Work Text:
Bludhaven is burning.
One thing Dick has always loved about Bludhaven is how honest it is. It’s not truthful, it’s honest, and there’s a difference. It’s honest in a way that you know it’s always lying to you, always hiding a knife in an alley or a corpse underground. But it’s honest about it. You know that it’s lying, you know, and that’s more than he can say for Gotham. It’s more than he can say for Bruce.
Bludhaven is burning.
It’s not beautiful, it’s not. Poets could attempt to depict how the flames would flick around the corners and dance across buildings. Writers could describe how the emptiness of bludhaven clashed with the bright lights. It would all be lies. This is not beautiful, Dick thinks. It’s just pain.
The circus is burned down too.
Blockbuster, every inch of Dick screams.
The issue is, with every flip and handspring that Dick executes, he always knows the ending. He knows how to land, how to crash and fall. He knows every possible outcome of every single move. He does not see that in Blockbuster. He does not know the ending.
Chaos bleeds, he thinks. It bleeds, and it’s like a tattoo. The ink is bleeding into his skin, marking him forever. It feels like a needle pressing into his skin, tracing painful outlines to inflict agony upon muffled screams.
“Loved one by loved one…”
It’s never going to stop.
“Innocent by innocent…It will never stop.”
And Dick can’t breathe. He can’t breathe.
“Every loved one. Every stranger.”
It’s never going to stop.
It’s never going to-
-stop?
It was a painting, almost.
It was a clash of teeth and blood and tears. Like ink splattered on a blank page, clashing with the white and engulfing everything around it. It was the blend of two reds, a crimson hate and a sunset love. They were so intertwined that Dick couldn't tell the difference between the two. The darkened hues and gentle shades mixing with the little boy Dick once knew.
Jason, you’re alive, his mind screams.
But all he feels is ember flames licking at his heels and shading over his eyes because Tim was hurt-
His baby bird’s throat was slit, and it’s like he can’t breathe. He’s so angry. At Jason because he just won’t listen- he won’t come home- he… And Bruce?! Dick just, he can’t do this anymore. He can’t. The pulse of his heart and the veins in his bones and the person under his skin, it all gets lost in the motion, blurred together until all that’s left is rage.
(And they say Jason was the angry Robin.)
He’s trying. He’s trying so hard, he promises. Promise promise promisepleaseIpromisejustcomehomecomebackIwanttogohomeagainplease.
But Dick pushes it down, he pushes it down because Jason is alive. Jason is alive.
(It’s more than he can say for himself.)
“It’s your fault Jason’s dead! Don’t you dare blame me!
Don’t you dare!”
I know- I’m sorry- B?
He ignores the stares.
They’ve been staring at him his whole life. At first, in the circus, they would stare in wonder. The Boy Wonder soaring through the sky, defying gravity. It was as easy as breathing to him, to fly. His palms would show the calluses of his effort, of the blood and sweat and tears that he was willing to give up to get off the ground.
When he became Bruce Wayne’s ward, they would stare in disgust. He’d hear the whispers in the back of his mind, around the corner of his ears. He’s pretty sure they knew he could hear them. They only enjoyed gossiping about him when they knew he could hear their words. The letters they would draw out to depict their disgust. Circus rat. Charity case.
I’m proud of my roots! He wants to rage.
Because he is, he’s more proud of that than anything else he has. He would not be himself if he was not Romani, if he was not his mother’s child or his father’s son. He is not disgusted by his tan skin or blue eyes or signs of being a wanderer just like his mother was. But he dealt with it, like he knew he could. Even if he shouldn’t have had to.
It was only until Mirage did things change. Because it wasn’t strangers who stared in disgust, it was friends. It was teammates. It was his lover.
He remembers the moment all too well. The way Roy’s eyes would cloud with unconcealed anger. Hate came easier to Roy than love did, and Dick can’t fault him for that because he’s made the same way.
“Nightwing’s the masked community bicycle, everyone’s had a ride,” Roy sneers, and Dick wants to sob.
Kori’s reaction was worse, to Dick. Because she knew. She knew. And he was still blamed, so it must be true, right? He must have cheated, he must have. That was better for him, anyway, because if he didn’t cheat then that means- it means that-
She couldn't have been wrong, she couldn't have been. And Dick knows that she wasn’t because he saw the betrayal in her eyes. He could see the way she was crumbling, her foundation being torn down into crumbs and ash as if it never existed in the first place.
His heart hurts for her.
So he takes the looks of disgust thrown his way. He takes the stupid fucking comments about him being a slut or a whore. He pushes away his rage because last time he let himself feel his brother died. He pushes it away because he isn’t sure who’s right anymore. And it just feels like he deserves it so he takes it and it makes him feel better and worse at the same time.
It’s not until Catalina happens does he figure out who was right.
Kori was wrong.
This time…It feels different. The disgust wasn’t in stares anymore, it was in himself. He used to hear their words, the stupid gotham elites. He would bear Roy’s and Kori’s looks and words of hatred. But now? Now he was the one who felt disgusted at himself. The feeling grew on him like vines, it stretched across his ivory bones and curled around his neck. It crawled over every inch of his body, and it felt like Catalnia’s hand. It felt like the warmth-
But it was so cold.
The pitter-patter of the rain haunts him, coloring his mind every time thunder screams through the sky. And he doesn't hear thunder anymore. It sounds more like her voice- Mi Carino- and it sounds like the nopleasestopnonononostopplease.
The rain sometimes feels frozen. Like droplets of ice instead of water. They’re sharp, they dig into his skin. They’re cold. He’s cold. There’s a saying: Water has memory. He wants to forget. He doesn't want to remember. But he knows one thing, the water remembers too much and not enough. Because he knows, logically, that there were days he’d dance under the rain with his daj and dat. There were days where he’d be on Zikkita’s back, her trunk wrapped around his torso while rain surrounded them. He could laugh in the rain before. He remembers nights with Bruce, with Batman. Perched next to the gargoyles, rain being their only company in the night. He remembers looking over Bludhaven with the rain pouring, his feet dangling off the ledge and feeling happier than he has felt in a long time.
He doesn't remember those times anymore. All he feels in the rain is the cold and her warmth and her voice and her hands. The rain only remembers her.
He hates the rain.
(sometimes)
Bruce’s punch sends him flying into the ground.
He can’t even find himself able to describe this feeling.
I’m tired.
There’s blood everywhere, his own and others and Jason’s.
The Joker’s
Bludhaven is Dick’s city, it’s his. It’s not the Bat’s, and it certainly isn’t the Red Hood’s. But Jason is parading around his city in his suit, and Dick wants to scream. He’s shaking, utterly trembling, and the rain is yelling water from its mouth and crying thunder from its eyes. He’s drowning, suspended in a void that stretches for miles and miles. He’s encompassed in things he doesn't want to breathe in, but he knows that if he doesn't then he’ll just drown.
Dick stands there, on the rooftop, facing Jason. Can you feel this? He desperately wants to ask. Do you feel my anger? My rage? My pain? Do you care? Do you see? He knows the answers, but he wonders if things will be different if he speaks his mind. But all he seems to be capable of is saying things he doesn't even mean.
They don’t say anything, they just stare. And Dick sees it in Jason’s eyes, the glow of green ember flames. He watches, carefully, and observes. He doesn't know how long he was staring at Jason’s eyes, the pit drawing a picture of murky waters and kindled flames. For some reason, Dick feels like he’s drowning in Jasons’ eyes, as if the pit was trying to pull him in too, just to tell him that he’s not really alive only to return him with something missing.
Jason sneers, a scowl forming on his lips.
“You’re not my brother! You weren’t there! You didn’t show up to my fucking funeral!”
“Jason-”
“Guess I was just beneath you, right, Golden Boy?”
They fight.
It’s a blur to him. He doesn't remember much about that night. It’s not the first time they fought, and it won’t be the last. That’s the thing about his family, they only know violence. It bleeds out of their skin, grows inside their minds. It’s muscle memory, forever ingrained in their body, and they know it so intimately that it’s a part of who they are.
Sometimes Dick doesn't know how to be gentle. He knows it in a practiced sense, sure. He knows it in a way that is forced and shaky, as if his body is mocking him for trying. He is a weapon, they all are. They’re all weapons. All they do is hurt each other. He has broken ribs and bruises scattered along his body.
He hates to admit that Jason’s rage reminds him of Bruce’s coldness.
Their punches feel the same (and maybe it’s because Dick loves them so much that it hurts even more)
“I hate you.” Jason hisses, the edges of cruelty outlining his fists.
Dick hates that he doesn't know how to meet Jason’s cruelty with kindness anymore.
“Nightwing is MINE! Get OUT of that suit Jason!”
“I hate you.” Jason repeats, all worn and bloody and dead like a year ago.
Good , Dick’s mind screams.
I’m sorry, Dick’s heart whispers.
Tim stops talking to him after a while.
It’s not even the Robin thing. It’s the Damian thing. And Dick gets it, he does. He knows that every murder attempt made by Damian isn’t something that Tim can just forgive. Dick doesn't expect him to, but it’s unfair, he thinks, to ask him to choose between Tim and Damian. They’re both his family. They both are.
Tim hangs around Jason nowadays.
And it shouldn’t sting, it really shouldn’t, but fuck it, it does. He wants Tim to love him again, and he wishes he had a chance for Jason to love him. He wants his family complete and safe and at home. He wants it so badly. He hasn’t let himself want anything else just in hopes that maybe his wish will come true.
Tim does talk to him eventually.
It’s never the same anymore, and Dick doesn't begrudge him that.
It would be hypocritical of him to do so. After all, Dick still has the scarred bullet wounds Jason gave him years ago.
“We are the best, Richard.”
And Dick knows that they are.
When Damian dies, Dick knows he’ll never recover.
He doesn't have it in himself to say the name Robin anymore.
Bruce is dead, and it tears at his soul and pulls at his heart and he comes undone.
He mourns, soft breaths falling off his lips to greet an empty grave and an empty space. Alfred is quieter. Not many people notice, but Dick has known Bruce and Alfred the longest. Alfred is quieter. Dick is too.
He used to blame Alfred for allowing Bruce to kick him out. (For not knowing the extent of Bruce’s actions.)
But he can’t find it in himself to be mad anymore. There’s one thing he has learned over the years: everyone is trying. Every human, every person on Earth is simply trying. They’re failing or succeeding or doing nothing, but they’re trying. Or they’ve tried. Or one day they’re going to try.
Alfred tried. Alfred is trying. So is Dick.
And he knows, more than most, what it feels to bear unbearable guilt. What it feels to carry the burden of Atlas, the sky, something soft and see-through, tearing into your back and into your bones. His burden is digging into his heels, and he falls. He sees a facade of a person, an illusion of heaven that he can only fall further from.
He can’t find it in himself to blame Alfred anymore.
So he sits, a tea cup in one hand with Alfred sitting in the chair next to him. It’s silent, he notes.
“I’m sorry, Master Dick.”
It’s the first he has heard Alfred speak in a while.
“Me too, Alfred.”
They’re both quieter now.
He finds Steph laying on a rooftop. He joins her, gravel digging into both of their palms, fisting the ground beneath them. This is his batgirl. His batgirl in a way that Damian is his Robin. And so they have these nights where they don’t talk. They just sit in silence and feel, and these moments mean more to Dick than Stephanie could ever know.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you something, Dick.”
“No names in costume.” Dick says jokingly, but Steph just turns to stare straight into his eyes.
Dick quiets up quickly.
“Answer me honestly please.”
And he’s scared, but this is his batgirl and-
“Yeah, Steph?”
“You know how my dad was like… How he’d hurt me. I’ve gotten good at seeing the signs.”
He doesn't move and suddenly it feels like the ground is falling out from underneath him.
“Who is Bruce to you, really? Your dad or…something you fear?”
Bruce comes back.
He’s not sure how he feels about it, and the fact that he isn’t completely happy hurts more than he can comprehend.
It won’t stop.
Every loved one-
It’s never going to stop.
stopstopstopstopstopstopstopstopstop-
It rained on patrol tonight.
Cass is an interesting addition to the family.
She’s mute, but Dick can see it in her eyes, the type of haunting understanding that comes with knowing people more than you ever wished to. She sees more than he ever could, but a part of him identifies with her. She doesn't trust him, he can tell, but it’s only until she really becomes his sister does she tell him why.
“You lie. Sometimes know. Sometimes don’t. Never met someone I not know.” She admits, as he braids her hair in the manor living room.
It’s just them two, and her words make his chest ache.
(He is a weapon-
So is she.)
“I’m sorry.” He whispers into her hair, worn and torn and quiet mutterings.
“Know now. Always know. Big Brother. Hurts. Others. Himself.”
He flinches back.
Cass instantly shakes her head, “No! No. Not right words. You know.”
She takes a deep breath and repeats gently, “You know.”
And Dick does.
“You read too,” Cass continues carefully, “What do you see?”
He blinks, taken aback by the question. He’s not sure he knows how to answer.
Because her sight is different from his. Cass has learned to read people as her first language.But Dick? He learned from experience. He learned from looking at himself and looking at others. He learned from his greed and selfishness and his love and hate. He saw in himself to see in others and he saw in others things he didn’t realize was in himself.
His rage is the same shade as Jason’s green, illuminating and complimenting the dark in violent waters. His selfishness and regret is the same hue as Tim’s crimson red, the way Tim couldn't completely depart from the title of Robin, of being Batman’s soldier. His love is Damian’s hate, fierce and overwhelming and a driver behind their actions.
He sees-
“Pain.”
-
(They are both weapons, but he knows one more thing:
She is his sister.
He is her brother.
They may be weapons, but they are also…other things.)
He has never thought about it that way before.
“They don’t deserve you.” Slade tells him one night.
“Don’t they?” He asks, not really interested in having this conversation.
“They will never thank you.” And for some reason that-
It cuts deeper. His lips are dry, the skin slowly coming off. His knuckles are bruised, burst blood cells scattered across his skin. He doesn't really bleed right anymore. He has lost so much blood over the years that when there’s blood on his hands he can never remember if it was someone else’s blood or his own. Sometimes all he sees is painting the Joker red or Jason’s blood blending with his own or Bruce’s fists drawing bruises on his skin.
He doesn't bleed right anymore.
“They will never love you.”
Dick closes his eyes.
“And how, exactly, would you know that?”
He doesn't hear Slade move, and he doesn't open his eyes to look. A hand cups his chin, tilting it upwards. Dick opens his eyes, weary of how quickly this could become violent. He knows that it won’t, that Slade has always seen him and wanted him as his apprentice, as his renegade. Slade won’t hurt him, and it hurts that he can’t say the same for his own fucking family.
“The Bat has never chased you, has never sought after you. Of course, there’s also your murderous brother who has tried to kill you multiple times. And the other two? Where are they now? Where is your family Nightwing? Bludhaven is burning, and they know you’re here, but where are they?”
Dick clenches his fists.
“Is this your definition of love, Nightwing?”
-
No
Fear gas.
Dick hates it. They all do, but the thing is, they each know what they see. Jason sees the Joker, he sees the pit. Tim sees Ra’s al Ghul, he sees an empty manor and people turning their backs on him. Damian sees Talia, he sees Dick dying, he sees disappointment and pain.
Dick sees everything. He sees Mirage and Catalina and Blockbuster. He sees Tim and Jason and Damian. He sees Bruce. Fear for them, fear of them. It’s all there, and it’s different every time, and Dick is scared of what he might reveal when his mind is clouded with toxins and he can’t control what he’s saying.
He was quiet this time around, apparently. He curled up in a corner and didn’t speak. He flinched away when they tried to inject him with the antidote, but eventually he let them do whatever they wanted. He didn’t fight back. (He said no he said no hesaidnohesaidnohesaidnononono-)
He was quiet.
Dick doesn't remember what he saw this time around. The fear gas was a new brand, stronger than before. A part of him thinks that he saw everything. He saw Bruce’s fists and Jason's knuckles. He saw Tim’s cold stare and indifference, he heard Damian’s complaints but the “We were the best” hidden in the words. He saw chemo dropping, he saw Bludhaven in ashes. Roy in his rage and Kori in her betrayal. He saw Slade on his rooftop, he saw Cass in the manor. He saw Alfred in silence.
He saw Damian’s grave.
He saw his own.
“Are you okay?” Tim asks a little wearily, “I’ve never seen you react that way to fear gas. You didn’t speak, didn’t react. You just sat there.”
Dick smiles.
“Really? I guess I just wasn’t scared.”
He isn’t able to sleep that night.
There’s something that Dick has realized. As Batman’s Robin, as Slade’s Renegade, as Bludhaven’s Nightwing, all he was taught is violence.
Batman taught him how to use violence. Slade taught him how to kill. Bludhaven taught him how to burn in an ember blaze. All he knows is violence. Batman didn’t do enough to teach him how to save people. All he knows is how to destroy.
Nightwing is stuck in a cycle of rebirth, and when he chose that name, he believed it to be a good thing. He regrets it a little now.
Because he’s stuck in this cycle, and it’s the same thing over and over and over again. It’s a punch from Jason or Bruce or Roy. It’s cutting words from Tim or Slade. It’s ignorant love from Alfred or Damian.
They’re all different colors, but it’s the same darkened shade, the same damaged hues.
He was not taught to save.
“Jesus, Tim, what the fuck did they do to him?”
“I don’t know Jason, that’s what I’m trying to figure out if you’d just shut up-”
“Silence, imbeciles! You must aid Richard at once. You are wasting time.”
“Tim-”
-
“I hate you!”
-
“You lie. Sometimes know. Sometimes don’t.”
-
“Who is Bruce to you, really?”
-
“Guys jeez I got it. It’s some sort of drug. I’ve done research on this drug before. It surfaced about a week ago. It’s similar to fear gas. It makes you relive your most traumatic moments.. Victims reported that it felt like they were experiencing it all again for the first time, and even worse, it was like all the moments happened at once. ”
“But he’s so-”
“-still. Yeah. It’s…weird. I’m synthesizing an antidote, but it’ll take a few hours at best. For now he’s going to just have to ride through it-”
-
“You don’t get to do that to your bro- to another Robin!”
-
“Everyone you love-”
-
“-masked community bicycle. Everyone gets a ride.”
-
“It’s your fault Jason’s-”
-
“Mi Carino-”
-
“-dead!”
-
“-every stranger-”
-
“What do you see?”
-
“We were the-”
-
“Pain.”
-
“-best, Richard.”
-
“I’m sorry, Master Dick.”
-
“It will never stop.”
-
“His heart rate is spiking-”
“I know! I know!”
“We need to-”
“Are you sure?!”
“-only way to stabilize-”
-
“Guess I was just-”
-
“Why do we fall, Dick?”
-
“-beneath you, right, Golden boy?”
-
“No! We fall because someone pushes us-”
-
“Is this your definition-”
-
“-We get up to push back !”
-
“-of love?”
-
No
-
“Guys, is he…”
“ No!”
“Dick-”
-
Bludhaven is burning.
-
“There’s a pulse!”
-
And it is never going to stop.