city lights.
Damian hated small talk, hated when Dick beated around the bush before he asked what he came to know. Damian sometimes needed directness and bluntness.
“You brought my parents back, and not your father,” Dick said. He watched Damian closely, wanting to read everything in the boy’s body language for his answer. “Why?”
Damian’s shoulders pinched further back. His clenched fists trembled. Was he scared of Dick? He shouldn’t be.
Dick reached out, laying a hand on Damian’s, like he saw John do with his mother’s mere moments ago. “Damian?”
The shoulders relaxed, and Damian shifted his torso toward Dick. He jutted his chin forward, strong, proud, and honest in his answer: “My father is already here. I didn’t need a visit.”
A new overwhelming emotion surged through Dick, and it encouraged him to pull Damian in toward him. The younger boy pressed his nose into Dick’s chest, clutching tightly the edge of his shirt as Dick wrapped his arms around him. “You…you are the greatest son a father could ever ask for.”
Damian’s breath hitched. “You...you’ve never called me your son out loud before.”
“I’ve thought it three months after I became your guardian,” Dick said. He rested his chin in Damian’s hair. “I didn’t want to say it out loud because I was terrified to taking Bruce away from you, because I didn’t want you to think I was replacing him.”
“You couldn’t replace something I never had.”
Dick’s heart broke for Damian. What would his life, their lives, be like if Bruce had lived? He didn’t dwell long on that. He learned a long time ago not to linger on what-ifs.
“I need you to know...” Dick said. “That I may not have brought you into this world, but I would choose you as my son, over and over. You understand me?”
Damian wetly gasped.
“I love you. I hope you realize how happy you make me.”
Damian’s second gasp turned halfway into a surprised sob. “I don’t understand. Your parents keep saying they love me, but they don’t even know me. I haven’t shown them what I’m capable of.”
“You showed them your heart,” Dick said. “That’s all they needed to see.”
“And you…do you...”
“I’ve loved you long before you gave me the gift of reuniting with my parents, and I’ll continue to love you long after that, Babybird. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Even...” Damian’s nose whistled as he sniffled. “Even if I don’t want to be Robin anymore…”
Dick hugged him harder. “You can be whoever you want to be. I will support you, no matter what.”
“You don’t even know what I want to be.”
“I know you, Damian. That’s all I need to know.”
“I want to be a Grayson,” Damian muttered. Then he stiffened. He immediately pulled away from Dick, wiping angrily at his tears. “Forgive me for my moment of weakness. I...”
He hated how Damian was still hard on himself for his emotions, for expressing his wants and his vulnerabilities.
“I wanted to formally adopt you on your last birthday. I drew up the adoption papers, and I…”
Damian froze.
“I got cold feet. You had talked proudly of your Al Ghul’s heritage, of Wayne’s heritage, and how proud you were of your lineage, and I didn’t want to take that away from you. I didn’t...” I didn’t feel like I had anything to offer you.
Damian glanced down at his lap. “Mother visited me earlier that morning, at school. She…talked about the coming-of-age ritual that the Al Ghuls often performed, how I had a year to prepare for it. She talked proudly of her family and what she knew of Father’s. Proud. Noble. Strong. Intelligent. She...” Damian folded his hands together, knuckles turning white. He continued to stare at his lap. “She called you a slur, as if your heritage were something shameful, that your blood was less.”
He and Talia had peculiar relationship, often difficult, but she allowed Damian to stay in Gotham, because she didn’t trust the League of Assassins, and she wanted Damian to become stronger and a better fighter. He knew she had a low opinion of his background, but she seemed to respect his intelligence and fighting abilities. He didn’t know if she would respect him adopting her son.
“I admit I grew ashamed for how much I respected you, and tried to hold onto my pride of my bloodline,” Damian said. “I…I must admit I had selfish reasons in bringing your parents back.”
“Selfish?” Dick repeated, not believing it.
Damian lowered his head, chin touching his chest. “I wanted to know your parents, to see for myself if my mother’s words were true, to rid this pathetic childish wish inside of me.”
“What wish is that?”
It took several moments before Damian gathered the courage to lift his chin and meet Dick’s gaze with wet eyes. “That I was of your bloodline.”
“Damian...”
“Your parents...” Damian swallowed. “Your bloodline is love. Strength. Adaptability. Perspicacity. Growth. Your bloodline doesn’t strive on keeping the status quo, doesn't strive on power and longevity. You thrive under pressure. You don’t become powerful by asserting fear. You grow powerful by accepting fear. You’re…” Damian’s throat worked, and he couldn’t continue.
Dick waited a few beats more before he grabbed Damian’s cheeks, ensuring that the boy met his eyes and knew how serious and how much he meant his words. “You may not have my bloodline, but you inherited all of those Grayson traits. You’ve changed so much, Damian. You’ve overcome all that you were told and expected to be to blaze your own trail. That is what it means to be a Grayson.”
Damian smiled. “I learned from my baba.”
And suddenly, Dick knew what his father meant by realizing Dick had the strength inside him all this time to do what he wanted. “I’m done being Batman.”
Damian’s breath caught in his throat.
“I want to be Nightwing again.” He lowered his hands from Damian’s cheeks and grabbed the boy’s hands. “I want to adopt you, if that is something you would like. But no matter what, I will always be your baba, no matter what any paper says.”
“I know Nightwing is a solo vigilante, but would he like a partner?”
Dick grinned. “Always.”
Damian matched Dick’s grin. “I have some ideas.”
“I would love to hear them.”
Damian’s grin turned shy. “Do you think your parents would mind if I accepted the name Grayson?”
Happiness electrified Dick’s skin and he picked Damian up, spinning him around on the roof. Damian smacked Dick, ordering him to put him down. When Dick did, Damian tried hard to school his bright, smiling features into indifference.
“Damian. They would be so honored.”
Damian’s smile grew.
They celebrated the signing of Damian’s adoption papers with Mary, John, and Dick teaching Damian, Jason, and Tim the Flying Grayson trapeze routines. They worked on it most of the day, and Dick enjoyed watching Damian act like a normal twelve-year-old boy. He was surprised when he heard Damian cackling when he got a routine down to perfection with his parents.
Jason grinned from the bottom and shook his head. “Little shit is going to grow up to be a nightmare like you.”
“He’s already a nightmare,” Tim objected, bouncing on his heels, waiting for his turn in the air. “More than Dick.” When Damian reached the ladder and laughed at something John said, Tim rushed for the left ladder, scrambling up to the top.
Jason folded his arms and took a step closer to Dick. “Your parents are good people.” He paused, licking his lips. “Were good people.”
Dick smiled up at them. “They were.”
“I think I understand you a little better now.”
Dick raised a brow, glancing at Jason. “What do you mean?”
“Why family’s so important to you. Why you fought so hard to reform me.”
Dick rubbed the back of his neck. “I didn’t reform you, Jason. You did that all on your own.”
“Maybe so. But it helped that you did it because you believed in me, not because out of some innate need to save everyone.”
Dick remembered all too well the first few months of his time as Batman, fighting against Jason. It took some time to drill into Jason’s head that Dick genuinely wanted to help him, and for Jason to ask for help. There wasn’t even a grand moment that led up to Jason’s change. What happened was that Dick opened the door one day with Jason standing outside. He asked for help and Dick answered with: “What do you need?”
“Your parents don’t even know me, and they love me. It’s…” Jason unfolded his arms and shoved his hands into his hoodie’s pocket. “Weird.”
Jason and Damian would be more alike than they would like to think.
“They know you. They’ve watched you,” Dick said. “They just don’t remember knowing you.”
“Maybe so, but…” Jason gestured to Mary and John, setting up the trapeze bars. “Who loves unconditionally like that?”
Dick threw his arms around Jason’s shoulders. “Are you having an existential crisis right now?”
“A little bit!”
Damian joined them, and gave one look at Jason. “What’s wrong with Todd?”
Dick laughed and pulled Damian in for a hug. “We don’t have time to get into that.”
“Hey!” Jason cried out.
On the last day, all Dick wanted to do was hold his parents with all of the remaining time he had left and never let them go.
But he knew he had to. They moved on. Their time here had passed.
They didn’t belong here, and, rationally, Dick knew that they had to go back, but his heart yearned for them to stay, to never leave him again. The child in him begged for more time, begged for more hugs and more love, and more support, more jokes, and all the more memories that they could make.
Life wasn’t fair.
Dick knew he should be grateful. Not many got an opportunity to have a visit from their deceased loved ones. And Dick would cherish these precious moments for the rest of his life. Cherished what he always wished for: adult memories of his parents, and now he could clearly remember what they looked like again without help from old photos and videos.
Dick sat on the patio bench, Mary on one side, John on the other, cuddling together like old times, when they built a nest in their mobile home and cuddled together during rainy days.
“I don’t want to leave you,” Mary said.
“I know,” Dick said. “I don’t want you to either.”
It relieved him, that his parents wanted to stay as much as Dick wished them too. He knew they knew they had to leave. He could see the acceptance in their features. They would do the right thing because that’s where Dick learned it from.
“Promise me that you will try your best to ensure you don’t join us anytime soon,” John said.
Dick would make sure Damian had a father for as long as he could. It was a promise he solemnly swore to himself when he signed the papers, hell, even when he took Damian under his wing as Robin.
“I promise,” Dick whispered.
Damian joined them later in the morning, drawing book tucked under his arm.
Dick gestured with his head for him to join them.
His son nestled in between him and Mary, and Dick pressed further against John to make room. They didn’t really talk much the rest of the morning. They watched the clouds in the sky, listened to the birds chirp and titter around the bird feeder, they watched the sun crawl up a little too fast across the sky.
Alfred joined them, with lunch snacks and Earl Grey. He sat in the cushioned chair across from them, sneaking a photo when he thought they all weren’t looking.
Dick never felt compelled to start a conversation, they said everything they needed to say. Often times, all the words that needed to be said could be filled in the silence among each other’s presence. All Dick wanted was more time with the ones he loved. He wanted one more day with his parents. And even on his last, he wished for one more.
He vowed to himself that from this day forth he would do what his father suggested and begin to enjoy his life. He already given the world enough. Sacrificed enough.
Didn’t Dick deserve to spend time with the ones he loved that were still alive? Though Dick joked Alfred may outlive them all, didn’t Alfred deserve to spend time with his boys without the constant worrying and fretting of their vigilante life? Didn’t Dick and Damian deserve more time together going on adventures, exploring new things, and deepening their bond?
John had a point. Gotham didn’t need a savior. There were already so many people helping and fighting to change the city, to make it better. Who was Dick to say that only he could be the one to save Gotham?
His legacy wasn’t about being Batman.
Dick Grayson’s legacy was about changing and adapting who you are, to build connections, to be there for the ones you love, and now...it would also be—to enjoy life.
John brushed the hair from Dick’s brows and kissed his forehead. He smiled, eyes crinkling.
Dick leaned against his father’s bigger frame, and looped his arms around him.
Next to him, Damian burrowed deeper against Mary as she combed her fingers through his hair. She caught Dick’s gaze and smiled fondly. “My Robins,” she mouthed affectionately.
When the strange scrawny dog appeared at the stroke of midnight, Dick watched them hug Damian and Alfred goodbye, and the need to hold tightly onto them took over. He wanted to get on his knees and beg. Don’t go. Don’t leave me again.
He wanted to bargain with the goddess.
Dick brushed the tears from his eyes, as Mary and John allowed theirs to fall freely.
Damian and Alfred didn’t look much better, quickly losing their composure.
Mary squeezed Dick’s hands. “At least we’ve got a proper goodbye this time.”
Dick sniffled, shaking his head because he didn’t want to say goodbye again, properly or not. “I love you.” She hugged him.
Dick released a wet sob. “I love you too.”
John wrapped his arms around Dick and Mary. “You’re so loved. Never forget that.”
Dick held onto them, clutching desperately. Let go. Let go. You have to let go. More tears dripped from his eyes as he released his arms, stepping back from his parents. Tell them. “Thank you. For everything. For being my parents. For teaching me to fly. For...” His voice choked.
They smiled, cheeks wet.
“Keep flying, my little Robin,” Mary said. She turned and cupped Damian’s chin. “You too, sweet Robin.”
Damian’s lips quivered and he nodded.
“Take care of my boys?” John asked Alfred as they shook hands.
Alfred wiped his nose with his handkerchief. “Always, Mr. Grayson.”
John wrapped an arm around Mary, and they continued to smile reassuringly as Dick broke apart, grief pouring out of him, cries slipping from his throat, nose growing stuffy.
“I love you both,” Dick said. “I…”
Light filled his parents, sparkling, beautiful, like the sun, only brighter and more golden. It broke apart into flittering orbs before his parents and the goddess disappeared.
Dick dropped to his knees, unable to hold back the heavier sobs.
Damian rushed for him. “I’m sorry, Baba. I’m so sorry.”
Dick shook his head. “No, no. Don’t.” He hugged his son. “You gave me the greatest gift of all. Thank you.” His chest trembled. “Thank you.”
Damian squeezed him back.
He would be okay. The grief reopened, and it felt like he lost his parents all over again, but he would mend. He wouldn’t trade in that week for anything else. Time moves on. But this time, he didn’t lose everything when his parents left him the first time.
This time he gained something.
He remembered who he once was.
And who he wanted to be again.
SIX MONTHS LATER
Dick slipped the blue finger-striped, black gauntlets on, wiggling his fingers as he grinned in delight. Oh, how he missed being Nightwing. He stepped up to Batman’s memorial case, where Dick’s version of the cowl hung within. He couldn’t see his reflection, only the bright lights of the Batcave. Between his Batman’s memorial case and Bruce’s was a framed drawing: one that Mary had drawn of two robins, the bright round colorful United Kingdom bird, and the darker, redder American bird. She had scrawled underneath the birds: Fly my little and sweet Robins.
“Flamebird!” Dick called out to the dressing rooms. “Reds are waiting on us.”
Nightwing and Flamebird.
Krypton legends state that each time the cycle is renewed, and the dragons are reborn, love will bring them together again.
He held onto that, because love was what brought Damian to him.
And love will bring him back to his parents someday, when it was time for a new cycle.
Damian stepped out of the dressing room—his new armor and boots were black, where his shoulder blades and the bird emblem on his chest glimmered with orange-red, like flames. The hoodie-cape draped from his shoulders were of the same orange-red color. His son beamed, the corner of his smile reached the edge of his black domino mask. “Tt. We can make them wait a little longer. The party doesn’t start until the guest of honor arrives.”
Dick laughed, pleased with Damian’s quip.
“Do you want to take the Birdmobile, or...” Dick unhooked out his grapple gun. “Do you want to fly tonight?”
Damian smirked as he pulled out his own. “Race you?”
“Cute that you think you can beat me,” Dick teased.
They rushed toward the elevator that would lead them to the top of the Penthouse roof.
Nightwing and Flamebird were making their debut tonight.
It was only fitting that they flew.
Mom and Dad would be proud, Dick thought.
Because the Flying Graysons legacy continued.