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Dick could see her breathing just barely.
Her limbs were twisted, body arched where she'd fallen on top of his father, but her ribs more than her chest spasmed every couple of seconds as blood trickled down the side of her chin. Her eyes were unseeing, glazed over as in death, but Dick was certain.
She wasn't dead.
"Mom!" Dick shouted.
He reached and reached for her, but the police officer standing between them scooped him up in a practiced move.
Dick squirmed and cried, managing just barely to escape, but his small fingers had just grazed his mother's wrist when he was caged again. Strong arms lifted him into the air even as he screamed "Mom!"
Her eyes flickered towards him just barely, rib cage seizing fast and slight even as the officer carried him away from her. "No one could have survived that, son. I'm sorry."
"But my mom -" Dick gasped out.
"They wouldn't have wanted you here for this." He continued, grip tightening even as Dick's breathing sped up and his efforts to escape became desperate. "Trust me. I'd never want my kid to - to see me like that. You deserve better."
"Let me go!" Dick cried, but he could hear the rustle of the tent as his mother's misshapen hand twitched towards him. "Please! Mom! Mom!"
The curtain closed.
Just like that.
Dick never told anyone about that night, about the way he'd seen the strain in her broken body, in the inhuman seizing of bone and muscle, in the way her hand had failed to reach for him but had tried -
He hadn't seen his parents again, buried as they had been when he'd been locked away like an inconvenient pet, a forgotten relic.
Here in this cell lies the last remnants of the Flying Graysons. May he be the end. Dick mused to himself for the first time as they'd been lowered to the ground, eyes locked on the paint peeling off the ceiling above him.
He'd think it over and over through the years.
He'd think it after arguments with Bruce and in the hospital, sitting with friends who didn't know him and friends who did, with aspiring heroes who looked down on him and up to him, in training grounds and apocalypses and terrifying battles, and he spent the whole night before meeting his replacement Robin thinking over and over May he be the end. May he be the end. May he be the -
He pulled himself together before he went to see the kid, convinced he really was dead.
It was the third time Nightwing and Robin had been out together that Robin had managed an impressive flip before landing on a behemoth of a man with a machete. The weapon had slipped from his hand as he'd hit the ground like a tub of lard, Robin balancing on his back. "See that? Did you see? Not so bad after all, am I?"
Robin had grinned, practically bouncing to Nightwing.
Nightwing meant to say Not bad. If you keep it up, maybe you'll be able to add another flip in -
Nightiwng actually said "I'm not the last Flying Grayson after all."
Robin froze, proud grin slipping into an uncomfortable, wide-eyed stare.
And that look - it reminded Nightwing of Robin, of being Robin before he'd been Robin - His mother's little bird -
"She was alive, you know. When I last saw her." Nightwing admitted.
Robin looked too afraid to ask who, so Nightwing turned his back on the boy and disappeared into the night.
Bruce tried to have a conversation with Dick the next time he saw him.
Dick walked right past him, pretending he couldn't hear him.
Nightwing bounced between the Titans and Robin, usually pretending Batman didn't exist.
The only exception was Jason's birthday.
Dick, Bruce, Alfred, and Jason sat at a corner table in the littlest shop known to man, each with ice cream piled in front of them. Dick was still baffled on how Jason had managed to convince Alfred to come along, silently theorizing in his head as he watched his Superman ice cream slowly drip more and more down his small cup.
"And then she said she wasn't going to read it! She isn't going to read The Outsiders of all books. We literally have to. I don't know how she thinks she's getting out of it. She's crazy!" Jason was saying, gesturing wildly with a spoonful of something drowned in fudge.
"Not everyone is as excited about schoolwork as you are, Jaylad." Bruce smiled, eyes crinkling in the corner like Dick could vaguely remember his own father's eyes doing in the last year before -
"Though they should. It's a wise man who seeks out learning, Master Jason." Alfred stated, primly sipping on his milkshake.
"You liked English, didn't you, Dick? You weren't one of those dumbass - Err, uh, I mean - I, uh - " Jason cut himself off, eyes jumping from Dick to Alfred as his face flushed red everywhere except for the smudge of vanilla ice cream on the corner of his lip.
"Stay golden, Ponyboy." Dick winked.
Bruce chuckled, eyes glittering as Jason squawked in confusion -
Dick sat by Jason's grave, utterly still. He knew he should leave, that Kori was waiting by the cemetery gates like a perfect beam of sunshine whilst the world lost more and more of the warmth that Jason could no longer feel.
But Dick couldn't. His fingers fisted in the dirt that had laid there, cold for ages before Dick had even known that -
"Here lies the last remnants of the Flying Graysons. May he be the end." Dick whispered, horror slinking like mud through his veins. "The end was supposed to be final for me - just me. I didn't mean the last Grayson, not the last to live. I didn't. When I called you a Grayson, I didn't mean - I didn't. I didn't mean it. I promise I didn't. I meant - I meant that I wanted to be the end of the suffering, the death, the end of our fucked-up story, but now - Did I curse you? Do I have to be the last Grayson - the only Grayson?"
There was no response.
Dick raised his hand, opening his palm to watch the dirt trickle past his stained fingertips.
And it was there, trapped under the bright sky and the muddy ground in that far too bright cemetery that Dick froze.
"You are dead, aren't you?" Dick asked, voice suddenly distant. "My mom . . ."
She had dead eyes, but she'd tried to reach for him.
She'd reached for him.
"Are you there, Jason?" Dick whispered.
Before Dick could do anything - could even think to do anything, be it as drastic as clawing at the ground until his fingernails peeled back or subtle as pressing his palm against that awful, cold stone, Kori softly drifted to him. "Dick. It's time."
Dick swallowed. "Right. Of course."
Kori frowned, her warm hand resting on his raven locks. "If you'd like to stay longer -"
"No." Dick managed. "No. It's okay. Let's go."
She frowned, lips parted to offer him time that he hadn't been able to have with Jason while he'd been alive, but Dick spun on his heel and turned his back on the grave.
The grave.
Graves weren't for the living, after all.
Dick closed his eyes.
Jason is dead. Dick thought. Robin is dead.
But what if he's not? Dick thought as he faced down a petty thief.
He has to be. Dick thought as he and Kori set up a picnic for two.
What if he's alive down there? Dick thought as a small boy walked away from his apartment door, the name Robin on his lips.
He would have died by now. Dick thought as his team defended the world again, side by side with the Justice League.
But what if there were a miracle? Dick thought as he trained the new Robin.
Haven't you quit believing in miracles by now? Dick thought, painted in blood, as he watched Batman resuscitate the Joker.
How could I ever stop believing in miracles? Dick thought as he kissed Kori's eyelids.
Mom was alive. Dick thought as the sun gleamed behind Superboy Prime's form in his mind's eye, orders already forming on his tongue.
Mom was alive. Dick thought as he walked into the night.
Mom was alive. Dick thought and didn't stop thinking.
The shovel was heavy in Dick's grip, mud and muck splattered and smeared across his skin. He hefted it up, tossing more weight aside as he dug further and further down towards hell. A cool wind caressed the hot skin against the back of his neck, and he breathed out a soft sigh.
Perhaps he should have been more disturbed, more afraid as he unearthed what was more than likely a corpse, but something within him felt at peace -
More at peace than he had been in a long time.
Maybe it's a second chance. He thought.
But then he heard it. A scratching against wood, a skittering -
Rats. Dick thought.
But then he heard it again. A bang, a muffled whimper -
I'm not the last Flying Grayson after all. Dick had thought back then and as he threw aside the shovel, dropping to his knees as he scooped dirt away.
"Jason! I'm here. It's okay. Stay still." Dick called.
For just that moment, his words overcame the awful clawing noises, but as soon as the night's emptiness returned, so did Jason's desperate clawing against his coffin.
He must've gotten through the fabric already. Dick thought. His fingers -
"Jason, wait. I'm almost there!"
Again, the clawing stopped only to start again as soon as Dick stopped talking.
Something within him softened, not desperate or afraid but fond as he thought of Superman ice cream dripping on the table, of a little Robin one flip short, of his mother's broken hand twitching towards him as if she wanted to reach out to her baby bird one last time -
"It's okay, Jason. I'd be scared, too, if I were trapped under there all alone, but here's the secret. You're not actually alone. I died, too, you know. I've died and died and died with my family and my friends and of course, I died with you. I've been down there with you all this time, so you're not alone. You don't have to keep trying to escape, because I'm here to pull you out." Dick grinned as he unearthed part of the latches to the coffin, mouth running even as his fingers began to crack and bleed in Jason's place. "I think I died in the book. Do you remember that book? You were about to read The Outsiders in school. Or maybe you started it, though that usually meant you'd finished it. You must not have read it too closely, though, because you weren't supposed to die in the fire. Remember, Jason? You're supposed to live. Next time, you'll have to study closer."
With that, Dick threw open the coffin, only a little soil spilling through as Jason's body was revealed.
He shivered, eyes blown wide as he reached for Dick. Bloodied fingertips, little pieces of thread still pressed into the broken skin from the coffin, gripped at Dick's legs desperately. Jason swayed almost drunkenly as he tried to pull himself up by his slack hold on Dick.
A smile, tight and somehow overly bright, pressed into his cheeks as he lifted Jason into his arms.
Jason pawed at his face, a single tear slipping down his cheek. ". . . ay . . . nnn . . . las . . . not . . . las . . ."
Dick's smile softened. "I'm glad you're still here, Robin."
The last person Dick expected to run into in the dark night was Talia.
The two stood at odds, staring at one another - or they would be if Talia's eyes hadn't locked onto Jason's still form as he let out little, heaving breaths, occasional almost words disappearing into the chilled night air.
"I can help him." she said.
Dick's eyes narrowed. "You didn't before."
"He wasn't alive before." she volleyed.
Dick raised an eyebrow. "He was alive last I saw him."
"That doesn't mean much." Talia frowned.
"Doesn't it?" Dick argued.
She frowned harder. "I can help him. I can help you."
"What's your price?" Dick asked.
She smiled.
It was an awful thing, the way Jason screamed his way out of the pit. Dick thought that was price enough to pay.
Ra's al Ghul disagreed.
"Your target is -"
Dick smiled. "Ah, ah. I'm an attack dog, not an executioner."
The assassin huffed, fury in his eyes as he went to backhand Dick, but he simply leaned out of the way, spine bending in a way that would have impressed the aged man before him if it didn't infuriate him so much. "I gave you your orders -"
"And they don't align with the deal I made with the devil."
"I order you -"
"No. No, you don't." Dick interrupted. "Now excuse a moi as I go speak with management."
"Impudent boy -" the man snarled, drawing his sword. However, before the blade could even escape its sheath, Dick flipped backwards and kicked the handle of the sword right back down, uncaring as the man cried out in pain as his hand crunched beneath the weight.
"Impudent is right." Dick grinned.
Dick's deal was simple. For as long as Jason stayed to recover, Dick stayed, too, to earn their keep.
And Dick worked.
He scrubbed pots and pans, boiled rice and vegetables and steamed rich meats while the cook whacked his hands with a spoon, trained the younger assassins, sharpened swords and knives, sewed the tiniest of rips in damaged uniforms and gear, and slipped into the night to steal and blackmail and scout -
But never to kill.
And when he came back, he dodged clawing hands and wicked attacks, weak as they sometimes were. He dealt with bite marks and heaving sobs and hugs that sometimes turned into nails gorging into his back, and he learned to deal with slow coherency - with the reintroduction to his brother.
(And sometimes, he had to pretend like it didn't make him want to kill, ache for broken knuckles and that horrible, guttural noise that he'd once ripped out of the Joker with his bare hands -)
"What's wrong with you? You know that clown is better off dead! You know it!" Jason snapped. "You used to hate Bruce more than anything, but now you're defending him!"
"I didn't hate Bruce." Dick disagreed.
Jason snorted. "It sure seemed like it."
"I didn't hate Bruce." Dick repeated. "I just wanted something he couldn't give."
Jason's knuckles went white as he clutched the blanket beneath him. "He could do this. He could."
Dick's lips pressed tightly together, and he couldn't help but think about Tim - The little Robin he'd had to leave behind. His bright laughter, his clever eyes, his determined stance -
Dick prayed Jason never learned about him even as the younger's hands clasped on either side of his ears, anger beginning to rip through his throat -
"He's not a good man." the elder before Dick noted softly.
"I'm not going to kill him." Dick said as the two stood together, though Dick's eyes stayed on Jason where he rested back against a pillar, head tilted to the side as a young serving girl chattered at him. The teen had been having a good day, only erupting in inexplicable violence once.
It was good for him to talk to kids his own age -
(Even if Dick wasn't far, was never far when Jason was out of their room -)
"He's a very bad man indeed." continued the elder as if Dick hadn't spoken, voice almost educational rather than pushy. He could've been talking about the constellations or the stars in the night sky rather than trying to push Dick into committing murder.
Dick didn't reply.
He didn't need to. He'd said his piece.
"See, he had little Robins, too." the elder said as Jason snorted at something the girl said, trying to fight the smile attempting to upturn the corners of his lips. "He liked them very much. He'd give them fountains to bathe in and seed to eat, and he'd use that as justification as he petted their wings and plucked their feathers. Those poor birds. They might escape his cage, but it's hard to tell if they'll ever be able to fly again."
Dick stayed very still.
Very, very still.
Jason let out a loud laugh, and the girl giggled with him. Bright and happy as if nothing bad had ever happened to him, Jason grinned at Dick.
It was hard not to kill him.
It was too hard not to kill him.
Jason snuffled in his sleep, sprawled across the bed in their room as Dick wrote and wrote. The flickering flame cast just enough light for Dick to sigh at the awful clutter on the page.
Kori had deserved better than his disappearing act.
She deserved so much better.
He poured out his heart, his ache, his love, his admiration for her glittering eyes and her spiraling hair and her warm smile and her kind heart and her incredible faith in long paragraphs, and he prayed and prayed and prayed that she didn't read goodbye in his swooping I love you at the very end.
Jason still wasn't well.
He was certainly better, however. The doctor had actually smiled last time she had seen him. He was awake for longer, sleeping for longer, able to stand without so many dizzy spells, keep his focus long enough to read almost a whole chapter of a book at a time -
He was even having fewer Lazarus Pit episodes.
That was what Dick had to remind himself of after Jason had started screaming and reached for Dick's throat -
Here lies the last remnants of the Flying Graysons. May they be the end. Dick thought as he stared up at the ceiling from the little cot they'd dragged into his and Jason's room when they'd first moved in.
His throat was still painted in purples and blues when they tried to convince him to kill again.
The target lived.
And Dick was finally able to mail his letter.
But as he disappeared into the shadows, he could have sworn he heard a cry -
He convinced himself she wasn't there.
(He convinced himself that she didn't come too late.)
When he came back, Jason had a gun in his hand. Talia had a hand on his shoulder as she directed him to place the butt of the shotgun against the soft pocket of his shoulder, and as she stepped back -
BANG!
Dick broke into a run, ripping the gun away. He turned on the safety and threw it aside, only then reaching for the hint of blood where the scope attached to the top had bitten into Jason's nose -
"What's wrong with you?" Jason snapped, jerking back and wiping angrily at the spot of blood. "I wanted to learn!"
Dick couldn't speak.
Literally.
(The doctor hadn't spoken to him as she'd rubbed an ointment into the sensitive skin of his neck. She'd pressed down on every painful spot he'd had except his heart before looking him in the eyes and lifting a long, slim finger to her lips.)
(That was okay. Dick didn't want to talk anyways.)
"You always do this! You treat me like I'm fragile, but I'm not. I'm not! I want to learn. I want to be better. I want to be able to stop it if . . . if . . ." Jason's eyes went distant, went scared, went angry -
And Dick's eyes shifted over to Talia's cool, calculating gaze.
Jason let out a horrible, strangled noise, but instead of lashing out, his nails bit into his own skin. Dick reached out, but Jason pushed past him and bolted away. Dick's hands dropped uselessly to his sides.
"He has natural talent." Talia said to Dick's back. "But then I expected nothing less. My beloved has impeccable taste."
Dick glanced back to the target.
There was a bullet hole just shy of center.
It sent a chill down Dick's spine.
Dick slept in bed with Jason that night.
Or rather, Jason climbed down from the big, fine bed onto the stiff cot on the floor, huddling up to Dick's still form.
"I just - I feel so - so trapped. All the time. Like I'm suffocating in the dark even though things are - I don't know how to breathe, and I keep thinking it used to be easy. You used to think I could be like you. I could be a Flying Grayson." Jason whispered in the dark. "But now - I just want to be useful, but I'm - I'm as good as dead. I'm a vengeful ghost."
"No." Dick whispered, coughing. His voice was like sandpaper, painfully grating against the ear. "You're alive. You're -"
"Stop." Jason interrupted, distress suddenly hiking his voice higher. "You're not supposed to be talking!"
Both lapsed into silence.
Neither slept.
Dick knew Talia's game.
He knew Ra's game.
Manipulate, push, pry - do whatever was necessary in order to force Dick into their arms. After all, Bruce was only a few tricky chess moves away then, and if he never fell into their hands, then at least they'd have a consolation prize.
Dick had hoped Jason wouldn't find himself in the crosshairs - that Ra's would deem him to damaged, too volatile to be of use, and he probably had, but Talia's eye was keen.
She could see Jason's potential as clearly as Dick could, and worse, she could see his vulnerabilities, too.
There was only one option.
At sunrise, Dick pressed the gun back into Jason's hands and placed a pair of protective headphones over his ears all too gently.
At Dick's next scouting mission, there were assassins waiting for him.
He returned with no blood on his hands, and though Talia looked impressed, her lips were curled with disappointment.
(That was okay, though. Dick could feel it was almost time for them to leave.)
"You think the League sent them?" Jason whispered as they grappled, a bead of sweat dripping down his neck. Though he'd definitely begun to fill out in muscle and form, he still wasn't quite where he could beat Dick on strength alone -
(Though the way he'd started to grow, Dick had a hunch he'd give him a run for his money before long -)
"I'd be shocked if they didn't."
"But why would they kill you now?" Jason whispered as he managed to get the leverage to flip Dick over. Dick gave him a congratulatory pat before he readjusted his grip to give Jason an opportunity to try a new technique they'd gone over.
"Maybe so Talia could have a solid crack at integrating you into her ranks." Dick suggested softly.
Jason made a face before executing a flawless escape from Dick's choke hold. "Or maybe she's trying to get you to kill, so you won't feel welcome with the heroes once you leave."
Both huffed and puffed together, catching their breath before Dick's eyes lifted to a balcony overlooking the training grounds.
Talia was watching them, eyes intense as a fire and just as uncontrollable.
"We should leave." Dick murmured. "You're healed enough that we don't need to stay here any longer. Tomorrow before dawn."
"Dick."
Jason's voice jolted Dick out of a far too heavy sleep.
"Dick."
Dick sat up too fast, head spinning. "What?"
"We can't leave." Jason whispered.
"What?"
"I'm serious." Jason was still standing in the darkness, and Dick pressed the heel of his palms into his eye sockets.
"What are you doing over there? Come here." Dick groaned, feeling all too tired to deal with this conversation.
Jason didn't.
Then there was a sound.
Suddenly, Dick was awake and afraid. "Is that a baby?"
"No!" whined a too young voice.
Dick had dreamt of auburn locks draped about his fingers, interlocking his legs until he was trapped in a soft, warm embrace. There were words that he couldn't decipher, but no one laughed at him for it. Instead, he knew his wait was over.
In the waking world, he stared at a child with intense green eyes and a scowl that Dick would recognize anywhere, even on a child's face.
"Have you ever met your father?" Dick asked gently.
"I am training for that honor."
Jason made a face behind the child that clearly read cute, and Dick couldn't help but agree even as his heart sank.
(He was just as trapped in the waking world - but his wait? That was long from over.)
Convincing Damian al Ghul to return to his rooms (his giant rooms) to sleep became an impossible task when they discovered he'd spent their entire stay watching from the shadows as they'd trained, desperate to grow strong enough to prove he was worthy -
(Worthy of what? The question weighed Dick down so much that he didn't dare think too much.)
(Damian didn't need to do anything to be worthy to Dick.)
(Existing was enough.)
So Dick brought both boys to the mats and made them stretch and stretch and stretch. By the time Talia discovered them, her son could do a roundhouse and a flip.
(And Dick ignored the cheshire cat grin that spread across her face when she saw Damian insist on setting the time for their next training session, arguing with Jason over who had done the best flip.)
(He ignored the gentility that softened her expression when her child laughed, too.)
(He couldn't afford to relate to someone as dangerous as Talia al Ghul.)
It was another week before he could send Kori another letter.
He wrote to her not of what he was doing but of what he wanted to do with her. He wrote of flying together in the sky, of soft kisses and untangling her long hair for her, of introducing her to his brothers, of watching television and lazy mornings and cooking just so he could bring it to her as she slept -
And then he had an extra paper and hesitated.
He wanted to write to Tim.
He wanted to terribly.
Tim who was alive and bright and vibrant despite the darkness all around him - despite living as a secret in Dick's own mind lest Jason find another reason for hatred, for violence, for the pit. Another chance at a Flying Grayson that Dick had left behind -
Dick had wanted to write to him, had fought the temptation time and time again, but he knew Bruce would get ahold of the letter, and he knew that the man would read it as a distress beacon, a call to bring Dick home, but -
Dick was in deep shit but not the kind Batman could solve.
Jason's rages were centered on the man, desperate and fiery in a way that were different from when he'd been originally pulled out of the Pit.
Bruce wouldn't be able to help, but he wouldn't be able to resist seeing Jason if he discovered he was alive.
And Damian . . .
Bruce had every right to know about him, but Talia's hold on the boy was both one born of a tight bond and a dangerous, political eye. The child was leverage, and Dick couldn't get him out of the League of Assassins without risking too much. He had to come up with a different plan.
But even so, the blank page stared at him, and Dick thought Please. Please.
So he didn't write to Tim.
(That night.)
(That week, two letters made their way from his hand, through the home of a tech mogul he was sent to threaten, and into the mail.)
(Dick should have known that wouldn't be the end of it.)
A month and a day went by in little moments - in Jason spilling tea down his lap, in Damian threatening Dick with all the authority and pride of a kitten, in dreams of red hair and emerald eyes -
Then Dick was called to a meeting.
Dick froze in the doorway.
"Please. Do come in." Ra's said, a slimy smirk playing on his lips as Tim - as Robin sat opposite him with a little cup of green tea.
Dick's footsteps were slow, but he sat down at the table.
He wasn't offered any tea.
(Which was good. He wouldn't have been able to drink it. His stomach roiled at the sight of the boy he'd wanted desperately at his side and as far away as he could possibly get -)
"All this time, he's been with you." Tim said simply, voice deceptively calm as he sipped his tea.
"Yes. He's been quite . . . helpful." Ra's replied in turn.
Dick desperately wanted to reject the words, claim he'd been anything but - he'd refused orders time and time and time again, but even so, Dick could see the truth in the words even if the implication was a falsehood.
Dick had been useful.
(Bruce would be disappointed.)
"What are you holding over him?" Tim asked, still so calm - as if he were doing a business deal at Wayne Enterprises instead of sitting across from the Demon's Head.
"Nothing. He's here of his own free will."
Tim slammed the teacup down on the table. "Bullshit."
Dick flinched as Ra's sipped on his tea once more, unbothered by the sudden anger in Tim's voice. "He can leave whenever he wants."
Tim's eyebrows furrowed, that clever brain clearly working before his gaze slid over to Dick, disbelieving.
Dick couldn't look at him.
"Go ahead. Ask him to go with you. I won't stop him." Ra's stated, voice far too oily as he continued to smile.
"Wing . . ." Tim started, and Dick swallowed.
I can't. Dick thought. I can't. Don't ask me -
But before Tim could, the door burst open and Jason was there.
Absolute horror wrapped around Dick's very bones as Jason's eyes slid past Dick to Tim - to red, green, and gold - to Robin.
Before Tim could speak, Jason was throwing his whole weight at Tim. Violence etched itself into the snarl on his face and the line of muscle down his body as he launched himself forwards. Dick leapt between them, the wind nearly knocked from his lungs as Jason's full, angry weight hit him. His feet screeched back an inch, and Dick winced, but he built himself up like a wall, keeping Jason from Tim.
"Jason - Jason!" Dick exclaimed. "Can you hear me?"
Jason let out a guttural noise like a scream, and Dick felt rather than saw Tim flinch behind him.
"Is that . . ." Tim started, and Jason made a horrific sound that cut through the room.
Ra's chuckled. "My, my. It seems someone didn't know there was a new Robin."
Dick could feel tiny, irritating pinpricks threatening to spill from his eyes, and he gritted his teeth even as Jason's chest pressed too hard into his forearm. Jason's hands clawed towards Tim over Dick's shoulders, and Dick finally swept the teenager's feet from beneath him and pinned him to the floor.
Jason screamed as Dick pinned him, and Dick felt the shame settle between his shoulders like a physical weight.
After Jason was secured in their room, passed out, Dick hissed at Tim. "Why are you getting involved with Ra's al Ghul? He's dangerous."
Tim's lips thinned. "You of all people can't judge me."
Dick reeled as if he'd been slapped. "You're right."
Tim pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. "I didn't mean it like that."
"Yes, you did." Dick said softly. "You're right. It's fine."
"It's not fine!" Tim began, voice climbing before he bit back his words with a suspicious glance around. His voice was lower when he spoke again. "How did this happen? Dick, how is he alive?"
Dick swallowed. "My mom was alive."
Tim froze. "Dick?"
Dick pressed on. "I know it sounds crazy. I know, but my mom survived the fall that night."
Tim looked away. "No, Dick -"
"She did."
"I was there. I saw it. I'm sorry, but -"
"Tim!" Dick interrupted, grabbing the teen by the shoulders. He went quiet, face too pale as Dick spoke. "She survived the fall. I saw it - saw her try to reach for me, and I know that she was alive the last time I saw her, and I just kept thinking - Jason had been alive the last time I'd seen him, too."
"Dick . . ." Tim breathed, fear in his eyes.
"So I dug him up." Dick admitted.
"Dick, what the hell?" Tim breathed. "What did you do? He was dead!"
"He wasn't." Dick shook his head, fingers squeezing Tim's shoulders. "Otherwise, the Lazarus Pit wouldn't have worked."
Tim's lips parted silently before they shut. He gripped Dick's elbows, whispering a quiet "Dick . . ."
"Don't you get it? The Flying Graysons - Their suffering is supposed to end with me, so Jason, you - neither of you can die. You're not supposed to. It's supposed to end with me." Dick said.
Tim stared at him in silence for a long time. "That's insane, Dick."
Dick let out a broken sound - something that could've been a laugh in another world. "I know."
Jason's pit episode lasted three days. Dick didn't see Tim the whole time.
(He tried not to mourn. He was sure, though.)
(Tim was gone.)
Tim wasn't gone.
Tim was in a set of huge rooms with ornate, carved furniture and fine linens.
(It made Dick afraid.)
"You lied to me." Jason's raspy voice cut through the night.
Dick swallowed past bruises and crescent shaped cuts and the screams that still lingered in the air long after Jason had regained some of his mind.
"No." Dick said.
"You didn't tell me the truth." Jason said.
"Yes." Dick admitted.
Jason rolled over in his bed. Dick knew he was awake, but they didn't speak.
"I can get us to a safehouse tonight." Tim said, a sheet clenched in his fist as Dick tossed a different sheet over the clothesline and clipped it on tediously. He took the next one from Tim, smoothing out the wet wrinkles in the fabric as he tossed that one over the line, too.
"We can't." Dick said for the umpteenth time.
"Why?" Tim dragged out the word, desperation and teenage rebellion somehow rolling into one on his tongue. "Why, Dick? What's holding you back? I can get us all out!"
"Not all of us." Dick murmured.
Sun high in the sky, Dick taught just Damian in the courtyard, and he met Tim's eyes from across the way.
"I'm training with Talia tomorrow." Jason informed him curtly in the darkness of the room.
Dick frowned, sitting up in his little cot. "What? But I -"
"She was honest with me." Jason stated.
Dick gritted his teeth. "You and I both know she's up to something."
"Yeah." Jason said. "But so were you."
The next mission hurt.
It shouldn't have. It was an easy mission, practically a milk run to threaten a politician on his way to the Pentagon.
However, Dick's heart wasn't in it.
And the politician's bodyguard was paid more than enough.
"Let me in!" Jason's voice snarled through the door, and Dick let one eye slide open against the hazy solitude of unconsciousness.
"The doctor said -"
"Timmy?" Dick whispered.
"I don't care what the doctor said! I need to -"
Pain wrapped around Dick's soul and dragged him back into the dark, but he couldn't help the smile that hinted on his lips.
Tim and Jason had a conversation, and neither tried to kill the other.
"Shameful." Damian sniffed as Dick lay in the infirmary, body somewhere far away from his fuzzy mind. "Ridiculous. And you call yourself an assassin."
"I don't." Dick managed.
Damian startled. "What?"
"Mm not an assassin." Dick said, huffing a little.
"Then what are you?" Damian asked.
Dick smiled, but drugged and exhausted as he was, he couldn't find the normal bitterness within him as he said "What your father made me."
He was gone before he could see the look on Damian's face.
When Dick was awake and aware (and in a lot of fucking pain - God -), everything was different.
Tim and Jason could sometimes have conversations without the pit taking over. Jason, while still taking lessons from Talia, was willing to talk to him again (and sometimes when he thought Dick was asleep, join him in the cot on the floor for a time). And Damian -
Damian was scaring him.
"I won't be an assassin, Mother." Damian said one day, and his mother's smile slid from her face. "I can be something better."
"Damian -"
And suddenly, it didn't feel so dangerous to relate to Talia al Ghul.
It felt like an advantage.
"In front of your grandfather -"
"Grandfather ought to be aware." Damian said, his little voice wrapping too confidently around his words. "I am no coward. I will show him something greater than an assassin."
Talia sucked in a sharp breath.
"I can take him." Dick told her that night.
They stood together like two lonely trees beneath the moonlight. She stared at him, not a single tell on her face of what she was feeling.
Dick didn't blame her.
"I can take him away from your father." Dick said. "I can keep him safe from him. You can see it, can't you? You can see Bruce in him. He will never be what Ra's wants, but Damian - Damian can become the person he wants to become."
Talia's lips thinned.
They didn't acknowledge the conversation.
It didn't happen.
Dick healed, Jason trained, Tim begged, and Damian talked and talked and talked.
Dick dreamed of wind in his eyes and warm hands cupping his face, a happy whisper curling between intermingled breaths. He said beautiful words like soon and together and promise.
And when he woke up, Talia was pressing a bag into his hand and hissing "Go."
On the helicopter, Tim was erratic. He piloted like he'd forgotten how to fly, and Dick sat down in the copilot seat and wound up having to do nothing but watch the manic way the second youngest kept making sure Dick was still there.
(He never glanced behind him at Jason or Damian.)
(Dick tried to be grateful that Tim could look away from Jason.)
Dick didn't know what to do when they made it to the safehouse.
All he'd wanted ever since Jason had rolled out of the pit screaming was freedom from the heat, the violence, the cruelty, but now that he had it, he felt like a ghost. He cooked the same meals he'd learned by rote in Nanda Parbat, did all the same chores, took care of his Robins -
But everything felt empty - felt like an empty promise not to kill when his hands had already been bloodied, like a secret hiding behind his teeth that everyone knew, like a fire in a book about to take the wrong character -
Until -
"Dick! Someone's at the door for you." Jason yelled.
Dick moved as though through a dream, limbs slow as though moving through sludge, until he saw her.
She stood there more radiant than ever, eyes green like the first burst of a firework, skin shining like the sun, hair in long, curling red as though ribbons of the purest silk -
His breath caught in his throat.
(She was more beautiful than even his best dream.)
"Kori." Dick breathed.
She didn't say anything, just staring. He'd expected anger, cries, violence and bolts of energy, but she didn't say a single word.
Dick swallowed. "I'm sorry. I should've told you I was going to - but it was crazy until it wasn't, and it was the end until it wasn't, and I - I couldn't. I wanted to come home so badly, but I couldn't - I couldn't. I'm sorry. I understand if you . . . If you don't want this anymore. After what I did."
The words were hard, painful, and still, Kori didn't speak.
Until after a long moment, she pulled out a crumpled piece of paper. She unfolded it and read softly, or at least, she would have been reading if she hadn't stared straight into his eyes as she spoke each and every word. "I want to tangle my hands in your hair as we fly together through the sunlight - you and me together again. I've felt alone so often as the last of the Flying Graysons, but you make me remember that flying isn't just about falling. It's about living instead of being alive. I want to live with you."
"Kori . . ." Dick breathed almost reverently.
"Do you still mean it? Do you still want . . ." she swallowed, tears glinting in her eyes. "Tell me you still mean it."
"Of course, I do. There's nothing I want more." Dick said.
She stepped forward, offering her hands. "Then come here. Let's fly."
And for the first time since his mother lived and died, Dick thought Maybe this is just the beginning.