Chapter Text
Dick Grayson opened his eyes and rolled out of bed with a groan, ignored the thumping headache that was all too common now and headed for the bathroom. Day three in yet another home; the owners would be returning shortly and he had to find somewhere else to stay the night. Still, the facilities here were luxurious; some of the best he’d experienced so far. He washed up, brushed his teeth and packed his toiletries into his bag before he made a quick tidy of the bedroom and closed the door behind him.
He hadn’t stayed in the plush master bedroom and opted for the smaller spare room that had clearly been kept for guests. Well, since he was one it seemed appropriate.
The kitchen was a mess, left that way over the days because he was simply too tired to care about it. The owners wouldn’t be happy, but he’d leave them some cash and hopefully that would take the sting out of the home intrusion. He made himself breakfast, swallowed it down without concern for enjoyment and checked that he hadn’t left anything unsafe before he left the house for good.
He sighed heavily as he dumped his bag in the trunk of his cab and slid into the driver’s seat. Weekdays were always busy, which meant finding another place so soon would be harder to do when he was driving all over Blüdhaven. Dick resigned himself to spending a night in his cab, at least for now.
Four hours and a dozen miserable, self-absorbed customers later, Dick stopped for lunch in his favourite cafe. Louisa was a tough cookie, she didn’t stand for any problems in her cafe and most certainly didn’t tolerate aggressive customers. She had taken to Dick when he first started coming here, apparently, he hadn’t been here when he had his memories so that was a plus for him in his book. It meant that he could sit and eat in comfort without someone trying to jog his memory every time.
Dick waved at her as he walked to the counter at the back of the cafe.
“Morning, Ric.” Louisa greeted him with a warm smile. She wiped her hands on the towel tucked into her pocket. “The usual?”
Dick nodded and thanked her as he handed her the cash. He glanced around the room, it looked quieter than usual with four people at one table and another three, each alone, spaced out elsewhere. “Where is everybody today?”
Louisa shrugged. “No clue. You’re the first regular to come in all day, they’re probably all scared about the rumours floating around.”
“What rumours?” Dick asked as he leaned his hip against the counter.
Louisa continued working as she spoke, her back to him. “Apparently, that Red Hood is in town. Some of the locals swear they’ve spotted him over the last few nights.”
Red Hood. Jason. Dick’s brother, so he’s been told.
“And people are running scared, why?” He didn’t want to be irritated by yet another bat hovering around Blüdhaven, and Louisa shouldn’t be on the receiving end of his mood swings whenever his family is brought to mind. “Isn’t he one of the good guys?”
Louisa tipped her head briefly to the side. “Who knows what side he’s on. He did shoot the Penguin in the head. Although, the guy tends to shoot people more than any other bat anyway, so I don’t get why people are so flustered now.”
Dick didn’t respond. His family - even though he had no memories of them, they were still his family - were always around Blüdhaven lately. Either they patrolled at night to cover the loss of Nightwing, or they tracked him down and pestered him. Dick did his best to hide from them, which was exactly why he never settled in his own place, living on the move made it harder for them to follow him. But he couldn’t avoid hearing about them, Batman and Robin would make an appearance in Blüdhaven, Batgirl more frequently.
It was ironic really, for a guy that was apparently so loved with such a large family and plentiful friends, none of them seemed to be around outside of the select few he didn’t want to see. The family members he had met – except Alfred, that man seemed genuine and nice – were so aggressive and forceful that Dick didn’t want to know them any more than he already did right now.
Dick had met Bruce and Damian, Alfred and Barbara, but he had yet to meet Tim, Jason, Cassandra or Duke. When Bruce spoke of them there was a clear difference. Bruce seemed proud of all of them, but whenever Jason was mentioned, Bruce looked sad and guilty. Jason was the black sheep, or that’s how it seemed to Dick, he guessed shooting the Penguin in the head had something to do with that.
Dick had plenty of friends, again, so he had been told. But, so far, none had come to see him at any point since he had woken up. Dick could reach out to them, but then what would he say? How would he contact them in the first place? After Bruce had shown him the video footage of getting shot in the head, Dick had bolted and not gone back. It meant that everything he owned was still in Gotham since Bruce took it upon himself to empty Dick’s old apartment and relocate his life and belongings to the manor whilst he was in a coma.
“Ric?”
Dick looked up from his contemplation and he realised he had drifted away again, Louisa seemed concerned. “Sorry, just thinking.”
Louisa gave his scar a worried glance. “You’re taking your meds, right?”
Dick playfully sighed and rolled his eyes. “Yes, mother.”
She smacked his arm with the towel and they both chuckled. “I worry, you ass.”
“I’m taking my meds,” he confirmed with a nod. “I’m due my next dose, which requires food.”
Louisa scowled at him, but the action was affectionate. “It’s almost done. Go sit down, I’ll bring it over.”
“Thank you,” Dick replied with a smirk and managed to avoid the towel that swiped for him as he stepped away.
Dick sat near the rear of the cafe, not far from the counter. He didn’t want to be near the window just in case any bats wanted to watch him chew food and sip coffee. Louisa brought the food over and placed it in front of him, then returned to the counter. Dick started on his food, head down and keeping to himself.
After a short while, a shadow fell over him and someone slipped into the opposite seat. He kept his head down and glanced up with his eyes only. He finished his mouthful and reached for his coffee to wash it down before he spoke. “When are you going to give up?”
Barbara leaned on the table with her hands clasped together, she looked sad. “I don’t want to, Dick.”
“It’s Ric,” he reminded her. And it was, for everyone around him it was ‘Ric’, because ‘Ric’ meant that they couldn’t latch on, it told them that he didn’t want to be a part of their lives anymore and if they insisted on continuously trying to pull him back in, then ‘Ric’ stayed.
“It never used to be,” Barbara replied. She sounded so deflated, near the end of her energy to keep trying. Dick only needed to push a little further and she would probably stay away for good, at least he hoped that would be the case.
Dick lowered his fork to purposely rub a finger over his scar, Barbara shivered so subtly that anyone would miss it if they weren’t looking for it. “Things change.”
Dick picked his fork up again and continued eating. Barbara leaned forward and placed her hand on top of his, her eyes were wet with unshed tears. “Please, Ric. You can’t give up, you can’t throw your past away.”
Dick wrenched his hand away and glared at her. “Don’t touch me.” He stood sharply, picked up his plate and mug and headed back to the counter. “Louisa, can you bag this up for me?”
Louisa nodded as she frowned between him and Barbara, he reached into his pocket, pulled out his meds and popped two pills into his mouth. He washed them down with coffee that was still too hot, but he was angry enough not to care.
“Ric, listen, I-”
Dick spun and stared; fist clenched around the bottle in his hand. “No, you listen. I can’t be who you want me to be if I can’t remember, but none of you seem to give a shit about that.”
The tears fell from Barbara’s eyes then and it grated on Dick when this stranger looked at him with pity.
He pressed on, pushed some more. “What was I before? Some kind of God? Some miracle worker? I can’t pull a memory rabbit out of a fucking hat, Barbara, so just leave me the hell alone!”
Louisa handed him the bagged food and he gave her a nod of thanks before he stomped for the door. Barbara’s footsteps followed him.
“How can you even try to remember if you won’t let us help you?!” Barbara yanked at his arm, turning him to face her. Her face was twisted in anger, the pity gone now as she didn’t get what she wanted.
Dick didn’t have it in him to feel sorry for her, that had long expired when she showed just how much this was for her and not for him. He didn’t care who heard their exchange, only that she did. “Help? Is that what you call it?”
She didn’t reply, he sneered at her. “My family’s idea of help is showing me a video of me getting shot in the head! Your idea of help is getting angry because I can’t remember you. Damian is angry that I don’t remember him, apparently that makes me pathetic. Bruce is angry that he was prepared to keep me locked up at his home until I was fixed! That’s not help, that’s selfishness! Why the fuck would I ever want that?”
“Dick, please!” Barbara replied with a scrub at the tear tracks on her cheeks. For a moment she looked genuinely guilty, but it disappeared as she raised whatever bat shields she had learned over the years to give her expression a stony feature.
“Don’t call me that,” Dick replied as he wrenched his arm free from her grip. “Just leave me alone.”
He left the cafe and headed to his cab, he put his food aside, no longer hungry, started the car and pulled away.
He drove for a while, eventually he arrived at the outskirts of the city. It was far enough from the busy streets and isolated enough that no bats would be watching as he leaned his forehead against his fists that wrapped around the steering wheel. His breathing stuttered, chest tightening as tears slipped off his face to land on his jeans.
It wasn’t like he hadn’t tried. He’d worked hard with therapists to dislodge whatever was blocking his memories, if they even remained at all. At the hospital, stuck in bed, he would lay there and think until it hurt, spending hours and hours scratching at his thoughts but nothing worked. So, he settled for waiting and being who he was now, hoping that something would click. It wasn’t enough for them, so they pushed and pushed, and Dick snapped, broke down and ran.
He had cried then, cried for parents that were recently dead. Just as he did now.
The brain was a strange thing. He only remembers his time with his parents, but he thought and acted and moved like an adult. He could remember a recent time when his dad would pick him up as if he weighed nothing at all, but whenever he looked in the mirror all he saw was an ugly, scarred and broken man. A man familiar with this skin, used to the movement and flow as he lived, with a grown mind but memories of the circus and his parents so very fresh and young. It was confusing. Everything was confusing.
He lifted his head from the headrest and glanced at the night sky out of his side window, he looked to the passenger seat and noticed the food had been eaten, the radio that had been on at a low volume was now off and Dick sighed.
He’d lost time again.
He turned the key in the ignition and nothing happened, he’d blacked out enough that the battery had died and he was now stranded at the city limits with a dead car and a long walk in any direction.
He wasn’t alone, though. Ahead of him, a man sat on a bike and was staring at him. Nothing familiar hit him about any of it, not the bike or the person on it. Dick may not remember his old life, but he does watch the news. He could recognise a bat when he saw one.
He kicked open his door and climbed out, his shoulders were stiff but he avoided stretching just to glare at the newcomer. He had a two-piece mask, black fabric covered his eyes, red metal covered the rest. Older images had him wearing a leather jacket and a red hood, newer ones had this style.
“So, you’re the Red Hood.” Dick closed his door and leaned against it, arms crossed.
“Hey, Dickie.”
Dick opened his mouth to correct him, but Jason climbed off his bike and stomped toward him. Dick pushed off the car and backed away, seeing the motion as a threat. Jason stopped and tipped his head to the side, confused.
“I ain’t gonna hurt you, you know.”
“No, I don’t.” Dick replied.
Jason chuckled. “Trust me, I’m not.”
Dick growled, irritable. “What do you want?”
Jason sighed and his whole posture relaxed, he turned and sat back against the hood of Dick’s car. “I’m not allowed near you, Bat’s orders.”
Dick frowned. “Why?”
“Because they don’t want me upsetting your fragile brain, that’s why.” Jason reached up and removed the metal portion of his mask. “Or maybe because Bruce thinks I’ll murder you or some shit, I don’t know.”
“Who the fuck says he gets to decide that?” Dick didn’t know why that made him so angry. Yet another example of his brain trauma causing strange behaviours to add to the confusion that he faced whenever they came to see him. And yet another example of Bruce Wayne imposing his authority over him.
Jason’s jaw dropped open, he clearly hadn’t been expecting that kind of reply from Dick and who could blame him? It’s not like he’s met the man since he’d woken up in the hospital.
Dick pushed on. “They want me to come home, be with the family and try to fix my brain but my brother has to stay away? What the hell? I don’t understand any of you, you don’t make sense.”
Jason shrugged. “Bruce never has been easy to understand, there's only ever been one person who could work him out and he ain't around right now.”
Dick huffed. “And who would that be?”
“You,” Jason replied.
Dick turned and started to walk back to the city. He didn’t care how long it would take, but he wasn’t sticking around here for another bat to try and get him to go home.
“Where are you going?” Jason said as he followed behind.
“Away from bats,” Dick continued to walk away.
His arm was snagged and he turned to deliver a punch but Jason batted it away, he didn’t counter and Dick stood still as he waited for Jason to make the next move.
“Dickie, I’m not here to try and convince you to go back.” Jason laughed then. “I’d be a hypocrite for trying.”
“Then what do you want?” Dick tugged his arm free. “I don’t remember you, Jason. I can’t remember!”
Jason considered him for a moment. “I’m not looking to be remembered. If it happens, it happens.”
Dick narrowed his eyes, suspicious.
Jason shuffled his foot over the rough stones under his boot as he stared at the ground. “I’ve been here for hours Dickie. I’ve watched you sit and stare at nothing, zoned out and not having any awareness of your surroundings. You didn’t react when I spoke to you, you let the battery die on that shit heap you call a car.”
“So, you’re worried about me?” Dick was surprised. Considering the rumours surrounding the Red Hood and what little his family had divulged about Jason, he didn’t think the guy would be concerned about him at all.
Jason gestured with his arm toward their abandoned vehicles and they both turned to walk back to them. “I wasn’t going to leave you there like that, so I waited. During that time, I dug up your medical files and yeah, I’m worried.”
Dick didn’t respond, Jason took that as permission to continue. “I’m not asking you to go back to the manor, not asking you to change your life here. I just don’t think it’s safe for you to be alone all the time.”
“I don’t need a babysitter.” Dick grumbled.
Jason kept his eyes on Dick as he opened his driver’s door and turned the key in the ignition, nothing happened. He raised an eyebrow and Dick took the hint.
He waved his arms in frustration. “Okay, that doesn’t happen all the time. In fact, it’s never happened before today.”
Jason sighed and straightened; he left the door open. “Look, I get it. I know how frustrating the family can be, and what they’ve done is push you away when they’re trying to pull you back in and that’s dangerous. You have enemies, Dickie, some know your civilian ID. You can’t be spacing out like that, not when they’re out there waiting.”
Dick shrugged. “I’ve done okay so far.”
“None of these are gonna ring any bells for you,” Jason continued without commenting on Dick’s clearly childish remark. “The Court of Owls, the League of Assassins, Deathstroke, there’s a whole lot more. All of them will see this as an opportunity and if someone isn’t watching your back, they will come for you.”
“So, a bodyguard instead of a babysitter, is that it?”
“A brother,” Jason replied with a growl. “I’m not Bruce, I won’t try to make you remember anything if that’s what you want, but I’m not letting you get killed by someone who comes knocking when you’re vulnerable.”
Dick watched him carefully, searching for a lie. Dick knew his past life had earned him enemies, He knew he had been Nightwing and that that title had earned him a bullet in his head. It made sense that should these enemies find him as he is, he wouldn’t stand a chance simply because he wouldn’t see the threat coming if he didn’t know what to look for. But Jason was prepared to help him and he’d been firm with his reasoning of brotherhood, adamant that that was all the explanation required.
More importantly, he hadn’t once treated Dick like a ghost of a lost family member, or a disappointing shadow of someone he should be. Time would tell if that changed, Dick certainly hoped that it didn’t.
“I don’t want to see them.”
Jason nodded. “Okay.”
“And if this is a trick,” Dick continued. “If you’re manipulating me into meeting with them and forcing me back, I’m gone. I’ll disappear and you won’t find me again, I don’t care how good the bat says he is, if I don’t want to be found, I won’t be.”
“Trust me,” Jason said as he headed to his bike and squatted down beside it. He pulled a small device free from a hidden compartment and returned to the car. “We’re not exactly on the best of speaking terms.”
Dick watched as Jason popped the hood and meddled around underneath, after a few minutes he called out. “Give it a try.”
Dick leaned in and turned the key, the car fired up. Jason dropped the hood back down and walked to Dick’s side of the car. “I’ll follow you back to your place.”
“I don’t have a place,” Dick replied as he sat in fully and turned the radio off.
“Where the hell have you been living all this time?” Jason asked incredulously.
“Vacant houses, sometimes the car.”
“You sleep in this piece of crap? Are you nuts?”
“Hey,” Dick snapped. “If you had bats following you around all the damn time, you’d be on the move too.”
Jason’s jaw worked and Dick could practically hear his teeth grinding together. After composing himself he waved Dick off and headed for his bike. “I’ve got a safehouse in Blüdhaven, we’ll stay there.”
Dick was pretty sure he had safehouses around too, but he didn’t know where any of them were and even if he did, he couldn’t guarantee that they weren’t monitored or run by any bats.
As Jason pulled away and Dick followed behind, he mentally kicked himself. He hadn’t once corrected Jason about his name.
Jason’s safehouse was the top floor of a rundown apartment, which meant the building was lightly populated, considering the location it wasn’t that much of a surprise. The main room was furnished with the basics and the open planned layout gave a full view of every entry point, the kitchen area had one wall of cabinets and an island set centrally. Dick adjusted the bag on his shoulder as Jason kicked the door closed with his foot.
“I’ll need to make a run for supplies.” Jason said as he reset the alarm and headed to the kitchen. “I’ve got stock here for emergencies but nothing fresh.”
There was a book on the coffee table, a bookmark in place about half-way through. A television sat opposite the single couch, a bookcase that seemed to be steadily accumulating books stood against the wall, behind the couch.
“You like to read, huh?” Dick said as his eyes strained to see some of the titles.
Jason huffed and it caught Dick’s attention. Jason met his eyes and sobered. “Sorry. I know you don’t like to be reminded of the whole memory thing, but hearing you say something like that is weird. I’m a stranger to you, I’ve gotta remember that.”
Dick sucked in a deep breath to settle himself. He was used to this from the others, but it didn’t sting as much with Jason. He didn’t look frustrated and angry about Dick’s lack of memory, he was simply accepting of it. Dick forced a subject shift. “You’ve been staying here. Do the bats know about it?”
Jason rummaged through the cupboards, he had a quiet ‘aha!’ moment and closed the door with a mug in his hand. “Do they know I’m in Blüdhaven? Most likely what with the rumours spreading that I’ve been seen around. Do they know about this safehouse? No, definitely not.”
Dick sat on the couch and picked up the book, careful not to knock the bookmark. Jason was busy making coffee which left him time to read the back. “You like romance novels?”
“I like plenty of genres,” Jason replied. “Which one I pick, depends on my mood at the time.”
“And currently, it’s romance,” Dick hummed, deep in thought. “Who’d have thought that big bad Red Hood is a secret softy underneath.”
Jason shrugged as he approached with a mug of coffee in each hand, he placed them down on the coffee table and sat next to Dick with enough space between them to fit a third person. “My reputation precedes me, even if the bad guys knew I like a good romance novel they’d still be scared.”
Dick picked up the mug and blew across the top before he took a tentative sip. “The reputation where you shoot people?”
Jason smirked over the rim of his own cup. “The beheadings in the early days, more likely.”
Dick stared at him with wide eyes. “You’re shitting me.”
“Nope.”
Even with that admission, Dick wasn’t afraid, which was weird. He took another sip of his coffee. “Bad guys?”
“Yup.”
What little Dick knew of Bruce, this revelation might go some way to defining why the two weren’t all that comfortable with each other. Jason peeled off his mask and threw it on the table. He settled back, one leg crossed over the other and one arm draped over the back of the couch. Dick watched him and tried to see something familiar now that his face was fully exposed, but just as with everyone else, his mind was blank.
“I haven’t freaked you out, have I?”
He met Jason’s eyes and shook his head minutely, he realised that his staring was probably uncomfortable for Jason and looked down at his coffee as he dropped back into the couch himself. “Just trying to place the face.”
“No luck, huh?”
“No,” Dick replied with a sigh. “Not that that’s a surprise.”
They sat in silence for a while until Jason broke it. He leaned forward with his empty mug, placed it on the table and swivelled to face Dick. “I gotta ask, but feel free to tell me if this is a no-go area.”
Dick finished his own cup but kept it in hand, he nodded for Jason to continue.
“Do you want to remember who you were?”
“I did, at first.” Dick replied, with the truth. “I woke up scared and alone, but I had all these strange, unfamiliar faces around me that smiled and seemed happy to see me. I had to learn all the basics again. My brain had to learn when to recognise that I needed to pee, I had to learn how to hold things in my hands, learn to walk again. Through all that, Barbara was there. It seemed good, you know?”
Jason watched him, expressionless. It was soothing, in a way, that he didn’t show how he was feeling as Dick talked. “What changed?”
“Physically, things moved along. But mentally? I couldn’t recognise any of them even after all that time in therapy.” Dick leaned forward and rubbed at his head, another of his random headaches steadily forming behind his eyes and he rubbed at them with his thumb and index finger. “Then it didn’t feel the same.”
“What do you mean?” Jason frowned and Dick couldn’t tell if it was due to his words or if he could see that Dick was in pain.
“They started getting frustrated with me,” Dick replied. He reached for his bag and rummaged around for his pills. He’d missed his scheduled dosage a few hours ago now, he should be taking them with food but he knew he didn’t have time for that. “They were subtle about it, no one else would spot it but I did. It started to feel like they were trying to get my memory back for them and not for me.”
Dick’s hands started to shake and Jason leaned forward to help him find his meds. Dick leaned back and let him search alone, the headache was growing faster now. “Then Bruce showed me the video, the one where I’m talking and then a bullet is piercing my skull. My suit is on display with my blood still on it and he just…”
Dick had closed his eyes at some point and he didn’t realise, not until a hand took his and two pills were dropped into his open palm. Dick popped the pills into his mouth with a shaky hand as Jason moved toward the kitchen, he tried to dry swallow them but he couldn’t and was grateful for the glass of water that Jason returned with. He swallowed the pills and took a few more gulps of water before Jason took the glass from his trembling hands.
“He got angry,” Dick continued, even with darkness tinting the edges of his vision. He needed to get this out, needed someone to know about it that wouldn’t judge him for it. That would understand why he ran. “He shouted at me to remember. He didn’t get it, that I can’t, I tried, I really did but nothing came back and he was angry about it.”
“Dickie…”
Dick fell back onto the couch, his eyes weighed down with pain and exhaustion and a brain that had been through a blender. “And Barbara, she won’t listen. She refuses to accept me for who I am now, and it hurts because I’ve tried and it isn’t good enough for any of them.”
“Dickie…”
Dick was so tired. His eyes closed. “Who wants to live with a family like that?”